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)

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.

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
link--http://www.dipmat.unipg.it/~bartocci/H&KPaper.htm
The original report apparently includes sentences like "Most people
(myself included) would be reluctant to agree that the time gained by
any one of these clocks is indicative of anything" and "the difference
between theory and measurement is disturbing". So this begs the question
as to why the Hafele and Keating 1972 paper was so heavily spin
doctored. Were they trying to save face over a badly planned expensive
experiment? Was there sufficient confidence from US military experiments
on moving and elevated atomic clocks to put out an open literature
validation of relativity? Does this kind of thing go on a lot with
scientific papers? One of the big consequences of the paper was that
mainstream scientific journals stopped accepting anti-relativity papers
in the 1970s and anti-relativists came to be viewed as cranks.

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

Dave wrote:



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

If you have experimental disproof of any of the modern theories, and the
experiments are reproduced and no reasonable explanation for the
disparity can be found within the theories, you will become an instant
hero. The quickest ticket to Stockholm is a surefire proof that
relativity or quantum theory is wrong.

Bob Kolker

[snip]

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)

It's full of errors and misunderstandings. Essen criticised relativity
because he did not understand it. He describes the assumption that the
velocity of light is constant as "contrary to the foundations of science"
(without saying why), and provides an unclear explanation based on units.

Then, he attempts to discuss two clocks moving with respect to each other,
without any mention of a frame of reference, and gets himself tied up in
knots.

His history is also confused. He says that Einstein's original SR paper
"does not appear to have attracted any attention" until Eddington's
observation of the sun bending light rays in 1919. Einstein's work was
well-known throughout physics well before then, and Eddington was trying to
verify a prediction of *general* relativity, not special.

[snip stuff about Hafele-Keating]

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

Bull****. If the excerpts on the website are anything to go by, Essen was
retired because he was a bad physicist.

Jamieson Christie

"Dave" wrote in message
...

snip

Nowadays, the accuracy and stability of atomic clocks is such that
verification of the predictions of special and general relativity is a
completely routine occurrence.

What is your point?

Minor Crank

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 10:04:33 +0000 (UTC), Dave
wrote:



mainstream scientific journals stopped accepting anti-relativity papers
in the 1970s and anti-relativists came to be viewed as cranks.

GPS developement was launched, that's why everybody needed
corrections of clocks flying high and fast.

So what is your point, Dave?

w.

To Dave,

I admire your courage in questioning the relativity establishment. It is
like saying that since the pope is human he must be fallible since only God
is perfect. Moreover, according to the bible, it is a sin to say that you
are God's equal. So you see the contradiction. Yet, in spite of Galileo
and others, Catholics continue to believe that the pope is infallible in
spite of the fact that successive popes have changed the tenets of the
church over time.

So you see Dave, no matter what you say you will be labelled a heretic since
the relativity establishment is not based on science but on faith, i.e. it
is a cult.

For a LOGICAL explanation of relativistic phenomena see my Selected Papers
at:
http://www2.rideau.net/gaasbeek

Good luck!
Len.
.................................................. ............
"Dave" wrote in message
...
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)

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.

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
link--http://www.dipmat.unipg.it/~bartocci/H&KPaper.htm
The original report apparently includes sentences like "Most people
(myself included) would be reluctant to agree that the time gained by
any one of these clocks is indicative of anything" and "the difference
between theory and measurement is disturbing". So this begs the question
as to why the Hafele and Keating 1972 paper was so heavily spin
doctored. Were they trying to save face over a badly planned expensive
experiment? Was there sufficient confidence from US military experiments
on moving and elevated atomic clocks to put out an open literature
validation of relativity? Does this kind of thing go on a lot with
scientific papers? One of the big consequences of the paper was that
mainstream scientific journals stopped accepting anti-relativity papers
in the 1970s and anti-relativists came to be viewed as cranks.

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

Dave wrote in message ...
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)

Just how much did Essen's prejudice against both theoretical
physicists and relativity cause him to get the negative results that
he wanted to get from the beginning?

Patrick

"Robert J. Kolker" wrote in message ...
Dave wrote:



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

If you have experimental disproof of any of the modern theories, and the
experiments are reproduced and no reasonable explanation for the
disparity can be found within the theories, you will become an instant
hero. The quickest ticket to Stockholm is a surefire proof that
relativity or quantum theory is wrong.

Bob Kolker



With all due respect to those who are tripping over themselves to get
on a plane to Stockholm,anyone who bothers to read the original
manuscript of Newton where he outlines absolute/relative time,space
and motion will find that not even the aetherists got it right.

Nothing unusual with the difference between the natural unequal day
and the 24 hour clock day where Newton expresses the difference as the
Equation of Time as the difference between absolute time and relative
time,the commonplace astronomical correction in his era and he even
tells you this is so,absolute and relative space and motion fall into
place from this,it would be awkward for Newton to call relative
motions an 'illusion ' and the 'relative' term can be interchanged
with apparent motions without any loss.

So Albert made a song and dance over what the aetherist thought Newton
meant and took Mach's word that absolute time was some sort of airy
fairy idea Newton came up with when all it represents is one half of
the Equation of Time.So Bobby boy,all you have is a century's worth of
useless pretensious linguistic smoke and mirrors,astronomically
worthless and intellectually subhuman.

If anyones reviews Newton's text,they will see where he is both
correct and incorrect due to the enormous amount of new astronomical
data,you can even see where the relativists followed the aetherist
down the wrong road but then again,you need intelligence for that
undertaking.


http://members.tripod.com/~gravitee/definitions.htm

So you see Dave, no matter what you say you will be labelled a heretic
since
the relativity establishment is not based on science but on faith, i.e. it
is a cult.



Special relativity is accepted because is in agreement with experiments.
Much more experiments than you think. It is not a religion.

Kostas.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
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.

??? There were "many" legitimate experimentalists who rejected
relativity initially, and maybe a few through the 1920's or even
1930's, but by 1950, we had nuclear energy, which is
hard to explain without relativity, not to mention precision
tests involving particle accelerator kinematics and
particle decay lifetimes.

At that point, only the very religious were still taking an
anti-relativity stand against the mounting evidence.

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

That's pretty low quality stuff, even by NG standards.

In the "Special Theory Flawed" section, he totally
disregards a mountain of experimental evidence
about the constancy of the speed of light. He
seems to think it's somehow based on the modern
definition of the meter - which didn't happen until
well after the data in question were taken. This
section also ignores the implications of Maxwell's
Equations.

The stuff in the "Though experiments" section is full of the typical
misconceptions, which are raise and dealt with in any
decent textbook.

In the "Joke or Swindle" section, he makes it clear he doesn't
understand the distinction between special and general
relativity at all.

(the website is run by Ray Essen, presumably a relative; the "timelord"
bit is a reference to Essen's nickname in the British press)

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.

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
link--http://www.dipmat.unipg.it/~bartocci/H&KPaper.htm
The original report apparently includes sentences like "Most people
(myself included) would be reluctant to agree that the time gained by
any one of these clocks is indicative of anything" and "the difference
between theory and measurement is disturbing". So this begs the question

This argument has been discussed in detail here. Rather than go
through it again, it's enough to say that the H&K experiment
was never really anything more than a "gee whiz" result. By
then, there was plenty of more precise experimental data
and much more exists now.

as to why the Hafele and Keating 1972 paper was so heavily spin
doctored. Were they trying to save face over a badly planned expensive
experiment? Was there sufficient confidence from US military experiments
on moving and elevated atomic clocks to put out an open literature
validation of relativity? Does this kind of thing go on a lot with
scientific papers? One of the big consequences of the paper was that
mainstream scientific journals stopped accepting anti-relativity papers
in the 1970s and anti-relativists came to be viewed as cranks.


Actually, I'm reading Martin Gardner's "Fads and Fallacies in the
Name of Science", which was written in 1952. He has a whole
chapter called "Down with Einstein", which makes it clear that
anti-relativists had already established themselves as
cranks in the 1950's.

The one sort of interesting things about the chapter was
that in 1952, there were still people who could remember the
"Newton-bashers" who had preceded the Einstein-bashers.

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

Based on the web page you listed, I would say he embarrassed his
employer by being an idiot in public.

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.


Yeah, yeah, I know: Big Brother, conspiracy, whatever.

-Eric