A brief history of ‘Relativity’, why, who, how and Einstein’s open plagiarism.

Relativity was contrived to save the phenomena of Copernicanism. A fact rarely taught.

(the above are wrong of course)

Introduction

This is a short overview of Relativity. 

Who created ‘Relativity’?  What was the motivation? How was it was arrived at?  Why is Einstein given all the credit when his role was so minor?

These are questions that are rarely answered and are not found in most textbooks or histories of the topic.  There is a reason for that.  There is something to hide.

Relativity is a conceptual ‘macro’ theory of the universe and cosmology.  It is the reigning paradigmatic world view of physics.  Using only naturalistic observations and mathematics, Relativity attempts to explain space, time, the motions of objects, planets, the beginning and current functioning of our universe, and how Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations can be aligned with and improve Newtonian physics based on gravity and attraction. 

Relativity offers a unified view of macro-physics, albeit an incorrect one. 

The Myth

In outlining a brief history of Relativity many personalities and details are omitted due to length.  The purpose is to dispose of the myth that Einstein, through his own ‘genius’, alone, unaided, bearing the torch of reason and hope for all of mankind, toiled until he poured out his own blood in the form of ‘Relativity’ for our scientific and intellectual salvation.

No part of this Einstein myth is true.  He was no saint.  He was a philosopher, not a physicist.  Unjustly affixed to his name, Relativity has so many issues that a society which truly embraced reason and real science, would long ago have discarded it. But here we are, burdened by its distortions.

What problem were ‘Relativists’ trying to solve?

Hundreds of experiments during the 19^th century appeared to disprove both the Earth’s movement through space, and its diurnal rotation.  Few know this, it is rarely taught.  Copernicanism was therefore mechanically unproven.  One of the most famous of these experiments which found no movement in the Earth, was that of Michelson-Morley in 1887. 

Using advanced interferometer light-measurement experimentation, M&M found that measured against the aether, the Earth was moving between 0-5 or so km/sec, not the 30 km/sec they expected based on Copernican theory.  Importantly the result was NOT null.  The only way to explain this, along with hundreds of other similar failures, and to ‘save the phenomena’ of Copernicanism, was to invent ‘Relativity’.  Those who adhered to Copernican theory had to ‘prove’ that the Earth’s ‘Relative’ movement could not be detected because the mass of the Earth was changed due to its velocity affecting light speed measurement. 

This was the rationale to erect the entire edifice of Relativity which has distorted real science for the past 100 years.  If you try the M&M experiment today you will get the same results (post, details half way down).  But you now have ‘Relativity’ to save you.  Nothing to see here physics, move on now.  

Heliocentricty and Scientism (part 4). Dayton Miller and 30 years of proofs which negate STR and call into question Copernicanism.

The great French theoretical physicist Henri Poincaré took up the M&M challenge developing his ‘Principle of Relativity’.  The Dutchman Hendrik Lorentz was another flag carrier, creating the famous ‘Lorentz transformations’ which were used mostly in-toto, without reference, by Einstein.  Both men understood that the M&M experiment could not be reconciled with the prevailing interpretation of Maxwell’s equations or Copernicanism.  They knew that a new theory of space and time was needed, namely ‘Relativity’. 

Maxwell’s equations

In 1861 the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell published perhaps the most important set of equations in the history of science on electromagnetism.  Some of the complex equations had been previously discovered by others, but as a package they described electricity and magnetism, and are named ‘Maxwell’s equations’.  The equations are important because they describe how electric charges cause electric fields, and how moving electric charges or electric currents cause magnetism.  Maxwell’s equations are however, not ‘Relativistic’. They had to be amended to fit into ‘Relativity’.

Maxwell’s equations propose that electric and magnetic fields propagate through space like waves traveling at the speed of light.  Radio waves and ordinary visible light waves, which are emitted and transferred as photons or particles, are examples of electromagnetic waves.  Radio communications were invented as a byproduct of attempts by Hertz and others to demonstrate the waves that Maxwell’s equations predicted.

Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism in one theory.  This unification was more directly combined in Special Relativity.  Magnetism is now considered a relativistic effect though ‘Relativity’ has little to do with the properties of electromagnetism, fields, charges or currents in reality.  There is absolute magnetism of course.  Magnetism was simply appropriated by Relativists to combine Maxwell’s theorems with that of Newtonian physics.  

What is Relativity?

‘Relativity’ is shrouded in incense and priestly lore.  The basis of Relativity is simple, especially when viewed in the context of the failures to mechanically prove Copernican theory.  Most of Relativity as a theory, popularised by Einstein in this 1905 paper, was expressed in great detail by Lorentz and Poincaré from 1892 to 1905.  We can list some of the more important aspects of ‘Relativity’ which long pre-date the saint and apostle Einstein:

The key ‘principle’ within Relativity is that different inertial frames are indistinguishable (this can be traced back to Galileo and Newton),

By inertial frames we mean frames which describe a stationary or uniformly moving frame of reference (or a grid map),

In stationary or uniformly moving frames, reference objects will be inert or at rest until acted upon by an external force (Newton’s first law of motion),

It was Poincaré who call this key ‘principle’ ‘Relativity’, even though Maxwell’s electromagnetic theories supplied theoretical proof that this principle is wrong!

Lorentz’s transformations, related this ‘principle’ to different frames of reference (inertial, non-inertial),

The invariance of Maxwell’s equations was addressed by both Poincaré and Lorentz,

By invariance we mean that the equations hold true in all reference frames,

Both men averred that the speed of light must be constant for all observers in all reference frames (this is wrong as many posts here outline),

For Relativity to work, both men theorised that there must be a 4th dimension of space merged with time, to escape from the Euclidean and Maxwellian world of 3 dimensions,

Spacetime must have a metric structure, independent of electromagnetism, and the symmetries of that metric structure explain the indistinguishability (or sameness) of different frames,

By metric structure we mean the calculation of 2 points within a reference grid, combining algebra and geometry to describe how the space between the 2 points behaves through distances and angles associated with functions on that space (expressed in tensor calculus),

Poincaré first proposed that within spacetime there is a mass energy equivalence given by E=mc² based on metric structures, (see why E=MC2 is wrong)

The ‘laws’ of physics apply to all reference frames.

In simple terms the above is the core of Relativity.  The hinge of the theory is spacetime. Without merging space and time into a 4th dimension objects cannot change shape and mass due to velocity (Netwonian physics states that masses do not change with velocity) and time dilation is unthinkable.

This unproven idea, which is rarely criticised, but it is almost certainly wrong, is the lynchpin of Relativity.  It is however entirely theoretical, and I would argue, nonsensical. Relativity is of course disproven by quantum mechanics, positrons, and plancktons (along with dozens of other physical reasons). But on we go, let’s accept it all at face value.

Einstein was wrong. Quantum Mechanics, Plancktons and the real world of particles.

Scientism and the Special Theory of Relativity. Part One (b), A layman’s overview of STR and an introduction of potential defects.

Philosophy not physics

What we can see is that the above philosophical-mathematical approach as outlined, is contrived to first merge, and then bend and curve space and time.  This allows Relativists to coerce mass dilation through velocity, and force Relativity within space and time to make the mechanical measurement of the Earth’s orbit in space against an aether, or against a reference frame, impossible.  This then would allow physicists to avoid the horrible conclusions posed by the 1887 M&M experiment (along with thousands of others which disproved Copernican expectations).  

Relativity is in essence the last option to explain why we can’t measure the Earth’s mobility.  It was and is the only default position of Copernicans and physicists who refuse to address the conclusions of interferometer experiments.  It is the ugly kid who wins the beauty contest only because the judges have decided there is only one competitor. 

Relativity in the ‘Aether’

In 1889, the Irish physicist George FitzGerald wrote a short note where he pointed out that the Michelson-Morley experiment was in obvious conflict with the motion of the Earth through the aether.  The only hypothesis and reconciliation available was that the length of material bodies i.e. the Earth, will change as they are in motion moving through the ether or across it.  This mass ‘dilation’ would depend on the square of the ratio of the velocity to that of the speed of light which was the basis of the M&M interferometer experiment.  In simpler terms the FitzGerald supposition was that the molecular forces of masses are affected by motion and that the size of the body in movement will be altered.

Lorentz used nearly identical logic in his 1892 work on electron theory.  Lorentz believed in a ‘mobile’, ‘relative’ ‘ether’.  Aether or ether was the 19^th century description of the materiality of space.  Today it is called ‘Dark Matter’ to save the blushes and shame of physicists who rejected the aether based on Einstein’s Special Relativity of 1905, but who supported its reinsertion into his General Relativity in 1916.  To get Big Bang equations to balance, ‘the science’ needs an aether, except they can’t call it an aether. Consistency, settled science and all that.

Einstein and his Ether. Refuting his own theories of Relativity and make-believe.

Lorentz also described two theories about how the aether is dragged along with the Earth, including the 1818 theory by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel. Lorentz admitted that the Michelson-Morley experiment posed a ‘great difficulty’ for Copernicans and deduced that a length contraction in the Earth, as it moved through the mobile aether, made measurement of the Earth’s mobility impossible.  As with FitzGerald, Lorentz proposed an electromagnetic causation for the contraction of the Earth has it moved through the aether.  

In 1902, Poincaré published a popular book called Science and Hypothesis in which he boldly declared that uniform motion was undetectable.  He said that all the laws of physics were valid in any such frame of reference, and that there was nothing that anyone could do to distinguish one such frame from another.  He called it the ‘Principle of Relativity’.  This was 3 years before Einstein published his own remarkably similar tract. 

Einstein the Patent Clerk

Einstein was a patent clerk, checking patents and copyrights for scientific publications.  Most people don’t know this, but such a position afforded Einstein the opportunity to read all the latest scientific literature.  He was therefore well acquainted with the work and publications of physicists and Relativists.  He later wrote that one had to be clever and hide the sources for one’s information.  He was certainly a master of that. 

Einstein’s famous 1905 paper on Special Relativity and ‘The Electrodynamics of moving bodies’, is half kinematic (energy) and half electromagnetic, and it was an exposition of the easy part of Relativity (Schafly, 2011).  Einstein’s kinematic section explains how the Lorentz transformations can be deduced from the speed of light appearing to be the same to all observers (which is wrong), without mentioning Michelson-Morley, FitzGerald, Lorentz, Poincaré, or the others who had performed the work and analysis.  There are no references in Einstein’s paper.  He simply makes statements and shows inferior maths when compared to the aforementioned actors but gives the impression that he created all of it ex nihilo. 

Sagnac’s experiment disproving Special Relativity and the constant ‘speed of light’.

Einstein’s electromagnetic section is also an account of Lorentz’s 1895 theorem.  The paper did present the higher-order velocity effects (why a mass will change shape) which was an improvement over the earlier papers from Lorentz and Poincaré, but it was very similar to their later pre-1905 papers (Schafly, 2011).  Eintstein’s 1905 thesis was considered an embellishment of Lorentz’s theory by physicists at the time, not an eye opening ‘revolution’.  In 1906, Lorentz described Einstein’s work as adding an interpretation of local time by means of clock synchronization.  It was a minor addition to the existing corpus on Relativity. 

Einstein invented very little

(all of the above is wrong)

The essence of Special Relativity is the 4-dimensional geometry of spacetime and the electromagnetic covariance.  Electromagnetic covariance is a simpler way of describing a ‘tensor’ (calculus) which renders the laws of classical electromagnetism in a form that is invariant, or unchanging, under Lorentz transformations (or the effects of Relative motion).  These equations are wrong, but let’s accept them at face value.  While elegant and impressive, they are maths and theories, and do not represent actual phenomena. 

The point to be made is that the great apostle and saint Einstein invented very little.  Any real history of Relativity will show you that his mathematics was inferior to the men mentioned above.  He performed no physical experiments to prove his mental theories.  As with Newton, who would have been nothing without Kepler and Tycho Brahe, but who never referenced their work; Einstein would not have had a God-granted clue about Relativity without Lorentz, Poincaré and FitzGerald.  As an eager patent clerk, he had full access to all their papers and ideas.  Yet not once does he attribute their work in his own.  What does that say about Einstein and ‘The Science’?

Einstein’s 1905 paper was never viewed as a revolutionary breakthrough by his contemporaries, but only as a very minor elaboration of the work of Lorentz and others.  It was not until Minkowski’s 1908 lecture that Relativity became regarded as a new theory of space and time.  It was Minkowski, Einstein’s maths teacher, who created the maths and theorems to explain the merger of space with time.  This concept was by necessity expostulated by Lorentz and Poincaré, but it was Minkowski’s calculus which provided the theoretical ‘proof’ of a 4^th dimension. 

At first Einstein rightly rejected Minkowski’s spacetime confusion as absurd.  When it was obvious that the merger of spacetime was mandatory to make Relativity ‘work’ (at least in mathematical terms), he adopted it whole and of course never referenced his debt to Minkowski.  He simply appropriated it around 1910, some 5 years after his first paper on Relativity.  Lorentz and Poincaré had already surmised some 10-20 years previously, that for Relativity to ‘work’, spacetime had to be combined.  Their ideas on this new dimension were never referenced by Einstein.

Scientism and the Special Theory of Relativity. Part Two: A layman’s overview of key scientists and their influence on STR.

Summary

Special Relativity is in the opinion of objective and mechanical science, wrong.  It was created to explain away the failures of detecting the Earth’s motion.  Even if you believe in Relativity, it is a faith based on maths not experimental evidence. 

It is also obvious that Einstein’s role in science, physics and with creating Relativity is vastly exaggerated.  His veneration as ‘The Science’ is a cult of worship, and is not based on reality or evidence.  Few have heard of Poincaré, Lorentz, FitzGerald or Minkowski amongst many others which could be named.  All effaced from history.  

Poincaré, Lorentz, FitzGerald, Minkowski, Mach and many others were the real trailblazing adventurers in physics and cosmological science, highly intelligent and imaginative.  Even if we disagree with their conclusions, we have no choice but to be extremely impressed by their insights and outputs.  Without them Einstein would have published nothing. 

In the great sweep of the history of ‘science’, the development of special relativity was therefore due to many actors and has little to do with Einstein. 

·        Maxwell’s electromagnetism theorems are NOT relativistic but do describe how energy and electricity are based on magnetism, creating a future dilemna for Lorentz and others.

·        Michelson and Morley did the crucial experiment which created the ultimate paradox for Copernicans in that the Earth’s mobility could not be proven.

·        Lorentz showed how transformations of space and time could resolve the M&M paradox, though these are almost purely thought experiments though more physically-based than those of Einstein. 

·        FitzGerald provided theoretical justification for mass dilation from electromagnetism to help solution the M&M paradox.

·        Poincaré turned Lorentz’s and FitzGerald’s ideas into a modern theory founded on the non-Euclidean geometry of spacetime by adding a 4th dimension. 

·        Minkowski popularized Poincaré’s theory and added the requisite maths.

·        For the record E=MC2 was invented and published long before Einstein included it in his theories (Ohanian, 2009).

There were also contributions by Voigt, Larmor, Planck, and of course Saint Einstein, but they had little effect on how Special Relativity became the canonical catechism of modern physics. Einstein was given credit because his work was simpler and easier to understand.

The bottom line is that Einstein’s mythological status is as risible as that of Galileo’s.  Relativity is in essence a fantasy world based on mathematical models and theories and has diverted real science away from mechanical, deductive, aposteriori experimentation and proof.  It was pursued and elevated to gospel for a very dark reason which is never discussed. We are poorer for it and now live under ‘Scientism’, where arcane models now rule how we should think and what we should believe.   

All hail.

==

Note:  For example, Einstein debased Poincaré at a 1911 conference, castigated him for non-Euclidean geometry in 1921, and denied in 1953 that he had known about Poincaré's relativity papers.  Einstein even denied to his biographer Abraham Pais that he ever read Poincaré's long 1905 relativity paper.  But Einstein had mentioned ideas from that paper in a 1919 letter to Hilbert. See ‘Einstein's E = mc² mistakes’, by Hans C. Ohanian, arXiv:0805.1400v2, 2008. Einstein was a plagiarist.

==Sources

Links in the text.

Roberto de Andrade (2005) Mechanics and Electromagnetism in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Dynamics of Maxwell's Ether.

Oliver Darrigol, (2000), Electrodynamics from Ampére to Einstein

M. Janssen, J. Stachel, (2004) The Optics and Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, Max Planck. Inst. Hist. Sci.

Oliver Lodge (1925) Ether and Reality (delves into metaphysics as well)

H. Nordenson, (1969) Relativity, Time and Reality, Georg Allen and Unwin Ltd., London.

J. E. Persson, (2010) The empirical background behind relativity, Physics Essays Vol. 23, (634-640).

Robert Resnick (1972) Wikibook: Special Theory of Relativity, Basic Concepts of Relativity and Early Quantum Theory

C. C. Su, (2001), J. C. Eur. Phys 21, 701-715

Kenneth Schaffner (1972), Nineteenth-century aether theories, Oxford

Florentin Smarandache (2013) Unsolved problems in special and general relativity

Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1910), A History of the theories of aether and electricity

Roger Schlafly (2011), How Einstein Ruined Physics: Motion, Symmetry, and Revolution in Science

Hans C. Ohanian, Did Einstein prove E = mc²?, 2008, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009) 167–173. This says that Laue published the first valid proof in 1911.