Eric Baird

One of the greatest challenges of quantum gravity is the resolution of the black hole information paradox, a disagreement between classical and quantum theory as to whether and how massenergy and information can escape a gravitational horizon. The disagreement appears when a classical physics based on Minkowski spacetime is compared to the predicti...

The paper analyses (in some cases, apparently for the first time) a number of common proofs and supporting arguments for the correctness and unavoidability of special relativity. It finds a pattern of bad fact-checking, bad analysis (or no analysis!), bad logic, math and geometry, and a tendency for the community to repeat impressive-sounding stat...

Einstein’s 1905 special theory of relativity is famous for supposedly depending on only two postulates. In reality, the special theory requires at least one additional postulate or definition to separate it from other relativistic models. Each possible form of this third required postulate seems to be at odds with basic principles and accepted phys...

The unavoidability of velocity-dependent gravitomagnetic effects, with more than twenty(!) supporting arguments explaining why these effects must exist, ranging from conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, observerspace principles and classical and quantum theory requirements, to the necessity of v-gm for accelerative and rotational gravi...

n this paper we identify three interlinked, interdependent, and mutually-supporting principles that run through Einstein’s work, and seem to have guided him through his career: the symmetry of the equations of inertial physics, the symmetry of the equations of gravitational physics, and time-symmetry.

The degree of unlikeliness in Einstein’s rise to preeminence is judged by the number of people who had to die at appropriate moments for him to become successful.

This is an archived copy of the article "Problems with Einstein's general theory of relativity", that was briefly on Wikipedia between ~10th September 2024 and ~20th November 2024, at which point it failed to survive a vote for deletion. During that time, it was online at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problems_with_Einstein's_general _theory_of_r...

Part of a series. This paper addresses the incompatibilities between modern cosmology and Einstein’s assumed symmetries of Doppler shifts, gravitational shifts and timeflow.

Current planned geometries for robotic lunar landers are not always ideal for touchdown on the lunar surface. It may be preferable for these craft to change to a different configuration while weightless, before attempting a landing.

Time-symmetry is assumed to be a basic feature of theoretical physics, even though timeflow in real life has an obvious forward bias. Despite Eddington's characterisation of classical theory as symmetrical, Newtonian physics was time-asymmetrical, and time-asymmetry is also required for gravitomagnetism, relativistic gravitation and general relativ...

Part of a series. Gravitational shift-symmetry in Einstein’s universe requires curvature horizons to be absolute horizons rather than relative. The resulting event horizons are incompatible with wider relativistic principles, local physics, and classical and quantum theory.

In Einstein’s universe, the basic Doppler relationships are symmetrical with respect to velocity. This behaviour is incompatible with gravitomagnetism and gravitational waves. It is also incompatible with relativistic gravitation and the general principle of relativity, as these require gravitomagnetism.

The constant energy-losses associated with the continual emission of small gravitational waves breaks the energy-accounting of Einstein's system, suggesting that new equations of motion need to be asymmetrical with respect to time. The decay of µg waves may power cosmological expansion. If the information encoded in µg waves is lost on decay, then...

Examines the standard assumption that a geometrical theory of gravity must reduce to SR physics over small regions. Concludes that the reduction is "unphysical", and that a general theory can //at best// only give SR as a "null solution", since a flat-spacetime description can only apply under a general theory to a region devoid of matter. Accord...

Comparing Einstein's route to general relativity via SR equations and flat spacetime, to an alternative route via Newtonian equations and gravitomagnetism.

Part II of a series. This part derives the necessary universality of gravitomagnetic effects, their required strength, and the gravitomagnetic equations needed to replace those of special relativity.

Relativistic Gravitation (“RG”) is the application of the principle of relativity to bodies with gravitational fields. The finite speed of gravitational signalling required by relativity means that the motion of gravitational sources must always be associated with gravitomagnetic side-effects. Since gravitomagnetism does not exist in the SR equatio...

Key papers by deSitter and Brecher on the optics of double-stars concluded that the velocity of light was independent of the velocity of the source. These papers used ballistic emission theory's assumption that a given light-signal only has a single fixed velocity, applying over astronomical distances. They did not not rule out variable-c models, s...

The continuum principle under classical theory says that mass and momentum must be smeared out to produce a mass-field and a momentum-field. The mass-field is the gravitational field, the momentum-field is the gravitomagnetic field. Under QM, mass and momentum have probability-fields. To support SR's flat-spacetime equations, Einstein's 1916 gene...

A simple thought-exercise using only Newtonian gravity reveals how the effective gravitational field differential between two bodies depends on how they are moving.

When the universe is described from a rotating frame, circling environmental matter is seen to drag light around with it, completely. If the universe is also hyperspherical (spatially finite and unbounded), then the effect applies to matter travelling along a “great circle”, equivalent to a flow of matter moving in a straight line at constant veloc...

The principle of visible consistency – that physics should not only //be// consistent but should ideally also be //seen// to be consistent – leads to the prediction of Doppler- equivalent gravitomagnetic effects (“//motion without motion//”). The observerspace principle and gravitomagnetic principles appear to be deeper and more fundamental than sp...

A gravitomagnetic description of a region’s inertial physics does not “project” to give flat Minkowski spacetime. Further, inspection of the supposedly shared components of Einstein’s special theory and a “generic” general theory shows that the two systems are distinctly different, and do not interface. Einstein’s artificial engineering of the defi...

Special relativity's Doppler relationships require the absence of complicating gravitomagnetic ("gm") effects. Since the presence of gravitomagnetism alters the form of the Doppler relationships away from those of SR, and we are allowed only a single Doppler relationship per theory, a larger theory cannot support both gravitomagnetism and SR. A leg...

Einstein’s special and general theories make irreconcilably different predictions for the behaviour of forcibly-accelerated masses. Since both sets of arguments are provably correct in context, the two classes of theory are not compatible.

A receding horizon-bounded body generates an "effective", gravitomagnetic horizon between the observer and the usual r=2M horizon surface. This purely observer-dependent horizon does not obey SR concepts of causality or the SR shift relationships, and its classical behaviours instead correspond to those of acoustic metrics and of quantum mechanics...

Although SR-style "frame" arguments work well in flat spacetime, the mass-dependent curvatures inherent in a general theory of relativity prevent a physical observer's local properties from being extrapolated cleanly across the surrounding region. We question the geometrical sense of using frame arguments in a general theory, list some of the resul...

The Lorentz equation used by Einstein's special theory has a comparatively small number of "special case" solutions where the input velocity and the output ratio can both be defined exactly with a fairly small number of digits. This paper identifies the "simple" solutions that work in base ten, for up to five decimal places.

An unusual and nonintuitive method is presented for constructing the fractal outline of the Koch snowflake. In this exercise the shape emerges as a phase boundary after tiling a diamond-shaped space with maximal diamond-shaped tiles of alternating orientation.

Vector graphics file for the "Dragon's Eye" Koch Snowflake construction. Each generation of tiles has been merged into a single object, so that users can easily create different versions of the image, with different details suppressed, or different colour schemes with different fills, outlines, etc.

Coloured version of the image, with progressively lighter shading for each generation of tiles.

In a two-body problem, special relativity allows us to select an unoccupied exactly intermediate frame for the propagation of light, for which there is no relative Lorentz time dilation or length contraction between object and observer. This gives the standard SR physical outcomes purely as a result of signal-propagation effects. The approach still...

Special relativity is often presented as making qualitatively novel predictions. We show that the physical relationships of the 1905 special theory are not radically new: they are necessarily the exact geometric mean of the effects predicted by simple signal-propagation arguments. The "aberration redshift" effect is briefly compared to SR's "transv...

The idea of unseen "dark matter" is commonly invoked to explain the stronger-than-expected gravitational properties of galaxies. Despite serious experimental efforts, no independent detection of dark matter is yet considered to have been unambiguously successful. With experimental data failing to confirm more and more dark matter candidates, it is...

An overview of Brighton Toy and Model Museum’s exploration of photogrammetry during 2017-2019.

The "Jerusalem Cube" and "Jerusalem Square" fractals were first put online by the author in 2011, and have since gained a degree of popularity. This paper documents the background to their discovery.

Variations in massenergy density due to the presence and relative motion of particulate matter must, on principle, involve deviations from flat spacetime, and velocity-dependent changes in geometry due to moving masses must then be associated with deviations from Minkowski spacetime, and from the equations of special relativity. Since special relat...

It has been widely assumed that the "arrow of time" problem is a general one, and appears in all classical models. A previous paper has shown that the problem does not appear in C19th Newtonian theory. We now show that, within the range of potential relativistic solutions, the "arrow" problem only arises with special relativity.

It is widely assumed that the predictions, equations, and descriptions of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics are symmetrical with respect to time, prompting the question of how it is that known real-world asymmetries can result from time-symmetrical equations. We identify a fundamental time-asymmetry in the Newtonian Doppler equations, and explore i...

According to the Einstein Equivalence Principle (EEP), any classical curved-spacetime geometrical theory of gravity must reduce to the physics of special relativity over small regions. However, the existence of null solutions means that a flat-spacetime geometry does not always equate to a flat-spacetime physics-in the "Cliffordian" acoustic-metric...

As demonstrated by Columbia University's "Proto-CIRCUS" plasma containment device, a flexible "Villarceau torus" – an array of interlocking rigid Villarceau-circle coils with adjustable or flexible mountings – can be used to create toroidal fields with variable geometry. We review some basic results relevant to Villarceau circles and fixed and vari...

A set of nine identical Villarceau rings assembled to form a compact hollow toroidal shell.

A single Villarceau ring (red), embedded in the surface of a "fatter" torus that has the same major radius.

A five-ring Villarceau coil, opened out to bound a comparatively fat toroidal volume. This is approaching the maximum angle that this particular set of rings can be raised to.

Under current theory, Einstein's 1916 general theory of relativity applies the Doppler equations of special relativity to motion shifts and gravitational shifts, while cosmological shifts are thought to obey a different shift law. However, geometrical considerations require these arguments and equations to be interchangeable. If this geometrical ar...

A downloadable 3D model of the basic six-faced building block (and bounding polygon) for the "Koch curve"-based "Delta" fractal. This is for the benefit of anyone who wants to build the fractal themselves in a 3D modelling program, but would like a ready-made model of the basic unit to get them started. The file is in .stl format, which should load...

A downloadable 3D model of the "Koch curve"-based "Delta" fractal, third iteration. The file is in .stl format, which should load into most 3D modelling and/or rendering programs (click the "View" button on the right to get to the download link).

A downloadable 3D model of the "Koch curve"-based "Delta" fractal, eleventh iteration. The file is in .stl format, which should load into most 3D modelling and/or rendering programs, memory permitting (click the "View" button on the right to get to the download link). I think that the number of triangles in this model should be 6×3^11, so ... som...

Pages 350-351 from the "Relativity in Curved Spacetime" book, giving a simple, exact, "Newtonian" derivation of the famous E=mc² result, that does not rely on special relativity. Although the result is historically associated with SR, the Newtonian derivation is, if anything, slightly simpler.

Three pages (p.354-356) from the back of the "Relativity in Curved Spacetime" book, outlining the indirect escape mechanism that happens with Newtonian dark stars, and which, when modelled statistically, gives results that are not obviously distinguishable from the physical results of Hawking radiation.

Pages 352-353 from the "Relativity in Curved Spacetime" book, giving the trig calculation of "transverse" redshifts under Newtonian theory. Since Newtonian relativity requires the angles of rays leaving a moving body to be "aberrated" so that they point more forwards, a detector aimed at 90 degrees in the lab will not receive a ray that was origina...

A page from "Alt.Fractals". This diagram demonstrates that starting with a tetrahedron and repeatedly adding half-scale daughter tetrahedra to the free faces doesn't produce a "Koch Snowflake"-type shape, but instead creates a solid whose shape converges on a cube.

This is a basic 3D render of the shape described in "The Koch curve in three dimensions". The shape is a network of identical edge-connected six-sided polyhedra, each of with can be repeatedly divided into smaller and smaller copies.

The paper describes an approach to extending the Koch curve into three dimensions. An intermediate stage is a two-dimensional Koch "leaf", a shape with zero area bounded by three Koch curves. The final delta-shaped fractal solid has an infinite number of planar facets, each of which is a Koch leaf.

We present diagrams and simple calculations for the apparent (i.e. photographable) length of a moving ruler skimming the observer's position, under three different classes of model. Special relativity's predictions in this particular situation are the root-product average of the two more basic first-order predictions generated by simple "propagatio...

Einstein's goal of producing an advanced gravitational model that was independent of special relativity's "non-gravitational" derivations has arguably still not been achieved. The author produced a paper in 1998 outlining a possible method of attack on the problem based on shift equivalence principles ("Doppler mass shift"). Some problems with this...

Isaac Newton is usually associated with the idea of absolute space and time, and with ballistic light-corpuscle arguments. However, Newton was also a proponent of wave/particle duality, and published a "new" variable-density aether model in which light and matter trajectories were either bent by gravitational fields, or deflected by an aether densi...

Transverse redshift effects are sometimes presented as being unique to special relativity (the "transverse Doppler effect"). We argue that if the detector is aimed at 90 degrees in the laboratory frame, most theories will predict a redshifted frequency at the detector, although these predictions can be concealed by specifying that angles should be...

We generate a set of "relativistic" predictions for the relationship between viewing angle and apparent frequency, for each of three different non-transverse shift equations. We find that a detector aimed transversely (in the lab frame) at a moving object should report a redshift effect with two out of the three equations.

The E=mc^2 relationship is not unique to special relativity. Einstein published one exact derivation from special relativity and two approximate derivations that used general extensions to Newtonian mechanics, and an exact derivation is also possible if we use a "first-order" Doppler equation instead of special relativity's "relativistic Doppler" f...

Coule's primary objection to the Alcubierre "warpdrive" is that the material producing the warp field needs to be superluminal. This difficulty is solved by placing the drive material inside its own warp field (making the drive system part of the payload), but we then have to deal with Low's related objection, that there is then a restricted rate a...

Olum (PRL 81 3567-3570, 1998) has defined "superluminality" as the ability of a signal path to carry information faster than any neighbouring signal path, and has suggested that this requires a negative energy-density. However, this condition can be created without exotic matter if we are only sending information along the delivery path in one part...

Equivalence principles are a major part of modern relativity theory. Gravitational shifts can already be calculated within the time domain as motion shifts, and we examine the consequences of reversing this argument and describing motion shifts outside the time domain, as effects of curvature associated with relative velocity. This unusual "Doppler...

When an information-carrying lightbeam is (legally) swept across a surface at more than c, simple signal-propagation arguments allow the observed behavior of the moving image (or "sprite") to include time-reversal and pair-production effects. A pair-production description also arises if we try to impose some common assumptions of general relativity...

Simple signal-propagation effects make receding objects seem contracted and approaching objects seem elongated. These effects are theoretically photographable, and are proportional in strength to the frequency-change in the object's emitted light. In a one-dimensional version of the "barn-pole" experiment, a "moving" object's photographed image can...

Section 7 of Einstein's 1905 electrodynamics paper gives frequency-shift and aberration formulae that together describe an elongated ellipsoidal wavefront. A Lorentz contraction of this ellipsoid solves most (but not all) of the associated relativistic problems.

Contenido: Parte I Repaso de física: 1) La velocidad del la luz; 2) Gravedad, energía y masa; 3) Espacio y tiempo curvos; 4) Relatividad; 5) Catástrofe newtoniana. -- Parte II Doble efecto en movimiento relativo: 6) Cambios dopler; 7) Aparente cambio de longitud en cuerpos en movimiento; 8) Aberración de ángulos; 9) Arrastre de luz de los cuerpos e...