Re: importance of Einstein

[Ken Caviness <caviness@SOUTHERN.EDU>]

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 02:17:06 -0700, Pentcho Valev <valevp@BAS.BG>, wrote:

> On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:02:55 -0700, Shapiro, Mark
> <mshapiro@EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU> wrote:
>
> > There seems to be a small group of folks out there who are
> > anti-Einstein.  Most of this has nothing at all to do with his science.
>
> Then why don't you discuss his science? If you did, I am sure the small
> group would become much larger. Here is the opinion of a famous French
> scientist who does discuss Einstein's science:
>
> http://allais.maurice.free.fr/Paradoxe.htm
>
> "De là a résulté une incroyable situation sans aucun précédent dans
...
> "An unbelievable situation without precedent in the whole history has
> arisen: The unlimited domination for a century of a false theory, the
> Theory of Relativity, resulting itself from the plagiarism of an
> incontestable error. The harmful consequences for science which
> resulted from it were incalculable, the orientation of science in the
> wrong direction for a century, and a regression of the scientific
> thought which has not finished to constitute an unsurmountable obstacle
> on the way of progress."

Since I speak French and have a great interest in relativity I immediately
went to the website mentioned above and found some very interesting reading,
but not a lot of hard science.

Pentcho Valev is misrepresenting the author as "a famous French scientist who
does discuss Einstein's science".  The author is Maurice Allais, a famous
French _economist_ (in fact, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic
Sciences), who appears to have little more than a layman's background in
physics.  Not that that is damning per se, but in his essay about Einstein and
relativity he makes a number of false statements.  "Essay" is actually too
tame a word here, one might characterize his comments as a diatribe against
Einstein, making all sorts of claims that relativity is wrong, and that
Einstein plagiarized it anyway!  I trust that this gentleman's reputation as
a economist will not be too greatly tarnished by this ridiculous fluff.

Without trying in this forum to attempt a critique of Allais' article, let me
here just comment on his charge of plagiarism:

It is quite true that Lorentz had independently obtained much of the formalism
of special relativity, and that Poincaré more clearly enunciated the principle
of the relativity of inertial reference frames (and first named it
"relativity", if I remember correctly).  But Lorentz' work was based on a
postulated Fitzgerald contraction of electronic orbits within the atom, an
awkward and non-aesthetic starting point.  Lorentz and others were trying to
explain the negative results of Michelson & Morley's interferometer
experiments, but this was frankly grasping at straws.  Einstein cut through
the fog with his two principles of special relativity [(1) The laws of physics
are the same for all inertial frames and (2) The speed of light is the same in
all inertial frames.]  He immediately saw that these postulates discard the
notion of absolute space and time:  the relativity of simultaneity, length and
time intervals follows immediately.

Special relativity is clearly an outgrowth, a completion one might say, of
classical physics.  The idea of that the state of uniform motion is "just as
good" a frame of reference as the state of "rest" far antedates Einstein.  It
was at the basis of Galileo's understanding of inertia, and is clearly present
in Newton's famous 3 laws, particularly the first one.  The Lorentz
transformation and the constancy of the speed of light (actually of all
electromagnetic radiation) is implicit in Maxwell's formulation of
electromagnetism (1873).

The genius of Einstein's approach lies in which long-believed axioms he was
willing to discard (*), and which simple, elegant axioms he chose to accept.
Einstein himself later said that he did not even remember reading about the
Michelson's experiments, but started at first principles of how the universe
must work in order to make sense.  (That is, behave in a logical consistent
manner, irrespective of which observer's point of view is taken).

(* Such as time flowing at the same rate for all observers.)

I move on to a quote from Pentcho Valev's follow up message:

> On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:07:02 -0500, Gonzalez-Espada, Wilson
> <wilson.gonzalezespad@MAIL.ATU.EDU> wrote:
>
> > Hello all:
> >
> > Assuming Einstein's theory of relativity is wrong, it has lead us to where
> we are now. Looking back at science history, there are a number of wrong
> theories (geocentric theory of the universe, caloric fluid, electric fluid,
> Bohr model of the atom, etc.) who have advanced science until a better
> theory is postulated.
> > In order to throw Einstein's theory away science needs a better theory,
> that is, a theory that can explain as much as relativity in addition of
> explaining and predicting new phenomena. If there is no alternate theory,
> why discard one that has worked well so far?

This is a very good point.  As scientists, we look for explanations, models
that have high predictive power.  According to this yardstick, relativity does
better than the "classical" physics theories that preceded it.  And general
relativity does better than special relativity.  In the sub-atomic domain,
quantum physics does better than classical, quantum with relativistic
corrections does better still.  Each model should have equivalent predictive
power in the domain where the current models work well, and better predictions
in other domains.  In addition, many of us appreciate "elegance" in a
scientific theory.  Very approximately, simple axioms that lead to insights in
many domains are preferable to tossing together a hodge-podge of disconnected
formulae.

> Perhaps it has not.

No, sorry, it has. (worked so well so far)

> First let us solve the following problem. Relativity is
> based on the axiom according to which the speed of light is costant in all
> inertial frames. Now ASSUME this axiom is false.

Why should we assume to be false something that has been verified to the
highest precision we can measure?

> What do we do: A)
> Immediately reject the false axiom and all its corollaries. B) Continue to
> use the theory untill a better one emerges.

You want "A", clearly.  But in fact, even wrong theories are useful.  In one
sense all our theories are wrong.  Hopefully they are progressively improving
approximations, but they're not THE TRUTH.  They are based on _many_
simplifications and assumptions that are more or less generally valid.

> A second problem. If the axiom is false, why does the theory give correct
> predictions, e.g. the prediction of the redshift factor? C) Because the
> axiom is not false. D) Because Einstein was an unfair person and
> deliberately produced an invalid deductive chain from the axiom to the
> redshift factor.

 From the above I deduce two things:  (1) That you believe that you have found
a mistake in the derivation of the "redshift factor" [I'm all ears, please
tell us], and (2) That you are not aware that there are many other
experimental verifications of special and general relativity which will
require alternative explanations if you throw away relativity:  any good
introductory book on relativity will give more details, but here are a few to
start with:

Time dilation confirmed by muon decay experiments and day-to-day work by high-
energy physicists.  (The Mt. Washington muon experiments can also be viewed as
confirmation of length contraction -- of the distance travelled, from the
standpoint of the muons.)

Relativistic momentum and energy increase are confirmed by 50 years of high-
energy accelerator experiments.  (Classical predictions are bad wrong here.)
E = m c^2 is a direct result of special relativity, and is confirmed by the
amount of mass converted to energy in nuclear reactions, nuclear bombs, etc.

Relativistic shift of light emitted by stars gives us a consistent method for
calculating their speeds.

General relativitiy's Big Three experimental confirmations are
(1) the bending of light passing near a massive object (e.g., the sun),
(2) the precession of Mercury's orbit,
(3) gravitational redshift (frequency shift as light leaves a massive object --
 a sun, star).

To this we might add black holes, gravitational lensing of distant galaxies
(yes, we see multiple images of the same object), the observed effect of
gravitational waves on binary pulsars, etc.  Hopefully LIGO (Laser
Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) will provide direct measurement
of gravitational waves in the near future.  (See
<http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/LIGO_web/PR/scripts/facts.html>.)

Oh, I might add that your handy little GPS unit is based on both special and
general relativity.  Clocks moving at different speeds and at different places
in the earth's gravitational field _do_ run at different rates.  These are
measurable effects.

No, relativity cannot be simply thrown away.  Far from being "un obstacle
insurmontable sur la voie du progrès" ("an unsurmountable obstacle on the way
of progress") as Allais claims, relativity has been a rich source of new
understanding of the universe we find ourselves in.

Ken Caviness
Physics @ Southern