(July 18, 2013 at 5:50 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: I'm fully aware of the nature of the problem you raise, Statler. I'm also aware that Einstein is taking about paths A → M and B → M while I'm referring to A → B and B → A. I fully recognize the futility in attempting to measure any such difference between the two.
What's funny here is not that there might possibly be a difference, but that some propose that there is a difference without providing any sort of explanation as to how it might be so.
Perhaps on one leg of the journey little green men got out and pushed, perhaps?
Suggesting that light travels at the same speed from A to B as it does from B to A in relation to the observer A’s velocity is a stipulation, it’s a matter of convention and therefore proves nothing concerning how light really does travel. If we want to make the speed of light dependent upon position rather than velocity we are certainly free to do so, and therefore light from distant stars reaches Earth instantaneously under that convention. The point is that you cannot argue by appealing to mere convention.
