http://www.newscientist.com/article/...erse-tick.html
"It is still not clear who is right, says John Norton, a philosopher
based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is
hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in
physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The
trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with
relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose
geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/arch.../02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

[url down]
The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of
Radiation by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1909: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that
light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by
Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For
this reason, I believe that the next phase in the development of
theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be
considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories. The
purpose of the following remarks is to justify this belief and to show
that a profound change in our views on the composition and essence of
light is imperative.....Then the electromagnetic fields that make up
light no longer appear as a state of a hypothetical medium, but rather
as independent entities that the light source gives off, just as in
Newton's emission theory of light......Relativity theory has changed
our views on light. Light is conceived not as a manifestation of the
state of some hypothetical medium, but rather as an independent entity
like matter. Moreover, this theory shares with the corpuscular theory
of light the unusual property that light carries inertial mass from
the emitting to the absorbing object."

http://www.academie-sciences.fr/memb...tein_eloge.pdf
Louis de Broglie: "Tout d'abord toute idée de "grain" se trouvait
expulsée de la théorie de la Lumière : celle-ci prenait la forme d'une
"théorie du champ" où le rayonnement était représenté par une
répartition continue dans l'espace de grandeurs évoluant continûment
au cours du temps sans qu'il fût possible de distinguer, dans les
domaines spatiaux au sein desquels évoluait le champ lumineux, de très
petites régions singulières où le champ serait très fortement
concentré et qui fournirait une image du type corpusculaire. Ce
caractère à la fois continu et ondulatoire de la lumière se trouvait
prendre une forme très précise dans la théorie de Maxwell où le champ
lumineux venait se confondre avec un certain type de champ
électromagnétique."

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/ind...ecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."

http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm
Lee Smolin: "Quantum theory was not the only theory that bothered
Einstein. Few people have appreciated how dissatisfied he was with his
own theories of relativity. Special relativity grew out of Einstein's
insight that the laws of electromagnetism cannot depend on relative
motion and that the speed of light therefore must be always the same,
no matter how the source or the observer moves. Among the consequences
of that theory are that energy and mass are equivalent (the now-
legendary relationship E = mc2) and that time and distance are
relative, not absolute. SPECIAL RELATIVITY WAS THE RESULT OF 10 YEARS
OF INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE, YET EINSTEIN HAD CONVINCED HIMSELF IT WAS
WRONG WITHIN TWO YEARS OF PUBLISHING IT."

http://www.beilstein-institut.de/boz...nishBowden.htm
Athel Cornish-Bowden: "The concept of entropy was introduced to
thermodynamics by Clausius, who deliberately chose an obscure term for
it, wanting a word based on Greek roots that would sound similar to
"energy". In this way he hoped to have a word that would mean the same
to everyone regardless of their language, and, as Cooper [2] remarked,
he succeeded in this way in finding a word that meant the same to
everyone: NOTHING. From the beginning it proved a very difficult
concept for other thermodynamicists, even including such accomplished
mathematicians as Kelvin and Maxwell; Kelvin, indeed, despite his own
major contributions to the subject, never appreciated the idea of
entropy [3]. The difficulties that Clausius created have continued to
the present day, with the result that a fundamental idea that is
absolutely necessary for understanding the theory of chemical
equilibria continues to give trouble, not only to students but also to
scientists who need the concept for their work."

http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemist...69_preface.pdf
Arieh Ben-Naim: "I believe that the time is ripe to acknowledge that
the term entropy, as originally coined by Clausius, is an unfortunate
choice. Moreover, it is also a misleading term both in its meaning in
ancient and in contemporary Greek. On this matter, I cannot do any
better than Leon Cooper (1968). Cooper cites the original passage from
Clausius: in choosing the word "Entropy," Clausius wrote: "I prefer
going to the ancient languages for the names of important scientific
quantities, so that they mean the same thing in all living tongues. I
propose, accordingly, to call S the entropy of a body, after the Greek
word "transformation." I have designedly coined the word entropy to be
similar to energy, for these two quantities are so analogous in their
physical significance, that an analogy of denominations seems to be
helpful." Right after quoting Clausius' explanation on his reasons for
the choice of the word "Entropy," Cooper commented: "By doing this,
rather than extracting a name from the body of the current language
(say: lost heat), he succeeded in coining a word that meant the same
thing to everybody: nothing." I fully agree with Coopers comment;
however, I have two additional comments, and contrary to Cooper, I
venture into taking the inevitable conclusion: First, I agree that
"entropy means the same thing to everybody: nothing." But more than
that, entropy is also a misleading term...."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
JOS UFFINK: "This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful
to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second
law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued
statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained
attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-
Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion about the
arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is
actually a RED HERRING."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev

Even more truth in the era of Postscientism:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers...UP_TimesNR.pdf
"What Can We Learn about the Ontology of Space and Time from the
Theory of Relativity?", John D. Norton: "In general relativity there
is no comparable sense of the constancy of the speed of light. The
constancy of the speed of light is a consequence of the perfect
homogeneity of spacetime presumed in special relativity. There is a
special velocity at each event; homogeneity forces it to be the same
velocity everywhere. We lose that homogeneity in the transition to
general relativity and with it we lose the constancy of the speed of
light. Such was Einstein's conclusion at the earliest moments of his
preparation for general relativity. ALREADY IN 1907, A MERE TWO YEARS
AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE SPECIAL THEORY, HE HAD CONCLUDED THAT THE
SPEED OF LIGHT IS VARIABLE IN THE PRESENCE OF A GRAVITATIONAL FIELD."

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic..._of_light.html
Steve Carlip: "Einstein went on to discover a more general theory of
relativity which explained gravity in terms of curved spacetime, and
he talked about the speed of light changing in this new theory. In the
1920 book "Relativity: the special and general theory" he wrote:
". . . according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
[. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of
light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light
varies with position." Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector
quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not
clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to
special relativity suggests that he did mean so. THIS INTERPRETATION
IS PERFECTLY VALID AND MAKES GOOD PHYSICAL SENSE..."

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm
"So, it is absolutely true that the speed of light is not constant in
a gravitational field [which, by the equivalence principle, applies as
well to accelerating (non-inertial) frames of reference]. If this were
not so, there would be no bending of light by the gravitational field
of stars....Indeed, this is exactly how Einstein did the calculation
in: 'On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,'
Annalen der Physik, 35, 1911. which predated the full formal
development of general relativity by about four years. This paper is
widely available in English. You can find a copy beginning on page 99
of the Dover book 'The Principle of Relativity.' You will find in
section 3 of that paper, Einstein's derivation of the (variable) speed
of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is
c' = c0 ( 1 + V / c^2 )
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the
speed of light c0 is measured."

http://www.blazelabs.com/f-g-gcont.asp
"So, faced with this evidence most readers must be wondering why we
learn about the importance of the constancy of speed of light. Did
Einstein miss this? Sometimes I find out that what's written in our
textbooks is just a biased version taken from the original work, so
after searching within the original text of the theory of GR by
Einstein, I found this quote: "In the second place our result shows
that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any
unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place
when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Now we
might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of
relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in
the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude
that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlimited domain
of validity ; its results hold only so long as we are able to
disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena
(e.g. of light)." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - The General Theory
of Relativity: Chapter 22 - A Few Inferences from the General
Principle of Relativity-. Today we find that since the Special Theory
of Relativity unfortunately became part of the so called mainstream
science, it is considered a sacrilege to even suggest that the speed
of light be anything other than a constant. This is somewhat
surprising since even Einstein himself suggested in a paper "On the
Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light," Annalen der
Physik, 35, 1911, that the speed of light might vary with the
gravitational potential. Indeed, the variation of the speed of light
in a vacuum or space is explicitly shown in Einstein's calculation for
the angle at which light should bend upon the influence of gravity.
One can find his calculation in his paper. The result is c'=c(1+V/c^2)
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the
measurement is taken. 1+V/c^2 is also known as the GRAVITATIONAL
REDSHIFT FACTOR."

http://www.sciscoop.com/2008-10-30-41323-484.html
"Does the apparently constant speed of light change over the vast
stretches of the universe? Would our understanding of black holes,
ancient supernovae, dark matter, dark energy, the origins of the
universe and its ultimate fate be different if the speed of light were
not constant?.....Couldn't it be that the supposed vacuum of space is
acting as an interstellar medium to lower the speed of light like some
cosmic swimming pool?"

Pentcho Valev
pvalev

Very important truth in the era of Postscientism:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
"Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and the Problems in the
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies that Led him to it."
John Norton: "Einstein could not see how to formulate a fully
relativistic electrodynamics merely using his new device of field
transformations. So he considered the possibility of modifying
Maxwell's electrodynamics in order to bring it into accord with an
emission theory of light, such as Newton had originally conceived.
There was some inevitability in these attempts, as long as he held to
classical (Galilean) kinematics. Imagine that some emitter sends out a
light beam at c. According to this kinematics, an observer who moves
past at v in the opposite direction, will see the emitter moving at v
and the light emitted at c+v. This last fact is the defining
characteristic of an emission theory of light: the velocity of the
emitter is added vectorially to the velocity of light emitted....If an
emission theory can be formulated as a field theory, it would seem to
be unable to determine the future course of processes from their state
in the present. AS LONG AS EINSTEIN EXPECTED A VIABLE THEORY LIGHT,
ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM TO BE A FIELD THEORY, these sorts of
objections would render an EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT INADMISSIBLE."

At the end of his life Einstein realized that Newton's emission theory
of light was ADMISSIBLE but it was too late; silly hysterical laughter
is the only possible reaction nowadays:

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/ind...ecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev

In the era of Postscientism, Einstein's 1905 false light postulate is
true by definition. So post-scientists cannot just replace it with its
antithesis given by Newton's emission theory of light and draw the
respective conclusions. Rather, they are forced to move towards true
science in ways so confused that human rationality gets even more
irreversibly destroyed:

http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/c...st%20tense.doc
Craig Callender: "In my opinion, by far the best way for the tenser to
respond to Putnam et al is to adopt the Lorentz 1915 interpretation of
time dilation and Fitzgerald contraction. Lorentz attributed these
effects (and hence the famous null results regarding an aether) to the
Lorentz invariance of the dynamical laws governing matter and
radiation, not to spacetime structure. On this view, Lorentz
invariance is not a spacetime symmetry but a dynamical symmetry, and
the special relativistic effects of dilation and contraction are not
purely kinematical. The background spacetime is Newtonian or neo-
Newtonian, not Minkowskian."

http://www.spacetimecenter.org/confe...2008/Henry.pdf
Teaching Special Relativity: Minkowski trumps Einstein
Richard Conn Henry
Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy
The Johns Hopkins University
"Students find physics difficult—I am thinking of first-year
undergraduate university physics majors. I found it difficult myself,
and it took me almost 40 years of teaching physics to fully understand
the reasons for the perceived "difficulty." Why do students who find
mathematics easy to understand, find physics difficult to
understand?....How grotesquely badly we teach special relativity
encapsulates the practical problem of teaching physics to the freshman
physics major. I have never found a single freshman physics textbook
that teaches Minkowski spacetime; I have never found a single text on
General Relativity that mentions "Einstein's two
postulates.".....There is no doubt that, historically, Albert
Einstein, in 1905, did introduce two postulates (and also, that it is
he who discovered special relativity). But the second of these
postulates (the one concerning the constancy of c, just in case Reese
has confused you!) did not survive the year. In September of 1905
Einstein published a development from relativity—the discovery of the
implication that E = mc2 , and in this new paper he mentions a single
postulate only. But the paper contains a sweet footnote: "The
principle of the constancy of the velocity of light is of course
contained in Maxwell's equations." How I love that "of course!"
Einstein was human!......Antique postulates that are not of anything
but historical interest to genuine physicists are presented to
students as "Special Relativity.".....I feel that the time has come to
relegate the "two postulates" to the dustbin of history, and to teach
special relativity to undergraduates (or indeed, to middle school
students) the Minkowski way."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001661/
MINKOWSKI SPACE-TIME: A GLORIOUS NON-ENTITY
Harvey R. Brown, Oliver Pooley
"It is argued that Minkowski space-time cannot serve as the deep
structure within a "constructive" version of the special theory of
relativity, contrary to widespread opinion in the philosophical
community."

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feat...s_Are_Changing
IT'S LIKELY THAT TIMES ARE CHANGING
"Einstein introduced a new notion of time, more radical than even he
at first realized. In fact, the view of time that Einstein adopted was
first articulated by his onetime math teacher in a famous lecture
delivered one century ago. That lecture, by the German mathematician
Hermann Minkowski, established a new arena for the presentation of
physics, a new vision of the nature of reality redefining the
mathematics of existence. The lecture was titled “Space and Time,� and
it introduced to the world the marriage of the two, now known as
spacetime. It was a good marriage, but lately physicists’ passion for
spacetime has begun to diminish. And some are starting to whisper
about possible grounds for divorce.....Physicists of the 21st century
therefore face the task of finding the true reality obscured by the
spacetime mirage.....If you can choose any time you like and get
different laws, it makes no sense to say that the universe is ruled by
a single Constitution of Physics. The cosmos becomes more like the
United Nations, a hodgepodge of jurisdictions with diverse codes of
conduct. “The clock ambiguity suggests that we must view physical laws
as emergent from a random ensemble of all possible laws,� Albrecht and
Iglesias write.....What he and other pioneers on the spacetime
frontiers have seen coming is an intellectual crisis. The approaches
of the past seem insufficiently powerful to meet the challenges
remaining from Einstein’s century — such asfinding a harmonious
mathematical marriage for relativity with quantum mechanics the way
Minkowski unified space and time. And more recently physicists have
been forced to confront the embarrassment of not knowing what makes up
the vast bulk of matter and energy in the universe. They remain in the
dark about the nature of the dark energy that drives the universe to
expand at an accelerating rate. Efforts to explain the dark energy’s
existence and intensity have been ambitious but fruitless. To
Albrecht, the dark energy mystery suggests that it’s time for physics
to drop old prejudices about how nature’s laws ought to be and search
instead for how they really are. And that might mean razing
Minkowski’s arena and rebuilding it from a new design. “It seems to me
like it’s a time in the development of physics,� says Albrecht, “where
it’s time to look at how we think about space and time very
differently.�

Pentcho Valev
pvalev

Although post-scientists sometimes make career and money by hinting at
the truth, in principle they CAMOUFLAGE the falsehood and in doing so
they know no limits. So instead of exposing the falsehood of
Einstein's 1905 light postulate, post-scientists declare the existence
of small "Lorentz violations" which are usually so small that Divine
Albert's Divine Theory remains unaffected. But that is old camouflage:
post-scientists now add an aether fog to it and the effect is
incomparably greater:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co...in-the-aether/
DISCOVER: "Instead of a light-carrying medium, we are interested in
the possibility of a Lorentz-violating vector field — some four-
dimensional vector that has a fixed non-zero length and points in some
direction at every event in spacetime. But the name “aether” is too
good to abandon, so we’ve re-purposed it for modern use.....Abstract:
We investigate the stability of theories in which Lorentz invariance
is spontaneously broken by fixed-norm vector “aether” fields."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev

Educational truth in the era of Postscientism:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ingdahl2.html
"But there has been a marked global decrease of students willing to
study physics, and funding has decreased accordingly. Not only that,
the best students are not heading for studies in physics, finding
other fields more appealing, and science teachers to schools are
getting scarcer in supply. In fact, warning voices are being heard
about the spread of a "scientific illiteracy" where many living in
technologically advanced societies lack the knowledge and the ability
for critical thinking in order to function in their daily
environment."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20.../22/schools.g2
"We are nearing the end of the "World Year of Physics", otherwise
known as Einstein Year, as it is the centenary of his annus mirabilis
in which he made three incredible breakthroughs, including special
relativity. In fact, it was 100 years ago yesterday that he published
the most famous equation in the history of physics: E=mc2. But instead
of celebrating, physicists are in mourning after a report showed a
dramatic decline in the number of pupils studying physics at school.
The number taking A-level physics has dropped by 38% over the past 15
years, a catastrophic meltdown that is set to continue over the next
few years. The report warns that a shortage of physics teachers and a
lack of interest from pupils could mean the end of physics in state
schools. Thereafter, physics would be restricted to only those
students who could afford to go to posh schools. Britain was the home
of Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and Paul Dirac, and Brits made world-
class contributions to understanding gravity, quantum physics and
electromagnetism - and yet the British physicist is now facing
extinction. But so what? Physicists are not as cuddly as pandas, so
who cares if we disappear?"

http://www.i-sem.net/press/jmll_isem_palermo.pdf
"La science souffre d’une forte perte de crédit, au sens propre comme
au sens figuré : son soutien politique et économique, comme sa
réputation intellectuelle et culturelle connaissent une crise grave."

[url down]
"Par ailleurs, on remarque qu’aujourd’hui, les thèses « relativistes
», par exemple celle de Paul Féyerabend, ont un impact très fort,
notamment dans les milieux étudiants. Même si leur diffusion
s’accompagne de contresens et de malentendus, elles servent de socle à
des critiques de plus en plus vives adressées aux professionnels de la
recherche : Votre science dit-elle réellement le vrai ? Comment osez-
vous prétendre qu’elle se réfère à la rationalité alors que les
jugements esthétiques, les préjugés métaphysiques et autres désirs
subjectifs imprégnent sinon sa démarche tout entière, du moins
certaines de ses phases ? Votre légitimité incontestée est-elle fondée
sur autre chose que des effets de pouvoir ?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...e-easier-exams
"Pupils of today struggle with science questions of the 60s. Evidence
shows standards are slipping as comparison is made of exam papers
through the decades. There has been a "catastrophic slippage" in
standards of science taught in schools, leaving children with a
superficial understanding of chemistry, biology and physics, according
to the Royal Society of Chemistry."

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/recherche/0,13-0,1-0,0.html
"L'Occident face à la crise des vocations scientifiques. Le mal
s'accroît, mais le diagnostic s'affine. Les pays développés, qui
souffrent, sans exception, d'une désaffection des jeunes pour les
filières scientifiques, pointent du doigt la façon dont les sciences
sont aujourd'hui enseignées. Trop de théorie, pas assez de pratique ;
des enseignements qui n'invitent pas au questionnement......tandis que
les sciences physiques, grandes victimes de ce rejet collectif des
jeunes Européens, dégringolent (- 5,5 %)."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...tion.education
Harry Kroto: "The wrecking of British science....The scientific method
is based on what I prefer to call the inquiring mindset. It includes
all areas of human thoughtful activity that categorically eschew
"belief", the enemy of rationality. This mindset is a nebulous mixture
of doubt, questioning, observation, experiment and, above all,
curiosity, which small children possess in spades. I would argue that
it is the most important, intrinsically human quality we possess, and
it is responsible for the creation of the modern, enlightened portion
of the world that some of us are fortunate to inhabit. Curiously, for
the majority of our youth, the educational system magically causes
this capacity to disappear by adolescence.....Do I think there is any
hope for UK? I am really not sure."

http://plus.maths.org/issue37/featur...ein/index.html
"Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of science. Everyone
knew that Einstein had done something important in 1905 (and again in
1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what it was. When
Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921, he attributed
his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the ordinary person:
“Does it make a silly impression on me, here and yonder, about my
theories of which they cannot understand a word? I think it is funny
and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it is the mystery of
non-understanding that appeals to them…it impresses them, it has the
colour and the appeal of the mysterious."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev

On Dec 10, 8:55 am, Pentcho Valev <pva> wrote:
[..]
> "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of science. Everyone
> knew that Einstein had done something important in 1905 (and again in
> 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what it was. When
> Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921, he attributed
> his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the ordinary person:
> “Does it make a silly impression on me, here and yonder, about my
> theories of which they cannot understand a word? I think it is funny
> and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it is the mystery of
> non-understanding that appeals to them…it impresses them, it has the
> colour and the appeal of the mysterious."

Physics education is in "terminal decline":

http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/news/new...physics-2.html
"PHYSICS IN TERMINAL DECLINE? In CEER's latest report, published 11
August 2006 and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Professor
Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson show that the decline in physics
as student numbers fall and university departments shut is more
serious than is generally appreciated."

This "terminal decline" is rarely discussed: for a university
department, admitting crisis is tantamount to committing suicide. Yet
from time to time the panic gets uncontrollable; however even then
Einsteiniana's and Clausiusiana's repulsive actions remain hidden and
money seems to be the only factor that matters:

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger...sics_dep..html
"Tough times for UT Physics Dept."

Professors that have not lost their jobs teach students how to sing
"Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" and place
the "terminal decline" in the context of processes in the Universe
characterized by an ever increasing entropy:

"YES WE ALL BELIEVE IN RELATIVITY, RELATIVITY, RELATIVITY"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PkLLXhONvQ

Pentcho Valev
pvalev