BTW, Roberts is mentioned in post #5 above. At this point the discussion appears to be logjammed with scientific gobbledegook. Can you make heads or tails of it to a layman?
Response to Tom Roberts, “What is the experimental basis of Special Relativity?” http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html
• Tom presents statements that are biased in favour of SR. He says:
3.2 One-Way Tests of Light-Speed Isotropy
Note that while these experiments clearly use a one-way light path and find isotropy, they are inherently unable to rule out a large class of theories in which the one-way speed of light is anisotropic. These theories share the property that the round-trip speed of light is isotropic in any inertial frame, but the one-way speed is isotropic only in an aether frame. In all of these theories the effect of slow clock transport exactly offset the effects of the anisotropic one-way speed of light (in any inertial frame), and all are experimentally indistinguishable from SR. All of these theories predict null results for these experiments. See Test Theories above, especially Zhang (in which these theories are called “Edwards frames”).
My response to the following comments is in italics.
[Note that while these experiments clearly use a one-way light path and find isotropy, they are inherently unable to rule out a large class of theories in which the one-way speed of light is anisotropic.]
“The oneway experiments he then lists are based on Einstein’s clock synchronization method (which we know is rigged to fix the speed of light to be constant). The “large class” refers to ether theories. Tom believes that experiments that are inconsistent with SR are not acceptable, and his criticism of them shows personal bias”.
[These theories share the property that the round-trip speed of light is isotropic in any inertial frame, but the one-way speed is isotropic only in an aether frame.]
“The fact that SR rigs the result to give a constant speed of light is not mentioned. And even if an observer moving through the ether detected anisotropy, relativity would reject it”.
[In all of these theories the effect of slow clock transport exactly offset the effects of the anisotropic one-way speed of light (in any inertial frame), and all are experimentally indistinguishable from SR.]
“This is not true. The time dilation effects due to slow clock transport are negligible and can be ignored. But, there is no experimental evidence to back up his claim. If slow clock transport experiments are done they will show up sidereal time variations due to ether flow, which are predicted by ether theories but inconsistent with SR. See Wisp’s one-way speed of light experiments”.
All of these theories predict null results for these experiments. See Test Theories above, especially Zhang (in which these theories are called “Edwards frames”).]
“This is not true. Wisp theory predicts clocks on the equator suffer sidereal period variations of +/- 0.7nS, which cannot be accounted for with SR. There is one important thing that Tom fails to mention about SR: the constancy of the speed of light result is fixed (rigged), and such SR should be wholly rejected”.
Essentially, the counter-claim is that the other side confuses Special Relativity and General Relativity and interprets the speed of light under the Lorentz Transform instead of a vacuum.
I must head out now but will check back later this evening.