The hydrogen maser experiment

Another of the tests that supposedly confirms the curvature of space-time is the hydrogen maser experiment of the mid-1970’s. This experiment did not prove the curvature of space-time; rather, it merely confirms that light is affected by gravity. I have no quarrel with the notion that light is affected by gravity. It makes sense that light should be affected by gravity: everything else is so affected, why shouldn’t light be as well?

The assumption is apparently that, since this experiment confirms the principle of equivalence, then it de facto confirms the curvature of space-time. But again, I am not disputing the principle of equivalence, or Galilean relativity. Gravity and acceleration should be expected to appear similar; gravity is acceleration relative to the ground of any given planet, and “gravity” in an accelerating spaceship is acceleration relative to the rear wall of the interior of the spaceship. Well, duh! Of course they appear similar. What I am disputing is the conclusions Einstein draws by trying to hold on to both Maxwell’s findings and Galilean relativity, namely the conclusion that light signals and our state of motion somehow determine how we experience the physical passage of time. We should not hold on to Galilean relativity. Galilean relativity is equivalent to an optical illusion, and any conclusions drawn from it are equally illusory. I contend that there is a privileged reference frame, regardless of our inability to detect it. Inside Galileo’s ship, claiming that a passenger on the ship, ignorant of the outside world, will be unable to detect by any experiment ether the ship is in motion, is immaterial. Such ignorance on the part of a man can have no physical impact upon the actual world; his ignorance does not dissolve the world outside his ship, making everything, from his viewpoint, relative to his ship. His ship is still enclosed by a wider world. If his ship were in fact all there was to the universe, then all motion and physical phenomena would be relative to his ship. But he has only to go on deck or look out a porthole to see that his ship is indeed enclosed within a wider universe. So he can’t pretend that his ignorance of the precise state of the absolute reference frame, namely the bounds of the universe, has any physical effect upon motion and phenomena. All motion and phenomena in his ship must therefore be relative to that wider universe as a whole. He may choose to attach such motion and phenomena to a smaller part of that universe, but such attachment does not alter the fact that motion and phenomena are actually relative to the wider universe.