Ms. Vasilyeva,
Maxwell's ether theory says that the speed of light (relative to the observer) varies with the speed of the observer. Special relativity says the speed of light is independent of the speed of the observer. What do YOU say?
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/Chasing.pdf
JOHN NORTON: "Finally, in an apparent eagerness to provide a seamless account, an author may end up misstating the physics. Kaku (2004, p. 45) relates how Einstein found that his aversion to frozen light was vindicated when he later learned Maxwell's theory." MICHIO KAKU: "When Einstein finally learned Maxwell's equations, he could answer the question that was continually on his mind. As he suspected, he found that there were no solutions of Maxwell's equations in which light was frozen in time. But then he discovered more. To his surprise, he found that in Maxwell's theory, light beams always traveled at the same velocity, no matter how fast you moved." JOHN NORTON AGAIN: "This is supposedly what Einstein learned as a student at the Zurich Polytechnic, where he completed his studies in 1900, well before the formulation of the special theory of relativity. Yet the results described are precisely what is not to be found in the ether based Maxwell theory Einstein would then have learned. That theory allows light to slow and be frozen in the frame of reference of a sufficiently rapidly moving observer."
http://culturesciencesphysique.ens-lyon.fr/XML/db/csphysique/metadata/LOM_CSP_relat.xml
Gabrielle Bonnet, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon: "Les équations de Maxwell font en particulier intervenir une constante, c, qui est la vitesse de la lumière dans le vide. Par un changement de référentiel classique, si c est la vitesse de la lumière dans le vide dans un premier référentiel, et si on se place désormais dans un nouveau référentiel en translation par rapport au premier à la vitesse constante v, la lumière devrait désormais aller à la vitesse c-v si elle se déplace dans la direction et le sens de v, et à la vitesse c+v si elle se déplace dans le sens contraire."
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168
Stephen Hawking: "Maxwell's theory predicted that radio or light waves should travel at a certain fixed speed. But Newton's theory had got rid of the idea of absolute rest, so if light was supposed to travel at a fixed speed, one would have to say what that fixed speed was to be measured relative to. It was therefore suggested that there was a substance called the "ether" that was present everywhere, even in "empty" space. Light waves should travel through the ether as sound waves travel through air, and their speed should therefore be relative to the ether. Different observers, moving relative to the ether, would see light coming toward them at different speeds, but light's speed relative to the ether would remain fixed."
Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com