Einstein’s Relativity:

The Special and General Theory

The Book: Relativity: The Special and General Theory, translated by Robert W. Lawson, D. Sc., F.
Inst. P. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920).
The Author: Albert Einstein, Ph.D. is considered by many the most brilliant physicist ever for
advancing notions about warped space and casting doubts about cause-and-effect relationships.
The Problem: Inferences drawn from Einstein’s theories are counterintuitive. Justifications for
the theories are hand-wavy at best. Newton’s law of gravitation and Coulomb’s force law for
electrostatics provide explanations for experimental “proof” of Einstein’s theories that is not only
less exotic, but a natural consequence of the inertial and electrostatic properties believed to be
possessed by protons and electrons.

“The businessman, who could not accept the intellectual leadership of post-Kantian Witch
Doctors, made his fatal error when he conceded to them the field of the intellect. He gave
them the benefit of the doubt, at his own expense: he concluded that their meaningless
verbiage could not be as bad as it sounded to him, that he lacked understanding, but had
not the stomach for trying to understand that sort of stuff and would leave it respectfully
alone. No Witch Doctor could have hoped for a deadlier concession.” – Ayn Rand

Until the group velocity of signals was observed to
move faster than light, any second-grader could have
stated with confidence that faster than light travel
(FTL) was impossible. Explanations were usually
attributed to Einstein’s relativity theory. According
to some, mass dilations, which mainstream science
pronounced to be bunk a couple decades ago, were
to blame. Einstein himself stated that the Lorentz
contraction,
1 -v2 / c 2 ,
would become an imaginary number at velocities
greater than c. Addressing concerns about what an
imaginary velocity is, Einstein declared, “From this we
conclude that in the theory of relativity the velocity
c plays the part of a limiting velocity, which can
neither be reached nor exceeded by any real body.”
Approaching infinite speed, an object would acquire
infinite mass, and that would spell trouble for the rest
of the universe. Others argued that E=mc2 showed that
light and matter were the same thing, and therefore
one was incapable of traveling faster than the other. No
explanation was offered as to why matter could travel
slower than light. What mattered was Einstein said so,
or at least some professor said that he did.
In the hope of finding a fatal flaw in Einstein’s
reasoning, and removing mental barriers preventing
the development of FTL, Relativity: The Special and
General Theory was consulted. The book was Einstein’s
attempt to communicate his theory of relativity to
persons lacking mathematical aptitude. The book alone
would give the reader no reason to elevate Einstein’s
relativity to the unquestionable status it holds today
in institutionalized academics. Some shortcomings
may be the result of errors in translation; others, the
consequence of dumbing-down for the innumerate.
Yet, others stem from a lack of knowledge of scientific
discoveries made only after the work was published.
For those wanting to skip the intro, the first page of
the preface contains the following as a footnote:
The mathematical fundaments of the special theory of
relativity are to be found in the original papers of H.A.
Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, published under
the title “Das Relativitäts-prinzip” (“The Principle of
Relativity”) in B.G. Teubner’s collection of monographs
Fortschritte der mathematischen Wissenschaften
(Advances in the Mathematical Sciences), also in M.
Laue’s exhaustive book Das Relativitäts prinzip –
published by Friedr. Vieweg & Son, Braunschweig.
The general theory of relativity, together with the
necessary parts of the theory of invariants, is dealt with
in the author’s book Die Grundlagen der allgemeinen
Relativitatstheorie (The Foundations of the General
Theory of Relativity) – Joh. Ambr. Barth, 1916; this book
assumes some familiarity with the special theory of
relativity.

Leicester, North Carolina 28748 USA  1


(a)
FIGURE 1 (a) A punch press
measurement would detect no
Lorentz contraction, whereas (b)
a measurement of foreshortened
perspective apparently would.
FIGURE 2 Typically,
undergraduate textbooks
illustrate Einstein’s relativity
with a beam of light traveling the
same velocity whether it is shot
from a moving train or a position
stationary with respect to the
(b)
ground.
c→
v→
c→
v=0
FIGURE 3 That a two-dimensional object may take on three
dimensions does not mean that space is warped. Cartesian coordinate
systems may be awkward, but not invalid.
2  electric space craft  November 11, 2008  Issue 44
The book was not written without technique. It
elaborates the obvious in the first pages, attempting to
build credibility. The lack of motion toward any new
ideas becomes cumbersome. When concepts in need
of deeper explanations are mentioned, snob appeal,
with comments approaching “any fool can plainly see,”
sometimes replaces logical connections. Written like
a good mystery, almost every short chapter ends with
cliff-hanger language declaring the reader is on the
verge of learning something great, but the knowledge
never seems to arrive.
Sufficiency of Newtonian Mechanics
Einstein recognized that the laws of Newtonian
mechanics did not apply to electrodynamics, including
EM phenomena. However, he fell short of recognizing
that charge and mass were two different aspects of
the physical universe. Instead, he, seemed to search
for an overarching general law that would explain the
mutually exclusive laws governing the interdependent
behavior of both properties.
Ambiguous Variables
Most unsettling, however is the sloppiness with which
variables are defined. Though done in the name of
sparing the reader technical brain-strain, it puts the
reader in the position of having to figure out which
of half a dozen scenarios is intended, and therefore
wondering if Einstein wasn’t intentionally passing
along a few sleights of hand.
One example occurs frequently. Mention is made
of measuring lengths in one reference frame from
another, but the instrument used is not specified.
Suppose the observer in a flyby reference frame
held a punch press with points, six inches apart,
marked origin and insertion. If, as he passed another
reference frame, he hit the punch button, he would,
without question, measure something six inches long.
(See Figure 1a.) Some interpretations of Lorentz
contractions should leave people wondering why their
bodies are not simultaneously growing and shrinking
as relativistic particles and celestial bodies are
constantly whizzing by.
Should the observer in the flyby reference frame
first send out a laser beam to mark the origin of an
object, and then, once that data was collected, send out
another beam to locate its insertion, then he would
undoubtedly come up with a different length than
somebody in the second reference frame would. That
foreshortening of appearances but not matter is a
function of perspective and relative velocity is nothing
new to any dog who has hung his head out a car
window and looked at the dashed lines in the road.
(See Figure 1b.)
Einstein says that due to Lorentz contractions an
organ pipe traveling parallel to its length should
emit a higher tone. Yet, who in a reference frame of
relative motion could judge the tone devoid of the
Doppler effect?1
Velocity isn’t defined, either. Is it read with
a velocity meter that magically registers
instantaneous velocity? Does the passenger
or some other observer take punch press
measurements of displacement or sequential
measurements? If so, in what privileged reference
frame is the stopwatch operated, and whose
interpretations of the start and stop times are
used? Dr. Oleg Jefimenko listed numerous types
of clocks that would give different readings with
irrefutable Galilean transformations.2
To further complicate matters, an understanding
of the true nature of light depends on the isolation
of variables that have never been isolated.
Quantities of interest include:
• The force fields of a single electron or proton
(gravitational and electrical) in the absence of
all other matter and charge .
• The forces and displacements required for
one electron to respond in kind to a H-a de-
excitation of an electron in a neighboring atom.
• Reaction times of atomic particles.
• How the above properties change with
proximities to other particles and overall
states of rarefaction.
Simultaneity is another loosely defined concept.
Granted, observers, unlike the unfortunate people
Einstein hypothetically placed directly on railroad
tracks, will receive signals of lightning striking the
tracks at different times depending on where they
are. They don’t need to be in motion. However,
some extensions of Einstein’s true statements
about simultaneity should have people believing
that if somebody moves just right in another
reference frame, they could be two places at once.
Worse, consider two people walking down the
railroad track, talking on their phones. Person A
picks up his phone and calls Person B. Person B
picks up his phone. They talk and then hang up. In
some reference frames, the phones are not picked
up concurrently. Person A could have his parts of
the conversation and hang up, and then B could
pick up the phone and supply his questions and
answers. One of the greatest intuitive arguments
against general relativity theory is that its
paradoxes propose to eliminate the relationship
between cause and effect.3
Einstein, however, says durations are relative
and in need of parameterization. This is true, but
it should not be construed to mean there is no
meaning of absolute time any more than should a
person traversing the same distance running faster
than he would walking.
Numerous undergraduate textbooks describe
relativity theory in terms of the speed of light
remaining constant regardless of the relative
motion of reference frames. (See Figure 2.) The
failure of a beam of light to be influenced by the
velocity of the reference frame of its projector is
a classic scenario. Relativity, however, says little
about this situation, and states that light speed is
not constant.
Warped Space
One of Einstein’s strangest ideas is that
somehow by converting to a hyperbolic system
of coordinates, the geometry of the universe is
altered. This would not be so strange if we believed
the universe to be a two-dimensional surface, but
all empirical evidence indicates it is (spatially)
three-dimensional. It would be one thing to assert
that gravitational forces cause objects released to
follow trajectories of attraction that are nonlinear.
This does not make space the curved surface
Einstein suggests at times. He elaborates a two-
dimensional analogy of what he claims is too
complex for the present work to extend to three-
dimensions. And yet, interpretations of his theory
treat space as if it is a curved two-dimensional
surface. Space may accurately be viewed as an
infinite set of curved surfaces, but the three-
dimensions of space cannot be denied. Space, by
definition, should have no properties, yet Einstein
claims space is altered by mass.
Einstein speaks as if using a protractor to
measure space, rather than a straight edge; or
plotting geometric coordinates on log paper
rather than semilog paper, changes the nature of
existence. He chooses tiny bars as his measuring
rods, and a circular surface as his subject for a
Gedanken experiment. Einstein heats the surface
so it has the geometry of a fried bologna, and
then, rather than accepting that the surface had
deformed and assumed height where it at first had
Leicester, North Carolina 28748 USA  3
 only length and width, he deems it necessary to
invoke non-Euclidean geometries. (See Figure 3.)
This would be fine if space were two-dimensional.
Yet, Einstein expects his reader to be mystified
when he claims it has four dimensions. Einstein
then extends his inadequacy of measuring
rods stuck in two-space for measuring three-
dimensional quantities to a three-to-four-space
model.
Einstein showed that on paper the Lorentz
factor could be applied to the variable t, and
stated that time was dependent on velocity and
displacement. It is left to the reader to guess
why, only, “It must be clear even to the non-
mathematician that, as a consequence of this
purely formal addition to our knowledge, the
theory perforce gained clearness in no mean
measure.” Einstein apologizes for the hand-
waviness of his arguments, declaring that
Minkowski’s work is too mathematical to explain
in the present work. That spatial relationships
can be expressed in terms of non-Euclidean
(a)
(b)
FIGURE 4 (a) Using “choice of mollusk” as a standard of measure
after (b) declaring that time was dependent upon relative motion
created a sense of despair surrounding scientific measurements at
relativistic velocities.
4  electric space craft  November 11, 2008  Issue 44
geometries does not constitute proof of Lorentz
contractions in the physical world.
Time was to be represented as an imaginary
quantity “instead of the real quantity t, [so]
we can regard the space-time continuum in
accordance with the special theory of relativity
– as a ‘Euclidean’ four-dimensional continuum.”
Chapter XXVII appears really convoluted unless
it is assumed that something got lost in the
translation, and an “encounter” is merely the
coincidence of an object in space with a selected
coordinate system. Even so, the author, or those
interpreting, seems to harbor some notion that
coordinate systems have some form of physical
essence.
Whereas a mathematician would say it is
more convenient to use hyperbolic coordinate
systems to describe gravity fields, Einstein claims
it is impossible to explain dynamic phenomena
in terms of Cartesian coordinates. Ignoring
Planet Earth, he asserts, “In gravitational fields
there are no such things as rigid bodies with
Euclidean properties.” Even more surprising to a
mathematician is Einstein’s choice of “non-rigid
reference-bodies . . . which are as a whole not
only moving in any way whatsoever, but which
also suffer alterations in form ad lib. during their
motion.” Einstein, or his translator, called these
ever-changing Gaussian surfaces “mollusks;” and
then confused the reader with the statement, “the
general laws of nature . . . themselves must be
quite independent of the choice of mollusk.” (See
Figure 4.)
Mass exerts an attractive force. Inertia and
momentum are but measures of how bodies
respond to their net, three-dimensional,
ambient gravitational field under the influence
of an “outside” force. Mach’s principle has
been interpreted to be the application of the
resultant of all Gm1m2/r2 forces in the universe
to a body at rest or in motion. Both the inertial
and gravitational forces a body experiences are
produced by its position with respect to all other
mass in the universe, and so it is easy to agree
with Einstein that inertial and gravitational mass
should be equal. Experiments to the nth decimal
place with contrary conclusions are suspect, as
the one in which a gravity meter was sent down a
deep shaft and the mass of the Earth above it was
not factored into the calculations.
Einstein elaborates on the fact that pushes and
pulls can simulate gravitation, and the translation
 uses the phrase “gravitational field” for what most
people refer to as general forces. Convinced that What if the vacuum, instead of being filled
space is warped by gravitational forces, Einstein with the luminiferous æther, contained tiny
then attempts to prove his conjecture by showing particles with mass and charge?
that light also bends around gravitational fields.
He said that space warped by gravity would cause
light from a star, behind the Sun as located from
Earth in the Cartesian sense, to bend and be
visible from Earth. The light does indeed bend.
It is therefore necessary to ask if there would be
a force around stars that would cause a Coulomb
According to Max Planck, light is generated as an electron de-
chain reaction (See sidebar.) to bend.4 The answer
excites from a higher “energy level.”
is yes. As will be mentioned later, Fizeau showed
that the velocity of light is vectored by the motion
of the transmitting medium. And, as it turns out,
the transmitting medium around stars flows
outward. (See Figure 5.)

One example is the solar wind, a steady flow

As charge moves, the local electric field changes. Electrons,
of plasma spreading out from the solar corona,
with 1/1830 times the mass of protons, will adjust to some
the hot upper atmosphere of the Sun, which degree to compensate for the change in charge distribution.
is too hot for the Sun’s gravity to retain it. The
solar wind spreads radially outwards, while

This could impact neighboring atoms, and so on down

the line, provided the time it takes electrons to adjust
corresponds to the velocity of propagation in such a way
that the signal does not damp out. This standing-wave
condition would represent an “allowed energy level.”

(a)

(b)
FIGURE 5 With fits and
spurts, particles are always
streaming away from the
Sun. Pictured is a more
fluorescent coronal mass
ejection (CME) and its
associated particle storm.
The photos were taken Coulomb chain reactions provide a physical mechanism for
on July 14, 2000 by the geometrical optics phenomena and the Michelson-Morley
Solar and Heliospheric experiment.
Observatory (SOHO) (a)
LASCO/CT (b) LASCO/CE
(c)
and (c) EIT 195 Å.

Leicester, North Carolina 28748 USA  5

 the interplanetary magnetic field lines which
accompany it are expanding spirals around the Sun.
The radial motion of solar wind ions and electrons
must cut across those spirals. How do those
particles avoid being forced into tiny spirals around
those lines? By an electric field! The flow of the
solar wind is driven by powerful energy sources,
which make its motion take precedence, which it
does by creating the appropriate electric field.5
Einstein believes his theory of gravitation
is superior to Newton’s. “Thus the latter
theory is obtained here without any particular
assumption, whereas Newton had to introduce the
hypothesis that the force of attraction between
mutually attracting material points is inversely
proportional to the square of the distance
between them.” The deviations between Newton’s
empirical observations and Einstein’s theory,
as is well known, were minuscule in everyday
situations.
Nature Abhors a Vacuum
One of the most glaring shortcomings of the
treatise is its attempt to explain the behavior
of light in the vacuum. To date, no corner of the
universe has been discovered in which there
aren’t at least a few particles per cubic centimeter.
The mysterious nature of light was invented to
explain how it traveled in a vacuum that turned
out to be full of particles capable of transmitting
signals through chain reactions of Coulomb forces.
FIGURE 6 Only the water within a certain radius in front of the
boat’s bow will be impacted (through turbulence). If the boat is
headed toward the shore, waves will hit as usual. The wave patterns
arriving at the beach, of course, will change if the boat moves
nearby with a velocity component parallel to the shore.
6  electric space craft  November 11, 2008  Issue 44
Light Is Not a Projectile
Einstein cited several experiments which showed
that the velocity of light and the velocity of its
emitter were not additive. One example is Willem
de Sitter’s observations that the velocity of light is
not altered by the approach and recession of the
stars paired in binary systems. No new theory was
needed to explain why. The waves in the ocean
ahead of a ship are unaffected by its approach
until the ship gets close enough to mechanically
compress the water ahead in a bow shock. (See
Figure 6.) What had to be corrected was an
erroneous assumption that light was a projectile.
If one goes back to atomic physics and consid-
ers an energized electron falling back to a lower
energy level in accordance with Max Planck’s
theory of atomic de-excitation, the change in
that electron’s position should exert appreciable
changing Coulomb forces on electrons of atoms
within a certain sphere of influence. If the force is
sufficient, it will move a second electron, affecting
electrons in the second’s sphere of influence, and
so on down the line, until the wave thus created
(a)
(b)
(c)
FIGURE 7 (a) Electron 1 transmits a signal to Electron 2. Three
electrons are beyond the radius of influence. (b) Electron 2
transmits a signal to Electron 3. (c) A mechanical force disrupts the
electrical chain of events.
damps out. Such a wave of light, in and of itself,
pushes only little electrons. Bulk matter does
not compress or travel faster just because a light
signal was instigated.
Einstein liked to use, analogously, a train for
the light source and a walking passenger for
light. It doesn’t work because the train does
not emit passengers in the form of forces that
propagate from one transmitter/receiver to
the next through the countryside. Unlike the
passenger, the vectoring of the propagation of
light has nothing to do with the motion of the
source once the signal has been released. For an
analogy, consider a line of people shaking hands.
(See Figure 7.) Each shakes hands with the guy
on the left for exactly 2.5 seconds and then the
guy on the right for 2.5 seconds. If the series of
handshakes starts, and somebody pushes on the
line from the point of origin, the “signal” will not
change its rate of propagation unless the pushing
force is fast enough to overtake the “wave front.”
A bullet fired ahead of a moving vehicle, however,
moves with the velocity of the vehicle added
to the velocity the bullet would have had fired
from a (relatively) stationary source, minus
air resistance. It conserves momentum with
its reaction mass, and has little to do with the
Coulomb force adjustments among electrons in
the air.
Experiments
Einstein was stumped because the velocity of
a light beam measured in one reference frame
was the same as its velocity measured in a
reference frame in nonzero relative motion.
In his day, it was believed that space was a
vacuum, and Einstein said so frequently. Yet, the
medium of propagation, the æther, the agent by
which velocities would propagate at a constant
speed, at least according to some techniques of
measurement, had always been in existence in the
form of suspended atoms and ions.
In support of Lorentz contractions, Einstein
cited the experiment of Hippolyte Fizeau,
performed in 1851. Fizeau ran light beams up and
down a stream of water and discovered that the
composite velocities varied from their sums by a
factor closely approximating what is now known
as the Lorentz transformation. It is amazing
that so little information is available about
such an important experiment. In a quest for a
physical interpretation of the Dv, it proved very
difficult to determine the types of gadgetry used,
their relative positioning, the actual variance
measured, and even parameterization of velocity
terms. Curt Renshaw sorted through the data and
concluded the difference measured was nothing
more than a Doppler phase shift.6
The red shift is also considered to be landmark
substantiation of relativity theory. The red shift is
but a manifestation of the Doppler effect, which
exists with no need to invoke relativity theory.
In fact, it should occur when the displacement
between source and observer is expanding,
provided the transmitting medium is not being
attenuated as an unreplenished number of
atoms and ions spread out. Stars are known to
accrete matter as the Universe is believed to
expand, resulting in no detectable net change
in interstellar density. Pressures created by
moving charge (magnetic) and moving mass
(“atmospheric”) should re-equilibrate, in what
Einstein had every reason to believe in his day
was a vacuum. As the source recedes, the greater
number of molecules flowing into the expanding
intermittent space will increase the time of arrival
of each successive wavefront reverberating from
excitations at the source. In other words, the time
between pulses, or the wavelength of a receding
signal, will increase.
By contrast, Einstein argues, “The experimental
arguments in favor of the Maxwell-Lorentz theory,
which are at the same time arguments in favor of
the theory of relativity, are too numerous to be
set forth here. In reality they limit the theoretical
possibilities to such an extent, that no other
theory than that of Maxwell and Lorentz has been
able to hold its own when tested by experience.”
Rather than using Doppler shifts to account
for the Dv’s observed in electron beams, Lorentz
proposed that particles were compressed along
the axis of motion at relativistic speeds. At best,
Einstein was saying his theory was kinematic
when he declared, “The theory of relativity leads
to the same law of motion, without requiring any
special hypothesis whatsoever as to the structure
and the behavior of the electron.” In the context
of Coulomb chain reactions, it is not rational to
assume that the messenger does not affect the
message, and that particles known to have charge
and mass drop those quantities to obey theories
with no explanations.
The Michelson-Morley experiment is the
most famous piece of evidence purportedly
Leicester, North Carolina 28748 USA  7

mirror
mirror
coherent semi-silvered
light mirror
source
detector
FIGURE 8 Simplified schematic of the Michelson-Morley experiment.
supporting relativity theory. (See Figure 8.) Einstein
acknowledged several unscientific explanations. For
example:
• Lorentz and FitzGerald rescued the theory from this
difficulty by assuming that the motion of the body
relative to the æther produces a contraction of
the body in the direction of motion, the amount of
contraction being just sufficient to compensate for
the difference in time mentioned above.
• According to [relativity theory] there is no such
thing as a ‘specially favored’ (unique) coordinate
system to occasion the introduction of the æther-
idea, and thence there can be no æther drift, nor
any experiment with which to demonstrate it.
A simpler explanation for the constancy of the
speed of light in the Michelson-Morley experiment,
however, is that there is no relative net motion
or changes in density of the molecules within the
apparatus, creating no cause for Coulomb chain
reactions to be accelerated or decelerated.
One mystery this review does not attempt to touch
is the advance of the perihelion of Mercury. Some
dissident physicists turned off by relativity theory are
not impressed with the accuracy of relativity theory’s
prediction.7 There could be many reasons, such as
non-uniform mass distributions in the planet or the
Sun or a meteor strike. Einstein declared, “This effect
can be explained by means of classical mechanics
only on the assumption of hypotheses which have
little probability, and which were devised solely for
this purpose.”
A Shortage of Experiments
Sometimes Einstein’s prose is very unscientific.
At one point, he declares, “The special theory of
relativity has rendered the Maxwell-Lorentz theory
so plausible, that the latter would have been generally
8  electric space craft  November 11, 2008  Issue 44
accepted by physicists even if experiment had
decided less unequivocally in its favor.”
On page 53 of his relativity-for-liberal-arts-majors
discourse, Einstein gives no reason for dropping the
½ coefficient from his equation of kinetic energy. “In
accordance with the theory of relativity the kinetic
energy of a material point of mass m is no longer
given by the well-known expression mv2/2, but by
the expression
mc 2
1- v2 / c 2 .”
Whereas Einstein merely multiplies or divides by
the Lorentz coefficient to obtain other relativistic
expressions, in this situation, he doubles the kinetic
energy term as well, with no explanation. He then
uses the KE term without the ½ coefficient in a series
expansion where it clearly belongs:8
v2 3 v 4
2
mc + m + m 2 + ...
2 8 c
For all the reader knows, the type-setter erred, and
the real equation of the century is but the ho-hum E
= ½ mv2. This is an equation that never implied that
energy and mass were different forms of the same
substance; only that the energy of a body in motion
was a function of its mass and velocity. Somehow,
potential energy got folded into the equation in the
elimination of the ½ coefficient, but the reader is
left guessing. Einstein states that if a body absorbs
a certain amount of energy, by virtue of E = mc2,
its mass increases. More absurdly, as observers in
reference frames with nonzero relative velocity
watch this object gain energy, it would, according to
several interpretations of Einstein, simultaneously
gain and lose energy in varying degrees by virtue
of their motions. One can only hope an error in the
translation changed “inertia/momentum” to “inertial
mass,” but this is not likely.
Einstein gives no good reason in this chapter (XV)
for invoking the Lorentz transformation. “A direct
comparison of this relation with experiment is not
possible at the present time, owing to the fact that
the changes in energy E0 to which we can subject
a system are not large enough to make themselves
perceptible as a change in the inertial mass of the
system.”
Einstein wraps up the chapter concluding that
instantaneous action at a distance does not exist.
This is not supported by anything in the preceding
argument. Einstein simply explains, “this is connected
with the fact that the velocity c plays a fundamental
role in this theory.”
Finding Einstein’s explanation of the Lorentz
transformation too hand-wavy, J.D. Jackson was
consulted.9 On the origin of the Fresnel/Fizeau
equation, he states:
An Educational Science Toy
We note that this result can be made consistent from Electric Spacecraft, Inc.
with the æther being dragged along by the earth
only by assuming that smaller bodies are partially
successful in carrying the æther with them. Even Electro Flyer Kit
then the assumption is rather artificial in that their
effectiveness at carrying the æther involves their
indices of refraction. (Actually, formula 11.3 is a
  $14.50
theoretical one proposed in 1818 by Fresnel on the Only $13.50/kit for ESJ subscribers
basis of a model in which the density of the elastic (quantity pricing on pg. 34)
æther in matter is proportional to n2.)
Spark young, curious
A credible, physical interpretation appears to have minds into serious
first been expressed in Renshaw’s paper. thinking about
electrostatics and have
Notes fun at the same time!
1 Craig Bohren noted that undergraduate texts often
erroneously assert that the pitch of waves increases Electrostatically charge
as objects approach and decreases as they recede. the Electro Wand to
In actuality, wavefronts are compressed and then levitate the Electro
relaxed so the observer hears a signal that shifts Flyer Ring or Electro
from high to low.
2 Jefimenko, Oleg D., Electromagnetic Retardation
Flyer Ribbon. Easy-
and Theory of Relativity, 2nd ed., (Star City, West to-follow instructions,
Virginia: Electret Scientific Company, 2004), pp. ideas for games &
235-266. simple experiments,
3 _____, Causality, Electromagnetic Induction, and
1 Electro Wand, 2
Gravitation: A Different Approach to the Theory of
Electromagnetic and Gravitational Fields, 2nd ed., Electro Flyer Rings,
(Star City: Electret Scientific, 2000). and 24" of Electro Flyer Ribbon are all
4 Kulba, Leslee, “What Part of Coulomb’s Law Don’t included.
You Understand?” ESJ 37: 13-23.
5 Stern, David P. and Paredo, Mauricio, “Particle
  Physics teachers can use
Drifts in Space,” The Exploration of the Earth’s the Electro Flyer Kit as a
Magnetosphere, http://arc.iki.rssi.ru/mirrors/ classroom tool to illustrate
stern/Education/wdrift.html, November 2002. fundamentals of atomic
Italics added.
charge, electron transfer,
6 Renshaw, Curt, “The Experiment of Fizeau as a Test
of Relativistic Simultaneity,” ESJ 44: 30-33. insulation and induction. Fun
7 The theoretical value depends on which of several for kids and adults!
factors, which continue to unfold, are taken into
consideration. See for example, Davies, Paul, The
New Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992), pp. 13-14.
8 Hint: What is the next term in the series?
9 Jackson, JD, Classical Electrodynamics, (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1967), p. 349.
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