| February 28, 2005
The College Magazine
Re: Harty, Rosemary, "On Einstein" and "Einstein Comes To St. John's" The College 31.1 (Winter 2005). (Portions in red were ommitted or changed by the editor when the letter was printed in The College.)Dear Editor: It would be appropriate, in this centennial of his annus mirabilis, not to begin this letter with a lesson in Latin grammar, but with an acknowledgment of the achievements of Dr. Einstein, though we should take care, while tipping our hats, not to lose our heads. Infatuation, it seems, is frequently the outcome of a close encounter with Dr. Einstein's work, but I think we all would agree that St. John's College strives not only to expose its students to the works of great thinkers, and to impress upon its students the importance of giving those thinkers their due, but also it strives to equip its students to be critical of what those thinkers have to say. Education, Plato reminds us, involves entrusting the cultivation of your soul to another, so it is only prudent to exercise some caution (Protagoras 312c-313b). Caution when dealing with Einstein's work should come in two forms. Caution about articulating what he said, and caution about accepting it as true. Tutor Swentzell's word problem as reported in The College ("...helping students make sense of Einstein by getting them to figure how fast they would have to drive a car to get it to shrink and fall into one of the cracks on the road" p. 17) either fails to articulate the theory well, or fails to call attention to a very serious problem that the theory has. As a theory of relativity, Dr. Einstein's work should be properly understood as one of reciprocity. Thus, for onlookers on the sidewalk, yes, the car appears to shrink in the direction of its motion. For a driver inside the car, however, the car appears to maintain its proper size; instead, as the driver sees it, things outside the window, like pedestrians, buildings, and cracks in the road, seem to shrink (though only in a particular plane). In order to be a driver of a car that shrinks at high speed, one would have to drive the car from outside--by remote control--on a strict interpretation of Relativity. A strict interpretation of Relativity, however, is no longer tenable. Relatively well-known experiments with muons and atomic clocks have demonstrated that 'clocks' moving at high speeds do slow down. Here is where things get peculiar. A strict interpretation of Relativity would require that people riding on high-speed airplanes see the clocks down on Earth slow down. When the travelers return to their earthbound comrades, there should be a grand argument as each group asserts that the other group's clocks were running slow. Instead, there is agreement: the travelers are younger than they would be if they had stayed at home, and the difference is more or less what Dr. Einstein's equations predict. It is, then, a matter of fact that Relativity effects are not reciprocal. Oddly, then, experiments of this kind demonstrate that there actually is such a thing as absolute space, for we obviously can decide who was moving and who was standing still, by seeing whose clocks were slowed, and whose were not. Further, until someone can find a place where clocks run faster than they do here on Earth, Relativity actually supports the claim that the Earth is absolutely at rest. But wait! It gets stranger: if the earth is at rest, then, since we see the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets moving across the sky, the evidence suggests that everything revolves around the Earth. And, just to top it off, if everything revolves around the Earth, then, since the universe is now regarded as infinite, there is no reason not to regard the Earth as the center of the universe. Oh! The progress we've made! At this point, the door stands wide open to supplement Dr. Einstein's theory--which, indeed, provides nothing beyond what Aristotle would label a formal cause--by reintroducing the aether as the material cause, and so take a step towards developing an account on the level of the efficient cause (which is what any of the natural sciences, as studies of how the material world works, should, generally, strive to achieve). It would be most mysterious, however, to use the very theory that killed the aether to resurrect it. Weird science? You better believe it. But, at some point, somebody will feel emboldened to declare it to be nonsense, and, at that time, there will be some need for clear heads who can distinguish the baby from the bath water. We all, I think, not only hope, but expect that St. John's will be the institution of higher learning where those heads get clarified. Let us, then, celebrate Dr. Einstein's annus mirabilis (I know I sure could use a drink), but let's do it without getting caught up in the worship of a pop icon, and without painting ourselves into the very corner we were trying to steer clear of. Perhaps the questions that I have always found most puzzling in regard to Dr. Einstein's work can help. How did he ever get his work published in the first place? What made his ideas so appealing? What inspires people--even those who have no idea of what his theories entail (or, perhaps, especially them)--to regard him as a champion, and to declare themselves to be his adherents? How did this theory, together with General Relativity and Quantum Physics, which are so convoluted, and which invite readers to thumb their noses at common sense, ever come to be regarded as epitomes of fine thinking? On these issues, I am genuinely baffled. And you could climb the heights and plumb the depths to which I am dumbstruck, if only I had time and space enough here to recount the ways in which I think that twentieth century physics has gone astray. But you all can discuss the matter. I'm going to the bar. John Newell A'86 John Newell is a maverick, but humorous, philosopher who, having been vamoosed from the temple, now bides his time. |