Although the average speed over a two-way path can be measured, the one-way speed in one

direction or the other is undefined (and not simply unknown), unless one can define what is "the
same time" in two different locations. To measure the time that the light has taken to travel from one
place to another it is necessary to know the start and finish times as measured on the same time
scale. This requires either two synchronized clocks, one at the start and one at the finish, or some
means of sending a signal instantaneously from the start to the finish. No instantaneous means of
transmitting information is known. Thus the measured value of the average one-way speed is
dependent on the method used to synchronize the start and finish clocks. This is a matter of
convention. The Lorentz transformation is defined such that the one-way speed of light will be
measured to be independent of the inertial frame chosen. [8]
Some authors such as Mansouri and Sexl (1977)[9][10] as well as Will (1992)[11] argued that this problem
doesn't affect measurements of the isotropy of the one-way speed of light, for instance, due to
direction-dependent changes relative to a "preferred" (aether) frame Σ. They based their analysis on
a specific interpretation of the RMS test theory in relation to experiments in which light follows a
unidirectional path and to slow clock-transport experiments. Will agreed that it is impossible to
measure the one-way speed between two clocks using a time-of-flight method without
synchronization scheme, though he argued: "...a test of the isotropy of the speed between the same
two clocks as the orientation of the propagation path varies relative to Σ should not depend on how
they were synchronized...". He added that aether theories can only be made consistent with relativity
by introducing ad hoc hypotheses.[11] In more recent papers (2005, 2006) Will referred to those
experiments as measuring the "isotropy of light speed using one-way propagation"'. [6][12]
However, others such as Zhang (1995, 1997) [1][13] and Anderson et al. (1998)[2] showed this
interpretation to be incorrect. For instance, Anderson et al. pointed out that the conventionality of
simultaneity must already be considered in the preferred frame, so all assumptions concerning the
isotropy of the one-way speed of light and other velocities in this frame are conventional as well.
Therefore, RMS remains a useful test theory to analyze tests of Lorentz invariance and the two-way
speed of light, though not of the one-way speed of light. They concluded: "...one cannot hope even
to test the isotropy of the speed of light without, in the course of the same experiment, deriving a
one-way numerical value at least in principle, which then would contradict the conventionality of
synchrony."[2] Using generalizations of Lorentz transformations with anisotropic one-way speeds,
Zhang and Anderson pointed out that all events and experimental results compatible with the
Lorentz transformation and the isotropic one-way speed of light must also be compatible with
transformations preserving two-way light speed constancy and isotropy, while allowing anisotropic
one-way speeds