For deep thinkers and theoretical officiandos
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:54 pm
"Old Physics For New", Thomas Phipps, Aperion Montreal, 2006.
Paper back....
I have known and admired this PhD physicist for some time now. I love reading his works for his masterful command and use of the english language, which is refreshing in and of itself.
(His first book was "Heretical Verties")
He is quite the maverick physicist now that he is safely retired. Something he, fairly, will admit to readily. It seems that once these guys retire, they let loose the pent up frustrations and doubts about physics dogma following a lifetime of being on the "main line" and playing it "straight" and "safe". Gotta' put bread on th' table.
Apparently, Phipps has been brooding over his sins of association with the new church. Whether he has actually sinned by omission or commission in the past is irrelevant, for he pounces on relativistic dogma with freshly sharpened claws.
His attack is wisely mounted, not directly at relativity, but at a physics upon which it is partially based as bed rock... Maxwellian electrodynamics.
As an engineer, this "sine qua non" of the profession is useful, but as a basis for extended physics, apparently, it is lacking.
Phipps gently eases us into the investigative mindset and points out early short comings of Maxwell. Among these are his horrid use of partial time differentials, under parameterized equations and source and sink errors. He leads us to Hertz's corrective Maxwellian surgery that is correct, ostensibly, and mathematically, but was incorrect in its assumption of the luminiferous aether.
As Phipps wryly notes,.... Hertz got the math correct, but based it on an aether with hooks that, unfortunately for him, was testable and ultimately failed the test.
This book is not an easy casual read and demands the reader to be intune with a lot of higher level extant physics. It is both a scolding of physics based on a rare but intense survey of "'detailed" physics history that the reader might be well advised to know at least tenuous details about prior to reading. Still, Phipps is gentle in his guidance of the reader if not his attitude towards todays high end physics as taught and accepted.
It is all about the differences between the maxwell-eintsien covariant electrodynamics and the modified form of the Hertz invariant electrodynamics.
If you are interested in seeing how seeming triffles and often abstract concepts have been left dangling, in the wake of the Einstienian revolution and how latter day disciples have attempted to plug the holes like good little dutch boys, but failing in the process, if not in loyalty to their God head, then you are in for quite an intellectual ride.
Check it out if you dare.
Richard Hull
Paper back....
I have known and admired this PhD physicist for some time now. I love reading his works for his masterful command and use of the english language, which is refreshing in and of itself.
(His first book was "Heretical Verties")
He is quite the maverick physicist now that he is safely retired. Something he, fairly, will admit to readily. It seems that once these guys retire, they let loose the pent up frustrations and doubts about physics dogma following a lifetime of being on the "main line" and playing it "straight" and "safe". Gotta' put bread on th' table.
Apparently, Phipps has been brooding over his sins of association with the new church. Whether he has actually sinned by omission or commission in the past is irrelevant, for he pounces on relativistic dogma with freshly sharpened claws.
His attack is wisely mounted, not directly at relativity, but at a physics upon which it is partially based as bed rock... Maxwellian electrodynamics.
As an engineer, this "sine qua non" of the profession is useful, but as a basis for extended physics, apparently, it is lacking.
Phipps gently eases us into the investigative mindset and points out early short comings of Maxwell. Among these are his horrid use of partial time differentials, under parameterized equations and source and sink errors. He leads us to Hertz's corrective Maxwellian surgery that is correct, ostensibly, and mathematically, but was incorrect in its assumption of the luminiferous aether.
As Phipps wryly notes,.... Hertz got the math correct, but based it on an aether with hooks that, unfortunately for him, was testable and ultimately failed the test.
This book is not an easy casual read and demands the reader to be intune with a lot of higher level extant physics. It is both a scolding of physics based on a rare but intense survey of "'detailed" physics history that the reader might be well advised to know at least tenuous details about prior to reading. Still, Phipps is gentle in his guidance of the reader if not his attitude towards todays high end physics as taught and accepted.
It is all about the differences between the maxwell-eintsien covariant electrodynamics and the modified form of the Hertz invariant electrodynamics.
If you are interested in seeing how seeming triffles and often abstract concepts have been left dangling, in the wake of the Einstienian revolution and how latter day disciples have attempted to plug the holes like good little dutch boys, but failing in the process, if not in loyalty to their God head, then you are in for quite an intellectual ride.
Check it out if you dare.
Richard Hull