EINSTEIN'S SIN

The experiment of Michelson-Morley should have led to two competing interpretations:

1. As far as the speed of light is concerned, Newton's particle model of light is correct. The speed of light is variable, c'=c+v, where c is the speed of photons relative to the light source and v is the relative speed of the light source and the observer. This interpretation is simple, even trivial: no miracles (time dilation, length contraction etc.) can be introduced.

2. The speed of light is constant, c'=c, independent of v, the relative speed of the light source and the observer. In this case miracles (time dilation, length contraction etc.) are obligatory - without them the falsehood of the principle of constancy of the speed of light would be obvious.

The first interpretation is true, the second wrong, and yet the second was adopted. That was the beginning of a wrong science of course but by no means a sin. The sin started when Einstein implicitly introduced the true c'=c+v interpretation, thereby obtaining correct results (e.g. the frequency shift factor), and conserved the false principle of constancy of the speed of light plus appended miracles, thereby destroying the rationality of generations of scientists.

In 1911 Einstein showed that in a gravitational field the speed of light is variable and advanced the formula

c' = c(1 + V/c^2)

where V is the gravitational potential. One can apply the equivalence principle as shown in

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~phys16/Textbook/ch13.pdf pp.2-4

Note that V=gh=cv. Substitute this in Einstein's formula and you obtain c'=c+v.

Pentcho Valev