Al McDowell
Al McDowell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Residence | Raleigh, NC, United States |
| Nationality | USA |
| Alma mater | Syracuse University, Cornell University |
| Known for | Physics, Cosmology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, Cosmology |
Al McDowell is an American engineer, economist, and independent theorist who is the author of the book Uncommon Knowledge: New Science of Gravity, Light, the Origin of Life, and the Mind of Man (2009). A critic of Einstein's theory of relativity and of the expanding-universe model of cosmology, McDowell advocates a revival of the aether-based physics associated with the nineteenth-century Le Sage theory of gravitation.
Biography
McDowell earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, where he graduated as University Salutatorian, and later received a Ph.D. in business economics from Cornell University. His subsequent career was spent in high-technology product management at large companies and in founding several smaller ones, work that he describes as only tangentially related to his later writing on physics. He is now retired and resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Scientific contributions
In Uncommon Knowledge, McDowell presents an alternative framework for physics based on the century-old Le Sage theory of an "ether," which he argues was displaced by Einstein's theory of relativity. He contends that astronomical data contradict the theory that the universe is expanding from a Big Bang, and that experiments generally believed to confirm relativity in fact support the ether theory.
Central to the book is what McDowell calls "spheriton" theory, which proposes that four sizes of subatomic hollow spheres underlie the operation of gravity, electric and magnetic fields, light and radio waves. Freed from the speed-of-light limit imposed by relativity, these particles are said to travel faster than light and to account for gravity, electromagnetism, and human consciousness. The book comprises chapters on the non-expanding universe and redshift, a critique of relativity, the cause of gravity, the cause of electromagnetism, the science of consciousness, and two chapters on the "ancient aliens" theme drawing on the writings of Zecharia Sitchin, together with a short introduction and summary.
McDowell summarizes his objection to the standard defense of relativity as follows:
- If you think relativity is false, you don't understand it.
- If you don't understand it, you can't prove it false.
He characterizes this reasoning as reducing to the claim that "if you think relativity is false, you can't prove it false."
Abstracts
- 2015 - "Hubble's Law and Dark Energy are False"
- 2012 - "Why Relativity is False" (Read in full)
Books
- 2009 - "Uncommon Knowledge: New Science of Gravity, Light, the Origin of Life, and the Mind of Man" (Read in full)
External links
- Uncommon Knowledge at AuthorHouse
- Uncommon Knowledge at Goodreads