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Falsifiable and Unfalsifiable Theories in Physics



 
 
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  #1  
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
  #2  
Old June 21st 16, 10:56 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Falsifiable and Unfalsifiable Theories in Physics

Einstein's general relativity can predict anything Einsteinians would want it to predict (the latest example was the detailed prediction of black hole collisions and resulting gravitational waves, even though Einstein regarded both black holes and gravitational waves as nonexistent). It cannot be otherwise because, even though mathematically complex, general relativity is an empirical model free to use fudge factors:

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01...ght-and-wrong/
"In 1917 Einstein published a paper on the application of the theory of relativity to the universe at large—cosmology. He had decided that the universe was stationary—neither expanding nor contracting—so he added a term, the cosmological constant, to his original equations with a value of the constant, the Λ in the above equation, chosen to guarantee this. He abandoned this once it was shown in the 1920s by Edwin Hubble that the universe was actually expanding. Now it has been shown that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate—so the cosmological term is given a new value, the dark energy, now adjusted to produce the acceleration."

Typical empirical approach isn't it? Unlike special relativity, general relativity was not, to use Einstein's words, "built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions". Rather, it was "a purely empirical enterprise" - Einstein and his mathematical friends changed and fudged equations countless times until "a classified catalogue" was compiled where known in advance results and pet assumptions (such as the Mercury's precession, the equivalence principle, gravitational time dilation) coexisted in an apparently consistent manner:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/a...ative/ap03.htm
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."

The making of general relativity was analogous to "curve fitting" ("empirical models") as defined he

http://collum.chem.cornell.edu/docum...ve_Fitting.pdf
"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."

Note that the parameters of the empirical model "do not necessarily correspond to a biological, chemical or physical property". So in Einstein's general relativity one of the parameters - the speed of light falling towards the source of gravity - absurdly DECREASES (in the gravitational field of the Earth the acceleration of falling photons is NEGATIVE, -2g):

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm
"Contrary to intuition, the speed of light (properly defined) decreases as the black hole is approached."

http://www.speed-light.info/speed_of_light_variable.htm
"Einstein wrote this paper in 1911 in German. [...] ...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+φ/c^2) where φ is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light c0 is measured. Simply put: Light appears to travel slower in stronger gravitational fields (near bigger mass). (...) You can find a more sophisticated derivation later by Einstein (1955) from the full theory of general relativity in the weak field approximation. [...] Namely the 1955 approximation shows a variation in km/sec twice as much as first predicted in 1911."

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm
"Specifically, Einstein wrote in 1911 that the speed of light at a place with the gravitational potential φ would be c(1+φ/c^2), where c is the nominal speed of light in the absence of gravity. In geometrical units we define c=1, so Einstein's 1911 formula can be written simply as c'=1+φ. 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. [...] ...we have c_r =1+2φ, which corresponds to Einstein's 1911 equation, except that we have a factor of 2 instead of 1 on the potential term."

http://physics.stackexchange.com/que...tational-field
John Rennie: The variation of the velocity of light with distance from the black hole looks like:

http://i.stack.imgur.com/XlKh0.gif

Here Michel Janssen describes endless empirical fudging and fitting until "excellent agreement with observation" was reached:

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

Pentcho Valev
  #3  
Old June 22nd 16, 12:40 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Posts: 8,078
Default Falsifiable and Unfalsifiable Theories in Physics

The easiest experimental falsification of Einstein's special relativity:

The initially stationary observer starts moving with speed v towards the light source. Two hypotheses are conceivable:

Hypothesis 1 (Newton's emission theory): The speed of the light relative to the observer shifts from c to c'=c+v. Accordingly, the frequency measured by the observer shifts from f=c/λ to f'=c'/λ.

Hypothesis 2 (Einstein's special relativity): The speed of the light relative to the observer does not shift. Accordingly, the frequency measured by the observer does not shift either.

Needless to say, the experiment (measurement of the Doppler effect) confirms Hypothesis 1 and refutes Hypothesis 2:

http://www.hep.man.ac.uk/u/roger/PHY.../lecture18.pdf
"Moving Observer. Now suppose the source is fixed but the observer is moving towards the source, with speed v. In time t, ct/λ waves pass a fixed point. A moving point adds another vt/λ. So f'=(c+v)/λ."

http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/211-sp...9_doppler.html
"Let's say you, the observer, now move toward the source with velocity vO. You encounter more waves per unit time than you did before. Relative to you, the waves travel at a higher speed: v'=v+vO. The frequency of the waves you detect is higher, and is given by: f'=v'/λ=(v+vO)/λ."

Pentcho Valev
 




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