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From: Me, ...again! on 7 Jun 2010 13:12


On Mon, 7 Jun 2010, PD wrote:

> On Jun 4, 6:30 pm, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, PD wrote:
>>> On Jun 3, 6:53 am, PD <thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Jun 3, 6:28 am, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> I'm not quite sure what you're after here. It kind of sounds like
>>>> you'd like to know if there is a response to these reviews.
>>>> I can tell you that the authors of the reviews themselves are clearly
>>>> neither active scientists nor familiar with relativity. But I don't
>>>> know if that matters to you or not. Would a detailed rebuttal of the
>>>> reviews of books make a difference?
>>
>>> Any response to this?
>>
>> I would like to know which reviews he was referring to, what made him
>> think they were neither active scientists or familiar with relativity.
>
> That would be me, if you'll track the attribution headers.
>
> My estimation of the reviewers is based on the profoundly poor
> understanding they have about relativity, which is pretty easy to
> point out.
>
>>
>> Many popular writers -- it is true-- are not active scientists and may not
>> be as deeply familiar with relativity, but the reviews I read suggested
>> that the reviewers were no less familiar than many if not most of the
>> authors of posts on these NGs.
>
> A couple of comments about that.
> - This newsgroup is in no way a microcosm or representative sample of
> the scientific community, let alone physics. This is a hobbyist group,
> visited by a few people with training and expertise, but otherwise
> populated by amateurs and interested parties, which also includes
> hacks, cranks, nuts, and disaffected and angry engineers.

I learned all that many years ago.

> - How would you KNOW if a reviewer was familiar with relativity based
> on the review? Would you expect a reviewer to say up front, "I know
> nothing about this subject, but want to bluff my way through a review
> anyway"?

I've been a real scientist for all of my life, including industry and
academia. Publications in reviewed journals and research grants (that
means competitive application and review by peers, too). I can tell you
that the _best_ of the people ALSO have troubles with competing theories,
lines of thinking, and favorite enemies.

You can go by "mainstream, conventional wisdom" but that does not mean
truth. But, all you can say is that "this is the mainstream, conventional
wisdom" and beyond that you can only complain that the opposition is, as
you say, cranks and nuts. If I go to them, they will say they are the OK
guys and you are the crank/nut.

Now, if I actually get into this stuff and study it to my satisfaction,
here is how its going to work: I will be looking at semantics,
perceptions, constructs, evidence of circular reasoning, and word usage.

I'm fine with the observation that some experiments come up with numbers
that match theories. I am still left with the problem that some parts of
these theories are concoctions (i.e. the "myth of string theory" [see the
Lindley book]) and the relativity-cosmology non-intuitive perception of
this universe and its non intuitive notion of expanding at the spee of
light, gazillions of lightyear sizes, and ...OK...what is all of that
inside of? Big Bang? Oh, what was before the Big Bang? Oh, the previous
big bang that did the big shrink?

I think either I'll never "understand" that, or ....physics has a long
way to go and in the direction its going, its getting worse than better.

>>
>> And, I'm still waiting for anyone who-- besides myself--has been reading
>> any of the posts of these threads to say who he is, what his credentials
>> are, what his job and/or school is, and what kind of recognition he has
>> gotten between now and back when he first got on the net.
>
> I've done this for you.

So far I've counted two guys with credentials and the rest have not
answered whether they are hobbyists, cranks, or claim they don't need
credentials.
From: Me, ...again! on 7 Jun 2010 13:16


On Mon, 7 Jun 2010, PD wrote:

> On Jun 4, 6:30 pm, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, PD wrote:

Sorry I deleted the following on my prior reply because it looked like you
didn't comment. I'm saving the whole file, separately. I think your
criticisms and responses need cross examination by the people you are
criticising...or...I need to examine the whole picture myself.

///////////////////////////////////////

>
> As for your "reviews":
> ////////////////////////////////////////
>
>
> ==================================================
>
> Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary?
> by, Tom Bethell
>
> Review....
> That a book by a great and established writer like Tom Bethell,
> who is a long-time science writer and political columnist at The
> American Spectator, hasn't been officially reviewed yet, says
> more about those who pose as the intellectual and editorial
> guardians of literature than it does about the quality of this
> book or the stature of its author. In fact, it is an engaging,
> well researched book about one of the most interesting paradigm
> struggles of the twentieth century (and still ongoing today).
> That Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (SR) was influenced
> by and made quickly popular by the relativistic ideologies of
> its time (1905) seems to this writer a foregone conclusion.
> But it was the Michelson-Morley experiment that failed to
> detect a "luminiferous ether," which gave SR scientific credibility.
>
> -------------------------------
> PD: This is in fact a historical error. The credibility for SR came
> from *other* predictions made by relativity, not the *postdiction*
> cited, where those other predictions were put to direct experimental
> test.
> -------------------------------
>
> But Michelson himself soon doubted its conclusions and proved it in
> the later Michelson-Gale experiment which did detect an ether.
>
> -------------------------------
> PD: This is again an error. There has been no experimental result that
> has detected an ether. Period.
> -------------------------------
>
> H. Lorentz, a contemporary of Einstein, and a scientist of equal
> stature, argued in numerous debates with Einstein that all
> "relativistic effects" (such as the bending of starlight as it
> passes near the sun) were the result of light traveling through
> an "entrained ether" which surrounds and moves with planetary
> bodies--otherwise known as the gravitational field. Other
> well-known physicists of the day also doubted the veracity of
> SR, especially its principle of space-time distortion.
>
> ------------------------------------
> PD: It is certainly true that Lorentz believed in an entrained ether,
> and there is a large class of experiments that are consistent with
> that result. However, there are other results that are not. For
> example, the boundary of entrainment would introduce an aberration
> from stellar sources with a periodicity associated with the movement
> of the entraining Earth that is simply not seen. Furthermore,
> relativity makes predictions in domains that Lorentz ether theory does
> not touch -- such as the covariance of fundamental interactions other
> than the electrodynamic. Lorentz believed that ALL interactions were
> fundamentally electrodynamic, but we have discovered after his death
> that this is clearly ruled out.
> ------------------------------------
>
> A few
> were: Herbert Dingle, whose "paradox" asked the question of
> which "clock" would run slow (and thus experience time dilation
> predicted by SR) of two relativistic travelers; as for example two
> rocket ships in different inertial frames (i.e., going at different
> speeds relative to each other). Another physicist, H. Ives, of the
> famous Ives-Stillwell experiment to test the Doppler effect of
> fast moving mesons, became a lifelong enemy of Einstein because
> he felt that his results were being misinterpreted. And there were
> many others who disagreed with Einstein's fundamental conclusions.
>
> Even Einstein himself, as Bethell points out, later in life admitted
> that forces propagating through empty space without a medium in
> which they could be conveyed, was a logical absurdity--a fact never
> mentioned in textbooks, or in other "easy Einstein" books.
>
> ----------------------------
> PD: There were lots of things that Einstein was wrong about. For
> example, he believed strongly in the principle of locality, which
> would say that quantum entanglement is impossible. He in fact proposed
> the experiment that proved him wrong.
> ----------------------------
>
> In the
> later part of the twentieth century, other scientific critics picked
> up where Lorentz and his contemporaries had left off. Among them were
> Tom Van Flandern, Carver Mead, and Petr Beckmann. Bethell concentrates
> on Beckmann's critique, written in a technical book called Einstein
> Plus Two, in which the author claims that all the effects of both
> Special and General Relativity can be explained using classical
> physics. Bethell brings Beckmann's book down to earth from the arcane
> heights of Mt. Olympus by rendering Beckmann's mathematical
> descriptions
> understandable to the layman.
>
> ------------------------------
> PD: All three of these people have led long careers on the outskirts
> of science, refusing to respond to the criticisms about the holes in
> their physics and their analysis.
> ------------------------------
>
> If you are interested in the history of one of the most pivotal
> scientific
> ideas of our time, if you have always believed that the world should
> make sense but would still like to know about the mysteries of
> relativity,
> this book may be for you. And this reviewer might add that although
> Bethell might not know it yet, this may be his most significant book.
> =====================================================
>
>
> Shall I go on?
>
From: PD on 7 Jun 2010 14:55
On Jun 7, 12:12 pm, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Jun 2010, PD wrote:
> > On Jun 4, 6:30 pm, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, PD wrote:
> >>> On Jun 3, 6:53 am, PD <thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> On Jun 3, 6:28 am, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> I'm not quite sure what you're after here. It kind of sounds like
> >>>> you'd like to know if there is a response to these reviews.
> >>>> I can tell you that the authors of the reviews themselves are clearly
> >>>> neither active scientists nor familiar with relativity. But I don't
> >>>> know if that matters to you or not. Would a detailed rebuttal of the
> >>>> reviews of books make a difference?
>
> >>> Any response to this?
>
> >> I would like to know which reviews he was referring to, what made him
> >> think they were neither active scientists or familiar with relativity.
>
> > That would be me, if you'll track the attribution headers.
>
> > My estimation of the reviewers is based on the profoundly poor
> > understanding they have about relativity, which is pretty easy to
> > point out.
>
> >> Many popular writers -- it is true-- are not active scientists and may not
> >> be as deeply familiar with relativity, but the reviews I read suggested
> >> that the reviewers were no less familiar than many if not most of the
> >> authors of posts on these NGs.
>
> > A couple of comments about that.
> > - This newsgroup is in no way a microcosm or representative sample of
> > the scientific community, let alone physics. This is a hobbyist group,
> > visited by a few people with training and expertise, but otherwise
> > populated by amateurs and interested parties, which also includes
> > hacks, cranks, nuts, and disaffected and angry engineers.
>
> I learned all that many years ago.
>
> > - How would you KNOW if a reviewer was familiar with relativity based
> > on the review? Would you expect a reviewer to say up front, "I know
> > nothing about this subject, but want to bluff my way through a review
> > anyway"?
>
> I've been a real scientist for all of my life, including industry and
> academia. Publications in reviewed journals and research grants (that
> means competitive application and review by peers, too). I can tell you
> that the _best_ of the people ALSO have troubles with competing theories,
> lines of thinking, and favorite enemies.
>
> You can go by "mainstream, conventional wisdom" but that does not mean
> truth. But, all you can say is that "this is the mainstream, conventional
> wisdom" and beyond that you can only complain that the opposition is, as
> you say, cranks and nuts. If I go to them, they will say they are the OK
> guys and you are the crank/nut.

I disagree. There is a consistency to cranks and nuts, and that is
their inability to show how their model is supported by the wealth of
experimental data available, and moreover how their model makes
unique, testable predictions that would distinguish theirs from the
prevailing model. There are people with alternate theories that are
not nuts and cranks, and they DO publish, and they DO exhibit some
ability on this score.

It is not so much WHAT they say, as it is whether they use a
scientific approach to their investigation.

>
> Now, if I actually get into this stuff and study it to my satisfaction,
> here is how its going to work: I will be looking at semantics,
> perceptions, constructs, evidence of circular reasoning, and word usage.

I don't think this is what you should do at all. I think you should
look at the experimental data to see whether it supports the claims or
not. This requires work, but it is the only viable criterion for
determining whether a model makes any sense or not. If a "model"
doesn't make any claims of signals that could be sussed from
experimental data, then it isn't even viable to begin with.

>
> I'm fine with the observation that some experiments come up with numbers
> that match theories. I am still left with the problem that some parts of
> these theories are concoctions (i.e. the "myth of string theory" [see the
> Lindley book])

I agree that "string theory" is not a theory. It is more of a work in
progress with hopes of one day becoming nailed down enough to become a
theory. There are a bunch of theorists hard at work trying to make a
decent theory out of it. This is a careful-terminology issue more than
anything else.

> and the relativity-cosmology non-intuitive perception of
> this universe and its non intuitive notion of expanding at the spee of
> light, gazillions of lightyear sizes, and ...OK...what is all of that
> inside of? Big Bang? Oh, what was before the Big Bang? Oh, the previous
> big bang that did the big shrink?

This, now, is a wholly separate thing, which is your trying to make a
mental image of something in a fashion that is much like other, more
familiar mental images, and discovering failure -- as evidenced by the
fact that your attempt has huge holes. This simply points to the
problem that your mental image does not accurately represent what is
said in the theory, and here the solution is to learn a little more
carefully and systematically what the theory actually says. Along the
way, you will find that nature does not look at all like what you
thought it looks like. What you thought it looks like only works as a
local approximation.

>
> I think either I'll never "understand" that, or ....physics has a long
> way to go and in the direction its going, its getting worse than better.

You just haven't exposed yourself to the right materials.

>
>
>
> >> And, I'm still waiting for anyone who-- besides myself--has been reading
> >> any of the posts of these threads to say who he is, what his credentials
> >> are, what his job and/or school is, and what kind of recognition he has
> >> gotten between now and back when he first got on the net.
>
> > I've done this for you.
>
> So far I've counted two guys with credentials and the rest have not
> answered whether they are hobbyists, cranks, or claim they don't need
> credentials.

From: paparios on 7 Jun 2010 15:08
On 7 jun, 13:16, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Jun 2010, PD wrote:
> > On Jun 4, 6:30 pm, "Me, ...again!" <arthu...(a)mv.com> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, PD wrote:
>
> Sorry I deleted the following on my prior reply because it looked like you
> didn't comment. I'm saving the whole file, separately. I think your
> criticisms and responses need cross examination by the people you are
> criticising...or...I need to examine the whole picture myself.
>
> ///////////////////////////////////////
>

Well that would be a very difficult task, since many of the people
mentioned there are already dead!!

Regarding the author...well, his description on Wikipedia sys:
"Bethell is a member of the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of
the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, which denies that HIV causes AIDS. His The
Politically Incorrect Guide to Science promotes skepticism of the
existence of man-made global warming, AIDS denialism, and skepticism
of evolution (which Bethell denies is "real science"), promoting
intelligent design instead." This is enough for me to run like hell
away from him.

Miguel Rios

From: maxwell on 7 Jun 2010 15:23
On Jun 2, 4:44 pm, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bru...(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 02/06/2010 23:17, mpc755 wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 2, 6:05 pm, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax<dirk.bru...(a)gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> On 02/06/2010 22:38, Androcles wrote:
>
> >>> "Dirk Bruere at NeoPax"<dirk.bru...(a)gmail.com>    wrote in message
> >>>news:86ns65Fje9U5(a)mid.individual.net...
> >>> | On 02/06/2010 21:07, blackhead wrote:
> >>> |>    On 2 June, 06:05, PD<thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com>     wrote:
> >>> |>>    On Jun 1, 10:59 pm, "Me, ...again!"<arthu...(a)mv.com>     wrote:
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>>    On Wed, 2 Jun 2010, Peter Webb wrote:
> >>> |>>>>    I gather from the context that you believe that Einstein's Special
> >>> and
> >>> |>>>>    General Theory of Relativity are wrong.
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>>>    What do you think of Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric
> >>> effect
> >>> |>>>>    (which was instrumental in thedevelopment of Quantum Mechanics, and
> >>> for which
> >>> |>>>>    he earned a Nobel prize), and Einstein's modelling of Brownian motion
> >>> (which
> >>> |>>>>    virtually created the whole field of statistical mechanics) ?
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>>>    Was he wrong about them as well?
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>>    Was Einstein right or wrong?
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>>    What we have are two schools of thought: i) Einstein did something,
> >>> vs.
> >>> |>>>    ii) a bunch of experts/skeptics who think Einstein made a lot of
> >>> noise,
> >>> |>>>    more heat than light, and fooled a lot of people.
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>    I really don't care much for schools of thought. After all, there is
> >>> |>>    still a substantial school of thought that the earth is 6600 years
> >>> |>>    old, but that doesn't mean its existence automatically earns it any
> >>> |>>    credibility.
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>    I'm much more interested in understanding WHY those people in the anti-
> >>> |>>    Einstein school of thought feel that way.
> >>> |>>    Some candidate ideas:
> >>> |>>    - The theory is wrong, because it makes no sense to these people, and
> >>> |>>    these people firmly believe that unless a theory makes sense, it
> >>> |>>    cannot possibly be considered right.
> >>> |>>    - The theory is wrong, though it is right by the metrics by which
> >>> |>>    science judges theories. But this points to the fundamental problem
> >>> |>>    with how science is done, and this theory being wrong is just a
> >>> |>>    symptom of that problem.
> >>> |>>    - The theory is probably right, but the credit is wrongly given to
> >>> |>>    Einstein, as it properly belongs to other people.
> >>> |>>    - The theory's correctness is completely uncertain at this point, and
> >>> |>>    the issue is that scientists insist that it must be accepted as right.
> >>> |>>    - Even if the theory is right, voice needs to be given to the contrary
> >>> |>>    proposal with equal weight, for the sake of maintaining debate.
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>    Which of these represents your position?- Hide quoted text -
> >>> |>>
> >>> |>>    - Show quoted text -
> >>> |>
> >>> |>    Special Relativity was controversial when it first came out, although
> >>> |>    it was accepted by *leading* physicists such a Plank according to:
> >>> |>
> >>> |>    The Comparative reception of relativity By Thomas F. Glick.
> >>> |>
> >>> |>    The people who criticize it nowadays possess the same mindset as those
> >>> |>    of 100 years ago, because they're studying it from the original
> >>> |>    sources. It's similar to trying to study calculus by looking at the
> >>> |>    original papers of Lebniz or Newton; or Lagrangian mechanics by
> >>> |>    studying his M�canique analytique. The subject has evolved enormously
> >>> |>    over the intervening years and there is no need to get lost in the
> >>> |>    confusion of the past when today, people have cut away the brambles to
> >>> |>    create a clear path. Yet, still these people first read the original
> >>> |>    papers of Eisntein, Lorentz, Michleson Morely and try to seek out
> >>> |>    something wrong with the original conclusions.
> >>> |>
> >>> |>    Speaking for myself, I still find the predictions of SR to be
> >>> |>    outrageous such as relativity of simultaneity, time dilation, Lorentz
> >>> |>    contraction, equivalence of mass and energy, relativistic mass etc.
> >>> |>    Yet it's backed up by modern experimental evidence and so it would be
> >>> |>    foolish of me to reject it at first sight without first trying to
> >>> |>    study it from a modern view point and then criticizing it. I still
> >>> |>    have a long way to go, but the more I study it, the more I'm amazed by
> >>> |>    its power.
> >>> |>
> >>> |>    Larry
> >>> |
> >>> | c = const is all that is needed.
> >>> | The maths follows.
>
> >>> Assertion carries no weight.
> >>> c' = c+v
>
> >> Not if the speed of light is constant in all inertial frames
>
> >> --
> >> Dirk
>
> >>http://www.transcendence.me.uk/-Transcendence UKhttp://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe-Occult Talk Show
>
> > The speed of light is measured to be 'c' in all inertial frames.
>
> > "the state of the [ether] is at every place determined by connections
> > with the matter and the state of the ether in neighbouring places,
> > ... disregarding the causes which condition its state"
> > - Albert Einstein
>
> > The state of the aether as determined by its connections with the
> > matter and the state of the aether in neighboring places is the
> > aether's state of displacement.
>
> > In Einstein's train gedanken the state of the aether is determined by
> > its connections with the Earth. This means the aether is more at rest
> > with respect to the embankment than it is the train.
>
> > The Observers on the train synchronize three clocks at M'. One
> > Observer walks a clock to A' and the other walks a clock to B'. When
> > the Observer walks the clock to A' the clock is being walked with the
> > 'flow' of aether and ticks faster. The clock walked to B' is being
> > walked against the 'flow' of aether and ticks slower.
>
> > Lightning strikes occur at A/A' and B/B' and arrive at the Observer at
> > M on the embankment simultaneously.
>
> > When the lightning strikes occur on the train the clocks at A', M',
> > and B' read 12:00:03, 12:00:02, and 12:00:01, respectively.
>
> > The light from B' reaches the Observer at M' prior to the light from
> > A'. When the Observers on the train get back together they conclude
> > the lightning strike at B/B' occurred prior to the lightning strike at
> > A/A' and the light traveled at 'c'.
>
> If the equations are the same the "what REALLY happens" is just
> philosophy or religion.
>
> --
> Dirk
>
> http://www.transcendence.me.uk/- Transcendence UKhttp://www.blogtalkradio..com/onetribe- Occult Talk Show

A typical reply from a mathematician trespassing into physics.
Symbols without interpretation are just mind games i.e. mathematics.
We have now had over 100 years of theoretical physics done by
mathematicians leaving us with some very useful equations (relativity,
Schrodinger, etc) that still cause fundamental disputes on what the
symbols mean: this is just cookery ("when I tell you to add this green
plant, don't ask me what it is, just do it - it tastes good!"). Prior
to 1900, natural philosophers created models of nature & THEN tried to
describe them with simple mathematics. Today, we start with complex
math & don't even bother to ask what it all means - the symbol game is
everything.
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