Jamieson Christie wrote in message ...

Just an observation. "Blindspot" works both ways. If, for argument's
sake, SR or GR or both have fundamental problems, the "mental block"
will keep believers from acknowledging these; no matter how obvious
they are.
Thinh Tran
http://www.thinhtran.com

"Bill Hobba" wrote in message
...
Minor Crank wrote;
Current portable atomic clocks are nearly three orders of magnitude more
stable than the clocks of thirty years ago, and crackpot objections to
the
H-K experiment have long been rendered moot by the routine demonstration
of
low speed relativistic effects as an everyday fact of life. I do not
understand why crackpots persist in focusing on these ancient results.


What makes a crackpot a crackpot?

Firing it before completely dry.

How long is a piece of string?

This long.

Minor Crank
:-)

Bilge wrote in message
...
Dave:
Louis Essen was one of the world's leading physicists in the 1950s and
1960s. He worked at the UK National Physical Laboratory and was the
major developer of the caesium atomic clock. The current definition of
the second as a time unit is based on Essen's caesium clock design. His
official NPL bio is given on this
link--http://www.npl.co.uk/about/famous_na...uis_essen.html

Like many experimental physicists, Essen did not want to touch
relativity with a bargepole. But since he was the world's leading atomic
clock expert and at the time investigating relativity was effectively
the only practical application for an atomic clock, he decided to get
involved. He was not impressed by what he saw, he thought Einstein's
1905 paper on SR was one of the worst he had ever read, it confirmed a
disparaging viewpoint he had about theoretical physicists and was
apalled by the idea of a "thought experiment". His views on relativity
are given in this link--
http://www.btinternet.com/~time.lord/Relativity.html
(the website is run by Ray Essen, presumably a relative; the "timelord"
bit is a reference to Essen's nickname in the British press)

For someone who was an expert on atomic clocks, it's rather surprising
that he (by his own admission) didn't know much about special relativity,
and doesn't seem to grasp the difference in an experimental paper and
a theoretical paper. He makes this clear by basing his objections on
the fact that he doesn't accept the premises. In fact, he makes an
outright false statement to justify not accepting the premises where
he states:

"There were definite errors about which there can be no argument. One
was the assumption that the velocity of light is constant. This is
contrary to the foundations of science and the fact that it is repeated
in all the textbooks doing so are ..."

Well, anyone paying attention to any physics done following maxwell's
equations, could hardly have not noticed that the assumption that the
speed of light is a constant was necessary for maxwell's equations and
is well supported experimentally.

Sorry Bilge. As usual, you neglect Maxwell's work. In which "c" was
relative to the aether medium. The "Maxwell's equations" to which you refer
were made with the assumption that v c. As in Faraday's lab.

At first the NPL management tolerated his anti-relativity position
through the 1960s. Then in 1972 they were worried about Essen's
objections to the Hafele and Keating experiment which was reported in
the open literature (Science, 177, pp168-170, 1972) and asked Essen to
leave, which he did. Essen's thoughts on the Hafele and Keating
experiment were "The discrepancies between the results for different
clocks were many times greater than the effect being sought, and yet by
ignoring the results they did not like and performing some undescribed
statistical analysis the authors claimed to have confirmed Einstein's
theory and specifically the clock paradox". It sounds like Essen had
access to some report the paper was based on or just knew that the
accuracy of atomic clocks was not good enough for the particular
experiment to work.

Nevertheless, it was the best that could be done at the time.

LOL!

Unfortunately, physicists don't get to shop at the future
technology wharehouse and teleport ideal equipment to their own
era. They have to make the best of what they have, publish it
and interpret the results as they see them. People who disagree
are then free to build upon the mistakes they see in early
experiments and improve upon them. Apparently, despite being
an expert on atomic clocks, he did not choose to pursue his
beliefs via an improved experiment.

The point was, that the experiment did not -- could not -- show what the
authors purported that it showed.

And your hypocrisy in the above experiment is pretty blatant. For Essen was
also unable to shop at the future technology warehouse. So you shouldn't be
chastising him for not having a better experiment than H&K.

In 1996 Alan Kelly managed to acquire the original 1971 USNO test report
for the Hafele and Keating experiment and from this it appears that
Essen's objections were vindicated. An online paper summarising the test
report is given on this

See other threads which have taken place in this newsgroup regarding
mr. kelly's so-called analysis. I don't really feel like reading his
web page again.

Mr. Kelly's analysis is spot on. No wonder you don't feel like reading it.

[...]
Whatever happened, Louis Essen irritated the academic physics
establishment and paid the penalty by having to take early retirement.

He apparently has not a shred of evidence to support his
contention that special relativity suffers from the flaws he
asserts exist. If he had a genuine objection, supported by any
experimental dat that relativity was wrong, he would have
been given a nobel prize, not early retirement.

LOL!

There was (is still?)
a professor of chenistry at texas A&M, who was very highly regarded
but then began trying to change mercury into gold and was having
his grad students set off explosions to further his foray into
alchemy. Now, at some point, one has to decide when their staff
is becomining a detriment to doing science, even if it may not
be as hazardous as explosions involving mercury.

Ah, the bait and switch. Tarring with the broad brush. Guilt by
(purported) similarity.

So the moral of the story is do not stand up for what you believe in
like Essen did, particularly if it involves attacking Einstein. If you
think something is crap, sit back and keep quiet if you want to keep
your job. Better still, appear to support the crap if you can. Nearly
all physicists automatically follow this advice without needing to be
told.

No, you have a profound misconception. If you think something is
crap and want to make an issue of it, then make sure you can support
what you have to say. Proving special relativity wrong would be
about the best thing a physicist could do in terms of career advancement.

LOL!

However, fallacious statements made to prop up an opinion based on
misunderstanding does not constitute proof.

But that's all you did in this thread. Made fallacious statement.

greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas

"greywolf42" wrote in message ...
Bilge wrote in message
...
Dave:
Louis Essen was one of the world's leading physicists in the 1950s and
1960s. He worked at the UK National Physical Laboratory and was the
major developer of the caesium atomic clock. The current definition of
the second as a time unit is based on Essen's caesium clock design. His
official NPL bio is given on this
link--http://www.npl.co.uk/about/famous_na...uis_essen.html

Like many experimental physicists, Essen did not want to touch
relativity with a bargepole. But since he was the world's leading atomic
clock expert and at the time investigating relativity was effectively
the only practical application for an atomic clock, he decided to get
involved. He was not impressed by what he saw, he thought Einstein's
1905 paper on SR was one of the worst he had ever read, it confirmed a
disparaging viewpoint he had about theoretical physicists and was
apalled by the idea of a "thought experiment". His views on relativity
are given in this link--
http://www.btinternet.com/~time.lord/Relativity.html
(the website is run by Ray Essen, presumably a relative; the "timelord"
bit is a reference to Essen's nickname in the British press)

For someone who was an expert on atomic clocks, it's rather surprising
that he (by his own admission) didn't know much about special relativity,
and doesn't seem to grasp the difference in an experimental paper and
a theoretical paper. He makes this clear by basing his objections on
the fact that he doesn't accept the premises. In fact, he makes an
outright false statement to justify not accepting the premises where
he states:

"There were definite errors about which there can be no argument. One
was the assumption that the velocity of light is constant. This is
contrary to the foundations of science and the fact that it is repeated
in all the textbooks doing so are ..."

Well, anyone paying attention to any physics done following maxwell's
equations, could hardly have not noticed that the assumption that the
speed of light is a constant was necessary for maxwell's equations and
is well supported experimentally.

Sorry Bilge. As usual, you neglect Maxwell's work. In which "c" was
relative to the aether medium.

Sorry Mingst. As usual, you neglect Kepler's work. In which "c" was
infinite relative to the angels.

Dirk Vdm

Dirk Van de moortel wrote in
message ...

"greywolf42" wrote in message
...
Bilge wrote in message
...
Dave:
Louis Essen was one of the world's leading physicists in the 1950s
and
1960s. He worked at the UK National Physical Laboratory and was the
major developer of the caesium atomic clock. The current definition
of
the second as a time unit is based on Essen's caesium clock design.
His
official NPL bio is given on this
link--http://www.npl.co.uk/about/famous_na...uis_essen.html

Like many experimental physicists, Essen did not want to touch
relativity with a bargepole. But since he was the world's leading
atomic
clock expert and at the time investigating relativity was
effectively
the only practical application for an atomic clock, he decided to
get
involved. He was not impressed by what he saw, he thought Einstein's
1905 paper on SR was one of the worst he had ever read, it confirmed
a
disparaging viewpoint he had about theoretical physicists and was
apalled by the idea of a "thought experiment". His views on
relativity
are given in this link--
http://www.btinternet.com/~time.lord/Relativity.html
(the website is run by Ray Essen, presumably a relative; the
"timelord"
bit is a reference to Essen's nickname in the British press)

For someone who was an expert on atomic clocks, it's rather
surprising
that he (by his own admission) didn't know much about special
relativity,
and doesn't seem to grasp the difference in an experimental paper and
a theoretical paper. He makes this clear by basing his objections on
the fact that he doesn't accept the premises. In fact, he makes an
outright false statement to justify not accepting the premises where
he states:

"There were definite errors about which there can be no argument. One
was the assumption that the velocity of light is constant. This is
contrary to the foundations of science and the fact that it is
repeated
in all the textbooks doing so are ..."

Well, anyone paying attention to any physics done following maxwell's
equations, could hardly have not noticed that the assumption that the
speed of light is a constant was necessary for maxwell's equations and
is well supported experimentally.

Sorry Bilge. As usual, you neglect Maxwell's work. In which "c" was
relative to the aether medium.

Sorry Mingst. As usual, you neglect Kepler's work. In which "c" was
infinite relative to the angels.

Wrong on both counts, Dinky. Kepler didn't use angels. Or the speed of
light.

Get a life.

greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas

"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote in message
...

Ah. I was hoping for more recent H&K-like experiments that would isolate
special relativistic effects.

I don't know if you caught this one, which I posted in another thread a bit
over a week ago:
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/ptti2002/paper20.pdf

Continuous time comparisons between a cesium clock carried on a C-135 versus
GPS time were recorded throughout the flight interval. Multiple flight tests
were made. This paper shows representative results from the first flight.

This is not really a paper about testing relativity. So far as these authors
are concerned, relativity is a practical engineering concern that must be
taken into consideration in the high precision dissemination of time, and
the paper tests the accuracy with which they account for the observed
relativistic effects.

Minor Crank