Pentcho Valev
2008-12-03 06:30:47 UTC
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026831.500-what-makes-the-universe-tick.html
"It is still not clear who is right, says John Norton, a philosopher
based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is
hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in
physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The
trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with
relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose
geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."
http://www.astrofind.net/documents/the-composition-and-essence-of-radiation.php
The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of
Radiation by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1909: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that
light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by
Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For
this reason, I believe that the next phase in the development of
theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be
considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories. The
purpose of the following remarks is to justify this belief and to show
that a profound change in our views on the composition and essence of
light is imperative.....Then the electromagnetic fields that make up
light no longer appear as a state of a hypothetical medium, but rather
as independent entities that the light source gives off, just as in
Newton's emission theory of light......Relativity theory has changed
our views on light. Light is conceived not as a manifestation of the
state of some hypothetical medium, but rather as an independent entity
like matter. Moreover, this theory shares with the corpuscular theory
of light the unusual property that light carries inertial mass from
the emitting to the absorbing object."
http://www.academie-sciences.fr/membres/in_memoriam/Einstein/Einstein_pdf/Einstein_eloge.pdf
Louis de Broglie: "Tout d'abord toute idée de "grain" se trouvait
expulsée de la théorie de la Lumière : celle-ci prenait la forme d'une
"théorie du champ" où le rayonnement était représenté par une
répartition continue dans l'espace de grandeurs évoluant continûment
au cours du temps sans qu'il fût possible de distinguer, dans les
domaines spatiaux au sein desquels évoluait le champ lumineux, de très
petites régions singulières où le champ serait très fortement
concentré et qui fournirait une image du type corpusculaire. Ce
caractère à la fois continu et ondulatoire de la lumière se trouvait
prendre une forme très précise dans la théorie de Maxwell où le champ
lumineux venait se confondre avec un certain type de champ
électromagnétique."
http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=81&lecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm
Lee Smolin: "Quantum theory was not the only theory that bothered
Einstein. Few people have appreciated how dissatisfied he was with his
own theories of relativity. Special relativity grew out of Einstein's
insight that the laws of electromagnetism cannot depend on relative
motion and that the speed of light therefore must be always the same,
no matter how the source or the observer moves. Among the consequences
of that theory are that energy and mass are equivalent (the now-
legendary relationship E = mc2) and that time and distance are
relative, not absolute. SPECIAL RELATIVITY WAS THE RESULT OF 10 YEARS
OF INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE, YET EINSTEIN HAD CONVINCED HIMSELF IT WAS
WRONG WITHIN TWO YEARS OF PUBLISHING IT."
http://www.beilstein-institut.de/bozen2004/proceedings/CornishBowden/CornishBowden.htm
Athel Cornish-Bowden: "The concept of entropy was introduced to
thermodynamics by Clausius, who deliberately chose an obscure term for
it, wanting a word based on Greek roots that would sound similar to
"energy". In this way he hoped to have a word that would mean the same
to everyone regardless of their language, and, as Cooper [2] remarked,
he succeeded in this way in finding a word that meant the same to
everyone: NOTHING. From the beginning it proved a very difficult
concept for other thermodynamicists, even including such accomplished
mathematicians as Kelvin and Maxwell; Kelvin, indeed, despite his own
major contributions to the subject, never appreciated the idea of
entropy [3]. The difficulties that Clausius created have continued to
the present day, with the result that a fundamental idea that is
absolutely necessary for understanding the theory of chemical
equilibria continues to give trouble, not only to students but also to
scientists who need the concept for their work."
http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemistry/etextbook/6469/6469_preface.pdf
Arieh Ben-Naim: "I believe that the time is ripe to acknowledge that
the term entropy, as originally coined by Clausius, is an unfortunate
choice. Moreover, it is also a misleading term both in its meaning in
ancient and in contemporary Greek. On this matter, I cannot do any
better than Leon Cooper (1968). Cooper cites the original passage from
Clausius: in choosing the word "Entropy," Clausius wrote: "I prefer
going to the ancient languages for the names of important scientific
quantities, so that they mean the same thing in all living tongues. I
propose, accordingly, to call S the entropy of a body, after the Greek
word "transformation." I have designedly coined the word entropy to be
similar to energy, for these two quantities are so analogous in their
physical significance, that an analogy of denominations seems to be
helpful." Right after quoting Clausius' explanation on his reasons for
the choice of the word "Entropy," Cooper commented: "By doing this,
rather than extracting a name from the body of the current language
(say: lost heat), he succeeded in coining a word that meant the same
thing to everybody: nothing." I fully agree with Coopers comment;
however, I have two additional comments, and contrary to Cooper, I
venture into taking the inevitable conclusion: First, I agree that
"entropy means the same thing to everybody: nothing." But more than
that, entropy is also a misleading term...."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
JOS UFFINK: "This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful
to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second
law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued
statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained
attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-
Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion about the
arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is
actually a RED HERRING."
Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com
"It is still not clear who is right, says John Norton, a philosopher
based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is
hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in
physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The
trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with
relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose
geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."
http://www.astrofind.net/documents/the-composition-and-essence-of-radiation.php
The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of
Radiation by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1909: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that
light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by
Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For
this reason, I believe that the next phase in the development of
theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be
considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories. The
purpose of the following remarks is to justify this belief and to show
that a profound change in our views on the composition and essence of
light is imperative.....Then the electromagnetic fields that make up
light no longer appear as a state of a hypothetical medium, but rather
as independent entities that the light source gives off, just as in
Newton's emission theory of light......Relativity theory has changed
our views on light. Light is conceived not as a manifestation of the
state of some hypothetical medium, but rather as an independent entity
like matter. Moreover, this theory shares with the corpuscular theory
of light the unusual property that light carries inertial mass from
the emitting to the absorbing object."
http://www.academie-sciences.fr/membres/in_memoriam/Einstein/Einstein_pdf/Einstein_eloge.pdf
Louis de Broglie: "Tout d'abord toute idée de "grain" se trouvait
expulsée de la théorie de la Lumière : celle-ci prenait la forme d'une
"théorie du champ" où le rayonnement était représenté par une
répartition continue dans l'espace de grandeurs évoluant continûment
au cours du temps sans qu'il fût possible de distinguer, dans les
domaines spatiaux au sein desquels évoluait le champ lumineux, de très
petites régions singulières où le champ serait très fortement
concentré et qui fournirait une image du type corpusculaire. Ce
caractère à la fois continu et ondulatoire de la lumière se trouvait
prendre une forme très précise dans la théorie de Maxwell où le champ
lumineux venait se confondre avec un certain type de champ
électromagnétique."
http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=81&lecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm
Lee Smolin: "Quantum theory was not the only theory that bothered
Einstein. Few people have appreciated how dissatisfied he was with his
own theories of relativity. Special relativity grew out of Einstein's
insight that the laws of electromagnetism cannot depend on relative
motion and that the speed of light therefore must be always the same,
no matter how the source or the observer moves. Among the consequences
of that theory are that energy and mass are equivalent (the now-
legendary relationship E = mc2) and that time and distance are
relative, not absolute. SPECIAL RELATIVITY WAS THE RESULT OF 10 YEARS
OF INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE, YET EINSTEIN HAD CONVINCED HIMSELF IT WAS
WRONG WITHIN TWO YEARS OF PUBLISHING IT."
http://www.beilstein-institut.de/bozen2004/proceedings/CornishBowden/CornishBowden.htm
Athel Cornish-Bowden: "The concept of entropy was introduced to
thermodynamics by Clausius, who deliberately chose an obscure term for
it, wanting a word based on Greek roots that would sound similar to
"energy". In this way he hoped to have a word that would mean the same
to everyone regardless of their language, and, as Cooper [2] remarked,
he succeeded in this way in finding a word that meant the same to
everyone: NOTHING. From the beginning it proved a very difficult
concept for other thermodynamicists, even including such accomplished
mathematicians as Kelvin and Maxwell; Kelvin, indeed, despite his own
major contributions to the subject, never appreciated the idea of
entropy [3]. The difficulties that Clausius created have continued to
the present day, with the result that a fundamental idea that is
absolutely necessary for understanding the theory of chemical
equilibria continues to give trouble, not only to students but also to
scientists who need the concept for their work."
http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemistry/etextbook/6469/6469_preface.pdf
Arieh Ben-Naim: "I believe that the time is ripe to acknowledge that
the term entropy, as originally coined by Clausius, is an unfortunate
choice. Moreover, it is also a misleading term both in its meaning in
ancient and in contemporary Greek. On this matter, I cannot do any
better than Leon Cooper (1968). Cooper cites the original passage from
Clausius: in choosing the word "Entropy," Clausius wrote: "I prefer
going to the ancient languages for the names of important scientific
quantities, so that they mean the same thing in all living tongues. I
propose, accordingly, to call S the entropy of a body, after the Greek
word "transformation." I have designedly coined the word entropy to be
similar to energy, for these two quantities are so analogous in their
physical significance, that an analogy of denominations seems to be
helpful." Right after quoting Clausius' explanation on his reasons for
the choice of the word "Entropy," Cooper commented: "By doing this,
rather than extracting a name from the body of the current language
(say: lost heat), he succeeded in coining a word that meant the same
thing to everybody: nothing." I fully agree with Coopers comment;
however, I have two additional comments, and contrary to Cooper, I
venture into taking the inevitable conclusion: First, I agree that
"entropy means the same thing to everybody: nothing." But more than
that, entropy is also a misleading term...."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
JOS UFFINK: "This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful
to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second
law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued
statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained
attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-
Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion about the
arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is
actually a RED HERRING."
Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com