Pentcho Valev
2010-06-21 09:19:09 UTC
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_physics
The Crisis in Physics - and Its Cause
By David Harriman
"For two centuries after Isaac Newton, the science of physics served
as the leading example of the power of the human mind. Its basic
content and method, and the life-saving technology that emerged from
it, sent a message that resounded throughout the western world: man
can live and prosper by the guidance of reason. However, for the past
century, theoretical physicists have been sending a different message.
They have rejected causality in favor of chance, logic in favor of
contradictions, and reality in favor of fantasy. The science of
physics is now riddled with claims that are as absurd as those of any
religious cult. This lecture examines the historical development of
such ideas and refutes the myth that they derive from experimental
evidence. History shows that philosophers provided the irrational
ideas, which physicists then incorporated into their theories.
Philosophy is the inescapable foundation for physics, and the
irrationalism of modern philosophy is the quicksand that engulfed
physics in the 20th century. Mr. Harriman argues that our future
depends upon saving physics - which can only be done by providing it
with the solid ground of a rational philosophy."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "The Second Law made its appearance in physics around
1850, but a half century later it was already surrounded by so much
confusion that the British Association for the Advancement of Science
decided to appoint a special committee with the task of providing
clarity about the meaning of this law. However, its final report
(Bryan 1891) did not settle the issue. Half a century later, the
physicist/philosopher Bridgman still complained that there are almost
as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions
of it (Bridgman 1941, p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains
so obscure that it continues to attract new efforts at clarification.
A recent example is the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The
historian of science and mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study
of the historical development of thermodynamics in the period
1822-1854. He characterises the theory, even in its present state, as
'a dismal swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to
show that physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid.
p. 8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/relativity-and-relativism/
Washington Times: "A frequently heard statement of cultural relativism
goes like this: "If it feels right for you, it's OK. Who is to say
you're wrong?" One individual's experience is as "valid" as another's.
There is no "preferred" or higher vantage point from which to judge
these things. Not just beauty, but right and wrong are in the eye of
the beholder. The "I" indeed is the "ultimate measure." The special
theory of relativity imposes on the physical world a claim that is
very similar to the one made by relativism. (...) So how come the
speed of light always stays the same? Einstein argued that when the
observer moves relative to an object, distance and time always adjust
themselves just enough to preserve light speed as a constant. Speed is
distance divided by time. So, Einstein argued, length contracts and
time dilates to just the extent needed to keep the speed of light ever
the same. Space and time are the alpha and omega of the physical
world. They are the stage within which everything happens. But if they
must trim and tarry whenever the observer moves, that puts "the
observer" in the driver's seat. Reality becomes observer-dependent.
Again, then, we find that the "I" is the ultimate measure. Pondering
this in Prague in the 1950s, Beckmann could not accept it. The
observer's function is to observe, he said, not to affect what's out
there. Relativity meant that two and two didn't quite add up any more
and elevated science into a priesthood of obscurity. Common sense
could no longer be trusted."
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
"The prediction that clocks will move at different rates is
particularly well known, and the problem of explaining how this can be
so without violating the principle of relativity is particularly
obvious. The clock paradox, however, is only one of a number of simple
objections that have been raised to different aspects of Einstein's
theory of relativity. (Much of this criticism is quite apart from and
often predates the apparent contradiction between relativity theory
and quantum mechanics.) It is rare to find any attempt at a detailed
rebuttal of these criticisms by professional physicists. However,
physicists do sometimes give a general response to criticisms that
relativity theory is syncretic by asserting that Einstein is logically
consistent, but that to explain why is so difficult that critics lack
the capacity to understand the argument. In this way, the handy claim
that there are unspecified, highly complex resolutions of simple
apparent inconsistencies in the theory can be linked to the charge
that antirelativists have only a shallow understanding of the matter,
probably gleaned from misleading popular accounts of the theory. (...)
The argument for complexity reverses the scientific preference for
simplicity. Faced with obvious inconsistencies, the simple response is
to conclude that Einstein's claims for the explanatory scope of the
special and general theory are overstated. To conclude instead that
that relativity theory is right for reasons that are highly complex is
to replace Occam's razor with a potato masher. (...) The defence of
complexity implies that the novice wishing to enter the profession of
theoretical physics must accept relativity on faith. It implicitly
concedes that, without an understanding of relativity theory's higher
complexities, it appears illogical, which means that popular
"explanations" of relativity are necessarily misleading. But given
Einstein's fame, physicists do not approach the theory for the first
time once they have developed their expertise. Rather, they are
exposed to and probably examined on popular explanations of relativity
in their early training. How are youngsters new to the discipline
meant to respond to these accounts? Are they misled by false
explanations and only later inculcated with true ones? What happens to
those who are not misled? Are they supposed to accept relativity
merely on the grounds of authority? The argument of complexity
suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join the physics
profession, students must either be willing to suspend disbelief and
go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail to notice the
apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the inconsistencies
and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this merely shows
that they are unable to understand the theory. The gatekeepers of
professional physics in the universities and research institutes are
disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the
elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has
made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain
professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of
authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that
Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they
would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been
noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of
antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently
justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory
have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting
their opponents out of professional discourse."
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=81&lecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."
http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
Bryan Wallace: "Einstein's special relativity theory with his second
postulate that the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin
that holds the whole range of modern physics theories together.
Shatter this postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce!
(...) The speed of light is c+v."
Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com
The Crisis in Physics - and Its Cause
By David Harriman
"For two centuries after Isaac Newton, the science of physics served
as the leading example of the power of the human mind. Its basic
content and method, and the life-saving technology that emerged from
it, sent a message that resounded throughout the western world: man
can live and prosper by the guidance of reason. However, for the past
century, theoretical physicists have been sending a different message.
They have rejected causality in favor of chance, logic in favor of
contradictions, and reality in favor of fantasy. The science of
physics is now riddled with claims that are as absurd as those of any
religious cult. This lecture examines the historical development of
such ideas and refutes the myth that they derive from experimental
evidence. History shows that philosophers provided the irrational
ideas, which physicists then incorporated into their theories.
Philosophy is the inescapable foundation for physics, and the
irrationalism of modern philosophy is the quicksand that engulfed
physics in the 20th century. Mr. Harriman argues that our future
depends upon saving physics - which can only be done by providing it
with the solid ground of a rational philosophy."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "The Second Law made its appearance in physics around
1850, but a half century later it was already surrounded by so much
confusion that the British Association for the Advancement of Science
decided to appoint a special committee with the task of providing
clarity about the meaning of this law. However, its final report
(Bryan 1891) did not settle the issue. Half a century later, the
physicist/philosopher Bridgman still complained that there are almost
as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions
of it (Bridgman 1941, p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains
so obscure that it continues to attract new efforts at clarification.
A recent example is the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The
historian of science and mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study
of the historical development of thermodynamics in the period
1822-1854. He characterises the theory, even in its present state, as
'a dismal swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to
show that physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid.
p. 8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/relativity-and-relativism/
Washington Times: "A frequently heard statement of cultural relativism
goes like this: "If it feels right for you, it's OK. Who is to say
you're wrong?" One individual's experience is as "valid" as another's.
There is no "preferred" or higher vantage point from which to judge
these things. Not just beauty, but right and wrong are in the eye of
the beholder. The "I" indeed is the "ultimate measure." The special
theory of relativity imposes on the physical world a claim that is
very similar to the one made by relativism. (...) So how come the
speed of light always stays the same? Einstein argued that when the
observer moves relative to an object, distance and time always adjust
themselves just enough to preserve light speed as a constant. Speed is
distance divided by time. So, Einstein argued, length contracts and
time dilates to just the extent needed to keep the speed of light ever
the same. Space and time are the alpha and omega of the physical
world. They are the stage within which everything happens. But if they
must trim and tarry whenever the observer moves, that puts "the
observer" in the driver's seat. Reality becomes observer-dependent.
Again, then, we find that the "I" is the ultimate measure. Pondering
this in Prague in the 1950s, Beckmann could not accept it. The
observer's function is to observe, he said, not to affect what's out
there. Relativity meant that two and two didn't quite add up any more
and elevated science into a priesthood of obscurity. Common sense
could no longer be trusted."
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
"The prediction that clocks will move at different rates is
particularly well known, and the problem of explaining how this can be
so without violating the principle of relativity is particularly
obvious. The clock paradox, however, is only one of a number of simple
objections that have been raised to different aspects of Einstein's
theory of relativity. (Much of this criticism is quite apart from and
often predates the apparent contradiction between relativity theory
and quantum mechanics.) It is rare to find any attempt at a detailed
rebuttal of these criticisms by professional physicists. However,
physicists do sometimes give a general response to criticisms that
relativity theory is syncretic by asserting that Einstein is logically
consistent, but that to explain why is so difficult that critics lack
the capacity to understand the argument. In this way, the handy claim
that there are unspecified, highly complex resolutions of simple
apparent inconsistencies in the theory can be linked to the charge
that antirelativists have only a shallow understanding of the matter,
probably gleaned from misleading popular accounts of the theory. (...)
The argument for complexity reverses the scientific preference for
simplicity. Faced with obvious inconsistencies, the simple response is
to conclude that Einstein's claims for the explanatory scope of the
special and general theory are overstated. To conclude instead that
that relativity theory is right for reasons that are highly complex is
to replace Occam's razor with a potato masher. (...) The defence of
complexity implies that the novice wishing to enter the profession of
theoretical physics must accept relativity on faith. It implicitly
concedes that, without an understanding of relativity theory's higher
complexities, it appears illogical, which means that popular
"explanations" of relativity are necessarily misleading. But given
Einstein's fame, physicists do not approach the theory for the first
time once they have developed their expertise. Rather, they are
exposed to and probably examined on popular explanations of relativity
in their early training. How are youngsters new to the discipline
meant to respond to these accounts? Are they misled by false
explanations and only later inculcated with true ones? What happens to
those who are not misled? Are they supposed to accept relativity
merely on the grounds of authority? The argument of complexity
suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join the physics
profession, students must either be willing to suspend disbelief and
go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail to notice the
apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the inconsistencies
and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this merely shows
that they are unable to understand the theory. The gatekeepers of
professional physics in the universities and research institutes are
disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the
elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has
made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain
professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of
authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that
Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they
would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been
noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of
antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently
justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory
have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting
their opponents out of professional discourse."
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=81&lecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."
http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
Bryan Wallace: "Einstein's special relativity theory with his second
postulate that the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin
that holds the whole range of modern physics theories together.
Shatter this postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce!
(...) The speed of light is c+v."
Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com