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 Balancing Relativity Theory articles on Wikipedia. 
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Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2007 8:21 am
Posts: 2
Post Balancing Relativity Theory articles on Wikipedia.
Anti-Relativity Scholars:
There are at least eight Wiki articles about Relativity Theory, all of them written by relativists with a pro-relativity bias. I submit that the public would be better informed if these articles were more balanced and included a section on criticisms of RT.
To this end I drafted the following few paragraphs with citations to authority. However, not being of the computer generation as many of you are, the actual Wiki editing process with its markup language, etc, was too complicated for me.
So I refer this task to one of you young scholars who has an interest in science, information technology and enlightening the public.
A college student who accepts this task will be eligible for financial assistance.

Criticisms of Relativity Theory
A distinction must be made between, firstly, the common-sense "principle of relativiy" of Galileo (and,some would add, Huygens and Leibnitz); secondly, the Lorentz-Poincare Theory of Relativity that these two scientists developed independently from 1895 through 1904 as a result of experimental observations indicating that the mass of an electron apparently increased as it approached the speed of light--thus the mass of an electron was relative to the speed of light; and thirdly, the adaptation, if not perversion, of earlier scientific thought along this line by a young Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Marec (or Marity), without experimental evidence and without citing their sources, that came to be known after 1905 as Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.
There have been many prominent critics of Einstein's Special Relativity Theory, as well as his so-called General Theory of Relativity that was first presented in 1916 and relies on the former.
For example, Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was an influential English scientist who concentrated on electrical circuits and mathematics. He is most remembered for his simplification of the Maxwell equations of electromagnetism, for developing vector calculus, for his proposal to add induction coils to the transatlantic cable, and for his invention and patenting of the co-axial cable. (1) Furthermore, in 1889, when Albert Einstein was still in knee pants, Heaviside published a paper, in which he is often credited with deriving the relationship underlying the famous E=mc2 formula. (2) Years later, after Einstein had published his relativity papers, Heaviside commented, "I don't find Einstein's Relativity agrees with me. It is the most unnatural and difficult to understand way of representing facts that could be thought of. . . . And I really think that Einstein is a practical joker, pulling the legs of his enthusiastic followers, more Einsteinisch than he." (3)
In the same vein, British physicist, Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), commonly known as the "father of nuclear physics," called Relativity Theory "a joke." (4)
Similarly, English chemist and Nobel laureate Frederick Soddy (1877-1956), an associate of Rutherford, called Relativity Theory "an arrogant swindle." (5)
Columbia University astronomer Charles L. Poor (1866-1951) was another of the early prominent critics of Relativity Theory. In his 1922 book, Gravitation versus Relativity, he competently and meticulously refuted the purported evidence and alleged proofs of General Relativity. Then he discussed how classical Newtonian physics can explain the same phenomena. Referring to Eddington's shoddy eclipse "experiment" of 1919 that was proffered to the media as a proof of Relativity, Poor asked," How can an experiment, equally well explained by several different theories, be a 'crucial test' in favor of one of them?" (6)
Another distinguished American scientist who was critical of Relativity Theory was Dayton Miller (1866-1941). He had earned his PhD at Princeton, for many years was Chairman of the Physics Department at what is today Case Western University, served as President of the American Physical Society and Acoustical Society of America and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was the consummate scientist who paid scrupulous attention to detail. One of the fundamental premises of Special Relativity was that the universal ether did not exist. On Mt. Wilson, near Los Angeles, Miller constructed a much larger and more sophisticated light-beam interferometer than the one Michelson and Morley had used in their famous 1887 ether-drift experiment, the alleged "null result" of which had largely been misinterpreted. From 1906 through the mid-30s, Miller conducted many ether-drift experiments there, meticulously documenting each. In 1921, Einstein wrote to a friend that if "the Miller experiments" produced positive results "the whole relativity theory collapses like a house of cards." Miller's experiments produced consistently positive results. (7)
Serbian-American electronics super-genius, Nicola Tesla (1856-1943), who developed alternating current (AC) electric power that is in common use today, was also critical of Relativity Theory. In a 1935 New York Times interview he called it, "...[a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king..., its exponents are brilliant men but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists...". (8)
Dr. Herbert Ives (1882-1953) was an AT&T scientist. During the 1940s, he studied Relativity Theory for years and found several substantial errors in Einstein's mathematics. In a 1952 paper (9) he discussed these errors, how Einstein's arguments were often deceptive and how Einstein's reasoning was often circular to arrive at a desired conclusion. Therefore, Ives concluded, Einstein's Relativity Theory is a fallacy. (10)
Dr. Herbert Dingle (1890-1978) was a prominent English astronomer who was President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1951 through 1953. In a 1972 book Science at the Crossroads, he laments how the ethical standards of scientists had fallen so low that they would cover for the fallacy of Relativity Theory. His arguments against it concentrated on the "twin paradox," where Special Relativity's nonsense cannot reasonably be denied. (11)
In addition, Dr. Louis Essen (1908-1997) was a prominent English physicist who is mostly known for his invention of the atomic clock. As he wrote in 1988, he rejected Relativity Theory because:
1) "Einstein's theory of relativity is invalidated by its internal errors,"
2) "Einstein's use of a thought experiment, together with his ignorance of experimental techniques, gave a result which fooled himself and generations of scientists,"
3) "Claims frequently made that the theory is supported by experimental evidence do not withstand close scrutiny." (12)
One example of Essen's third reason for rejecting Relativity Theory, that purported experimental evidence that is alleged to support Relativity Theory does not withstand close scrutiny, could be the famous Hafele-Keating experiment of 1972, where four atomic clocks were flown around the world in commercial airliners, first westward, then eastward. Their result allegedly supported Special Relativity Theory's time dilation postulate.
This experiment has since been cited by over one thousand physics text books, professional journal articles,encyclopedia and Wikipedia articles, papers, etc, as scientific proof of, or evidence in support of, Relativity Theory.
However, an Irish engineer, A.G. Kelly, PhD obtained the original experimental data from the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, which he meticulously and competently analyzed, and wrote a nine-page paper that completely discredited and debunked this experiment. Dr. Kelly boldly concluded: "The H & K tests prove nothing. The accuracy of the clocks would need to be two orders of magnitude better to give confidence in the results. The actual test results, which were not published, were changed by H & K [to] give the impression that they confirm[ed] the theory. Only one clock (447) had a fairly steady performance over the whole test period; taking its results gives no difference for the Eastward and the Westward tests." (13)
A second, more recent, example of passing off experimental or observational results that are alleged to support Relativity Theory could be the atomic clocks on global positioning satellites, which reportedly run slightly faster than similar clocks on the ground, hence the claim of verification or proof of Special Relativity time dilation. However, this slight change in the operation of an atomic clock in a GPS satellite could have several possible causes including (1) at an altitude of 20,000km, much lower atmospheric pressure (such clocks are made on the ground), (2) weaker Earth electromagnetic and gravitational fields at such a high altitude, (3) position of the clock within the satellite, and (3) the metal surface of the satellite, among others. Nevertheless, advocates of Relativity Theory carelessly, unscientifically and routinely pass off this phenomenon as verification of their theory. (14)
In 1994, retired Serbian scientist Milan Pavlovic (b.1931) published Einstein's Theory of Relativity: Scientific Theory or Illusion?, which is presently on-line. In this monumental work, he competently, extensively and meticulously examined the Special Theory--its premises, equations and conclusions--and found that Einstein had made many substantial mathematical, among other, errors, and speculated that some of such errors were so substantial that they had to have been intentional. In other words, he accused Einstein of fraud. (15)
Lastly, Canadian science researcher, Walter Babin (b. 1934) has a website where he publishes The General Science Journal, wherein he has published his knowledgeable and persuasive paper "An Analysis of the Theoretical Foundations of Special Relativity," among many others, as well as papers by over 160 other authors. Like many competent scientists and science researchers of integrity before him, Babin discusses Einstein's mathematical and other errors and persuasively concludes that the Special Theory of Relativity is null and invalid. (16)

(2) Heaviside, O "On the electromagnetic effects due to the motion of electrification through a dialectric", Philosophical Magazine, Vol 27 (1989), pp. 324-339
(3) Bjerknes, Christopher Jon Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist,
Xtx, 2002, pp. 25-26,
(4) Essen, Louis "Relativity--Joke or Swindle?" Electronics and Wireless World, 1988 http://www.ekkehard-
(5) ... view3.html
(6) Poor, Charles L. Gravitation versus Relativity, 1922
(7) De Meo, James, PhD "Dayton Miller's Ether-Drift Experiments: A Fresh Look",
Coleman, Marcus "The Trouble with Relativity" The General Science Journal,
(9) Ives, H. E. "Derivation of the mass-energy relation", Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol 42, No 8, August 1952, reprinted by R. Hazelett and D. Turner, Eds, The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers, a Counter-Revolution in Physics, Devon-Adair, Old Greenwich, CT, 1979, pp. 182-185
(10) Bjerknes, supra
(11) Dingle, Herbert Science at the Crossroads, 1972
(12) Coleman, supra
(13) Kelly, A.G. PhD "Hafele & Keating Tests: Did They Prove Anything?"
(14) ... 5/gps.html

The relevant Wiki articles that would benefit from a section like the above include Special Relativity, Introduction to Special Relativity, History of Special Relativity, General Relativity, Introduction to General Relativity, Tests of General Relativity, Theory of Relativity and Status of Special Relativity.

Keep up the good work.
Raleigh Amesbury[size=18][/size][size=12][/size]

Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:37 pm

Joined: Sun May 27, 2007 6:07 pm
Posts: 45
Post Re: Balancing Relativity Theory articles on Wikipedia.
Raleigh Amesbury wrote:
Anti-Relativity Scholars:

Sorry, there is no room for cranks in wiki. You will need to try posting elsewhere.

Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:12 pm
Site Admin

Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2005 3:58 am
Posts: 4328
A long and carefully researched article, that evidently took you some time and effort.

However, I must add a note here that I don't think it would be appreciated on Wikipedia; they generally seem to prefer, for better or worse, to follow the mainstream scientific community.

Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:44 am
Consumed by Physics

Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 11:00 pm
Posts: 10833

Welcome to the forum.

It seems to be an honest effort to determine the truth about relativity but is it? You have collected about 100 years worth of detractors. Didn't you find anybody of note who subscribes to the theory? I happen to believe relatiivty theory has held up pretty well for 100 years but I don't have anillustrious name like many you have quoted.

I can't speak to all your critics, but I have some knowledge of a few.

1. You mention the principle of relativity and it seems your comment is that it applies to mechanical things as Galieo assumed but you object to extending it to electromagnetic phenomena. Do you know of any experiment that bears this out?

2. I have seen Heaviside's comments before. I'm not sure what his point was although it seems to me it might have been professional jealousy. In any case, I find it interesting that you would quote someone who rightfully lays claim to E=mc^2 and then somehow use that quote to discredit a theory that also arrives at E=mc^2 but by different means.

3. Dingle is an interesting case, having taught relativity for years and then suddenly changing his mind about it in his later years. I have seen two of his antirelativty ideas an theyare easily discredited.

4. Eddington's observations have been critiqued for years and I always wonder why. The poor fellow went half way around the world and tramped off into a jungle carrying the best telescope he could take with him and as a trained observer, did the best he could. If he were wrong, surely one of these noted critics could have convinced someone to repeat the experiment with better equipment but nobody has. Or at least if they have they didn't publish. And we now have a number of observed "Einstein rings" and comfirmed multiple images cause by gravitational lensing. Not to mention the astronimical use of gravitational microlensing to discover Kuiper belt objects an distant planets.

5. As for famous scientists who accept the theory, I think you have to include Schroedinger, Bohr, Alan Guth, Graham Green, Wheeler, and any number of others whose books I have read.

6. And for those folks who critque Albert for not being an experimentalist, I would also point out he wasn't a good race car driver. If yo ulook at the filed of physics today, hardly anybody addresses both aspects of physics. Ther eis simpy to much technology to know.

If you'd like to pursue any particular criticism of relativity, I'll try to give you the other side of the argument if you're interested.

Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:17 pm
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