Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics, pp. 226-227: "Einstein's special theory of relativity is based on two postulates: One is the relativity of motion, and the second is the constancy and universality of the speed of light. Could the first postulate be
true and the other false? If that was not possible, Einstein would not have had to make two postulates. But I don't think many people realized until recently that you could have a consistent theory in which you changed only the second postulate...The new
theory is called deformed or doubly special relativity - DSR for short."
http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Physics-String-Theory-Science/dp/0618551050
No. The consistent theory is called Newton's emission theory of light, and it is not new - it is very very old:
Albert Einstein 1909: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For this reason, I believe that the next phase in
the development of theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:The_Development_of_Our_Views_on_the_Composition_and_Essence_of_
Radiation
The emission theory may have had drawbacks, but insofar as the speed of light is concerned, it is correct and consistent. If judged by their speed alone, photons are Newtonian particles. The speed of light varies, both in presence and absence of gravity,
just like the speed of ordinary projectiles (e.g. bullets):
"Emission theory, also called Emitter theory or ballistic theory of light, was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887...The name most often associated with emission
theory is Isaac Newton. In his corpuscular theory Newton visualized light "corpuscles" being thrown off from hot bodies at a nominal speed of c with respect to the emitting object, and obeying the usual laws of Newtonian mechanics, and we then expect
light to be moving towards us with a speed that is offset by the speed of the distant emitter (c ± v)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory
"Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train
at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus
automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms
of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether." Banesh Hoffmann, Relativity and Its Roots, p.92
https://www.amazon.
com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
James Hartle, Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity, p. 113: "If we accept the equivalence principle, we must also accept that light falls in a gravitational field with the same acceleration as material bodies."
https://www.amazon.com/
Gravity-Introduction-Einsteins-General-Relativity/dp/0805386629
"We conclude, therefore, that A BEAM OF LIGHT WILL ACCELERATE IN A GRAVITATIONAL FIELD AS DO OBJECTS WITH REST MASS. For example, near the surface of Earth light will fall with acceleration 9.8 m/s^2."
http://web.pdx.edu/~pmoeck/books/Tipler_Llewellyn.pdf
Pentcho Valev
https://twitter.com/pentcho_valev
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