On the Measurement of the Velocity of Light Emitted by an Ultrarelativistic Source

By analytical calculations it has been shown that in papers on the measurement of the velocity of light published in 2011 in the journals Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk [Physics–Uspekhi] and Pis’ma v ZhETF [JRTP Letters], in actual fact the velocity of a light pulse from a relativistic clot of electrons was not measured. All that was done was to compare the velocity of light emitted by an ultrarelativistic source with the velocity of light from a fixed source, i.e., both in the first and second variants (one independent quantity was compared with another), in essence, it was simply postulated. In the first variant a glass plate was used as the fixed light source, and in the second variants, a synchrotron pulse was used as the reference signal. The velocity of light was calculated using a calculated time based on the postulate of the special theory of relativity (STR) on the invariance of the velocity of light. This, of course, contradicts the Newton–Ritz hypothesis on ballistic addition of velocities, but at the present time this idea is not taken seriously. Practically none of the serious contemporary critics of STR, apart, of course, from amateurs, holds this point of view. The result cannot be considered as a direct experimental confirmation of the second postulate of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, i.e., its main part, which speaks of the constancy of the velocity of light in all inertial reference frames, but only of that part which speaks of the independence of the velocity of light on motion of the source. Moreover, this same result stands as equal proof of the so-called theory of the luminiferous ether, which held sway up to the creation of the special theory of relativity and which has now been revived, i.e., it does not distinguish between these two theories. It is fundamentally impossible in principle to measure the velocity of light by the proposed method, it is only possible to postulate it.