Correction for the non-constancy of the speed of light in vacuum for different Galilean reference systems

摘要

This paper aims at showing that a mistake exists in a series of articles published by the author. In these articles the author considered at t = 0 two media one of which is a simple lossy medium (medium (I)) filling the half space x 0 (medium (II)). The media have a plane interface perpendicular to the velocity (which is in the Ox direction) of a frame K' attached to medium (II) and which for t > 0 is in uniform rectilinear motion with respect to a frame K attached to medium (I). A plane wave was assumed to illuminate the interface. Under these conditions even though medium (I) is isotropic when observed from K, it appears bianisotropic when observed from K'. This leads to the failure of Snell's law which warrants equal angles of incidence and reflection only in a stationary, isotropic medium. The author erroneously assumed that the wave numbers of the incident and reflected waves along the Ox axis observed from K' were negatives of each other. This was equivalent to assuming equal angles of incidence and reflection in medium (I) when observed from K'. Based on this assumption, in addition to the dispersion relation, a false relation was derived that involved constitutive parameters of medium (I), the frequency, the speed of light in vacuum and the speed of K' with respect to K. Lack of the wave number in this relation led to the conclusion that the speed of light in vacuum depended on inertial frames which would be sufficient to negate the Special Relativity Theory.