Einstein’s physics of illusion!
I happened to read transcript of a lecture delivered by John Dobson – Einstein’s physics of illusion.
Dobson starts out with an example from the book “The Attractive Universe” – George Valens. ” when a ball is thrown straight up, after a while it comes to a stop, changes its direction and comes back. He says it looks like magic, and probably it is. Now what we are taking for granted is that it should have gone off on a straight path without any
change in speed or direction. But you see, that also would have been the result of magic.” Dobson takes us through a journey to understand what we call this way as magic. He says this magic is something like mistaking a rope for a snake in twilight and there have to be three causes for this to happen: “First, you must fail to see the rope rightly. Then, instead of seeing it as a rope, you must see it as something else. And finally, you had to see the rope in first place or you never would have mistaken it for a snake.”
He takes us through man’s quest to trace the material universe back to square 1 or atleast to square 2, explaining how matter in the stars is made out of hydrogen when it falls together by gravity, how matter in the stars collapses by gravity blowing out star dust. He moves on to talk about relativity and deduces the inferences: “If the space separation between, two events is just the same as the time separation between those two events, then the total separation between those two events is zero.” ” We can’t see anything when it happens. We see everything in the past. We see everything a little while ago, and always in such a way that the while ago just balances the distance away, and the
separation between the perceiver and the perceived remains always at zero.”
Now, in our journey to trace this matter back, we need to find out what sort of energy in the universe makes in massive. The energy has to be potential. The universe appears to be wound up by means of electricity and gravity. He questions “What is it that exists behind our physics?”. Whatever exists behind this universe must be changeless,infinite and undivided. But we seem to be considering it finite, divided and changing. He tries to derive the answer for above question using “apparitional causation”(something that causes us to mistake a rope as a snake). “If, our physics has arisen by apparition, the changeless, the infinite and the undivided must show in that physics. But isn’t that exactly what we see? The changeless shows as inertia, the infinite as electricity, and the undivided as gravity. Had we not seen the changeless, it would not have shown up in our physics. It is the changeless which we see, and, as a consequence, that changeless shows in what we see. That is why things coast. That is what we see as inertia. That is what we call mass. Likewise in order to see the undivided as the divided we had to see the undivided, and that is what we see as gravity. It is a consequence of having seen the undivided. “
And he beautifully concludes, using appartional causation, explaining, why matter falls together by gravity and why is the universe wound up against electricity and gravity.
