Einstein, heavily influenced by Mach, believed in relative motion and time only based on material bodies being measured externally.
...............
One older classmate, Margarete von Uexküll, who boarded in the same house as Mileva, later recalled Einstein once talking about gravity, mass, and time. According to her, he argued as they walked: “You can well imagine the universe as a sphere filled with any mass, the starry world, gases, ether or however one may call it. Consider now this mass gone, then also there would exist no more time.” She listened, but felt none the wiser.
.........
Einstein attempt to devise experiments to detect motion relative to the ether. He believed that the motion of all material bodies is relative to other material bodies. He began to intensively study the electrodynamics of H. A. Lorentz.
According to Lorentz, Maxwell’s equations were only valid exactly in one reference system, distinguished from all others by its state of rest: the luminiferous ether. Lorentz analyzed electric currents as consisting of true electric masses, independent particles moving about; a conception that Einstein accepted, as he sought a description that would relate free “electricities and magnetisms” in space. He learned about Lorentz’s successful attempts to derive the Fresnel drag coefficient by way of a theory that involved the universal stationary ether. To explain the ether-drift experiments, Lorentz relied on a mathematical contrivance: the contraction of moving lengths. He posited that a body moving through the ether contracts along the direction of its motion v, by comparison to an identical body at rest in the ether, by the ratio:
.................
Lorentz justified the contraction by hypothesizing that the molecular forces responsible for the cohesion of solid bodies were affected by motion through the ether, such that all bodies contract in the direction of motion, just enough to make such motion undetectable (by eliminating asymmetric path differences among light rays). Perhaps no material bodies were absolutely rigid.
.............
If a wire circuit were at rest in the ether, the motion of a magnet in its vicinity was said to produce a real electric field that would set in motion the electrons in the wire. Whereas, if instead the magnet were at rest in the ether while the wire was moved, then there would be no electric field, and the same current of electrons in the wire would be said to result from the action of a hypothetical force. Einstein was unsatisfied by this “electromotive force hypothetically introduced by Lorentz.”112 He preferred to think that the symmetric electromagnetic effects of relative motion had but one underlying cause. He reached “the conviction that the electromotive force induced in a conductor moving in a magnetic field is nothing other than an electric field.”113 Einstein thus believed that “the existence of an electric field was therefore a relative one, depending upon the state of motion of the coordinate system being used.”114
..........
Moreover, Einstein was still puzzled by Fizeau’s experiment, so he focused on theoretically examining it. By assuming the existence of the ether, along with Lorentz’s force formula, one could account for effects of moving media such as are involved in Fizeau’s experiment.115 But Einstein thought that the formula should apply with respect to an ordinary system of reference, rather than the ether. He “hypothesized” that Lorentz’s force formula would work when referred to a moving body instead of to empty space.116 One could then account for Fizeau’s results by thus using the Lorentz force and Maxwell’s equations, with “no need of the local time” concept.
.................
had presented kinematics as the a priori science of motion, a branch of pure mathematics. By contrast, Ampère’s seminal discussion argued that kinematics should be conceived as the science of motion as it appears to observation. The focus on grounding concepts on observations appealed to Einstein, being interested in the visible aspects of physics. He had puzzled over the nature of light by thinking about observers in motion. https://www.martinezwritings.com/m/Kinematics6.html
He referred to the notion that two events that are simultaneous for one observer are not necessarily simultaneous for another....For example, a person aboard a moving train could perceive two lightning bolts in a different sequence from what is observed by someone on the ground.317 This would serve to formulate a new concept of simultaneity, a relative concept. Einstein could reject the traditional notion of “absolute simultaneity” because it seemed to be impossible to connect it univocally with experience.318
Moreover, observers would disagree over the interval of time between two events. Therefore, they could obtain the same measurement for the speed of a single ray of light, even while the observers move in opposite directions. The measured speed of light could thus be independent of the motion of reference systems.
the traditional conception of the absolute character of simultaneity was a mere prejudice, and that the velocity of light was independent of the motion of coördinate systems.”
concepts and laws of space and time can only claim validity insofar as they stand in a clear relation to our experiences; and that experience could well lead to alteration of these concepts and laws. By a revision of the concept of simultaneity into a more malleable form, I thus arrived at the special theory of relativity.”
His account corresponded better with the symmetries evidenced by electrodynamic experiments, because it did not pick out any one reference frame as special, as being truly at rest. Thus the concept of a universal stationary ether seemed superfluous.
Allegedly, according to a third-person account, “As he continued to pursue the subject of simultaneity, Einstein began to use the word ‘relativity’ more and more.”341 Rather than having the principle of relativity be valid as a byproduct of several compensating effects, as in Lorentz’s theory, he chose to raise the status of the principle to a postulate. That is, he chose to posit it as a fundamental assumption. Likewise, he postulated the constancy of the speed of light in an arbitrary inertial system. From those two postulates, along with physical hypotheses about the behavior of clocks, rods, and light, Einstein proceeded to derive the equations of his kinematics. Martinez lecture
Hi Professor Alberto A. Martínez: I was recommended your book chapter in "Curiosity's Cats"
by Professor Philip J. Anderson who is my neighbor. I grew up in
Minneapolis and I did a master's degree in the Twin Cities campus,
finishing around 2000. So I noticed your mention of Dinkytown - I used
to love digging through the Bookhouse and other bookstores around
there. I really enjoyed your article on Einstein being influenced by
David Hume - and how Einstein had to let go in despair, sleep on it,
then woke up with a vision of inspiration. There is a great book on this
called The Creative Process - published first in the 1950s
(since reissued) - a former University of Minnesota music professor recommended that book to me when I was in high school. I'm a
year or less younger than you. So there is a similar process for other
great scientists and artists.
In terms
of tying coordinates of spacetime to experience I am wondering if you
have considered noncommutativity. I'm a big fan of Professor Basil J.
Hiley who worked with David Bohm. Hiley has realized that
noncommutativity explains Bohmian physics (that is not mechanics as
normally portrayed). I also have studied Fields Medal math professor
Alain Connes who has a great lecture called "Music of Shapes" revealing
the truth of music is noncommutativity. I had this same realization as a
high school private music student in Minneapolis - only I called it
"complimentary opposites" (until I discovered Connes - and no one could
understand me when I wrote some articles explaining my concept).
hahahaha.
I believe the Orthodox
Pythagorean philosophy is actually noncommutativity as well. I finished
my master's degree by training with a Chinese Shaolin-trained meditation
spiritual healer "qigong master" - as I realized that nonwestern music
theory is also noncommutativity and this noncommutaitvity is the secret
of yoga, qigong, etc. Eddie Oshins working at Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center also made this same realization about how
noncommutativity was the secret of nonwestern meditation using "neigong"
as an example (internal martial arts lineages).
Thanks for your time,
drew hempel, MA
It is difficult to separate the qualitative problem of simultaneityfrom the quantitative problem of the measurement of time ; no matter whether a
chronometer is used, or whether account must be taken of a velocity of transmission, as that of light, because such a velocity could not be measured without measuring a time.
https://paricenter.com/event/the-dirac-bohm-picture-bohms-1952-approach-in-a-wider-context/
Photons do have a reference frame in meditation!
No comments:
Post a Comment