SilverTooth · Source catalogue

Five-page paper. Silvertooth argues that Michelson-Morley null results are non sequiturs because, with c = nu*lambda and frequency fixed for comoving source and receiver, a direction-dependent light speed appears as a direction-dependent wavelength, so round-trip time and wavelength count are unchanged (eq. 1-3). Taking the Sagnac shift of a rotating loop (Fig. 1) as applying to one straight segment L in pure translation at speed v, he gets eq. 4-5: lambda1 = lambda/(1+v/c), lambda2 = lambda/(1-v/c); round trip n = 2L/lambda and t = 2L/c independent of v (eq. 6-7). He says the null result therefore needs neither isotropic c nor Lorentz contraction. He proposes to measure the one-way wavelength: a laser, quarter-wave plate, beam splitter and mirror on a linear slide send two opposed beams onto a standing-wave detector D1 (ref. 6); a second round-trip interferometer with detector D2 counts rest wavelengths. Slide travel Delta giving a 180 degree D1/D2 phase reversal gives v/c = lambda/(2 Delta) (eq. 8-9). Reported: east-west travel line with Leo on the horizon, Delta = 0.25 mm; with HeNe 0.63 um this gives v = 378 km/s, 'in reasonable agreement' with Muller's U2 radiometer result (Sci. Am. 1978). North-south and EW with Leo 6 or 18 hours from the horizon: no phase change. No runs, errors, dates, location or raw data are given. The last section says the altered Doppler frequency explains the accelerating universe, quasar redshift anomalies and GPS errors, with a modified redshift eq. (10) containing a term L*vbar/c^2, L about 1e27 cm; no derivation, symbols undefined. Funding statement: Air Force Systems Command, Rome Air Development Center (Griffiss AFB) and DARPA sponsored 'in part'. Journal not named in the file. Deep-read checks: eq. 5 follows algebraically from eq. 3-4; 378 km/s reproduces with c = 3e5 km/s; sign labels 1/2 swapped between eq. 5 and Fig. 2; n and delta each used for two quantities; eq. 10 units are inconsistent if vbar is a velocity. QE additions: (a) Ref. 8 is Nature 257, p.454 (printed as 434 in the paper) [web: https://www.nature.com/articles/257454a0]. (b) vbar is the radial acceleration of the source (v-dot) per the inventor's 1976 paper [read: research/files/Silvertooth-1976-AppliedOptics-15-1100-anomalous-redshifts.pdf]; this makes the eq. 10 term L*vbar/c^2 dimensionally a velocity, so the deep-read units concern applies only if vbar is read as a velocity. (c) Reversal between papers: the 1986 paper says frequency cannot change (A1), so a light-speed change shows as a wavelength change [read: p.1]; the 1976 paper says: 'The cause of the phase shift has been experimentally demonstrated by the writer to be a change in the frequency and the velocity, the change in wavelength being a resultant effect' [read: 1976 PDF, journal p.1101]. The 1976 experiment was a different setup (two free-running lasers, beat frequency held under 3 MHz, two photocathodes 50 cm apart) and reported no phase shift. The 1986 paper does not mention it. (d) Journal: reported as Speculations in Science and Technology 10(1) 3-11 [web, via Investigator: Marett page; single secondary report]. (e) Turner-Hill and Cole are dismissed 'through the second order by the argument of Tyapkin' with no argument given [read: p.2-3]; Tyapkin (1973) is the conventionality argument that critics (Marett) use against a one-way wavelength measurement [memory: medium].

Key claims

• If c changes between directions for comoving source and receiver, frequency stays fixed and wavelength changes in proportion, so one-way light speed cannot be measured by Michelson-Morley-type or chopped-pulse methods.
• Combining the Michelson null condition L/lambda1 + L/lambda2 = 2L/lambda with the Sagnac-derived difference L/lambda1 - L/lambda2 = (2L/lambda)(v/c) gives lambda1,2 = lambda/(1 +/- v/c), and round-trip count and time independent of v.
• The Michelson-Morley null result therefore requires neither isotropy of c nor Lorentz contraction, and a real Lorentz contraction would produce a fringe shift.
• The Turner-Hill Moessbauer and Cole pulsar one-way-speed results are defeated through second order by Tyapkin's argument (no argument given in the paper).
• The one-way wavelength of light is measurable: a standing-wave pattern shifts by delta = lambda(v/c) per rest wavelength of slide travel, and a 180 degree phase reversal between detectors D1 and D2 occurs at slide travel Delta with v/c = lambda/(2 Delta).
• With the travel line east-west and Leo on the horizon, Delta = 0.25 mm at 0.63 um gives v = 378 km/s; the effect is absent north-south and absent east-west with Leo 6 or 18 hours from the horizon.
• The 378 km/s lab velocity through the ether agrees reasonably with Muller's NASA-Ames U2 cosmic-background anisotropy measurement.
• A velocity-dependent number of wavelengths in a moving frame alters the Doppler frequency and explains the accelerating universe, anomalous quasar redshifts and GPS errors, via a redshift formula with an added L*vbar/c^2 term (L about 1e27 cm).
• Per the inventor's 1976 Applied Optics paper, the phase shift in his two-laser null was due to a change in frequency and velocity, wavelength changing as a result; this is opposite to the 1986 premise that frequency cannot change.

Relevance: Only document in the project and the whole basis of the review. It states the author's ether-drift claim, the theory (frequency invariance, Sagnac-based wavelength anisotropy) and the one reported experimental result, with sponsorship by US Air Force and DARPA. Central claims all rest on it.

Mainstream conflict: Directly conflicts with special relativity and the mainstream reading of Michelson-Morley, Kennedy-Thorndike and Ives-Stilwell-type tests: it asserts a preferred frame (ether) with measurable absolute velocity about 378 km/s, direction-dependent one-way light speed, and that Lorentz contraction would produce a fringe shift. Also assigns cosmological redshift anomalies and GPS errors to the effect, contrary to standard cosmology and GPS practice (GPS relies on relativistic corrections). Whether the paper's own equations are internally consistent is for the reviewers.