Einstein's Dead Science and Its Resurrectors

Eric Weinstein: "Is there something wrong with the fundamentals? Is Einstein, in fact, wrong to slip in space-time on the ground floor of theoretical physics which is shared by both quantum field theory and general relativity? [...] Well I think that if you think about Einstein's vision abstractly, properly, in all probability I think he'll be proved right in the end in the abstract." http://bigthink.com/videos/eric-wein...av-dropdown-69

If Einstein is "wrong to slip in space-time on the ground floor of theoretical physics", he cannot be right in any sense. Rather, both his theory and theoretical physics as a whole are stone dead. The reason is that "spacetime is wrong" entails that the speed of light is VARIABLE while "the whole of physics is predicated on the constancy of the speed of light":

"Special relativity is based on the observation that the speed of light is always the same, independently of who measures it, or how fast the source of the light is moving with respect to the observer. Einstein demonstrated that as an immediate consequence, space and time can no longer be independent, but should rather be considered a new joint entity called "spacetime." http://community.bowdoin.edu/news/20...rs-of-gravity/

"The speaker Joao Magueijo, is a Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London and author of Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation. He opened by explaining how Einstein's theory of relativity is the foundation of every other theory in modern physics and that the assumption that the speed of light is constant is the foundation of that theory. Thus a constant speed of light is embedded in all of modern physics and to propose a varying speed of light (VSL) is worse than swearing! It is like proposing a language without vowels." http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/VSLRevPrnt.html

"...Dr. Magueijo said. "We need to drop a postulate, perhaps the constancy of the speed of light." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/sc...-relative.html

"But the researchers said they spent a lot of time working on a theory that wouldn't destabilise our understanding of physics. "The whole of physics is predicated on the constancy of the speed of light," Joao Magueijo told Motherboard. "So we had to find ways to change the speed of light without wrecking the whole thing too much." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...ht-discovered/

Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects." http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Sp.../dp/0738205257

Pentcho Valev

Einstein's false constant-speed-of-light postulate would not have killed physics if a shift in method had not paralyzed the immune mechanisms of the theoretical approach. See the following curious conclusion of Nima Arkani-Hamed and Eric Weinstein:

Eric Weinstein: "...the idea that we would have had perhaps two generations let's say in 40 years of physicists who can't make contact with experimental reality with their theories is completely unprecedented in the modern era. This is very interesting and rather disturbing. So I was quite inspired by a talk or two that I've seen by the distinguished physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed where in essence he points out that the three main equations that give us all of theoretical physics - the Dirac equation for matter and then the force equations, the Yang-Mills equation, and the Einstein field equations - are all in some sense provably the best possible equations in their category of equations. And so what happened was that we had a question: is there any way to go about finding even better equations? And we can essentially prove that these equations cannot be beaten in any simple way. So the possible elaborations I would say are now obvious, and we've tried all of them, and none of them have seemed to yield to anything that clearly advances our picture beyond where we are now. So the question is, do we need a radical rethinking? Is there something wrong with the fundamentals? http://bigthink.com/videos/eric-wein...av-dropdown-69

How can the equations be "the best in their category", on the one hand, and a dead end, on the other? This is only possible when the equations are empirical, not deductive. The method by which they are obtained is "guessing the equation", not "deducing the equation":

Richard Feynman: "Dirac discovered the correct laws for relativity quantum mechanics simply by guessing the equation. The method of guessing the equation seems to be a pretty effective way of guessing new laws." http://dillydust.com/The%20Character...rksid erg.pdf

Below Einstein defines two types of theory - empirical and deductive - and it is unquestionable that the equations of a deductive theory do matter. The problem is: Do the equations of an EMPIRICAL theory matter in physics?

Albert Einstein: "From a systematic theoretical point of view, we may imagine the process of evolution of an empirical science to be a continuous process of induction. Theories are evolved and are expressed in short compass as statements of a large number of individual observations in the form of empirical laws, from which the general laws can be ascertained by comparison. Regarded in this way, the development of a science bears some resemblance to the compilation of a classified catalogue. It is, as it were, a purely empirical enterprise. But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms." https://www.marxists.org/reference/a...ative/ap03.htm

The equations of an empirical theory do (should) not matter in physics. Any such equation, together with its implications, forms a local cluster that has no logical connections with anything else in theoretical physics. So it is easy to imagine how the equation is "the best in its category" and a dead end at the same time.

Unlike special relativity, Einstein's general relativity is not a deductive theory. It is a not-even-wrong empirical concoction - a malleable combination of ad hoc equations and fudge factors allowing Einsteinians to predict anything they want. Its creation marked the transition from deductivism to empiricism in physics, or from "deducing the equation" to "guessing the equation". Einstein and his mathematical friends spent years tirelessly "guessing the equation" until "excellent agreement with observation" was reached:

Michel Janssen: "But - as we know from a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht of December 24, 1907 - one of the goals that Einstein set himself early on, was to use his new theory of gravity, whatever it might turn out to be, to explain the discrepancy between the observed motion of the perihelion of the planet Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newtonian gravitational theory. [...] The Einstein-Grossmann theory - also known as the "Entwurf" ("outline") theory after the title of Einstein and Grossmann's paper - is, in fact, already very close to the version of general relativity published in November 1915 and constitutes an enormous advance over Einstein's first attempt at a generalized theory of relativity and theory of gravitation published in 1912. The crucial breakthrough had been that Einstein had recognized that the gravitational field - or, as we would now say, the inertio-gravitational field - should not be described by a variable speed of light as he had attempted in 1912, but by the so-called metric tensor field.. The metric tensor is a mathematical object of 16 components, 10 of which independent, that characterizes the geometry of space and time. In this way, gravity is no longer a force in space and time, but part of the fabric of space and time itself: gravity is part of the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein had turned to Grossmann for help with the difficult and unfamiliar mathematics needed to formulate a theory along these lines. [...] Einstein did not give up the Einstein-Grossmann theory once he had established that it could not fully explain the Mercury anomaly. He continued to work on the theory and never even mentioned the disappointing result of his work with Besso in print. So Einstein did not do what the influential philosopher Sir Karl Popper claimed all good scientists do: once they have found an empirical refutation of their theory, they abandon that theory and go back to the drawing board. [...] On November 4, 1915, he presented a paper to the Berlin Academy officially retracting the Einstein-Grossmann equations and replacing them with new ones. On November 11, a short addendum to this paper followed, once again changing his field equations. A week later, on November 18, Einstein presented the paper containing his celebrated explanation of the perihelion motion of Mercury on the basis of this new theory. Another week later he changed the field equations once more. These are the equations still used today. This last change did not affect the result for the perihelion of Mercury. Besso is not acknowledged in Einstein's paper on the perihelion problem. Apparently, Besso's help with this technical problem had not been as valuable to Einstein as his role as sounding board that had earned Besso the famous acknowledgment in the special relativity paper of 1905. Still, an acknowledgment would have been appropriate. After all, what Einstein had done that week in November, was simply to redo the calculation he had done with Besso in June 1913, using his new field equations instead of the Einstein-Grossmann equations. It is not hard to imagine Einstein's excitement when he inserted the numbers for Mercury into the new expression he found and the result was 43", in excellent agreement with observation." https://netfiles.umn.edu/users/janss...0page/EBms.pdf

"Guessing the equation" is naturally followed by "guessing the fudge factor". In the video below, at 0:57, a fudge factor is added to an equation in an empirical model (Einstein's general relativity), then at 2:16 the fudge factor is removed:

https://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-sh...iggest-blunder
SPACE'S DEEPEST SECRETS Einstein's "Biggest Blunder"

"A fudge factor is an ad hoc quantity introduced into a calculation, formula or model in order to make it fit observations or expectations. Examples include Einstein's Cosmological Constant..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fudge_factor

Can one add a fudge factor analogous to the cosmological constant to the Lorentz transformation equations? One cannot, and the reason is simple: Special relativity is deductive (even though a false postulate and an invalid argument spoiled it from the very beginning) and fudging is impossible by definition - one has no right to add anything that is not deducible from the postulates.

Nowadays, except for special relativity, theories and models in physics are empirical, non-deductive - they cannot be presented as a set of valid arguments built up logically from a small number of simple axioms (postulates). This makes them unfalsifiable a priori.

"By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of a set of theoretical postulates together with an appropriate set of auxiliary hypotheses; that is, everything that can be deduced from this set." W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, p. 199 http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/tho...%20science.pdf

Only deductive theories (models) can be falsified, either logically or experimentally. That is:

1. Arguments can be checked for validity.

2. The reductio-ad-absurdum procedure can be applied.

3. Showing, experimentally, that a postulate or a deduced consequence is false makes sense - the deductive structure allows one to interpret the falsehood in terms of the whole theory. (In the absence of a deductive structure any detected falsehood or absurdity remains insignificant - one can ignore it or "fix" it in some way, e.g. by introducing a fudge factor.)

The only alternative to deductivism is empiricism - models are essentially equivalent to the "empirical models" defined he

"The objective of curve fitting is to theoretically describe experimental data with a model (function or equation) and to find the parameters associated with this model. Models of primary importance to us are mechanistic models. Mechanistic models are specifically formulated to provide insight into a chemical, biological, or physical process that is thought to govern the phenomenon under study. Parameters derived from mechanistic models are quantitative estimates of real system properties (rate constants, dissociation constants, catalytic velocities etc.). It is important to distinguish mechanistic models from empirical models that are mathematical functions formulated to fit a particular curve but whose parameters do not necessarily correspond to a biological, chemical or physical property." http://collum.chem.cornell.edu/docum...ve_Fitting.pdf

Pentcho Valev

Potential resurrectors (not very reliable - on sunny mornings you can still hear them singing "Divine Einstein", "Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" and "The faster you move, the heavier you get"):

Nima Arkani-Hamed (06:09): "Almost all of us believe that space-time doesn't really exist, space-time is doomed and has to be replaced by some more primitive building blocks." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U47kyV4TMnE

Nobel Laureate David Gross observed, "Everyone in string theory is convinced...that spacetime is doomed. But we don't know what it's replaced by." https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26563

What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Steve Giddings: "Spacetime. Physics has always been regarded as playing out on an underlying stage of space and time. Special relativity joined these into spacetime... [...] The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound..." https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25477

"Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time. It was a speech that changed the way we think of space and time. The year was 1908, and the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski had been trying to make sense of Albert Einstein's hot new idea - what we now know as special relativity - describing how things shrink as they move faster and time becomes distorted. "Henceforth space by itself and time by itself are doomed to fade into the mere shadows," Minkowski proclaimed, "and only a union of the two will preserve an independent reality." And so space-time - the malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter - was born. It is a concept that has served us well, but if physicist Petr Horava is right, it may be no more than a mirage. Horava, who is at the University of California, Berkeley, wants to rip this fabric apart and set time and space free from one another in order to come up with a unified theory that reconciles the disparate worlds of quantum mechanics and gravity - one the most pressing challenges to modern physics."
https://www.newscientist.com/article...of-space-time/

Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects." http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Sp.../dp/0738205257

"And by making the clock's tick relative - what happens simultaneously for one observer might seem sequential to another - Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013...reality-review

"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..." https://www.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-C.../dp/B00AEGQPFE

"[George] Ellis is up against one of the most successful theories in physics: special relativity. It revealed that there's no such thing as objective simultaneity. [...] Rescuing an objective "now" is a daunting task." https://www.newscientist.com/article...wards-in-time/

"...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." https://www.newscientist.com/article...-universe-tick

Perimeter Institute: "Quantum mechanics has one thing, time, which is absolute. But general relativity tells us that space and time are both dynamical so there is a big contradiction there. So the question is, can quantum gravity be formulated in a context where quantum mechanics still has absolute time?" https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/re...essons-quantum

Pentcho Valev