Aberration and the Question of Equivalence of some Ether Theories to Special Relativity

Abstract

In the last two decades, theories explaining the same experiments as well as special relativity does, were developed by using different synchronization procedures. All of them are ether-like theories. Most authors believe these theories to be equivalent to special relativity, but no general proof was ever brought. By means of a Gedankenexperiment on light aberration, we produce strong evidence that this is the case for experiments made in inertial systems.