| Subject: | [socialcredit] Relativity, and Mr Ryan | | Date: | Saturday, March 12, 2005 12:23:58 (+1030) | | From: | John Hermann <hermann @............au>
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At 06:54 AM 11/03/2005 -0800, Bill Ryan wrote:
....
Relativist effects were subsumed into the electromagnetic
equations of Maxwell, for example, long before Einstein.
Not so. In essence Einstein
showed that Maxwell's
equations are invariant under a Lorentz
transformation
and that changing the frame of reference
converts
electric fields into magnetic fields (and vice
versa).
That was a very important discovery. But Maxwell knew
nothing about relativity. Moreover his memoirs reveal
that he went along with the prevailing idea that there
had to exist a luminiferous aether - a supposed highly
tenuous medium for transmitting electromagnetic
energy. It is now generally accepted by the scientific
community that the Michelson-Morley experiment
and
relativity (backed up by many experimental tests of
the
theory) have laid the aether theory to rest.
The controversy to the extent there is controversy
There isn't.
There are no reported paradoxes in special relativity
thus far. All the experimental tests of the theory
that
have been carried out in the past 100 years (and
there
have been a great many, both direct and indirect) have
validated every aspect of the theory to a high degree
of accuracy.
is whether the effects manifest in moving bodies like
spaceships and comets, as opposed to subatomic
particles--causing such leaps of faith as "time
dilation" and "length contraction" that are impossible
to observe.
Your level of ignorance in these
matters is amazing.
These effects have indeed been observed and
measured. And all macroscopic bodies are aggregates
of "subatomic particles".
The atomic bomb involves the behavior of subatomic
particles. Atomic as opposed to mechanical clocks
involve subatomic particles, might I remind you? It has
not been confirmed that they react similarly when
propelled to high speeds through space.
Why do you suppose that it is
necessary to accelerate
large bodies to a significant fraction of the speed of
light
in order to test the theory? It is sufficient (and far
easier
experimentally) to accelerate individual atoms and
subatomic particles. As I said previously, a
cyclotron
cannot be made to work using Newtonian
physics.
Einstein's 1905 paper was entitled, "On the
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies."
The very first sentence begins: "It is known that
Maxwell's electrodynamics--as usually understood at
the present time--when applied to moving bodies,
leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be
inherent in the phenomena. Take for example, the
reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a
conductor..."
-
I am well aware of the contents
of this paper.
[I had said] The relativistic transformation equations for
moving bodies (an adaptation of Pythagoras' theorem)...
[You replied] If you mean (in the case of special relativity)
the Lorentz transformation, then this implies
x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - (ct)^2 = invariant, which can only be
regarded as an extension of Pythagoras in a fictitious
4-space where one of the coordinates is pure imaginary.
---------------
[REJOINDER] This is sophomoric to the extreme.
Forget Lorentz. Consider Einstein's own words:
Albert Einstein: "...The defining equation of the
metric is then nothing but the Pythagorean theorem
applied to the differentials of the co-ordinates."
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Pythagoras-Pythagorean-Theorem.htm
-
Pythagorus' theorem (do you
require a translation
from the ancient greek?) says nothing about time
coordinates, let alone imaginary time coordinates.
In fact it says absolutely nothing about higher-
dimensional spaces. Such a notion would never
have occurred to poor Pythagorus, who was primarily
a number mystic. And it was originally formulated
in 2-space. Incidentally, Einstein was not right
about everything. He made a number of mistakes,
including parts of his relativity papers (some of
which
he admitted to later).
Since this is a list roughly devoted to economics, I
shall point out that the 1988 winner of the Nobel in
Economics, Maurice Allais, is included among the
skeptics.
Two points:
(a) The so-called "Nobel" prize in economics
is not a
Nobel prize at all. Alfred Nobel despised
economists.
It is an economics prize awarded by a Swedish
bank
in memory of Alfred Nobel. The title "Nobel"
has been
usurped by the bank, and apparently accepted by
much of the unthinking popular media, in defiance of
the wishes of the Nobel family. The narrow
economic
bias of these awards primarily reflects the interests
of
the private banking cartels.
(b) I would be more impressed if you could muster
an
opinion from a well-credentialed research scientist
with published papers on relativity-related topics
within
peer-refereed physics journals.
From his Nobel autobiography:
http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1988/allais
-autobio.html
"My involvement in physics dates from my reflections
on physics, mechanics, and astronomy courses at the
Ecole Polytechnique. Had the National Centre for
Scientific Research existed in 1938, I would have
devoted myself to the study of physics and would not
have become an economist. But there again, over the
past fifty years, while pursuing my activities as an
economist, I have never stopped reflecting and
working at various times on the problems involved in
the elaboration of a unified theory of gravitation,
electromagnetism, and quanta. On the experimental
level, and as a by-product of this theoretical
research, I conducted, from 1952 to 1960, experiments
on the anomalies of the paraconical pendulum (a short
pendulum, about one meter long, suspended by a steel
ball), anomalies the existence of which I proved. For
these experiments I received the 1959 Galabert Prize
of the F! rench Astronautical Society, and I was
laureate in 1959 of the United States Gravity
Research Foundation...In fact, all these phenomena
are quite inexplicable within the framework of the
currently accepted theories."
-
There is nothing in this
statement relevant to the
validation (or otherwise) of special or general
relativity.
One of those endeavors during that time, not
mentioned in this autobiography but published
elsewhere,
Where? References
please.
was to re-examine the data from the Michelson-Morley
-Miller interferometer experiments using the techniques
of modern statistical analysis. He concludes that the
data do not support a null result but would appear to
confirm the aether hypothesis:
"On My Experiments in Physics, 1952-1960
Maurice Allais
Einstein's theories of special and general relativity
rest on the allegedly null results of Michelson's
interferometer experiment.
Comment: not entirely.
There now exists an
abundance of experimental evidence in support
of the validity of both the special and general
relativity theories.
Here, a French physicist and Nobel Laureate in economics,
demonstrates that Michelson's results were not null, and
that the interferometer experiments of the American scientist
Dayton Miller produced positive results, thereby invalidating
the foundation of the Theory of Relativity."
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/highlights/hilt
08.html
Which reputable scientific journal was this
result
published in? I might add that the history of science is
replete with sensational claims published in the popular
literature of the day, with little or no back-up in the form
of publication within peer-refereed scientific journals
(eg, cold fusion immediately comes to mind).
And finally, from the business magazine, The
Economist:
Comment: "The
Economist" being a well-known forum
for debating scientific issues (?).
Aug 19th 2004
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?sto
ry_id=3104321
"ASSUME nothing" is a good motto in science. Even the
humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954
Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to
win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject,
Which is of course irrelevant to
physics, and arguably
also totally irrelevant to useful economics. See also my
statement above about the so-called "Nobel"
economics
prize.
decided to observe and record the movements of a
pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one
of his observations took place during a solar eclipse.
When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum
unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than it should
have done.
Since that first observation, the "Allais effect", as
it is now called,
Called by whom? (ie, other than
by Allais himself)
has confounded physicists.
Which physicists?
If the effect is real,
A very big IF !!
it could indicate a hitherto unperceived flaw in General
Relativity—the current explanation of how gravity works...
That would be a bombshell—and an ironic one, since it
was observations taken during a solar eclipse (of the
way that light is bent when it passes close to the sun)
which established General Relativity in the first place.
-
There have been many
experimental tests since the
1918 measurements referred to here. Some of these
have not involved observations made during solar
eclipses, or indeed any astronomical observations at
all. For example very accurate measurements of the
gravitational shift close to ground level using laser
beams. The results from these independent and
differently conceived experiments for testing both
general and special relativity would also need to be
explained away. Go to it !
In fact, "assume nothing" is the first dictum of
science.
Unless we continually challenge our assumptions, there
is no science.
Change for the sake of change is
unwise.
Valid change requires, as a precursor (a) a prevailing
theory or paradigm which is demonstrably
unsatisfactory,
and (b) one or more unexplained experimental results,
which can be successfully duplicated by independent
researchers.
----
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Relativity, and Mr
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