Viv Pope

Hi, there, CraigD, You say: 'Viv, do I appear to understand your claims? If not, how have I erred? If so, what is your experimental evidence for violations of the second postulate, or explanation for why violations are not experimentally detectable? Viv replies. Ten Proofs that c is Not a Velocity This is an extract from talk and ensuing discussion of a paper presented at ANPA (the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association) Wesley House, Cambridge. The talk was entitled ‘A Truly Alternative Natural Philosophy’ and was communicated to the Association by Viv Pope, on Saturday, August 5th, 2006. The Ten Proofs: 1. The undeniable fact that c has the dimensions of distance divided by time explains all that is known about the times taken for communications over distance. However , by the most elementary logic, the fact that all velocities are distances divided by time by no means entails that all distances divided by time are velocities, which would be as absurd as saying that because dogs have four legs, anything with four legs is a dog. What this entails is that c need not necessarily be a ‘velocity’. The following arguments prove that c cannot possibly be a ‘velocity. 2. For light to be seen, photographed or detected in any possible way, it has to shine on something. In a vacuum there is, by definition, nothing on which it can shine. So, logically, light cannot be seen, photographed or in any other way be detected in the vacuum of space. This signifies a reduction to absurdity of Nils Abramson’s claim to have photographed ‘light travelling in vacuo’. Whatever Nils photographed couldn’t possibly have been light in vacuo. I had to be a reflection off something, and a vacuum can reflect nothing 3. To be seen or otherwise detected travelling in a vacuum, light would have to give off light. And for that secondary light to be seen in vacuo it would also have to give off light; and in order for that tertiary light to be detected it, too, would have to give off light … and so on, ad infinitum, in a logical regress to absurdity. 4. If c is interpreted as a ‘velocity in the vacuum of space’ (pace Einstein’s Second Postulate), then in a vacuum to what can that ’velocity’ possibly be referred, constant or otherwise? So the concept of light as having a ‘velocity in space’ is just another absurdity. 5. Light is quantised in units of Planck’s constant h. These quanta have been interpreted as ‘flying photons’, claimed to have been photographed ‘in flight’ by Abramson, a claim which has been vigorously supported by some members of ANPA who have strenuously argued that seeking to refute Abramson’s claim showed a culpable ‘lack of respect’! However, since the ‘photon’ is defined as a single, irreducible light-quantum, it has no energy to spare in manifesting itself anywhere between its point of emission and point of absorption. A quantum interaction between a pair of atoms, therefore, has to be instantly consummated, with there being no sensible question either as to where it is or what it does between the source and sink. There are simply no parameters to describe that ‘motion’. Any attempt to detect it absorbs its whole packet of energy at that point, so that there can be no question of how it exists or travels when undetected. 6. In order to conform to the law of conservation of energy, the alleged ‘photon’ cannot just hang around unconsummated in limbo, waiting to be absorbed. As Tom Phipps (Jr.) neatly put it, “the ‘photon’ sure don’t have a holding pattern!” So, what is a ‘photon’ when it is supposed to be travelling, say, between galaxies or, as it might be, en route to nowhere? So, again, the concept is meaningless. 7. Can light be scattered by light, as some experimenters have claimed? If one powerful laser-beam is shone across the path of another, do their ‘photons’ collide or their ‘waves’ interfere? In a simple experiment devised and carried out at Brunel university, in 1980, by myself and Peter Louwerse, plus some laboratory assistants, two powerful lasers were beamed across each other’s paths and also shone head-on at each other. No blocking, interference or any other kind of disturbance whatsoever was detected. If any such interference were to take place, then that light would suffer dispersion. Considering the amount of light that is allegedly ‘criss-crossing’ around in general, it would be amazing if visual acuity was possible over the length of a single metre. All the light that is allegedly shooting about in all directions would be as much a barrier to vision as the densest fog that can be imagined. The fact, then, that there are photographs of the farthest galaxies that display awesome clarity militates against the validity of any claim to have detected photons travelling in vacuo. 8. All velocities, properly so called, obey the rule of the composition of velocities, according to which the velocity of an object is different relative to differently moving observers. But c is, eminently, the same for all relatively moving observers which means that, logically, it cannot be a velocity. 9. For a velocity to be a velocity it has to be the velocity of something that is physically identifiable. In physics both ancient and modern, there is nothing that can be physically identified as a light particle travelling in vacuo, especially in view of Heisenberg’s Indeterminacy Principle, which makes the ‘track’ of an alleged ‘photon’ absolutely indeterminate. And if we think of what ‘travels in vacuo’ as ‘waves’, then what can possibly ‘wave’ in a vacuum? 10. To measure the ‘velocity’ of light in space one would have to know the distance over which the light would be set to travel, and how else can that distance be measured other than by the light itself? For instance, the unit of space-measure is the ‘light-year’, which is defined as the distance that light travels in one year. But this definition is plainly circular, since it simply states, in effect, that the distance the light travels in one year is the distance that light travels in that one year. So there can be no objective meaning to that definition, which is a complete tautology. In sum, then, all we can definitely know about light is, first of all, that it is the directly perceived informational basis of all physical phenomena. Second, we learn from observation (Römer) and experiment (Michelson et al. ) that all three dimensions of observational perspective, measured in metres, are times in seconds, in the ratio of units c. Anything further than that can be nothing more than just sheer speculation. Fair enough.

------------------------------------------------------------ Viv Pope replies I'm sorry, Craig D, to have been so long in replying to this. It is because, among other things, my details for entering this site were lost and I had great difficulty in reconnecting. Anyway, here is my belated reply. You say: Viv, do I appear to understand your claims? If not, how have I erred? Fair enough. Craig-D. Here is my answer to your question. First, this is not a matter of ‘experimental evidence’. It is a matter of pure meticulous logic. Your ‘error’, if I may say, respectfully, is a very common one. It lies in misconstruing a rather fine point of logic. This is not – repeat NOT as you say: “The concept of the speed of light in vacuum © is logically incoherent because the speed of light cannot be measured in a system consisting only of light in vacuum.” So, cancel that. The correct interpretation is that there exists a logical alternative to the conventional notion of the constant c as ‘the velocity of light in vacuo’. This stems from the fact that there is a logical fallacy in that assumption. This is that just because all velocities are measures of distance divided by time, it doesn’t mean that all measures of distance divided by time – such as c – are velocities. That is logically irrefutable. This is what leaves room for that alternative interpretation of c in the way that Herman Bondi and I have done, as a pure constant relating conventional measures in metres to conventional measures in seconds and vice-versa – similar to the way in which conventional pounds can be converted into conventional kilograms and conventional inches into conventional metres. Bondi calls c a distance-time ‘conversion factor’ and I have named it a ‘dimensional constant’. Bondi and I agreed on this as far back as the 1970’s. (All this is freely available to anyone wishing to research the relevant history.)

[Viv Pope replies Dear Craig D, As you will surely know, physics doesn't advance entirely by adding more and more 'experimental evidence' in a continuous series.Some of the biggest. most revlutionary advances are made by different interpretations of the same evidence. A famous example of this was supplied by Copernicus. Before he came on the scene it was 'evident' that the sun. moon and planets orbited the earth. Copernicus offered no experimental 'evidence' for his revolutionary shift in thinking towards seeing our earth and the other planets orbiting the sun, yet it turned out, in the end analysis. that this latter interpretation of the 'evidence' was far more acceptable than the former This is the sort of conceptual 'flipover' that I have offered to this group for serious and intelligent consideration. In philosophy of physics, these different interpretations of physical evidence are judged by the criterion of conceptual economy called 'Ockham's Razor', whose use is to shave off logically unnecessary, or redundant, assumptions. It is this 'Ockham's Razor' that I have applied to Einstein's Second Axiom, showing that both it and its entourage of conceptual puzzles can be removed without affecting the practical consequences of Relativity in the least. In the equations, the value and dimensions of c are the exactly same, whether c is interpreted as a 'velocity' or a pure dimensional constant, in the way Herman Bondi and I have concurred. Both he and I have agreed that Relativity is much simpler to understand and to teach without c being interpreted n Einstein's way as a 'velocity'. You may see this if you search for POAMS on Google. I hope that helps. Viv Pope

Dear CraigD, I have now had time to deal wth yuur mathamatical question of how to get from the Einstein time equation to the Pythagorean one. I can see how it would have puzzled you. It was a typo, and I apolgise for that. The typo was that the '1' (one) in the Einsteinian equation should have been 't'. On my laptop these two characters look almost the same, especially with my septuagenarian eyesight. I had to use a magnifing glass to tell the difference, Anyway, if you make that correction in the Einstein equation, subtitute for v the observational equivalent s/t-subscriptR and then simplify (I won't insult your intelligence by showing how to do that), you obtain the Pythagorian time-equation. Sorry if I led you a dance. It makes your point, though, about exactness. Viv Pope

IViv Pope replies: Perhaps this piece (below) may help. Note, in particular, the text I have coloured blue. This piece was selected and posted in a hurry as something I found conveniently available. I'll get back to you on your other points as soon as possible. (Apologies for not being able to render the formulae, here, with superscripts, subscripts, etc, in the way you have, the way they appear in our book and our free POAMS publications. There's no bar to your studying those formulae there. Indeed, my mathematics colleague, Dr. Osborne in particular, would be as interested, as I would, in any feedback on those published formulae. Relativity Without Einstein Einstein was a mathematical genius and what he did for physical science was truly amazing. The value of that contribution can never be underestimated. This is especially so, since he distilled out the essence of a natural truth from the utter confusion in the science of the time. However, that mathematician’s route is not for everyone. For most people it is still notoriously complex and arcane. Fortunately, the fact is that to take that route to relativity is not logically necessary. Take, for example, the phenomenon of a travelling body. All we need to do is to take the observational distance s travelled by the body in conventional metres and kilometres, and express it, instead, in terms of units of light-seconds (analogous to the way in which astronomers customarily measure distances in ‘light-years’), Then we take the travelling-time t registered by the body itself also measured in seconds, both measures as seen by the observer, in a telescope, say. Those two dimensions are then projected orthogonally (i.e., at right-angles to each other). By ordinary Pythagoras, the length of the observational resultant, tR, in seconds, is the diagonal (the hypotenuse) between those two rectangular measures. Why rectangular? Because, like all geometrical dimensions – i.e., measures in the same units – they have to be projected like that, since it is the only way of extending those two commensurate measures (both in seconds) without encroaching opon each other’s domains. Thus, we have tR = √(s2 + t2) Pythagoras This Pythagorean time-equation and the customary Einsteinian one, are inter-transformable. For instance, if it were necessary to express this same time-resultant, tR, in Einsteinian terms, then, since the relative velocity of the motion is the distance s travelled in the time tR (i.e., v = s/tR ), all we have to do is to substitute for s, in the Pythagorean equation, the equivalent vtR and then simplify, which produces the familiar (to physicists) equation: tR = t/√√(1 – v2/c2). Einstein Einstein realised this connection with Pythagoras but he failed to comprehend its commonsense significance. Why did he fail? Because he was inhibited, as were all his contemporaries, by the notion of light as ‘travelling at a constant speed c in the vacuum’. No-one questioned how it was possible to measure the ‘velocity of light’ in a vacuum, which had launched the whole esotery of speculative ‘waves’, ‘wave-particles’, ‘photons’, the ‘luminiferous ether’, ‘electromagnetic propagation’ and so on, which Einstein inherited. The contributions of some of these theories to the physics of that era, was, like Einstein’s, invaluable, but the downside was that these theories all but completely confounded commonsense. For instance, the notion of light as ‘travelling in space raised the question of how it was mediated. Was it by ripples in an invisible ‘ether’? No, because all attempts to detect that medium spectacularly failed. Was that because, as was suggested, anything used to measure the earth’s motion through this ‘ether’ contracted by just the amount necessary to conceal the motion. The search for answers to these questions is what launched practically the whole of nineteenth to twentieth century theoretical physics and cosmology. All this theoretical circumlocution was, of course, perfectly understandable. No-one can be ‘blamed’ for it. It is just the way it happened at the time. It is only in hindsight that the simple logical thread of it all can be discerned. This is that the extant interpretation of c as a ‘velocity’ needs to abandoned and regarded instead as no more than a scale constant, like 39.37 inches to the metre or 2.2 pounds to the kilogram. Needless to say, these constants are the same for all observers regardless of how they move relatively to one another’. For commonsense, this is unremarkable, whereas in the context of Einsteinian Relativity, this simple fact of for the constant c was made intensely puzzling. What, then, is the next progressive phase in the development of physics – if physics is allowed to progress, that is. One’s experience with these forums is that any suggestion, however honest and conscientious, is met with a veritable wall of resistance from those whose egos are plainly offended by any suggestion of their having to upgrade their treasured precepts. Thus, they react, almost by reflex, with petulant and insolent responses which. surely, are completely incongruous in these supposedly ‘progressive’ forums. Viv Pope

Viv Pope replies I trust it is now generally realised that your cursory impression, from the way our the books appeared to you on the POAMS website, was wrong, that you had failed to notice the strip on the left hand side of the front page indicating that most of the talk papers, Proceedings papers, journal articles, etc., were downloadable for free. I have received no appology for being put 'offline' for your summary assumption that my aim in joining this forum was purely 'commercial'. I guess that in the present climate of cynicism and gereral loss of integrity, apologies, like so much else that is honourable, have gone out of fashion. Viv Pope

Viv Pope replles: Yes, it IS nitpicking, CraigD. You are picking up mere typos as if they were bits of constructive argument. OF COURSE it is 10^8, Anyone with any sense should have seen that, without making a Big Production of it. There is just about NO similarity between the conceptual structure of my (our POAMS} paradigm and any other contemorary one. The only similarity is between POAMS and the 19th century phenomenalism of Ernst Mach in the traditon of 'English Empiricism'. But that is scarcely surprising since POAMS (the Pope-Osborne Angular Momentum Synthesis) is based on it - as should be obvious to anyone accessing the site and seeing that POAMS is described as 'The Neo-Machian Philosophy'. Now, where else on the Web can you see anything else making that particular claim? A 'pure constant', for Bondi and myself is not a dimensionless number. For instance, 39.37 inches to the metre is a constant but is not dimensionless. Its dimensions are inches and metres, like c^2, whose dimensions are joules and kilograms. I dont care what you read elsewhere; that is what our thesis contends, and if you can't understand that, then, as you say, you've no hope of understanding the thesis. In short, then, I was disappointed with your response. It wasn't the most tardy and negative response I've ever had, but it was close! My impression, therefore is, with respect, that you would be wasting your time and mine engaging in any further dialogue on this issue. Why don't you access the literature that is downloadable for free on the POAMS website, and then perhaps, we can talk Best wishes, Viv Pope

Viv Pope replies: Dear Craig D, Thanks for your interest and for giving me the opportunity to make myself clear. Actually, I am by no means saying that Einstein's Second Axiom is wrong in the measurement sense of c. I thoroughly agree that the value of c is 2.99792458^8 m/s, also that this has been confirmed time and again by all sorts of measurements, to the extent that it now remains practically inviolate. However, that is not the sense in which I regard Einstein's axiom as wrong. In the 1960s, Herman Bondi and I concurred that, as Bondi writes in his book: Assumption and Myth in Physical Theory Any attempt to measure the velocity of light is . . . not an attempt at measuring the velocity of light but an attempt at ascertaining the length of the standard metre in Paris in terms of time-units. [Cambridge University Press, 1965. p.28.] Both Bondi and I, in our different ways, came to the same conclusion that by regarding c as a pure constant instead of a 'velocity' - albeit, as I say, with the same value and dimensions - the Special theory of Relativity is very much much simplified and improved. This replacement of c, the 'velocity' by c the constant makes no difference to the mathematical consequences of Relativity - except, of course to simplify them in the way I have shown. ((that is to say, leaving aside the philosophical significance, which is immense.) What is so significant about this is that it changes our whole conception of what Einstein called 'the velocity of light in vacuo'. For instance, we no longer have to think of what light 'does' in winging its way through the void for perhaps millennia till it happens to strike something. It also obviates any need to think of light as 'waves', 'photons', 'wave-particles' or whatever. Indeed, it opens-up a whole new mind-set away from classical 'God's-eye-view' mechanism (e.g., quasi-ballistics) and into phenomenalism which is an altogether radical 'New Paradigm' of Physics - I say 'new' but, historically, this has been 'waiting in the wings' for centuries to get its cue to come 'on stage' as a replacement for the now seriously flagging extant paradigm. Revolutionary new paradigms have always been the life-blood of growing Science, so why should they stop now? And, whenever these have occurred they have invariably been accompanied by the sort of mental trauma which makes people feel like limpets prised off rocks. One remaining caveat to this is that, logically, it makes no sense to judge a new paradigm from the standpoint of the old, any more than it does to criticise one contemporary language system from the standpoint of another. Making radical changes in a concept-system is always hard, but I'm sure you will agree that for the sake of progressive science it should be regarded as an adventure not a catastrophe. Thanks again Viv Pope PS As for Einstein not having stated that the 'velocity of light 'is constant relative to the void, what else is to be made of his definite statement that the 'velocity of light' is 'constant in vacuo'? If I say to you that the speed of sound is constant in water, then what else could I mean by that except that this speed (whatever it is) is constant relative to water?

Dear Craig D, Thanks for your interest and for giving me the opportunity to make myself clear. Actually, I am by no means saying that Einstein's Second Axiom is wrong in the measurement sense of c. I thoroughly agree that the value of c is 2.99792458^8 m/s, also that this has been confirmed time and again by all sorts of measurements, to the extent that it now remains practically inviolate. That is not the sense in which I regard Einstein's axiom as wrong. In the 1960s, Herman Bondi and I concurred that, as Bondi writes in his book: Assumption and Myth in Physical Theory Any attempt to measure the velocity of light is . . . not an attempt at measuring the velocity of light but an attempt at ascertaining the length of the standard metre in Paris in terms of time-units. [Cambridge University Press, 1965. p.28.] Both Bondi and I, in our different ways, came to the same conclusion that by regarding c as a pure constant instead of a 'velocity' - but, as I say, with the same value and dimensions - the Special theory of Relativity is much simplified and improved. This replacement of c, the 'velocity' by c the constant makes no difference to the mathematical consequences of Relativity - except, of course to simplify them in the way I have shown. ((that is to say, leaving aside the philosophical significance, which is immense.) What is so significant about this is that it changes our whole conception of what Einstein called 'the velocity of light in vacuo'. For instance, we no longer have to think of what light 'does' in winging its was through the void for perhaps millennia till it happens to strike something. It obviates any need to think of light as 'waves', 'photons', 'wave-particles' or whatever. Indeed, it opens-up a whole new mind-set away from classical 'God's-eye-view' mechanism (e.g.., quasi-ballistics) and into phenomenalism which is an altogether radical 'New Paradigm' of Physics; I say 'new' but, historically, this has been 'waiting in the wings' for centuries to get its cue to come 'on stage' as a replacement for the now seriously flagging extant paradigm. Revolutionary new paradigms have always been the life-blood of growing Science, so why should they stop now? And, whenever these have occurred they have invariably been accompanied by the sort of mental trauma which makes people feel like limpets prised off rocks. One remaining caveat to this is that, logically, it makes no sense to judge a new paradigm from the standpoint of the old, any more than it does to criticise one contemporary language system from the standpoint of another. Making radical changes in a concept-system is always hard, but I'm sure you will agree that for the sake of progressive science it should be regarded as an adventure not a catastrophe. Thanks again Viv Pope

Reiteration: In his previous posts, Viv says 'I intend to subscribe some bits of my half-century long philosophical odyssey for serious and intelligent consideration.' I trust that these pieces will be respected for what they are and examined studiously before responding' Here is another such post dealing, this time, with Relativity. Relativity from Pythagoras Modern Physics has become unnecessarily complicated and esoteric. Its central ideas are getting old and well in need of a good service and overhaul. Take Special Relativity for instance. That theory has not been seriously checked over for more than a century. It has done a lot of mileage but now it is clear some bits of it are in urgent need of repair. Take, for instance, Einstein’s Second Axiom. This is clearly nonsensical. It states, in effect, that the ‘speed of light’ in vacuo is c, which is constant, not only for all observers, regardless of how they move relatively to one another but also to space (the vacuum) itself, which is logically incoherent. However, there is no need of that assumption, for the true fact is that c is no more than a constant ratio of observational distance-units to time-units. This is obviously the same for all observers, regardless of their motions relative to one another in the same way that for those same observers there is a constant ratio of 39.37 inches to the metre and 2.2 pounds to the kilogram. The fact that c has the dimensions of a velocity doesn’t make it a velocity, any more than the fact that all women are human makes all humans women. Besides, there can be no knowing what light ‘does’, when conceived as ‘travelling all alone and unseen in the void’. This generates theoretical fantasies. The simplest and safest interpretation of c, then, is that it is simply the ratio of 3.3 nanoseconds to the metre. This makes no difference whatsoever to the mathematical consequence of any equation in which c appears, so the notion that c is a ‘velocity’ is altogether redundant hence a source of unnecessary metaphysical speculation. There is also the fact that Einstein’s time equation, which is perplexingly written as tR = 1/√[1 – (v^2/c^2)], can be derived from the much simpler Pythagorean equation tR = √(s^2 + t^2 ), where s is the observed distance travelled by a body in units of metres/c per second, t is the time in seconds of that motion as registered on the body itself (as viewed by the home observer), and tR is, by Pythagoras, the resultant in seconds (the hypotenuse) of the two dimensionally rectangular time-measures s and t. [*] Note that all these measures are now expressed uniformly in units of seconds. This makes it more logical to think of Einstein’s equations as deriving from Pythagoras than to think of Pythagoras deriving from Einstein. Or else, of course, one may dispense with the Einsteinian equation, together with all this conversional rigmarole, and deal in terms purely of Pythagorean time-measures. This is similar to the way in which it is now customary to measure journeys in the time they take (e.g., ‘It is no more than about five minutes down the road’ or ‘It’s three hours from here to Birmingham’.) In this way, a whole new way of thinking (or paradigm) of relativity, based on purely observational, or phenomenalist [***] space-time dimensions, has been developed in the name of POAMS, the Pope-Osborne Angular Momentum Synthesis. This can be accessed on the website POAMS - The Neo-Machian, Digital Physics Website .You don’t have to buy the books advertised on that site. Just trawl through the Sections list on the left of the front page and download, for free, some of the most relevant conference papers and Proceedings on this subject.) Viv Pope The Website of Science-Philosopher Viv Pope NOTES [*] The relative velocity, v, is s/tR. From this we have s = vtR . Substituting this equivalent expression vtR for s in the Pythagorean equation and simplifying the result produces the Einsteinian equation. [**] metres/c = metres/ (3 x 10^8 metres/second) = 3.3 x 10^-9 seconds.= 3,3 nanoseconds. [***] The most well-known exponent of phenomenalism (radical relativism) was Ernst Mach, significantly, the relativistic predecessor and mentor of Einstein.

In his previous posts, Viv says 'I intend to subscribe some bits of my half-century long philosophical odyssey for serious and intelligent consideration. I trust that these pieces will be examined studiously before responses are posted.' Here is one such post reiterating, in different words, the proposed solution to the Pioneer anomaly. Pioneer and Commonsense The answer to the Pioneer anomaly is, surely, just plain commonsense. All the NASA space-probes have to spin so as to maintain their orientation with regard to Earth. Now angular momentum is a conserved quantity, so the total angular momentum of a space-probe is that of both its orbit and spin. This means that for a given amount of angular momentum imparted to a space-probe at the start, barring any externally applied force, the probe will maintain that amount of angular momentum throughout its journey through space. (Note: we are talking about magnitudes here, not vectors. It is these magnitudes that are conserved, not vectors.) It follows, then, that insofar as that total amount of angular momentum is conserved, the larger the spin angular momentum of the probe the smaller its orbital angular momentum, and, by standard dynamics, the smaller the orbital angular momentum the smaller the orbital radius hence the faster the orbital speed. However, standard orbital dynamics, in its classical Newtonian mould is based on the notion of ‘gravitational attraction’ between masses, which takes no account of any spin those masses might have. Now the velocities of NASA’s probes, fast as they are, are too small seriously to involve Relativity, so NASA’s calculations of the orbital trajectories of their probes are virtually Newtonian, which means that they take no account of spin. And if the spin angular momentum of the probe is ignored, then the shortening of the orbit radius and increase in orbital velocity, with regard to its centre of orbit (the earth, Saturn, the sun or whatever) presents an anomaly. But, of course, this ‘anomalous acceleration’ of the probes towards its centre of orbit, be it the earth, the sun or whatever, is precisely what NASA have discovered. So, where’s the ‘anomaly’? Not in nature, surely, but in Newton. Viv Pope The Website of Science-Philosopher Viv Pope

Boerseun says: So here you are promoting your own book that supposedly topples Einstein. It's called spam, and we don't take very kindly to it. We can't participate in discussing matters pertaining to your original post if it requires we first buy a book you wrote. Viv replies I'm sorry, Boerseun, if it looked that way. However, that was far from being the true purpose of the website. Unfortunately, the pictures of the books were plonked in by our webmaster with, yes, sales in mind. But in his zeal he almost obliterated the list of Sections dealing with the true purpose of the site. If you look again at the front page, ignore the books and examine the strip on the left-hand side, you will see the list of Sections that not only explain the various aspects of the project but also offer, in the Relevant Pulications section, conference papers, lectures, Proceedings, etc., which can be downloaded for free. Thanks, anyway, for alerting us to this problem of the website looking, at first glance, like nothing but a sales pitch for the books when, in fact, it is nothing of the kind. What it really is, is a conscientious attempt to advance science in the true, traditional way by an analysis of concepts at its cutting edge. As for your assumption that I am trying to 'topple Einstein', that is definitely not true. At the risk of being accused of 'name-dropping', I am very grateful to Einstein for a short correspondence with him, in 1954, which set me on the course I am now on. This is definitely to build on Einstein, not 'topple' him. By the way, I hope there are some subscribers in this group who are serious thinkers. I will not respond to mere Clever-Dick one-liners.I'm sure you agree that Science is a serious subject, not something to serve the egos of ignoramuses. With this firmly in mind, I intend to subscribe some bits of my long philosophical odyssey for serious and intelligent consideration. I trust that these pieces will be examined studiously before responses are posted. By the way, my philosophical mantras are: 'It isn't who is right but what is right that counts'; and 'I don't know what The Truth is, but I sure as hell know what isn't!' Viv Pope

Dear 080528jk I have received the following =e-mail message: 080528jk has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - The Pioneer anomaly - in the Alternative theories forum of Science Forums. Unfortunately, I cannot locate your reply. All I get in the e-mail is a string oif strange hieroglyphics. Sorry, Viv Pope