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Falsifiable and Unfalsifiable Theories in Physics



 
 
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Old June 21st 16, 08:58 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Falsifiable and Unfalsifiable Theories in Physics

Only deductive theories are falsifiable, that is, only for them does it make sense to think of an observation or an argument which negates some conclusion of the theory. For instance, it is easy to show that the conclusions of Einstein's special relativity, which is undoubtedly deductive, are absurd.. One of them, length contraction, implies that unlimitedly long objects can be trapped inside unlimitedly short containers:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...barn_pole.html
John Baez: "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. [...] 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. [...] 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."

See, at 7:12 in the video below, how the train is trapped "in a compressed state" inside the tunnel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrqj88zQZJg
"Einstein's Relativistic Train in a Tunnel Paradox: Special Relativity"

It is not difficult to realize that trapping long objects inside short containers drastically violates the law of conservation of energy. The trapped object, in trying to restore its original volume ("spring back to its natural shape"), would produce an enormous amount of work the energy for which comes from nowhere.

At 9:01 in the above video Sarah sees the train falling through the hole, and in order to save Einstein's relativity, the authors of the video inform the gullible world that Adam as well sees the train falling through the hole. However Adam can only see this if the train undergoes an absurd disintegration first, as shown at 9:53.

Clearly we have reductio ad absurdum: An absurd disintegration is required - Adam sees it, Sarah doesn't. Conclusion: The underlying premise, Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate, is false.

Einstein's general relativity was not deductive - it was an empirical model.. That is, general relativity was the result of purely empirical gropings - endlessly changing and fudging equations until maximum fit with known in advance results and pet assumptions is reached:

https://netfiles.umn.edu/users/janss...0page/EBms.pdf
Michel Janssen: "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."

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep...ters-mistakes/
"In 1916 Einstein found what he considered a glitch in his new theory of general relativity. His equations showed that the contents of the universe should be moving— either expanding or contracting. But at the time, the universe seemed the very definition of stasis. All the data, facts, and phenomena known in the early 1900s said that the Milky Way was the cosmos itself and that its stars moved slowly, if at all. Einstein had presented the definitive version of the general theory of relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences the previous year, and he was not inclined to retract it.. So he invented a fudge factor, called lambda, that could function mathematically to hold the universe at a standstill. [...] Lambda, also known as the cosmological constant, has come in handy of late."

http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Un.../dp/0684845946
Ken Croswell, Magnificent Universe, p. 179: "Ever since, the cosmological constant has lived in infamy, a fudge factor concocted merely to make theory agree with observation."

So it is basically meaningless to refer to observations or arguments which confirm or refute the conclusions of Einstein's general relativity. Those conclusions were EMPIRICALLY adapted to fit to results and assumptions that Einstein and his mathematical friends deemed important in 1915 (and later), and the fit was the best one. The best fit remains the best fit, irrespective of any new observation or argument. So the Pound-Rebka experiment gloriously confirmed general relativity, and the glory is eternal. The fact that the experiment is compatible with Newton's emission theory of light is simply immaterial in Einstein schizophrenic world:

http://courses.physics.illinois.edu/...ctures/l13.pdf
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: "Consider a falling object. ITS SPEED INCREASES AS IT IS FALLING. Hence, if we were to associate a frequency with that object the frequency should increase accordingly as it falls to earth. Because of the equivalence between gravitational and inertial mass, WE SHOULD OBSERVE THE SAME EFFECT FOR LIGHT. So lets shine a light beam from the top of a very tall building. If we can measure the frequency shift as the light beam descends the building, we should be able to discern how gravity affects a falling light beam. This was done by Pound and Rebka in 1960. They shone a light from the top of the Jefferson tower at Harvard and measured the frequency shift. The frequency shift was tiny but in agreement with the theoretical prediction."

http://www.einstein-online.info/spot...t_white_dwarfs
Albert Einstein Institute: "One of the three classical tests for general relativity is the gravitational redshift of light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. However, in contrast to the other two tests - the gravitational deflection of light and the relativistic perihelion shift -, you do not need general relativity to derive the correct prediction for the gravitational redshift. A combination of Newtonian gravity, a particle theory of light, and the weak equivalence principle (gravitating mass equals inertial mass) suffices. [...] The gravitational redshift was first measured on earth in 1960-65 by Pound, Rebka, and Snider at Harvard University..."

Pentcho Valev
 




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