THE MAGICIAN'S HAT MODEL OF SCIENCE

[Pentcho Valev]

bertie.ccsu.edu/~dsb/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."

www.physics.queensu.ca/~phys242/Section2_3.pdf
"Because the GTs [Galilean transformations] are clearly not consistent
with Einstein's two postulates, we are going to have to develop a new
set of transformations: the Lorentz transformations."

Historically the protective belt (Lorentz transformations) was created
before the hard core (Einstein's 1905 postulates). Without the
protective belt, Einstein's postulates (more precisely, his light
postulate) would have been immediately refuted by the Michelson-Morley
experiment:

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."

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."

James H. Smith "Introduction à la relativité" EDISCIENCE 1969 pp.
39-41: "Si la lumière était un flot de particules mécaniques obéissant
aux lois de la mécanique, il n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre
les résultats de l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par
exemple, qu'une fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à
un observateur et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la
vitesse de la lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la
lumière par rapport à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière
se déplaceraient à la vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à
l'observateur. Mais ce comportement ne ressemble pas du tout à celui
d'une onde, car les ondes se propagent à une certaine vitesse par
rapport au milieu dans lequel elles se développent et non pas à une
certaine vitesse par rapport à leur source..... Il nous faut insister
sur le fait suivant: QUAND EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA
LUMIERE SOIT INDEPENDANTE DE CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT
AUCUNE PREUVE EXPERIMENTALE. IL LE POSTULA PAR PURE NECESSITE
LOGIQUE."

Lakatos' PROTECTIVE BELT philosophy is a special case of the
MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy:

The MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy: Science is taken to constitute the
interior of a magician's hat where you put ties which are then turned
to rabbits. The magician is free to rearrange the interior of the hat
so that always rabbits and never wolves jump out of it. The public
declares itself ready to boycott the seances if wolves and not rabbits
jump out of the hat. On the other hand, the public loves the magician
so much (there are hymns "Divine Magician" and "Yes we all believe in
the hat, hat, hat") that seances would take place even if
Tyrannosaurus rex jumped out of the hat.

The major contributor to the MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy:

Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."

If the MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy were to be given a more serious name,
the suitable one is perhaps MAGICAL INSTRUMENTALISM. Officially logic
is a crucial tool for instrumentalists but, somewhat paradoxically,
they place no emphasis on validity, that is, on the truth-preserving
procedure involved in any link of the deductive chain. It seems
inherent in the subconsciousness of philosophers of science that,
since many of the arguments in today's theories are invalid, no
verification inside the deductive chain should be undertaken if
trouble is to be avoided. Only the final predictions of the theory
deserve attention as they are suitably selected and shaped by the
magician and his followers.

The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of science made pet theories (Einstein's
relativity) virtually irrefutable:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/44abc7dbb30db6c2
John Norton: "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH
AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. The fact that this one experiment is compatible
with other theories does not refute relativity in any way. The full
experimental record refutes most if not all emission theories, but not
relativity."
Pentcho Valev: "THE POUND-REBKA EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN
EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. But this experiment, too, does not refute
relativity. The full experimental record refutes most if not all
emission theories, but not relativity."

Yet scientists who do not sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all
believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" may note that the two
experiments NATURALLY confirm Newton's emission theory of light (the
speed of light varies with both the speed of the light source and the
gravitational potential), in the sense that the confirmation does not
presuppose absurd auxiliary hypotheses (length contraction and
gravitational time dilation).

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[weesly]

Post by Pentcho Valev
bertie.ccsu.edu/~dsb/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.

right, fundamental, you can't expect a new theory
from a smooth function, you need a quantum jump

so the protective belt only protects till it cannot protect anymore,

Post by Pentcho Valev
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."
www.physics.queensu.ca/~phys242/Section2_3.pdf
"Because the GTs [Galilean transformations] are clearly not consistent
with Einstein's two postulates, we are going to have to develop a new
set of transformations: the Lorentz transformations."
Historically the protective belt (Lorentz transformations) was created
before the hard core (Einstein's 1905 postulates). Without the
protective belt, Einstein's postulates (more precisely, his light
postulate) would have been immediately refuted by the Michelson-Morley
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."
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."
James H. Smith "Introduction à la relativité" EDISCIENCE 1969 pp.
39-41: "Si la lumière était un flot de particules mécaniques obéissant
aux lois de la mécanique, il n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre
les résultats de l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par
exemple, qu'une fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à
un observateur et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la
vitesse de la lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la
lumière par rapport à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière
se déplaceraient à la vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à
l'observateur. Mais ce comportement ne ressemble pas du tout à celui
d'une onde, car les ondes se propagent à une certaine vitesse par
rapport au milieu dans lequel elles se développent et non pas à une
certaine vitesse par rapport à leur source..... Il nous faut insister
sur le fait suivant: QUAND EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA
LUMIERE SOIT INDEPENDANTE DE CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT
AUCUNE PREUVE EXPERIMENTALE. IL LE POSTULA PAR PURE NECESSITE
LOGIQUE."
Lakatos' PROTECTIVE BELT philosophy is a special case of the
The MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy: Science is taken to constitute the
interior of a magician's hat where you put ties which are then turned
to rabbits. The magician is free to rearrange the interior of the hat
so that always rabbits and never wolves jump out of it. The public
declares itself ready to boycott the seances if wolves and not rabbits
jump out of the hat. On the other hand, the public loves the magician
so much (there are hymns "Divine Magician" and "Yes we all believe in
the hat, hat, hat") that seances would take place even if
Tyrannosaurus rex jumped out of the hat.
Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."
If the MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy were to be given a more serious name,
the suitable one is perhaps MAGICAL INSTRUMENTALISM. Officially logic
is a crucial tool for instrumentalists but, somewhat paradoxically,
they place no emphasis on validity, that is, on the truth-preserving
procedure involved in any link of the deductive chain. It seems
inherent in the subconsciousness of philosophers of science that,
since many of the arguments in today's theories are invalid, no
verification inside the deductive chain should be undertaken if
trouble is to be avoided. Only the final predictions of the theory
deserve attention as they are suitably selected and shaped by the
magician and his followers.
The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of science made pet theories (Einstein's
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/44abc7dbb30...
John Norton: "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH
AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. The fact that this one experiment is compatible
with other theories does not refute relativity in any way. The full
experimental record refutes most if not all emission theories, but not
relativity."
Pentcho Valev: "THE POUND-REBKA EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN
EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. But this experiment, too, does not refute
relativity. The full experimental record refutes most if not all
emission theories, but not relativity."
Yet scientists who do not sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all
believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" may note that the two
experiments NATURALLY confirm Newton's emission theory of light (the
speed of light varies with both the speed of the light source and the
gravitational potential), in the sense that the confirmation does not
presuppose absurd auxiliary hypotheses (length contraction and
gravitational time dilation).
Pentcho Valev

[Pentcho Valev]

The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of deductive science: Internal anomalies
(falsehood of axioms, invalidity of arguments, internal
inconsistencies) are not to be looked for; only the fit of theories
with the outcome of observations and experiments matters. Yet for 50
years the experimental verification of Einstein's relativity was a
complete fraud (a fact officially admitted by many Einsteinians). Then
experiments became more complex and more difficult to analyse;
accordingly, from the 70s on the experimental verification of
Einstein's relativity has been characterized by a complete honesty:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/17/spaceexploration.comment
"And on 6 November, 1919, at a Royal Society meeting, the astronomer
Sir Arthur Eddington revealed that observations, taken during a solar
eclipse, showed that starlight was being deflected by the sun's
gravitational field in a way that fitted Einstein's General Theory of
Relativity. 'Revolution in science. New theory of the Universe.
Newtonian ideas overthrown,' the Times announced the next day on its
front page. Einstein became a global superstar - thanks to the Royal
Society."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321935.300-ode-to-albert.html
New Scientist: Ode to Albert
"Enter another piece of luck for Einstein. We now know that the light-
bending effect was actually too small for Eddington to have discerned
at that time. Had Eddington not been so receptive to Einstein's
theory, he might not have reached such strong conclusions so soon, and
the world would have had to wait for more accurate eclipse
measurements to confirm general relativity."

http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168
Stephen Hawking: "Einsteins prediction of light deflection could not
be tested immediately in 1915, because the First World War was in
progress, and it was not until 1919 that a British expedition,
observing an eclipse from West Africa, showed that light was indeed
deflected by the sun, just as predicted by the theory. This proof of a
German theory by British scientists was hailed as a great act of
reconciliation between the two countries after the war. It is ionic,
therefore, that later examination of the photographs taken on that
expedition showed the errors were as great as the effect they were
trying to measure. Their measurement had been sheer luck ["sheere
luck" is a euphemism for "sheer fraud"], or a case of knowing the
result they wanted to get, not an uncommon occurrence in science."

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/20-things-you-didn.t-know-about-relativity
"The eclipse experiment finally happened in 1919 (youre looking at it
on this very page). Eminent British physicist Arthur Eddington
declared general relativity a success, catapulting Einstein into fame
and onto coffee mugs. In retrospect, it seems that Eddington fudged
the results, throwing out photos that showed the wrong outcome. No
wonder nobody noticed: At the time of Einsteins death in 1955,
scientists still had almost no evidence of general relativity in
action."

http://www.upd.aas.org/had/meetings/2010Abstracts.html
Open Questions Regarding the 1925 Measurement of the Gravitational
Redshift of Sirius B
Jay B. Holberg Univ. of Arizona.
"In January 1924 Arthur Eddington wrote to Walter S. Adams at the Mt.
Wilson Observatory suggesting a measurement of the Einstein shift in
Sirius B and providing an estimate of its magnitude. Adams 1925
published results agreed remarkably well with Eddingtons estimate.
Initially this achievement was hailed as the third empirical test of
General Relativity (after Mercurys anomalous perihelion advance and
the 1919 measurement of the deflection of starlight). It has been
known for some time that both Eddingtons estimate and Adams
measurement underestimated the true Sirius B gravitational redshift by
a factor of four."

http://alasource.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2009/01/26/l-erreur-d-einstein-la-deuxieme.html
"D'abord il [Einstein] fait une hypothèse fausse (facile à dire
aujourd'hui !) dans son équation de départ qui décrit les relations
étroites entre géométrie de l'espace et contenu de matière de cet
espace. Avec cette hypothèse il tente de calculer l'avance du
périhélie de Mercure. Cette petite anomalie (à l'époque) du mouvement
de la planète était un mystère. Einstein et Besso aboutissent
finalement sur un nombre aberrant et s'aperçoivent qu'en fait le
résultat est cent fois trop grand à cause d'une erreur dans la masse
du soleil... Mais, même corrigé, le résultat reste loin des
observations. Pourtant le physicien ne rejeta pas son idée. "Nous
voyons là que si les critères de Popper étaient toujours respectés, la
théorie aurait dû être abandonnée", constate, ironique, Etienne Klein.
Un coup de main d'un autre ami, Grossmann, sortira Einstein de la
difficulté et sa nouvelle équation s'avéra bonne. En quelques jours,
il trouve la bonne réponse pour l'avance du périhélie de Mercure..."

http://astronomy.ifrance.com/pages/gdes_theories/einstein.html
"Le deuxième test classique donne en revanche des inquiétudes.
Historiquement, pourtant, l'explication de l'avance du périhélie de
Mercure, proposé par Einstein lui-même, donna ses lettres de noblesse
à la relativité générale. Il s'agissait de comprendra pourquoi le
périhélie de Mercure ( le point de son orbite le plus proche du
soleil ) se déplaçait de 574 s d'arc par siècle. Certes, sur ces 574
s, 531 s'expliquaient par les perturbations gravitationnels dues aux
autres planètes. Mais restait 43 s, le fameux effet "périhélique "
inexpliqué par les lois de Newton. Le calcul relativiste d'Einstein
donna 42,98 s ! L'accord et si parfait qu'il ne laisse la place à
aucune discussion. Or depuis 1966, le soleil est soupçonné ne pas être
rigoureusement sphérique mais légèrement aplati à l'équateur. Une très
légère dissymétries qui suffirait à faire avancer le périhélie de
quelques secondes d'arc. Du coup, la preuve se transformerait en
réfutation puisque les 42,88 s du calcul d'Einstein ne pourrait pas
expliquer le mouvement réel de Mercure."

http://astronomy.ifrance.com/pages/gdes_theories/einstein.html
"Arthur Eddington , le premier en 1924, calculâtes théoriquement un
décalage 0,007% attendu la surface de Sirius mais avec des données
fausses à l'époque sur la masse et le rayon de l'étoile. L'année
suivante, Walter Adams mesurerait exactement ces 0.007%. Il s'avère
aujourd'hui que ces mesures , qui constituèrent pendant quarante ans
une "preuves" de la relativité, étaient largement "arrangée" tant
était grand le désir de vérifier la théorie d'Enstein. La véritable
valeur fut mesurée en 1965. Elle est de 0.03% car Sirius est plus
petite , et sont champ de gravitation est plus fort que ne le pensait
Eddington."

http://www.cieletespace.fr/evenement/relativit-les-preuves-taient-fausses
RELATIVITE: LES PREUVES ETAIENT FAUSSES
"Le monde entier a cru pendant plus de cinquante ans à une théorie non
vérifiée. Car, nous le savons aujourd'hui, les premières preuves,
issues notamment d'une célèbre éclipse de 1919, n'en étaient pas.
Elles reposaient en partie sur des manipulations peu avouables visant
à obtenir un résultat connu à l'avance, et sur des mesures entachées
d'incertitudes, quand il ne s'agissait pas de fraudes caractérisées."

http://www.cieletespaceradio.fr/index.php/2008/05/26/390-histoire-des-sciences-les-preuves-de-la-relativite
"Au début du XXème siècle, des scientifiques comme le Britannique
Arthur Eddington avaient tant à coeur de vérifier la théorie de la
relativité qu'ils ont tout mis en oeuvre pour que leurs expériences
soient probantes." (ECOUTEZ!)

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[BURT]

Post by Pentcho Valev
The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of deductive science: Internal anomalies
(falsehood of axioms, invalidity of arguments, internal
inconsistencies) are not to be looked for; only the fit of theories
with the outcome of observations and experiments matters. Yet for 50
years the experimental verification of Einstein's relativity was a
complete fraud (a fact officially admitted by many Einsteinians). Then
experiments became more complex and more difficult to analyse;
accordingly, from the 70s on the experimental verification of
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/17/spaceexploration.comment
"And on 6 November, 1919, at a Royal Society meeting, the astronomer
Sir Arthur Eddington revealed that observations, taken during a solar
eclipse, showed that starlight was being deflected by the sun's
gravitational field in a way that fitted Einstein's General Theory of
Relativity. 'Revolution in science. New theory of the Universe.
Newtonian ideas overthrown,' the Times announced the next day on its
front page. Einstein became a global superstar - thanks to the Royal
Society."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321935.300-ode-to-albert.html
New Scientist: Ode to Albert
"Enter another piece of luck for Einstein. We now know that the light-
bending effect was actually too small for Eddington to have discerned
at that time. Had Eddington not been so receptive to Einstein's
theory, he might not have reached such strong conclusions so soon, and
the world would have had to wait for more accurate eclipse
measurements to confirm general relativity."
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168
Stephen Hawking: "Einsteins prediction of light deflection could not
be tested immediately in 1915, because the First World War was in
progress, and it was not until 1919 that a British expedition,
observing an eclipse from West Africa, showed that light was indeed
deflected by the sun, just as predicted by the theory. This proof of a
German theory by British scientists was hailed as a great act of
reconciliation between the two countries after the war. It is ionic,
therefore, that later examination of the photographs taken on that
expedition showed the errors were as great as the effect they were
trying to measure. Their measurement had been sheer luck ["sheere
luck" is a euphemism for "sheer fraud"], or a case of knowing the
result they wanted to get, not an uncommon occurrence in science."
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/20-things-you-didn.t-know-about-...
"The eclipse experiment finally happened in 1919 (youre looking at it
on this very page). Eminent British physicist Arthur Eddington
declared general relativity a success, catapulting Einstein into fame
and onto coffee mugs. In retrospect, it seems that Eddington fudged
the results, throwing out photos that showed the wrong outcome. No
wonder nobody noticed: At the time of Einsteins death in 1955,
scientists still had almost no evidence of general relativity in
action."
http://www.upd.aas.org/had/meetings/2010Abstracts.html
Open Questions Regarding the 1925 Measurement of the Gravitational
Redshift of Sirius B
Jay B. Holberg Univ. of Arizona.
"In January 1924 Arthur Eddington wrote to Walter S. Adams at the Mt.
Wilson Observatory suggesting a measurement of the Einstein shift in
Sirius B and providing an estimate of its magnitude. Adams 1925
published results agreed remarkably well with Eddingtons estimate.
Initially this achievement was hailed as the third empirical test of
General Relativity (after Mercurys anomalous perihelion advance and
the 1919 measurement of the deflection of starlight). It has been
known for some time that both Eddingtons estimate and Adams
measurement underestimated the true Sirius B gravitational redshift by
a factor of four."
http://alasource.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2009/01/26/l-erreur-d-ei...
"D'abord il [Einstein] fait une hypothèse fausse (facile à dire
aujourd'hui !) dans son équation de départ qui décrit les relations
étroites entre géométrie de l'espace et contenu de matière de cet
espace. Avec cette hypothèse il tente de calculer l'avance du
périhélie de Mercure. Cette petite anomalie (à l'époque) du mouvement
de la planète était un mystère. Einstein et Besso aboutissent
finalement sur un nombre aberrant et s'aperçoivent qu'en fait le
résultat est cent fois trop grand à cause d'une erreur dans la masse
du soleil... Mais, même corrigé, le résultat reste loin des
observations. Pourtant le physicien ne rejeta pas son idée. "Nous
voyons là que si les critères de Popper étaient toujours respectés, la
théorie aurait dû être abandonnée", constate, ironique, Etienne Klein.
Un coup de main d'un autre ami, Grossmann, sortira Einstein de la
difficulté et sa nouvelle équation s'avéra bonne. En quelques jours,
il trouve la bonne réponse pour l'avance du périhélie de Mercure..."
http://astronomy.ifrance.com/pages/gdes_theories/einstein.html
"Le deuxième test classique donne en revanche des inquiétudes.
Historiquement, pourtant, l'explication de l'avance du périhélie de
Mercure, proposé par Einstein lui-même, donna ses lettres de noblesse
à la relativité générale. Il s'agissait de comprendra pourquoi le
périhélie de Mercure ( le point de son orbite le plus proche du
soleil ) se déplaçait de 574 s d'arc par siècle. Certes, sur ces 574
s, 531 s'expliquaient par les perturbations gravitationnels dues aux
autres planètes. Mais restait 43 s, le fameux effet "périhélique "
inexpliqué par les lois de Newton. Le calcul relativiste d'Einstein
donna 42,98 s ! L'accord et si parfait qu'il ne laisse la place à
aucune discussion. Or depuis 1966, le soleil est soupçonné ne pas être
rigoureusement sphérique mais légèrement aplati à l'équateur. Une très
légère dissymétries qui suffirait à faire avancer le périhélie de
quelques secondes d'arc. Du coup, la preuve se transformerait en
réfutation puisque les 42,88 s du calcul d'Einstein ne pourrait pas
expliquer le mouvement réel de Mercure."
http://astronomy.ifrance.com/pages/gdes_theories/einstein.html
"Arthur Eddington , le premier en 1924, calculâtes théoriquement un
décalage 0,007% attendu la surface de Sirius mais avec des données
fausses à l'époque sur la masse et le rayon de l'étoile. L'année
suivante, Walter Adams mesurerait exactement ces 0.007%. Il s'avère
aujourd'hui que ces mesures , qui constituèrent pendant quarante ans
une "preuves" de la relativité, étaient largement "arrangée" tant
était grand le désir de vérifier la théorie d'Enstein. La véritable
valeur fut mesurée en 1965. Elle est de 0.03% car Sirius est plus
petite , et sont champ de gravitation est plus fort que ne le pensait
Eddington."
http://www.cieletespace.fr/evenement/relativit-les-preuves-taient-fau...
RELATIVITE: LES PREUVES ETAIENT FAUSSES
"Le monde entier a cru pendant plus de cinquante ans à une théorie non
vérifiée. Car, nous le savons aujourd'hui, les premières preuves,
issues notamment d'une célèbre éclipse de 1919, n'en étaient pas.
Elles reposaient en partie sur des manipulations peu avouables visant
à obtenir un résultat connu à l'avance, et sur des mesures entachées
d'incertitudes, quand il ne s'agissait pas de fraudes caractérisées."
http://www.cieletespaceradio.fr/index.php/2008/05/26/390-histoire-des...
"Au début du XXème siècle, des scientifiques comme le Britannique
Arthur Eddington avaient tant à coeur de vérifier la théorie de la
relativité qu'ils ont tout mis en oeuvre pour que leurs expériences
soient probantes." (ECOUTEZ!)
Pentcho Valev

Round space curvature aether gives the parabolic flow of light past
the limb of the Sun.

Mitch Raemsch

[Pentcho Valev]

The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of science in action. Initially, an idiotic
"axiom" is advanced; then magicians are free to extract career, money,
Nobel prizes etc. from it; all along believers should sing dithyrambs,
"until any single one of the host of equations that can be derived
from it....has been shown experimentally to be false":

L. McGlashan, Chemical thermodynamics, Academic Press, London (1979),
pp. 72-73:
"For an infinitesimal change in the state of a phase alpha we write
dU = T dS - p dV + SUM mu_B dn_B (1)
We regard equation (1) as an axiom and call it the fundamental
equation for a change of the state of a phase alpha. It is one half of
the second law of thermodynamics. We do not ask where it comes from.
Indeed we do not admit the existence of any more fundamental relations
from which it might have been derived. Nor shall we here enquire into
the history of its formulation, though that is a subject of great
interest to the historian of science. It is a starting point ; it must
be learnt by heart. It may be allowed to stand as an axiom until any
single one of the host of equations that can be derived from it (with
the help of other axioms of thermodynamics) has been shown
experimentally to be false."

For a closed system doing reversible work of expansion the first law
of thermodynamics takes the form

dU = dQ - PdV /1/

where dU is the internal energy change, dQ is the heat absorbed, P is
pressure and V is volume. Since the system is CLOSED and undergoes
reversible changes the entropy change is, by definition, dS=dQ/T and /
1/ becomes:

dU = TdS - PdV /2/

J. Gibbs managed to convince the world that, if the system is OPEN
(substances are added to it), /2/ should be replaced by the equation:

dU = TdS - PdV + SUM mu_i dn_i /3/

where mu_i is the chemical potential and n_i is the amount of the ith
component. However Gibbs failed to explain the meaning of the entropy
change, dS, for an OPEN system. Was dS again equal to dQ/T, as it is
for a closed system, or was dS equal to something else when substances
were added to the system?

The fact that dS was not defined for open systems made the equation /
3/ so fashionable (scientists adore equations with undefined terms)
that in the end /3/ was called "the fundamental equation of
thermodynamics". Yet scientists somehow felt that a new explicit
definition of dS could bring even more career and money. The quickest
among them, Ilya Prigogine, simply combined /1/ and /3/ and obtained

dS = dQ/T - (1/T)SUM mu_i dn_i /4/

That was a new incredible definition of the entropy change (the
scientific community had never seen anything like this) so the Nobel
Committee immediately gave Prigogine the Nobel prize. Believers do not
know how /4/ can be "shown experimentally to be false". Similarly,
they do not know how the statement "The greenness of the crocodile
exceeds its length" can be shown experimentally to be false.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

Einsteiniana's revolutions used to involve two campaigns (often
occurring simultaneously):

Campaign 1: An extremely heretical claim, usually challenging
Einstein's 1905 false light postulate, is advanced and even
experimentally confirmed. Selected "mavericks" in Einsteiniana extract
maximum career and money from the fuss:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327246.800-13-more-things-magic-results.html
"In 2005, researchers at the MAGIC gamma-ray telescope on La Palma in
the Canary Islands were studying gamma-ray bursts emitted by the black
hole in the centre of the Markarian 501 galaxy, half a billion light
years away. The burst's high-energy gamma rays arrived at the
telescope 4 minutes later than the lower-energy rays. Both parts of
the spectrum should have been emitted at the same time. So is the time
lag due to the high-energy radiation travelling slower through space?
That wouldn't make sense: it would contravene one of the central
tenets of special relativity. According to Einstein, all
electromagnetic radiation always travels through vacuum at the cosmic
speed limit the speed of light. The energy of the radiation should be
absolutely irrelevant."

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/smolin03/smolin03_print.html
Lee Smolin: "Now, here is the really interesting part: Some of the
effects predicted by the theory appear to be in conflict with one of
the principles of Einstein's special theory of relativity, the theory
that says that the speed of light is a universal constant. It's the
same for all photons, and it is independent of the motion of the
sender or observer. How is this possible, if that theory is itself
based on the principles of relativity? The principle of the constancy
of the speed of light is part of special relativity, but we quantized
Einstein's general theory of relativity.....But there is another
possibility. This is that the principle of relativity is preserved,
but Einstein's special theory of relativity requires modification so
as to allow photons to have a speed that depends on energy. The most
shocking thing I have learned in the last year is that this is a real
possibility. A photon can have an energy-dependent speed without
violating the principle of relativity! This was understood a few years
ago by Amelino Camelia. I got involved in this issue through work I
did with Joao Magueijo, a very talented young cosmologist at Imperial
College, London. During the two years I spent working there, Joao kept
coming to me and bugging me with this problem.....These ideas all
seemed crazy to me, and for a long time I didn't get it. I was sure it
was wrong! But Joao kept bugging me and slowly I realized that they
had a point. We have since written several papers together showing how
Einstein's postulates may be modified to give a new version of special
relativity in which the speed of light can depend on energy."

Campaign 2: The extremely heretical claim is useless and even harmful
(in terms of career and money) for other Einsteinians so it is slowly
but surely being undermined, with "Einstein is still right" as the
final conclusion. The selected "mavericks" gradually abandon their
heresy but career and money gained in the first campaign remain:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/10/29/a-gamma-ray-race-through-the-fabric-of-space-time-proves-einstein-right/
"New results are in from the Fermi Space Telescope, which settled into
orbit in the summer of 2008, and the findings seem to prove Albert
Einstein right once again. Man, that guy was good. (...) But the study
of the Fermi Telescopes results, published in Nature, declares that
since all the gamma rays arrived within nine-tenths of a second apart,
they must have all traveled at almost exactly the same speed. (...)
Physicists working with the Fermi Telescope will keep looking for new
evidence. But for now, says study coauthor Peter F. Michelson, "I take
it as a confirmation that Einstein is still right" [The New York
Times]."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of science in action. Initially, an idiotic
"axiom" is advanced; then magicians are free to extract career, money,
Nobel prizes etc. from it; all along believers should sing dithyrambs,
"until any single one of the host of equations that can be derived
from it....has been shown experimentally to be false":

L. McGlashan, Chemical thermodynamics, Academic Press, London (1979),
pp. 72-73:
"For an infinitesimal change in the state of a phase alpha we write
dU = T dS - p dV + SUM mu_B dn_B (1)
We regard equation (1) as an axiom and call it the fundamental
equation for a change of the state of a phase alpha. It is one half of
the second law of thermodynamics. We do not ask where it comes from.
Indeed we do not admit the existence of any more fundamental relations
from which it might have been derived. Nor shall we here enquire into
the history of its formulation, though that is a subject of great
interest to the historian of science. It is a starting point ; it must
be learnt by heart. It may be allowed to stand as an axiom until any
single one of the host of equations that can be derived from it (with
the help of other axioms of thermodynamics) has been shown
experimentally to be false."

For a closed system doing reversible work of expansion the first law
of thermodynamics takes the form

dU = dQ - PdV /1/

where dU is the internal energy change, dQ is the heat absorbed, P is
pressure and V is volume. Since the system is CLOSED and undergoes
reversible changes the entropy change is, by definition, dS=dQ/T and /
1/ becomes:

dU = TdS - PdV /2/

J. Gibbs managed to convince the world that, if the system is OPEN
(substances are added to it), /2/ should be replaced by the equation:

dU = TdS - PdV + SUM mu_i dn_i /3/

where mu_i is the chemical potential and n_i is the amount of the ith
component. However Gibbs failed to explain the meaning of the entropy
change, dS, for an OPEN system. Was dS again equal to dQ/T, as it is
for a closed system, or was dS equal to something else when substances
were added to the system?

The fact that dS was not defined for open systems made the equation /
3/ so fashionable (scientists adore equations with undefined terms)
that in the end /3/ was called "the fundamental equation of
thermodynamics". Yet scientists somehow felt that a new explicit
definition of dS could bring even more career and money. The quickest
among them, Ilya Prigogine, simply combined /1/ and /3/ and obtained

dS = dQ/T - (1/T)SUM mu_i dn_i /4/

That was a new incredible definition of the entropy change (the
scientific community had never seen anything like this) so the Nobel
Committee immediately gave Prigogine the Nobel prize. Believers do not
know how /4/ can be "shown experimentally to be false". Similarly,
they do not know how the statement "The greenness of the crocodile
exceeds its length" can be shown experimentally to be false.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[yvan Bozzonetti]

On 28 fév, 11:03, Pentcho Valev-megafiote <***@yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip sacamerde>

Post by Pentcho Valev
Pentcho Valev

What about crude relativity?

Y.B.

[Stamenin]

Post by Pentcho Valev
bertie.ccsu.edu/~dsb/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."
www.physics.queensu.ca/~phys242/Section2_3.pdf
"Because the GTs [Galilean transformations] are clearly not consistent
with Einstein's two postulates, we are going to have to develop a new
set of transformations: the Lorentz transformations."
Historically the protective belt (Lorentz transformations) was created
before the hard core (Einstein's 1905 postulates). Without the
protective belt, Einstein's postulates (more precisely, his light
postulate) would have been immediately refuted by the Michelson-Morley
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."
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."
James H. Smith "Introduction à la relativité" EDISCIENCE 1969 pp.
39-41: "Si la lumière était un flot de particules mécaniques obéissant
aux lois de la mécanique, il n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre
les résultats de l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par
exemple, qu'une fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à
un observateur et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la
vitesse de la lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la
lumière par rapport à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière
se déplaceraient à la vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à
l'observateur. Mais ce comportement ne ressemble pas du tout à celui
d'une onde, car les ondes se propagent à une certaine vitesse par
rapport au milieu dans lequel elles se développent et non pas à une
certaine vitesse par rapport à leur source..... Il nous faut insister
sur le fait suivant: QUAND EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA
LUMIERE SOIT INDEPENDANTE DE CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT
AUCUNE PREUVE EXPERIMENTALE. IL LE POSTULA PAR PURE NECESSITE
LOGIQUE."
Lakatos' PROTECTIVE BELT philosophy is a special case of the
The MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy: Science is taken to constitute the
interior of a magician's hat where you put ties which are then turned
to rabbits. The magician is free to rearrange the interior of the hat
so that always rabbits and never wolves jump out of it. The public
declares itself ready to boycott the seances if wolves and not rabbits
jump out of the hat. On the other hand, the public loves the magician
so much (there are hymns "Divine Magician" and "Yes we all believe in
the hat, hat, hat") that seances would take place even if
Tyrannosaurus rex jumped out of the hat.
Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."
If the MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy were to be given a more serious name,
the suitable one is perhaps MAGICAL INSTRUMENTALISM. Officially logic
is a crucial tool for instrumentalists but, somewhat paradoxically,
they place no emphasis on validity, that is, on the truth-preserving
procedure involved in any link of the deductive chain. It seems
inherent in the subconsciousness of philosophers of science that,
since many of the arguments in today's theories are invalid, no
verification inside the deductive chain should be undertaken if
trouble is to be avoided. Only the final predictions of the theory
deserve attention as they are suitably selected and shaped by the
magician and his followers.
The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of science made pet theories (Einstein's
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/44abc7dbb30...
John Norton: "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH
AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. The fact that this one experiment is compatible
with other theories does not refute relativity in any way. The full
experimental record refutes most if not all emission theories, but not
relativity."
Pentcho Valev: "THE POUND-REBKA EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN
EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. But this experiment, too, does not refute
relativity. The full experimental record refutes most if not all
emission theories, but not relativity."
Yet scientists who do not sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all
believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" may note that the two
experiments NATURALLY confirm Newton's emission theory of light (the
speed of light varies with both the speed of the light source and the
gravitational potential), in the sense that the confirmation does not
presuppose absurd auxiliary hypotheses (length contraction and
gravitational time dilation).
Pentcho Valev

I just like to ask if Pentcho Valev is a critic of Einstein false
theory or tries to open themes with which is evident that don't give
any argument against Einsteins aberrations?