For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.
Dr Smith contends that Einstein's preference for the ''Principle of Relativity'' is based in the final count not on scientific or empirical grounds but on ideological premises. This will involve quite a leap for those today who assume his principle reigns supreme, whether it be physicists or ordinary people with little or no technical background. The arguments of the remainder of his chapter are at points quite technical. I refer those interested in the details to Smith's own text. What follows aims to give a flavour of the reasoning involved.
Einstein inaugurated his ''special'' theory of relativity in 1905. In view of its extraordinary and revolutionary impact, Smith summarises its main elements and seeks to discover why Einstein felt a need to develop this particular theory.
Here is a very short summary of the historical background to Einstein's 1905 theory.
Ptolemy (c100- c170) had argued that the earth was the centre of the universe. The Christian Church and the Bible affirmed this geocentrism although it was refined occasionally, notably by Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). Copernicus (1473-1543), however, rejected geocentrism and argued for its replacement by a heliocentric model. He was later followed by Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727) subsequently seemed to have provided cast-iron mathematical proofs of heliocentrism. By the nineteenth century, everyone though the science was ''settled'': the earth revolved on its own axis and orbited the sun. All that remained was for scientists to prove the movement of the earth by means of the scientific method: an experiment involving observation and measurement. Several experiments took place, notably the Michelson-Morley series (beginning in 1887). The results of these experiments astonished the world of physics because no movement could be measured. This remained so even after repetitions of the experiment.
It is important to emphasise that Einstein's starting point was to accept that the earth did indeed move. The classical equations of mechanics (going back to Newton's Principia of 1687) and of electromagnetism (formulated by Clerk Maxwell in 1865) did not allow this conclusion. Hence, Einstein ''discovered'' (formulated) his ''special'' theory of relativity. He was able to use this theory to explain away the Michelson-Morley experiment's ''failure'' to detect movement by the earth. The problem for Einstein was that his theory was incompatible with Newtonian mechanics. As Smith notes at this point:
Now this leaves him, obviously, with two options: to reject his so-called ''special theory of relativity'' on the grounds that it does not square with the equations of mechanics, or to alter these equations—to render them ''relativistic'' by fiat as it were—to save his theory. And needless to say, Einstein chose the second course: the Procrustean option, his critics might say.No-one among the avant-garde physicists at the time appears to have seriously entertained the possibility that the equations of classical mechanics may actually be correct. Whenever a disciple of Einstein postulates his Principle of Relativity, the question that needs to be asked is ''why?'' Why alter the Newtonian equations? Why suppose that they are in any way deficient? What experiment told us so? Later in the chapter, Smith hints at possible motivations by quoting Richard Lewontin: ''We cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.''[1]
Smith himself argues that classical physics implies the very opposite of Einstein's postulate since one finds that physics itself defines a state of absolute rest (please see the Chapter for his arguments in favour of what he terms the ''Principle of Immobility''). He cites in support of his position a paper entitled “Newton-Machian analysis of a Neotychonian model of planetary motions”[2]—in which a physicist named Luka Popov calculates planetary orbits by means of Newtonian physics, based on a geocentric reference frame. Luka Popov’s result has broken the long-standing hegemony of heliocentrism. It demonstrates, on the basis of Newtonian mechanics, that it is equally legitimate to claim that the Sun rotates (annually) around the Earth: it all depends on your choice of coordinates, and geocentric coordinates are in fact legitimate.
Smith goes further, writing:
The picture changes drastically, however, the moment one takes electromagnetism into account: for now the Principle of Immobility comes into play, which, as we have seen, singles out the Earth from all other celestial bodies by the fact that it can be both stationary and central. What confronts us here constitutes evidently the very pinnacle of design: no wonder ''relativists'' of every stripe abhor the notion like the plague! So far from being a planet, the Earth can thus be viewed as the very antithesis: as the stationary centre, namely, around which all other celestial bodies are constrained to revolve diurnally. And as to the authentic planets or “wanderers,” beginning with the Sun: these do then execute, in addition, their appointed orbits around the Earth, very much as the ancient astronomers had ascertained.In the final post on this roller-coaster Chapter 5, we shall take a brief look at the empirical arguments Smith cites against Einstein and conclude by unmasking a truly stunning ''anthropic coincidence.''
[1] Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin (born March 29, 1929, New York City, to parents descended from Eastern European Jewish immigrants); an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics.
[2] Eur. J. Phys. 34, 2(2013): 383
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