Death to General Relativity!

In the past, most of my ranting against Relativity has been confined to the special theory. Now I’m going to rectify that and focus on general relativity.

So here goes.

At the end of Chapter Eighteen of Relativity (which is in the general relativity section of the book), Albert Einstein says that it seems impossible to generalize special relativity to all motion both uniform and non-uniform, as evidenced by the simple consideration of applying the brakes to the train in his thought experiment. Applying the brakes causes the train occupants to feel a jerk that compels us to “grant a kind of absolute reality to non-uniform motion.” But he assures us that this conclusion cannot be upheld.

He then presents the equivalence of gravitation and acceleration, and at the end of Chapter Twenty, he returns to the situation where the brakes are applied on the train and the occupant feels a jerk as the train decelerates. But now, Einstein says that in light of what he has just presented, the occupant of the train “is compelled by nobody to refer this jerk to a ‘real’ acceleration (retardation) of the carriage,” since the occupant is alternatively free to say that during the application of the train brakes, “there exists…a gravitational field which is directed forwards and which is variable with respect to time. Under the influence of this field, the embankment together with the earth moves non-uniformly in such a manner that their original velocity in the backwards direction is continuously reduced.”

Okay. So according to Einstein, when the brakes are applied, the train’s occupant, instead of concluding that the jerk he feels is due to the train stopping, can just as validly conclude that the pressing of the brakes somehow generates a gravity field that causes the Earth, and by implication, the entire universe, to stop moving past the train!

Yes, that seems a perfectly reasonable conclusion for the occupant to make.

Of course, suppose the occupant of our train decides to examine how the brakes work. Will he not wonder how a simple device that stops the spinning of the train’s wheels also somehow generates a gravity field that affects the entire universe? If you’re going to allow this notion, then you’re going to have to come up with an explanation/theory of how the application of simple friction to a spinning wheel generates a gravitational force that acts on the entire universe.

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Think about it. Say I have an overturned wagon, so that the wheels are spinning freely, in contact with nothing but the air. According to Einstein’s little exposition at the end of Chapter Twenty, the act of pressing a stick against the spinning wheel of my overturned wagon (braking the wheel) should generate a gravity field. Where’s the explanation for how this is possible?

Let’s overturn my wagon so that I can propel it down a road with myself seated inside. According to Einstein, I can validly regard myself as stationary, and that if I press a stick against the wheel of my wagon, this generates a gravity field that retards the motion of the entire universe rushing past me.

For that matter, forget about my applying the brakes. Consider this. If I propel my wagon down the road, eventually friction will drag it to a stop. Or, alternatively, the entire universe moving past my stationary wagon is dragged to a halt simply by rubbing against the tires of my little wagon.

Sure. Entirely reasonable.

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Back to our occupant of the train. Suppose he also constructs an exact duplicate of his train in miniature, and places it on a miniature track within his own train, and sets this toy train in motion. Is he likely to allow that the toy train can equally be regarded as stationary, and his own larger train truly in motion, and that the application of the toy train’s brakes somehow causes the larger train to gradually coast to a halt?

Come on. How can anyone in their right mind grant an equal reality to the train being motionless and the rest of the universe being in motion, when such granting must allow that a relativity small force applied to a simple mechanism like a brake can decelerate the entire universe? This is an absurd notion, and seems entirely unreasonable. And yet the people upholding this view scoff at the seemingly equally absurd notion that the entire universe revolves around the Earth.

Imagine a billion planets spread throughout the universe, each with millions of automobiles moving around upon the planet on their own individual courses, randomly braking and maneuvering about. This would mean that billons upon billions of gravitational fields would constantly be generated and then die as soon as the brakes were let off, billions upon billions of gravitational fields constantly popping into and out of existence, billions upon billions of gravity fields, each powerful enough to affect the entire universe.

That’s the logical conclusion from Einstein’s ideas.

And yet I’m the crackpot for even merely considering the possibility that the Earth may be motionless at the center of the universe.

Ha.

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I am not putting words into Einstein’s mouth, or misinterpreting his idea. He says it explicitly at the end of Chapter Twenty: a train applying its brakes generates a gravity field that stops the entire universe moving past the train. That is relativity for you, folks.

Once again, here are Einstein’s exact words, from Chapter Twenty of Relativity, (The Equality of Inertial and Gravitational Mass as an Argument for the General Postulate of Relativity):

“My body of reference (the carriage) remains permanently at rest. With reference to it, however, there exists (during the period of application of the brakes) a gravitational field which is directed forwards and which is variable with respect to time. Under the influence of this field, the embankment together with the earth moves non-uniformly in such a manner that their original velocity in the backwards direction is continuously reduced.”

Sure, you may object that he says that the gravity field reduces the velocity of the Earth and the embankment, and says nothing about the entire universe. But the entire universe is inherent in that, since obviously the relation of the train to the entire universe is changed, not just the relation of the train to the embankment and the Earth.

You could also object that he never says that the application of the brakes generates the gravitational field. He merely says that the field exists during the application of the brakes. So according to this objection, we have a gravitational field which is present the instant the brakes are pressed, and which vanishes the instant the brakes are released. And this happens every single time the brakes are applied. But this is merely a coincidence. The application of the brakes doesn’t cause the gravitational field.

Yeah, right.

You could further object that by “gravity field” he means “acceleration,” since gravity and acceleration are equivalent, according to relativity. But this does nothing to dilute my argument. Whether the application of the brakes produces a gravity field or an acceleration (deceleration), the entire universe is affected by the application of the brakes.

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Which brings me to another point. Can you imagine how much force it would require to decelerate just the Earth, let alone the entire universe? Force equals mass times acceleration, according to Newton. It seems to me that if the entire universe (or just the Earth, if you like) is moving past the train, say at 70 miles per hour, the amount of force needed to decelerate the mass of just the Earth, let alone the mass of the entire universe, would break the braking mechanism of the train.

Consider this. If I’m in my car on the highway, and the Earth and all those other cars on the highway are moving past me at 70 miles per hour, if I were to apply the brakes, I should think that the necessary force would wear my brake pads to atoms and snap the braking system to pieces long before they managed to decelerate the Earth so that I could safely get out of my car.

But apparently, somehow, the mere act of tapping my brakes with a tiny bit of force from my little old feet inexplicably generates a momentary gravity field powerful enough to skid the entire universe to a standstill.

Ya gotta love relativity.

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But for the sake of argument, let’s ignore the absurdity of Einstein’s assertion. Let’s allow the train observer to say that when he applies the train’s brakes, a gravitational field is generated which retards the motion of the universe rather than the carriage.

Everything is fine in such a case, yes? Relativity survives unharmed.

Wrong!

And here’s why:

With the above allowance in mind, let’s backtrack to special relativity and the famous Twins Paradox. The standard spiel is that there’s really no disagreement on which twin actually ages, because the twin on the rocket experiences acceleration midway through his trip when he turns around and heads back toward Earth, thereby breaking the time-dilation symmetry and allowing us to determine which twin truly aged.

So basically, the Twins Paradox is resolved by saying that the conundrum belongs to the realm of general relativity rather than special relativity, because acceleration is involved.

Okay, fair enough at that point. But the situation is left at that point. No one pursues the Twins Paradox into general relativity. They’ve swept the dirt out of special relativity, so everything is fine and dandy, case closed.

But not so fast. The standard spiel has put the Twins Paradox into general relativity, so we are obligated to follow it there before proclaiming that the paradox has been resolved and special relativity is saved.

When we do, we find that the observer inside the rocket, in keeping with Chapter Twenty of Relativity, is “compelled by nobody to refer this jerk to a ‘real’ acceleration (retardation) of the carriage.” Or rocket, in the case of the Twins Paradox. He can with equal justification say that the rest of the universe experiences a gravitational force when he turns the steering wheel of his rocket, which causes the entire universe to swing around and head back toward his rocket. Or, in more detail, somehow the turning of the rocket’s steering wheel (yes, rockets have steering wheels, didn’t you know?) generates a gravitational field that causes the entire universe to rotate 180 degrees around the rocket and begin moving toward rather than away from the rocket.

Keep in mind: I’m not the one being absurd or facetious here! The absurdity is Einstein’s. I’ve simply applied Einstein’s statement at the end of Chapter Twenty of Relativity to a rocket rather than a train carriage. I have added nothing here! I am not misquoting, misinterpreting, misunderstanding or misusing Einstein’s ideas! Here again for convenience is Einstein’s exact statement:

“My body of reference (the carriage) remains permanently at rest. With reference to it, however, there exists (during the period of application of the brakes) a gravitational field which is directed forwards and which is variable with respect to time. Under the influence of this field, the embankment together with the earth moves non-uniformly in such a manner that their original velocity in the backwards direction is continuously reduced.”

This is how Einstein saves general relativity from an ignominious end at its very inception!

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So, anyway, back to my point: the standard spiel of the Twins Paradox is to appeal to acceleration on the part of the rocket which breaks the symmetry. But upon closer examination, general relativity negates that appeal by stating that the rocket observer is justified in claiming that he doesn’t experience acceleration, but rather that rest of the universe experiences a gravitational force. Which puts us back to square one with the problem of the Twins Paradox.

So if we let stand Einstein’s statement in Chapter Twenty, then the resolution of the Twins Paradox is no resolution at all. The fact of the matter is that the Twins Paradox is irresolvable without violating both special relativity (as I show in my book Death to Einstein!) and general relativity.

Put yet another way, since I like to say the same thing multiple times in multiple ways: the standard spiel says that the Twin Paradox is resolved because the rocket experiences acceleration midway through its trip. But the rocket’s acceleration is from the viewpoint of the twin on Earth. General relativity says that the rocket’s observer is equally justified in his claim that he’s stationary the entire trip. So upon what, exactly, does the standard resolution of the Twins Paradox base its decision to choose the Earth twin’s viewpoint as the correct one regarding the state of the rocket’s non-uniform motion? It’s a completely arbitrary choice.

Sure, it’s not arbitrary solely from the viewpoint of special relativity (at least it’s not if we completely ignore what I pointed out in Death to Einstein!). But the mere act of involving acceleration puts the situation in the realm of general relativity, and when we examine it from that viewpoint, both observers can with equal justification view themselves as being at rest despite any relative acceleration, which leaves the Twins Paradox alive and kicking, because the choice of regarding the rocket as accelerating is completely arbitrary, based upon nothing other than the fact that there is an absolute, physical fact as to which twin has aged more upon their reunion. And relativity, as I hope I’ve shown, has in fact no way of determining which one has aged more, other than by making an arbitrary choice to align theory with reality.

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Now, a further objection might be raised: when the rocket steering wheel is turned and the gravity field is generated, the entire universe, including the stay-at-home twin, experiences a burst of time dilation due to the gravity field thus generated, and thus the stay-at-home twin ages more rapidly due to a faster-ticking clock.

The problem with this objection is that the twin on the rocket is also subjected to the same gravity field generated when the wheel is turned. That pesky ‘jerk,’ remember? What causes this jerk if it is not the gravitational field being generated? So at that point the rocket’s clock will be experiencing the same rate of time dilation as the rest of the universe, meaning that while either the Earth or the rocket are turning around (depending upon whose viewpoint you adopt), both twins are aging at the same rate. Which leads us to logically conclude that the only reason the stay-at-home twin ages more rapidly is because he’s dwelling in Earth’s gravitational field the entire time, and thus his clock is constantly running faster than the rocket’s clock. In the end, we see that the rocket trip—the other twin traveling at close to the speed of light—actually has nothing at all to do with the Twins Paradox. It’s irrelevant to determining which twin grows older.

In other words, the preceding objection leads logically to the following conclusion. Suppose both twins originated on a space station that is in the absolute middle of nowhere, space-wise, so that the space station is free from any gravitational influence whatsoever. The rocket’s twin then takes his journey and returns. In such a case, both twins will be the same biological age both before and after the rocket trip, since both twins are subjected to identical gravitational forces. So the only sort of time dilation which will have any measurable effect on anything is time dilation due to “immersion” within a gravity field.

The implication is that motion, either uniform or non-uniform, has no effect on physical processes. If we have two synchronized clocks, biological or not, and they’re still synchronized after one takes a round trip near light speed, then obviously neither clock was in any way affected by the trip—as long as they are both subjected to identical gravitational fields, i.e. one of them was not located on a planet or a star for the duration of the trip.

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So to summarize: at the very beginning of his presentation of general relativity, Einstein states, “At all events it is clear that the Galilean law does not hold with respect to the non-uniformly moving carriage. Because of this, we feel compelled at the present juncture to grant a kind of absolute physical reality to non-uniform motion, in opposition to the general principle of relativity. But in what follows we shall soon see that this conclusion cannot be maintained.”

In other words, if it can be shown that the above conclusion can be maintained, then general relativity cannot be maintained.

And after several chapters, the reason he gives that the conclusion cannot be maintained is that the carriage can justifiably claim that the Earth and the embankment, rather than the carriage, experience the force.

So we are free to either reject general relativity based on the absurdity of his reasoning for maintaining the conclusion—or we can accept his conclusion, which consequently forces us to recognize an unresolvable violation of special relativity that proves the existence of absolute motion, thereby demolishing relativity as a whole.

Like I said, ya gotta love relativity.