| In case you've not seen it, more on yer man:
<<< COSME3::DISK$OA_APP1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ES96.NOTE;1 >>>
-< ES96: fluff noters' emporium >-
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Note 67.13 The news. 13 of 18
IJSAPL::ANDERSON "tis the muckspreading time!" 100 lines 1-APR-1996 07:42
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RTw 03/31 2133 FEATURE - Einstein was wrong, says retired Irish ...
FEATURE - Einstein was wrong, says retired Irish engineer
By Andrew Marshall
DUBLIN, April 1 (Reuter) - Alphonsus Kelly is a 70-year-old retired
Irish engineer with two passions. He plays golf and likes to disprove
Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
Kelly says his discoveries will shake the foundations of modern physics
and force scientists to revise their view of the universe. In a
research paper published earlier this year he put forward evidence
which, he says, proves that Einstein's theories of space, time and the
behaviour of light are flawed.
Kelly is an unlikely candidate for the role of scientific iconoclast.
He has a degree in engineering rather than physics and he spent most of
his career working for Ireland's electricity board. He says he is
certainly no genius.
"I was never the brightest boy in my class at school," he told Reuters
at his home in Dublin. "But I was always the one who was prepared to
put up his hand and say -- "this doesn't make sense'. I suppose my
habit of questioning things helped lead me to my discoveries about
Einstein."
Kelly started investigating Einstein as a hobby after he retired, and
discovered that several experiments seemed to contradict his theory of
the behaviour of light.
"It was like a detective story," Kelly said. "I looked at more and more
key experiments and many of them seemed to suggest that something was
wrong with Einstein's theory."
According to Einstein, the speed of light always appears the same to
any observer, no matter how fast the observer is moving. Space and time
can flex to ensure that this universal law always holds, so for
observers moving at close to the speed of light time slows down and
distances seem to contract.
But Kelly says several experiments show that the universe simply does
not behave in this way. Einstein's most famous formula e - mc squared
still holds true, he says, but the Theory of Relativity is wrong.
"My theory up-ends the whole of modern astrophysics," Kelly says. "And
that is rather frightening."
He has formulated his own theory about light, space and time, which he
says fits the experimental evidence.
He says space and time are absolute and do not change for observers
moving at high speeds. And he says the speed of light generated on
earth is not independent of the earth's motion, as Einstein claimed.
Instead, light takes up the orbital speed of the earth although it is
not affected by the earth's spin.
"To put it more simply -- light appears to travel faster from Dublin to
Galway than from Galway to Dublin," Kelly said.
If Kelly turns out to be correct, it will not be the first time he has
rewritten physics textbooks. In 1966 he claimed that simple experiments
showed a siphon could pump water much higher than scientific theory
predicted. His claim was mocked at first, but later turned out to be
correct.
Going from improving the theory of the siphon to challenging the entire
foundations of modern astrophysics is a rather large step to take. But
Kelly says the same method led him to both discoveries. He has an
engineer's approach to science, focusing on practical experiments
rather than theory, and says this can create insights which theoretical
physicists miss.
At a packed lecture in Dublin's Trinity College in February, Kelly
outlined his new theory and challenged the world's scientific community
to find fault with his findings. He has met with a sceptical response.
"Kelly's monographs propose an experimental contradiction to one of the
cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. If this contradiction were
true, it would immediately attract the undivided attention of every
research physicist in this field," said Siddhartha Sen, a professor at
Trinity College School of Mathematics.
"Unfortunately Kelly's proposed contradiction just does not exist," Sen
said. "There is no mystery to excite our attention and research." Other
scientists have said his experiments are not accurate enough to be
taken seriously.
But Kelly says nobody has yet challenged the full weight of his
evidence, with most scientists simply content to scoff. "One of the
main experiments I quoted was accurate to one in
100,000,000,000,000,000,000. That should be accurate enough for most
people," he said.
He is confident his ideas will gain acceptance. "Sooner or later
somebody's going to come off the fence and back me. If a professor of
physics somewhere comes out and supports me then people will start to
take notice."
REUTER
<<< COSME3::DISK$OA_APP1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ES96.NOTE;1 >>>
-< ES96: fluff noters' emporium >-
================================================================================
Note 67.13 The news. 13 of 18
IJSAPL::ANDERSON "tis the muckspreading time!" 100 lines 1-APR-1996 07:42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RTw 03/31 2133 FEATURE - Einstein was wrong, says retired Irish ...
FEATURE - Einstein was wrong, says retired Irish engineer
By Andrew Marshall
DUBLIN, April 1 (Reuter) - Alphonsus Kelly is a 70-year-old retired
Irish engineer with two passions. He plays golf and likes to disprove
Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
Kelly says his discoveries will shake the foundations of modern physics
and force scientists to revise their view of the universe. In a
research paper published earlier this year he put forward evidence
which, he says, proves that Einstein's theories of space, time and the
behaviour of light are flawed.
Kelly is an unlikely candidate for the role of scientific iconoclast.
He has a degree in engineering rather than physics and he spent most of
his career working for Ireland's electricity board. He says he is
certainly no genius.
"I was never the brightest boy in my class at school," he told Reuters
at his home in Dublin. "But I was always the one who was prepared to
put up his hand and say -- "this doesn't make sense'. I suppose my
habit of questioning things helped lead me to my discoveries about
Einstein."
Kelly started investigating Einstein as a hobby after he retired, and
discovered that several experiments seemed to contradict his theory of
the behaviour of light.
"It was like a detective story," Kelly said. "I looked at more and more
key experiments and many of them seemed to suggest that something was
wrong with Einstein's theory."
According to Einstein, the speed of light always appears the same to
any observer, no matter how fast the observer is moving. Space and time
can flex to ensure that this universal law always holds, so for
observers moving at close to the speed of light time slows down and
distances seem to contract.
But Kelly says several experiments show that the universe simply does
not behave in this way. Einstein's most famous formula e - mc squared
still holds true, he says, but the Theory of Relativity is wrong.
"My theory up-ends the whole of modern astrophysics," Kelly says. "And
that is rather frightening."
He has formulated his own theory about light, space and time, which he
says fits the experimental evidence.
He says space and time are absolute and do not change for observers
moving at high speeds. And he says the speed of light generated on
earth is not independent of the earth's motion, as Einstein claimed.
Instead, light takes up the orbital speed of the earth although it is
not affected by the earth's spin.
"To put it more simply -- light appears to travel faster from Dublin to
Galway than from Galway to Dublin," Kelly said.
If Kelly turns out to be correct, it will not be the first time he has
rewritten physics textbooks. In 1966 he claimed that simple experiments
showed a siphon could pump water much higher than scientific theory
predicted. His claim was mocked at first, but later turned out to be
correct.
Going from improving the theory of the siphon to challenging the entire
foundations of modern astrophysics is a rather large step to take. But
Kelly says the same method led him to both discoveries. He has an
engineer's approach to science, focusing on practical experiments
rather than theory, and says this can create insights which theoretical
physicists miss.
At a packed lecture in Dublin's Trinity College in February, Kelly
outlined his new theory and challenged the world's scientific community
to find fault with his findings. He has met with a sceptical response.
"Kelly's monographs propose an experimental contradiction to one of the
cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. If this contradiction were
true, it would immediately attract the undivided attention of every
research physicist in this field," said Siddhartha Sen, a professor at
Trinity College School of Mathematics.
"Unfortunately Kelly's proposed contradiction just does not exist," Sen
said. "There is no mystery to excite our attention and research." Other
scientists have said his experiments are not accurate enough to be
taken seriously.
But Kelly says nobody has yet challenged the full weight of his
evidence, with most scientists simply content to scoff. "One of the
main experiments I quoted was accurate to one in
100,000,000,000,000,000,000. That should be accurate enough for most
people," he said.
He is confident his ideas will gain acceptance. "Sooner or later
somebody's going to come off the fence and back me. If a professor of
physics somewhere comes out and supports me then people will start to
take notice."
REUTER
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