Stephen Hawking, relativists and anti-geocentrists get taken to school

A little graphic I made today. If you right-click on the image and select "save image as," you can download this to your computer for easier zooming. The kid is me, of course, forty-some years ago.

How many times must I say it: Simultaneity is NOT relative

When an observer in a rocket, or even in a stationary room, sees light hitting a rear wall and a forward wall at the same time, he is not actually seeing the light hit the walls at the same time; he is actually seeing the reflected light from each wall arriving at his position at the same time. There are two events: the light hitting the walls (event A), and the reflected light arriving at his eyes (event B). If the observer claims that he sees the light hit the walls, then he’s claiming that event B is event A, and he is thus an idiot.

According to Einstein, and common sense as well, if lightning strikes either end of a moving train simultaneously, then the light from each strike will converge on an observer at the center of the train at two different times, i.e. non-simultaneously. Logically, the converse must also be true: if a bolt struck the center of the moving train, light from the bolt would strike the ends of the train non-simultaneously. From this we can conclude the following: if our observer at the center of the moving train shines a light toward the front and rear of the cabin at the same time, then each light beam will strike its respective wall at a different time, i.e. non-simultaneously…which would be in agreement with an outside observer who is stationary with respect to the train. The light will reflect from each wall and converge on the observer at the center of the cabin at the same time, and he will erroneously conclude that the light hit both walls simultaneously. The observer on the rocket and the outside observer disagree on the timing of the light hitting the walls. The observer on the rocket says it hit simultaneously, the outside observer says non-simultaneously. But the outside observer is correct, since the rocket’s observer is basing his conclusion on an erroneous perception. As I have shown, there is in fact no actual, physical difference as to when the light hit each wall; the thought experiment put forth by Einstein himself shows this, but he and his followers have failed to realize it. The relativist is not justified in concluding that simultaneity is relative, since it is only relative in the mistaken perception of the moving observer. 

Eotvos experiment does not prove space-time is curved

The Eotvos experiment, presented as proof that space-time is curved as general relativity claims, does not prove that space-time is curved. It merely proves that things fall equally in gravity regardless of their composition and mass, to a degree of precision greater than that obtained by dropping things off buildings.

In case you think, “Hey, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The Eotvos test is merely a test of the principle of equivalence, so you’re getting all worked up about nothing. No one considers Eotvos a proof for curved space-time.”

Oh yeah, wise guy? “The Eotvos experiment is viewed as one of the primary tests of the validity of curved space-time.” (Clifford M. Will, page 39-40, Was Einstein Right?)

At this point, the relativist will probably say, "A theory can never be proved. One can only offer evidence in support of it. And the Eotvos experiment supports relativity." 

Well, bollocks on you. Quit trying to spoil my rant against Einstein.

The train and the lightning strikes again

Let’s say we have a spaceship traveling through space at uniform velocity. The pilot, Vincent, is standing in the middle of the cabin. He has a digital clock beside him, as well as a switch. The switch is connected by wire to a light bulb at the front of the cabin, and a light bulb at the rear of the cabin, so that, when the switch is thrown, both light bulbs light up. Each light bulb is connected to a clock right beside it. These clocks detect and record the exact moment when the pulse comes through the wire and activates the bulb. These clocks were synchronized with Vincent’s by putting them right beside Vincent’s clock and set to the time of Vincent’s clock. The two clocks were then instantaneously teleported to their respective positions beside the light bulbs at the front and rear of the cabin. Or they were walked to their positions by Vincent, or whatever. Any way you can imagine that the clocks would get to their positions without getting out of synch with Vincent’s due to motion. We are absolutely certain that when I look at the rear or forward clock, I can be sure that Vincent’s clock is showing the same time.

Okay. Vincent throws his switch, carefully noting the time as he does so. What will happen? First, due to the forward motion of the ship, the light bulb at the rear of the cabin will light up, its clock will stamp the time, and the light from the bulb will head back toward Vincent at the center of the cabin. Seconds later, due to the forward motion of the ship, the light bulb at the front of the cabin will light up, its clock will stamp the time, and the light from the bulb will head back toward Vincent at the center of the cabin. Because the light from the rear has further to travel due to the forward motion of the ship, and the light from the front has less distance to travel, the lights each reach Vincent at the same time. He concludes that the pulse from his switch reached both walls at the same time, triggering their lights. (This is incontrovertible; Einstein would agree: if he claims that when two lightning bolts hit the front and rear of the train simultaneously from the vantage point of an outside observer, but will be perceived as non-simultaneous to an observer in the rocket, then he must agree that the reverse would hold true: that non-simultaneous strikes would be perceived as simultaneous by the rocket’s observer, which is exactly the situation I have described above.

Since Vincent sees the lights at the same time, he believes that when he compares the two clocks at the front and rear of the cabin, they will both contain the same time stamp. He performs this comparison. Astonishingly, the time stamps are not identical. The clock at the rear has an earlier time stamp than the clock at the front. How can this be? he wonders.

Let us further say there is an observer, Nancy, standing alongside the rocket’s path. There is a v-shaped mirror in directly in front of her, which will allow her to see both lights without turning her head. When the light bulbs go off, she sees the rear bulb go off first, and the front bulb go off second, agreeing with the judgment of Vincent’s clocks.

Clearly, Vincent’s perception of the simultaneity of the bulbs going off was in error. He cannot argue with his clocks; despite his perception, the bulbs did not go off simultaneously. He must agree with Nancy. Yet special relativity would have us accept Vincent’s perception as accurate, and believe that a discrepancy exists between Nancy and Vincent: Vincent says the lights went off simultaneously, Nancy says they didn’t. Therefore simultaneity is relative.

You cannot claim that I am misunderstanding relativity here. My illustration is in perfect agreement with the two main illustrations put forth by Einstein and proponents of relativity: namely, the thought experiment where the observer shines a light from the middle of the train, or spaceship, or whatever vehicle you choose to use; and the thought experiment where lightning strikes the front and rear of the train, spaceship, etc.

The proponent of relativity will probably say there is one thing wrong with my thought experiment: the clocks have not been properly synchronized. Once Vincent’s clocks are positioned at the front and rear of the cabin, we must send light signals back and forth between them, to adjust them properly. But I utterly reject this second phase of synchronization. This synchronization merely adjusts for the error that exists. It is merely a way of getting the clocks out of synch again, and into agreement with relativity’s conclusions. The error exists; you can’t “sweep it under the rug” by “synchronizing the clocks with light. To do so is to merely adjust the clocks so that the error seems to go away. I’m right and you’re wrong, yet you’re trying to tell me I’m wrong because I haven’t adjusted for your error. That’s ridiculous! I don’t care if you’ve got Albert Einstein and the supposedly greatest minds of the past hundred years of physics behind you, if you’re wrong, you’re wrong, I don’t care who you are. Was Galileo wrong about heliocentrism just because the Church said he was? If the whole of the scientific church says someone is wrong, does that mean they truly are? At 4:45, if I want to leave work, and I set the clock forward to 5:00 and leave, I can’t then pretend, without being in error, that I didn’t leave fifteen minutes early. No matter that I set the clock forward to 5:00, the fact remains that I left work fifteen minutes early. My boss will claim that I left work fifteen minutes early, and will want to dock me fifteen minutes’ pay; shall I attempt to wriggle out of this by claiming that there is an actual, physical difference between my 5:00 and his, merely because I moved the clock forward?o:p>

In relativity, light moves along with the rocket

Let’s take a standard illustration from relativity. We have two mirrors stationed on opposite walls of the interior cabin of a spaceship, and a light pulse bounces back and forth between these two mirrors, constituting as it were a light clock. The standard schpiel is that an observer on the rocket sees the light beam traveling straight up and down, since he is not in motion relative to the mirrors, while an observer on the ground sees the light beam traveling in a diagonal path between the mirrors, slanted in the direction of the ship’s motion, due to the mirrors being in motion relative to the ground observer. From this, we are supposed to conclude that, from the viewpoint of the ground observer, time for the observer on the rocket is passing at a slower rate than for the observer on the ground, or vice versa, depending on which viewpoint you assume. This supposed difference in time measurements is due to the light taking a shorter path in one frame and a longer path in the other.

But the conclusions drawn from the above illustration are incorrect. The Doppler shift is hard evidence of this. If light actually behaved as in this standard illustration, traveling in a diagonal path from the viewpoint of a reference frame that is stationary relative to the source of the light, then there would be no Doppler shifting of light. In the above illustration, from the viewpoint of one reference frame, light is being carried forward with the motion of the ship. In other words, in the illustration, the behavior of the light is dependent on the motion of the source. But the Doppler shift shows us, and even relativity claims, that light is independent of its source. In the correct mirror illustration, the light, once emitted or reflected, would travel straight across the intervening space to the opposing mirror, independent of the ship. In fact, due to the forward motion of the ship, the light would hit the opposing mirror at a point slightly behind the emission or reflection point of the mirror it had just left, and just how far behind would of course depend upon the velocity of the ship. In fact, relativity recognizes this point in the general theory, using this fact to draw the connection between acceleration and gravity. Why does relativity correctly describe the behavior of light for the general theory, while incorrectly describing it for the special theory? The difference is acceleration, obviously. But acceleration does not alter the behavior of light. The general theory has it correct. In the illustration of the light clock: for a ship not undergoing acceleration, the light bouncing between the mirrors will simply drift rearward at a constant, steady rate, while in a ship undergoing acceleration, the light will drift backward at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, in uniform motion, the point at which the light is reflected from each mirror will drift backward, with an equal spacing between the points on the wall where the reflection occurs; while in acceleration, the point at which the light is reflected from each mirror will drift backward, with a spacing between the reflection points that increases with each reflection. I am of course using a single pulse of light that, once emitted, continues bouncing indefinitely between the mirrors, rather than a steady stream of light pouring from an emitter. In the case of a steady stream of light, each successive pulse will hit the opposite wall at the same point, still slightly rearward of the emission point. Ether we use a single photon or a steady stream doesn’t alter my point or the physics of it. This “rearward drift” is just more visible if you confine the illustration to a single photon.

Relativity is riddled with these types of inconsistencies, such as the one above, between the special theory and the general.

If you believe this is not inconsistent, and I’m just a nutty crackpot, think about the Doppler effect. Visually, when light is emitted from a moving source, the light waves look like a v-shaped funnel—a series of concentric circles, starting with a huge circle, with each interior circle slighter smaller and to the side of the larger, until at the apex of the v we have a tiny circle, which is the pulse just emitted from the source. If I’m not describing it well enough, look in any physics textbook on the Doppler Effect, or better yet, watch an animation. You’ll see that each circle expands in place where it was emitted while the source moves onward. The Doppler effect looks like this because each pulse, each circle, stays in place in space and grows larger, while the source moves away from it. A flash of light, a pulse, is represented by a single circle, expanding in place from where it was emitted. Need I say it a few more times? The light wave, or the sound wave, is stationary, while the source moves onward. Or, if you insist on relativity, the source is stationary and the pulse moves away. So the pulse, the flash, would hit the opposite wall of the spaceship at a point slightly behind the spot opposite its point of emission. There is no way around this conclusion. It is a hard physical fact. But in relativity’s view, the flash is carried along with the motion of the ship, so that it is stationary relative to the ship. You cannot dispute anything I’ve said here, about the Doppler effect or about relativity. If you do, you’re the crackpot who doesn’t truly understand physics, not me. Relativity claims the light is moving along with the ship, stationary relative to it. The assertion that a stationary observer will observe the light in the rocket as taking a diagonal path across the cabin, while an observer in the rocket will see the light going straight across the cabin, is a fallacious assertion! This is the method by which Einstein claims time dilation, but it’s a faulty claim. An observer in the rocket will see the light pulse drift slightly rearward inside his cabin, while an outside observer at rest relative to the light will see it travel a straight path. The observer at rest relative to the rocket will see the light at rest relative to himself, while the rocket’s observer will see the light moving away, relative to himself.

The generation of a light wave is like a rock dropped into the water behind a speeding boat. The rock is dropped, and boom, the wave spreads out from the point of impact. The point of impact and the spreading wave does not follow along behind the boat, picking up the momentum of the boat. The impact point stays in place, receding behind the boat, even as the wave’s edge expands outward toward the boat. If relativity’s interpretation is true, then the point of impact would move along behind the boat, remaining stationary relative to the boat. 

Post 5

So what do we have? We have a thing, light, which possesses a property, velocity, that apparently alters depending on the state of motion of the observer, so that each observer will measure the same momentary speed, but such that nothing else about the thing changes, i.e. the total distance traveled remains the same for all observers. To me, my instincts are telling me that this is somehow related, possibly identical, to the quantum mechanical phenomenon of light being either a wave or a particle depending on how you measure it. Perhaps light has an equal probability of being everywhere along its entire path at once, and when an observer measures its speed, the particle or wave sort of “coalesces” at that point along the path, and keeps pace with the observer until the measurement is complete. In other words, just as in the double slit experiment of quantum mechanics, when an observer in a speeding rocket shines his light beam, the light has no exact position or velocity along its path, until the rocket’s observer measures the beam, whereupon it takes on the velocity alongside the observer. Likewise if a stationary observer were to measure the same beam, the light would take on its appropriate velocity in relation to the stationary observer. So light has no momentary velocity until it is actually measured, whereupon each observer will measure the same velocity regardless of his state of motion.

Post 3

If relativity fits observation and data, but the reasons it uses to explain those observations and data go against common sense and experience, then we should try to come up with new reasons. For example, if I find a million dollars on my doorstep when I open my door one morning, with no idea of how it got there, I could explain it by saying a magical fairy left it there. It would certainly fit the data and observation then available to me, and I might be able to use my magical fairy to explain other occurrences. But such an explanation is obviously absurd. So I would search for another, more reasonable explanation. We can use the belief that the universe rotates around the earth to explain observations and make predictions. But we know better. Even if we didn’t, the theory would still be useable and workable. The point is, even absurd theories can explain and predict. But just because they do doesn’t mean we should accept them as they are and give up searching for the truth.