Dingle Destroyed as Scientist by Questioning Relativity Theory

   It is ironical that, in the very field in which Science has claimed superiority to Theology, for example—in the abandoning of dogma and the granting of absolute freedom to criticism—the positions are now reversed. Science will not tolerate criticism of special relativity, while Theology talks freely about the death of God, religionless Christianity, and so on.

Herbert Dingle (1890-1978) was a prominent English physicist who came to question Einstein's special theory of relativity in an intense scientific controversy in late 1950s, see Questioning Relativity 1 with more as 2-20.

Dingle pointed to the logical contradiction of two traveling twins both ageing more slowly than the other.  Dingle concluded that since physics cannot be contradictory, the special theory of relativity with its Lorentz time dilation and different twin ageing cannot be a theory about physics. This is also my standpoint 60 years later.

The reaction from the physics community to Dingle's heretics was harsh and Dingle was destroyed as scientist, like Bruno in 1600. Dingle recorded his experience of this process in Science at the Crossroads:

• They are, briefly, that the great majority of physical scientists, including practically all those who conduct experiments in physics and are best known to the world as leaders in science, when pressed to answer allegedly fatal criticism of the theory, confess either that they regard the theory as nonsensical but accept it because the few mathematical specialists in the subject say they should do so, or that they do not pretend to understand the subject at all, but, again, accept the theory as fully established by others and therefore a safe basis for their experiments. 
• The response of the comparatively few specialists to the criticism is either complete silence or a variety of evasions couched in mystical language which succeeds in convincing the experimenters that they are quite right in believing that the theory is too abstruse for their comprehension and that they may safely trust men endowed with the metaphysical and mathematical talents that enable them to write confidently in such profound terms. 
• What no one does is to answer the criticism.

The situation today 60 years later is the same: The accepted truth is that Einstein's special/general theory of relativity is correct and experimentally verified over and over again, but this cannot be questioned because no real physicist can understand the theory nor the experiments. Only crackpots like Dingle can understand that something is wrong.

I have asked Ulf Danielson as a Swedish media physicist about his view.

PS1 Read Tom van Flandern on the (non)use of SR in GPS.

PS2 For a detailed presentation of my criticism of special relativity theory, see Many-Minds Relativity (download)

PS3 Listen to Louis Essen, designer of the atomic clock:

• No one has attempted to refute my arguments, but I was warned that if I persisted I was likely to spoil my career prospects. …the continued acceptance and teaching of relativity hinders the development of a rational extension of electromagnetic theory." - Louis Essen F.R.S., "Relativity and time signals", Wireless World, oct78, p44. ‘Students are told that the theory must be accepted although they cannot expect to understand it. They are encouraged right at the beginning of their careers to forsake science in favor of dogma.’

PS4 More Dingle from the Crossroads:

• Lorentz, in order to justify his transformation equations, saw the necessity of postulating a physical effect of interaction between moving matter and æther, to give the mathematics meaning. Physics still had de jure authority over mathematics: it was Einstein, who had no qualms about abolishing the æther and still retaining light waves whose properties were expressed by formulae that were meaningless without it, who was the first to discard physics altogether and propose a wholly mathematical theory...

PS5 Here is short summary of the exchange of comments with Ulf Danielson:

CJ Question1: What is the real physics of the Postulates of SR? Are the Postulates only definitions empty of physics?

UD Answer:??

CJ Question2: In what way does GPS depend on the special and general theory of relativity?

UD Answer:??

CJ Question3: Are there any physical laws that are Lorentz invariant, when not even Maxwell's are so with respect to initial conditions and presence of charges? If yes, which?

UD Answer:??

CJ Question4: Does translation with constant velocity influence the physical action of a pendulum or atomic clock?  If so, what is the physics of the influence? 

UD Answer:??

There are many more questions, but with this poor result we both felt that continued discussion was meaningless. UD appears in media as an authority on modern physics and so it would have been very interesting, for me in particular but maybe also for the world, to get some illuminating answers on pressing questions, and so we have to wait for answers with patience. The questions remain and authorities on physics must be expected to have some form of answers.

PS6 Dingle pointed to an apparent physical contradiction in SR (asymmetry of symmetric twins), but that argument did not bite on modern physicists used to view contradictions as signs of deep physics. So the contradiction did not kill SR, but Dingle instead.

I try with another approach pointing to the fact that SR is empty of physics, and as such does not contain contradictions of physics. Maybe it is more difficult for a modern physicist to dismiss emptiness than contradiction. We shall see.

Dingle's analysis and conclusion of incompatibility/contradiction of SR could be dismissed because the physics of the postulates of SR is so murky that it could twisted to support any claim ("event", "rigid measuring rod", "clock", "reading of a moving clock", "time" et cet).  The only way to get out of this swamp is to show that the postulates contain no physics at all, in which case twisting of physics no longer is possible.