It is said of general relativity that it has been experimentally proven.
But what about experiments involving black holes and the recent LIGO experiments - do they really uphold GTR?
Thomas Kuhn got famous in the 1960s by pointing out the (to me, obvious) fact that scientists tend to get fixated on ANY well received theory until well past the point that problems with it keep piling up. In the case of GTR, there is the additional problem of no OTHER theory being available that is successful in making its predictions. A good run at doing so was made (for what I consider excellent reasons) by Dicke and others in the '60s and '70s, but without adequate test-results. For reasons far too complicated to go into here (it's all in my book Space-Like Time), I keep hoping for an alternative!
"Why are scientist so fixated with the general theory of relativity?"
This is not a scientific question, but a political/ideological question – and a very relevant one at that! Also, as the saying goes: the more esoteric and obscure an idea/theory is; the greater the effort made to “prove” its validity. GR is being "proved" for the nth times for more than a century and still counting. GR is probably only second to another great idea, namely, God; which is being “proven” for centuries!
Why fixated? Simply because, it is a ruling idea adopted by the ruling power of this epoch; namely monopoly finance capitalism. As Karl Marx said, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas; hence of the relations, which make one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. … ” The German Ideology.
A simple recap of the history of the development of GR and its patronage will prove this point. GR as a scientific theory had no overriding necessity of the time, like the quantum theory for example. The discrepancy of Mercury’s 43 arcseconds precession, of the total of 5,600 arcseconds was a minor issue and the question why kinetic mass is the same as the gravitational mass bothered even Newton, but life went on. Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect and the Brownian motion was much more significant than his theories of relativity, particularly GR. But it is GR that met the need of the time, in spite of the wish or will of Einstein himself!
Even GR was obscure for many years, until the scientific representative of the then ascending Anglo-American led monopoly capitalism Arthur Eddington brought GR and Einstein to worldwide fame by “proving” it from the “bending of star light”. Eddington set the subsequent culture and the criteria of “experimental proof” as the only criteria of validity of any esoteric theory. And (according to Steven Weinberg) Eddington also said, “Experimental results are valid only when supported by a good theory” – a dictum seems to be very popular with modern physicists!.
It is quite obvious from what followed since then, is that for Eddington (and many others of official physics) GR IS a good theory! But it must be said that a great mind like that of Einstein played along (and apparently enjoyed it!) to be the “naked Emperor”, even though at times he refused to accept some of the implications (like gravitational waves) of his own theory and his famous comment of “The Castle in the Air” about "field"-based modern theories. Many subsequent physicists of high calibre and definitely of impeccable integrity and devotion for truth unfortunately, seems to be oblivious or at least uncritical of the unseen machination that Einstein and even themselves went through.
History shows that every dominant class needs a system of final and absolute truth, which forms the global ideological base and provides the moral/rational justification for its rule. This system of absolute truth is always molded out of the credible raw intellectual materials available at hand. This was the case of Jesus Christ with the Romans and Martin Luther for bourgeois capitalism . So is Einstein and GR with monopoly capitalism.
The historical need for GR and the patrons who support and promote it is quite obvious. GR was a godsend for the world ruling and ideological structure after Darwin’s theory of evolution, inter-capitalist wars, the rise of Bolshevism and most of all the “evil quanta” brought the old ruling order of certainty, continuity, causality, determinism etc. to its brink. Initiative and generous support for high value experiments to “prove” GR and its associated and derived theories came/come from the highest financial and political representatives of monopoly capitalism and various foundations it support (Templeton, Wilton Park for example).
Even the Vatican sponsored the conference that adopted the “Big Bang” theory as THE officially accepted theory of the creation of the universe; but this conference excluded the heretics like Hoyle, Ambartsumian, Arp, Burbidge et al. Winston Churchill founded “Winston Park”, President Roland Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were big patrons and motivators for the establishment of LHC to discover the “God Particle”! Prestigious Nobel Prizes are awarded for such big discoveries; Gravitational Wave seems to be an exception so far; even though it received few million dollars in awards already! One can possibly get a glimpse of the Godfather of Big Science from the following BBC report: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19870036
Most of all there are enthusiastic physicists who claim that GR “came with flying colours to every test that was thrown at it!” What could possibly go wrong?
@ Farrell
For an alternative that doesn't have the problems of GTR, what do you think of this work?
There are a lot of problems with GTR, not least is presents with infinite singularities, does not explain dark matter, it cannot fully explain dark energy and gives us infinite time dilation at the event horizon, which means that matter cannot enter the black hole in the lifetime of the Universe
Herein some peer reviewed international publications that resolve this.
1).First to obviate the infinite density singularities.
1a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32897680_An_advanced_dynamic_adaptation_of_Newtonian_equations_of_gravity?ev=prf_pub
1b)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269689554_The_formulation_of_Dynamic_Newtonian_advanced_gravity_DNAg?ev=prf_pub
2).Secondly we explain the presence of dark matter at the centre of the galaxy.
2a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228858219_Advances_in_Black_Hole_Gravitational_Physics_and_Cold_Dark_Matter_Modelling._The_Gravity_of_Dark_Matter
3) Thirdly it is possible to explain the presence of dark matter in the galactic halo.
3a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269689929_Advances_in_Black_Hole_Physics_and_Dark_Matter_Modelling_of_the_Galactic_Halo?ev=prf_pub
4). It is able to explain the presence of cosmological dark matter.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32897680_An_advanced_dynamic_adaptation_of_Newtonian_equations_of_gravity
5). It is corroborated in neutron stars (including Data from radiation damping ) and is corroborated by black hole studies.
5a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32888463_An_advanced_modification_of_dynamicgravitation
5b).https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269667939_Corroboration_of_Dynamic_Black_Hole_Gravitational_Physics_from_Observations_of_Cygnus_X-1
6) it explains dark energy and translates into quantum gravity
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32899306_String_quintessence_and_the_formulation_of_advanced_quantum_gravity
7). It does not offer infinite time dilation at the event horizon,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287213872_Finite_Gravitational_Time_Dilation_In_Black_Holes_Using_Dynamic_Newtonian_Advanced_Gravity_DNAg
Com
Article An advanced dynamic adaptation of Newtonian equations of gravity
Article The formulation of Dynamic Newtonian advanced gravity, DNAg
Article Advances in Black Hole Gravitational Physics and Cold Dark M...
Article Advances in Black Hole Physics and Dark Matter Modelling of ...
Article An advanced modification of dynamic gravitation
Article Corroboration of Dynamic Black Hole Gravitational Physics fr...
Article String quintessence and the formulation of advanced quantum gravity
Article Finite Gravitational Time Dilation In Black Holes Using Dyna...
Spoken very broadly, Einstein's equations in RG lead to huge physical magnitudes for geometries of our scale. For instance, for 1m associated to the Ricci curvature needs 1037 J, what physical phenomena can account for such production of energy? In all that I know, at present we have only the black holes for concentrating so huge masses for making scattering?. Thus I understand that Einstein were so skeptic to his gravitational waves.
Worsley's knowledge of the "technical" problems of GTR is very impressive. My concerns are much more general. (My BA and ABD are in Physics, my PhD in Philosophy of Science.) E.g., I cannot swallow the idea of spacetime distances that are imaginary (in the math sense)--even though they are supposed to magically project out into relative spatial and temporal distances that are mathematically real and positive. Not only that; the distance between any two spacetime points along disjointed lightlike paths is zero, which ought to mean that they are in fact the SAME point--though along other paths the distance is real or mathematically complex, meaning they are NOT the same point. Contradictions are daily swallowed by physicists, however, so my more basic objections are more important. My book is available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315760879_Space-Like_Time_Consequences_of_Alternatives_to_and_Arguments_Regarding_the_Theory_That_Time_Is_Like_Space, to explain them in detail. Also located there is a much shorter essay of mine that can act as an introduction, the one titled "What would time have to be like in order to be like space?", which makes the audacious claim that physicists fail to see the horrid problems facing STR and GTR because they do not really understand what the canonical interpretation of those theories is saying. The book itself bears down heavily on what I call "the problem of inertia", which, with the likes of Dicke, I believe has not REALLY been solved by spacetime, curved or flat--for reasons including those just alluded to here above.
Book Space-Like Time: Consequences of, Alternatives to, and Argum...
AW: Why are scientist so fixated with the general theory of relativity?
They aren't. They use it day to day because it works and nothing else is as good.
A better question would be why are so many crackpots fixated with proving it wrong.
AW: It is said of general relativity that it has been experimentally proven.
It is said that it has been experimentally tested and to date no test has falsified it, there's a subtle difference.
SW: But what about experiments involving black holes and the recent LIGO experiments - do they really uphold GTR?
The tests performed so far have failed to find any discrepancy but that just means there are no gross errors, the noise levels are still quite high in individual events and lesser deviations may only show up when correlated over numerous detections.
Dishman is being remarkably dogmatic here--not a good attitude for anyone claiming to be scientific. He takes an instrumentalist approach to GTR--the view that it is to be seen only as an instrument for generating empirical predictions, not as making claims about the nature of reality. That is fine for him--but he (dogmatically, to repeat) projects it onto all scientists. It is plainly the case that not even all physicists are instrumentalists in regard to GTR. (And as a philosophy of science, Instrumentalism faces some serious problems which one can read about in the literature.) As for the implied claim that only crackpots have wanted to prove it wrong, it is seriously arrogant. Those who have wanted their physical theories to be true, not just instruments, and have seen the many problems with treating GTR as true, include in years past, as I mentioned before, such brilliant minds as Princeton's Dicke. 'Nuff said.
FFMC: Dishman is being remarkably dogmatic here
No, I'm being pragmatic, check your dictionary. I'm an engineer and when I design a circuit, I use Ohm's Law to select the resistor values I need. You won't find any crackpots claiming that it is wrong. When I consider shot noise, the theory that predicts it is making a claim that the nature of electrical charge is discrete, but the crackpots don't object to that either.
Crackpots don't object to the Ideal Gas laws, nor to the Kinetic theory of Gasses which equally is "making claims about the nature of reality".
GR is no different to either of those, it is used pragmatically for predictions and the fact that it works does tell us something about the nature of the universe in which we live, just like every other scientific theory.
FFMC: As for the implied claim that only crackpots have wanted to prove it wrong, it is seriously arrogant
It wouldn't be arrogant in the slightest, again check your dictionary. However, I didn't make that claim anyway, what I said is that there are more crackpots complaining about GR (and even SR) than any other accepted scientific theory and that is a quite different statement.
More on: “Why Fixated?”
The tragedy of our epoch is that never in history was there seemingly so much freedom of individuals and of thought, while in essence the exact opposite is true! Also, we have none of the passionate giants of the past - the free thinkers who pursued their profession for the mere thirst of knowledge under the most severe conditions and more often under the threat of persecution and death. They are now replaced by troops of conformed scientist serfs who are totally dependent on monopoly capital for their livelihood, career and crafts and who toil mightily to bring out only expected and acceptable results.
As yet there has never been such huge (both terrestrial and space based) efforts by so many to “seal the deal” for ever, i.e., to find the implication of an objective (ontological) truth i.e., GR, leading to a theory of everything of the universe – a “simple” mathematical formulation that can be written on a coffee cup!
But if the irony of dialectics is at play and the results from LHC is any indication, the end of “sealing the deal” seems nigh, with a possible outcome that is the exact opposite of what was intended/aimed for!
Physics must abandon this alienation of Einstein’s “Castle in the Air” and come back to mother earth to start the search all over again!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317040165_THE_CONCEPTUAL_DEFECT_OF_THE_LAW_OF_UNIVERSAL_GRAVITATION_OR_'FREE_FALL'_A_DIALECTICAL_REASSESSMENT_OF_KEPLER'S_LAWS
Article THE CONCEPTUAL DEFECT OF THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION OR...
I have long since forgotten the tensor-mathematics I once knew something about, but your conclusions here seem odd in the extreme. GTR "has nothing to do with gravitational physics"?!? Since Newtonian physics can be expressed using "classical" physics formalisms (plain old vectors) and does not use a Lorentzian metric even "in the small", the mathematical result you announce here is wholly unsurprising. What WOULD be surprising would be for the EMPIRICAL PREDICTIONS of the two theories to differ in the case of weak gravitational fields and low velocities, which you have not even alleged. I recommend caution in making the claims of immoral science you have so boldly published here....
@ farrel
You are clearly a bright guy. Yes and i still remember metric tensors they seem to work on the magic square principle adding and subtracting diagonals and all that basic maths elevated to something more than it is.
But immoral seems a bit strong to describe Newton - NASA still uses Newton.
I guess the question should also be why are people so prejudiced against Newton.
AW: I guess the question should also be why are people so prejudiced against Newton.
Again, I don't think anyone is, it is certainly the most commonly used gravitational equation. GR corrections are used where they are necessary, the precession of Mercury being one of the better known examples or when describing the variation of accurate clocks with gravitational potential which simply doesn't exist under the Newtonian model. Even then, where GR is required, in most cases an approximation as a correction to the Newtonian version is adequate, full GR is only needed in extreme cases.
One more response to Mr. Hassani and then I quit. To start, if accusations of "cheating, plagiarism and charlatanism" are not charges of immoral science, I do not know what would be. And his sleight-of-hand switch from "has nothing to do with gravitational physics" to "has nothing to do with Newton's gravity theory" is certainly cheating--though at least he finally reached a justifiable conclusion.
Hi George
Thanks for your answer.
Just to check that we are on the same page, what is the formula for the post Newtonian approximation?
Dear Andrew,
As seemingly an ardent supporter of establishment physics; Dr. Dishman has taken an ideological position in this discussion on GR, (as FFMC already mentioned) and wants to impose this on others; by calling anybody who is critical or opposed, as “crackpots". This is a typical position taken by pro-GR people; the other milder but patronizing position is that “you are not an expert and do not understand the complexities of GR, get an education first”. One similar “expert physicist” going around RG unfortunately, now goes by the name “deleted profile”.
Newtonian mechanics is the only thing that natural science depends on for the last few centuries and is the only one that works as a first order of approximation at macro-scale (of course not at micro-scale) at the terrestrial realm. It is not perfect, but this is the only thing we can base ourselves on, to explore its possible further extension in the cosmic realm – an effort you seem to be engaged in.
GR on the contrary is an axiom-based esoteric theory that depends on mathematical/geometrical idealism and one that has no basis in reality. Minkowski and Einstein conceived 4-D “spacetime objective reality” with purported physical/mechanical attributes is a mathematical fiction with no materialist, scientific and philosophical basis. GR has no relevance to tangible social, scientific and technological practice – the only criteria for distinguishing between objective facts and fictions. Its validity as a theory of physics is so far solely based on contrived, subjective and dedicated “experimental proofs” only - the most recent one being "gravitational wave", something that the populariser of GR Arthur Eddington and Einstein himself had doubted.
The assertion by Dr. Fishman, “GR corrections are used where they are necessary, the precession of Mercury being one of the better known examples or when describing the variation of accurate clocks with gravitational potential which simply doesn't exist under the Newtonian model.”, has no validity. These and other claims in favour of GR has been discredited in an on going discussion forum initiated by Dr. Engelhardt at the following link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312118218_Free_Fall_in_Gravitational_Theory?focusedCommentId=5940428182999cd48571ce20
The explanation of the discrepancy of Mercury’s 43 arcseconds precession, of the total of 5,600 arcseconds, boastfully claimed by Einstein (and touted loudly by his followers) is only a minor issue. Even this may not hold much water; if one goes by the assertion made by Dr. Engelhardt, that to derive Gerber’s expression (to account for 43 arcseconds discepency) Einstein did not use his GR, but used a modified Newtonian equation. Engelhardt has shown that the exact form of Gerber’s relation cannot be derived from GR; either Einstein made a mistake or made a fraudulent claim.
It was abundantly clear from the discussion in that forum that all purported “GR corrections” in artificial satellite dynamics, GPS etc. are career-boosting academic exercises and are done for cosmetic reasons or are attempts to demonstrate the possible relevance of GR to enhance its status as a theory of physics.
Article Free Fall in Gravitational Theory
To doubt about one theory, any theory, is always a healthy exercise and the GRT was one of the theories that was tried to modify several times. What is not so healthy is if the discussion transforms in a war between personal opinions without given enough information on where can be the fails and if there is one real alternative. I think that it would be very worthy if it would be possible to present these "weak" and "strong" points.
1. For more than one hundred years very good scientists were following the GRT and trying even to find a better theory. One of them was Einstein with the unified theories trying to unify electromagnetism with the gravitation (classical theories), for example Kaluza-Klein theory. This has failed.
2. More recently String theory or its generalization in M-theory found a mode of oscillation with coincides with the graviton. This is very appealling because unifies quantum mechanics and gravitation (with the possibility of introducing the gravitation in the context of the Standard Model) but it only works at very low energies.
3. With the simple Hilbert action and Einstein's motion equations this old theory of GRT follows to be the simplest and more accurate theory of gravitation for explaining the present phenomenology.
There are several basic problems associated to gravitation
4. It is a very weak interaction (difficult to carry it to the lab) if we compare it with the other three interactions and the geometrical Riemann interpretation introduced by Einstein is not possible to be introduced within perturbation metheds (renormalization group).
Perhaps what would be interesting is to know what are the concrete points of criticisms that can be put to GRT instead of transforming this fantastic achievement of physics as a personal attack to his creator.
“Perhaps what would be interesting is to know what are the concrete points of criticisms that can be put to GRT instead of transforming this fantastic achievement of physics as a personal attack to his creator.”
The criteria of a faith (à la Jesus Christ) or a ruling idea is that any doubt or criticism of it is a heresy and a “personal attack on its creator”. These criteria were used against any criticism of GR from the very start and continues till to day. Enumeration of the “concrete points of criticism” have been done many times before including in the few comments above in this very forum; but these are as usual heresy and personal attack on its creator.
To be blunt, GR is not a “fantastic achievement of physics” at all! It is an iron chain with heavy balls, tied to its feet. This “fantastic achievement” was unnecessary for physics when it was “discovered” and unnecessary now, because it did not arise from concrete practice of physics and hence could serve no tangible need of physics; only impeding its progress. Its intended goal was to serve as a ruling idea and as a replacement of a weakened theology.
Do the supporters of GR ask themselves the simple question: if it is a valid theory with practical relevance to science and humanity, why there is the need to keep on “proving” it without any end, for more than a century? As the saying goes, the proof of a pudding is in its eating! Newton’s theories do not need any “proving” at all; because these have their origin in social/scientific practice and as valid scientific theories (corresponding to objective reality) enhance that practice. The limits of Newtonian physics are well known both in the realm of the microcosm and the macrocosm including this new insight: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317040165_THE_CONCEPTUAL_DEFECT_OF_THE_LAW_OF_UNIVERSAL_GRAVITATION_OR_'FREE_FALL'_A_DIALECTICAL_REASSESSMENT_OF_KEPLER'S_LAWS
GR (on the contrary) like geometry and theology is based on axioms. Axioms cannot be proven, but have to be accepted as “self-evident truth”. Only those deductions that are consistent with the premise of the axioms are valid and have to be accepted as truth. GR as a mathematical theory is consistent (and true!) as long as the mathematics (the analytical functions) involved are consistent and can be extended (like theology) without any limit to the farthest reaches of the macrocosm and microcosm.
Following GR (“the fantastic achievement of physics”), therefore, the task of modern natural science like that of theology is to interpret and to reveal the workings of this absolute truth in the details of nature. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky (but surprisingly does not include the Earth! A.M.) above proclaims his handiwork.” New American Standard Bible For the choir director. A Psalm of David.
Article THE CONCEPTUAL DEFECT OF THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION OR...
@Daniel
Your comments are well received.
And i would say that corrections needed to be made to Newtonian gravity, as Newton himself conceded at the time of the creation of his theory.
Having said this there are also flaws in GTR, which Einstein himself admitted to his good friend Besso "castles in the air".
Should we not re-examine a theory - yes we should.
Einsteins theory mathematically becomes unstuck at the black hole (and cosmological) event horizons, simply put -infinities arise.
I think we should bear in mind Einstein's quote, "since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity i no longer understand it myself"
Having said this, is it possible that the Newtonian approximation ( which is what Einstein actually used to do his calculations) is more accurate than GTR itself, as it avoids the singularity.
After all it is "the simplest and more accurate theory to follow the phenomenology"
Dear all of You
Maybe because Einstein was able to think out of the "box".
It is still hard understandable and fare away from normal way of thinking .
That's why it always will be a big challenge .
Kurt Wraae
@@ Kurt
GTR has now become the very "box", which we need to think outside of.
Andrew Worsley
You may be right , do You have some good ideas ?
I am working on it myself , it is very much concerned about the explanation of energy.
Kurt Wraae
Dear Andrew,
Let me try to analyse only the first phrase of your comments:
there are also flaws in GTR, which Einstein himself admitted to his good friend Besso "castles in the air"
Please, could you write some of them?.
1.For me, the biggest "flow" was that he didn't wrote an action as Hilbert introduced sometime later and the associated local symmetries (Noether's currents). For example, the invariance under time translations is not simple (at least for me) to see in a curved spacetime. Even the energy-momentum as translations generators associated to the Lorentz group is difficult to follow, the three pure space part (stress tensor) has not a direct translation in terms of gravitational interaction alone.
2. It is not possible to be written as a perturbative theory and has difficulties to be represented compatible with microscopic quantum theories. This is not really a fail.
3. It has singularities which carry to solutions as the black holes.
These are all the flaws that I could think about this beautiful and extraordinary physical theory that I could find. In fact, they are not flaws of the theory itself but worries on a good understanding of it.
Obviously a perfect theory would be not a good theory because we want to progress with it. For instance, we ask about the unification of the 4 fundamental interactions or the cosmological dark matter which perhaps are going to present new phenomenology which could obligues to change the present theory of general relativity.
@Daniel,
The biggest flaw for me is the singularities,
You can squeeze any relativistic theory hard enough to have a quantum theory based on Planck
Most think that there is empirical support for GR, but the degree of support is less than in other áreas of Physics. It could be better, in
order to rule out alternatives. There are conceptual problems still.
Yes the theorists are a Little too focused on yet unconsolidated ground here.
There is a solution, that requires a decoupling of the effects of gravity on space-time and that of matter
Since Newton we know that gravitation only depends to the matter through the mass. And it was Galileo who showed that the acceleration of any body (with different masses) fall with the same kinetic variables independently of its mass (without considering frictions or other forces). The equivalence between the static mass with the dynamic one (equivalence principle) allows to garantee that locally the Riemann system can be reduced to an Euclidean one. This is the core of general relativity as a generalitation of the special one. Thus it seems for me that gravitation is quite well separated to matter properties as it stands in the present GRT.
Could you imagine a form to decoupling more space-time to the matter?
Terminology can be tricky, but literally, GTR is NOT locally Euclidean. It is "Euclidean" only in Minkowski's strange sense, which involves (in the mathematical sense) imaginary, complex and real "distances" along lines in his "spacetime". As for whether matter is wholly responsible for the spatiotemporal metric, that was Einstein's original Mach-inspired hope. But when solutions to his difficult field equations were worked out, it wasn't so. He was left with a "flat" spacetime metric in the absence of of all mass--indeed decoupled.
Dear Ferrel
You are right. I had to say always pseudo-Riemann metric in general and pseudo-Euclidean (or Minkowski's) metric locally, where the curvature is zero or flat. We have always the possibility of having timelike, spacelike and lightlike tensors due to have a non trivial topological SO(3,1) Lorentz group associted to the observers.
Spacetime without coupled matter is just a mathematical abstraction.
We are evidently agreed. (Though instead of 'mathematical abstraction' I would prefer to say 'extrapolation'.) Yet as I have indicated before, it is because of Minkowskian (and later, Einsteinian) beliefs in physically real quantities that are mathematically imaginary (square roots of negative numbers) and other deep problems that I cannot believe in GTR or STR as a true theory--as opposed to mere instruments for generating empirical predictions--and keep hoping for a theory I can believe in.
Where are the imaginary quantities in GTR or in STR that you find ? If you speak about beliefs, instead of proofs or facts, that is a personal attitude which has my respects although its scientific worth is zero. The SRT is well stablished with experimental data everyday and the GRT is with much less phenomenology, but without any conceptual problem and the most accurate (and simplest) gravitation theory that we know. You only need to go to the special reviews devoted to this issue and the courses in the most prestigous universities. For instance, people as Penrose or Hawking has made a successful career showing how the singularities of GRT are not a problem but a richness of such theory allowing to provide enormous energies in a certain time (for instance, gravitational waves detected by LIGO) or stimulating new physical observations in the center of each galaxy, etc... I don't know any theory which can substitute it and explain seriously the same amount of phenomenology.
To Daniel: Huh? How could anything be more obvious than those square-roots-of-negative-quantities? The spacetime interval (Ds)2 = (Dx)2+(Dy)2+(Dz)2-c2(Dt)2 (sometimes written with signs reversed, which makes no difference to this point) clearly takes values that are real and positive ("spacelike" distance, under this choice of signage), imaginary and positive ("timelike" distance), and zero ("lightlike" distance). It was when Minkowski noticed the similarity to Euclidean geometry gained by positing Ds, together with its invariance from one inertial frame to another, that he decreed that empirical distance and duration are "mere shadows", and what is physically REAL--indeed, absolute--is the spacetime interval. The rest of the history involves Einstein's gradual acceptance of this idea in place of his original "positivist" attitude that wanted no truck with non-directly-measurable quantities. If you do not know this basic history, or at least know the final triumph of "spacetime" as real in the views of physicists, that would explain your puzzlement now. (Mohamed above very nicely relates further key aspects of the history and now-standard physicists' beliefs.) Beyond this matter, GTR and STR face other very serious objections--but you would have to read my book Space-Like Time (U. of Ontario Press, 1993) to see them carefully developed. Yes, physicists use the formulas of GTR and STR to make accurate empirical predictions (so far)--but if this is taken to mean that the theories as standardly understood are true descriptions of reality, one is committed to the absurdity of mathematically imaginary physical quantities--and some other absurdities too subtle to explain in this small space.
Dear Ferrel,
What is the problem to represent complex magnitudes? . This is absolutely normal; for instance, the more basic object in Quantum Mechanics is a wave function (a complex magnitude) or superstrings the 6 compactified dimensions are in a Calabi-Yau complex manifold. Physical magnitudes under oscillatory fields have associated complex magnitudes or circuits. What is the problem? Obviously the observable quantities must be real.
At least you are now admitting that physics theories do use mathematically complex quantities. But your new response merely cites the now-agreed-on fact that physicists standardly accept such quantities as real. Whether they are JUSTIFIED in believing such weird things is the original question. In case this point will help, note that electrical engineers standardly use Euler's formula in derivations; but when they come to the end, they discard the "imaginary" part--only the "real" part is retained. Note also that imaginary numbers were not proved to be real in the first place but merely assumed so, for mathematical convenience. Finally, I repeat that I have several other serious objections to the Minkowskian interpretation of Einstein's ideas that are too complicated to present here--mostly unnoticed by physicists, such as that his view logically requires 4-dimensional matter, not just 4-D processes. But I will have to end here. Good luck.
Aside from the opportunistic use by monopoly capitalism of Einstein’s theories of relativity as the ruling ideas; the defect/limitation of modern natural science, theoretical physics in particular; lies not in the lack of brilliant minds and/or ardent practitioners at our epoch; but in the particular world outlook (paradigm, epistemology) it followed so far and the class interest it was obliged to serve in the historical evolution of humanity.
Hegel identified two such world outlooks (paradigm) that existed throughout civilised history. The one which was most dominant so far, Hegel termed as “the view of understanding” or is crudely defined as causality; that is based on the principle “Unity, Opposition and the Excluded Middle” and is mediated by cause and effect. The other one, which is the exact opposite of the first one, he termed as “the view of reason” or dialectics, that is based on the principle “Unity of the Opposites” – a contradiction, and is mediated by dialectical chance and necessity.
Causality values sharpness of thought and clear-cut distinction of logic without any contradiction – either one or the other, either true or false, good or bad, yes or no, cause or effect, chance or necessity etc. It also seeks continuity, certainty, unity, absoluteness, determinism etc., while dialectics champions contradiction, vagueness of thought, conflicts, eternal change, evolution, negation of what exists, revolution etc.
Causality had its historical justification as a world outlook and most class society up to now, for obvious reason, sanctioned only this mode of thought and fought against the other. A crude sense of short-term cause and effect is common in all life forms, including the most primitive ones. This quality roughly separates life from non-living matter. Simple movement & mechanics even in primitive life forms is impossible without a general sense of causality. With the progress of evolution, this sense of causality is accentuated culminating in its highest development in man. The “view of understanding” represents the “good old common sense” acquired through everyday life experience and passed on and attenuated through generations that eventually attains a generalized “instinctive” form of judgment common to most members of a society or an epoch. The dialectical mode of thought on the contrary, could only arise with the higher capability for communication, abstraction, introspection, and reflection etc. that could manifest itself in the highest developed form of matter - the thinking brain of man.
A clear recognition of the distinction between these two modes of thought (epistemology, world outlook) allows for a clear understanding of the problems modern science and physics faces. A passion for sharpness of logic, clear cut distinction of true and false etc, drove epistemology, natural philosophy, science to causality as the ideal tool of enquiry. Mathematics naturally, is the highest and the most ideal form of this mode of thought. The early Greeks, even the rationalists like Descartes and Spinoza, sought to do philosophy in the spirit of geometry/mathematics. But it is exactly this mode of thought that has brought modern natural philosophy and science to the opposite of its intended goal – to antimonies and endless debates as we see here and the present acute crisis in physics
The irony for any epistemology (thought, consciousness) is that the ontology (the objective reality) is essentially contradictory. Any form of existence is a contradiction of “being” and “nothing”, is unstable and “changes” because of this inner contradiction. This brilliant intuition first occurred to Heraclitus, expressed in the following immortal words, “Everything changes due to inner conflict”. For causality, change can only be caused by an outside agency, by God. This is also the crux of the difference between causality and dialectics; causality must have a "first cause" - a perpetual mystery!
This realization of the logical contradiction of objective reality caused the noble “view of understanding” or causality to slowly move away from reality to the ideal world of thought, terming objective reality as an illusion, “Maya” or unknowable “thing-in-itself”. This explains the gradual shift of natural philosophy and even of empirical natural sciences towards the thought world, to mysticism and idealized mathematics, which are free from contradiction, But this is increasingly at odd when this world view deals with the real world and leads to more and more contradiction, mysteries, paradoxes, singularities as we see with the theories of relativity.
The recognition of the dialectical evolution in Nature, life, society and thought since Hegel and most importantly the quantum phenomena brought the death-knell of the “view of understanding” or causality and the triumph of the dialectical world view. Einstein’s efforts to resurrect causality through his theories of relativity and modern theoretical physics’ attempt to bring back mathematical idealism to know reality are therefore reactionary attempts that are bound to go nowhere.
The development of natural science, particularly physics has reached a stage where the old world outlook based on causality has brought it to impasse; only a dialectical synthesis following the lead by Frederick Engels can help move it forward.
@Daniel
At risk of upsetting the relativists here is a list of problems and solutions.
Herein the project log:
There are a lot of problems with GTR, not least is presents with infinite singularities, does not explain dark matter, it cannot fully explain dark energy and gives us infinite time dilation at the event horizon, which means that matter cannot enter the black hole in the lifetime of the Universe
Herein some peer reviewed international publications that resolve this.
1).First to obviate the infinite density singularities.
1a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32897680_An_advanced_dynamic_adaptation_of_Newtonian_equations_of_gravity?ev=prf_pub
1b)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269689554_The_formulation_of_Dynamic_Newtonian_advanced_gravity_DNAg?ev=prf_pub
2).Secondly we explain the presence of dark matter at the centre of the galaxy.
2a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228858219_Advances_in_Black_Hole_Gravitational_Physics_and_Cold_Dark_Matter_Modelling._The_Gravity_of_Dark_Matter
3) Thirdly it is possible to explain the presence of dark matter in the galactic halo.
3a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269689929_Advances_in_Black_Hole_Physics_and_Dark_Matter_Modelling_of_the_Galactic_Halo?ev=prf_pub
4). It is able to explain the presence of cosmological dark matter.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32897680_An_advanced_dynamic_adaptation_of_Newtonian_equations_of_gravity
5). It is corroborated in neutron stars (including Data from radiation damping ) and is corroborated by black hole studies.
5a)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32888463_An_advanced_modification_of_dynamicgravitation
5b).https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269667939_Corroboration_of_Dynamic_Black_Hole_Gravitational_Physics_from_Observations_of_Cygnus_X-1
6) it explains dark energy and translates into quantum gravity
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32899306_String_quintessence_and_the_formulation_of_advanced_quantum_gravity
7). It does not offer infinite time dilation at the event horizon,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287213872_Finite_Gravitational_Time_Dilation_In_Black_Holes_Using_Dynamic_Newtonian_Advanced_Gravity_DNAg
Comment
Article An advanced dynamic adaptation of Newtonian equations of gravity
Article The formulation of Dynamic Newtonian advanced gravity, DNAg
Article Advances in Black Hole Gravitational Physics and Cold Dark M...
Article Advances in Black Hole Physics and Dark Matter Modelling of ...
Article An advanced modification of dynamic gravitation
Article Corroboration of Dynamic Black Hole Gravitational Physics fr...
Article String quintessence and the formulation of advanced quantum gravity
Article Finite Gravitational Time Dilation In Black Holes Using Dyna...
Dear Andrew,
I don´t see what are the contradictions or inner problems of the GRT.
1. The singularities are going to be confirmed by experience and observation. This is richness of the theory that can predict new physics.
2. Dark matter is not observed for what is caused such increment of the rotation. But this is again no against GRT, perhaps we need to include something more for explaining the cosmological distances effects.
3. Most of the theoreticians working with supergravity, superstrings or M-theory just look for extensions of the general relativity at Planck level. In all that I know nobody claims that GRT is wrong for the scale that we employ it nowadays. The same that nobody claims that Maxwell's electrodynamics is wrong because the existance of QED.
4. Even more complex concepts as Dark Energy which cosmology is trying to understand are compared with the initial Einstein's equations which contained the cosmological constant.
Frankly, I cannot understand how is possible to find nowadays people who can justify fails of the more beautiful theory that I knows and which was created by an only man at difference of what happens with electrodynamics or quantum mechanics. My congratulations Einstein wherever you are! Less justified is if you don't understand basic mathematics or you related all this with marxism, etc...That is just no arguable (at least for me, sorry).
“GTR has now become the very "box", which we need to think outside of.”
Dear Andrew, the above was an astute statement by you. What is a box of honey for the ants, so is GTR for bright, intelligent, ambitious and career-seeking, mathematics-worshipping physicists. But the problem is that like the ants they get stuck in the honey and ironically it is the honey-seekers who eventually get eaten-up or are unable to come out of the box!
It has been the practice of all ruling classes of history to divert any intellectual pursuit away from this miserable earth, to the realm of the heavens – the kingdom of deities, Gods, where there is no contradiction, but only harmony, reason, beauty, perfect-ness of mathematics etc., rule. The realities of life on this crude, messy earth are but illusion and temporary and have to be tolerated until permanent salvation in after-life. This is a convenient way for the rulers to hide the contradiction that they have created a heaven for themselves on this earth and hell for their subjects!
Even for Hegel who adopted the revolutionary dialectical mode of thought, his “Absolute Idea” was the heaven without any contradiction and where other heavenly things thrived. Contradiction started only when the “Absolute Idea” (which existed somewhere for eternity) just out of (perhaps) boredom decided to alienate itself in the miserable reality of this world and then evolved through dialectical negation of the negation and its other laws, following the contradictions of twists, turns , advances, retreats etc. of Nature, Life, society and finally came back to itself again (as a resurrection) through human thought (unsurprisingly the thought of Hegel himself!) !
It must be pointed out to our honourably ignorant theoretical physicists, that their primordial mathematical equation (that can be written on a coffee mug) that purportedly gave rise to this universe through a “Big Bang” in nothing but Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” alienating itself in this crude material world. Even long before Herr Einstein, one Herr Eugene Dṻhring suggested this Hegelian “Big Bang” idea! So, their causality based great discovery and long hard labour was for absolutely nothing at all! And as the BBC report cited above shows, even the priests of theology rebuke the physicists about the creator of their “first cause” that they already knew, before the physicists found it out through their long hard labour!
So, physicists bragging about the profound power of idealised mathematics, GTR, supergravity, superstrings or M-theory, “Theory of Everything” in essence means absolutely nothing at all! Like theology, Plato, Hegel, Kant, Herr Dṻhring et al., what the physicists are talking about is nothing but the ideal thought world of the “Absolute Idea”. Their noble attempts and hard work to piece together the shards from the "Big Bang" to their original mathematical form and the "face of God" was already accomplished before through thought alone, without any physics!
But all these accomplishments including the noble task of modern theoretical physics have nothing to do with this miserable real earth on which we mortals live!
It is very amusing to see that most physicists blame Marxism or materialist dialectics for (most consistently) rocking their “Castle in the Air”, which the great Einstein himself did in a letter to his friend Besso in 1954, “I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., continuous structure. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, (and of) the rest of modern physics” A. Pais, Subtle is the Lord …” The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein”, Oxford University Press, (1982) 467,
Our honourable physicists must know that real physics or anything else can be done only on this wretched earth. Newton or more so Karl Marx and other able and materialist natural philosopher tried to do exactly that before Herr Einstein et al., shifted the venue for physics to the “Castle in the Air” where most theoretical physicists now thrive and are boastful of their triumph.
Marx gets the blame for turning Hegel’s idealist (and hence harmless to the established order) but potentially revolutionary “dialectical method” into a very potent and effective tool for epistemology by a simple materialist inversion of Hegelian dialectics; expressed in the following immortal words, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social being that determines their consciousness”. This little sentence demolishes the universe created out of Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” or of the primordial mathematical equation of our physicists! But to his credit Hegel through his encyclopaedic knowledge and his brilliant dialectical method, did describe the real evolutionary and historical process that goes on in Nature, Life, Society and Thought and the general laws that govern this eternal process without ever reaching his wishful “Absolute Idea”. Materialist dialectics is not only a potent tool for understanding the world but also to subjectively CHANGE it! This is the “real crime” for which Marxism is so dreadful for some!
As explained above, the epistemology of “the view of understanding” or causality had a historical justification in this evolutionary process. But this epistemology is defective and approximate, that is only useful in the narrow range of life experience at simple, macroscopic and terrestrial scale that Newtonian physics and classical mechanics so ably described. But as Kant showed in philosophy and physics now faces in the microcosm of the quantum phenomena and the macrocosm of the cosmos; this epistemology is totally useless when extended beyond its narrow range of effectiveness. As the thinkers and practitioners of materialist dialectics already demonstrated (in limited, but unrecognized way) in different areas of epistemology, dialectics as a world view, is the only effective alternative to the “view of understanding” or causality.
It is also nice to see that some hitherto self-proclaimed and virulently anti-Marxist worshipers of mathematics and the theories of relativity now speak in a similar sense, even if not the same language that the “Marxists” use!
Dear Abdul ~
Physics is concerned with attempting to correlate and try to understand the results of experimental observations and measurements. The procedure that has proved highly successful is to follow the path wherever it leads. Physicists ideally need to let Nature itself be the guide and dispense with all preconceived notions and a priori expectations. Any philosophical or epistemological prejudice is only an encumbrance. “Dialectics as a world view” is that kind of encumbrance.
Marx was a brilliant man, but he was not a physicist.
Dear Andrew ~
“Why are scientist so fixated with the general theory of relativity?”
Because it’s the only gravitational theory that
(1) incorporates the thoroughly well established principles of Special Relativity,
(2) takes full account of the Equivalence Principle, and
(3) correctly predicts observationally verified results.
It’s formidably complicated, but if that’s how Nature works, physicists have to accept it.
Very unfortunately, not only Einstein’s theory of relativity is just a faked story or pseudoscience, but also the so-called Standard Model should result in pseudoscience if we cannot rightly treat it. May you see:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317014509_Anti-ethics_and_pseudoscience_On_Albert_Einstein%27s_theory_of_relativity
I am spreading this article. If anyone should help to this spreading, I should thank him/her very much.
Data Anti-ethics and pseudoscience: On Albert Einstein's theory o...
@ Eric Lord
Dear Eric,
I consider it a great honour that you find me worthy enough to care to take issue with me; it was also a great honour for me to see you recommending couple of my comments in other forums. It is because I consider you as one of the few most significant people in RG who is a committed thinker, sincere and most of all a noble person. I wish I could have the opportunity to have a direct (the most efficient) way to have an exchange of views with you.
But in my response to you here, I don’t know where to start, because there are so many issues involved. You seem oblivious to (and thereby negate) the concrete and specific position I have and which I expressed (even in this forum) on many questions of physics, mathematics, philosophy, society etc.; but you mainly focus on my dialectical and Marxist stance only. It is true that I often have to explain my very different world outlook (most scientists are hardly aware that such a thing even exists!) to distinguish my stand (from others) even on very specific scientific issues. My materialist dialectics based studies and understanding (following Engels) of physics, ranging from cosmology, the galaxies to the quantum level, leads me (in most) cases to the exact opposite conclusions to that of official physics that you pursue. I have elaborated these in my few books and journal publications. Newtonian physics and classical dynamics including thermodynamics and quantum electrodynamics; because of their basis on “matter in motion” are the closest things (but defective and approximate) for materialist dialectical world view. Even within their narrow limit of application, these are defective and approximate (even if acceptable) because of their basis on the world view of "understanding" and causality
For me, post-Einstein modern official physics (theoretical physics in particular), like the philosophy of Hegel, is made to “stand on its head”! For more than a century physics has been alienated to serve the interest of a small ruling class (at the cost of humanity in general) and is set on a wrong path leading to a blind alley. This is in spite of (and in opposition to) the great revolutionary developments of quantum physics, but a development which is greatly constrained since its inception by the narrow world view of official science.
Einstein negated physics with his idealism of the “continuous fields” as the basis of objective reality; whereas “discrete matter in eternal motion” (materialism) was once its proud tradition and the great merit. The great dedication, thirst for knowledge, hard work etc. of many physicists including Einstein himself of the past hundred years, and following his mathematical idealism, were in vain and almost for nothing, because all these idealism have brought us little positive knowledge – but only “wonders”, fantasies and fairy tales - only a repeat of the idealist past. A David Hume now would have demanded that all these scholasticism be “committed to the flame”!
For me, the world outlook mainly defines a person, as a thinker or a scientist; his/her cultural, social values as a member of a society and so on. Also as a Marxist with a materialist dialectical perspective, I believe that historical evolution and our time of existence in a society, objectively defines our intellectual capacity and thought. At best as a rationalist (I suppose) you probably take an anti-historical view of things like the Platonist and think that ideas (including mathematical and scientific ideas, like GR for example) exist in a different realm and it is only a question of a perceiving (or a trained!) mind independent of time and space; to conceive it in thought and see their manifestation in the details of the world and in Nature.
You also seem to go by an artificial and a crude division of labour (both physical and mental) instituted on society (mainly from the advent of capitalism) for the expediency of the ruling authority. You want to limit individual’s capacity for intellect and knowledge by emphasizing “expertise”, subjective orientation and formal training. In my opinion this is very wrong and it lies at the root of the bankruptcy of modern physicists; because it terribly limits them to a narrow and petty world view. That Marx was not a formally trained physicist is true, but you forget that so was the case with Aristotle and many other natural philosophers in history, including Newton who was an ordained priest as a fellow of Trinity and a devoted Christian!
“Physics is concerned with attempting to correlate and try to understand the results of experimental observations and measurements.”
This is exactly my position and in fact my complains that post-Einsteinian physics violated this noble aim of physics by imposing axiomatic mathematical idealism on it and thereby making it stand on its head and in effect making it a theology! Einsteinian physics forgets the fact that there is a gulf of difference between the pure mathematics, whose program is the exact deduction of consequences from logically independent axioms/postulates using analytic functions, and the applied mathematics of approximation needed for physics. Physics traditionally used approximate empirical data, which can be fitted on in various ways to analytic functions of pure mathematics, but the results are only valid in a narrow range of the data values for the argument. The analytic functions have precise mathematical properties and smoothness amenable to continuous fields. It is very easy for an idealist with aesthetic sense to assume that in nature only analytic functions present themselves. Thus, the proposition that the laws of nature involve analytic functions leads to a complete mechanistic determination of the world based on their experimentally determined value in a narrow range only. This is an illusion that modern physics shares with all idealist thinkers of history, including the “Absolute Idea” of Hegel that I discussed in my other comments above. Regards, Abdul
It maybe time to throw in some comments about STR- reciprocity, It is by no means a certain.
I do not know much about the details, but in general LIGO has to have strengthed
GR, since it is one of its predictions.
This new window on the univere has to be closely watched. and see where it leads.
Do not know what STR reciprocity is, can you tell us? Is it dual fields in ENM?
“Physicists ideally need to let Nature itself be the guide and dispense with all preconceived notions and a priori expectations. Any philosophical or epistemological prejudice is only an encumbrance. “Dialectics as a world view” is that kind of encumbrance.”
The above passage from Prof. Eric Lord’s comment unfortunately, reflects the contradiction, the inconsistency as well as the poverty of modern physics in particular and natural science in general that depends (like theology, rationalism, classical materialism etc.) on Hegel’s epistemological category of the “view of understanding” or causality. Prof. Lord seems to be oblivious to the fact that modern physicists indeed are guided by “preconceived notions and a priori expectation”, namely the theory of general relativity – the topic of this discussion!
The tragedy of one-sided and causality based physics is that it is incapable of resolving the contradiction between theory and practice. With it’s either/or approach it wildly and alternatively swings from one extreme of its contradiction to the other, hopping over the “excluded middle”! Thus from crass empiricism of Newton (Hypotheses non fingo), it jumps over to Einstein’s “a priory expectation” of the theory of relativity. Like a man with hammer as the only tool; it either empirically breaks open everything in sight to see and mindlessly keep on collecting facts and thereby gets buried under a mountain of “facts” and unable to find its way out; or with the hammer of the “preconceived notion” of the absolute truth of a theory it sees any problem as a nail. It does not realize that things in Nature are not given in one stroke “perfect in itself” and they not only existing in space, but also has a history of evolution in time.
With few centuries of hard empirical labour (like a beast of burden, as Engels used to say) it found anything of value more or less accidentally, as mere a way of exception rather than the rule. The highest level of a general guiding theory it achieved in few hundred years of labour is the one-sided theory of evolution in the hands of Darwin. Dialectical materialists Marx and Engels while welcoming this revolutionary theory severely criticized its (anti-dialectical) one-sidedness of “natural selection” or the “survival of the fittest”. As Engels wrote, “Until Darwin, what was stressed by his adherents was precisely the harmonious cooperative working of organic nature … Hardly was Darwin recognized before these same people saw everywhere nothing but struggle. Both views are justified within narrow limits, but both are equally one-sided and prejudiced. The interaction of dead (lifeless AM) natural bodies includes both harmony and collisions; that of living bodies conscious and unconscious cooperation equally with conscious and unconscious struggle. Hence, even in regard to nature, it is not permissible one-sidedly to inscribe only “struggle” on one’s banner. But it is absolutely childish to desire to sum up the whole manifold wealth of historical evolution and complexity in the meagre and one-sided phrase “struggle for life”. That says less than nothing”
But now for the last 100 years, the pendulum has swung to the exact opposite side. Theory (GR) and the “consistency” of idealized mathematics alone (without any empirical input) - the absolute truth, is the beacon of light that must lead the way for physics and this absolute truth (like that of theology) must find its manifestation in the details of the world. Such is the flippant nature of official physics and natural science.
For materialist dialectics on the contrary, theory and "practice" are the “unity of the opposite” – a contradiction that resolves continuously as "the negation of the negation", reinforcing each other like a double helix in the never ending evolution of human knowledge. But in this process "practice" always remains the primary factor and theory a secondary but important factor, at times even taking the leading role, but generally follows practice as the after the fact evaluation. “The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.” G.W.F. Hegel
Dear Abdul ~
Your detailed and thoughtful arguments are much appreciated.
When you say “For me, the world outlook mainly defines a person, as a thinker or a scientist; his/her cultural, social values as a member of a society and so on”, I am entirely in agreement with you.
A characteristic of each human individual is his or her habitual style of thinking, which is peculiar to that individual. It is formed by their past experience and knowledge and also, almost certainly, by genetic inheritance. A study of the history of philosophy reveals a great variety of ways of attempting to understand the World. So long as each of these “world views” is devoid of errors of logic and rationality, then there is no question of “right” and “wrong”; every approach to understanding can reveal some facet of “objective reality”. I don’t know of any rigorous definition of “dialectics”, but to me it means just that − the interplay of different approaches to “truth”. I side with Kant in claiming that “objective reality” – the “thing in itself” − is unreachable. All we can know directly is subjective experience and our own characteristic way of thinking when we try understand it. That is all we have. It includes the observations and measurements of experimental physics.
My understanding of physics (in particular when I’m discussing Relativity on Researchgate) is strongly influenced by my habitual way of thinking in terms of continuity. That comes from the fact that I’m predominantly a visual thinker, and from my training as a mathematician. But I do not fool myself into claiming that other styles of thinking (or other philosophical standpoints) are “wrong”, or that “continuity” is a property of “objective physical reality”. In fact, I don’t believe that it is! But thinking in those terms correctly predicts many matters of subjective experience, so it seems to be pointing towards something about the nature of reality.
I hold no “absolute ideas”. I “believe” only in logic and rationality. I regard all other beliefs (preconceived “worldviews” or fixed standpoints) as impediments. I strive to avoid them.
In response to my statement "Physics is concerned with attempting to correlate and try to understand the results of experimental observations and measurements" you said “This is exactly my position and in fact my complaint is that post-Einsteinian physics violated this noble aim of physics by imposing axiomatic mathematical idealism on it…”
In response that “complaint” I only would point that the axiomatic method and the “mathematical idealism” inherent in the simplifying assumption of continuity (through the use of differential equations) in theoretical physics has in the past been extremely fruitful in leading to our present understanding of the nature of the physical world. So these methods correspond to some aspect of “reality”.
[“Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.” − Bertrand Russell]
It seems to me (as it does to you) that present preoccupations of “post-Einsteinian physicists” (superstrings, supersymmetries, wormholes etc., etc.) have wandered into a fairy-tale world that has nothing to do with physical reality. But who am I (or you) to judge? What do we know? Cut them some slack; it may lead to some genuine insights. They are not doing any harm!
Dear Andrew ~
“Why are scientists so fixated with the general theory of relativity?”
The short answer: “Because it’s the only viable theory of gravity available to them.”
The long answer would need to go into detail about why General Relativity is what it is. How did it arise? The answer calls upon us to go further back than 1916, to Galileo, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell and to examine carefully step by step, the logical inferences, drawn from empirical evidence, that culminated in GR. This is of course all “standard textbook material” but it is worthwhile to strip it of inessentials, to clarify and simplify it:
(1) Newton’s first law: “an object that is not subject to a force does not accelerate”.
(2) The Principle of Relativity was first clearly enunciated by Galileo. What it amounts to, in modern terminology, is that empirical physical laws are the same in every “inertial frame”. We can think of an inertial frame as a laboratory that is not acted on by external forces. Galileo took a cabin below decks on a ship as an instance of a “laboratory”.
(3) Galileo lived before Faraday so was not aware of the detailed empirical laws of electromagnetism that Faraday discovered and that Maxwell formulated in an elegant set of equations. To reconcile those equations with the Principle of Relativity it is necessary to concede that “the speed of light, measured in an inertial frame, is a constant and is the same in all inertial frames.” This establishes the Special Theory of Relativity.
(4) Newton’s gravitational theory does not conform to the requirements of STR. A new gravitational theory was required that "somehow" must incorporate Newton’s highly successful gravitational theory as an approximation.
(5) The Equivalence Principle was empirically established by Galileo’s inclined plane experiments (and his alleged dropping weights from the tower of Piza…) and later confirmed with great precision by Eötvös and others.
(6) In Nature (“objective physical reality”) there are no “reference systems”. Coordinate systems are human inventions that physicists need to express empirical observations quantitively. It is therefor self-evident that objective physical laws are independent of the chosen coordinate system. That is the Principle of General Covariance.
(7) Einstein’s thoughts about the the Equivalence Principle and the Principle of General Covarience led him to realize that he couldn’t proceed without resorting to Riemannian Geometry. He learnt this from the mathematician Grossman and after ten years of struggle finally arrived at the goal: a viable theory of gravitation that satisfies all the above requirements: the General Theory of Relativity. Its predictions (principally, the bending of light in a gravitational field, the perihelion precession of planetary orbits and gravitational red shifts) all turned out successfully. Hence the theory is consistent with evidence. It is not “proven”. No physical theory can be proven.
Scientists are “fixated with the general theory of relativity” because, within the domain of its applicability (large-scale phenomena for which quantum effects are not relevant) it works, because they cannot see any logical flaws in the path that led to it, and because no-one in a century has come up with any viable alternative.
Having accepted the theory as an explanatory system, evidence for its predictions is sought (“black holes” and LIGO) and explanations of observed phenomena are formulated in terms of it. All that can be said is that observations attributable to “black holes” and "gravitational waves" do not invalidate GTR.
Eric Lord wrote: "The predictions (of GRT) all turned out successfully" and "Scientists are 'fixated with GRT' because within the domain of applicability it works, because they cannot see any logical flaws in the path that led to it."
Can the same not be said about gravito-electromagnetism?
@ Eric Lord:
Dear Eric,
Unfortunately, I do not agree with your world view based on Kantianism and necessarily I have to reject your (and that of modern official physics') stance, most of all on GR. As I said many times in my comments before, Einstein stands in the same relation to physics, what Kant is to philosophy – both were mystics, depending on subjective (Kant) or mathematical (Einstein) idealism. I reject GR (and other associated theories of modern physics) as a scientific theory for the following reasons
1. Philosophical: “Spacetime” with tangible physical/material/mechanical attributes, GR's fundamental premise has no sound basis on philosophy of any kind even that of Kant.
2. With it’s “continuous field” concept, GR denies the fundamental premise of natural science, which is “(particulate) matter in motion”. This is a clear violation of the scientific norm in GR and that has given rise to the slogan “matter is a myth” in modern theoretical physics - a premise of idealism. It is clearly evident in Einstein’s own words: “Since the theory of general relativity (GR) implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles and material points cannot play a fundamental part and neither can the concept of motion. The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or energy density is particularly high”. Einstein, A. On the General Theory of Relativity, in David Levy (Ed.). The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos, N.Y., 2000, pp. 13.
3. GR as a theory does not fulfill the criteria for positive knowledge, which must be based on social praxis, and tangible experience in the form of technology etc.
4. It’s presumed validity is based on subjective, contrived and questionable experimental results and extrapolated conclusions alone; which do not guarantee any positive knowledge.
5. It is used as an ideological tool as a substitute for discredited theology. In opposition to you, I must assert that GR did not arise from scientific practice and the necessity of the time, but was put forward as a reactionary attempt to save the old notions of certainty, continuity, causality etc. of rationalism and theology that were threatened with the new developments in biology (theory of evolution), politics (Bolshevism) and most of all quantum dynamics.
I will explain and elaborate some of these points in two parts, the first part from the Kantian philosophical point of view and the second one from Hegelian and materialist dialectical point of view. Regards, Abdul
Mohammed wrote above on the 'reification fallacy' which means the ongoing interpretation of entities that exist in mind first (and only) as some real object that exists in reality first. This 'reification' is a very common effect of using language to drive our mind.
Examples:
- To store a customer, press F5.
- To delete the book, press button.
- To create a new car (using a configuration app) click here.
Our language is full of abbreviations (L. Wittgenstein: After 'Verhexung des Verstandes' the Ordinary language is all right) that may me used to confuse our mind. Mathematicians (as software developers) do not use the prefixes like 'representation of' (data of) all the time. Their analoguously working brains (D. Hofstadter) use words as some at least necessary stimulus to enlight the grid cells. Therefore:
"Why are scientist so fixated?"
They are pondering about it because gravity is still a riddle that is not understood at all. They tried to understand gravity by inventing a formal framework (for description and calculation purposes) that was at least as complex as gravity seemed to be. Hence the results they got (tons of singularities and complex objects) did not help to understand the domain nor its basics.
Did you ever hear about the IKEA-effect (Festinger, Cognitive dissonance)? How much work did people like Eric Lord have to invest in learning and diggering to get these complicated formulae working (or to get the illusion about to work)? Would you throw your Billy bookcase out of the window (after two hours assembling it) if it could not withstand the load of the heavier books? You probably would use to lowest board instead.
@ Eric Lord:
The same way that Aristotle’s philosophy is the negation of that of his mentor Plato; Hegel’s philosophy is the negation of his mentor Kant. Marxism is the negation of the negation, to complete the dialectical movement of philosophy. This triple dialectical movement (development, change etc.) of thought was first conceived by that mighty thinker, whom you follow. But for Kant that triadic movement was only in the realm of thought and for his logical categories – for example thought moves from the “particular” to the “general” to the “universal” etc. Hegel and others (notably Fichte who coined the terms "thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis") ironically used their mentor’s very dialectical tool to undo and demolish the main premise of his philosophy, namely his unknowable thing-in-itself!
To refute Kant, Hegel (an idealist himself) sought to show that this dialectical process (the negation of the negation) of development in history is a universal process in the development of the material world, Nature, Life, Society and thought or anything that exists at all. Because his “Absolute Idea” is perfect (like God) without any contradiction (change, development) for his dialectical method to work; Hegel had to make his “Absolute Idea” alienate itself in crude material world, which is full of defects and contradictions. Hegel sought to show that ontology or objective reality is not a thing-in-itself, but epistemology (as the dialectical unity of the opposites of ontology) is a part of it and is capable of knowing objective reality and the world, through a historical and dialectical process of the development (evolution) of life and thought – a process through which blind objective Nature becomes aware of itself, because man and his thought is a dialectical “unity of the opposites” and a product of blind Nature itself and not something added from outside!
[Note: Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” develops in a patently deterministic way, a notion that is the favourite of the anthropic principle of modern theoretical physics with it’s primordial and a priori equation of “the theory of everything”. Even modern biology in the person of Dawkins et al has adopted this iron determinism for life, without absolutely no scope for “free will”. This crude and shallow mechanism and deterministic (no contradiction) view of the world in modern physics and biology is a gift from Hegel’s “Absolute Idea”. We must credit even-cruder theology for allowing the contradiction of Evil (Satan) in God’s perfect world and some “free will” on moral questions! I fully agree with the first comprehensive dialectical philosopher, before Hegel, namely Epicurus who said, “It is better to follow the myth about the gods than to be a slave of the "fate" of the physicists”.]
The question of the origin (beginning) of the world – a requirement of causality (the View of understanding) as the “first cause” was mainly dealt with by theology as the act of God; idealism, rationalism and classical materialism including natural science has to accept this premise as a necessity of causality and formal (Aristotelian) logic of “Unity, Opposition and the Excluded Middle” that they follow. [I must mention here (as a prelude) that such a beginning is not a requirement for dialectics; in fact dialectics denies it]. Kant was the first who came to doubt that premise of a beginning of the world and showed that causality leads to a “first cause”, mysteries and antimonies and hence no definitive knowledge – the very reason for his acceptance of the unknowable thing –in-itself and his warning to philosophy to abate its claim to knowledge of the world.
So from a Kantian point of view a definitive assertion of the “Big Bang” origin (beginning) of the universe (a conclusion derived from GR) is a “no-go”. Also, a “spacetime” (the fundamental basis of GR) with tangible physical/material/mechanical attributes as an objective reality is impossible for Kant. For Kant space and time are the elements of our subjective thought that we impose on the world for our convenience to deal with phenomena. For Kant, “Space is not something objective and real, nor a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation; instead, it is subjective and ideal, and originates from the mind's nature in accord with a stable law as a scheme, as it were, for coordinating everything sensed externally.”
@ Eric Lord
For the dialectical world view there is no question of any beginning or end of the universe and hence it has to be infinite and eternal. It is because for dialectics beginning and end (being-nothing) lies together and one cannot exist without the other. For Hegel, being-nothing is the primary contradiction (the first and also the last), which resolves to a becoming through a dialectical “negation of the negation” and this movement (change, development) give rise to the phenomenology (of things and processes) of the eternal and infinite universe. For idealist Hegel, this dialectical motion in the world, Nature, Life etc.,(the phenomenology) is but a temporary alienated stage of his “Absolute Idea”, which comes back to its pristine (non-contradictory) self through Hegel’s philosophy – the “Absolute Idea", an arbitrary termination of his dialectical process! Dialectical materialists Marx and Engels rejected Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” and the arbitrary termination of the dialectical process and insisted that it must be eternal and infinite. Marx and Engels did not say much about the ontological questions of the universe, because natural science itself up to their time did not bring that question to the fore. Being materialists they only dealt with issues of practical importance of their time that mainly included the idea of evolution in terrestrial Nature of life, society and thought.
The quantum phenomena are revolutionary aspects of ontology, which no thinkers in history could even anticipate or dream about, beforehand! Since dialectics is based on “chance and necessity” in opposition to “cause and effect” of the “the view of understanding” or causality; dialectics is a better epistemological tool to deal with the quantum phenomena and the question of the origin of matter and motion – the primary aspect of the material world. In fact, Hegel’s (first as well as the last) triad of “being-nothing-becoming” dealt with the ontological question of the universe and very vaguely anticipated the virtual particles of the quantum vacuum in his views of space and time..
In my own works, I have attempted to use Hegel’s philosophy of space and time, and his idea of being-nothing-becoming, in combination with the virtual particles of the quantum vacuum ( somewhat of a source and sink for motion and "real" matter/antimatter particles) to propose a tangible infinite, eternal and ever-changing universe in which the material universe ( from the galaxies and their clusters to life and thought, to the real fundamental particles; as temporary structures) made through historical and dialectical chance and necessities and eternally coming into being and passing out of existence; without any beginning and end. For dialectics, as Engels said, “There is no leap (like Big Bang creation) in Nature, precisely because Nature is made entirely of (dialectical) leaps!”
My major works are:
a) Books:
1. The Philosophy of Space-Time: Whence Cometh Matter and Motion?
2. The Dialectical Universe: Some Reflections on Cosmology
b) Published Articles:
1. The Infinite as a Hegelian Philosophical Category and Its Implication for Modern Theoretical Natural Science.
2. Ambartsumian, Arp and the Breeding Galaxies.
3. The Cosmic Gamma-Ray Halo: New Imperative for a Dialectical Perspective of the Universe
4. The Nothing That Really Is! Dialectical Contradictions in Mathematics and Physics
5. The Real/Virtual Exchange of Quantum Particles as a Basis for the Resolution of Wave-Particle Duality and Other Anomalies of the Quantum Phenomena.
6. THE CONCEPTUAL DEFECT OF THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION OR ‘FREE FALL’: A DIALECTICAL REASSESSMENT OF KEPLER’S LAWS.
The books are available through Amazon and the articles are free-access and can be found through Google (Advanced) Search with my name.
Note: Some of my Orthodox “Marxist” friends denounced me for using Hegel’s idealist notion of “being-nothing-becoming”, because Marx and Engels never used it and Lenin even denounced Hegel for this idealist speculation.
Also, this will be my last post in this forum, unless otherwise required. I must thank Prof. Andrew Worsley for raising this very important question that allowed me to express my dialectical views. I wish Andrew success with his classical (Newtonian) materialism (even if not dialectical materialism) based approach for an understanding of gravitation. In my view GR and mathematical idealism in cosmology will lead physics to nowhere and to no positive knowledge of the universe. Best regards, Abdul
In brief-
The space-time we encounter as part of the Big Bang Universe is a substance with energy, recognized as Dark energy, and is unlikely to be infinite. The Cosmos beyond the multiverses is true nothingness and by definition can therefore be infinite.
By the way you will find that the substance that makes up space -time is the same substance that also makes up everything else, matter and the forces of Nature - but differently configured.
With respect, Andrew, I can make no rational sense of your latest brief comments. To say of X that X is "true nothingness" is logically equivalent to saying that X does not exist--a contradiction.A proper definition of space is that it is a substance having no properties except geometrical ones. Classical Newtonian space, e.g., is Euclidean, three-dimensional and infinitely extended--but has no OTHER properties (no mass, no charge, etc.). As to your saying that space-time is the same substance that makes up everything "else", this sounds like what has been called "super-substantialism": that all the features normally attributed to matter (charge, mass, spin, etc. etc.) are really just (space-time) geometrical features, namely arcane variations in its "curvature" from point to point. But no one has ever even come close to an idea of how this could work, so I would urge you not to be so definite about it. :-)
@FM
Good points -it is hard for us to imagine an infinity of nothingness, as your point well demonstrates. Liken it (conceptually not physically) perhaps to a fish out of water,floating in outer space.
Your definition of outer space ignores the fact that it has inherent energy.
As far as space time is concerned, it along with everything else is made from energy call it "harmonic quintessence" which derives from Planck's constant. That's why Planck appears in all our quantum equations.
As an Introduction here is how it operates on an energy scale (which matter the forces of Nature and space-time have inherent.). The difference for space time is that it is a hyper-fluid not a discrete system. So the energy equation has to take that into account.
The rest of the papers explaining this are published in international journals (and in book form if you want an easier read) are all on research gate
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/243587881_The_formulation_of_harmonic_quintessence_and_a_fundamental_energy_equivalence_equation
Article The formulation of harmonic quintessence and a fundamental e...
“The Cosmos beyond the multiverses is true nothingness and by definition can therefore be infinite.”
Dear Andrew,
I will take issue with your view of the "infinite" and "nothingness". There cannot be multiverses, because by definition if there is more than one universe, both are finite and part of the one infinite universe! There can only be one infinite. The so-called "multiverses" can only be "island worlds" in the infinite universe. Also, for dialectics, an independent "nothingness" without a "being" associated with it is impossible.
Unfortunately and historically, theology, pre-Hegelian philosophy, mathematics (including Cantor) and physics has very inconsistent, confused or no understanding of the infinite and most deny its existence. The Inquisition burnt Giordano Bruno alive on the stake for insisting that the universe is infinite. Cantor’s pursuit of the infinite led him to the ridiculous idea of the "infinity of the infinities" that only God can know! Einstein started his formulation of GR a priori and openly presuming a finite universe. The physicist Max Tegmark wants to “retire” the concept of the infinite! : https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/12/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement-edge-org
Only Hegel’s dialectical view of the infinite based on Spinoza’s concept of “limit” provides a consistent, clear and a logical and tangible view of the infinite. One of my main reasons for rejecting GR, Big Bang creation, inflation, dark energy etc. and most of official cosmology is that it has no understanding of the infinite. In a truly infinite universe (and the only one that exists according to dialectics), none of these is possible. Please see my short article (The Infinite) at the following (journal) link: Regards, Abdul
http://www.ptep-online.com/2014/PP-39-04.PDF
@Abdul
Same problem with F.M- infinite. Lets not be conceptually constrained- we are not fish out of water- as per my previous comment
The Universe we known as the Big Bang Universe is not infinite by any stretch- one thing modern science has got right.
The other thing is let's define the entire Cosmos as infinite and that is another thing modern physics has got right it contains multiverses.
Dialectic - not sure what that means exactly please clarify.
For the record, I did not raise any problem regarding infinity, nor give any definitions of my own. I simply described the traditional concept of absolute space (which includes both empty space and filled space). Small children have this concept intuitively, and Newton famously built it into his theory. I described it in the process of pointing out that to say 'X is nothing(ness)' literally means that X does not exist.
@F.M.
You are quite right about filled space because it contains 70 % of the energy in our observed Universe
Not quite right in other terms - nothingness can exist it is purely empty of space-time - but can contain other forms of energy, which do not require the confines of space-time to exist.
Difficult concept I agree
We must speak different languages, then. To say, e.g., 'Nothing (=no thing) is a centaur' means the same as saying that no centaur exists. It follows that 'nothingness' is the absence of any existing thing or substance--NOT EVEN EMPTY SPACE. Empty space is not the same as nothingness, because the concept of empty space is of someTHING or some substance that has properties--namely geometrical properties though not others such as mass or color. I can say it no more clearly than this, so I hereby withdraw from the field.
Dear Andrew,
Please read my article first, I hope things will be clear to you and also it will show how vastly different the concept of dialectical infinite is from that of the usually supposed view. The dialectical concept of the infinite is that it is self-defined or self-limited; meaning that the infinite is limited only by itself, i.e., it sees only itself (but nothing else) however far it extends! Dialectics allows us to visualise such an infinite universe, because the finite and the infinite are the "unity of the opposites" - a contradiction! The finite IS the infinite and vice versa; and the contradiction is resolved eternally by the unlimited extension of the finite giving rise to the phenomenology of the infinite universe!
Dialectics unfortunately is a very radical and different world outlook, somewhat of a quantized conceptual jump that causes problem and sort of a repulsive reaction for many people. It needs some getting used to, especially for those with fully formed world outlook, consolidated through formal training and a successful career. I faced these difficulties myself!
“The Universe we known as the Big Bang Universe is not infinite by any stretch- one thing modern science has got right.”
On the contrary, I am sorry to say that modern science has got it totally wrong; or at best has no justification for it. That the universe is finite is an absolutely arbitrary assumption with no basis. The problem is that Einstein depended on mathematics as his tool of enquiry; which cannot deal with the infinite at all. Also his Mach based cosmology becomes meaningless in an infinite universe, because the mass of matter particles in such an universe also become infinite! So, Einstein had no choice but to assume a finite universe!
“The other thing is let's define the entire Cosmos as infinite and that is another thing modern physics has got right it contains multiverses.”
Unfortunately, wrong again, a dialectical infinite universe cannot have another universe at its border, not to speak of multiverses. You can at best conceive of widely separated galaxy clusters as island worlds in an infinite universe. Regards, Abdul
AW: “The Universe we known as the Big Bang Universe is not infinite by any stretch- one thing modern science has got right.”
AM: On the contrary, I am sorry to say that modern science has got it totally wrong; or at best has no justification for it. That the universe is finite is an absolutely arbitrary assumption with no basis.
In fact both of you have that wrong, modern science does not say whether the universe is finite or infinite. It says that the size depends on whether global curvature is positive (finite) versus zero or negative (probably infinite), and since the measurements currently show a mean value of zero with an uncertainty of around 0.5%, science says we cannot tell which it is.
Since we are always limited to measuring only the observable portion of the universe it is also possible that we will never be able to know no matter how much our instruments improve.
"In fact both of you have that wrong, modern science does not say whether the universe is finite or infinite."
"Modern science" says less than nothing about the infinite, because it has absolutely no understanding of the infinite. There is no "global curvature", it is a mathematical fiction. In an infinite universe, a mighty leap of "big bang" creation (a fantasy of theology), expansion, inflation ad nuaseum - the fantasy of Einsteinian physics are totally meaningless; because any addition, subtraction, increase or decrease etc,, leaves an infinite unchanged. No operation, mathematical or the intervention of a creator can change the nature of the infinite. For dialectics, "Modern science" aka Einsteinian physics says many things about the cosmos, which are nonsense and fantasies (not knowledge) - a continuation of the fantasy that started with primitive man.
For dialectics, what we see in the visible universe or even within few million light years, will be the same everywhere in the universe. The vast increase in the power of the telescope has shown us the same thing that we saw before and nothing new!. In fact, one sun (among the innumerable) with its life bearing planet earth and one Milky Way galaxy with its family group form the essential basis of our astronomical research. Our knowledge of the universe is proportional to our (continuously increasing) positive knowledge of mother earth and her tangible surrounding region of the universe; prejudice, fantasy (mathematical or otherwise) will only impede the progress of positive knowledge; as it did in the past.
AM: For dialectics ...
I am discussing physics based on the scientific methods. A "dialectic" is ultimately about subjective opinions, science is based on objective evidence and modern cosmology moved from philosophical debates to hard science staring with the work of Friedmann and Hubble's determination of the law that bears his name nearly a century ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
@GD,
I am also “discussing physics based on the scientific methods” and based on a world view (materialist dialectics) that is far better than the old world view of classical materialism (of Newtonian physics) and infinitely better than mathematical idealism based (and officially supported) physics since Albert Einstein; because mathematical idealism is not physics and not based on physical phenomena. Newtonian physics that was based on materialism and physical phenomena was once the great merit of physics in particular, and natural science in general; since the “atom” of Democritus. This is the whole point of my major works and my comments in RG.
Hubble himself never associated his work with an expanding universe, this is what he said, "… if redshift are not primarily due to velocity shift … there is no evidence of expansion, no trace of curvature … and we find ourselves in the presence of one of the principles of nature that is still unknown to us today … whereas, if redshifts are velocity shifts which measure the rate of expansion, the expanding models are definitely inconsistent with the observations that have been made … expanding models are a forced interpretation of the observational results." ("Effects of Red Shifts on the Distribution of Nebulae" by E. Hubble, Ap. J., 84, 517, 1936)
“Big Bang” and expanding universe and ALL of official cosmology is a concoction of Einsteinian mathematical idealism and manipulations by theology guided official “science”. Hoyle, Amartsumian, Arp, Burbidge, Narlikar and many other very well known astrophysicists were/are opposed to these fairy tales, masquerading as “science”.
This is how this “natural science” works, according to an account by Geoffrey Burbidge:
“By 1982, when a conference on cosmology was held at the Vatican, a new approach was taken. The radicals around, such as F. Hoyle, V. Ambartsuminan and this speaker (to mention a few) were not even invited. The conference was confined completely to Big Bang cosmology and its proponents.
In fact in the introduction to the published volume of the proceedings of the meeting (Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1982) it was emphasized that only believers (in the Big Bang) were present; and that there was clearly a deliberate decision of the organizers” : G Burbidge, In “The Universe at Large: Key Issues in Astronomy and Cosmology.
Science is independent of its creators. For instance, the expansion of the Universe is independent of Hubble, the existence of the positron is independent of Dirac or the Newton's classical gravitation of Newton. I don't need to believe in the slaves as a necessary social class for employing Pythagoras' theorem or Archimedes principle. Or to be protestant for understanding Newton, catholic for Galileo or jew for following Einstein. The first postulate is that there are physical laws which are independent of our feelings or human thought. Our thoughts only are necessary to discover the reallity but not for create it (perhaps the engineers could disagree with this idea, but not the scientists).
The mathematical language is so necessary in Physics that I don't any course which is not using them in every university or congress in world. And in particular theoretical physics couldn't exist without them.
The philosophy of science or the phylosophy in general are interesting subjects for sharing our knowledge trying to answer general questions without enough accuracy, but nobody would be interested in going to such fields of knowledge for solving a scientific question.
Marx, Kant, Aristoteles are important references within our culture but to introduce them in a serious scientific discussion is only a clear signature of the question has lost a possible scientific fruitful end.
For materialism, starting from Democritus onwards, including Einstein’s photons and Brownian movement; objective reality is conceived as consisting of “discrete matter particles (atoms) in eternal motion”. For materialism (also dialectical materialism) , “There can be no matter without motion and no motion without matter”. Matter can have secondary field like attributes, but matter is the primary source of any field. For materialism, there can be no independent “field” that is not the property and not originating in particulate matter.
This was also the fundamental basis of natural science until Minkowski/Einstein’s “continuous spacetime field” concept; and mathematical idealism; invoked for the theories of relativity. For modern official theoretical physics since Einstein; “field” is the basis of objective reality and “Matter is a Myth”. The great Einstein had the decency of clearly distinguishing his idealism from materialism in the following way, “Since the theory of general relativity (GR) implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles and material points cannot play a fundamental part and neither can the concept of motion. The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or energy density is particularly high”. Einstein, A. On the General Theory of Relativity, in David Levy (Ed.). The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos, N.Y., 2000, pp. 13.
Albert Einstein also had the greatness to express doubt about his own “continuous field” idea in a letter to his friend Michele Besso, a year before his death: “I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., continuous structure. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, (and of) the rest of modern physics” A. Pais, Subtle is the Lord …” The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein”, Oxford University Press, (1982) 467,
After the recognition of the revolutionary quantum phenomena, classical (Newtonian) physics and materialism has reached a T-junction (a fork) in the process of acquiring positive knowledge of the world. It must either go towards theism following Einsteinian mathematical idealism and back to the early Greeks. Einstein himself pointed to that direction, “Our experience hitherto justifies us in believing that nature is the realization of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas. I am convinced that we can discover by means of purely mathematical constructions the concepts and the laws connecting them with each other, which furnish the key to the understanding of natural phenomena. … In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed” A. Einstein, “Essays in Science”, Translated by Alan Harris from “Mein Weltbild, Quedro Verlag, Amsterdam, 1933), The Wisdom Library, N.Y., p48 – 49, (1934).
The opposite direction is that of materialist dialectics, that values the following criteria for positive knowledge of the world: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the “this-sidedness” of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question”. Karl Marx,Theses on Fauerbach
AM: I am also “discussing physics based on the scientific methods” ..
No, your comments are as you say
AM: ... based on a world view (materialist dialectics)
Any such personal "world view" creates a bias which is unscientific.
@GD
Of course you are strictly speaking right. We don't know for sure whether it is infinite or not. But your 0.5% uncertainty suggest is could be 200 times bigger than the observable Universe or perhaps bigger and still be in agreement with the experimental data..
This is not unlike the flat Earth argument where close up we see flat but further out we see curved.
This does not close the argument- because we know about inflation, which suggests the Universe is bigger, but inflation was not infinite inflation, hence it is unlikely to be infinite.
We also know that the Universe has not got an infinite age, it is only 13.8 billion years.old and not infinitely old. So even including inflation likely to be finite
So that is why most scientists believe the Universe is finite. Some rather naively would say it is only three times the size of the observable Universe - but to get the results we do (and appear almost flat) it would have to be about 200 times the radius of the observable Universe.
Of course it is unlikely those who cherry pick the facts will agree on this.
@ GD
I am probably the only one in RG (or anywhere else), who has to defend his personal credibility, even with a formal Ph.D. degree! You gentlemen question my credibility as a scientist (others of your kind have done it many times before in RG), simply because I do not do your kind of “science” as a co-member of conformed troops of “scientist serfs”; (to borrow an expression from the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore). I am sorry to say that you lot need a lecture about what is science, what is knowledge and how knowledge is possible.
You mock my credibility because I openly admit (nay proud of) my dialectical world view; because it is such a superior one. You lot do use dialectical mode of thinking, but only unconsciously and without knowing it; like Monsieur Jourdain of Molière's , Le Bourgeois gentilhomme who was surprised to know that he was speaking prose all his life! Even common language is full of dialectical expression and its essence. The dialectical triple movement in expression like “yes, yes, yes”, “no, no, no” etc. signifies great emphasis, which cannot be made otherwise.
But only when you use dialectics, being conscious of its strength and also its limitation, you appreciate its superiority as a tool of epistemology. To seek and to recognize the contrary aspects of an idea, thing or process is important for dialectics and in fact the only way to have clear knowledge of these things. These requires conscious (not instinctive), unconstrained and “free" thinking, which is not possible with “group-thinking” of which you lot are unconscious victims! To quote Hegel again:
“Thought then regards itself as free only when it is conscious of being at variance with what is generally recognised, and of setting itself up as something original.”
You do not want to see the science I did/do and write/publish about, your only bug bear is the word “dialectics”, with which you “demolish” my science. But I must assert that conscious application of dialectical mode of thought makes you a better thinker, a better scientist and most of all a better human being. I have used dialectics for my superior SCIENTIFIC views on cosmology, astrophysics, evolutionary biology and quantum electrodynamics, which do not require “wonder”, awe, fantasies, mysticism etc; the only things you talk about in your “science” without any traces of positive knowledge.
Even very recently, I published a paper challenging the centuries old one-sided concept of universal gravitation and your prophet’s “Free Fall” from a dialectical perspective. I have seen the names of many of you reading/ seeing that paper, but none of you lot showed the temerity to challenge it, except for a spurious fellow, who now goes by the name, “deleted profile” in RG. Only Prof. Eric Lord, for whom I have some respect as a sincere, serious and honest thinker cared to take issue with me, an showed graciousness by recommending my very comment that was critical of his views.
But I tell you what, gentlemen; you DO HAVE a “world view” but are blissfully ignorant or wilfully pretend to be unaware of this fact. As a dialectical thinker, I can clearly recognize it as soon as you lot even open your mouth, not to speak of your “scholarly” work on science. Hegel called this “the view of understanding” or in crude sense causality. As I discussed above, you as “natural scientists” share this world view with theology, rationalism, classical materialism etc. as well as “good old commonsense”. But as a rationalist philosopher himself, the mighty thinker Kant showed conclusively that this world outlook or mode of thought always lead to mysteries, antimonies in most cases where the cause and effect cannot be clearly identified, especially on the questions of ontology; the very reason Kant declared that the reality is unknowable! And you lesser people write and preach about the objective reality, creation of the world, cosmic monsters, ad nauseum based on the very same world view, that Kant “proved” to be useless in knowing reality! Your world view, no matter how faulty, was dominant historically in a class society; because it supports continuity, certainty, causality, either/or categories and are generally based on "mechanisms" of "good old common" sense of everyday life and does not require deep reflection, abstraction, retrospection etc.
If you are not aware of your world view, you do not know yourself, your potentials, and limitations and hence you follow group thinking, without a critical mind. This is also favoured in a class society and more so in modern official science; where conformity to the established norm and loyalty to a prescribed "mathematical mechanism" is a strong requirement. For modern physics the rule (even) is "shut up and calculate" following established mathematical mechanism; such that no critical or "free" thinking is needed or encouraged - your formal training guarantees your recognition.
But gentlemen, I am cleaver enough to know that I am an absolute minority in natural science and not to hold any illusion that I can convince you lot (of official science) or can WIN against you; because you “serfs” are the absolute majority in official science, and can “defeat” me by just recommending each other even for a thoughtless and spurious comment! But the very fact that you gentlemen find it necessary to take issues with me at all, is a victory for me from a dialectical perspective, because it betrays the fact that you take me as a worthy opponent and inadvertently give me credit! I must thank you people for showering this honour to me! The best I can hope for is that some honest and serious thinkers in RG can benefit from the extensive and detail comments I make on materialist dialectics, science, philosophy, cosmology, biology, QED etc.
I also know that truth hurts, and an innuendo may follow my comment, but I must disappoint you gentlemen beforehand that I will not respond to any further comment questioning my credibility as a scientist but will be happy to deal with scientific and philosophical questions only; the discussion on "The Infinite" with Andrew is an example.
AW: Of course you are strictly speaking right.We don't know for sure whether it is infinite or not.
Thank you Andrew.
AW: But your 0.5% uncertainty suggest is could be 200 times bigger than the observable Universe or perhaps bigger and still be in agreement with the experimental data.
If it is finite, the simplest model is a 3-sphere in which case the radius of curvature depends on the square root of the curvature so 14 times rather than 200, but you are right, that value is a lower limit and in fact only at the 1-sigma level. However, since the curve is centred on zero, it is "50/50" whether the universe is finite or infinite.
AW: This is not unlike the flat Earth argument where close up we see flat but further out we see curved.
Yes, that is true too, even if it is finite, since the real size is probably much larger than we can see, it is pragmatic to treat it as if it were infinite whether it is or not. It makes no difference to anything observable.
AW: This does not close the argument- because we know about inflation, which suggests the Universe is bigger, but inflation was not infinite inflation, hence it is unlikely to be infinite.
Inflation is expected to make it very flat but doesn't alter whether it is finite or infinite. If you inflate an infinite universe, it remains infinite, if it was finite, it remains finite.
AW: We also know that the Universe has not got an infinite age, it is only 13.8 billion years old and not infinitely old.
Some versions of inflation postulate infinite age but that doesn't really affect this discussion, we can agree the observable portion had a fiducial start 13.8 billion years ago.
AW: So even including inflation likely to be finite
Nope, nothing you've said alters the 50% probability, it could equally be either.
AW: So that is why most scientists believe the Universe is finite.
You appear mis-informed, I believe most assume it is "flat" and that implies an infinite plane. Pragmatically, "very large but finite" is observationally indistinguishable from infinite so most scientists treat it that way.
AW: Some rather naively would say it is only three times the size of the observable Universe - but to get the results we do (and appear almost flat) it would have to be about 200 times the radius of the observable Universe.
It would be √200 times the Hubble length (about 14.4 billion light years) as a radius, two pi times that for circumference compared to 46 billion light years observable radius which is about 4.5 times at the 1 sigma level so "three times" is not unreasonable as a minimum. However, it could also be say 1015 times larger if I naively assume the ratio is comparable to the size change under inflation, and there is no upper limit.
AW: Of course it is unlikely those who cherry pick the facts will agree on this.
I don't disagree with anything you've said other than that the points you made which are valid however don't in any way imply a finite size.
@GD
Size does matter.
I don't know where the square root comes from- particularly if it is a simple function of the error margins.
Equally we have a problem with an infinite Universe, simply because it starts very (relatively) small and has a finite time to expand ( even with inflation).
So the answer is no, mathematically the infinite for our Big Bang Universe is not likely. Or put another the Big Bang Universe is Finite. That of course does not mean our entire Cosmos is bounded.
But Everyone is entitled to an opinion - even if it disagrees with the facts.
I often would like to explain this to Jehova's witnesses, but do not want to burst their bubble.
I only agree it might be 50/50, but only if you do not take all the facts in to account, or choose to think there is no difference anyway.
I rest my my case.
AW: Size does matter.
Your analysis was mostly right in principle, I only corrected a minor error in your arithmetic.
AW: I don't know where the square root comes from
Standard geometry, see the link.
- "As with all spheres, the 3-sphere has constant positive sectional curvature equal to 1/r2 where r is the radius."
Since curvature depends on the square of the radius, the radius depends on the root of the curvature.
AW: Equally we have a problem with an infinite Universe, simply because it starts very (relatively) small and has a finite time to expand (even with inflation).
No, it starts infinite. Only the observable portion starts small.
AW: But Everyone is entitled to an opinion - even if it disagrees with the facts. ... I only agree it might be 50/50, but only if you do not take all the facts in to account
Exactly, and you are entitled to yours, but only if you ignore the mathematical fact that the sign of the curvature cannot change due to inflation or expansion, so if it is infinite now, it started as infinite. That is the model that scientists use, the sign is not known, and it is 50/50 whether it is positive or negative if non-zero, but the sign cannot change.
@george
I am not sure you can automatically treat it as a 3 sphere, that is an assumption.
I prefer not to make any assumptions.
We could be talking of a straight forward sphere, with time being treated separately.
In which case at 0.5% uncertainty, it would need to be 200 times bigger
AW: I am not sure you can automatically treat it as a 3 sphere, that is an assumption.
True, it assumes that the topology is the simplest. For example a flat surface can be rolled into a cylinder while still obeying Euclidean geometry.
However, the square root factor comes simply from the definition of the way a number is calculated to represent curvature, so applies locally to any topology.
AW: We could be talking of a straight forward sphere
The text I quoted starts "As with all spheres ..." so the calculation would remain valid in any number of dimensions, 1/200 curvature would still equate to a factor of 14.14 on the radius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-sphere#Geometric_properties
Dear George,
You are speaking all the time about the Gaussian curvature, i.e. defined only on one point. In particular you have spoken of cylinders (zero curvature) or spheres (1/r)2 because in each point both principal curvatures are equal. In both cases the Euler characteristic is zero and they are topologically trivial (although the curvatures are different and therefore they are not isometric).
Andrew is always speaking on the 4-dimensional spacetime manifold which is not at all with zero Euler characteristic and whose concept of curvature (which needs to take into account more details than the total Gauss curvature), through Riemann geometry is not defined point to point but by parallel transporting. Besides the Ricci curvatures are the used by Einstein to be proportional to the energy-momentum tensor and therefore in the case of the universe, taking into account Hubble expansion, the curvatures must be always positive since the first instants of the Big Bang.
Sorry, it not well written. The total Gaussian curvature of an sphere is (1/r)2 , I have forgotten to put as an exponent the number 2.
DB: Besides the Ricci curvatures are the used by Einstein to be proportional to the energy-momentum tensor and therefore in the case of the universe, taking into account Hubble expansion, the curvatures must be always positive since the first instants of the Big Bang.
I think you need to check that Daniel, the "flat" case corresponds to the critical density, not zero. See the links for example. The Planck mission measurement is Ω0=1.0±0.005.
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/Critical+Density
https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html
Obviously the density is included in the tensor energy momentum of gravitation.
@GD
1 +- 0.005 = 1 in 200, do the maths and put as politely as possible-stop wasting one's time, with 14.14.
Yes Andrew, and 1:200 is the curvature, the radius depends on the square root of the curvature. Try calculating √200
P.S. Don't lose sight of the fact that this is only a 1-sigma limit, a 5-sigma limit would be √40 or a factor of just 6.3 times the Hubble Length, while inflation might push the the value to something like 1018 so arguing over a factor of 14 is pointless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-sphere#Geometric_properties
Your'e still working with the 3 sphere, a pure mathematical assumption..
Open your mind a little
AW: Your'e still working with the 3 sphere ..
Correct, I told you that was the simplest topology model for uniform positive curvature at the beginning of the discussion but you insisted we should use a factor of 200 for that case instead of the square root.
AW: a pure mathematical assumption.
Obviously, as with all physics, the aim of cosmology is to create a mathematical model that reflects reality.
It is a mathematical assumption, nothing more -and certainly not a given.
Signing out of this circular discussion
It is not an "assumption" at all, it is the possibility under consideration, but only one of many possibilities.
"Why are scientist so fixated with the general theory of relativity?"
Some measurements in physics are observer-dependent; they are in a sense illusions, artifacts of the reference system employed by the observer, not objectively real properties of what is being observed. I have taken pains to explain, in various Researchgate discussions, for example, that the “length contraction" and “time dilation” of Special Relativity are illusions of that kind.
Similar considerations of “observer-dependence” can be applied to Newtonian dynamics:
Newton’s three laws refer to the observations of any unaccelerated observer and his description of his observations referred to an unaccelerated reference system (called an “inertial frame”). An accelerated observer will see any object on which no forces act as if it has an acceleration equal and opposite to his own. For him, it seems as if Newton’s first law is violated. It is a mistake for that observer to then invoke the second law and attribute those fictitious accelerations to “forces”; the masses of observed objects has nothing whatever to do with those apparent (ie, illusory) accelerations! Thus an “inertial force” is not a “force” at all. In my opinion the term “inertial forces” should be expunged from physics. I leads only to confusion. That there is something spurious about the concept is vaguely acknowledged whenever they are referred to a "fictitious" forces.
Now consider accelerations due to gravity. They share with “apparent” accelerations the property that they are independent of the masses of the accelerating bodies. That is the experimentally well-verified “Equivalence Principle”. Einstein’s argument was that, perhaps in this case also, we can dispense with the idea that they are caused by a “force”. This is just a legitimate change of viewpoint, not a contradiction of anything in Newtonian dynamics! However, when it is combined with the (experimentally well-verified) modifications of Newtonian dynamics that Special Relativity had introduced, where did it lead? It led (seemingly inevitably) to the General Theory of Relativity.
To all those who claim that GR is “fundamentally wrong”, I challenge you:
present us with an alternative theory that can incorporate satisfactorily the Equivalence Principle, accelerated observers and gravity.
I would suggest alternatively "Present us with an alternative theory that can match all existing observational and experimental tests to at least the same accuracy as is attained by GR."
Dear Eric,
It was a pleasure to have reading your previous post, I absolutely agree with the general idea of how the general relativity is glued with the special relativity, but there is a point that I cannot understand what does you mean about
“length contraction" and “time dilation”
These relativistic effects are not easy to measure because it is needed to have very high velocities. But in fundamental particles it was well tested. Since any periodic process can be considered a clock, also the lifetimes of unstable particles such as muons must be affected, so that moving muons should have a longer lifetime than resting ones. Variations of experiments that actually confirmed this effect took place in the atmosphere or in particle accelerators. Other time dilation experiments belong to the group of Ives–Stilwell experiments measuring the relativistic Doppler effect.
Dear Eric,
Let me just attach some (very few old ones) references just for measuring the time dilatation in muons, I could also go to kaons or the life times measured in the LHC of many different kind of particles.
1.Rossi, B.; Greisen, K.; Stearns, J. C.; Froman, D. K.; Koontz, P. G. (1942). "Further Measurements of the Mesotron Lifetime". Physical Review. 61 , 675–679, (1942)
2.Rossi, B.; Nereson, N. "Further Measurements on the Disintegration Curve of Mesotrons". Physical Review. 64, 199–201,(1943)
3.Frisch, D. H.; Smith, J. H. (1963). "Measurement of the Relativistic Time Dilation Using μ-Mesons". American Journal of Physics. 31, 342–355, (1963)
4. Coan, Thomas; Liu, Tiankuan; Ye, Jingbo. "A Compact Apparatus for Muon Lifetime Measurement and Time Dilation Demonstration in the Undergraduate Laboratory". American Journal of Physics. 74, 161–164, (2006).
5.Durbin, R. P.; Loar, H. H.; Havens, W. W. . "The Lifetimes of the π+ and π− Mesons". Physical Review. 88, 179–183,(1952).
6.Eckhause, M.; Harris, R. J., Jr.; Shuler, W. B.; Siegel, R. T.; Welsh, R. E. . "Remeasurement of the π+ lifetime". Physics Letters. 19, 348–350,(1967)..
7.Greenberg, A. J.; Ayres, D. S.; Cormack, A. M.; Kenney, R. W.; Caldwell, D. O.; Elings, V. B.; Hesse, W. P.; Morrison, R. J. . "Charged-Pion Lifetime and a Limit on a Fundamental Length". Physical Review Letters. 23. 1267–1270.(1969).
.
8.Ayres, D. S.; Cormack, A. M.; Greenberg, A. J.; Kenney, R. W.; Caldwell, D. O.; Elings, V. B.; Hesse, W. P.; Morrison, R. J.. "Measurements of the Lifetimes of Positive and Negative Pions". Physical Review D. 3 (5): 1051–1063. (1971).
9.Burrowes, H. C.; Caldwell, D. O.; Frisch, D. H.; Hill, D. A.; Ritson, D. M.; Schluter, R. A. (1959). "K-Meson-Nucleon Total Cross Sections from 0.6 to 2.0 Bev". Physical Review Letters. 2 , 117–119. (1959).
Dear Eric,
You write: “Some measurements in physics are observer-dependent; they are in a sense illusions, artifacts of the reference system employed by the observer, not objectively real properties of what is being observed. I have taken pains to explain, in various Researchgate discussions, for example, that the “length contraction" and “time dilation” of Special Relativity are illusions of that kind.”
I appreciate your efforts to bust the apparent paradoxes that have arisen from the esoteric theories of relativity. These are similar to Zeno’s paradoxes and arise from idealized thought and unlimited extension of idealized mathematics. These theories has given rise to whole range of industries from science fiction movies, books, to career seeking scientific establishments and mega-scale experiments to “prove” these “mysteries”, to world monopoly capitalism, which is using these wonders, mysteries, paradoxes as the basis of a new theology to prop-up its crumbling structure.
But I would like to suggest that in this process along with your "challenge" over GR, you have opened up a Pandora’s Box and have put yourself in an un-enviable position! You need few life times to deal with the apologists, wizards of mathematics, know-all theories of all kinds etc. that will pour in from all sides!
I would humbly suggest that the world view, namely causality and mathematical idealism, on which the theories of relativity (and other “field” based theories) of modern physics are constructed; is at the root of all these paradoxes, mysteries wonders and their unscrupulous exploitation and the consequent endless debates.
The mighty thinker Immanuel Kant had shown long ago that the epistemology of causality leads to contradictions, antimonies, mysteries, paradoxes etc., when extended beyond everyday human life experience. So, is it any wonder that physics starting with Einstein and after the recognition of causality-busting quantum phenomena, would be engulfed with all these mysteries, paradoxes, wonders etc. and profit-seeking exploiters? Classical mechanics and Newtonian physics (except the theory of universal gravitation) were within the range of everyday life experience that humanity could relate to; hence there were no paradoxes, mysteries, wonders etc. and no fuel to drive the ("wonders") exploiting industries including the "Scientific" Press.
Any positive knowledge of the world (in opposition to fantasy etc.) of men must be based on tangible “feel” of that knowledge, experienced though their senses and on their capacity to manipulate that knowledge to some desired ends, like technology, industry that benefits them. Any other “knowledge” based on thought and fantasy (and there could be infinites of them) is but “virtual knowledge” (if there is such a thing!) that has no bearing to the existence of social men and in fact limits their potential and scope, as we see in the historical role of theologies. Your venerated theories of relativity are doing exactly that!
A practical solution to the problems faced by Kant exists and it only requires the acceptance of the very truth that Kant himself discovered that the world consists of “contradictions”. Kant threw away the baby (the world) along with the bath water to save his causality and Einstein just followed Kant! But the realization that the phenomenology of the world is due to the eternal and endless resolution of these (Kant's) contradictions came in its most developed form with the materialist dialectics of Karl Marx after the idealist dialectics of Hegel.
With materialist dialectics ALL previous philosophies, fancies, world making theories, “Theory of Everything” etc. ad nauseum, come to an end; because there is no mysteries of “First Cause” or beginning, no “final” or "absolute" truth of the world to be found; which all philosophies, fancies, theories etc. of past history wanted to find in one fell swoop as the brilliance of a superman or a genius! Humanity as a product of Nature and in a contradiction (In unity of the opposites) with it; is doomed to deal only with relative truths in a progressively evolutionary historical process along with the evolution of humanity itself and along the path of positive knowledge brought on by the natural sciences. The role of natural science, therefore, is to reveal the contradictions and their way of resolution that goes on in the world and in Nature; in dialectical and historical leaps (qualitative and quantitative) through which “matter in motion” transforms itself in the manifestation of Nature, Life, Men and thought and to use this knowledge to desired ends.
Any other world shattering theories based on the mysteries of causality, including the theories of relativity are spurious and not worth the “challenge”.
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