Comment on "Discussion of Thomas' ideas"

[DrMars]

Note: this is a comment on the closed thread Discussion of Thomas' ideas

I did, and that does not change that you are generalizing your interpretation of your own experience.
.....
Basically, you blame the referees and editors for rejecting your papers " just because the author does not use mainstream views, terminology and references", while in reality it is because you do not accept or understand that your own work is flawed

There is no generalization implied here:
Thomas merely questioned the black and white attitude: peer-reviewed=good; non-peer-reviewed=bad.
There are undoubtely many good papers being passed and many bad papers being rejected by the peer review system, but there are also incorrect and even fraudulent papers being passed, and likewise correct and relevant papers being rejected.
The simple fact is that the referees expect papers to comply to certain standards in form and content, and since they are themselves usually mainstream scientists, they can never be 100% objective in their judgement due to the obvious conflict of interests.
If I would be a betting man, I would bet that if somebody would make up experimental data which in one case confirm a certain aspect of Einstein's theories and in the other invalidate it, and send the two versions of the paper to 10 journals each, you would have no problems getting the first version published in all of them, but in the latter case you would be lucky if you could get it accepted in 2 or 3 journals. Just ask yourself how much you would bet against it.
(see also http://www.the-scientist.com/2006/2/1/26/1/ in this context)

From the webpage http://www.physicsmyths.org.uk/lorentz.htm

[Einstein] considers the 'equations of motion' of a light signal in the unprimed and primed frame:
(1) x - ct = 0
(2) x' - ct' = 0
and correspondingly for a light signal travelling along the negative x-axis:
(1a) x + ct = 0
(2a) x' + ct' = 0

From these equations, he concludes then:
(3) x' - ct' = lambda (x - ct)
(4) x' + ct' = mu (x + ct)
and by adding and subtracting Eqs.(3) and (4) he gets the formal Lorentz transformation
(5a) x' = ax - bct
(5b) ct' = act - bx
where
(6) a = (lambda + mu)/2
(7) b = (lambda - mu)/2

Now without actually having to bother about the nature of the constants 'a' and 'b' (which Einstein tries to determine subsequently), it is clear already at this point that the derivation is algebraically inconsistent.
First of all, it is already apparent from Eqs.(1)and (1a) for instance that they can hold only for x=0 and t=0 (as is evident by adding and subtracting the equations).

Since Eqs. (1) and (1a) do not form a system of equations, why would you do that?
After all, they are equations of motion for two different signals, so x and t in Eq. (1) are not the same as in Eq. (1a) and they do not have to solve both equations at the same time.

First of all, mathematical symbols are merely placeholders for something, i.e. the same mathematical symbol should denote the same thing in order to avoid ambiguities. The only situaton where one deviates from this obvious rule is if one defines a function for different regions like for the step-function f(x)=0 for x<0 and f(x)=1 for x>0. It is in the latter sense that the original condition for the invariance of c (x-ct=0<=>x'-ct'=0 and x+ct=0<=>x'+ct'=0) was apparently meant, but the condition x>0 in the first case and x<0 in the second were simply dropped by Einstein when he made the generalization to his equations x'-ct' =lambda (x - ct) and x'+ct'=mu (x + ct). Einstein assumes, in contradiction to the original constraints, that both of those equation hold for all x (otherwise he would not be able to add and subtract them in order to get to the Lorentz transformation).

[antoniseb]

Hi DrMars,

We normally close posts for reasons. We do not allow people to obviate our closures by starting a new thread. I am sure that you put a great deal of effort into this post, but I cannot allow this to stay here.