Ether Drift and Gravitational Motion
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Abstract: (APS)
In a previous paper the formalism of general relativity has been extended so as to include the notion of a physically meaningful universal cosmic time. Suitable field equations were postulated to express the interaction between the gravitational (gμν) field and the cosmic time field τ, and the equations have been solved for the case of a centrosymmetrical body at "absolute" rest.
The present paper deals with the field of a body in absolute motion and the related problem of gravitational motion in the presence of ether drift. It is shown by the method of Infeld and Schild that the path of a free particle is geodesic provided that its absolute velocity is small compared with the velocity of light; for photons and high-velocity particles, however, the results are inconclusive.
Although the ether drift is thus shown to have no direct effect upon the motion of a (slow) particle, it nevertheless influences the motion indirectly as it modifies the external field and the geodesics themselves. This is clearly demonstrated in the case of the field generated by a centrosymmetrical body, which loses some of its symmetry through the action of ether flow; the resulting asymmetry makes it possible to detect and measure the ether drift vector −∂τ∂xm experimentally. The effect is small, of about the same order of magnitude as the general relativistic corrections of Newtonian theory; by assessing the available observational data it is concluded that the velocity of ether drift in the solar system, as understood in this theory, is probably less than 100 km/sec.References(5)
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