DOCSLIB.ORG

Gone, but Not Forgotten the Method of Science

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Gone, but Not Forgotten the Method of Science THESIS Gone, but not forgotten Received wisdom holds that the one direction, and so violate this physics such as an inverse-square-law notion of an ‘aether’ — a medium principle; hence, an aether with a force acting between spins. pervading all space, and the material definite velocity cannot be consistent Other physicists have invoked ‘substance’ of the vacuum, if you with relativity. But quantum theory, an aether in trying to make sense of will — was permanently relegated Dirac argued, alters considerations the ‘spooky’ action-at-a-distance to the history books by Einstein’s of symmetry in an important way. apparently involved in quantum 1905 special theory of relativity, A hydrogen atom, for example, theory. In the spirit of playful which showed it to be unnecessary, can be in a spherically symmetric speculation, for example, physicist if not logically contradictory. But it state, even though, considered Nicolas Gisin of the University of seems, as it does so often in science, in classical terms, a system of an The laws of Geneva has explored what Bell-type that the situation isn’t quite as electron orbiting a proton never experiments, measuring correlations clear cut as that. Even Einstein had could. Perhaps, he suggested, physics haven’t between pairs of entangled particles, second thoughts on the matter. the vacuum could be similarly ruled out an might imply about the velocity of “I thought in 1905”, he wrote in a uncertain, spread over many quantum information. Given current paper in 1920, “that in physics one velocities in a symmetric way, aether with experiments, he suggests, the should not speak of the aether at all. and so not violate the principle certainty. velocity of such information would This judgement was too radical...”. of relativity. have to be greater than the speed of In 1951, writing in Nature, Dirac’s thinking on this point light, which can only make sense if Paul Dirac argued that the concept hasn’t restored the aether to there is a preferred frame, defined of the aether had been dismissed mainstream physics, but it may perhaps by the relative motions prematurely. “If one re-examines the have helped weaken the barrier of the particles involved. No question in the light of present against the exploration of such experiment, of course, has yet day knowledge”, he wrote, “one ideas, which persists today. Some detected evidence for such a frame. finds that the aether is no longer extensions of general relativity, What do we learn from this? ruled out by relativity, and good for example, postulate a time- Perhaps that the laws of physics reasons can now be advanced for like scalar field in addition to the haven’t ruled out an aether with postulating an aether.” spacetime metric. These so-called quite the certainty many of us have As Dirac pointed out, the Einstein-aether theories effectively been led to believe. But perhaps principle of relativity demands that assert the existence of a preferred also that a concept so seductive the perfect vacuum be isotropic frame, defined by a dynamical and intuitively plausible is almost in the sense of Lorentz, with all field, which breaks local Lorentz irresistible, and that the determined directions within the lightcone of invariance. This proposal has the human mind can find a way to bring any point being equivalent. The advantage of being testable, as it the idea into almost any theory. velocity of an aether would pick out predicts departures from standard Mark Buchanan The method of science Today, few would deny the the question “what is science?”, the way we do science — the central importance of science the answer will almost surely language, the instruments, to our lives, but not many of be that science is a process, a the methods we use — depends the general public would be way of examining the natural on clear presuppositions able to give a good account of world and discovering important about how the world works. what science is. To most, the truths about it. In short, the Modern science is full of word probably brings to mind essence of science is the things that cannot even not science itself, but the fruits scientific method. be observed at all. At the of science — the pervasive That stirring description most fundamental level, it is complex of technology that suffers from an important We don’t really impossible to observe nature has transformed all of our shortcoming: we don’t really without having some reason lives. However, science might know what the scientific method know what to choose what is worth also be thought to include the is. There have been many the scientific observing and what is not vast body of knowledge we attempts at formulating a general method is. worth observing. Once one have accumulated about the theory of how science works, makes that elementary choice, natural world. There are still or at least how it ought to work, Bacon has been left behind. mysteries, and there always will starting with Sir Francis Bacon. Science, it turns out, is be mysteries, but the fact is that, His idea, that science proceeds whatever scientists do. That, by and large, we understand how through the collection of of course, is not an adequate nature works. observations without prejudice, philosophical description, but it But science is even more has been rejected by all serious may be the best we can do. than that. If one asks a scientist thinkers. Everything about David Goodstein nature physics | VOL 3 | AUGUST 2007 | www.nature.com/naturephysics 509 © 2007 Nature Publishing Group .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Einstein's Simple Mathematical Trick –And the Illusion of a Constant
    Applied Physics Research; Vol. 5, No. 4; 2013 ISSN 1916-9639 E-ISSN 1916-9647 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Einstein’s Simple Mathematical Trick –and the Illusion of a Constant Speed of Light Conrad Ranzan1 1 DSSU Research, Niagara Falls, Canada Correspondence: Conrad Ranzan, Director, DSSU Research, 5145 Second Avenue, Niagara Falls, ON. L2E 4J8, Canada. Tel: 1-905-357-0788. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Received: May 24, 2013 Accepted: June 25, 2013 Online Published: July 15, 2013 doi:10.5539/apr.v5n4p85 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/apr.v5n4p85 Abstract It is shown how Einstein achieves the illusion of lightspeed invariance by employing a simple mathematical trick—and magically abolishing the aether. As if part of a "conspiracy" against man's efforts to obtain knowledge of the physical world, Nature has a “trick” of its own in providing the illusion of lightspeed invariance. The illusion works remarkably well, thanks to length contraction and clock slowing both of which are induced by absolute motion with respect to aether. Einstein’s illusion and Nature’s illusion, however, conceal the physical reality that the one-way speed of light, contrary to a strict interpretation of Einstein’s 2nd postulate, is NOT constant. Keywords: Albert Einstein, DSSU aether theory, special relativity, speed of light, 2nd postulate, absolute motion, absolute space, aether, length contraction, clock retardation As Einstein regarded the situation, the [aether] experiments, seemed to indicate a "conspiracy" on the part of nature against man's efforts to obtain knowledge of the physical world.
    [Show full text]
  • Ponderable Aethers, Which Arise in fixed Clock Theories
    Prepared for submission to JCAP Ponderable aether Antony J. Speranzaa,b aMaryland Center for Fundamental Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 bPerimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. We consider a Lorentz-violating theory of gravity where the aether vector is taken to be nondynamical. This “ponderable aether theory” is almost the same as Einstein- aether theory (where the aether vector is dynamical), but involves additional integration constants arising due to the loss of initial value constraints. One of these produces an effective energy density for the aether fluid, similar to the appearance of dark matter in projectable Hoˇrava gravity and the mimetic dark matter theory. Here we investigate the extent to which this energy density can reproduce the phenomenology of dark matter. Although it is indistinguishable from cold dark matter in homogeneous, isotropic cosmology, it encounters phenomenological problems in both spherically symmetric configurations and cosmological perturbations. Furthermore, inflationary considerations lead us to expect a tiny value for the ponderable aether energy density today unless a sourcing effect is added to the theory. The theory then effectively reduces to dynamical Einstein-aether theory, rendering moot the question of whether an aether must be dynamical in order to be consistent. arXiv:1504.03305v1 [gr-qc] 13 Apr 2015 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Lorentz-violating structures 3 2.1 Dynamics for Lorentz-violation
    [Show full text]
  • Basic Concepts for a Fundamental Aether Theory1
    BASIC CONCEPTS FOR A FUNDAMENTAL AETHER THEORY1 Joseph Levy 4 square Anatole France, 91250 St Germain-lès-Corbeil, France E-mail: [email protected] 55 Pages, 8 figures, Subj-Class General physics ABSTRACT In the light of recent experimental and theoretical data, we go back to the studies tackled in previous publications [1] and develop some of their consequences. Some of their main aspects will be studied in further detail. Yet this text remains self- sufficient. The questions asked following these studies will be answered. The consistency of these developments in addition to the experimental results, enable to strongly support the existence of a preferred aether frame and of the anisotropy of the one-way speed of light in the Earth frame. The theory demonstrates that the apparent invariance of the speed of light results from the systematic measurement distortions entailed by length contraction, clock retardation and the synchronization procedures with light signals or by slow clock transport. Contrary to what is often believed, these two methods have been demonstrated to be equivalent by several authors [1]. The compatibility of the relativity principle with the existence of a preferred aether frame and with mass-energy conservation is discussed and the relation existing between the aether and inertial mass is investigated. The experimental space-time transformations connect co-ordinates altered by the systematic measurement distortions. Once these distortions are corrected, the hidden variables they conceal are disclosed. The theory sheds light on several points of physics which had not found a satisfactory explanation before. (Further important comments will be made in ref [1d]).
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Fresnel's (Dragging) Coefficient As a Challenge to 19Th Century Optics
    1 Fresnel’s (Dragging) Coefficient as a Challenge to 19th Century Optics of Moving Bodies John Stachel Center for Einstein Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, U.S.A., [email protected] 1.1 Introduction It has been suggested that, during the latter half of the 19th century up to about 1890, the optics of moving bodies was considered to be a more-or-less unproblematic branch of physics. In view of the continuing success of Fresnel’s formula for the dragging coefficient (hereafter called Fresnel’s coefficient) in explaining all new experimental optical data to order v/c, “There were simply no major problems to solve here, or so it was generally thought” (Buchwald 1988, 57). These words are the summation of the following quotation: “In 1851 Armand Fizeau was able to measure the Fresnel “drag” coefficient, and in 1873 Wilhelm Velt- mann demonstrated that no optical experiment with a terrestrial source of light can, to first order, detect motion through the ether if the drag coefficient obtains. Conse- quently, to this degree of accuracy, Fresnel’s original theory which requires a very slight transport of the ether by transparent bodies was quite satisfactory (ibid.)” (Schaffner 1972) includes a similar comment: “...Fresnel was able to formulate a simple and elegant explanation of Arago’s results on the basis of the wave theory of light; an explanation which not only accounted for aberration effects then known but which was subsequently confirmed in a number of ways throughout the nineteenth century (ibid., 24).” As we shall see, both Buchwald and Schaffner conflate the continued empirical success of Fresnel’s formula with the ultimately unsuccessful attempts by Fresnel and others to find a satisfactory theoretical explanation of the formula.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Absolute Motion in the Inertial Systems
    Fundamental Journals International Journal of Fundamental Physical Sciences (IJFPS) ISSN:2231-8186 IJFPS, Vol 3, No 3, pp 50-53, Sept , 2013 A.L. Guillen Gomez DOI:10.14331/ijfps.2013.330054 http://dx.doi.org/10.14331/ijfps.2013.330054 On The Absolute Motion in the Inertial Systems Alfonso Leon Guillen Gomez Independent scientific researcher, 127A Street 53A68 Flat 514, Bogota, Colombia Email: [email protected] (Received July 2013; Published Sept 2013) ABSTRACT Through a mental experiment, the mechanics’ theory, about of the relative motion, is reexamined because the vacuum, frame of the movement, has a physical reality, which allows test the absolute motion, by the Doppler Effect induced by means of a decelerator of photons, affecting an electromagnetic wave in the direction of the motion of an inertial system. This Doppler does not exist in the nature because the source of the electromagnetic wave is in rest respect to system. But, in each cycle, due to which the wave propagates inside the decelerator, the speed of the system combined with the speed of the wave, respect to vacuum, provokes the induced Doppler. The result is that an observer, inside an inertial system, fully insulated from the outside, may determine whether his system is in rest or in motion and measure its speed, in absolute terms. Keywords: Laser application, Classical Mechanics, Inertial Systems, Absolute Motion DOI:10.14331/ijfps.2013.330054 INTRODUCTION inertial systems. It is true that the Michelson-Morley experiment failed to prove the absolute motion, using the In the Classical Physics exists the contradiction between speed of the electromagnetic wave.
    [Show full text]
  • Fresnel's Laws, Ceteris Paribus
    Fresnel’s Laws, ceteris paribus (with a correction) Aaron Sidney Wright [email protected] Forthcoming in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 10 August 2017 Abstract This article is about structural realism, historical continuity, laws of nature, and ceteris paribus clauses. Fresnel’s Laws of optics support Structural Realism because they are a scientific structure that has survived theory change. However, the history of Fresnel’s Laws which has been depicted in debates over realism since the 1980s is badly distorted. Specifically, claims that J. C. Maxwell or his followers believed in an ontologically-subsistent electromagnetic field, and gave up the aether, before Einstein’s annus mirabilis in 1905 are indefensible. Related claims that Maxwell himself did not believe in a luminiferous aether are also indefensible. This paper corrects the record. In order to trace Fresnel’s Laws across significant ontological changes, they must be followed past Einstein into modern physics and nonlinear optics. I develop the philosophical implications of a more accurate history, and analyze Fresnel’s Laws’ historical trajectory in terms of dynamic ceteris paribus clauses. Structuralists have not embraced ceteris paribus laws, but they continue to point to Fresnel’s Laws to resist anti-realist arguments from theory change. Fresnel’s Laws fit the standard definition of a ceteris paribus law as a law applicable only in particular circumstances. Realists who appeal to the historical continuity of Fresnel’s Laws to combat anti-realists must incorporate ceteris paribus laws into their metaphysics. 1 1 Introduction 1If a science professor stops her philosopher colleague in the hall and they begin to discuss the scientist’s picture of the world, what sort of objections could the philosopher make if they were unhappy with references to organisms and species, or to quantum fields and symmetry groups? If this philosopher has naturalistic leanings, there are three possible paths.
    [Show full text]
  • Advanced General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes
    Advanced General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes Lecture Notes Stefano Liberati SISSA, IFPU, INFN January 2020 Preface The following notes are made by students of the course of “Advanced General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes”, which was held at the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste (Italy) in the year 2017 by professor Stefano Liberati. Being the course directed to PhD students, this work and the notes therein are aimed to inter- ested readers that already have basic knowledge of Special Relativity, General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory; however, where possible the authors have included all the definitions and concept necessary to understand most of the topics presented. The course is based on di↵erent textbooks and papers; in particular, the first part, about Advanced General Relativity, is based on: “General Relativity” by R. Wald [1] • “Spacetime and Geometry” by S. Carroll [2] • “A Relativist Toolkit” by E. Poisson [3] • “Gravitation” by T. Padmanabhan [4] • while the second part, regarding Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime, is based on “Quantum Fields in Curved Space” by N. C. Birrell and P. C. W. Davies [5] • “Vacuum E↵ects in strong fields” by A. A. Grib, S. G. Mamayev and V. M. Mostepanenko [6] • “Introduction to Quantum E↵ects in Gravity”, by V. F Mukhanov and S. Winitzki [7] • Where necessary, some other details could have been taken from paper and reviews in the standard literature, that will be listed where needed and in the Bibliography. Every possible mistake present in these notes are due to misunderstandings and imprecisions of which only the authors of the following works must be considered responsible.
    [Show full text]
  • AETHER and EINSTEIN Aether
    1 AETHER AND EINSTEIN Aether: from everywhere to nowhere Age, 19 February 2005 A New Yorker cartoon showed a television news reader reporting from the annual meeting of the American Physical Society where participants had just agreed that everything they knew about the nature of the universe was “wrongedy, wrongedy wrong”. That a joke in the New Yorker is no laughing matter received further confirmation last July when Stephen Hawking renounced his belief that information could not escape from Black Holes. The puzzles facing mathematical physicists today had their parallels100 years ago when the laws of mechanics did not fit with those of electrodynamics. In 1905, a 26-year old clerk in the Swiss Patents Office, Albert Einstein, published the first of his papers that would overturn our picture of the world. Atop Einstein’s list of discards was the aether. If nature abhorred a vacuum, seemingly empty space had to be filled with something or other, to which the ancients had given the name “aether”, derived from the Greek for aethereal fire. Einstein’s dismissal of aether as “obsolete” justifies the older spelling, rather than “ether”, which invokes a different mind-numbing substance. Belief in aether had been a useful construct but ended its days as a label for collective confusion. Its longevity offers insights into why scientists will cling to speculative ideas. Its prolonged death is the dark side of the story of Relativity, making it the unwelcome guest at this year’s celebration of how brilliant physicists can be. Aether is also forgotten because its half-life is a reminder of how many such geniuses have been in thrall to mysticism.
    [Show full text]
  • CV Long 2020
    Curriculum Vitae Name: Pedro G. Ferreira Address: Astrophysics, University of Oxford, DWB, Keble Road, Oxford OX2 7LG, UK Phone: +441865273366 Fax: +441865273390 Mobile: +447796695036 Email: [email protected] Employment History 2008 – now Director of Beecroft Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (BIPAC), UK 2016 – now Research Professor (RSIV) at the University of Oxford 2008 – 2016 Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford 2006 – 2008 Reader in Physics at the University of Oxford 2000 – 2006 Lecturer in Physics at University of Oxford 2000 – 2005 University Research Fellow of the Royal 2000 – now Fellow and Tutor in Physics of Oriel College. 1999 – 2000 CERN Fellow, Theory Group, CERN, Geneva. 1995 – 1999 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Particle Astrophysics, University of California at Berkeley, USA. Education 1992 – 1995 PhD in Theoretical Physics, Imperial College, London, UK Advisor: Andreas Albrecht Topic: Observational Consequences of Cosmological Phase Transitions 1986 – 1991 Licenciatura in Physical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal Awards and membership of societies 2016 – 2021 European Research Council Advanced Grant 2012 – Associate visiting fellow (by invitation), Higgs Centre, Edinburgh, UK 2012 – 2013 Leverhulme Research Fellowship, UK 2010 – Fellow (by invitation) Institute of Physics (IoP) 2009 – Member of Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) 2008 Associate Faculty of African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (by invitation) 2007 University Teaching Award 2004 Royal Society Merit Award 2002 ISI Science Watch, joint 2nd most cited scientist across all fields 2000 – 2005 Royal Society University Research Fellowship 1999 PPARC Advanced Fellowship (declined) 1994 Gulbenkian Foundation Fellowship (declined) Grants I am one of the founders and the director of the Beecroft Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (BIPAC) which has attracted over €3.5M in private funding over the last 19 years to focus on theoretical and phenomenological aspects of cosmology.
    [Show full text]
  • A Vacuum of Quantum Gravity That Is Ether
    Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 24 May 2021 doi:10.20944/preprints202105.0576.v1 Article A Vacuum of Quantum Gravity That is Ether Sergey Cherkas 1,† 0000-0002-6132-3052 and Vladimir Kalashnikov 2,† 0000-0002-3435-2333 1 Institute for Nuclear Problems, Bobruiskaya 11, Minsk 220030, Belarus; [email protected] 2 Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Sapienza Universitá di Roma, Via Eudossiana 18, 00189 - Roma, RM, Italia; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] † These authors contributed equally to this work. Version May 19, 2021 submitted to Symmetry 1 Abstract: The fact that quantum gravity does not admit a co-variant vacuum state has far-reaching 2 consequences for all physics. It points out that space could not be empty, and we return to the notion 3 of an ether. Such a concept requires a preferred reference frame for, e.g., universe expansion and black 4 holes. Here, we intend to discuss vacuum and quantum gravity from three essential viewpoints: 5 universe expansion, black holes existence, and quantum decoherence. 6 Keywords: vacuum energy; preferred reference frame; vacuum state; quantum gravity 7 1. Introduction. 8 From the earliest times, people are thinking how empty is a "nothing," i.e., a space-time, which 9 contains no matter. Some believe that a "nothing" is unreachable, and space-time always contains 10 "something," i.e., ether [1]. If ether is like some matter, then there must be a reference frame at which 11 ether is at rest "in tote," i.e., it represents some stationary medium.
    [Show full text]
  • Falsification of General Relativity a New Theory of Gravity Without a Spacetime Continuum
    Definitive Experimental Falsification of General Relativity A New Theory of Gravity Without a Spacetime Continuum James Carter The Andromeda Galaxy (M 31) The above image of Andromeda is experimental proof that photons are not deflected or “curved” in any way by gravity when they pass near the sun. If each photon in this photograph was not lined up perfectly in Euclidian space and time with its emitting star, the whole picture would appear as a homogenous dim grey cloud. ABSTRACT When Einstein presented the General Relativity theory, he made the pre- diction that the path of every photon that passes stars and through and around galaxies is slightly deflected in its path by the gravity of these bod- ies. He calculated the angle of deflection for starlight passing the edge of the sun to be 1.75 arc seconds. The deflection of the star’s other photons passing much farther from the sun would all be deflected by smaller but still significant amounts. In 1919, Arthur Eddington measured the sun’s James Carter 1 starlight deflections to be very close to Einstein’s prediction. This means each photon passing through the cosmos would be deflected countless times as it passed through the gravitational fields and curved space of the billions of stars in each galaxy. No photon could pass through the cosmos without undergoing billions of tiny deflections around its original momen- tum vector. Even a tiny deflection would produce an enormous horizontal displacement of photons when viewed light years away from the deflecting star. In the above photo of Andromeda, each of the trillions of photons recorded on the photographic plate appear to be perfectly lined up with the star that emitted them.
    [Show full text]
  • A Derivation of the Speed of Light Postulate That Is Meant to Provide Such an Explanation
    ADerivationoftheSpeedofLightPostulate Armin Nikkhah Shirazi∗ University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 November 28th, 2008 Abstract The speed of light postulate, one of the two fundamental assumptions upon which the special theory of relativity (SR) is based, still seems as mysterious today as when it was first introduced. This paper presents a derivation of the postulate from three axioms:1) A definition of motion in proper time that captures most of the mathematical aspects of SR except for the speed of light postulate itself, 2) An axiom concerning the nature of the existence of entities which do not age, and finally 3) an axiom which defines existence in a spacetime to be transitive. The second axiom is motivated by an apparent paradox inherent in the structure of SR, called the existence paradox, pertaining to entities which do not age. The duration of existence of such entities in their proper frame is precisely equal to zero, which would normally be interpreted to be consistent with non- existence and inconsistent with the empirical evidence for the existence of such entities. The resolution of this apparent paradox is guided by a quasi-philosophical principle, called the Principle of least Speciality. The second axiom presents a resolution to the existence paradox that follows this principle while at the same time providing the essence of the explanation for the speed of light postulate. Given the three axioms, it is straightforward to show that the speed of light postulate is a logical consequence. Furthermore, this framework implies a direct experimentally testable prediction that is, according to currently prevailing views, unexpected.
    [Show full text]