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Old January 22nd 15, 12:35 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default THE EINSTEIN REVOLUTION

In 1905 Einstein informed the gullible world that, although time dilation is symmetrical (either observer sees the other's clock running slow - this is what validly follows from the two postulates), it is still asymmetrical - the stationary clock runs faster than the moving one (this does not follow at all from the two postulates):

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
ON THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF MOVING BODIES, A. Einstein, 1905: "From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on its arrival at B the two clocks no longer synchronize, but the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B by tv^2/2c^2 (up to magnitudes of fourth and higher order), t being the time occupied in the journey from A to B."

This is tantamount to saying that, although elephants are unable to fly, they can still do so by just flapping their ears. Yet the breathtaking impliciations of Einstein's blatant hoax (time travel into the future etc.) enchanted the public... and so Einstein's "revolution" began:

http://plus.maths.org/issue37/featur...ein/index.html
John Barrow FRS: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of science. Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in 1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what it was. When Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921, he attributed his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the ordinary person: "Does it make a silly impression on me, here and yonder, about my theories of which they cannot understand a word? I think it is funny and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it is the mystery of non-understanding that appeals to them...it impresses them, it has the colour and the appeal of the mysterious." Relativity was a fashionable notion. It promised to sweep away old absolutist notions and refurbish science with modern ideas. In art and literature too, revolutionary changes were doing away with old conventions and standards. All things were being made new. Einstein's relativity suited the mood. Nobody got very excited about Einstein's brownian motion or his photoelectric effect but relativity promised to turn the world inside out."

I have started the same discussion here (although someone seems to be trying to delete my comment):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ch7TyASivA
The Einstein Revolution

Pentcho Valev