Henry Crozier Keating Plummer

Name: On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity
Author: Henry Crozier Keating Plummer

On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

Summary

“On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity”, published in 1910, is a work by Henry Crozier Keating Plummer. It explores elements such as velocity, aberration and observer.

Quotes from On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (Henry Crozier Keating Plummer)

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ It is easy to see that the old and the new laws of aberration agree to the first order of small quantities. Beyond the first order, the present accuracy of astronomical observations does not encourage us to look for any means of discriminating between them. Nevertheless it is interesting to ask whether the principle of relativity, as outlined above, has robbed us of the theoretical possibility of detecting the effect of the motion of the solar system through the ether of space. ”

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Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ If we have reason to be dissatisfied with the results of the efforts hitherto made to determine the constant of aberration, we have little ground for taking into account the second-order effects. But on the other hand an optical experiment has been performed which cannot be reconciled with the ordinary theory, and we have been forced to admit that the theory, if not actually erroneous, can be no more than an approximation to the truth. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ Hence actual configurations on the sphere are only changed conformally by the effect of aberration, or in other words any small area is altered only in size and not in shape. We know that aberration merely changes the scale of a photograph of a small part of the sky, and the truth of this fact now becomes independent of the velocity (however large) of the observer. Also stars which appear to lie on a circle at any one time will continue to do so permanently. ”

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Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ The result is that the Principle of Relativity, with its far-reaching implications, has obtained a cardinal position in modern science. It is possible that there are some astronomers who are not familiar with the literature of the subject, and to whom an elementary account of the new ideas in physics may be of interest. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ Let us imagine observations made simultaneously by an observer E on the Earth and an observer S on the Sun (or rather the centre of gravity of the solar system, supposed to be moving with uniform velocity through space) . Referred in the usual way to a sphere (fig. 4) , let S be the apex of the Sun’s ether-velocity V0, and E the apex of the Earth’s ether-velocity V1. Let P represent the true direction of a star, and P0, P1 the positions
which it appears to the observers S and E respectively to occupy. ”

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Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ The latter equations give
or
which express the apparent wave-velocity in a moving medium in terms of the absolute, or vice versa. For a vacuum we put W = W' = U, and we have
8. The laws of stellar aberration and of the Doppler effect are at once deducible, as Einstein [3] has shown. For a star situated in the direction making an angle φ with the direction of motion of the observer we have a = - cos φ and a' = - cos φ', where φ' is the apparent direction. Then we see that
These expressions can, however, be simplified. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ The uniform contraction in one dimension of the moving material system, the possibility of which we have thus been led to entertain, suffices of itself for the discussion of some interesting optical problems. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ If, on the other hand, the nature of gravity were essentially not electrodynamic, it would be possible for some deviation from the accepted laws of dynamics, owing to a motion of translation through space, to be revealed by direct astronomical observations. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ The motion of the observer does affect his observations, even when expressed in terms of the transformed variables, and we cannot dispense with the necessity of explaining in detail how the expected compensation operates when the observations are corrected in a definite, specified manner. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer, On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (1910)

“ This is the law of contraction previously obtained, and the result is a complete compensation of the optical effect due to the motion of the mirror.
When a telescope is moving directly towards a star, Veltmann’s theorem [2] shows that the motion will not affect the relative position of the focus to the first order. ”

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer

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Quotes from On the Theory of Aberration and the Principle of Relativity (Henry Crozier Keating Plummer)

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