{"id":557,"date":"2007-12-06T14:04:24","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T14:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scientopia.org\/blogs\/goodmath\/2007\/12\/06\/newton-einstein-morons\/"},"modified":"2007-12-06T14:04:24","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T14:04:24","slug":"newton-einstein-morons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/2007\/12\/06\/newton-einstein-morons\/","title":{"rendered":"Newton? Einstein? Morons!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Isaac Newton was a total nutjob. Did you know that he tried to pop his own eyeball out with a knitting needle as a part of an experiment? That he nearly blinded himself staring into the sun? That he was an avid alchemist?<\/p>\n

Why do we pay so much respect to a person who was clearly mentally IMBALANCED? Why would anyone take such a total lunatic seriously? It can’t be because of science – his science was a sloppy mess that he had a hard time explaining to anyone else.<\/p>\n

The only reason we look on him as such a figure of respect is because we’re told to. Scientists and mathematicians are fascinated by this figure of lunacy, and placed him on a pedestal. The rest of us accept what they tell us because they’re scientists, right? They know who was really smart. But is that good science? Or is it just insane hero worship?<\/p>\n

The way to tell is to look at the science. Newton’s science was a mess – a hodge-podge of never-before-seen mathematics, mixed with sloppy experiments performed between his alchemical studies.<\/p>\n

Look at Newton’s so-called “law of universal gravitation”. It ASSUMES that the LAWS OF MATHEMATICS can accurately describe the LAWS OF NATURE, and that the LAWS OF NATURE are the same everywhere. I won’t go into detail about it, but it should be clear that anyone who actually takes the time to think about it that the whole “law of gravity” is full of basic flaws in both the assumptions and the methodology used to devise this so-called law.<\/p>\n

<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Ok, so I don’t really think that, and I’m sure that none of you got past the first six words without being certain that I was up to something writing that. That’s the style of attack in a piece recently published in The American Chronicle<\/a>, which is trying to dispute the validity of relativity.<\/p>\n

Compare what I wrote above with the introduction to the Chronicle piece:<\/p>\n

\n

Many notable scientists such as the French mathematician, Henri Poincare rejected Einstein’s Theory of Relativity due to it’s lack of sound mathematical procedures, absence of clearness of vision or rigorous arguments.<\/p>\n

It has been noted that often when Einstein gave a public speech, that less than ten percent of the audience spoke German and out of these only a few were physicists. Even though 99% of the audience didn’t have the slightest idea what he had said in his mysterious presentation, he still got a standing ovation. Was this good science or just a popular fad? Should populism be the basis for accepting or rejecting a scientific theory?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We start off with a claim that some great scientist rejected Einstein’s theory; and then move on to a rather doubtful apocryphal story.<\/p>\n

In fact, the story of Einstein and Poincaré is a fascinating one, which shouldn’t be dismissed with a handwave. In fact, Poincaré and Einstein were both<\/em> working on relativity at the same time. It’s Poincaré who worked out the Lorentz trasformation. They were publishing their work on it at the same time. There was a very strong sense of competition between them about the relativity work; Poincaré refused to cite Einstein; Einstein never cited Poincaré until after Poincaré died, and even then was very grudging in what he would admit Poincaré did. Pointcaré criticized Einstein’s work on relativity – but he did it not as a critique of relativity, but as a personal critique of Einstein, who’s work on relativity Poincaré believed to be inferior to his own. Not quite the impression that you’d get from reading the intro to the Chronicle piece, eh? (If you’re interested in the history of this, there’s a book which recieved very good reviews which has more details; I’ve ordered a copy, but it hasn’t arrived yet. It’s called Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time<\/a>\"\")<\/p>\n

The story about audiences not understanding Einstein but applauding anyway is highly doubtful. Since the author provides no citations for it, it’s hard to refute. But an important thing to remember is that before world war 2, German was the main language of science. Most scientific work was published in German. My father spoke German, because when he was in college studying physics, you were required to take several years of scientific German in order to be able to read scientific papers. The idea that Einstein was giving lectures in German to scientific audiences who couldn’t understand it is quite strange.<\/p>\n

But this introduction is just the least of the silliness in the Chronicle piece. Mr. Williams is clearly very uncomfortable with some of the ideas of relativity, and he feels that it must<\/em> be wrong. The basic idea that there is no such thing as an absolute velocity or a universal time is unacceptable to Mr. Williams. But Mr. Williams cannot address the math or physics of relativity. He can’t understand them enough to address them in any way. But they must<\/em> be wrong. So how can he make that argument? The same way as crackpots everywhere. What do I always say is the very worst kind of math? No math!<\/p>\n

So how does Mr. Williams go about refuting relativity? By building an argument that bans the use of math for the purposes of science! No, really! I’m not joking! According to Mr. Williams, you can’t use mathematical conclusions in science, only physical models, and the physical models must be math free. Any attempt to combine mathematical and physical models are automatically totally invalid:<\/p>\n

\n

MATHEMATICAL MODELS are abstract, idealized, imaginary models which contain characteristics and assumptions which cannot exist in reality (such as points, lines, triangles, spheres, etc.) These models can be purely logical, purely mathematical, geometric, kinematic, dynamic or electromagnetic. All of these models are based on the LAWS OF MATHEMATICS (symbols, equations, formulas etc.) which only approximate the physical LAWS OF NATURE. These mathematical models produce deductive conclusions which only apply to the idealized mathematical models.<\/p>\n

\tPHYSICAL MODELS are real models composed of physical objects which are used in empirical experiments. By repeating identical (as far as possible) testing with these models, inductive conclusions can be made. These inductive conclusions, because they are the results of physical experiments, are the fundamental method used by science in an attempt to understand the LAWS OF NATURE. Knowledge about the real Universe must come from physics and not from mathematics. Experience has always been the primary guide in human reasoning concerning physical facts.<\/p>\n

\tMETAPHYSICAL MODELS are sophistic models which contain both mathematical characteristics and physical characteristics. These are mingled or mixed models. Neither mathematical deductions nor physical inductive conclusions can be produced from these models because they cannot exist in reality. These are pseudoscience models which result from “thought experiments”. These are purely imaginary mental creations. Any conclusions whatsoever that these models produce are completely irrelevant to anything. They cannot produce any valid understanding of reality. A sophist is someone who deceives people based on clever-sounding, but flawed arguments or explanations. However, these fallacious theories do produce popular imaginary science fiction tales about time travel (Back to the Future, motion picture) and spaceships that travel at the speed of light (Star Trek, motion picture).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

See, you aren’t allowed to mix math and science. They’ve got to stay absolutely separate. If you use math to reason out something about the world, even if it makes good predictions, it just doesn’t matter, because by combining the “PHYSICAL MODEL” and the “MATHEMATICAL MODEL”, you’ve created a “METAPHYSICAL MODEL”, which cannot produce any kind of valid conclusions.<\/p>\n

This is what made me open up this post with the little Newton pastiche. You see, the critique of Einstein is derived from this nonsense about non mixing math and physics. The same exact technique can be used to tear down Newton.<\/p>\n

Newton looked at the way the world seemed to work, and derived the laws of motion: a set of mathematical equations<\/em> that described how forces ask on physical bodies. Along the way, he designed a new set of mathematical tools – which he called fluxions – for the purposes of performing mathematical analysis of physical phenomena. He then used those same mathematical methods to try to explain observations of how celestial bodies moved. He used what Williams referred to as a metaphysical model<\/em>: a model that combines physical observations, physical explanations, and mathematical models to create an explanation that uses both to create an explanation and predictions.<\/p>\n

That’s how real science works. Math is a formal tool for describing relationships. Underlying nearly all scientific theories are mathematical constructions that formalize the theory enough to make it precise and testable. Toss out the math, and you can’t even describe how how a wagon gains speed when you push it – any attempt to explain it will be a linguistic explanation of a mathematical relationship. You can say “The wagon will move when I push it; it will gain speed faster if I push harder on it” – but that’s just a sloppy and imprecise way of saying “F=ma”.<\/p>\n

As I’ve written before, mathematical modeling isn’t easy. You can’t just sit around imagining how things might work, and pick something that seems to make sense. You look at the data gained from observations, and try to find a mathematical model that describes it. You use the model to make predictions, and then validate it by doing experiments that show that the predictions of the model match reality.<\/p>\n

It’s true that even if prior predictions of a model appear to be true, new things that can be derived from the mathematical model need their own validation. At every step of using a model, each time you come up with a new prediction, you need to validate it. That’s what we call “science”.<\/p>\n

That’s what Einstein did.<\/p>\n

He looked at the information we had about how things worked. And he took some observations of things that just did not seem to make sense – places where the existing models did not adequately explain reality. And he tried to see what was wrong with those, and if he could develop a model that described reality more precisely. That led to relativity.<\/p>\n

Mr. Williams goes on to criticize some of the experiments that have been used to validate relativity. He spends a lot of time on the 1919 eclipse, in which measurements of light deflection appeared to confirm the predictions of relativity. It’s come to light in the years since the experiment that not all of the data from that set of observations really did fit predictions. In fact, some analysts have suggested that the degree of deflection observed was within the margin of error of the experimental procedure. Be that as it may, people didn’t stop testing relativity in 1919. In’s been nearly 90 years since that experiment, and relativity has held up in quite literally thousands<\/em> of experiments, ranging from other gravitational lensing experiments, to particle delay experiments, to satellite timing experiments. In fact, if you have a GPS device in your car, every time you use it, you’re doing a sort of relativity-validating experiment. GPS works by a kind of triangulation from multiple satellites; without a relativistic correction, you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the kind of precision that the GPS needs.<\/p>\n

His second criticism of experimental validations is even worse:<\/p>\n

\nA second ‘proof’ of General Relativity regarding the orbit of the planet Mercury, contains too many unknowns to substantiate any mathematical theory. The composition and mass of every body in the solar system is only an approximation, even of our own planet Earth.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bzzt. Sorry, but you can’t make a claim like that without doing some math! Take the information that we have, with error-bars. Do the computation of what Newtonian gravity predicts, keeping careful track of the error bound. Do the same thing with a relativistic computation. Then show how the error bars of the predictions are too large to allow us to distinguish which explanation is closer. Of course, the math of that is beyond Williams. After all, we can’t expect him to actually do any work<\/em>, even though he’s trying to refute an incredibly well-supported theory. Hand-waving should be enough, shouldn’t it?<\/p>\n

Williams then goes into a hopelessly clueless babble about quantum physics, which he quite clearly does not understand. Among other things, he says that quantum theory proved that light is a particle, not<\/em> a wave. Talk about clueless – ever heard of the double slit experiment?<\/a>. Apparently not in his case.<\/p>\n

Then, finally, we get to the heart of his complaint – the part that really bothers him. Like most anti-relativity crackpots, it’s the idea that there is no central, fundamental, canonical frame of reference, no absolute notion of velocity or time:<\/p>\n

\n

\tAlmost all scientists today agree with Einstein’s assumption that there is no fixed frame of reference for the Universe. This also induces them to accept Einstein’s false assumption about the speed of light. However, the Big Bang theory implies that there is a fixed (Central) frame of reference in the Universe. This fixed frame of reference for all (Absolute) motion is the physical location of the Big Bang. It is the location from which all universal expansion began. It is from this location alone that the constant speed of light can be defined (or any motion of any object). This location cannot be known because of the immense size of the Universe. It can only be hypothetically conceived or roughly estimated. The conception that every location in the Universe is expanding or moving away from every other location is an abstract idea which is essentially true but it doesn’t negate the real characteristic that the total mass of the Universe still has a common center. The expansion of any real mass, must have a mass to begin with and a real location. An expanding Universe doesn’t imply a moving Universe. If there is nothing outside of the Universe, then the idea of a moving Universe has no meaning, and the entire Universe should be considered stationary. A stationary mass must have a stationary common center. This is the Central frame of reference, (0,0,0,0).\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A quick question for Mr. Williams before I let him go on. Where’s the center of the surface of a balloon? When I’m blowing up a balloon, every point on its surface is getting farther away from every other point. Which one is the fixed, unmoving center?<\/p>\n

\n

\tAstronomers have measured the movements of the stars in our Milky Way galaxy in order to approximate the center of the galaxy. Even for our local galaxy, this method only produces an approximate location. This is difficult to do with the billions of galaxies for the entire Universe, but this is the only way to hypothetically predict the center of the Universe. This center is the hypothetical fixed frame of reference. Call it the Big Bang frame of reference at location (x,y,z,t) or (0,0,0,0) at time zero. It has also been called the Central frame of reference.<\/p>\n

\tWhy is the existence of a fixed frame of reference important to the Special Theory of Relativity and the speed of light? It is because the definition of velocity has no meaning unless it is with reference to a specific frame of reference. All light (quantum) has constant motion (or Absolute motion) only relative to the only fixed (Central) frame of reference (Big Bang). All other motion can only be relative motion. <\/p>\n

\tEinstein’s observation that the speed of light is constant was probably correct, but without a fixed frame of reference, there is nothing for it to be constant in relation to. A velocity must be motion relative to something else. Einstein’s assumption that the speed of light is constant relative to all moving frames of reference was partially correct. But it is correct only if the relative movement of the different frames of reference are taken into account relative to the Big Bang frame of reference. The false assumption about the relative speed of light was a consequence of Einstein’s false rejection of the Big Bang frame of reference for the entire Universe. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As my question above suggests, Mr. Williams dispute with the reference-frame conclusions of relativity comes from not being capable of understanding what the theories he’s talking about actually say. It’s part of the risk when you insist on taking a mathematical argument, and trying to express it without any math.<\/p>\n

The big bang theory doesn’t say that the universe exploded into<\/em> space from a singularity; it says that an explosion from a singularity created space<\/em>. It doesn’t say that the matter in the universe that was condensed into a point floating around in space, but that before the big bang, there wasn’t any space at all<\/em>. The big bang didn’t occur at a location in space – because before it, there was no space for it to have a location in.<\/p>\n

There is no such thing as a big bang reference frame. It’s a meaningless concept.<\/p>\n

Further, his continual griping about the speed of light demonstrates that he doesn’t have a clue about what relativity actually says. The fascinating thing – one of the problems that relativity was created to explain – is that no matter how precisely we measure it, no matter where we measure it, no matter how fast we’re going when we measure it, light always<\/em> appears to be moving at the same speed. Measure the speed of light from the equator at sunrise, and at sunset – and despite the fact that you’re moving at significant difference velocities, there’s no variation in the speed of light. Measure it on the equator, and measure it in Paris, and you’ll get the same value. Measure it in a supersonic plane, or in a stationary laboratory, and you’ll get the same value. It doesn’t matter. It’s always the same. If it had an absolute velocity, and there was no time dilation, you’d be able to see differences in the speed of light – if you were moving towards a light source, you’d see photons coming towards you at what appeared to me faster that the speed of light. But you don’t. You see red-shifts in light from objects moving away from you – but you don’t see any difference in the speed of that light.<\/p>\n

Williams concludes with a summary of his critique:<\/p>\n

\n

Mathematical models are composed of abstract, idealistic, imaginary characteristics and impossible objects which cannot exist in reality.<\/p>\n

Physical models are composed of real physical objects in which all of the characteristics cannot be known or accurately measured.<\/p>\n

CONCLUSION: Because of the totally different systems (math and physics) in which these two models are conceived and utilized:<\/p>\n

1. The deductive conclusions from the abstract math model cannot be applied to the physical model. To do this, produces the fallacy of analogy abuse. Analogies are used in science to help convey ideas, not to form judgments or inferences.<\/p>\n

2. Also because of this difference, the two types of models cannot be mixed or mingled. This only produces metaphysical, sophistical, pseudoscience models which have nothing to do with reality and produce no physical conclusions whatsoever. Metaphors and allegories are literary devices not appropriate in scientific theories.<\/p>\n

The failure of the Special Theory of Relativity to produce conclusions which were logically and physically sound, essentially resulted from a repeated failure to recognize this relationship between mathematics and physics. From imaginary sophistical metaphysical models, the Special Theory produces conclusions which are contradictory to reality and contrary to common sense.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I find this conclusion fascinating. It starts by repeating his nonsense about how you can’t mix math and science, because anything which mixes them is just metaphysical nonsense. But then he ends with the kicker that explains the real reason behind the whole article: relativity is contrary to common sense. It’s not comfortable and easy to understand, so it must be wrong. And that’s coming from a guy who’s claiming that quantum theory<\/em> is an example of science done right! What’s less<\/em> common-sensical than quantum theory?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isaac Newton was a total nutjob. Did you know that he tried to pop his own eyeball out with a knitting needle as a part of an experiment? That he nearly blinded himself staring into the sun? That he was an avid alchemist? Why do we pay so much respect to a person who was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-physics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lzZS-8Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}