A Critique of Einstein

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Fred Hutchison

January 28, 2005A critique of EinsteinBy Fred Hutchison

Discover Magazine had a special Einstein issue for September 2004. Fifty-eightpages of glossy magazine space was devoted to Einstein! Einstein seems to begrowing as an American cult hero. He is not only a dominating figure in the sciencesbut he has a profound influence on the culture. His theory of relativity sends themessage that all things are relative in the cosmos, with the strong implication that the realms of morality, truth and culture are relative. I dissent. I disagree that morality, truth and culture are purely

relative. And I deny that the physical world is what Einstein says it is.

Who Am I to Question Einstein?

I claim to be able to criticize Einstein on grounds that do not require an advanced degree in physics. Mygrounds for criticism are: a) Einstein's theories were based on false presuppositions drawn fromEnlightenment philosophy about the nature of the cosmos. b) Einstein said that he does not trust ascientific theory which cannot be reduced to a simple elegant picture which a child can understand.Einstein himself started with such child-pictures and developed them through mathematics on the blackboard. The whole of his work consisted of imaginative mind exercises in his office. He left the empiricaltesting to others as a "mopping up." If I can show that Einstein's child-figures are self-contradictory,

then the theories based upon those concepts must be false. c) Einstein uses plug figures to make thenumbers balance. In short, Einstein cheats. d) The empirical proofs of Einstein's theories do notconstitute a discovery of "laws of nature," as many people assume. Even scientists sometimes fall intothis trap. The empirical proofs only establish that Einstein's mathematics are practically useful for alimited range of applications. The are useless for problems which are above or below the "radar range"of these applications. e) Einstein's ability to predict physical nature in a spotty way, does indeeddemonstrate the existence of orderly laws of nature we can count on, but does not demonstrate that heknows what those laws are. He has only found a technique to impersonate those laws in order tocalculate predictable outcomes. A convincing impersonator of a celebrity might not have any clue to theinner psychology behind the quavery voice, blinking eyes, and nervous tic which he mimics. Einstein'sability to mimic the measurable phenomenon of nature (the exterior of nature) gives us no reason to

believe that he understood the realities which lie behind the phenomena (the interior of nature.).

Parallel Lives

In 1929, Einstein said "I believe in Spinoza's god who reveals Himself in orderly harmony that exists, nota God who concerns Himself with fates and actions of human beings." Albert Einstein-Scientist, editedby Paul Schilipp, 1970. Source of Quote, New York Times 4/25/29. As we explore the outlines of Spinoza's philosophy, we find remarkable parallels to Einstein's cosmology. Even the lives of the twomen have interesting parallels.

Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza (1632 1677) was born of Sephardic Jews who emigrated from Portugalto Holland because of the religious and intellectual tolerance of Holland. Albert Einstein (1879 1955)


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was born of Ashkenazi Jews living in Germany. Einstein emigrated to Zurich Switzerland to escape theauthoritarian and regimented ways of Germany. Spinoza earned a living as a lense grinder as hedeveloped his famous philosophy. (Some historians argue that Spinoza ground lenses for experimentsin optics, and lived off an inheritance.) Einstein worked in the Swiss patent office while he developed hisfamous theories of physics. The young Spinoza was excommunicated by his synagogue because of hisvague Deism involving an impersonal God and other heretical ideas. Einstein lost interest in Judaismand organized religion but retained a vague Deism involving an impersonal God. Spinoza wasinfluenced by the French Philosopher Descartes and became a rationalist. Spinoza acceptedDescartes mechanist view of nature but rejected Descartes dualism and his transcendent God. Einsteinbecame a rationalist after the example of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz and Kant. Spinoza developed atheory out of a fine tissue of logic that the cosmos is a closed deterministic system of cause and effect.Every idea and every object in this imaginary world is interrelated and interlocking. Everything is one.This "one" is the impersonal "god." Every particular thing is a "mode" emanating from god. Spinoza'sgod was a complex, eccentric intellectual version of pantheism. Einstein adopted Spinoza's god, andSpinoza's cosmos. Just as Spinoza created a world out of a tissue of logic, Einstein created a world outof a tissue of mathematics. Both men were determinists and therefore both denied the existence in freewill. Both men were rationalists and accepted reason, even though reason cannot exist in adeterministic system.

A False World View

If reason and free will exist, then Einstein's cosmos is false. If a spiritual realm exists outside of a closedsystem of cause and effect, then Einstein's cosmos is false. If God is personal and transcendent thenEinstein's cosmos is false. If God is the creator and differs in quality from the creation, then Einstein'scosmos is false. If there is a discrete separation between elements of the creation (heaven-earth, light-dark, land-sea, species after their own kind, man/creature, man as an individual) then Einstein'scosmos is false.

Einstein claimed he was inspired by the beauty and harmony of the cosmos. But a picture of everythingmelting into every other thing is the epitome of ugliness and disorder, as we learn from surrealist artistssuch as Salvador Dali. A regimented closed system is the barrenness of a prison. Order, yes. Beauty,

no.

Did Einstein build all his theories on the presuppositions of Spinoza's pantheism? Yes. When he said,"God does not throw dice with the universe," he was referring to the seeming disorder of QuantumMechanics which deals with the realm of atoms and molecules. If there are nooks and crannies in thecosmos where things can happen which are incongruent with other parts of the cosmos, then thecosmos cannot be an interlocking closed system. Einstein rejected this out of hand, not because of evidence or logic but because of his faith in Spinoza's pantheistic cosmos. The second half of Einstein's career was wasted with the futile search for a "Unified Field Theory," which would reconcileQuatum Mechanics with his Theory of Relativity. The motive of his quest was to vindicate his vision of the cosmos. He did not pause to consider whether that vision was wrong or whether the facts led away

from the direction he was going.

The Theory of Relativity and other theories of Einstein always have one thing melting into another thing. Matter and energy are the same thing. (Remember Spinoza's notion that everything is one.)Matter can melt into energy and energy can be precipitated as matter. Time and space are alsorelative. A mass of matter warps the space-time continuum which causes gravity. Time is relative tospeed. Time slows down in a rocket as it approaches the speed of light. All of these ideas wereconceived in Einstein's youth and all emerged out of Spinoza's pantheism a fantasy of a youngexcommunicated Jewish heretic who dreamed up a pantheistic prison system and called it god. It is amonstrosity which we now call science, thanks to the mind experiments of the young Einstein, who isnow a cult hero.


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Contradictions About M oving Objects

Einstein said that movement is relative. If one is on a train pulling out of a train station, the train ismoving relative to the station and station moving is relative to the train. However, when Einstein tried toprove that movement and time are relative, he ignored his dictum about the relativity of the movementof two objects. Einstein proposed that if one twin brother took off in a spaceship flying near the speedof light and if the ship returned fifty years later, the twin which stayed on earth would be old and thetwin in the spaceship would still be young. But this is nonsense. The twin on the earth was moving awayfrom the twin on the ship at nearly the speed of light. Why would not the twin on the ship get old andthe twin on the earth stay young? Scientists call this the twin paradox.

Some scientists think they resolve the twin paradox by noting that the rocket twin reversed course, firstflying away from the earth and then flying towards earth. Since the rocket twin did not travel withconstant relative velocity, the two viewpoints are not the same. Hence, the rocket twin can age slower than the earth twin. But this is nonsense. Just as both the twins moved away from each other at nearlythe speed of light, both changed course relative to the other. The twin on the rocket ship changedcourse in relation to the twin on earth and the twin on earth changed course in relation to the twin in therocket ship. Notice how Einstein's relativity principles do not work unless you apply them selectively.

Mistakes Concerning Gravity

Einstein claims that gravity is not the attraction of two bodies containing mass as Newton said. Einsteinclaims that gravity is caused by a warp in the time space continuum. For example, if a beam of lightpasses earth within the zone of warping, the beam will bend. During an total eclipse of the sun in 1919,Einstein predicted that when the sun peeked out from behind the moon, the first rays of light could beobserved from a point on the globe which would lie beyond the horizon if the sun's rays are straight.Einstein predicted that the rays would bend when they passed near the earth so that they could beseen over the horizon. Not only did the light rays curve, but they curved nearly the amount Einsteinpredicted. This proof made Einstein famous.

But wait a minute! Einstein said that light sometimes behaves as a wave and sometimes as a particle. If light behaves as a particle, why could not the sunlight bend when it passes through earth'satmosphere, like light refracting as it passes through water or through a lens?

Both Einstein and Newton had a model for predicting the revolution of moons around a planet andplanets around the sun. But Einstein's calculations are more accurate for calculating the orbits of spacestations or the movement of spaceships through the solar system. For NASA, Einstein rules. However,Newton is more practical and makes more sense when it is applied to the human scale, to falling bodiesand flying baseballs. Einstein's theory of gravity cannot explain why a falling bodies near to the earthfall straight downwards.

Einstein's gravity has an oblique effect on moving bodies. A space ship flying near a planet will enter the "warp in the space-time continuum" surrounding the planet. The pilot will think he is maintaining afixed course, but his movement relative to the planet will curve. If the ship does not change course andenters a rotation which spirals towards the planet, his movement will resemble a whirlpool. Thestandard illustration of Einstein's illustrates a whirlpool effect, not a falling body. Imagine a giganticmattress with a heavy weight placed in the center which warps the center down a few inches. A rollingpool ball on the surface of the mattress will curve towards the mattress in a whirlpool trajectory. Water going down the drain forms a whirlpool. Why? Because water molecules are attracted to one another and moves in fluid sheets. Water is just like Einstein's universe: everything is connected and everythingmoves in sheets, vortexes, and whirlpools. Indeed, our galaxy looks like one big whirlpool. Great mindslike da Vinci, Descartes, and Einstein were obsessed with whirlpools and vortexes. Da Vinci, Descartes,


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Spinoza and Einstein were obsessed with the behavior of light. Descartes thought that the wholecosmos moved in vortexes in clockwork fashion. Like Einstein who lived two and a half centuries later,Descartes thought that planetary rotation were vortexes.

So what is my problem? Gravity on earth has nothing to do with vortexes, whirlpools, or warps in thespace-time continuum. A dropped baseball falls straight down. If their were a deep enough hole in theground, it would fall to the center of the earth. It would steadily accelerate (if there was a vacuum in thehole) until it reached the center. After it passed the center, it would lose velocity because it would bepulled back to the center. This is a simple straight line attraction between two objects. It has nothing todo with a warp in the space time continuum which works obliquely upon moving objects in space.

Einstein's gravity has no effect on the atomic level, and a negligible, if any effect on a baseball becauseother nearby forces overwhelm it. A baseball on the ground or flying through air is bound up with theelements of earth and is not free to move in spirals like objects in space. A baseball is attracted straightdown towards the earth with Newton's gravity, not with Einstein's gravity. Different principles are at workat the atomic level, the human scale, and in outer space. The creation is not an integrated systemneatly packaged as the tidy minded Einstein supposed. His cosmological pantheism is false.

Einstein Cheats!

The "cosmological constant," is a term Einstein coined in his theory of general relativity. The constantrepresents the theoretical possibility of density associated with empty space. Einstein's numbersindicated that the force of gravity would cause the cosmos to collapse. Since the cosmos is notcollapsing there must be a balancing force. Einstein introduced the "cosmological constant" to supplythat countervailing force. As a CPA, I would say that this is the equivalent of supplying a plug figure tomake the books balance. Einstein's mathematics did not work. He made up a number to make hisequations balance and called it the cosmological cosmos. Einstein cheats! But he got away with itbecause of his great prestige. "Einstein's mathematics could not be wrong. There must be somethingwe are missing in the cosmos to vindicate his numbers."

Years later, when Edwin Hubble discovered that the cosmos is not in equilibrium but the galaxies are

moving away from us, Einstein said that the cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of hiscareer. Yes, cheating is a "mistake."

Modern cosmologists are still cheating. They cannot understand why the universe is not flying apart.The mathematics does not work for big-bang theory, a theory built upon foundations laid by Einstein.The mathematics cannot be wrong, of course. There must be "dark matter" out there which we cannotdetect. Hmmm. Our calculations indicate that 90% of the cosmos is dark matter. (Some calculations putit at 99%.) Most of the equation is a giant plug figure. 90% cheating and 10% mathematics based uponreal data.

Some scientists claim that they can infer the presence of dark matter by observing gravitational forces

(Einstein's vortexes) in space. I do not know enough about their math and the data it is based upon tosay if this is true. However, I do know that scientists never empirically verified the existence of "density"which Einstein assumed must be in space to support his cosmological constant. I also assume that thecomputations of the imaginary dark matter must be going poorly because scientists are talking aboutbringing back the cosmological constant. "Dark matter is not enough. There must be more stuff outthere. We need another plug figure. Hey remember Einstein's quaint old idea of the cosmologicconstant...." Sounds like the cosmologists are floundering.

May I offer a suggestion? Maybe there is something wrong conceptually with Einstein's theory of gravitywhen you extend it to galaxies. It does not work at the atomic or the human scale. It does work withspacecraft and planets. It does not work with galaxies. It is a niche theory, not a unified theory.


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One more suggestion. Get out your supercomputers and do more mathematical work on the forceswithin vortexes. Misunderstanding the dynamics of a vortex is the sort of thing that can throw themathematics off by a factor of ten or one hundred.

Final Comments

I have shown that Einstein is a niche scientist whose math only works within a limited range. Therefore,we should use Einstein when he is useful, but not regard him as our teacher about the nature of thephysical world. This satisfies point d) under the heading Who Am I to Question Einstein?

Question e) concerns why Einstein's work should not be counted as "laws of nature" but as practicalengineering techniques for the space program. Newton observed the patterns of gravity and couldpredict the trajectories of bodies moving through the air with mathematics. But he humbly confessedthat he did not know what gravity is and why it works that way. He correctly insisted that he was in thedark about the laws of nature. He said that he was like a small boy sitting on the sea shore playing witha pretty shell but oblivious to the great ocean of truth all around him. The same is true of Einstein'sknowledge, but he mistakenly thought that he understood the cosmos because of his faith in Spinoza'sphilosophy.

Einstein reminds me of a science fiction story about a scientist who built an android which convincinglymimics human behavior. The scientist claimed that he had discovered the secrets of human biology byobserving his android. A medical doctor came into the room, opened the chest cavity of the android toreveal wires, computer chips, gears, motors and gauges. The doctor said, "I see no blood vessels,digestive system, muscles, bones, nerves or lungs. You know nothing about human biology. Your android is merely a mimic, a programmed parrot." Einstein's mathematical models, developed entirely atthe blackboard, are like the android. They can predict certain natural events as a mimic. But theycannot tell us about the laws of nature just as the android could not tell the scientist anything about thecirculatory system.

It is high time for physics to outgrow Einstein. He has served his short term purpose but has become an

historical dead end. I suspect that when a critical mass of physicists get up the nerve to defy Einstein,science will make a great leap forward.

Fred Hutchison

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.

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A Critique of Einstein

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