I was just sniffing around the forum and thought I'd throw you guys a curve ball. Yep, like the title says, General Relativity was an aether theory. Oh, and it employs a variable speed of light.
I can prove this, but because I'm the super skeptic, I'm going to have a little fun with your conviction and unquestioning belief. People have a very strange desire to believe in things for which no evidence exists whatsoever, like supersymmetry or parallel worlds or unseen dimensions. At the same time they will dismiss and deny scientific & historical evidence that challenges those beliefs, because "Morton's Demon" is sitting on their shoulder. You think you're skeptics, but come on now, spiritualism and the paranormal is kid's stuff. Raise your game. And prepare for a shock when you find out that you aren't skeptics, you're suckers.
Wasn't going to comment, but this is the third post now of yours that I've seen with the same kind of sneering tone.Originally Posted by Farsight
What kind of "conviction and unquestioning belief" do you perceive here? Do you get the impression that scientific evidence is "dismissed and denied"?
Oh, and can I have a copy of your "how to win friends and influence people" when you've finished with it? Sucker.
OK, just for fun, I'll be first goat onto the bridge, but the moment the troll alarm sounds I'm out of here!
Farsight, as a physicist and a skeptic you are of course aware of the need to supply evidence for any claim you make. So, please explain, at least in summary, your basis for saying General Relativity was an aether theory.
As far as I can remember not only does GR not depend on the aether, but Einstein specifically rejected the aether on the basis of Michelson-Morley etc. The whole basis of Special Relativity (and so of General Relativity) would fall apart if the aether existed.
So, your evidence, please. Please stick to the physics. Any attempt to turn it into a treatise on the nature of skeptics or skepticism will be regarded as a fail.
I'm not sneering, check my previous posts*. Instead I'm making an important point as regards skepticism, and offering evidence for a case in point. Your reaction is part of "the psychology of belief", wherein people raise barriers to challenges to current conviction. I'm not kidding about this. It isn't limited to gullible laymen, instead it's far more prevalent than people appreciate.
OK, re this thread. Ever heard of Einstein's Leyden address? He gave it in 1920, and the title is Ether and the General Theory of Relativity. His summary is thus:
"Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it".
Despite this, the word ether or aether is viewed as some kind of a scientific heresy. I actually heard Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, president of the Institute of Physics, on the radio a couple of months back saying Einstein had put the nail in the coffin for ether. Or words to that effect. Search the internet* on "Melvyn Bragg" and "vacuum" to listen to it yourself. He didn't. Search the internet* on "Einstein" and "Leyden address" to read what he said.
* I can't post links until I've made 15 posts.
Even the great Einstein made mistakes - he admitted so himself in 1938
"All our attempts to make ether real failed. It revealed neither its mechanical construction nor absolute motion. Nothing remained of all the properties of the ether except that for which it was invented, i.e., its ability to transmit electromagnetic waves. Our attempts to discover the properties of the ether led to difficulties and contradictions. After such bad experiences, this is the moment to forget the ether completely and to try never to mention its name."
(The Evolution of Physics Einstein 1938)
So Jocelyn Bell-Burnell was completely correct - and, of course, you are wrong!
Last edited by brianp; 29th August 2009 at 07:01 PM.
Whatever you are doing it certainly is not making any point about skepticism, let alone an important one. You have created a straw-skeptic to attack that doesn't represent me or my understanding of the majority of others on this forum. If you're not a troll then you're just a twat, and not "John Duffield Super Skeptic" except in your sad fantasies.
John Duffield
RELATIVITY+ : The Theory of Everything [Illustrated] (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RELATIVITY-T.../dp/0956097804
He seems to cover quite a lot in 182 pages.
Last edited by bindeweede; 29th August 2009 at 08:23 PM. Reason: added comment.
One of Amazon's reviews:
"the author muddles through the subject displaying a paucity of erudition in the subject. the author does not even seem to know what a theory is. it is a mishmash of ideas filtered through a profound misunderstanding of basic ideas ideas and concepts to become confused nonsense, don't waste your time or money."
I'd have thought if it was a world-shattering book, it would have been published by a company we might have heard of. It is Corella Ltd's one and only published book.
Publications
Corella’s first publication is RELATIVITY+. This easy-reading popular science book will blow your mind and change your world.
http://www.corella-limited.com/
Ah, he's plugging a book ... and just possibly his own business that publishes it. I wonder whether the person/people running the Corella web site know that it is now the law that web sites promoting a business must contain full real-world contact details, registered address, etc.
I Googled "relativity+" and there were lots of links to scientific forums where Mr Duffield was presenting his ideas, over the last 2 years. Many of the responses seemed rather critical, but I don't have the scientific knowledge or maths to understand them.
The reference to Morton's Demon puzzled me. But help was at hand:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb02.html
[Detective mode]
1(a) Corella Ltd is a business consultancy based in Poole, Dorset
(b) Their e-mail contact address is clare@corella-limited.com
(c) In Jan 2009 they published Relativity+ by John Duffield
(Source: Company website http://www.corella-limited.com/)
2) Corella Ltd is registered at 29 XXXXXX Avenue, Poole, Dorset, BH14 YYY*
(Source: free company search on http://www.192.com/)
3) There's a 53 yr-old company director of 29 XXXXXX Avenue, Poole, Dorset, BH14 YYY* called John Duffield. (Source: free person search on http://www.192.com/)
4) The 2002/3 Electoral Roll shows a John Duffield in Poole, Dorset living with a Clare R. Duffield. (Source: free person search on http://www.192.com/)
[/Detective mode]
* I've censored the street name and postcode in 2 & 3 as it is a residential address - but 192.com gives it in full.
Could all be coincidence, of course, but I would hypothesise that John used his own company to publish his book.
Last edited by brianp; 30th August 2009 at 05:44 AM.
As far as I can tell, the only aspect of the (non-quantum) universe that General Relativity did not seem at first to resolve was Mach's Principle, i.e. how can you define a non-rotating frame of reference without referring to the average rotation of all the other matter in the universe. This problem was solved when GR solutions were shown to cause frame dragging.
For example, if you had two masses connected by a piece of string floating in space a long way from any other objects, the string would be taut if they were revolving about a common centre of mass, but slack if not revolving. But revolving relative to what? The aether? All the other matter in the universe?
Frame dragging comes up with something like the latter solution, but without the need for anything actually connecting the objects in the universe other than the curvature of space-time caused by their mass. As Brian Greene explaind in The Fabric of the Cosmos, if you put the test masses (or in his case a bucket of water -- but that complicates things with the question of what is keeping the water in the bucket) inside of a hollow, rotating, very massive object then the string would be taut even though the masses were not rotating according to our own, external point of view.
No aether needed, and no spooky action at a distance either.
Good detective work Brian, but I'm not plugging anything here. I'm here because I received an email from this forum the other day. I've given the evidence, it dates from 1920, it's Einstein's Leyden Address, and he's talking about the ether of General Relativity, which was completed in 1916. That means General relativity was an aether theory. It's cut and dried. Jocelyn Bell-Burnell was wrong. I'm right. And it sounds to me like you're in denial, attempting to dismiss and discredit the evidence because it doesn't fit with your convictions. That's what YECs do. By the way, what Einstein didn't understand in 1938, was time.
Trinoc, are you plugging Brian Greene? I hope you're not dismissing factual historical evidence because you believe in a "theory" which makes no predictions and which is totally devoid of evidential support. By the way, mass does not cause curved spacetime. Einstein's Foundation of The General Theory of Relativity describes the equations of motion, not curved spacetime. That was something popularized by Dicke in the sixties. It's the effect, not the cause.
Can sombody google "Einstein" and "Leyden address" and post up a link please? Then you can all see the evidence for yourselves, discuss it, and agree that I'm right. Now, I mentioned the variable speed of light. Einstein said it was variable. Who wants to see some evidence?
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