Newtonian Physics: why Relativity adds no value (also why Newton's 'Third Law' of motion is inaccurate).
Abstract maths does not mean anything. Your cat does not occupy its own 'space-time' with its own 'clock'. Nor, when it swats a mouse, is there an 'equal and opposite reaction' from the mouse.
Fantasy worlds
We have discussed Relativity and what Einstein, and the Relativists were trying to accomplish. Einstein never ‘discovered’ ‘Relativity’ as a theory or concept, but simply a version of it based on the work of many predecessors and contemporaries. In essence he was a plagiariser and a manipulator, or to be generous, a simplifier of other people’s work, even though his work is tautological, convoluted, issued and propagated without physical proof.
Einstein’s version of Relativity is unique in its philosophical and metaphysical application of a merged spacetime, itself based on Minkowski’s and Palagyi’s maths. This is of course one of the greatest frauds in science. Time can never be merged with space as many posts outline (examples, here, here, here).
It is absurd, nay insane, to assign a merged time and space dimension along a 4th axis, affixed to Euclid’s 3 axes, pointing nowhere; and claim that your apple (or the Earth), has its own coordinate system, occupying a unique ‘space’ within the grid; endowed with its own ‘relative time’, different than that of the orange (or our moon) sitting next to it.
Objectives of the Make-Believers
In the creation of a make-believe universe, what were the Relativists and Einsteinians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries trying to accomplish?
1-Lorentz, Fitzgerald, Einstein and many others were trying to explain why light experiments up to 6.000 feet in altitude, found no movement of this planet but did find, and do find an aether which ‘The Science’ denies.
2-Relativity was used to defend a Copernican universe and its underlying philosophical tenets. It offers a decentralised, ‘centreless’ universe which perfectly aligns with Darwinian-materialism and its apriori assumption that Earth and mankind possess no importance or uniqueness.
3-Relativity employs excruciatingly complex mathematics which purportedly adduce proofs for relative motion and relative existence. It can be employed to create fictional worlds of cosmic holes, dark energy, dark matter, time dilation and time travel. The ‘gravitational aether’ of General Relativity is the underlying support for the Big Bang theory. Many posts on here go through the complex maths and reveal their errors and tautologies.
Further, the maths are so incoherent that GTR can only impress those who aspire to the divine high-priesthood of ‘science’, who claim without proof, to understand the universe, premised on the contrived mathematics. These priests are a small group who are self-anointed and appointed, and reward each other, as the guardians and Sadducees of ‘scientific veracity’.
4-Newton’s physics is the most complete framework ever developed to explain natural phenomena. It does however suffer from some defects at both the micro and very large, high velocity-macro-levels. Relativity was an exercise, in part, to supposedly remediate some of the macro deficits of Newtonian mechanics (more below). It doesn’t and Relativity in general, does not add any value.
The objectives of Relativity, stated above, are rarely taught. It is positioned as divinely inspired, a canonical dogma, above reproof or reproach, inured to disproof or criticism, ‘proving’ the superiority of ‘The Science’. This attitude and belief system is of course a-scientific, incapacitating the search for knowledge and truth.
Newton
Newtonian physics, also known as classical mechanics, provides a framework for understanding the motion of objects under the influence of forces.1 Isaac Newton had constructed most of his framework by the mid-1660’s, only releasing his ideas in the mid 1680’s after financial and mathematical help from Halley. Inspired by Halley’s insights, Newton remediated his underlying mathematics to fit with his observations of the moon’s actual orbit (Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687).2
Newton’s mechanics is still the basis of classical science. The key principles developed by Newton which align with observational reality include his laws of motion around inertia and acceleration. His third law of action and equal reaction is of course problematic (below).
First Law (Law of Inertia):3
This is a foundational and easily confirmable concept, known to the ancients and reflected in Aristotelian physics. An object at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by a new net force. An object in motion, say a ball rolling across the floor, will remain in constant motion and velocity, unless acted upon by a new net force, say your cat playing with it, or a wall.4
Observable Evidence: A ball rolling on a smooth surface continues to roll until friction slows it down. In space, where friction is minimal (but which is never a vacuum), objects will likely maintain their motion until acted upon.5
Second Law (F = ma):6
Force = Mass x Acceleration is a famous equation which is not entirely accurate and does not comport to reality given it does not include friction as a force (see here). The 2nd Law follows from the ‘First Law’, namely an acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its own mass.
Observable Evidence: The father pushes his son who is seated on a bike. The more force, the stronger or more energetic the father, the faster the boy will travel. A heavier bike and a heavier boy (more mass, which is weight independent of gravity) requires more force to achieve the same acceleration.7
Third Law (Action-Reaction):8
This is independent of the first two ‘Laws’. It is claimed that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is insensible. The law depends entirely on the underlying abstract maths and how you want to describe it. The Newtonian vector notation is usually: Fab = - Fba
Fab is the force exerted by object A on B; Fba represents the force exerted by object B on object A, and the negative sign (-) indicates that the forces are in opposite directions.
What this equation is trying to prove, is that a force exerted by an object A on B, is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted by object B on object. There is no physical reality to this equation. Down the rabbit hole of abstruse maths and appeals to ‘particle reaction’ we go.
If a boxer punishes an opponent’s face with a lot of power (magnitude) the opponent’s face does not ‘react equally’ (in the opposite direction). It simply absorbs the force, which is an entirely different physical equation based on kinetic energy transfer (KE = 1/2 * m * v^2 [where m is mass and v is velocity]). Third law violated.
Someone shooting an arrow into your body will not receive an ‘equal and opposite reaction’ after the arrow pierces you. The energy from the arrow is not countered by your body’s ‘reaction’ to being hit.
Take a hammer and smash a wall. There is no equal and opposite reaction. The wall may shudder and ‘bounce’ but it is not hammering back at you.
The narrative is that the 3rd law is a statement about the nature of forces themselves, not about the observable consequences of those forces. Given that the physical world does not operate this way, it can be dismissed and should not be a ‘law’. To justify this ‘law’, the narrative needs to delve into ‘magnitudes of forces’ and ‘particle reactions’ to justify the claim that this describes anything real. It doesn’t. It is just more abstract maths.
Observable Evidence given by the narrative: The textbook examples given to support this law include jumping up and down on the ground, where you will push down on the ground, and the ground will react and push you up (this is nonsense of course). When you fire a gun, it will recoil. This also has little to do with motion in nature (the bullet hits a target, the target does not ‘react back’ with equal force, the recoiling of a gun is a mechanical reaction inbuilt into the equipment).
Of the 3 ‘laws’ two comport to common sense with some caveats. The third is problematic and highlights the abstract and ‘unreal’ nature of physics. Saying the ground pushes back on you as you jump up and down, or that your body ‘reacts’ against an arrow piercing you, is not the claim of a normal person. The ground is not a trampoline, a maimed body is not ‘reacting’ to anything except pain. These claims are just stupid.
Gravity
More importantly, Newton developed concepts he called ‘gravity’, or the attraction of masses.
Gravity is a force in Newtonian mechanics. It is not a force in Relativity which by itself negates Einstein’s theory.
Gravity was known long before Newton, though it was never named as such. The medieval schoolmen and ancients tried to describe the attractive forces which exist in nature and which they could observe, but the maths eluded them.
Newton’s algebra and calculus could describe how every particle in the universe, including planets and objects, attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. The calculations and observations were both derived from, and supported Kepler’s ‘Laws’, which attempted to explain cosmological phenomena within a heliocentric framework. Newton’s gravity equation is below, based on Kepler’s maths.9
Kepler's First Law (elliptical orbits): Newton showed that elliptical orbits are a natural consequence of an inverse-square force law, which is the core of his law of gravitation.
Kepler's Second Law (equal areas in equal times): Newton demonstrated that this law is a direct result of a central force, meaning a force directed towards a fixed point (the Sun in heliocentricity, the Earth in Tychonic theory).
Kepler's Third Law (relationship between orbital period and distance): Newton showed that the proportionality constant depends on the masses of the orbiting bodies.
Newton’s conclusions on gravity comport with common sense and observable proof.
His equation can explain the orbits of planets around the Sun, the falling of objects to Earth, and the tides caused by the Moon's gravity. His equations and laws of inertia can also mathematically explain the rotation of planets around a fixed Earth (pick your philosophy and model).
Engineers use Newtonian principles to design bridges, buildings, and machines.10
The Earth’s tides are explained by the gravitational pull of the Moon and, to a lesser extent, the Sun.11
Terrestrial motions such as the motion of projectiles, the swinging of pendulums, and the behaviour of falling objects are explained.
Ballistics, such as a thrown ball or a fired bullet, can be accurately predicted using Newtonian mechanics, accounting for gravity and air resistance.12
Limitations of Newton’s Model
As with any explanation of natural phenomena, not everything in Newtonian physics is neat and tidy. There are some issues.
Inertial: Newtons laws are applied to inertial frames of reference, which are frames of reference, or objects on a grid, that are not accelerating. While ‘fictitious forces’ can be used to apply Newtonian mechanics to non-inertial frames, the calculations become much more complex, and the underlying simplicity of the laws are lost.
Very high speeds: Near the speed of light, which is likely impossible to measure, and which is variant; Newtonian mechanics may break down. This is not a serious claim against Newtonianism. This is one area that Einstein tried and failed to remediate.
Very small scales: At the atomic and subatomic levels, quantum mechanics is required. Newton’s laws were focused on the macro, not the micro, with the exception of his 3rd Law mentioned above which does not comport to reality.
Very strong gravitational fields: There may be anomalies with extremely dense fields around large objects, or around large objects possessing very high masses (objects much bigger than our Sun).
The Nature of Light: Newton offered a ‘corpuscular theory of light’. This is similar to photons or light quanta, but without being in ‘waves’ of light. Maxwell's equations, and work in the 20th century, indicate that light might be a wave of particles or photons (which are the same as corpuscles). There are theories which allege that photons, or small localised light ‘particles’, do not exist.
Though there are issues with Newton’s framework (summarised here), it is the basis of modern science at the macro-level. It was never developed to be used at the quanta, or microscopic level. It is therefore somewhat disingenuous to use this as a criticism of classical Newtonianism.
Newton and the Aether
As outlined in a previous post, Newton’s ideas about an aether varied with his mood and the day of the week. As a young man, and then as an older philosopher, he believed in a rich, probably immobile, aether medium. In between he oscillated between describing space as nothing, and space being a conduit of God’s inscrutable design and laws.
Newton’s laws of gravity were developed when he believed in an aether. They work best with an aether and explain stellar light aberration through refraction and gravity. The aether exists. A vacuum does not exist. Einstein was wrong.
Bottom Line
When we look at Newtonian laws of motion and gravity, the framework and maths provided are indispensable to our understanding of physical phenomena. There are issues with the framework, especially within moving or acclerating reference grids, objects moving at very high speeds, or when trying to describe objects of extremely dense mass. But in general, it gets the job done. There is no need to ‘overturn Newton’. It is often wiser to extend and modify.
Newton’s beliefs about an aether varied, but his gravitational concepts depend on an aether. Science, until the time of Einstein’s imposition of science-fiction-deception, assumed the existence of a material rich aether, either mobile or immobile. There is no need to curve space and time together and establish ridiculous models where planets ‘curve’ space and time and thereby bend light. Mercury’s perihelion is easily explained by Newton, as is light aberration.
Relativity is therefore a retrograde force. It adds no value to Newtonian physics which was one of its objectives. Time can never be merged with space in a 4th dimension unless you are insane. The basis of Einsteinian gravity is curved space and time which generates ‘gravity’ from unknown sources and is not a ‘force’. It explains nothing as outlined in many posts.
Science has erected an ontological fantasy world premised on Einstein’s mathematical fraud for no reason whatsoever, except to save the phenomena, and explain away the thousands of light experiments which found no movement of this planet. The planet might well move, dance, rotate and sing Figaro’s solo in the Barber of Seville, but only tropospheric experimentation can prove that and the existing proofs offered by ‘The Science’ including its incoherent misdirection called ‘Relativity’ are thin ideed.
All hail.
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links provided in superscript numbers.
3 Re Newton’s First Law, there is no equation per se, but a series of maths applied to inertia. An example:
∑ F = 0 indicates that the vector sums of all forces acting on an object equal to 0, v is velocity, dv is change in velocity, dt is change in time, a is acceleration.
Sources
Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, 1981.
David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker, Fundamentals of Physics, 1960.
S. Chandrasekhar, Newton's Principia for the Common Reader, 1995.
Newton’s Third Law may not fit your macro model of the universe, but it’s never once let me down for engineering purposes.
It’s all Scientism. I’m waiting for Einstein to pull a rabbit from his hat.