EINSTEIN'S SCEPTICS: TWO IMPORTANT PAPERS
Pentcho Valev
Einstein's sceptics: Who were the relativity deniers?
New Scientist, 18 November 2010 by Milena Wazeck
"Yet what flourishes today on the fringes of the internet was much
more prominent in the 1920s, in the activities of a movement that
included physics professors and even Nobel laureates. Who were
Einstein's opponents? Why did they oppose one of the most important
scientific theories of the 20th century? And was Einstein right in
saying "political affiliation" was responsible for the fierce
opposition to relativity theory? (...) Gehrcke was an experimental
physicist at the Imperial Technical Institute in Berlin. Like many
experimentalists of that era, he felt uncomfortable with the rise of a
theory that demanded a reformulation of the fundamental concepts of
space and time. Relativity messes with these to the extent that events
which one observer deems simultaneous are no longer simultaneous as
viewed by observers moving in different frames of reference. Gehrcke
could not imagine such a scenario. In 1921 he argued that giving up
the idea of absolute time threatened to confuse the basis of cause and
effect in natural phenomena. (...) Another motivation was more noble.
Einstein's opponents were seriously concerned about the future of
science. They did not simply disagree with the theory of general
relativity; they opposed the new foundations of physics altogether.
The increasingly mathematical approach of theoretical physics collided
with the then widely held view that science is essentially simple
mechanics, comprehensible to every educated layperson. This way of
thinking can be traced back to the 19th-century heyday of popular
science, when many citizens devoted their leisure to the pursuit of
scientific understanding, and simple theories of gravity or
electricity were widely discussed in scientific magazines. Relativity
represented a quite different way of understanding the world. It was a
theory that "only 12 wise men" could comprehend, The New York Times
declared in 1919. The increasing role played by advanced mathematics
seemed to disconnect physics from reality. "Mathematics is the science
of the imaginable, but natural science is the science of the real,"
Gehrcke stated in 1921. Engineer Eyvind Heidenreich, who found
relativity incomprehensible, went further: "This is not science. On
the contrary, it is a new brand of metaphysics." The Academy of
Nations therefore saw itself as directed not only against the theory
of relativity, but also towards the salvation of what it considered to
be real science. Gehrcke insisted that the Academy "must become an
alliance of truth". (...) By the mid-1920s Einstein's opponents were
facing overwhelming resistance, and most refrained from taking a
public stance against the theory of relativity. Many of them simply
gave up, and the Academy of Nations ceased to serve as the central
organisation campaigning against Einstein, though it lingered on until
the early 1930s. But the anti-relativists did not revise their
opinion. In 1951, Gehrcke was still writing letters about the fight
against relativity. "The day will come where everything, but
everything about this theory will be abandoned by the world at large,
but when will this be?" he asked. The debate about relativity lingers
on today. Though the new generation of Einstein's opponents have
mostly moved their protests online, they share some fundamental
characteristics with their predecessors. (...) The controversy over
relativity represents a scientific dispute that is crucially shaped by
the participants' world views and draws heavily on metaphysical
conceptions of reality. Like those who oppose Darwin's theory of
evolution, Einstein's opponents back in the 1920s were impervious to
reasoned criticism, just as his critics today are. Physicists do
sometimes try to discuss relativity theory with their opponents and
point out their misunderstandings, just as physicists did 90 years
ago. But this will not resolve the controversy. The opponents'
understanding of the very nature of science differs so fundamentally
from the academic consensus that it may be impossible to find common
ground."
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
"In the interwar period there was a significant school of thought that
repudiated Einstein's theory of relativity on the grounds that it
contained elementary inconsistencies. Some of these critics held
extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic views, and this has tended to
discredit their technical objections to relativity as being
scientifically shallow. This paper investigates an alternative
possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of
Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an
ideology rather than as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how
relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it
scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make
the theory ideologically powerful. The implications of this argument
are examined with respect to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper's accounts of
the philosophy of science. (...) The prediction that clocks will move
at different rates is particularly well known, and the problem of
explaining how this can be so without violating the principle of
relativity is particularly obvious. The clock paradox, however, is
only one of a number of simple objections that have been raised to
different aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity. (Much of this
criticism is quite apart from and often predates the apparent
contradiction between relativity theory and quantum mechanics.) It is
rare to find any attempt at a detailed rebuttal of these criticisms by
professional physicists. However, physicists do sometimes give a
general response to criticisms that relativity theory is syncretic by
asserting that Einstein is logically consistent, but that to explain
why is so difficult that critics lack the capacity to understand the
argument. In this way, the handy claim that there are unspecified,
highly complex resolutions of simple apparent inconsistencies in the
theory can be linked to the charge that antirelativists have only a
shallow understanding of the matter, probably gleaned from misleading
popular accounts of the theory. (...) The argument for complexity
reverses the scientific preference for simplicity. Faced with obvious
inconsistencies, the simple response is to conclude that Einstein's
claims for the explanatory scope of the special and general theory are
overstated. To conclude instead that that relativity theory is right
for reasons that are highly complex is to replace Occam's razor with a
potato masher. (...) The defence of complexity implies that the novice
wishing to enter the profession of theoretical physics must accept
relativity on faith. It implicitly concedes that, without an
understanding of relativity theory's higher complexities, it appears
illogical, which means that popular "explanations" of relativity are
necessarily misleading. But given Einstein's fame, physicists do not
approach the theory for the first time once they have developed their
expertise. Rather, they are exposed to and probably examined on
popular explanations of relativity in their early training. How are
youngsters new to the discipline meant to respond to these accounts?
Are they misled by false explanations and only later inculcated with
true ones? What happens to those who are not misled? Are they supposed
to accept relativity merely on the grounds of authority? The argument
of complexity suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join
the physics profession, students must either be willing to suspend
disbelief and go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail
to notice the apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the
inconsistencies and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this
merely shows that they are unable to understand the theory. The
gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research
institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises
problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A
winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of
Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are
then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics.
Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of
elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing
question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these
circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on
scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of
realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the
theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of
professional discourse. (...) The argument that Einstein fomented an
ideological rather than a scientific revolution helps to explain of
one of the features of this revolution that puzzled Kuhn: despite the
apparent scope of the general theory, very little has come out of it.
Viewing relativity theory as an ideology also helps to account for
Poppers doubts over whether special theory can be retained, given
experimental results in quantum mechanics and Einsteins questionable
approach to defining simultaneity. Both Kuhn and Popper have looked to
the other branch of the theory - Popper to the general and Kuhn to the
special - to try and retain their view of Einstein as a revolutionary
scientist. According to the view proposed here, this only indicates
how special and general theories function together as an ideology, as
when one side of the theory is called into question, the other can be
called upon to rescue it. The triumph of relativity theory represents
the triumph of ideology not only in the profession of physics bur also
in the philosophy of science. These conclusions are of considerable
interest to both theoretical physics and to social epistemology. It
would, however, be naïve to think that theoretical physicists will
take the slightest notice of them."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
Pentcho Valev
with relativity?" has been given by the French philosopher Jacques
Maritain:
http://www.amazon.ca/Oeuvres-compl%C3%A8tes-Jacques-Maritain/dp/2850492752
Jacques Maritain, Raïssa Maritain, Jean-Marie Allion
Oeuvres complètes, Volume 3, p. 285:
Jacques Maritain: "Il ne reste plus alors qu'à avouer que la théorie
[d'Einstein], si l'on donnait une signification ontologiquement réelle
aux entités qu'elle met en jeu, comporterait des absurdités;
entièrement logique et cohérente comme système hypothético-déductif et
synthèse mathématique des phénomènes, elle n'est pas, malgré les
prétensions de ses partisans, une philosophie de la nature, parce que
le principe de la constance de la vitesse de la lumière, sur lequel
elle s'appuie, ne peut pas être ontologiquement vrai."
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com
Pentcho Valev
Bryan Wallace: "There is a popular argument that the world's oldest
profession is sexual prostitution. I think that it is far more likely
that the oldest profession is scientific prostitution, and that it is
still alive and well, and thriving in the 20th century. I suspect that
long before sex had any commercial value, the prehistoric shamans used
their primitive knowledge to acquire status, wealth, and political
power, in much the same way as the dominant scientific and religious
politicians of our time do. (...) Because many of the dominant
theories of our time do not follow the rules of science, they should
more properly be labeled pseudoscience. The people who tend to believe
more in theories than in the scientific method of testing theories,
and who ignore the evidence against the theories they believe in,
should be considered pseudoscientists and not true scientists. To the
extent that the professed beliefs are based on the desire for status,
wealth, or political reasons, these people are scientific prostitutes.
(...) 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. (...) I expect that the scientists of the
future will consider the dominant abstract physics theories of our
time in much the same light as we now consider the Medieval theories
of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or that the Earth
stands still and the Universe moves around it." [Bryan Wallace wrote
"The Farce of Physics" on his deathbed hence some imperfections in the
text!]
Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com