Ripping Apart Einstein

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard, it is the Michelson-Morley experiment. Read the quote yourself that of Einstein I posted on October 27 @ 18:55GMT.

Tom, there are many distinguished and eminent scientists, including Essen that Eckard just mentioned who have read Einstein and don't agree with aspects of it. Certainly they can't be dismissed as you guys. Then, even Einstein himself has had cause to reverse or qualify his original postulates but you don't seem to regard these newer qualifications or reversals. Am still waiting for the link to all of Einstein's papers I couldn't open.

Thanks,

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Michelson performed the decisive experiment already in Potsdam and published it in 1881. After returning to America he improved the measurement in Cleveland and got again the still unexpected null result which he published together with Morley in 1887. They "corrected" an error in Michelson's calculation. Michelson was already in Paris in 1881 pointed to this putative error, which was meanwhile also criticized by Poincaré. Just the still wrong expectation was different in the Michelson-Morley paper of 1887.

Why did He use nonetheless the expression Michelson-Morley experiment? I abstain from speculation and can only tell you that Michelson rejected Einstein's SR which he called a monster.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

" ... Essen that Eckard just mentioned who have read Einstein and don't agree with aspects of it. Certainly they can't be dismissed as you guys."

Look, I'm all for serious critical analysis, but don't try and pretend that is what you guys -- and I mean specifically you, Eckard and Peter J -- do. (What Pentcho does isn't even worth commenting on.) You pick out a few sources, most often obscure or out of context and cross referenced with nothing, use them to support your own prejudices against special relativity based on naive notions, and then you accuse others of being shortsighted or close minded, or some such.

"Then, even Einstein himself has had cause to reverse or qualify his original postulates ..."

This is pure crap, that I think you must have borrowed from something Peter J said. And don't bother posting more out of context quotes for me to refute. I'm finished with doing your work.

Einstein did say something valuable about choosing axioms, when he was asked what led him to general relativity: "Challenging an axiom." The axiom he challenged was the fifth postulate of Euclidean geometry, the postulate that says a line can be drawn perpendicular to another line through one and only one point external to the line.

The geometry of general relativity is Riemannian, a form of non-Euclidean geometry; specifically, a pseudo-Riemannian metric (the Lorentzian metric) ensures that a line drawn on a sphere violates Euclidean geometry. Another axiom must be substituted for Euclid's fifth, for the geometry to be consistent with the Minkowski space of special relativity.

John R is wiser than I. I never should have involved myself in the silliness of this tit for tat. Shame on me further for involving myself in a forum that not only tolerates it, but celebrates it. I may come back, but for now I'm at my limit.

Pentcho Valev

"Almost all of us believe that space-time doesn't really exist, space-time is doomed and has to be replaced by some more primitive building blocks":

Nima Arkani-Hamed Public Lecture: Quantum Mechanics and Spacetime in the 21st Century

Pentcho Valev

Akinbo Ojo

Well done again Pentcho. Will listen to full lecture when I have the megabytes, electricity, etc to spare. But I went straight to 06.11 and I hope Tom (and maybe Adel) will let us have his (their) thoughts on whether Nima Arkani-Hamed's lecture conforms with the textbook he uses or not.

Eckard Blumschein

Pentcho,

My computer is still deaf. I just realized that Nima Arkani-Hamed is a pretty young and team-oriented expert with Perimeter, who's strength seem to be in pure theory like QFT, Grassmann mathematics, etc.

My own objections against spacetime are perhaps different from his ones:

- I rather agree with Shannon who called with respect to reality, not to models, the past unchangeable but the future uncertain, see Fig. 1 of my "Questioning" essay. Genuinely future date cannot be measured in advance.

- Therefore I question SR. Poincaré synchronization blurs the distinction between past and future.

- I consider imaginary and singular quantities just valuable tools that do not directly correspond to physical quantities.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

Akinbo,

I think FQXi and Perimeter Institute made it very clear by positioning Matt Leifer's essay in the winning position in 2013, that they are on a campaign to promote quantum probability theories as foundational.

Because these theories demonstrably have nothing to do with the real world of physical experience, it follows that relativity has to be discredited, because relativity derives from physics conventions of probability 1, that the universal measurement function is unitary. Because they cannot get around this fact -- it is so easily demonstrated (as Arkani-Hamed says, relativity and quantum mechanics 'make the world inevitable') -- purveyors of belief in a cosmologically probabilistic world have to try and go right through it by making probability foundational, ad hoc.

Like all advertising, political campaigns, and religious crusades, this one is fueled by money and awards, not by carefully reasoned arguments and facts. And like most well funded advertising, political campaigns and religious crusades, it succeeds for a time until it falls of its own misplaced enthusiasm, because it never had a rational foundation at all.

I've come to a cynical realization that FQXi is using people like you and Eckard and Pentcho -- who don't know classical physics in the first place -- to support their aim to replace a rational scientific perspective with wispy belief in the power of some quantum-like god who bestows favor on the fortunate and judgment on the nonbeliever. It is easy to figure, from the long human tradition of magical religious belief. You don't get refuted or corrected on this forum, as you most certainly would on others (if you don't believe me, try peddling your beliefs on a real science site populated by real scientists) because your emphasis on belief over rational science precisely fits the campaign to replace rational science with Bayesian analysis.

At stake is the ability of probability-pushers to promote their snake oil and temporarily enrich themselves with technological successes. Technology is not foundational, though, and the program ultimately won't succeed. We will see this ultimate failure, when the conventional idea of quantum computing (based on entanglement and other mystical concepts) is soundly shown to be worthless, because the true classical foundation of physics is rational, and has already prescribed the computational limit.

Don't be a dupe -- get out of the protective smokescreen this forum has provided for you and see what the real world looks like.

Pentcho Valev

"relativity has to be discredited, because relativity derives from physics conventions of probability 1"

Relativity has to be discredited because it derives from a false postulate, Tom. All clever Einsteinians know that but fear an "embarrassing question":

Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages 57-78: "The gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of professional discourse."

Pentcho Valev

Thomas Ray

Opponents have shut themselves out of professional discourse by promoting irrational nonsense. But this site is alive and well, so appreciate it while you can.

John Cox

What struck me about Arkani-Hamed's lecture is that he opened with a proclamation that he would follow a "continuously connected" presentation and then spent an hour refuting any possibility of such continuity, which might explain his blood pressure that I found more contagious than his enthusiasm. jrc

Eckard Blumschein

"relativity [Tom meant Relativity] derives from physics conventions of probability 1 that the universal measurement function is unitary." Einstein in 1905 did not obvious to me derive SR from probability.

Anybody may feel challenged to refute at least one of my three objections to spacetime.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

Akinbo, I apologize. I see that the Einstein link I posted is dead. Try this one.

Thomas Ray

Argh. I thought that site was a collection of papers, but it looks more like museum stuff. Maybe this will be better. I'll look some more when I have time.

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

While your quote p. 27 refers to a version of His 1921 lessons in English, it is rather confusing to me that it contains a comment that stems perhaps from you: "then surely the validity of the principle of special relativity can hardly be doubted." I disagree with this guess. Can you please explain?

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Thanks Eckard, for your observation. The statement was not my inclusion. I tried entering the gutenberg archive but it gives an Error message. However, I see another version, [link:is.muni.cz/www/2603/_Albert_Einstein__Brian_Greene__The_meaning_of_rel_BookZZ.org_.pdf]"But all experiments have shown that electro-magnetic and optical phenomena, relatively to the earth as the body of reference, are not influenced by the translational velocity of the earth. The most important of these experiments are those of Michelson and Morley, which I shall assume are known. The validity of the principle of special relativity also with respect to electromagnetic phenomena can therefore hardly be doubted"[/link], page 15.

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Einstein can definitely not have written what you "quoted" before (UP TILL 2014) and after (cosmic microwave .... Steve, Tom. Peter ...) His claim. Who or what fooled us?

Eckard

Pentcho Valev

Neil deGrasse Tyson has realized that Einstein's space-time (allowing Einsteinians to claim that travel to the future is possible) is wrong, and is desperately hinting in that direction (2:22): "I have no access to the past, I have no access to the future." Here is what Einsteinians usually teach:

Brian Greene: Is Time Travel Possible?

Pentcho Valev

Georgina Woodward

I have just looked at the Neil deGrasse Tyson video. It is explaining very simply and clearly but what he is saying is just wrong. The time line of events is not the same as the time dimension of space-time. There is no material future(made of things containing atoms and no material past containing things made of atoms.) The time line along which those events are imagined is imaginary. The time dimension does not belong to the Object material reality of objects made of atoms and particles. It belongs to the outputs of EM data processing.

As there is no material, made of atoms, future it would not be possible from a higher dimension to look at your entire life span laid out. There is no EM data (produced by reflection from the configurations of atoms making up the events of your life) ahead of Now, as those configurations have not yet existed.No material configuration as source for the EM data, no data to produce the higher dimensional experience of that future life/death.

No past and no future in Object reality prohibits time travel and associated paradoxes. Despite appearances time does not pass differently at different parts of the universe as there is only one time -Now

Georgina Woodward

Looked at the Brain Greene video. He is just explaining Einstein's ideas and adding no original thinking.

I disagree that it is possible to leap frog into the future because there is no future to arrive at. It is imaginary. There is confusion between EM sensory data distributed in the environment and actual material, made of atom's Objects.

If I travel at speed towards a planet that is the source of EM data being received on Earth I can receive data sooner than an Earth bound observer. So it would seem to the Earth bound that I am seeing the future, as the data not yet received on Earth will be the Earth bound's present experience, when it arrives there. However both the outbound observer and the Earth bound are receiving data that has already been produced from reflection off of existing configurations of atoms. So this is not time travel it is just receiving a signal sooner.

I do think that it is possible that forces might affect the rate of chemical processes and that could potentially slow or accelerate ageing. Ageing is deleterious alteration of the configurations of the body only correlated with time not caused by time itself. If I as a non smoker, consume regular antioxidants, get good sleep and vitamin D production from UV exposure, and I compare my biological age to a contemporary who is a smoker, regularly missing sleep and getting little sunlight and antioxidant nutrition, there will be a biological age difference at odds with same chronological age. Age relates to configuration , pattern of atoms, not to position along a time line or time dimension.

Steve Agnew

As long as mass-energy equivalence is true, a moving clock ticks more slowly than a rest clock and a clock in more gravity ticks more slowly than a clock in less gravity. That this is true is demonstrated by our GPS satellites many times per second.

Does this mean a moving clock travels into the its own future? No. Does it mean that a moving clock will decay less than a rest clock? Yes. Does it then mean that a moving twin will age more slowly than the twin at rest? Yes.

But since the twins were born at slightly different times and lived in variously different gravity fields, and went on slightly different journeys, their clocks would have already been different. This does not seem mysterious or counter intuitive to me, it is just the way the universe works.

Right now, GR time is inconsistent with quantum time and this is what is wrong with Einstein's GR. Once science gets a quantum gravity that aligns the two notions of time into an axiom, GR will evolve from its current limits into its many possible and nicely quantum futures.

Georgina Woodward

Steve, All,

GR and SR are about what is seen and that in itself is as important for physics as what is going on underlying that, unobserved.

I must admit that the twins "paradox" really has bothered me. This is what I think.

With the travelling twin moving at near to the speed of light from his/her perspective the distance between Earth and other star system he is travelling towards will appear to be be length contracted, whereas from the not travelling close to the speed of light and so relatively stationary Earthbound observer the distance is not length contracted. So there will be discrepancy about how far has been traveled and thus how long the trip should take at a given velocity.However as I keep saying there is an important difference between what is observed, the output of sensory data processing and the sources of that data the substantial Objects themselves. So the actual absolute distance between substantial Earth and substantial star system in space ( not images 'in' space-time) is what it is, independent of the measurement of the different observers, and is not altered by the motion of the ship. So full distance will have to be traveled.

The observed difference in distances giving different estimation of time taken is I have found explained, in various places, by the asymmetry of the experiences of the two observers.Time dilation is a difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. Red shifted moving away blue shifted moving towards. Reciprocal, except for the acceleration and deceleration phases.( Which incidentally I think could slow the moving clock as there is resistance to change, inertia, that might physically affect the clock and be a potential cause of slowed traveling clocks in experiments.) It is not symmetrical time dilation as returning voyager is immediately aware of change of reference frame but distant stationary observer is not -as it takes time for any message or light signal from the returning ship to reach him /her.

But importantly this is all about what is observed their differing viewpoints due to relativity not the underlying physics of substantial objects in space. The physics of the sub atomic realm is happening in absolute space with uni-temporal passage of time. Gr and SR do not have to change to fit with the quantum realm as they are about the experienced, observed reality depending upon the transmission of light. A different aspect of reality and so also a different aspect of physics. Not mutually exclusive or incompatible they just have to be recognized as describing different categories of things, image manifestations and substantial actualized objects.

Steve Agnew

There are clocks now that are so precise that raising and lowering in the laboratory makes them tick faster and slower. A twin living upstairs ages faster than the one living downstairs. Since one dimension of space emerges from time, all of the effects of time dilation emerge from that one spatial dimension as motion.

A traveler near the speed of light can cross the galaxy and return in a couple of their months, but it will be 200,000 years later for anyone left behind. This means that the traveler will have moved at many times the speed of light according to the rest frame, but what kind of future did the traveler have?

It does seems odd, though, that we only ever observe very small particles travel with these kinds of velocities. So we obsess about the details of time dilation that really have very little to do with common experience. Of course, we obsess the same way with quantum entanglement and Schrodinger's darn cat.

Where Einstein went wrong is with assigning time as a spatial dimension. It is not that this is really wrong...but it is like setting an identity. That spatial dimension emerges from time and making space just another dimension of space in effect does away with time as an axiom.

That is why there are two dimensions to time just as there are two clocks for every action. There are many ways to think of time as two dimensions. The CMB at z = 1091 is a very useful absolute clock, in effect traveling at nearly the speed of light with a very, very slow clock. Then local time is us moving at 371 km/s with our much faster clock.

So in order for us to tell time, we need more than just one time dimension. We need a tick rate and we need to know how the tick rate changes. Our tick rate is our local atomic time and the tick rate of change is given by the CMB clock. This is a different time than Einstein time, but still related. A 2D time is compatible with QM and therefore with a QG as well.

Robert McEachern

Pendulum clocks also run slower when raised, although by such a small amount, it is difficult to measure. It has nothing to do with GR. The clock's behavior, its period, depends on the force of gravity, and even classically, that force is dependent on the distance from the center of the earth, plus local gravity anomalies etc. GR merely predicts a slightly different (but important) value for the elevation induced temporal drift, than Newtonian mechanics.

Another way to think about this, is that when you change the force acting on bodies, it changes the bodies, including how they "age"; astronauts quickly "age" in certain respects - their bones and muscles deteriorate in ways usually only seen in much older people, all because the forces acting upon on their bodies, differs from the forces acting upon their earth-bound fellows. The twins paradox has as much to do with what it means to "age", as with what it means to synchronize clocks. NASA is currently conducting an experiment in which one identical twin remains on earth, while the other is in orbit for an extended period, in an attempt to analyze some of these "aging" issues. If we were immortal, and our bodies never deteriorated with "age", then, when the twins in the twins paradox meet again, there would be no "apparent" age difference.

Pentcho Valev

Celebrating Einstein... Why?

"Celebrating Einstein is a set of modular outreach products designed to communicate the beauty and significance of Einstein's theory of General Relativity to the general public."

"ONE of the defining anniversaries in 2015 will be the centenary of general relativity. In 1915, Einstein published a set of equations that changed our understanding of the universe. Out went the Newtonian notion of gravity as a force between massive objects; in came the counter-intuitive idea that gravity is a property of the universe, with massive objects curving space-time."

But all theoreticians now know, and some even explicitly claim, that Einstein's space-time is a wrong concept:

WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Steve Giddings: "Spacetime. Physics has always been regarded as playing out on an underlying stage of space and time. Special relativity joined these into spacetime... (...) The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound..."

Nima Arkani-Hamed 06:11 : "Almost all of us believe that space-time doesn't really exist, space-time is doomed and has to be replaced by some more primitive building blocks."

"Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time. IT WAS a speech that changed the way we think of space and time. The year was 1908, and the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski had been trying to make sense of Albert Einstein's hot new idea - what we now know as special relativity - describing how things shrink as they move faster and time becomes distorted. "Henceforth space by itself and time by itself are doomed to fade into the mere shadows," Minkowski proclaimed, "and only a union of the two will preserve an independent reality." And so space-time - the malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter - was born. It is a concept that has served us well, but if physicist Petr Horava is right, it may be no more than a mirage. (...) For decades now, physicists have been stymied in their efforts to reconcile Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes gravity, and quantum mechanics, which describes particles and forces (except gravity) on the smallest scales. The stumbling block lies with their conflicting views of space and time. As seen by quantum theory, space and time are a static backdrop against which particles move. In Einstein's theories, by contrast, not only are space and time inextricably linked, but the resulting space-time is moulded by the bodies within it. (...) Something has to give in this tussle between general relativity and quantum mechanics, and the smart money says that it's relativity that will be the loser."

"...says John Norton, a philosopher based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

"And by making the clock's tick relative - what happens simultaneously for one observer might seem sequential to another - Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."

"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

Pentcho Valev

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