🚀 go-pugleaf

On Feb 1, 1:41 pm, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://www.uni-koeln.de/minkowski/
> "Hermann Minkowski's famous lecture held in Cologne on September 21,
> 1908 was a milestone on the way to our modern understanding of space
> and time. In it Minkowski laid bare the mathematical core of the
> special theory of relativity - the unification of space and time into
> four-dimensional spacetime. Although at first sceptical, Einstein soon
> adopted this point of view and constructed with its help his theory of
> general relativity, in which gravitation is interpreted as a
> manifestation of spacetime geometry. The general theory of relativity
> provides the basis of our physical world view at the non-quantum
> level, and its applications range from cosmology to everyday life.
> However, modifications in our understanding of space and time are
> expected to emerge from a more fundamental theory that unifies
> gravitation with quantum theory; promising candidates are quantum
> general relativity and string theory. In the history of science,
> Minkowski's lecture can be interpreted as the end point of a
> development in geometry. It marks the transition from space as a
> unique concept in the sense of traditional Euclidean geometry to space
> as a model. In this new paradigm, many different spaces are
> considered, and the most appropriate one is selected. In our
> centennial conference, concepts of space and spacetime will be
> addressed from the points of views of physics, mathematics, and the
> history of science. We aim to do justice to Minkowski's great
> contribution. On the one hand, the historical development and in
> particular Minkowski's contribution will be discussed; on the other
> hand, we shall highlight the concept of spacetime in modern physics
> and mathematics as well as possible modifications in future theories,
> notably quantum gravity. The conference will be strongly
> interdisciplinary and should be attractive, in particular, for
> undergraduate and graduate students of the considered disciplines, but
> also for more senior scientists."
>
> http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/DepPhilo/walter/talks/2008esi.pdf
> Hermann Minkowski and The Scandal of Spacetime
> Scott Walter
> "Unlike Poincaré, Einstein famously excluded the ether from physics,
> and defined time and space coordinates in terms of ideal rods and
> clocks in inertial frames. I A clock transported with constant speed v
> around a closed
> curve would show a lag of 1/2t(v/c)^2 seconds with respect to a clock
> at rest, initially sychronized with the mobile clock. For Einstein,
> this was just another "peculiar consequence" of his kinematic
> assumptions, offering him no further insight to the theory of space
> and time (Einstein, 1905, p. 904)."
>
> http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001661/
> Minkowski space-time: a glorious non-entity
> Brown, Harvey R. and Pooley, Oliver
>
> Those "scandal of spacetime", "glorious non-entity" and numerous hints
> at abandoning Minkowski's idiocy clearly show that now all
> Einsteinians know that Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false.
> However the 100 years old verbiage developed in Einstein criminal cult
> will continue to be perfect camouflage, perhaps forever.

Einsteinians really know no limits in camouflaging the falsehood of
Einstein's 1905 light postulate:

http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/montreal.html

From: vpetkov@alcor.concordia.ca
Subject: Re: 2008 June 13 - 15, Montreal
Date: 2008 February 02 1:12:24 AM EST
To: henry@jhu.edu

Dear Richard,

On behalf of the Program Committee of the Third International
Conference on the Nature and Ontology of Spacetime to be held on June
13-15, 2008 in Montreal I would like to inform you that your proposed
paper has been accepted for poster presentation.
I look forward to meeting you in Montreal,

Vesselin Petkov

Science College, Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Boulevard West
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8
Tel.: 514-848-2424 ext 2572
Fax: 514-848-2573
vpetkov@alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~vpetkov/

Here is my Extended Abstract, as submitted:
Teaching Special Relativity: Minkowski trumps Einstein
Richard Conn Henry
Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy The Johns Hopkins
University
"There is no doubt that, historically, Albert Einstein, in 1905, did
introduce two postulates (and also, that it is he who discovered
special relativity). But the second of these postulates (the one
concerning the constancy of c, just in case Reese has confused you!)
did not survive the year. In September of 1905 Einstein published a
development from relativity--the discovery of the implication that E =
mc2 , and in this new paper he mentions a single postulate only. But
the paper contains a sweet footnote: "The principle of the constancy
of the velocity of light is of course contained in Maxwell's
equations." How I love that "of course!" Einstein was human! I do not
know if it is true, but I recall being told that during the Middle
Ages undergraduates learned to multiply and divide using Roman
numerals, while the exotic Arabic numerals were reserved for the more
advanced students. That is exactly what we do today in teaching
special relativity. Antique postulates that are not of anything but
historical interest to genuine physicists are presented to students as
"Special Relativity." Some books do better than others in warning
students how seemingly impossible the second postulate is; but all
have the students working out true but unintuitive consequences (e.g.
relativity of simultaneity) using thought experiments with of course
the second postulate producing the bizarre result. A small number of
texts (Ohanian, Knight, a few others) at least follow Einstein's
second paper in having but a single postulate; but none do what needs
to be done, which is to drop Einstein and adopt Minkowski. I feel that
the time has come to relegate the "two postulates" to the dustbin of
history, and to teach special relativity to undergraduates (or indeed,
to middle school students) the Minkowski way."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com