Relativity Contradictions Unveiled: Kinematics, Gravity and Light Refraction

Physicists have been taught that lengths contract when clock rates slow on a moving object. However, in order to satisfy the light-speed constancy postulate, it is essential that lengths expand whenever clocks slow down, and in exactly the same proportion. The fact that relativity theory leads to opposite predictions of experimental results depending on how it is applied is traced to an assumption Einstein made in his original derivation of the Lorentz transformation. By relying instead on the everyday experience of the GPS methodology, it is possible to define a different space-time transformation that still satisfies Einstein s postulates but removes all contradictions in the existing theory. It also enables a return to a purely objective view of the measurement process by assuming that the standard units in which the laws of physics are expressed vary systematically between different rest frames. This approach allows for quantitative prediction of key experimental results caused by gravity such as the angle of displacement of star images during solar eclipses. It also leads to a challenge to Einstein s General Theory of Relativity regarding the precession of orbiting satellites. These results permit a much more sanguine assessment of Newton s vision of the Universe in terms of a strict separation between space and time. The book also points out a previously unnoticed connection between his corpuscular theory of light and the key quantum mechanical relationships first discovered at the dawn of the 20th century.