LET US CONTINUE WITH THE 3RD PROOF FOR EINSTEIN'S INPUT INTO BIG BANG CREATION FR ROBINSON WOULD TELL HIS READERS TO BELIEVE:
(3) The Third ‘Proof’ for Relativity
The experimental confirmation of the GTR that the lines of a spectrum (the ‘rainbow’ of any light) should be displaced when emitted in a strong gravitational field, causing the light, as it loses some of its energy when moving away from the field, to become redder. Sir Arthur Eddington, having conned the world with his ‘bent’ interpretation of the starlight, then tried to do the same with their ‘red-shift’ as the third proof for relativity. To spare the reader from intellectual embarrassment at not being able to comprehend this proof clearly, we will curtail this explanation to a sample amount only. Any that wish to study it in total may acquire Eddington’s book and read it all:
‘Displacement of the Fraunhofer lines (The dark lines of the spectrum of sunlight). Consider a number of similar atoms vibrating at different points in the region. Let the atoms be momentarily at rest in our coordinate system (r, θ, Ø, t). The test of similarity of the atoms is that corresponding intervals shall be equal, and accordingly the interval of vibration of all the atoms will be the same. Since the atoms are at rest we set dr, dθ, dØ = 0 in (38.8) so that ds² = ydi². Thus the times of vibrations of the differently placed atoms will be inversely proportional to y. Consequently the waves are received at the same time-periods as they are emitted. ’
Want more? OK, but first remember that no one has ever seen an atom or identified its makeup. Everything to do with atoms is theory and assumption only, not necessarily scientific fact. To keep our sanity though, let us skip some of this ‘stuff’ and try to get to the point:
‘We are therefore able to compare the periods of the waves received from them, and can verify experimentally their dependence on the value of y at the place where they were emitted. Naturally, the most hopeful test is a comparison of the waves received from a solar and a terrestrial atom whose period should be in the ratio of 1.00000212:1. For the wavelength 4000 Aº, this amounts to a relative displacement of 0.0082 Aº of the respective spectral lines. The verdict of experiment is not yet such as to secure universal assent; but it is now distinctly more favourable to Einstein’s theory than when Space, Time and Gravitation was written.’
So, Einstein’s third proof, ‘is not yet such as to secure universal assent,’ which is another way of saying that the proof is no proof at all. Desperate to convince a few more, Eddington continued:
‘The quantity dt is merely an auxiliary quantity introduced through the equation 938.80 which defines it.... The absolute quantity, ds, the interval of vibration, is not carried to us unchanged, but becomes greatly modified as the waves take their course through the non-Euclidean space-time. It is in transmission through the solar system that the absolute difference is introduced into the waves, which the experiment hopes [hopes?] to detect. The argument refers to similar atoms. And the question remains whether, for example, the hydrogen atom on the sun is truly similar to the hydrogen atom on the Earth. Strictly speaking it cannot be exactly similar, because it is in a different kind of space-time, in which it would be impossible to make a finite structure exactly similar to ours existing in the space-time near the Earth. But if the interval of vibration of the hydrogen atom is modified by the kind of space-time in which it lies, the difference must depend on some invariant of the space-time.’
Impressed, we bet you are, but not Professor Arthur Lynch:
‘“And that’s why your daughter is dumb” as the quack doctor of Moliere concluded, though his arguments seem to me a model of cohesion and clarity compared with this of Einstein. It may be my own deficiency, and if, dear reader, you have made good sense out of this, I admit that your intellect soars at a range inaccessible to me.’
For a more sober version of the Earth-atom/sun-atom ‘proof’ and how it was established let us return to Collins and Pinch’s The Golem:
‘The derivations of the quantitative predictions were beset with even more difficulties than the calculations of the bending of light rays. The experimental observations conducted both before and after 1919, were more inconclusive. Yet after the interpretation of the eclipse observations had come firmly down on the side of Einstein, scientists suddenly began to see confirmation of the red-shift prediction where before they had seen only confusion… Once the seed crystal has been offered up, the crystallisation of the new scientific culture happens at breakneck speed. Doubt about the red-shift turned into certainty.’
Collins and Pinch end their story of the ‘proofs’ for the GTR with a quote from philosophers of science John Earman and Clark Glymour. Kicking into touch, they preferred to stick with relativity rather than reject it on the basis of their findings, to keep their jobs no doubt. Obviously they did not want to be exiled from the fee-paying institutions that control science.
‘Appropriately understood, we ourselves see no reason to disagree with this [relativity as a truth] … This curious sequence of reasons might be cause enough for despair on the part of those who see in science a model for objectivity and rationality. That mood should be lightened by the reflection that the theory in which Eddington placed his faith because he thought it beautiful and profound, and possibly, because he thought that it would be best for the world if it were true, this theory, so far as we know, still holds the truth about space, time and gravity.’
Finally, their opinion on the credibility of Einstein’s relativity:
‘The general theory of relativity is a complicated business. It is said that even by 1919 there were only two people who fully understood it: Einstein and Eddington. (This, let us hasten to add, is based on a quip of Eddington’s.) Even to this day, theorists are not completely united about what follows from Einstein’s theory…’
IMAGINE SUBJECTING THE GENESIS CREATION TO THE ABOVE
Topic: Fr Robinson's new book "The Realist Guide to Religion and Science" (Read 9919 times)