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EINSTEIN's TERRIBLE TWINS and Other Tales of Relativistic Woe

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EINSTEIN's TERRIBLE TWINS and Other Tales of Relativistic Woe 1 EINSTEIN'S TERRIBLE TWINS and Other Tales of Relativistic Woe Jeremy Fiennes ([email protected]) (rev: 04/10/2019) Dedicated to Dayton Miller Abstract Einstein's Special Relativity is based on two fundamental assumptions, the so- called 'Einstein postulates'. The second 'constant speed of light' postulate predicts that two inertial observers – for instance two twins in spaceships free- floating in outer space – will each see the other's clock running slower than his own. The first 'relativity' postulate says that both their perceptions are equally valid, effectively correct. The logical incoherence of this makes a nonsense of the postulates, and by extension of Special Relativity itself. The positive 1887 Michelson-Morley result confirms this experimentally, falsifying both Einstein's postulates. In spite of which, more than a century later Special Relativity is still an official scientific doctrine , and Einstein a scientific genius. The article derives the technical aspects of Relativity; and then looks at the historical, political, social and personal factors that led up to the present situation. The approach is conceptual and 98% non-mathematical. Companion articles look at the related topics of the aether and spacetime. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Inertial/gravitational General p.2 mass p.33 MOTIONS Photons, gravity (1) p.33 Inertial motion p.3 Photons, gravity (2) p.34 Relative motion p.3 Photons, gravity 32) p.35 SPECIAL RELATIVITY Eclipse show (1) p.36 Galileo p.5 EINSTEIN Einstein Postulates (1) p.5 Plagiarist p.38 Clock slowing (1) p.6 Mileva effect p.41 Clock absurdity (1) p.8 Eclipse Show (2) p.43 "Paradox" p.10 Zionism p.44 Clock absurdity (2) p.10 USA visit p.44 Twin absurdity p.11 Great Relativity Battle p.46 Twin "explanations" p.11 2+2=5 p.49 Naturewissenschaften p.12 The mind p.50 In spite of ... p.14 The man p.55 DISSIDENCE, Joke or swindle? p.58 EXPERIMENTAL "Right again" p.59 Michelson-Morley p.16 FINALE 2 Dayton Miller p.17 Newton p.60 Hafele-Keating p.18 Cahill p.63 GPS p.20 Faith p.63 Doeppler effect p.21 Thought-stop (1) p.64 DISSIDENCE, Thought-stop (2) p.65 THEORETICAL Market p.66 Dingle p.21 The brain p.67 Essen p.22 APPENDIX Others p.23 Clock-slowing p.67 Doeppler p.24 Einstein Postulates (2) p.68 Lorentz Aether Theory p.24 Lorentz Cahill p.24 transformations p.69 GENERAL RELATIVITY Naturwissenschaften p.70 Equivalence principle (1) p.27 Photon mass p.70 Equivalence principle (2) p.28 Reductio ad absurdum p.71 Equivalence principle (3) p.29 Space-time (1) p.30 Bibliography p.72 Space-time (2) p.30 Index p.73 Aether p.32 endnotes p.76 INTRODUCTION General As most of us know, the Theory of Relativity is one of humanity's most outstanding intellectual achievements and its creator Albert Einstein was an all-time scientific genius. For most of my life I accepted unquestioningly this piece of conventional wisdom. Till one day, somewhat unwittingly, I was led to query it. The following article is the result. It comprises: – 1) Special Relativity, explained in simple non-mathematical terms – 2) the basics of General Relativity – 3) Einstein as a person – 4) the social and political background Readers not interested in the technical part can skip to the more general (and more entertaining) later sections with little loss of continuity. Companion articles1 look at the related topics of the aether and spacetime. Due to the common ground between these and the present article, there is some duplication. On the practical side, to leave the main body of the text as uncluttered as possible, cross-references and 'asides' are placed in footnotes. The end-notes contain source references only. In the Internet case they comprise the main site name with the year and month of access in brackets . Contrary to custom, quotations are not in general de rigeur with all the (...)s and [...]s in the right places. They may be abridged or combined with others from the same source. But their meaning is never consciously distorted. Whenever possible original source references are given. Italics in general are "ours". 3 Since the English language in its wisdom does not provide us with non-gender- specific pronouns, for "he", etc. in general read "he/she" etc. The 'we' in the text is the 'authorial we' comprising the writer and himself. A device Formatado: Inglês (EUA) used by authors to surreptitiously solicit the complicity of their readers. When we say “we Formatado: Inglês (EUA) say”, what we really mean is "I say", if you see what we mean. Formatado: Thanks are due principally to Barry Cavell and Stan Heshka, who read the original text Inglês (EUA) and made many useful comments, most of which got incorporated. And to Arthur Mather Formatado: Inglês (EUA) and Nick Landell-Mills, who likewise gave valuable feedback. Formatado: Inglês (EUA) Formatado: Cor da fonte: Automática, Inglês (EUA) MOTIONS Formatado: Inglês (EUA) Formatado: Inglês (EUA) Inertial motion Formatado: Inglês (EUA) Einstein created two Theories of Relativity. Special Relativity was published in 1905. Formatado: General Relativity came ten years later in 1915. Inglês (EUA) General Relativity is highly mathematical and complex, to the extent that Einstein Formatado: Inglês (EUA) 2 once said that only twelve people in the world really understood it . Special Relativity, on Formatado: Inglês (EUA) the other hand, is in principle very simple and requires at the most high school algebra. Formatado: Inglês (EUA) The "special" of Special Relativity is due to its restriction to so-called inertial condit- ions, where motion is at a steady speed in a straight line, with no acceleration or rotation: Formatado: Inglês (EUA) Formatado: Inglês (EUA) inertial motion = at steady speed in a straight line Formatado: a Inglês (EUA) Gravity being an acceleration , there can also be no effects of gravity. Formatado: Inglês (EUA) A train travelling at steady speed along a straight level section of track moves iner- b tially , Fig. 1a. One can walk around in it as if it was stationary. But when it suddenly Formatado: Inglês (EUA) brakes, or goes round a sharp bend, one cannot. Formatado: Inglês (EUA) Fig. 1. Inertial motion. The same holds for an airplane cruising at constant speed and height, Fig. 1b. One can walk around in it as if it was on the ground. But when it accelerates during takeoff, or brakes during landing, one cannot. Special Relativity formalizes these relations by saying that: the laws of mechanics are the same for all inertial observers c A mechanical experiment gives the same result in any inertial conditions, indepen- dently of whether it is carried out on the ground; or in a train moving at a steady speed of 90 km/h; or in a plane cruising at 900 km/h. Relative motion The other 'motion' we need to look at is relative motion . Noting that the term 'relative' is redundant, since all motion is by nature relative. Einstein wrote: a When one drops an object it accelerates towards the centre of the Earth. b Gravity here acts perpendicularly to the motion and has no effect. c For instance , the time a dropped object takes to reach the floor. 4 "It has of course been known since the days of the ancient Greeks that in order to describe the movement of a body, a second body is needed to which the movement of the first is referred." 3 So when we talked of a train travelling at a steady speed of 90 km/h, that was strictly meaningless, because we didn't specify with respect to what the train's speed was meas- ured. In such cases we however evidently imply a local default reference , in this case the Earth's surface. With respect to a fixed object on the local Earth's surface – for instance the last station the train passed – it moves at a steady speed of 90 km/h, Fig. 2. Fig. 2. 'Absolute' motion. We will call such speeds 'absolute'. The single quotes mean that they are measured with respect to a local reference chosen for convenience, and not to some overall cosmic reference, should there be such a thing. Consider two trains 'A' and 'B' travelling inertially along parallel sections of track at 'absolute' speeds of 90 km/h and 110 km/h respectively, Fig. 3a. Relative to train A, train B moves forward at 20 km/h, Fig. 3b. Relative to train B, train A moves backwards at the same speed, Fig. 3c. Fig. 3.Relative motion a The two relative velocities have opposite directions , but their magnitudes are the same, in this case 20 km/h. For two bodies there is only one relative speed. The speed of A relative to B is inherently equal to that of B relative to A. Now consider a similar situation, but with two spaceships free-floating in outer space, far from any gravitation b. To make the numbers more realistic we have multiplied the speeds by one thousand. c With respect to planet Earth, the 'absolute' speeds of the spaceships are 90k and 110k km/h respectively, Fig. 4a. Relative to spaceship A, spaceship B moves at 20k km/h away from the Earth, Fig. 4b. Relative to spaceship B, spaceship A moves at the same speed towards the Earth, Fig. 4c. a In general, a velocity is a vector with magnitude and direction. A speed is a magnitude only. b The definition of 'outer', or 'deep' space. For spaceships to move inertially , their engines must be switched off. c "k" = 1000.
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