tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post4056489985597136796..comments2024-03-27T19:47:13.475-07:00Comments on Dark Buzz: Stewart on beauty and truth in relativityRogerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03474078324293158376noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-149264154785136132016-01-28T21:51:52.328-08:002016-01-28T21:51:52.328-08:00Poincare's first 1905 paper says that the Lore...Poincare's first 1905 paper says that the Lorentz transformations form a group, and Einstein's library received a copy about 2 weeks before his 1905 paper was submitted. My theory is that Einstein added that sentence about a group without understanding what a group is.<br /><br />Einstein only shows that the E-M equations are invariant in the same sense that Lorentz had already shown.<br /><br />Yes, Einstein's paper is easier to read, as he made an attempt to make it self-contained. But a lot of details are very confusing. <br /><br />Einstein said that M-M was crucial for special relativity, but not for his own contribution to the subject.<br /><br />Some books explain STR like Einstein. But many others present it as M-M experiment, Lorentz transformations, and Minkowski space. This approach has very little to do with anything Einstein did.<br />Rogerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03474078324293158376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-81377895797727399702016-01-28T20:54:27.361-08:002016-01-28T20:54:27.361-08:00There is some lack of logic in Einstein's orig...There is some lack of logic in Einstein's original 1905 derivation:<br /><br />(1) He does not use the 1st postulate to derive Lorentz transforms though he uses the 2nd postulate (c=const).<br />(2) Then he shows that Lorentz transforms indeed render E-M equations invariant. In some sense he proves the validity of the 2nd postulate that it holds for the E-M equations and Lorentz transform.<br /><br />If he really used the 2nd postulate he would have derived Lorentz transforms as the ones that makes E-M equations invariant. Then he would not really need the 2nd postulate concerning the constancy of the speed of light. I think, this is how Lorentz himself got his transforms and Poincare confirmed them and proved that they constitute a group. Certainly it was Lorentz who was puzzled with the outcome of the M-M experiment and this lead him, I think, to derive his transforms. However I am not sure if he directly used wave equation to look for transform that renders it invariant. This would the most logical course for somebody who is dealing with M-M experiment. BTW, Einstein never said that M-M was the main reason for his discovery. He mentioned Fizeau and stellar aberration and on some occasions he claimed he did not know of M-M result.<br /><br />I suspect that the reason Einstein derivation is somewhat idiosyncratic (structurally/epistemologically not logical) it is because he had to present "his theory" as original and different from the work of Lorentz and Poincare to cover up his borrowing from them. <br /><br />Also I found it strange that he mentions that the transform and relativistic addition of velocities constitute a group in a very off hand manner in passing. He does not show the derivation of it while he shows derivation of much more trivial points in the paper. Did he even know what group (in algebraic sense) was? I suspect that Lorentz did not know math at this level of abstraction. It was Poincare who brought it in his last paper or papers but for him it was natural. By tracing when Poincare used it for the first and last time we could estimate to which Poincare's papers Einstein had access to.<br /><br />I have to admit however that Einstein's paper reads much better than papers of Lorentz or Poincare perhaps part of it is because we have been taught STR using Einstein's concepts and notations. <br /><br />Do you know under what circumstances Einstein could have had access to the last two Poincare papers (the 2nd of them is Palermo paper) before submitting his paper? Or would consider the French hypothesis that the work was actually done in Gottingen by the Hilbert group?utunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-18946287113632979512016-01-25T23:12:12.990-08:002016-01-25T23:12:12.990-08:00Ajit,
I'm not certain what language you think ...Ajit,<br />I'm not certain what language you think you are speaking, but it isn't coherent English. Roger is not fond of Einstein idolatry in academia, I get it. I don't always agree with it, but I get his point.<br /><br /> You on the other hand, I think you might have some kind of grudge against men? white people? Western civilization in general? I'm not sure you are sure what you are talking about. Please clarify your point if you have one. CFTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-29455930236173026652016-01-25T10:56:55.969-08:002016-01-25T10:56:55.969-08:00Roger,
Why did my above comment go through so fas...Roger,<br /><br />Why did my above comment go through so fast?<br /><br />You owe me an explanation.<br /><br />Make it as brief as possible, so that it looks as ``heTaaLaNavaadi'' (ask the Dalit/Christian Pradnya Walhekar) as possible.<br /><br />Your friend,<br /><br />--Ajit<br />[E&OE]<br />Ajit R. Jadhavhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02194541129055576042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-46141492044380330962016-01-25T10:53:34.689-08:002016-01-25T10:53:34.689-08:00``Stewart is right that the history of relativity ...``Stewart is right that the history of relativity is a symmetry story.''<br /><br />Roger, you are being just as much of a fraud as those you routinely criticize on your blog, to various quantitative extents.<br /><br />Symmetry is so simple a concept---and by itself, so *bereft* of much knowledge by itself---or of endowing knowledge even in other contexts---that, in the context of the progress of man's knowledge, it couldn't have had too much a position of prestige had it not been for Deductive sort of guys and Western Women (trying) to occupy the centerpiece (and/or Superiority over Men's Being (mostly through fradulent means including their own selves.)).<br /><br />Sorry. You might have simultaneously defended a Berkeley co-graduate, a woman's tradition, and a favorite at Princeton, but, no, to a knowledge-seeker like me, it adds nothing but a non-cognitive burden.<br /><br />Yours sincerely [whatever that phrase means [my childhood schoolteachers [mostly men!]] meant it as a polite way to end letters [thought I have no desire to pull them back into the game, just the way, I have no desire to pull the late Dr. Kajale [a non-Brahmin, non-Westerner, non-White, and, best of all, already dead!] into the game either.]]<br /><br />--Ajit<br />[E&OE]<br />Ajit R. Jadhavhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02194541129055576042noreply@blogger.com