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How Richard Feynman Confused Special Relativity



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 4th 16, 07:40 PM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default How Richard Feynman Confused Special Relativity

Richard Feynman either did not understand special relativity or was deliberately confusing the audience:

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_15.html
Richard Feynman (The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume 1, Chapter 15-1): "Another consequence of the [Maxwell's] equations is that if the source of the disturbance is moving, the light emitted goes through space at the same speed c. This is analogous to the case of sound, the speed of sound waves being likewise independent of the motion of the source. This independence of the motion of the source, in the case of light, brings up an interesting problem: Suppose we are riding in a car that is going at a speed u, and light from the rear is going past the car with speed c. Differentiating the first equation in (15.2) gives dx'/dt=dx/dt-u, which means that according to the Galilean transformation the apparent speed of the passing light, as we measure it in the car, should not be c but should be c-u. For instance, if the car is going 100,000 mi/sec, and the light is going 186,000 mi/sec, then apparently the light going past the car should go 86,000 mi/sec. In any case, by measuring the speed of the light going past the car (if the Galilean transformation is correct for light), one could determine the speed of the car. A number of experiments based on this general idea were performed to determine the velocity of the earth, but they all failed - they gave no velocity at all. We shall discuss one of these experiments [the Michelson-Morley experiment] in detail..."

The independence of the motion of the source by no means brings up the "interesting problem" where the dependence/independence of the motion of the observer is discussed. Maxwell's 19th century electromagnetic theory did indeed predict independence of the motion of the source for the speed of light but at the same time predicted dependence on the motion of the observer:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/Chasing.pdf
John Norton: "That [Maxwell's] theory allows light to slow and be frozen in the frame of reference of a sufficiently rapidly moving observer."

Feynman doesn't even mention the crucial fact that, originally (prior to FitzGerald and Lorentz advancing the ad hoc length contraction hypothesis), the Michelson-Morley experiment confirmed the Galilean transformation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory
"Emission theory, also called emitter theory or ballistic theory of light, was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887. [...] The name most often associated with emission theory is Isaac Newton. In his corpuscular theory Newton visualized light "corpuscles" being thrown off from hot bodies at a nominal speed of c with respect to the emitting object, and obeying the usual laws of Newtonian mechanics, and we then expect light to be moving towards us with a speed that is offset by the speed of the distant emitter (c ± v)."

Feynman's explanation of the twin paradox, too, is very suspicious:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/p...ds-philosophy/
Tim Maudlin: "...so many physicists strongly discourage questions about the nature of reality. The reigning attitude in physics has been "shut up and calculate": solve the equations, and do not ask questions about what they mean. But putting computation ahead of conceptual clarity can lead to confusion. Take, for example, relativity's iconic "twin paradox." Identical twins separate from each other and later reunite. When they meet again, one twin is biologically older than the other. (Astronaut twins Scott and Mark Kelly are about to realize this experiment: when Scott returns from a year in orbit in 2016 he will be about 28 microseconds younger than Mark, who is staying on Earth.) No competent physicist would make an error in computing the magnitude of this effect. But even the great Richard Feynman did not always get the explanation right. In "The Feynman Lectures on Physics," he attributes the difference in ages to the acceleration one twin experiences: the twin who accelerates ends up younger. But it is easy to describe cases where the opposite is true, and even cases where neither twin accelerates but they end up different ages. The calculation can be right and the accompanying explanation wrong."

Pentcho Valev
  #2  
Old December 4th 16, 07:51 PM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default How Richard Feynman Confused Special Relativity

Einstein was confusing special relativity in an equally idiotic way:

http://www.bartleby.com/173/7.html
Albert Einstein: "Now let us suppose that our railway carriage is again travelling along the railway lines with the velocity v, and that its direction is the same as that of the ray of light, but its velocity of course much less. Let us inquire about the velocity of propagation of the ray of light relative to the carriage. It is obvious that we can here apply the consideration of the previous section, since the ray of light plays the part of the man walking along relatively to the carriage. The velocity W of the man relative to the embankment is here replaced by the velocity of light relative to the embankment. w is the required velocity of light with respect to the carriage, and we have w = c - v. The velocity of propagation of a ray of light relative to the carriage thus comes out smaller than c. But this result comes into conflict with the principle of relativity set forth in Section V."

Does w = c - v come into conflict with the principle of relativity? It doesn't of course and this is obvious, except in Einstein schizophrenic world:

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/86...uletableau.jpg

Pentcho Valev
  #3  
Old December 5th 16, 04:42 PM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default How Richard Feynman Confused Special Relativity

Richard Feynman brainwashes the gullible world:

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_16.html
"The twin paradox. To continue our discussion of the Lorentz transformation and relativistic effects, we consider a famous so-called "paradox" of Peter and Paul, who are supposed to be twins, born at the same time. When they are old enough to drive a space ship, Paul flies away at very high speed. Because Peter, who is left on the ground, sees Paul going so fast, all of Paul's clocks appear to go slower, his heart beats go slower, his thoughts go slower, everything goes slower, from Peter's point of view. Of course, Paul notices nothing unusual, but if he travels around and about for a while and then comes back, he will be younger than Peter, the man on the ground! That is actually right; it is one of the consequences of the theory of relativity which has been clearly demonstrated. Just as the mu-mesons last longer when they are moving, so also will Paul last longer when he is moving. This is called a "paradox" only by the people who believe that the principle of relativity means that all motion is relative; they say, "Heh, heh, heh, from the point of view of Paul, can't we say that Peter was moving and should therefore appear to age more slowly? By symmetry, the only possible result is that both should be the same age when they meet." But in order for them to come back together and make the comparison, Paul must either stop at the end of the trip and make a comparison of clocks or, more simply, he has to come back, and the one who comes back must be the man who was moving, and he knows this, because he had to turn around. When he turned around, all kinds of unusual things happened in his space ship - the rockets went off, things jammed up against one wall, and so on - while Peter felt nothing. So the way to state the rule is to say that the man who has felt the accelerations, who has seen things fall against the walls, and so on, is the one who would be the younger."

Note this:

"Paul must either stop at the end of the trip and make a comparison of clocks..."

No need for Paul to stop. According to special relativity, he observes Peter's stationary clock running slow all along, that is, Paul observes Peter aging MORE SLOWLY:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/chap11.pdf
David Morin, Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions, Chapter 11, p. 14: "Twin A stays on the earth, while twin B flies quickly to a distant star and back. [...] For the entire outward and return parts of the trip, B does observe A's clock running slow..."

Clearly the twin paradox is an absurdity: Peter observes Paul aging more slowly, and Paul observes Peter aging more slowly. Einsteinians can only save Divine Albert's Divine Theory by ascribing miraculous powers to the turning-around acceleration, and Feynman did use that hoax. The author of the hoax was, needless to say, Einstein:

http://sciliterature.50webs.com/Dialog.htm
Albert Einstein (1918): "A homogenous gravitational field appears, that is directed towards the positive x-axis. Clock U1 is accelerated in the direction of the positive x-axis until it has reached the velocity v, then the gravitational field disappears again. An external force, acting upon U2 in the negative direction of the x-axis prevents U2 from being set in motion by the gravitational field. [...] According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4."

Nowadays there is no need to "save" Divine Albert's Divine Theory (it is absolutely invincible) so Einsteinians almost universally reject (implicitly of course) Einstein's 1918 arguments and teach that the turning-around acceleration is IMMATERIAL:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ativity-theor/
Ronald Lasky: "Since relativity says that there is no absolute motion, wouldn't the brother traveling to the star also see his brother's clock on the earth move more slowly? If this were the case, wouldn't they both be the same age? This paradox is discussed in many books but solved in very few. When the paradox is addressed, it is usually done so only briefly, by saying that the one who feels the acceleration is the one who is younger at the end of the trip. Hence, the brother who travels to the star is younger. While the result is correct, the explanation is misleading. Because of these types of incomplete explanations, to many partially informed people, the accelerations appear to be the issue. Therefore, it is believed that the general theory of relativity is required to explain the paradox. Of course, this conclusion is based on yet another mistake, since we don't need general relativity to handle accelerations. The paradox can be unraveled by special relativity alone, and the accelerations incurred by the traveler are incidental."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/p...ds-philosophy/
Tim Maudlin: "...so many physicists strongly discourage questions about the nature of reality. The reigning attitude in physics has been "shut up and calculate": solve the equations, and do not ask questions about what they mean. But putting computation ahead of conceptual clarity can lead to confusion. Take, for example, relativity's iconic "twin paradox." Identical twins separate from each other and later reunite. When they meet again, one twin is biologically older than the other. (Astronaut twins Scott and Mark Kelly are about to realize this experiment: when Scott returns from a year in orbit in 2016 he will be about 28 microseconds younger than Mark, who is staying on Earth.) No competent physicist would make an error in computing the magnitude of this effect. But even the great Richard Feynman did not always get the explanation right. In "The Feynman Lectures on Physics," he attributes the difference in ages to the acceleration one twin experiences: the twin who accelerates ends up younger. But it is easy to describe cases where the opposite is true, and even cases where neither twin accelerates but they end up different ages. The calculation can be right and the accompanying explanation wrong." x

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archiv...lReadMore.html
Don Lincoln: "Some readers, probably including some of my doctoral-holding colleagues at Fermilab, will claim that the difference between the two twins is that one of the two has experienced an acceleration. (After all, that's how he slowed down and reversed direction.) However, the relativistic equations don't include that acceleration phase; they include just the coasting time at high velocity."

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/...tivity2010.pdf
Gary W. Gibbons FRS: "In other words, by simply staying at home Jack has aged relative to Jill. There is no paradox because the lives of the twins are not strictly symmetrical. This might lead one to suspect that the accelerations suffered by Jill might be responsible for the effect. However this is simply not plausible because using identical accelerating phases of her trip, she could have travelled twice as far. This would give twice the amount of time gained."

Pentcho Valev
 




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