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Ok, so I was a little quick to judge, and I apologize. On a careful reading Flandern is indeed working with standard Lorentz ether theory, something which gives the same results as special relativity and so can't be dismissed experimentally, yet which physicists continually reject anyways (having talked to some). The reason is that it is essentially SR plus the concept of a preferred frame, and yet the symmetries in the equation make this frame indistinguishable from the others. Flandern argues that the gravitational field established a preferred frame, but this is no different than saying the observer establishes a preferred frame - it is not in fact a difficulty with frame equivalence. The gravitational field doesn't transform properly in SR, of course, but that is because SR is the gravityless case of general relativity, where there is no preferred frame. But this is beside the point. Flandern's work is not a mainstream position, nor is it a noteable competitor to the mainstream position except in so far as it is a particular argument for Lorentz ether theory, and there are plenty of others - for instance, the supposition that an ether is in fact falsifiable because it places strong constraints on spatial topology. I think it might be worth discussing on a page about ether theory or about Flandern, but it isn't really that relevant to SR in particular. |
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Ok, so I was a little quick to judge, and I apologize. On a careful reading Flandern is indeed working with standard Lorentz ether theory, something which gives the same results as special relativity and so can't be dismissed experimentally, yet which physicists continually reject anyways (having talked to some). The reason is that it is essentially SR plus the concept of a preferred frame, and yet the symmetries in the equation make this frame indistinguishable from the others. Flandern argues that the gravitational field established a preferred frame, but this is no different than saying the observer establishes a preferred frame - it is not in fact a difficulty with frame equivalence. The gravitational field doesn't transform properly in SR, of course, but that is because SR is the gravityless case of general relativity, where there is no preferred frame. But this is beside the point. Flandern's work is not a mainstream position, nor is it a noteable competitor to the mainstream position except in so far as it is a particular argument for Lorentz ether theory, and there are plenty of others - for instance, the supposition that an ether is in fact falsifiable because it places strong constraints on spatial topology. I think it might be worth discussing on a page about ether theory or about Flandern, but it isn't really that relevant to SR in particular. The following was posted to sci.physics.relativity: :Well, I can tell you that you're not going to get far with "real :experts" if the only person you reference (besides Einstein) is :Tom Van Flandern - a notorious crank, who has been effectively :refuted many times (see, e.g., the article in :http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/07/06/einstein/index.html) --LMS |
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