Counterexamples to Relativity

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The theory of relativity is a mathematical model for certain observed physical phenomena. It is universally accepted by physicists of all political and religious affiliations as an important part of what we know about the world due to support by a large body of experimental data, but has attracted opposition from certain conservatives who believe there is some connection between relativity and moral relativism. The following observations have been advanced as evidence that the theory is false or incomplete.

  1. Despite wasting millions of taxpayer dollars searching for gravity waves predicted by the theory, none has ever been found.[1] Sound like global warming?
  2. The eccentricity of the Moon's orbit is increasing contrary to the theory of relativity.[2]
  3. Subatomic particles have a speed observed to be faster than the speed of light, which contradicts a fundamental assumption of Relativity.[3] The Italian lab that "shocked the scientific world" has announced more precise results, confirming their previous announcement.[4]
  4. The Pioneer anomaly.
  5. Anomalies in the locations of spacecraft that have flown by Earth ("flybys").[5]
  6. Spiral galaxies confound Relativity, and unseen "dark matter" has been invented to try to retrofit observations to the theory.[6]
  7. The acceleration in the expansion of the universe confounds Relativity, and unseen "dark energy" has been invented to try to retrofit observations to the theory.
  8. Increasingly precise measurements of the advance of the perihelion of Mercury show a shift greater than predicted by Relativity, well beyond the margin of error.[7]
  9. The discontinuity in momentum as velocity approaches "c" for infinitesimal mass, compared to the momentum of light.
  10. The logical problem of a force which is applied at a right angle to the velocity of a relativistic mass - does this act on the rest mass or the relativistic mass?
  11. The observed lack of curvature in overall space.[8]
  12. The universe shortly after its creation, when quantum effects dominated and contradicted Relativity.
  13. The action-at-a-distance of quantum entanglement.[9]
  14. The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54, Matthew 15:28, and Matthew 27:51.
  15. The failure to discover gravitons, despite wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayer money in searching.
  16. Newly observed data reveal that the fine-structure constant, α (alpha), actually varies throughout the universe, demonstrating that all inertial frames of reference do not experience identical laws of physics as claimed by Relativity.[10]
  17. The double star "W13" weighs "40 times as much as the sun—more than enough to form a black hole. So why is it not a black hole? The only explanation [a leading scientist] can think of ... does not make astrophysical sense."[11]
  18. The inability of the theory to lead to other insights, contrary to every verified theory of physics.
  19. The change in mass over time of standard kilograms preserved under ideal conditions.[12]
  20. The uniformity in temperature throughout the universe.[13]
  21. "According to Einstein’s view on the universe, space-time should be smooth and continuous" but observations instead show "inexplicable static" greater than "all artificial sources of" possible background noise.[14]
  22. "The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two [QM and Relativity] conceptions of time don’t gel."[15]
  23. The theory predicts wormholes just as it predicts black holes, but wormholes violate causality and permit absurd time travel.[16]
  24. The theory predicts natural formation of highly ordered (and thus low entropy) black holes despite the increase in entropy required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.[17]
  25. Data from the PSR B1913+16 increasingly diverge from predictions of the General Theory of Relativity such that, despite a Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded for early work on this pulsar, no data at all have been released about it for over five years.
  26. The lack of useful devices developed based on any insights provided by the theory; no lives have been saved or helped, and the theory has not led to other useful theories and may have interfered with scientific progress.[18] This stands in stark contrast with every verified theory of science.
  27. Relativity requires different values for the inertia of a moving object: in its direction of motion, and perpendicular to that direction. This contradicts the logical principle that the laws of physics are the same in all directions.
  28. Relativity requires that anything traveling at the speed of light must have mass zero, so it must have momentum zero. But the laws of electrodynamics require that light have nonzero momentum.
  29. Unlike most well-tested fundamental physical theories, the theory of relativity violates conditions of a conservative field. Path independence, for example, is lacking under the theory of relativity, as in the "twin paradox" whereby the age of each twin under the theory is dependent on the path he traveled.[19]
  30. The Ehrenfest Paradox: Consider a spinning hoop, where the tangential velocity is near the speed of light. In this case, the circumference () is length-contracted. However, since is always perpendicular to the motion, it is not contracted. This leads to an apparent paradox: does the radius of the accelerating hoop equal , or is it less than ?
  31. The Twin Paradox: Consider twins who are separated with one traveling at a very high speed such that his "clock" (age) slows down, so that when he returns he has a younger age than the twin; this violates Relativity because both twins should expect the other to be younger, if motion is relative. Einstein himself admitted that this contradicts Relativity.[20]
  32. Based on Relativity, Einstein predicted in 1905 that clocks at the Earth's equator would be slower than clocks at the North Pole, due to different velocities; in fact, all clocks at sea level measure time at the same rate, and Relativists made new assumptions about the Earth's shape to justify this contradiction of the theory; they also make the implausible claim that relativistic effects from gravitation precisely offset the effects from differences in velocity.[21]
  33. Based on Relativity, Einstein claimed in 1909 that the aether does not exist, but in order to make subatomic physics work right, theorists had to introduce the aether-like concept of the Higgs field, which fills all of space and breaks symmetries.
  34. In Genesis 1:6-8, we are told that one of God's first creations was a firmament in the heavens. This likely refers to the creation of the luminiferous aether.
  35. Minkowski space is predicated on the idea of four-dimensional vectors of which one component is time. However, one of the properties of a vector space is that every vector have an inverse. Time cannot be a vector because it has no inverse.
  36. It is impossible to perform an experiment to determine whether Einstein's theory of relativity is correct, or the older Lorentz aether theory is correct. Believing one over the other is a matter of faith.
  37. Despite a century of wasting billions of dollars in work on the theory, "No one knows how to solve completely the equations of general relativity that describe gravity; they are simply beyond current understanding."[22]
  38. Experiments in electromagnetic induction contradict Relativity: "Einstein’s Relativity ... can not explain the experiment in graph 2, in which moving magnetic field has not produced electric field."[23][24]
  39. Relativity breaks down if a solenoid is traveling at or near the speed of light.[Citation Needed]

(add to list)

See also

References

  1. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3781
  2. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.0212
  3. http://www.hindustantimes.com/Roll-over-Einstein-Law-of-physics-challenged/Article1-749189.aspx - note that a similar observation of faster-than-light speeds was also made in 2007 (with a larger margin of error).
  4. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-science-neutrinos-light-idUSTRE7AH0T720111118
  5. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23410705/
  6. http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.1873
  7. In a complicated or contrived series of calculations that most physics majors cannot duplicate even after learning them, the theory of general relativity's fundamental formula, , was conformed to match Mercury's then-observed precession of 5600.0 arc-seconds per century. Subsequently, however, more sophisticated technology has measured a different value of this precession (5599.7 arc-seconds per century, with a margin of error of only 0.01), and leading promoters of Relativity (such as Professor Clifford Will) have omitted this in listing tests confirming Relativity.
  8. If space were curved, one would never expect the universe as a whole to be almost precisely flat. Yet it is.
  9. Quantum entanglement has not yet communicated information faster than the speed of light, but has already exhibited action faster than the speed of light.
  10. For a report on the data, see a paper submitted in 2010 by John Webb and Julian King of the University of new South Wales, Australia, to the Physical Review Letters.
  11. http://www.economist.com/node/17035953
  12. Mystery:Why Is the Kilogram Losing Weight?
  13. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6092-speed-of-light-may-have-changed-recently.html ("A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein's theory of relativity, and would undermine much of traditional physics. But some physicists believe it would elegantly explain puzzling cosmological phenomena such as the nearly uniform temperature of the universe.")
  14. Hunt for gravitational waves discovers unexpected data instead.
  15. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=splitting-time-from-space
  16. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v61/i13/p1446_1 . The popular science press promotes black holes to a far greater extent than wormholes.
  17. Contrived explanations have been suggested for this dilemma, such as Stephen Hawking proposing that the entropy of matter in a black hole is somehow stored in the surface area of its event horizon to be released back into its surroundings as the black hole decays by radiation, known as "Hawking radiation."
  18. Contrary to the claims of Relativists, the GPS system has never been based on Relativity. The Time Service Department, U.S. Navy, observed that "The Operational Control System (OCS) of the Global Positioning System (GPS) does not include the rigorous transformations between coordinate systems that Einstein’s general theory of relativity would seem to require" in part because "the effects of relativity, where they are different from the effects predicted by classical mechanics and electromagnetic theory, are too small to matter – less than one centimeter, for users on or near the earth.”
  19. In defense of the theory, it is noted that it mandates conservation of the matter-stress-energy tensor (the only way to get real conservation, since matter and energy are interchangeable.) This follows from the "contracted Bianchi identity." [1] Also, the curl of the "gravitational field vector" is exactly zero in the absence of moving sources, due to symmetries of Riemann's tensor. It follows, from Stokes' Theorem, that the gravitational field is conservative and has a potential function. Energy is conserved.
  20. Einstein attempted to explain the paradox based on the acceleration that one twin uniquely undergoes, but the length of travel can simply be extended such that any effect from acceleration would be de minimis.
  21. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v227/n5255/abs/227270a0.html
  22. Statement in awarding the coveted Fields Medal
  23. http://www.wbabin.net/weuro/qingping1.pdf
  24. http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0504223