POSTSCIENTISM: REMNANTS OF CONSCIENCE

http://www.wickedlocal.com/pembroke/...lton-Ratcliffe
Hilton Ratcliffe: "I have colleagues who have been barred from
observatories, had been refused publication, had research funding
withdrawn, lost jobs and even been chased from their country of birth
- all because they insisted on publicly announcing what they had seen
in the heavens, which did not fit the preferred model. They have so
much courage it makes my eyes water. They almost literally put their
lives on the line. They are the Galileos of our time. (...) Theory
would be more interesting if it were logical and comprehensible. In
the case of mathematical theory, it is neither. There have been no new
fundamental discoveries in physics for over half a century. Physics is
dying, being suffocated by meta-mathematics, and physics departments
at major universities with grand histories in physical science are
closing down for lack of interest. (...) Professor Don Scott told me
once, “The problems with cosmology and astrophysics in the modern era
are not scientific so much as sociological.” The Big Bang Theory is a
faith-based system. People believe it because they want to believe it,
not because they have been convinced by the supporting data. When
Einstein was ready to write down what was to become his General Theory
of Relativity, he found that the mathematics required by such a
concept were quite beyond him. He consequently engaged the services of
his friend, mathematics professor Marcel Grossman, to construct the
mathematical formalism. Grossman felt, for reasons we can only
speculate, that the best way to achieve this was to use a new and
arcane mathematical language called Differential Geometry. It is
estimated that when GTR was published in 1915, only about a dozen
specialist meta-mathematicians in the world could decipher the math.
Yet, before long, Einstein was the focus of intense international
adulation by millions of people. Since only a minute fraction of those
fans could understand the theory, there had to be another reason for
the adulation. It was not the workings or the plausibility of the
theory that impressed people so much that they created from it an
enduring dogma. It was a psychosocial imperative that characterized
all widely defended dogma, including Big Bang Theory, of course, which
is the offspring of GTR. Once the new dogma has become entrenched
within the educational system, it is done and dusted. Universities
(mostly inadvertently) become in effect propaganda machines and
produce scientists who quite frankly cannot practice or teach physics
any other way."

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."

http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
Bryan Wallace: "There is a popular argument that the world's oldest
rofession is sexual prostitution. I think that it is far more likely
that the oldest profession is scientific prostitution, and that it is
still alive and well, and thriving in the 20th century. (...) The
people who tend to believe more in theories than in the scientific
method of testing theories, and who ignore the evidence against the
theories they believe in, should be considered pseudoscientists and
not true scientists. To the extent that the professed beliefs are
based on the desire for status, wealth, or political reasons, these
people are scientific prostitutes. (...) 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. (...) I expect
that the scientists of the future will consider the dominant abstract
physics theories of our time in much the same light as we now consider
the Medieval theories of how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin or that the Earth stands still and the Universe moves around it."

Pentcho Valev

Imagine a conscientious scientist considering the following text:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
p.39: "A more important objection, it seems to me, is that Clausius
bases his conclusion that the entropy increases in a nicht umkehrbar
[irreversible] process on the assumption that such a process can be
closed by an umkehrbar [reversible] process to become a cycle. This is
essential for the definition of the entropy difference between the
initial and final states. But the assumption is far from obvious for a
system more complex than an ideal gas, or for states far from
equilibrium, or for processes other than the simple exchange of heat
and work. Thus, the generalisation to all transformations occurring in
Nature is somewhat rash."

The conscientious scientist quickly finds out that "far from obvious"
is a euphemism for "dead wrong": spontaneous transfer of heat from a
hot to a cold body CANNOT "be closed by an umkehrbar [reversible]
process to become a cycle". In a moment of aberration the scientist
sees a paper of his, entitled:

"Clausius' Deduction of the Law of Entropy Increase Is Based on a
False Axiom"

published in Nature or Science. Then the conscientious scientist
desperately realizes that he is swimming in the Great Postscientific
Ocean where the Ever Increasing Entropy has hundreds of definitions,
hundreds of deductions, hundreds of interpretations, hundreds of
anything. The power of the concept comes from its multifariousness;
any single definition or deduction or interpretation is insignificant.
The paper submitted to Nature or Science would not even reach
reviewers.

Pentcho Valev

More remnants of conscience in the era of Postscientism:

http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/leadi...nstein/5/68244
"Leading Astronomer To Explore Dark Energy And Einstein (...) The
universe is expanding faster and faster but it is because of a
mysterious force called dark energy or a break down in Einstein's
theory of relativity?"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...nts-2010-06-18
NEW SCIENTIST: "Claiming that something can move faster than light is
a good conversation-stopper in physics. People edge away from you in
cocktail parties; friends never return phone calls. You just don't
mess with Albert Einstein. (...) Singleton says the basic principle of
FTL currents goes back to work by English physicist Oliver Heaviside
and German physicist Arnold Sommerfeldt in the 1890s, but was
forgotten because Einstein's theories dissuaded physicists from
thinking about FTL phenomena, even those that evaded the theories'
strictures. I've only just touched on this engrossing physics and I
recommend you read the team's papers, beginning with this one. "People
just don't think about things moving faster than the speed of light,"
Singleton says. "This is a completely wide open and unexplored field."

http://io9.com/5607692/are-physicist...up-dark-energy
Dave Goldberg, Associate Professor of Physics at Drexel University:
"The idea of dark energy is so ridiculous that almost every question
is based on trying to make it go away. And believe me, I share your
concerns. I don't want to believe in dark energy, but I have no
choice. (...) Basically, if you want to get rid of dark energy, you
have to get rid of relativity."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/26essay.html
"The worrying continued. Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist from Arizona
State, said that most theories were wrong. "We get the notions they
are right because we keep talking about them," he said. Not only are
most theories wrong, he said, but most data are also wrong..."

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc.../87150187.html
"Dark Energy: The Biggest Mystery in the Universe (...) "We have a
complete inventory of the universe," Sean Carroll, a California
Institute of Technology cosmologist, has said, "and it makes no
sense."

http://io9.com/5528758/ask-a-physici...in-dark-matter
Dave Goldberg, Associate Professor of Physics at Drexel University:
"And don't even get me started about Dark Energy. It's the stuff that
accelerates the universe, and if you think you've got a problem with
Dark Matter, wait'll you see Dark Energy. It's no so much that we
don't understand where Dark Energy could come from; it's just that the
"natural" value (the one that comes out of reasonable assumptions
based on vacuum energy) is about 10^100 times the density that we
actually observe. For my money, this is the absolute biggest problem
in physics."

http://plus.maths.org/issue37/featur...ein/index.html
John Barrow: "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."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...nd-relativism/
Washington Times: "A frequently heard statement of cultural relativism
goes like this: "If it feels right for you, it's OK. Who is to say
you're wrong?" One individual's experience is as "valid" as another's.
There is no "preferred" or higher vantage point from which to judge
these things. Not just beauty, but right and wrong are in the eye of
the beholder. The "I" indeed is the "ultimate measure." The special
theory of relativity imposes on the physical world a claim that is
very similar to the one made by relativism. (...) So how come the
speed of light always stays the same? Einstein argued that when the
observer moves relative to an object, distance and time always adjust
themselves just enough to preserve light speed as a constant. Speed is
distance divided by time. So, Einstein argued, length contracts and
time dilates to just the extent needed to keep the speed of light ever
the same. Space and time are the alpha and omega of the physical
world. They are the stage within which everything happens. But if they
must trim and tarry whenever the observer moves, that puts "the
observer" in the driver's seat. Reality becomes observer-dependent.
Again, then, we find that the "I" is the ultimate measure. Pondering
this in Prague in the 1950s, Beckmann could not accept it. The
observer's function is to observe, he said, not to affect what's out
there. Relativity meant that two and two didn't quite add up any more
and elevated science into a priesthood of obscurity. Common sense
could no longer be trusted."

ftp://ftp.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/SI...orts/06-46.pdf
"From the pedagogical point of view, thermodynamics is a disaster. As
the authors rightly state in the introduction, many aspects are
"riddled with inconsistencies". They quote V.I. Arnold, who concedes
that "every mathematician knows it is impossible to understand an
elementary course in thermodynamics". Nobody has eulogized this
confusion more colorfully than the late Clifford Truesdell. On page 6
of his book "The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics" 1822-1854
(Springer Verlag, 1980), he calls thermodynamics "a dismal swamp of
obscurity". Elsewhere, in despair of trying to make sense of the
writings of some local heros as De Groot, Mazur, Casimir, and
Prigogine, Truesdell suspects that there is "something rotten in the
(thermodynamic) state of the Low Countries" (see page 134 of Rational
Thermodynamics, McGraw-Hill, 1969)."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...tion.education
Harry Kroto: "The wrecking of British science....The scientific method
is based on what I prefer to call the inquiring mindset. It includes
all areas of human thoughtful activity that categorically eschew
"belief", the enemy of rationality. This mindset is a nebulous mixture
of doubt, questioning, observation, experiment and, above all,
curiosity, which small children possess in spades. I would argue that
it is the most important, intrinsically human quality we possess, and
it is responsible for the creation of the modern, enlightened portion
of the world that some of us are fortunate to inhabit. Curiously, for
the majority of our youth, the educational system magically causes
this capacity to disappear by adolescence.....Do I think there is any
hope for UK? I am really not sure."

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/hutchison/080616
"Like bronze idols that are hollow inside, Einstein built a cluster of
"Potemkin villages," which are false fronts with nothing behind them.
Grigori Potemkin (17391791) was a general-field marshal, Russian
statesman, and favorite of Empress Catherine the Great. He is alleged
to have built facades of non-existent villages along desolate
stretches of the Dnieper River to impress Catherine as she sailed to
the Crimea in 1787. Actors posing as happy peasants stood in front of
these pretty stage sets and waved to the pleased Empress."

http://www.humanamente.eu/PDF/Issue13_Paper_Norton.pdf
John Norton: "It is common to dismiss the passage of time as illusory
since its passage has not been captured within modern physical
theories. I argue that this is a mistake. Other than the awkward fact
that it does not appear in our physics, there is no indication that
the passage of time is an illusion. (...) The passage of time is a
real, objective fact that obtains in the world independently of us.
How, you may wonder, could we think anything else? One possibility is
that we might think that the passage of time is some sort of illusion,
an artifact of the peculiar way that our brains interact with the
world. Indeed that is just what you might think if you have spent a
lot of time reading modern physics. Following from the work of
Einstein, Minkowski and many more, physics has given a wonderfully
powerful conception of space and time. Relativity theory, in its most
perspicacious form, melds space and time together to form a four-
dimensional spacetime. The study of motion in space and all other
processes that unfold in them merely reduce to the study of an odd
sort of geometry that prevails in spacetime. In many ways, time turns
out to be just like space. In this spacetime geometry, there are
differences between space and time. But a difference that somehow
captures the passage of time is not to be found. There is no passage
of time."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...erse-tick.html
"It is still not clear who is right, says John Norton, a philosopher
based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is
hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in
physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The
trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with
relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose
geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...me-an-illusion
Craig Callender: "Einstein mounted the next assault by doing away with
the idea of absolute simultaneity. According to his special theory of
relativity, what events are happening at the same time depends on how
fast you are going. The true arena of events is not time or space, but
their union: spacetime. Two observers moving at different velocities
disagree on when and where an event occurs, but they agree on its
spacetime location. Space and time are secondary concepts that, as
mathematician Hermann Minkowski, who had been one of Einstein's
university professors, famously declared, "are doomed to fade away
into mere shadows." And things only get worse in 1915 with Einstein's
general theory of relativity, which extends special relativity to
situations where the force of gravity operates. Gravity distorts time,
so that a second's passage here may not mean the same thing as a
second's passage there. Only in rare cases is it possible to
synchronize clocks and have them stay synchronized, even in principle.
You cannot generally think of the world as unfolding, tick by tick,
according to a single time parameter. In extreme situations, the world
might not be carvable into instants of time at all. It then becomes
impossible to say that an event happened before or after another."

Pentcho Valev

More remnants of conscience in the era of Postscientism:

http://school.maths.uwa.edu.au/~mike/Trouble.doc
Mike Alder: "It is easy to see the consequences of the takeover by the
bureaucrats. Bureaucrats favour uniformity, it simplifies their lives.
They want rules to follow. They prefer the dead to the living. They
have taken over religions, the universities and now they are taking
over Science. And they are killing it in the process. The forms and
rituals remain, but the spirit is dead. The cold frozen corpse is so
much more appealing to the bureaucratic mind-set than the living
spirit of the quest for insight. Bureaucracies put a premium on the
old being in charge, which puts a stop to innovation. Something
perhaps will remain, but it will no longer attract the best minds.
This, essentially, is the Smolin position. He gives details and
examples of the death of Physics, although he, being American, is
optimistic that it can be reversed. I am not. (...) Developing ideas
and applying them is done by a certain kind of temperament in a
certain kind of setting, one where there is a good deal of personal
freedom and a willingness to take risks. No doubt we still have the
people. But the setting is gone and will not come back. Science is a
product of the renaissance and an entrepreneurial spirit. It will not
survive the triumph of bureacracy. Despite having the infrastructure,
China never developed Science. And soon the West won't have it
either."

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServ...reg_ls_physics
"For two centuries after Isaac Newton, the science of physics served
as the leading example of the power of the human mind. Its basic
content and method, and the life-saving technology that emerged from
it, sent a message that resounded throughout the western world: man
can live and prosper by the guidance of reason. However, for the past
century, theoretical physicists have been sending a different message.
They have rejected causality in favor of chance, logic in favor of
contradictions, and reality in favor of fantasy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20.../22/schools.g2
"But instead of celebrating, physicists are in mourning after a report
showed a dramatic decline in the number of pupils studying physics at
school. The number taking A-level physics has dropped by 38% over the
past 15 years, a catastrophic meltdown that is set to continue over
the next few years. The report warns that a shortage of physics
teachers and a lack of interest from pupils could mean the end of
physics in state schools. Thereafter, physics would be restricted to
only those students who could afford to go to posh schools. Britain
was the home of Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and Paul Dirac, and
Brits made world-class contributions to understanding gravity, quantum
physics and electromagnetism - and yet the British physicist is now
facing extinction. But so what? Physicists are not as cuddly as
pandas, so who cares if we disappear?"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ingdahl2.html
"But there has been a marked global decrease of students willing to
study physics, and funding has decreased accordingly. Not only that,
the best students are not heading for studies in physics, finding
other fields more appealing, and science teachers to schools are
getting scarcer in supply. In fact, warning voices are being heard
about the spread of a "scientific illiteracy" where many living in
technologically advanced societies lack the knowledge and the ability
for critical thinking in order to function in their daily
environment."

http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemist...69_preface.pdf
"I believe that the time is ripe to acknowledge that the term entropy,
as originally coined by Clausius, is an unfortunate choice. Moreover,
it is also a misleading term both in its meaning in ancient and in
contemporary Greek. On this matter, I cannot do any better than Leon
Cooper (1968). Cooper cites the original passage from Clausius: in
choosing the word "Entropy," Clausius wrote: "I prefer going to the
ancient languages for the names of important scientific quantities, so
that they mean the same thing in all living tongues. I propose,
accordingly, to call S the entropy of a body, after the Greek word
"transformation." I have designedly coined the word entropy to be
similar to energy, for these two quantities are so analogous in their
physical significance, that an analogy of denominations seems to be
helpful." Right after quoting Clausius' explanation on his reasons for
the choice of the word "Entropy," Cooper commented: "By doing this,
rather than extracting a name from the body of the current language
(say: lost heat), he succeeded in coining a word that meant the same
thing to everybody: nothing." I fully agree with Cooper's comment;
however, I have two additional comments, and contrary to Cooper, I
venture into taking the inevitable conclusion: First, I agree that
"entropy means the same thing to everybody: nothing." But more than
that, entropy is also a misleading term...."
Arieh Ben-Naim
Department of Physical Chemistry
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

Jean-Pierre Maury reveals one of the fundamental secrets of
Postscientism: In his notes written between 1824 and 1832 Sadi Carnot
discovered the first law of thermodynamics and rejected the second:

Jean-Pierre Maury, "Carnot et la machine à vapeur", Presses
Universitaires de France, 1986:
p. 108: "Et Carnot, après 1824? Est-il découragé par cet échec?
Pourquoi ne publie-t-il pas autre chose? Bien sûr, il va mourir très
tôt (en 1832). Mais tout de même, en huit ans....C'est qu'au début de
ces huit ans, il lui est arrivé une chose terrible, bien plus terrible
que l'échec des Réflexions; il a realisé que le calorique ne se
conservait pas - et pour lui, cela signifiait forcément que la base
même des Réflexions était fausse..."
p. 109: [Sadi Carnot écrit entre 1824 et 1832 : ] "La chaleur n'est
autre chose que la puissance motrice ou plutôt que le mouvement qui a
changé de forme. C'est un mouvement dans les particules des corps,
partout où il y a destruction de puissance motrice il y a en même
temps production de chaleur en quantité précisément proportionnelle à
la quantité de P.M. détruite. Réciproquement, partout où il y a
destruction de chaleur, il y a producion de P.M."

Pentcho Valev

In 1907 Einstein realized that the speed of photons varies with the
gravitational potential in accordance with Newton's emission theory of
light. That is, in a gravitational field, both photons and cannonballs
undergo the same acceleration. At that time it was almost obvious
that, if the speed of light varies with the gravitational potential,
it varies with the speed of the light source as well. That is, at
least as early as in 1907, Einstein was sure that his 1905 constant-
speed-of-light postulate was false. In the era of Postscientism the
whole story is buried under multiple layers of camouflage but still
remnants of conscience make Einsteinians hint at it from time to time:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers...UP_TimesNR.pdf
John Norton: "Already in 1907, a mere two years after the completion
of the special theory, he [Einstein] had concluded that the speed of
light is variable in the presence of a gravitational field."

http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm
Lee Smolin: "Special relativity was the result of 10 years of
intellectual struggle, yet Einstein had convinced himself it was wrong
within two years of publishing it."

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm
"So, it is absolutely true that the speed of light is not constant in
a gravitational field [which, by the equivalence principle, applies as
well to accelerating (non-inertial) frames of reference]. If this were
not so, there would be no bending of light by the gravitational field
of stars....Indeed, this is exactly how Einstein did the calculation
in: 'On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,'
Annalen der Physik, 35, 1911. which predated the full formal
development of general relativity by about four years. This paper is
widely available in English. You can find a copy beginning on page 99
of the Dover book 'The Principle of Relativity.' You will find in
section 3 of that paper, Einstein's derivation of the (variable) speed
of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is,
c' = c0 ( 1 + V / c^2 )
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the
speed of light c0 is measured."

http://www.blazelabs.com/f-g-gcont.asp
"So, faced with this evidence most readers must be wondering why we
learn about the importance of the constancy of speed of light. Did
Einstein miss this? Sometimes I find out that what's written in our
textbooks is just a biased version taken from the original work, so
after searching within the original text of the theory of GR by
Einstein, I found this quote: "In the second place our result shows
that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any
unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place
when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Now we
might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of
relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in
the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude
that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlimited domain
of validity ; its results hold only so long as we are able to
disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena
(e.g. of light)." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - The General Theory
of Relativity: Chapter 22 - A Few Inferences from the General
Principle of Relativity-. Today we find that since the Special Theory
of Relativity unfortunately became part of the so called mainstream
science, it is considered a sacrilege to even suggest that the speed
of light be anything other than a constant. This is somewhat
surprising since even Einstein himself suggested in a paper "On the
Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light," Annalen der
Physik, 35, 1911, that the speed of light might vary with the
gravitational potential. Indeed, the variation of the speed of light
in a vacuum or space is explicitly shown in Einstein's calculation for
the angle at which light should bend upon the influence of gravity.
One can find his calculation in his paper. The result is c'=c(1+V/c^2)
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the
measurement is taken. 1+V/c^2 is also known as the gravitational
redshift factor."

Joao Magueijo, PLUS VITE QUE LA LUMIERE, Dunod, 2003, pp. 50-51:
"En cours de route, en 1911, Einstein proposa même une théorie où la
vitesse de la lumière variait! Aujourd'hui, les scientifiques sont
soit horrifiés par cette article écrit par le grand Albert Einstein,
alors professeur à Prague, soit tout simplement ignorants de son
existence. Banesh Hoffmann, collègue et biographe d'Einstein, décrit
ce texte de la manière suivante: "Et cela signifie... Quoi! Que la
vitesse de la lumière n'est pas constante, que la gravitation la
ralentit. Hérésie! Et de la part d'Einstein lui-même."

http://ustl1.univ-lille1.fr/culture/...40/pgs/4_5.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "Il n'y a alors aucune raison théorique à ce que la
vitesse de la lumière ne dépende pas de la vitesse de sa source ainsi
que de celle de l'observateur terrestre ; plus clairement encore, il
n'y a pas de raison, dans le cadre de la logique des Principia de
Newton, pour que la lumière se comporte autrement - quant à sa
trajectoire - qu'une particule matérielle. Il n'y a pas non plus de
raison pour que la lumière ne soit pas sensible à la gravitation.
Bref, pourquoi ne pas appliquer à la lumière toute la théorie
newtonienne ? C'est en fait ce que font plusieurs astronomes,
opticiens, philosophes de la nature à la fin du XVIIIème siècle. Les
résultats sont étonnants... et aujourd'hui nouveaux. (...) Même s'il
était conscient de l'intérêt de la théorie de l'émission, Einstein n'a
pas pris le chemin, totalement oublié, de Michell, de Blair, des
Principia en somme. Le contexte de découverte de la relativité
ignorera le XVIIIème siècle et ses racines historiques plongent au
coeur du XIXème siècle. Arago, Fresnel, Fizeau, Maxwell, Mascart,
Michelson, Poincaré, Lorentz en furent les principaux acteurs et
l'optique ondulatoire le cadre dans lequel ces questions sont posées.
Pourtant, au plan des structures physiques, l'optique relativiste des
corps en mouvement de cette fin du XVIIIème est infiniment plus
intéressante - et plus utile pédagogiquement - que le long cheminement
qu'a imposé l'éther."

http://www.passiondulivre.com/livre-...ravitation.htm
"Étrangement, personne n'est jamais vraiment allé voir ce que l'on en
pensait «avant», avant Einstein, avant Poincaré, avant Maxwell.
Pourtant, quelques savants austères et ignorés, John Michell, Robert
Blair et d'autres encore, s'y sont intéressés, de très près.
Newtoniens impénitents, ces «philosophes de la nature» ont tout
simplement traité la lumière comme faite de vulgaires particules
matérielles : des «corpuscules lumineux». Mais ce sont gens sérieux et
ils se sont basés sur leurs Classiques, Galilée, Newton et ses
Principia où déjà l'on trouve des idées intéressantes. À la fin du
XVIIIe siècle, au siècle des Lumières (si bien nommé en
l'occurrence !), en Angleterre, en Écosse, en Prusse et même à Paris,
une véritable balistique de la lumière sous-tend silencieusement la
théorie de l'émission, avatar de la théorie corpusculaire de la
lumière de Newton. Lus à la lumière (!) des théories aujourd'hui
acceptées, les résultats ne sont pas minces. (...) Les «relativités»
d'Einstein, cinématique einsteinienne et théorie de la gravitation,
ont la triste réputation d'être difficiles... Ne remettent-elles pas
en cause des notions familières ? Leur «refonte» est d'autant plus
nécessaire. Cette préhistoire en est un nouvel acte qui offre un autre
chemin vers ces théories délicates. Mais ce chemin, aussi long soit-
il, est un raccourci, qu'il est temps, cent ans après «la» relativité
d'Einstein, de découvrir et d'explorer."

http://www.arte.tv/fr/La-relativite-...ve/856858.html
Jean Eisenstaedt: "Michell est persuadé de l'universalité de la
gravitation et que la lumière doit, comme tout autre corpuscule, y
être soumise. Il en déduit, en cette fin du xviiie siècle, qu'un
corpuscule lumineux, émis par une étoile animée d'une vitesse
constante, va être petit à petit freiné et sa vitesse diminuée. À tel
point que, si l'étoile est très massive, le corpuscule, telle une
pierre jetée en l'air, peut s'arrêter dans sa course et retomber sur
l'étoile. Aussi invente-t-il ces objets étranges que Pierre-Simon
Laplace nommera «corps obscurs» (car leur lumière ne peut nous en
parvenir) et qui s'apparentent aux trous noirs. En 1801, s'appuyant
sur ces résultats vulgarisés par Laplace, l'astronome allemand Georg
von Soldner en déduira qu'un rayon lumineux peut être dévié de sa
course s'il passe près d'un corps pesant. Ses résultats ne sont
aucunement différents de ceux d'Einstein, qui calculera le même effet
en 1911."

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm
"In geometrical units we define c_0 = 1, so Einstein's 1911 formula
can be written simply as c=1+phi. However, this formula for the speed
of light (not to mention this whole approach to gravity) turned out to
be incorrect, as Einstein realized during the years leading up to 1915
and the completion of the general theory. In fact, the general theory
of relativity doesn't give any equation for the speed of light at a
particular location, because the effect of gravity cannot be
represented by a simple scalar field of c values. Instead, the "speed
of light" at a each point depends on the direction of the light ray
through that point, as well as on the choice of coordinate systems, so
we can't generally talk about the value of c at a given point in a non-
vanishing gravitational field. However, if we consider just radial
light rays near a spherically symmetrical (and non- rotating) mass,
and if we agree to use a specific set of coordinates, namely those in
which the metric coefficients are independent of t, then we can read a
formula analogous to Einstein's 1911 formula directly from the
Schwarzschild metric. (...) In the Newtonian limit the classical
gravitational potential at a distance r from mass m is phi=-m/r, so if
we let c_r = dr/dt denote the radial speed of light in Schwarzschild
coordinates, we have c_r =1+2phi, which corresponds to Einstein's 1911
equation, except that we have a factor of 2 instead of 1 on the
potential term."

http://www.speed-light.info/speed_of_light_variable.htm
"Einstein wrote this paper in 1911 in German (download from:
http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/an...35_898-908.pdf
). It predated the full formal development of general relativity by
about four years. You can find an English translation of this paper in
the Dover book 'The Principle of Relativity' beginning on page 99; you
will find in section 3 of that paper Einstein's derivation of the
variable speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The
result is: c'=c0(1+phi/c^2) where phi is the gravitational potential
relative to the point where the speed of light co is measured......You
can find a more sophisticated derivation later by Einstein (1955) from
the full theory of general relativity in the weak field
approximation....For the 1955 results but not in coordinates see page
93, eqn (6.28): c(r)=[1+2phi(r)/c^2]c. Namely the 1955 approximation
shows a variation in km/sec twice as much as first predicted in
1911."

Pentcho Valev

http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/...922-15n5o.html
Russell Stannard: "I think science will go out with a whimper rather
than a bang. You'll get into a situation where for a very, very, very
long time nothing interesting happens and people start to think, well,
becoming a research scientist is probably not a good career move."

http://archives.lesechos.fr/archives...077-80-ECH.htm
"Physicien au CEA, professeur et auteur, Etienne Klein s'inquiète des
relations de plus en plus conflictuelles entre la science et la
société. (...) "Je me demande si nous aurons encore des physiciens
dans trente ou quarante ans", remarque ce touche-à-tout aux multiples
centres d'intérêt : la constitution de la matière, le temps, les
relations entre science et philosophie. (...) Etienne Klein n'est pas
optimiste. Selon lui, il se pourrait bien que l'idée de progrès soit
tout bonnement "en train de mourir sous nos yeux"."

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/20...world-true-end
"Nonsensical posturing about science has become commonplace. This is
caused, I think, by the triumphalist tone of the wave, now abating, of
popular science books started by Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of
Time. Physicists used to crow they were on the verge of a "Theory of
Everything", biologists said they had cracked the code of life and
neuroscientists, accompanied by certain philosophers, claimed the
mystery of consciousness would soon yield. None of these things was,
or is, true. They are not true because all these problems have proved
far more complex than anybody expected. But are they also not true for
a more profound reason? Are they not true because they are insoluble,
because the human mind is incapable of understanding the world fully?
The physicist Russell Stannard thinks this may be the case. He
believes that science will eventually come to an end, and that we are
living in a "transient age of human development" in which scientific
discoveries can be made. But science won't end because we know
everything; it will end because we know everything we can know."

An important correction needs to be made in the above text:

"But science won't end because we know everything; it will end because
we know everything NONSENSICAL we can know":

http://www.wickedlocal.com/pembroke/...lton-Ratcliffe
Hilton Ratcliffe: "If, as in the case of GTR and later with Big Bang
Theory and Black Hole theory, the protagonists have seductive charisma
(which Einstein, Gamow, and Hawking, respectively, had in abundance)
then the theory, though not the least bit understood, becomes the
darling of the media. GTR and Big Bang Theory are sacrosanct, and it's
most certainly not because they make any sense. In fact, they have
become the measure by which we sanctify nonsense.

http://plus.maths.org/issue37/featur...ein/index.html
John Barrow: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of
science."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "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' and 'a prime example to show
that physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds'."

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc.../87150187.html
"Dark Energy: The Biggest Mystery in the Universe (...) "We have a
complete inventory of the universe," Sean Carroll, a California
Institute of Technology cosmologist, has said, "and it makes no
sense."

http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
Bryan Wallace: "I expect that the scientists of the future will
consider the dominant abstract physics theories of our time in much
the same light as we now consider the Medieval theories of how many
angels can dance on the head of a pin or that the Earth stands still
and the Universe moves around it."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

Imagine a conscientious scientist considering the following text:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
p.39: "A more important objection, it seems to me, is that Clausius
bases his conclusion that the entropy increases in a nicht umkehrbar
[irreversible] process on the assumption that such a process can be
closed by an umkehrbar [reversible] process to become a cycle. This is
essential for the definition of the entropy difference between the
initial and final states. But the assumption is far from obvious for a
system more complex than an ideal gas, or for states far from
equilibrium, or for processes other than the simple exchange of heat
and work. Thus, the generalisation to all transformations occurring in
Nature is somewhat rash."

The conscientious scientist quickly finds out that "far from obvious"
is a euphemism for "dead wrong": spontaneous transfer of heat from a
hot to a cold body CANNOT "be closed by an umkehrbar [reversible]
process to become a cycle". In a moment of aberration the scientist
sees a paper of his, entitled:

"Clausius' Deduction of the Law of Entropy Increase Is Based on a
False Axiom"

published in Nature or Science. Then the conscientious scientist
desperately realizes that he is swimming in the Great Postscientific
Ocean where the Ever Increasing Entropy has hundreds of definitions,
hundreds of deductions, hundreds of interpretations, hundreds of
anything. The power of the concept comes from its multifariousness;
any single definition or deduction or interpretation is insignificant.
The paper submitted to Nature or Science would not even reach
reviewers.

Pentcho Valev

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: remnants of conscience:

http://www.archipope.net/article-12278372-6.html
"Nous nous trouvons dans une période de mutation extrêmement profonde.
Nous sommes en effet à 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. Devant cette crise «
technoscientifique » que connaissent les sciences dures, il défend la
nécessité d'opérer en leur sein une nouvelle forme de critique de «
science » ou, pour reprendre le terme de Bachelard, de « refonte » de
tout un système de pensée. Ce n'est selon lui qu'au prix d'une « mise
à l'épreuve » de la science par l'analyse des processus intellectuels,
matériels, voire politiques ou idéologiques qui ont présidés à la
constitution d'un savoir qu'elle sera à même de renouer avec la
société dans son ensemble. L'idée d'une mise en partage critique des
sciences est ainsi conçue comme une garantie démocratique."

Bravo, Monsieur Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond! Evidemment vous n'êtes plus le
Tomás de Torquemada de la science théorique en France! Maintenant
l'analyse des processus intellectuels, matériels, voire politiques ou
idéologiques qui ont présidé à la constitution du "savoir" suivant
pourrait commencer:

http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/Chronogeometrie.pdf
Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond "De la relativité à la chronogéométrie ou: Pour
en finir avec le "second postulat" et autres fossiles": "D'autre part,
nous savons aujourd'hui que l'invariance de la vitesse de la lumière
est une conséquence de la nullité de la masse du photon. Mais,
empiriquement, cette masse, aussi faible soit son actuelle borne
supérieure expérimentale, ne peut et ne pourra jamais être considérée
avec certitude comme rigoureusement nulle. Il se pourrait même que de
futures mesures mettent en évidence une masse infime, mais non-nulle,
du photon ; la lumière alors n'irait plus à la "vitesse de la
lumière", ou, plus précisément, la vitesse de la lumière, désormais
variable, ne s'identifierait plus à la vitesse limite invariante. Les
procédures opérationnelles mises en jeu par le "second postulat"
deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La théorie elle-même en serait-elle
invalidée ? Heureusement, il n'en est rien ; mais, pour s'en assurer,
il convient de la refonder sur des bases plus solides, et d'ailleurs
plus économiques. En vérité, le premier postulat suffit, à la
condition de l'exploiter à fond."

http://www.hep.princeton.edu/~mcdona..._44_271_76.pdf
Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond: "This is the point of view from wich I intend
to criticize the overemphasized role of the speed of light in the
foundations of the special relativity, and to propose an approach to
these foundations that dispenses with the hypothesis of the invariance
of c. (...) We believe that special relativity at the present time
stands as a universal theory discribing the structure of a common
space-time arena in which all fundamental processes take place. (...)
The evidence of the nonzero mass of the photon would not, as such,
shake in any way the validity of the special relalivity. It would,
however, nullify all its derivations which are based on the invariance
of the photon velocity."

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://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://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://inac.cea.fr/Phocea/file.php?c...43/t343_1..pdf
Gilles Cohen-Tannoudji: "Chez Poincaré, la contraction des longueurs
et la dilatation des durées sont réelles.....Chez Einstein, la
contraction des longueurs et la dilatation des durées ne sont pas
réelles: elles sont le résultat d'un effet de perspective."

http://www.academie-sciences.fr/memb...ein_Damour.pdf
Thibault Damour: "La "contraction des longueurs" avait, avant
Einstein, été considérée par George Fitzgerald et Hendrik Lorentz.
Cependant, ils la considéraient comme un effet "réel" de contraction
dans l' "espace absolu", alors que pour Einstein il s'agit d'un effet
de perspective spatio-temporelle."

Pentcho Valev

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep...tum-mechanics/
DISCOVER: "Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to
Quantum Mechanics"

If Roger Penrose, one of the high priests of Postscientism, says so
the situation is more than desperate. Yet salvation does exist: the
scientific community should organize a conference entitled:

"Validity or Invalidity of Clausius' 1850 Argument?"

where the following text will be put to close scrutiny:

http://www.mdpi.org/lin/clausius/clausius.htm
"Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Wärme", 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."

Since Clausius' 1850 invalid argument marks the beginning of
Postscientism, the success of the conference would mean that the right
first step towards the resurrection of Science has been made. To use
an oversimplification, Postscientism consists in deducing breathtaking
absurdities by means of false axioms and invalid arguments.

Pentcho Valev

On Oct 24, 2:58*pm, "Androcles"
wrote:
What's the former principle?
(...)
If you want present an argument for debate, Pentcho, present all
the information. I can't "put to close scrutiny" something as vague
as "former principle".

The "former principle" is given earlier in Clausius' text:

http://www.mdpi.org/lin/clausius/clausius.htm
"To this it must be added that other facts have lately become known
which support the view, that heat is not a substance, but consists in
a motion of the least parts of bodies. If this view is correct, it is
admissible to apply to heat the general mechanical principle that a
motion may be transformed into work, and in such a manner that the
loss of kinetic energy is proportional to the work accomplished. These
facts, with which Carnot also was well acquainted and the importance
of which he has expressly recognized, almost compel us to accept the
equivalence between heat and work, on the modified hypothesis that the
accomplishment of work requires not merely a change in the
distribution of heat, but also an actual consumption of heat, and
that, conversely, heat can be developed again by the expenditure of
work."

Pentcho Valev

http://blog.hasslberger.com/Dingle_S...Crossroads.pdf
Herbert Dingle, SCIENCE AT THE CROSSROADS
"According to the special relativity theory, as expounded by Einstein
in his original paper, two similar, regularly-running clocks, A and B,
in uniform relative motion, must work at different rates.....How is
the slower-working clock distinguished? The supposition that the
theory merely requires each clock to APPEAR to work more slowly from
the point of view of the other is ruled out not only by its many
applications and by the fact that the theory would then be useless in
practice, but also by Einstein's own examples, of which it is
sufficient to cite the one best known and most often claimed to have
been indirectly established by experiment, viz. 'Thence' [i.e. from
the theory he had just expounded, which takes no account of possible
effects of accleration, gravitation, or any difference at all between
the clocks except their state of uniform motion] 'we conclude that a
balance-clock at the equator must go more slowly, by a very small
amount, than a precisely similar clock situated at one of the poles
under otherwise identical conditions.' Applied to this example, the
question is: what entitled Einstein to conclude FROM HIS THEORY that
the equatorial, and not the polar, clock worked more slowly?"

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/c...&filetype=.pdf
Herbert Dingle: "...the internal consistency of the restricted
relativity theory seems questionable if the postulate of the constancy
of the velocity of light is given its usual interpretation... (...)
These difficulties are removed if the postulate be interpreted MERELY
as requiring that the velocity of light relative to its actual
material source shall always be c..."

http://irfu.cea.fr/Phocea/file.php?f...TE-052-456.pdf
Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud
Relativité: Les preuves étaient fausses
"Le monde entier a cru pendant plus de cinquante ans à une théorie non
vérifiée. Car, nous le savons aujourd'hui, les premières preuves,
issues notamment d'une célèbre éclipse de 1919, n'en étaient pas.
Elles reposaient en partie sur des manipulations peu avouables visant
à obtenir un résultat connu à l'avance, et sur des mesures entachées
d'incertitudes, quand il ne s'agissait pas de fraudes caractérisées.
Il aura fallu attendre les années 1970 pour que de nouvelles méthodes
parviennent enfin à fournir des preuves expérimentales solides de la
relativité. Cet épisode, encore peu connu, illustre la façon dont les
certitudes scientifiques s'établissent parfois sur des bases
douteuses. Aujourd'hui encore, des observations bien fragiles comme
celles des lointaines supernovae, qui semblent indiquer une
accélération de l'expansion de l'Univers et l'existence d'une énergie
du vide inconnue, semblent tout aussi aléatoires, alors qu'elles sont
souvent considérées comme définitives. Devant la pression du résultat,
l'objectivité scientifique se trouve bien souvent négligée."

Note that the statement:

"Il aura fallu attendre les années 1970 pour que de nouvelles méthodes
parviennent enfin à fournir des preuves expérimentales solides de la
relativité."

sounds idiotic (Einsteinians had been lying for 60 years when in the
1970's they suddenly became honest) but Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud had no
choice: without this statement he would have been dismissed and
marginalized immediately. Einsteiniana knows no limits.

Pentcho Valev