“One of the most striking characteristics of Einstein is that even in those papers where he worked out the profoundest theoretical principles and theories, such as in the 1905 paper about the special theory of relativity, he did not finish without at least glancing around for possible verifications of their empirical consequences.” (Klaus Hentschel, ‘Einstein’s Attitude Towards Experiments, Testing Relativity Theory 1907-1927’, 1992).

For STR and much of ‘the science’ mathematics and their elegant explanations, backed by some qualitative proofs took precedence over physical reality.  As the ancients, the scholastics and Pierre Duhem would have said, maths were employed to ‘save the phenomena’ with abstract calculations and metaphysics in lieu of physical proofs.  

Previous posts

An overview of Special Theory of Relativity (STR)

An introduction to the underlying maths of STR

Key scientists and actors within the STR domain

James Webb Telescope observations which refute parts of STR and the Big Bang

Herbert Dingle’s unanswered clock paradox and the inherent contradiction within STR

Background to this post

The theory of relativity has been debated for over one hundred years.  Contrary to what we are told there has been and there still are, plenty of scientists and analysts who remain unconvinced by the abstract mathematics of Einstein and his STR and the lack of physical proofs.  It is a theory in crisis. 

While febrile, STR does convey an important but hard to prove concept of time dilation.  Namely that the clocks in space go much faster than on Earth, meaning that space time age is much longer than Earth age.  From many perspectives this seems plausible and reasonable.  This idea is very difficult to prove without performing interstellar experiments.

For the rest of STR There is plenty to critique about the ‘laws’ of STR, which are rarely mentioned within Scientism or ‘the science’.  Previous posts have summarized STR, its maths and surfaced some issues.  This continues with the critique and focuses on the key question of the ‘ether’. 

What is STR trying to do?

STR is an attempt to correct Newtonian laws on gravity and ‘save’ the Maxwell-Lorentz equations on motions and the speed of light.  Einstein wanted a ‘unified’ theory where Newton’s law of inertia was married to the equations of Maxwell-Lorentz.  To do this he needed to remove the ‘ether’ (more below) and update the theories for his idea of ‘relativity’, or the difference in the phenomena of speed and motion between objects and their clocks, based on an observer either static, or in motion with the objects in question (Resnick, 1972). 

As with Maxwell’s obstruse and endless pages of symbology and maths, STR is at its core a mathematical edifice which is entirely theoretical, not physical.  Contrary to ‘popular science’ little physical proofs exist for the Maxwell-Lorentz theorems or for Einstein’s STR theory which is largely a modification of Lorentz’s theorems with the ether removed. 

Having said that, Lorentz’s theory is far more empirical than Einsteins. It should also be stated that Einstein’s famous formulation of E=Mc2 in which energy and matter is interchangeable seems to be correct, but is largely borrowed from Maxwell and others. There does exist many critics of this equation who maintain it is false. In any event this famous ‘law’ does not belong only to Einstein, nor to STR. People who use this as proof of STR do not understand that independently and long in advance of Einstein and STR, energy and mass equalisation proofs were forwarded and developed. E=Mc2 does not prove STR whatsoever.

A list of problems with STR

We can list issues with STR as given by many scientists and researchers who have delved into the theory.  Literally hundreds of scientists and researchers in the past century have heavily critiqued the validity of STR.  But no one has heard about this.  The issues include:

1.      Mathematical abstraction, where maths replace physical proofs

2.      Impossibility to prove or disprove the mathematical arcana given their long, complex and tautological nature

3.      Maxwell’s equations were not understood by many and pace Pierre Duhem and others, might well be wrong

4.      Lorentz’s equations are not understood by many and pace sundry critics, might well be wrong and further, Einstein accepted his maths which only work with an ether, yet rejected the ether

5.      Few if any observations confirm Lorentz’s theories though the qualitative and quantitative proofs for this theory heavily outweigh that of Einstein’s

6.      Michelson-Morley’s experiments which ‘disproved the ether’ are likely wrong, and some maintain they were a fraud

7.      The ether used by both Maxwell and Lorentz could be valid based on experiments from the past 100 years (more below)

8.      If the ether in any form, with any density is valid, STR by default is invalid

9.      Einstein’s STR suffers from the clock paradox and does not have empirical physical proofs to support the maths

10.   The observed time-dilation effect in atomic clocks could be caused by a physical effect of the ether-wind on electron’s orbits inside the clocks (more below)

11.   Space-Time dimension (4^th dimension) is unproven and unlikely given that time is outside of space and is a metaphysical construct

12.   The production of multiple time concepts as evidenced by Harald Nordenson (1922-1969) would invalidate STR

13.   The speed of light might well vary within space, negating much of STR which assumes is a constant rate in a vacuum applied to the universe

14.   Shadow gravity is a better explanation of how gravity would function than Newtonian gravity, which is a core component of STR (more below)

15.   The Big Bang theology is incorrect, much of it premised on STR with ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ simply replacing Einstein’s fudge namely his ‘constant’ which he invoked to stabilise the universe and resolve issues with Newtonian gravity

Any of the above would disprove STR (Smarandache 2013).  Each could fill and has filled, a small book.  An example is that of the ‘ether’ which is simply accepted by those in cosmology and physics to not exist.  But like much of ‘the science’ this is incorrect, resting on unproven assumptions and very outdated experiments and ideas.  The ether is a classic case of where a few people make decisions based on models and contentious experimetation and the rest of the industry simply accepts this truncated analysis as a law and builds yet more mathematical models and explanations upon this flawed foundation.  More here