Ed Lake's web page

Comments for Friday, July 1, 2022, thru Sat., July 9, 2022:

July 2, 2022 - Hmm. On June 30 I mentioned that I'd filled up my gas tank when the price of gas was $4.789 per gallon. I probably should have expected it, but the next day the price dropped 9 cents to $4.699 per gallon. So, if I had waited a day, I could have saved about 68 cents. Sob sob. On the positive side, the last time I filled up my tank was on May 26 when the price was $4.489 per gallon. The price of gas may have gone up 30 cents per gallon during that time, but the average driver probably filled up his tank 3 or 4 times during that same period, and he probably put in 12 to 15 gallons each time, while I only put in 7½ gallons.

July 1, 2022 - I'm working on Chapter 14 of my new book, which is still tentatively titled "Logical Relativity." Chapter 14 is tentatively titled "Quantum Mechanics vs Relativity," but I've been thinking of changing the title to "Mathematics versus Reality." The conflict seems to stem from the fact that mathematics appears to be the only thing of interest to mathematicians. How mathematics represents reality is of little concern to them, unless someone presents a reality-based problem as a mathematical equation and asks for opinions about it. However, even then the arguments will typically favor a mathematical model over reality.

About a week ago, I started to realize I was occasionally reading about a term I had never researched: Relativistic Quantum Mechanics. I did a Google search for the term and was shown 15 books on the subject:

1. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics by James D. Bjorken & Sidney D. Drell
2. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics by Tommy Ohlsson
3. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics by Paul Strange
4. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics by Hartmut M. Pilkuhn
5. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics by Armin Wachter
6. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics: An Introduction to Relativistic Quantum Fields by Luciano Maiani & Omar Benhar
7. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics -Wave Equations by Walter Greiner
8. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Field Theory by Franz Gross
9. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Fields by Ta-You Wu & W-Y Pauchy Hwang
10. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics And Introduction To Quantum Field Theory by Anton Z. Capri
11. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory by Varadarajan Devanathan
12. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics And Introduction To Quantum Field Theory by Francisco Y. Yndurain
13. An Introduction to Relativistic Quantum Field Theory by Silvan S. Schweber
14. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics of Leptons and Fields by Walter T. Grandy, Jr.
15. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Field Theory of Arbitrary Spin by Volodimir Simulik

and 3 books about NON-relativistic Quantum Mechanics:

1. Quantum Mechanics – Non-Relativistic Theory by L. D. Landau
2. Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics by Anton Z. Capri
3. An Elementary Introduction to the Formal Theory of Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics by Daniel T. Gillespie

But none of them seemed to answer my question: What IS Relativistic Quantum Mechanics?

However, my Google search also found a Wikipedia page on the topic. That page says,

In physics, relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is any Poincaré covariant formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). This theory is applicable to massive particles propagating at all velocities up to those comparable to the speed of light c, and can accommodate massless particles. The theory has application in high energy physics,^[1] particle physics and accelerator physics,^[2] as well as atomic physics, chemistry^[3] and condensed matter physics.^[4]^[5] Non-relativistic quantum mechanics refers to the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics applied in the context of Galilean relativity, more specifically quantizing the equations of classical mechanics by replacing dynamical variables by operators. Relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is quantum mechanics applied with special relativity. Although the earlier formulations, like the Schrödinger picture and Heisenberg picture were originally formulated in a non-relativistic background, a few of them (e.g. the Dirac or path-integral formalism) also work with special relativity.

My task is to simplify all that. This sentence: "Relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is quantum mechanics applied with special relativity." seems as simple as they can get, but what does "applied with special relativity" mean? Digging through the page, it seems to mean that they modify some mathematical model from Quantum Mechanics to include something from a mathematical model for Special Relativity.

Another thing that bothered me about all this is that all 18 books listed above are written by physics teachers who do not seem to like the explanation of "relativistic Quantum Mechanics" found in other college textbooks, so it appears that each one created a TEXTBOOK of his own that he will use in his class and other teachers can use in their classes.

The first book on the list includes a statement in the Preface that says the author doesn't advocate any particular view about relativistic quantum mechanics because "The unsatisfactory status of present-day elementary particle theory does not allow one such a luxury." So, it seems the authors are presenting their theory on a "take it or leave it" basis. They're just describing the theory as they understand it.

I'm advocating Einstein's view of reality in my book. It appears that all the advocates of "relativistic quantum theory" have their own theories, and reality is not a factor in any of them.

Comments for Sun., June 26, 2022, thru Thurs., June 30, 2022:

June 30, 2022 - This afternoon my gas gauge showed that my tank was less than half full, so I filled it up. The price was still $4.789 per gallon. I bought 7.537 gallons, for a total cost of $36.09. I think that may be the first time in my life that I payed that much for a fill-up. According to the Internet, the gas tank on my 2014 Chevy Malibu has a 18.5 gallon capacity. So, I had more than half a tank-full when I did the fill-up. But it also gave me something to write a comment about.

June 28, 2022 - Hmm. This morning, as part of my regular routine to start the day, I checked to see if there were any interesting arguments happening on the sci.physics.relativity forum. At first, it seemed to be the same old thing, people just arguing over words or contradictory ideas. But then I noticed an interesting post from "The Starmaker." He was asking a new version of a question that he'd asked previously at 10:24 PM the previous night. At that time he asked,

I just don't understand
if a clock is at a mountain and
the other clock is on the ground level...
how does time dilation occur at both clocks
at the same time?

When no one answered that question, he restated it at 12:26 AM this morning:

I mean, does time dilation make both
clock run faster? Or slows down one of them and at the same
time speeds the other clock? Or just ignore one of them?

That's when a terrific answer occurred to me. So, I replied with this comment:

Time ticks slower for the higher clock. If there was a third clock at the bottom of a mine shaft a thousand feet below ground level, that clock would tick slower than the one at ground level. If there was a fourth clock in a balloon two thousand feet above the mountain top, it would tick faster than the clock on the mountain top.

The greater the amount of gravity that pulls on the clock, the slower the clock will tick.

Why hadn't I thought of that before?! I've seen countless arguments over which of two clocks is ticking fastest, with people arguing that it all depends upon your point of view (or frame of reference). Using four clocks at different altitudes makes the frame of reference arguments a lot harder to visualize and argue.

But, within minutes there were two responses to my comment. The first was from "J.J. Lodder" who wrote:

You are almost there, but it is NOT the pull of gravity that does it. The rate difference is given by the Newtonian potential.
(in the Newtonian approximation)
Since the Newtonian potential is about 60 km^2/sec^2,
and the speed of light squared is about 10^11 km^2/sec^2
this approximation is very good indeed,
(on Earth and nearby)

Then an Einstein hater who logs in as "maluw...@gmail.com" wrote:

Against of course, the Holiest Postulate of
your idiot guru, demanding all of them to tick
at the same rate and demanding you to mumble
that "they're ticking at the same rate, but their
different spacetime trajectories blahblahblah."

I'm not sure what either one of them are arguing, so I didn't respond. It seems they are taking a very simple question and a simple answer and adding in all sorts of complications to make things fit their points of view. So, I'm just waiting to see if "The Starmaker" responds, but that might not be until some time late tonight.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned "the pull of gravity," since someone will probably argue that gravity "pushes" it doesn't "pull". I should just have said, "the greater the amount of gravity that affects the clock, the slower the clock will tick." But that's one reason why I occasionally post there, to find the right way to phrase things if I want to get the fewest arguments over words.

June 26, 2022 - Yesterday afternoon, as I was driving home from doing some chores, I finished listening to the 9th CD in the 9-CD audio book version of "Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World" by Carl T. Bergstrom & Jevin D. West:

I "borrowed" the book from my local library on February 12, and burned CDs from the MP3 files they loaned me. What I failed to do, however, was get the PDF supplementary file that came with the audio book. The book is filled with references to the charts and graphs and images in the PDF file, charts and graphs which show how data can be distorted on charts and graphs. But, I probably wouldn't have been able to study the PDF file images while driving, anyway. That may be the reason I also got the Kindle version. So, I could check the charts and graphs when I got home.

All in all, it was a very interesting book, and I can highly recommend it, just not the audio book version if you plan to listen while driving.

Here's a long quote from early in the book:

          Retracing the path of a rumor’s spread is largely a matter of looking at who shared what with whom and in what order, all information that is readily available given adequate access to the system. Tweets about crises are particularly consequential. The concentration of attention during these events creates both the incentive to generate misinformation, and a vital need to refute it.
          One such crisis was the terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013. Shortly after the attack, a tragic story appeared on Twitter. An eight-year-old girl was reported to have been killed in the bombing. This young girl had been a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and she was running the marathon in memory of her classmates who were killed in the horrific mass shooting that had occurred there a few months prior. The terrible irony of her fate, surviving Sandy Hook only to die in the Boston Marathon bombing, propelled her story to spread like wildfire across the Twitter universe. The girl’s picture—bib #1035 over a fluorescent pink shirt, ponytail streaming behind her—led thousands of readers to respond with grief and compassion.
          But other readers questioned the story. Some noted that the Boston Marathon does not allow kids to run the race. Others noticed that her bib referred to a different race, the Joe Cassella 5K. Rumor-tracking website Snopes.com quickly debunked the rumor, as did other fact-checking organizations. The girl hadn’t been killed; she hadn’t even run the race. Twitter users tried to correct the record, with more than two thousand tweets refuting the rumor. But these were vain efforts. More than ninety-two thousand people shared the false story of the girl.

And here's a quote from near the end of the book:

Calling bullshit is more than a party trick, a confidence booster, or a way to sound impressive in front of your boss. It is a moral imperative. As we note in the opening line of the book, the world is awash with bullshit—from clickbait to deepfakes. Some of it is innocuous, some is a minor annoyance, and some is even funny. But a lot of the bullshit out there has serious consequences for human health and prosperity, the integrity of science, and democratic decision making.
The rise of misinformation and disinformation keeps us up at night. No law or fancy new AI is going to solve the problem. We all have to be a little more vigilant, a little more thoughtful, a little more careful when sharing information—and every once in a while, we need to call bullshit when we see it.

There's a lot in "Calling Bullshit" that I need to remember when arguing with people on the Internet. The key point is to debunk their false claims without resorting to personal attacks. I try to do that, but personal attacks are just about all that some of the others can do, since they do not seem to have any meaningful counter-arguments. They seem to view counter-arguments as personal attacks. You're claiming you know more than they do. They can't counter your arguments, so they begin calling names.

Comments for Sunday, June 19, 2022, thru Sat., June 25, 2022:

June 25, 2022 - This afternoon, when I drove past the gas station nearest to where I live, I saw the price of gas had dropped another 11 cents to $4.789 per gallon. The last price drop was just yesterday, when it dropped 10 cents. I still have more than a half tank of gas, but I might fill it up tomorrow. Or maybe I'll wait to see if it drops again. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, Academia.edu sent me two e-mails containing free links to two strange documents. The first link was to a digital copy of a 319 page book from 2013 titled "Unsolved Problems in Special and General Relativity." The book's Preface contains this:

All papers included herein are produced by scholars from People’s Republic of China, except two papers written by Prof. L. Sapogin, V. A. Dzhanibekov, Yu. A. Ryabov from Russia, and by Prof. Florentin Smarandache from USA.

There are 21 scientific papers in the book. Here are the titles of the first seven:

1. Einstein’s Explanation of Perihelion Motion of Mercury

2. Special Relativity Arising from a Misunderstanding of Experimental Results on the Constant Speed of Light

3. Problems with the Special theory of Relativity

4. Criticism to Einstein’s Physics Thinking in His Book “The Meaning of Relativity”

5. Using Space-time Quantization to Solve the Problems Unsolved by General Relativity

6. New Exploration for the Enigma of Paradox in Special Relativity

7. Unsolved Problems in Special Relativity and Methods to Solve Them

Here's the abstract for #2 on the above list:

Abstract: All experiments show that the speed of light relative to its source measured in vacuum is constant. Einstein interpreted this fact such that any ray of light moves in the “stationary” system with a fixed velocity c, whether the ray is emitted by a stationary or by a moving body, and established Special Relativity accordingly. This paper reviews basic hypotheses and viewpoints of space-time relationship in Special Relativity; analyzes derivation processes and the mistakes in the Lorentz transformation and Einstein’s original paper. The transformation between two coordinate systems moving uniformly relatively to another is established. It is shown that Special Relativity based upon the Lorentz transformation is not correct, and that the relative speed between two objects can be faster than the speed of light.

As near as I can tell, since the paper is filled with math and very difficult to decipher, he's saying that light will hit an oncoming observer at c+v which is "faster than the speed of light." It's not, of course, the speed of light is c, and the speed of the observer is v. I've encountered many mathematicians who seem unable to comprehend that.

I wasn't able to decipher anything else worth quoting from the papers.

The second link that Academia.edu sent me was to a paper written by Prof. Lutz Kayser from the Pacific Institute of Physics and Space Technology. The paper from 2015 is titled "Falsification of Einstein Theories of Relativity." The abstract begins with this:

The Einstein Postulates of Special Relativity (SR), namely the invariance of the speed of light c relative to the observer, the symmetry of relative velocities, and the Galilean Principle independent of velocity and gravitational potential are falsified. The replacement Law is: There exists an absolute universal velocity reference (Cosmic Velocity Reference, CVR). The velocity of light c is invariant and isotropic only relative to absolute universal space CVR. Experimental evidence of the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave radiation background CMB and the oneway measurements of the speed of light are given. From the new Laws it follows (in vector notation) Crel = c - Vcvr.

"Invariance of the speed of light c relative to the observer?" Einstein never wrote such a thing. It's that same nonsensical "all observers" theory that I've seen in many textbooks. But Prof. Kayser is saying it is wrong, and that Einstein was wrong for proposing it. Here's another quote from the paper:

Einstein’s light speed is Crel and not constant relative to source or sink as proven by many experiments.

Sink? The paper uses the word "sink" 43 times, evidently in place of the word "observer" in the quote above, although sometimes he seems to use it in place of the word "source." In what language does "sink" have the same meaning as "observer"?

Here's another interesting quote from Prof. Kayser's paper:

We scientists, who sat in the first year physics lectures, remember our astonishment and our exclamations of disbelief when Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity was introduced: Postulates of constancy of velocity of light c relative to the observer and the Galilean Principle independent of velocity. It first seemed easy to understand, but the weird results of time dilation, length contraction, velocity and acceleration transformation, and the twin paradox were hard to believe. Then followed the explanation by the lecturer that all these are counterintuitive and “this is an example why physicists should not follow intuition”!

He's saying he got his ideas from "first year physics lectures" where he was told that c is relative to the OBSERVER. And when that made no sense to him, he was told that Relativity made no sense, but he should believe it anyway. After all, he would FAIL the course if he didn't accept what he was taught. Since he's now a professor at the Pacific Institute of Physics and Space Technology, he evidently passed all the tests and is now arguing that Einstein was wrong instead of the textbook and lecturer being wrong. But what is he teaching?

I've seen similar arguments elsewhere, arguments that Einstein was wrong in claiming that the speed of light is c relative to the observer. What astounds me is that none of them ever seem to check Einstein's paper to find out what he actually wrote.

Here is what American mathematical physicist Richard C. Tolman wrote in a scientific paper he published in 1910:

The second postulate of relativity is obtained by a combination of the first postulate with a principle which has long been familiar in the theory of light. This principle states that the velocity of light is unaffected by a motion of the emitting source, in other words, that the velocity with which light travels past any observer is not increased by a motion of the source of light towards the observer. The first postulate of relativity adds the idea that a motion of the source of light towards the observer is identical with a motion of the observer towards the source. The second postulate of relativity is seen to be merely the combination of these two principles, since it states that the velocity of light in free space appears the same to all observers regardless both of the motion of the source of light and of the observer.

I find it incomprehensible that so many people misinterpret what Einstein wrote, but a big part of it seems to stem from being taught nonsense. It's the nonsense I see in physics textbooks that got me started on all this.

June 24, 2022 - Ah! The price of gas as the gas station down the street from me just dropped 10 cents to $4.899. So, it's now down 30 cents from its all-time high. I don't yet need to fill my tank, so will it go up from here or down?

Meanwhile, my state senator, Ron Johnson, has been ridiculed on various late-night TV talk shows because of some aid he gave Donald Trump in Trump's attempt to overthrow the government. Stephen Colbert called Johnson "the dumbest person in the Senate." Personally, I that that title belongs to Ted Cruz. But it's nice to see that I'm not the only person who thinks Ron Johnson is not someone to trust.

June 23, 2022 - I think the latest arguments I've been involved with on the sci.physics.relativity discussion forum have finally come to an end. I spent nearly all day for 4 days arguing about Relativity in two separate discussions. On June 19 I tried to get it down to just one discussion by starting a new thread titled "Time Dilation Experiments" where I listed 12 experiments from my web page about Time Dilation experiments and I then simply asked:

Is there anyone here who seriously claims that Time Dilation has NOT been fully verified by these experiments?

As of this moment, five days later, there are 113 comments in that thread, 32 of which are my responses to comments from others. The first response was from "Paparios," who is evidently a physics teacher in South America who also claims to have written several physics books. He responded:

What you have not realized, for years now, is that "time dilation" is a comparison between two clocks A and B. For instance, in the Tokio Skytree experiment (testing the gravitational redshift) the comparison was between a clock at the top of the 450 m tower and a clock located at the base of the tower. Hafele Keating compared the elapsed time of flying atomic clocks with the elapsed time of the ground not moving atomic clock.

Therefore, your assertion "time does run at different rates for an object depending upon an object's speed and its proximity to a gravitational mass" is at the very least incomplete.

As you see, he didn't answer my question. He just continued an argument from some other thread.

The second response was from "Al Coe" who wrote:

Every competent physicist knows that, in terms of the essentially unique stationary temporal foliation near a large spherical massive body (corresponding to the Schwarzschild time coordinate), the rate of proper time (dtau/dt) for an object along any given path is different depending on the speed and the elevation of the object. That's what it means to say that clocks run at different rates depending on speed and elevation. No competent person disputes this, so all your years of accumulating lists of experimental evidence of this has been pointless. Again: No. One. Disputes. This.

As you see, he didn't really answer my question, either. He rephrased the question and answered his own question.

The third response was from "Mitchell Raemsch" who wrote:

Rate differences are too small to measure...
Our gravity is low and so is our motion.
Wait for space travel to measure slow rate.

That appears to be a claim that the experiments do NOT verify Time Dilation.

The fourth response was from "The Starmaker" who wrote (with two or three blank lines between every sentence shown below):

Of course time dilation is real, but what is never mentioned is
that Time Dilatiion runs as different rates for different objects.
(not that
time runs at different rates for an different objects)
It is that ..Time Dilatiion runs as different rates for different
objects.
Time Dilation is...inconsistent.
To put it simply, sometime it dilatates, sometimes it doesn't.
Does any of those on dat list mentioned WHEN time dilatated????
In otherwords, do an experiment...all of them using the same object.
Will they all get the same result?
They will discover that
sometime it dilatates, sometimes it doesn't.
Time Dilation is...inconsistent.

I would say that is a claim that the experiments do NOT verify Time Dilation.

I had started responding to some of the comments by then, but there were still some more responses to my original question.

The fifth response was from "Richard Hachel" who simply said he did not agree.

The sixth response was from "Ross A. Finlayson" who wrote:

I say instead it's space contraction (alternate mechanism).

That appears to be another disagreement.

And then others joined in, ignoring my question and just arguing with the people who has already responded, or with some comment I made in a response. Once again, most of the arguments were over word definitions and proper wording. If I didn't phrase things exactly the way someone else would phrase them, that person would argue that I was wrong.

Meanwhile, in the other thread, I tried to get "Tom Roberts" to comment on the 12 experiments, since he claims to be a Quantum Mechanics physicist, and he seems to disagree with Time Dilation. But he just ignored my post and stopped posting to that thread.

And that's that. I'm no longer in either of the discussions.

Meanwhile, I have gotten back to work on my new book.

June 19, 2022 - Yesterday, I spent all morning writing a very long comment I was going to post today. It was about the latest argument I've been having on the sci.physics.relativity discussion forum. It started as an argument with "Mitchell Raemsch" over whether an atom "stores" light or just absorbs and then re-emits it. I cited three sources, including two textbooks, which stated that an atom just absorbs and then re-emits light. Raemsch disagreed, and it turned into an argument over the word "store." Then "Tom Roberts" joined the discussion by claiming what was in my sources was just "lies." Among his other arguments, he wrote:

Elementary books often LIE about advanced topics, to avoid
long and detailed discussions unrelated to their topic.

and

It is just basic quantum mechanics, of which you appear to be completely ignorant. It is DIRECTLY relevant here and shows how wrong your claims are.

BINGO! I responded:

Ah! Quantum Mechanics! You should have mentioned that you are a Quantum Mechanics mathematician. That answers everything! It explains why you DISAGREE WITH TEXTBOOKS that explain science and Relativity.

And it seems to help explain why textbooks disagree with each other! Every author of a college physics textbook interprets things his own way. NONE of them even attempt to explain where Relativity and Quantum Mechanics differ. If you explain where Relativity and Quantum Mechanics differ, you encourage people to try to resolve or explain the disagreements. College textbooks are supposed to TEACH a subject, not create debates over the subject. And if you create a debate over whether Quantum Mechanics is right or Relativity is right, the answer becomes quickly apparent: Relativity is confirmed by facts and experiments, Quantum Mechanics is just about mathematics and has little concern about facts and experiments.

Every time I argue with a Quantum Mechanics mathematician, the argument will somehow turn to be about how in one "frame of reference" Body-A will be stationary while Body-B will be moving, but in another "frame of reference" it will be Body-B who is moving, and Body-A will be stationary. So Time Dilation has no meaning if who is moving is just a point of view. And the same with light hitting an oncoming object at c+v. If the oncoming object is considered to be stationary, then c+v becomes a speed greater than the speed of light, which is impossible.

This morning I awoke realizing something: In Einstein's 1905 paper which introduced Special Relativity, he wrote about two synchronized clocks where one is moved in a circle and then returned to be beside the other, and the clock that moved will show less time has passed. He then wrote:

Thence we conclude that a balance-clock at the equator must go more slowly, by a very small amount, than a precisely similar clock situated at one of the poles under otherwise identical conditions.

Hmm. How could a Quantum Mechanics mathematician switch "frames of references" on that one? How can Observer-A on the equator be viewed as being "stationary" while Observer-B at the North Pole moves around? Is that why Einstein used that idea, to prevent Quantum Mechanics mathematicians from simply switching "frames of reference" to show that either observer can be considered to be stationary?

And I suddenly realized why college physics textbooks disagree with each other! Every author of a college physics textbook interprets things his own way. NONE of them even attempt to explain where Relativity and Quantum Mechanics differ. If you try to explain where Relativity and Quantum Mechanics differ, you encourage people to try to resolve or explain the disagreements. College textbooks are supposed to TEACH a subject, not create debates over the subject. And if you create a debate over whether Quantum Mechanics is right or Relativity is right, the answer becomes quickly apparent: Relativity is confirmed by facts and experiments, Quantum Mechanics is just about mathematics and has no concern about facts and experiments that disagree with their mathematics.

It makes clear exactly what Einstein meant when he stated:

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Einstein was trying to understand the REALITY of what we see happening around us. Quantum Mechanics is only about mathematical models and doesn't care whether those models represent reality or not.

Over the years, I collected every Time Dilation experiment I could find and put them on a web page HERE. I also collected every experiment which demonstrates that light hits an approaching observer at c+v and put them on a web page HERE. I have NEVER found a Quantum Mechanics mathematician who accepts the findings of ANY of those experiments.

I think it's time for me to get back to work on my new book. I just need to resist starting one last argument on the sci.physics.relativity forum. I'd really like to find out how they will argue against Einstein's thought experiment about a clock on the equator and another at one of the poles.

Comments for Sunday, June 12, 2022, thru Sat., June 18, 2022:

June 18, 2022 - Hmm. The price of gas just dropped another 20 cents at the gas station down the street from me. It's now $4.999. I wonder what it will be when it's time to fill up my tank again. Most people seem to fill up their tanks about once a week. I fill mine about once a month, and that is only because I fill up my tank when it gets down to being half full. It seems to run better when the tank is full.

June 14, 2022 - I kept wanting to take a picture of the sign at the gas station down the street, to have a record of the highest price I've ever seen for gas: $5.299. But, I also felt that if I took a picture of it, then the price would probably go up the next day and there would be a new record high for me to take a picture of. Then probably another and another. So, I never got around to taking that picture. And, of course, yesterday the price DROPPED 10 cents to $5.199. So, does that mean that I've missed my chance to take a picture of the highest gas price I've ever seen, or is it just a matter of waiting until the price goes up again? I dunno.

Meanwhile, I'm bogged down on my new book. I decided I needed to add a new chapter about General Relativity. It would be inserted as a new Chapter 12. When I started researching General Relativity, I realized that I also needed to also dig through Einstein's papers and books to see if he mentioned in other places that Quantum Mechanics does not represent reality. His paper titled "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete' ?" addresses that issue. So, I'm digging through other papers (and books) he wrote to see if he also addresses that issue elsewhere. It's tedious work, but hopefully it will lead to finding some excellent quotes.

June 12, 2022 - Here's what the Table of Contents for my new book looks like as of this morning as I work on Chapter 12:

Introduction Page 1 Chapter 1 - What Einstein Knew Page 3 Chapter 2 - Stationary Points in Space Page 6Chapter 3 - What is Light? Page 11Chapter 4 - c+v and c-v Page 20Chapter 5 - Radar Guns and Relativity Page 29 Chapter 6 - Time Dilation Page 44 Chapter 7 - The Twin Paradox Page 58 Chapter 8 - What is Time? Page 65Chapter 9 - The Variable Speed of Light Page 69 Chapter 10 - Inertial Systems Page 71 Chapter 11 - The Big Bang Page 76Chapter 12 - Quantum Mech. vs Relativity Page 87 Chapter 13 - Wave Particle Duality Page Chapter 14 - The Textbook Problem Page Chapter 15 - The Physics Problem Page Chapter 16 - Page About the Author Page

Chapter 12 is entirely new. While I've known about "the battle between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity" for a long time, I've never before really studied it. I knew that Albert Einstein had some kind of role in creating Quantum Mechanics, but it wasn't until 2 days ago that I found an article Einstein wrote in 1916 titled "On the Quantum Theory of Radiation." It mentions that it was Max Planck who started the Quantum Theory idea, which according to Wikipedia was around 1900.

Researching further, I also found an article by Einstein and some others from May 1935 titled "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete' ?" It's a very interesting article. Here are the first two sentences of the abstract:

In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system.

He's saying that scientific theories are about reality. And when dealing with reality, you should be able to make predictions without altering that reality. The article says that in Quantum Mechanics you cannot do that. The key issue seems to be "wave particle duality." In Quantum Mechanics they assume that light consists of waves, except when it is clear that light consists of particles. When they want to deal with waves, they use one mathematical model, and when they want to deal with particles, they use a different mathematical model. And they don't give a damn which model represents reality. Reality is evidently not an issue for practitioners of Quantum Mechanics. Their only issue is having a mathematical model that works, which enables them to do the math.

That's a issue I've mentioned before on this web site. In my papers I think I may have mentioned it without specifically stating it was a Quantum Mechanics methodology.

The more I learn about Quantum Mechanics, the more it seems to be like some kind of religion instead of a form of science. Its practitioners are mostly True Believers, and that appears to be why I've never been able to change a single mind when arguing with them.

The really scary aspect of all this is that they seem to have gained control of college physics textbooks. The vast majority of college physics textbooks twist and distort Relativity to make it conform with Quantum Mechanics. I'll deal with that issue when I get to Chapter 14. In my paper "An Analysis of Einstein’s Second Postulate to his Theory of Special Relativity" I mention just 5 textbooks which distort Einstein's Second Postulate to make it conform to Quantum Mechanics beliefs. Those 5 textbooks all distort Einstein's Second Postulate in the same way, by creating a version where light travels at c for the emitter and for any observer - which is totally wrong according to Special Relativity. (Chapter 4 in my book is about that issue.) In Chapter 14 I plan to mention all the correct, confusing and wrong versions I've found in physics textbooks.

In a survey I did last year, I found 10 "good" versions, 15 "helpful" versions, 23 "unhelpful" versions, and 24 "wrong" versions of Einstein's Second Postulate. Looking at them again, I would now reclassify some of the "unhelpful" versions to be "wrong" versions, I'd do the same thing for a few of the "helpful" versions, and I'd even do the same thing for a few of the "good" versions. For example, I classified the version below as a "good" version of Einstein's Second Postulate from page 34 of "Relativity Simply Explained" by Martin Gardner, published by Dover Publications in1997:

2. Regardless of the motion of its source, light always moves through empty space with the same constant speed.

I now see it is wrong because it should say "light always moves through empty space at c," which means 299,792,458 meters per second. Due to time dilation, 299,792,458 meters per second is faster when when the emitter is "stationary" versus when the emitter is moving very fast. So, light does NOT "always moves through empty space with the same constant speed." It always moves at c.

Chapter 14 will almost certainly be the longest chapter in the book.

Comments for Sunday, June 5, 2022, thru Sat., June 11, 2022:

June 8, 2022 - I'm back to work on my new book once again. Here's what the Table of Contents looked like back on March 24, when I was working on Chapter 13:

Introduction Page 1 Chapter 1 - What is Time? Page 4 Chapter 2 - Time Dilation Page 8 Chapter 3 - The Twin Paradox Page 20 Chapter 4 - Inertial Systems Page 27 Chapter 5 - What is Light? Page 32 Chapter 6 - The Variable Speed of Light Page 41 Chapter 7 - The Big Bang Page 46Chapter 8 - Radar Guns and Relativity Page 57Chapter 9 - c+v and c-v Page 75 Chapter 10 - Mathematics versus Reality Page 84 Chapter 11 - The Textbook Problem Page 88 Chapter 12 - The Physics Problem Page 103 Chapter 13 - Page 110

Here's what the table of contents looks like right now as I work on revising Chapter 6:

Introduction Page 1 Chapter 1 - What Einstein Knew Page 3 Chapter 2 - Stationary Points in Space Page 6Chapter 3 - What is Light? Page 11Chapter 4 - Time Dilation Page 20 Chapter 5 - The Twin Paradox Page 34 Chapter 6 - What is Time? Page 41Chapter 7 - The Variable Speed of Light Page Chapter 8 - The Big Bang Page Chapter 9 - Radar Guns and Relativity Page Chapter 10 - Quantum Mech. vs Relativity Page Chapter 11 - c+v and c-v Page Chapter 12 - Wave Particle Duality Page Chapter 13 - Inertial Systems Page Chapter 14 - The Textbook Problem Page Chapter 15 - The Physics Problem Page Chapter 16 - Page About the Author Page

As you can see, I added a couple new chapters at the beginning of the book, and I shifted some other chapters around. The idea is to explain Relativity step by step before I get into the conflict with Quantum Mechanics. That conflict is now seen as a one-way conflict: Quantum Mechanics wants to absorb and reconfigure Relativity, while Relativity is content with basically just doing experiments while ignoring Quantum Mechanics. In the new Introduction, I compare it to Russia attempting to take over Ukraine right now, and Germany attempting to take over the world about 80 years ago. I'm not sure how the Russia-Ukraine conflict will be viewed when I finish the book, but the comparison to Germany's attempt to take over the world will still be valid. I might also compare it to The Crusades, since it sometimes seems that mathematics is a religion for some people who view it as infallible - and they view themselves as being infallible when they argue their beliefs about mathematical models.

June 6, 2022-B - Yikes! When I drove to the gym this afternoon, I saw that the price of gas had jumped another 20 cents to $5.299 per gallon! I can't be sure whether the price went up yesterday or on Saturday, since I stayed at home all day Sunday.

As I stated in my June 5 comment, the last time I filled up was on May 26 when the price was $4.489 per gallon. The time before that, on May 1, the price was $3.999 per gallon. The time before that was on April 3 when the price was $3.889, and the time before that was on March 5 when it was $3.699. Fortunately, I probably won't have to fill up again until early July. I shudder to think what the price will be then.

June 6, 2022-A - I think my participation in the arguments on the sci.physics.relativity discussion forum have once again come to an end. In my last post yesterday, I asked a question and made a statement:

Which is more likely, that we live in an infinite universe or that we live in a finite universe? I'd say it is vastly more likely that we live in an INFINITE universe. And I find it just plain CRAZY that Quantum Mechanics mathematicians cannot cope with that.

The only response was from "The Starmaker" who wrote:

"Which is more likely..."???
You mean, which could be true?
How about if i flip a coin?
or play dice.

I'm certainly not going to start an argument over the difference between "Which is more likely?" and "Which could be true?" Plus, it's a good example of how conversations on that forum constantly turn into arguments over words and definitions. So, I'm simply going to walk away.

Meanwhile, as I was taking a shower this morning, a new idea suddenly popped into my head. I've been pondering for days about how I should rewrite the Introduction to my new book, which I have tentatively titled "Logical Relativity." The current version mentions the "battle between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics" that has been going on for over 100 years. But I suddenly took a look at that battle from a different angle. I suddenly saw similarities to the battle between Ukraine and Russia.

Relativists seem perfectly content with their view of the universe around us, and they seem content to let Quantum Mechanics mathematicians describe the workings of the sub-atomic world. But the Quantum Mechanics mathematicians want "A Theory of Everything." So, they are on a campaign to incorporate Relativity into Quantum Mechanics. The problem is: Quantum Mechanics has RULES that Relativity doesn't obey. So, Quantum Mechanics mathematicians are trying to change Relativity so that it will obey those rules.

You could also say that there is a lot of subversion going on. Subversion is defined as "the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution." That could be one way to look at the FACT that most physics textbooks have an incorrect version of Einstein's Second Postulate, a version designed to make it seem as if Einstein's Relativity is somewhat compatible with Quantum Mechanics.

Yes. I am definitely going to have to try to rewrite the Introduction to my new book so that it views the battle that Quantum Mechanics is waging against Relativity as a one-sided battle to dominate world - or the universe.

June 5, 2022 - I'm still arguing every day on the sci.physics.relativity discussion forum. It has been a very interesting discussion, and up until this morning there haven't been any serious temper tantrums or name calling. Somehow, in the past 24 hours the discussion turned to different religious beliefs. Prior to last night, the discussion is mostly about how radar guns work. That is a subject I have studied extensively, but my understanding based upon EXPERIMENTS and FACTS seriously conflicts with the BELIEFS of practitioners of Quantum Mechanics. Here's a quote from "tjrob137" who claims to be a working physicist:

You display your personal lack of understanding of basic physics, and a complete failure to grasp what science in general is doing. We are NOT attempting to determine "what light actually is", we are MODELING HOW IT BEHAVES.

My response:

Quantum Mechanics mathematicians may do that, but IN SCIENCE, EXPERIMENTS are performed to determine "what light actually is." Mathematical models may be created to describe some action, but when the model fails, scientists go back to the drawing board and try again to figure out exactly what light actually is.

And I provided descriptions of a bunch of experiments which have helped scientists figure out "what light actually is."

I'm supposed to be working on my book, but when I try to work on it, all I do is sit and stare at the Introduction and try to figure out a better way to introduce the book. I want to have more of a "hook" to draw readers in. Right now the Introduction is mostly about the conflict between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. That could turn a lot of people off. I'm thinking that the introduction should describe the conflict between Relativity and the warring factions who are fighting with each other over what Relativity really means. Or something like that.

Meanwhile, I keep wanting to write a comment about gas prices. When I last filled up my gas tank, on May 26, the price was $4.489 per gallon. Then on May 31 it jumped up 21 cents to $4.699 per gallon. Then, the next day, it jumped another 20 cents to $4.899 per gallon. And the next day it jumped another 20 cents to $5.099 per gallon. I can see the price when I drive away from my apartment. As of yesterday it was still $5.099 per gallon. That is already above the national average, so I certainly hope it doesn't go any higher.

I'd also like to write a comment about Trump supporters. It seems I'm the only person in my family who does NOT support Trump. In fact, I cannot comprehend how anyone could possibly support someone like Trump. I cannot ask my family members why they support Trump without risking a confrontation or seeming to attack them in some way. I see such people being asked that question on the late night talk shows, but they never explain why they support Trump, they just identify themselves as Trump supporters and smile when the interviewer describes something stupid that Trump just said or did.

And I see there was another mass shooting last night, this time in Philadelphia.

It is definitely a crazy world we live in.

Comments for Wednesday, June 1, 2022, thru Sat., June 4, 2022:

June 2, 2022 - At around 10:15 AM this morning, I finished reading Lee Smolin's book "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum" on my Kindle.

When I say if "finished" reading it, what I mean is that I reached the end of the book, but I certainly didn't read every word of it. After reading the first third or so of the book, I began skimming through pages, just checking to see how each paragraph began and if it seemed to be about a subject of interest to me. I had decided that reading about all the unsolved mysteries of Quantum Mechanics was of absolutely NO interest to me.

Early in the book I read things that really captured my attention. For example:

In these chapters I hope to convince you that the conceptual problems and raging disagreements that have bedeviled quantum mechanics since its inception are unsolved and unsolvable, for the simple reason that the theory is wrong. It is highly successful, but incomplete.

and

Since the very beginning of the quantum era, in the 1920s, there has been an alternative version of quantum physics that does make complete sense. This shadow theory resolves the apparent paradoxes and mysteries of the quantum domain. The scandal—and I believe that term is warranted—is that this alternative form of quantum theory is rarely taught. It is seldom mentioned, either in textbooks for budding physicists or in popularizations for laypeople.

But, while that "alternative version of quantum mechanics" might make complete sense to Lee Smolin, I gradually realized I didn't want to read about any "alternative version of quantum mechanics." I simply wasn't interested. I'm mainly interested in Relativity, and I do not want to read page after page and chapter after chapter about how some "alternative version of quantum mechanics" relates to Relativity.

I started reading the book because I hoped it would explain why Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are so totally incompatible. The book did that in the first chapter. Relativity is about the world around us, and Quantum Mechanics is about how things work down at the atomic and sub-atomic levels. Relativity is mostly about things we can see and measure, while Quantum mechanics is mostly about things we can only approximate via averages and percentages. Relativity can cope with an infinite universe, Quantum Mechanics cannot, and those who believe Quantum Mechanics can describe the Universe must first create a preposterous universe where "space" only exists between objects, and objects can get farther and farther apart without any "space" for the objects to move into.

I've got 21 pages of notes from the book. Here is one of the last ones:

Each of us theorists has his or her commitments: the guesses about nature you are willing to bet your career on. Personally, I am a realist, a relationalist, and, indeed, a temporal relationalist. I believe that quantum mechanics is incomplete and aim to construct a realist theory according to the principles of temporal relationalism, which can stand as a simultaneous completion of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

I started the book thinking that Prof. Smolin would just explain why Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible. I didn't realize he was also going to present his own theory of how they can be made to work together.

While I got a lot from the book, I think all the parts I wanted to read about could have been stated in a single chapter or a scientific paper.

June 1, 2022 - The book I'm currently reading on my Kindle, Lee Smolin's "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum," keeps mentioning "wave particle duality." Wikipedia says this about that subject (with my highlighting):

Wave–particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that every particle or quantum entity may be described as either a particle or a wave. It expresses the inability of the classical concepts "particle" or "wave" to fully describe the behaviour of quantum-scale objects. As Albert Einstein wrote:[1]

It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do.

The solution is simple: Examine what all the experiments demonstrate. They demonstrate that light consists of individual photons. And a photon is not a particle in the classical sense. It is not like a grain of sand or speck of dust. Unlike a grain of sand, a photon has no mass and is just pure energy, which is in the form of oscillating electric and magnetic fields. Those oscillating fields give the photon its wave-like properties.

What amazed me while reading Lee Smolin's book is that when people discuss particles, they talk about a single photon. However, when they talk about waves, they talk about clusters of photons. And they seem unable to distinguish the difference.

I got into an argument with someone about that a long time ago. The waves we argued about were radio waves. Radio waves are man-made and artificial. They consist of masses of photons oscillating in some radio frequency that are emitted in clusters of different quantities and lengths, which a radio receiver can interpret as different amplitudes and sounds.

It seems simple and easy to understand, but the argument I got was that "photons do not oscillate." Period. End of discussion. The apparent logic behind that declaration is that a "particle" is clearly defined as "an extremely small piece of something such as dust, dirt, or sand."

Dust, dirt and sand do not oscillate. Agreed. But a light photon is not that kind of "particle." And if that is the only valid definition of a particle, then a photon should be called a "photon," not a "particle." Then, yesterday, I posted a question to Google: "What is the Quantum Mechanics definition of particle?" The first answer was a link to an extremely interesting article in Quanta Magazine titled "What is a particle?" The article begins with these answers to the question:

The easy answer quickly shows itself to be unsatisfying. Namely, electrons, photons, quarks and other “fundamental” particles supposedly lack substructure or physical extent. “We basically think of a particle as a pointlike object,” said Mary Gaillard, a particle theorist at the University of California, Berkeley who predicted the masses of two types of quarks in the 1970s. And yet particles have distinct traits, such as charge and mass. How can a dimensionless point bear weight?

“We say they are ‘fundamental,’” said Xiao-Gang Wen, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But that’s just a [way to say] to students, ‘Don’t ask! I don’t know the answer. It’s fundamental; don’t ask anymore.’”

Hmm. That fits well with a standard answer that many physics teachers are said to give to their students: "Don't ask stupid questions, just do the math!"

I had been pondering whether or not I should address Quantum Mechanics issues early in my book or save them until after I finish discussing Relativity. The answer now seems clear: Save them until I finish discussing Relativity. Relativity is simple and straight-forward. Quantum Mechanics can be an incomprehensible mess.

I just wish physics teachers would teach Relativity as one subject and Quantum Mechanics as another and never mix them together.