Examples Of Theories That Were Modified Without Consent Of Their Original Authors

[rhertz]

I have three examples to show: Maxwell's, Schwartzchild's and Schrodinger's theories.

 

1) Maxwell`s equations:

 

2) Schwartzchild's equation:

 

3) Schrodinger's equation:

Edited June 19, 2019 by rhertz

[OceanBreeze]

I am baffled by your use of the word "deformed" in the title. Surely it is normal for scientific theories to evolve over time?

[LaurieAG]

If we can no longer work from first principles to reach the same conclusions as we get today should we disregard the history or question the modern usage to determine which particular caveats have been omitted.

 

To just disregard the history and ignore the caveats is not science.

[fahrquad]

My fault!

 

English is not my first language and, when I posted it, I noticed the mistake bur

I couldn`t change the subject. I'm new here. Sorry for the inconveniences.

 

 

I believe only an administrator has permission to edit a title.

[OceanBreeze]

I can edit it; I am just not sure what he wants it edited to. I'll change it and see if he approves.

[OceanBreeze]

My fault!

 

English is not my first language and, when I posted it, I noticed the mistake bur

I couldn`t change the subject. I'm new here. Sorry for the inconveniences.

 

What I tried to show is how, very close to the death of a scientist (Maxwell, Schwartzchild) or without caring about

their opinion (Schrodinger, Lorentz), other scientists working in things related to the target theory, modified it, and

in historical perspective, these actions keep being ignored.

 

We should respect the original work or, at least, not associate the name of the creator to the current version, which

is disrespectful and not a tribute (specially in cases like Lorentz, Schwartzchild and Schrodinger).

 

No problem about the title. Welcome to Hypography!

 

I am not sure I understand your objection to other scientists refining the work of the "original" theorists.

I doubt that anything is truly original and is always based on the work of those who came before.

Science is not so much about giving credit, in my opinion; it is much more concerned in trying to reach a correct understanding of how the universe works. Again, just my opinion, and not meant as a criticism of your post.

[exchemist]

My objection is that, in the examples, the changes are not a refinement. These changes modified entirely

the original theory, in two cases only a couple of years after the author's death (Maxwell, Schwartzchild).

The changes at their theory caused the loss of the original spirit, which was the correct one.

 

Maxwell was convinced that total derivatives and quaternions were a perfect solution for his "vision" of

the subject which, IMHO, was far greater than those of his peers, Heaviside, Lorentz and Hertz had 29,

26 and 22 years when Maxwell died and felt entitled to introduce their own agenda and gain control

over Maxwell's theory (Heaviside with vector algebra, Lorentz with his search of simmetry and Hertz with

his experimental proof of Maxwell's theory). I criticize the human factor involved here. They wanted to

gain fame in spite of Maxwell, without knowing the consequences of what they did, as no one of them

envisioned practical uses like radio communications, etc.

 

Lorentz appears again with Poincarè, trying to do something that he clearly was not qualified to do: to prove

Fitzgerald's proposal of length contraction, to save the null result of Michelson-Morley experiment. He had a

cordial relationship with Poincarè who, for me, is the real father of SRelativity (even when I don't agree with it).

 

Schwartzchild was aware of the second singularity, which he avoided by selecting a new coordinate. Hilbert

UNDO Schwartzchild's work one year after his death, without mercy. I think that he wanted to show a failure

at Einstein's GR, and used Schwartzchild name to disguise his purpose.

 

Schrodinger fighted fiercely against Born and Bohr for their interpretation of HIS CONCEPTS as a probability

density function, instead of a deterministic energy distribution function. And this happened on his face, specially

at the 1927 "Electrons and Photons" Solvay's conference. Schrodinger had only Einstein's and de Broglie's support, being

the only three scientists that supported a deterministic view of the quantum world by 1927.

By then, Einstein had lost respect with the new generation of "quantum physicists" and the young de Broglie was tempted

with a future Nobel Prize if he dropped his deterministic theory about the undulatory electron (the second Pilot Wave function,

which was rescued by Bohm in the '50s),

 

So, I think that community consensus or indoctrination doesn't make a theory more valid.

 

Look at what happens today with the big bang theory or the Standard Model of Elementary Particle.

 

If you try to rise a dissident voice, you are done and called a "crackpot", being menaced to lose academic

position, barred from scientific journals, laboratories, etc.

 

I have some examples like: Bryan G. Wallace (lost everything due to his affirmations that bodies' motion were

aditive to the speed of light) or Halton Arp (by proving many times that Hubble's constant wasn't the real deal).

 

At any case, I just wanted to complain about these things at this forum, as nothing I can say will modify an stablished

modus operandi in the history of science; Influence and power are more important than the truth.

Unevidenced nonsense. The ideas that fail are those that do not account for observations as well as their competitors. This has been shown over and over again throughout the course of natural science. Of course, as science is a human enterprise, personal motivations, power struggles etc certainly occur. But science is generally fairly quick at filtering out the ideas with weaker explanatory power.   

 

Arp's opposition to the Big Bang seems to have lost traction because the Big Bang model accounts for more things that a steady state model does, but he was always respected as an astronomer and he was never censored, so far as I can tell.

 

You'll have to help me with who Bryan G Wallace was, though. I've never heard of him and can't find anything about him on the internet, not even on the Encyclopedia of American Loons.  

[OceanBreeze]

Unevidenced nonsense. The ideas that fail are those that do not account for observations as well as their competitors. This has been shown over and over again throughout the course of natural science. Of course, as science is a human enterprise, personal motivations, power struggles etc certainly occur. But science is generally fairly quick at filtering out the ideas with weaker explanatory power.   

 

Arp's opposition to the Big Bang seems to have lost traction because the Big Bang model accounts for more things that a steady state model does, but he was always respected as an astronomer and he was never censored, so far as I can tell.

 

You'll have to help me with who Bryan G Wallace was, though. I've never heard of him and can't find anything about him on the internet, not even on the Encyclopedia of American Loons.  

 

 

I was able to find something on this Bryan G. Wallace. Apparently, he was into physics conspiracy nonsense, about the speed of light, among other things.

 

I thought this thread was going to be about the history of physics and how theories evolve and are refined over time.

 

Sadly, I was wrong. This is just going to be more conspiracy theory technobabble; as if we have a shortage of that!

[exchemist]

Dr. Bryan G. Wallace was an astronomer working for the military in the '60s, doing experimental research about the exact position of the Sun through indirect measurements of the actual values of Mars and Venus. The project was based on "radar ranging", using powerful equipment to "ping" their positions. The work

was classified because it had an important strategical value to calculate orbital path of deep space sondes, and the USSR was doing the same thing. He found that the speed of light was aditive (+/- values of v) to the relative Venus-Earth speed, and he published his finding. This cost him his job and lose any privilege to publish at "serious" journals, so he started a bitter battle to get his data plus aditional data of colleagues, in vain.

 

He published a book, in 1993, called "The farce of physics", which is available for free download at several sites.

 

Here is one link that I found, just googling his complete name:

 

http://bourabai.kz/wallace/farce05.htm

 

If you make a deeper search, you'll find the entire ebook on pdf.

But clearly he "found" no such thing.

 

The independence of the speed of light from the relative motion of source and receiver is one of the best-validated things in physics, and provides the whole foundation for relativity, which is found by extensive checking to be very accurate in its predictions.

 

So the guy was deluding himself, quite obviously. And then, it would appear, he got all bitter and twisted, went the victim route and self-published a silly book. 

 

Are you serious? 

Edited April 25, 2019 by exchemist

[Dubbelosix]

There is no rule in scientific research which disallows someone to modify an equation without consent, what is required though is you cite a particular author or an equation to the correct source, where it is deserved.