Could Einstein's Theory of Relativity be slipping into the past as a discredited misunderstanding?
And could it be replaced with an intuitive and simplified scientific truth that was discovered over a century ago?

A major turning point in the public’s understanding of science came about a century ago, with the introduction of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. Before then, educated laymen were expected to and usually could understand new developments in science, at least in outline. After Einstein this changed. Science moved beyond the ken of educated laymen. You didn’t understand what these new arguments were about? Then stick to your poetry, or perhaps your knitting. Science was becoming a private party to which you weren’t invited. (Except that, increasingly, your taxes were expected to pay for it.)

Newton’s laws of motion and gravity always were intelligible to the layman, and could be expressed in plain language. Einstein’s relativity changed that, in the direction of reduced clarity, intelligibility and vastly increased complexity. I shall go further and say that relativity failed to improve on Newtonian physics in terms of accuracy.

Recently I wrote a book about relativity, Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? It was based on the research and arguments of Petr Beckmann, who taught electrical engineering at the University of Colorado after defecting from Czechoslovakia in 1963. He wrote books that were both popular (A History of Pi) and obscure (The Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from Rough Surfaces), and late in life he published Einstein Plus Two (1987).

He argued that the facts that led to relativity could more easily be explained by classical physics – without relativity. His book was in many ways technical, but before he died (in 1993) he reviewed it for my benefit in a series of tape-recorded interviews.

remainder of article here


I am enamored of questioning the fundamentals.
I find the deepest delight in discovering that all events behave with the reason of an axiom.
There is value in asking questions of common assumptions, if only to define the axiom that defines the truth and explore further into the ramifications of that knowledge with a clear logical footing.
Sometimes it is found that there is no truth in old, confusing ideas at all. Perhaps the reason that Relativity Theory doesn't make sense to anyone outside the club is because it's just plain wrong?

(For all I know the luminiferous aether is the hard drive our program exists on.)