🚀 go-pugleaf

RetroBBS NetNews Server

Inspired by RockSolid Light RIP Retro Guy

Article View: sci.physics.relativity
Article #808

Re: Anti-Einsteiniana: Natural Philosophy Alliance?

#808
From: Pentcho Valev
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:08
125 lines
8656 bytes
Nowadays both anti-relativists and (clever) relativists know that
Einstein's special relativity is false but the large number of
alternatives offered or hinted at is both confusing and frustrating.
So let me offer, without any justification, a statement which, if
correct, will clarify the situation:

The statement: Granted the null result of the Michelson-Morley
experiment, THE ONLY alternative to Einstein's special relativity is
Newton's emission theory of light:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "Imagine that some emitter sends out a light beam at c.
According to this kinematics, an observer who moves past at v in the
opposite direction, will see the emitter moving at v and the light
emitted at c+v. This last fact is the defining characteristic of an
emission theory of light: the velocity of the emitter is added
vectorially to the velocity of light emitted."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "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......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "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."

James H. Smith "Introduction à la relativité" EDISCIENCE 1969 pp.
39-41: "Si la lumière était un flot de particules mécaniques obéissant
aux lois de la mécanique, il n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre
les résultats de l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par
exemple, qu'une fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à
un observateur et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la
vitesse de la lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la
lumière par rapport à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière
se déplaceraient à la vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à
l'observateur. Mais ce comportement ne ressemble pas du tout à celui
d'une onde, car les ondes se propagent à une certaine vitesse par
rapport au milieu dans lequel elles se développent et non pas à une
certaine vitesse par rapport à leur source..... Il nous faut insister
sur le fait suivant: QUAND EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA
LUMIERE SOIT INDEPENDANTE DE CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT
AUCUNE PREUVE EXPERIMENTALE. IL LE POSTULA PAR PURE NECESSITE
LOGIQUE."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 3: "For vewed sub specie eternitatis scientists (even
physical scientists) are a fickle lot. The history of science is a
tale of multifarious shiftings of allegiance from theory to theory.
Newtonian mechanics had its hour of flourishing with virtual universal
allegiance. Then, following a dramatic and brief period of turbulence,
relativistic mechanics came to the fore and is espoused with the same
universal allegiance and firm commitment on the part of the
community."

Newton-Smith's is an outdated account: except for the few remaining
profeteers (who were unable to become climate change experts), nobody
supports Einstein's relativity anymore, let alone "with firm
commitment". The problem is that Anti-Einsteiniana is not organized
and is difficult to be organized in a world where money, not ideas, is
the essence of any organization. Still some anti-relativity community,
perhaps too loose for the moment, does exist:

http://www.worldnpa.org/main/
"The Natural Philosophy Alliance, quite unlike establishment physics,
does not impose any particular ideas on its members, whose ideas are
so diverse that generalization about them is very difficult. Aside
from virtually unanimous agreement that contemporary cosmology and
physics--especially modern or 20th-century physics--are in dire need
of a thorough overhaul, and that a much more tolerant spirit than has
recently been shown in these fields must be practiced in order to
achieve the needed changes, not very much comes close to achieving
unanimous approval among NPA members. Nevertheless, certain interests
and themes are very widespread, and certain opinions are subscribed to
by a very large majority. The central theme that concerns nearly all
members, both because of its highly honored position in current dogma
and because its rather simple mathematics makes it comparatively easy
to deal with, is special relativity (SR). A very large majority in the
NPA believe it is seriously flawed, and a clear majority believe it is
totally invalid. I earnestly subscribe to the latter view: SR has no
validity whatsoever." (By NPA Founder, John E. Chappell)

I think NPA should adopt a more concrete stance on special relativity.
The theory is strictly deductive so it can only have "no validity
whatsoever" if a postulate is false. Official mavericks in
Einsteiniana are somewhat more advanced than NPA members in
identifying the false postulate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/science/e-and-mc2-equality-it-seems-is-relative.html
"As propounded by Einstein as an audaciously confident young patent
clerk in 1905, relativity declares that the laws of physics, and in
particular the speed of light -- 186,000 miles per second -- are the
same no matter where you are or how fast you are moving. Generations
of students and philosophers have struggled with the paradoxical
consequences of Einstein's deceptively simple notion, which underlies
all of modern physics and technology, wrestling with clocks that speed
up and slow down, yardsticks that contract and expand and bad jokes
using the word "relative."......"Perhaps relativity is too restrictive
for what we need in quantum gravity," Dr. Magueijo said. "We need to
drop a postulate, perhaps the constancy of the speed of light."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
Technical Details
Message-ID: <d888f14c-c3db-406c-914c-05d96569c82a@c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
References: <eaaabedc-4217-43e1-99b3-67708dd39bf6@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> <4B421362.415A8976@hate.spam.net> <2937484d-1aeb-47b3-9775-53153ce5d75d@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com> <3dc9baf5-9166-4d2e-9560-ab762f5d1207@e37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com> <7Nq1n.14669$bo7.5679@newsfe05.ams2> <2cb990f8-b727-4158-acfc-76bc8b3d471e@f5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> <Ujj2n.18180$rP.8630@newsfe28.ams2>

Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
X-Google-Thread: 237b8ad48,3dd19db7af033be7
X-Google-Attributes: gid237b8ad48,public,usenet
X-Google-NewGroupId: yes
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
From: Pentcho Valev <pvalev@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity,sci.physics,fr.sci.physique,fr.sci.astrophysique
Subject: Re: Anti-Einsteiniana: Natural Philosophy Alliance?
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:08:43 -0800 (PST)
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Lines: 125
Message-ID: <d888f14c-c3db-406c-914c-05d96569c82a@c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
References: <eaaabedc-4217-43e1-99b3-67708dd39bf6@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> 
 <4B421362.415A8976@hate.spam.net> <2937484d-1aeb-47b3-9775-53153ce5d75d@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>
 <3dc9baf5-9166-4d2e-9560-ab762f5d1207@e37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
 <7Nq1n.14669$bo7.5679@newsfe05.ams2> <2cb990f8-b727-4158-acfc-76bc8b3d471e@f5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
 <Ujj2n.18180$rP.8630@newsfe28.ams2>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 89.215.201.48
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1264072123 14430 127.0.0.1 (21 Jan 2010 11:08:43 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:08:43 +0000 (UTC)
Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
Injection-Info: c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com; posting-host=89.215.201.48; 
 posting-account=Lz-LbgoAAABPDavKeW-eYeobwLHD_cvQ
User-Agent: G2/1.0
X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 
 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe)