Einstein's Mistakes

latimes.com

14 pointsechair2 comments

FTA:

"The speed of light is either constant or not, and only measurement can decide what it is," Ohanian writes. For Einstein to make a postulation rather than propose it as a hypothesis to be tested may seem like a fine distinction. [...] But to Ohanian, the act was as outrageous as when Indiana lawmakers tried to legislate the value for pi. And so he adds it to his roster of Einstein's mistakes.

The reviewer missed something, here. Ohanian is an expert in the field, and clearly knows that the Michaelson-Morley experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment) predates special relativity by almost two decades. I think he must be making a subtler point that the review author failed to grok.

Somebody's screwing up badly, that's for sure, be that Ohanian or Johnson. Einstein is (as Einstein says!) emphatically not making a point about the speed of light at all, but saying that he is taking "The light from two events reaches me at the same time" as the definition of simultaneous. (Although, only for a moment, to show that even as the best definition of simultaneous there is, it has fundamental contradictions. That comes later in the argument.)

Anyone who misses this has no place judging Einstein! This definition of "simultaneous" is critical to understanding the thought process that led Einstein to relativity. Ironically, whoever missed this fact shows themselves to be firmly planted in the very pre-relativity physics worldview that Einstein proceeded to shred so very conclusively...

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