This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's .
Please share your thoughts on the matter at on the page.
You are welcome to edit this article, but please do not blank this article or remove this notice while the discussion is in progress. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the .
If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, please join the discussion and consider improving the article so that it meets the .
'Anti-realtivity', or better: unorthodox relativity, refers to activities of scientists not satisfied with the present state of the art of modern theory of relativity.
These 'dissidents' or 'nonconformists' criticize real or apparent inherent contradictions and/or inconsistencies of orthodox relativity, mainly focusing on the special theory of relativity (SRT) rather than the general theory. Occasionally, counter-proposals are offered. The expression ''Anti-relativity'' had orginally been coined in order to discredit the research activities of these workers. Typical publication platforms are journals like ''Apeiron'', ''Galilean Electrodynamics'', ''Hadronic Journal'' and ''Physics Essays''.
FIELDS OF WORK
The dissidents may be sub-divided into various groups.
The dissidents offering counter-proposals may be classified into 'aether-realists' and 'emissionists'. 'Aether-realists' advocate one of the three (different) 'aether hypotheses' concerning the Luminiferous Aether , which were put forward around the middle of the nineteenth century by Fizeau.
'Emissionists' adhere to some modification of the ballistic Emission Theory originally proposed a century ago by Walter Ritz.
Dissidents criticize the state of the art of modern relativity either from empirical, from logical or from mere general epistemological grounds. A common point of attack is the concept of time employed in modern relativity, where time is represented as one dimension of four-dimensional space-time. The group concerned about this includes Presentists , Process Physicists And Philosophers and others who have adopted the viewpoint that time is a result of the mind.
REPRESENTATIVE DISSIDENTS
A prominent dissident was Louis Essen (1908-1997), called "Time Lord" by the British paper ''The Guardian'', who had been involved in the development of the first cesium Atomic Clock . For several decades he had been responsible for the British national standard of time, and he was well known by his colleagues for his refusal to take account of the time dilatation factor in clock synchronisation. The Special Theory of Relativity, from the dissident point of view, according to one account, has an Achilles heel, because the Transverse Doppler Effect , which is traced back to 'time dilatation', is not only mixed up with ' Lorentz Contraction ', but was also well known in the classical optics of moving bodies since the year of 1842, when Christian Doppler published his paper: "On the coloured light of the binary stars and other celestical bodies - Attempt of a general theory including Bradley's theorem as an integral part"; compare W. Krause, ''Existentia'' XV, 127-139 (2005).
Quite a number of dissidents do not attack the formal theory of relativity itself, but rather the ''relativistic'' metaphysics such as is implicated in the publications by Einstein and/or Minkowski. A prominent member of this group was the British philosopher Herbert Dingle . He was frequently misunderstood as being a strict opponent of relativity, especially because his use of the term "Special Relativity" associated Einstein's interpretation of it. (For a striking example of his arguments plus counter arguments by McCrea, see ''Nature'' 216 (1967), pp.119-121 and 122-124).
Depending on the interpretation of what is meant by the phrase "theory of relativity", a number of famous scientists who did not share Einstein's views (such as Lorentz, Poincaré, Langevin, Ives, and Dirac) are sometimes called "anti-relativists", even though they supported the theory of physics that is called Special Relativity.
Among the heretics was also Walter Theimer , who has published several books, one of them together with Georg Gamow . He called special relativity "betrayal". To the present anti-relativistic scene belongs the American J. Paul Wesley , also author of several books, who refers to SRT as "the special relativity nonsense". Another ''infant terrible'' of the scene is the Pommeranian Wilfred Krause , perhaps less representative but the more obdurant, who calls SRT "a theory for the fools of the educated schools". (Questionable assessments are not uncommon in the debate and are instrumentalized by both sides from various reasons.)
RECEPTION OF EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE
In response to the seemingly overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence in support of the relativity principle (which supporters of SRT claim to be comparable to the empirical support for the conservation of energy, for example), some opponents assert that the experimental results have been falsified, or that contrary findings have been suppressed or ignored, or that the experimenters' expectations have unconsciously guided the experiments to the expected results and colored their interpretation.
On the one hand, regarding these assertions, scientists satisfied with SRT claim that nearly all the crucial experiments which form the empirical basis of SRT (e.g., Michelson and Morley) actually gave results that were directly contrary to what the experimenters and theorists of the time anticipated, but under the assumption that Fizeau's 2nd aether hypothesis be valid. The latter premise, which corresponds to the assumption of an absolute space existing independently of the material bodies it contains, had been fashionable prior to the event of SRT. On the other hand, dissidents have doubts because absolute space as an independent light guiding structure cannot be observed. According to them, there is no need whatsoever to first assume the existence of absolute space, in order to invent afterwards sophisticated theories which apparently "explain" the absence of certain phenomena which one originally had hoped to observe. Moreover, dissidents assert that a null result can "prove" almost nothing and they emphasize that much the same null results would be observed if Fizeau's 1st aether hypothesis were valid.
Fizeau's 1st aether hypothesis implicates that each material body carries its individual light guiding structure around with it, an idea promoted by Heinrich Hertz, Max Planck and others.
The defenders of SRT, who accept that first absolute space is introduced into the theory admired by them and then further strange hypotheses like 'length contraction' (Lorentz contraction) and 'time dilatation' are added in order to cope with unexpected null results,
stress that Isaac Newton's book on mechanics contains a "Scholium", where absolute space has been (vagely) defined. Opponents of SRT comment that Newton better should not have written this "Scholium" because the laws of Newtonian mechanics work without any particlur space concept in just the same way.
MICHELSON AND MORLEY
The response to the null result of the Michelson and Morley experiment is not unique. Some opponents, like Reginald Cahill , claim that the experiment did not actually produce a null result, while other dissidents accept the null result because it does not conflict with their own theory.
DAYTON MILLER
Dayton Miller in the 1930's reported finding what corresponds to an Ether -drift of 11 km/sec. Most scientists believe that the small variations in interference fringes reported by Miller were due to instrumentation errors, and they point out that an "ether drift" of this magnitude is not consistent with any coherent ether theory, and, more importantly, that countless repetitions of similar experiments with far more precise equipment have consistently yielded a null result within experimental tolerances. Others such as Reginald Cahill point out what they consider to be essential differences; in particular, Miller's device tested the Fizeau Effect for gas. This is however not taken seriously by most other scientists, as no convincing explanation is provided for why Fresnel dragging in gas would break Lorentz symmetry.
It's notable that Miller's work is regarded by most scientists as an archtypical example of "the Experimenter Effect ", because his reported non-null result was consistent with his prior expectation of a non-null result (as opposed to Michelson, whose result was the opposite of what he expected). On the other hand, Maurice Allais in the late 1990's claimed to have found a subtle pattern in Miller's data that he (Allais) believes was both unexpected and unnoticed by Miller. If so, one could not attribute this subtle pattern to the "experimenter effect". However, Allais' claims have not been validated by the scientific community, and he was unable to get his writings on this subject published in a peer reviewed physics journal. This is not surprising, since nearly all reputable physics journals have adopted a policy of not accepting anti-relativity papers.
THE SPEED OF GRAVITY
Tom Van Flandern maintains that experimentally the Speed Of Gravity is considerably greater than the speed of light. This contradicts special relativity's universal speed limit. However, his interpretation of these experimental results is rejected by reputable physicists, who have explained in detail what they regard as fallacies underlying van Flandern's contention. Furthermore, van Flandern's claims entail the rejection not only of relativity and quantum mechanics, but of classical electromagnetism as well (not to mention ordinary fluid mechanics), since he contends that electromagnetic fields propagate faster than light. In addition, the "errors" he describes in general relativity have led reputable scientists to conclude that he simply misunderstands the theory.
OBJECTIONS FROM LOGICAL GROUNDS
The public has wrong impressions on the mutual respectance of experimental physicists and theoretical physicists and also on the weight of their competence. It tends to value the theoretician higher - who appreciates this - and does not believe the experimenter. Some experimenters with a high level of knowledge in theoretical physics (e.g., R. H. Dicke ) object strongly against being called a "theoretician", however, the main reason being that the phantasy of a theoretician is less well trained by current contact with reality. Because of his advantage,an experimenter spots logical errors in the structure of a theory more easily (which sounds paradoxically). To take an example, many textbooks on SRT describe clock type of synchronisation procedures, sometimes even involving clocks of train stations, but always light pulses, in order to demonstrate how easily it in reality is to deduce the fundamental formulae of SRT, the Lorentz transformation. The next step is then to predict with the help of the Lorentz transformation "relativistic" phenomena with an extraordinarily high precision, such as the optical Doppler effect. An experimenter distrusts the internal logic of this approach, because if clocks shall be synchronised with the help of light pulses, the optical Doppler effect would have to be known already in advance. If this is from one reason or the other not necessary, then the experimenter expects a clear and precise answer to the question why this is so.
In front of the public, the theoretician has here an advantage, because the public judges that this is a theoretical question and, therefore, the theoretician should be more competent. The theoretician can therefore react with a superior smile in his face - without giving any answer.
The theoretician has here one more advantage: The public concludes that the theoretician ''must'' have been right, because, after all, he arrived at the correct final answer. But this again is a pre-occupation because the 'inventor' of the 'novel theory' can have known the important final result in advance and his sole 'original contribution' can have consisted in the construction of a network of hypotheses and assumption, merely designed to carmouflage the plagiate Relativity Priority Dispute .
In this ugly game of unintended or intended intellectual intrigue, the experimenter is hopelessly lost, and the better he is in his profession, the greater the likelihood that he becomes a dissident. Ernst Gehrcke and Louis Essen were dissidents of this type.
OTHER ARGUMENTS AGAINST MODERN RELATIVITY
A common complaint about modern relativity is that it is counter intuitive. Supporters of modern relativity typicall react on complaints of this kind as follows: "For example, if Bill and Ted were in motion parallel to the path of a light pulse, but at different speeds, the pulse would have the same speed in terms of both Bill's and Ted's inertial rest frame coordinate systems. This seems counter-intuitive, until we realize how the rest frame inertial coordinate systems of Bill and Ted differ both spatially and temporally. Human intuition is well-adapted to the skew between the time axes of relatively moving systems of reference, but not to the skew between the spatial "planes". The ability to grasp these combined skews, and to visualize their consequences, seems to be closely correlated with mathematical aptitude, which is distinctly lacking in most individuals questioning the final state of the art of modern relativity".
Some critics of modern relativity contend that quantum entanglement conflicts with relativity. Supporters of SRT argue this is not a valid criticism, because quantum entanglement does not entail any information or mass-energy transmitted faster than the speed of light. Other critics claim relativity is falsified by the observed motions of the arms of spiral galaxies. Mainstream science, however, contends that this is due to Dark Matter , and is supported by observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background .
One common argument against the full validity of general relativity is that the theory is incompatible with Quantum Mechanics . Many scientists suspect that one or the other (or both) of these fundamental theories will need to be revised in order to arrive at a quantum theory of gravity. This is an active field of research, but the mainsteam approaches are rarely related to the work of anti-relativists.
EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT
Orthodox relativists argue that the theory of relativity attracts more opposition than other physics theories (such as quantum mechanics) for three main reasons. First, unlike quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity is accessible on all levels. It deals directly with the concepts of space, time, and motion, with which everyone is familiar, and it is easy to have an opinion about propositions involving these concepts, even if one does not understand relativity at all.
Second, unlike quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity is associated in the popular mind with one single individual (Albert Einstein), which makes it easy to personalize any objections to the theory. It is much easier to loudly declare "Einstein Was Wrong!" than it is to declare "Planck and Einstein and Bohr and Heisenberg and Schrodinger and Born and Jordan and Dirac and Pauli Were Wrong!". The men known to be involved in the development of quantum mechanics span a wide range of nationalities, religions, politics, and personalities, so it is difficult to carry over antagonisms from those areas into objections against quantum mechanics. In contrast, any antagonisms against the personality of Einstein can be carried over as fuel for nonconformity. The original Anti-Relativity Club ("Anti-Einstein-Liga", as Einstein dubbed it) was formed in Germany between the World Wars, and included Lenard, Stark, and a few other noted members. The motivations of that group, objecting to "Jewish Science", have been impugned subsequently.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, the word "relativity" is easily conflated with the concept of "relativism", even though the theory of relativity has nothing whatsoever to do with relativism. In fact, many prominent workers in the field of relativity (including Einstein, Sommerfeld, Minkowski, and Klein) argued that the concepts involved in the theory of relativity would be more accurately conveyed by naming it The Theory of Invariants, or The Theory of the Absolute World (as suggested by Minkowski). If one of these names had been adopted, instead of the misleading word "relativity", there would doubtless be much less polemic against Einstein's marvellous and beautiful doctrine.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, opponents of modern relativity can publish only in a limited number of physics journals. They cliam that this is a 'conspiracy' attributable to a variety of causes and motivations. Some believe (and loudly proclaim) that it is due to sheer stupidity on the part of physicists, to the extent that they (Nobel-prize-winning physicists) cannot understand what is obvious to a child. Others attribute it to "brain-washing" carried out by the academic system, but this begs the question of what motivates the academic system to do this. The most common explanation given by nonconformists for the pro-relativity conspiracy is that many physicists have a vested interest (both financial and emotional) in relativity, and are simply too proud, stubborn, greedy, and venal to admit the manifest erroneousness of relativity when it is clearly explained to them by amateurs. Naturally, physicsts deny that there is any conspiracy, and contend that the principle of relativity is so widely accepted in scientific circles simply because it provides the best (i.e., most unified, coherent, heuristically productive) account of phenomena.
MORE CULTURAL CAUSES OF NONCONFORMITY
If motivations of individuals who object against orthodox relativity merely from non-physical reasons, including objections against the Einstein cult and the like, are disregarded, then the major source of nonconformity obviously boils down to the high degree of 'belief', which anybody has to accept who wants to become a member of the relativistic establishment. From the viewpoint of nonconformists, in particular SRT has speculative qualities associated with it, which remind of a religion. "Why do we believe in relativity?", ask proudly teachers of relativity, who are convinced that they have understood orthodox relativity. Why does nobody ask, for example: "Why do we believe in Maxwell's equations", although SRT and Maxwell's equations are intimately related with one another?
What Albert Einstein has said, or has not directly said but perhaps might have meant, so the dissidents, has to be true from the very beginning, independently of whether it actually had been said by him and independently of whether or not it is true. "Brain-washing" is a term which implicates that there is some indoctrination going on, and that the teachers know in advance what they are doing. An accusation of this kind is not meant here, however. To which kind of curiosities the blind belief in Einstein's words or writings leads, can best be seen in the book ''Theoretical Physic'' by Joos, which was first published in 1932 and has been re-edited and translated since then many times. According to orthodox relativistic doctrine, classical physics has to have ''no'' transverse Doppler effect at all. Einstein himself, however, has never asserted this. But, since the relativistic establishment 'believes' - now since one century - that with a short note published in the year of 1907 its hero might have meant an ''experimentum crucis'', in any textbook on SRT, including the chapter in Joos' book, it is asserted that for the case of lateral observation in classical physics the Doppler shifted frequency of oscillation be strictly given by f ' = f. There exists also textbooks in which this assertion is formulated as a "test question" for students. If the student wants to become a respected und full member of the relativistic establishment, and if he does not want do endanger his professional career, he is forced to give this answer although the answer is evidently false. In the book of Joos this leads to a direct contradiction,
because about ten pages earlier Joos treats the classical Doppler effect correctly. (The answer f' = f is enforced in some textbooks by means of a didactic trick, namely by resorting to the plane wave approximation. The students are then, however, not told that this invalid 'proof' involves an approximation.)
WHAT ABOUT GALILEAN RELATIVITY?
Opponents attacking the usual interpretations attributed to SRT have a strong point, because Lorentz type of transformation formulae were first deduced by Woldemar Voigt , and Woldemar Voigt arrived at his result by substituting the general form of the Galilei transformation in a differential wave equation. Thus, there can hardly be a serious contradiction between the Galilei transformation and the formulae of the Lorentz transformation. There are only different opinions on interpretations.
In order to be able to 'understand' SRT, it is of paramount importance to first re-ensure oneself of the fact that the transverse Doppler effect of classical optics of moving bodies is formally just the same as the transverse Doppler effect predictable with the help of the Lorentz transformation. One should, however, not use Wolfgang Pauli's book on relativity for this comparison, because Pauli presents the wrong formula. But any other textbook on SRT can serve for this purpose.
Once it is realized that the 'two' transverse Doppler effect are exactly the same, it becomes immediately obvious that a real departure of the predictions of classical optics of moving bodies does occur essentially solely in the special case of longitudinal observation (when source and observer are positioned on the same geometrical line), in which case the departure is maximum. What could be the reason for this departure of the 'classical' prediction from the 'relativistic' one? Now, it happens that from mere historical reasons the term 'classical' optical Doppler effect is badly chosen and misleading, bcause Doppler's original optical Doppler theory holds true in reality solely for longitudinal waves (such as sound waves), but not precisely for transverse waves, such as electromagnetic waves. For longitidinal observation of transverse waves it is only an approximation. (When Doppler first established his optical Doppler theory, the discovery that light consists of transverse waves was only about a quarter of a century old, and Doppler was not really convinced of light's transverse character. But even if he had accepted the transversality of light, the time was not yet ripe for asking such questions as to whether there could perhaps be a minor difference between the Doppler effect of transverse waves and the Doppler effect of longitudinal waves.) In other words, the small discrepancy of predictions between the old and the new, 'relativistic' theory must be caused by light's transversality.
The evolution of
theoretical physics does not take place solely along straight lines,
but also along side ways. That the Doppler effects are different for longitudinal and for transverse waves had been known already in the year of 1886 (or even earlier) to Woldemar Voigt . Attention had been drawn to this circumstance again in an article publishwd by E. Kohl in ''Annalen der Physik'' of the year 1903. But apparently thereafter it somehow had been forgotten again. Because of the latter fact modern textbooks on classical physics contain a systematic error which consists in not strictly distinguishing between the Doppler effect of transverse waves and the Doppler effect of longitudinal waves.
This has also to do with the fact that a fairly simple velocity aberration type of aberration phenomanon had been overlooked by physics teachers, which can qualitatively be described as 'velocity aberration of angular velocity'. It is the latter phenomenon which enters the scenery as soon as transverse waves are observed with highly accurate measuring devices, such as Doppler receivers. It is the phenomenon responsible for all obscure effects which in the framework of SRT are circumstantially and wrongly attributed to 'time dilatation'. No such thing as 'time dilatation' does exist in reality. It exists solely in the imagination of the relativistic establishment
What has been said hitherto raises the question of whether the 'Lorentz transformation' should not be renamed into Voigt transformation. As a matter of fact, there does not exist only one single Voigt transformation but rather an ensemble of them, and one member of this ensemble should correspond to the Lorentz transformation. The number of Voigt transformations, which could be distinguished in principle, may be obtained from the number of different Doppler scenarios which one would like to admit for the consideration. Thus, if Fizeau's 1st aether hypothesis were valid, one would not have to distinguish between cases
where the source and/or the receiver move(s), contrary to what is necessary if Fizeau's 2nd, absolute space type of aether hypothesis would be better compatible with nature.
REFERENCES
Essen, L. (1971) ''The Special Theory of Relativity: A Critical Analysis'', Oxford University Press (Oxford science research papers, 5).
Dingle, H. (1972) ''Science at the Cross Roads'', Western Printing Services, Bristol.
Isenkrahe, C. (1921) ''Zur Elementaranalyse der Relativitätstheorie - Einleitung und Vorstufen'', Vieweg, Braunschweig.
Krause, W. (2005) "Temptative Galilean Synthesis of the Optical Doppler Effect", ''Existentia'' XV, 127-139.
Schaffner, K. (1972) ''Nineteenth-Century Aether Theories'', Pergamon Press, Oxford, Braunschweig.
Svenson, L. S., Jr. (1972) ''The Ethereal Aether - A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-Drift Experiments, 1880-1930'', University of Texas Press, London, Austin.
Turner, D., and Hazelott, R. (eds.) ''The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers - A Counter-Revolution in Physics'', Devin-Adair Co., Old Greenwhich (Connecticut).
Wesley, J. P. (2003) "Ritz is Wrong", ''Physics Essays'' 16 (3), 1-5.
For further literature see, e.g., Lévy, J. (2003) ''From Galilei to Lorentz ... and beyond - Principles of a fundamental theory of space and time'', Apeiron, Montreal.
