Richard Hertz
2022-01-05 23:36:43 UTC
Just as an historical curiosity. This is an excerpt of a paper presented by Charles Lane Poor, an US astronomer of high caliber.
Poor (1866 - 1951) was an astronomer and professor of celestial mechanics at Columbia University from 1903 to 1944, when he was named Professor Emeritus. He published several works disputing the evidence for Einstein's theory of relativity during the 1920s,
reflecting objections to the theory.
He was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and an associate fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Columbia
University, Poor was a teacher of the astronomer Samuel A. Mitchell, who went on to become director of the Leander McCormick Observatory at the University of Virginia.
EXCERPT OF THE 1927 PAPER
*******************************************************************************************************************
THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA
Vol. XXI, No. 6 , JULY-AUGUST, 1927 , Whole No. 1 6
THE RELATIVITY DEFLECTION OF LIGHT?
By CHARLES LANE POOR
Presented at the Philadelphia Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American
Astronomical Society. December 29, 1926.
The claim of the relativists, which has attracted the greatest popular interest, is that of "bent light”; the claim that light has weight and
falls towards the earth in a manner entirely similar to that of the famed apple of Newton. And this interest has been intensified by the
widely heralded eclipse expeditions to Africa, to South America, and to Australia to test and to verify the predictions of Einstein, and by
the repeated assertions that these expeditions have fully confirmed all the wonders of the relativity theory by obtaining results which
"are in exact accord with the requirements of the Einstein Theory".
But just what these requirements of the theory really are, and how they result from the theory, neither Einstein, nor any of his followers,
has explained in simple, understandable language. Einstein, himself, has given two very definite predictions as to the amount by which
the light of a star should be bent, or deflected in its passage by the sun. In 1911 he fixed this amount as 0".83; in 1916 he doubled this
and made the deflection, according to his theories, 1".70. But the way in which Einstein derived these two different values is not given in
any general works on relativity. Such works of the relativists are replete with philosophical contemplations, with vague speculations and
generalizations as to the structure of the universe, with references to the principle of equivalence, to warps and twists in space; but they
one and all fail to give a direct explanation of the basis of Einstein's claim as to the deflection of light rays, and of the ways in which he
arrived at the two different and conflicting values. The statement of Einstein, contained in his general work on relativity, is probably as
clear and definite as any that can be found, and that statenient is :
"According to the theory half of this deflection is produced by the Newtonian field of attraction of the sun, and the other
half by the geometrical modification ('curvature') of space caused by the sun."
If this be taken literally then it would appear that Einstein, in 1911, evolved the theory that light has weight and is acted upon by gravitation
in exactly the same way as is a particle of matter; that he afterwards and prior to 1916 found that the sun warps and twists space in its
neighborhood, and that light is further deflected by its passage through such warps and twists. Thus it would seem that his 1911
prediction of a deflection of only 0".83 was based upon some direct effect of Newtonian gravitation upon light; that his revised prediction
of 1".70 in 1916 was based upon some additional and newly discovered effect of gravitation upon space. The summation of these two
supposed effects of gravitation, the one directly upon a body, the other indirectly through an intermediary action upon space, has been
termed a “new”, or the "Einstein" law of gravitation. And the deflections of light, observed at solar eclipses, have been cited as tests
between these two theories, or laws of gravitation :the Newtonian and the Einsteinian.
*******************************************************************************************************************
The paper became more interesting, while deepening into the consequences of GR light deflection.
It's worth to read the rest of a publication of a serious man of science, who belonged to the "high society". His son was co-founder of
Grumman, so he was connected.
When he wrote this paper, he was 60 y.o. and, obviously, after some years he said "fuck relativists", and give up. So, the force of the
retarded from the new generation of physicists and astronomers was quite strong by then. Brainwashing at the highest.
Poor (1866 - 1951) was an astronomer and professor of celestial mechanics at Columbia University from 1903 to 1944, when he was named Professor Emeritus. He published several works disputing the evidence for Einstein's theory of relativity during the 1920s,
reflecting objections to the theory.
He was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and an associate fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Columbia
University, Poor was a teacher of the astronomer Samuel A. Mitchell, who went on to become director of the Leander McCormick Observatory at the University of Virginia.
EXCERPT OF THE 1927 PAPER
*******************************************************************************************************************
THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA
Vol. XXI, No. 6 , JULY-AUGUST, 1927 , Whole No. 1 6
THE RELATIVITY DEFLECTION OF LIGHT?
By CHARLES LANE POOR
Presented at the Philadelphia Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American
Astronomical Society. December 29, 1926.
The claim of the relativists, which has attracted the greatest popular interest, is that of "bent light”; the claim that light has weight and
falls towards the earth in a manner entirely similar to that of the famed apple of Newton. And this interest has been intensified by the
widely heralded eclipse expeditions to Africa, to South America, and to Australia to test and to verify the predictions of Einstein, and by
the repeated assertions that these expeditions have fully confirmed all the wonders of the relativity theory by obtaining results which
"are in exact accord with the requirements of the Einstein Theory".
But just what these requirements of the theory really are, and how they result from the theory, neither Einstein, nor any of his followers,
has explained in simple, understandable language. Einstein, himself, has given two very definite predictions as to the amount by which
the light of a star should be bent, or deflected in its passage by the sun. In 1911 he fixed this amount as 0".83; in 1916 he doubled this
and made the deflection, according to his theories, 1".70. But the way in which Einstein derived these two different values is not given in
any general works on relativity. Such works of the relativists are replete with philosophical contemplations, with vague speculations and
generalizations as to the structure of the universe, with references to the principle of equivalence, to warps and twists in space; but they
one and all fail to give a direct explanation of the basis of Einstein's claim as to the deflection of light rays, and of the ways in which he
arrived at the two different and conflicting values. The statement of Einstein, contained in his general work on relativity, is probably as
clear and definite as any that can be found, and that statenient is :
"According to the theory half of this deflection is produced by the Newtonian field of attraction of the sun, and the other
half by the geometrical modification ('curvature') of space caused by the sun."
If this be taken literally then it would appear that Einstein, in 1911, evolved the theory that light has weight and is acted upon by gravitation
in exactly the same way as is a particle of matter; that he afterwards and prior to 1916 found that the sun warps and twists space in its
neighborhood, and that light is further deflected by its passage through such warps and twists. Thus it would seem that his 1911
prediction of a deflection of only 0".83 was based upon some direct effect of Newtonian gravitation upon light; that his revised prediction
of 1".70 in 1916 was based upon some additional and newly discovered effect of gravitation upon space. The summation of these two
supposed effects of gravitation, the one directly upon a body, the other indirectly through an intermediary action upon space, has been
termed a “new”, or the "Einstein" law of gravitation. And the deflections of light, observed at solar eclipses, have been cited as tests
between these two theories, or laws of gravitation :the Newtonian and the Einsteinian.
*******************************************************************************************************************
The paper became more interesting, while deepening into the consequences of GR light deflection.
It's worth to read the rest of a publication of a serious man of science, who belonged to the "high society". His son was co-founder of
Grumman, so he was connected.
When he wrote this paper, he was 60 y.o. and, obviously, after some years he said "fuck relativists", and give up. So, the force of the
retarded from the new generation of physicists and astronomers was quite strong by then. Brainwashing at the highest.