Einstein’s Great... Oversights — Science

Impatient?! A Quick Look at 3 Potentially Fatal Flaws

Impatient?! A Quick Look at 3 Potentially Fatal Flaws

An essential underpinning of relativity is that lighter and heavier “test bodies” always experience the same gravitational “acceleration”. But — oversighted not only by Newton himself (see Newton’s Great... Oversight), but by Einstein himself (see “‘RELATIVITY’ REQUIRES ABSOLUTE SPACETIME” in “A ‘Brief’ Summary of Einstein’s... Oversights”) — is that lighter and heavier bodies actually “fall” at different rates e.g. relative to Earth (with one fascinating exception), and that Newton’s theory predicts this.
The potentially saving grace for relativity is that, even though Earth is considered a very good approximation to a Lorentz (i.e. inertial) frame, it in fact is not a Lorentz frame. If we measure the acceleration of the lighter and heavier test bodies in an absolute Newtonian frame (or one moving in uniform motion “relative” to it, i.e. a Lorentz frame), the two bodies will accelerate at the same rate at precisely t = 0, but not at t > 0.
Einstein’s gedanken experiment that demonstrates the Equivalence Principle (essential to his relativity), the one with the elevator accelerating in the absence of a gravitational field being equivalent to its being held stationary in a “uniform gravitational field” has a problem: a “uniform gravitational field”, essential to the Equivalence Principle, is not a good approximation of reality. Any real world gravitational field has non-uniformity, in which case a slightly better designed gedanken experiment allows us to always distinguish between the 2 elevator scenarios, and the “Equivalence Principle” fails.
The solar atmosphere bends light by refraction by an amount very close to that predicted by relativity, especially if experimental error in measuring the density of the solar atmosphere is considered, and this has never been taken into account. Also, the star positions in the famous eclipse photos do not show the regularity that should accompany actual lensing from gravitational effects alone. Rather they display not only great radial randomness but also great tangential randomness, both of which are strongly predicted by lensing from atmospheric refraction in a roiling solar atmosphere, and neither of which are predicted by gravitational lensing and the relatively minor gravitational anomalies that would affect it. (See “Gravitational Lensing”.)

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Einstein’s Great... Oversights

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

A General Issue: Reasoning From False Premises

Impatient?! A Quick Look at 3 Potentially Fatal Flaws

Einstein’s Great... Oversights

Our sincerest sympathy to those who bridle (or worse) at the idea that Einstein — not to mention Eddington — made, in his theory of relativity, numerous synergistic and potentially fatal... oversights. There is a reason for this:

In today’s world, almost all public awareness of, positive interest in, and even fascination with, science — especially physics — is almost single-handedly due to one man: Albert Einstein. Einstein can also be credited with bringing the world a sense of the essential relationship of warmly compassionate humanism to science. It is literal fact that:

Einstein is the Elvis of science.

But Einstein, and every physicist since, have... oversighted many potentially fatal flaws with regard to relativity, so many, of such a nature, and so complexly synergistic that they can be referred to ironically as “manifold flaws”. This combination of manifold nature and complex synergy is perhaps the main reason why they haven’t been detected, or why they have failed to be reported if detected, e.g. the difficulty of comprehending them in the first place, and then of trying to communicate them to a defensively critical audience. These... oversights have never been publicly acknowledged and analyzed, let alone resolved. Some of them, it may turn out, will eventually be resolved still in favor of relativity, but taken together, they could easily necessitate a drastic overhaul of the foundations of relativity, if not its recycling at a much lower level.

Too, Newton (perhaps the King Arthur of physics, at least in retrospect) and Einstein are the 2 biggest names in modern Western science. For these reasons we have mimicked the title of the Newton article (Newton’s Great... Oversight), which it turns out also has strong relevance to the “hole” that relativity finds itself in.

SECTIONS

Einstein’s Great... Oversights

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

A General Issue: Reasoning From False Premises

Impatient?! A Quick Look at 3 Potentially Fatal Flaws

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Einstein, who did much else besides, is most famous for his theory of relativity. Although most scientists feel that relativity is established, no scientist feels completely sure that its validity has been put totally and safely beyond dispute, not satisfyingly anyway. It has certainly not yet, for example, formed a happy marriage with quantum theory. But most if not all scientists feel that Einstein is the legitimate successor to Newton, as far as theories of gravity go.

But, what about possible... oversights?!

It turns out that there are many potentially nagging, some potentially — even probably — fatal... oversights that were completely or almost completely ignored by Einstein, Eddington, and perhaps every physicist since. A critically important example:

an essential underpinning of relativity is that lighter and heavier “test bodies” always experience the same gravitational “acceleration”. But — oversighted not only by Newton himself (see Newton’s Great... Oversight), but by Einstein himself (see “‘RELATIVITY’ REQUIRES ABSOLUTE SPACETIME” in “A ‘Brief’ Summary of Einstein’s... Oversights”) — is that lighter and heavier bodies actually “fall” at different rates e.g. relative to Earth (with one fascinating exception), and that Newton’s theory predicts this.

A second critically important example:

Einstein’s gedanken experiment that demonstrates the Equivalence Principle (essential to his relativity), the one with the elevator accelerating in the absence of a gravitational field being equivalent to its being held stationary in a “uniform gravitational field” has a problem: a “uniform gravitational field”, essential to the Equivalence Principle, is not a good approximation of reality. Any real world gravitational field has non-uniformity, in which case a slightly better designed gedanken experiment allows us to always distinguish between the 2 elevator scenarios, and the “Equivalence Principle” fails.

Yet another example, the Newtonian concept of:

“action at a distance”

was explicitly rejected by Einstein (and not highly thought of even by Newton himself or his contemporaries), but... but Einstein in his turn replaced it with:

“curved spacetime at a distance”
(Matter curves spacetime that is “at a distance” from the matter that curves it; such an obvious interchange should have been publicly acknowledged and analyzed-resolved by Einstein, but no sign of even its detection has heretofore appeared in community forums.)

A short story: there is a state, in the great Midwest, by the name of Illinois. And there is a strange story to tell about this state. A man was once running for governor there, and he made what everyone thought was just a usual campaign promise. He promised to repeal the 5% state sales tax. He was elected, and... this is the strange thing, he did get the legislature to repeal the tax, thus keeping his campaign promise. At the precise instant that the 5% sales tax went out of effect, though, a “retail tax” of, you guessed it, 5% went into effect. And you thought this was a story straight out of the Twilight Zone.

No one mentions this “at a distance” interchange in writings on relativity, even when the rejection of “action at a distance” is being lauded as a great leap away from the “metaphysics” — even the un-science — of “(fill in the)___ at a distance”, even though it is painfully obvious and irrefutable.

There are many such, and the fatality is strongly related to the synergistic interactions in a way that makes them difficult to see as... oversights. But, we will try.

Another unfortunate characteristic of these... oversights is the intense psychological reaction to them being so disturbingly simple and obvious... once accepted as such, or perhaps even especially when feared in advance of such acceptance. We are not here putting forward subtle, sophisticated concepts such as gravitational self-energies or binding energies, compositional differences, or gravitational mass versus inertial mass. We are calling attention to flat out... oversights, oversights that should never in the world, or even in the cosmos, have been... oversighted.

E.g. (as mentioned above) there exists a simple gedanken experiment that can distinguish a gedanken elevator in a real world-type gravitational field from a gedanken elevator outside of a gravitational field.

The all too common psychological need for cognitive anti-dissonance and-or anti-cognitive dissonance that comes into play when... oversights would be too painfully obvious in retrospect also makes these same... oversights difficult to see as... oversights. But, again, we will try.

SECTIONS

Einstein’s Great... Oversights

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

A General Issue: Reasoning From False Premises