Is there length contraction?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by phyti, Mar 22, 2010.

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  1. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Journals published SR, GR, QM and QFT from their earliest days.
    Journals publish mistakes from time to time, even when that mistake is contradicted by popular belief. (Monopole discovery, medical effects which turn out to be wrong, statistically invalid reanalysis of old experimental data, etc.)
    So where is your evidence that journals have a filter that rejects non-mainstream good science and math?

    Please explain how this 1935 paper fits in "the mainstream." -- This "mainstream filter" appears to not only fictional but wholly undescribed.

    Instead, we get Jack_ who doesn't address why D'(t') < D(t) is not proof the the Lorentz transform doesn't predict length contraction directly without any tedious need to simulate beams of light or rulers passing each other in the night. We have someone who thinks his personal misunderstandings give rise to a valid proof. We have someone appearantly mystified by over 150 years of experimental demonstrations that space and time are not absolute, who accepts as an axiom the Lorentz transform but can't work out its basic implications.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2010
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  3. zanket Human Valued Senior Member

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    Just ask the editor. No "reputable" journal will consider something that challenges Einstein.

    I'm talking about now, not long ago.

    I'm just noting that "Until you submit your work to a journal" is not a valid point. Those who make this point while knowing the way the scientific community works are being disingenuous.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2010
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  5. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    I've read plenty of papers that "challenge Einstein" -- they just don't choose to do so and length and energy and velocity and precision scales that are well-covered by experiments that say nature supports Einstein.
    The 1670's observations that supported Einstein's assumption that light has a well-defined speed.
    The 1687 publication of the fundamental principles that Einstein used to build the math that led to the 1916 description of what lies at the heart of the galaxy.
    The 1802 observation of holes in continuous spectra.
    The nineteenth century development of thermodynamics and the universality of black bodies.
    The 1859 experiment that supports the 1905 Einstein velocity addition law.
    It is this piecemeal carpet of observation that Einstein helped in the twentieth century weave together into a true carpet, although a carpet with an ugly edge where very high energy densities meet and a ragged edge on where the very small meet the very large. Since then, the weave at the edge has tightened up and more of the high energy regime has been covered by the existing flaw. Whole worlds of physics unknown to Einstein in 1905 opened up, including the transmutation of the elements.

    So yeah, we are going to pooh-pooh scribblings that claim nuclear weapons can't work or Einstein's work on Bose condensates are "too Jewish" to work. Damn kids gotta stop trying to burn holes in the middle of the carpet. Likewise we don't need ugly throw rugs to cover the gaps at the edges of modern theory that actually leave big dangling pieces to trip over in the middle of the room where we do everyday work.

    So this leaves us with
    1) recarpeting the whole room in a way that matches well with the current temporary carpet. (tons of papers like this, and plenty of them disagree with Einstein, although most of those that get published still allow for France to keep it's nukes.)
    2) showing how to weave the edge of the carpet closer together (Hawking is famous for this, and lots of people followed Hawking to firm it up more)
    3) talking about the existing carpet as identical to the expected impression of a hypothetical lawn that just looks like a carpet -- a few of these get published but I can't think of any of them that both make serious efforts to do more than myopically stare at a tiny piece of the room and have any concrete plans to address the lawn/carpet issue. If we are reduced to talk about complex ideas that take the place of our current ideas without any gain in knowledge or even ease of calculation, are we even doing physics?
     
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  7. zanket Human Valued Senior Member

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    All I'm saying is that today's "reputable" journals don't consider work that challenges Einstein, and in general they don't consider non-mainstream work. That's just the way it is.
     
  8. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    And I think we're done talking about actual science here.
     
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