Einstein: Light, Time and Relativity

Albert Einstein is conventionally believed to be the originator of the relativity theory, otherwise known as the Special Theory of Relativity (STR), even though historians of science know he borrowed most of the theory from others. The theory became popular in part because of its paradoxical nature, where time, length and mass varied while light's velocity always remained the same. Before Einstein's relativity theories — time, length and mass were a constant. After Einstein all three became subservient to the velocity of light and from this we suddenly entered a four dimensional universe with black holes, antimatter, the quantum atomic world and other aspects of the new physics and astronomy. Even though Einstein had nothing to do with the atomic bomb (except a letter he wrote to FDR), he is even credited with that. The vast energy of the bomb is believed to be one piece of evidence to support the STR, yet the energy of the bomb is only one-half of one percent of the predicted energy. His relativity theories are based on the supposed uniqueness of light and time. But is light all that unique? Should we neglect logic and the science of commonsense just because of its apparent uniqueness? The author says no and explains how light is not as unique as once thought. Minimal math is used in the text and should be understood by non-mathematicians.

     This is a new book that started from a scientific paper submitted to the Philosophy of Science in 1971 by the author over his concern about Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.