Einstein, reimagining Maxwell, ignoring physical evidence, denying the Aether and erecting the fantasy world of Relativity.

Physical evidence, including magnetism, nullifies Relativity. Einstein never deployed physical experimentation. Everything was a philosophical thought experiment and mathematical sophistry.

“The interplanetary and interstellar spaces are not empty, but are occupied by a material substance or body, which is certainly the largest, and probably the most uniform body of which we have any knowledge”

(Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, 1965, “Ether,” p. 775

What led me more or less directly to the Special Theory of Relativity was the conviction that the electromotive force acting on a body in motion in a magnetic field was nothing else but an electric field. But I was also guided by the result of the Fizeau experiment and the phenomenon of aberration.”^{1 (Dec 19, 1952 letter to his hitman Shankland)}

No movement of the Earth

Fizeau’s water experiment found no movement of the Earth. Neither did the Michelson-Morley effort of 1887. For Einstein, Relativity became an imperative premised on the supposed anomaly he found between Maxwell’s electromagnetism and mechanical motion, namely the lack of the Earth’s mechanical motion.

To explain heliocentricity Einstein had to contend with the failures of the Fizeau, Michelson and Airy experiments on the one hand, and with the widely accepted aether and electromagnetic theories and equations of James Clerk Maxwell on the other. After 1887 he had to reinterpret these catastrophic failures to save the Copernican phenomena.

“It is no doubt that Michelson’s experiment was of considerable influence upon my work insofar as it strengthened my conviction concerning the validity of the principle of the Special Theory of Relativity.”^{2 (March 17, 1942)}

The above statement is classic Einstein. He purposefully misinterprets what the Michelson-Morley (MM) experiment actually found and tautologically declares that as supporting proof for his mental gymnastics! (see below)

Einstein removes the Aether

Impelled by Fizeau and MM, Einstein’s main impetus to jettison Maxwell’s aether was to create a universe of ‘relative motion’ and to ‘bridge’ the connection between the ‘laws of electrodynamics’ and the MM experiment. He made this connection in his famous 1905 paper which outlined Special Relativity:

“Examples of this sort [anomalies in electro-magnetic correspondence] together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the Earth relative to the ‘light medium,’ suggests that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest.”³

Einstotle interpreted the results of these failures to find the Earth’s motion to fit in with his philosophy. He could just as well have determined that the Earth does not move, and as with Kepler the conniver, erected complicated maths to prove such a demonstrable fact, at least based on recent experiments (in fact Relativity offers more support for the Earth’s immobility, than it does for its mobility which shocks the bien pensant!).

Philosophically, Einstotle decided that there can be no absolute Newtonian rest or reference frame, and by default no Maxwellian aether. No fixed frame of reference became the fundamental postulate of Relativity theory, along with the invariance of light speed (which is wrong), and the merger of space with time (which is wrong). If there was no absolute rest for macro-objects such as the Earth, Einstotle philosophised, at least in mathematical terms, that there must be none in the micro-world (e.g., electricity and magnetism as explained by Maxwell’s equations).

Macro and micro - all was ‘relative’. This is the core of his philosophy as outlined in the very first sentence of his 1905 paper, in which he disingenously states that Maxwell’s theories are incorrect (‘not inherent in the phenomena’). What he really meant was that no movement of the Earth against an aether was the issue:

“It is known that Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics – as usually understood at the present time – when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena.”⁴

Mad Maxxing

In the mid-19^th century, James Maxwell, building on Faraday and others, constructed theorems to explain electromagnetism. Maxwell believed that the aether was a material substance with elasticity, made up of vortices (Descartes) and what he called ‘idle wheels’ (rather unclear what he meant by these). Electricity and magnetism were created by a deformation of the vortices and the wheels within this very ponderable aether. By the continual process of deformation and rotation of the wheels, electromagnetism could then be expressed by his four equations. ^{5 (equations in the footnote)}

Maxwell’s theorems explaining electromagnetism, differ from one another, but the actual phenomenon they represent is the same based on an absolute aether. In Einstein’s interpretation of Maxwell, he refers to the fact that Maxwell built one equation for finding the electromotive force produced in a conductor moving past a stationary magnet, but another equation for a magnet moving past a stationary conductor, even though both movements produced precisely the same current, a fact already known since the experiments of Faraday in 1831. There is nothing wrong with this - unless you are Einstotle.

Maxwell’s electromotive force:

The ‘classical physics’ explanation of the above theorem did not satisfy Einstein. Classical theory postulates that:

1. If the conductor is moving toward a fixed magnet, the electrical charge in the conductor is pulled around the conductor by the force of the magnetic field.

2. If the magnet is moving toward the conductor, the increasing magnetic field produces an electric field that drives the charge around the conductor.

Einstein describes his (irrational) problem with this explanation:

“But if the magnet is stationary and the conductor in motion (see Fig. 3), no electric field arises in the neighborhood of the magnet. In the conductor, however, we find an electromotive force, to which in itself there is no corresponding energy, but which gives rise – assuming the equality of the relative motion in the two cases discussed – of electric currents of the same path and intensity as those produced by the electric form in the former case.”⁶

Einstotle’s (irrational) objection is based on his apriori statement: “…assuming the equality of the relative motion in the two cases discussed…” Einstein assumed that ‘relative motion’ was identical in both cases and expected in both cases, and the current produced should either always be around the magnet or always around the conductor and not switch between the magnet and the conductor. Since the results were not identical, Einstein sought to find a reason, but he would do so assuming the ‘principle’ (tautological) of Relativity.^{7 (Relativity’s electromagnetism)}

Problems to Reconcile

Einstotle’s philosophical imperative was to conjure mathematical support for his version of Relativity (many ‘Relativity’s have existed since the Middle Ages); to deny the Earth as an immovable frame of reference. Einstein sought to explain both the Maxwell and the Michelson-Morley phenomena purely from a Relativistic standpoint so that it would make no difference whether the magnet or the conductor is at rest, or whether the Earth or the universe is at rest.

This then is the principal reason Einstein sought to eliminate the aether, since, as Maxwell’s equations and Michelson-Morley’s experiment dictated, an aether will help us to choose which frame of reference is correct.

The issue was simply that Maxwell’s entire corpus, theoretically explaining electro-magnetism was based on an aether, fixed absolutes and had nothing to do with Relativity….

“However, it appeared that Maxwell’s equations did not satisfy the relativity principle. They were not the same in all inertial reference frames…Thus, although most of the laws of physics obeyed the relativity principle, the laws of electricity and magnetism…apparently did not. Instead, they seemed to single out one reference frame that was better than any other – a reference frame that could be considered to be absolutely at rest.”⁸

It should be noted that Maxwell’s theorems assume that magnetism is velocity dependent, and thus directionally dependent within its absolute frame, or the aether.

Magnetism has no relationship to relative velocities. Magnetism is velocity dependent.

Based on the above fact, Einstotle’s entire theory of Relativity was doomed.

Magnetism has been the hill of death for every cosmological perspective that has attempted to mechanically prove the Earth’s motion, including Galilean relativity, Newtonian relativity and Einsteinian relativity. Magnetism, as opposed to gravity and electricity, is velocity dependent [E = v$]. The force of magnetism is: F = q₁q₂v₂ × (v₁ × r)/r², where q = the electric charge. As Maxwell proved, there is nothing ‘relative’ about magnetism.

Maxwell vs Galilean Relativity

To justify Relativity, Einstein had to incorporate Maxwell’s widely accepted theorems. First, he had to resolve the paradox of Maxwell’s equations with the Galilean understanding of space, or ‘Galilean Relativity’ which is given below:

· If a stationary person observes a moving object, he/she/it/zhe will observe one velocity and;

· A second he/she/it/zhe who is in motion, ‘observing’ the same object, will calculate a different velocity,

· The above, based on ‘observer’ status will also impact equations related to light speed.

These Galilean mechanics indicate that the source’s velocity or the observer’s velocity will add to or subtract from, the velocity of light (this is what NASA uses today to calculate space travel, not Einstein’s ‘Relativity’).

Maxwell’s equations, on the other hand, state that each person will see the same velocity. Although no observed phenomena violate either Galilean or Maxwellian space, the theoretical contradiction between the two was apparent. It seemed there was one set of velocity rules for mechanics, and another set for electrodynamics.⁹

Second, another problem Einstein had with Maxwell, was that based on Maxwell’s equations it was clear that light, like other objects, would have a different speed in different frames of reference. For example, if an observer was traveling on a rocket ship at a speed of 1.0 × 10⁸ m/s toward a source of light, we might expect that he would measure the speed of the light reaching him to be 3.0 × 10⁸ m/s + 1.0 × 10⁸ = 4.0 × 10⁸ m/s. But Maxwell’s equations have no provision for relative light speed or velocity.

“A more formal way of saying this is as follows: Maxwell’s equations of electro-magnetism…contain the constant c = 1/√(μ_oε_o) which is identified as the velocity of propagation of a plane wave in vacuum….But such a velocity cannot be the same for observers in different inertial frames, according to the Galilean transformations, so Maxwell’s equations and therefore electromagnetic effects will probably not be the same for different inertial observers. But if we accept both the Galilean transformations and Maxwell’s equations as basically correct, then it automatically follows that there exists a unique privileged frame of reference…in which Maxwell’s equations are valid and in which light is propagated at a speed c = 1/√(μ_oε_o).”¹⁰

The unique frame of reference is the aether. Essentially, pace Maxwell, electromagnetic effects are variant and light speed is impacted by the movement of the receiver as well as the source in the aether (Relativity rejects this). Given he had rejected the aether and a fixed Earth, Einstein had to figure out how to adjust the 2 Maxwell equations that contained the speed of light which did not allow the speed to change (Maxwell did not specify a vector to the electromagnetic field, rather, he said the field moved with respect to the aether).

Einstein the Sophist

Einstein’s first attempt to reconcile Relativity with Maxwell was to postulate (that is intellectually infer and not physically prove), that Maxwell’s equations are true only with respect to the aether, not the observer. In this view, given that waves need a medium to propagate (e.g., sound waves, water waves), the aether was deemed the natural solution. This of course contradicts his own special theory of relativity.

From Maxwell’s perspective, the aether will react differently with a moving magnet than it will with a fixed magnet, but it will adjust for the discrepancy by producing the same electric current. But Einstein rejected this due to the ‘asymmetry problem’, namely that in all reference frames, physics must be equivalent, similar and symmetrical (the law of equivalency as Einstein termed it). Einstein wrote:

“In setting up the Special Theory of Relativity, the following…idea concerning Faraday’s magnet-electric induction played a guiding role for me….The idea, however, that these were two, in principle, different cases was unbearable for me. The difference between the two, I was convinced, could only be a difference in choice of viewpoint and not a real difference. Judged from the [moving] magnet, there was certainly no electric field present. Judged from the [ether] there certainly was one present.

Thus the existence of the electric field was a relative one, according to the state of motion of the coordinate system used, and only the electric and magnetic field together could be ascribed a kind of objective reality, apart from the state of motion of the observer of the coordinate system. The phenomenon of magneto-electric induction compelled me to postulate the principle of relativity….The difficulty to be overcome lay in the constancy of the velocity of light in a vacuum, which I first believed had to be given up. Only after years of groping did I notice that the difficulty lay in the arbitrariness of basic kinematical concepts.”¹¹

Einstein’s solution to Maxwell’s equations was simply to take a paint brush and brush out both the aether and absolute motion (the absolute motion of the magnetic field in the ether). This allows one to ‘relativise’ the equation’s components so that one equation can be used for both cases. He admits to this in one of the last sentences of the introduction to his 1905 paper:

“The introduction of a “luminiferous ether” will prove to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be developed will not require an “absolutely stationary space” provided with special properties, nor assign a velocity-vector to a point of the empty space in which the electromagnetic processes take place.”¹²

Einstein gutted the premises of Maxwell’s equations before aligning them to his philosophy. None of what he writes here is proven mechanically. Einstotle the sophist and artist finds himself caught between Plato and Aristotle, between the Baroque and Surrealism. Nothing in Maxwell’s world is based on ‘relativity’.

(a) The Fizeau and Michelson-Morley experiments appalled him with evidence that the Earth is not moving through an absolute aether; and

(b) The property of magnetism requires that magnetism be understood as a velocity-vector phenomenon, related to an absolute aether,

(c ) Neither (a) nor (b) are ‘relativistic’ events.

Einstotle’s apriori assumption is that the Earth is moving. He does not prove it, he simply assumes it. Tautologically when faced with evidence of immobility he seeks out maths to prove his apriori assumption! Further he has to dispense with Maxwell’s accepted theory of the vector-dependent state of magnetism.

The only way Einstein could put the square peg in the round hole was to create a fantasy world. Einstein knew that he must eliminate absolute rest, the aether, a fixed Earth, a fixed universe, a fixed magnet, and a fixed conductor. He must make all of these artefacts disappear by characterising them as ‘relative’, all moving, all dancing and singing in their reference frames, all containing their own clocks and ‘observers’. In essence Einstein had to remove reality.

Dingle’s complaint

Herbert Dingle, one of the great experts of Relativity, a writer of complex textbooks on the subject used in schools and universities around the world; a man who gave lectures, speeches and presentations defending Einstein’s faith, woke up one day and presumably became tired of living in a fantasy world. He apostasied and allegorically compares Einstotle’s theory to his famous Cheshire cat:

“…this (Relativity) was a direct contradiction of Maxwell’s basic axiom…What Einstein was proposing, therefore, was to retain the finite velocity of light without the existence of any standard with respect to which that velocity had a meaning. Light consisted of waves, with a definite length, frequency and velocity, in nothing; it was the grin without the Cheshire cat….the fact that it could have been proposed at all is inexplicable until we remember the nature of the acceptance…so well expressed by Hertz – ‘Maxwell’s theory is Maxwell’s system of equations.’

The physical part of the theory was expendable; only the equations needed to be saved. Einstein saw a way of saving the equations, and did not consider it worthwhile to ‘explain’ light…If his assumptions were granted he did save the equations, and when his theory ultimately made its general impact on the world, mathematics had so dominated physics that the non-existence of the Cheshire cat was regarded as a triviality; the grin remained, and all was well.”¹³

So here is yet another case in which mathematics distorted the empirical evidence. As long as a temporary solution could be proffered by an equation, ‘The Science’ could accept it and hope to figure out the actual physics sometime in the future (but it never did and it never will). This is the same cry issued by various scientisms, including but not limited to ‘climate’, evolution, gender, the queer gene, virology and DNA determinism. Declare, model, contrive, conjure, confuse and then assume that in the coming decades some proof will arrive.

Mix up everything (the Borscht-soup principle)

Worse, Einstein’s mathematical theatrics allowed him to relativise all physical components, mix things together, boil them and create soup-like multi-dimensional fantasies.

1. Einstotle turned the separate components of electricity and magnetism into the false conflation of ‘electromagnetism’ (the 2 have a relationship, they are not cojoined).

2. He took the separate components of space and time and magically merged them into the 4th dimension of ‘space-time’ (time is subjective, space is objective).

3. Einstotle assembled the components of acceleration and gravity into one phenomenon he called the ‘inertio-gravitational field’, whatever that means. He then declared that acceleration was equal to gravity, for which there is not a single iota of physical proof (but is used when Relativists discuss the slowing down of a clock due to gravity, citing again, ‘observer’ clock differences).

All of this was done by mathematical equations, which he himself admitted did not represent reality!

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality”

(Einstein in Sidelights on Relativity, Dover Publications, 1983, p. 28).

Bottom Line

This is a brief summary of the Relativity philosophy and what should be called, a philosophical fraud. Relativity is not created from physical experimentation or reality. It is simply a maths game. By rejecting an aether and fixed absolutes, Einstein was forced into a composition of confusion. Maths, maths, maths….

It is true for both Maxwell and Einstein. The difficulty that both faced was that neither of them knew the nature of physical reality. Above Hertz is quoted. When asked to explain what Maxwell was on about, Hertz said, ‘Maxwell’s theory is Maxwell’s system of equations.’

Pace Hertz, Maxwell and Einstein merely explained ‘expected ‘results by mathematical equations. I doubt that few people in the past 160 years really understand Maxwell. Fewer comprehend what Einstotle was raving about. As mathematician Morris Kline states:

“What is especially remarkable about electromagnetic waves…is that we have not the slightest physical knowledge of what electromagnetic waves are. Only mathematics vouches for their existence…The same observation applies to all sorts of atomic and nuclear phenomena.

Mathematicians and theoretical physicists speak of fields – the gravitational field, the electromagnetic field, the field of electrons, and others – as though they were material waves which spread out into space and exert their effects somewhat as water waves pound against ships and shores. But these fields are fictions. We know nothing of their physical nature”

(Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, p. 337).

Indeed we know nothing. If we view the contortions of Einstein’s mental and philosophical gymnastics, we see that his ‘Special Theory’, attempts to relativise what cannot be relativised. The physical evidence that the property of magnetism is a velocity-vector phenomenon, related to an absolute aether, was buried by maths.

For the philosopher Einstein, the massive failures of the Fizeau and Michelson-Morley experiments which found an aether but no movement of the Earth, and Maxwell’s mathematical concepts on the micro-world of electromagnetism, based on that same aether, must be removed as evidence.

Relativity is one of the clearest examples imaginable of mathematical sophistry and fraud. The soul and spirit of Plato, somewhere in the shadows of his cave, must be weeping and laughing like a madman, scratching his face, as he surveys Einstein and what he in his own lifetime denounced as, ‘The Sophists’.

All hail.

==

¹ R. S. Shankland, Conversations with Albert Einstein, p. 48, cited in Holton, p. 303, with Holton’s interpolations omitted.

² Interview, March 17, 1942, with Albert Michelson’s biographer (Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 128).

³ Zur Electrodynamik Bewegter Körper (“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”), Annalen der Physik, Vol. 17, 1905, p. 37. Also cited in On the Shoulders of Giants by Stephen Hawking, 2002, p. 1167.

⁴ Zur Electrodynamik Bewegter Körper (“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”), Annalen der Physik, Vol. 17, 1905, p.

⁵Maxwell had four equations: (1) δE = 4πρ (2) δ$ = 0 (3) δ$ = 4πj/c + 1/c δE/δt (4) δE

= -1/c δ$/δt. $ is the magnetic field; j is the current flux; ρ is the charge density; E is the electric field. The two equations of interest here are (3) and (4), since they give different equations for finding the change in the magnetic field (equation 3) as opposed to the change in the electrical field (equation 4).

⁶ “Zur Electrodynamik Bewegter Körper” (“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”), Annalen der Physik, Vol. 17, 1905, p. 1.

⁷ The electromagnetic field in Relativity is not two separate vectors (electricity and magnetism) but as components of a 4-dimensional tensor, such that a change in velocity is represented by the 4-dimensional rotation of the tensor.) This is physically unproven. It is only a mathematical model.

⁸ Douglas C. Giancoli, Physics: Principles with Applications, first edition, 1980, p. 621; fifth edition, 1998, p. 795

⁹ Equations 3 and 4 contain c in the denominator, which remains constant: (3) δ$ = 4πj/c + 1/c δE/δt (4) δE = -1/c δ$/δt.

¹⁰ Robert Resnick and David Halliday, Basic Concepts in Relativity and Early Quantum Theory, 1985, p. 12

¹¹ Zur Electrodynamik Bewegter Körper (“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”), Annalen der Physik, Vol. 17, (1905, p. 2, as cited in The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity by H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski and H. Weyl, translated by W. Perrett and G. B. Jeffery from the original 1923 edition, 1952, p. 38).

¹² “Fundamental Ideas and Methods of the theory of Relativity, Presented in Their Development,” Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7, Doc. 31, as cited in John D. Norton’s paper “Einstein’s Investigations of Galilean Covariant Electrodynamics prior to 1905,” p. 5.

¹³Herbert Dingle, Science at the Crossroads, pp. 155-156