Einstein’s Physics Crumbling Like An Old Building

8/2/2019 Einstein’s Physics Crumbling Like An Old Building

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/einsteins-physics-crumbling-like-an-old-building 1/3

Einstein’s Physics Crumbling Like An Old Building

If he had stuck with the Machian approach, Einstein might have attained the all-

encompassing “theory of everything” that consumed the last decades of his life. He might

have produced a version of his theory of gravity that would not conflict so fundamentally

with quantum mechanics,” Barbour notes. But Einstein had lost his nerve.- Zeeya Merali, in “Gravity off the Grid,” Discover , March 2012

Never has science been so devoted to praising a physicist as it has beenover the past half century with Albert Einstein. Science’s love affair with

Einstein was so pervasive that his philosophical thoughts about life wereembraced as if heaven sent.

“e=mc2” may be quoted these days by everyone from school children tofactory workers.

As everyone knows, “e” refers to energy, “m” to mass and “c” to the

cosmological constant. That constant happens to be the same as the

speed of light (in case we have trouble remembering, 186,000 miles persecond or 300,000 kilometres per second). It was so easy to remember,

only hard if you actually had to do the math for any calculation.

Here’s the catch. Light does not travel at exactly the same speed all thetime. Therefore, the “constant” is not constant. Well, bear with me.

Who cares? The Bare Naked Ladies likely won’t change the lyrics of theirsong that is the theme for the TV series “The Big Bang Theory .” “Nearly

14 billion years ago” might not be accurate any more, but viewers willstill keep watching as it’s (arguably) the best sitcom ever.

When Einstein devised his theories (special theory of relativity publishedfirst, then general theory of relativity) most people thought that space

had nothing in it. It was even called a “vacuum.” The “ether” that wasonce considered to be out there, that accounted for the odd movement

of planets in the earth-centred Newtonian universe, was more

imagination than reality.

There was nothing out there, supposedly, between the planets andstars. But that didn’t work with the physics. Einstein’s theories wouldn’t

work in nothingness. Then someone figured there must be dust from the

original Big Bang, and neutrinos charging around as well. Still notenough.

Einstein must be right , so along came Dark Matter to patch up the



theory. Still not enough. Cosmologists calculated that the universe isexpanding at an accelerating rate, which didn’t fit with the theory. Let’s

throw in Dark Energy. With the matter science knows exists, plug inDark Matter, that left Dark Energy to make up 85 percent or more of

the rest of the known universe, so that Einstein’s theory would work.

After all, as almost everyone agreed, Einstein was a genius--indeed

“Einstein” and “genius” came to be synonyms--so any amount of creative imagination to make his theory work must be acceptable.

Science hates it when religions tell people to “have faith” but it happilyasked the same of people for its creations of imagination so that

Einstein could continue to be the ideal of genius.

Here’s where it gets messy. Einstein’s theories depended on a fourth

dimension, called space-time. Light--part of the “constant” remember--bends around large objects, just as river water bends around rocks in its

way. Does light have to speed up to make up the extra distance

required to divert around large objects, or does it slow down, thusthrowing off calculations?

Time, as Einstein told us, is flexible. In relatively empty space, it speeds

up, whereas in denser stuff such as galaxies it slows down. If light (the

constant) travels at 186,000 miles per second and the length of asecond can change depending on where it is being measured, what can

be constant about the constant?

How accurate is the widely accepted belief that our universe is 13.7billion years away from the Big Bang? That number was calculatedbased on the rate that supernovas great distances away were moving.

The light from those supernovas bent around galaxies and changedspeed as it travelled through larger ones. These were not considered in

the calculations.

David Wiltshire, a New Zealand physicist at the University of

Canterbury, claims that if the age of the universe were calculated basedon light travelling through empty space, the age would be 18 billion

years. If the light travelled at the speed it does passing throughgalaxies, the age would be 15 billion years.

Wiltshire’s “older” universe age results from his beginning from adifferent set of physical assumptions than those physicists who calculate

it at 13.7 billion years.

Assumptions, you say? Exactly. Physical calculations change depending



on which set of assumptions you begin with. What then should webelieve?

To make things more awkward for Einstein’s legacy, CERN, the

European Space Agency’s huge facility for studying super particles,

recently reported that it had timed neutrinos travelling faster than light,a phenomenon that does not fit with Albert’s theories. While a few

scientists search diligently for weaknesses in the CERN report, there isno doubt that many are still trying to find a way to travel faster than

light. Like many other scientific marvels that came out of the original

Star Trek classic TV series, time travel and faster-than-light space travel

seem destined to come to pass some day.

I still believe in Albert Einstein, though his assumptions might have

been inaccurate. I still believe in gravity, though no one at this pointhas any idea what it is or why objects attract each other--anyone who

says he does is overconfident about his guess.

I am not certain what to believe about the age of our universe. Flexible

time may be a problem. An undependable constant is troubling. Flexiblespace is still hard for me to wrap my head around.

Of one thing I have great faith. My wife has just called me to say thatsupper is ready and if I try to stretch time too much before completing

this writing, my supper will be cold. I have confidence in that constant.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a book of big but simple ideasabout how to change the material taught in our schools so we can all

live longer, healthier and safer lives.Learn more at http://billallin.com

http://billallin.com/

http://billallin.com/

Documents

Einstein’s Physics Crumbling Like An Old Building