🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mar 21, 1:37 pm, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://home.att.net/~numericana/fame/giants.htm
> Giants  of  Science: Steven Weinberg, physicist   (1933-)
>
> http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/01/66393?currentPage=all
> Giant of Science Steven Weinberg: "Worst of all would be to be without
> Einstein's special theory of relativity; we would have no
> understanding of elementary particles and the atomic nucleus."
>
> What would happen if Dwarfs of Science like Jean Eisenstaedt manage to
> prove that the speed of light does depend on the speed of the light
> source? Would then any "understanding of elementary particles and the
> atomic nucleus" disappear?
>
> http://ustl1.univ-lille1.fr/culture/publication/lna/detail/lna40/pgs/4_5.pdf
> Dwarf of Science Jean Eisenstaedt: "Il n'y a alors aucune raison
> theorique a ce que la vitesse de la lumiere ne depende 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 lumiere se comporte
> autrement - quant a sa trajectoire - qu'une particule materielle. Il
> n'y a pas non plus de raison pour que la lumiere ne soit pas sensible
> a la gravitation. Bref, pourquoi ne pas appliquer a la lumiere toute
> la theorie newtonienne ? C'est en fait ce que font plusieurs
> astronomes, opticiens, philosophes de la nature a la fin du XVIIIeme
> siecle. Les resultats sont etonnants... et aujourd'hui nouveaux."
>
> Translation from French: "Therefore there is no theoretical reason why
> the speed of light should not depend on the speed of the source and
> the speed of the terrestrial observer as well; even more clearly,
> there is no reason, in the framework of the logic of Newton's
> Principia, why light should behave, as far as its trajectory is
> concerned, differently from a material particle. Neither is there any
> reason why light should not be sensible to gravitation. Briefly, why
> don't we apply the whole Newtonian theory to light? In fact, that is
> what many astronomers, opticians, philosophers of nature did by the
> end of 18th century. The results are surprising....and new nowadays."

Giant of Science Steven Weinberg knows what Dwarf of Science Jean
Eisenstaedt is talking about:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~vl/notes/weinberg.html
Giant of Science Steven Weinberg: "It is not true that scientists are
unable to "switch back and forth between ways of seeing," and that
after a scientific revolution they become incapable of understanding
the science that went before it. One of the paradigm shifts to which
Kuhn gives much attention in Structure is the replacement at the
beginning of this century of Newtonian mechanics by the relativistic
mechanics of Einstein. But in fact in educating new physicists the
first thing that we teach them is still good old Newtonian mechanics,
and they never forget how to think in Newtonian terms, even after they
learn about Einstein's theory of relativity......Newtonianism reached
its mature form in the early nineteenth century through the work of
Laplace, Lagrange, and others, and it is this mature Newtonianism--
which still predates special relativity by a century--that we teach
our students today. They have no trouble in understanding it, and they
continue to understand it and use it where appropriate after they
learn about Einstein's theory of relativity. Much the same can be said
about our understanding of the electrodynamics of James Clerk Maxwell.
Maxwell's 1873 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism is difficult for
a modern physicist to read, because it is based on the idea that
electric and magnetic fields represent tensions in a physical medium,
the ether, in which we no longer believe. In this respect, Maxwell is
pre-Maxwellian. (Oliver Heaviside, who helped to refine Maxwell's
theory, said of Maxwell that he was only half a Maxwellian.)
Maxwellianism--the theory of magnetism, electricity, and light that is
based on Maxwell's work--reached its mature form (which does not
require reference to an ether) by 1900, and it is this mature
Maxwellianism that we teach our students. Later they take courses on
quantum mechanics in which they learn that light is composed of
particles called photons, and that Maxwell's equations are only
approximate; but this does not prevent them from continuing to
understand and use Maxwellian electrodynamics where appropriate."

Still it is not clear if Giant of Science Steven Weinberg knows
Einstein's 1954 comment on Maxwell's field theory of light:

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/pdf/files/975547d7-2d00-433a-b7e3-4a09145525ca.pdf
Albert Einstein: "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."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com