Re: [Phys-l] Does COBE data contradict relativty?

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 05/02/2007 07:57 AM, Folkerts, Timothy J wrote:

> P.S.  As for John D's tinfoil-covered experiment, the tinfoil on the
> blue-shifted side will be slightly warmer than the tinfoil on the
> red-shifted side, so I could STILL tell the "upstream" side even in a
> tinfoil covered room.

If necessary, use two or more layers of tinfoil.  Put heaters and
thermostats in critical places to maintain constant temperature.

It is neither necessary nor possible to make the temperature
distribution *exactly* uniform;  the point is to make the
temperature deviations negligible with respect to the experiment
you want to do.  You can check this by biasing the thermostats
so that one side is hotter, and showing that it doesn't affect
your experiment.  Or you could bias the "downstream" side to
be hotter, so that any effect you do see is clearly just a
temperature side-effect, having nothing to do with absolute
motion.

None of these are issues of principle;  they are all just
engineering details.

To argue that the microwave background radiation is an issue
of principle, you would need to argue that it is impossible
/even in principle/ to screen it.  Arguing that a bad screen
results in bad screening is nowhere near being a sufficient
argument.