A FEATURE OF POSTSCIENTISM

[Pentcho Valev]

A few years ago a serious analysis of the foundations of
thermodynamics produced the conclusion that the law of entropy
increase is actually a RED HERRING:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics

If such a radical criticism had been published 40-50 years ago, the
reaction of the establishment would have ben both energetic and
hostile (remember Herbert Dingle's saga for instance). In 2001 there
was no reaction, except for a few vague positive(!) references.

A few months ago another serious analysis produced the conclusion that
Einstein's relativity is an ideology, not a science:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes: The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox

Again the reaction is silence: no hostility coming from the
establishment. The feature of Postscientism (generally, it is a
feature of Postmodernism) that explains this state of affairs consists
in the fact that official science has adopted ALL possible
alternatives and so has become unassailable. Just an example of
"radical heresy" advanced by official science that discourages any
genuine criticism:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5538
Paul Davies: "Was Einstein wrong? Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 is
the only scientific formula known to just about everyone. The "c" here
stands for the speed of light. It is one of the most fundamental of
the basic constants of physics. Or is it? In recent years a few
maverick scientists have claimed that the speed of light might not be
constant at all. Shock, horror! Does this mean the next Great
Revolution in Science is just around the corner?"

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Uncle Al]

Post by Pentcho Valev
A few years ago a serious analysis of the foundations of
thermodynamics produced the conclusion that the law of entropy

1) Color the herring blue - make a perpetual motion machine.
2) Thermodynamics + Beckenstein limit = General Relativity
3) idiot

Post by Pentcho Valev
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics

[snip rest of crap]

"The aim of this article is to analyse the relation between the second
law of thermodynamics and the so-called arrow of time."

Fucking imbecile Pentcho Valev - the absolute arrow of time is not
entropy (merely statistical), it is angular momentum (Feynman's
sprinkler).

idiot

[Pentcho Valev]

Post by Pentcho Valev
A few years ago a serious analysis of the foundations of
thermodynamics produced the conclusion that the law of entropy
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics
If such a radical criticism had been published 40-50 years ago, the
reaction of the establishment would have ben both energetic and
hostile (remember Herbert Dingle's saga for instance). In 2001 there
was no reaction, except for a few vague positive(!) references.
A few months ago another serious analysis produced the conclusion that
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes: The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox
Again the reaction is silence: no hostility coming from the
establishment. The feature of Postscientism (generally, it is a
feature of Postmodernism) that explains this state of affairs consists
in the fact that official science has adopted ALL possible
alternatives and so has become unassailable. Just an example of
"radical heresy" advanced by official science that discourages any
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5538
Paul Davies: "Was Einstein wrong? Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 is
the only scientific formula known to just about everyone. The "c" here
stands for the speed of light. It is one of the most fundamental of
the basic constants of physics. Or is it? In recent years a few
maverick scientists have claimed that the speed of light might not be
constant at all. Shock, horror! Does this mean the next Great
Revolution in Science is just around the corner?"

Postscientism: Time is an illusion. Time is not an illusion.
Einstein's 1905 false light postulate, the source of the confusion,
should not be discussed:

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june232009/einstein_lessons_dj_6-22-09.php
"For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past,
present and future is only an illusion, however tenacious" - Albert
Einstein

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/passage/index.html
John Norton, 1 Mar 2009: "A common belief among philosophers of
physics is that the passage of time of ordinary experience is merely
an illusion. The idea is seductive since it explains away the awkward
fact that our best physical theories of space and time have yet to
capture this passage. I urge that we should resist the idea. We know
what illusions are like and how to detect them. Passage exhibits no
sign of being an illusion....Following from the work of Einstein,
Minkowski and many more, physics has given a wonderfully powerful
conception of space and time. Relativity theory, in its most
perspicacious form, melds space and time together to form a four-
dimensional spacetime. The study of motion in space and and all other
processes that unfold in them merely reduce to the study of an odd
sort of geometry that prevails in spacetime. In many ways, time turns
out to be just like space. In this spacetime geometry, there are
differences between space and time. But a difference that somehow
captures the passage of time is not to be found. There is no passage
of time. There are temporal orderings. We can identify earlier and
later stages of temporal processes and everything in between. What we
cannot find is a passing of those stages that recapitulates the
presentation of the successive moments to our consciousness, all
centered on the one preferred moment of "now." At first, that seems
like an extraordinary lacuna. It is, it would seem, a failure of our
best physical theories of time to capture one of time's most important
properties. However the longer one works with the physics, the less
worrisome it becomes....I was, I confess, a happy and contented
believer that passage is an illusion. It did bother me a little that
we seemed to have no idea of just how the news of the moments of time
gets to be rationed to consciousness in such rigid doses.....Now
consider the passage of time. Is there a comparable reason in the
known physics of space and time to dismiss it as an illusion? I know
of none. The only stimulus is a negative one. We don't find passage in
our present theories and we would like to preserve the vanity that our
physical theories of time have captured all the important facts of
time. So we protect our vanity by the stratagem of dismissing passage
as an illusion."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004505/
Postscientism: "Results on the observational indistinguishability of
spacetimes demonstrate the impossibility of determining by deductive
inference which is our spacetime, no matter how extensive a portion of
the spacetime is observed."

By deductive inference, one obtains that the 80m long pole can safely
be trapped inside the 40m long barn, and that the bug is both dead and
alive. These are absurd conclusions suggesting that we do not live in
the spacetime consistent with Einstein's 1905 false light postulate
(c'=c); rather, we live in the space and time consistent with the
antithesis of the light postulate (c'=c+v) given by Newton's emission
theory of light:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/barn_pole.html
"These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors
at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a
switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in
the barn. Now someone takes the pole and tries to run (at nearly the
speed of light) through the barn with the pole horizontal. Special
Relativity (SR) says that a moving object is contracted in the
direction of motion: this is called the Lorentz Contraction. So, if
the pole is set in motion lengthwise, then it will contract in the
reference frame of a stationary observer.....So, as the pole passes
through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the
barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your
switch. Of course, you open them again pretty quickly, but at least
momentarily you had the contracted pole shut up in your barn. The
runner emerges from the far door unscathed.....If the doors are kept
shut the rod will obviously smash into the barn door at one end. If
the door withstands this the leading end of the rod will come to rest
in the frame of reference of the stationary observer. There can be no
such thing as a rigid rod in relativity so the trailing end will not
stop immediately and the rod will be compressed beyond the amount it
was Lorentz contracted. If it does not explode under the strain and it
is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back
to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other
end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be
trapped in a compressed state inside the barn."

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Relativ/bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

Postscientism: There are systems that do violate the second law of
thermodynamics (so that chosen "heretics" can make career and money).
On the other hand, the second law of thermodynamics cannot be violated
(so that the rest of the establishment can sleep well):

http://www.physorg.com/news165065343.html
"Scientists have found that Maxwell's demon, or a creature that can
sometimes decrease the entropy of a system without performing work,
could exist in nanoscale systems, although it would not violate any
physical law....Maxwell's demon may be making a comeback. Physicists
know that the demon, an imaginary creature that decreases the entropy
of a system, cannot exist in macroscopic systems due to the energy it
requires to perform its role. However, a recent study has shown that,
on the nanoscale, Maxwell's demon might be able to do its work with
much less energy than previously thought due to tiny thermal
fluctuations that occur in small systems."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Uncle Al]

Post by Pentcho Valev
Postscientism: There are systems that do violate the second law of
thermodynamics (so that chosen "heretics" can make career and money).
On the other hand, the second law of thermodynamics cannot be violated

[snip rest of crap]

idiot

1) Vacuum tube.
2) Pointy diamond emitter, negative work function into vacuum.
3) Planar osmium collector, 5.93 eV work function.
4) Electrically connect across an external load.
5) Runs forever at any temp above absolute zero.
6) Violates nothing.
7) idiot

HEY FUCKING STUPID - DO YOU READ ANYTHING OR DO YOU JUST PULL IT OUT
OF YOUR ASS LIKE CLOTHESLINE?

[Pentcho Valev]

Post by Pentcho Valev
Postscientism: There are systems that do violate the second law of
thermodynamics (so that chosen "heretics" can make career and money).
On the other hand, the second law of thermodynamics cannot be violated
http://www.physorg.com/news165065343.html
"Scientists have found that Maxwell's demon, or a creature that can
sometimes decrease the entropy of a system without performing work,
could exist in nanoscale systems, although it would not violate any
physical law....Maxwell's demon may be making a comeback. Physicists
know that the demon, an imaginary creature that decreases the entropy
of a system, cannot exist in macroscopic systems due to the energy it
requires to perform its role. However, a recent study has shown that,
on the nanoscale, Maxwell's demon might be able to do its work with
much less energy than previously thought due to tiny thermal
fluctuations that occur in small systems."

Postscientism: The law of entropy increase holds "the SUPREME POSITION
among the laws of Nature". The law of entropy increase is "a RED
HERRING". The "scientific community" is happy with both views:

http://web.mit.edu/keenansymposium/overview/background/index.html
Arthur Eddington: "The law that entropy always increases, holds, I
think, the SUPREME POSITION among the laws of Nature. If someone
points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in
disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for
Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation
- well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your
theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can
give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest
humiliation."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "The historian of science and mathematician Truesdell made
a detailed study of the historical development of thermodynamics in
the period 1822 - 1854. He characterises the theory, even in its
present state, as 'a dismal swamp of obscurity' and 'a prime example
to show that physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds'. He
is outright cynical about the respect with which nonmathematicians
treat the Second Law: "Clausius verbal statement of the second law
makes no sense [. . . ]. All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition; a
century of philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this
commandment; a century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted
their eyes from the unclean. Seven times in the past thirty years have
I tried to follow the argument Clausius offers [. . . ] and seven
times has it blanked and gravelled me. [. . . ] I cannot explain what
I cannot understand." From this anthology it emerges that although
many prominent physicists are firmly convinced of, and express
admiration for the Second Law, there are also serious complaints,
especially from mathematicians, about a lack of clarity and rigour in
its formulation. At the very least one can say that the Second Law
suffers from an image problem: its alleged eminence and venerability
is not perceived by everyone who has been exposed to it. What is it
that makes this physical law so obstreperous that every attempt at a
clear formulation seems to have failed? Is it just the usual
sloppiness of physicists? Or is there a deeper problem? And what
exactly is the connection with the arrow of time and irreversibility?
Could it be that this is also just based on bluff? Perhaps readers
will shrug their shoulders over these questions. Thermodynamics is
obsolete; for a better understanding of the problem we should turn to
more recent, statistical theories. But even then the questions we are
about to study have more than a purely historical importance. The
problem of reproducing the Second Law, perhaps in an adapted version,
remains one of the toughest, and controversial problems in statistical
physics.....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

[Pentcho Valev]

Post by Pentcho Valev
A few years ago a serious analysis of the foundations of
thermodynamics produced the conclusion that the law of entropy
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics
If such a radical criticism had been published 40-50 years ago, the
reaction of the establishment would have ben both energetic and
hostile (remember Herbert Dingle's saga for instance). In 2001 there
was no reaction, except for a few vague positive(!) references.
A few months ago another serious analysis produced the conclusion that
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes: The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox
Again the reaction is silence: no hostility coming from the
establishment. The feature of Postscientism (generally, it is a
feature of Postmodernism) that explains this state of affairs consists
in the fact that official science has adopted ALL possible
alternatives and so has become unassailable. Just an example of
"radical heresy" advanced by official science that discourages any
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5538
Paul Davies: "Was Einstein wrong? Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 is
the only scientific formula known to just about everyone. The "c" here
stands for the speed of light. It is one of the most fundamental of
the basic constants of physics. Or is it? In recent years a few
maverick scientists have claimed that the speed of light might not be
constant at all. Shock, horror! Does this mean the next Great
Revolution in Science is just around the corner?"

Education in the era of Postscientism: "....the ideas of absolute
simultaneity and the relativity of simultaneity harmoniously co-
exist."

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=AJPIAS0000690000S1000S24000001
Student understanding of time in special relativity: Simultaneity and
reference frames, American Journal of Physics -- July 2001 -- Volume
69, Issue S1, pp. S24-S35
"Evidence is presented that suggests many students construct a
conceptual framework in which the ideas of absolute simultaneity and
the relativity of simultaneity HARMONIOUSLY co-exist."

In Big Brother's world this would be referred to as "students exercise
themselves in doublethink":

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17.html#seventeen
George Orwell: "Doublethink means the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both
of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories
must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with
reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself
that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it
would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to
be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and
hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since
the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while
retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To
tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any
fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed,
to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take
account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably
necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to
exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is
tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this
knowledge ; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead
of the truth."

See more educational challenges offered by Einstein's 1905 false light
postulate here:

http://labnews.co.uk/laboratory_article.php/4514/2/2/attack-on-great-pillar-of-physics

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com