INTRODUCTION by Thomas E. Phipps, Jr.

Nachstehend bringe ich eine Einführung (Introduction) von Thomas E. Phipps, Jr. zu dem Buch von Professor Wallace KANTOR: „Relativistic Propagation of Light„:

Zitat:

INTRODUCTION

by Thomas E. Phipps, Jr.

The special theory of relativity is „special“ in many ways, some not featured in guidebooks of the subject. Its logical Status is unique, in that it appears to embody an application of pure reason to two „physical“ postulates, relativity and light-speed constancy. The result is a kinematics that, strictly speaking, applies to nothing in the world (because of its limitation to uniform rectilinear motion, which never occurs physically in any exact sense), but, practically speaking, is applied to everything. The theory, in reconciling such Professional practice with logical rigor, acquires the aspect of a conjuring trick.

The canonical method of performing the trick is as follows: Whenever the kinematics gets into logical hot water-which happens with disturbing frequency-the hapless skeptic is at once referred to another theory, the general theory of relativity, which in turn supports itself by reference back to the special theory (for its kinematic underpinnings), but has the diversionary advantages of (a) introducing a causal factor (gravity) by definition irrelevant to kinematics, and (b) casting the critic into a snakepit of four-index tensor symbols. So successful has this disciplinary technique for enforcing conformity proven itself among physicists and scholars that nowadays to raise any question about the physical validity of the special theory (but, curiously, not about the general theory) is to renounce one’s membership in the club. In a society normally quite open to ideas – including those of astrologers – and generally hostile to sacred cattle, to doubt the special theory is the one sure way to be automatically labeled a crackpot.

(Zitatende)

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Beste Grüße Ekkehard Friebe