ABSOLUTELY TRUE THEORIES
Pentcho Valev
1981, p. 14:
"...all physical theories in the past have had their heyday and have
eventually been rejected as false. Indeed, there is inductive support
for a pessimistic induction: any theory will be discovered to be false
within, say 200 years of being propounded. (...) Indeed the evidence
might even be held to support the conclusion that no theory that will
ever be discovered by the human race is strictly speaking true. (...)
The rationalist (who is a realist) is likely to respond by positing an
interim goal for the scientific enterprise. This is the goal of
getting nearer the truth. In this case the inductive argument outlined
above is accepted but its sting is removed. For accepting that
argument is compatible with maintaining that CURRENT THEORIES, while
strictly speaking false, ARE GETTING NEARER THE TRUTH."
The pessimistic induction separately introduced by Putnam and Laudan
is popular among philosophers of science but it is incompatible with
deductivism. Consider Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light
postulate:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/ "...light is
always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."
By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of the postulate, that
is, the set of all its consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses. If the light postulate is
true, then all its consequences are true, and IN THIS SENSE the theory
is absolutely true.
If Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate is false, then
its antithesis, the equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory
of light and showing how the speed of light varies with v, the speed
of the emitter relative to the observer, is true. This can easily be
seen on close inspection of the Michelson-Morley experiment:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation,
has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with
Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late
19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light
predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised
the greatest theoretician of the day."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers
in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues
that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of
light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the
Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of
relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support
for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point
needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible
with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."
http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
"Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested
in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second
principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do
far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the
particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it.
And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these
particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian
relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths,
local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein
resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of
particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and
introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less
obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."
Therefore the respective Newtonian theory (the set of all consequences
of the antithesis of the light postulate, c'=c+v, deduced validly and
in the absence of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is absolutely
true in the sense that all its conclusions are true:
http://www.mfo.de/programme/schedule/2006/08c/OWR_2006_10.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "At the end of the 18th century, a natural extension
of Newton's dynamics to light was developed but immediately forgotten.
A body of works completed the Principia with a relativistic optics of
moving bodies, the discovery of the Doppler-Fizeau effect some sixty
years before Doppler, and many other effects and ideas which represent
a fascinating preamble to Einstein relativities. It was simply
supposed that 'a body-light', as Newton named it, was subject to the
whole dynamics of the Principia in much the same way as were material
particles; thus it was subject to the Galilean relativity and its
velocity was supposed to be variable. Of course it was subject to the
short range 'refringent' force of the corpuscular theory of light --
which is part of the Principia-- but also to the long range force of
gravitation which induces Newton's theory of gravitation. The fact
that the 'mass' of a corpuscle of light was not known did not
constitute a problem since it does not appear in the Newtonian (or
Einsteinian) equations of motion. It was precisely what John Michell
(1724-1793), Robert Blair (1748-1828), Johann G. von Soldner
(1776-1833) and François Arago (1786-1853) were to do at the end of
the 18th century and the beginning the 19th century in the context of
Newton's dynamics. Actually this 'completed' Newtonian theory of light
and material corpuscle seems to have been implicitly accepted at the
time. In such a Newtonian context, not only Soldner's calculation of
the deviation of light in a gravitational field was understood, but
also dark bodies (cousins of black holes). A natural (Galilean and
thus relativistic) optics of moving bodies was also developed which
easily explained aberration and implied as well the essence of what we
call today the Doppler effect. Moreover, at the same time the
structure of -- but also the questions raised by-- the Michelson
experiment was understood. Most of this corpus has long been
forgotten. The Michell-Blair-Arago effect, prior to Doppler's effect,
is entirely unknown to physicists and historians. As to the influence
of gravitation on light, the story was very superficially known but
had never been studied in any detail. Moreover, the existence of a
theory dealing with light, relativity and gravitation, embedded in
Newton's Principia was completely ignored by physicists and by
historians as well. But it was a simple and natural way to deal with
the question of light, relativity (and gravitation) in a Newtonian
context."
Clearly if "theory" is properly defined the pessimistic induction is
unjustified. The transition from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics
was either a transition from absolutely false to absolutely true or a
transition from absolutely true to absolutely false.
Any logician would tell you that, for a deductive theory, a single
false or absurd conclusion shows that a postulate is false. If
Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate predicts, through
its consequences, that an 80m long pole can be trapped inside a 40m
long barn (generally, that an infinitely long object can be trapped
inside an infinitely short container) and that a bug can be both dead
and alive, and if one finds those consequences absurd, then one should
openly declare that Einstein's relativity based on the light postulate
is false while the Newtonian theory (the set of all consequences of
the equation c'=c+v, consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is ABSOLUTELY TRUE:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/barn_pole.html
"These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors
at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a
switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in
the barn. Now someone takes the pole and tries to run (at nearly the
speed of light) through the barn with the pole horizontal. Special
Relativity (SR) says that a moving object is contracted in the
direction of motion: this is called the Lorentz Contraction. So, if
the pole is set in motion lengthwise, then it will contract in the
reference frame of a stationary observer.....So, as the pole passes
through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the
barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your
switch. Of course, you open them again pretty quickly, but at least
momentarily you had the contracted pole shut up in your barn. The
runner emerges from the far door unscathed.....If the doors are kept
shut the rod will obviously smash into the barn door at one end. If
the door withstands this the leading end of the rod will come to rest
in the frame of reference of the stationary observer. There can be no
such thing as a rigid rod in relativity so the trailing end will not
stop immediately and the rod will be compressed beyond the amount it
was Lorentz contracted. If it does not explode under the strain and it
is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back
to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other
end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be
trapped IN A COMPRESSED STATE inside the barn."
http://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/Revolutions
"Cependant, si une fusée de 100 m passait devant nous à une vitesse
proche de celle de la lumière, elle pourrait sembler ne mesurer que 50
m, ou même moins. Bien sûr, la question qui vient tout de suite à
l'esprit est: «Cette contraction n'est-elle qu'une illusion?» Il
semble tout à fait incroyable que le simple mouvement puisse comprimer
un objet aussi rigide qu'une fusée. Et pourtant, la contraction est
réelle... mais SANS COMPRESSION physique de l'objet! Ainsi, une fusée
de 100 m passant à toute vitesse dans un tunnel de 60 m pourrait être
entièrement contenue dans ce tunnel pendant une fraction de seconde,
durant laquelle il serait possible de fermer des portes aux deux
bouts! La fusée est donc réellement plus courte. Pourtant, il n'y a
PAS DE COMPRESSION matérielle ou physique de l'engin. Comment est-ce
possible?"
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~scol/seminars/conference/abstracts/Durand.html
"La contraction une longueur est un phénomène à la fois réel mais sans
déformation structurelle. C'est un phénomène réel (et non pas une
illusion) car, par exemple, une perche dont la longueur au repos est
plus grande que la longueur au repos d'une grange peut réellement être
contenue dans cette dernière si elle se déplace assez rapidement. Par
contre, il ne peut y avoir de contraction structurelle de la perche,
i.e de déformation matérielle de l'objet, car la contraction de sa
longueur aurait aussi lieu si c'était plutôt l'observateur qui se
mettait en mouvement sans changer l'état de mouvement de la perche.
Autrement dit, sans changer l'état de la perche, en se mettant soi-
même en mouvement, on change sa longueur: ce n'est donc clairement pas
une contraction matérielle (l'état de la perche est le même dans les
deux cas)."
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Relativ/bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."
In order to preclude any falsification based on REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM,
philosophers of science have devised various "small" lies. Here is an
example:
W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 55: "A theory is a set of assertions and if the number of
assertions in a theory were finite we might initially seek to
explicate the notion of relative verisimilitude in terms of the number
of truths and the number of falsehoods contained within the theories.
To illustrate this, suppose that theories T1 and T2 for some subject
matter each contain ten assertions and that T1 makes five false and
five true claims and that T2 makes nine true and one false claim. In
this case we would say that T2 is nearer the truth than T1.
Unfortunately, we cannot proceed in this fashion with scientific
theories, for such theories contain an infinite number of assertions.
A theory contains all the consequences of the postulates and this set,
called the deductive closure of the postulates, is INFINITE IN SIZE."
Of course, the number of the consequences deduced from the postulates
is FINITE but this trivial truth, if officially adopted, would make
most philosophical accounts of deductive science irrelevant. So
philosophers of science's protective strategy is to perpetuate the
lie: The set of the consequences is "infinite in size" and that's it.
And philosophers of science will always stop short, as though by
instinct, at the threshold of the following dangerous thought:
"For a deductive theory, a single false or absurd consequence
falsifies the whole theory"
http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17.html#seventeen
George Orwell: "Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as
though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It
includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive
logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are
inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of
thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
Ogle dataminer
Valev still taking to himself - nobody else cares what he thinks or
says.
Pentcho Valev
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Development_of_Our_Views_on_the_Composition_and_Essence_of_Radiation
The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of
Radiation by Albert Einstein, 1909
"A large body of facts shows undeniably that light has certain
fundamental properties that are better explained by Newton's emission
theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For this reason, I
believe that the next phase in the development of theoretical physics
will bring us a theory of light that can be considered a fusion of the
oscillation and emission theories. The purpose of the following
remarks is to justify this belief and to show that a profound change
in our views on the composition and essence of light is
imperative.....Then the electromagnetic fields that make up light no
longer appear as a state of a hypothetical medium, but rather as
independent entities that the light source gives off, just as in
Newton's emission theory of light......Relativity theory has changed
our views on light. Light is conceived not as a manifestation of the
state of some hypothetical medium, but rather as an independent entity
like matter. Moreover, this theory shares with the corpuscular theory
of light the unusual property that light carries inertial mass from
the emitting to the absorbing object."
http://ustl1.univ-lille1.fr/culture/publication/lna/detail/lna40/pgs/4_5.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "Il n'y a alors aucune raison théorique à ce que la
vitesse de la lumière ne dépende pas de la vitesse de sa source ainsi
que de celle de l'observateur terrestre ; plus clairement encore, il
n'y a pas de raison, dans le cadre de la logique des Principia de
Newton, pour que la lumière se comporte autrement - quant à sa
trajectoire - qu'une particule matérielle. Il n'y a pas non plus de
raison pour que la lumière ne soit pas sensible à la gravitation.
Bref, pourquoi ne pas appliquer à la lumière toute la théorie
newtonienne ? C'est en fait ce que font plusieurs astronomes,
opticiens, philosophes de la nature à la fin du XVIIIème siècle. Les
résultats sont étonnants... et aujourd'hui nouveaux. (...) Même s'il
était conscient de l'intérêt de la théorie de l'émission, Einstein n'a
pas pris le chemin, totalement oublié, de Michell, de Blair, des
Principia en somme. Le contexte de découverte de la relativité
ignorera le XVIIIème siècle et ses racines historiques plongent au
coeur du XIXème siècle. Arago, Fresnel, Fizeau, Maxwell, Mascart,
Michelson, Poincaré, Lorentz en furent les principaux acteurs et
l'optique ondulatoire le cadre dans lequel ces questions sont posées.
Pourtant, au plan des structures physiques, l'optique relativiste des
corps en mouvement de cette fin du XVIIIème est infiniment plus
intéressante - et plus utile pédagogiquement - que le long cheminement
qu'a imposé l'éther."
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/april-0407/the-man-who-made-our-world
The Man Who Made Our World
"In his 1905 papers, Einstein actually used two apparently
contradictory interpretations of the nature of light. In the paper on
light quanta, Einstein had argued forcefully for the return to
Newton's particulate conception of light. Yet in the same year, in his
development of special relativity, Einstein had rejected a particulate
emission theory of light and had used the traditional Maxwell wave
theory. This STRIKING ABILITY TO JUGGLE two viewpoints apparently at
odds was characteristic of Einstein's thought..."
http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
"Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested
in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second
principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do
far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the
particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it.
And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these
particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian
relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths,
local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein
resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of
particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and
introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less
obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1402012845
JEAN EISENSTAEDT
THE PREHISTORY OF RELATIVITY
Jean Eisenstaedt: "In 1907, Einstein was already working on what were
to become his two favorite concepts: light and gravitation. In 1911,
his paper published in Annalen der Physik was chiefly concerned with
the question of influence of gravitation on the propagation of light.
During the summer 1913 he wrote to Erwin Finlay-Freundlich who aimed
at observing the bending of light by different techniques: "that the
idea of the bending of light rays appeared at the time of the theory
of emission [was] rather natural..." Actually it happens that the
bending of light in a Newtonian context is explicitly discussed in
Bernstein, a popular handbook that Einstein read in his youth."
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r3q22q7284331087/
"Schwarzschild Radius Before General Relativity: Why Does Michell-
Laplace Argument Provide the Correct Answer?" by Giovanni Preti
Foundations of Physics, Published online: 16 May 2009
"A famous Newtonian argument by Michell and Laplace, regarding the
existence of "dark bodies" and dating back to the end of the 18th
century, is able to provide an exact general-relativistic result,
namely the exact formula for the Schwarzschild radius."
http://www.larecherche.fr/content/recherche/article?id=10745
Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "Un siècle après son émergence, la théorie de
la relativité est encore bien mal comprise - et pas seulement par les
profanes ! Le vocable même qui la désigne (« relativité ») est fort
inadéquat. Ses énoncés courants abondent en maladresses sémantiques,
et donc en confusions épistémologiques. Paradoxe majeur, cette
théorie, présentée comme un sommet de la modernité scientifique, garde
de nombreux traits primitifs. Or, de récentes recherches montrent
éloquemment qu'un sérieux approfondissement de ses concepts et de ses
formulations peut résulter du retour à ses origines, avant même
Einstein. Déjà le principe de relativité se comprend mieux si on le
détache de la forme nouvelle qu'il prit après Lorentz, Poincaré et
Einstein, pour le ressourcer chez Galilée et Descartes. Mais surtout,
l'examen de nombreux travaux des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, injustement
oubliés, met en évidence une théorie particulaire de la lumière, en
germe dans la physique newtonienne, qui ouvre des voies d'approche
négligées vers la théorie moderne. Ces considérations contrebalancent
utilement le point de vue ondulatoire traditionnel, et allègent ses
difficultés."
http://www.passiondulivre.com/livre-6446-avant-einstein-relativite-lumiere-gravitation.htm
"Étrangement, personne n'est jamais vraiment allé voir ce que l'on en
pensait «avant», avant Einstein, avant Poincaré, avant Maxwell.
Pourtant, quelques savants austères et ignorés, John Michell, Robert
Blair et d'autres encore, s'y sont intéressés, de très près.
Newtoniens impénitents, ces «philosophes de la nature» ont tout
simplement traité la lumière comme faite de vulgaires particules
matérielles : des «corpuscules lumineux». Mais ce sont gens sérieux et
ils se sont basés sur leurs Classiques, Galilée, Newton et ses
Principia où déjà l'on trouve des idées intéressantes. À la fin du
XVIIIe siècle, au siècle des Lumières (si bien nommé en
l'occurrence !), en Angleterre, en Écosse, en Prusse et même à Paris,
une véritable balistique de la lumière sous-tend silencieusement la
théorie de l'émission, avatar de la théorie corpusculaire de la
lumière de Newton. Lus à la lumière (!) des théories aujourd'hui
acceptées, les résultats ne sont pas minces. (...) Les «relativités»
d'Einstein, cinématique einsteinienne et théorie de la gravitation,
ont la triste réputation d'être difficiles... Ne remettent-elles pas
en cause des notions familières ? Leur «refonte» est d'autant plus
nécessaire. Cette préhistoire en est un nouvel acte qui offre un autre
chemin vers ces théories délicates. Mais ce chemin, aussi long soit-
il, est un raccourci, qu'il est temps, cent ans après «la» relativité
d'Einstein, de découvrir et d'explorer."
http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay-einstein-relativity.htm
This reprints an essay written ca. 1983, "'What Song the Syrens Sang':
How Did Einstein Discover Special Relativity?" in John Stachel,
Einstein from "B" to "Z".
"This was itself a daring step, since these methods had been developed
to help understand the behavior of ordinary matter while Einstein was
applying them to the apparently quite different field of
electromagnetic radiation. The "revolutionary" conclusion to which he
came was that, in certain respects, electromagnetic radiation behaved
more like a collection of particles than like a wave. He announced
this result in a paper published in 1905, three months before his SRT
paper. The idea that a light beam consisted of a stream of particles
had been espoused by Newton and maintained its popularity into the
middle of the 19th century. It was called the "emission theory" of
light, a phrase I shall use. (...) Giving up the ether concept allowed
Einstein to envisage the possibility that a beam of light was "an
independent structure," as he put it a few years later, "which is
radiated by the light source, just as in Newton's emission theory of
light." (...) An emission theory is perfectly compatible with the
relativity principle. Thus, the M-M experiment presented no problem;
nor is stellar abberration difficult to explain on this basis. (...)
This does not imply that Lorentz's equations are adequate to explain
all the features of light, of course. Einstein already knew they did
not always correctly do so-in particular in the processes of its
emission, absorption and its behavior in black body radiation. Indeed,
his new velocity addition law is also compatible with an emission
theory of light, just because the speed of light compounded with any
lesser velocity still yields the same value. If we model a beam of
light as a stream of particles, the two principles can still be
obeyed. A few years later (1909), Einstein first publicly expressed
the view that an adequate future theory of light would have to be some
sort of fusion of the wave and emission theories. (...) The resulting
theory did not force him to choose between wave and emission theories
of light, but rather led him to look forward to a synthesis of the
two."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
Ogle dataminer
Dr Mathist
Paint yourself green and throw plastics forks at the lesser of the two elf
costumes, faggot.
Pentcho Valev
Don't you see that "everything goes down, ha ha, hm, ha ha ha":
http://www.larecherche.fr/content/recherche/article?id=10745
Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "Déjà le principe de relativité se comprend
mieux si on le détache de la forme nouvelle qu'il prit après Lorentz,
Poincaré et Einstein, pour le ressourcer chez Galilée et Descartes.
Mais surtout, l'examen de nombreux travaux des XVIIe et XVIIIe
siècles, injustement oubliés, met en évidence une théorie particulaire
de la lumière, en germe dans la physique newtonienne, qui ouvre des
voies d'approche négligées vers la théorie moderne. Ces considérations
contrebalancent utilement le point de vue ondulatoire traditionnel, et
allègent ses difficultés. (...) D'ailleurs, pour changer d'image, dans
ce transport en commun qu'est la société, les conducteurs, comme dans
les autobus, devraient plus souvent conseiller : « S'il vous plaît,
avancez vers l'arrière ! »"
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=81&lecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION: "I consider it entirely possible that
physics cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
Pentcho Valev
Albert Einstein: "If the Michelson-Morley experiment had not put us in
the worst predicament, no one would have perceived the relativity
theory as a (half) salvation."
The full salvation: Newton's emission theory of light:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation,
has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with
Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late
19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light
predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised
the greatest theoretician of the day."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers
in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues
that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of
light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the
Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of
relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support
for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point
needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible
with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."
The aftermath of the "half-salvation":
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=81&lecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION: "I consider it entirely possible that
physics cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius/
"Genius Among Geniuses" by Thomas Levenson
A clue to EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION: "And then, in June, Einstein
completes special relativity, which adds a twist to the story:
Einstein's March paper treated light as particles, but special
relativity sees light as a continuous field of waves. Alice's Red
Queen can accept many impossible things before breakfast, but it takes
a supremely confident mind to do so. Einstein, age 26, sees light as
wave and particle, picking the attribute he needs to confront each
problem in turn. Now that's tough."
http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
A second clue to EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION: "Moreover, if light
consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper
submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle
seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more
damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle
is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we
take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles
obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus
automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley
experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or
Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the
temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of
light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his
second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought
of in terms of waves in an ether."
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0305/0305457v3.pdf
New varying speed of light theories
Joao Magueijo
A third clue to EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION: "In sharp contrast, the
constancy of the speed of light has remain sacred, and the term
"heresy" is occasionally used in relation to "varying speed of light
theories". The reason is clear: the constancy of c, unlike the
constancy of G or e, is the pillar of special relativity and thus of
modern physics. Varying c theories are expected to cause much more
structural damage to physics formalism than other varying constant
theories."
http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
The farce of physics
Bryan Wallace
A fourth clue to EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION: "Einstein's special
relativity theory with his second postulate that the speed of light in
space is constant is the linchpin that holds the whole range of modern
physics theories together. Shatter this postulate, and modern physics
becomes an elaborate farce! (...) The speed of light is c+v."
http://www.academie-sciences.fr/membres/in_memoriam/Einstein/Einstein_pdf/Einstein_eloge.pdf
A fifth clue to EINSTEIN'S 1954 CONFESSION (Louis de Broglie): "Tout
d'abord toute idée de "grain" se trouvait expulsée de la théorie de la
Lumière : celle-ci prenait la forme d'une "théorie du champ" où le
rayonnement était représenté par une répartition continue dans
l'espace de grandeurs évoluant continûment au cours du temps sans
qu'il fût possible de distinguer, dans les domaines spatiaux au sein
desquels évoluait le champ lumineux, de très petites régions
singulières où le champ serait très fortement concentré et qui
fournirait une image du type corpusculaire. Ce caractère à la fois
continu et ondulatoire de la lumière se trouvait prendre une forme
très précise dans la théorie de Maxwell où le champ lumineux venait se
confondre avec un certain type de champ électromagnétique."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
Androcles
"Pentcho Valev" <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8ee52f30-cbbb-4fb4...@j29g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0601/0601182v1.pdf
Albert Einstein: "If the Michelson-Morley experiment had not put us in
the worst predicament, no one would have perceived the relativity
theory as a (half) salvation."
The full salvation: Newton's emission theory of light:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper.
============================================
Total baloney.
Norton has difficulty recalling if he even knew of the 1905 paper, in
which is clearly states (paragraph 2)
"together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth
relatively to the ``light medium'' "
You harp on Norton as if he were someone important.
THIS is what matters:
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Doolin'sStar.GIF
Fast light emitted later passes slow light emitted earlier.
ACTUAL DATA:
<http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2000A%26A...356L..53B>
<http://www.britastro.org/vss/gifc/00918-ck.gif>
Never mind all the opinions, look at the facts.
Pentcho Valev
and the Pound-Rebka experiment gloriously confirm Einstein's
relativity. This of course implies that the two experiments are
compatible with Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate
stating that the speed of light does not vary with the speed of the
emitter. Yet occasionally Einsteinians admit that the two experiments
are equally compatible with the antithesis of the light postulate, the
equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light and showing
how the speed of light varies with v, the speed of the emitter
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/44abc7dbb30db6c2
John Norton: "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH
AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. The fact that this one experiment is compatible
with other theories does not refute relativity in any way. The full
experimental record refutes most if not all emission theories, but not
relativity."
Pentcho Valev: "THE POUND-REBKA EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN
EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. But this experiment, too, does not refute
relativity. The full experimental record refutes most if not all
emission theories, but not relativity."
That is, in the era of Postscientism, the Michelson-Morley experiment
and the Pound-Rebka experiment are compatible with either of the
following statements:
1) "The speed of light does not vary with the speed of the emitter"
2) "The speed of light does vary with the speed of the emitter"
Also, since at least two experiments are double-edged, any experiment
is presumably double-edged. The experimental verification of the
constancy of the speed of light is therefore pointless; it is much
more reasonable to simply decree that the speed of light be constant
by definition:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
Steve Carlip: "Is c, the speed of light in vacuum, constant? At the
1983 Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures, the following SI
(Systeme International) definition of the metre was adopted: The metre
is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time
interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second. This defines the speed of light
in vacuum to be exactly 299,792,458 m/s. This provides a very short
answer to the question "Is c constant": Yes, c is constant by
definition!"
Yet, driven by doublethink, Einsteinians also decree that the speed of
light be both variable and constant:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
Steve Carlip: "Einstein went on to discover a more general theory of
relativity which explained gravity in terms of curved spacetime, and
he talked about the speed of light changing in this new theory. In the
1920 book "Relativity: the special and general theory" he wrote:
". . . according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
[. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of
light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light
varies with position." Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector
quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not
clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to
special relativity suggests that he did mean so. This interpretation
is perfectly valid and makes good physical sense, but a more modern
interpretation is that the speed of light is constant in general
relativity."
http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17.html#seventeen
George Orwell: "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. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to
exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is
tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this
knowledge ; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead
of the truth. (...) It need hardly be said that the subtlest
practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and
know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society,
those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those
who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the
greater the understanding, the greater the delusion ; the more
intelligent, the less sane."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
BURT
Even his own!
Mitch Raemsch
Pentcho Valev
John Norton: "All inertial observers find the same speed for light.
That speed is 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometers per
second. Because this speed crops up so often in relativity theory, it
is represented by the letter "c". That Einstein should believe the
principle of relativity should not come as such a surprise. We are
moving rapidly on planet earth through space. But our motion is
virtually invisible to us, as the principle of relativity requires.
Why Einstein should believe the light postulate is a little harder to
see. We would expect that a light signal would slow down relative to
us if we chased after it. The light postulate says no. No matter how
fast an inertial observer is traveling in pursuit of the light signal,
that observer will always see the light signal traveling at the same
speed, c. The principal reason for his acceptance of the light
postulate was his lengthy study of electrodynamics, the theory of
electric and magnetic fields. The theory was the most advanced physics
of the time. Some 50 years before, Maxwell had shown that light was
merely a ripple propagating in an electromagnetic field. Maxwell's
theory predicted that the speed of the ripple was a quite definite
number: c. The speed of a light signal was quite unlike the speed of a
pebble, say. The pebble could move at any speed, depending on how hard
it was thrown. It was different with light in Maxwell's theory. No
matter how the light signal was made and projected, its speed always
came out the same. The principle of relativity assured Einstein that
the laws of nature were the same for all inertial observers. That
light always propagated at the same speed was a law within Maxwell's
theory. If the principle of relativity was applied to it, the light
postulate resulted immediately."
Did Einstein really believe that, according to Maxwell's theory, the
speed of light "was a quite definite number: c" and that "that light
always propagated at the same speed was a law within Maxwell's
theory"? Does John Norton believe so? Yes and no. Both Albert Einstein
and John Norton are practitioners of doublethink. This means that they
possess "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind
simultaneously, and accepting both of them". That Maxwell's theory
predicts a constant speed of light is the lie. Here is the
complementary truth:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/Chasing.pdf
John Norton: "In Maxwell's theory, a light wave in a vacuum always
propagates at the same speed, c, with respect to the ether. So
measuring the speed of a light beam gives observers an easy way to
determine their motion in the ether. If they find the light to move at
c, the observers are at rest in the ether. If they find the light
frozen, they are moving at c in the ether. Since observers can
determine their absolute motion, the theory violates the principle of
relativity. The alternative theory that Einstein began to pursue was
an "emission theory." In such a theory, the speed of light in vacuo is
still c. But it is not c with respect to the ether; it is c with
respect to the source that emits the light. In such a theory,
observing the speed of a light beam tells observers nothing about
their absolute motion. It only reveals their motion with respect to
the source that emitted the light. If they find the beam to propagate
at c, the observers are at rest with respect to the emitter. If they
find the beam to be frozen, they are fleeing from the source at c. In
general, observers can only ascertain their relative velocity with
respect to the source."
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."
http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/58
"Maxwell's theory of electricity and magnetism provides a successful
framework with which to study light. In this theory light is an
electromagnetic wave. Using Maxwell's equations one can compute the
speed of light. One finds that the speed of light is 300,000,000
meters (186,000 miles) per second. The question arises: which inertial
observer is this speed of light relative to? As in the previous
paragraph, two inertial observers traveling relative to each other
should observe DIFFERENT SPEEDS FOR THE SAME LIGHT WAVE."
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."