|
Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? |  | Author: Tom Bethell
Publisher: Vales Lake Publishing, LLC
Buy New: $23.95
as of 11/25/2009 02:38 CST details
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 104006
Media: Perfect Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 205
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0971484597
EAN: 9780971484597
ASIN: 0971484597
Publication Date: July 15, 2009
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? by Tom Bethell is a serious scholarly work that is very well written, absorbing the reader in a tale of long-neglected experimental results that plays out to a deep satisfaction in finally answering the question, "Why can't I understand relativity?" This is a fresh, unique review of both special and general relativity. It takes for granted that Einstein s mathematics is properly done. It does not quarrel with the numerous experimental results that support Einstein's general relativity theory. Then what is the quarrel with Einstein? Bethell argues that special relativity theory is wrong and general relativity theory is not necessary. For example, Einstein himself derived E = mc2 without relativity theory, and he also argued in a lecture in 1920 at Leiden that space without ether is unthinkable, only 15 years after having said that the ether was superfluous. Bethell's book is not mathematical; after all, he does not quarrel with Einstein s mathematics. Importantly, it is strongly based on experimental foundations. Time dilation, for example, is supported by but not proved by moving muons and clocks carried around the globe. In particular, Bethell promotes Petr Beckmann s case that the medium of propagation of light is the dominant gravitational field. That idea is actually part and parcel of Einstein s general theory of relativity, save that the latter hides the simplicity behind tensors in curved space-time.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Petr Beckmann's Relativity September 11, 2009
Neil DeRosa (NY United States)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary
by, Tom Bethell
That a book by a great and established writer like Tom Bethell, who is a long-time science writer and political columnist at The American Spectator, hasn't been officially reviewed yet, says more about those who pose as the intellectual and editorial guardians of literature than it does about the quality of this book or the stature of its author. In fact, it is an engaging, well researched book about one of the most interesting paradigm struggles of the twentieth century (and still ongoing today). That Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (SR) was influenced by and made quickly popular by the relativistic ideologies of its time (1905) seems to this writer a foregone conclusion. But it was the Michelson-Morley experiment that failed to detect a "luminiferous ether," which gave SR scientific credibility. But Michelson himself soon doubted its conclusions and proved it in the later Michelson-Gale experiment which did detect an ether.
H. Lorentz, a contemporary of Einstein, and a scientist of equal stature, argued in numerous debates with Einstein that all "relativistic effects" (such as the bending of starlight as it passes near the sun) were the result of light traveling through an "entrained ether" which surrounds and moves with planetary bodies--otherwise known as the gravitational field. Other well-known physicists of the day also doubted the veracity of SR, especially its principle of space-time distortion. A few were: Herbert Dingle, whose "paradox" asked the question of which "clock" would run slow (and thus experience time dilation predicted by SR) of two relativistic travelers; as for example two rocket ships in different inertial frames (i.e., going at different speeds relative to each other). Another physicist, H. Ives, of the famous Ives-Stillwell experiment to test the Doppler effect of fast moving mesons, became a lifelong enemy of Einstein because he felt that his results were being misinterpreted. And there were many others who disagreed with Einstein's fundamental conclusions.
Even Einstein himself, as Bethell points out, later in life admitted that forces propagating through empty space without a medium in which they could be conveyed, was a logical absurdity--a fact never mentioned in textbooks, or in other "easy Einstein" books. In the later part of the twentieth century, other scientific critics picked up where Lorentz and his contemporaries had left off. Among them were Tom Van Flandern, Carver Mead, and Petr Beckmann. Bethell concentrates on Beckmann's critique, written in a technical book called Einstein Plus Two, in which the author claims that all the effects of both Special and General Relativity can be explained using classical physics. Bethell brings Beckmann's book down to earth from the arcane heights of Mt. Olympus by rendering Beckmann's mathematical descriptions understandable to the layman.
If you are interested in the history of one of the most pivotal scientific ideas of our time, if you have always believed that the world should make sense but would still like to know about the mysteries of relativity, this book may be for you. And this reviewer might add that although Bethell might not know it yet, this may be his most significant book.
|
|
|
|
Return to Math.com | |
