newts

I would not say the physics is the same, as SR is surely based on the constancy of one-way lightspeed. It is just that no experiment can be done to distinguish between the theories if the followers of SR decree that both theories make the same experimental predictions. This thread is really bringing out the best in people. First Swansont makes a joke, now Uncool acknowledges the wisdom of the Bible. Perhaps you would like to apply the beam and mote theorem to Dawkins’ ridicule of religion and the Cool Fox’s lambasting of astrology, in light of the fact that both appear to accept the possibility of time travel because they have been told it is allowed by GR. A silly answer fitting well a sheep. Since the physics is not in dispute, I am disinclined to spend a long time analysing the data. But in your expert opinion would you say that Wikipedia is justified in saying that H+K verified relativity to within 10%, or not?

I would say physics contains 3 distinct elements: 1. ‘The laws of physics’, which Newton might have referred to as God’s laws, which never change. 2. ‘The current laws of physicists’, which Newton might have described as man’s paltry attempt to explain God’s laws. Which are always partly right and partly wrong, and change from age to age. 3. The scientific experimental method, developed by Newton et al, which works very well and therefore need not be changed. It could be said that the Wright brother succeeded because: 1. ‘The laws of physics’ are what they are. 2. They ignored ‘The current laws of physicists’ (though as Swansont says this is somewhat anecdotal). 3. They employed the experimental method (as stated by Arc). When people criticise physics, they are invariably criticising ‘The current laws of physicists’. But physics-believers tend to respond as though this is an attack on their faith as a whole, as illustrated by John Cuthber's and Arc’s defence of the undisputed value of the scientific experimental method. And I think that somewhere in his brain, Swansont is arguing that since planes rely on ‘The laws of physics’, that somehow physics can claim the credit, in the same way Newton might have credited God. The reason physics comes across as a religion, is that physics-believers always seem convinced that ‘The laws of physics’ and ‘The current laws of physicists’ are one and the same, despite the experimental evidence that they never have been in the past. The oath of allegiance is apparently so strong nowadays that nobody in the physics community is even prepared to dismiss the nonsense of time travel.

http://www.relativity.li/en/epstein2/read/i0_en/i5_en/ http://www.cartesio-episteme.net/H&KPaper.htm

Actually he did. Or as ACG52 himself might have put it, he did, he did, he did, he did, he did, he did, he did, he did, he did …… Hafele + Keating certainly manipulated the data so that they could achieve fame by pretending that they their experiment had verified relativity. But the basic principles of gravitational and speed time-dilation, which H+K falsely claimed to have verified, are well supported by the GPS and the fact that atomic clocks keep the same time at sea level. That depends what you mean by ‘time’ and a ‘clock’. Relativity predicts that experiments will give the same results provided your spaceship is not accelerating. So if you oscillate a weight on a spring, and time it with an atomic clock, you will still record exactly the same number of oscillations per second whatever your speed through the aether. You could explain this by saying that the spring is also a clock, but since all processes slow by the same amount, saying that time slows down is not especially illogical. My post was really about SR and LET making the same predictions. Every sentence, other than the first, contains either SR or LET or both. Educated relativists say that SR makes the same predictions as LET, yet nobody here has acknowledged the fact. This is something SR ‘followers’ do not like to accept, so they ignore the substance and try to read something different into my post. People deliberately misrepresent my post because they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the truth, and I get scapegoated. But at least Swansont has developed a conscience and a sense of humour. Lorentzian relativity is correct; SR is neither right nor wrong, taken literally it is just nonsense. I never vote down Bignose’s posts, he is my biggest fan. I could make an analogy with Galileo and Pope Urban Vll were I not forbidden.

I understand that you believe SR devoutly, and that you find it very upsetting that there are infidels who do not share your faith, as you have said so many times, indeed I cannot recall you ever posting anything much else. But can you justify your belief by explaining why SR is necessary for computers to work?

The modern theory of relativity was created by Lorentz et al, based on the speed of light being constant relative to the aether. Lorentz’s aether theory (LET) is simple and logical, and correctly predicts the result of experiments. SR contains no original maths, Einstein just copied Lorentz’s equations. SR is essentially LET except that all observers pretend that their reference frame is stationary in the aether, which is of course nonsensical. SR is unfalsifiable because the high priests merely ordain that it makes the same predictions as the correct theory of nature LET. When educated people like Dingle or Sagnac argue that SR is wrong, they are not arguing about how the universe behaves, because both they and the relativity experts know full well it behaves as predicted by LET. Rather what they argue about, is how SR predicts the universe should behave. But SR does not describe a possible universe, it is a religious belief not a scientific theory, so it makes no real predictions. As such if the high priests ordain that SR makes the same predictions as LET, I do not see how the edict can be logically challenged. If you want to find out about relativity, I suggest you research the history of LET, and pay little attention to either the Einstein-worshippers’ lies or the ignorant opinions of relativity critics who do not understand LET.

The religious extremist Dawkins proclaims that planes fly because of science, and his disciples blindly accept the lie as gospel. The reason there are planes flying around is that people invented them in defiance of accepted scientific belief, not because of it. In the late 19th century, the leading physicist Lord Kelvin declared them impossible, but a bunch of crackpots ignored the experts and invented them anyway. Frank Whittle encountered similar resistance from the experts with his jet engine. This does not prove that physics in general holds back technology, as there are many counter-examples such as Maxwell’s theoretical work leading directly to radio. But it does show how science-believers will accept anything they are told by a high priest of science-belief, even when it is clearly the opposite of the truth. Another example is the “relativity of wrong” sermon by the Assimov, which I debunk on another site it would be against the rules to advertise, so I should feel free to bring applicable parts of that discussion here.

As Ringer says, words have their limitations but so does maths. Your question is meaningless unless somebody knows what a yard is. The easiest way to do this would be to show them a 1 yard stick, but you would still need to tell them in words. Using maths to explain a yard would be impossible unless they already knew what say an inch was. In the absence of air, the distance flown would be calculated by balancing the vertical component of the velocity with gravity to calculate the time of flight, and then assuming the horizontal component of the velocity remains constant. That is a principle which needs to be explained in words not mathematical symbols. Given the same data, we would calculate the same distance in a similar manner, so we agree on the physics. I am still having to argue about abstract ideas, can I not interest you in the magnetism question? I think Uncool is avoiding the issues, and all he really wants to do is a SR calculation to get some more green marks from fellow relativity-believers; but don’t tell him I said so.

Even though the experiments cannot be performed exactly as I described, you should still be able to judge what the results would be. Diagram 1 involves a wire and an electron both stationary relative to the lab. In diag 2 the electron moves relative to the lab. In diag 3 the whole experiment in 2 is put on a conveyor belt. Alternatively the observer could have been put on a conveyor belt and moved to the right at 1 m/s. It is a yes/no question as to whether the electron accelerates towards the wire. The force cannot be calculated as I have not specified the number of moving electrons in the wire. The original thread was about whether a physics hypothesis could be expressed in words rather than maths. I argue that a proper theory can always explain why, or how, things happen, in words; and that if all that is available is a mathematical formula that makes predictions, that is a sign of human ignorance not a sign that the universe is mysterious and mystical. In this regard using the word ’how’ rather than ’why’ is neither here nor there.

Why is it that people here are so reluctant to discuss physics, and only seem to want to argue about the meaning of words? Or should that be “How is it that people here are so reluctant to discuss physics, and only seem to want to argue about the meaning of words?” In the first diagram the electron does not move towards the wire, in the second and third it does. Do you agree?

How do I delete this post?

I am sorry words cause you so much distress, so to ease your affliction I have drawn you a picture.

Maybe you consider Feynman to be so great, that you have to accept the literal truth of everything he says? It is perhaps pointless to ask why the universe exists, and only a fantasist like Hawking would consider that a question of physics. Asking why things burn is not pointless. A couple of hundred years ago people like yourself would have been convinced it was explained by phlogiston, and would have been upset to hear phlogiston described as an imaginary being. Nowadays we know that burning just involves electrons and atomic nuclei rearranging themselves and emitting photons, which is such a sound theory that it is universally accepted by the most sceptical as well as people of all religions. It is only pointless to ask why, if the question can never be answered. People asked why Kepler’s laws worked. Newton answered this with his mechanics and gravity. People asked what caused gravity; after much thought Newton could not find an answer, so he declared the cause of gravity had no place in experimental philosophy. Newton’s scorn for seeking a cause for gravity is well placed when applied to gravitons, as inventing imaginary beings which make no testable predictions, is the stuff of religion not physics. But some theories of gravity do make testable predictions, such as Le Sage gravity which makes wrong predictions. Feynman must have spent hundreds of hours trying to come up with a theory to explain the predictions of QED. It was only when he failed that he concluded it was pointless. He might be right, and thinking up such a theory might exceed the capacity of the human mind, but it might not. You see the phrase “contrary to popular belief”, and translate it as “despite evidence to the contrary”. I guess that is standard behaviour for a physics-believer, and indeed most humans. If currents both going in the same direction attract, and currents going in opposite directions repel, that could be seen as like attracting like, and opposites repelling. Is that really such a difficult concept to understand? Obviously you know that Maxwell figured out the maths of magnetism 50 years before the advent of SR. Illogical because you are seeking to explain the magnetic field, something which has mass, in terms of reference frames which do not have mass.

If you had said which current theories you believe to be correct, which wrong and which dodgy, that would have been interesting. It would also be interesting if you would explain why you do not share your opinions. Merely taking offence at whatever I post, not so interesting. As you know, special relativity is deemed to give the same results as the Lorentz aether theory. What I would like you to do is explain magnetism using LET, for the special case where the earth is stationary in the aether. Then I can evaluate what the theory actually means, no calculations needed at this stage.

I did not mean to sound ungrateful, rather to try to get more focus on the physics. I like the fact that in your posts you frequently state that it is likely that some current theories are wrong; but I am not aware of you ever stating specifically which theories you consider wrong. I guess if you did, you would be in trouble with your colleagues; but if everybody is too afraid to be controversial, how can wrong theories ever be replaced? Thanks for providing the physicists’ explanation. Obviously whoever came up with that theory knew the answer he wanted to achieve, but the problem is that it is too complex and illogical for me to test it. Presumably it predicts the correct Lorentz force on an electron moving parallel to the wire, but does it also predict the same numerical value for an electron moving directly towards and away from a wire? The Lorentz force acts on an electron moving in a magnetic field; but if the electron is stationary and the magnet moves, then the force on the electron is traditionally explained by saying that a changing magnetic field creates an electric field. Clearly it is illogical to have two different explanations for the force resulting from the relative movement between an electron and a magnet. So it might seem logical to assume that magnetic and electric forces are somehow the same thing. However if we start a current flowing in a superconducting ring, the ring now contains more energy; so in theory if it was put on a very accurate scale, it would register greater mass. The kinetic energy of the electrons flowing round the ring, contribute an insignificant quantity of the added mass. So most of the added mass must be contained in the magnetic field surrounding the ring. Magnetic fields therefore exist in the same way that electric fields exist. A hydrogen atom is lighter than the combined mass of a proton and an electron, because the electric fields partially cancel out. Similarly two magnets locked together under magnetic force, must have lower mass than if they are separate. Magnetic and electric forces are both a disturbance or compression of the surrounding space, but they cannot be the same thing.