False Mavericks in Einstein Schizophrenic World

[Pentcho Valev]

Generally, Einsteinians earn their living by singing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" but some of them are allowed to make money and career by... bashing Einstein:

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/waseinsteinwrong/
Paul Davies 2003: "Was Einstein wrong? The idea of a variable speed of light, championed by an angry young scientist, could one day topple Einstein's theory of relativity. Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2 is the only scientific formula known to just about everyone. The "c" here stands for the speed of light. It is one of the most fundamental of the basic constants of physics. Or is it? In recent years a few maverick scientists have claimed that the speed of light might not be constant at all. Shock, horror! Does this mean the next Great Revolution in Science is just around the corner? Well, maybe. According to one of those scientists, Portuguese-born, London-based Joao Magueijo, cracks are appearing in Einstein's theory of relativity - the cornerstone of our present understanding of space, time and gravitation. In "Faster than the Speed of Light" (Heinemann) he describes his personal journey through this controversial and emotionally supercharged field."

http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Speed-Light-Speculation/dp/0738205257
Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects."

That was about ten years ago. Special relativity is the root of all the evil but Magueijo has taught general, not special, relativity since then - no problem in Einstein schizophrenic world. Yet money is never enough so... the Great Revolution in Science is around the corner again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlJrw6VLECw
"Was Einstein wrong? Physicists challenge speed of light theory. The speed of light in a vacuum has been considered one of the fundamental constants of nature since Einstein's theory of general relativity was published a century ago. But Joao Magueijo, of Imperial College London, and Niayesh Afshordi, of the University of Waterloo in Canada, propose that light tore along at infinite speed at the birth of the universe. Now the pair have described for the first time how scientists can test their controversial idea."

My comment on YouTube:

Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate is false indeed but Magueijo's arguments have nothing to do with it. This postulate asserts that the speed of light is the same for any observer, stationary or moving - an assertion that is easy to disprove, in the following way:

The initially stationary observer (receiver) starts moving towards the light source with speed v:

http://www.einstein-online.info/images/spotlights/doppler/doppler_static.gif (stationary observer)

http://www.einstein-online.info/images/spotlights/doppler/doppler_detector_blue.gif (moving observer)

Two hypotheses are conceivable:

Hypothesis 1 (Newton's emission theory): The speed of the light relative to the observer shifts from c to c'=c+v.

Hypothesis 2 (Einstein's relativity): The speed of the light relative to the observer does not shift (c'=c).

In order to test the two hypotheses, the observer measures the frequency - it shifts from f to

f' = c'/λ = (c+v)/λ = f(1+v/c) :

http://www.hep.man.ac.uk/u/roger/PHYS10302/lecture18.pdf
"Moving Observer. Now suppose the source is fixed but the observer is moving towards the source, with speed v. In time t, ct/λ waves pass a fixed point. A moving point adds another vt/λ. So f'=(c+v)/λ."

http://rockpile.phys.virginia.edu/mod04/mod34.pdf
"Now let's see what this does to the frequency of the light. We know that even without special relativity, observers moving at different velocities measure different frequencies. (This is the reason the pitch of an ambulance changes as it passes you it doesn't change if you're on the ambulance). This is called the Doppler shift, and for small relative velocity v it is easy to show that the frequency shifts from f to f(1+v/c) (it goes up heading toward you, down away from you). There are relativistic corrections, but these are negligible here."

Clearly, measurements of the Doppler effect confirm Hypothesis 1 and refute Hypothesis 2. Einstein's relativity is based on a false postulate and will have to be discarded altogether.

Pentcho Valev

[Pentcho Valev]

Nowadays almost all important Einsteinians are "mavericks" - they feel it is time to leave the sinking ship:

http://c6.quickcachr.fotos.sapo.pt/i/Bb713bb56/15112108_dBrrH.png

Einsteiniana's "mavericks" usually attack Einstein's idiotic relative time (spacetime) but continue to worship the underlying premise, Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate:

https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-185331159.html
"That lecture, by the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski, established a new arena for the presentation of physics, a new vision of the nature of reality redefining the mathematics of existence. The lecture was titled Space and Time, and it introduced to the world the marriage of the two, now known as spacetime. It was a good marriage, but lately physicists passion for spacetime has begun to diminish. And some are starting to whisper about possible grounds for divorce."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026831.500-what-makes-the-universe-tick.html
"...says John Norton, a philosopher based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26563
Nobel Laureate David Gross observed, "Everyone in string theory is convinced...that spacetime is doomed. But we don't know what it's replaced by."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U47kyV4TMnE
Nima Arkani-Hamed (06:09): "Almost all of us believe that space-time doesn't really exist, space-time is doomed and has to be replaced by some more primitive building blocks."

https://edge.org/response-detail/25477
What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Steve Giddings: "Spacetime. Physics has always been regarded as playing out on an underlying stage of space and time. Special relativity joined these into spacetime... [...] The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound..."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727721.200-rethinking-einstein-the-end-of-spacetime.html
"Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time [...] The stumbling block lies with their conflicting views of space and time. As seen by quantum theory, space and time are a static backdrop against which particles move. In Einstein's theories, by contrast, not only are space and time inextricably linked, but the resulting space-time is moulded by the bodies within it. [...] Something has to give in this tussle between general relativity and quantum mechanics, and the smart money says that it's relativity that will be the loser."

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730370-600-why-do-we-move-forwards-in-time/
"[George] Ellis is up against one of the most successful theories in physics: special relativity. It revealed that there's no such thing as objective simultaneity. Although you might have seen three things happen in a particular order – 
A, then B, then C – someone moving 
at a different velocity could have seen 
it a different way – C, then B, then A. 
In other words, without simultaneity there is no way of specifying what things happened "now". And if not "now", what is moving through time? Rescuing an objective "now" is a daunting task."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029410.900
New Scientist: "Saving time: Physics killed it. Do we need it back? [...] Einstein landed the fatal blow at the turn of the 20th century."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/10/time-reborn-farewell-reality-review
"And by making the clock's tick relative - what happens simultaneously for one observer might seem sequential to another - Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."

http://www.bookdepository.com/Time-Reborn-Professor-Physics-Lee-Smolin/9780547511726
"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/research/conferences/convergence/roundtable-discussion-questions/what-are-lessons-quantum
Perimeter Institute: "Quantum mechanics has one thing, time, which is absolute. But general relativity tells us that space and time are both dynamical so there is a big contradiction there. So the question is, can quantum gravity be formulated in a context where quantum mechanics still has absolute time?"

Pentcho Valev

[Pentcho Valev]

Joao Magueijo and Lee Smolin are the most famous "mavericks" in Einstein's schizophrenic world - they know that special relativity is "the root of all the evil":

http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Speed-Light-Speculation/dp/0738205257
Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects."

Magueijo and Smolin even know WHY special relativity is "the root of all the evil" - Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate is false:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/science/e-and-mc2-equality-it-seems-is-relative.html
"...Dr. Magueijo said. "We need to drop a postulate, perhaps the constancy of the speed of light."

Actually Joao Magueijo did drop the false constant-speed-of-light postulate and became a Newtonian - at 53:29 in this video he declares allegiance to the Newtonian space and time:

http://pirsa.org/displayFlash.php?id=16060116
FUNDAMENTAL TIME, Wednesday Jun 29, 2016, Speaker(s): Laurent Freidel, Lee Smolin, Joao Magueijo, 53:29

So Magueijo believes in the Newtonian space and time but teaches... general relativity, which is based on Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate of course:

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.magueijo/teaching.html
PROF JOAO MAGUEIJO GENERAL RELATIVITY - PH4-GR

Lee Smolin, too, worships Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate and its consequences from time to time - being constantly a "maverick" is dangerous:

http://www.independent.com/news/2013/apr/17/time-reborn/
QUESTION: Setting aside any other debates about relativity theory for the moment, why would the speed of light be absolute? No other speeds are absolute, that is, all other speeds do indeed change in relation to the speed of the observer, so it's always seemed a rather strange notion to me.
LEE SMOLIN: Special relativity works extremely well and the postulate of the invariance or universality of the speed of light is extremely well-tested. It might be wrong in the end but it is an extremely good approximation to reality.
QUESTION: So let me pick a bit more on Einstein and ask you this: You write (p. 56) that Einstein showed that simultaneity is relative. But the conclusion of the relativity of simultaneity flows necessarily from Einstein's postulates (that the speed of light is absolute and that the laws of nature are relative). So he didn't really show that simultaneity was relative - he assumed it. What do I have wrong here?
LEE SMOLIN: The relativity of simultaneity is a consequence of the two postulates that Einstein proposed and so it is deduced from the postulates. The postulates and their consequences are then checked experimentally and, so far, they hold remarkably well.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4010/4611948391_4122552b04_z.jpg

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/chapter2.9.html
"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary."

Pentcho Valev