Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / June 2008

On Jun 4, 10:51 am, "Dirk Van de moortel" <dirkvandemoor...@ThankS-NO-
SperM.hotmail.com> wrote:

Shitbert has just extended his operations by polluting other fora:

http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=21882

Dirk Van de moortel wrote on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:51:28 +0200:

A simple "i do not know the response" would be enough dirk :-)

In any case, Shubee is just pointing a fundamental aspect of theoretical
physics. At the first semiempirical theories are formulated from analysis
of observation and experiments, and when established and understood then
theories got axiomatized. Axiomatization, of course, does not use
empirical principles as rods and clocks :-)

We saw that for classical mechanics and thermodynamics. But we do not for
SR, why?

Special relativity is a theory of appearence. Relative motion is a
match but not the truth.
Mitch Raemsch; Twice Nobel Laureate 2008

Sam Wormley wrote on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:08:48 +0000:

Specially when one restricts the study to simple kinematics or to certain
*restricted* class of dynamical systems :-)

http://order.ph.utexas.edu/mtrump/manybody/

Otherwise SR fails :-)

Thanks Harald.

Harvey R. Brown mentions Einstein's Autobiographical Notes (1949),
which is where I must of read Einstein's lamentations originally.
Brown has already provided a ton of analysis and quotes from Einstein
to support my contention that my formulation of special relativity is
better than Einstein's according to Einstein's confession that he only
had a principle theory and that constructive theories have greater
explanatory power.

I especially enjoyed Einstein referring to the nature of rods and
clocks as “moving atomic configurations.” Einstein understood clearly
that special relativity was not a fundamental theory.

Here are some great excerpts from Harvey R. Brown:

Einstein became increasingly uneasy about the role played by rods and
clocks in this approach. This unease is seen in a paper entitled
“Geometry and Experience” he published in 1921, and in particular in
his 1949 Autobiographical Notes:

“One is struck [by the fact] that the theory [of special
relativity] . . . introduces two kinds of physical things, i.e., (1)
measuring rods and clocks, (2) all other things, e.g., the
electromagnetic field, the material point, etc. This, in a certain
sense, is inconsistent; strictly speaking measuring rods and clocks
would have to be represented as solutions of the basic equations
(objects consisting of moving atomic configurations), not, as it were,
as theoretically self-sufficient entities.”

These remarks are noteworthy for several reasons. First, there is the
issue of justifying the “sin” of treating rods and clocks as
primitive, or unstructured entities in SR.

In January 1908, roughly two and a half years after publishing his
celebrated paper on special relativity, Einstein wrote in a letter to
Arnold Sommerfeld:

“It seems to me too that a physical theory can be satisfactory only
when it builds up its structures from elementary foundations. The
theory of relativity is not more conclusively and absolutely
satisfactory than, for example, classical thermodynamics was before
Boltzmann had interpreted entropy as probability. If the Michelson-
Morley experiment had not put us in the worst predicament, no one
would have perceived the relativity theory as a (half) salvation.

In comparing ‘principle theories’ such as thermodynamics with
‘constructive theories’ such as the kinetic theory of gases in his
1919 Times article, Einstein was quite explicit both that special
relativity is a principle theory, and that principle theories lose out
to constructive theories in terms of explanatory power:

“. . . when we say we have succeeded in understanding a group of
natural processes, we invariably mean that a constructive theory has
been found which covers the processes in question.”

The limitations of Einstein’s principle-theory approach to SR have
been noted by a number of commentators since 1905, including Wolfgang
Pauli and Arthur Eddington in the 20s, W. F. G. Swann in the 40s, and
Lajos J´anossy and John S. Bell in the 70s, and Dennis Dieks in the
80s. All of these authors called for a more constructive version of
SR. It was perhaps Bell who made the point in the clearest fashion.

Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf