In this essay we present a group of critical ideas on the mental experiments that A. Einstein uses in his book entitled: “On the theory of special and general relativity”. With these mental experiments he intends to validate his theories. This grouping of ideas allows us to see that a fallacy that we criticize in a mental experiment generates another fallacy that we criticize in another mental experiment. These errors are so obvious that we have been suggested to use the word “deception” to give the present study its title.
In this study we will deal only with “Special Relativity”, leaving the criticism of “General Relativity” for a second study.
The transcriptions that we make of the cited book by A. Einstein will be written in quotation marks and in italics.
In a short time we will publish a book that will group the essays published in the Blog of the author of the present essay that will be isolated criticisms and that we title as: “Errors and fallacies of A. Einstein in his theories of relativity”.
1.- A GENERAL ERROR IN ALL THE MENTAL EXPERIMENTS PROPOSED BY A. EINSTEIN
In all our essays we have exposed the same error committed in the mental experiments proposed by A. Einstein:
The error is to consider that the natural phenomenon IS different instead of considering that it LOOKS different when it is subjected to a relative speed with respect to a reference point.
We will see that this error is so serious that it not only attempts to change the appearance of a physical phenomenon but the cited Physicist says that it transforms a “process”.
2.- AN ERROR BY A. EINSTEIN IN THE INTERPRETATION OF THE LORENTZ TRANSFORMATION FORMULAS.
In the reference book, the cited Physicist gives a false interpretation of the Lorentz Transformation Formulas. We give a brief summary of this error that the reader can find expanded on this subject in our mentioned book.
A. Einstein, in his mistake of confusing the verb SEE with the verb BE, interprets the Lorentz Transformation Formulas as a way of knowing how the variables of an event have changed in value due to the relative MOVEMENT of the observer of the event with respect to this event. In this way, he can include it in his theory and it seems that the events change, that is, they ARE due to the relative movement.
In reality, these formulas serve to see how the VISION of an event observed from a mobile platform is transformed with respect to this event. The variables of the event are not transformed by the movement between the two reference systems but are SEEN transformed by the decrease in the visual field due to the distance (event-observer).
We can affirm our thesis by saying that A. Einstein applies the referred formulas precisely when he exposes the mental experiment of the measuring bar set in motion on a train car.
3.-THE DECEPTION OF THE LENGTH-MEASURING BAR
We now begin the subject of the “trickery” mental experiments proposed by A. Einstein in his book: “On the theory of special and general relativity”. It is about the subject of the “shortening of the length-measuring bar”. We will see that it is a fallacy that generates another fallacy. In the cited book that we take as a reference, speaking of a rigid ruler for measuring lengths placed on top of a moving train car, it says the following:
“The rigid ruler in motion is shorter than the same ruler when it is at rest. And it is shorter the faster it moves”
We say that the bar IS not shorter but that WE SEE it shorter. The faster the train passes in front of the observer, the shorter it will be. We believe that this is correct reasoning.
The following figure represents three forward positions of a train wagon that has a bar inside it for measuring lengths whose length is equal to that of the wagon.
The ends of the bar have been indicated as: Start (I) and End (F)
An observer fixed on the ground, Fixed Reference System (FRS), sees the aforementioned wagon containing the bar for measuring lengths pass in front of him.
In this passage of the wagon in front of the observer, we can see in the drawing that: In the first situation of the wagon, the observer will SEE the end (F) of the bar. In the second situation of the wagon, the observer will SEE the middle part of the bar and in the third situation, the observer will SEE the end (F) of the bar.
If the wagon containing the measuring rod passes very quickly in front of the observer, he will estimate the VISION triangle of the rod to be very short. But the reader can already judge that here no shrinkage of the rod occurs.
4.- THE DEFORMATION OF SPACE.- A FALLACY THAT HAS BEEN GENERATED BY ANOTHER FALLACY
Starting from the error of considering the shortening of the rod for measuring lengths due to a speed relative to a reference system, from this fallacy, in an ideal world, we can propose another fallacy. We believe that an ideal reasoning that A. Einstein could use could be the following:
In a fantasy world we can argue that, as the unit of measurement (L) of the rod for measuring lengths, with speed has decreased its dimension, this is equivalent to the fact that space has been deformed. It has expanded to maintain the relationship between space and units of occupation of the same. And thus we will justify the fallacy of the deformation of space. We will discuss this fallacy later.
5.- A MISCONDUCTED HYPOTHESIS DERIVED FROM THE FALLACY OF THE DEFORMATION OF SPACE
We will now discuss the error of assigning the mutual approach between two masses to a deformation of space, instead of attributing it to the force of gravity's traction.
Linking with the fallacy of the measuring rod of lengths, we see the
fallacy of the deformation of space as the author of the interaction between two masses.
The reader will find this topic in our Blog or in our book that we gave as a reference. We transcribe from these writings a piece of this subject:
THE THESIS OF A. EINSTEIN
On the “deformation of space” we have read the following:
“A. Einstein said, denying Newton, that gravity was not a force that attracted things, but that things do not move when they are attracted by something, but when they are pushed, and with this he wanted to say that if something falls on another thing it is not because it attracts it but because that thing curves space like a whirlpool in a bathtub.”
The writing continues saying the following:
“In Einstein's universe,” the researcher continues, “space and time are deformed by gravity. The Earth distorts the space that surrounds it very slightly because of its gravity.”
The following figure is the one we find in some treatises on this subject:
Please note that the historian whose writing we have transcribed begins by saying: “A. Einstein said, denying Newton…”
With our criticisms we try to validate Isaac Newton.
6.- TWO MENTAL EXPERIMENTS AGAINST THE FALLACY OF THE DEFORMATION OF SPACE
In previous issues we have investigated the origin of the fallacy of the deformation of space. In this issue we have devised two mental experiments to demonstrate the impossibility of such a fallacy being fulfilled.
In the first mental experiment we place a mass just above the Earth. Touching the Earth. Since there is no space to deform between the mass and the Earth we reason the absurdity that there is no attraction between them. We can lift the mass without effort.
This incorrect conclusion is what invalidates the idea of the deformation of space. The following figure tries to represent this circumstance.
In the second thought experiment we place two masses of very different size and at the same distance from the Earth (d1 ) = (d2), and we reason the absurdity that since the two masses have the same space from them to the Earth, the force of attraction that the Earth exerts on them is the same.
In the same experiment we mathematically demonstrate this absurdity.
(NOTE: We also clarify for the reader a doubt that may arise. Let us remember that the acceleration acquired by the two masses in their free fall is the same. Precisely because the “mass” of each of them and the “force” to which the bodies are subjected intervene in this acceleration).
7.- THE FALLACY OF THE RELATIVITY OF SIMULTANEITY
We will comment on another fallacy that is the origin of another fallacy. It is the subject that A. Einstein exposes in his book and which he titles: “The relativity of simultaneity.
On page 27 of the cited book, he asks the following question:
"...Two events (e.g. the two rays A and B) that are simultaneous with respect to the embankment, are they also simultaneous with respect to the train?... We will soon demonstrate that the answer has to be negative..."
And he continues dividing:
“…When we say that the rays (A) and (B) are simultaneous with respect to the tracks, we mean that the rays of light that come out of the places (A) and (B) meet at the midpoint (M) of the section of track (A)-(B). Now, the events (A) and (B) also correspond at places (A) and (B) on the train.”
The following figure attempts to interpret this statement
We interpret and place inside the train a person to whom the light of the two beams reaches from two different sides. Since the light of the right beam reaches him on the right side before the one that reaches him on the left side, because the train is moving in this direction. And since the person who is fixed on the ground, Fixed Reference System (SRF), receives the light simultaneously, A. Einstein dictates that the event of simultaneity IS different in a Mobile Reference System (SRM) than in a Fixed Reference System (SRF). We will comment later that this conclusion is a fallacy.
To detect the error that A. Einstein makes in his mental experiment called "the relativity of simultaneity", we will start by explaining his First Principle of Relativity, which appears in his book:
"If a (RMS) moves relative to a (RFS) then natural phenomena occur relative to the (RMS) according to the same general laws as with respect to the (RFS)"
The error that A. Einstein makes in his mental experiment of the relativity of simultaneity is to consider simultaneous events that occur outside a Mobile Reference System.
If a simultaneous event occurs outside a Mobile Reference System (RMS), as is the case of the two rays, it is absurd to want to apply the theory of relative movements to it. This is what happens in the mental experiment proposed by A. Einstein. This “relativity of simultaneity” goes against the First Principle of Relativity that we have set forth.
9.- CONSEQUENCES OF THE ERROR IN THE MENTAL EXPERIMENT OF THE REELATIVITY OF SIMULTANEITY.- THE NONSENSE OF A. EINSTEIN
The author of the aforementioned mental experiment intends to establish a correspondence between what an observer sees, who considers it as a Fixed Reference System (SRF), and what an observer sees located inside the wagon. But, be careful, the error is that natural phenomena, lightning, do not occur inside the wagon. We cannot consider that an Inertial Reference System has been established. Natural phenomena do not travel within the Mobile Reference System (SRM).
Not realizing this error, he preaches the following:
“The time that a process needs with respect to the wagon cannot be equated to the duration of the same process judged from the reference body of the embankment”
This is where we say that his statement is equivalent to the “miracle of transmutation”.
Now he seems to forget the First Principle of Relativity that he cited and that we have written in paragraph 8. Now he speaks of “a process” and not of the laws that govern natural phenomena. The confusion he makes on the subject of the “relativity of simultaneity” makes him interpret differently the vision from the (SRF) of the events that occurred in the (SRM).