Old Physics for New

a worldview alternative to Einstein's relativity theory
(paperback, 258 pages; ISBN 0-9732911-4-1)

From the author of Heretical Verities, a study more sharply focused on the sins of relativity theory. Where physicists see transcendent beauty, Phipps finds institutionalized ugliness. Where field theorists have eyes only for the glitter of Maxwell and Einstein, he commends the subtler attractions of the Cinderella of modern electromagnetic theory, Heinrich Hertz.

These few words of introduction are primarily directed at those readers who are not familiar either with Tom Phipps’ singular style of scientiﬁc prose or, more importantly, with his rigorously applied view that, when theorizing about the world around us, we must pay absolute attention to the practicalities of the measurement processes by which the quantities involved in this theorizing are measured. Let me talk about the Phippsian prose style ﬁrst: the common experience upon reading a scientiﬁc text is to be confronted by a ﬁnished article—that is, by a text from which all sense of intellectual journeying has been exorcised, cleansed, deleted. The experience may be necessary but it is rarely exciting and never invigorating—it becomes merely a job that must be done, a dusty dry road along which weary feet must be dragged. But Phipps refutes this puritanical model; he is renaissance man—the man who glories in the splendour of the written word and its capacity to illuminate the obscure, and to decorate the plain. And so the experience of reading Phippsian scientiﬁc prose is not unlike that of reading a good detective novel—the dim detective, the obvious clues overlooked, the false trail followed, the unsolved crime written up as solved so that the bureaucrat can sleep his dreamless sleep and, ﬁnally, Sherlock Holmes with his pipe and Dr. Watson ...

Now let me consider the (for me) perfectly commonsensical view that the practicalities of the measurement process must play an unambiguously prominent role in the theorizing process: As an example of a theory where this was not done (with hugely signiﬁcant consequences), we need look no further than classical Maxwell electrodynamics. In this case, the formalism absolutely requires that the detectors used by (inertial) observers to measure ﬁeld quantities be at rest in the observer’s frame. Thus, if we have two observers, each in his own inertial frame, then, since their instruments are physical objects and unable to occupy the same place at the same time, it is absolutely impossible for these two observers to make simultaneous measurements of the same ﬁeld point. In other words, certain choices made at the theorizing level have rendered impossible a perfectly reasonable thing—that distinct observers can have direct knowledge of conditions occurring at a particular place at a given time. Phipps’ answer to this conundrum is simple: there is no reason on Earth why the detector measuring ﬁeld quantities should be ﬁxed in the (inertial) observer’s frame. After all, the source currents which generate the ﬁeld are not, so why should the test particles (which comprise the detectors) be? And since the detector need not be ﬁxed in one observer’s inertial frame, why should it be ﬁxed in any inertial frame?

Following this logic, if we allow the detector to have free motion, then the formalism of electrodynamics which follows must somehow allow for the parameterization of the detector’s motion. A natural candidate for this formalism already exists in the equations of Hertz’s electromagnetic theory (the known failure of his theory was the fault not of his equations but of his physical interpretation) and these are easily written down: just take Maxwell’s equations and replace all appearances of by . This replacement introduces a convective velocity which must be interpreted, and Phipps’ solution is to use this convective velocity to describe the motion of the free detector. A simple and elegant idea, don’t you think? ... but now comes the crux: by this simple process, which is driven by the idea that there is no reason on God’s Earth why an observer cannot use a freely moving detector, the equations of electromagnetism become Galilean invariant; thus, at a stroke, solving one of the great conundrums of 19th century physics and, in removing the primary raison d’être of Special Relativity (SRT), putting a huge question mark over a large chunk of 20th century theoretical physics.

Chapter 1
What’s Wrong with Maxwell’s Equations? 1
1.1 Problems of first-order description 1
1.2 The under-parameterization of Maxwell’s
equations 9
1.3 The problem about Faraday’s observations: d/dt 10
1.4 Justification for a Hertzian form of Faraday’s law 13
1.5 Other problems of Maxwell’s equations 15
1.6 Chapter summary 16

Chapter 2
What to Do About It … (the Hertzian Alternative) 17
2.1 First-order invariant field equations 17
2.2 History: Why did Hertz fail? 23
2.3 Invariance vs. covariance: The physics of it 26
2.4 Invariance or covariance: Which is physics? 28
2.5 Hertzian wave equation 30
2.6 Potier’s principle 34
2.7 Sagnac effect and ring laser 37
2.8 A bit of GPS evidence 42
2.9 Chapter summary 43

Chapter 3
Higher-order Electrodynamics … (the neo-Hertzian Alternative) 45
3.1 The higher-order kinematic invariants 45
3.2 Neo-Hertzian field equations 53
3.3 Neo-Hertzian wave equation 57
3.4 Phase invariance 64
3.5 Doppler effect 65
3.6 Chapter summary 66

Chapter 4
Stellar Aberration 69
4.1 Appreciation of the phenomenon 69
4.2 SA according to SRT 71
4.3 SA according to neo-Hertzian theory 77
4.4 SRT’s unrecognized conceptual difficulties
with SA 84
4.5 Einstein’s state of mind: a speculation 86
4.6 A rebuttal 87
4.7 Another “first test” failure of dσ: the rigid body 89
4.8 Newtonian point particle mechanics 93
4.9 Chapter summary 95

Chapter 5
Electrodynamic Force Laws 99
5.1 Electromagnetic force in SRT 99
5.2 Neo-Hertzian force law 101
5.3 Evidence of the Marinov motor 108
5.4 Other electrodynamic force laws 109
5.5 Sick of field theory? … (the Weber alternative) 114
5.6 Chapter Summary 118

Chapter 6
Clock Rate Asymmetry 123
6.1 Distant simultaneity, acausality 123
6.2 Einstein’s train on a different track 127
6.3 Clock slowing: actual or symmetrical?
(The twin paradox) 132
6.4 GPS evidence for clock rate asymmetry 139
6.5 Clock rates, free-falling vs. supported
in a gravity field 147
6.6 Platonic time and simultaneity 150
6.7 Length Invariance 152
6.8 Clock rate as an energy state function 155
6.9 Reversible work 159
6.10 Atomic clocks: prospects for their improvement 160
6.11 Chapter summary 161

Chapter 7
Collective Time 165
7.1 Principles governing proper time 165
7.2 Collective time and relativity principles 167
7.3 Related observations 176
7.4 Philosophical context 180
7.5 Particle mechanics, again 182
7.6 Field theory revisited 185
7.7 The light clock in orbit 189
7.8 Two more forms of the relativity principle
(distinguishable by a crucial experiment) 193
7.9 Kinematics for uncompensated clocks 194
7.10 The need for more facts 197
7.11 Chapter summary 199

Chapter 8
Linkages of Time, Energy, Geometry 203
8.1 Connection of time and action
(and the effect of gravity) 203
8.2 An effect of gravity on mass
in equations of motion? 209
8.3 Kinematics for compensated clocks 211
8.4 Velocity composition:
More than you wanted to know 217
8.5 The many-body problem: γ as integrating factor 222
8.6 A fable 226
8.7 The demo problem problem 230
8.8 Collective time in a nutshell 233
8.9 Chapter summary 235

Appendix
Dingle’s “Proof that Einstein’s Special Theory
cannot correspond with fact” 241
Remark on the psychology of scientific revolutions 247

Educated at Harvard, AB (1945), MS (1948), PhD (1951). His doctorate was in nuclear physics for thesis work under Norman Ramsey. In 1945-46 he joined the wartime Operations Research Group of the Navy Department in Washington, D.C. In later years he was employed by Navy laboratories in research and administrative capacities. On retirement in 1980, he returned to physics and undertook both theoretical studies and various small-scale experiments described in his book Heretical Verities. He is a member of Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa, and a past member of the Operations Research Society of America and the American Physical Society. He has about 40 publications in established (refereed) physics journals and more than twice that number in dissident physics journals.