To prove this let us attend to what is happening at the target. The
first shot is supposed to be entering at A, and if the target is
stationary will leave it at Y. A marker looking along Y A will see the
position whence the shot was fired. This may be likened to a
stationary observer looking at a moving star. He sees it where and as
it was when the light started on its long journey. He does not see its
present position, but there is no reason why he should. He does not
see its physical state or anything as it is now. He sees it as it was
when it sent the information which he has just received. There is no
aberration caused by motion of source.
[Illustration: FIG. 1. Shots or Disturbances with Momentum from a
Moving Gun.]
But now let the receiver be moving at same pace as the gun, as when
two grappled ships are firing into each other. The motion of the
target carries the point Y forward, and the shot A leaves it at Z,
because Z is carried to where Y was. So in that case the marker
looking along Z A will see the gun, not as it was when firing, but as
it is at the present moment; and he will see likewise the row of
shots making straight for him. This is like an observer looking at a
terrestrial object. Motion of the earth does not disturb ordinary
vision.
Fig. 2 shows as nearly the same sort of thing as possible for the case
of emitted waves. The tube is a source emitting a succession of
disturbances without momentum. A B C D may be thought of as
horizontally flying birds, or as crests of waves, or as self-swimming
torpedoes; or they may even be thought of as bullets, if the gun
stands still every time it fires, and only moves between whiles.
[Illustration: FIG. 2. Waves or Disturbances without Momentum from a
Moving Source.]
The line A B C D is now neither the line of fire nor the line of aim:
it is simply the locus of disturbances emitted from the successive
positions 1 2 3 4.
A stationary target will be penetrated in the direction A Y, and this
line will point out the correct position of the source when the
received disturbance started. If the target moves, a disturbance
entering at A may leave it at Z, or at any other point according to
its rate of motion; the line Z A does not point to the original
position of the source, and so there will be aberration when the
target moves. Otherwise there would be none.
[Illustration: FIG. 3. Beam from a Revolving Lighthouse.]
Now Fig. 2 also represents a parallel beam of light travelling from a
moving source, and entering a telescope or the eye of an observer. The
beam lies along A B C D, but this is not the direction of vision. The
direction of vision, to a stationary observer, is determined not by
the locus of successive waves, but by the path of each wave. A ray may
be defined as the path of a labelled disturbance. The line of vision
is Y A 1, and coincides with the line of aim; which in the projectile
case (Fig. 1) it did not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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