Einstein "scientific method", which brought him immense fame as the greatest physicist of all times, consists of:
- Start from a definition, convention or stipulation/law without physical content, and then draw far-reaching consequences about the physics of the world.
It is not hard to understand that such a "method" cannot work: You cannot draw meaningful conclusions about the world simply from a definition empty of physics content. You cannot develop a meaningful scientific theory from a definition that there are 100 centimeters on a meter.
Einstein cleverly covered up by naming his definitions or conventions or stipulations/laws, "principles":
- Equivalence Principle: Gravitational mass is equal to inertial mass.
- Relativity Principle: Observations in inertial coordinate systems moving with constant velocity with respect to each other, are to be connected by the Lorentz transformation.
- Covariance Principle: Physical laws are to have the same form independent of the choice of coordinate system.
Here 1. is an empty definition, because there is only one mass, and that is inertial mass, which measures acceleration vs force and gravitational force is a force. Gravitational mass is equal to inertial mass by definition. Attempts to "prove/verify" this experimentally, which are constantly being made with ever increasing precision and always with the same result of equality, are as meaningful as experiments attempting to verify that there are 100 centimeters on a meter, which could very well be the next grand challenge for LHC, in the spirit of Einstein.
2. stipulates that different physical phenomena are to be viewed to be the same. This is because the Lorentz transformation is not invariant with respect to initial conditions, and thus Einstein stipulates that two waves satisfying the same form of wave equation, but having different initial conditions, shall be viewed to be the same. No wonder that with this play with identities, all sort of strange effects of time dilation and space contraction can be drawn out of a magicians hat.
It is clear that physical laws in general take different forms in different coordinate systems, and thus 3. is an absurd stipulation. Alternatively, it is trivial and just says that a physical law will have to transform when expressed in different coordinates so that the law has the same physical content. So 3. is either absurd or trivial, in both cases devoid of physics.
It is depressing that none of this can be understood by leading modern physicists. Nada. Even more depressing is that the discussion is closed since 100 years.
2. stipulates that different physical phenomena are to be viewed to be the same. This is because the Lorentz transformation is not invariant with respect to initial conditions, and thus Einstein stipulates that two waves satisfying the same form of wave equation, but having different initial conditions, shall be viewed to be the same. No wonder that with this play with identities, all sort of strange effects of time dilation and space contraction can be drawn out of a magicians hat.
It is clear that physical laws in general take different forms in different coordinate systems, and thus 3. is an absurd stipulation. Alternatively, it is trivial and just says that a physical law will have to transform when expressed in different coordinates so that the law has the same physical content. So 3. is either absurd or trivial, in both cases devoid of physics.
It is depressing that none of this can be understood by leading modern physicists. Nada. Even more depressing is that the discussion is closed since 100 years.
Inlägg
Do you have examples showing "
SvaraRadera"that physical laws in general take different forms in different coordinate systems" ?
Ja, det gäller alla ekvationer som beskriver rörelse i rum och tid inkl vågrörelse beskriven av en vågekvation, se kap 5 boken http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/ambsrelativity.pdf
SvaraRaderaVågekvationen är inte ens invariant under Lorentz transformation eftersom intialdata inte är invarianta och vågekvationen måste kompletteras med initialdata för att specificera unik lösning.
Do you have any empirical proof that equation 5.13 should be universally invariant?
SvaraRaderaIn the low velocity limit the equation is invariant since gamma is one and v/c is zero for any kind of empirical considerations.
jag har (återkommande) läst AE: s bok: Relativity The Special and the General Theory. Som CJ påpekar finns det ingen möjlighet till en förståelse av den fysikaliska verkligheten bakom Lorentztransformationen. Det finns såvitt jag kan se heller ingen referens till ekvationen v=a*t eller hur en farkost ska kunna veta att den i något koordinatsystem närmar sig ljushastigheten.
SvaraRaderaJag tror att Lorentz är applicerbar precis som AE använder den, men det finns inget som säger att man måste använda den. Det är troligen så att den bara talar om hur ett föremål kommer att synas uppträda i vårt koordinatsystem, men detta kommer inte att påverka föremålet fysiskt. LT är också begränsad till hastigheter under ljusets, om vi alls kan förnimma föremål som går fortare vet väl ingen.
En pensionerad ingenjörs funderingar.