newrelativity

    Special Relativity is nothing more than Newtonian Physics plus one extra idea - that idea being the constancy of the speed of light relative to all observers.  The results of this extra idea are the three principles of Special Relativity: 1. length contraction  2. time dilation  3. failure of simultaneity at a distance.  That's all there is to relativity, including General Relativity.  Note: the fourth principle "Force Enhancement" has been added in the article Force and Geometry.
     Naturally, the Law of Conservation of Energy and Law of Conservation of Momentum are also part of relativity theory. These six principles and laws are all you need to construct anything on this web site and any (valid) idea in relativity.  Are elements of current theory invalid?  Successful physicists draw their own conclusions and don't let others (including me) tell them what to think.  Judge for yourself.  You will see unique thought experiments on this web site.  Why don't you see them in other places?  Because these experiments are not solvable by the more complicated methods currently being taught.
     For example, a man is standing on the surface of a planet and reaches up to a higher gravitational potential with a pole.  At the higher level, another man has a hold of the other end of the pole.  The bottom man pushes the pole (horizontally or vertically).  What force does the top man feel?  How much energy does he receive from the bottom man?
     General Relativity cannot answer these questions.  You have been told that General Relativity is the only way to analyse gravitational experiments, but this simply isn't true.  Einstein made the Special Theory handle gravitational fields.  General Relativity is an overlay of tensor calculus on a Special Relativity framework.  General Relativity doesn't invalidate Special Relativity, but incorporates it.
     Let's take a look at some serious mistakes in current thinking.  If you've been interested in relativity, then you already know what a "wormhole" is.  Suppose a mass is at the entrance to a wormhole, moves slowly into the entrance and appears a short time later at the other end, a great distance away.  Think about this process as Newton would.  Draw a boundary around the volume of space containing the wormhole (both ends and all the space between) and make it an isolated system.  Remember, there was no momentum or center of mass change outside the boundary.  But, without forces, a mass has moved a great distance in a short period of time inside the boundary.  What would Newton say about that?  What happened to the Law of Conservation of Momentum as the center of mass jumps around?
     Yes, I know that space-time folded back upon itself and the mass didn't really travel that far.  You've got to be kidding.  You have a choice of believing Newtons Laws, which have been demonstrated to be accurate every time that they have ever been tested, or you can believe that space-time folded back upon itself, which has never been observed.  Isn't defective thinking like this the reason that the Scientific Method was conceived in the first place?
     Let's take on another subject: black holes.  Suppose an object is falling into a black hole.  Today's physicists will tell you that the object achieves the speed of light just as it gets to the event horizon.  The same physicists will tell you that the mass of the object becomes infinite when that object reaches the speed of light.  Infinite?  More mass than all the objects in the universe?  Doesn't that sound a little bit implausible?  I know what you've been told.  Time slows down as the object approaches the event horizon, so that it never actually gets there.  Time is 'frozen' at the event horizon.  So how could a gravity wave from the black hole get past this 'frozen' shell surrounding it?  The gravity of a black hole should appear to be zero when the observer is outside the event horizon, not infinite.
     There's another problem with black holes.  If objects really do become frozen at the event horizon, then all these frozen near infinite masses become black holes themselves.  Then they collect more objects in the same way.  The acquisition of mass by any black hole would grow exponentially until the entire universe was consumed.  This obviously hasn't happened.
     The notion that General Relativity somehow replaces the Newtonian model for gravity is a misrepresentation.  The surprizing thing about General Relativity is that solutions to it often include the Newtonian gravitational model (or other similar models).  You need to inject a gravitational model into General Relativity in order to solve it.  It is not a gravitational model by itself.  This is the way the famous Schwarzschild Solution to the General Theory is structured. You don't believe it. Here is the original solution. (14) is his metric.  Do you see Newton's Gravitational constant G?  No? Here's why - David Hilbert put Newton's Gravitational model into his solution of the General Theory - then he called it Schwarzschild's Metric.  Here is some other interesting reading.  The current physics establishment doesn't want to say that General Relativity is just the Newtonian gravitational model in fancy dress.  In addition, the Schwarzschild Solution describes a thought experiment which is simplified to the point that virtually all of General Relativity is gone.                                          

Unfortunately, the General Theory is too complex for the vast majority of physicists who think they understand it.  It is impossible for anyone to dispute current solutions to the General Theory, as the discussion quickly degenerates into obtuse discussions of manifold structure and the correct form of this or that tensor.  This is very convenient for physicists who are invested in the current thinking.  If a problem is so complex that no one can understand it, then anyone can come up with a theory to explain it.  Lots of physicists will tell you they understand General Relativity.  But black holes and worm holes?  Any analysis that breaks the conservation laws is not valid.  The General Theory was created with strict adherence to the conservation laws.  Tensor Calculus is not the mechanism to create energy, momentum or infinite anything.

    Let me clarify my position.  I am not stating that the General Theory is wrong.  In fact, I am flatly stating here that it is right.  The General Theory and studies surrounding it are responsible for many wonderful advances in physics, especially for the first fifty years following publication.  But, I am also stating that it is not the only way to get the right answer.  This is true of all theories.  If a theory is correct, then there must be other ways to get the same result.  I contend that most gravitational problems will be easier to solve by a Special Relativity method.  Both options should be available.
     Einstein created the General Theory by deliberately omitting force from the analysis and only using acceleration to express dynamic responses.  This is not a proof that force doesn't exist.  It is only the method Einstein used to create his theory.  By eliminating force from the theory, he condemned his theory to require very complex equations.  He did a brilliant job of producing a good result with this enormous handicap, but that doesn't mean physics has to suffer this burden indefinitely.  When force was eliminated from the equations, it meant that the other variables had to take up the slack.  This is a common result in dimensional analysis.  Reducing the number of dimensions alters the way the other dimensions must react.  When force was eliminated from General Relativity, space-time curvature was the only possible result.
     This web site uses force often.  I know that Special Relativity was developed to apply to inertial reference frames only, which implies that force and acceleration are not included.  But current literature already contains extensive use of force and acceration within Special Relativity.  This concept is not my invention.  Extending this reasoning to gravity and magnetism is logical.  This solution technique gives the same answers as General Relativity but is much easier to use.  And this web site is the only place in the world that you can get meaningful explanations of how magnetism behaves relativistically.  Magnetic acceleration is compared on this site to dynamic and gravitational acceleration.  Can General Relativity can do that?

     The theory on this web site uses the Newtonian model for gravity, just as solutions to the General Theory do.  Newton's theory of gravity uses the concept of 'force at a distance'.  This makes some physicists uncomfortable, including Einstein and Newton.  But 'space-time curvature' is just as mysterious a concept as 'force at a distance'.  It doesn't show how gravity works.  People just say that it does.  Then they say Black Holes exist.
     For those who don't believe in 'force at a distance', try this experiment.  Put your finger on your computer mouse and push it across your desk top.  That's 'force at a distance'.  Wait a minute.  You have been told that pushing your mouse with your finger was a direct application of force.  But it's not.  Your finger is composed of atoms and those atoms are 99.999...% empty space.  They are composed of particles held together by an interaction of atomic fields and other things that are just as mysterious as gravity.  As your hand pushes the mouse through your finger, various phenomena surrounding the atoms  in your finger push against each other across the empty space between them and finally bear upon the atoms in your mouse.  My point - all forces are 'at a distance'. 
     So, you're not convinced?  Hold two magnets in your fingers at a close distance.  No direct connection exists, yet you feel a force.  If space-time curves due to gravitational fields, shouldn't it also curve due to magnetic fields?  Yet, if you place a non-magnetic material between the two magnets, it's gravitational character does not change?  There is only one space-time.  Does it curve or not?  If it is curved by fields, then gravity, magnetism, electrostatics, etc. should all interact with each other in dramatic ways.  General Relativity curvature of space-time is an interesting mathematical byproduct of the elimination of force from the equations.  But it does not explain what happens in the real universe.  I can't explain how field force works at a distance.  But I can observe in many simple experiements that it does.  Nobody else can explain how fields work either.  But we can document what happens to Newtonian Physics when the idea of constancy of the speed of light is added to it.
     This discussion is not a condemnation of the General Theory, but it is a call to physicists to simplify their lives by adopting a strategy where force is restored to our equations.  The proof of this can be found in my article Black Holes on this web site.  By using the Special Relativity approach, I have reproduced the Schwarzschild Solution to the General Theory in only two simple pages.  This is a dramatic improvement to students forced to learn the current method.
     If I do have a criticism of the General Theory, it is that Einstein gave it the wrong name.  The General Theory is not very general.  It only concerns problems of individual point masses alone in empty space.  Even those problems have to be greatly simplified if a solution is to be achieved.  There are an infinite number of problems other than those which the General Theory cannot address.  These limitations are the direct result of the complexity of the General Theory (caused by the omission of force from the equations).  But, as shown on this web site, the Special Theory can do anything that the General Theory can.  Plus it can analyse all those problems that the General Theory can't.  Einstein should have call the General Theory the 'Special Theory' and should have called the Special Theory the 'General Theory'.

We owe Einstein our gratitude for the advances of Relativity Theory.  Now it is time to advance even further.