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Sjaak Uitterdijk

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Sjaak Uitterdijk
NationalityDutch
Known forCritical mathematical analysis of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity; the book Physics since Einstein
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Relativity, Cosmology

Sjaak Uitterdijk is a Dutch electronics engineer and independent critic of modern theoretical physics. Trained in electronics rather than in academic physics, he has published a long series of papers on the viXra e-print archive arguing that Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity rests on manipulative mathematics, and that a great deal of twentieth-century physics built on it — space-time, black holes, gravitational waves, E = mc2, quark models of the nucleus and the particle–wave duality — must be rejected along with it. His critiques are collected in the freely distributed book Physics since Einstein.

Biography

Little biographical detail is publicly documented. In the prologue to Physics since Einstein Uitterdijk writes that he first heard, at about sixteen years of age, the claim that only a handful of extremely intelligent scientists could understand Einstein's 1905 theory, and that "after having successfully completed my academic study Electronics" he decided to take up that challenge and investigate the Special Theory of Relativity for himself. Having read the first ten pages of Einstein's paper "for the umpteenth time", he concluded that either the theory was comprehensible only to geniuses or it was simply wrong — and set out to test the second possibility. That investigation became his first chapter, "Einstein's and Galilei's Principle of Relativity", posted to viXra in 2016.

He writes from the Netherlands: the epilogue of Physics since Einstein records that in December 2018 he circulated his article "Special Theory of Relativity based on fraudulent science?" by e-mail to roughly 7,500 physicists — from students to professors, including Nobel laureates and members of the Nobel Prize Committee for physics — and that he separately and explicitly notified the Commission Scientific Integrity (CWI) at Delft in the Netherlands. The same epilogue reproduces the rejection letters he received from Cambridge University Press, Springer and Wiley-VCH when he sought a conventional publisher for the book, which is why it circulates as a free e-book instead. His ResearchGate profile also lists earlier engineering work on the analysis and design of hydraulic servo systems for a fatigue-testing installation of the Royal Netherlands Army.

Scientific contributions

Critical mathematical analysis of Special Relativity

Uitterdijk's central and most-cited argument is a close reading of §3 of Einstein's 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", set out in Critical Mathematical Analysis of the Special Theory of Relativity (viXra:2310.0066). His claim, in his own words, is that "Einstein obtained his transformation formulas by applying striking manipulative mathematics."

The argument runs roughly as follows. Einstein begins by setting x' = x – vt and then asserts that a point at rest in the moving system k has values x', y, z independent of time — which Uitterdijk regards as a contradiction in terms, since x' = x – vt is manifestly a function of time. Einstein then introduces ξ = cτ and writes x'/(c – v) = t, which amounts to silently redefining x' = x – vt into x' = ct – vt, and with it the originally time-independent coordinate x into x = ct. Having used that substitution to obtain his intermediate expression for ξ, Einstein then reverts to the original x' = x – vt to reach the final formulas. Uitterdijk argues that the definition ξ = cτ is in any case misplaced, because ξ is then made to stand for two fundamentally different coordinates at once, and that the resulting transformation does not satisfy its own premise: if ξ/τ = c is the premise, then (x – vt)/(t – vx/c²) should also equal c, which it does not except in the special case x = ct. He concludes that "the shown manipulative mathematics thus have reduced the Special Theory of Relativity to a meaningless epistle", and suggests that the re-introduction of the undetermined function φ(v) served to camouflage the switch of definitions.

"Fraudulent science?"

A second strand of the argument, given as chapter XXX of Physics since Einstein under the title "Special Theory of Relativity based on fraudulent science?" — of which he writes that the chapter "makes it highly likely that the question mark in the title has to be an exclamation mark" — concerns Einstein's light postulate and its later treatment. Uitterdijk holds that in speaking of the "stationary" system, Einstein effectively reintroduced the ether he had just rejected: since no absolute stationary system exists, a system can only be stationary with respect to another, and that other system is equally stationary with respect to the first, so a singly privileged "stationary" system is senseless. The scientific establishment, he argues, tacitly recognised this after Einstein's death and replaced the postulate with the still stronger and, in his view, more unphysical assumption that the velocity of light in vacuum is c relative to whatever reference — while retaining the conclusions of the original theory word for word and without ever deriving them anew from the changed postulate. Because no reference documents this substitution, he considers the manoeuvre itself to resemble deceit. Among his conclusions is a call to rehabilitate Walther Ritz and his emission theory.

Consequences drawn for the rest of physics

Uitterdijk treats the collapse of Special Relativity as fatal to everything erected on it, and Physics since Einstein works through the consequences in thirty-six chapters. Among the positions he defends there and in separate viXra papers:

  • E ≠ mc² — in Experimental Evidence of E≠mc2 he argues that published measured energies of cosmic rays are themselves enough to make both E = mc² and the relativistic expression for kinetic energy untenable.
  • GPS — the chapter "Correcting for relativity in GPS makes no sense" argues that the supposed relativistic corrections are negligible compared with the positional errors caused by atmospheric conditions, so GPS accuracy cannot be cited as confirmation of the theory.
  • Black holes — Black Hole as a Philosophical Monstrosity contends that it can be shown "in a very easy philosophical way why black holes have nothing to do with real physics".
  • Cosmological redshift — Cosmological Redshifts Criticized argues that missions such as the James Webb telescope that aim to establish the origin and expansion of the universe from redshift measurements are doomed to fail.
  • The photon — Why a Photon Is Not a Particle develops, from Bohr's atomic model and long-established constants, the view that a photon is neither more nor less than an electromagnetic pulse of very short duration; matter waves and gravitational waves are each treated as "a fable".
  • Nuclear structure — Atomic Nuclei Modelled Without Exotic Particles and Magic Forces rejects quarks and gluons, which he regards as fantasy invoked to hold like charges apart and unlike charges asunder at the same time; Experimental Versus Theoretical Mass of U and D-Quarks pursues the same theme. In The Sources of Pure Mass and Electric Charges he proposes that the electron and the proton are the only ultimate building blocks of the universe.
  • Radiation and heat — several papers argue that Planck's theory of heat radiation is flawed, that Planck's spectrum expressed as a function of wavelength is untenable, and that the Stefan–Boltzmann constant is incorrect by a factor 2π.
  • Gravity and tides — How Fictitious Forces Instead of Gravity Create Tides notes that a cubic metre of ocean water is subject to about 9800 N of Earth's gravity against roughly 0.03 N from the Moon, and argues that the tides, including their double frequency, must therefore be explained by fictitious forces rather than by lunar gravitation.
  • De Sitter's experiment — De Sitter's Experiment Scrutinized re-examines the classic binary-star argument against Ritz's emission theory and concludes that De Sitter failed, through a wrong interpretation of his crucial parameter α.

Running through all of it is a methodological complaint stated at the head of Physics since Einstein: "Each scientist in physics has the moral responsibility to try to adapt mathematics to physics. Einstein adapted physics to his mathematics in his Special Theory of Relativity, with which the decay of physics began."

Discussed in CNPS talks

Uitterdijk's relativity critique has been taken up in the CNPS online seminar series:

Works

Book:

  • Physics since Einstein (155 pages, viXra:2107.0027, latest version 2022) — a collected volume of thirty-six chapters, distributed free after being declined by commercial publishers.

Selected papers on viXra:

External links

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