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is nearly the same as the speed of light on Earth - our atmosphere slows it down a bit - but in a laboratory vacuum it's the same. This is necessary conclusion of the Michelson/Morley experiment.

(3) Though the Earth is moving 30 kps around the Sun (and in excess of 270 kps around the galaxy), any space alien measuring a beam of light from the Earth, no matter his position or motion on another planet, will measure our signal beam as having the speed of light. This is a extrapolation of review item (1).

So how does one reconcile the apparent contradiction between review items (2) and (3)?

Immediately, an ether drag can be ruled right out.

Apparently, the photon of light is traveling as if the apparatus is MOVING OUT FROM UNDER IT. The geometry of the movement would put the perpendicular mirrors along the periphery of an ellipse, with the emitter at one focus and the collator at the other. It's a property of an ellipse that the length of any line drawn from one focus to any point on the periphery PLUS the length of a line from that point on the periphery drawn to the second focus is a CONSTANT. The distance between foci is how far the Earth moves in the time it takes for light to travel those two constant light paths.

The time (t') it should take for light to travel the radius (R) of the apparatus round-trip (2R) should be:

t' = 2R/c

But the greater distance that light needs to travel, using the standard geometrical axiom stated in the second paragraph above (the major axis of an ellipse is 2a), should require a greater amount of time (t") according to the geometry of,

(2a)^2 = (ct")^2 = (vt")^2 + (2R)^2

which reduces to

(2R)^2 = ((t")^2)(c + v)(c - v)

whence (multiplying (c + v) by (c - v) and dividing both sides by the speed of light and t" squared, or ct"^2)

(2R/ct")^2 = 1 - (v/c)^2

or, taking the square root of both sides,

2R/ct" = (1 - (v/c)^2)^(1/2)

replace 2R/c with t', and

t'/t" = (1 - (v/c)^2)^(1/2)

after rearranging, we get the more familiar...

t" = t'/((1 - (v/c)^2)^(1/2))

...expression for a time dilation effect.

t" should be the ACTUAL time that it takes for a light beam to travel round trip around Michelson's interferometer; and since it's traveling a longer distance IN SPACE, it is slightly longer in duration than laboratory time t' which is indicated by the ABSENCE of interference fringing.

One possible way to reconcile this contration is either to consider that the light beam has INCREASED IN SPEED - a contradiction, since measurments of stellar aberration and

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