Hubble Telescope Makes New Discovery
By MATT CRENSON, AP
NEW YORK (Nov. 17) – The Hubble Space Telescope has shown that a mysterious form of energy first conceived by Albert Einstein, then rejected by the famous physicist as his “greatest blunder,” appears to have been fueling the expansion of the universe for most of its history.
This so-called “dark energy” has been pushing the universe outward for at least 9 billion years, astronomers said Thursday.
“This is the first time we have significant, discrete data from back then,” said Adam Riess, a professor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and researcher at NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute.
He and several colleagues used the Hubble to observe 23 supernovae – exploding white dwarf stars – so distant that their light took more than half the history of the universe to reach the orbiting telescope. That means the supernovae existed when the universe was less than half its current age of approximately 13.7 billion years.
You can read the full article here.
Nice goin’ Einstein!
As a physicist I must make a small comment… Einstein introduced a “cosmological constant”, as he called it, into his original field equations to produce a stable, non-expanding, universe. This was in line with the common conception of the time.
Later Hubble, and others, showed the universe was expanding, eliminating the need for this “cosmoligical constant”. Einstein realised that if he had stuck to his original equations, not introducing this constant, he could have foreseen this expansion. This would have been a great achivement. Not doing so was “the greatest blunder of his life”, as he said.
My point, the blunder was not that he introduced “dark energy”, the blunder was that he didn’t stick to it all the way.
Esben Lund
Also, we should note that Einstein’s theory is just a special case (approximation) that works only under large scale distances.
We obviously need better theory that will include small scale distances and work in any situation. (Not discovered yet)
Practicaly, it is like this:
If Einstein said:
“Rook vs Rook+pawn will win if you get to Lucena position” that would be a kind of a theory.
Some better theory may explain everything about rook vs rook+pawn for any setup, using the same logic.
The cosmological constant, Lambda, which Einstein added to the stress energy tensor in the gravitational field equations (Einstein equations) and later abandoned, is only one part (the constant, static part) of the dark energy. The more important, dynamic part is called quintessence. It is a dynamic field that varies in space and time.
Many scientists tried to contradict Einstein, none could so far.
Gabor
Einstein was an atheist
Wow, if even his blunders are proved to be not blunders, imagine what we will discover in time about his other science.
I stand in awe of this humble genius…
anom on your comment Einstein was an atheist. I seen some evidence to suggest the contrary, for instance Albert once made the statement, “I want to learn to think like God, the rest are just details”. Also Einstein said he believed their had to be a supreme being who created the universe because the universe was too perfect.
There are some mistakes, It is dark matter, not dark energy. As well the first empirical observation of the effects of dark matter was published aug. 22, very big news. 🙂 For more information try checking out wikipedia’s page on dark matter, it is pretty good.
From a office clerk in 1895 as a young man to Susans chess blog in 2006..Well done Albert
Niels Bohr who was the one that most often corrected Einsteins misstakes (especially regarding his special relativity) and once even corrected him about God when discussing quantum physics.
Albert: – God does not play dice.
Niels: – Who are You, telling God what to do.
Here you find some pictures of them together:
http://www.dfi.dk/dfi/pressroom/kbhfortolkningen/
To Esben Lund who might also be from Denmark, i would like to say the following.
There was no Blunder. The cosmological constant went in and out of his equations several times due to advancing knowleage. Nowadays the mathematics has advanced a lot
in a steady phase, but we have for a long time been waiting for new observations as strange as Hubbles.
@hoody
I forgot to tell you:
Remember that Einsten already 1902-1909 held a temporary post at the
patent office in Zurich. There he proably read more crazy and brilliant postings than yet can be found on this newly started blog.
And then he of course got help from his Serbian girlfriend to reach the very top.
Anon is wrong – the expansion of Universe is caused by dark ENERGY, not dark matter. Matter exerts gravitation which is only attractive while dark energy is repulsive, causing expansion. When you look in Wikipedia, read at least the full entry, and have in mind that it might be written by a non-professional and may contain errors. The entries on dark matter and dark energy in Wiki are relatively free of errors but they are too short and do not give the full picture. The consensus from observations now is – the world is composed of dark energy (70%), dark(non-barionic) matter (25%), and the rest is ordinary (barionic) matter (5%).
As regards Einstein, he is a genius to such a degree as to be compared to God (that is, if we consider God as the absolute truth). The relativity theory finds proof in every experiment and observation done so far, despite the numerous attempts to disprove it. The mere fact that it can be disproved makes it a sound theory. So far it is expanded, modified, enhanced, but not disproved by experiment.
Einstein had his star flash in 1905 (special theory) and 1915 (general theory). From then on until his death in 1955, he was pretty much a reactionary force in physics, arguing against quantum theory and probabilistic theories in general (“God does not play with dice”). However, his clever arguments and insights in the frontline issues of science prodded many physicists to re-check and improve their theories, so his reactionary stand benefitted science. He was proved wrong in his arguments eventually with the flourishing of quantum physics and probabilistic thinking (“God not only plays with dice, but he is a passionate gambler, too” – Steven Hawking). The main issue in modern physics is the unification of forces, including gravitation, which will happen with an uneasy marriage of relativity and quantum theory – quantum relativity.
What’s amazing is that the standard model (the current model of the universe that most physicists agree on) says that 96% of the universe is dark matter and dark energy and only 4% is the material we can observe. This means the universe is much more complex and mysterious than we ever thought.
I would say that Einstein’s scepticism against Quantum Theory was well justified, and the truth is that nobody has still understood quantum mechanics…
A good scientific theory is one that can be disproved (falsifability, Popper) and relativitiy is one of those (unlike string theory for example).
One of the main problems is the “unification” of GR and QM, but by no means the final. Personally I think that a better understanding of QM as such would be of greater importance.
More improtantly, the problem is not unification of GR and QM, but even to make them compatible. (you do not nesecary need a single force, but you do need to be able to handle them in a unified framework)
While it is true that it seems like “God” does use a dice (albeit much more misterious, since QM cannot be explained by any realistic probabilistic theory and is even more misterious) I think that is inappropriate for Hawking to critisize with such certainty, since he is really not in the same league with Einstein (heavily overated due to his inabilities).
Finally about Einstein and God.. He did clearly believed, but the thing he believed to be God would not be indentified by many people as God.
Sure, Hawking is not the same caliber as Einstein, but he is still one of the best physicists in modern times. To say that he is overrated for his disabilities amounts to saying the same for Kramnik. However, Hawking does not use his medical certificates to make better contracts as Kramnik’s managers do.
Quantum theory is proven by many experiments too. To say that Einstein is right in his argument against it is to awake an already forgotten debate 80 years ago between Einstein and Bohr, in which Bohr proved decisively to be right. All Einstein biographers acknowledge this.
For string theory, yes, you are right, the problem with it is that it is not falsifiable.
It’s interesting that, whereas Lantanov has cited Hawking as having said: “God not only plays with dice, but he is a passionate gambler, too,” the saying I’ve heard attributed to him is: “Not only does God play dice, He throws them where they can’t be seen.” This latter “variation,” I should think, would preclude discussions about who is of higher “caliber” (since when are ad hominem attacks appropriate/constructive? Besides, who among us is truly able to make such a distinction in the first place?).
It’s my understanding that Hawking wasn’t deriding or undermining Einstein; he was extolling God’s supremacy, no? Wasn’t he merely saying God’s ways are indeed so complex, so very mysterious that we may never fully discern them (Unified Field Theory?), which notion can be either disconcerting or challenging. Unlike us, it’s sure omniscient God isn’t restricted by Heisenburg’s uncertainty principle!
P.S. Hi Susan, long time no see (Montreal or Novi Sad?). I hope you’re very well!
My apologies . . . Lantonov!
Apologies accepted, Vesma. I haven’t seen the variation that you quoted, only that which I quoted. Either way, Hawking wants to show that nature works with probabilities. Another way to say it is: Determination in chaos. We can see it everywhere. Even the planet’s orbits, the prime Newtonian example for order, turned to be chaotic.
As to the Einstein view of religion and God, read Einstein himself (excerpts from: Albert Einsten – The World As I See It):
“Religion and Science
Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the
satisfaction of felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this
constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their
development. Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human
endeavour and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may
present itself to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to
religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little
consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside
over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is
above all fear that evokes religious notions–fear of hunger, wild beasts,
sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal
connexions is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates for itself
more or less analogous beings on whose wills and actions these fearful
happenings depend. One’s object now is to secure the favour of these beings
by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition
handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them
well disposed towards a mortal. I am speaking now of the religion of fear.
This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation
of a special priestly caste which sets up as a mediator between the people and
the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases the
leader or ruler whose position depends on other factors, or a privileged class,
combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the
latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common
cause in their own interests.
The social feelings are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers
and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and
fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the
social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence who
protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes, the God who, according to the
width of the believer’s outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of
the human race, or even life as such, the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied
longing, who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral
conception of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of
fear to moral religion, which is continued in the New Testament. The religions
of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily
moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a
great step in a nation’s life. That primitive religions are based entirely on fear
and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against
which we must be on our guard. The truth is that they are all intermediate
types, with this reservation, that on the higher levels of social life the religion of
morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their
conception of God. Only individuals of exceptional endowments and
exceptionally high-minded communities, as a general rule, get in any real sense
beyond this level. But there is a third state of religious experience which
belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form, and which
I will call cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to explain this feeling to
anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic
conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the
sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in
the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison
and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The
beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of
development–e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the
Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of
Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of
religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s
image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based on
it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who
were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases
regarded by their contemporaries as Atheists, sometimes also as saints.
Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza
are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to
another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In
my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this
feeling and keep it alive in those who are capable of it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very
different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically one is
inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and
for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the
universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the
idea of a being who interferes in the course of events–that is, if he takes the
hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear
and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and
punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are
determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God’s eyes he cannot
be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the
motions it goes through. Hence science has been charged with undermining
morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behaviour should be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is
necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by
fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the Churches have always fought science and
persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that cosmic religious
feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research. Only those
who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion which pioneer
work in theoretical science demands, can grasp the strength of the emotion
out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of
life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and
what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind
revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to
spend years of solitary labour in disentangling the principles of celestial
mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived
chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the
mentality of the men who, surrounded by a sceptical world, have shown the
way to those like-minded with themselves, scattered through the earth and the
centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid
realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to
remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious
feeling that gives a man strength of this sort. A contemporary has said, not
unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are
the only profoundly religious people.
The Religiousness of Science
You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without
a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the
naive man. For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit
and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a
child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal
relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe.
But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future,
to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing
divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the
form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals
an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic
thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This
feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in
keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question
closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.”
WHY EINSTEIN TURNED PALE IN 1911-1915
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/28/opinion/bookmer.php :
“It’s hard not to wonder what event or discovery could make Einstein turn pale and disappear, ending his universe as definitely as the atomic massacre in Hiroshima said fini to Newton’s.”
In fact, Einstein did turn pale between 1911 and 1915:
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm :
“So, it is absolutely true that the speed of light is _not_ constant in a gravitational field [which, by the equivalence principle, applies as well to accelerating (non-inertial) frames of reference]. If this were not so, there would be no bending of light by the gravitational field of stars. One can do a simple Huyghens reconstruction of a wave front, taking into account the different speed of advance of the wavefront at different distances from the star (variation of speed of light), to derive the deflection of the light by the star.
Indeed, this is exactly how Einstein did the calculation in:
“On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,” Annalen der Physik, 35, 1911.
which predated the full formal development of general relativity by about four years. This paper is widely available in English. You can find a copy beginning on page 99 of the Dover book “The Principle of Relativity.” You will find in section 3 of that paper, Einstein’s derivation of the (variable) speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is,
c’ = c0 ( 1 + V / c2 )
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light c0 is measured.”
Then Divine Albert realized that in the Divine Science he had created “both constant and variable” is much more shocking and profitable than just “constant”.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
THE PRINCIPLE OF VARIABILITY OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT
Einstein’s 1911 equation c’=c(1+V/c^2), where c’ is the speed of light as measured by an observer, c=300000km/s is the initial speed of light relative to the light source and V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where light is emitted, proves the validity of the following principle:
Since the probability that V=0 is virtually zero, light NEVER travels in space with speed c=300000km/s; its speed is either higher or lower than that value (V>0 or V
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
EINSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHERS REFUTE NEWTON
Einstein’s philosophers organized a conference
http://www.spacetimesociety.org/conferences/2006/cprogram.html
in order to refute Newton, gather some courage and offer reasonable hypotheses based on Einstein’s principle of invariability of the speed of light:
http://www.spacetimesociety.org/conferences/2006/docs/Forrest.html
“Who’s Afraid of Special elativity?
Peter Forrest
Who’s Afraid of Special Relativity? Too many philosophers who shouldn’t be. In particular presentists and Growing Block theorists tend to prefer alternatives. The presentist William Craig, for instance, holds a neo-Lorentzian position and the Growing Block theorist Michael Tooley endorses Winnie’s theory. My claim is that neither Presentism nor the Growing Block is threatened by Special Relativity. What is under threat is the Newtonian conception of time as necessarily flowing uniformly… One of my hypotheses is a “many universes” theory in which in each “universe” time flows uniformly unless and until it stops flowing. Another is one in which reality is added to the past in a series of “volcanic eruptions” in which a small light cone is added (the larger the hyper-volume of the additional reality the less probable the “eruption”)”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
STEPHEN HAWKING DESTROYS HUMAN RATIONALITY
Stephen Hawking:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html
“Both Mitchell and Laplace thought of light as consisting of particles, rather like cannon balls, that could be slowed down by gravity, and made to fall back on the star. But a famous experiment, carried out by two Americans, Michelson and Morley in 1887, showed that light always travelled at a speed of one hundred and eighty six thousand miles a second, no matter where it came from. How then could gravity slow down light, and make it fall back.”
Einstein never abandoned the principle of VARIABILITY of speed of light, according to relativists (other than Stephen Hawking):
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm :
“So, it is absolutely true that the speed of light is _not_ constant in a gravitational field [which, by the equivalence principle, applies as well to accelerating (non-inertial) frames of reference]. If this were not so, there would be no bending of light by the gravitational field of stars. One can do a simple Huyghens reconstruction of a wave front, taking into account the different speed of advance of the wavefront at different distances from the star (variation of speed of light), to derive the deflection of the light by the star.
Indeed, this is exactly how Einstein did the calculation in:
“On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,” Annalen der Physik, 35, 1911.
which predated the full formal development of general relativity by about four years. This paper is widely available in English. You can find a copy beginning on page 99 of the Dover book “The Principle of Relativity.” You will find in section 3 of that paper, Einstein’s derivation of the (variable) speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is,
c’ = c0 ( 1 + V / c^2 )
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light c0 is measured.”
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Rela…d_of_light.html
“Einstein went on to discover a more general theory of relativity which explained gravity in terms of curved spacetime, and he talked about the speed of light changing in this new theory. In the 1920 book “Relativity: the special and general theory” he wrote: . . . according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity [. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to special relativity suggests that he did mean so.”
At the end of his career (in 1954) Einstein predicts a possible death of physics:
“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.”
Where does the despair come from? The choice Einstein had to make between the concept of light as a continuous field and the concept of light as discontinuous particles (photons) is rarely mentioned in the literature but still there are eloquent quotations:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius/ :
“Genius Among Geniuses” by Thomas Levenson
“And then, in June, Einstein completes special relativity, which adds a twist to the story: Einstein’s March paper treated light as particles, but special relativity sees light as a continuous field of waves. Alice’s Red Queen can accept many impossible things before breakfast, but it takes a supremely confident mind to do so. Einstein, age 26, sees light as wave and particle, picking the attribute he needs to confront each problem in turn. Now that’s tough.”
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=4-0486406768-0 :
“Relativity and Its Roots” by Banesh Hoffmann:
(I do not have the text in English so I am giving it in French)
Banesh Hoffmann, “La relativite, histoire d’une grande idee”, Pour la Science, Paris, 1999, p. 112:
“De plus, si l’on admet que la lumiere est constituee de particules, comme Einstein l’avait suggere dans son premier article, 13 semaines plus tot, le second principe parait absurde: une pierre jetee d’un train qui roule tres vite fait bien plus de degats que si on la jette d’un train a l’arret. Or, d’apres Einstein, la vitesse d’une certaine particule ne serait pas independante du mouvement du corps qui l’emet! Si nous considerons que la lumiere est composee de particules qui obeissent aux lois de Newton, ces particules se conformeront a la relativite newtonienne. Dans ce cas, il n’est pas necessaire de recourir a la contraction des longueurs, au temps local ou a la transformation de Lorentz pour expliquer l’echec de l’experience de Michelson-Morley. Einstein, comme nous l’avons vu, resista cependant a la tentation d’expliquer ces echecs a l’aide des idees newtoniennes, simples et familieres. Il introduisit son second postulat, plus ou moins evident lorsqu’on pensait en termes d’ondes dans l’ether.”
Clearly, the particle model of light finds its support in the negative result of Michelson-Morley experiment. It is also consistent with the third equation of Maxwell (Faraday’s induction law) as implied at the beginning of Einstein’s 1905 paper:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
(The “customary view” Einstein refers to is the ether model of Maxwell that Maxwell himself abandoned in the end; the fact that the particle model of light naturally contradicts the ether model by no means implies that the particle model is inconsistent with the Faraday’s induction law, although the mythology says otherwise.)
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
BEYOND EINSTEIN: NEWTON
Einstein’s theory is an inconsistency: the set of its axioms involves, explicitly, the principle of INVARIABILITY of the speed of light and, implicitly, the principle of VARIABILITY of the speed of light. Any development, improvement etc. should obviously be preceded by a removal of the false principle of invariability of the speed of light and the miracles it has generated (time dilation, length contraction, Minkowski’s spacetime etc.). “Relativity without Einstein’s second postulate” has been a recurrent dream of initiated Einsteinians who have known about the falsehood from the very beginning:
http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/4114.html :
“They lead to an unexpected affirmative answer to the long-standing question of whether it is possible to construct a relativity theory without postulating the constancy of the speed of light and retaining only the first postulate of special relativity. This question was discussed in the early years following the discovery of special relativity by many physicists, including Ritz, Tolman, Kunz, Comstock and Pauli, all of whom obtained negative answers.”
The problem is that “Relativity without Einstein’s second postulate” or, in other terms, “Relativity without c”, is equivalent to “Back to Newton”. Curiously, the proof of this equivalency can be found in perhaps the most famous textbook on relativity:
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~phys16/Textbook/ch10.pdf
p.35: “Relativity without c….it is easy to imagine a universe where the speed of light depends on the frame of reference. Light could behave like a baseball, for example. So let’s drop the speed of light postulate and see what we can say about the coordinate transformations between frames, using only the relativity postulate.”
p.38: “There is only one decision to be made when constructing the spacetime structure of an (empty) universe. You just have to say whether V is finite or infinite, that is, whether the universe is Lorentzian or Galilean.”
Note that “Light could behave like a baseball” amounts to an implicit introduction of Newton’s particle model of light (confirmed by Einstein himself in 1905) valid in a Galilean universe where the speed of light is VARIABLE.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
EDUCATION IN EINSTEIN’S WORLD
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/publications/sabroad2007/courses/Physics%20and%20astronomy/12930
Courses at Sussex
Physics and astronomy
Relativity
Level 1
6 credits in summer
Teaching method: Lecture, Workshop
Assessment modes: Unseen Examination, Coursework
Topics include: historical perspective. Inertial frames and transformations. Newton’s laws in inertial frames. MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT – OBSERVED CONSTANCY OF SPEED OF LIGHT. Einstein’s assumptions. Lorentz-Einstein transformations; Minkowski diagrams; Lorentz contraction; time dilation. Transformation of velocities – stellar aberration. Variation of mass, mass-energy equivalence. Lorentz transformations for momentum and energy.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html
Stephen Hawking: “But a famous experiment, carried out by two Americans, Michelson and Morley in 1887, showed that light always travelled at a speed of one hundred and eighty six thousand miles a second, no matter where it came from.”
Elsewhere Einstein’s educators teach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light :
“It should be noted that the Michelson-Morley experiment said little about the speed of light relative to the light’s source and observer’s velocity, as both the source and observer were travelling at the same velocity together in space. Indeed, if light is understood to be due to quantum photon “bullets”, then the Michelson-Morley result is exactly as expected.”
Amazingly, this type of education has proved extremely efficient – no relativist would see anything disturbing when comparing the three teachings.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
DANGEROUS BUSINESS IN EINSTEIN’S CRIMINAL CULT
Classically, Einstein’s criminal cult extracted their billions from miracles deduced from Einstein’s false principle of constancy of the speed of light. However a few years ago Einsteinians realized in horror that taxpayers were not excited anymore about a twin that sees his brother’s clock running slow but then returns and proves younger etc. That was the end of the constant speed of light affair and a natural beginning of the variable speed of light affair.
The new business is dangerous for two reasons: first, variable speed of light could wipe out Einstein’s criminal cult altogether; second, variable speed of light per se is unable to produce miracles and therefore excitement among taxpayers is by no means guaranteed. So new business plans involve the following tasks. First, the meaning of “variable” should be confused: the attention should shift from “depending on the speed of the light source” to something different, e.g. “faster in the past, slower now”. Second, the variability of the speed of light should be served in fantastically small portions, so fantastically small that excitement is unavoidably restored and, what is even more important, Einstein’s theory remains essentially correct:
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-04/features/testing-the-limits/?page=1
“Testing the Limit of Einstein’s Theories….IS THE SPEED OF LIGHT CONSTANT?….If you compare a lot of high-energy photons with a lot of relatively low-energy ones, you should find that on average, after a billion-year race, the high-energy ones reach GLAST’s detector sooner—by about a millisecond. He and other quantum gravity theorists are pretty excited by that possibility, which just goes to show what they’re up against.”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
EINSTEIN’S RELATIVITY: VIOLATIONS AND AXIOMS
Any Einsteinian would tell you violations of the theory entail reconsideration of the axioms: since Einstein’s deductions are rigorous, false conclusions would imply false axioms. On the other hand, any breathtaking development of Einstein’s relativity can only be triggered by violations and Einsteinians do wish to see that development – the present stalemate is disturbing even for them. The dilemma has an elegant solution: there are numerous violations indeed so the breathtaking development is imminent but those violations are tiny, so tiny that reconsideration of the axioms is not necessary:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/tips/page/normal/4519.html :
“Alan Kostelecky, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Indiana University Bloomington, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for seminal contributions to relativity and spacetime symmetries, and for the development of a profound and comprehensive theoretical framework for relativity violations,” according to a statement from AAAS….he realized that tiny violations of Einstein’s relativity could be an experimental signal of the long-sought underlying theory unifying all known forces and particles….Kostelecky’s theory has inspired many searches for relativity violations around the world, and more are being performed….. “The ongoing search for relativity violations is an impressive interdisciplinary effort,” Kostelecky said.”
Einsteinians reassure themselves in the following way. Since the violations are tiny, axioms are just a little false and therefore virtually true. The reassurance is quite explicit sometimes:
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-04/features/testing-the-limits/?page=1
“Testing the Limit of Einstein’s Theories….IS THE SPEED OF LIGHT CONSTANT?….If you compare a lot of high-energy photons with a lot of relatively low-energy ones, you should find that on average, after a billion-year race, the high-energy ones reach GLAST’s detector sooner—by about a millisecond. He and other quantum gravity theorists are pretty excited by that possibility, which just goes to show what they’re up against.”
Einsteinians know Einstein would disagree about “little falsehood”. Once he said: “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.” However the solution Einsteinians have found is both elegant and all-embracing: Violations are tiny, axioms are just a little false, Einstein is just a little wrong.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
EINSTEINIANS RETURN TO NEWTON
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/9910/9910325.pdf
Gravitation Without Curved Space-time
Kris Krogh
p.12: “The gravitational frequency shift in Einstein’s 1911 variable-speed-of-light theory was v=v0(1+phi/c^2) which agrees with Eq. (13) to the first order. But there was no effect on lambda, or the dimensions of measuring rods, corresponding to Eq. (14). Consequently, the speed of light in a gravitational potential was c=c0(1+phi/c^2).”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
THE FORGOTTEN FACET OF EINSTEIN’S THEORY
In 1964 Einsteinians discovered that Einstein’s inconsistency, like any other inconsistency, is based on two incompatible principles: the principle of invariability of the speed of light and the principle of variability of the speed of light. They called the discovery “a previously forgotten facet of general relativity theory” and made use of it in the sense of extracting money from it:
http://www.blazelabs.com/f-g-gcont.asp :
“The first confirmation of a long range variation in the speed of light travelling in space came in 1964. Irwin Shapiro, it seems, was the first to make use of a previously forgotten facet of general relativity theory — that the speed of light is reduced when it passes through a gravitational field. He had proposed an observational test to check his prediction: bounce radar beams off the surface of Venus and Mercury, and measure the round trip travel time. When the Earth, Sun, and Venus are most favorably aligned, Shapiro showed that the expected time delay, due to the presence of the Sun, of a radar signal traveling from the Earth to Venus and back, would be about 200 microseconds more than it would if the sun was not present. Later on, using the MIT Haystack radar antenna, the experiment was repeated, matching Shapiro’s predicted amount of time delay. The experiments have been repeated many times since, with increasing accuracy. This experiment had for the first time shown that the constants like c and G, assumed constants in Einstein’s SR theory suffered local (or regional) in the proximity of massive bodies like the sun. Faced with this evidence, Einstein stated: “In the second place our result shows that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position…”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
EINSTEINIANS RETURN TO NEWTON WITHOUT FUSS
http://www.san-fr.com/conferen/aff_conf.php?date=2006-12-15
Conférence du 15 décembre 2006 à 21 h, à la salle Le Bretagne
D’Einstein à Newton : la préhistoire de la Relativité
par Jean EISENSTAEDT
“Cette préhistoire classique, newtonienne, de la relativité einsteinienne offre une approche infiniment plus simple, plus claire, que celle qui passe par le XIXe siècle et l’éther. Elle permet l’application – en fait une complétion – de la dynamique newtonienne à la lumière.”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
WHERE EXACTLY THE PHYSICS CRISIS IS
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4812 :
Lee Smolin: “The crisis is not in physics overall but in that part of physics whose goal is to deepen our understanding of the laws of nature. Since the middle 1970s, there has been no definitive progress, no match between a new experimental result and a new theoretical prediction. That’s worrying…..String theory is not a theory in the sense that Newtonian mechanics or quantum mechanics is. It’s not defined by the statement of two or three principles that are expressed in the basic equations of the theory—which are then solved to yield examples and predictions.”
Note that a year ago the paradigm for something “defined by the statement of two or three principles that are expressed in the basic equations of the theory—which are then solved to yield examples and predictions” would inevitably have been Einsteinian mechanics. Now Smolin believes it is Newtonian mechanics again whereas Einstein’s name is not even mentioned. And Smolin was an admirer of Einstein, to say the least.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
HOW EINSTEINIANS EARN THEIR LIVING
http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Speed-Light-Speculation/dp/0738205257
“In Faster Than the Speed of Light, Magueijo reveals the short, brilliant history of his possibly groundbreaking speculation–VSL, or Variable Light Speed. This notion–that the speed of light changed as the universe expanded after the Big Bang–contradicts no less prominent a figure than Albert Einstein. Because of this, Magueijo has suffered more than a few slings and arrows from hidebound, jealous, or perplexed colleagues. But the young scientist persisted, found a few important allies, and finally managed to shake up the establishment enough to get the attention he merited and craved.”
Einstein defined the variability of the speed of light as the dependence of the speed of photons on the speed of the light source. The application of the equivalence principle converts this into the statement that, in a gravitational field, the speed of light “varies with position”, as Einstein himself put it in Chapter 22 in his “Relativity” (but did not say that varying with position in a gravitational field is equivalent to depending on the speed of the light source in the absence of a gravitational field).
It is easy to see that Magueijo’s Variable Light Speed in fact confirms Einstein’s second postulate – the principle of INVARIABILITY of the speed of light. One would be unable to claim that light was faster in the past and is slower now if its speed were not invariable relative to the speed of the light source or in a gravitational field. Then why should Magueijo be presented as the Martyr contradicting Divine Albert and persecuted by jealous colleagues? Money, money, money……
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
BRINGING EINSTEIN’S SECOND POSTULATE TO PERFECTION
In 1905 Einstein postulates that “light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body” but fails to explain whether this “definite velocity c” would remain “definite velocity c” when the observer and the place of emission are at different gravitational potentials. Einstein’s explanation comes later, in 1911, and in 2007 it is time to bring the original 1905 postulate to perfection:
If the relative speed of the observer and the emitting body is zero, light is always propagated in empty space with a variable speed c’=c(1+V/c^2) where c is the initial speed of photons relaive to the emitting body and V is the gravitational potential relative to the place of emission. Equivalently, if the observer and the place of emission are at the same gravitational potential, light is always propagated in empty space with a variable speed c’=c+v where v is the relative speed of the observer and the emitting body.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
EINSTEINIANS AS CONVULSIONISTS
The miraculous corollary of Einstein’s false principle of constancy of the speed of light – length contraction – allows Einsteinians to see through opaque bodies: see Problem 7 (“Seeing behind the stick”), p. 47 (solution on p. 54), in
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~phys16/Textbook/ch10.pdf
Seeing through the opaque stick is exciting but Einsteinians experience something even more exciting. After having moved towards the wall the rear end of the stick starts moving backward from the wall in an attempt to restore the proper length of the stick. Einsteinians do see that backward movement and ask questions: What is its speed? What is its energy? Sometimes Einsteinians believe the energy of the backward movement of the rear end is infinite. If it were not, they argue, some pawl would be able to prevent the stick from restoring its proper length but no, no, nothing can prevent the stick from restoring its proper length. Therefore in its backward movement the rear end of the stick is able to break ANY pawl.
So much excitement makes Einsteinians go into convulsions. Spasms are regularly interrupted by ecstatic singing. “Divine Einstein” fills the space:
http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/songs/divine.htm
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
TIME DILATION AND EINSTEIN’S FREEDOM TO CHOOSE
The miraculous corollary of Einstein’s false principle of constancy of the speed of light – time dilation – implies that, if a single clock belonging to the inertial system K consecutively meets clocks belonging to the inertial system K’, and if at every meeting the two readings are compared, the single clock in K turns out to run SLOWER than clocks in K’. That is, the difference in reading between clocks in K’ and the single clock in K gradually increases with the number of meetings. Yet in Chapter 23 in his “Relativity” Einstein says the opposite: the clock in the system at rest K runs FASTER than clocks placed on the periphery of the rotating disc K’. True, the periphery of the rotating disc K’ is not an inertial system but does that justify the transition from SLOWER to FASTER? Moreover, by increasing the diameter of the disc and keeping the linear speed of the periphery constant one can convert the periphery of the disc into an INERTIAL system: clocks on the periphery would experience no gravitational field while meeting consecutively the single clock from K. For such cases all textbooks say Einstein’s false principle of constancy of the speed of light predicts that the difference in reading between clocks in K’ and the single clock in K must gradually INCREASE with the number of meetings. Then why does Einstein say the opposite in Chapter 23 in his “Relativity”?
The radical solution to the problem involves abandoning Einstein’s false principle of constancy of the speed of light. This solution is too dangerous. Einstein once said: “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.”
There is also a partial solution: The single clock in the system at rest K runs both SLOWER and FASTER than clocks in the system K’ and Einstein was free to choose. He chose FASTER.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
PHILOSOPHERS WILL SAVE EINSTEIN’S FALSE SECOND POSTULATE
Einstein’s false second postulate will be saved after all. Philosophers are organizing a conference
http://quantum.leeds.ac.uk/~sonwm/fop07/
where Philosopher Harvey Brown of Oxford will set other philosophers straight by explaining the physical meaning of Einstein’s false second postulate:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=6603 : “Harvey Brown thinks that most philosophers are confused about relativity. Most centrally, he thinks they’re confused about the relativistic effects of length contraction and time dilation. In this important book, he aims to set them straight…..According to (what Brown alleges is) the dominant view among substantivalists, the geometrical structure of Minkowski spacetime plays some role in explaining why moving rods shrink and why moving clocks run slow. Brown rejects this view. He asserts, instead, that in order to explain why moving rods shrink we must appeal to the dynamical laws governing the forces that hold the parts of the rod together. The geometry of Minkowski spacetime plays no role in this explanation.”
Philosopher Steven French of Leeds will also set other philosophers straight by explaining why Einstein’s false second postulate does not invalidate Einstein’s theory:
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Partial-Truth-Scientific-Philosophy/dp/019515651X
“Da Costa and French explore the consequences of adopting a “pragmatic” notion of truth in the philosophy of science–in other words, accepting a theory as valid when it may only be partially true rather than wholly true.”
Finally, Philosopher Jeremy Butterfield of Cambridge will demonstrate how subtle Einstein’s false second postulate is:
http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/5570 : Jeremy Butterfield “Reconsidering Relativistic Causality”: “I discuss the idea of relativistic causality, i.e. the requirement that causal processes (signals) can propagate only within the light-cone. After briefly locating this requirement in the philosophy of causation, my main aim is to draw philosophers’ attention to the fact that it is subtle, and even problematic, in contemporary physics. For there are scenarios in which it fails.”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
VERY SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND VERY LITTLE FALSEHOOD
Relativists have always claimed Divine Albert rigorously deduced his special relativity from two postulates and countless experimental confirmations of the theory are in fact confirmations of the truth of the postulates. Yet lately relativists seem to have discovered countless violations of the theory but somehow forget to relate them to the problem of the truth or falsehood of the postulates. So Nobel prizewinners have found some Lorentz violation and have dared (those that are not Nobel prizewinners would never dare) to challenge Divine Albert and “rewrite the rules of Einstein’s special theory of relativity”:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19325871.400
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006PhRvL..97b1601C
Perhaps in Very Special Relativity Einstein’s false second postulate will prove Very Little False. Perhaps not. Who knows.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
HOW STRING THEORISTS AVOID THE IMPERFECTIONS OF EINSTEIN
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/03/einstein-may-have-started-rot.html Motl: “Einstein may have started the rot”…what string theory is doing is nothing else than continuing in Einstein’s program of theoretical physics, while AVOIDING ALL OF HIS KNOWN IMPERFECTIONS.”
Divine Albert taught that the speed of light varied with the gravitational potential but did not vary with the relative speed of the light source and the observer, and in Chapter 22 in his “Relativity” explained why this combination of variability and invariability was not an idiocy. Motl and his brothers string theorists agree that the combination is not an idiocy and conclude that Einstein did not start the rot (someone else, perhaps the late Bryan Wallace http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm , must have started it). On the other hand, brothers string theorists suspect that Divine Albert’s combination of variability and invariability, although not an idiocy, is still an imperfection. So they always avoid it by looking for sand, sticking their heads and exposing other parts of their bodies.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
TEACHING THE DISCOVERIES OF EINSTEIN
Generally, relativists are excellent teachers:
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm :
“So, it is absolutely true that the speed of light is _not_ constant in a gravitational field [which, by the equivalence principle, applies as well to accelerating (non-inertial) frames of reference]. If this were not so, there would be no bending of light by the gravitational field of stars. One can do a simple Huyghens reconstruction of a wave front, taking into account the different speed of advance of the wavefront at different distances from the star (variation of speed of light), to derive the deflection of the light by the star.
Indeed, this is exactly how Einstein did the calculation in:
“On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,” Annalen der Physik, 35, 1911.
which predated the full formal development of general relativity by about four years. This paper is widely available in English. You can find a copy beginning on page 99 of the Dover book “The Principle of Relativity.” You will find in section 3 of that paper, Einstein’s derivation of the (variable) speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is,
c’ = c0 ( 1 + V / c^2 )
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light c0 is measured.”
However, if teachers want their students to understand the real grandeur of Einstein’s discoveries, they should set more problems. For instance: A light source on the surface of a huge celestial body, where the gravitational field is enormous, sends light towards a very distant INERTIAL observer (where the field is zero). What speed of light will the observer measure?
Students will learn that, according to Einstein, the speed of light for inertial observers is not only constant but also variable. So students will understand both the grandeur and the essence of Einstein’s discoveries.
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com