Physics Banter - View Single Post

**rambus2005@yahoo.com**

Grouchy wrote:
Pentcho Valev wrote:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/my_e...n06_index.html
Aesthetic arguments, while useful as development tools, especially when
there are no observations to guide the effort, made me uneasy-seemed
a throwback to Greek reasoning about the celestial spheres. More
recently, I came to realize that Einstein based special relativity not
on pure thought alone but upon a great deal of physical observation and
codifying theory-in particular, electromagnetism and the theory of
light via James Clerk Maxwell's equations. Einstein was certainly aware
of Lorentz's work, but was coming from the Maxwell side, not the
Michelson-Morley results. He was reducing these ideas down to two
essential postulates added onto the existing physics: (1) The speed of
light is definite and independent of the speed of the source or of the
observer, and (2) the laws of physics are the same in every inertial
frame. From these two postulates and thought experiments, one can
derive all the consequences of special relativity, including the
Lorentz transformations, time dilation, length contraction, loss of
simultaneity, E=mc2, and the lot! - George F. Smoot

Mr. Smoot,

I think you would appreciate the final questions posed by Newton in his
Optick's, in particular questions number 1, and a couple of questions
up in the thrities. Einstein's entire hypothesis can be traced
directly to questions left unanswered in Opticks due to technological
limits in his own era.

The M-M interferometer experiment was, by the way, successful. The
interferometer's INABILITY to either debunk or support the existence of
"aether" was not the primary purpose of the apparatus or the experiment
itself.

Here's an easy "thought experiment": How many sides does a three
dimensional object possess? a) 1 side; b) 2 sides; or 3) 3 sides.
Think about it.

"pancho" can only count to two. He fell on his had at that age.
Excellent post, otherwise.