http://cs.astronomy.com/asy/general_discussion/f/27/t/55764.aspx?page=2#507568

Well, you have inspired a new thought experiment in my brain. Corresponding with you is helping to focus my thoughts.

So, one of the main ideas of my hypothesis is that the source and the receiver of the waves, light or sound, are paired in a tandem such that the source and receiver are moving in the same direction, at the same constant velocity, v. I am trying to exploit this “tandemness” to analyze the motion of material objects through space.

Say, for instance that two spaceships are traveling through space in a tandem like I mentioned before. They each have the same constant velocity, v, and they are some distance, L, apart. The source is in the rear position and the receiver is in the front position, related to the tandem‘s direction of travel. There is an observer on each spaceship, with various electronic instruments onboard.

On a nearby planet there is an observer that can view the two spaceships because they are within the sighting range of his telescope. The planet is at rest relative to the spaceship tandem, but it is orbiting, along with the spaceships, around some galactic “zero point”. This motion should have minimal effect on this experiment (“local” vs. “universal“).

I will refer to one spaceship of the tandem as the source, and I will refer to the other spaceship as the receiver. If the source emits a pulse of light towards the receiver, there will be no Doppler effect, it is essentially zero. This is because the distance between the spaceships does not increase or decrease. The light waves are compressed together at the moving source, but are then stretched out, as you mention, at the receiver by an equal amount because each spaceship has the same velocity, v. Thus although the spaceships are in motion, there is no change in the frequency of the light that arrives at the receiver. This would also be the case for sound waves.

The spaceships in tandem could not use Doppler to detect or distinguish if they are in motion, or at rest, in space. The spaceship observers would conclude, by a frequency measurement (the number of waves per second will be the same as if the tandem were at rest), that the light pulse has traveled the distance, L, and thus they are at rest. This goes along with the “enclosed compartment” you spoke of. However, the planet observer would view the spaceships flying across the night sky. Thus, he would see the light pulse have to travel by some increased distance, such as L + _ because of the forward velocity of the spaceship tandem.

So the spaceship observers could say they were at rest, despite the roar of their warp drive engines. By Einstein, their units of length measurement have contracted, creating, for them, the illusion of being at rest. I feel this illusion is just a physics trick of compressing and stretching waves, a trick that is elevated to a scientific principle (Relativity). The planet observer on the other hand, sees the light pulse travel between the spaceships, as well as their forward motion. All these observers experience different philosophical realities in their own reference frames, which Einstein tries to resolve by Lorentz transformations and bending space-time. I think we should be able to find formulas that better reflect our experience of the universe, and the motion of material objects through space.