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Old June 11th 16, 12:52 PM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Einstein's Relativity or How Idiotic Science Can Get

The glorious beginning of the collective idiocy:

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."

Symptoms of the final stages of the disease:

http://www.catholic.org/news/technol...y.php?id=69335
"World renown scientist says he has found proof of God! We may be living the the 'Matrix'. Michio Kaku believes he has found evidence for God in his work. Kaku is a well respected scientist, who has helped pioneer String Theory of the universe, the idea that the universe is formed by many different dimensions of space and time. String Theory is very complex and requires a significant background in physics to explain, but it is favored by many scientists because it succinctly answers many of the questions they have about the universe. [...] While working on String Theory, Kaku, discovered what he sees as evidence that the universe is created by an intelligence, rather than merely formed by random forces. He suggests he can explain it by what he calls, "primitive semi-radius tachyons." We do not yet have a succinct explanation of this idea from Kaku, other than he's referring to tachyons, which are theoretical particles that unbind particles from one another. Without getting into physics itself, Kaku concludes that we live in a Matrix-style universe, created by an intelligence. "I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence", he said. "Believe me, everything that we call chance today won't make sense anymore. To me it is clear that we exists in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuxFXHircaI
Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall: "Now, listen carefully. The faster you move, the heavier you get. Light travels at the same speed no matter how you look at it. No matter how I move relative to you light travels at the same speed. No matter who is doing the measurement and no matter what direction you are moving the speed of light is the same. The speed of light is the same no matter what direction or how fast... As you travel faster time slows down. Everything slows down. Everything slows down. Time slows down when you move. Time passes at a different rate. Clocks run slow. It's a monumental shift in how we see the world. It's a beautiful piece of science. It's a beautifully elegant theory. It's a beautiful piece of science. It's a beautiful piece..."

Up until recently Einsteinians used to worry about the dismal condition of their "science":

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/09/05/p...odern-physics/
Neil Turok: "It's the ultimate catastrophe: that theoretical physics has led to this crazy situation where the physicists are utterly confused and seem not to have any predictions at all."

http://www.nature.com/news/scientifi...hysics-1.16535
George Ellis and Joe Silk: "This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue - explicitly - that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/op...f-physics.html
Adam Frank, professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, and Marcelo Gleiser, professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College: "A Crisis at the Edge of Physics. Do physicists need empirical evidence to confirm their theories? You may think that the answer is an obvious yes, experimental confirmation being the very heart of science. But a growing controversy at the frontiers of physics and cosmology suggests that the situation is not so simple. (...) ...a mounting concern in fundamental physics: Today, our most ambitious science can seem at odds with the empirical methodology that has historically given the field its credibility."

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/fe...tific-theories
Frank Close, professor of physics at the University of Oxford: "In recent years, however, many physicists have developed theories of great mathematical elegance, but which are beyond the reach of empirical falsification, even in principle. The uncomfortable question that arises is whether they can still be regarded as science. Some scientists are proposing that the definition of what is "scientific" be loosened, while others fear that to do so could open the door for pseudo-scientists or charlatans to mislead the public and claim equal space for their views."

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7266
Peter Woit: "As far as this stuff goes, we're now not only at John Horgan's "End of Science", but gone past it already and deep into something different."

http://www7.inra.fr/dpenv/pdf/LevyLeblondC56.pdf
Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "La science souffre d'une forte perte de crédit, au sens propre comme au sens figuré : son soutien politique et économique, comme sa réputation intellectuelle et culturelle connaissent une crise grave. [...] Il est peut-être trop tard. Rien ne prouve, je le dis avec quelque gravité, que nous soyons capables d'opérer aujourd'hui ces nécessaires mutations. L'histoire, précisément, nous montre que, dans l'histoire des civilisations, les grands épisodes scientifiques sont terminés... [...] Rien ne garantit donc que dans les siècles Ã* venir, notre civilisation, désormais mondiale, continue Ã* garder Ã* la science en tant que telle la place qu'elle a eue pendant quelques siècles."

http://archipope.over-blog.com/article-12278372.html
"Nous nous trouvons dans une période de mutation extrêmement profonde. Nous sommes en effet Ã* la fin de la science telle que l'Occident l'a connue », tel est constat actuel que dresse Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, physicien théoricien, épistémologue et directeur des collections scientifiques des Editions du Seuil."

Einsteinians don't seem to worry anymore - they know that leaving the sinking ship is the only reasonable course of action:

http://c6.quickcachr.fotos.sapo.pt/i...2108_dBrrH.png

Pentcho Valev