At present, mainstream physicists seem to have fully accepted Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (STR) and to take it as the foundation of modern physics because the theory appears perfectly logical and its predictions seem to be supported by numerous experiments and observations. However, if one re-examines these experiments carefully and with an open mind, serious problems may emerge. The paper has examined many experiments that are considered as the evidences of relativistic effects, but found they either have null effects or are wrongly interpreted or calculated. For example, the behaviours of clocks in Hefele-Keating experiment interpreted as the results of relativistic time dilation caused by the relative speed of an inertial reference frame are actually absolute and do not change with the change of inertial reference frames; the corrected calculation of Fizeau experiment based on Newton's velocity addition formula is much closer to the experimental measurement than the result calculated based on the relativistic velocity addition formula. In fact, Hefele-Keating experiment indicates the existence of a medium in the space that can slow down the frequencies of atomic clocks when they have velocities relative to the medium, and Fizeau experiment reveals the existence of a medium called aether relative to which the speed of light is constant, though it is possible that the medium to slow down atomic clocks may be different from aether as multiple media may coexist in the space.
The existence of aether means that the two postulates of STR are wrong for light and electromagnetic waves because the speed of light and the electromagnetic wave equations should be valid only in the inertial reference frame moving with the local aether, just like the acoustic wave equation valid only in the inertial reference frame moving with the local air.
The paper has cleared the definition of the physical time and proved that the time of a physical clock is an invariant of Lorentz Transformation i.e. an invariant of inertial reference frames same as Galilean time. The Lorentz invariance of the clock time makes it possible to synchronize clocks in all inertial reference frames to produce the absolute and universal physical time as demonstrated in the universal synchronization of all the satellite clocks and ground clocks of the global positioning system. Therefore, the time of the STR is no longer the physical time measured with physical clocks.
Moreover, the paper has further proved that Lorentz Transformation is the same as to redefine time and space as functions of Galilean time and space to produce an artificially constant speed of light in all inertial reference frames. The relationship between the STR space-time and Galilean space-time has revealed that the time dilation and length contraction of the STR in a moving inertial reference frame observed on the stationary inertial reference frame are just illusions. Using the relationship can also prove that the real speed of light measured with clocks still follows Newton's velocity addition formula, which directly falsifies the postulate that the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames.
All these findings lead us to conclude that the STR as a theory of physics is wrong. Thus, all relativistic spacetime model based physics theories (electromagnetic theory, quantum field theory, general theory of relativity, big bang theory, string theories, etc) become questionable. Disproving the STR and other related theories of physics will not lead to any crisis but instead open a new room for scientists to develop new theories for all the known and unknown physical phenomena. The paper has proposed a new experimental setup with which scientists will be able to measure the velocity of aether wind anywhere in the reachable universe and determine the velocity field of aether in the space for studying the dynamics of aether. The dynamics of aether may lead to the discovery of new methods to propel our space ships to speeds close to or even faster than the speed of light as the speed limit imposed by the STR is no longer valid, though there should exist an extremely difficult barrier for us to surpass the speed of light in the aether just as to surpass the sound barrier in the air.
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Physics Essays