AQUESTIONOFTIME.COM
HANS J. ZWEIG, PhD
h.j.zweig@me.com
A concise summary is now available.
Modified 7-12-2008
About this site:
This web site deals with the consequences of Einstein's Relativity Theories (intended and unintended) for theoretical physics in the Twentieth Century.
All standard textbooks dealing with the subject of theoretical physics, published in the last one hundred years, in whatever language written, and in whatever university used, contain three fundamental errors that can be traced back to the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
Whether derived, justified, or crudely explained, in these texts, these errors have resulted in a view of the physical universe that is mind boggling, mystifying, and simply erroneous. They are exposed in the chapters below. They concern three areas related to relativity: the Lorentz Transformation, The Doppler effect for light, and the concept of simultaneity, so fundamental to Einstein's view of the relativity of time.
To summarize the problems: The Lorentz Transformation as originally derived uses mathematical tricks and procedures that are physically invalid. The Doppler effect for sound consists of two formulas depending on whether the source or the receiver is in motion; whereas the Doppler effect for light only requires one of these formulas, but unfortunately physicists have without exception chosen the wrong one. The concept of simultaneity is ambiguous and contains two ideas that are mutually exclusive - two events and one observer, and one event with two observers. The simultaneity of the one does not imply the simultaneity of the other - a fact that Einstein and his followers overlooked, and which leads to absurd conclusions regarding the relativity of time.
OVERVIEW
That Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory (SRT) is invalid can be shown using several distinct approaches: (1) through a logical analysis of the important concepts and thought experiments, (2) through recently available empirical results in astronomy, and (3) through a physical/mathematical analysis of the foundation of SRT.
Logical analysis of concepts and conclusions reveals that the key concepts of SRT are vague and ambiguous, and that Einstein’s conclusions, derived from badly formulated thought experiments, are false. Empirical data, obtained from recent supernovae observations, point to the fact that the velocity of light is not constant across the radiation spectrum. But the most convincing argument against SRT comes from the fact that it is based on the Lorentz Transformation (LT) that can easily be shown to be invalid. All three approaches are developed in the chapters below.
We can begin with the mathematics of SRT. It is in itself consistent (although Einstein’s reasoning is vague and inconclusive). SRT cannot be overthrown on mathematical grounds alone. The mathematics is neutral with respect to the different physical assumptions of Lorentz and Einstein. But the robust appearance of the mathematics hides a fundamental error in the application of mathematics to physical phenomena. This situation occurs for both Lorentz and Einstein. Both intend to find an expression for the average one directional time in the movement of a two-way path of light, the so-called “Gamma Factor”. Both fail to find the correct solution - but for different reasons.
Lorentz attempted to justify the negative result of the Michelson-Morley (M&M) experiment that involved the back and forth movement of a beam of light. The assumption, prevalent in the 19th century, that light is carried by a medium (the so called aether) leads to the conclusion that the times of travel of a ray of light in opposite directions between two points ( whose line is placed parallel to the movement of the earth around the sun) will not be the same – the round trip should always take longer than it would if the earth were not moving through the aether. But the M&M experiment did not confirm this conjecture. Lorentz developed a formula for the average time of travel in one direction, a formula that shortened the fixed distance between the source and the destination by just the right amount to obtain the negative result established by the M&M experiment. This shortened distance, he conjectured, would be due to the contraction of matter in the direction of travel. Einstein proceeded similarly, without invoking the idea of the aether. This formula is known as the “Gamma Factor”. It has had an enormous impact on 20th century physics – in cosmology as well as in sub-atomic physics.
You can, mathematically speaking, take the square root of any positive number, or, for example the square root of the sum of two positive numbers. But you cannot average two quantities by adding them and then taking the square root – you must use an arithmetic mean, rather than a geometric mean (The average of 40 + 60 is 100/2 =50; the square root of 40 + 60 is 10). The Gamma Factor as derived by Lorentz, is therefore invalid - and consequently so is Special Relativity. That this is what he did in transitioning to the Gamma Factor requires a close reading of his 1904 paper. Einstein’s mathematical proof is different, but contains a step that contradicts the assumption that the speed of light is the same in all directions. Three basic ideas or, more correctly, beliefs, form the basis of contemporary physics. They influence the interpretation of empirical results in astronomy, cosmology and in particle physics – in fact any phenomenon that involves speeds close to the speed of light. The beliefs are (1) that the speed of light is an absolute constant, (2) the belief that radiation has zero mass, and (3) the belief in the Lorentz Transformation (or what amounts to the same, the belief in SRT). In due time it should become apparent that all three are false.
e/m
Aside from the mathematical error in the derivation of the Lorentz Transformation, the belief that mass increases with velocity has become the ultimate justification and vindication of SRT. It is ‘verified’ in each construction of particle accelerators.
The belief that mass increases with velocity can be traced back to an almost forgotten experiment published in 1901 by Walter Kaufmann. Kaufmann showed that when electrons are accelerated to velocities close to the speed of light the ratio of charge to mass, e/m, does not remain constant, as had been expected, but decreases. He, and others jumped to the conclusion that a variation in m, not in e, must be responsible. Kaufmann found that e/m decreased more rapidly with velocity than predicted by the Gamma Factor of SRT, and this was initially interpreted as evidence that Einstein’s theory was false.
Poincare, writing in 1908, endorsed the view that mass increases with velocity by suggesting that there are two types of mass, and that it is the variability of the second type, which he called electromagnetic mass, that produces this apparent increase.
From this view, as codified in SRT, it follows that light can have no mass, since any entity having mass becomes infinitely ‘heavy’ if it moves at the speed of light. It also means that the attraction between two such entities (if there were room in the universe for two infinitely massive entities) would be so large that they would immediately collide (although, if they are separating at almost the speed of light, it is difficult to see how gravity, if traveling between them at the same speed, could even work).
All this should have been a warning that physics was perhaps moving down the wrong path, but no one entertained the idea that the ratio e/m decreases because the charge of the electron, e, decreases with increasing velocity. If e decreases, it means that particles tend to become electrically neutral as they approach the speed and character of ‘light’.
This point of view can explain many troubling aspects of particle physics. The notion that two oppositely charged electrons, at high velocity, can collide and transform into gamma rays, replaces the idea that they are destroyed but generate radiation out of ‘thin air’. The appearance of short-lived exotic particles can be interpreted as transitional times and states between states of stable entities – particles losing or gaining charge and mass, along with changes in velocity, as they take on another identity, and as they collide with, or break lose from other particles. If atoms can change their nature in this way, why not allow the constituent parts of atoms to behave in the same manner.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the sub-atomic nature of matter was not yet clearly understood (is it now?); the nature of radiation was a total mystery (X-rays had just been discovered, and it was known that radium emitted two types of ‘radiation’, alpha and beta rays). Since atoms turned out not to be the fundamental, basic, indivisible building blocks of nature, as had been believed, it was easier to deal with mass as the variable, and e as the constant, in the inseparable connection e/m.
C
There is evidence, based on the arrival time of radiant energy from supernovae, that the speed of light is not the same for ultraviolet and x-ray radiation. From this it follows that the speed of light, c, is not a universal constant.
There is a NASA web site that contains an image that shows “a supernova remnant – the remains of a star that exploded in a nearby galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud.”
"ATCA radio image by Shaun Amy; X-ray:NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/HST"
Source:
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/images/astronomical/e0102-723.html
"This is a colour-composite image of E0102-72.3 - a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Chandra X-ray image (blue) shows gas that has been heated to millions of degrees Celsius by a shock wave moving into matter ejected by the supernova. This gas is rich in oxygen and neon. The radioimage (red) made with the Australia Telescope Compact Array, traces the outward motion of a shock wave due to the motion of extremely high energy electrons. The optical image (green) made with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows dense clumps of oxygen gas that have 'cooled' to about 30,000 degree Celsius.
The image shows, in false colors, what the supernova remnant looks like, at this point, here on earth, in the x-ray, visible, and radio regions of the spectrum. An outer circle is the radio region, just a little smaller circle represents the x-ray region, inside both circles is the visible region! The outer region corresponds to a later epoch in the evolution of the explosion (it therefore takes less time to get here). This implies that c is not constant. Fortunately for us visible ‘light’ travels faster, so we know where to point the receiver to detect x-ray and radio frequencies. Note that most of the visible radiation had already passed us at the time this image was taken – the center is essentially blank.
OTHER TOPICS
Counter examples for both the Special Relativity Theory (SRT), as well as the General Theory of Relativity (GRT) can be constructed. The important ideas of SRT, simultaneity, synchronization, relative time, etc. are shown to be ambiguous concepts that are used in inconsistent and conflicting thought experiments.
Einstein's General Theory, dealing with gravity, is based on his intuition, justified by a well known thought experiment, that purports to show that acceleration due to gravity is in essence the same as any other force that produces acceleration. This is the "equivalence principle" that is at the root of general relativity. A counter example shows that this is false. The Doppler effect for light is reexamined, redefined and recalculated. Unlike the Doppler effect for sound, it is shown to be symmetric as concerns the movement of source or receiver, quite apart from Einstein's treatment in SRT. It leads, in turn, to a reexamination of the meaning of the red shift of type 1A supernovae, and new implications for the size and age of the universe as inferred from these data.
Physicists usually use the concept z, called the Doppler shift, and defined as the difference between the sent and the received frequency divided by the received frequency. On the other hand, the quantity z+1 represents the ratio of the sent to the received frequency. This is the quantity that can be treated under multiplication, and that can be "averaged" (in the sense of a geometric mean) by taking the square root of the product. Here we call the ratio z+1 the Doppler factor. There are type 1A supernova data, published in 1998, which show that z is always less than one in the visual region. This implies, (without invoking SRT) that even the most distant and fastest moving stars never exhibited a velocity greater than one-half the speed of light.
The relation between mass and energy is reexamined - without the use of SRT. Kinetic energy is defined in physics as matter in motion. Matter can be said to have energy but we cannot say that matter is energy. Nor can we say that mass can turn into energy, or vice versa. This is a belief we owe SRT. Kinetic energy cannot exist apart from matter. (The view espoused here is that radiation has mass – it is not ‘pure’ energy.) What is clear is that nuclear fragments reaching velocities close to the speed of light do their damage because kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity – that velocity, for nuclear fragments, is many millions and millions of times greater than for matter in an ordinary explosion.
ADDED: 7-12-08
There have been numerous attempts to justify Special Relativity using experimental results in atomic physics. Here are my thoughts about a meson experiment, that can be found on page 103 of a basic textbook “Raum - Zeit – Relativitaet” by Prof. Roman Sexl and Prof. Herbert Schmidt published in 1978.
The experiment conducted at CERN by T.Alvaeger, et,al. {published in Phys. Lett. 12, 260 (1964)} describes how an energetically accelerated proton produced a pi meson traveling at almost the speed of light. This meson vanishes after less than a thousand trillionth of a second, and is then succeeded by two gamma rays. They assume that the resulting photons are propagated at the speed c in the inertial system defined by the disappearing meson, but were, in fact, observed to travel at speed c in the inertial system defined by the cloud chamber.
I have no qualms at all about the result of the experiment only with the way it is used. Let me explain: the mathematics is so basic that it is painful to have to attack it. But even addition in a mathematical context does not necessarily make sense in a physical context. For example, I can certainly add the speed of a water skier to the speed of the boat that is towing him, or I can, in the case of a relay race, add the speed of the first runner to the one that takes his place, but neither of these additions makes much sense physically.
In the case of the experiment cited here, we have a meson that has an ultra short lifetime, and in expiring produces photons, or transforms into photons, that take its place. The meson is not an enduring platform, such as a train, on which a source is located that emits light. It resembles more the case of the relay runners. So adding these two velocities is comparable to adding the two speeds of the relay runners. The ballistic model of light propagation envisions an enduring platform in motion with respect to an underlying coordinate system and a source of light located on this enduring platform, not a hand-off, from a transient signal.
What we have here is a case of an erroneous addition in the numerator, which is than corrected by an erroneous 'relativistic correction' (the gamma factor!) in the denominator. A case of two wrongs that cancel each other to produce the empirical result that was observed.
The experiment in no way confirms SRT.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SIMULTANEITY AND SYNCHRONIZATION
THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT
APPENDIX I: TYPE 1A SUPERNOVAE