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Re: [Phys-L] blue road physics



Quoting Isaac Bickerstaff <jsd@av8n.com>:

This relativity article is part of a series that includes the recent
contribution by H.S. Leff (five parts, ~16 pages) that explains entropy
in terms of spatial energy-spreading.

Leff was not the first who suggested “spread of energy”; his paper was published in 1996. Entropy as “spread of energy” can be found in a physics textbook written by Breithaupt (1995), for example.

These contributions are valuable for teaching students that everything
we have learned about relativity since 1908 is wrong, and everything we
have learned about thermodynamics since 1898 is wrong.
All in all, this series will serve as a lasting monument to the wisdom
of the reviewers and editors of The Physics Teacher.

There are at least seven common approaches in attacking the notion of relativistic mass as found in textbooks, papers, or “Issac Bickerstaff”’s post:
1. Relativistic mass is not being used anymore. (Gary Oas found that there are more books using the concept of relativistic mass instead.)
2. Relativistic mass is out of fashion. (The rational on the new fashion is not mentioned.)
3. Einstein never used relativistic mass. (But Einstein defined velocity-dependent mass such as transverse mass; there are other definitions of relativistic mass...)
4. Feynman did not use relativistic mass after delivering his famous Lectures in 1963. (Feynman’s 1975 Letter to Kenneth R. Warner, for example, still used the concept of relativistic mass.)
5. Beauty of 4-vector (Advocates of relativistic mass, such as Sandin, also used argument based on beauty.)
6. Making fun of the reviewers and editors of The Physics Teacher like “Issac Bickerstaff” in the above post.
7. Pedagogical reasons…
The seven reasons/explanations outlined above do not have any physical insight that will help students in learning. It may suggest that many are still learning the mathematics behind SR without understanding the physical significance. Perhaps, there should be PER as suggested by John Clement.