EXPERIMENTAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST SPECIAL RELATIVITY?
in [Physics]
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From: PD on 10 Jul 2008 10:25 On Jul 10, 9:06 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jul 10, 3:16 pm, PD <TheDraperFam...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On Jul 10, 7:50 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > On Jul 10, 2:18 pm, Ian Parker <ianpark...(a)gmail.com> wrote in > > > sci.physics.relativity: > > > > > On 10 Jul, 11:41, Danny Milano <milanoda...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:> Hi, I recently came across a very interesting book by > > > > > Eric Baird called "Life Without Special Relativity". It > > > > > is 400 pages and has over 250 illustrations. The > > > > > following is sample excerpt from his web site. Can > > > > > someone pls. read and share where he may have gotten it > > > > > wrong? Because if he is right. There is possibility SR > > > > > is really wrong. > > > > > Salaam alekum! > > > > > This seems to read very like a buzzword generator. The only > > > > substantive thing that you have said is the SR is an aether theory. In > > > > fact Relativity got rid of the aether. > > > > > You say "Experimental tests" yet on the basis of aether you seem to be > > > > talking in a prely philosopical way. > > > > > I would ask you > > > > > WHAT EXPERIMENTS CONTRADICT SR? > > > > > What experiments would tell you the difference between the different > > > > theories? > > > > Michelson-Morley and Pound-Rebka contradict special relativity. > > > Michelson-Morley in no way contradicts special relativity. You might > > say it contradicts special relativity if you take out time dilation > > and length contraction, but then again, that ain't special relativity, > > is it? > > If you take out time dilation and length contraction, Michelson-Morley > refutes Einstein's 1905 light postulate (c'=c) and confirms the > antithesis of the light postulate, the equation c'=c+v given by > Newton's emission theory of light. That's OK? No, it's not ok. First of all, the light postulate plus the principle of relativity DEMAND time dilation and length contraction. Secondly, SR without both postulates operating is not SR. Third, Michelson- Morley is completely consistent with a theory built on the TWO postulates mentioned. > > > > Michelson-Morley directly confirms Newton's emission theory of light > > > The emission theory of light is consistent with Michelson-Morley, but > > the emission theory of light is inconsistent with OTHER experimental > > results. It is not proper to consider experiments in isolation when > > evaluating the evidence in support of or against a theory. > > In all those cases "the emission theory" can be reduced to a single > equation, c'=c+v, showing how the speed of light varies with v, the > speed of the light source. Yes, and the implications of such a theory have been thoroughly explored in the literature. > It can be shown (but the discussion cannot > be held on this forum) Why not? > that an exact equation cannot be confirmed by > some experiments and refuted by others, unless something is wrong with > the experiments. If a theory is in disagreement with experiments, in an arena where the theory claims to apply well, then the theory is dead. It is the crank who insists that because the theory is right, there must be something wrong with the experiments. Now, on occasion, a single experimental result is shown to be faulty. But that's why experiments are reproduced and complementary experiments performed. If two or three *independent* experiments corroborate each others' findings, then there is a high confidence value in the result of those experiments. And if those findings are contrary to a model's predictions, then the model is dead as burnt toast. This is *precisely* what happened to emission theory over the last several decades. PD
From: Danny Milano on 10 Jul 2008 10:25 On Jul 10, 9:52 pm, Eric Gisse <jowr...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Jul 10, 2:41 am, Danny Milano <milanoda...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Hi, I recently came across a very interesting book by > > Eric Baird called "Life Without Special Relativity". It > > is 400 pages and has over 250 illustrations. The > > following is sample excerpt from his web site. Can > > someone pls. read and share where he may have gotten it > > wrong? Because if he is right. There is possibility SR > > is really wrong. > > There is zero chance that he knows why relativity is wrong. Baird does > not understand relativity yet published a textbook on it anyway, and > explicitly did not seek out corrections from those who are learned in > the field. > > > > > Baird said: > > > "16.1: Commonly-cited evidence for special relativity > > > We're told that the experimental evidence for special > > relativity is so strong as to be beyond reasonable > > doubt: are we really, seriously suggesting that all > > this evidence could be wrong? Experimental results > > reckoned to support the special theory include: > > > * E=mc^2 > > He simplifies, probably because he doesn't know better. > > > > > * transverse redshifts > > Incorrect terminology - again, doesn't know better. Its' transverse > Doppler shift. > > [bla bla bla] > I searched for "transverse redshift" in the net. I came across it in the "redshift" entry in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift "Transverse redshift" is mentioned halfway. Wordsearch for it in the page and you shall find it. I guess you are into semantic nitpicking. Danny > > > > > > > > And while this was a good story to tell credulous > > schoolchildren, it was essentially pseudoscience. The > > idea that E=mc^2 "belongs" to SR doesn't hold up to > > basic mathematical analysis, and to Einstein's credit > > he went on to argue for the wider validity of the > > result by publishing further papers that derived the > > relationship (or a good approximation of it) from more > > general arguments outside special relativity. We also > > found in section 2.5 (with working supplied in the > > Appendices, Calculations 2), that E=mc^ 2 is an exact > > result of NM, if we ignore standard teaching and go > > directly to the core mathematics. Not only is the > > NM-based derivation of E=mc2 reasonably > > straightforward, it's shorter than its SR counterpart, > > and it's also part of every hypothetical model in > > section 13. > > This argument is so worthless that not only is it so stupid that it > doesn't need anything past rolled eyes, but it manages to invalidate > the rest of the post based on sheer stupidity. Anyone who can write > this - I don't know or care if its you or just you quoting the idiot - > isn't worth listening to. > I wonder if you have discussed with Baird before in the past. I just found his book at amazon and got it since there is not much anti-SRists who publish books. I guess if he is cut off. The rest of the anti-relativists here fall like domino since his treatise encompassed all the anti-relativists here. Danny > [snip]- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
From: rotchm on 10 Jul 2008 10:31 > By definition, > Newton's laws of motion take the same form in all > inertial frames. Thats true and... > Einstein generalized this result in > his special theory of relativity by asserting that all > laws of physics take the same form in all inertial > frames. By *definition* too. "Laws" are those eqs. or relations that take the same form in all i- frames. We search for such relations and when found it is declared a "Law". Hence, the principle of relativity is simply a re-statement of the definition of Law.
From: Dono on 10 Jul 2008 10:32 On Jul 10, 7:25 am, Danny Milano <milanoda...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > I wonder if you have discussed with Baird before in the past. I > just found his book at amazon and got it since there is not > much anti-SRists who publish books. I guess if he is cut off. > The rest of the anti-relativists here fall like domino since his > treatise encompassed all the anti-relativists here. > > Danny > Yes, he comes periodically on this forum to peddle his "book". It is obvious that you wasted your 15$ buying it.
From: Pentcho Valev on 10 Jul 2008 10:33
On Jul 10, 3:44 pm, Danny Milano <milanoda...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Whether time indeed dilate or length indeed contract or > whether hidden newtonian principle is at work without > directly altering time and length is a major points for > scrutiny. I just found Eric Baird unique in that one > doesn't commonly encounter an anti-relativist > publishing a book. The full title of his book is > "Relativity in Curved Spacetime: Life without Special > Relatity". Baird believes General Relativity or > curved spacetime could be true yet in a small > point of it, flat spacetime doesn't work because > it's curved spacetime all the way to the planck horizon. > Well. At least Baird believes in general relativity. But > then isn't it that General Relativity had been inspired > by Special Relativity. I read in Wheeler "Black hole..." > that Einstein imagined time dilation occured in > different height and he thoght what if the different > time dilation could cause gravity itself. So SR leads > to GR although Eric Baird believes GR could be > cooked up entirely without SR. Hmm... the book > is dense, have to read it if I have more time. General relativity is an INCONSISTENCY, that is, a theory where assertions are accompanied by their negations. It keeps Einstein's 1905 false light postulate (c'=c) but at the same time has implicitly introduced its antithesis, the true equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light. An instructive, although somewhat misleading, description of this malignant theoretical construction (an inconsistency is much more dangerous than a false theory) is given by Newton-Smith (W. H. Newton-Smith, The rationality of science, Routledge, London, 1981, p. 229): "A theory ought to be internally consistent. The grounds for including this factor are a priori. For given a realist construal of theories, our concern is with verisimilitude, and if a theory is inconsistent it will contain every sentence of the language, as the following simple argument shows. Let q be an arbitrary sentence of the language and suppose that the theory is inconsistent. This means that we can derive the sentence p and not-p. From this p follows. And from p it follows that p or q (if p is true then p or q will be true no matter whether q is true or not). Equally, it follows from p and not-p that not-p. But not-p together with p or q entails q. Thus once we admit an inconsistency into our theory we have to admit everything. And no theory of verisimilitude would be acceptable that did not give the lowest degree of verisimilitude to a theory which contained each sentence of the theorys language and its negation." The deduction performed by Newton-Smith is unacceptable to a physicist since « from p it follows that p or q » is not a relevant physical argument (see http://www.wbabin.net/philos/valev9.pdf ). Still the central idea that the lowest degree of verisimilitude should be given to an inconsistency is correct. Pentcho Valev pvalev(a)yahoo.com |