Book Review: Heretical Verities, by Thomas Phipps Jr
I am only half way through the book. But it is a big book, and slow to get through. I came into the world of Dr Phipps first on his later book, "Old Physics for New". While "Heretical Verities" was written years earlier.
I sincerely hope that future ages will hold Mr Phipps in the regard he deserves. That such a critical mind has been so overlooked, that such a true scientist has been ignored by so many scientists who have held power - all this is becoming more and more surprising, the more I read of his works.
That Maxwell's equations (yes, Heaviside's versions that we all use) do not contain any parameter to describe the motion of the detector (the radiation absorb-er) makes them unfit for any kind of relativistic science. Yet these entirely non-relativistic equations are the basis for Special Relativity. My mind is not so powerful, so I never noticed that. I guess none of the teachers I ever had noticed it.
The Lorentz force, hmmm, why does that need to be postulated? Should that not just fall out of whatever equations describe electricity and magnetism? Well, if your equations do not contain any parameters for the motion of the field absorb-er, then you will need to, ad-hoc, throw in something like the Lorentz force equation.
What if, as Hertz did, and Thomas Phipps does, we make the E&M equations truly relativistic, or, as is more proper to say, make them invarient? Oh, then the Lorentz force appears. Oh, and length contraction is no longer predicted, which corresponds to the fact that length contraction has never been observed. Oh, and why is the Nobel board not up in arms, banging the doors of...
And more, and more, but you have to read the books.
Pisses me off that Phipps is not required reading. For good reason we read the original texts of those people who have built our current models. Why not have the intellectual balls to also read such excellent explanations of what is incorrect, inconsistent, and clearly missing from our current models.
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