Re: Einstein's attempt at a unified field theory -- any value for [Archive]

Uncle Al

May11-04, 05:15 AM

<jabberwocky><div class="vbmenu_control"><a href="jabberwocky:;" onClick="newWindow=window.open('','usenetCode','toolbar=no, location=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,status=no ,width=650,height=400'); newWindow.document.write('<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Usenet ASCII</TITLE></HEAD><BODY topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 BGCOLOR=#F1F1F1><table border=0 width=625><td bgcolor=midnightblue><font color=#F1F1F1>This Usenet message\'s original ASCII form: </font></td></tr><tr><td width=449><br><br><font face=courier><UL><PRE>Daniel wrote:\n>\n> I\'ve been reading popular books like Michio Kaku and Briane Greene and\n> Einstein\'s biography.\n>\n> I know he spent the final 30+ years of his life on a unified field\n> theory of gravity and electromagnetism.\n>\n> Does his papers in his late work have any contemporary value in\n> physics research? Did Einstein know of the strong and weak nuclear\n> forces? DId he ever attempt to quantize General Relativity?\n\nEinstein made no progress. He rejected Kaluza-Klein and never took\nquantization seriously. No theory can be unified unless it tacitly\nassumes c=c, h=h, and G=G. Einstein never had a chance.\n\nOne might go a step further. None of Einstein\'s eldritch creativity\nsurvived dissolution of his first marriage. One is led to wonder\nwhether his first wife Mileva Maric - trained in mathematics and adept\nas a physicist - wasn\'t a major source of the ideas.\n\n[Moderator\'s note: This claim has been throroughly debunked here in\ns.p.r in at least one relatively long and extensive thread. In addition,\nafter the breakup of his first marriage, Einstein did produce more good,\noriginal research in physics than most physicists produce in a\nlifetime. -P.H.]\n\n--\nUncle Al\nhttp://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf\nhttp://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm\n(Do something naughty to physics)\n\n</UL></PRE></font></td></tr></table></BODY><HTML>');"> <IMG SRC=/images/buttons/ip.gif BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER ALT="View this Usenet post in original ASCII form">  View this Usenet post in original ASCII form </a></div><P></jabberwocky>Daniel wrote:
>
> I've been reading popular books like Michio Kaku and Briane Greene and
> Einstein's biography.
>
> I know he spent the final 30+ years of his life on a unified field
> theory of gravity and electromagnetism.
>
> Does his papers in his late work have any contemporary value in
> physics research? Did Einstein know of the strong and weak nuclear
> forces? DId he ever attempt to quantize General Relativity?

Einstein made no progress. He rejected Kaluza-Klein and never took
quantization seriously. No theory can be unified unless it tacitly
assumes c=c, h=h, and G=G. Einstein never had a chance.

One might go a step further. None of Einstein's eldritch creativity
survived dissolution of his first marriage. One is led to wonder
whether his first wife Mileva Maric - trained in mathematics and adept
as a physicist - wasn't a major source of the ideas.

[Moderator's note: This claim has been throroughly debunked here in
s.p.r in at least one relatively long and extensive thread. In addition,
after the breakup of his first marriage, Einstein did produce more good,
original research in physics than most physicists produce in a
lifetime. -P.H.]

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)

Peter Tobias

May11-04, 07:04 AM

<jabberwocky><div class="vbmenu_control"><a href="jabberwocky:;" onClick="newWindow=window.open('','usenetCode','toolbar=no, location=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,status=no ,width=650,height=400'); newWindow.document.write('<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Usenet ASCII</TITLE></HEAD><BODY topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 BGCOLOR=#F1F1F1><table border=0 width=625><td bgcolor=midnightblue><font color=#F1F1F1>This Usenet message\'s original ASCII form: </font></td></tr><tr><td width=449><br><br><font face=courier><UL><PRE>\nDaniel wrote:\n> I\'ve been reading popular books like Michio Kaku and Briane Greene and\n> Einstein\'s biography. (...)\n> Does his papers in his late work have any contemporary value in\n> physics research?\n\nI\'m no expert on Einstein and don\'t know anything about his later field\ntheory, but two of his later contributions to physics are certainly\nworth to be mentioned:\nIn the 20s his endorsement of Bose and his application of Bose\'s statistics.\nIn the 30s his criticism of quantum mechanics, leading to the EPR paper\n- Einstein\'s view did not prevail, but its refutation lead to a clearer\npicture of quantum mechanics and to important results such as Bell\'s\ninequality.\n\nRegards,\n\nPeter\n</UL></PRE></font></td></tr></table></BODY><HTML>');"> <IMG SRC=/images/buttons/ip.gif BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER ALT="View this Usenet post in original ASCII form">  View this Usenet post in original ASCII form </a></div><P></jabberwocky>Daniel wrote:
> I've been reading popular books like Michio Kaku and Briane Greene and
> Einstein's biography. (...)
> Does his papers in his late work have any contemporary value in
> physics research?

I'm no expert on Einstein and don't know anything about his later field
theory, but two of his later contributions to physics are certainly
worth to be mentioned:
In the 20s his endorsement of Bose and his application of Bose's statistics.
In the 30s his criticism of quantum mechanics, leading to the EPR paper
- Einstein's view did not prevail, but its refutation lead to a clearer
picture of quantum mechanics and to important results such as Bell's
inequality.

Regards,

Peter

robert bristow-johnson

May13-04, 05:25 AM

<jabberwocky><div class="vbmenu_control"><a href="jabberwocky:;" onClick="newWindow=window.open('','usenetCode','toolbar=no, location=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,status=no ,width=650,height=400'); newWindow.document.write('<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Usenet ASCII</TITLE></HEAD><BODY topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 BGCOLOR=#F1F1F1><table border=0 width=625><td bgcolor=midnightblue><font color=#F1F1F1>This Usenet message\'s original ASCII form: </font></td></tr><tr><td width=449><br><br><font face=courier><UL><PRE>\n\nUncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<409C2F6E.3CF85560@hate.spam.net>...\n....\n> Einstein made no progress. ... No theory can be unified unless it tacitly\n> assumes c=c, h=h, and G=G.\n\nhay Al. whatever the heck do you mean by that? 5=5 might be true but\nit doesn\'t say much.\n\n> ... Einstein never had a chance.\n\nr b-j\n</UL></PRE></font></td></tr></table></BODY><HTML>');"> <IMG SRC=/images/buttons/ip.gif BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER ALT="View this Usenet post in original ASCII form">  View this Usenet post in original ASCII form </a></div><P></jabberwocky>Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<409C2F6E.3CF85560@hate.spam.net>...
....
> Einstein made no progress. ... No theory can be unified unless it tacitly
> assumes c=c, h=h, and G=G.

hay Al. whatever the heck do you mean by that? 5=5 might be true but
it doesn't say much.

> ... Einstein never had a chance.

r b-j

Tim S

May17-04, 06:19 PM

<jabberwocky><div class="vbmenu_control"><a href="jabberwocky:;" onClick="newWindow=window.open('','usenetCode','toolbar=no, location=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,status=no ,width=650,height=400'); newWindow.document.write('<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Usenet ASCII</TITLE></HEAD><BODY topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 BGCOLOR=#F1F1F1><table border=0 width=625><td bgcolor=midnightblue><font color=#F1F1F1>This Usenet message\'s original ASCII form: </font></td></tr><tr><td width=449><br><br><font face=courier><UL><PRE>on 12/05/2004 11:05 am, Ulmo at ulmo@cheerful.com wrote:\n\n>\n> Doug Sweetser <sweetser@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message\n> news:<c7k0nd\\$a2r\\$1@pcls4.std.com>...\n>>\n>> I do not know about the history of the strong force. The standard\n>> model became a standard after his death.\n>>\n>\n> That some strong force existed had to be known since Ernest\n> Rutherford\'s experiment in 1911 when he discovered the atomic nucleus.\n> It was surounded by a cloud of negative electrons, the atom is\n> electrically neutral, so you must have a bunch of positively charged\n> particles bound together at the center, so there must exist some force\n> stronger than electromagnetism that kept them together dispite\n> electric repulsion.\n\nAt that point I don\'t think there was any definitive reason to suppose that\nnuclei were composite, although obviously there was strongly suggestive\nevidence (from radioactivity and atomic weights).\n\nTim\n\n\n</UL></PRE></font></td></tr></table></BODY><HTML>');"> <IMG SRC=/images/buttons/ip.gif BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER ALT="View this Usenet post in original ASCII form">  View this Usenet post in original ASCII form </a></div><P></jabberwocky>on 12/05/2004 11:05 am, Ulmo at ulmo@cheerful.com wrote:

>
> Doug Sweetser <sweetser@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
> news:<c7k0nd$a2r$1@pcls4.std.com>...
>>
>> I do not know about the history of the strong force. The standard
>> model became a standard after his death.
>>
>
> That some strong force existed had to be known since Ernest
> Rutherford's experiment in 1911 when he discovered the atomic nucleus.
> It was surounded by a cloud of negative electrons, the atom is
> electrically neutral, so you must have a bunch of positively charged
> particles bound together at the center, so there must exist some force
> stronger than electromagnetism that kept them together dispite
> electric repulsion.

At that point I don't think there was any definitive reason to suppose that
nuclei were composite, although obviously there was strongly suggestive
evidence (from radioactivity and atomic weights).

Tim