The Rise and Fall of Absolute Space

Setna rocznica sformułowania przez Alberta Einsteina ogólnej teorii względności jest doskonałą okazją do ponownego postawienia pytań o wpływ wspomnianej teorii na filozofię. Interesującą perspektywę oferują badania z zakresu historii nauki i historii filozofii, które pozwalają dokładniej przyjrzeć się procesowi recepcji wspomnianej teorii. Proces ten jest waż- nym źródłem wiedzy o kształtowaniu się relacji nauk przyrodniczych i filozofii, gdyż poprzez analizę wskazywanych trudności i kontrowersji pozwala zidentyfikować wiele ukrytych założeń o charakterze filozoficznym, które trudno dostrzec na innych etapach rozwoju nauki. Dzięki temu analiza procesu recepcji nowych teorii naukowych staje się wyróżnionym przedmiotem analiz relacji matematyki, nauk przyrodniczych i filozofii. Z tych względów warto przyjrzeć się interesują- cym dyskusjom i polemikom, które miały miejsce w obrębie nauki polskiej.Szczególnie interesujące polemiki i dyskusje wokół teorii względności rozegrały się w Krakowie i we Lwowie przed rokiem 1925. Wspomniane ośrodki zostały wybrane również z tego względu, że w początkach XX wieku, wykorzystując możliwości polityczno-kulturalne powstałe w związku z istnieniem stosunkowo szerokiego zakresu autonomii Galicji, stały się one najważniejszymi centrami rozwoju nauki polskiej. Sytuacja ta zadecydowała również o połączeniu wymienionych ośrodków stosunkowo silną siecią powiązań, widocznych szczególnie na gruncie fizyki. W obu miastach powstała również specyficzna (choć z zachowaniem pewnych lokalnych odrębności) odmiana refleksji nad nauką, którą dogodnie jest określić przy pomocy pojęcia „filozofii w nauce” stworzonego przez M. Hellera.Opracowanie rozpoczyna się od krótkiego przybliżenia historii recepcji szczególnej teorii względności w Krakowie. W procesie tym najistotniejszą rolę odegrał August Witkowski, który już w 1905 roku docenił znaczenie pierwszych prac Einsteina. Kolejne punkty zwrotne w procesie recepcji teorii Einsteina wyznaczyły dwa kolejne Zjazdy Lekarzy i Przyrodników Polskich, które odbyły się kolejno we Lwowie w 1907 r. i w Krakowie w 1911 r. Pierwszy z nich zadecydował o popularyzacji idei relatywistycznych pośród przyrodników polskich, a kolejny – o popularyzacji ich wśród filozofów. Dla zrozumienia lokalnej specyfiki filozoficznych rozważań prowadzonych w ośrodku lwowskim odwołamy się do rozwoju recepcji wokół podstaw mechaniki. Zagadnienie to szczególnie mocno interesowało lwowskich uczonych z tej racji, że Lwów był do 1915 roku jedynym polskim ośrodkiem akademickim rozwijającym nauki techniczne i koncentrował w naturalny sposób większość polskich uczonych zajmujących się nauką mechaniki. To właśnie środowiska związane z lwowską Szkołą Politechniczną odegrały ważną rolę w późniejszych dyskusjach wokół szczególnej i ogólnej teorii względności.W dalszej kolejności szkicowo zaprezentowana zostanie lwowska polemika wokół teorii względności i dla kontrastu ukazana zostanie o wiele krótsza polemika rozgrywająca się w Krakowie. Szczególna uwaga zostanie poświęcona dorobkowi Zygmunta Zawirskiego, który w swej działalności podjął problematykę poruszoną w obu ośrodkach i przedstawił najbardziej interesujące rozważania ukazujące nowoczesną wizję filozofii uprawianej w ścisłym kontakcie z naukami przyrodniczymi.Prezentowany styl filozofii w nauce rozwijany w Krakowie i Lwowie został również skrótowo skonfrontowany z konkurencyjnymi filozoficznymi reakcjami na teorie Einsteina: z refleksją rozwijaną w obrębie Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej (Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz) i z wybraną refleksją neoscholastyczną (Feliks Hortyński SJ, Ludwik Wrzoł SJ, Jan Stepa). Na tym tle lepiej można dostrzec specyfikę filozofii analizowanej w tym studium przypadku – najważniejsze uwagi na ten temat zostały zawarte w zakończeniu niniejszej pracy.Niniejszy artykuł ukazuje fakt, że szczególna i ogólna teoria względności Einsteina znacząco wpłynęły na rozwój refleksji filozoficznej w Polsce. Warto również zaznaczyć, że refleksja filozoficzna stała się w opisywanym okresie ważnym uzupełnieniem pracy naukowej przyrodników, co decyduje również o specyfice rozwoju ówczesnej nauki.

The special theory of relativity (STR) is operationally expanded onto orthogonal accelerations: normal and binormal that complement the instantaneous tangential speed and thus can be structurally extended into operationally complete 4D spacetime without defying the STR. Thus the former classic Lorentz factor, which defines proper time differential can be expanded onto within a trihedron moving in the Frenet frame (T,N,B). Since the tangential speed which was formerly assumed as being always constant, expands onto effective normal and binormal speeds ensuing from the normal and binormal accelerations, the expanded formula conforms to the former Lorentz factor. The obvious though previously overlooked fact that in order to change an initial speed one must apply accelerations (or decelerations, which are reverse accelerations), made the Einstein’s STR incomplete for it did not apply to nongravitational selfpropelled motion. Like a toy car lacking accelerator pedal, the STR could drive nowhere. Yet some scientists were teaching for over 115 years that the incomplete STR is just fine by pretending that gravity should take care of the absent accelerator. But gravity could not drive cars along even surface of earth. Gravity could only pull the car down along with the physics that peddled the nonsense while suppressing attempts at its rectification. The expanded formula neither defies the STR nor the general theory of relativity (GTR) which is just radial theory of gravitation. In fact, the expanded formula complements the STR and thus it supplements the GTR too. The famous Hafele-Keating experiments virtually confirmed the validity of the expanded formula proposed here.

The Symmetries of Quantum and Classical Information. The Ressurected “Ether" of Quantum Information

Science sets itself apart from other paths to truth by recognizing that even its greate practitioners sometimes err.

Motion is always relative to something. Is this thing a concrete body like the earth, is it an abstract space, or is it an imagined frame? Do the laws of physics depend on the choice of reference? Is there a choice for which the laws are simplest? Is this choice unique? Is there a physical cause for the choice made? These questions traverse the history of modern physics from Galileo to Einstein. The answers involved Galilean relativity, Newton’s absolute space, the purely relational concepts of Descartes, Leibniz, and Mach, and many forgotten uses of relativity principles in mechanics, optics, and electrodynamics―until the relativity theories of Poincaré, Einstein, Minkowski, and Laue radically redefined space and time to satisfy universal kinds of relativity. Accordingly, this book retraces the emergence of relativity principles in early modern mechanics, documents their constructive use in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mechanics, optics, and electrodynamics, and gives a well-rooted account of the genesis of special and general relativity in the early twentieth century. As an exercise in long-term history, it demonstrates the connectivity of issues and approaches across several centuries, despite enormous changes in context and culture. As an account of the genesis of relativity theories, it brings unprecedented clarity and fullness by broadening the spectrum of resources on which the principal actors drew.

Two radically different views about time are possible. According to the first, the universe is three dimensional. It has a past and a future, but that does not mean it is spread out in time as it is spread out in the three dimensions of space. This view requires that there is an unambiguous, absolute, cosmic-wide “now” at each instant. According to the second view about time, the universe is four dimensional. It is spread out in both space and time—in space-time in short. Special and general relativity rule out the first view. There is, according to relativity theory, no such thing as an unambiguous, absolute cosmic-wide “now” at each instant. However, we have every reason to hold that both special and general relativity are false. Not only does the historical record tell us that physics advances from one false theory to another. Furthermore, elsewhere I have shown that we must interpret physics as having established physicalism—in so far as physics can ever establish anything theoretical. Physicalism, here, is to be interpreted as the thesis that the universe is such that some unified “theory of everything” is true. Granted physicalism, it follows immediately that any physical theory that is about a restricted range of phenomena only, cannot be true, whatever its empirical success may be. It follows that both special and general relativity are false. This does not mean of course that the implication of these two theories that there is no unambiguous cosmic-wide “now” at each instant is false. It still may be the case that the first view of time, indicated at the outset, is false. Are there grounds for holding that an unambiguous cosmic-wide “now” does exist, despite special and general relativity, both of which imply that it does not exist? There are such grounds. Elsewhere I have argued that, in order to solve the quantum wave/particle problem and make sense of the quantum domain we need to interpret quantum theory as a fundamentally probabilistic theory, a theory which specifies how quantum entities—electrons, photons, atoms—interact with one another probabilistically. It is conceivable that this is correct, and the ultimate laws of the universe are probabilistic in character. If so, probabilistic transitions could define unambiguous, absolute cosmic-wide “nows” at each instant. It is entirely unsurprising that special and general relativity have nothing to say about the matter. Both theories are pre-quantum mechanical, classical theories, and general relativity in particular is deterministic. The universe may indeed be three dimensional, with a past and a future, but not spread out in four dimensional space-time, despite the fact that relativity theories appear to rule this out. These considerations, finally, have implications for views about the arrow of time and free will.

The theory of special and general relativity causes a “schizophrenic” dilemma in physics. It undeniably provides mathematically correct values, but it is undeniably epistemologically wrong in many respects. Including the relativistic explanation of the gravitational “time dilation” and the curvature of light beams at the surfaces of large masses, the author demonstrates the illogical character of relativistic physics. When one thinks the relativistic explanations of gravitational time dilatation and of the curvature of light rays by masses through to the end, they lead to absurd and contradictory logical conclusions.

Newton’s final version (published in 1726) of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was a great scientific achievement of the time and contained sufficient information to allow calculation of the dynamics of terrestrial and celestial bodies; it also expounded on the absolute nature of time and space. As examples, Newton’s statements (Newton in Principia: the mathematical principles of natural philosophy, New York, 1726) that “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external” and “Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable” were fundamental to Newtonian calculations. These Newtonian concepts of space and time were challenged and proven to be only approximate by Einstein through his 1905 paper on special relativity, as well as his discovery of general relativity in 1915. The implications for and applications of general relativity within the fields of space geodesy is discussed in this chapter.

On the basis of the theory of bound charges the calculation of the motion of the charged particle at the Coulomb field formed with the spherical source of bound charges is carried out. Such motion is possible in the Riemanniam space-time. The comparison with the general relativity theory (GRT) and special relativity theory (SRT) results in the Schwarzshil'd field when the particle falls on the Schwarzshil'd and Coulomb centres is carried out. It is shown that the proton and electron can to create a stable connection with the dimensions of the order of the classic electron radius. The perihelion shift of the electron orbit in the proton field is calculated. This shift is five times greater than in SRT and when corrsponding substitution of the constants it is 5/6 from GRT. By means of the quantization of adiabatic invariants in accordance with the method closed to the Bohr and Sommerfeld one without the Dirac equation the addition to the energy for the fine level splitting is obtained. It is shown that the Caplan's stable orbits in the hydrogen atom coincide with the Born orbits.

This article refutes the Time Dilation Equation and Length Contraction that are derived in the Special Theory of Relativity. The conclusion reached in this article is that Time Dilation and Length Contraction cannot be characterized by simple equations due to repulsion gravity. The conclusion follows from gravity being a natural force of repulsion rather than the assumption that gravity is an attraction force. That gravity is a repulsion force follows from the Sir Arthur Eddington experiment designed to prove that gravity affects light. Few looked at that experiment as anything other than proving Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity that suggested gravity would affect light. The experiment went beyond what most imagined it accomplished. It surely verified that gravity affects light. But it did more than that. The experiment showed that gravity is a force of repulsion and not attraction as most believed. That gravity is repulsion and not an attraction force indicates that the relativity time dilation equation derived in the Special Theory of Relativity is intractably undecidable likely subject to Godels Incompleteness theorems

Ontology is integral to the two most fundamental scientific theories of the twentieth century: quantum theory and the special and general theories of relativity. Issues that drove the development of quantum theory include the reality of quanta, the simultaneous wave- and particle-like nature of matter and energy, determinism, probability and randomness, Schrodinger’s wave equation, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. So did the reality of the predictions about space, time, matter, energy, and the universe itself that were deduced from the special and general theories of relativity. Dirac’s prediction of antimatter based solely on the mathematics of his theory of the electron and Pauli’s prediction of the neutrino based on his belief in quantum mechanics are cases in point. Ontological interpretations of the uncertainty principle, of quantum vacuum energy fields, and of Schrodinger’s probability waves in the form of multiple universe theories further illustrate this point.

Based on special relativity, we introduce a way to develop a new field theory from (1) the relativistic property of the particle coupling coefficient with the field, and (2) the field due to a static point source. As an example, we discuss a theory of electromagnetic and gravitational fields. The results of this special relativistic gravitational theory for the redshift and the deflection of light are the same as those deduced from general relativity. The results of experiments on the planetary perihelion procession shift and on an additional “short-range gravity” are more favorable to the special relativistic gravitational theory than to general relativity. We put forward a new idea to test experimentally whether the equivalence principle of general relativity is correct.

We present a mechanical model that identifies dark energy and dark matter as singular states. The model introduces the notions of “forces in the direction of time”, and that every particle has a particle energy e and a wave energy $$\mathscr {E}$$ and is based upon an idea due to de Broglie for which he had a concrete physical picture of the coexistence of both particle and its associated wave. The model is a properly Lorentz invariant extension of special relativity and is intermediate between special and general relativity. A logical analysis of the energy statement gives rise to four states of matter, which is meaningful because it is interpreted within the proposed extension of special relativity. This interpretation is not available within the existing special relativity since it lacks the notion of force in the direction of time. Dark matter and dark energy arise as backward and forward waves, respectively, such that there is a particular alignment of the spatial physical force f and the force g in the direction of time, namely $$f = \pm \, gc$$ and for which $$e = \mathscr {E}$$ , respectively. In an actual circumstance, we might expect a situation comparable to a “fuzzy region” where the key equalities are constantly switching on and off dependent upon varying local conditions. The latest Planck data for the relative fractions for a three-component universe are exploited to obtain numerical values for the relative fractions for a four-component universe comprising baryonic matter, dark matter, dark energy, and a fourth state termed here anti-matter. The values so obtained are consistent with expected allowable occupancies for four states given that the higher energy states have a ready access to each of the lower energy states.

In 1900, Isaac Newton’s worldview of gravity, space, and time still prevailed — that the gravitational force was a universal, direct, and instantaneous action-at-a-distance between the masses of the Universe, that bodies and light rays moved through an “absolute space, in its own nature, without anything external” whose geometric structure was rigidly Euclidean without end, and that the dynamics of physical law unfolded with respect to an “absolute, true, and mathematical time (flowing) equably without relation to anything external” (Newton 1687). Through the twentieth century that edifice was overthrown and replaced by Albert Einstein’s general relativity (GR) perspective – that gravity is an interaction transmitted by a causal and dynamic field whose sources are all forms of energy, including its own contributions, and which then acts elsewhere upon the same; and that the metrical relations between the clocks, rulers, and signals throughout the cosmos are dynamic, non-Euclidean, locationally dependent, and established by the fields of gravity. The detailed structure of metric gravitational field components in the Solar System has in all cases been found to match the predictions of GR in a variety of experiments which primarily employed radar and laser ranging between Earth and other planets or spacecraft.

1. In the beginning 2. Cosmology becomes a science 3. Newton's machine 4. Lighting the worlds 5. The lives of the stars 6. Infinite space and absolute time 7. The special theory of relativity 8. The general theory of relativity 9. Black holes 10. The expanding universe 11. Modeling the universe 12. The early universe 13. Testing the models 14. A message from the big bang 15. Dark matter and large-scale structure 16. The inflationary universe 17. The edge of time A. Scientific notation B. Units C. Physical and astronomical constants