Relativity
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Einstein’s theory
of relativity was dealt with very briefly in my university course but we were
told that we must not expect to understand it. I accepted this situation and I
have since discovered that most physicists are content to remain in the same
position assuming that it must be right because it is generally accepted. My
doubts about it arose when I found that the experts did not understand either.
An exchange of letters in Nature between Dingle and McCrea showed that
they had opposite views about some of the predictions of the theory and the
arguments advanced on both sides were in my view illogical and unconvincing.
Much of the discussion about the theory was concerned with the readings of
clocks when they are moving relatively to each other, and since I had a wide
experience of comparing clocks and measuring time it seemed to be almost a duty
to take a closer interest in the controversy especially as some of the
so-called relativity effects although very small were not becoming significant
in the definition of the atomic second and the use of atomic clocks.
It is always better to refer to the
original papers rather than to second hand accounts and I, therefore, studied
Einstein’s famous paper, often regarded as one of he most important
contributions in the history of science. Imagine my surprise when I found that
it was in some respects one of the worse papers I had ever read. The
terminology and style were unscientific and ambiguous; one of his assumptions
is given on different pages in two contradictory forms, some of his statements
were open to different interpretations and the worst fault in my view, was the
use of thought-experiments. This practice is contrary to the scientific method
which is based on conclusions drawn from the results of actual experiments. My
first thoughts were, that in spite of its obvious faults of presentation, the
theory must be basically sound, and before committing my criticisms to print I
read widely round the subject. The additional reading only confirmed my belief
that the theory was marred by its own internal contradictions. Relativitists
often state that the theory is accepted by all scientists of repute but this is
quite untrue. It has been strongly criticised by many scientists, including at
least one Nobel prize winner. Most of the criticisms are of a general nature
drawing attention to its many contradictions, so I decided to pin-point the
errors which give rise to the contradictions, giving the page and line in
Einstein’s paper, thus making it difficult for relativitists to dodge them and
obscure them in a morass of irrational discussion.
Special Theory flawed
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 I have seen,
shows how little these foundations are understood by theoretical physicists.
Science is based on the results of experiment and these results must be
expressed in a single coherent set of units. The unit of length was the metre
and the unit of time was the second. Velocity was a measured quantity as so
many metres per second. Even though it was found to be constant under certain
conditions, it was quite wrong to make it a constant by definition under all
conditions. Only the unit of measurement can be made constant by definition and
Einstein’s assumption constituted a duplication of units. It was this
duplication that led to puzzling and contradictory results and not the
profundity of the theory as relativitists like us to believe.
The question of
units is a rather complicated one; and in this instance some writers are
confused by the fact that the velocity of light is now often used as a standard,
distances being calculated from the time of travel of a pulse of light or radio
waves; but the value used is the measured value and the conditions of
measurement are carefully defined. Quite recently a further complication has
arisen. At the end of our work at the NPL we made the suggestion that as the
techniques improved it might be advantageous to redefine the units of
measurement, keeping the atomic second, giving a defined value to the velocity
of light and discarding the unit of length. This has now been done, but these
developments do not affect the criticisms of the theory. Even with these units
it would still be absurd to assume that the velocity would be the same for two
observers in relative motion. Units must be used with common sense.
Thought experiments
The other glaring
mistake occurred in the course of one of his thought experiments. Einstein had
never made any actual experiments, as far as I can find, and he certainly had
no idea of how to compare clocks. He imagined two identical clocks side by side
and supposed one of them to move away at a uniform velocity and then return.
According to one of the results deduced from the theory a moving clock appears
to go slower than the stationary one when viewed from the stationary position. Calling
the clocks A and B the predictions are:
B is slower than A as seen from A
and since velocity
is only relative and either of the clocks can be regarded as the moving one:
A is slower than B as seen from B
This is certainly
strange although not logically impossible. It implies that something happens to
the signals during their transmission. He then outlines his experiment without
giving any details of how the measurements are made and concludes that:
B is slower than A
and although he does not specifically say
so:
A is slower than B
in accordance with the relativity
principle.
This result is of course impossible, and is
usually called the clock paradox. Many thousands of words have been written
about it, but the explanation is simply that he did not go through the correct
procedures in making his experiment. It is a very simple experiment, being
carried out every day in clock comparisons, and the correct result agrees with
his predictions as indeed it must do since a thought experiment cannot give a
new result. The predictions themselves are also inexplicable but this is one of
the consequences of the duplication of units.
I had rather naively thought that
scientists would be glad to have an explanation of the confusion which had
existed for so long and would at least pay some attention to my explanation,
since I had more practical experience in these matters than all the
relativitists put together. But I was wrong. No one attempted to refute my
arguments although they justified Einstein by repeating his thought experiment
and his mistakes in different forms. I was, however, dropped some pretty broad
hints that if I continued to criticise the theory my reputation and career
prospects were likely to suffer. It was only a sideline to my experimental work
but I found it so interesting that I did not feel like dropping it, and felt
that it was very important that the theory should be exposed. My Director was
good about it and said he had no objection himself as long as I did not involve
the NPL. I was beginning to realise that scientists could be just as irrational
as anyone else and having accepted the theory as a faith without understanding
it they closed their minds to argument. They also tried to suppress opposition
and two of my papers after being accepted by the referees were mysteriously
never published.
I was not entirely without support and was
invited to write an article by the Oxford University Press. It was not so
comprehensive as they hoped, since I was not able to devote as much time to it
as I would have liked, and lacked the secretarial assistance of my department,
but it was accepted and published as one of their Research Papers (No. 5). The
Director of the Royal Institution also invited me to give one of their Friday
Evening Discourses. This was quite enthusiastically received and I had many
letters of congratulation, although, as I noticed with some amusement, most of
them were written on private notepaper and not on the paper of their
organisations as one would normally expect.
The history of relativity would make a
fascinating study and I regret that I do not feel competent to do it myself. I
have kept to those aspects dealing with units of measurement and the comparison
of clocks which I know something about. It was inspired by the puzzling results
of an experiment made by Michelson and Morley. They argued that if light
travelled at a steady velocity through the medium, or aether, and the surface
of the earth was moving through this medium there should be a detectable effect
on the movement, but they failed to detect any. Fitzgerald and Lorentz gave an
empirical explanation that moving rods were shortened and moving clocks were
slowed down. Scientists badly wanted a more detailed satisfactory explanation
and this is what Einstein thought he had done. All he did was to introduce
irrational ideas into physics and incorporate the Lorentz explanation into
electromagnetic theory as an assumption. The original puzzling results,
therefore, remain and it is important to science that a true explanation should
be found.
The famous paper published in 1905 does not
appear to have attracted any attention until Eddington returned from an
expedition to study the eclipse in 1919, and with great publicity announced to
a meeting of the Astronomical Society in London that the results had proved
Einstein’s theory. What he thought he had confirmed was Einstein’s value for
the bending of light round the sun. Scientists were prepared to go to a lot of
trouble to obtain experimental evidence for the theory as they realised that
this was necessary and yet Eddington is supposed to have said that the theory
was so satisfactory that if the experimental results did not confirm it then
they must be wrong. A criticism of the results made later pointed out that in
order to obtain the result he wanted, some of the observations which did not
fit were ignored. Also someone has pointed out, with some evidence, that
Einstein himself had predicted two results differing by 2 to 1 for the
deflection. Finally the deflection of the sun’s rays has nothing to do with the
special theory and the clock paradox and yet in some mysterious way it was
claimed to confirm it. Still searching for experimental support an experiment
was made in the US some years ago. Four atomic clocks were carried by plane in
opposite directions round the world. 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. There was a spectacular television
programme about it in which a well-known actor was installed in a simulated
space shuttle and told that he would come back younger than if he had stayed on
earth. Being an intelligent man he appeared to regard it as a lot of nonsense
as I hope the viewers did.
My intrusion into theoretical physics must
be regarded as a failure in that I did not convince the relativitists of their
mistakes. It may have had some benefit in encouraging scientists to look for a
rational extension of electromagnetic theory to explain the many mysteries not
yet explained. There have been several attempts, that of Rene L Vallée being in
my view particularly encouraging. It is a unified field theory giving an
electromagnetic explanation of gravitation, and including a most important
suggestion that it might be possible to harness the gravitational energy of
space safely and economically. He argued that the nuclear energy programme in
France was wasteful and misdirected and was in consequence obliged to leave the
authority for which he worked. It is sad if his ideas were not fully studied
because the nuclear fusion programmes throughout the world seem to make little
progress in spite of the billions spent on them.
