In the last blog I examined and skewered a few of the key "conservapedia" objections to special relativity. In particular, I pointed out that since the energy transformation equation E= mc^2 is key to special relativity (obtained directly from the fact that energy has inertia) and hence ensuring the proper construction of everything from nuclear reactors, to nuclear weapons - then it behooves the special relativity deniers to show how this equation could possibly arise in any alternative sphere, or theory. Up to now they haven't.
In this blog I examine their further objections to Special and General Relativity, with more emphasis on the latter.. Conservapedia lists some 28 objections to the theories of Relativity, but many of them are specious or based on flawed misconceptions. A few were covered in my previous blog, including: 1. The action-at-a-distance of quantum entanglement, and 2.The "action-at-a-distance" by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54.
Others are just plain looney and disclose the objectors don't have any clue what they are carping about, while others disclose serious misinterpretations of one or more aspects of the theories, or possibly confusing them. A major section of the list dealt with in this blog, includes:
3. The Pioneer "anomaly".
In this blog I examine their further objections to Special and General Relativity, with more emphasis on the latter.. Conservapedia lists some 28 objections to the theories of Relativity, but many of them are specious or based on flawed misconceptions. A few were covered in my previous blog, including: 1. The action-at-a-distance of quantum entanglement, and 2.The "action-at-a-distance" by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54.
Others are just plain looney and disclose the objectors don't have any clue what they are carping about, while others disclose serious misinterpretations of one or more aspects of the theories, or possibly confusing them. A major section of the list dealt with in this blog, includes:
3. The Pioneer "anomaly".
4. Anomalies in the locations of spacecraft that have flown by Earth ("flybys").
5. Increasingly precise measurements of the advance of the perihelion of Mercury show a shift greater than predicted by relativity, well beyond the margin of error.
6. The discontinuity in momentum as velocity approaches "c" for infinitesimal mass, compared to the momentum of light.
7. The logical problem of a force which is applied at a right angle to the velocity of a relativistic mass - does this act on the rest mass or the relativistic mass?
8. The failure to discover gravitons, despite wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayer money in searching.
9. The inability of the theory to lead to other insights, contrary to every verified theory of physics.
10. The change in mass over time of standard kilograms preserved under ideal conditions.
11. The uniformity in temperature throughout the universe.
12. Relativity requires different values for the inertia of a moving object: in its direction of motion, and perpendicular to that direction. This contradicts the logical principle that the laws of physics are the same in all directions.
13. Relativity requires that anything traveling at the speed of light must have mass zero, so it must have momentum zero. But the laws of electrodynamics require that light have nonzero momentum. Unlike most well-tested fundamental physical theories, the theory of relativity violates conditions of a conservative field. Path independence, for example, is lacking under the theory of relativity, as in the "twin paradox" whereby the age of each twin under the theory is dependent on the path he traveled
14. "The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two [QM and Relativity] conceptions of time don’t gel."
15. The theory predicts wormholes just as it predicts black holes, but wormholes violate causality and permit absurd time travel. The theory predicts natural formation of highly ordered (and thus low entropy) black holes despite the increase in entropy required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics
16. The Twin Paradox: Consider twins who are separated with one traveling at a very high speed such that his "clock" (age) slows down, so that when he returns he has a younger age than the twin; this violates Relativity because both twins should expect the other to be younger, if motion is relative. Einstein himself admitted that this contradicts Relativity.
17. Relativity predicted that clocks at the Earth's equator would be slower than clocks at the North Pole, due to different velocities; in fact, all clocks at sea level measure time at the same rate, and Relativists made new assumptions about the Earth's shape to justify this contradiction of the theory.
18. Relativity claims the aether does not exist, but in order to make subatomic physics work right, theorists had to introduce the aether-like concept of the Higgs field, which fills all of space and breaks symmetries.
19. Minkowski space is predicated on the idea of four-dimensional vectors of which one component is time However, one of the properties of a vector space is that every vector have an inverse. Time cannot be a vector because it has no inverse.
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For example, objections 3 and 4 are in the same class, but can easily be explained on the basis of extraneous (i.e. not factored into the original computations for predictions) gravitational forces from other celestial bodies that have not been taken into account. We know the outer solar system is likely teeming with large comets, for example, most of which would be beyond telescopic resolution. Any one of these could cause a perturbation, such as we examined in detail in the last blog on celestial mechanics. E.g.: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/07/another-special-function-legendre.html
Objection 5 is also bollocks, since the best aphelion precession measurements still disclose a value of ~ 42.98 arcsec /century compared to the predicted value (from general relativity) of 43.1 +/- 0.1 arcsec/century ('Gravitation and Spacetime', Hans C. Ohanian and Remo Ruffini, Table 7.1, p. 406)
Objection 6 was disposed of in my previous blog, while objection 7 is what I refer to as a "Macguffin objection" or ersatz one, since it's based on flaws in the objector's own reasoning and understanding rather than anything to do intrinsically with the relativity theories. This also applies to objections 8-13. By way of three examples, (8) is baseless since it requires resolutions on the order of 10^-14 m (in gravitational wave detectors) and we're no where near that threshold. Objection 11 is evidently unaware of the temperature-density fluctuations uncovered by the COBE spacecraft. As for (13) , the complainant says relativity requires anything material moving at speed c to have mass zero, but this's an incorrect interpretation of the relativistic mass relation. The relativistic relation of a moving mass, m, to its rest mass m(0) is, in fact:
m = m(o)c^2 / [1 – {v/c)^2] ^1/2
and m(o) is the rest mass. Now, if the velocity v = c, then:
m = m(o)c^2/ [1 - c^2/c^2]^1/2 = m(o)c^2/ 0 = oo
In other words, the moving mass would have infinite inertia, which is to say, infinite mass. (Another way of saying it is precluded is that all the mass in the existing universe would have to be converted into energy and even that would not allow a speed of c!) The canard about relativity "violating path independence" for conservative fields is also choice, but the writer seems not to know that no such violation occurs in non-accelerating frames (as applicable to special relativity) . As for the twin paradox itself, it is clear the traveling twin must spend a good portion of time in a non-inertial frame (accelerating and decelerating - else he'd miss his destination!) so predictions based on special relativity would not be valid within his frame. But his twin on Earth's predictions, made in an inertial frame, certainly would be valid. The situation is asymmetrical not because relativity says or declares so, but because that is the nature of the traveling twin's journey! One does, however, require the appropriate equations for time dilation to apply to each twin: the "stationary" one at home, and the one travelling.
Objection 14 is a kind of "semi-Macguffin objection", since we do know disparities exist between QM and relativity. However, these are based on the fact that each employs totally distinct mathematical infrastructures and spaces (QM employs Hilbert Space and operators therein, including non-commuting ones) while General Relativity employs tensors applied to Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime. The bottom line is that neither GR or QM are invalidated by the disparities, which are recognized and are being ironed out, as various theories of quantum gravity have shown.
Objection 15 more or less falls into the category of the loopy. Or looney. We know that with appropriate choice of a certain coordinate system (e.g. Kruskal coordinates in conjunction with Schwarzschild spacetime) one can obtain a topology of asymptotically "flat spaces" (See Fig. 8.5 on page 452, of Ohanian and Ruffini, op. cit.) joined by a region in which the geometry greatly diverges from flatness. This region is typically called "a wormhole". The point omitted by the objector in his hysteria, is that such wormholes collapse so rapidly that not even a light signal can pass through before a singularity forms. Thus, all the whining about violations of causality are pure rubbish, since in the absence of the feasibility of any genuine wormhole signals one wouldn't worry about it. The guy has obviously been reading too many 'Luke Skywalker' comics, or pop science books top-loaded with more speculation than hard physics.
The other spurious point about black hole entropy violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics also discloses the objector has no idea what laws apply to black holes and which don't. For example, the 2nd law of thermodynamics is now replaced by the 2nd law of black hole dynamics: In black hole processes, the sum of the squares of the irreducible masses of all black holes involved can never decrease. Meanwhile, the first law of black hole dynamics is simply a restatement of the standard law of conservation of total energy, supplemented by conservation of the black hole's total momentum, angular momentum and charge (Q).
Objection 16 that the Twin Paradox "contradicts Relativity" (actually special relativity) is plain bull pockey. Let's consider a quantitative example to show why. We'll use the probem in the previous blog and reframe it as a twin paradox problem. That is, one twin - call him 'A' - travels to Proxima Centauri at a velocity of 0.95c while the other twin ('B') remains on Earth. We want to know what the difference is in their ages- assuming the periods of acceleration, deceleration for A are negligible in relation to the total journey time.
As we saw, the time reckoned by the Earth observer (for one way to Proxima) will be t = (4.2 Ly)/ 0.95c = 4.4 yrs. And this is how much time passes for the twin B. Meanwhile, for twin A, the time elapsed is:
t(A) = t(B)[1 - v^2/c^2]^1/2 = (4.4 yrs.) [1 - (0.95c)^2/c^2]^1/2 = 1.37 yrs.
Now, for the total trip to return to Earth, we therefore see (keeping all assumptions in place) the total time as measured by the Earth twin will be 2 t(B) = 2 (4.4 yrs.) = 8.8 yrs. While for twin A:
t(A) = 2 t(A) = 2 (1.37 yrs) = 2.74 yrs. or call it 2.7 years.
Thus, on returning home, the traveling twin (A) will be: 8.8 yrs - 2.7 yrs. = 6.1 yrs. younger than the twin that remained on Earth. This calculation, note, is totally consistent with the one we did to work out the time for muons' duration in their rest frame if they completed a path of 4.6 km. It can also easily be worked out, again from the muon example, that the distance to Proxima as computed by the twin A will be 1.31 Ly. (Since L(A) = 1.31 Ly/0.95c = 1.37 yrs)
Meanwhile, Objection 17 is a misconstrual, since the basis for differing times (clocks differing between equator and poles) would certainly not be from velocities but from shape - and specifically reckoning in the Earth's oblateness, and the fact the polar distance is ~ 80 miles shorter than the equatorial. The equation for then computing the clock differential is well known(cf. Ohanian and Ruffini, p. 182):
dt/t ~ g(delta r)/c^2
where: g(delta r) = GM( 1/r1 - 1/r2)
where G is the gravitational constant (6.7 x 10^-11 N-kg^2/m^2) and M is the Earth's mass while r1 is the smaller (polar) radius and r2 the larger (equatorial) one.
Objection 18 mixes up the non-existence of a medium (aether) with the wholly different Higgs Field which is assigned from the Standard theory. The so-called 'Standard Model' is generally defined as the symmetry:
SU(3) x SU(2) X U(1)
Spontaneous symmetry breaking would therefore resolve this combination into constituent parts, e.g.: SU(3) associated with the 'color force' of quarks . SU(2) x U(1) is associated with the electro-weak force. One possible symmetry breaking (quark -boson format) is:
SU(3) x SU(2) X U(1) -> SU(3) + SU(2) x U(1)
which would occur at a particular ambient temperature (T_qb) for the universe at some epoch (E_qb) in the past. In the foregoing, the synthesis of SU(2) and U(1) into the locally gauge invariant electro-weak theory requires a mechanism which confers mass to three vector bosons while leaving the photon massless. This 'mass-giving' mechanism is called the Higgs Field or Higgs mechanism, and it demands the existence of one or more massive, spin-0 bosons otherwise called Higgs bosons. This is a totally different concept and basis from the "aether" of the Michelson -Morley experiment or any "aether like basis". The problem is, of course, that the Higgs boson remains hypothetical. Because it is hypothetical only, the Standard Model cannot be said to be complete. But this is a different category of issue or problem from what the complaint is! In particular, the Large Hadron Collider actually provides us with the means to identify the Higgs, while there is no known experiment to ascertain any "aether" (the Michelson-Morley experiment having pretty well settled that!)
Objection 19 concerning the nature of vectors in Minkowski space is plain gibberish. By even interjecting it the objector shows he hasn't the most remote clue concerning either the nature of vectors as they apply to differing spaces, and situations, or to Minkowski space-time. For example, one isn't compelled to think of vectors as directional arrows that must allow some kind of reversal. One can also conceive of them simply in component form, i.e.g
A = A1 e1 + A2 e2 + A3 e3
where e1, e2 and e3 are the three unit vectors along the x, y and z axes, respectively. In four dimensions, with no loss of generality, one can adopt an extension such that we have a directed line segment in space-time which can be expressed as a superposition of four unit vectors: e1, e2, e3 and e4.
Beyond all this, the concept of a variable time vector is not new. A. Achong first proposed an elastic temporal vector ( τ) that could have uses in physics. He invoked an ansatz in which particles possess an internal (intrinsic) time vector arising from the internal structure of their individual constituents, including quarks. The individual time vectors for each particle are allowed to assume either (+) or (-) signs, depending on whether the constituent is associated with normal matter or anti-matter- and the direction of global time is determined by the dominant sign. (See, e.g. Achong, A., 1984, Internal Time and Global Time, Proceedings of the 2nd Caribbean Physics Conference, Leo L. Mosely (Ed.) )
(To Be Continued)
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