No, accepting that the universe is not obligated to meet our intuitive expectations does not invalidate empiricism. Intuitively, most people would expect a hammer and a feather dropped at the same time to fall at different speeds. They will in the air due to aerodynamic effects, but as one of the Apollo missions demonstrated in a vacuum they fall at the same speed. Calling the Inflation Theory an ad hoc add-on to the Big Bang Theory is like calling General Relativity an ad hoc add on to Newton’s Theory of Gravity. Of course it is ad hoc; the theory was meant to explains something the Big Bang Theory as it existed did not explain. The BBT needed this addition to account for observations.
And if you think the universe behaving strangely invalidates empiricism please explain how computers work. Hint, the answer involves quantum mechanics, which is definitely counter-intuitive.
You can prove that the end result of any experiment supports this original claim, but no reasonable human can possibly alter time or have personal certainty of this. And therefore the explanation is flawed.
That statement makes no sense. If GPS units did not take time dilation into account they would not work.
And, likewise, successful predictions do not guarantee that the explanation is valid.
I give up on you. You are now exhibiting sign #2 of a crackpot, refusing to acknowledge science. The moderator at science forums.net is right. If you refuse to address the science the thread should be closed. Things work differently around here, but I will not waste more time arguing with you.
And no, I do not disdain philosophy. If I did I would not have taken 15 hours of philosophy in college. You are interpreting everything through a lens clouded by your ignorance.
Adios.
Although I anticipated this and explained it, I'll do it better: Claiming that the Universe doesn't have to require an intuitive understanding is no different than saying that God works in mysterious ways AND you see God in nature in a secular way. You're saying you don't know the cause but the explanation for the observation you provide is certain.
Exactly, although most scientists would be aghast that the rationale of their calling can be liken to "The Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome.
You can prove that the end result of any experiment supports this original claim, but no reasonable human can possibly alter time or have personal certainty of this. And therefore the explanation is flawed.
What is the nature of time and why is it unidirectional, is unknown.
And therefore, a better explanation, as I suggest, is that since an object measuring the effect of light is also moving with respect to it, time change isn't the cause of the measurement, the motion of the measuring device in the same frame its measuring is the cause.
All "time" measuring devices depend on the motion of something like pendulums or atoms etc. It is possible that in the above circumstance, the motion of that something slows down thereby giving the observer in the moving frame of reference the illusion of time dilation.
There is no known device that directly measures time.
And since even things like destructive radiation will affect one should they even get up to close the speed of light, it implies that space itself is fixed, not relative. This assures us of an ether, which denies the reason Einstein's explanation which was originally based on that assumption (its cultural motivator), should be updated.
So, back to Newton?
Einstein replaced the aether with the gravitational field analogous to the electric/magnetic field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_field
In a field model, rather than two particles attracting each other, the particles distort spacetime via their mass, and this distortion is what is perceived and measured as a "force". In such a model one states that matter moves in certain ways in response to the curvature of spacetime, and that there is either no gravitational force, or that gravity is a fictitious force.
However:
The detection of gravitational waves bears directly on the question of whether there is any such thing as a "gravitational field," which can act as an independent entity. … this fundamental field hypothesis has been generally accepted without observational support. Such credulity among scientists occurs only in relation to the deepest and most fundamental hypotheses for which they lack the facility to think differently in a comparably detailed and consistent way. In the nineteenth century a similar attitude led to a general acceptance of the ether …
So, is the gravitational field real at all?
In particular, I am referring here to theoretical science, which IS philosophy.
It is, which is why Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg etc. had to struggle to reconcile their scientific insights with philosophy without contradictions.
As an example, the Big Bang theory is usually explained initially from the Hubble experiments and they do this in usually great detail. Then they may let us know of The Steady State Theory but then do not adequately show how the discovery of microwave background radiation is a definite destruction to the theory AND, since there is no other rational explanations presently available, we must admit the Big Bang is true. Then, if willing, the authors of the document(ary) may present us with the Inflation Theory without justifying it. As I see it on my own, this theory was merely an ad hoc add-on due to the strange fact that our apparent universe was relatively young AND that they had no evidence at the time for acceleration (an actual necessary condition if a Big Bang could even be true)!
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, (French: [ləmɛt]; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He was the first person to propose the theory of the expansion of the Universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was also the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'.
As a priest, he believed the theory could be reconciled with God as the unknowable creator of the universe.
Why must anyone accept the Big Bang Theory as explained even with 100% supports just because it exists that fits with prediction? The explanation is too weird to accept. But its acceptance in the presence is crippling the capability of others to put forward alternate explanations that may be better or more normal because it is being politically established that the truth requires disproving the observation and/or providing the scientific institutions to be employed in providing new experiments.
Not everyone accepts the Big Bang Theory.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity
The initial singularity was the gravitational singularity of infinite density thought to have contained all of the mass and spacetime of the Universe before quantum fluctuations caused it to rapidly explode in the Big Bang and subsequent inflation, creating the present-day Universe.
Infinite density?
Alternatives to the singularity:
One model, using loop quantum gravity, aims to explain the beginnings of the Universe through a series of Big Bounces, in which quantum fluctuations cause the Universe to expand. This formulation also predicts a cyclic model of universes, with a new universe being created after an old one is destroyed, each with different physical constants. Another formulation, based on M-theory and observations of the cosmic microwave background, states that the Universe is but one of many in a multiverse, and has budded off from another universe as a result of quantum fluctuations, as opposed to our Universe being all that exists.
Does that make more sense? It implies that the Universe and time in totality, is infinite.
(Sorry, Stephen for the earlier misspelling of your name.)
No worries.
Back to the thought experiment. In my last post I missed out time dilation so that would have just seemed confused.
The point I'm trying to make is this. You are assuming that if we travel away from a transmission that takes 1 hour to leave Earth by earth clocks, the duration of the arrival at the space craft should be 1 hour measured by the space craft's clock. And if we travel towards a transmission that takes 1 hour to leave measured by clocks where it leaves from, the duration of it's arrival at the space craft should take 1 hour measured by the space craft's clock. (According to special relativity)
The puzzlement is that in both case the clock on the space craft runs slower than the clock at the source of the transmission but since the effects of moving towards and away from light are opposite, the space crafts clock running slower can't result in the speed of light being constant in both cases.
My attempt at a solution is to question whether the duration of the arrival of the signal at the space craft does need to be 1 hour. I'm wondering if that really is what special relativity says? Since all that is required is that the measurement of the speed of light is constant, the duration of the signal can vary depending upon the distance it travels whilst it's speed is still constant.
Fully second Darron: Scott, your theory is a crackpot theory.
If you see something in relativity that contradicts your intuitions, the correct way is asking specialists to explain it to you. Relativity is an established scientific theory with lots of empirical evidence, and necessary e.g. for the technology of GPS and particle accelerators: and you were treated really nicely by some of the people on the scienceforums, in the sense that they did explain to you what is wrong. That is more than you earned when you call a thread ‘Einstein was Wrong: My Theory of Relativity’.
Next time just ask: ‘can somebody explain what is wrong in my logic’, or ‘what would happen if…’. Relativity is science, it is not philosophy, and not speculation at all. Discussing relativity in the way you do here should be done in the meetings of the ‘flat earth society’ (good comparison, Obama!)
Your publishing your ideas here on this kind of forum also is definitely a symptom of ‘crackpotism’.
a few small comments:
The blanketed trust in the authorities of today's scientists has no more significant justification without proof as any other subject.
Except when there are tons of empirical evidence, and working technologies exist.
If today's theories are to be trusted by just anyone, the scientist is obliged to present their views in a manner that is either intuitively fair in logical terms to any human ear without the needs to impose a special language prerequisite (math, in this case, for the most part).
Science normally is not religion. And again: if you do not understand it, but there is the empirical evidence, what does 'trusted' mean here???
I do NOT except that science requires an escape of intuition of normal experience any more than any claims by the paranormal.
That you do not accept it is then your personal problem. Again: if you do not understand it, but there is the empirical evidence, who is interested in you accepting it or not???
it's simpler and even more 'empirical' because it is intuitively understandable from anyone's perspective.
This is utter nonsense, Scott. Something is more empirical if it predicts more facts in more details. That has nothing to do with the understanding of a layman.
No, he actually based his theory on a prior experiment by Michelson-Morley to try to measure the ether and could not find anything.
This is historically just wrong. For Einstein the Michelson-Morley was just an experimental proof that Maxwell's theory of electricity and Newtonian mechanics are inconsistent. Einstein surely knew about it, but he would have written his article anyway, which btw was called 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies' and not 'On an adhoc possible explanation of the Michelson-Morley experiment' (That is what Lorenz factually did).
See here] for a complete overview.
[Einstein] denied any significant influence of the most important experiment: the Michelson-Morley experiment
In other words, as space expands, the interval between light pulses also lengthens. Since expansion occurs throughout the universe, it seems that time dilation should be a property of the universe that holds true everywhere, regardless of the specific object or event being observed.
However:
Astronomer Mike Hawkins from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh came to this conclusion after looking at nearly 900 quasars over periods of up to 28 years. When comparing the light patterns of quasars located about 6 billion light years from us and those located 10 billion light years away, he was surprised to find that the light signatures of the two samples were exactly the same. If these quasars were like the previously observed supernovae, an observer would expect to see longer, “stretched" timescales for the distant, “stretched" high-redshift quasars. But even though the distant quasars were more strongly redshifted than the closer quasars, there was no difference in the time it took the light to reach Earth.
The explanation and it's implications:
There’s also a possibility that the explanation could be even more far-reaching, such as that the universe is not expanding and that the big bang theory is wrong.
And from
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-01/faraway-quasar-group-new-largest-structure-universe
The largest structure in the universe:
Behold, the largest structure in the universe. An international team of astronomers has discovered a large quasar group (also known as an LQG) that is some 4 billion light years across
The Cosmological Principle:
The Cosmological Principle is the assumption that the universe, if viewed from a large enough scale, looks the same no matter where you are viewing it from.
So:
But the Cosmological Principle, when factored into the prevailing theories of cosmology, suggests that astrophysicists shouldn’t be able to find anything bigger than 370 megaparsecs
But:
This new LQC appears to average more like 500 megaparsecs across, with its longest dimension reaching up to 1,200 megaparsecs. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Cosmological Principle is toast, but we may have to take what we think we understand about it back to the drawing board.
Quite so. It seems that the universe is queerer than what we think it is.
Presuming that a Universe was different at different times is tantamount to claiming that it followed different rules or laws in those times.
Not at all. It would simply mean that the conditions were different, not that the laws of nature were different.
this clearly shows that Einstein created his theory with abolishing the aether in mind (what Michelson-Morley concluded)!
Einstein wanted to remove the apparent inconsistencies between Maxwell and Newton. That means also to get rid of the ether along the way. How do you explain then Einstein's own remark that the Michelson-Morley experiment was not significant for his work? Einstein doesn't even directly refer to the Michelson-Morley in his original article. These sentences are the closest you can get:
Examples of this sort, together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the “light medium," suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest.
(...)
The introduction of a “luminiferous ether" will prove to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be developed will not require an “absolutely stationary space" provided with special properties, (...)
In no way he presents the Michelson-Morley experiment as his main motivation for designing his theory. For Einstein it was just one of the symptoms of a deeper lying wrong understanding of space and time, which in practice meant a correction on Newton's mechanics.
And sorry if this sounds too arrogant for you, but I know that I can eventually prove that I'm right.
Michelson-Morley, boy it been years ago I read about that experiment. If I remember correctly that they were trying to measure the ether winds. That they regarded the experiment failed because they did not believe the results. And the results really proved that ether winds did not exist, the experiment worked fine.
Michelson-Morley brings up the question of the measurement of light. Think of it like a universal rheostat that controls the speed of light and the speed of time. Therefore if you increase the speed of light the time is also increased.
Point being, that light measured by time in the same magnetic field will always seem constant.
Light measured outside (different field) that magnetic field will show a different time. Now what I understand the general concept is that the time speed changes and the light speed does not. I think that is wrong. I think they both change.
This has no proof or science backup, just my coffee shop thoughts of how I think it may work.
This explains to me how a guy could leave earth and come back much younger than if he would have stayed on earth. And the GPS getting a little change in the universal magnetic field would have to adjust for time used on earth.
Most of Einstein theories are way over my head, but I do have my layman’s conceptions and ideas. You’ll have to tell me if I am close or completely opposite of your thoughts.
Mike
I quoted you above here because this factor is also changed. Gravity is NOT a 'field' of attraction. It is a shadowing effect that curved lines which form matter relative to other matter; the 'force' is actually the expansion of space, which in effect is identical to what is termed the Casimer Effect. [I will expand on this later]
Gravity expressed as a gravitational field whereby it is a "pseudo force" is just as strange as Newton's "action at a distance".
Your concept of gravity as the 'force' which is actually the expansion of space but which in effect is identical to the Casimir Effect is intriguing. Please explain further.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
In quantum field theory, the Casimir effect and the Casimir–Polder force are physical forces arising from a quantized field.
The Casimir Effect generates a physical force (not a pseudo force) in the micrometer range.
OTOH, gravity has a range from the micro to the macro and in that sense, needs further explanation as to why it is so.
My theory explains this easily. What we are observing extremely high energy frequency waves from so far that they have stretched down from the high gamma radiation spectrum into the light spectrum. Because of its distance, it should also be more intense as the expansion would also increase the amplitude of the waves. This is one of the presumptions that make relativity invalid. Rather than assuming that the maximum speed of anything is that of light, the assumption should be that everything approaches one velocity such that if you were to stretch any electromagnetic wave until it is a perfectly straight line (infinite frequency), that is the true speed, c! The wave formula that relates emf to c is not correct. It appears correct on a relatively short range of frequencies, like light. The formula should actually relate the real length of the waveform, not its displacement.
How does your theory explain why there is no difference in time for the light to reach the earth from more distant or closer quasars?
That implies time dilation is not a property of the universe and/or the speed of light is not a constant.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar
Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point-like, similar to stars, rather than extended sources similar to galaxies.
Quasars emit a spectrum of electromagnetic energy from radio waves to visible light and all these emissions travel to earth at the speed of light, c. There is no reason to think c will vary at all irrespective of the frequency of emission.
The Perfect Cosmological Principle is the appropriate assumption. Then it's not queer anymore. They chose to prefer that the Universe evolved because they couldn't explain why the apparent Universal expansion suggests only 14.8 billion years, which doesn't make sense with a solar system that is a third of that, not to mention that the heavier material required to make the earth requires the minimum of another star's prior existence of at least another third of that time.
The assumption that the non-Perfect Cosmological Principle is true is a good example of a step out of logic and rationality. Presuming that a Universe was different at different times is tantamount to claiming that it followed different rules or laws in those times. This demonstrates how the contemporary mindset stepped out of empiricism because the we cannot determine the difference of a universe outside our physical constraints. [I'm already anticipating the responses to this. But I'll wait until they're stated.]
What is the Perfect Cosmological Principle and how does that explain the discovery of a LQG?
We show that Michelson and Morley used an over simplified description and failed to notice that their calculation is not compatible with their own hypothesis that light is traveling at a constant velocity in all frames. During the last century, the Michelson-Morley equations have been used without realizing that two essential fundamental phenomena are missing in the Michelson-Morley demonstration. We show that the velocity of the mirror must be taken into account to calculate the angle of reflection of light. Using the Huygens principle, we see that the angle of reflection of light on a moving mirror is a function of the velocity of the mirror. This has been ignored in the Michelson-Morley calculation. Also, due to the transverse direction of the moving frame,light does not enter in the instrument at 90 degrees as assumed in the Michelson-Morley experiment.
Analysis of the New Results:
Therefore, according to classical physics, the rotation of the Michelson-Morley apparatus in space should never show any drift of interference lines. On the contrary, a positive shift of interference fringes with the amplitude compatible with the Michelson-Morley predictions is required in order to be compatible with Einstein’s relativity. Such a shift of interference fringes due to a rotation has never been observed. The absence of an observed drift of interference fringes invalidates Einstein's relativity.
We have seen above that the prediction presented by Michelson and Morley are based on a model which ignores two important fundamental phenomena. These disregarded phenomena are the law of reflection of light on the moving mirror and also the deviation of the observed direction of light coming from a moving system.
No aether:
It is also important to mention that the non-zero result observed in the Michelson-Morley experiment does not provide any proof of existence of ether. The presence of ether appears totally useless, when an appropriate model is used. Without matter nor radiation, space is nothing. Other experiments(12-17) have already shown that everything in physics can be explained using classical physics without the ether hypothesis.
What you're ignorant of is that the resulting claimed by Einstein, that since it is impossible to MEASURE events simultaneously, that in reality, that lack of such capability assures that the reality itself doesn't exist. This is solipsistic.
Oh my dear. To conclude from 'there is no fixed frame of reference for measurements' to 'reality does not exist' is so wrong. It shows your utter misunderstanding what relativity is about. Relativity just gives the formulas how coordinate systems must be translated in each other, dependent on the relative motion of coordinate systems and the influence of gravitation. Two real events are just as real in any inertial system. But to translate coordinates, and geometrical and temporal distances, we must take movement and gravitation in account. E.g. in SR the Galilean transformations do not suffice, because it would lead to the conclusion that the laws of nature (especially the Maxwell laws of electricity) are different for observers in different inertial frames. Therefore the Galilean transformations had to be replaced by the Lorenz transformations. Einstein later regretted he named his theory 'relativity theory' because of all the misunderstandings. He thought it had been better to call it 'invariance theory' because of those quantities that do not change under Lorenz transformations.
The conclusion that waves travel through a sincere 'nothingness' with the mere explanation that the waves are transverse, doesn't solve anything.
What has the transversal character of em-waves to do with the non-existence of the ether??? Again: all of relativity follows from the requirement that the laws of nature are the same for all observers in all inertial frames. To give another example of the power of SR: Dirac predicted the existence of anti-electrons by applying special relativity on the electromagnetic theory of the electron.
If you say light only goes one speed, in reference to what if that 'what' doesn't mean anything?
The speed of light is the same for every observer, whatever way it is moving in respect to any other observer. That's it. That is counterintuitive, and from there follow counterintuitive conclusions. But their truths are confirmed in many, many experiments], and daily business for particle physicists.
For this reason I am beginning to think that the choice to keep this insane reasoning is politically driven rather than serious.
Now you are close to conspiracy theory... Does your navigation device work or not? Do you believe people lie to you when they say that formulas of SR and GR are needed to have your position exact?
And by the way, how are you so certain that I, let alone anyone, can disprove Einstein? Aren't you being two-faced in assuming that no evidence can possibly be put forward to disprove Einstein and the empirical presumption that a theory must be able to be falsified to qualify as a scientific theory?
Ah! Great point! Of course! We already know that at least that one of both: QM and relativity, cannot be the complete story, because they are not consistent under some extreme circumstances as occur with black holes and the first fraction of a second of the big bang. But that does not invalidate all the empirical evidence we have of relativity under more daily circumstances. Even that we know Newtonian mechanics is formally overrun by relativity, we still use it for calculating orbits of spacecraft, paths of cannon balls and building bridges. A future theory will have present QM and relativity as border cases where gravity is not that strong.