V.6 No 1

31

On correctness of basic postulates of SR

First of all, as we all well know, when passing to GR, Einstein denied his negating of the aether: “To negate the ether – this, finally, means to admit that the void space has no physical properties. The main facts of mechanics disagree with such view” [13, p. 687]. And this phrase stands immediately after the above Einstein’s statement that “electromagnetic phenomena in the void are determined enough by the laws included in these equations, independently of other physical values” [13, p. 686]. And after these words we read: “The ether of general theory of relativity is the medium without any mechanical and kinematical properties, but at the same time determining the mechanical (and electromagnetic (! – Authors)) processes” [13, p. 687–688]. It appears that if in space only EM processes are present, without material bodies, which is typical for SR, there is no aether, but if the gravity field being the subject of GR is present, then the aether exists and determines gravitation and electromagnetic processes. But any experiment requires such or other instruments that have a mass and, basing on Cavendish experiments, have gravity attraction. So in one and the same region of space the aether is present if relativists want to use GR and absent when using SR. No matter how strong the gravity field is there. It to exist, the aether is of importance that is, as relativists themselves say, inconsistent with the L-postulate. But here also it appears that despite the above statements of inconsistence of aether with L-postulate, “in the special theory of relativity the ether was also absolute, as its affection on the inertia and light propagation was thought independent for all physical affections” [20, p. 158].

  This last only corroborates how unscrupulous are relativistic judgements concerning the laws of nature. With a reckless readiness they admit some physical feature where it is convenient for the authors, while they keep the formalism derived under condition negating this feature. By the way the relativists do not forget to accuse the adherents of classical conception that they misinterpret not only discrepant judgements of relativists but misunderstand the physical meaning of the aether which only relativists have truly interpreted by way of resection.

It also is typical that relativists, seeking the way out of the phraseological deadlock to which they have led themselves by incorrect postulating, do it not through putting in order the phenomenology on which they base their construction, as it would be done. No, the Lorentz transformation, L-postulate and 4-D interval remained in passing to GR as a particular case, despite the incorrect formulation of the L-postulate caused the discrepancies. Relativists simply substituted the concept of aether by the concept of physical space, giving to this last the properties of aether: “Nowadays we can state this conception so: physical space and ether are only different expressions for one and the same thing; fields are physical states of space. Actually, if we cannot impart to the ether any state of motion, then, obviously, there are no grounds to introduce the ether along with the space as a special feature” [21, p. 279]. And this was said after a special warning of relativists: “We only have to be cautious to attribute to this ‘ether’ the material properties (e.g., a definite speed at each point)” [22, p. 625]. “The mechanical ether theory became, strictly speaking, excessive and impeding the further development, already when the elastic theory of light has been substituted by that electromagnetic. In this last the material ether always was an alien body (? – Authors). Already after the theory of relativity has been created, Einstein suggested introducing again the idea of ether (what for if it is excessive? – Authors) considered already not as a substance but only as a feature of those values determining the physical state of values that we have to attribute to the space that is not filled by an usual matter. The ether understood in this meaning has not, indeed, any mechanical properties; in other words, the physical characteristics of space have no locations either speeds” [23, p. 15].

But what differs the relativistic ether from that of Lorentz? “The ether of general theory of relativity is basically different from the Lorentz’ ether because its state at any place is dynamically determined with the help of differential equations by the matter and state of ether in the neighbouring points, while the state of Lorentz’ ether in case of absence of electromagnetic fields depends of nothing except the very ether and is everywhere same. We can mentally turn the ether of general theory of relativity into the ether of Lorentz, if we substitute all functions of spatial coordinates describing it by constants and pay no attention to the causes conditioning its state. And we can say so: we yield the ether of general theory of relativity from the Lorentz’ ether, relativing this last” [13, p. 688].

But if we responsibly approach to what Einstein said, the field descriptions by Maxwell and Lorentz are also wrapped in the form of differential equations that really determined the dynamic state of aether, and the state at the given point also has been determined by the state at the neighbouring points. Einstein also understood it when wrote on this issue the following: “it was the destiny of Maxwell to finally grasp the part of the concept of field; the basic discovery that the laws of electrodynamics find their natural expression in differential equations for electric and magnetic fields belongs to him. From these equations there followed the existence of waves whose properties related to those of light to an extent to which these last were known at that time” [9, p. 722]. So, seemingly, the cause was not the differential record of the state of field but which namely equations, built on which postulational basis determine these states. If the physical aether is determined by specific physical parameters and the light propagation is determined namely by these parameters, there comes into force the contradiction – impossibility of light speed conservation in mutually moving non-inertial frames with the automatic debunking of L-postulate. But if the aether is something nominal – so to say, some nameplate that conceals a blot on the door of relativistic conception by some virtual set phrase having no physical properties, neither interrelation with electromagnetic processes, but allowing to operate on the paper with the formulas of electromagnetism, – well, this is just what satisfies relativists, and just in such cut off form they agree that the material substance in space exists. “If we imagine that the matter and field have been removed, there remains the (inertial) space, or rather this space with the time related to it. This four-dimensional structure (Minkowski space) is thought as the carrier of matter and field. Inertial spaces, together with the times related to them are privileged four-dimensional coordinate systems related to the linear Lorentz transformations” [6, p. 754]. “We come to a strange conclusion: now it begins to seem to us that the space takes the primordial place but the matter has to be obtained from the space, so to say, at the next stage. The space absorbs the matter. We always considered the matter primordial and the space secondary. The space, graphically speaking, now takes revenge and ‘eats’ the matter. But this all still remains an innermost dream” [25, p. 243].

At the same time, as we can easily see, substantiation of the aether by space that determines the geometric relationship between the objects is ill in the very definition. If the space is material, besides geometrical size it has physical properties which Einstein had to admit for physical space. And this material substance that exists in space, has the constant of electrostatic induction ₀, constant of electromagnetic induction ₀  , gravity constant – is called in classical physics the aether. And the space in its essence is only a geometric feature that, in presence of at least four selected points related to the elements of weighty matter being not in motion with respect to each other, can have a coordinate system and give an idea of mutual arrangement of other bodies. So the concept of space is basically unable to inform us of such physical properties as ₀ and ₀ – both in Euclidean and Riemann geometry. These are properties of matter, not of geometrical location of bodies. This last can change, bodies can transform, split, but these properties remain unchanged and constant in value. And if they are involved in this appearance of constants into some mathematical equations, this does not mean a least that in this way they have lost their physical meaning and gained the shape of some featureless coefficients, as they are reflections of a definite physical reality and determine the properties of this reality. It is simple to check it, passing from one metric system to another. With the change of these constants, not only the dimension of field strength, electric charges and masses will change but also the numerical value of the propagation speed of excitation in space, as it is determined namely by these constants. So when they say that aether has no physical properties and is absolutely excessive to describe the fields in space and at the same time premise: “it is still unclear for us which part the ether will take in the outlook of future. We know, it determines the metric relations in the space-time continuum, e.g., possible configurations of solid bodies and different gravity fields, but we do not know, whether it participates in building of electric particles that form the matter. We do not know also, whether its structure differs from the structure of Lorentz’ ether only in the near of weighty masses, whether the Euclidean geometry is applicable to the spatial regions of cosmic scale” [13, p. 688], claiming as a conclusion: “But we cannot imagine this ether consisting of the parts that can be followed in time; such property has only the weighty matter” [13, p. 689], – this is a trivial manner of distortion of the physical meaning of processes that relativists took from the very beginning, well understanding how artificial are their constructions: “Distracting now from the quantum puzzle whose solution, despite so promising start, seems to be the matter of far future, we can think the field theory satisfactory only in case if it considers the electric and gravity fields as a revelation of an integer structure of four-dimensional space-time continuum. To solve this problem, the experience, seemingly, gives us nothing; but hopefully, among the results of accomplished, mentally yielded theory can be found such that admit to be checked experimentally” [24, p. 246].

Thus, on the basis of relativistic arguments we see, when Einstein introduced his L-postulate, it was artificial and illegal, as it was based only on the distortion of physical concepts and observed phenomena. This produced an avalanche of the following no less discrepant assumptions for sake of illusion that the relativistic conception is integer, while it broke down from the very beginning, from the first approach to the problems of real physical modelling.