One of the benefits of being an astrophysicist is your weekly email from someone who claims to have “proven Einstein wrong”. These either contain no mathematical equations and use phrases such as “it is obvious that..”, or they are page after page of complex equations with dozens of scientific terms used in non-traditional ways. They all get deleted pretty quickly, not because astrophysicists are too indoctrinated in established theories, but because none of them acknowledge how theories get replaced.
For example, in the late 1700s there was a theory of heat known as caloric. The basic idea of caloric was that it was a fluid that existed within materials. This fluid was self-repellant, meaning it would try to spread out as evenly as possible. We couldn’t observe this fluid directly, but the more caloric a material has the greater its temperature.
From this theory you get several predictions that actually work. Since you can’t create or destroy caloric, heat (energy) is conserved. If you put a cold object next to a hot object, the caloric in the hot object will spread out to the cold object until they reach the same temperature. When air expands, the caloric is spread out more thinly, thus the temperature drops. When air is compressed there is more caloric per volume, and the temperature rises.
We now know there is no “heat fluid” known as caloric. Heat is a property of the motion (kinetic energy) of atoms or molecules in a material. So in physics we’ve dropped the caloric model in terms of kinetic theory. You could say we now know that the caloric model is completely wrong.
Except it isn’t. At least no more wrong than it ever was.
The basic assumption of a “heat fluid” doesn’t match reality, but the model makes predictions that are correct. In fact the caloric model works as well today as it did in the late 1700s. We don’t use it anymore because we have newer models that work better. Kinetic theory makes all the predictions caloric does and more. Kinetic theory even explains how the thermal energy of a material can be approximated as a fluid.
This is a key aspect of scientific theories. If you want to replace a robust scientific theory with a new one, the new theory must be able to do more than the old one. When you replace the old theory you now understand the limits of that theory and how to move beyond it.
In some cases even when an old theory is supplanted we continue to use it. Such an example can be seen in Newton’s law of gravity. When Newton proposed his theory of universal gravity in the 1600s, he described gravity as a force of attraction between all masses. This allowed for the correct prediction of the motion of the planets, the discovery of Neptune, the basic relation between a star’s mass and its temperature, and on and on. Newtonian gravity was and is a robust scientific theory.
Then in the early 1900s Einstein proposed a different model known as general relativity. The basic premise of this theory is that gravity is due to the curvature of space and time by masses. Even though Einstein’s gravity model is radically different from Newton’s, the mathematics of the theory shows that Newton’s equations are approximate solutions to Einstein’s equations. Everything Newton’s gravity predicts, Einstein’s does as well. But Einstein also allows us to correctly model black holes, the big bang, the precession of Mercury’s orbit, time dilation, and more, all of which have been experimentally validated.
So Einstein trumps Newton. But Einstein’s theory is much more difficult to work with than Newton’s, so often we just use Newton’s equations to calculate things. For example, the motion of satellites, or exoplanets. If we don’t need the precision of Einstein’s theory, we simply use Newton to get an answer that is “good enough.” We may have proven Newton’s theory “wrong”, but the theory is still as useful and accurate as it ever was.
Unfortunately, many budding Einsteins don’t understand this.
To begin with, Einstein’s gravity will never be proven wrong by a theory. It will be proven wrong by experimental evidence showing that the predictions of general relativity don’t work. Einstein’s theory didn’t supplant Newton’s until we had experimental evidence that agreed with Einstein and didn’t agree with Newton. So unless you have experimental evidence that clearly contradicts general relativity, claims of “disproving Einstein” will fall on deaf ears.
The other way to trump Einstein would be to develop a theory that clearly shows how Einstein’s theory is an approximation of your new theory, or how the experimental tests general relativity has passed are also passed by your theory. Ideally, your new theory will also make new predictions that can be tested in a reasonable way. If you can do that, and can present your ideas clearly, you will be listened to. String theory and entropic gravity are examples of models that try to do just that.
But even if someone succeeds in creating a theory better than Einstein’s (and someone almost certainly will), Einstein’s theory will still be as valid as it ever was. Einstein won’t have been proven wrong, we’ll simply understand the limits of his theory.
Agreed!! Well Put Sir!
This article has some excellent points. It should be considered MUST reading for all those pushing the failed theories associated with climate change.
You mean the failed theories that claim climate change is not happening?
And failed theories that evolution didn’t happen / isn’t happening.
No sir. He means the failed theory of anthropogenic global warming. Climate is changing as it always has been, due to natural causes, for the last 4500 million years.
What has been disproved by paleoclimatic data and by the current pause of 17+ years in global temperature, despite the growing levels of atmospheric CO2, is the AGW hypothesis.
In fact, there is no empirical evidence for the hypohesis, just failed computer models predictions.
Nonsense. There is clear scientific support for anthropogenic climate change, and it is not just based on computer models, but actual real scientific data. Read Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog to get your facts straight, especially this 17 year “pause”.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html
You are talking nonsense. Just name one empirical evidence for AGW, and you will be famous and rich. All there is for it is a rather short time of correlation (and correlation is no causation) and a bunch of failed models.
There is dispute on the real effect of GHGs, but the window for CO2 is already totally saturated. The hypothesis depends on feedbacks that are mostly unknown.
That´s all.
And against it you have real data from Vostok and Greenland, and the unexpected and unexplained pause of 17+ years in global warming.
Please read the posts on climate change on Phil Plait’s website. He is much more eloquent than I am and will put to rest your denial of “AGW”. He has posted dozens of articles on the topic, including his most recent one here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/14/climate_change_another_study_shows_they_don_t_publish_actual_papers.html
I have read him, and I have not found an empirical proof for AGW, and no real answer to the problems I have listed.
Have you found any?
Models and hypothesis must agree with the real world, or they are just wrong. That is what happens with AGW hypothesis.
All of its predictions: continued warming, tropical hotspot, polar amplification in both poles, have been proved wrong by nature.
Sir, that is not correct. These things have not been proven wrong. Simply saying it does not make it so. Please provide a link to a peer reviewed scientific paper that show these things have been “proved wrong”. You also may want to re-read this article, as it seems that you are still fuzzy on the scientific process.
Links to 1100+ papers against AGW will be enough?:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Plus, if you like, a link to a letter sent to ONU signed by more than 1000 scientists dissent over man-made global warming:
http://cfact.org/pdf/2010_Senate_Minority_Report.pdf
The problem is that the science deniers have not made their case. We know how CO2 and other greenhouse gases behave in the laboratory, that they trap heat. So if the deniers want to convince anyone that human-induced climate change is not real, they need to provide a convincing explanation why greenhouse gases do not behave the same in nature as they do in the lab. So far they have failed in that responsibility.
Trusting well-understood physics, chemistry and thermodynamics must remain the default position. Furthermore, the models have been right more often than they have been wrong, and the claimed 17 year hiatus just is not real. Deniers have to do better than cherry-picking every little surprise this complicated planet gives us and claiming it’s proof that we can just disregard the most basic consequences of thermodynamics.
No, sir, you are completely wrong. The proponents of a theory must provide real data and evidence for it, and explain why it doesn´t work as expected when confronted with reality. So far, the AGW has no provided any factuall evidence in both cases. If the theory is contradicted by nature, it is wrong. That is called “scientific method”.
You say the proponents of a theory need to provide evidence for it. That means you agree that the burden of proof lies on the deniers. Because the people who agree that climate change is real are doing nothing more than asserting that the laws of physics are uniform everywhere. This is not a controversial assertion. It is the deniers who are making the extreme claim, and extraordinary claims require robust evidence, which has simply not been provided.
You need to explain why greenhouse gases do not act the same way in nature as they do in the lab or alternatively explain where the extra trapped heat is going, if it is not heating the planet. Then you need to explain why the increase in global temperatures has coincided with the onset of the industrial revolution. Then you need to explain why we are indeed seeing more frequent and more severe incidents of extreme weather; such as the unprecedented vortex over North America, the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summer, or record high temperatures (again!) in Australia (just as climate scientists predicted). Then you need to explain how 99% of climate scientists could be getting it wrong, bearing in mind that incompetence or corruption are not really feasible.
Provide evidence- and I mean real evidence, that kind that would convince a moderately intelligent high school science student, not mendacious misenterpretation of research done by real scientists- and there’s a Nobel Prize waiting for you.
Shouldn’t it be the one who is saying that a theory is true providing the evidence?
No sir, you got it backwards.
We know, for sure (geologic and fossil evidence) that Earth climate´s natural condition is change; it has been changing for the last 4500 million years.
We know that we don´t know exactly why; we have some broad suspects but not fine details.
The AGW hypothesis proposes that CO2 is the principal cause of those changes, so it must:
1) Present empirical evidence that that is the main reason of climate change (past and present),
2) Explain the changes of past climate considering the fundaments of the hypothesis, and
3) Make predictions about the future that can be measured and registered, considering that the hypothesis is correct.
Fact is that the hypothesis has failed on both accounts.
Skeptics don´t have to presente a new hypothesis, they just point out the errors and shortages of the AWG proposal and recognize that we don´t have the knowledge to have a complete theory of the climate.
Temperatures have go up and down in the past without forcing of CO2 levels, not only in the far past but even in the Holocene, the last 15 000 years of the life of our planet, and the only hard evidence we have found is that the changes in temperature precede the changes in CO2 levels by about 800 years, and that in the very present we are in a 17+ years pause of warming despite increasing levels of CO2.
All of these facts cannot be explained by the AWG hypothesis. Its predictions have failed. It is wrong.
Pretty much everything you’ve said here is wrong. The evidence strongly favors the hypothesis that the most recent warming is due to increased C02 from anthropogenic sources. Past climate change prior to large-scale anthropogenic influences provides a helpful backdrop to understanding climate sensitivity to C02 and other forcings, of course. And climate scientists do make predictions about the future. They also make “hindcasts” of climate change in the past. For example, a recent study ran a bunch of simulations of the 20th Century climate, for which we have excellent temperature records. One set of simulations included anthropogenic sources of C02, the other didn’t. Guess which set more closely approximated the *actual observed global temperature trends*? That’s right, only the simulations that included anthropogenic C02. The other set did abysmally, particularly in the second half of the 20th Century, where they actually predicted a *cooling* trend, totally opposite from that which was *observed*. So, climate models *have* been vetted by observations, and they do a pretty good job of getting gross temperature trends correct. Finally, even if it’s true that we’ve experienced a “pause”, 17 years is nothing in the scheme of an entire century, which is the scale of global warming we are talking about. There are bound to be fluctuations from other climate forcings that are as important or more important *on shorter time scales* than anthropogenic influences.
As an aside, this whole “debate” is frustrating to me as a scientist, because I actually have more political sympathy with the global warming skeptics than I do most global warming proponents, and I really get their concerns about the impact on economies and such from attempting to curb fossil fuel use. But those questions are totally separate from *what the actual science is saying*. The earth doesn’t care about our political squabbles.
What evidence. Models are not evidence, of course, specially GIGO models.
Hindcasts are more or less right, because they are made to look so.
But the proyections have been totally wrong:
Implications for climate models of their disagreement with observations
http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for-climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/
von Storch and Eduardo Zorita: on our paper on stagnation and trends
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/hans-von-storch-and-eduardo-zorita-on.html
STILL Epic Fail: 73 Climate Models vs. Measurements, Running 5-Year Means
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/
Nicola Scafetta: Climate Models Used By IPCC Fail To Reproduce Decadal & Multidecadal Patterns Since 1850
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/10/06/nicola-scafetta-climate-models-used-by-ipcc-fail-to-reproduce-decadal-multidecadal-patterns-since-1850/
Why Climate Models Fail
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/WHY_CLIMATE_MODELS_FAIL.pdf
IPCC Lead Author Says Climate Models Are Failing
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/07/13/ipcc-lead-author-says-climate-models-are-failing
Failure evidence for all 21 IPCC positive-feedback climate models
https://archive.org/details/TheObservedFailuresOfAllIpccPositive-feedbackClimateModelsAndTheir
Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change: hind-cast, forecast and a comparison with the CMIP5 GCMs
http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.3706
Two Minutes to Midnight –
http://climateaudit.org/2013/09/24/two-minutes-to-midnight/
IPCC hides the decline of its climate models
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ipcc_hides_the_decline_of_its_climate_models/
While you are quite right that the evidence strongly favors AGW, the evidence for its impact one way or another on extreme weather events is on far more shaky ground at the moment. We simply don’t have enough data, and our models aren’t yet robust enough to give reliable signals for regional climate change, let alone individual weather events like heat waves. Right now the best we can say is that it is more likely than not that, say, heat waves will become more extreme with continued warming. But it’s also possible that climate feedbacks that we don’t know much about yet will actually dampen weather extremes, even while the average temperature continues to rise.
It’s also simply false that the polar vortex intrusion over North America is “unprecedented”. We meteorologists have been playing whack-a-mole over the past couple weeks squashing this rumor about the polar vortex, among others. The fact of the matter is 1) the polar vortex is not a new phenomenon; it’s pretty much always there to greater or lesser degree, 2) southward extensions of the polar vortex are quite common, happening at least a few times every winter over North America, 3) the most recent episode was a somewhat unusual event, but only unusual in the sense that a comparable event recurs once every 1-2 decades, so in the grand scheme of the climate system, not rare at all. It also wasn’t remarkable in regards to its duration (only about 48 hours at most locations). 4) Finally, there’s no evidence either way about whether such events are being impacted by global warming. Anyone who says anything to the contrary is departing from the science (from either side of the “debate”).
Evidence of global warming? That’s easy. Just look at all the hot air in here.
Yup A good bunch of hHot air is all what AGW hypothesis is.
Also String Theorists, people who write about string theory and other loons hoping to supplant Relativity theory should take careful note of this article.
You can derive Einstein’s field equations using a mathematical construct known as a tensor. But of course this doesn’t mean the universe is one huge tensor, only that it can be modelled this way.
Similarly, String Theorists might derive elegant (but otherwise meaningless) equations by calling on extra dimensions. This do not mean we live in a Universe with hidden dimensions as some String theory like to think.
Thanks for this story UT.
That’s why we have Super String theory 😀
Proving that a theory or a model provides wrong results under certain
conditions (such as Newton’s laws at speeds comparable to c) means that
this theory is shown to be incomplete, if not plainly wrong. We may
call this “the limits” of a theory, but this is rather too benevolent or
optimistic, in my opinion. We should not so much fear this adjective,
as science has most frequently (if not always) progressed by stepping on
the hurt/dead bodies of older and -yes, wrong theories. Caloric is a
clear example. These older theories may have worked in some or in many
cases, but this does not mean they were “correct” or complete.
In any case this will not stop those mailings and the hundreds of weird
theories enthusiasts that flood any science forum. But at least these
people, though wrong, are showing some interest in basic science, something rather valuable in the present days.
“But Einstein also allows us to correctly model black holes, the big bang, the precession of Mercury’s orbit, time dilation, and more, all of which have been experimentally validated.”
Show us where (preferably in the lab) these validations hold true. A black hole? The big Bang? Those are still theories too, true?
We can observe – not in a lab – the characteristics and formations of black holes – we can measure the speeds vs. distances of bodies near a black hole…….we can observe the bending of light in a vacuum via large body gravitation….they have achieved hi quality observations and measurements of Mercury’s orbit which validates the theory …..he predicted gravitational lensing, which is being used today to look farther than ever……..space navigation must work in some principles of special relatively into their formulas to avoid small errors….. Einstein equivalence principle is proven by the redshift measurements we all agree on today……..there are several more – but still many, many more to substantiate – so far as I know, Einstein is undefeated on tests and observation, although additional extensions to his theories have been developed to account for physical observation.
I agree with TerryG, string theory seems to be a theory still looking for an observation – not vice versa – and until it receives the same observational testing…..I simply think it is a convenient truth…….although i think they have something with the combination of particle and wave duality.
and don’t get me started on climate change……..advocates of man made climate change disregard actual observations…..such as historic proof of ongoing climate change and recently the 12 year leveling of temperatures……Iceland (tundra) and Greenland (glacier) were much different when they were named a thousand years ago…..
Todd
Surprisingly, the thing that today is in a widest use, the GPS, would not work without taking into account the effects of the Relativity. As simple as that.
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html
Does the measurements of stars orbiting something in the centre of the milky way, something with the mass of about 4 million sunlike stars and yet that do not emit light in any normal fashion for starlike objects of similar mass, does that provide evidence for or against the existance of a black hole in the center of the milky way. Do these measurements constitute scientific facts?
Do any of the rest of the observations of that something in the center of the milky way support or reject the existance of a possible black hole
Now it is true that we still havent conclusive evidence for a black hole in the centre of the milky way, but we have enourmous amounts of indicative evidence, and a theory that makes predictions that can later be verified or rejected based on new actual evidence. Aswell as scientist working on providing better evidence in the near future, including even direct imaging of the object.
Do you want to argue that black holes are a purely imaginative object?
Time dilation was shown in the lab, through changes in Muon decay times. At rest, Muons decay in about 2 microseconds. This means that we shouldn’t see any Muons from cosmic rays on the Earth’s surface, but we do. Time dilation as a consequence of relativity explains this, since high energy Muons travel faster to the point that they experience time dilation. Hell, Einstein himself named three tests that, if the theory failed to pass them, then it was wrong. It’s passed all three, and has done ever since. Search for the classical tests of general relativity.
Well the big bang generally defies every law of physics soooo…..
Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It takes faith to believe. that.So does believing things that happened billions of years ago.Isaac Newton, mentioned in the article once said “If the Bible is true, time will come when man will travel at 50 miles an hour.” And the great scientist has been proven right. …scientifically and otherwise. He certainly had what many in his days did not have.
It does NOT take “faith” to believe things that happened billions of years ago. Faith is belief without evidence or even despite evidence to the contrary. For instance, we can look at galaxies billions of light-years away and be reasonably certain that they looked then like they do now. No faith required.
No. If look at galaxies billions of light-years away, we can only tell what they looked like billions of years ago. Thats it. No superluminal vision.
That’s actually what I said. To be clearer, perhaps I should have said, “we can look at galaxies billions of light-years away and be reasonably certain that they looked then like they look to us now.”
Dogs have four legs. My cat has four legs. Therefore my cat is a dog.
“There is no God, Summer. You gotta rip that Band-Aid off now. You’ll thank me later.”
Or we could just look at the piles of historical evidence Jesus existed for the New Testament
Excellent piece. Nice addition to the other fine articles on UT. Keep it up!
If it works DONT FIX IT ….
Yep, that ox-cart is still creaking along. Praise be to Ur
It does not work. see my post, John Kulick
Yeah, I’m sure there are tweaks and refinements ahead, but Einstein’s work is solid.
Great article; well written. This should help me articulate some of these points better.
Ahem…OK, agreed, but let us keep in mind that it was Prof. Einstein (who spoke of “the Old One” often) who was compelled by a fellow whose name may or may not be Heisenberg to admonish God to, in the vernacular of our day, let what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas.
Seriously, are we really one unifying equation away from knowing everything about the universe save “the bookkeeping”? I find that difficult to believe. Although we do know everything about optics, right?
Some predictions of the theory of relativity actually have been verified in labs. We wouldn’t have nuclear power (or nuclear bombs) without E=mc^2, and the electronic structure of many heavy elements (observed in labs) requires inclusion of relativistic effects.
E=mc^2 can also be derived using non-local physics. The form is:
E/((1/c)^1) = m/((1/c)^3)
It means that mass is a three-dimensional form of energy.
space/time is “local”
time/space is “non-local”
So it is the 1/c term that is non-local.
As I mention below, stuff like this could be taught at the high school level.
Nice article. Not sure about ‘Einstein also allows us to correctly model black holes’ when the math just delivers a ‘singularity’ (i.e. an infinitely-dense point source) as a solution, regardless of the differential mass or radii of different black holes. Einsteinian physics does predict black holes, but doesn’t allow you to ‘model’ them in any meaningful way.
I can’t wait for dark matter and dark energy to go the way of caloric.
Nice article! Only it was a shame that it put entropic gravity on the same (sure as can currently be) footing as string/M-theory.
Yes, Einstein
was not wrong. Actually, he teaches us to progress front. Regarding the
creation of the universe, there are many hypothetical proposals, but not the
ultimate theory. Ones Einstein tried on complete unified theory, but not
succeeded. He told that complete unified theory be the pillar of science at the
time of delivering lecture in the year 1921, when he was honored by the Nobel
Prize. So, some mistakes are there in modern science which the scientists are
failed to prove. 1) what is the accurate mass of a photon, graviton? we don’t
know, treated it as zero mass. The mass cannot zero, Zero means there is no
matter into it. 2) In the theory of Relativity, rest mass increased with the
velocity of light as m = rest mass / Root of (1 – v^2/c^2), from where the
particle collect mass? Velocity is environment; it helps to particle to
increase the mass. Need to know the internal functions of the matter that in
what way matter is giving energy? The Einstein equation, E = mc^2 can’t explain
this, because, we cannot say that how many photons or quanta are there in E
obtained from m as we do not know the mass of a photon. 3) We are using the
value of Pi as 3.141592654 in every field when required. But in the case of
deformation of particle at excited state, the matter goes dumbbell shapes at
fission reaction, at that time the circumference of the particle will not same
when the particle will stay at rest, though the scientists are using this value
of Pi at that time, what is the reasons behind it? 4) The plants are making its
food through chlorophyll by collecting energy mainly from the sun, but in what
way reacting a photon in the chain of chlorophyll, a answer is E ? = Nhc, N = Avo. Number, h = Planck constant, c = velocity of light, Here, ? is the wavelength of the
absorbed radiation, and E = h?, when, ?= c/?. Here, h is not the mass of a
photon. The idea of one Planck, two Planck etc the energy or mass of photons —— some where lagging is there. One Planck must be composed of some bunch of photons as we do not know how many photons are there in E. Likewise many disputes are there in science as a result, we can’t reach to a final step of the creations of the universe. The Big Bang theory is assumption ——- universe was created from a point where the density were very enormous thus we can’t think, the law of physics do not agree this matter and if so, what was before the Big Bang & what was the conditions of the same? We are trying to solve this problem, but failed to solve because of some disputes are there in traditional theories. I have solved all and Published book as COMPLETE UNIFIED THEORY in the year 1998 (total pages – 424). The complete unified theory means the ENDLESS THEORY OH THE UNIVERSE. We can solve different problems to use this single theory. This theory is applicable from particle to the universe.
Nirmalendu Das
Dated: 14-01-2014.
Something very fundamental IS wrong with General Relativity, as proved below.
In the void of outer space, a gram of matter is converted into radiant energy and beamed to a distant galaxy which has a large mirror that returns the signal. When the light returns, the wavelength of the light has been lengthened and the energy diminished, as predicted by General Relativity. The wavelength increases proportionally with the “stretch” of space. Convert this energy back into matter and there will no longer be a gram of matter.
This indicates four very significant problems.
1. Energy is lost. This violates the principle of conservation of energy. The gram of radiant energy is now less than the gram of matter that was not traveling though outer space. Where did the energy go? The Conservation of Energy law is violated when general relativity is applied in current “mainstream” models.
2. Matter and energy no longer equivalent. The relationship, E = mcc defines Energy as equivalent to matter. However, when General Relativity is applied over Cosmological intervals, this is no longer true. A gram of radiant energy does not equal a gram of mass, once the light is traveling through outer space. A fundamental equivalency relationship is being lost.
3. Special Relativity predicts that as an object approaches the speed of light, the process of physical change slows down and at the speed of light all physical change would stop. How can a photon traveling at the speed of light change its energy content and wavelength?
4. The equivalency of matter and energy is no longer a universal property valid everywhere, but conditional. Equivalency would be maintained within the
confines of gravitational bound galaxies but not outside them.
Also, shouldn’t there be serious skepticism accepting General Relativity as the basis for understanding Gravity. Gravity is the last force to be united with the other fundamental forces of nature. This failure to achieve this goal, despite over 100 years of attempts by of some of the smartest people in the world has to indicate something is fundamentally wrong.
And then there is the rather amazing “after the fact fix” of dark matter and dark energy that is required to keep the model. I could go on and on, but I think the point is made.
Not quite true. Even with corrections for general relativity and special relativity, (which tend to cancel out) there still are corrections that have to be constantly “tweaked” to keep the system working. The system self corrects itself all the time and can do so perfectly fine without dipping into calculations of special relativity and general relativity.
The effects of Special Relativity of slowing clocks with speed, and General Relativity’s speeding up of clocks as the gravitational field density diminishes does happen, so the theories are locally valid.
> there still are corrections that have to be constantly “tweaked” to keep the system working…
-Didn’t knew that.
Quantization
Once we are free from the light quanta paradigm, quantization can be
simply defined as the frequency response of the atomic antenna. We find
that Max Planck, the originator of light quanta himself, referred to the
quanta as an EFFECT due to the oscillator’s characteristics and
resisted Einstein’s point particle nature of light quanta. In his
recorded remarks which took place during 1909 in an audience at
Einstein’s talk we find him arguing Einstein’s hypothesis of atomistic
light quanta propagation through space. “If Einstein were correct,
how could one account for interference when the length over which one
detected interference was many thousands of wavelengths? How could a
quantum of light interfere with itself over such great distances if it
were a point object? Instead of quantized electromagnetic fields, one
should attempt to transfer the whole problem of the quantum theory to
the area of interaction between matter and radiation energy”. If
instead, the light quanta is considered to be just the EFFECT of
interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter, as Planck
insisted, quantization cannot be applied to a ‘flying photon’, since
Maxwellian electrodynamics which governs radiation is a continuum
theory. I believe Planck was right all along when stating that
discontinuity is only at play during the process of energy transfer
between the continuous radiation field and the oscillator. On March
1905, Einstein warped this truth in his paper ‘On a Heuristic Point of
View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light’, since he
stated that quantization was explicitly NOT limited to resonators or the
interaction between matter and the field, but was also a requirement of
the energy of the EM field itself. From thereon, the term ‘light
quanta’ took the meaning of a particle light phenomenon. As a
confidential letter from him to Lorentz confirms, Einstein knew that for
such a statement to be true, Maxwell’s and Lorentz’s electrodynamics
must be wrong, but he never explicitly mentioned this fact in public. At
that time he was also aware that his model ran into other rather
unresolved problems:
The particles of light quanta should have mass = E/c2, yet by his own theories, no matter can obtain the speed of light
Light quanta couldn’t account for interference of light
Particulate light quanta could not be split, and had no way to account for partial reflection
A helically travelling photon would have to exceed the speed of light on its helical path
These must be the reasons behind the careful choice of the word
‘Heuristic’ in his paper title, which means tentative or unverifiable.
Max Planck remained sceptic of the physical existence of the flying
light quanta, together with many other scientists, and in his opinion
Einstein had missed the point. These logical fallacies were ultimately
patched up by DECLARING the photon to have zero mass, and DECLARING the
wave-particle duality as TRUTH. You may notice that with the proposed
model of quasi-planar waves, all these problems vanish altogether. Not
only do they vanish, but speed of light propagation, interference,
partial reflection and polarization become our beamed wave model
predictions!
{Psybertronically Synthesized
From Blaze Labs}
Huh? who is talking about acceleratin frames?
If an object moving at
the speed of light can not change, according to special relativity, how
can a photon change its wavelength and energy content while moving at
the speed of light?”
You are! Or at the very VERY least you spoke of different frames from the universe and photons, yet expect their numbers to match?
My “frame”, in the proof that something is wrong in the cosmological application of General relativity with respect to the photon, is the same. I am in space, sitting with a gram of matter, and beam off a gram of energy. Eventually the once gram of energy returns to me in my frame. I convert the returned energy back to matter, but it is now less than the gram of matter that sat with me in space.
Where did the energy go?
The only frame of reference used to do the test is my local frame of reference.
Special Relativity predicts that if an object could move at the speed of light, change would not occur. Remember the “twin paradox”? The twin that moved at near light speed hardly changed while the stay at home twin aged. How can the photon change if it is moving at the speed of light?
The Photon is a False Concept
The debate over the true nature of light and matter dates
back to the 1600s. Christiaan Huygens proposed light to be waves, whilst
Isaac Newton came up with his own corpuscles (particles) theory. Over
periods of time, preference flipped to and fro between these two
opposing views. Presently, the scientific community cannot find a proper
resolution to this debate and it holds that all waves also have a
particle nature (and vice versa).
Years have passed, theories have been revised and updated,
new technologies have surfaced, and yet it seems that nobody has had the
guts to tackle this challenging issue again. Scientists seem satisfied
enough reciting the wave-particle duality. So, shall all we do the same
and accept this paradox as part of science, just because Einstein failed
and gave up!
Lightwaves
are known to behave as particles. Radio waves never seem to show
particle behaviour, or wave collapse, while visible light, which is so
close to radio in wavelength, is said to show particulate behaviour.
Some think that the reason for this is because radio photons would be
ridiculously large, others think that there must be some frequency at
which photons are not formed, some may have other theories and the
majority have no clue at all.
Planewave
sources do NOT obey the inverse square law, as later explained, for the
simple reason that the propagating surface is no longer spherical. A
square cross sectional area size 2x2cm will still have the same shape
and size after travelling 1km. But how can one produce a planewave, if a
simple isotropic radiator generates spherical waves?
The answer is to
modify the source so that it can no longer be modelled as a point
source. This can be done by using many sources interacting together in a
way to give a preferred beam direction and flatten out the curvature of
the spherical surface enough for the resultant waves to share the most
important properties of planewaves. I shall refer to these modified
waves as quasi-planewaves. In such configuration, the sources need not
be all active; they could be parasitic (passive) elements interacting
with a single active source, as in TV antennas. Also, remember that a
spherical wave looks like a planewave over a small area very distant
from the source.
The trick to generate a quasi-planewave, using just
spherical wave sources, is thus to provide a fake (virtual) long
distance focal point behind the aperture of the EM source. This
way, the wavefronts would exit the physical aperture in a preferred
direction and at a much reduced surface curvature. This is exactly what
happens with high gain EM sources. With such a virtual point source, the
source can no longer be modelled as a point source at the centre of the
physical aperture location, since the equivalent point source can now
be a kilometre behind the aperture! The distance of this virtual point
from the physical aperture can be easily calculated knowing the aperture
cross section and beamwidth (or gain).
The inverse square law is only valid for a point source propagating spherical waves
into space. If we have a planewave, which keeps the same cross
sectional area during propagation, then the inverse square law clearly
no longer applies. In fact, the intensity of planewaves is invariant
with distance. In general it can be stated that any source in which beam shaping takes place cannot comply with the basic ISL assumption.
Few
are the people aware of the fact that different shapes of surface areas
covered by the propagating wavefront give different relationship of
intensity with distance. Most people just recite the inverse square law
for any problem involving the propagation of EM waves.
However, few are
those who understand that the inverse square law is simply a geometric
law, and is not an inherent property of waves, as in quasi-planewaves.
Bill
Bill:
Copy and paste this line into Google.
Inverseness, Complementarity, and the
Wave/Particle Duality
I think you will find a satisfactory explanation of the wave/particle duality.
I found a more less true explanation. No False Concept Photons,, even in the gamma frequencies;
Bill
Something very
fundamental IS wrong with General Relativity, as proved below.
In the void of outer space, a gram of matter is converted into radiant energy and beamed to a distant galaxy which has a large mirror that returns the signal. When the light returns, the wavelength of the light has been lengthened and the energy diminished, as predicted by General Relativity. The wavelength increases proportionally with the “stretch” of space. Convert this energy back into matter and there will no longer be a gram of matter.
This indicates four very significant problems.
1. Energy is lost. This violates the principle of conservation of energy. The
gram of radiant energy is now less than the gram of matter that was not
traveling though outer space. Where did the energy go? The Conservation of
Energy law is violated when general relativity is applied in current
“mainstream” models.
2. Matter and energy no longer equivalent. The relationship, E = mcc defines Energy as equivalent to matter. However, when General Relativity is applied over Cosmological intervals, this is no longer true. A gram of radiant energy does not equal a gram of mass, once the light is traveling through outer space. A fundamental equivalency relationship is being lost.
3. Special Relativity predicts that as an object approaches the speed of light, the process of physical change slows down and at the speed of light all physical change would stop. How can a photon traveling at the speed of light change its energy content and wavelength?
4. The equivalency of matter and energy is no longer a universal property valid everywhere, but conditional. Equivalency would be maintained within the confines of gravitational bound galaxies but not outside them.
Also, shouldn’t there be serious skepticism accepting General Relativity as the basis for understanding Gravity. Gravity is the last force to be united with the other fundamental forces of nature. This failure to achieve this goal, despite over 100 years of attempts by of some of the smartest people in the world has to indicate something is fundamentally wrong.
And then there is the rather amazing “after the fact fix” of dark matter and dark energy that is required to keep the model. I could go on and on, but I think the point is made.
I am confused on many points of yours… First, if I am accerating, do I measure a different frequency of a wave?
If so I can’t help but feel you’ve missed the whole point of relativity.
Why must the energy you measure light to have be invariant? E=mc² is only true for massive objects, so let us look at the true eqution. E²=p²c²+m²c?. Well this is interesting… Apparently the energy of a particle is related to the momentum as well as the mass. Clearly then this equivilence isn’t invariant in the case of accelerating frames.
But wait! If we can’t use the equivilence with accelerating frames, what then do we make of not only the expansion of the universe, but of the acceleration of that expansion? How can we draw invariant structures to relate quantities that all measure to be different values depending on your perspective? Perhaps we can measure how energy density would relate to pressure and get equations of state to apply to something like the flwr metric obtained by solving Einstein’s field equations… Thus obtaining a model for expansion of the universe which describes the time evolution of the universe as a function of energy density of constituent parts. That way we build in assumptions of different reference frames, and don’t have to worry about silly things like a photon and human not agreeing on photon energy.
We call our current model the lambda cdm, or dark energy (lambda) cold dark matter model. It was built by trying to understand how energy relates in our universe. And unlike you, to paraphrase David Griffiths, infuriate people with the slightest respect for dimensional consistency.
You can’t just switch between reference frames and treat all quantities as invariant. How you could learn about relativity and not have that shoved into the core of your being is beyond me
“First, if I am accerating, do I measure a different frequency of a wave? ”
What do you mean by this?
“E=mc² is only true for massive objects,”
Huh? works for electrons, even photons.
“Clearly then this equivilence isn’t invariant in the case of accelerating frames.”
Huh? who is talking about acceleratin frames?
If an object moving at the speed of light can not change, according to special relativity, how can a photon change its wavelength and energy content while moving at the speed of light?
I mean exactly what I say, if I am accelerating, and there is either an incoming wave, or a outgoing wave, would I measure changes in its frequency/period? That is, do I observe crests more/less frequently than I would if I were otherwise staying still?
This is important, because it forces you to picture different frames, how not all quantities you’d expect to agree actually agree.
Which brings me to “E=mc^2”. That’s a silly equation, and when I said “it’s only true for massive objects”, even THAT is a bit of a stretch. In truth, I should say, “E=mc^2 is valid for massive objects at rest”, a more proper equation is E=?mc^2 where ? is the lorentz factor… this is true for all massive objects, rest or not at rest…
To be clear, Einstein in his landmark 1905 paper “on the electrodynamics of moving bodies” never stated, anywhere in it, E=mc^2, because that’s a trivial case solution… the derivation he provides is using four-vectors, and yes, the resulting equation is E^2=p^2c^2-m^2c^4, which is the general case solution of mass-energy equivilence for massive OR massless particles.
In the case of massive particles at rest, p=0, thus E=mc^2.
In the case of massive particles not at rest, this should reduce to E=?mc^2 where ?=1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)….
And in the case of massless particles, which are never at rest, the equation reduces to E=pc, or exactly the energy of a photon, cue your introductory quantum mechanics lessons.
The entire POINT of these equations is to look at the energy of a particle from TWO DIFFERENT FRAMES. That’s what the ? term does, that’s what the p term does, it requires looking at the situation outside of just a classical intuitive perspective.
Not everyone needs to agree on how much energy an object has, something with a high rest mass to one observer could look like it has a high kinetic energy to another observer. There is no way to tell who is “right” because they both are… that’s the whole damn point of relativity, and why it was such a landmark change in axioms.
You are treating quantities like “energy” to be constant to one observer as it is to another, but there’s no reason why this should be true, in fact, given the state of physics, we have lots of reason why this explicitly should be false.
“Huh? who is talking about acceleratin frames?
If an object moving at
the speed of light can not change, according to special relativity, how
can a photon change its wavelength and energy content while moving at
the speed of light?”
You are! Or at the very VERY least you spoke of different frames from the universe and photons, yet expect their numbers to match?
The universe is expanding, thus, any observer anywhere in space is viewing light slow down relative to the universe. Unless you have an invariant quantity, shouting “numbers don’t match up!” when you go switching between frames is kinda a “yeah, duh” moment.
The light always travels at the same speed, but we are observing light inside the universe, it doesn’t make sense to talk about light without also relating light to our reference frame. Once we do that, we start having to use transformations and guess what, physicists have already worked out that kinda math a good hundred years ago.
None of it violates any principle axioms of physics, although, I’m more confused why you maintain mass-energy equivalence as a top-most axiom. Personally, I’m more a fan of calling that a result of symmetry, a much more fundamental and much more interesting to use axiomatic tool.
Hi Z
Just some advice from a fellow “outside the box” thinker.
I understand your need to have someone, anyone, consider the fruits of ones labor. I checked out the link to your work and it is clear you have spent much time developing your ideas.
This process can be very frustrating, and may very likely be an exercise in futility, even if you are right.
I am reminded by the story of Boltzmann. You probably know about him from the study of entropy, and Boltzmann’s constant, which is on his tomestone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_entropy
He believed he never recieved credit for his work from his contempories, which apparently one of the contribuiting factors leading to his suicide.
It is a sad unfortuante fact that new ideas are rarely appreciated.
Take care and find joy in the truths that God has allowed you to understand.
John
Please re-read this article and then delete your post. Thank you.
NO
Sorry, that was a bit brupt.
Sorry you did not learn some of the short failings of General Relativty, as pointed out in the post.
John
Here is another problem you can add to your list:
According to Einstein, the photon does not experience the passage of time. It follows logically that photons cannot have a trajectory. Yet we readily manipulate photons as though they have a trajectory.
That in turn means that the “trajectories” are actually effects of the reference system. And for that to work, the reference system must be moving at the speed of light, and in a completely isotropic (non-directional) fashion.
Those would seem to be two insurmountable problems. However, non-local physics easily addresses those problems, and in terms that a high school student could understand.
Hi Brian,
We both share a level of skepticism that should be more common in science.
It seems we also believe we have an alternative model.
Do you have a web page or paper to consider?
John:
I tried to post additional information but it was deleted. No reason given. I suspect it was not “sufficiently mainstream” to post here.
Does this site support email between members?
I re-read it. (This posting is made after my callous posting below).
Lets see, Caloric model eventually was replaced by another better model.
My posting seems in line.
General Relativity when applied to Cosmology will be replaced by a better model.
History repeats itself.
Einstein will fall off this reverential pedestal once we start acting like true seekers of knowledge rather than worshipers of idols.
I’ll explain it then:
Newton was not wrong. His equations are still valid. The reason that Einstein supplanted Newton is because Einstein’s equations can do more than Newton’s. Newton is still taught in school. And, in fact, you can derive Newton’s equations from Einstein’s.
The reason I suggested you re-read the article, is because in your original post you did EXACTLY what the author said that the Physics cranks do. Lots of scientific terms used inaccurately, with no equations. Read the first couple sentences of the article again.
Ivan B.
Thank you for the reply. It was courtious. More so than I was. I applogize.
You accused me of doing exaclty what physics “cranks” do.
Lots of scientific terms used inaccurately with no equations.
My post pointed out the shortfalls of General Relativty at a very fundamental level with respect to the Cosmological Red shift. If I am wrong, I would be greatfull to learn what concept you believe I am misssing.
If you want equations, you can check out my model at Youtube, use search name of John Kulick. (No dark energy and no dark matter is needed, and the ambiguity with respect to the energy of a photon and the cosmological red shift are resolved).
This also says about you , urselves, the one who want to change himself- dont do that, befora making a mistake you are right, after a mistake u are right to acept that mistake, you dont hawe to change urself, you hawe to um, i’m not that good at english so i will use the word update ;D u have to update ur self to become what u want to be! This was one excelent point about those einstein theories became from the old ones! Peace /..
We don’t know what dark matter is, but it makes a pretty great telescope.
Einstein’s Special and General Relativity theories are what physicists call “local” theories in that they map all motion into a spatial reference system, and limit the maximum speed of any physical effect to speeds less than that of light. However, experiments have since shown that electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields have effects that occur so rapidly the speed of propagation cannot even be measured. Their actions are essentially instantaneous (i.e., “non-local”) Additionally, numerous experiments of different experimental designs done by different groups over a span of several decades have demonstrated that our physical world is definitely a “non-local” one. This means that Relativity is limited to describing reference system effects only–a useful but not fundamental capability. That is indeed one of “the limits of his theory”.
A logical HALF of our physics know-how is still stuck back in 1905. Except for quantum mechanics (which has a limited scope), there are no courses taught in non-local physics. Conceptually, non-local physics is simple enough for an overview course at the high school level.
If we want to get our kids interested in science, why aren’t we teaching it? It is certainly a fascinating and useful subject.
One of the fundamental propositions of General Relativity is the fact that the interactions are not, in fact, instantaneous, but rather travel at the speed of light. We already know this to be true in electromagnetism – photons are the carriers of the electromagnetic force, and photons obviously travel no faster than the speed of light. But Einstein said it was also true for gravity. This means, for example, that changes in gravity propagate across space as waves. And this, in turn, is why researchers are searching for gravity waves among closely orbiting neutron stars or pairs of black holes.
The Universe is both local and non-local in its fundamental nature. It is a mistake to try (in general) to map non-local phenomena into a local reference system. This realization was not around in 1905. The only well-known non-local phenomena back then were the action-at-a-distance “fields” of gravitation, magnetism, and electrostatics. The field concept was an attempt to make their non-local behavior more like local behavior, and thus more compatible with human intuition. Arguably, the first “hard-core” contact with non-locality came with
Quantum Mechanics in the 1920s. Later, came the EPR “paradox” (1935) at Einstein’s own hand, who again argued for a “local” interpretation. The Aharonov–Bohm effect emerged in 1949-1959. Then Bell’s Inequality Theorem in 1964. Then the experiments of John Clauser and Stuart Freedman (1972) and Alain Aspect
(1981). These experiments (and others) demonstrated non-local behaviors at a fundamental level. Out-of-scope application of Relativity to non-local phenomena at the insistence (tyranny?) of the scientific community has resulted in a lot of misunderstandings (and
animosity) and has held back advancement of physics for over 100 years. Scientists still insist that the speed of gravity, magnetic, and electric fields are limited to the speed of light.
As far as electric and magnetic interactions are concerned, there can be no reasonable doubt on the fact that they propagate at a finite speed (c). Maxwell’s equations state that oscillating electric and magnetic fields propagate at the speed of light. Since these oscillating electric and magnetic fields (electromagnetic radiation) are responsible for electromagnetic interactions, the aforementioned interactions must necessarily travel at the speed of light. There are countless experiments confirming the validity of this fact; I’m sure you can find your own favorite one, or even verify it independently if you don’t trust the “tyrannical” scientists.
The points about the non-locality of the universe (and its alleged mis-application to General Relativity) are irrelevant (although correct; I commend you on your knowledge of fundamental quantum theory). This is because there is already experimental evidence demonstrating the existence of gravity waves (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.5051v1.pdf). The pair of white dwarfs mentioned in this article are orbiting each other closely enough that they are actually rapidly slowing down, and emitting gravitational radiation as they do so.
If the gravitational interaction was instantaneous, there would be no need for gravitational radiation, as the field would propagate instantly. But the pair of white dwarfs mentioned in the above source clearly exhibit orbital decay in the magnitude predicted by General Relativity, so it is at least highly likely (if not certain) that gravity waves are emitted, which necessitates a finite speed for the gravitational interaction.
In short, your argument basically boiled down to “Gravity is non-local and instantaneous, so Relativity cannot be applied to it.” However, as I have shown, General Relativity predicts that gravity is non-local, but not instantaneous, and there is solid evidence to prove this point true via the existence of gravity waves.
“no reasonable doubt”?
“solid evidence of gravity waves”?
binary white dwarfs with a “12.75-MINUTE orbital period”? Really?
Makes me wonder what you call “reasonable doubt”.
Consider:
“The Sherwin-Rawcliffe Experiment – Evidence for Instant Action-at-a-distance” , Thomas E. Phipps, Jr., Apeiron Vol. 16, No. 4, October 2009 http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V16NO4PDF/V16N4PHI.pdf
From the Abstract:
“Since the nineteenth century physical theorists have considered that electromagnetic mass must exhibit tensor properties if causal delays characterize the interactions of electric charges. In 1960 Chalmers W. Sherwin and Robert D. Rawcliffe enlisted the help of mentors of the A. O. Nier high resolution mass spectrograph to test this hypothesis, using the predicted mass line-splitting of a football-shaped Lu175 nucleus of spin 7/2 (a highly asymmetrical charge distribution). No line-splitting was observed. This null result showed that mass behaves in just the way Newton thought, as a scalar, never as a tensor. What, then went wrong with the theory? We argue that the basic assumption of retardation of distant action was at fault, and that the null result in fact provides strong inferential evidence of instant action-at-a-distance of a Coulomb field.” (Please read the actual article. It is a real eye-opener on how science operates.)
Physicist Thomas E. Phipps adds this comment about Sherwin: “In Memory: Chalmers W. Sherwin”, (1998) http://www.worldnpa.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_1276.pdf
“While at Illinois he conceived and caused to be performed the Sherwin-Rawcliffe experiment (“Electromagnetic Mass & the Inertial Properties of Nuclei,” Report 1-92, March 14, 1960, Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois), an experiment establishing the lack of tensor properties of nuclear mass that I personally consider to rank in significance with Michelson-Morely, as one of the great, all-encompassing null results of our time. It is a commentary on the prevailing state of the scientific literature that this experiment was never reported in the regular journals.”
I can see that I am at a disadvantage here at a MAINSTREAM forum, where what most people would call “reasonable doubt” is simply brushed aside. I suppose that this is probably not the place to present the pros and cons about action-at-a-distance, non-locality, scope and applicability of Relativity, etc. As the article said, “How can one even dream of the facts getting a fair hearing?”
First of all, I would like to have my evidence refuted correctly, if you would do me the honor. Could you please go into the Method section and quote for me specific issues you have with the way they did the experiment? Because if you don’t believe their data is correct, then there must be some specific thing they did wrong in taking the data. And if you can’t tell me anything wrong with the method, then their conclusions, however unbelievable, are valid.
Now, on to your paper. First of all, if you’re going to quote the Sherwin-Rawcliffe experiment, you should actually find the paper published by Sherwin and Rawcliffe and read it first. Here it is: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/625706.pdf
Now that you’ve presumably finished reading the thing, you should know that more than a few things were misinterpreted in the commentary by Phipps that you posted. The paper examines the possibility of extra inertia created by the electromagnetic interactions in the nucleus, and the null result actually works in favor of relativity. I quote, from the abstract:
“According to the theory of relativity, however,
(1) the inertial mass of a physical system should be a scalar quantity (no matter how distorted its electromagnetic structure) and
(2) the “excess” inertial mass of electromagnetic origin, (1/3)?W/c^2, should not be observable.”
Since, as you said, the inertial mass was found to be a scalar and the extra inertia was not observed, this means that the predictions put forth by relativity were correct.
All this leads me to the conclusion that this Phipps character has intentionally reversed the findings of the paper, in order to prove his own point (indeed, the article he wrote is clearly an opinion piece, published in a defunct journal mainly focused on attacking relativity; all in all, not the most unbiased place to pull evidence from).
Michael:
Thanks for the link to the paper.
I am not trying to “refute” you. Think of it as trying to establish “reasonable doubt” like on a jury. The Sherwin-Rawcliff paper was in 1960. Phipps paper is 2009. The issue is STILL a problem, and not just for “unreasonable” people but for physicists. That is why I cited the Phipps paper.
Remember the issue under discussion here is: “Why aren’t the schools teaching BOTH local physics and non-local physics?” Why try to “explain” non-local behavior with a local interpretation? All we are getting is the Einstein version. There seems to be a “localism or bust” doctrine in the scientific community–some kind of Einsteinian “Received Truth”. This also impacts how referees see the papers for mainstream publications. As a non-physicist, I would like to be assured that the other guys, professional physicists with a non-mainstream view, still have non-prejudicial access to publications.
You are probably familiar with Dr. Tom Van Flandern, who wrote about the speed of gravity and its lack of aberration. He is not just some “character” but a professional astronomer and he published in a legit physics journal. His article, says, in part:
“The most amazing thing I was taught as a graduate student of celestial mechanics at Yale in the 1960s was that all gravitational interactions between bodies in all dynamical systems had to be taken as instantaneous. . . . Indeed, as astronomers we were taught to calculate orbits using instantaneous forces; then extract the position of some body along its orbit at a time of interest, and calculate where that position would appear as seen from Earth by allowing for the finite propagation speed of light from there to here. . . . That was the required procedure to get the correct answers.” (“The Speed of Gravity – What the Experiments Say” , Tom Van Flandern, Physics Letters A, 250 (1-3) (1998) pp. 1-11)
I am sure the “Einstein or bust” camp will have plenty to say here. They will probably begin with “assume the Universe acts locally”. Then procede with some further assumptions that are not part of the problem (acceleration seems to be a favorite), apply the appropriate mathematical circumlocution and other “maps of hell” and Presto! Einstein is still correct!
Whatever. . . . The schools should present BOTH views and let up-and-coming physicists and astronomers decide for themselves. I just don’t believe that is happening. Some quotes from Dr. Halton Arp in Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science (1998):
“I thought it would be routine to publish in the journal which was carrying most of the European X-ray results of archival value. How wrong I was! The referee’s report came back accusing me of “manipulating the data” and trying to claim an association of quasars with galaxies, which has “long ago been disproved.” The editor forwarded these comments and rejected the paper on the ground that he saw no need to reopen the debate. The extraordinary aspect was that four papers in addition to my own had just appeared in the same journal giving strong additional evidence for just such associations! The figures appear here [in Arp’s book] for the first time, and the tabular X-ray data is still unpublished.” (p. 47)
“I gloomily came to the ironic conclusion that if you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality.” (p. 131)
“Everyone must make up their own mind on the basis of the evidence and the experts should not be allowed to control the presentation.” (p. 274)
“The mission of academia should be to explore—not to perpetuate myth and superstition.” (p. 257)
“. . . it is well justified today that people view institutional claims with skepticism and even hostility. And it is important to always keep in mind who have the vested interests and what they have to gain. (p. 261)
Arp’s book is full of similar statements. And he too is not just some “character”. Arp received his bachelors degree from Harvard College in 1949 and his Ph. D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1953, both cum laude.
Again, we want the WHOLE STORY, not just the filtered part that agrees with Einstein. Our scienfific knowledge is not so sure and certain as we are led to believe.
There can be a historical Jesus, no problem. There was a historical Jimmy and Billy and Jenny too. Claiming any one of them was the offspring of a deity, however, will take some proving.
I absolutely agree (even though evidence of a healing and supernatural Jesus is somewhat verified historically with people who were Jesus’ enemies talking about Jesus’ miracles). All I was saying is that I have very little faith in God. I do have confidence however, not absolute belief as many Christians would claim they have, but a fairly good level of confidence. (Also, I can’t find any evidence what I believe in is false either)
Touché and yet Superstring theory is based on supersymmetry and no
supersymmetric particles have been discovered.
Although Super-string theory even admits that. I understand that there is no proof yet but it is certainly compelling as it would explain a lot of things and works out mathematically.
According to Einstein’s Relativity, the photon does not experience the flow of time. It
therefore cannot have a trajectory. Yet scientists freely manipulate photons as
though they do have a trajectory. This requires that the trajectory actually be a
result of the reference system motion (e.g., as found in a laboratory on Earth).
But for this to work, two conditions must be satisfied. First, the fundamental motion of the Earth must be isotropic (non-directional) in all three dimensions of space. That means that if a guy jumps out of a tree locally, he is in free fall (no forces acting on him) and the Earth rushes up to meet him (as per Einstein), AND the same stunt can be done at ANY location on Earth and produce the same result.
The other requirement is that the Earth must be moving at the speed of light. This will work out ok too if the claim is made that the Earth is moving at the speed of light in TIME. This causes all things on Earth to move to a new time location, even though the spatial locations remain fixed. Conveniently, temporal motion is non-directional in a spatial reference system. If attached to an object like a planet, it will have a spherical distribution and therefore the motional potential will be proportional to 1/r2
(just like gravity). Temporal motion is also “non-local” (action-at-a-distance, another characteristic of gravity). Moreover, this kind of motion is non-vectorial and cannot be detected by a Michelson-Morley type of experiment.
Einstein is “incomplete”.
Question: Did Newton devise a theory or a law? Or are those words sometimes used interchangeably? Newton never had an explanation of what caused his equations to be the way they were. But Einstein did…didn’t he? Perhaps a semantic argument….just curious!
Any theory has to account for the spinning.
We live on a rotating planet orbiting around a fiercely spinning sun which is moving around in a spinning galaxy which itself is moving at fantastic speed in an orbit along with other local galaxies probably within other even other spinning pivots. Relativity is a good name for his theory though because it vaguely describes how things appear from a selfish arrogant earth bound perspective as if we lived on a flat non spinning surface. Gravity is centripetal force.
Wow! Bring out the Nuts!
This article is extremely helpful when dealing with all this people who like to argue against theories in general. Like religious and creationist, they say our theories are theories that will never be proven and are all false. Well guess their theories about God are as well proven to be false by the same blade.
Don’t know how sane d argument is, I love Einstein. Found this interesting piece about him: http://www.leisuremartini.com/rambling-einstein-ian-brain/