wrote:
On Apr 25, 9:52 am, John Kennaugh
wrote:
Authors trying to sell Relativity to a student have a problem. They
cannot go through a logical sequence of historical events - the history
of relativity is quite frankly embarrassing. Neither can they appeal to
common sense, relativity is of course counter intuitive.

Right or wrong, the basis of SR is not counter intuitive to me, and
I'm sure to many other people.

The first postulate is not counter intuitive but is also consistent with
Ballistic theory. SR therefore depends upon the second postulate which
in effect says that the speed of light is constant w.r.t the observer
observing it. This is counter intuitive in that it implies that what
controls the transfer of energy is the observer.

I guess it's a question of attitude. If
you tried very hard one of these days to view elctromagnetism as
preeminent over dynamics and mechanics you might start to feel it
right.

Why should electromagnetism be right and mechanics wrong? Why not the
other way about? Maxwell's electromagnetism was disproved firstly by the
MMX and then by the ultraviolet catastrophe, by Planck's quantization
and finally by Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect. While
SR is an explanation for the MMX it simply ignores the rest of the
experimental evidence which challenges it.

If you assume electromagnetism is right despite the above you have to
distort time, space and mass in order to get the maths work - ditching 3
apparently sensible and long accepted axioms of physics.

The opposite view is that mechanics is pre-eminent over electromagnetism
and that light is also mechanical consisting of particles. The speed at
which particles are ejected from the source is a function of the
physical processes ejecting the - i.e. source dependent. The only change
needed to electrical theory is that Coulombs law only holds for static
charges and needs modifying when the charge is in motion. Photon
particles have mass, increase their energy falling under gravity, lose
energy climbing out of the effects of gravity and are deflected by
gravity.

If you transform reality it works mathematically up to a point. In the
limit it goes wrong. In the limit - something travelling at c - mass
becomes infinite. Photons travel at c and appear to have mass according
to all previous definitions of mass. Physicists cannot accept that they
can possibly have made a mistake so despite the evidence photons must be
massless and mass has to be redefined.

However, the equations and conclusions that emanate from that
basis are indeed counter-intuitive, although they do follow
mathematically.

Some text books
use semantic trickery. The most honest I have seen is an on-line Harvard
university text book where the author says in effect "it may seem daft
but it works". I would point out however that the same could be said of
the geocentric theory of the solar system. A dominant belief that the
earth was at the centre forced the maths to be transformed in such a way
that they gave the right answer.

"If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation I
should have recommended something simpler." Alfonso 'the wise' of
Castile (1221-1284) having studied the Ptolemaic system.

As I will explain later I see parallels in the history of relativity
where I will show that a dominant belief played a part in distorting our
way of viewing things.

If you are a follower of Occam then the MMX shows that the speed of
light is not constant w.r.t the aether as had been supposed and so must
therefore be constant w.r.t the source - there being no plausible
causality by which 'where it ended up' could be responsible for the
speed at which it travelled to get there. Ritz's emission theory of
light published in 1908 and Waldron's Ballistic theory of light
published in 1977 are both based on the assumption that the speed of
light is source dependent. Both theories were suppressed, not by any act
of censorship but by totally ignoring them - which is much more
effective.

I don't dispute (nor agree with) the overall validity of your view,
but some would argue that you are not pushing Occam's razor far
enough. They would say that MMX makes the ether irrelevant.

In what sense? Maxwell's theory makes two testable predictions re the
aether.

One is that the measured speed of light will vary with the speed of an
observer relative to the aether - tested in the MMX and found to be
false.

The other that because the speed of light is controlled by the aether
light speed is independent of the source.

Either the MMX showed:

1/ that there is no aether in which case one should assume the second
prediction to be false like the first as there is no other physical
process other than that taking place in the source which can rob the
source of having an effect.
or
2/ there is an aether and it is necessary to find an explanation as to
why it appears that there is no observable relative motion between the
aether and an observer. First Lorentz and then Einstein tried to explain
why an observer always appears stationary w.r.t the aether. Lorentz
assumed motion relative to the aether affected measurement in such a way
as to produce an illusion that an observer is stationary w.r.t the
aether.
You can look upon Einstein either as assuming that nature provided a
suitable aether which every observer would naturally find himself
stationary w.r.t (His aether without the immobility of Lorentz's -1920
lecture) or as an empirical acceptance that for whatever reason
observationally an observer is apparently stationary w.r.t the aether.

Either way the second postulate describes exactly what an observer
stationary w.r.t the aether would experience. Basically the historical
route to modern SR is - Interpret the MMX assuming the existence of the
aether. Work out the maths and accept their conclusions - then disown
the aether and decide that physics does not need physical
interpretation. If you start with assuming that the MMX means there is
no aether there is no route to SR.


Hence your
"so must therefore" reasoning becomes invalid.

--
John Kennaugh