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EINSTEINIANA: THE FINAL PARALYSIS

February 15 2009 at 3:02 AM
 

 
Einsteiniana was partially paralysed in 2008 when John Baez, Einsteiniana's most famous educator, sent this signal to Einsteinians all over the world who had been learning by rote every word of his teaching:

http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_5.html
John Baez: "On the one hand we have the Standard Model, which tries to explain all the forces except gravity, and takes quantum mechanics into account. On the other hand we have General Relativity, which tries to explain gravity, and does not take quantum mechanics into account. Both theories seem to be more or less on the right track but until we somehow fit them together, or completely discard one or both, our picture of the world will be deeply schizophrenic.....I realized I didn't have enough confidence in either theory to engage in these heated debates. I also realized that there were other questions to work on: questions where I could actually tell when I was on the right track, questions where researchers cooperate more and fight less. So, I eventually decided to quit working on quantum gravity."

And now the end of the story: Divine Albert's Divine Theory of Everything, that is, Divine Albert's Divine Money-Spinner, is a Mistake:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5683551.ece
"PROFESSOR Stephen Hawking is to publish a controversial new book suggesting Albert Einsteins lifelong search for a theory of everything was probably a mistake.....Hawking said in a recent lecture, published on his website, www.hawking.org.uk: "Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind. I'm now glad that our search for understanding will never come to an end."

Curiously, French Einsteinians discovered this a few years ago and now all of them are "les héritiers de Maxwell, de Boltzmann et de Poincaré". No-one in France knows what the words "Albert Einstein" could possibly mean:

http://www.rehseis.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article304
"Létonnante diversité des descriptions théoriques utilisées dans la physique dhier et daujourdhui est souvent perçue comme une faiblesse temporaire quil faudra corriger dans un état plus avancé de cette science. A lopposé de cette attitude, les héritiers de Maxwell, de Boltzmann et de Poincaré soulignent les vertus épistémiques dune diversité des descriptions et considèrent que décrire est un acte dont la dynamique transcende les objets originels de la description. Nous proposons de les suivre en explorant la manière dont les divers modes, niveaux et ordres de description dépendent des cultures scientifiques dans lesquels ils apparaissent et affectent notre capacité à résoudre des problèmes concrets, nous poussent à étudier de nouvelles sortes de phénomènes et suggèrent de nouveaux objets physiques."

In 10 years relativity and Einstein's 1905 false light postulate will be referred to in the way "classical" thermodynamics and its second law are referred to in the following text:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
"In the eyes of many modern physicists, the theory has acquired a somewhat dubious status. They regard classical thermodynamics as a relic from a bygone era... Indeed, the view that thermodynamics is obsolete is so common that many physicists use the phrase 'Second Law of Thermodynamics' to denote some counterpart of this law in the kinetic theory of gases or in statistical mechanics."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com

 
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cincirob

Re: EINSTEINIANA: THE FINAL PARALYSIS

February 15 2009, 6:34 AM 

You're cherry-picking again Pentcho. The article goes on to say:

On the other hand, even in the twentieth century one can find prominent physicists
who appreciated thermodynamics. Einstein, whose earliest publications were
devoted to the foundations of the Second Law, remained convinced throughout his
life that thermodynamics is the only universal physical theory that will never be
overthrown. He recommended this remark for the special attention of those who
are skeptics on principle (Einstein 1948, p. 33). Other important physicists who
devoted part of their work to thermodynamics are Sommerfeld, Born, Schr¨odinger,
Pauli, Chandrasekhar andWightman. Planck in particular reported (1948, p. 7) how
strongly he was impressed by the universal and irrefutable validity of thermodynamics.
As a schoolboy, he already experienced his introduction to the First Law of
Thermodynamics as an evangelical revelation (wie eine Heilsbotschaft). The Second
Law became, mainly through his own contributions, a proposition of comparable
stature; (see e.g. Planck (1897, x136)).

Further, the author decided to embrace the second law.

In other words, your source does not agree with your conclusion......again.

 
 
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