The unambiguous proof of light actually traveling - does it exist?

Very well, then. You've gotten the answer from several of us under the constraints you've placed on the question - an emphatic NO.

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So, at this point I detach myself and look forward to your presentation in, say, 50 years?

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I don't think that position is supportable, QQ.
In the case of the string of LEDs, the suggestion of movement is due to the preset timing of a series of individual events.

Do you think that there is some preset timing in the dust cloud that coincidentally presents the impression of movement?
Or do you think that there is some effect, some kind of signal, some kind of cause that links the flash in the center to the lighting up of the dust?

 

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Firstly BillyT I am unfamiliar with what you mean by "Local" and no I didn't ignore your post I am still thinking on it.
Secondly it is in fact the illusion of distance [ re:EM ] that poses the greatest obstacle.

Abstraction:
"is an ocean of nothing-ness distance is only percieved as real by the presence of mass"

That is to say that with out mass being present distance would not exist.
To measure distance we always make reference to objects of mass be it our arm length or a ruler of material value.

The distance between the earth and the moon only exists if we use mass as a surrogate ruler.
If we wish to move mass from earth to moon then distance is present. But if we want to move energy or Em to moon distance is not present. or thats the general idea...

If the vacuum of space is treated as nothingness with the occassional particle floating around you can easilly say that nothingness has no distance. so the distance between object A and object B in a vacuum is zero and only exists if a massive object is present to determine that distance.
or to put it another way:
Distance across a vacumm is only a potential of mass or for mass and nothing more. Until the mass actually moves into that space can it be truely said that that space exists? or woudl it be more precise to say that it potentially exists?

And given that we are talking about a future event for the mass, and one that has yet to happen is it not mere fantasy any way yet to occur. Is the movement of the mass in to that space absolutely predictable? Not if all infinite variables are unable to be determined.

So what is the reality of Distance across the vacuum of space whether that be the space between atomic particles or galactic bodies.

 

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The "preset" timing you are alluding to is the inertia inherant in every particle of dust in the cloud.
The surface of every particle of dust has resistance to change beyond it's inherant rate of 'c' and when confronted with the vibration of a source [ the need to resonate in sympathy] it takes time for the surface to "reflect" that needed sympathic position.
In this way prehaps energy is transfered due to the resistance to change as the surface of the dust partcle gets hot trying to catch up [a sort of friction]with the need to match vibrations with the source. Thus the appropriate "charge" and change in temperature is achieved at the reflector.

I tend to think that this idea is at a more fundamental level than current thinking as it can accomodate the "why" and "what" is energy to begin with.

 

say for example we have two Iron bars in a vacuum separated by a metre.

One iron bar [A] is electrically heated to the point where it becomes red hot and is held at that temperature.
The other bar will immediately start to warm passively and eventually reach a temperature equal or almost equal to the red hot iron bar[A].
Now assume for a moment that the vacuum between them is "nothing" therfore no real distance and no photons are involved.
How would the passive bar get hot?
and
Why does it take time for it to get as hot?

The only answer is the inertia of the passive iron bar . [ it's resistance to resonating in sympathy with the red hot iron bar[A].]

As the hot bars vibration is higher than the cold bar the cold bar must raise it's vibration to match the hot bar. However it can only do this at a rate not in excess of 'c' [ inertia ] [ also assume that relative v = 0 between bars ] It woud also have to accomodate the increase in time due to the drop in intensity casued by the distance involved. [ remembering that distance of vacuum is only relevant to intensity]

If you apply this logic more generally you can then see that the approach to 'c' is very different yet current stats and data remains essentially valid. The interpretation however would have to change.

Think of the dust particles as being passive cold iron bars and th esource fo light at the ceneter of the cloud as the red hot iron bar and you will get the guist of what I mean

 

And you think is as reasonable as the idea that a signal is traveling outward from the flash?

I hate to do this, but I think there's no longer any doubt about the correct place for this thread.

 

Thanks Pete, as I said I have already got the answer I wanted. And pseudo science is after all what it is....except the question itself which to my mind proves many things.....

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It is often said by many that a photon experiences no time, no distance. Quantum Quack seems to be trying to describe the universe 'through the eyes of a photon'.

 

No he is not because he has decided to completely deny the oscillations made by light waves.

 

If a photon experiences NO time and NO distance in its frame of reference, how can it oscillate? That is one reason why knowledgable physicists say it makes 'no sense' to speak of the photon's frame of reference. The theory breaks down when the photon's frame of reference is considered.

 

So why are they still hanging on to a broken theory ?

 

If I am not mistaken the no time and no distance aspect of a photons RF is an outcome of complex SRT techno babble.
SRT itself being an outcome due to the belief that lights "Travel" speed is invariant through a vacuum.
Again more reason to reconsider the reality of the model called photon.

 

It's not broken. The apparent "problem" is due to the fact that we cannot observe the photon within it's frame of reference. And that's what's at the heart of the matter that so many fail to understand.

 

BillyT is not afraid to be great big crackpot.

Like me sometimes.

Photon carries energy. Einstein says energy equals mass equals gravity.

So, photon should gravitate photon, like BT says.

But photon doesn't seem to attract photon, like observation says.

?

 

What observation?

 

Mass and energy are equal in the sense that one can be converted into the other, but that's all. As far as I know, there's no reason to expect - or even suspect - that they would have the same properties.

 

GR says that they should have the same properties gravitationally. GR doesn't distinguish between a box containing an energetic photon bouncing around, and a box containing the equivalent mass. Both boxes will behave identically, and will produce the same spacetime curvature.

 

At least half correct. Where does Einstein say all mass, including the energy of a mass-less particle freely traveling, like the photon, makes gravity? I do not think he either said or believed that. He understood gravity as "bent space" but could describe it well with math. Thus, in some sense even rest mass did not "make gravity" it just "bent space" From this POV it is hard to understand how a photon traveling at c could "bend space" as it would out run any gravitation it was producing. This is another way (in addition to fact it seems to work) that I invented my simple rule. (Energy which is the same in all inertial frames "makes gravity" but that which is frame dependant does not.) Example: thermal energy makes gravity, but red and blue shifted / frame dependant energy / photons do not.

BTW, I try not to be a crackpot in physics or economics (some my not allow the second half of that) but am proud to be a crackpot in the cognitive sciences. They had silly idea that visual (and other experiences) "emerges" from processing of sensory data. I believe perceptual experiences are generated in by parietal brain tissue's "real time simulation" (no neural processing delay) of the sensed world.

For Billy T, the proud crackpot, See:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52
There with one simple, well documented by observations, theory I explain dozens of things standard "emergent" cognitive science can not, including even how it may be possible for genuine free will to exist despite laws of physics controlling every nerve's atoms.

 

I tend to think that what ever makes mass also makes gravity. So it is not the mass it self but what ever creates the mass in the first place.

 

You are welcome to think what you like, but your POV has serious conflict with several observations. For example, to repeat one I mentioned before,

If photons with energy E coming from a distant star were gravitationally attracting* each other, in their long journey to Earth, they would join. I.e. by the time the original spherically uniform radiation from the star had traveled 10,000 light years or more in most cases, it would no longer be sperically uniform. Instead, the starlight would become like the quills of a sea urchin or porcupine. We know this is not the case as if it were and you and I were side-by-side looking at the night sky, then the "quills" of light that enter my eye would not enter your eye. That is each of us would see different stars.

In view of this extreme conflict with reality, why hold your view?

SUMMARY: PHOTONS DO NOT MAKE MASS OR GRAVITY, but they do have energy.

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*By your erroneous point of view, these photons make mass E/(c^2) and that mass makes gravity. This is a misunderstanding of E = mc^2. The true meaning is that mass is another form of energy, not that all Energy is mass.