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Substance
Everyone is free to pick the causes they wish to champion. And the choices
they make say something about them. For example, a wise man chooses wisely.
I find Mr. Cooke's choice to be a bit odd (I'm tempted to
call it 'kooky', but I won't, as I am not sure how he pronounces his last
name). Perhaps you will too.
After his rhetorical introductory remarks, the heroic Mr. Cooke offers
his first bit of 'clarification,' saying something about where the twin
paradox is neither stated nor resolved, and then providing us with a rehash
of it (complete with references and an illustrative example, the paradoxically
non-paradoxical "Gasoline Paradox"). I have read, reread, and reread my
letter again and again, and nowhere do I find any reference to the twin
paradox, or its origin, in it.
In my letter, I did refer to real experiments
with atomic clocks on airplanes and with muons. These experiments provide
concrete, confirmable, repeatable
evidence of the way that nature
behaves (hmm, the scientific method, has anyone championing
twentieth century physics heard of that?). I was, and I will, remain
as silent as a statue of a smiling Buddha on the matter of the twin paradox.
Why? Because the twin paradox is a thought experiment, which to
my mind means that it is an act of imagination, and it is not wise to enter
into a debate about what will, did, or is likely to occur in the land or
neighborhood of make believe. Everyone is free to imagine what they like,
so there is nothing scientific about the 'findings' of such an exercise.
Sure, you might use what you imagine as a hypothesis and then construct
an experiment to test it, but this is not the way that thought experiments
have been used in twentieth century physics. They've been used as substitutes
for actual experiments, and as a data field for constructing theories,
and that's just way off base. So I'll leave the twin paradox alone.
I will, however, extract one sentence from Mr. Cooke's discussion of
the twin paradox because it appears to go hand in hand with his conclusion
about the gasoline paradox, and so appears to be the focus of his criticism
of my letter ("Wigner's point was that many things are path-dependent.
The only weirdness is that time happens to be one of those things").
What, then, does this pre-eminent champion have to say about my letter?
Where have I gone wrong? What crushing blow has he to deliver? He says,
"The situation is not at all symmetrical, and both the earthling and
the rocketeer agree that the earthling's world line is nearly straight,
while the rocketeer's world line is bent."
What?! Is that all?! I could have said it better myself. In fact, maybe
I did (note to the editor of The College: Oops I did
it again; twisted an idiom so that it says something unexpected. Did you
catch it?). Let me quote my own letter:
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 (p. 8-9).
Oh my! It turns out that The College's champion--the one specially
picked out from the supposed crowd to put me in my place or make me look
foolish--actually agrees with me. We are both saying that
you can tell whose world line was straighter. In fact, aside from
Mr. Cooke's fancy jargon ('path-dependent', 'world lines', and talk of
'straightness'), and his use of the word 'time' where I prefer 'clocks'
in quotes, we are saying exactly the same thing. And, since I have
nothing against the jargon (except that it refers to things that a general
audience may not be familiar with), and since Einstein basically defines
time as the readings provided by a 'standard clock,' even these trivial
instances of difference fade into agreement.
So, hmm. What a disappointment! Opposition like this ranks right up
there with the fearsome crack suicide squad of the Judean People's Front
(as
seen in Monty Python's Life of Brian), and Flip ("I'll
punch you right in the fist with my face") Wilson. To turn an old
saying all topsy-turvy: with opposition like this, who needs supporters?
(Note
to the editor of The College: the saying that I am referring to
is, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" To suit the situation,
I first changed it to "With enemies like this, who needs friends," and
then I changed the vocabulary because Mr. Cooke doesn't really qualify
as an enemy.) Would somebody please be so kind as to inform Mr.
Cooke that, when he wants to correct someone or disagree, he ought to have
a position that differs from that of the person he is correcting
or disagreeing with. His current pedagogical methodology would seem to
involve agreeing by being disagreeable. The more I learn about Mr. Cooke,
the less I wonder why he is a former tutor. |
| Yet the absurdity of this situation deserves some comment
and reflection (and maybe a chuckle or two). If you think about it, the
formidable Mr. Cooke does place me in quite a bind, for it is quite ridiculous
to argue
against someone who repeats your position right back to
you, even if they do it with an attitude or rhetoric that suggests that
you are wrong and they are right.
So where do we stand? The great champion has handed right back to me
the very premise that I used to show that the evidence currently
suggests that the earth is at rest at the center of the universe. |
***News Flash!***
Former Tutor Involved in Shooting
Incident
ANNAPOLIS,
MD: An unnamed former tutor from St. John's College
was hospitalized for what appeared to be a self-inflicted wound late yesterday.
Police officials are still investigating the incident, but witnesses say
that the tutor accidentally put his foot in his mouth while he was shooting
his mouth off, and, in this way, he managed to shoot himself in the foot.
A sheriff's
deputy said that an investigation was being conducted in order to determine
if this was an isolated incident, or if the former tutor has a history
of reckless self-endangerment. Hospital officials refused to comment, other
than to say that the patient had been treated and released.
|
As a great and clear thinking individual, I guess he is compelled to agree
with me on that account as well. I wonder if he regards it as progress,
for he apparently objects to me suggesting that it is weird. (He says that
the "only weirdness" is that time is path-dependent.)
Yet this little venture into absurdity was just a bit of fun. It, too,
was not the main point of my original letter. It does, however, help to
underscore the fact that the evidence is at odds with a strict interpretation
of the theory, as reflected, say, by the following comments in the winter
2005 article:
The constancy of the velocity of light is one principle, and
the other one is the relativity principle, which is that the laws of physics
have to be the same; there's no special frame of reference. (Mr.
Kutler, p. 16)
...it seemed to prove...that our notion of absolute space and time
was an illusion. (D. Macdonald, p. 17)
Please note: I am not arguing against these interpretations or saying
that they are wrong (they are correct interpretations of
the theory as Einstein articulated it), I am trying to emphasize
that these interpretations do not correlate with the evidence, which is
to say that the theory does not correlate with the evidence. For
if we can tell whose world line is straighter when comparing two
coordinate systems that are moving relative to each other, then there
is a "special frame of reference," an absolute space; namely, the coordinate
system with the straightest world lines. And we have a simple test to help
us find it: just keep comparing 'clocks' in different systems until you
find the one in which the 'clock' runs the fastest.
So here's where I think things get weird: The fact that we can
tell whose world line is straighter sucks the relativity
right out of the Theory of Relativity.
To my mind, when a theory can't even live up to its own name, it's time
to look for a new theory; especially under the following circumstances:
-
The theory evidently was formulated on the basis of an act of imagination
(recall
my comments above on thought experiments);
namely, something like what is described in the winter 2005 issue of The
College:
-
"Einstein was able to think about light moving through the aether in a
different, imaginative way, and that made all the difference. 'He
tried to think about sitting on the hump of a wave. Just sitting there
at 300,000 kilometers-per-second, what would it be like?' Thought experiments
like those led Einstein to new questions..." (p. 19);
-
"...Maxwell's conclusions on electromagnetic radiation led Einstein to
wonder what would happen if a source of electromagnetic radiation--a light
bulb, for example--were moving and he stood still." (p. 18)
-
"Einstein wasn't such a good mathematician says Flaumenhaft. 'He was imaginative...'"
(p. 18)
-
For the record, when I think of things like moving at the
speed of light, I imagine something quite different from what Einstein
imagines, and the things I imagine correlate
better with the experiments,
because I don't have to imagine what the experimental evidence is.
-
From the very start, the theory just steamrolled its way over rational
considerations, such as:
-
What does it mean for two bodies to be spatially separated when there is
nothing between them?
-
How, if there is no aether and light is a wave, can nothingness undulate?
-
How does a beam of light (or the spacetime of a given coordinate system)
'know' that it must 'adjust' its speed (or the rate of its clocks and the
lengths of distances in only a particular direction) so as to have the
same measured speed in all frames of reference?
-
How does a beam of light (or a given spactime coordinate system) manage
to accomplish that adjustment?
-
How was c established as the universal speed limit?
-
What kind of metaphysics defines time as the position of the hands of a
clock?
-
Is the light postulate even necessary? [for a discussion
of this see my letter to the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
-
The physical world is one coherent thing, but we use two incompatible approaches
to explain it, Relativity and Quantum Physics.
-
Relativity and Quantum Physics are incompatible even though the same theorist
(Einstein) played a key role in developing both of them.
-
Both theories are routinely described by their own adherents as
being absurd, weird, incredible, violating common sense, and the like.
What a strange situation! You can't tell the adherents from the protesters!
(We
could call situations like this 'The Cooke Paradox'). When, one
wonders, will the world wake up and pay attention to what is being said
by
both sides? I'm afraid that many of us are too dazzled by Einstein's
reputation as a 'genius':--or the rationalizations devised to put the right
'spin' on experimental results--to trust our gut instincts. For examples,
consider the following excerpts from the pro-Einstein article in
the winter 2005 issue of The College (which is typical of many articles
and books on Relativity and Quantum Physics):
-
"...with the Einstein paper I had to carefully go over each word to make
sure I understood what he was saying--so much of it was counterintuitive
to my mind" (Erin Hanlon p. 16)
-
"...empiricists like Francis Bacon...belive you keep experimenting and
experimenting and you're very slow to theorize. Einstein didn't obey those
rules. He theorized first and the experimentation came later. He loved
his theories, and he believed in them" (Mr. Kutler p. 16-17)
-
"Even after all his years of working through the paper with students, Swentzell
finds there are some concepts Einstein presents that just 'hit you in the
stomach sometimes'
'You can see how it's all derived, but then to imagine walking around
this world of ours and as you're walking down the hall, to suddenly think
that what you're calling 'now' means a different set of events in the universe
than for somebody who's sitting down in their office. Everything changes.
That's the part,' he says, 'that's just too weird. That's when you have
to go home and sleep on it and get the equations out to guide you.'" (p.
17)
. Note:
There is a lot of emphasis on the effectiveness of 'the equations' by defenders
of twentieth century physics. Such a line of reasoning did not save Ptolemy's
theory and I don't think it will save Einstein's. Additionally, the possession
of equations does not establish any kind of link between a theory and reality.
Equations can be manufactured for any number of totally fantastic sets
of laws of nature, so letting the equations be your guide could be the
mathematical equivalent of flying off with Tinkerbell to Neverland. My
advice: proceed at your own risk.
-
"Einstein's 1905 paper on special relativity was certainly one of the highlights
of my time at St. John's, and not just because it seemed to prove the absurd--that
our notion of absolute space and time was an illusion...I felt like we
were proving the absurd with very simple, rational tools." (David Macdonald
p. 17)
-
"With Einstein, you don't so much understand it as you get used to it.
It flatly contradicts everything that seems to make common sense." (Peter
Pesic, p. 18)
-
"The types of questions tutors and students ponder in class can be both
wondrous and perplexing, agrees Harvey Flaumenhaft. 'What does it really
mean to say it's 5 o'clock in two different places? What does a law of
nature have to look like to be reasonable?" (p. 18)
-
"It's so concentrated that what you're doing is unpacking the significance
of very simply stated assumptions that turn everything you've been thinking
about the framework of the world upside down" (Mr. Flaumenhaft p. 18)
-
"[Einstein's] ideas about the actual workings of the universe and his semi-hidden,
semi-mystical cosmology seemed all jumbled together. I tried to disaggregate
them, but with little luck." (Akiba Covitz p. 18)
-
"Wilson says he can still be 'befuddled' by the subtleties of the paper
when he stops to think about them." (p. 19)
-
String Theory, the theory cobbled together to marry these quarreling, malformed
siblings, is even more fantastical than the other two taken in combination.
One result of it should be (though good luck trying to get
a physicist to admit it) that things like planets, people, toasters,
and corvettes should magically appear out of thin air, or disappear back
into it, all the time.
-
There's a considerably simpler way to explain all of this.
I do realize that this is not the news that everyone (or anyone) wants
to hear, and I have been apologetic on the few occasions when I have brought
it up. You can see that in the full version of my letter (and
you can see it in my
letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). I am sensitive
to the feeling of achievement that many Johnnies get from feeling that
they have wrestled with Einstein himself in their senior math tutorial,
a feeling that was nicely conveyed by these quotes in the winter 2005 issue
of The College:
In this issue of The College, tutors and alumni describe
working through the paper as one of the most remarkable experiences they've
had at the college--one that stays with them long after they've moved on
to other pursuits. (inside cover)
When [Wilson] returned to Annapolis in 1973, seniors in math tutorial
were reading the paper, "That was an important shift, and I was really
glad to see it. It motivates students--'this is really the paper that Einstein
wrote? And I'm reading it?'" (p. 14)
The point of my letter was to try to temper this exuberance with
some sober reflection on what we are getting so excited about. I also wanted
to encourage those who struggled to understand Einstein by suggesting that
the problem did not lie with them, but with the fact that it is always
very difficult to try to understand nonsense. As Peter Pesic said,
"With Einstein, you don't so much understand it as you get used to it"
(p. 18). And even after you think you get a handle on it, it keeps slipping
out of your hands like a wriggling fish. Why does it do that? Because it
is fundamentally incoherent. That is to say, the incoherence lies at the
level of the assumptions (call them postulates if you like) that
go into the theory. Once you swallow them, the indigestion is inevitable.
The hope that I have for St. John's is that it will graduate from an
approach to Einstein that leaves the student gazing upward in stupefaction
to one that allows the student to stand above Einstein and see his work
for what it is (and what it isn't). I realize that there are those at the
college who treasure the experience of pure perplexity and wonder, and
the marvels of twentieth century physics may strike them as a gold mine
from which they may extract that experience for themselves or produce it
for others, but finding yourself at a loss in the face of nonsense is quite
different than being awed by truth or a fundamental question. By approaching
Einstein's work from the proper perspective, we would not be diminishing
the multitude of things that truly deserve our awe and respect. If the
college needs my help in devising such an approach, I am willing to lend
a hand. |
In my letter, I said that one of the questions that always bothered
me was how Einstein's theory got accepted in the first place. Part
of the answer lies in the fact that the culture has become enamored with
irrationality, perhaps (again, in part) as a reaction against the misnamed
'Rationalists.' Certainly, Einstein's current role as a pop icon is fed
by his image as a mad scientist who helped to demonstrate that the world
'truly is' a wacky, incomprehensible place.
Nietzsche, who graced the cover of the issue of The College that
contained my letter, urged us to be not only suspicious of, but actively
opposed to the idols of the tribe (that Nietzsche himself
is now one those idols creates a paradox that we could call 'The Nietzsche
Paradox,' but there are probably four or five paradoxes contending for
that name already out there). I am not an advocate of revolution
for its own sake, but I think we could use a dose of his revolutionary
fever to help us break free of the idols that we have slipped into worshipping,
especially the ones that have been leading us in the wrong directions.
The criticisms (and alternatives) that I have to offer are not limited
to physics, for indeed, the entire system (if something as disjointed as
our current understanding of the world can be termed a 'system') is badly
in need of a total overhaul.
To borrow an image from Plato's Republic, we are all troglodytes.
Those of us who attended St. John's took a chance on gaining our freedom
(facio
liberos ex...), and many of us succeeded. However, being free to
wander about inside the cave--even in the company of the greatest
minds--is no guarantee that one will ever find the way out. It is possible,
when spelunking, to lose your way and get confused. The way inwards can
seem like the way out, and digging you own way can be frustrating and futile.
When the routes advocated by the great thinkers all lead to dead ends,
and even the common wisdom advises you 'to make a niche for yourself' and
'settle down,' can despair be far behind? |
| Hope, however, springs eternal. There are unexplored
routes in this cave, passages where the air seems fresher and the going
is not so rough, steep, or dizzying. I have stolen away from the paths
of men to explore some of these regions, and think that others might find
them not only enlightening, but a whole lot more fun, and, in many ways,
rewarding.
You know, at the end of my initial letter, I said I was headed to the
bar. Looks like it's time for another trip. Care to join me?
Yours,
John Newell, A '86 |
