Abstract
This paper is a response to recent attempts by Kassner (2012) to resolve Selleri’s paradox, a construction involving light speeds on a rotating disc that undermines the validity of special relativity. Kassner’s first approach employed Einstein synchronization and failed as it led to an unphysical time discontinuity. His second approach ironically involved the introduction of the Inertial (or Selleri) transformations which explain the associated Sagnac effect using light speed anisotropy but preserve the paradox. His core methodology based on his belief that a clock synchronization procedure can be freely chosen is shown to be without foundation and therefore the paradox stands unresolved.
Highlights
The well-known Sagnac Effect is the difference in transmission times of light travelling in opposite directions around a rotating disc. Selleri (1997, 2010) considered this effect to be unexplainable within the context of special relativity theory and used it to develop a paradox which appears to undermine the theory
This paper is a response to recent attempts by Kassner (2012) to resolve Selleri’s paradox, a construction involving light speeds on a rotating disc that undermines the validity of special relativity
If R goes to infinity andω goes to zero such that the product ωR = v which is the tangential speed of the rim of the disc remains constant, the system approaches an inertial system in which the forward and backward light speeds are unequal
Summary
The well-known Sagnac Effect is the difference in transmission times of light travelling in opposite directions around a rotating disc. Selleri (1997, 2010) considered this effect to be unexplainable within the context of special relativity theory and used it to develop a paradox which appears to undermine the theory. Selleri (1997, 2010) considered this effect to be unexplainable within the context of special relativity theory and used it to develop a paradox which appears to undermine the theory He deduced that forward and backward light speeds c+ and c− of light moving in opposite directions around the rotating disc have a ratio q ≡ c+ = c − ωR ≠ 1. If R goes to infinity andω goes to zero such that the product ωR = v which is the tangential speed of the rim of the disc remains constant, the system approaches an inertial system in which the forward and backward light speeds are unequal This is contrary to the light speed invariance postulate of special relativity which requires q ≡ c+ = 1. In this paper we examine these approaches and show that contrary to Kassner they both fail to resolve the paradox
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