On Feb 8, 10:02 am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
On Feb 6, 9:34 am, Pentcho Valev wrote:

http://philipball.blogspot.com/2007/...t-this-is.html
"With the technology then available, measuring the bending of
starlight was very challenging. And contrary to popular belief,
Newtonian physics did not predict that light would remain undeflected
- Einstein himself pointed out in 1911 that Newtonian gravity should
cause some deviation too. So the matter was not that of an all-or-
nothing shift in stars' positions, but hinged on the exact numbers."

However Budding Young Einsteins are taught in a different way:

http://pirsa.org/speaker/Lee_Smolin
LeeSmolin- ISSYP Keynote Session
Speaker(s):LeeSmolin
Abstract:
Date: 01/08/2007 - 1:00 pm

http://streamer.perimeterinstitute.c...ldResize=False
LeeSmolin: "Newton's theory predicts that light goes in straight
lines and therefore if the star passes behind the sun, we can't see
it. Einstein's theory predicts that light is bent...."

That is a mystery. Lee Smolin is silly but by no means cretin. All
criminal Einsteinians know that Newton's corpuscular model of light
does imply bending caused by a gravitational field, and some even
teach so. Perhaps we deal with absolute dishonesty in all such cases:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html
Stephen Hawking: "Interestingly enough, Laplace himself wrote a paper
in 1799 on how some stars could have a gravitational field so strong
that light could not escape, but would be dragged back onto the star.
He even calculated that a star of the same density as the Sun, but two
hundred and fifty times the size, would have this property. But
although Laplace may not have realised it, the same idea had been put
forward 16 years earlier by a Cambridge man, John Mitchell, in a paper
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 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. This was impossible, according to the
then accepted ideas of space and time. But in 1915, Einstein put
forward his revolutionary General Theory of Relativity."

Again, Stephen Hawking is silly but by no means cretin. Even Einstein
zombies now know that the Michelson-Morley experiment shows the speed
of light is variable, in accordance with Newton's emission theory of
light:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/arch.../02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its.../dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" by Banesh Hoffmann, Chapter 5.
(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."

Translation from French: "Moreover, if one admits that light consists
of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his first paper, 13 weeks
earlier, the second principle seems absurd: a stone thrown from a fast-
moving train causes much more damage than one thrown from a train at
rest. Now, according to Einstein, the speed of a particle would not be
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body! If we
consider light as composed of particles that obey Newton's laws, those
particles would conform to Newtonian relativity. In this case, it is
not necessary to resort to length contration, local time and Lorentz
transformations in explaining the negative result of the Michelson-
Morley experiment. Einstein however, as we have seen, resisted the
temptation to explain the negative result in terms of Newton's ideas,
simple and familiar. He introduced his second postulate, more or less
evident as one thinks in terms of waves in aether."

Yes criminal Einsteinians are mysterious individuals. They are either
extremely silly or extremely dishonest or both but one can never be
su

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/smolin03...n03_index.html
Lee Smolin: "Now, here is the really interesting part: Some of the
effects predicted by the theory appear to be in conflict with one of
the principles of Einstein's special theory of relativity, the theory
that says that the speed of light is a universal constant. It's the
same for all photons, and it is independent of the motion of the
sender or observer. How is this possible, if that theory is itself
based on the principles of relativity? The principle of the constancy
of the speed of light is part of special relativity, but we quantized
Einstein's general theory of relativity. Because Einstein's special
theory is only a kind of approximation to his general theory, we can
implement the principles of the latter but find modifications to the
former. And this is what seems to be happening! So Gambini, Pullin,
and others calculated how light travels in a quantum geometry and
found that the theory predicts that the speed of light has a small
dependence on energy. Photons of higher energy travel slightly slower
than low-energy photons....A very exciting question we are now
wrestling with is, How drastically shall we be forced to modify
Einstein's special theory of relativity if the predicted effect is
observed? The most severe possibility is that the principle of
relativity simply fails....But there is another possibility. This is
that the principle of relativity is preserved, but Einstein's special
theory of relativity requires modification so as to allow photons to
have a speed that depends on energy. The most shocking thing I have
learned in the last year is that this is a real possibility. A photon
can have an energy-dependent speed without violating the principle of
relativity!"

Pentcho Valev

Supertroll Dono trolled:

Dumb****,

Do you see the difference, you despicable pile of dung?


--
Dono is concubine Lady Chacha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodo-Dono

On Feb 10, 11:46 am, wrote:

Wrong. Discussion involves exchange of ideas, not the
disingenuity and systematic negationism that always was the
Copenhagen bunch trademark, from Eisenberg and Bohr onwards.

André Michaud

"Eisenberg"? Who's he ? :-)

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:39:00 GMT, "Androcles"
wrote (in part):

Eric Baird wrote (in part) in message
.. .

| On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:34:41 -0800 (PST), Pentcho Valev
| wrote (in part):
....
http://streamer.perimeterinstitute.c...c-4d44d3d16fe9
| Lee Smolin: "Newton's theory predicts that light goes in straight
| lines and therefore if the star passes behind the sun, we can't see
| it. Einstein's theory predicts that light is bent...."
|
| Pentcho Valev
|

| Okay, agreed, Smolin got that badly wrong. sigh
| Newton light-bending refs:
| : Principia, vol.1, Prop XCVI (etc.).
| : Opticks, "Queries"
....
| So, because people believe that fact-checking is obviously so much
| better in physics than in the other hard sciences, it's often a lot
| worse.
....

'we establish by definition that the "time" required by
light to travel from A to B equals the "time" it requires
to travel from B to A' because I SAY SO. -- Rabbi Albert Einstein

Ok, Einstein got that gleefully wrong. sigh
Did you mention that in your book?


Actually I did, it's alluded to in Chapter Five,
"The Newtonian Catastrophe", on pages 58-59.

Newton appeared to be relying on "lightspeed" (rather than
light-velocity) arguments when he constructed his attempt at a unified
theory of optics and gravitation ... this turned out to be an awful
mistake ... some of the English physics community committed their
reputations to some of Newton's resulting predictions, which then
turned out to be wrong ... in an attempt to save face, some of the
community started claiming that Newton had never said such a thing,
and that Newtonian theory had never said that gravity affected light
.... this was a second disaster, that may have held back progress in
some parts of gravitational theory by a century ...

.... and Einstein, apparently unaware of the earlier controversy, then
went and did something similar with special relativity.


===
The chapter doesn't come out and say, "Einstein got this part wrong"
(it tries to treat SR a little more fairly than that), but it does
point out that in the previous case of a theory using round-trip
arguments, which seemed to be defended as strongly by its proponents
as SR is defended today by its fans ... this sort of approach had been
a disaster.


===
Most "intelligent" communities tend to learn from their own previous
mistakes, and guard against making the worst of those mistakes a
second time, so repeat disasters tend not to happen.

But in physics, we don't learn from our mistakes in the same way,
because we tend not to be told that these mistakes ever happened.
We //do// get told all about bad predictions and rotten experiments
done by people whose theories never quite made it to the mainstream
(so that we can feel smug about those silly people who foolishly step
outside "taught" reality), but we aren't told about the catastrophic
cockups that originated within the mainstream itself. That stuff gets
eliminated from the educational histories, because it's not considered
helpful. It's easier to inspire students by telling them that if they
stick with the mainstream, they'll always be on the winning side, and
that the "unscientific" people are the dissidents.


I think that most physics people probably still think that SR is
fundamentally correct and can't possibly be wrong (incomplete, but not
//wrong//), and I think that a lot of that belief is based on trust in
peer review, trust in the accuracy of information provided by the
system, and trust that all relevant information will have been be
provided to them and that any misinformation will necessarily have
already been corrected.

They figure that the chances of the system telling them that SR is
necessarily correct if it //isn't// correct are so small as to be not
worth considering. They trust the system to work well, because it
always has in the past ... or so they think.
What they //don't// know are the case histories of instances where the
system has previously gone pathologically wrong, and without that
information, they won't know what warning signs they should be looking
out for that might indicate if the current belief system is
pathological.

They don't have the information necessary to make that sort of
assessment ... and in fact, the absence of that information and those
case histories is itself one of the warning signs.
They may //think// that the reason why the information doesn't seem to
exist is because we've never really had a serious "system crash" in
physics ... but if you look back at the contemporary C17th-C19th
English-language physics texts, you find that that's not the case.
Physics people may reckon that physics is unique in that nobody would
//ever// lie about verifiable data because everyone knows that you
wouldn't be able to get away with it ... but it seems that when C19th
physicists lied about the Newtonian history, they not only managed to
get away with it, the lie then continued as a self-perpetuating myth
for more than a century after the people it was meant to protect had
died, even though the contra-evidence was readily available in print,
sitting on the science library shelves.

So, an apparently deliberate piece of misinformation that was fed into
the system in the C19th still seems to be being taught in the C21st,
even though it's been contradicted by the physical evidence for all
that time.

In a peer-review-regulated system that genuinely treated the
correctness of data as sacrosanct, and which ranked scientific
accuracy as being more important than politics, this sort of thing
couldn't happen. So our system isn't as good as we think it is
(or as good as we say it is).

(I tackled social herd behaviour in science in chapters 20 & 21,
"Limitations of Language and Procedure", and "The Perils of
Experimentation")

================================

PS, I actually think that Smolin is one of the Good Guys: He's
radical, free-thinking, and not afraid of speaking out and calling
things as he sees them, even if it upsets his immediate peer group. He
questions stuff. He's also personally interested in the subject of how
new theories interface with older ones, and wrote a book criticising
the "string theory" community for cheerleading. He's supposed to be
one of the more radical mainstream researchers working on quantum
gravity.
So if it's not occurred to //him// to check whether the taught history
of Newtonian theory is actually true, then one has to wonder exactly
how bad a state we're in.


=Erk= (Eric Baird) www.relativitybook.com
: " It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't
: see the problem. "
: - G. K. Chesterton

Eric Baird wrote in message
...
| On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:39:00 GMT, "Androcles"
| wrote (in part):
|
| Eric Baird wrote (in part) in message
| .. .
|
| | On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:34:41 -0800 (PST), Pentcho Valev
| | wrote (in part):
| ...
|
http://streamer.perimeterinstitute.c...c-4d44d3d16fe9
| | Lee Smolin: "Newton's theory predicts that light goes in straight
| | lines and therefore if the star passes behind the sun, we can't see
| | it. Einstein's theory predicts that light is bent...."
| |
| | Pentcho Valev
| |
|
| | Okay, agreed, Smolin got that badly wrong. sigh
| | Newton light-bending refs:
| | : Principia, vol.1, Prop XCVI (etc.).
| | : Opticks, "Queries"
| ...
| | So, because people believe that fact-checking is obviously so much
| | better in physics than in the other hard sciences, it's often a lot
| | worse.
| ...
|
| 'we establish by definition that the "time" required by
| light to travel from A to B equals the "time" it requires
| to travel from B to A' because I SAY SO. -- Rabbi Albert Einstein
|
| Ok, Einstein got that gleefully wrong. sigh
| Did you mention that in your book?
|
|
| Actually I did, it's alluded to in Chapter Five,
| "The Newtonian Catastrophe", on pages 58-59.
|
| Newton appeared to be relying on "lightspeed" (rather than
| light-velocity) arguments when he constructed his attempt at a unified
| theory of optics and gravitation ... this turned out to be an awful
| mistake ... some of the English physics community committed their
| reputations to some of Newton's resulting predictions, which then
| turned out to be wrong ... in an attempt to save face, some of the
| community started claiming that Newton had never said such a thing,
| and that Newtonian theory had never said that gravity affected light
| ... this was a second disaster, that may have held back progress in
| some parts of gravitational theory by a century ...
|
| ... and Einstein, apparently unaware of the earlier controversy, then
| went and did something similar with special relativity.
|
|
| ===
| The chapter doesn't come out and say, "Einstein got this part wrong"

Why not?


| (it tries to treat SR a little more fairly than that),

What's unfair about pointing out Einstein's third postulate, the KEY
to all his time dilation?



| but it does
| point out that in the previous case of a theory using round-trip
| arguments, which seemed to be defended as strongly by its proponents
| as SR is defended today by its fans ... this sort of approach had been
| a disaster.
|
|
| ===
| Most "intelligent" communities tend to learn from their own previous
| mistakes, and guard against making the worst of those mistakes a
| second time, so repeat disasters tend not to happen.
|
| But in physics, we don't learn from our mistakes in the same way,
| because we tend not to be told that these mistakes ever happened.
| We //do// get told all about bad predictions and rotten experiments
| done by people whose theories never quite made it to the mainstream
| (so that we can feel smug about those silly people who foolishly step
| outside "taught" reality), but we aren't told about the catastrophic
| cockups that originated within the mainstream itself. That stuff gets
| eliminated from the educational histories, because it's not considered
| helpful. It's easier to inspire students by telling them that if they
| stick with the mainstream, they'll always be on the winning side, and
| that the "unscientific" people are the dissidents.
|
|
| I think that most physics people probably still think that SR is
| fundamentally correct and can't possibly be wrong (incomplete, but not
| //wrong//), and I think that a lot of that belief is based on trust in
| peer review, trust in the accuracy of information provided by the
| system, and trust that all relevant information will have been be
| provided to them and that any misinformation will necessarily have
| already been corrected.

That's your greatest weakness (as well as Einstein's), voicing your
personal opinion; I'm only interested in provable fact, not in what
you or anyone else think. You can write pages of word salad, it's still
meaningless opinion.

"Actually I did, it's alluded to".

C'mon, Eric, Einstein's third postulate, key to all time dilation,
is vaguely alluded to somewhere in Chapter Five and you can't
even quote it without looking it up yourself.



|
| They figure

"They think"... where's facts?

| that the chances of the system telling them that SR is
| necessarily correct if it //isn't// correct are so small as to be not
| worth considering. They trust

"They think"... where's facts?

the system to work well, because it
| always has in the past ... or so they think.
| What they //don't// know

"They think"... where's facts?

are the case histories of instances where the
| system has previously gone pathologically wrong, and without that
| information, they won't know

"They think"... where's facts?

what warning signs they should be looking
| out for that might indicate if the current belief system is
| pathological.
|
| They don't have the information

"They think"... where's facts?

necessary to make that sort of
| assessment ... and in fact, the absence of that information and those
| case histories is itself one of the warning signs.
| They may //think//

"They think"... where's facts?

that the reason why the information doesn't seem to
| exist is because we've never really had a serious "system crash" in
| physics ... but if you look back at the contemporary C17th-C19th
| English-language physics texts, you find that that's not the case.
| Physics people may reckon


"They think"... where's facts?

that physics is unique in that nobody would
| //ever// lie about verifiable data because everyone knows that you
| wouldn't be able to get away with it ... but it seems that when C19th
| physicists lied about the Newtonian history, they not only managed to
| get away with it, the lie then continued as a self-perpetuating myth
| for more than a century after the people it was meant to protect had
| died, even though the contra-evidence was readily available in print,
| sitting on the science library shelves.
|
| So, an apparently deliberate piece of misinformation that was fed into
| the system in the C19th still seems to be being taught in the C21st,
| even though it's been contradicted by the physical evidence for all
| that time.
|
| In a peer-review-regulated system that genuinely treated the
| correctness of data as sacrosanct, and which ranked scientific
| accuracy as being more important than politics, this sort of thing
| couldn't happen. So our system isn't as good as we think it is
| (or as good as we say it is).
|
| (I tackled social herd behaviour in science in chapters 20 & 21,
| "Limitations of Language and Procedure", and "The Perils of
| Experimentation")
|
| ================================
|
| PS, I actually think

"You think"... where's facts?

that Smolin is one of the Good Guys: He's
| radical, free-thinking, and not afraid of speaking out and calling
| things as he sees them, even if it upsets his immediate peer group. He
| questions stuff. He's also personally interested in the subject of how
| new theories interface with older ones, and wrote a book criticising
| the "string theory" community for cheerleading. He's supposed to be
| one of the more radical mainstream researchers working on quantum
| gravity.
| So if it's not occurred to //him// to check whether the taught history
| of Newtonian theory is actually true, then one has to wonder exactly
| how bad a state we're in.
|
|
| =Erk= (Eric Baird) www.relativitybook.com
| : " It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't
| : see the problem. "
| : - G. K. Chesterton