THEORIZING IN THE ERA OF POSTSCIENTISM

Initially three fundamental laws of Nature were proposed:

1. The greenness of the crocodile exceeds its length.

2. In an adiabatically closed system the entropy increases.

3. The greater youthfulness of the travelling twin is due to
acceleration.

Then a century of deep thought and costly experimentation led to new
revolutionary insights: "The length of some insects exceeds their
greenness", "Entropy decreases in some microscopic systems", "Entropy
increases because probability increases", Entropy cannot decrease
because air molecules never assemble in the corner of the room", "The
greater youthfulness of the travelling twin can be proved in the
absence of any acceleration", "The twin at rest is older because the
travelling twin is not inertial", "The twin paradox can only be solved
by general relativity", "The twin paradox can be solved by special
relativity" etc.

Eventually the three fundamental laws, together with their
developments, became an essential part of the civilization. No laws,
no civilization. Accordingly, suggestions that the laws be eradicated
altogether should be regarded as terroristic attacks against the
civilization:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful
to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second
law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued
statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained
attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-
Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion about the
arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is
actually a RED HERRING."

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/academ/...elativity.html
"A more intriguing instance of this so-called 'time dilation' is the
well-known 'twin paradox', where one of two twins goes for a journey
and returns to find himself younger than his brother who remained
behind. This case allows more scope for muddled thinking because
acceleration can be brought into the discussion. Einstein maintained
the greater youthfulness of the travelling twin, and admitted that it
contradicts the principle of relativity, saying that acceleration must
be the cause (Einstein 1918). In this he has been followed by
relativists in a long controversy in many journals, much of which ably
sustains the character of earlier speculations which Born describes as
"monstrous" (Born 1956). Surely there are three conclusive reasons why
acceleration can have nothing to do with the time dilation
calculated:
(i) By taking a sufficiently long journey the effects of acceleration
at the start, turn-round and end could be made negligible compared
with the uniform velocity time dilation which is proportional to the
duration of the journey.
(ii) If there is no uniform time dilation, and the effect, if any, is
due to acceleration, then the use of a formula depending only on the
steady velocity and its duration cannot be justified.
(iii) There is, in principle, no need for acceleration. Twin A can get
his velocity V before synchronizing his clock with that of twin B as
he passes. He need not turn round: he could be passed by C who has a
velocity V in the opposite direction, and who adjusts his clock to
that of A as he passes. When C later passes B they can compare clock
readings. As far as the theoretical experiment is concerned, C's clock
can be considered to be A's clock returning without acceleration
since, by hypothesis, all the clocks have the same rate when at rest
together and change with motion in the same way independently of
direction. [fn. I am indebted to Lord Halsbury for pointing this out
to me.] (...) The three examples which have been dealt with above show
clearly that the difficulties are not paradoxes) but genuine
contradictions which follow inevitably from the principle of
relativity and the physical interpretations of the Lorentz
transformations. The special theory of relativity is therefore
untenable as a physical theory."

Pentcho Valev

Initially the civilization fought the looming absurdity and even
scored partial victories - e.g. the calorique and the ether, tumours
used for the justification of the false axioms, were removed. Yet in
the cases of thermodynamics and relativity tumours proved malignant
and the civilization was overwhelmed by the metastases in the end:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its
own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be
valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes
oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every
physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for
cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim
that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a
cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear
what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The
Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half
century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the
British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint
a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the
meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not
settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher
Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations
of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941,
p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it
continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is
the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and
mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical
development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He
characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal
swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that
physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p.
8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/con...ent=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
Peter Hayes: "In the interwar period there was a significant school of
thought that repudiated Einstein's theory of relativity on the grounds
that it contained elementary inconsistencies. Some of these critics
held extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic views, and this has tended to
discredit their technical objections to relativity as being
scientifically shallow. This paper investigates an alternative
possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of
Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an
ideology rather than as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how
relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it
scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make
the theory ideologically powerful. The implications of this argument
are examined with respect to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper's accounts of
the philosophy of science. (...) The prediction that clocks will move
at different rates is particularly well known, and the problem of
explaining how this can be so without violating the principle of
relativity is particularly obvious. The clock paradox, however, is
only one of a number of simple objections that have been raised to
different aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity. (Much of this
criticism is quite apart from and often predates the apparent
contradiction between relativity theory and quantum mechanics.) It is
rare to find any attempt at a detailed rebuttal of these criticisms by
professional physicists. However, physicists do sometimes give a
general response to criticisms that relativity theory is syncretic by
asserting that Einstein is logically consistent, but that to explain
why is so difficult that critics lack the capacity to understand the
argument. In this way, the handy claim that there are unspecified,
highly complex resolutions of simple apparent inconsistencies in the
theory can be linked to the charge that antirelativists have only a
shallow understanding of the matter, probably gleaned from misleading
popular accounts of the theory. (...) The argument for complexity
reverses the scientific preference for simplicity. Faced with obvious
inconsistencies, the simple response is to conclude that Einstein's
claims for the explanatory scope of the special and general theory are
overstated. To conclude instead that that relativity theory is right
for reasons that are highly complex is to replace Occam's razor with a
potato masher. (...) The defence of complexity implies that the novice
wishing to enter the profession of theoretical physics must accept
relativity on faith. It implicitly concedes that, without an
understanding of relativity theory's higher complexities, it appears
illogical, which means that popular "explanations" of relativity are
necessarily misleading. But given Einstein's fame, physicists do not
approach the theory for the first time once they have developed their
expertise. Rather, they are exposed to and probably examined on
popular explanations of relativity in their early training. How are
youngsters new to the discipline meant to respond to these accounts?
Are they misled by false explanations and only later inculcated with
true ones? What happens to those who are not misled? Are they supposed
to accept relativity merely on the grounds of authority? The argument
of complexity suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join
the physics profession, students must either be willing to suspend
disbelief and go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail
to notice the apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the
inconsistencies and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this
merely shows that they are unable to understand the theory. The
gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research
institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises
problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A
winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of
Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are
then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics.
Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of
elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing
question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these
circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on
scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of
realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the
theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of
professional discourse. (...) The argument that Einstein fomented an
ideological rather than a scientific revolution helps to explain of
one of the features of this revolution that puzzled Kuhn: despite the
apparent scope of the general theory, very little has come out of it.
Viewing relativity theory as an ideology also helps to account for
Poppers doubts over whether special theory can be retained, given
experimental results in quantum mechanics and Einsteins questionable
approach to defining simultaneity. Both Kuhn and Popper have looked to
the other branch of the theory - Popper to the general and Kuhn to the
special - to try and retain their view of Einstein as a revolutionary
scientist. According to the view proposed here, this only indicates
how special and general theories function together as an ideology, as
when one side of the theory is called into question, the other can be
called upon to rescue it. The triumph of relativity theory represents
the triumph of ideology not only in the profession of physics bur also
in the philosophy of science. These conclusions are of considerable
interest to both theoretical physics and to social epistemology. It
would, however, be naïve to think that theoretical physicists will
take the slightest notice of them."

Pentcho Valev

On Oct 9, 9:54*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
....
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/con...ent=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
Peter Hayes: "... The argument
of complexity suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join
the physics profession, students must either be willing to suspend
disbelief and go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail
to notice the apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the
inconsistencies and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this
merely shows that they are unable to understand the theory. The
gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research
institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises
problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A
winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of
Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are
then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics.
Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of
elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing
question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these
circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on
scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of
realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the
theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of
professional discourse. ..."

Pentcho Valev


Very true!

Suppose the Relativity is now 'bundled out' through a solid
experimental invalidation, how many Physicists will actually feel
sorry for the Relativity as well for Einstein?

Say a thousand or ten thousand?

GSS
http://book.fundamentalphysics.info

In 1824 Carnot's theorem (the prototype of the second law of
thermodynamics) was deducible from the following axioms:

AXIOM 1: Heat is an indestructible substance (cannot be converted into
work in the heat engine).
AXIOM 2: Perpetuum mobile of the first kind is impossible.

In 1850 Carnot's theorem became deducible from the following axioms:

AXIOM 1: Heat is not an indestructible substance (can be converted
into work in the heat engine).
AXIOM 2: Perpetuum mobile of the first kind is impossible.
AXIOM 3: Reversible transfer of heat from cold to hot is possible if
spontaneous transfer of heat from cold to hot is possible.
AXIOM 4: Spontaneous transfer of heat from cold to hot is impossible:

http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Clausius.html
"Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Warme", 1850, Rudolf Clausius: "Carnot
assumed, as has already been mentioned, that the equivalent of the
work done by heat is found in the mere transfer of heat from a hotter
to a colder body, while the quantity of heat remains undiminished. The
latter part of this assumption--namely, that the quantity of heat
remains undiminished--contradicts our former principle, and must
therefore be rejected... (...) It is this maximum of work which must
be compared with the heat transferred. When this is done it appears
that there is in fact ground for asserting, with Carnot, that it
depends only on the quantity of the heat transferred and on the
temperatures t and tau of the two bodies A and B, but not on the
nature of the substance by means of which the work is done. (...) If
we now suppose that there are two substances of which the one can
produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of
heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat
from A to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two
substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above
process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their
original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly
counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle,
the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. The
only change will occur in the distribution of the heat, since more
heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the
whole heat will be transferred from B to A. By repeating these two
processes alternately it would be possible, without any expenditure of
force or any other change, to transfer as much heat as we please from
a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other
relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize
temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder
bodies."

In 1887 the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment was
deducible from the following axioms:

AXIOM 1: The speed of light varies with the speed of the emitter as
predicted by Newton's emission theory of light.
AXIOM 2: All inertial frames are equivalent:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/arch.../02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation,
has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with
Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late
19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light
predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised
the greatest theoretician of the day."

In 1892 the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment became
deducible from the following axioms:

AXIOM 1: The speed of light does not vary with the speed of the
emitter.
AXIOM 2: All inertial frames are equivalent.
AXIOM 3: Objects moving through the ether contract in the direction of
their movement.

Pentcho Valev

On Oct 10, 9:16*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
I have English translations of both books. I have perused them.
You are wrong. The two texts do not contradict each other. If you
have copies of these books, I suggest that you reread them.
The word "caloric" means entropy. "Entropy" has properties
consistent with an indestructible substance. "Entropy" can not be
converted to work.
Clausius says that entropy can do work. Clausius says that
entropy can carry energy. Clausius does not say that entropy can be
converted to work.
In 1824 Carnot's theorem (the prototype of the second law of
thermodynamics) was deducible from the following axioms:

AXIOM 1: Heat is an indestructible substance (cannot be converted into
work in the heat engine).
AXIOM 2: Perpetuum mobile of the first kind is impossible.
"Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire" by Sadi Carnot (1824).
Carnot says on the first page:
"Everyone knows that heat can produce motions. That it possesses
vast motive-power no one can doubt, when the steam engine is so well
known."
Heat posses motive power. It is not power. Heat (caloric) is a
substance that can do work.

In 1850 Carnot's theorem became deducible from the following axioms:

AXIOM 1: Heat is not an indestructible substance (can be converted
into work in the heat engine).
"Motive Power of Heat, and on the Laws which can be deduced from the
Theory of Heat" by Rudolf Clausius.
Clausius says on the first page:
"Carnot showed that whenever work was done by heat and no
permanent change occurs in the condition of the working body, a
certain quantity of heat passes from a colder to a hotter body."
Let me explain. Heat isn't "converted" to work, according to
Clausius. Heat (caloric) "does" work. Heat is not energy. Both Carnot
and Clausius use the word "heat" to mean what we now call entropy.
I don't know French. Perhaps you can explain to me how my
English translations erred |:-)

The philosophy of Postscientism:

Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."

Thomas Kuhn: "Something even more fundamental than standards and
values is, however, also at stake. I have so far argued only that
paradigms are constitutive of science. Now I wish to display a sense
in which they are constitutive of nature as well."

Paul Feyerabend: "Today science prevails not because of its
comparative merits but because the show has been rigged in its
favour."

http://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."

Lakatos' protective belt philosophy creates the following dilemma. The
null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment confirms the equation
c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light and refutes
Einstein's 1905 light postulate (c'=c). In the absence of ad hoc
auxiliary hypotheses this is a true statement so one can accept it and
leave it at that. If, however, one wants the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment to confirm c'=c and refute c'=c+v, one has
to advance ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses (length contraction, time
dilation). That is, one has to procrusteanize the reality into
conformity with the following idiocies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIy...related&search

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...barn_pole.html
"These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors
at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a
switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in
the barn. Now someone takes the pole and tries to run (at nearly the
speed of light) through the barn with the pole horizontal. Special
Relativity (SR) says that a moving object is contracted in the
direction of motion: this is called the Lorentz Contraction. So, if
the pole is set in motion lengthwise, then it will contract in the
reference frame of a stationary observer.....So, as the pole passes
through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the
barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your
switch. Of course, you open them again pretty quickly, but at least
momentarily you had the contracted pole shut up in your barn. The
runner emerges from the far door unscathed.....If the doors are kept
shut the rod will obviously smash into the barn door at one end. If
the door withstands this the leading end of the rod will come to rest
in the frame of reference of the stationary observer. There can be no
such thing as a rigid rod in relativity so the trailing end will not
stop immediately and the rod will be compressed beyond the amount it
was Lorentz contracted. If it does not explode under the strain and it
is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back
to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other
end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be
trapped in a compressed state inside the barn."

http://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/Revolutions
"Cependant, si une fusée de 100 m passait devant nous à une vitesse
proche de celle de la lumière, elle pourrait sembler ne mesurer que 50
m, ou même moins. Bien sûr, la question qui vient tout de suite à
l'esprit est: «Cette contraction n'est-elle qu'une illusion?» Il
semble tout à fait incroyable que le simple mouvement puisse comprimer
un objet aussi rigide qu'une fusée. Et pourtant, la contraction est
réelle... mais SANS COMPRESSION physique de l'objet! Ainsi, une fusée
de 100 m passant à toute vitesse dans un tunnel de 60 m pourrait être
entièrement contenue dans ce tunnel pendant une fraction de seconde,
durant laquelle il serait possible de fermer des portes aux deux
bouts! La fusée est donc réellement plus courte. Pourtant, il n'y a
PAS DE COMPRESSION matérielle ou physique de l'engin. Comment est-ce
possible?"

http://alcor.concordia.ca/~scol/semi...ts/Durand.html
"La contraction une longueur est un phénomène à la fois réel mais sans
déformation structurelle. C'est un phénomène réel (et non pas une
illusion) car, par exemple, une perche dont la longueur au repos est
plus grande que la longueur au repos d'une grange peut réellement être
contenue dans cette dernière si elle se déplace assez rapidement. Par
contre, il ne peut y avoir de contraction structurelle de la perche,
i.e de déformation matérielle de l'objet, car la contraction de sa
longueur aurait aussi lieu si c'était plutôt l'observateur qui se
mettait en mouvement sans changer l'état de mouvement de la perche.
Autrement dit, sans changer l'état de la perche, en se mettant soi-
même en mouvement, on change sa longueur: ce n'est donc clairement pas
une contraction matérielle (l'état de la perche est le même dans les
deux cas)."

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."

Pentcho Valev

On 11 أكتوبر, 12:06, Pentcho Valev wrote:
The philosophy of Postscientism:

Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."

Thomas Kuhn: "Something even more fundamental than standards and
values is, however, also at stake. I have so far argued only that
paradigms are constitutive of science. Now I wish to display a sense
in which they are constitutive of nature as well."

Paul Feyerabend: "Today science prevails not because of its
comparative merits but because the show has been rigged in its
favour."

http://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."

Lakatos' protective belt philosophy creates the following dilemma. The
null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment confirms the equation
c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light and refutes
Einstein's 1905 light postulate (c'=c). In the absence of ad hoc
auxiliary hypotheses this is a true statement so one can accept it and
leave it at that. If, however, one wants the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment to confirm c'=c and refute c'=c+v, one has
to advance ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses (length contraction, time
dilation). That is, one has to procrusteanize the reality into
conformity with the following idiocies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIy...related&search

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...barn_pole.html
"These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors
at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a
switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in
the barn. Now someone takes the pole and tries to run (at nearly the
speed of light) through the barn with the pole horizontal. Special
Relativity (SR) says that a moving object is contracted in the
direction of motion: this is called the Lorentz Contraction. So, if
the pole is set in motion lengthwise, then it will contract in the
reference frame of a stationary observer.....So, as the pole passes
through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the
barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your
switch. Of course, you open them again pretty quickly, but at least
momentarily you had the contracted pole shut up in your barn. The
runner emerges from the far door unscathed.....If the doors are kept
shut the rod will obviously smash into the barn door at one end. If
the door withstands this the leading end of the rod will come to rest
in the frame of reference of the stationary observer. There can be no
such thing as a rigid rod in relativity so the trailing end will not
stop immediately and the rod will be compressed beyond the amount it
was Lorentz contracted. If it does not explode under the strain and it
is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back
to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other
end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be
trapped in a compressed state inside the barn."

http://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/Revolutions
"Cependant, si une fusée de 100 m passait devant nous Ã* une vitesse
proche de celle de la lumière, elle pourrait sembler ne mesurer que 50
m, ou même moins. Bien sûr, la question qui vient tout de suite Ã*
l'esprit est: «Cette contraction n'est-elle qu'une illusion?» Il
semble tout Ã* fait incroyable que le simple mouvement puisse comprimer
un objet aussi rigide qu'une fusée. Et pourtant, la contraction est
réelle... mais SANS COMPRESSION physique de l'objet! Ainsi, une fusée
de 100 m passant Ã* toute vitesse dans un tunnel de 60 m pourrait être
entièrement contenue dans ce tunnel pendant une fraction de seconde,
durant laquelle il serait possible de fermer des portes aux deux
bouts! La fusée est donc réellement plus courte. Pourtant, il n'y a
PAS DE COMPRESSION matérielle ou physique de l'engin. Comment est-ce
possible?"

http://alcor.concordia.ca/~scol/semi...stracts/Durand....
"La contraction une longueur est un phénomène Ã* la fois réel mais sans
déformation structurelle. C'est un phénomène réel (et non pas une
illusion) car, par exemple, une perche dont la longueur au repos est
plus grande que la longueur au repos d'une grange peut réellement être
contenue dans cette dernière si elle se déplace assez rapidement. Par
contre, il ne peut y avoir de contraction structurelle de la perche,
i.e de déformation matérielle de l'objet, car la contraction de sa
longueur aurait aussi lieu si c'était plutôt l'observateur qui se
mettait en mouvement sans changer l'état de mouvement de la perche.
Autrement dit, sans changer l'état de la perche, en se mettant soi-
même en mouvement, on change sa longueur: ce n'est donc clairement pas
une contraction matérielle (l'état de la perche est le même dans les
deux cas)."

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."

Pentcho Valev


the best

On Oct 11, 5:06*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
The philosophy of Postscientism:

Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."
You replied to my post without addressing the main issue of that
post. I did not make any comment about relativity. I was objecting to
your claims as concerns thermodynamics.
Your arguments make no sense in English. Part of your problem is
that you don't know English very well. However, both Clausius and
Carnot wrote in French. I suspect your command of French is as poor as
your command of English, but I can't be sure.
Carnot and Clausius are talking about the same thing. There is no
logical contradiction in their theories. The word "caloric" in their
monographs refers to entropy, not energy.
As to that experiment you like to quote concerning this bridge
made of water. The experimental results neither contradict the second
law of thermodynamics nor do they constitute a perpetual motion
machine.
The two beakers are not at different temperatures (degrees).
They are at different electrical potentials (volts). The two beakers
do not constitute a closed system because electric current is being
provided to the beakers. The system is not in steady state because the
temperature of the water is increasing with time. There is no motion
of the water from one beaker to the other since both beakers remain
full. Any motion that occurs is not perpetual, since the bridge
collapses (due to increasing temperature). Thus, the reference that
you cite has nothing to do with a violation of the second law.
Thank you for the link, though. It is a very interesting
experiment. It reminds me of the movie "The Abyss." The aliens in the
story manipulate water. I didn't think such manipulation was possible.
However, here it is. Hollywood science fiction is right once more!
The second law was never violated, though. Not even in the
fictional world of this movie.

On Oct 13, 3:33*am, Darwin123 wrote:
: Part of your problem is that you don't know English very well.

: I suspect your command of French is as poor as your command of
English, but I can't be sure.

Pink crocodiles do not exist, thus therefor as a result therefrom
derived one must conclude therefrom thereafter that the greenness of
the crocodile must exceeds its length because the length of the pink
crocodile is unquestionably zero.

Or do you believe in pink crocodiles?

http://www.opfocus.org/index.php?topic=story&v=8&s=4
"The speed of light is a universal constant - or is it? Some evidence
seems to suggest it might actually be slowing down. Will we soon have
to revise our cosmological beliefs? If light were slowing down, we
would have to revise many of our astronomical beliefs: from the age of
the Universe to the distances between galaxies, from the dark matter
to the definition of many physical constants. What a tremendous set of
implications! Some evidence that this might indeed be the case starts
piling up, as recently reported by Yves-Henri Sanejouand from the
University of Nantes in France."

The set of implications is too tremendous for the civilization to be
able to get rid of Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light
postulate. In a sense "getting rid of the false constant-speed-of-
light postulate" is tantamount to "getting rid of itself":

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._alquimica.jpg

http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
The farce of physics
Bryan Wallace
"Einstein's special relativity theory with his second postulate that
the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin that holds the
whole range of modern physics theories together. Shatter this
postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce! (...) The
speed of light is c+v."

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/p.../0305457v3.pdf
New varying speed of light theories
Joao Magueijo
"In sharp contrast, the constancy of the speed of light has remain
sacred, and the term "heresy" is occasionally used in relation to
"varying speed of light theories". The reason is clear: the constancy
of c, unlike the constancy of G or e, is the pillar of special
relativity and thus of modern physics. Varying c theories are expected
to cause much more structural damage to physics formalism than other
varying constant theories."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

Initially the civilization fought the looming absurdity and even
scored partial victories - e.g. the calorique and the ether, tumours
used for the justification of the false axioms, were removed. Yet in
the cases of thermodynamics and relativity tumours proved malignant
and the civilization was overwhelmed by the metastases in the end:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its
own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be
valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes
oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every
physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for
cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim
that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a
cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear
what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The
Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half
century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the
British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint
a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the
meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not
settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher
Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations
of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941,
p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it
continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is
the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and
mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical
development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He
characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal
swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that
physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p.
8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/con...ent=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
Peter Hayes: "In the interwar period there was a significant school of
thought that repudiated Einstein's theory of relativity on the grounds
that it contained elementary inconsistencies. Some of these critics
held extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic views, and this has tended to
discredit their technical objections to relativity as being
scientifically shallow. This paper investigates an alternative
possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of
Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an
ideology rather than as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how
relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it
scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make
the theory ideologically powerful. The implications of this argument
are examined with respect to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper's accounts of
the philosophy of science. (...) The prediction that clocks will move
at different rates is particularly well known, and the problem of
explaining how this can be so without violating the principle of
relativity is particularly obvious. The clock paradox, however, is
only one of a number of simple objections that have been raised to
different aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity. (Much of this
criticism is quite apart from and often predates the apparent
contradiction between relativity theory and quantum mechanics.) It is
rare to find any attempt at a detailed rebuttal of these criticisms by
professional physicists. However, physicists do sometimes give a
general response to criticisms that relativity theory is syncretic by
asserting that Einstein is logically consistent, but that to explain
why is so difficult that critics lack the capacity to understand the
argument. In this way, the handy claim that there are unspecified,
highly complex resolutions of simple apparent inconsistencies in the
theory can be linked to the charge that antirelativists have only a
shallow understanding of the matter, probably gleaned from misleading
popular accounts of the theory. (...) The argument for complexity
reverses the scientific preference for simplicity. Faced with obvious
inconsistencies, the simple response is to conclude that Einstein's
claims for the explanatory scope of the special and general theory are
overstated. To conclude instead that that relativity theory is right
for reasons that are highly complex is to replace Occam's razor with a
potato masher. (...) The defence of complexity implies that the novice
wishing to enter the profession of theoretical physics must accept
relativity on faith. It implicitly concedes that, without an
understanding of relativity theory's higher complexities, it appears
illogical, which means that popular "explanations" of relativity are
necessarily misleading. But given Einstein's fame, physicists do not
approach the theory for the first time once they have developed their
expertise. Rather, they are exposed to and probably examined on
popular explanations of relativity in their early training. How are
youngsters new to the discipline meant to respond to these accounts?
Are they misled by false explanations and only later inculcated with
true ones? What happens to those who are not misled? Are they supposed
to accept relativity merely on the grounds of authority? The argument
of complexity suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join
the physics profession, students must either be willing to suspend
disbelief and go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail
to notice the apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the
inconsistencies and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this
merely shows that they are unable to understand the theory. The
gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research
institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises
problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A
winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of
Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are
then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics.
Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of
elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing
question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these
circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on
scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of
realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the
theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of
professional discourse. (...) The argument that Einstein fomented an
ideological rather than a scientific revolution helps to explain of
one of the features of this revolution that puzzled Kuhn: despite the
apparent scope of the general theory, very little has come out of it.
Viewing relativity theory as an ideology also helps to account for
Poppers doubts over whether special theory can be retained, given
experimental results in quantum mechanics and Einsteins questionable
approach to defining simultaneity. Both Kuhn and Popper have looked to
the other branch of the theory - Popper to the general and Kuhn to the
special - to try and retain their view of Einstein as a revolutionary
scientist. According to the view proposed here, this only indicates
how special and general theories function together as an ideology, as
when one side of the theory is called into question, the other can be
called upon to rescue it. The triumph of relativity theory represents
the triumph of ideology not only in the profession of physics bur also
in the philosophy of science. These conclusions are of considerable
interest to both theoretical physics and to social epistemology. It
would, however, be naïve to think that theoretical physicists will
take the slightest notice of them."

Pentcho Valev