If you're tired of hearing about 'Intelligent design' creationists and the court wars against Darwin's theory in the U.S., you might be surprised to learn that another pillar of modern science, Einstein and his Theory of Relativity, is under attack.
A burgeoning underground of 'dissident' scientists and self-described experts publish their theories in newsletters and blogs on the Net, exchanging ideas in a great battle against 'the temple of relativity'. According to these critics, relativity is not only wrong, it's an affront to common sense, and its creator, Albert Einstein, was no less than a cheat.
A quick glance at anti-relativity proponents and their publications reveals a plethora of alternative theories about how the universe really works – very few of them in agreement with each other. But despite their many differences, common themes among these self-described iconoclasts do emerge: resentment of academic 'elites', suspicion of the entire peer-review process in mainstream scientific journals and a deep-seated paranoia about the extent of government involvement in scientific projects.
An aethro-kinematics website (www.aethro-kinematics.com) claims to refute relativity by resurrecting René Descartes' theory that the Earth and all the planets are carried around the Sun by an "Aether vortex". Another site points to the work of one Stefan Marinov, a self-described dissident, who apparently threatened to immolate himself in front of the British Embassy in Vienna, Austria, because he was so incensed by the refusal of the respected journal Nature to publish his 'proofs' against relativity.
This is just a taste. A visit to Google reveals the extent of the phenomenon. Is this a new front in the war on science? Can we expect a new Discovery Institute, armed with millions of dollars from eccentric fundamentalists, spoiling for a rematch in school boards across the U.S. — this time attacking Einstein and not Darwin?
Hopefully not, according to Bryan Gaensler, a professor of physics at the University of Sydney. "The anti-relativity cranks are not nearly as well-organised as the creationists. Probably none of them would get along well enough to form a serious threat to science."
Having said that, he adds, "there has just begun a new series of conferences, held by anti-relativity cranks, called 'Crisis in Cosmology'. I think the first one was held in Spain and they're planning another. It looks exactly like a legitimate scientific conference, with the difference that everyone delivering a talk there is insane."
The conference planners sent out invitations to Gaensler and hundreds of other physicists. "Before registering," he says, "you had to fill out this 10-point, bulleted manifesto, agreeing to all sorts of propositions from the start. For example, 'I do not accept that the universe is expanding', and so on, the kind of thing you would never see at a real scientific conference. It was hilarious."
The anti-relativity movement got underway as soon as Einstein's first paper on special relativity was published, in 1905. Some scientists disputed its assertion that the old Newtonian concepts of absolute space and time — which had never been scientifically established — were superfluous. Indeed, the attempt to restore these concepts to mainstream physics has been the essential foundation of almost every crank theory since.
Even more enraging to some scientists and engineers was the worldwide fame Einstein attained with the 1916 publication of his General Theory of Relativity, which extended special relativity and offered a radically new explanation for gravity.
A number of Germans, many of them anti-Semites, despised Einstein's socialist views and envied his fame. Outside Germany, however, Einstein's theory also met resistance. Albert Michelson, famous as the American who devised the failed Michelson-Morley experiment to detect aether, the invisible medium that 19th century scientists supposed responsible for the propagation of light waves through space, never accepted relativity and he politely admitted this to Einstein when they met.
Like many physicists and astronomers, Gaensler routinely hears from individuals claiming to have proven Einstein's theory false. "I have a boxload of material from cranks," he says, "but currently it's in storage aboard a ship somewhere between the U.S. and Sydney." A native Australian, Gaensler has just completed an eight-year stint in Boston, teaching at Harvard University and conducting research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.
"But there is a pattern," he says. "They're always male — never female. Normally professionals of some kind, doctors, pilots, engineers. And they're always retired and have years to spend on their pet theory.
"Whenever the observatory sends out a press release, they read it and send out mass-mailings to every scientist listed as having anything to do with the event."
THE REAL PROBLEMS WITH RELATIVITY
John Farrell wrote: "The anti-relativity movement got underway as soon as Einstein's first paper on special relativity was published, in 1905. Some scientists disputed its assertion that the old Newtonian concepts of absolute space and time — which had never been scientifically established — were superfluous. Indeed, the attempt to restore these concepts to mainstream physics has been the essential foundation of almost every crank theory since."
Red herrings. The real problems with Einstein's relativity were formulated by Einstein himself 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."
John Farrell also wrote: "Albert Michelson, famous as the American who devised the failed Michelson-Morley experiment to detect aether, the invisible medium that 19th century scientists supposed responsible for the propagation of light waves through space, never accepted relativity and he politely admitted this to Einstein when they met."
Michelson had any reason not to accept relativity:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf 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."
Pentcho Valev
Looking at the right theory in the wrong places
The problem with many anti-relativists is that they most often assume that the Special Theory of Relativity is somehow wrong, when it is, apart from numerous empirical tests, mathematically elegant and once fully understood a true work of Genius. Special Theory is a correction of Newton’s work and based on all the science that went before it.
If the so named cranks want to question something Einstein, then look at Unified Field theory, but then everyone, including Einstein himself, criticized that work. However there are issues with the unification of The General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory, they will not unify. This gives birth to an assortment of modified theories and alternative theories etc. However, perhaps it is Quantum Theory the cranks should be looking into, while it successful predicts and accounts for various properties of the real world its uncertainty and thus its unavoidable unknowableness is daunting. Einstein was the last of the true Classical theorists in physics, after which Quantum Theory, after successful prediction of events, became and still is the new kid on the block. If anyone is a true Quantum theorist, they often have lingering doubts about General Relativity, and vice versa.
The real issue is, science, should be for all people, but professors and cranks alike must base their theories of sound mathematical and logical constructs and not wishy washy ideas, and that claim is not limited to cranks either, some papers by tenured professors I've read of late are somewhat questionable as well.
Don’t be afraid to question any dogma, but before questioning a theory must one fully understand it first!
Asmodelle
Sydney, Australia
THE RELATIVITY FRAUD: SIMPLE AND MONUMENTAL
There is an elementary equation in physics:
frequency = (speed of light)/(wavelength)
According to the equation, if the frequency varies, this could be due to a variation of either the speed of light or the wavelength. The frequency does vary and clever relativists have always known that the frequency variation is due to a variation of the speed of light. However they have also known that this variability of the speed of light is fatal not only for the theory of relativity but also for the whole modern physics. On the other hand, the world (not only clever relativists) has always known that Einstein's relativity is based on the assumption that the speed of light is constant, not variable. How then could the collapse of modern physics be avoided?
Through destruction of rationality in science. If you manage to destroy it, scientists would accept anything: that the wavelength rather than the speed of light varies, that the speed of light does indeed vary but not locally, that the problem of the variability of the speed of light disappeared when Einstein created his general relativity, that the speed of light is variable in general relativity but constant in special relativity, that the frequency variation is due to gravitational time dilation, not to the variation of the speed of light, etc. etc. There seems to be no absurd explanation that relativity hypnotists have not contrived and taught. The destruction of rationality in science is irreversible.
Pentcho Valev
frequency = (speed of light)/(wavelength)
Valev, you wrote that this 'well known formula' makes clear that speed of light is not constant and therefore relativity fails. Has it ever occured to you that you use the formula in the wrong way,and that actually frequency/wavelength might possibly be constant?
here you can find a simple explanation of this formula: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Light/frequency.html
I believe that the main problem of nutters who try and attack relativity is first with their not understanding the scientific method and second of interpreting well-defined mathematical, scientific and psychics concepts from a non-mathematical et cetera framework.
Corrections and alternate viewpoint
According to Bryan Gaensler: "But there is a pattern," he says. "They're always male — never female."
One of the most outspoken and clearly stated opponents of Einstein's Relativity theories is Cynthia Kolb Whitney, editor of Galilean Electrodynamics: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/adring/GEEditors.htm
She has a PhD in both Mathematics and Physics.
According to Jeremy Bernstein: "Jeremy Bernstein points out that one of the criteria that always defines crank 'science' is its lack of correspondence with the body of scientific knowledge that has gone before it. 'I would insist that any proposal for a radically new theory in physics, or in any other science, contain a clear explanation of why the precedent science worked,' he writes. In contrast, 'the crank,' Bernstein writes, 'is a scientific solipsist who lives in his own little world. He has no understanding nor appreciation of the scientific matrix in which his work is embedded ... In my dealings with cranks, I have discovered that this kind of discussion is of no interest to them.'"
The priests of the Relativity Temple grandstand like this frequently. However, when I self-published, "Secrets of the Aether," which fully quantifies the Aether based upon the empirical data of modern science, and showed a charge-based formulation of Einstein's simplified field equation (as opposed to Einstein's mass-based equation), it was completely ignored by the scientific establishment. Not only does the Aether Physics Model explain General Relativity, it also properly unifies all the fundamental forces with Newtonian style equations and force laws, even for the strong force.
http://www.16pi2.com/files/NewFoundationPhysics.pdf
The Aether Physics Model also reveals several key errors in modern physics, such as the dimension of charge should always be distributed (not single dimension), there are two quantifiable types of charges (not just one), the fine structure constant pertains to the relationship of these two types of charges, all photons are quantum structures precisely equal to Planck's constant times the speed of light, and dozens of other fundamental discoveries.
However, the Relativity Temple of Einstein dictates that the Aether is not necessary for understanding physics. The irrational conclusion is that the Aether must then be false, and that anybody who quantifies it must be a crank (crackpot, fool, [create your own slanderous term]}.
The real travesty of science is not the presentation of a quantifiable Aether, but the forsaking of science in order to uphold a predetermined and unproven point of view that Aether does not exist.
"In the end, Gaensler says, 'I feel sorry for these people — because, after all, there might be someone out there now like Einstein, working in obscurity, who does have some truly new insight, but scientists just won't take him seriously because of all these other crackpots we've had to deal with.'"
How true!
David Thomson
Quantum AetherDynamics Institute
(A home-based, non-profit research organization staffed by "cranks" for the purpose of doing real science based upon real math, and based entirely upon the body of scientific knowledge that has gone before it.)
In other news, Einstein right again
Apparently the interim results from Gravity Probe B are once again in favour of Einstein, although not complete. A "signal", a finding, to demonstrate one of the two incredibly subtle relativistic effects that Einstein predicted has not yet been clearly shown in data. Ask us again around Thanksgiving, they say. This is the latest in a very long line of confirmations. Besides, the earth, the sun, and Mercury, pulsars and other peculiar objects in the skies that Einstein never knew to exist have also been summoned down to testify on his behalf, and have done so.
Although there are respectable theoretical reasons to be suspicious of Einstein's theory as final absolute truth (the problem of quantum theory?), no real challenge has been successful yet, and such would only be a refinement. But challenging Einstein's work shouldn't be discouraged too much. The certainty and self-confidence with which cosmological Don Quixotes build their perpetual motion windmills in the face of extremely solidly established fact is a useful reference point when considering the arguments of determined sceptics in other fields of inquiry where the science, or lay understanding of it, is any less clear. We can say that the strength of sceptical feeling does not justify anti-Einsteinism, therefore it does not in itself justify a contrarian position on any other matter of science, no matter to whom such a matter may be inconvenient.
Relativity criticism is positive
I am an atheist since I was like 10 years old. I figured out the concept of the existence of religions on the age of 12. I, myself, will never see any reason to be a fan of Intelligent Design. Keep in mind though, that for other people it is a great addition to their lifes. Be open minded. Be respectful.
What I hate is to put some religious concept as Intelligent Design on the same height as a physical model as relativity. It looks rather strange to me when I read that opener. I might want to even accuse them that they WANT to threat relativity criticism the same as ID criticism to undermine anti-SR their credibility. Bad way to start a paper like that.
I, myself am physicist and very open minded.
Remember, folks, that special relativity is a model. It was Einstein's dream to put everything material into some new kind of geometry. Bear in mind that lots of problems arise when you want to give physical (mechanical) explanations to a field theory that uses a completely different set of coordinats as used in classical mechanics. Eulerian coordinats arenot on the same footing as Langragian. It isnot a surprise though that Eulerian coordinats are used in SR-theory because it is heavily built upon Maxwell-Lorentz electrodynamics. Lorentz was a great physicist but he didnot dare to give any mechanical interpretations to his own developped Lorentz transformations.
When I was in high school, I didnot need any "prooves" to proof mathematical properties. Mainly because I have a highly advanced visual math brain. My brain doesnot work sequential like it does for 90 pc of the population. I am a hollistic thinker. I think interconnected. I see it before my eyes.
The main problem in physics is they mostly cant draw any lines anymore between a mathematical formula and what really happens in reality. They are blindly walking in a labyrinth. When they encounter a mathematical equation, they threat it as reality. Sequential thinkers don't see any problems in this, but I do.
Waste of time.
Why waste time dealing with kooks?
Was Einstein a fake? No. Was the world "created" in seven days? No. Was the moon landing faked? No. Do shape-shifting reptiles secretly control the world? No.
o_O C'mon. Better things to do.
-GoblinJuice
How right you are
Agreed - the editors just created a provocative headline. It's clear that they and the author do not think Einstein was a fake.
But all of the anti-Einstein nuts see it as a clarion call to come to this site and purloin their half-baked weirdo claptrap. It's like they haven't read the article at all; can't they see themselves in the characters being discussed?
Because 'kooks' is subjective
"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success." - Bruce Feirstein
After all, if Einstein's theory had been proven wrong, we'd all still hold to Newtonian worldview and Einstein would be synonymous with well-meaning-kook.
Who knows how many other 'moronic pseudo-scientific theories' out there will some day be proven correct? It took millenia for Copernicus and Galileo to finally settle the geocentric-heliocentric debate which was started by the Ancient Greeks (or earlier).