Post by Pentcho Valevhttp://youtu.be/rHDjSDZ8VvM
Professors Max Tegmark and Tali Figueroa at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology composed the hymn "YES WE ALL BELIEVE IN RELATIVITY,
RELATIVITY, RELATIVITY" because, by fiercely singing:
"Einstein's postulates imply that planes are shorter when they fly.
Their clocks are slowed by time dilation, and look warped from
aberration.
.............
Everything is relative, even simultaneity, and soon Einstein's become
a de facto physics deity. 'cos we all believe in relativity, 8.033,
relativity.
.............
We all live in an expanding universe, expanding universe, expanding
universe. Yes we all live in an expanding universe, expanding
universe, expanding universe."
students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology can learn Einstein's
special and general theories of relativity in 6 minutes:
http://youtu.be/5PkLLXhONvQ
"Learn Einstein's special and general theories of relativity in 6
minutes, MIT style, in song form. This is what professors Max Tegmark
& Tali Figueroa inflicted on their students to prep them for their
final exam."
Judging from the following quotations, by fiercely singing the hymn
"YES WE ALL BELIEVE IN RELATIVITY, RELATIVITY, RELATIVITY", students
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology can learn not only Einstein's
special and general theories of relativity in 6 minutes but also the
whole contemporary physics in 6 minutes:
Albert Einstein: "If the speed of light is the least bit affected by
the speed of the light source, then my whole theory of relativity and
theory of gravity is false."
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/pdf/files/975547d7-2d00-433a-b7e3-4a09145525ca.pdf
John Stachel: "It is not so well known that there was "ANOTHER
EINSTEIN," who from 1916 on was skeptical about the continuum as a
foundational element in physics..." Albert Einstein: "I consider it
entirely possible that PHYSICS CANNOT BE BASED UPON THE FIELD CONCEPT,
THAT IS ON CONTINUOUS STRUCTURES. Then NOTHING WILL REMAIN of my whole
castle in the air, including the theory of gravitation, but also
NOTHING OF THE REST OF CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20279
Lee Smolin: "It is also disappointing that none of the biographers
mention the writings that lead John Stachel, the founding editor of
the Einstein Papers project, to speak of "THE OTHER EINSTEIN." These
writings look beyond his struggles with the unified field theory to
"THE OTHER POSSIBILITY...."
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm
Lee Smolin: "Quantum theory was not the only theory that bothered
Einstein. Few people have appreciated how dissatisfied he was with his
own theories of relativity. Special relativity grew out of Einstein's
insight that the laws of electromagnetism cannot depend on relative
motion and that the speed of light therefore must be always the same,
no matter how the source or the observer moves. Among the consequences
of that theory are that energy and mass are equivalent (the now-
legendary relationship E = mc2) and that time and distance are
relative, not absolute. SPECIAL RELATIVITY WAS THE RESULT OF 10 YEARS
OF INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE, YET EINSTEIN HAD CONVINCED HIMSELF IT WAS
WRONG WITHIN TWO YEARS OF PUBLISHING IT."
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/OntologyOUP_TimesNR.pdf
"What Can We Learn about the Ontology of Space and Time from the
Theory of Relativity?", John D. Norton: "In general relativity there
is no comparable sense of the constancy of the speed of light. The
constancy of the speed of light is a consequence of the perfect
homogeneity of spacetime presumed in special relativity. There is a
special velocity at each event; homogeneity forces it to be the same
velocity everywhere. We lose that homogeneity in the transition to
general relativity and with it we lose the constancy of the speed of
light. Such was Einstein's conclusion at the earliest moments of his
preparation for general relativity. ALREADY IN 1907, A MERE TWO YEARS
AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE SPECIAL THEORY, HE HAD CONCLUDED THAT THE
SPEED OF LIGHT IS VARIABLE IN THE PRESENCE OF A GRAVITATIONAL
FIELD."
http://ustl1.univ-lille1.fr/culture/publication/lna/detail/lna40/pgs/4_5.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "Il n'y a alors aucune raison theorique a ce que la
vitesse de la lumiere ne depende pas de la vitesse de sa source ainsi
que de celle de l'observateur terrestre ; plus clairement encore, il
n'y a pas de raison, dans le cadre de la logique des Principia de
Newton, pour que la lumiere se comporte autrement - quant a sa
trajectoire - qu'une particule materielle. Il n'y a pas non plus de
raison pour que la lumiere ne soit pas sensible a la gravitation.
Bref, pourquoi ne pas appliquer a la lumiere toute la theorie
newtonienne ? C'est en fait ce que font plusieurs astronomes,
opticiens, philosophes de la nature a la fin du XVIIIeme siecle. Les
resultats sont etonnants... et aujourd'hui nouveaux."
Translation from French: "Therefore there is no theoretical reason why
the speed of light should not depend on the speed of the source and
the speed of the terrestrial observer as well; even more clearly,
there is no reason, in the framework of the logic of Newton's
Principia, why light should behave, as far as its trajectory is
concerned, differently from a material particle. Neither is there any
reason why light should not be sensible to gravitation. Briefly, why
don't we apply the whole Newtonian theory to light? In fact, that is
what many astronomers, opticians, philosophers of nature did by the
end of 18th century. The results are surprising....and new nowadays."
http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" by Banesh Hoffmann, Chapter 5.
(I do not have the text in English so I am giving it in French)
Banesh Hoffmann, "La relativite, histoire d'une grande idee", Pour la
Science, Paris, 1999, p. 112:
"De plus, si l'on admet que la lumiere est constituee de particules,
comme Einstein l'avait suggere dans son premier article, 13 semaines
plus tot, le second principe parait absurde: une pierre jetee d'un
train qui roule tres vite fait bien plus de degats que si on la jette
d'un train a l'arret. Or, d'apres Einstein, la vitesse d'une certaine
particule ne serait pas independante du mouvement du corps qui l'emet!
Si nous considerons que la lumiere est composee de particules qui
obeissent aux lois de Newton, ces particules se conformeront a la
relativite newtonienne. Dans ce cas, il n'est pas necessaire de
recourir a la contraction des longueurs, au temps local ou a la
transformation de Lorentz pour expliquer l'echec de l'experience de
Michelson-Morley. Einstein, comme nous l'avons vu, resista cependant a
la tentation d'expliquer ces echecs a l'aide des idees newtoniennes,
simples et familieres. Il introduisit son second postulat, plus ou
moins evident lorsqu'on pensait en termes d'ondes dans l'ether."
Translation from French: "Moreover, if one admits that light consists
of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his first paper, 13 weeks
earlier, the second principle seems absurd: a stone thrown from a fast-
moving train causes much more damage than one thrown from a train at
rest. Now, according to Einstein, the speed of a particle would not be
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body! If we
consider light as composed of particles that obey Newton's laws, those
particles would conform to Newtonian relativity. In this case, it is
not necessary to resort to length contration, local time and Lorentz
transformations in explaining the negative result of the Michelson-
Morley experiment. Einstein however, as we have seen, resisted the
temptation to explain the negative result in terms of Newton's ideas,
simple and familiar. He introduced his second postulate, more or less
evident as one thinks in terms of waves in aether."
Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com
