GALILEAN
ELECTRODYNAMICS
Vol 3, No 3
May/June 1992
Inside:
J.W. and J.F. McAlister:
A mechanical test of the Equivalence Principle ..... 43
D.M. Drury:
Lorentz's Galilean-invariant form of Maxwell's equations in
freespace ....................................50
T.E. Phipps, Jr.:
Potier's Principle: a trap for ethenrts and others ......... 56
J.G. Valverde:
Gravitational redshift revisited .... ..... ........ 58
Correspondence: Thomas rotation and the conservation laws (G.O. Adkisson,
C.I. Mocanu), A reexamination of the Lorentz transformation,
(H.C. Hayden, Xu Sahozhi, Xu Xiangqun) ................. 59
From the publisher
The Equivalence Principle
The Equivalence Principle, the foundation stone of General Relativity Thecs states that locally the force of gravity is indistinguishable from the force due b acceleration, i.e, from the force of inertia. The ever repeated example is the am chosen by Einstein himself if you are shut in an elevator, you have no way of ki ing whether you are being pressed to its floor by gravity or by the elevator, far fram any masses, being accelerated upward.
If the Equivalence Principle does not hold, then much or all of GTR goes dog the drain.
Well, the contribution by the brothers McAlister in this issue claims just th their experiment says (or at least is interpreted that way) that a mechanical oslator activated by gravity in the vertical plane is not equivalent to the see mechanical oscillator in the horizontal plan activated by an equivalent force; in the latter case it is subject to an attenuation whose cause the authors have not been abie to discover. (They originally built the apparatus to demonstrate the validity of the Equivalence Principle.)
The paper went from reviewer to reviewer, none of whom could find a mistake i it and sent it back like a hot potato, recommending that someone else review 1, because nobody would believe that the principle could be false.
Some reviewers suggested that the authors had not considered this or that phenomenon, but the McAlisters always came back showing that the suggested mechanism played no significant role in their observations.
So the paper was not only accepted for publication, but jumped the queue of papers waiting to be published - in accordance with our announced policy of giving preference to experimental papers (a matter of supply and demand, really). My sympathies to the authors who have been elbowed out, but at least they have been delayed after fair warning.
None of this, however, necessarily means that the Principle of Equivalence hac been killed. It may still be that the attenuation has some hidden, but in essence wd known cause that neither the reviewers nor I were able to detect. If so, the "Correspondence" column will doubtlessly be addressed by critics who.think they have discovered it.
However, I feel safe in saying that everything has been done to prevent such a cause (if any) being one that throws itself in the face of any well educated scientist as an elementary blooper.
And the "if any" means that maybe there is no such cause, and the Equivalence Principle is invalid after all.
For as always, this journal holds that theories rest on experiment, and not, as lug become the custom in orthodox physics, that any experiment must at all costs be interpreted by a preconceived theory.
GALILEAN ELECTRODYNAMICS
Experience, Reason and Simplicity Above Authority
May/June 1992 (Vol. 3, no. 3) Box 251, Boulder,Colorado 80306 © 1992 by Galilean Electrodynamics
Editorial Board
Thomas G. Barnes, Professor Emeritus of Physics,
University of Texas at El Paso
Howard C. Hayden, Professor of Physics,
University of Connecticut, Storrs
Pavel Fyedorovich Parshin, Professor and Department Head of Physics,
Academy of Aviation, Leningrad, USSR
Cynthia K Whitney, Industrial Professor,
Electro-Optics Technology Center, Tufts University, Medford, Mass.
Editor and Publisher
PetrBeckmann, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering,
University of Colorado, Boulder
EDITORIAL POLICY
Galilean Electrodynamics aims to publish high-quality scientific papers based on experimental evidence even if their interpretation of it runs counter to the conventional orthodoxy. In particular, it publishes papers supporting the position that Einstein's interpretation of the Relativity Principle is unnecessarily complicated, has been confirmed only in a narrow sector of physics, leads to logical contradictions, and is unable to derive results that must be postulated, though they are derivable by classical methods.
Though the main purpose of the journal will be publication of logically correct and experimentally supported theories contradicting the Einstein theory, it will, should the occasion arise, publish related, or even unrelated physical topics that rest on logically and experimentally firm ground in challenging other theories cherished by physics orthodoxy.
Where there is more than one theory contradicting accepted opinion and interpretation, but all of them meet the criteria of faultless logic, greater simplicity, and absence of experimental contradiction, none of them shall be favored, except when Occam's razor yields an overwhelming verdict.
All papers are reviewed by qualified physicists, astronomers, mathematicians or engineers. Rejection on the sole grounds that a submitted paper contradicts accepted opinion and interpretation will be ignored. The papers in Galilean Electrodynamics aregenerally limited to challenging established orthodoxy or defending it against such direct or indirect challenges.
No paper contradicting experiment will be accepted; however, papers making a case why the current interpretation of observed effects may be erroneous will be considered for publication.
All papers are expected to be in the realm of physics, mathematics, astronomy or engineering; non-mathematical, philosophical considerations will generally not be accepted unless they are fairly short and have something new and outstanding to say. Papers reporting experimental results will be given preference over theoretical papers of equally high standard.
Shorter papers will be preferred over long papers of comparable quality; and papers easily grasped at the level of keen seniors andgraduate students will be given emphatic preference over esoteric analyses accessible only to a limited number of specialists.
However, none of these restrictions (other than length and subject area) apply to book reviews, news items, and readers' letters; these aresolicited and encouraged to be vividly interesting.
Authors do not have to pay any page charges; but once an author's paper has been accepted (after being submitted in 3 copies in any well readable form), it should be submitted on a diskette (see Instruction to Authors overleaf). Papers submitted in TeX are welcome, but not obligatory.
Item Details: Magazine
Condition: Used, good condition Size: Standard, magazine Media: Soft cover
