Bøger af Trevor Underwood

This volume provides annotated translations of the primary sources, which were largely in German, leading up to Einstein's theory of general relativity, in which Einstein attempted to extend his theory of special relativity beyond space and time, to include matter and gravitational fields, by introducing gravity through his "equivalence principle" - the equivalence of gravity and acceleration. This resulted in Einstein rejecting the second postulate of his theory of special relativity - the postulate on the constancy of the speed of light - in the presence of a gravitational field. This review reveals that Einstein's theory of general relativity it is not a theory of gravity; it is a relativistic theory about the effects of gravitation, or more strictly, of a uniformly accelerated reference frame. There is nothing in any version of this theory that represents or explains or provides any connection to the weak attractive gravitational force between matter. In order to make calculations with his theory, Einstein had to import Newton's empirical law of gravitation. Consequently, the only evidence that Einstein could provide for his theory of general relativity was effectively Newtonian. Part I reviews Newton's laws of motion and of gravitation, his definitions of inertial and gravitational mass, and his equivalence principle, which provide the background to Einstein's theory. Part II provides a detailed analysis of the development of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Part III provides a postscript on subsequent developments, and the Conclusion. In the light of the continued failure of Einstein's efforts to overcome the main objections to his theory of special relativity - the Ehrenfest paradox, and its failure to explain the observed Doppler redshift and blueshift of light - or to provide any evidence for it, and in the absence of any supportive evidence for his theory of general relativity, both theories must be rejected until such objections are overcome and such evidence is provided.

This study concludes that, quite apart from enormity of the consequences of the two postulates of Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, taken together, including length contraction, time dilation, and the requirement to assume a point electron in the unsuccessful attempt to introduce special relativity into quantum electrodynamics, the evidence in support of Einstein's second postulate on the constancy of the speed of light is far outweighed by the evidence against it. For this reason, until more satisfactory evidence in support of Einstein's second postulate, a refutation of the Ehrenfest paradox, and an explanation for the observed Doppler red shift and blue shift consistent with Einstein's two postulates, is provided, under any normal measure of a theory in physics, Einstein's second postulate, and consequently his theory of special relativity, must be rejected. Part I provides annotated extracts and translations of the original papers leading up to the establishment of Einstein's theory of special relativity and Walter Ritz's competing emission theory of electromagnetic radiation. Part II examines the evidence in support of special relativity between 1905 and 2017. Part III addresses evidence against special relativity, reviews measurements of the speed of light, and provides the Conclusion.

This is not a sourcebook in the conventional sense. It is a working document which brings together annotated extracts from 107 primary sources, or translations of them, of the development of quantum electrodynamics, so that it is easier for a researcher to deal with the large volume of material. Links to internet copies of the primary documents or alternative sources are provided where available to enable these to be consulted. A summary is provided at the head of each paper and in the Contents. The references in each paper are expanded to include the title (and its translation where relevant), and a copy of the summary where this is available and helpful to avoid unnecessary cross referencing. Biographies of the main contributors are also provided, of which 18 received Nobel Prizes in Physics. The chronological development of the theories of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics constituted an interesting interplay between theory and experiment. Volume I, covering the period from 1896 to 1931 is primarily focused on the development of the largely successful non-relativistic theory of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Volume II, covering the period from 1930 up until 1965, when Tomonaga, Feynman, and Schwinger received their Nobel prizes, addresses the attempts to formulate a relativistic quantum electrodynamics, or quantum field theory, for the electron, when the energy of the electron is relativistic, and in particular to address, through a process of renormalization, the still unresolved divergencies arising largely, if not entirely, from the assumption of a point electron.

This is not a sourcebook in the conventional sense. It is a working document which brings together annotated extracts from 107 primary sources, or translations of them, of the development of quantum electrodynamics, so that it is easier for a researcher to deal with the large volume of material. Links to internet copies of the primary documents or alternative sources are provided where available to enable these to be consulted. A summary is provided at the head of each paper and in the Contents. The references in each paper are expanded to include the title (and its translation where relevant), and a copy of the summary where this is available and helpful to avoid unnecessary cross referencing. Biographies of the main contributors are also provided, of which 18 received Nobel Prizes in Physics. The chronological development of the theories of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics constituted an interesting interplay between theory and experiment. Volume I, covering the period from 1896 to 1931 is primarily focused on the development of the largely successful non-relativistic theory of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Volume II, covering the period from 1930 up until 1965, when Tomonaga, Feynman, and Schwinger received their Nobel prizes, addresses the attempts to formulate a relativistic quantum electrodynamics, or quantum field theory, for the electron, when the energy of the electron is relativistic, and in particular to address, through a process of renormalization, the still unresolved divergencies arising largely, if not entirely, from the assumption of a point electron.

In 1916, Einstein proposed three tests of general relativity, subsequently called the "classical tests" of general relativity:¿ the perihelion precession of Mercury's orbit¿ the deflection of light by the Sun¿ the gravitational redshift of light.The key evidence on which Einstein relied to support his theory was the first of these, which related to unexplained errors in the observations of Mercury's orbit reported in 1859 by Urbain Le Verrier, the Director of the Paris Observatory. As the available publications that led to Le Verrier's claim, which were developed over a period of nearly two decades, were complex and only available in French, as part of a larger project, I translated them into English and annotated them, to make them easier to understand. As it appeared that this might be helpful to other researchers, I decided to publish my translations in the current volume.This book provides translations of two books, Le Verrier, U. -J. (1841), Développements sur Plusieurs Points de la Théorie des Perturbations des Planètes (Developments on several points of the Theory of Perturbations of Planets); and Le Verrier, U. -J. (1845), Théorie du mouvement de Mecure (The Theory of the Movement of Mercury); and a 195-page article, Le Verrier, U. -J. (1859), Theorie du Mouvement de Mercure (The Theory of the Movement of Mercury), Chapter XV in the Annales de L'Observatoire Impérial de Paris. It also includes a translation of the 1859 letter in which Le Verrier reported his claim, Lettre de M. Le Verrier à M. Faye sur la théorie de Mercure et sur le mouvement du périhélie de cette planète (Letter from M. Le Verrier to M. Faye on the theory of Mercury and on the perihelion movement of this planet), which was published in the Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des Sciences (Paris).The conclusions from this detailed review are that, rather than implying a systematic error in the calculated values, the steady reduction in the errors in the equations of condition could be seen to be a demonstration of a linear improvement in the accuracy of the measurements over time as one might expect, resulting in no adjustment to the elliptic elements, and no difference between the calculated rates of precession, and no support for Einstein's theory of general relativity.