Is The Theory of Relativity Fatally Flawed?

[Physics Monkey]

Is the theory of relativity fatally flawed?

No.

The predictions of quantum electrodynamics which match experiments with fantastic accuracy are based on the theory of relativity.

The full Standard Model is the most accurarate theory ever devised by humanity and is in perfect accord with the theory of relativity.

The observations of binary neutron stars is in excellent accord with the theory of relativity.

The Pound-Rebka experiment is in excellent agreement with the theory of relativity.

The functioning of the GPS system is dependent on the theory of relativity.

The existence and functioning of nuclear devices is in agreement with the theory of relativity.

Maxwell's equations are relativstic and contain within them the constancy of the speed of light. These equations are the basis of all modern technology.

On theoretical grounds, the symmetry group of Galilean relativity is not simple and therefore is unstable.

Shall I go on?

 

[CANGAS]

yes.

 

[MacM]

Is the theory of relativity fatally flawed?

No.

The predictions of quantum electrodynamics which match experiments with fantastic accuracy are based on the theory of relativity.

The full Standard Model is the most accurarate theory ever devised by humanity and is in perfect accord with the theory of relativity.

The observations of binary neutron stars is in excellent accord with the theory of relativity.

The Pound-Rebka experiment is in excellent agreement with the theory of relativity.

The functioning of the GPS system is dependent on the theory of relativity.

False or at least misleading. GPS relies on GR but does not use (and cannot use) SRT because calculations between a surface clock and an orbiting clock using relative veloicty and SRT yields an incorrect value of time dilation. GPS uses local preferred rest frames and the absolute velocity of orbit in that frame.

The existence and functioning of nuclear devices is in agreement with the theory of relativity.

Maxwell's equations are relativstic and contain within them the constancy of the speed of light. These equations are the basis of all modern technology.

On theoretical grounds, the symmetry group of Galilean relativity is not simple and therefore is unstable.

Shall I go on?

You forgot to mention that the only thing actually supported in SRT is a one way gamma function and reciprocity inherent in SRT is a physical impossibility and has never in 100 years been demonstrated.

You forget to mention that the only way to claim spatial contraction is to ignore the time dilated clock used to measure the trip.

You forgot to mention that there are other theories which explain all relavistic functions that rely only on classical physics. That is some of the explanations in relativity are not exclusive to that theory.

 

[Physics Monkey]

MacM, I could point out all the places where your argument is completely uninformed by reality. You completely failed to address the instability of the Galilean symmetry group. I suspect this is because you have no idea what this means. I could tear apart each of your nonsensical claims, but frankly this all bores me.

Some day, humanity will build a relativistic rocket and I will buy you a ride on it. We can then finally put this whole "relativity is wrong" nonsense behind us.

 

[MacM]

MacM, I could point out all the places where your argument is completely uninformed by reality. You completely failed to address the instability of the Galilean symmetry group. I suspect this is because you have no idea what this means. I could tear apart each of your nonsensical claims, but frankly this all bores me.

Some day, humanity will build a relativistic rocket and I will buy you a ride on it. We can then finally put this whole "relativity is wrong" nonsense behind us.

Who in the hell said the "Galilean symmetry group" is also a correct view.

BTW: It would be more impressive if you just gave us one example of emperically demonstrated reciprocity or explained how you justify spatial contraction if you acknowledge the already agreed and demonstrated principle of clock dilation of recorded time.

I hear a lot of huff and puff but do not find any meat with the potatoes.

 

[2inquisitive]

I will just use a couple of short examples here.

The speed of light = c only for local comoving observers.
V>c is inevitable over long distance. Where distance is greater than the Hubble sphere,
the light cones are tipped. v>c at these distances. Isn't this correct, Physics Monkey?
Or have you gotten this far into cosmology yet? Do you need a link from Ned Wright?

 

[Physics Monkey]

2inquisitive,

Thanks again for your demeaning tone, I thought we had gotten past this. Yes, I do understand cosmology and general relativity. No, I don't want your link.

 

[Billy T]

...reciprocity inherent in SRT is a physical impossibility and has never in 100 years been demonstrated....

MacM I wish you would stop asserting your opinion as fact. It is based either on your intuition and/or lack of understanding of the details of how observers in different frames "simulatneously" measure the duration two events, each thinking the other must be insane to start and stop his stopwatch so inaccurately.

I proved your assertion false, mathematically, in thread I started "Is time universal? NO (Math proof)" some time ago. I even numbered the proof's steps so you could tell where any error, in your view, occured, but you did not. Your standard rebutal for a math proof seems to be:
"That is crap."
Unfortunaltely, (for you), few of us accept that reply as conclusive proof we are wrong.

 

[Billy T]

MacM, ...Some day, humanity will build a relativistic rocket and I will buy you a ride on it. We can then finally put this whole "relativity is wrong" nonsense behind us.

No, No, No! - You ride the rocket. If MacM goes, you will be dead when he returns even though he is much older than you are now.

 

[2inquisitive]

2inquisitive,

Thanks again for your demeaning tone, I thought we had gotten past this. Yes, I do understand cosmology and general relativity. No, I don't want your link.

Physics Monkey, your post above giving 'proofs' of 'relativity' was demeaning
to those that know the theories have problems, especially Special Theory.
You only listed handwaving generalities that cannot be examined in detail,
for the most part. You did mention the Pound-Rebka experiment, so lets
discuss that.

As most everyone knows, the Pound-Rebka experiment was a test of photon
frequency variation wrt location in gravitational fields. The frequency of photons emitted from iron atoms was measured in two locations on a tower.
As gravitational fields decrease in intensity, the frequency of the emitted photons increase. Now, whether a human 'ages' faster sitting on top of a tower than one sitting at the base of the tower is open to intrepretation.
But is does seem logical that if atoms 'live' longer in the higher intensity gravity field on the ground, it should be true.
What does Special theory say about this? Both iron atoms were 'at rest',
they were not moving wrt each other. Special Theory states there should be
no change in the physics in two INERTIAL frames. Ignore gravity and there would be 'no change' according to STR. But gravity IS there and DOES affect
the results in the 'rest' frames. Gravity affects ALL frames of reference on the
surface of the Earth. The 'inertial rest frames' of Special Theory are a fabrication that do not exist in nature. The mean decay of a muon is stated
to be 2.2 µs in its rest frame. What happens when we move that muon
to a different gravitational field? According to GR and experiment, the decay
rate will change. According to Special Theory, the decay rate will stay the
same IF THERE IS NO RELATIVE VELOCITY between the two frames. Will the
muon on top of the tower decay faster than the muon at the base? They are
both 'at rest' in STR frames.

 

[Physics Monkey]

You only listed handwaving generalities that cannot be examined in detail, for the most part.

I fail to see how the success of the Standard Model, the most accurate theory ever devised by human beings, is just "handwaving generalities".

 

[Billy T]

I fail to see how the success of the Standard Model, the most accurate theory ever devised by human beings, is just "handwaving generalities".

Of course I agree with you, but I was just wondering how accurate it is? I think probably the fine structure constant has been calculated with a lot of care. (I think it must be part of what you are calling the Standard Model.) If it is easy for you quote, how many significant figures is the calculation out to now? How many places can best measurements get to? Do they agree to how many places? If α is not the best example, chose what every you like or can easily get hands on.

Display of some of physics jewels might dazzel some of the crackpots here, but I doubt it.

BTW you are totally ineligible / unqualified to publish / in the conference proceeding I edit, even if you paid twice the normal $10 processing fee.

Billy T, Editor of the proceeding of the Conference Relating All Common Karma Propositions Or Theories.

PS - For triple the fee, we can discuss it.

In case you were wondering or feeling slighted, 2inquisitive, you are ineligible also (Bet that is your first rejection notice prior to submission.)

 

[2inquisitive]

I fail to see how the success of the Standard Model, the most accurate theory ever devised by human beings, is just "handwaving generalities".

I did not say anything about the Standard Model. YOU stated the following:

"The full Standard Model is the most accurarate theory ever devised by humanity and is in perfect accord with the theory of relativity."

That is what I refer to as a 'handwaving generality'. Perfect accord with
relativity???? Special or General or both? Let's look at a few 'generalities'.
(1) The Higgs Field (an ether) is absolutely indepensable to the Standard Model. This is, of course, in 'perfect accord' with Special Theory, correct?

(2) The neutrino was predicted to be a massless particle that travels at 'c'.
The neutrino has positively been found to have mass. Does it travel at 'c'?

(3) The Standard Model and Quantum Field Theory are both incompatible
with relativity, both mathematically and conceptually.

But you state they are in 'perfect accord'. Care to explain?

 

[Physics Monkey]

Billy T,

The classic success of the Standard Model is the prediction of the electron magnetic moment g. Values are usually quoted as a=(g-2)/2:

a_exp = 1 159 652 188.4 (4.3) * 10^-12

a_th = 1 159 652 216.0 (1.2) * 10^-12

The interesting thing is that the theoretical value is actually limited by the experimental uncertainty in the fine structure 'constant' (here I've use the value of alpha from muonium experiments). The agreement isn't too shabby.

Ref: V. Hughes, and T. Kinoshita, Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, S133–S139 (1999)

 

[Physics Monkey]

2inquisitive,

In the SM, the Higgs field is a relativstic quantum field, not an "ether".

The SM can accomodate both massive and massless neutrinos. Current experiments indicate neutrinos have mass, and the SM can handle it. As massive particles, neutrinos travel at less than the speed of light.

I don't know where you got the idea that, "The Standard Model and Quantum Field Theory are both incompatible with relativity, both mathematically and conceptually." The SM is a relativistic quantum field theory, it has relativity built in from the very start. Please, don't argue on this one, it isn't open for debate: the SM is relativistic.

 

[1100f]

(3) The Standard Model and Quantum Field Theory are both incompatible
with relativity, both mathematically and conceptually.

The entities that are used in QFT (scalars, vectors, Dirac spinors, Weyl Spinors,,,) are all representations of the Poincare group.
The Lagrangians that are used (including the SM Lagrangian) are Lorentz scalars.
QFT is done in the framework of relativity.
Why do you claim that they are incompatible?

 

[2inquisitive]

For a quick and easy reference, here is one the incompatibilities between General Relativity and QFT to begin with, taken from everyone's favorite, Wikipedia:

"Much of the difficulty in merging these theories comes from the radically different assumptions that these theories make on how the universe works. Quantum field theory depends on particle fields embedded in the flat space-time of special relativity. General relativity models gravity as a curvature within space-time that changes as mass moves. The most obvious ways of combining the two (such as treating gravity as simply another particle field) run quickly into what is known as the renormalization problem. Gravity particles would attract each other and adding together all of the interactions results in many infinite values which cannot easily be cancelled out mathematically to yield sensible, finite results."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity

Here is an article from CalTech addressing the problem. You are aware The Standard Model is a Quantum Theory and does not address gravity, right? QFT is the Standard Model's stepchild to address gravity.


"The results described above constitute quite an achievement for one century, but it leaves us with one fundamental contradiction that still needs to be resolved. General relativity and quantum field theory are incompatible. Many theorical physicists are convinced that superstring theory will provide the answer. There have been major advances in our understanding of this subject, which I consider to constitute the ``second superstring revolution,'' during the past few years.
After presenting some more background, I will describe the recent developments and their implications.
There are various problems that arise when one attempts to combine general relativity and quantum field theory. The field theorist would point to the breakdown of the usual procedure for eliminating infinities from calculations of physical quantities. This procedure is called "renormalization", and when it fails the theory is said to be "non-renormalizable."
In such theories the short-distance behaviour of interactions is so singular that it is not possible to carry out meaningful calculations. By replacing point-like particles with one-dimensional extended strings, as the fundamental objects, superstring theory overcomes the problem of non-renormalizability.
An expert in general relativity might point to a different set of problems such as the issue of how to understand the causal structure of space-time when the geometry has quantum-mechanical excitations. There are also a host of problems associated to black holes such as the fundamental origin of their thermodynamic properties and their apparent incompatibility with quantum mechanics. The latter, if true, would mean that a modification in the basic structure of quantum mechanics is required.
In fact, superstring theory does not modify quantum mechanics; rather, it modifies general relativity. The relativist's set of issues cannot be addressed properly in the usual approach to quantum field theory (perturbation theory), but the recent discoveries are leading to non-perturbative understandings that should help in addressing them."
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/jhs/strings/str115.html

Of course, Loop Quantum Gravity is another approach trying to unify GR and QM.
I don't know why you ask these questions, there are many, many papers addressing
the problem. Do you know of ANY successful unification of GR and QM to date, a theory that has been carried through to completion?

 

[Physics Monkey]

2inquisitive,

The SM has special relativity built in from the start and has passed every experimental test (with the possible exception of muon g-2). In this sense it is fully compatible with relativity. It does better than that even, a la Hawking radiation: qauntum field theory in a curved spacetime. Moreover, the view of gravity as a useless non-renormalizable field theory is dated. The modern view of the SM and quantum field theory is in terms of effective field theory. As a quantum field theory, gravity does appear non-renormalizable, but as Weinberg and others have emphasized, at a given energy scale below the scale of new physics, non-renormalizable theories can be just as predictive as renormalizable ones. Quantum predictions can be made about gravity in the context of effective field theory. One good reference: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9512024

Is the SM "fundementally incompatible" with gravitational effects? No.
Is the SM a full quantum theory of gravity? No.
Will it be included in a more general theory of quantum gravity just as special relativity is included in the more general theory of general relativity? Yes.

 

[c20H25N3o]

Please could someone simplify what is being discussed? MacM invited all to participate but I feel excluded because i am not understanding some of the basic principals i fear. Fair enough if no one can be bothered, there are a lot of smart people here, but I would really like to be able to look at the problem objectively.

thanks in advance

c20

 

[2inquisitive]

Yes, PM, SM is built on FLAT spacetime. The major contribution from ST is the Lorentz
transforms, whereby particles become increasingly more difficult to accelerate as their
velocity nears 'c'. It also takes tremendous energy to keep the particles at this same
velocity. Decrease the energy accelerating the particles, the particles will SLOW DOWN. There are not in an inertial frame, the bread and butter of Special Theory.

Regarding black holes and QFT/GR. One of classical General Relativity's 'laws' is that the event horizon of a black hole can NEVER decrease in size, it can only increase.
Hawking Radiation states the event horizon CAN decrease in size by radiation of virtual particles. This occurs by stating gravitational effects in FLAT SPACETIME, not the curved spacetime of GR. In the Hawking Radiation theory, an observer 'fixed' at a location above the event horizon will see the radiation comming from inside the event horizon. By this I mean the virtual particle are created ON the surface of the event horizon and the observer has to be above this point. An observer 'falling' through the event horizon would experience nothing unusual, he would not be 'stretched' by tidal forces, unlike in classical GR. Classical
GR uses a frame of reference whose coordinates move through spacetime, it does not
use the 'rest frame' of an observer as used in SR/QFT. That is generally where the
incompatibility lies.