Book Review: The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin - Comments Page 2

Has science lost its way? What is the nature of the universe, and more importantly, how do we go about discovering it?

Has science lost its way? What is the nature of the universe, and more importantly, how do we go about discovering it? In the past 30 years, one theory to answer this question has dominated the physics community. String theory, while starting off as a fringe concept in science, has taken over the field. Virtually all work on theoretical physics now centers around it.…
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  • 26 - Pentcho Valev

    Apr 28, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    TWO MYTHS ABOUT THE FALSE SECOND POSTULATE OF EINSTEIN

    In his 1905 paper Einstein clearly showed that both Faraday's induction law and "the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the light medium" lead to the principle of relativity (the first postulate) whereas the second postulate which is "apparently irreconcilable with the former" is introduced SEPARATELY:

    Fourmilab "Take, for example, the reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a conductor. The observable phenomenon here depends only on the relative motion of the conductor and the magnet, whereas the customary view draws a sharp distinction between the two cases in which either the one or the other of these bodies is in motion. For if the magnet is in motion and the conductor at rest, there arises in the neighbourhood of the magnet an electric field with a certain definite energy, producing a current at the places where parts of the conductor are situated. But if the magnet is stationary and the conductor in motion, no electric field arises in the neighbourhood of the magnet. In the conductor, however, we find an electromotive force, to which in itself there is no corresponding energy, but which gives rise--assuming equality of relative motion in the two cases discussed--to electric currents of the same path and intensity as those produced by the electric forces in the former case. Examples of this sort, together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the "light medium", suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest. They suggest rather that, as has already been shown to the first order of small quantities, the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good.1 We will raise this conjecture (the purport of which will hereafter be called the "Principle of Relativity") to the status of a postulate, and also introduce another postulate, which is only apparently irreconcilable with the former, namely, that light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."

    Then the minds of relativists were reprogrammed and now they believe that Einstein's arguments led to the second postulate, Einstein's false principle of constancy of the speed of light. Yet a clever relativist dispersed the myth about "the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the light medium":

    Pitt 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."

    Of course, in the world of Einstein nobody cares about dispersal of myths. Some day another clever relativist will disperse, in the same way, the myth about Faraday's induction law. Nobody will care again.

    Pentcho Valev

  • 27 - Pentcho Valev

    May 26, 2007 at 3:02 am

    EINSTEIN CRIMINAL CULT MAY INTRODUCE AN ALGEBRAIC SPEED OF LIGHT

    Recently Tom Roberts launched a fierce campaign in defense of some mysterious "geometrical" speed of light:

    Tom Roberts on sci.physics.relativity: "They ASSUMED all this, and ASSUMED space is Euclidean, and ASSUMED time is universal and flows "equably". All these ASSUMPTIONS are no different in principle from the geometrical assumptions of SR, so the fact that light travels with speed c in vacuum in SR is no different in principle from those ASSUMPTIONS of Newton et al. That's why there is no "cause" for the universality of c in SR, just as there is no "cause" for Newton's first law -- both are _GEOMETRY_, not "causality" or "physical mechanisms". The only difference is historical: Newton et al did not describe it this way, even though this is the natural way to describe it today. So if you insist there be some "mechanism" to make the vacuum speed of light be c in all inertial frames, to be consistent you should also insist on some "mechanism" to make light travel in straight lines. And assuming you can do the latter, then whatever "mechanism" you come up with will also apply to the former. But to date nobody has done so -- geometry simply is not a "physical mechanism"......It's just that you cannot get your head into "SR space" where the speed of light is geometrical..... I repeat: in SR the speed of light is no more determined by some "physical mechanism" than are the straight lines of classical mechanics. BOTH are determined by the geometry. (shrug)"

    It seems Tom Roberts is fighting against other relativity hypnotists who want to renounce the space-time continuum and possibly other idiotic corollaries of Einstein's false principle of constancy of the speed of light and introduce some "algebraic physics":

    "The Other Einstein" Lee Smolin: "It is also disappointing that none of the biographers mention the writings that lead John Stachel, the founding editor of the Einstein Papers project, to speak of "the other Einstein." These writings look beyond his struggles with the unified field theory to "the other possibility [which] leads in my opinion to a renunciation of the space-time continuum, and to a purely algebraic physics." What Einstein is saying is that the smoothness of space is an illusion and the fundamental description of space will be in terms of algebra and not geometry."

    Clearly relativity hypnotists have finally taken notice of what Divine Albert confessed at the end of his life:

    Einstein: "If the speed of light is the least bit affected by the speed of the light source, then my whole theory of relativity and theory of gravity is false."

    Einstein again: "I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept,i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics."

    Pentcho Valev

  • 28 - Heloise

    May 26, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    Nick did they talk about the M theory or the vacuum physics theory? Then they have recently discovered that sound is possible in deep space. This is something that was always believed to be impossible.

    Just a few years ago I suggested this to a physicist and he must have thought I was crazy. Why? Because it has been taught that sound, unlike light, needs a medium. Since there is no such medium in space sound cannot be perpetuated.

    I have been studying the M theory because it ties in with my experience in deep theoretical physics.

    I have Elegant Universe and it's a good book. String theory was thought to be the GUT at one time.

    Heloise

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