It is obvious that many people have difficulty understanding SRT.

Others have difficulty explaining SRT.

Others question SRT as an explanation of known scientific facts.

Some offer alternate approaches to the problems SRT 'solves'.

Mr Schubert, you apparently have the mathematical skills to make SRT contradict itself. This should naturally lead to either a severe limit on its domain of applicability or a restriction on the method of its application, or a rejection of the underlying axioms of the theory.

Obviously no one is going to just stop using SRT in calculations for awhile.

Is there more than one solution to the current state of affairs?

Take myself as a physicist interested in philosophical foundations of physical theories, and consistency of mathematical structures.

What would you say to me about SRT? What would you expect me to do next?

There are no contradictions in SRT once it is properly explained and understood. Only the traditional understanding of SRT is flawed.


Please state the contradiction you imagine in http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity

Thank you for your fairly swift and courteous reply.

Since you are a mathematician, I would like to discuss this in more detail with you.

In the meantime, as I put my thoughts together on this, I wonder if you could briefly comment on another approach to the Lorentz Transforms I have been confronted with from someone else:

http://www.masstheory.org/triangle_of_velocities.pdf

Do you feel that this person is doing something similar to your approach?

I am now familiar with several different versions/attacks upon Special Relativity & General Relativity, some of which are formulated by talented and reputable scientists: for instance,

Einstein's Theory of Relativity versus Classical Mechanics, - Paul Marmet (Canadian physicist)

and Relational Mechanics by Andre K.T. Assis, offering (true Machian) Alternatives to SRT.

Sorry, I think you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting there is a contradiction in your paper, other than the obvious one which is that you are offering an alternate interpretation of SRT which 'contradicts' the popular interpretation that relativity of simultaneity is a necessary part of SRT. At least this is what I understand you to mean, given your basic choice of titles and various statements.

I have no idea if there is or is not some hidden mathematical mistake or contradiction in your thesis, because I have not gone over it with a fine-toothed comb looking for flaws. Instead I have just followed it along, accepting at face value your statements, as you have formed them, and tried to understand what the argument and issues were.

I am deeply interested in properly understanding your thesis, since this is a favourite subject of mine, and I have great respect for mathematicians as opposed to 'mere' physicists. I have found that physicists always seem to be oversensitive and dogmatic about physical theories, whereas mathematicians seem to have less stake in them.

I mention these other theorists because I am hoping you also will have a look if you haven't already, and make a few comments, applying your mathematical skills.

While I am a physicist, I am usually in the 'dog house' because I refuse to agree to 'evolution' as the only possible explanation of things, and I am not a materialist/reductionist or positivist. Also, like Einstein I suppose, I am dissatisfied with current Quantum Theory. This makes me unpopular in some circles.

R.P.,

You asked me to review Aleksandar Vukelja's paper. I looked at it and exerted a great effort to try to make sense of it. I failed miserably. I feel very strongly that Mr. Vukelja's writings are largely incoherent and therefore meaningless.

Well, thank you for making the effort. I have reviewed three of your papers now:

A Derivation of the LT from Newtons 1st Law,

What are the Logical Implications of and Abs Frame of Ref?

and Generalized Lorentz Transformations.

These are unusually readable and coherent expositions. I particularly enjoyed your example of the photons travelling along the closed loop and resulting in a unique frame of reference. Very good. Fantastic.

Now that I see that argument, it seems almost inevitable that I would want to try to extend that argument to 'open universe' models.

I am not 100% on the first page of your Schubertian Clock invention, and I look forward to seeing in more detail how your version of things interprets various standard 'paradoxes' and scenarios in SRT.

I am dying to ask you if you have read Sklar, Freidman's Foundations of Spacetime Theories (which I found brilliant) and Earman's World Enough and Spacetime. These are what I have poured over again and again to get a grip on spacetime. I also have Wheeler's book, but I am not as impressed with that. In fact none of the Special Relativity books were very good, except some very basic introductions, like Relativity from A to B, and General Relativity by whatsisname.

I am still wondering why we have to abandon Newton's models, (reformulated as field theories), and whether the Lorentz transforms have any validity at all.

I find it extremely strange that a professional mathematician is unable to understand triangle of velocities and analysis of lorentz transformation that I presented.

This one is for you:

http://www.masstheory.org/lorentz_shubert.pdf

There is no link to it from my site, so this is for your viewing pleasure.


Aleksandar Vukelja

I define "extreme strangeness" as demonstrating actual evidence that two professional mathematicians disagree about anything in mathematics.


Thank you Mr. Vukelja. You wrote:


I acknowledge this sentence to be a horrible paraphrase of a sentence that used to be in my paper but there is nothing like it now in my most current edition.

"It is an important axiom of physics that says that these proper velocities are opposite in sign but equal in absolute value." That's much better. That's from the March 3, 2005 edition.


The equations are correct but your interpretation is wrong. You are not even attempting to paraphrase my writings at this point. Please use actual quotations.

Your greatest error is in your stated presupposition that "speed is derivative of time." You are explicitly contradicting my definition of time (section 2). I define time only locally (point by point) and define "proper velocity" empirically. I state emphatically in section 2 that there is no cosmic everywhere present "now." Because Shubertian physics doesn't rely on the existence or fabrication of a universal "now", all my equations no longer mean what you think they mean. They require an entirely new interpretation. Derivatives with respect to time become unphysical and meaningless very quickly without a cosmic everywhere present "now."

Rogue Physicist,

I have not read Sklar, Freidman, Earman, Wheeler or Robert Geroch.


Not only do we have to abandon Newton's equations for gravity but Einstein's field equations as well. There are two good evidences for this. Do you know about galactic rotation curves and the anomalous deceleration of the spacecrafts Pioneer 10/11, Galileo, and Ulysses?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_problem
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0407082
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/17/9/3/1
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9808081

I believe that these mysteries are connected and require a new theory of gravity. I reject the imaginary, unconfirmed and hypothetical presence of dark matter as an excuse why a special class of observations don't fit the predictions of any known mathematical model.

The Lorentz transforms have been demystified.
If you were to carefully read my interpretation of the Lorentz transformation, you might grasp its true meaning and agree about the extreme difficulty in rejecting it.

Greetings again: I thought Vukelja's reply was rather swift....

I am struggling with the underlying philosophical assumptions inevitably involved with *any* position on these things.

I also know quite well the immense (damning?) problem that galaxy rotational speeds represent:

To continue however, The issue in my mind is not that we should try to make the Inverse Square Law 'fit' by inventing 5-dimensional spaces, but that we should re-think what we want the Law of Gravity to look like.

The Inverse Square Law certainly fails at galaxy distances.

However, the Sphere Theorem fails due to discrete localization of mass,

and the Centre of Mass method fails due to proximity effects, so they are both only trivially true when d >> r.

What is far more damning and problematic is that the Law of Conservation of Momentum is dependant upon the Centre of Mass concept, and so is hopelessly flawed.

And of course no one has offered *any* coherent explanation at all for Newton's bucket experiment, which is crucial to any plausible version of gravity.

But what is unsuspected is the impact all this has on other physical theories like electrostatics, electrodynamics, etc.

What is it with people on this site??

"The Inverse Square Law certainly fails at galaxy distances."

Most probably not. There is convincing evidence for galactic dark matter (which would allow an inverse square law to be consistent with observation) independent of these concerns.

"However, the Sphere Theorem fails due to discrete localization of mass,"

It doesn't fail at all. It's a theorem and can be proven with math. There's no such thing as a perfect sphere in reality, but this is irrelevant.

"What is far more damning and problematic is that the Law of Conservation of Momentum is dependant upon the Centre of Mass concept, and so is hopelessly flawed."

It's not flawed at all. The law is that the angular momentum about any point in any intertial frame is conserved. It has nothing to do with center of mass.

"And of course no one has offered *any* coherent explanation at all for Newton's bucket experiment, which is crucial to any plausible version of gravity."

Newton's Laws predict the bucket to behave the way it does. Newton's Laws work in the realm in which this experiment has been performed. The issue of inertia and Mach's principle is really more of a philosophical question at this point.

The Sphere Theorem is a Physcial theorem, not just a mathematical construction. It is a statement about gravitational forces in physical situations (and applies to Electrostatics as well). The assumption in the 'proof' of the Sphere Theorem is that the mass (or charge) is continuously distributed. This is known to be false. As an approximation for large numbers of closely packed particles it works reasonably well, but not absolutely, or at molecular distances.

Since its a physical theorem, a purely 'mathematical' proof is not relevant. The question of the scope and applicability of the theorem is the whole point.

It can also be mathematically shown that the Sphere Theorem must fail when the sources of mass or charge are quantized. The 'math' is just as 'mathematical' and valid a tool for the disproof as for the proof.

I'll start a thread showing failure of the Sphere Theorem if you like.

By Newton's 'laws' I suppose you mean his discussions of circular motion and inertia. No educated person can be unaware at this point that Newton had to propose the artificial construct of 'Absolute Space' as an axiom in order to achieve his efficient version of the laws of motion. Newton never 'proved' anything about 'Absolute Space', which was rejected by the majority of physicists ever since as a kludge.
Even Einstein's General Relativity does not support the idea of 'Absolute Space', but rather a gravitational 'field' which moves along with the mass that generates it.

The point is, Newton describes the mechanism of the forces for the bucket experiment, and Einstein also conceives an explanation in terms of the gravitational field. But to say that there is 'Absolute Space' in Newton's sense is considered nonsense or 'useful fiction'.

When we turn to Newton's Gravity theory, there is *nothing* in it that can account for the bucket experiment. Even Mach acknowledged that the backdrop of the fixed stars had no known mechanism by which the bucket experiment could be explained.

Neither Newtonian Gravity nor Gen Rel properly accounts for Newton's bucket experiment. It remains one of the most difficult mysteries of gravitational theory. No known gravitational theory plausibly explains how and where the forces could come from to cause the experimental results of the bucket experiment.

If anything, modern particle theories make the problem more intractible than ever.

Newton erected the artificial axiom of 'Absolute Space' by fiat, and Einstein rewrote gravity as a field theory. Neither offered cogent cause and effect explanations for the bucket.

A gravitational theory that could explain the bucket would require more than simple 'unorientable' point-masses exerting simple direct attraction upon one another. Each particle would have to have orientation, chirality, and a way of distinguishing individual units not currently available.
(i.e. each electron would have to have a unique 'serial number').

There is no convincing evidence at all for 'dark matter', which has become the running joke of the cosmological world. It is evoked wherever and whenever measurements don't match the expectations of physical laws. What is worse, it is invoked in whatever quantities it is imagined will 'balance' the equations.