1. Discovery of the first particles, electrons, in 1895 by Thomson. Since these don’t travel through air, vacuum technology of pumps and airtight vessels had to have been invented; so this discovery could not have happened before the end of the 19th century. As with ‘Becquerel rays’ (a photographic plate or plates happened to be fogged) this was pure accident. The effect of a magnet on the rays was noticed, leading to the division between positive and negative (and, later, neutral) particles. But no theory accounted for these discoveries, although a link was made with electricity and charged ions.
2. Discovery of radium by the Curies. In 1903 radium was found to give off 100 Calories per gramme per hour. 1g was estimated to give 1M Cals before decaying. This was completely unexpected, and incidentally allowed guesses as to the age of the earth to be extended enormously back in time. It was not called ‘nuclear energy’—this was before the ‘nucleus’ had been found. Nor I think was there any link with e=mc squared, which was only popularised fifteen or so years later. Sommerfeld seems to have popularised the idea of a ‘different order of magnitude’ of energy being ‘locked up’ within ‘the atom’.
3. Rutherford’s suggestion, about 1910 , that the atom must have a nucleus, concentrated in a tiny proportion of space, was made when it was found that only one positively charged particle out of very many was deflected when passing through gold foil. (This was followed by years of puzzlement as philosophers tried to grasp the idea of matter which was mostly space). Rutherford also discovered the splitting of nitrogen nucleus with alpha particles. He was ‘.. completely astonished..’
4. In 1913 and 1914 , H G J Moseley is credited with establishing that the number of positive charges in the nucleus is the 'atomic number', which gave a firm foundation for arranging elements in the periodic table. He seems to have used X-ray crystallography, which has a theoretical basis (Bessel numbers), based on straightforward wave theory, for which Bragg became well-known. Nothing in Moseley's work, so far as I can tell, had any content based on 'modern physics.' He was killed in 1915.
5. Discovery of isotopes (the word means ‘the same place’—meaning the same place in the periodic table, insofar as this existed at the time) by the mass spectroscope, mainly the work of Aston, who for example used chlorine. The technique works by separating fast-moving molecules of the sample into a sort of spectrum, the heavier ones being more difficult to deflect. All this was completely empirical.
6. Discussion well into the 1930s was of the nucleus being made of hydrogen nuclei and helium nuclei (as neutrons were not yet discovered).
7. Joliot, with Marie Curie’s daughter, used polonium with beryllium, presumably, again, in a purely empirical way, and found the combination gave what came to be called neutrons. Chadwick in 1932 formally announced his discovery of the neutron. This was important, because, being neutral, these particles could penetrate the nucleus more easily. Possibly Chadwick expected this discovery, since the fact that isotopes exist makes things like neutrons an obvious possibility—since they allow the nucleus to be made heavier without changing its charge.
8. Proton bombardment in 1930-2 was supposedly encouraged by Gamow’s calculations re waves [Clark]—which made the nucleus appear not quite so charged as was thought, because it might be made of waves in some sense. A famous experiment by Rutherford and others was interpreted as lithium capturing a proton and splitting. The calculations perhaps led to the experiment being tried—one of the few examples of the influence of 'modern physics'. However, this experiment seems to have had little importance, since neutron penetration of the nucleus turned out to be important.
9. The discovery of fission in uranium was purely by accident. Fermi, working through elements methodically to see what happened when they were ‘bombarded’ with neutrons, expected to make new isotopes, but in 1934 was puzzled by his results with uranium, and probably dismissed what he found as a contaminant. Only in 1939 did Hahn & Strassmann identify barium (and krypton?). Then Lise Meitner and Frisch provided the ‘liquid drop’ model of fission of nucleus into two parts. [Powers]
10. Szilard noticed fission fragments must emit neutrons if they split; H G Wells's chain reaction idea, based on the ideas of Frederick Soddy ( The Interpretation of Radium , 1907, revised later as The Interpretation of the Atom ), in The World Set Free (1914), became a possibility [Clark]. Again, this was empirical—it was found that elements with high atomic numbers have proportionally more neutrons than low ones. Nobody had any idea why. But, clearly, if a heavy element split, there would be surplus neutrons.
11. Uranium-235 isotope fission was proved to happen by experiment; it was guessed, and proved, that U235 was the portion of uranium which was most liable to fission. Nobody knew (or knows now) why it differed from U238, except perhaps in the sense that an odd number was expected to behave differently from an even number.
12. 1939: Bohr and Wheeler at Princeton realised fast free neutrons were produced during fission. In 1939 Joliot, and Fermi, showed ‘two or more’ free neutrons came out with each fission of U 235. This encouraged speculation about a possible chain reaction. But, again, this was a purely experimental result.
13. Plutonium, a new element of mass 239, was discovered in a cyclotron; again, purely by chance. In 1940 it was suggested it might be fissionable.
14. Fermi discovered entirely by chance that neutrons could be controlled: the difference between a marble bench and a wooden bench suggested that ‘light atoms, comparable in size to the neutron’ [sic; Gamow] were best to slow down neutrons. Hence the use of graphite. [PH. There was a similar incident in which Fermi decided for no particular reason to try a block of paraffin wax.]
15. The critical mass (the amount varies with shape and surroundings) had to be determined. Nobody had much idea what it was. In 1940 Frisch and Peierls calculated (wrongly) the critical mass. Various other wrong values were obtained. The actual values found were found empirically by many experiments over many years, ‘some of which led to unexpected criticality incidents. I know of one incident at Windscale.. some incidents in USA did a lot more radiation damage.’ [PH]. When in 1941 plutonium 239 was found to be even more fissionable, another project was started to separate this in the US [about this time was the well-known event of Slotin ensuring his own death when he separated masses with his hands.] Another incident (p. 167 in Clark) describes a man simply leaning over U235 pieces, causing them to approach danger point.
16. Fermi worked on the atomic ‘pile’ with graphite to slow neutrons down—so they didn’t just move fast out of the equipment—and cadmium a moderator [found empirically to absorb neutrons! Nobody knew why; possibly because there are many of isotopes of cadmium]. In Chicago in December 1942 , the pile was found to get hot. This was ‘the boiler’, not yet ‘the bomb’.
17. The separation of U235, again, was an empirical engineering problem. Uranium hexafluoride, for use in gas separation, is corrosive and the problems were considerable. Even then, the theory of gases was wrong and separation occurred the other way round from what was expected with some isotopes. [PH]
18. Before the first bomb test, in 1945 , there were doubts about ‘igniting’ the atmosphere, or the hydrogen in water, suggesting, what is perhaps obvious enough, that there was considerable doubt as to the processes at work. Even some calculations as to explosive yield were wildly wrong.

• [A] How was it known that fission was likely to give off enormous amounts of energy? Without being fairly certain on this detail, the entire, expensive project—‘No other nation had the mental and physical resources.. $2 bn.. entire towns built’ [Clark] —would not have been started. The answer seems to be the line from the Curies to Fermi. It’s true that e=mc ² seems to be used as a buttressing argument, but the defining evidence was empirical. Moreover, there is some doubt as to the correctness of nuclear reactions and their thermodynamics; thus the ‘weights’ of neutrons and protons etc. are given with seeming confidence, and yet of course there are long processes of inference, possibly wrong, going into these calculations. The complete failure of fusion power adds weight to this suggestion. I would suggest that e=mc ² was adopted simply because it gave a big number, rather than through any cogency in argument. It's possible that nuclear reactions involve large amounts of energy because the nucleus is harder to alter than the outer parts of atoms: so that, if all the products of an atom bomb were collected together, perhaps they would add up to exactly the original contents—though this would be a difficult experiment to try.
• [B] So it seems that the atomic bomb was certainly helped by some aspects of 20th century physics—the fairly simple sort listed above. The supposedly theoretical stuff, from relativity and quantum theory to Schrödinger’s waves and uncertainty principle as popularly misunderstood, probably had not the slightest effect.
  
      The following remarks are political rather than scientific:
  
  
• [C] The situation in atomic physics—except that lucky discoveries seem to have petered out—is the same combination of accident and observation. Advances are largely delusory. Look for example at nuclear power; people promoting the excitement of new technology, stress the wonders of such power stations. And yet, the absurd fact is that they use steam turbines! This is a technology Faraday would have recognised, and moreover not a very good one, since more than three quarters of the energy is wasted in transmission and other losses. Presumably, if the physics were genuinely understood, electricity could be manufactured or controlled directly.
• [D] Another highly dubious idea seems to be the supposed predominance of Jews in developing the atom bomb. In fact, few if any of the key ideas seem to have been Jewish, although it's true that almost all the technical spadework of Los Alamos was carried out by Jews. Apart from this, it’s possible that their main role was after the war, in spreading atomic technology to Stalin's Russia—many of the atom spies were Jews—and the Middle East. This of course is a field abounding in mythology. Thus, in Powers’ large book on Heisenberg, the ‘Jewish physics’ idea in Germany is attributed to Lenart, whose ‘crude’ leaflet was handed out at a lecture; Powers gives only one passage from it, that Einstein’s ideas were unsubstantiated speculations, puffed by Jewish newspapers—something which seems largely accurate—but no other evidence.
• [E] Viewed in the light of a huge engineering project, the whole conventional justification for the atomic bomb looks doubtful. Bertrand Russell's idea (elsewhere, this site) that it was to be used to keep Asia down may prove to be more accurate.
• [F] Perhaps this story also helps answer a question posed by one of the Mrs Bertrand Russells, namely, that if these people were so transcendentally brilliant, how come they could find no better political solution than a balance of terror? The sad fact would appear to be that they were simple technical types, blundering along.

1. “It remains liquid down to absolute zero.. This is quite unique to helium.. it needs at least 25 atmospheres before it solidifies..” Actually, the finely-divided powder, misinterpreted as a liquid, is in the same state down to absolute zero; it's already a solid! The point about pressure is that any powder under enough compression will appear to be solid: think of coffee packaged in vacuum-sealed bags, where the one-atmosphere external air pressure makes it seem 'solid'. The point about ‘at least’ 25 atmospheres pressure is that the dividing line from the supposed solid is vague, so of course there's no precise figure for the pressure needed. For years physicists have puzzled over the way inert gases behave when frozen, without realising the explanation.
   
   
2. “There's a complete absence of bubbles of vapour [when superfluid].. evaporation is only from the surface. The reason is.. [it is] incapable of maintaining a temperature gradient.. it has more or less infinite thermal conductivity.” The substance in fact consists of tiny solid particles, like a fluidized bed—well-known to be very efficient heat exchangers. This is why any thermal gradient rapidly disappears. Evaporation takes place only from the top, unless there's forced heating, in which case the 'fountain effect' occurs (below).
   
   
3. “.. jeweller's rouge plug.. the gaps are probably a few hundred atomic diameters. It is impermeable for liquid at room temperature.. Impervious to liquid helium I. At He2 [i.e. 'superfluidity'], immediately the plug starts to leak.. slowly at first, then faster.. the liquid just drains straight out at a constant rate.. quite different to other liquids, where the flow rate depends on the driving pressure.” Again, the explanation is simple. Powders can find their way through gaps which liquids cannot. (For example, a sieve of 50 microns will not allow water through—molecular weight 18—but will allow polythene powder (molecular weight 1000+).) The situation is similar to an egg-timer, where the sand falls through in a way dependent on the aperture, not the amount of sand above. Hence, the rate of flow is constant, “quite different to other liquids.” Presumably the speeding-up is due to the fine particles filling gaps and establishing routes through the 'superleak'.
   
   
4. “.. the temperature of the liquid below the superleak [i.e. jewellers rouge plug] cools, while what's above it warms up.” It's difficult to comment on this, since the method of temperature measurement isn't given—though the programme otherwise assumes that pressure is exactly correlated with temperature. But no doubt some explanation in terms of greater mobility of colder particles applies.
   
   
5. The ‘Fountain Effect’ This is credited to Prof. Allen in the film. A smallish upright glass cylinder has a small electric coil sealed into it; this is lowered into the liquid helium in its container (of Monax glass). When the electricity is turned on—in small amounts—the helium surface rises in the tube. Or, with sufficient heat, helium spurts out in a jet, its shape depending on the way the top of the tube is shaped. The correct explanation seems to be along the lines that a small amount of heat increases the fluidisation of the small particles, creating the appearance of reduced density in the 'superfluid'. More heat causes sublimation, the great increase in volume [gas atom occupying 12,000 volumes of solid atom] which forces powder to be ejected.
   
   
6. [Two items on superconductivity, rather than superfluidity, omitted here, leading to:]
   
   
7. “Lo and behold, the magnet [placed on a disk of tin, which is regarded as a superconductor] levitates.. a little higher with each burst of pumping.. [i.e. as the temperature is slightly reduced]” The usual explanation is that tin becomes superconducting at the low temperature of  'superfluid helium'; when this happens, the metal 'excludes the magnetic flux, so the metal levitates.'
       The question here is whether magnetism has anything do with the effect. Would it happen if the tin were replaced by (say) glass? Or if the magnet were replaced by a non-magnet? As late as 1998 the O.U. said they had no intention of testing any of these possibilities.
       But another property of fine powders explains this effect as well as superconductivity and magnetic fields. The effect is the segregation in powders by size (and other characteristics), rather than density alone as in liquids. The best demonstration is a steel ball put at the bottom of a beaker of tiny polythene spheres. Astonishingly, if the beaker is tapped a few times, the ball rises to the top. You can get a similar effect with a marble in sugar, or simply by shaking an instant coffee jar to see the larger particles rise. [See the illustration below—a bit of kitchen table physics to rub the point home]. The point is that when helium turns to a finely-divided solid, the fluidised atoms can have the same effect, and 'levitate' objects within them.

Is superconductivity needed to explain the ‘levitation’ of a magnet? This simple kitchen table experiment illustrates our possible explanation for ‘levitation’, with superfluid helium as a monatomic solid.

“There is, then, a definite probability of finding the photons either in the one or the other part of the divided psi-wave packet. Now, if an experiment finds the photon in the reflected part, say, then the probability of finding it in the other part immediately becomes zero. The experiment at the position of the reflected part thus exerts a kind of action, a ‘reduction of the wave packet’, at the distant point occupied by the transmitted part. And one sees that this action is [propagated with a velocity greater than that of light.” [1933, in Chicago]

1. Cloud chambers were invented by Charles Wilson, who liked hiking in Scotland and tried, at least according to the story, to make a misty atmosphere. The idea is that a saturated dust-free atmosphere, like a supersaturated solution, needs only a tiny stimulus to precipitate.
       A typical demonstration was in Prof Frank Close's 1993 Royal Institution Xmas lecture. After assuring the audience that ".. radioactivity is perfectly natural.. radioactivity is all around us.. we evolved with it", his assistant Bryson Gore demonstrated a cloud chamber, on a trolley; in the centre of the clear box we see little jets around a central bit of stuff; very attractive demonstration, with several little tracks appearing about every second, travelling at a leisurely rate easily within visual capacity to follow, then dispersing away.
2. Bubble chambers rely on local evaporation of liquids like liquid nitrogen, which are temporarily kept at low pressure. To quote 'Encarta', because the density of the liquid is much higher than that of air, more interactions take place in a bubble chamber than in a cloud chamber.
3. Spark chambers use a principle a bit like early radio. 'Encarta' says: 'the spark chamber, evolved in the 1950s. In this device, many parallel plates are kept at a high voltage in a suitable gas atmosphere. An ionizing particle passing between the plates breaks down the gas, forming sparks that delineate its path.'
4. Modern methods: to quote Frank Close, "..particles shoot in at each end.. inside, matter and anti-matter emerge.. huge magnets bend the particles.. this allows the speed and charge to be known.. designing detectors is a challenge in its own right.. ephemeral particles.. information goes to a computer.. which turns them into visible trails.."

1. It's supposed to be true that one single particle (say, an electron) can generate a track of water globules many centimetres long. Granted that the atmosphere is supersaturated, nevertheless in terms of scale this seems like a fish swimming the Atlantic and changing the state of every molecule on the way.
2. If it is true that the apparatus is so sensitive, given that there are supposed to be fantastic numbers of free electrons in the earth, as well as ultraviolet and other radiations, how come the apparatus is so comparatively stable?
3. If it's true that only very few molecules of water (in a cloud chamber) become ionised, how come there's a line? Wouldn't it be much more likely that there'd be a dotted line, with an enormous distance between the dots?
4. How can a single charged particle ionise the enormous numbers of molecules in its path as it passes?

W. Heisenberg, Physics Today, 29(3), 32(1976). The nature of elementary particles : ...Before this time it was assumed that there were two fundamental kinds of particles, electrons and protons, which, unlike most other particles, were immutable. Therefore their number was fixed and they were referred to as "elementary" particles. Matter was seen as being ultimately constructed of electrons and protons. The experiments of Anderson and Blackett provided definite proof that this hypothesis was wrong. Electrons can be created and annihilated; their number is not constant; they are not "elementary" in the original meaning of the word.... A proton could be obtained from a neutron and a pion, or a hyperon and a kaon, or from two nucleons and one antinucleon, and so on. Could we therefore simply say a proton consists of continuous matter?... This development convincingly suggests the following analogy: Let us compare the so-called "elementary" particles with the stationary states of an atom or a molecule. We may think of these as various states of one single molecule or as the many different molecules of chemistry. One may therefore speak simply of the "spectrum of matter."... [Quoted, I presume correctly, by Bryan Wallace]

'But as elementary particle physicist James Cushing remarks, When one looks at the succession of blatantly ad hoc moves made in QFT [quantum field theory] (negative-energy sea of electrons, discarding of infinite self energies and vacuum polarizations, local gauge invariance, forcing renormalization in gauge theories, spontaneous symmetry breaking, permanently confined quarks, ...) ...'

In many fields there are certain things in vogue at a given time. Nearly everything published in high energy physics, for example, is junk. It has nothing to do with reality - it's a whole castle of cards. Yet you are on safe ground if you publish a paper according to the currently accepted style. You will be published, especially if you make some curves and graphs that make it appear that you did some calculations. The fact that it is all a house of cards with very little reality to begin with is somehow ignored.

• The origins of the theory of relativity came from electromagnetism (hence the title of Einstein's paper, on 'Electrodynamics'.) The flaw indicated above in section 2 was the root of this: it was firmly believed that fast-moving charged particles increased in mass. This led to endless complications over the speed of light.
• Another essential component was the belief that measurements of light are an essential part of physics. This is not surprising, given the unconscious reliance of human beings on sight. Nevertheless, this seems to be a mistake: if life on earth had happened to evolve in the dark, it would be obvious to everyone that light isn't essential to physics. Objects continue to be there, and so do things in which physics is interested, whether light is there or not. If someone closes his/her eyes, objects are still, presumably, there. Modern physics resembles a concoction which bats might have developed, except that in their case the peculiarities of sound would be part of their physics.
        Possibly the same psychology operates with invisible things: charge is invisible, and that could explain why charge fields are largely ignored. I comment this point to Miles Mathis, who tried hard to convince people of the importance of charge in the solar system.
• Another confusion occurs over 'geodesics'. False analogies often occur (for example in Russell's ABC of Relativity - still one of the best, or least bad, books on the subject). Thus for example it's stated that, on the surface of the earth, ships etc travel the shortest distance on great circles. This of course is true, but the fact remains that a tunnel through the earth would be shorter; it's only because movement is easier on the surface that such 'geodesics' are used. In the same way, it's often stated that light passing the sun is 'bent', which presupposes some standard of straightness to which the light beam doesn't conform.
• Another ingredient in the brew comes from dynamics; there is endless discussion of 'rest mass' and 'uniform motion', despite these being in obvious conflict with a basic tenet of relativity. How can you possibly be sure that a body is in 'uniform motion'? One even finds occasional mention of the 'fixed stars'.
• It's worth paying some attention to the derivation of the well-known formula e=mc ² , which contrary to popular belief predates Einstein's papers. The idea is that mass, or rather estimated mass since it's an inference, is supposed to increase with speed, with the limit being the speed of light. The formula (derived from Pythagoras - and inconsistently assuming Euclidean geometry) is
  
  estimated mass = m ₀ /square root of (1-v ² /c ² )
  
  Which has the property that the estimated mass increases with velocity, and that as velocity approaches c (always used to indicate the speed of light) estimated mass increases indefinitely.
  The well-known series expansion approximation gives
  
  estimated mass = m ₀ (1 + v ² /c ² /2) or
  
  estimated mass.c ² = m ₀ c ² + 1/2.m ₀ v ²
  
  The expression 1/2.m ₀ v ² is well known as the formula for kinetic energy; and it came to be accepted - following Poincaré, Burniston Brown says - that mc ² represented the 'potential energy' in some sense, since potential energy can be defined in terms of any starting-point. All this follows, for smallish v, only from the equation for the supposed mass increase of an electron; if, as we suggest above, this mass increase is an artefact with no reality in nature, the equation is wrong.
        It is true that nuclear reactions, involving rearrangements of nuclei, involve far more energy than the more ordinary chemical and physical rearrangements of matter; nevertheless it appears to be true that the idea of conversion of mass into energy remains unproven. Technologists generating, or trying to generate, nuclear energy, think in terms of nuclear rearrangement and do not use the formula usually attributed to Einstein.
• It's interesting to see the way in which many formulas and ideas are falsely attributed to Einstein; see for example the cartoon book Einstein for Beginners (1st published 1979).

From the BULLETIN of The Institute of Physics and the Physical Society, pp. 71-77, March 1967 The Institute of Physics headquarters is 76 Portland Place, London W1. Tel 0171 470 4800. Reproduced here by permission of The Institute of Physics. What is wrong with relativity? 1 G. BURNISTON BROWN

Genuine physicists – that is to say, physicists who make observations and experiments as well as theories – have always felt uneasy about ‘relativity’. As Bridgman said, “if anything physical comes out of mathematics it must have been put in in another form” . The problem was, he said, to find out where the physics got into the theory (Bridgman 1927). This uneasiness was increased when it was clear that distinguished scientists like C. G. Darwin and Paul Langevin could be completely misled. Darwin wrote a fatherly letter to Nature (Darwin 1957) describing the simple way in which he explained ‘relativity’ to his friends: the simplicity, however, was due to the fact that, with the exception of a quoted formula, there was no relativity theory in it at all. Langevin, likewise, gave a supposedly ‘relativistic’ proof of the results of an optical experiment by Sagnac, but as his countryman André Metz said, although “assez élégant” , it was not relativity (Metz 1952). There were other disturbing features: the fact that Einstein never wrote a definitive account of his theory; that his first derivation of the Lorentz transformation equations contained velocities of light of c-v, c+v and (c 2 -v 2 ) 1/2 , quite contrary to his second postulate that the velocity of light was independent of the motion of the source; and that his first attempt to prove the formula E = m 0 c 2 , suggested by Poincaré, was fallacious because he assumed what he wanted to prove, as was shown by Ives (Ives 1952). It is not surprising, therefore, that genuine physicists were not impressed: they tended to agree with Rutherford. After Wilhelm Wien had tried to impress him with the splendours of relativity, without success, and exclaimed in despair “No Anglo-Saxon can understand relativity!” , Rutherford guffawed and replied “No! they’ve got too much sense!” 2 Let us see how sensible they were.

First of all, a little history. There is no need to repeat the accounts, now given in many textbooks, of the unsuccessful attempts to detect the aether. The simplest hypothesis, namely that the aether did not exist and that we were thus left with action-at-a-distance or ballistic transmission, was held to be unacceptable. Instead, Poincaré preferred to raise this failure to a ‘principle’ – the principle of relativity – saying: “The laws of physical phenomena must be the same for a ‘fixed’ observer as for an observer who has a uniform motion of translation relative to him, so that we have not, and cannot possibly have, any means of discerning whether we are, or are not, carried along by such a motion.” As a result there would perhaps be “a whole new mechanics, where, the inertia increasing with the velocity, the velocity of light would become a limit that could not be exceeded” (Poincaré 1904). In the next year, 1905, Einstein re-stated Poincaré’s principle of relativity and added the postulate that the velocity of light is independent of the velocity of its source. From the principle and the postulate he derived the Lorentz transformation equations, but in an unsatisfactory way as we have seen. Another curious feature of this now famous paper (Einstein 1905) is the absence of any reference to Poincaré or anyone else: as Max Born says, “It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true” (Born 1956). In 1906 Planck worked out the ‘new mechanics’ predicted by Poincaré, obtaining the well-known formula and the corresponding expressions for momentum and energy. In the next year he derived and used the mass-energy relation (Planck 1906, 1907). In 1909, G. N. Lewis drew attention to the formula for the kinetic energy and suggested that the last term should be interpreted as the energy of the particle at rest (Lewis 1909). Thus gradually arose the formula E=m 0 c 2 , suggested without general proof by Poincaré in 1900.

It will be seen that, contrary to popular belief, Einstein played only a minor part in arriving at the main ideas and in the derivation of useful formulae in the restricted, or special, theory of relativity, and Whittaker called it the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz, pointing out that it had its origin in the theory of aether and electrons (Whittaker 1953). A recent careful investigation by Keswani confirms this opinion; he summarizes Poincaré’s contribution as follows: “As far back as 1895, Poincaré, the innovator, had conjectured that it is impossible to detect absolute motion. In 1900 he introduced ‘The principle of relative motion’ which he later called by the equivalent terms ‘The law of relativity’ and ‘The principle of relativity’ in his book Science and Hypothesis published in 1902. He further asserted in this book that there is no absolute time and that we have no intuition of the ‘simultaneity’ of two ‘events’ [mark the words] occurring at two different places. In a lecture given in 1904, Poincaré reiterated the principle of relativity, described the method of synchronization of clocks with light signals, urged a more satisfactory theory of the electrodynamics of moving bodies based on Lorentz’s ideas and predicted a new mechanics characterized by the rule that the velocity of light cannot be surpassed. This was followed in June 1905 by a mathematical paper entitled ‘Sur la dynamique de l’électron’, in which the connection between relativity (impossibility of detecting absolute motion) and the Lorentz transformation, given by Lorentz a year earlier, was recognized. 3       In point of fact, therefore, Poincaré was not only the first to enunciate the principle, but he also discovered in Lorentz’s work the necessary mathematical formulation of the principle. All this happened before Einstein’s paper appeared” (Keswani 1965).

Einstein’s attempt to derive the Lorentz transformation equations from the principle of relativity and the postulate that the velocity of light is independent of that of the source would (if it had not involved a contradiction) have made Lorentz transformations independent of any particular assumption about the construction of matter (as it had not been in Lorentz’s derivation). This feature, of course, was pleasing to the mathematically minded, and Pauli considered it an advance. Einstein said that the Lorentz transformations were “the real basis of the special relativity theory” (Einstein 1935), and this makes it clear that he had converted a theory which, in Lorentz’s hands at any rate, was a physical theory (involving, for instance, contraction of matter when moving with respect to the aether) into something that is not a physical theory in the ordinary sense, but the physical interpretation of a set of algebraic transformations derived from a principle which turns out to be a rule about laws, together with a postulate which is, or could be, just the algebraic expression of a fact – the independence of the velocity of light of that of the source (experiments already done appear to confirm it but more direct evidence is needed). We see, then, that ‘relativity’ is not an ordinary physical theory: it is what Synge calls a “cuckoo process” ; that is to say, Nature’s laws must be found first, and then they can, perhaps, be adapted to comply with the overall ‘principle’.       “The eggs are laid, not on the bare ground to be hatched in the clear light of Greek logic, but in the nest of another bird, where they are warmed by the body of a foster mother, which, in the case of relativity, is Newton’s physics of the 19th century” (Synge 1956). The special theory of relativity is therefore founded on two postulates (a) a law about laws (Poincaré’s principle of relativity) (b) an algebraic representation of what is, or could be, a fact (velocity of light constant, independent of the velocity of the source) and its application to the physical universe is (c) a cuckoo process.

This basis of the theory explains a great deal that has mystified many physicists and engineers. They could not understand how Einstein could sometimes speak as though the aether was superfluous (Einstein 1905) and at other times say “space without aether is unthinkable” (Einstein 1922). This was due, of course, to not starting with physical terms – matter, its motion, and its interactions (force). A physical theory which included radiation would have to start by stating whether an aether, action-at-a-distance, or ballistic transmission of force was being postulated. It explains, also, how mass and inertial force get into the special theory which is founded on a geometrization of uniform velocities, for it is well known that inertial forces do not appear when the velocities are uniform. Formulae which purport to give the relation between measurements in one state of uniform velocity and those made in another state of uniform motion cannot logically throw any light on what happens during the change from one state to the other. This is only possible by using the cuckoo process – assuming Newton’s second law and the conservation of momentum, and then modifying them. It also makes clear how Einstein could call Tolman’s account of theory (Tolman 1934) definitive, and also praise Bergmann’s treatment (Bergmann 1942), when the former author thought length contractions real and in principle observable, whereas the latter seems to have thought it only an appearance.

The fact that Einstein asserted that the Lorentz transformation equations were the basis of the special theory, and these are, of course, purely mathematical, means that, in so far as the theory is considered to have any physical implications, these implications must be the result of the interpretation of mathematical expressions in physical terms. But in this process there can be no guarantee that contradictions will not arise, and, in fact, serious contradictions have arisen which have marred the special theory. Half a century of argumentation has not removed them, and the device of calling them only apparent contradictions (paradoxes) has not succeeded in preventing the special theory of relativity from becoming untenable as a physical theory.

The most outstanding contradiction is what the relativists call the clock paradox. We have two clocks, A and B, exactly similar in every way, moving relatively to one another with uniform velocity along a line joining them. If their own interaction is ignored and they are far removed from other matter, they continue to move with uniform velocity, and so each clock can be considered as being the origin of a set of inertial axes. The Lorentz transformations show that the clock which is treated as moving goes slow. The principle of relativity, however, asserts that, as A and B both provide inertial frames, they are equivalent for the description of Nature, and all mechanical phenomena take the same course of development in each. Referred to A, B goes slow; referred to B, A goes slow. It is not possible for each of two clocks to go slower than the other. There is thus a contradiction between the Lorentz transformations and the principle. This contradiction can be seen clearly in a diagram which prevents the confusion which arises when the expression ‘as seen from’ is allowed to enter the argument (e.g. ‘the time at B as seen from A’). In figure 1, two long lines of clocks are passing close to one another with uniform velocity V. At a given instant, two clocks opposite one another, A and B, are set to read the same time. All the A series of clocks are then synchronized with A by the method of reflected light signals, suggested by Poincaré and accepted by Einstein and other relativists. In a similar way all the B series of clocks are synchronized with B. In the upper diagram the A clocks are taken to be at rest and the B clocks to be moving to the right. After a time interval, the clock B has travelled a distance d , say: its reading is then compared with that of the clock C momentarily opposite to it. C, however, has been synchronized with A so that the comparison is in effect a comparison of B with A. According to the Lorentz transformations, the moving clock B goes slow, and its reading, therefore, behind that of C(= A) as shown. In the lower diagram the B clocks are taken to be at rest and the A clocks to be moving to the left. When A has travelled the distance d , its reading is compared with that of clock C', momentarily opposite to it. But, as before, C' has been synchronized with B so that we have, in effect, another comparison of B with A, and this time A’s clock goes slow, so that B’s reading is in advance of A’s as shown. The two comparisons should yield the same result according to the principle of relativity. It is obvious that they do not.

A more intriguing instance of this so-called ‘time dilation’ is the well-known ‘twin paradox’, where one of two twins goes for a journey and returns to find himself younger than his brother who remained behind. This case allows more scope for muddled thinking because acceleration can be brought into the discussion. Einstein maintained the greater youthfulness of the travelling twin, and admitted that it contradicts the principle of relativity, saying that acceleration must be the cause (Einstein 1918). In this he has been followed by relativists in a long controversy in many journals, much of which ably sustains the character of earlier speculations which Born describes as “monstrous” (Born 1956). Surely there are three conclusive reasons why acceleration can have nothing to do with the time dilation calculated: (i) By taking a sufficiently long journey the effects of acceleration at the start, turn-round and end could be made negligible compared with the uniform velocity time dilation which is proportional to the duration of the journey. (ii) If there is no uniform time dilation, and the effect, if any, is due to acceleration, then the use of a formula depending only on the steady velocity and its duration cannot be justified. (iii) There is, in principle, no need for acceleration. Twin A can get his velocity V before synchronizing his clock with that of twin B as he passes. He need not turn round: he could be passed by C who has a velocity V in the opposite direction, and who adjusts his clock to that of A as he passes. When C later passes B they can compare clock readings. As far as the theoretical experiment is concerned, C's clock can be considered to be A’s clock returning without acceleration since, by hypothesis, all the clocks have the same rate when at rest together and change with motion in the same way independently of direction. 4

One more contradiction, this time in statics, may be mentioned: this is the lever with two equal arms at right angles and pivoted at the corner. It is kept in equilibrium by two equal forces producing equal and opposite couples. According to the Lorentz transformation equations referred to a system moving with respect to the lever system, the couples are no longer equal so the lever should be seen to rotate, which is, of course, absurd. Tolman tried to overcome this by saying that there was a flow of energy entering one lever arm and passing out through the pivot, just stopping the rotation! Overlooking the fact that energy is a metrical term and not anything physical (Brown 1965, 1966), there would presumably be some heating in the process which is not considered. Statics provides insuperable difficulties for the physical interpretation of Lorentz transformation equations and this part of mechanics is avoided in the textbooks – in fact, Einstein omits statics in his definition: “The purpose of mechanics is to describe how bodies change their position in space with time” (Einstein 1920, p. 9). The three examples which have been dealt with above show clearly that the difficulties are not paradoxes (apparent contradictions) but genuine contradictions which follow inevitably from the principle of relativity and the physical interpretations of the Lorentz transformations. The special theory of relativity is therefore untenable as a physical theory.

Turning now to the general theory of relativity, Einstein tells us in his autobiography (Einstein 1959) how, at the age of 12, he began to doubt Bible stories. “The consequence was a positively fanatic (orgy of) free-thinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the State through lies; it was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a sceptical attitude towards the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment – an attitude which has never again left me.” This sceptical attitude towards prevailing convictions possibly explains why Einstein was not satisfied with the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz which stopped short of including accelerating systems, thus still leaving something apparently ‘absolute’. He still seemed to be affected by this word ‘absolute’, but it is difficult to see what it could mean except with regard either to the Sensorium of God (Newton) or an aether pervading all space. He pushed on, therefore, with an attempt to show that natural laws must be expressed by equations which are covariant under a group of continuous coordinate transformations. This group, which Einstein took as the algebraic expression of a general principle of relativity, included, as a subgroup, the Lorentz transformations which Poincaré had taken as the algebraic expression of the restricted principle.

To overcome the physical difficulty that acceleration produces forces (inertial) whereas uniform velocity does not, Einstein was led to assert that these forces cannot be distinguished from ordinary gravitational force, and are therefore not an absolute test of acceleration. This contention Einstein called the principle of equivalence. In trying to support this contention, he imagined a large closed chest which was first at rest on the surface of a large body like the Earth, and then later removed to a great distance from other matter where it was pulled by a rope until its acceleration was g . No experiment made inside could, he claimed, detect the difference in the two cases. But in this he was mistaken, as I have shown (Brown 1960). In the first case, if two simple pendulums were suspended with their threads a foot apart, the threads would not be parallel but point towards the centre of mass of the Earth (or a point somewhat nearer allowing for their mutual attraction). The angle between them would, in principle, be detectable by the Mount Palomar telescope. When accelerated by a rope, the threads would be parallel if it were not for the small mutual attraction. If now, the threads were moved so as to be further apart, the angle between them would increase in the first case, but in the second case the threads would become more parallel so that the angle would therefore decrease. The principle of equivalence is therefore untenable. It is gratifying to find one theoretician who states that the principle is false (Synge 1960): “In Einstein’s theory there is a gravitational field or there is none, according as the Riemann tensor does or does not vanish. This is an absolute property: it has nothing to do with the observer’s world-line.” The principle of equivalence is made plausible by the use of the expression ‘gravitational field’, overlooking the fact that this is a useful conception but cannot be demonstrated. All we can do is place a test particle at the point in question and measure the force on it. This might be action-at-a-distance. As soon as the term ‘field’ is dropped and we talk about the gravitational force between bodies at rest, we realize that the force is centripetal, whereas the force of inertia is not. This is an important difference obscured by the use of the word ‘field’. Relativists now admit that the principle of equivalence only holds at a point; but then, of course, we have left physics for geometry – experiments cannot be made at a point.

This contact with the physical world having gone, we are left in the general theory only with the principle of covariance - that the laws of physics must be expressed in a form independent of the coordinate system, and the mathematical development of this condition which Einstein did with Grassman and others. Unfortunately, given sufficient ingenuity, almost any law of physics can be expressed in covariant form, so that the principle imposes no necessary restriction on the nature of these laws. The principle is therefore barren, and Einstein had to regard it as merely of heuristic significance (by considering only the simplest laws in accord with it (Einstein 1959 , p. 39)). Also the number of problems which can be completely formulated, let alone solved, is extremely small. Some relativists look on it rather as an encumbrance (Fock 1959).

The three consequences stemming from Einstein’s theory of gravitation, that are usually brought forward as supporting it, are also not impressive. The movement of the perihelion of Mercury was known before and can be explained in various ways (Whittaker 1953). The ‘bending of light’ round the Sun had been suggested before, and the much advertised confirmation in the eclipse of 1919 involved assuming Einstein’s law of ‘bending’ to obtain the ‘scale constants’, with the help of which the results were derived which were supposed to prove it. The deflections of stars that moved transversely or in the opposite direction to that predicted were omitted. The mean deviation and its direction varied from plate to plate during the eclipse, suggesting refraction in a turbulent diffuse ‘atmosphere’. Nevertheless a mean value was obtained “in exact accord with the requirements of the Einstein theory” (Lick Observatory Bulletin 1922, No. 346). Later attempts have given different values. This must be one of the most extraordinary self-deceptions in the whole history of science (see Poor 1930). The gravitational red shift of light now appears to be confirmed, but this follows from Mach’s hypothesis 5 that inertial forces are due to interaction with the distant bodies of the Universe 6 , and does not require ‘relativity’ as the author has shown (Brown 1955). We see, then, that the general theory is based physically on a fallacy (principle of equivalence) and on a principle that is barren (covariance) and which is also, mathematically, almost intractable. Genuine physicists may well agree with Fock that it is not a major contribution to physics. The whole subject of ‘relativity’ is extremely interesting looked at from the point of view of scientific method. Western science long ago involved the rejection of the view that Nature’s ways can be found by just taking thought, or by the adoption of principles based on reason alone, or beauty, or simplicity. The idea of perfection in the heavens, as we know, held back astronomy with epicycles and caused sunspots to be explained away.

Newtonian method consists in first establishing the facts by careful observation and experiment, and then proceeding to attempt an explanation of them in physical terms – matter, motion and force – then from such a theory to derive, by logic and mathematics, various principles (e.g. conservation of momentum) as well as further consequences which can be put to experimental test. Natural science is concerned with causes: logic and mathematics are only tools. Newton made this clear when, after giving the first satisfactory explanation of the tides, he said: “Thus I have explained the causes of the motion of the . . . Sea. Now it is fit to subjoin something concerning the quantity of those motions.” But relativists now assert that “The dignity of pure theoretical speculation has been rehabilitated . . . based on a process of the mind with its own justification” (shades of Descartes!). Relativity “has saved science from narrow experimentalism, it has emphasized the part which beauty and simplicity must play in the formulation of theories of the physical world” (Mercier 1955). The disadvantages of systems of theoretical speculation based on a process of the mind with its own justification – well understood by Bacon and the early founders of the Royal Society – are very evident in ‘relativity’. Uncomfortable facts have to be forced into the system by specious reasoning, as in the case of the right-angled lever mentioned above, or ignored altogether, as in the case of Römer’s one-way determination of the velocity of light. This method is not mentioned in books by relativists although it is a famous determination, being the first historically, and known to Newton in his later years. Römer’s method is worth examining in detail because it nullifies Einstein’s contention, repeated by Eddington and others, that we only know the out-and-return velocity, not the one-way velocity, so that the time of arrival of a signal at a distant point is never known from observation but can only be a convention.

Römer measured the durations of the eclipse of one of Jupiter’s satellites. These time periods increased when the Earth was moving away from Jupiter, and decreased again when the Earth was moving towards it. A knowledge of the size of the Earth’s orbit, and thus the distances moved during the eclipses, allowed a calculation of the velocity of light which had only travelled one way. Modern photometric observations at Harvard University yield an excellent value which remains constant with the varying changes of direction as Jupiter moves round in its orbit.       Now the timing of the eclipses on the Earth’s surface is not open to criticism, since measurement of time is defined for observers on the Earth. But relativists might say that the assumption of uniform rotation of the satellite, based on Newton’s laws, and the use of astronomical triangulation applied to moving bodies (which is necessary to determine the Earth’s orbit) both involve knowledge of the one-way velocity of light, and that this is constant – which is just what we are trying to determine.       Although the high accuracy of astronomical observations and the general agreement with theory over long periods of time is a sufficient proof that the velocity of light does not fluctuate, the best way to avoid this criticism is to notice that the experiment could be carried out in principle (we are only concerned with the relativist assertion that is impossible in principle) on the surface of the Earth. The periodic eclipses could be replaced by a flashing beacon B (figure 2) controlled so as to flash at whatever are defined to be equal intervals, and this equality can be judged from the distant point A with one clock. The observer is carried round on the edge of a circular rotating table (corresponding to the Earth’s motion in its orbit), and makes a mark on the stationary surrounding rim every time he sees a flash (this could be done automatically). These marks get further apart between E 1 and E 2 , corresponding to the increase in eclipse time periods in the Jupiter case. The clock A, at rest with respect to the beacon, the centre of the table and the stationary rim, makes marks on the table edge, the distances between which can be used as a test of uniform rotation, and also serve to convert the distances between the stationary rim marks into time intervals. The distance E 1 E 3 is measured with the metre bar. The one-way velocity is calculated, as in the astronomical case, from the data. In this way we can avoid using the properties of light in order to determine the length E 1 E 3 , and there is only one clock. With modern techniques this method might possibly be used to test the effect of movement of the source on the velocity of light.

Belief in principles because of their mathematical elegance, or cogency, leads also to a distortion of physics, its purpose and its history. Most of the discussion about observers and their imagined measurements is remote from anything that physicists do. Having to call force a fiction, which it cannot be by definition, since we have a special set of deep-seated nerves for detecting it, and asserting that it can be removed by a mere transformation of axes illustrate distortions of physics which are common. Even distortion of mathematics occurs in Einstein’s later attempt to derive the Lorentz transformation equations from the principle of relativity together with algebraic expression of the constancy of the velocity of light. In this proof he is forced, as Essen has pointed out (Essen 1962), to use the same symbol for two different quantities, and later he derives a dimensionally impossible equation by putting a length equal to unity (Einstein 1920). 7 It is difficult not to repeat Keswani’s comments on Einstein’s first (1905) proof: “The steps taken have a curiously compensating effect and apparently the demonstration was driven towards the result” (Keswani 1965). The distortion of the purpose of physics has already been exemplified by Einstein’s definition of mechanics which leaves out statics. “The object of physics is to predict the results of given experiments concerning stated events” , says McCrea (McCrea 1952), but the business of physicists is with “the causes of sensible effects” , as Newton said - causes , not just rules and predictions. The distortions of the history of physics are too common to be worth detailed mention: many papers and broadcast lectures begin with a travesty of Newton’s views. Einstein’s own part in the development of ‘relativity’ is particularly instructive from the point of view of scientific method. The early adolescent suspicion of all authority, and consequently of anything called ‘absolute’ – resulting in the desire to prove all frames of reference equal – led to proofs having to be forced and contrary facts ignored. As so often happens in other spheres, some frames turned out to be more equal than others (inertial frames). The attempt to extend ‘equality’ to accelerated axes led to invoking a principle (equivalence) whose application gradually shrank to a mathematical point, and to a postulate (covariance) which turned out to be barren. His final years devoted to trying to obtain a unitary mathematical treatment of gravitation and electrodynamics ended in failure. It is difficult to think of a more convincing demonstration of the dire effects of abandoning Newtonian method.

What then remains of the theory? The Lorentz transformations have proved not to be the necessary formulation of the principle of relativity, as Poincaré believed, since physical interpretations of them have contradicted the principle. When applied, perspicaciously, to Newtonian physics they produce formulae which are certainly superior to the ‘classical’ ones at high speeds. But the Lorentz transformation equations were first derived and used by Voigt in 1887 in connection with elasticity, and later, again, by Lorentz in connection with the electron theory of matter, and do not depend on ‘relativity’ for their derivation. 8 The placing of the Lorentz term (1-v 2 /c 2 ) 1/2 under m , the mass, following Poincaré’s prediction of a velocity c that cannot be exceeded by matter, has been supported by experiments with accelerators (relative to the machine). Once again, however, interpretations of algebra are not a substitute for genuine physical theory: the interaction of a particle with distant matter (force of inertia), tending to infinity when v approaches c , is not the only physical interpretation; it may be that interaction with nearby matter (the accelerating force) may tend to zero when v approaches c. This hypothesis, for example, avoids the supposition of an enormous amount of matter in the Universe for which there is no evidence (Brown 1955, 1957, 1958, 1963). The general theory has been well summed up by Fock: “It is . . . incorrect to call Einstein’s theory of gravitation a ‘General theory of relativity’ all the more since ‘The general principle of relativity’ is impossible under any physical condition.” “The general covariance of equations has quite a different meaning from the physical principle of relativity; it is merely a formal property of the equations which allows one to write them down without prejudging the question of what coordinate system to use. The solution of equations written in generally covariant form involves four arbitrary functions; but the indeterminacy arising from this has no fundamental importance and does not express any kind of ‘general relativity’. From a practical point of view such an indeterminacy even represents something of a disadvantage” (Fock 1959). It is still too soon to attempt a final judgment on ‘relativity’, but certainly we can say that ‘relativity’ has not provided convincing justification for adopting a new scientific method which involves “processes of the mind which are their own justification” , and rejecting Newton’s continual plea for more experiments as “narrow experimentalism” . Nor does it justify substituting the derivation of physical theory, by interpretation of an algebraic representation of a postulated general principle, for the derivation of general principles from the algebraic representation of a physical theory.

References BERGMANN, P. G., 1942, Introduction to the Theory of Relativity (New York: Prentice-Hall), preface. BORN, M., 1956, Physics in My Generation (London: Pergamon Press), p. 193. BRIDGMAN, P. W., 1927, The Logic of Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan), p. 169. BROWN, G. B., 1943, Nature, Lond. , 151, 85-6. – 1955, Proc. Phys. Soc. B., 68, 672-8. – 1956, Sci. Progr. , 44, 619-34. – 1958, Sci. Progr. , 46, 15-29. – 1960, Amer. J. Phys. , 28, 475-83. – 1963, Contemporary Physics , 5 . – 1965, LP.P.S. Bulletin , 16, 319. – 1966, LP.P.S. Bulletin , 17, 22. CAPILDEO, R., 1961, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. , 57, 321-9. DARWIN, C. G., 1957, Nature, Lond. , 180, 976. EINSTEIN, A., 1905, Ann. Phys., Lpz. , 17, 891 (English translation in The Principle of Relativity (New York: Dover, 1922)). – 1918, Naturwissenschaften , 48, 697-703. – 1920, Relativity. The Special and the General Theory (London: Methuen), appendix I. – 1922, Sidelights on Relativity (London: Methuen), p. 23. – 1935, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. , 41, 223-30. EINSTEIN, A., 1959, Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (New York: Harper & Brothers). ESSEN, L., 1962, Proc. Roy. Soc. A., 270, 312-4. FOCK, V., 1959, Theory of Space, Time and Gravitation (London: Pergamon Press), p. 401. IVES, H. E., 1952, J. Opt. Soc. Amer. , 42, 540-3. KESWANI, G. H., 1965, Brit. J. Phil. Sci. , 15, 286-306; 16, 19-32. – 1966, Brit. J. Phil. Sci. , 17, 234-6. LEWIS, G. N., 1909, Phil. Mag. , 28, 517-27. MCCREA, W., 1952, Nature, Lond. , 179, 909. MERCIER, A., 1955, Nature, Lond. , 175, 919. METZ, A., 1952, J. Phys. Radium , 13, 232. PLANCK, M., 1906, Verh. dtsch. phys. Ges. , 8, 136-41. – 1907, S.B. preuss. Akad. Wiss. , 13, 542-70. POINCARÉ, H., 1904, Bull. Sci. Math. , 28, 302 (English translation: Monist , 1905, 15 , 1). POOR, C. L., 1930, J. Opt. Soc. Amer. , 20, 173-211. SYNGE, J. L., 1956, Relativity: The Special Theory (Amsterdam: North-Holland), p. 2. – 1960, Relativity: The General Theory (Amsterdam: North-Holland), p. 2. TOLMAN, R. C., 1934, Relativity Thermodynamics and Cosmology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), preface. WHITTAKER, SIR E. T., 1953, History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity , Vol. 11 (Glasgow, London: Nelson).

ENDNOTES 1. The substance of lectures given to the Royal institute of Philosophy, University College Chemical and Physical Society, The Institute of Science Technicians, etc. [Back] 2. Quoted from the Rutherford Memorial Lecture to the Physical Society 1954 by P. M. S. Blackett (Year Book of the Physical Society 1955). [Back] 3. Gravitational waves with velocity c and the velocity addition formula should be included (Keswani 1966). [Back] 4. I am indebted to Lord Halsbury for pointing this out to me. [Back] 5. Einstein and others call it Mach’s principle, but it is not a principle – it is a physical hypothesis. [Back] 6. Newton considered this possibility (see Brown 1943). [Back] 7. Relativists seem to be rather shaky on dimensions: has not Eddington told us that the mass of the Sun is 1.47 km, and have we not been favoured with a revelation from Ireland that 1° centigrade = 3.804 x 10 -76 seconds (Synge 1960)? [Back] 8. They can be derived without the principle (see Capildeo 1967). [Back]

The following item (April 1967) is the only reference to G Burniston Brown's article printed in the BULLETIN, at least until the end of 1969, when I stopped checking, so, as far as I know, the article by Hermann Bondi, author of Relativity and Commonsense , 1964, never appeared, nor was any correspondence ever printed by this learned society - RW. [Back to Start] Letters to the Editor WHAT IS WRONG WITH RELATIVITY? Following on the article ‘What is wrong with relativity?’ which was published in the March issue of the Bulletin we have received a large number of letters expressing views often differing from those of Dr. Burniston Brown and in many cases expounding them clearly and in some detail. It is regretted that there are too many letters to publish, particularly as by the very nature of the subject there is a great deal of overlap among them.       It is hoped, however, to publish at a later date an article by Professor [Hermann] Bondi.           ED.

• Link to Big Bang Bunk by Kurt Johmann, on this site, with his permission. An interesting piece (including the work of Arp, and also social considerations) not necessarily endorsed in its entirety. (An old mainstream reference I found to Arp is 'Arp Refutes Big Bang', New Scientist , 5 Nov 1987).
• It would be satisfying to believe the 'big bang' was inspired by nuclear weapons; could it be coincidence that the theory was developed after these weapons were invented? Previously, the biggest bang was a relatively small thing. In fact though, according to someone else's bibliography, Georges Lemaitre published Big Bang Theory in 1927 (when the expansion of the universe came to be believed in. Lemaitre also wrote The Primeval Atom in 1950). On the other hand, (e.g.) 1964 The Universe and Its Origin (eds; authors include Gamow, Gold) doesn't mention the 'Big Bang'. But e.g. by 1980 we have The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe , J Silk.
• Dramatic illustrative changes of scale in science include:
  1. Time scale changes (evolution, with human beings appearing in last few seconds. Or the estimated lifetime of the human race, compressed into one lifetime, with the printing press two weeks old)
  2. Size changes (A book, something like Mr Tomkins in Wonderland purports to show a tiny person able to observe electrons etc). James Jeans liked this sort of thing: 'Waterloo station emptied of everything except six specks of dust, is still far more crowded than space with stars'. Galaxies are like 'three wasps in the whole of Europe'
  3. Let's try a space-time change: the supposed 'size of the universe' has been put at typically up to 500,000 million light years around; visualise a model universe, the size of our earth, and with light-speed scaled down:- a place a mile away would take light ten million years to travel; light would take a century or so travel one inch. There is plenty of scope for remote parts of the universe to behave in strange ways!
• The earliest sceptical reference I've found is Hannes Alfven, Cosmology, History, and Theology ' (1977 eds Yourgrau and Breck), quoted as saying the same sort of thing

  "the Big Bang conjecture is a myth", on the same footing as creation myths of primitive peoples.
        This idea has been around ever since; for example May 1996 Mensa magazine has Brian Ford saying: '.. our cultural heritage has had more far-reaching effects than we realise. The Big Bang theory is a theoretical construct which fits current knowledge but it is unlikely to stand the test of time. It is.. a saga in the grand tradition of story-telling. .. The Big Bang recapitulates the creation recounted in the book of Genesis. There we find the birth of the universe, with the dividing of light from dark, and the formation of the world from the empty void.
       ... The writings of today's mathematicians reveal more about their early up-bringing and the ineradicable effects of their cultural background than they would find it comfortable to admit. Western mathematicians were raised with the Bible.. For these physicists God is far from 'unnecessary'. Creation is the lynch-pin of their view of the origin of matter. ..'

• I had intended to write up notes on Frank Close's Royal Institution Lectures of December 1993: 'The Cosmic Onion. Seconds after the Big Bang to the Present Day' but decided not to bother.

Putting Weather Forecasting on a Scientific Basis... ... for the first time. Fri 17 November, 2000: My email to them, opening the issue. Mon 27 November 2000: Email reply received from Alan Thorpe, the Director of Climate Research, Bracknell. Saying that all research is published openly. In fact, the Met Office is a branch of the Ministry of Defence.       (Of course, it's usually a political mistake for officials to reply in this way; their usual strategy is to keep quiet. Whether Thorpe is aware of this, I don't know). Thur 30 Nov 2000: My E-mail reply making the Met Office a modest offer (including future percentages) with proviso that, if it turns out they've investigated my ideas already, then nothing is payable. No reply as yet: next phase probably to repeat the offer in writing, the point being that, if ultimately it's sold to (say) Germany, they can't claim they were never approached. —> > ... contd. —> > Our new logo is ambitious and energetic. It emphasises movement and energy, implying we are entering a period of change. Dark blue is a colour which has been found to inspire trust, but it is also generally associated with the weather, sky and the sea. Green is generally associated with the natural environment. The waves are inspired by the multi-layered 'geological' formation of the Earth's surface; they could also represent wind, hills, valleys, or mathematical functions. The waves could also be likened to the rivers, or the sea, representing our heritage - the Met Office was formed in 1854 by Admiral FitzRoy to provide sea-current forecasts to mariners.     Different people will see different things in the design of our new logo, but we think it sums up the main goals we're working towards in our vision for the future of the Met Office - Quoted in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner #1021 Cautionary e-mail: My experience with academia -- I got a PhD -- taught me a few things. For example, my one paper, about the main result of my dissertation research (on the obscure subject of precise interprocedural dataflow analysis), spent two years in the pipeline at a good journal, but was ultimately rejected in highly abusive terms by a new assistant editor, who, as my co-author professor eventually admitted to me, had it out for him, because of an incident roughly 10 years previous in which my professor had written a letter of complaint against that guy. So, in other words, as I know from my own experience, politics rules in academia, and the actual situation is very far from the ideal of a noble place of learning where any good idea can get a fair hearing. ...       In other words, in my opinion, and based on my own limited experience and understanding, you are wasting your time, because it does not matter whether your ideas are correct or not; it does not matter whether your ideas represent an advance in weather knowledge or not; all that matters, is that you are an outsider to the weather establishment, and anything that could possibly go to you, the outsider, would come from them, the insiders, which means that whatever you have will be dismissed a priori, out of hand.       I don't mean to be a downer, but I consider any attempt to play with the establishment a complete waste of time. ...     The approach you seem to be trying to take, which is to try to get payment from the establishment for an idea, is, based on everything I know, impossible. Note that even if you had a patent on it, and the idea actually had some commercial value, it would still be very difficult to have it pay off (many people get patents, very few make money off their patents). ... Kurt Johmann Click if you'd like to see the Met Office Website ; their last published figures give annual turnover of about £150M, about the same as their expenditure; it's unclear to me whether the revenues received by the Met Office are voluntary, or a transfer payment from other government departments, or an unavoidable governmental imposition, like a tax. Their assets are valued at £150M. Information on amounts spent on computing, on what they call research, and on information collection by satellites, ships etc, is hard to find. From the point of view of this article, the important thing is that they are willing to spend £150M on their feeble systems, but unprepared to spend anything investigating new ideas. In view of their failures to predict extreme (and expensive) conditions such as floods, high winds, and droughts, there's a case for considering their work to be negligent and/or fraudulent. A few years ago, a hurricane in North America, plus the long tail risks of an asbestos action, nearly bankrupted Lloyds of London, the insurers. Better weather forecasting could be extremely valuable. ——> > contd. —> > .. 30 Nov 2000 (copy to Ivor Catt, independent monitor) Dear Alan Thorpe, Thanks for your e-mail. I've given some thought to this problem and, since it's up to me to take action, I make the following proposal: [1] I have an approach to mathematical modelling of weather which in my judgment will put weather forecasting on a proper scientific basis for the first time. In principal [sic; oops!] this is of enormous scientific and commercial importance. [2] This initial approach is being made to the British Met Office; this offer to the Met Office stands for three months. [3] I will not divulge any details to any party except on terms similar to the following: [4] [**Omitted bit - RW **] Experience since the time of Harrison suggests a proactive approach to government organisations is essential. Accordingly I propose:] [5] [**Omitted bit-RW**] ... legally become mine, UNLESS the Met Office can demonstrate that they have considered the ideas before, and found one or more flaws in them. [6] Investigation and implementation of the ideas will be the responsibility of the Met Office and its numerous experts, though I'm happy and willing to provide input. [7] The Met Office will undertake to take out patents or such other measures as will keep control of the methodology to the Met Office and its agents. [8] There is, I suppose inevitably, some legal input into the above. The Met Office will pay for legal advice which I have to take. Reply from Professor Paul J Mason FRS, Chief Scientist [I presume of the Meteorological Office]. Dated 9 Jan 2001. Dear Rae [sic] You wrote to one of my directors, Alan Thorpe, concerning a research proposal and seeking a financial return for that support. Alan replied to you explaining our open basic science policy. I am now writing to confirm that we are not willing to enter any financial arrangement with you. Yours sincerely Paul Mason Chief Scientist Dear Paul Mason, Thanks for your letter dated 9 January 2001. I'm disappointed that you haven't bothered to read my proposal, since I'm not seeking backing for a research proposal; the ideas already exist. So I enclose a repeat of the communication I sent to Thorpe. I would suggest that in view of your responsibility for hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money, and also for the not very impressive record of weather forecasting, that you consider the proposal seriously. This is quite apart from the fact that presumably you regard yourself as having some obligation to forward scientific progress. Yours sincerely Rae West

The Façade Atkins ( Creation Revisited. The Origin of Space, Time and the Universe ) has a rehash of the unproven speculations of other people. He is a chemist, with a commendable interest and excitement in his subject, but seduced into promoting rubbish. As a double whammy, he is married to (or whatever) Susan Greenfield, who promotes the most vacuous biological equivalent. Hawking is well-known (the TV film Hitchens refers to shows rather laughable scenes of his Church of England first wife). Hawking repeats the usual stuff, e.g. the surface of the earth as supposed analogy to curved space. I have it on the authority of Steve Jones that Hawking wanted to remove the final sentence about 'knowing the mind of God', for which the naive might imagine Hawking had provided evidence, but his publishers insisted on retaining it, correctly, of course, from the point of view of sales. (A subsequent book by Jones also had the word 'God' in the title. Jones, an atheist, said: "God may not do much, but he sells books!")

".. the very small, and cosmology, the very big.. elementary particles there is no theory; all they can do is classify them like in botany.. in cosmology, there is an accepted theory.. Einstein's theory of relativity.. Einstein proved the universe is expanding..
      "What distinguishes past from future is the increase in entropy or disorder in the universe.."
      "Collapse into a singularity.. but in a singularity the laws of physics no longer apply"
      "When the universe started to contract again, would we see the cup gather together and leap back on the table? Would we be able to make a fortune by remembering prices on the stock exchange?"
      "The universe has only two possible destinies; it may continue to expand or it may go into reverse.. into a big crunch.."
      Einstein said God does not play dice with the universe [sic]. It would seem Einstein was doubly wrong. Not only does he play dice but he throws them where they can't be seen"
      In 1967 an American coined the expression 'black hole' to replace 'gravitationally completely collapsed object'. Hawking thinks if time runs backwards, a singularity will expand into the universe! Hence the 'big bang'

University College, London: part of a flyer for Friday evening lectures, 2001, aimed at young people deciding about university courses, and teachers.     There is some material in the vein of Faraday. But the bulk of the material is of dubious value. Unfortunately young people are trained to be docile; I've never heard any of them question any of this material.

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