zotero-db/storage/KWBJQJPU/.zotero-ft-cache

THE RBLATIVITY QUESTION
by
Ian McCausland
CopyrightO 1988IanMcCausland Departrnentof Electrical Engineering
University of Toronto Toronto
CanadaM5S 1A4

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PREFACE
This essaydescribessome of my involvement in a scientific debateon Einstein's special theory of relativity. Much of this involvement has been as a supporter of the late ProfessorHerbert Dingle in his lonely crusadeagainstthe specialtheory and againstwhat he believed to be the dogmatic adherenceof the scientific community to that theory; not, it should be emphasized, against Einstein, whom he admired and respected and was proud to have known, but againsthis theory.
ProfessorDingle told his own story of his crusade,mainly in his book Scienceat the Crossroads which is frequently cited in the present book. The purpose of the present work is to augmentthat story by describing eventsthat took place after the publication of that book, to give an assessmentof the present situation, and to present some arguments in supportof ProfessorDingle's thesis. Although a decadehasnow elapsedsinceProfessor Dingle died, the story is still relevant becausethe questions that he raised have not been satisfactorily answered.
As far as I am aware, this is the only reasonablycomprehensiveaccount of Professor Dingle's crusadeagainstspecialrelativity, by anyoneother than himself. Even then, much of the story is told in ProfessorDingle's own words, in the form of letters written by him to various people, copies of which he sent to me in the hope that they would eventually be published. There are also some letters that were jointly written by him and a collaborator, Mr. Mark Haymon, and some letters that were written by Mr. Haymon himself. Replies to many of these letters are also included, and most of the correspondence is presented without detailed comment from me. If the presentation of thb correspondenceseemssomewhat one-sided,part of the reason is that some of those to whom letters were written by ProfessorDingle and Mr. Haymon did not reply, and some of those who did reply would not give me permission to publish their letters.
Since I am neither a physicist nor an expert on relativity, readersmay wonder what justification I have for writing about the relativity debate. I suggestthat it is possible to detect faults in a weakly-argued case,or in a poorly-conducted debate,without being an expert on the subject being debated. It is not necessaryto be an expert on relativity to perceive the ineptitude of many of the argumentsusedin defending the special theory, or the inconsistenciesamongthe defenders'arguments,or the scientificcommunity's blindnessto both. One doesnot needto be an experton relativity to notice the "hit-and-run" tactics adoptedby various relativists:thosewho publish statementssupportingthe orthodox point of view or scoffing at critics of the theory, and who when challenged retreat into silenceor claim that the subjecthas alreadybeendebatedenoughand shouldnot be re-opened. I do not need to be an expert on relativity to know when a journal editor's statedreasonfor rejecting a paper is completely unrelatedto the merits of the paper being rejected. I do not need any expert knowledge to experience a feeling of disgust when a leading scientific journal, which had for years shown great reluctanceto publish any more of the debate,allowed one of ProfessorDingle's critics to use ProfessorDingle's own obituary notice to presenta rebuttal of his argument,when he was unable to answer back.
I also present someof my own criticisms of the specialtheory itself. That does not mean that I claim to be in the same intellectual class as the originator of the theory. I suggestthat,just as it is possibleto detectflaws in the designof a building without being

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an architect,so it is possibleto detectflaws in a physical theory without being a physicist. I know, also, that some physicists claim that the only way to overthrow a theory is to produce a better theory to supersedethe old one. I do not accept that claim; one does not necessarilyexpect those who recommend the demolition of an obsolete and possibly unsafebuilding to have to design a new building to replaceit.
In my account of the debate I follow Professor Dingle's example in quoting the exact words of various participants in the debate. Since this sometimesinvolves the use of unpublished letters, I would like to make a statementabout the publication and quoting of correspondence. In all casesin which letters written by others are reproducedor paraphrased,I have tried to observethe principle of fair dealing. In many casesin which I felt that correspondentsmight be sensitive to the appearanceof their exact words, I have askedpermission to publish their letters. In some cases,however, mainly letters of rejection from editors of journals, I have quoted short letters verbatim without asking permission; I have done this becauseI believe that the accuratepresentationof that evidence is more important, from the ethical point of view, than the protection of the writer's copyright. Whenever permission to reproduce a letter has been sought and refused, I have respectedthe writer's wishes and have not reproduced the letter. However, even if permission to reproducea letter hasbeenrefused,I do not believe that a person has the right to expect that the existenceof a letter and the generalnature of its contents can remain secret, unless the letter has been marked confidential. Accordingly, when a letter has seemedimportant to the story but permission to publish it has been refused, I have paraphrasedit or given someindication of its contents,unlessthe letter is marked confidential or restricted in some similar way; in some cases,when the exaqt wording of a minor letter did not seem impoftant, I have simply paraphrasedit without going to the trouble of asking permission.
In any case,sincemany of the letters in question were written to ProfessorDingle, I should point out that much of the relevant correspondenceis publicly available, since copies of letters that were in the possessionof an eminent Canadianscientist,who had beenone of ProfessorDingle's students,are now in the ManuscriptsDivision of the Public Archives of Canadain Ottawa. Also, I understandthat ProfessorDingle's private papers were given to Imperial College, London, where they are presumably available for consultationby scholars.
I would like to acknowledgethe co-operationof ProfessorDingle and Mr. Haymon in providing copies of their correspondencewith various persons,and for their kind permission to reproduce that correspondence.Other writers who kindly gave perrnissionfor letters to be reproducedare acknowledgedin the text.
Ian McCausland Toronto Seprember1988

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

1

2 HISTORICALBACKGROUND

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3 DINGLE'S CRITICISMSOFTFIESPECIALTHEORY

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4 "SCIENCEAT THE CROSSROADS"

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5 REACTIONTO THE BOOK

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6 THE DEBATE CONTINUES

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7 THE ROYAL SOCIETY

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8 CORRESPONDENCIEN "THE ECONOMIST"

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9 THE COUNCILFORSCIENCEAND SOCIETY

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10 THE STATEAND TI{E CHURCH

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11 TI{E TWIN PARADOXREVISITED

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12 THE QUESTIONREMAINS

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13 THE LORENTZTRANSFORMATIONAND THE SPECIALTHEORY 7 8

74 INERTIAL FRAMES

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15 THE ROLEOFTI{E OBSERVER

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T6 THE SYNCHRONIZATIONOF CLOCKS

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17 EXPERIMENTALVERIFICATIONOFTHE SPECIALTHEORY?

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18 INCONSISTENCIESIN THE SPECIALTHEORY

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19 CONSENSUSORTRUTT{?

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20 AN OVERDUESCIENTIFICREVOLUTION?

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1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Changeosf viewarecontinuallyforceduponusby ourattempttso understanrdeality. Butit alwaysremainsfor thefutureto decidewhethewr echosetheonlypossible way out andwhetheror not a bettersolutionof our difficultiescouldhavebeen found. Albert EinsteinandLeopoldInfeld: TheEvolutionof Physics.
It would be difficult to exaggeratethe eminenceof Albert Einstein as a scientist,or the importanceattachedby the scientificcommunity to the specialand generaltheoriesof relativity, which he conceived during the early years of the twentieth century and on which his eminenceis largely based. Few peoplehave written more extensivelyon these theories,or over a longer period, than the late ProfessorHerbert Dingle. It is therefore an event of some significance that, about forty years after his first acquaintancewith the subject, ProfessorDingle came to the conclusion that the special theory of relativity, though mathematicallyconsistent,is physically impossible.
During the last twenty yearsof his life, from about 1958,ProfessorDingle devoted most of his scientific activity to an attempt to persuadethe scientific community that the special theory of relativity was untenable;after more tharl a decadeof frustration, he toli part of that story in his book Scienceat the Crossroadsl,published,in 1972. Althougir the scientific community remainedalmost unanimousin its conviction that Dingle was wrong, it alsoremainedremarkablyincoherentandinconsistentin its responsesto his criticisms, and one of the main purposesof this book is to draw attentionto some of the inconsistencies.It is very striking that scientists,who do not appearto haveeven noticed the glaring faults and inconsistenciesin argumentsthat have beenusedin defenceof the theory, remain firmly convinced that thereis no inconsistencyin the theory itself, and the inevitable questionarises:if scientistsare blind to the faults in the arguments,how can they be so surethat they are not also blind to a fault in the theory itself?
Another of the main purposesof this book is to continue the story of Professor Dingle's involvement in the relativity debatebeyond the activities describedin his own writings. In a sense,therefore, this book is a sequel to Science at the Crossroads,' although I hope that interestedreaderswho have not alreadydone so will read Dingle's book, I have tried to make this book self-contained,so that it can be understoodwithout having read the earlier book.
As ProfessorDingle repeatedlyclaimed, the understandingof his criticisms of the theory does not dependon difficult mathematicalideas,but rather on fundamentalconceptswhich require clear thinking rather than advancedscientific knowledge. I think it is fair to suggestthat Einstein himself would have been in sympathy with that claim (whetheror not he would have agreedwith the criticism), sincehe believed,accordingto
l. H. Dingle, Scienceat the Crossroads,Martin Brian & O'Keeffe, London (1972).

Infeld2, that the fundamental ideas in physics can all be represented in words. The presentbook, in the samespirit, attemptsto presentthe appropriateinformation and arguments,including someof my own arguments,in non-mathematicalanguage.
It is naturally with some trepidation that I attempt to follow Professor Dingle in bringing his story up to date by presenting this account of his thesis and of some of the responsesto it, sinceI cannothopeto match the eloquence,wit and style of his own writings. PerhapsI may excuse my presumptuousnesbsy quoting the following sentence from his last book The Mind of Emily Brontti 5: "To disinter from a massof diverse writing a common substratumdemandspenetrationof a far higher order, and the only ground on which I claim justification for attemptingthe taskis the absenceof competitors."
2 . L. Infeld, Quest:TheEvolution of a Scientist,DoubledayD, oran& Co.(1941). a H. Dingle, TheMind of Emily Brontii, Martin Brian& O'Keeffe,London(1974).

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CHAPTER 2
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
I felt very stronglythat scienceis too scientificto be left to the scientists.They are often swayedtoo stronglyby their emotionsto take a properlydetachedview, and cancauseuntoldharmto thefuturedevelopmenot f science. JohnTaylor:TheListener,TOctober,1971.
The special theory of relativity, the theory with which this book is largely concerned,originatedin a paperpublishedby Albert Einsteinin 1905,an Fnglish translation of which is included in a well-known collection of paperson relativityr. The first papers on the general theory appearedabout a decadelater.
The early part of Herbert Dingle's scientific careerwas contemporaneouswith the gowth of both scientific and public interestin relativity. Born in London on 2 August 1890,he received his B.Sc. degreefrom the Imperial College of Scienceand Technology, London, in 1918. Subsequentlyhe was successivelyDemonstrator, Lecturer, Reader and Professorof Natural Philosophy at Imperial College, during the period 19181946; he then became Professorof the History and Philosophy of Science at University College, London, a position which he occupied until becoming ProfessorEmeritus in 1955. He died in Hull, England,on 4 September1978
ProfessorDingle was a studentof relativity during the yearsin which the theory was making its greatestimpact. His first book on the subjectwas publishedin 19222,and he continued to publish his writings on relativity for well over half a century. One of his principal concerns,in his long studyof relativity, was the prediction of the specialtheory that a moving clock would run slow, relative to a stationaryclock. We shall have occasion to discussthis changeof relative clock ratesin more detail, later in this book; for the present,let us considerbriefly the developmentof Dingle's ideason this subject.
One of the early sourcesof Dingle's scepticismwas the famousclock paradox.This refers to a prediction, madeby Einstein in his original paperon specialrelativity, that, if two identical clocks were initially together,and if one of them went on a joumey and later retumed to the other clock, the one that had gone on the journey would show a shorter time interval between separationand reunion than the one that had not. According to some scientists,this prediction violated the principle of relativity, according to which the motion could with equal validity be ascribedto either clock; these scientists argued that both clocks must thereforeshow the sameinterval between separationand reunion.
l H. A. Lorentz,A. Einstein,H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl, The Principle of Relativiry, Methuen(1923).
2 . H. Dingle,Relativityfor AIl,Methuen(1922).

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The clock paradoxis closely relatedto the twin paradox,in which the two clocks are replaced by a pair of twins. If one twin went away on a very long high-speedjourney into space,then, according to the usual interpretation of the special theory, on his return he would have aged less than his twin who had stayed at home. Discussionsof this phenomenonare frequently embellished with picturesqueand amusing details: for example, the twins could be separatedat birth, and the ffaveller could return aged one year to find that his "twin" had becomean old man.
On the basis of the orthodox interpretation of the theory, special relativity could also be used to justify fantastic absurditiessuch as the case of Gilbert and Sullivan's character Iolanthe, who at the age of seventeenwas the mother of a son aged twentyfour. If the banishmentto which she was subjectedhad entaileda sufficiently long and high-speedjourney after the birth of her son,the relative agesinvolved would have been no problem -- to an orthodox relativist.
Although Dingle seemsto have never believed in the orthodox interpretation of the specialtheory on this point, namely that the asymmetricalageingwould occur,it was not until 1955 that he published a paper expressinghis scepticism. This led to a vigorous discussionboth in the scientificliteratureand in more popular writings. Since therehas been such an enofinousamountof publisheddiscussionabout the clock paradoxand the twin paradox, we shall not attempt to discussthem further here; an interesting survey of the diicussion can be found in a book by L. Marder3.
ProfessorDingle's scepticismabout the clock paradox eventually led him to the conclusionthat the specialtheory containsa fatal contradiction. Clearly, if the special theory is wrong, the clock paradox, which arosefrom the theory, becomesmuch less important. It is unfortunate that, becauseof the prominence of the clock-paradox controversy in the late fifties, it is this controversythat is linked with Dingle in many people's minds. Many writers continued to criticize his argumentsas if he was still arguing againstthe orthodox resolution of the paradox, despiteexplicit statementsto the conffary in his book. In fact, it was his attempt to convince the scientific world that the special theory was wrong that occupied much of his time and energy during the last twenty years of his life, andit is thatproblemwith which this book is mainly concerned.Although we are not geatly concemed with the clock paradox, there is one sffong similarity between that controversy and the controversy over the validity of the theory, namely the diversity of the replies that have beenmadein defendingthe orthodoxpoint of view. This diversity, in the case of the clock paradox, was described by Cullwick in the following words4:
On onething ProfessorDingle'scritics areall agreedt,hathe is wrong. They do not all agree,however,on the natureof his error. Somegive argumentswhich areno more thanillustrationsof the obviousfact thatthe reciprocalLorentztransformationis algebraically consistenqsomeclaim that the problemrequiresthe GeneralTheory of Relativity; and someappearto regardthe matteras settledby their knowledgeof four-dimensional space-time.Somearguewith patiencew, hile othersthinly disguisetheir iritation.

a J.

L. Marder,TimeandtheSpace-TravellerA,llen & Unwin (1971).

4 . E. G. Cullwick, "The Riddle of Relativity," Bulletin of the Instituteof Physics10pp.

52-57(March 1959).

After mentioning some of the diverse opinions on the subject, Cullwick continued as follows:
One is remindeda little of the baule of Arsuf, in the Third Crusade,when,led by Richard,the crusadersroutedthe infidel with muchblood andsatisfactionandthenstarted to slayeachother.
While Cullwick's comparisonmight have been appropriatein the caseof the controversy on the clock paradox, it is not such a good comparisonto the controversy on the vaiidity of the special theory. In the latter controversy the different defenders of the theory are, indeed, inconsistent with one another in their arguments, as in the former case. They do not, however, argue among themselves;they simply present their own argumentsand take no notice of the contrary ones. They are like blind men investigating an elephant, each asserting with confident certitude that the object of study is a tree, a rope, a snake,or whatever,all ignoring the assertionsof the others,and unanimousonly in their scornfuldenunciationof the personwho saysthat it is an elephant.
As I shall show, there is a great diversity among the replies that have been made to Dingle's claim that there is a connadiction in the specialtheory; despitethe fact that someof Dingle's critics connadict eachother, somecontradictEinstein,and someeven contradict themselves,few scientistsseemto be concernedabout the connadictions,and Dingle's critics still seemto be unanimouson only one thing -- that Dingle is wrong.
To illustrate someof the above-mentionedproblemsand attitudes,let us consideran example chosenfrom among the various inconsistentresponsesthat have beenmade to ProfessorDingle's thesis,in order to show that there is indeed an unresolvedproblem. This example is reasonablytypical of many of the other inconsistenciesi,n that it is peifectly obviousto anyonewho understandsthe English language,scientistor not.
InThe Listenerdated 11 November 197I, thereappearedan articlesby John Taylor, Professorof Mathematicsin King's College,London, in which he claimed that a certain experiment,commonly known as the Hafele-Keatingexperiment,which had then been recently conducted,supportedEinstein's special theory of relativity. ProfessorDingle rebutted this claim in a published letter, and further correspondencecontinued to be published. In a letter which appeared on 25 NovembeF M. A. Jaswon, Professor of Mathematics at City University, L,ondon,attemptedto defend the theory against Professor Dingle's arguments,but concededthat the experimentin questionhad "no relevance whateverfor the specialtheory". Although that statementwas inconsistentwith Professor Taylor's article, Taylor published anotherletter on 9 DecemberT,which continuedto attackProfessorDingle but took no notice whateverof the inconsistency.
If scientists had been concerned with the pursuit of truth, rather than with the discrediting of a heretic, one would have thought that some attempt wouid have been madeto resolvethe obviousinconsistencybetweenthe statementsof thosetwo defenders of the theory; yet, as any reader can verify, the published correspondenceshowed no
5 . J.Taylor,"Views," TheListener86 pp.642-&3 (1I November197l). 6. M. A. Jaswon,"Travelling Clocks," TheListener86p. 724(25November1971). 7 . J.Taylor, "Travelling Clocks," TheListener86 p. 804(9 Decemberl97l).

6
attemptto resolvethe inconsistency.
It should be strongly emphasizedthat the inconsistencybetweenthe statementsof ProfessorsTaylor and Jaswon does not arise from the inscrutability of nature, but from conflicting interpretations of a man-madetheory which scientistsclaim to understand. If two scientists,both writing aboutthe sametheory, make statementsthat are inconsistent with one another,then one or other of the following conclusionsis inevitable:
(1) One of the scientistshasmadean eror.
(2) The inconsistency between the statementsarises from an inconsistency that is inherentin the theory.
If neither scientistadmits to having made an error, and no other scientistpoints out an error, then the scientific community should adopt conclusion (2) and admit that Dingle was right in sayingthat thereis an inconsistencyin the specialtheory.
Before leaving this topic, let us considerthe last paragraphof ProfessorTaylor's original article inThe Listeney dated 11 November 1971, which refers to the HafeleKeating experimentasfollows8:
The experimenht asworked. It didn't reallyneeddoing,sinceEinstein'stheoryhad alreadybeentestedunder far more extremeconditions. But such a test had to be performed,if only to lay thedoubtingThomasesto rest. Requiescanitn pace. It seemsstrangethat a scientistshould statethat an experiment"didn't really need doing", implying that its result could have beenknown (ratherthan merely predicted)in advance. An experiment, by definition, carries no guaranteeof any particular outcome. Taylor's statementis, in my opinion, completelyunscientific,but is reasonablytypical of the complacentcertainty of their own rightnesswhich is a feature of the attitude of so many relativists.
Another very interestingfeatureof ProfessorTaylor's letter inThe Listener dated 9 December 1971 is the way it ends,in the following words: "I am sureProfessorDingle doesn't wish to come under the latter headingin the proverb: 'Those that can, create; thosethat can't, criticise.' " The inappropriatenesosf that remark may be judged by the fact that, at that time, ProfessorDingle's publishedwritings on relativity had spanneda period of almost fifty years, and that he wrote his first book on the subject several years before ProfessorTaylor was born.
In order to illustrate the great difficulty of getting members of the scientific community to debate the merits of the argumentsagainst the special theory, I shall now recount a small sequel to the above-mentionedcorrespondencein The Listener. In October 1983I publishedan articlevin which I drew attentionto various inconsistencies in the argumentsby which the specialtheory had been defended,including the inconsistencybetween the positions taken by Taylor and Jaswonin the correspondencethat
8. J. Taylor, "Views," TheListener86 pp. 642-643(11 November l97l). 9. I. McCausland,"Problems in SpecialRelativity," WirelessWorld 89, No. 1573pp. 63-65
( O c t o b e r1 9 8 3 ) .

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had appeared in The Listener. I sentcopiesof the article to various eminent professors whose argumentsI had criticized in the article, and ProfessorTaylor was kind enough to write to me aboutit, in a letter dated8 November 1983. Although he would not give me permission to reproduce his letter, the issue is much too important to allow the letter to be completely suppressed,so I shall indicate in generalterrnswhat he wrote.

ProfessorTaylor wrote that he might not have known about ProfessorJaswon's letter when he wrote his letter to The Listener. That is very easyto answer.The crucial letter from ProfessorTaylor, which appearedin the 9 December7971issue,referredto a letter of Dingle's that had appearedin the 2 Decemberissue;ProfessorJaswon'sletter
appearedin the 25 November issue.Since it seemsunlikely that a competentscientist would take part in a publishedcorrespondenceon a controversialsubjectwithout reading all the correspondenceup to that point, I think it is safeto reject the possibility that ProfessorTaylor had not seenProfessorJaswon'sletter when he wrote his own letter.

Professor Taylor also told me that he felt that I had a good point that there was indeed somethingto be clearedup about the issue. His initial feeling was that he was not dght in saying that the Hafele-Keating experiment justified special relativity but that Dingle was still wrong in his claim of an inconsistency.He agreedwith me that one of the other relativistshad beenratherunconvincingin what he wrote, but saidthat it is convincing enough when properly explained. He made some comments on the relevance of the general theory and the special theory to some of the problems in question, but said
that he would have to look at that more closely to be sure.

This letter was very received from a relativist

significant to me, in that it was the admitting that there was any flaw in

first the

relelattteivr isI tsh'acdaeseve.'Ir

wrote to Professor Taylor on November 18, acknowledging his letter and making some

other commentson points that he hadraised;I refrainedfrom making any suggestionthat

he publish some statementalong the lines of his letter, becauseI thought that such a

courseof action was so obviousthat therewas no needto belabourthe point. However,

when there was no sign that ProfessorTaylor plannedto publish anything aboutthe sub-

ject, I wrote to him on April 3, 1984,expressingthe hope that he planned to publish a

statementsimilar to that made in his letter to me. I suggestedthat, if he did not wish to write a new statement,perhapshe might be willing to give me permission to publish his letter. Professor Taylor replied, in a letter dated 9th April, saying that he had not had, nor would he have within the next few months, time to consider the matter in any more detail, and until he had done so he would not feel that he had done the problem (or himse10 sufficient justice. He asked me not to quote him on anything in his letter of November Sth.I replied by letter datedApril 23rd,in the following words:

Thankyou for your letterdated9th April. AlthoughI amgratefulfor the promptness of your reply,I am somewhadt isappointetdhatyou havenot yet hadtime to considerin any more detailthe questionsraisedin my Octoberarticleandin your letter dated8th
November1, 983.

While I do not claim the right to suggeswt hatyour prioritiesoughtto be in connection with this matter,I alsodo not wish to makeany commitmentthat would indefinitely precludemy makinguseof yourNovemberletterin someway shortof actuallypublishing it or making verbatimquotationsfrom it. I hope,therefore,that you can give me some estimateof the dateby which you will havebeenableto re-assesysour earlierstatements
on themattersin question.

8
ProfessorTaylor replied by letter dated 4th May, 1984. He told me about his various commitments to his researchstudentsand the associatedresearchprogramme, and to his Departrnent and College, which forced other matters to have lower priority; that was why he was unable to devote time to the relativity question at that time. He also repeated that he was unable to give me permission to quote from his letter, which was of the form of ideason work in progess.
Up to the end of August 1988, more than four years later, I have heard nothing further from ProfessorTaylor, nor am I aware that he has published anything further on the subject.I have observed,however,that he has had time to publish at leastone other new item, namely a book review that appearedin the 30 January 1986 issue of New Scientist. Since the reassessmenot f the relativity question seemsto have been pushed even further down on his list of priorities, I do not believe that I have an ethical obligation to keep silent any longer about ProfessorTaylor's letters to me; I do not think that it is reasonableto expectthat, in a strugglewith the Goliath of relativity, I shouldallow the opposition to place further restrictions on the ammunition that I am allowed to use. Readersmay judge for themselvesthe difficulty of getting relativists to admit publicly that thereare any flaws in the publisheddefencesof specialrelativity.

9

CHAPTER 3 DINGLE'S CRITICISMS OF THE SPECIAL THEORY

Howwonderfi.trhl atwehavemetwith aparadoxN. owwehavesomehopeof making progress. NielsBohr:Quotedby R. MooreinNielsBohr.

W"Hhoewn

Bohr visited Moscow,Lev Landau,also a Nobel prize winner, askedhim, is it thatCopenhageisn sucha famouscentreof theoreticapl hysicsandtrains

sBuochhrbarnilsliwanetrpeed"o:Tprluel?y", I don'[know. Perhaposnlybecausewe arenot afraidto ask

silly questionisn orderto clearup whatwedon'tunderstand."

LeopoldInfeld:NielsBohrandEinstein(inWhyI lzft Canada)

The greatquestionsarethosean intelligentchild asksand,gettingno answer,stops
asking. GeorgeWald: Quotedby ArthurKoestlerinThe Ghostin theMachine.

As was mentioned in Chapter 2, ProfessorDingle's conviction that there is a fatal flaw in special relativity arose from the scepticism that had been aroused by the clock paradox. As he pointed out in his bookl, a paradoxariseswhen, from the samepremises P, two apparentlycontradictoryconclusions,X and Y, seeminescapablyto follow. Such a paradoxcan be resolvedif andonly if one of the following thingscan be shown:
(1) the conclusionsare not really contradictory,
(2) conclusionX doesnot follow,
(3) conclusionY doesnot follow,
or
(4) the premisesP containa contradiction. Suppose,for example,that thereare two identical clocks A and B, initially together
and mutually synchronized. Supposethat A moves away from B at uniform speed,and later turns aroundandreturnsto B at the samespeed.
In terms of the notation above, assume that the premises P are the axioms and definitions on which the special theory of relativity is based,conclusion X (symmetrical ageing) is that the readings of A and B are equal at the reunion of the two clocks, and conclusion Y (asymmetrical ageing) is that the readings of A and B are unequal at their reunion. Clearly X and Y are contradictory, ruling out possibility (1) of the first
1. H. Dingle, Scienceat the Crossroads,MartinBrian & O'Keeffe, London (1972).

10

paragraph. As Dingle pointed out, Einstein in his original paper acceptedconclusionY but did not disprove conclusion X. It should be emphasizedthat all additional proofs of either X or Y do nothing to resolve the paradox, because any such proof does not disprove the other result; since Dingle was unable to disprove Y to his complete satisfaction, he was eventually forced to consider the possibility that the paradox could only be resolved by finding a contradiction inherent in P. Once he had found what he believed to be a contradiction in P, he tried to find ways of expressing the contradiction in such a way as to avoid the accelerationswhich are inevitable in any experiment in which two clocks, or twins, sepa.rateand later reunite.
By the time of the publication of Scienceat the Crossroadsin 1972, Dingle had refined his thesis in such a way that it could be expressedin two ways, The Argument and The Question. The Argument is presentedon page45 of Scienceat the Crossroads, in the following words:

THE ARGUMENT
Accordingto the specialtheoryof relativity,two similar clocks,A andB, which are in uniform relativemotion and in which no other differencesexist of which the theory takesany account,work at differentrates.The situationis thereforeentirelysymmetrical, from which it follows that if A worksfasterthanB, B mustwork fasterthanA. Sincethis is impossible,thetheorymustbefalse.
The Question might be worded very briefly as follows: Which of nao clocks in uniform relative motion does the special theory require to work more slowly? However, in order to present the story satisfactorily we should consider The Question in its extended form, as it is presentedon pages45-46of Scienceat the Crossroads:

THE QUESTION

Accordingto the specialrelativity theory,as expoundedby Einsteinin his original

paper,two similar, regularly-runningclocks,A and B, in uniform relativemotion, must

work at differentrates.In mathematicatlerms,the intervals,dt anddt', whichtheyrecord

betweenthe sametwo eventsarerelatedby theLorcntzuansformationa, ccordingto which

dt * dt'. Henceoneclock must work steadilyat a slowerratethanthe other. The theory,

however,providesno indicationof which clock that is, andthe questioninevitablyarises:

How is the slower-workingclock distinguished?The suppositionthat the theory merely

requireseachclock to appearto work more slowly from the point of view of the otheris

ruled out not only by its many applicationsandby the fact that the theorywould thenbe

uselessin practiceb, ut alsoby Einstein'sownexampleso,f whichit is sufficiento citethe

ovinze. b'Tehsetknncoew'[ni.ea.nfrdommotshtoefttheenocrlyahimeheadtdojuhsatveexbpeoeunninddeidrwe, chtilcyhetsatkaebslnisohaecdbcyoeuxnpotefrpimosesnit-,

ble effectsof their stateof

uancicfoerlemramtiootniog, nral v'witaeticoonn,ocrluadneythdaiftfearbeanlcaenactea-lcl lboectkawtetehnetheequclaotcokrmseuxsct egpot

more slowly, by a very small amount,thana preciselysimilar clock situatedat oneof the

polesunderotherwiseidenticalconditions.'Appliedto thisexamplet,hequestionis: what

entitledEinsteinto concludefrom his theorythat the equatorial,andnot the polar, clock

workedmoreslowly?

In the interveningperiod, betweenDingle's first suspicionthat therewas a contradiction in the theory, and his final refined form of his thesis in The Argument and The Question,Dingle made various attemptsto bring his criticisms to the attention of the scientific community. His first paper to present a contradiction appearedin December

11
19582, and three further papers were published in 1960. Although some private correspondenceensued,little or no public notice seemsto have been taken of these papers.
In 1961, in a book written jointly with Viscount Samuel3,Dingle again presented his criticism, and also described some of the difficulties that he had encountered in attemptingto have his criticism publishedby The Royal Society,the Physical Society, The Philosophical Magazine, and Nature. For example, in one of the more striking examples of the attitude of a scientific journal, Dingle described how The Philosophical Magazine sent back a critical paper by return mail, with a statementthat subjects of a polemical nature were not suited to that journal! After describing that rejection, Dingle went on to say; "One of the leading scientificjournals will not publish anything of a polemical nature,which can only meanthat,in scienceitself, it will not publish any criticism of orthodoxviews. Accept them, and your pape,rwill be consideredfor publication; questionthem, and it will not." According to Dingle+,no reviewer of the SamuellDingle book even mentioned that the question of the validity of special relativity had been raised. Another fairly lengthy presentationof Dingle's the_sisin, an Introduction to an English translation of Bergson's Durde et Simultanditd ), also failed to attract any significantattentionin the scientificcommunity.
After several more years of attempting to obtain an answer to his criticism of special relativity, Dingle becameso convincedof the moral shortcomingsof the scientific community, in its reluctanceto meetor to answerhis criticisms of the specialtheory,that he eventually published Scienceat the Crossroadsin an attempt to draw the attention of the scientific community and the generalpublic to what he consideredto be a highly unsatisfactory stateof affairs. In the Introduction to that book he summedup its theme in the following words:
I canpresenthe mattermost brieflyby sayingthat a proof that Einstein'sspecial theory of relativity is falsehas been advanceda; nd ignored,evaded,suppresseadnd, indeed,treatedin everypossibleway exceptthat of answeringit, by the whole scientific world (the world of physicalsciencet,hat is; thetheoryhasno placeat presentin thebiological andpsychologicaslciences)S. incethis theoryis basicto practicallyall physical experimentst,he consequenceifs it is false,modematomicexperimentsbeing what they are,maybe immeasurablycalamitous.
In the next chapter, we shall summarize some of the main points of Professor Dingle's book Scienceat the Crossroads,in preparationfor the continuationof the story of the controversy.
2 . H. Dingle, "The Interpretationof theSpecialRelativityTheory," Bulletin of theInstituteof Physics,pp.314-316(Decembe1r 958).
H. Samueal ndH. Dingle,AThreefoldCord, Al7enandUnwin(1961).
4. H. Dingle,Scienceat theCrossroadsM, artinBrian& O'Keeffe,London(1972).
5 . H. BergsonD, urationandSimultaneity,Bobbs-MerrCillo. Inc. (1965). (Translatedby L. Jacobsonw, ith anIntroductionby HerbertDingle.)

t2
CHAPTER 4
..SCIENCEAT THE CROSSROADS''
Thereis no morereasonto suppostehatEinstein'srelativityis anythingfinal,than Newton'sPrincipia. Thedangeris dogmaticthought;it playsthedevil with religion,andscienceis notimmunefromit. Dialoguesof Alfred North Whitehead
Herbert Dingle's book Science at the Crossroadsr was published in 1972; it describes in great detail the history of the controversy up to that time, and the ways in which some members of the scientific community had respondedto his criticisms of special relativity. Although I believe that it is necessaryto read the book if one is to acquire a thorough understandingof the conffoversy, the following very brief sketch of the book is included here with the sole purposeof making the remainderof the presentnarrative intelligible to those who have not yet readScienceat the Crossroads.
One of the things that ProfessorDingle emphasizedvery strongly in his book was the fact that it was the validity of the specialtheory of relativity that was at stake,not the much less important problem of the resolution of the clock paradox or twin paradox. In view of the fact that so many of ProfessorDingle's critics later wrote as if Dingle was still arguing about the clock paradox,I think it is pertinentto quote Dingle's explicitlystatedposition on that subject,as expressedin a letter publishedin The Timesof London in January 1972, in reply to a letter from ProfessorR.A. Lyttleton. The letter is reproduced in the Prefaceof Dingle's book (pp. lI-I2), where it ought to have beenread by all critics of the book; the following excerptstateshis position quite clearly:
Regardingthe immeasurablylessimportantclock paradox,Lyttleton is againwrong in sayingthat I havedeniedasymmetricaal geingfor manyyears.Fifteenyearsago,whenI believedspecialrelativity true, I indeedthoughtit impossible,but I soondiscoveredmy error,andfor morethan 13yearshaveheldthe questionopen.. . . Despitethemu-mesons andtheir kind, I think asymmetricaal geingextremelyunlikely, but thatis an opinion;the falsity of the specialrelativity theory(not necessarilyof the relativity of motion) I regard asproved.
The main body of the text of Scienceat the Crossroadsis divided into two parts, called The Moral IssueandThe IntellectualIssue. InThe Moral IssueDingle presenteda factual narrative,documentedby many quotationsfrom his interlocutors,describingthe responsesof various named members of the scientific community to his attempts to obtain an answerto his Question. Although it would be superfluousto repeatthe details here,someof the highlightsof the story shouldbe mentioned.
The first eminent scientistwho attemptedto answerDingle's criticism was ProfessorMax Born. Although, as we shall seein Chapter6, his replyz is highly unsatisfactory, it seemsto havebeenacceptedalmostwithout criticism by the scientificcommunity.
1 . H. Dingle,Scienceat theCrossroadsM, artin Brian & O'Keeffe,London(1972). 2 . M. Bom, ''SpecialTheoryof Relativity,"Neture197p. 1287(1963).

13

Dingle describedhow he made a secondattempt to have his criticism published by the Royal Society (the first attempt having already been described in A Threefold Cord3, mentioned in Chapter 3). This new paper was rejected on the recommendation of two referees. Although one of the refereesstatedthat the paper contained an elementary fallacy, Dingle was unable to obtain from the Royal Society a statementof what the alleged fallacy was. He later attemptedto publish in Nature a letter asking the Royal Society to
statethe fallacy, but his letter wasrefusedpublication.

In 1968, after a lengthy private correspondencewith ProfessorDingle, Professor J.L. Syngepublishedin Nature a lettef which statedhis own views on the contradiction which Dingle had claimed to exist in the theory. Although Dingle sent in a reply to Nature, the Editor did not publish it. As a result, Dingle was later taken to task, in a debate in the correspondencecolumns of The Listener in 1969, for apparently failing to reply to Synge. (fhis debatein The Listener is not, of course,the one mentionedin
Chapter2, which took placen l97l-72.)

After the above-mentioneddebate in The Listener had finished, Professor Dingle sent a copy of the whole Listener correspondenceto Mr. John Maddox, then Editor of

Nature. Mr. Maddox write a leading article

wrote to Dingle on24 November L969, stating that he summarising the position, and that he would publish it

proposed to "before the

end of the year". enquiry the Editor

wItrodtiedtonoDtinagplpeqor nb2eI foJraentuhaerye1n9d7o0ftothsaatyytheaart,thaendaritnicrleeswpaosn"saelmtooasnt

ready". Towards the end of March another enquirer, Lord Soper, wrote to Mr. Maddox, and was told that it would be "a week or two" before the article was ready; when Lord

Soperenquiredagainon 6 July, he receivedno reply. The promisedleading article was. neverpublished;we shall later examinethe reasonssubsequentlygiven by the Editor for

its non-appearance.

Professor Dingle's book also contains an interesting historical survey of the development of relativity theory, and the relationship between Einstein's special theory and Lorentz's theory, the latter theory being quite different from Einstein's in that it assumesa stationary ether, such that clocks moving through the ether would actually run slower than clocks that remained at rest. Dingle pointed out that the two theories are often confused with one another, and stated that all the experimental evidence that is taken to supportEinstein's specialtheorycould, with equalvalidity, be takento support
Lorentz's quite different theory.

Dingle also pointed out, both in his book and elsewhere,that the experimentalevidence that is taken to suppon the specialtheory dependson circular arguments,sinceit relies on the validity of Maxwell's electromagnetictheory to infer certain intermediate results such as the velocities of certain elementaryparticles. We shall discussthese
points in more detail later.

One of the most prominent featuresof ProfessorDingle's book is his repeatedwarning that, if the special theory of relativity were in fact inconsistent,experimentsbasedon the assumptionthat the theory is correct might lead to calamitousresults. Since he was

J . H. Samueal ndH. Dingle,AThreefoldCord, AlTenandUnwin(1961). 4. J.L. Synge,"specialTheoryof Relativity,"Nafirre219p.793 (1968).

l4
not able to name what kind of calamity might ensue,or to specify the probability of such an event, many readers of his book remained unconvinced that there were in fact any seriousrisks. I was myself scepticalabout the seriousnessof the problem, but became more convinced of Dingle_'sview after reading an accountof the thalidomide tragedy.I wrote a article at the time), in which I drew a comparison between the story of Professor Dingle's crusadeand the story of the thalidomidetragedy. The thalidomideproblem was worsenedby the fact that influencewas brought to bear on scientistsand on editors of journals to prevent or to delay publication of critical articles by informed scientists,in a situation where each month's delay in dealing with the problem may have meant the birth of fifty to one hundred deformed children.
There is now another equally striking example of a tragedy that could have been preventedif warningshad beenheededin time: I refer to the accidentof the spaceshuttle "Challenger" on 28 January 1986. The accidentwas causedby the failure of a major part, a failure that was both predictable and predicted, becausewarnings of disasterwere ignoredby thosein chargeof the project who were eagerto get on with thejob of launching the shuttle.
Professor Dingle continued to expresshis concern about the possibility of calamitous occurrencesthat might occur from the neglect of informed criticisms of specialrelativity. Someof theseexpressionsof concernarefound in portionsof his correspondence quoted in Chapters7 to 10 of the presentbook. Before proceeding to that subject, let us considersomeof the interestingreactionsto Science at the Crossroads.
5 . I. McCausland", Life at the Crossroads,"The New-Church Magazine 94, No. 672 pp. 53-56(April-June1975).

15
CHAPTER 5 REACTION TO THE BOOK
If I hadbeforem9a fly andanelephanht,avingneverseenmorethanonesuchmagnitudeof eitherkind;andif thefly wereto endeavoutor persuadme ethathewas larger than the elephant,I might by possibility be placed in a difficulty. The apparentlylittle creaturemight usesuchargumentsabouttheeffectof distance,and might appealto suchlaws of sight andhearingas I, if unleamedin thosethings, might be unablewholly to reject. But if therewerea thousandflies,all buzzing,-to appearancea,boutthe greatcreature;and,to a fly, declaring,eachone for himielf, that he wasbiggerthanthe quadrupeda; ndall giving differentandfrequentlycontradictoryreasonsa; ndeachonedespisingandopposingthereasonsof theothers-- I shouldfeel quite at my ease. I shouldcertainlysay,My little friends,the caseof eachoneof you is destroyedby the rest. I intendto showflies in the swarm,with a few largeranimals,for reasonsto begiven. AugustusdeMorgan:A Budgetof paradoxes
In view of the fact that one of the most striking passagesof Science at the Crossroads is Dingle's account of the failure of the Editor of Nature to publish a promised leading article, it is interesting to note that one of the earliest publiihed comments on the book was an anonymousleading article in Naturel . This article is worthv of studv in somedetail. arti.c-leL,ewt huischbeagrien: by quoting the first sentenceand the last two sentencesof the leading
Everybodyis fond of ProfessorHerbertDingle, as well as of the clock paradoxin specialrelativity whichhehassingle-handedlnyurturedsincetheearly 1930s. And is thereany hopethat he will now be satisfiedwith the demonstrationthat moving clocksrun at differentspeedsfrom clocksat restwhich hasbeenprovidedin the pastfew monthsby the experimentsin which HafeleandKeatinghaveflown caesiumcloclisin differentdirectionsaroundthe world (Science1, 77,766; 1972,seealsoNature,23B,244; 1972)?It will besadto seetheclockparadoxdisappearb,ut this work is thelastnail in the coffin. The writer of the article seemsnot to have noticed Dingle's statementthat he had for years held an open mind on the subject of asymmetrical ageing, or his arrempt to fms"asioacinnekceo"ecfclltSoehccaekireetnahpcraaletyraat1hdt 9eoth3xse0"c;sCie"arniosntsimfsticheroenisatfsiidorussne.tewsFdeuainnrstthneCeonhrtcamewopohtfreaterht,4eti,hsatehnrteeoicxsrmlpeersaaetlsarlyesteibaomosntesshon"tsctosiinaatagrteellledvf-owihnuiatanhndcdctiehundertlay"ht*"eep..pa"rrne-d-
1 . "Dingle's Answer",Nature239p.242 (Septembr29 1972).

t6

In another part of the article there is quoted a passagefrom pages 45-46 of Science at the Crossroads (part of the paragraphthat we quoted in Chapter 3, under the heading "The Question"); the last sentenceof the quoted passageappearsin the article as follows:
"The suppositionthatthetheorymerelyrequireseachclock to appearto work moreslowly from thepoint of view of the otheris ruledout merelyby its manyapplicationsandby the fact that the theory would then be uselessin practicebut alsoby Einstein'sown examples.. . ."
Immediately after the above sentence,which is only a partial quotation of Dingle's original (the ellipsis being as it appearedin the leading article) and which also contains a minor inaccuracy (the second "merely"), the article continues by referring to that sentenceasfollows:

The trouble,of course,is that in the last of thesesentencesD, ingle is denyingthe central principle of relativity. And why shouldhe not acceptthat eachof two clocksin uniform relativemotion shouldappearto run slow from the other'spoint of view? That,according to therelativists.is whattherealworld is like. If Dingle is "denying the centralprinciple of relativity", os the article suggestsh, e does it by referring (in the part that the author of the article replaced by the ellipsis) to Einstein's prediction from the special theory that a clock at the equator would work (not just seemto work) more slowly than a clock at one of the poles (seemy quotation of The Questionin Chapter3, where the full sentencecan be found). Now, if Einstein deduced from the theory that an equatorial clock would actually work more slowly than a polar
clock, not merely appear to work more slowly, and if that deduction denies the central
principle of relativity as the author of the editorial article suggests,then that is evidence in supportof the presenceof an inconsistencyin the theory. If a validly-deducedconclusion of an argument is inconsistent with one of the premises of the argument, then the inconsistencymust be in the premises.

In the last passagequoted above, the writer of the article implies that the theory

only requires one clock to appear to run slow from the other's point of view; it is there-

fore difficult to know what is meant by the following reference to Dingle in the penultimate sentenceof the ar:ticle:"And is there any hope that he will now be satisfiedwith the

demonstration that moving clocks run at dffirent speedsfrom clocks at rest . . ." [Italics

minel. Clearly, if a run either faster or

moving slower;

clock runs at a different speedfrom a clock at rest, it must the writer of the editorial article is therefore "denying the

centralprinciple of relativity" in exactly the samesenseas that in which he accusesDin-

gle of denying it.

Regarding Einstein's statementthat a clock at the equator would work more slowly than a clock at a pole, the articlehasthis to say:

It seemsnow to be acceptedthat Einstein'soriginal argumentwas uncharacteristically loose. The point of theillustrationis thata clock at thepoleof rotationmaybetakento be in an inertial framewhich is nearly(but not quite)properlydefinedby the directionof the Earth'smotion aroundthe sun. The clock at the equatoris in another.Einstein'slack of
claritv concemstheinertialframeof theobserverof thetwo clocks.

t7

It is difficult to know what all this means,and it seemsunkind to Einstein that the author of such a vague statementaccuseshim of loosenessof statementand lack of clarity. If the writer of the above statementis suggestingthat the equatorial clock does not really work slower than the polar one but only appearsto someobserverto do so, then he must reject Einstein's prediction that a clock that goesaroundin a closedpath must actually show a different reading from one that stayedbehind. It is interesting to compare the above quotation with what other reviewers of Dingle's book have written; their comments on the samematter will be discussedlater.
One of the most interesting features of the leading article we are discussing is the way in which it handlesDingle's referenceto the other leading article, the one that was promisedbut neverpublished. Here is what the publishedarticle saysabout the one that was not published:

ProfessorDingle goeson to complain that a promisedleading article roundingoff the

csocrormesfopropnrdoesnpcehecatsivnceeovnetreasptapnetaasrneddha,ipspparoremnitslyeostboli"vbioriunsgodf isthcerewdaiotyninthwejhoiucmh hails"

own may

havediscouragetdhejudicioussumming-upfor whichhe asked.

This quotation gives the impressionthat Dingle had askedfor the leading article to be written, and also implies that, becauseof his allegedpromise to "bring discredit on thejournal", he is himself responsiblefor its non-appearanceB. oth of thesesuggestions are in fact false, hs was later shownin a publishedexchangeof lettersbetweenProfessor Dingle and Mr. Maddox in the correspondencecolumnsof Nature',t, whereit was made clear that the article had beenspontaneouslypromisedby Mr. Maddox at the time he was Editor, and alsothat the letter in which Dingle allegedlypromisedto "bring discrediton thejournal" was written six monthsbeforeMr. Maddox promisedto publish the ieading article.

Although it is not in the chronologicalsequenceof events,it is perhapsappropriate at this point to mention that the exchangeof letters mentioned above resulted indirectly from an article called "The Dingle Affair: An Unresolved Scientific Controversy", which I wrote in 1974and which was to have beenpublishedin ScienceForltm, a Canadian joumal of science and technology (now defunct), in February 1975. On being shown a copy of the manuscript,Mr. Maddox was able to raisedoubtsin the mind of the Editor of ScienceForum aboutthe authenticityof my article, and it was not publishedas planned. Without going into the detailsof that situation,it is sufficientto say that there was only one item of factual information in my article that was not supportedby information that had already been published prior to that time: this was my statementthat Dingle's allegedpromiseto "bring discrediton thejournal" could not havebeenthe real reasonfor the non-appearanceof the promisedleadingarticle,becausethe letter in which the promise had allegedly been made had been written six months before Maddox made the promise to publish the leading article. The authenticity of my statementhas now been establishedin the Dingle-Maddox exchangeof letters mentioned above, but was dismissedthereby Mr. Maddox as a small point whoserelevanceis debatable.

2 . H. Dingle,' 'Integrityin Science','Nature255pp. 519-520(alsoVol. 256,p. t62) (1975). a1 J.Maddox,"Integrityin Science,"Nature255p. 520(I975).

18

It is also interesting to promiseto "bring discredit"

note that Mr. Maddox's replya again mentioned Dingle's on Nature, eventhoughit had by thenbeenestablishedthat

wha him

t Dingle had written was aplea-to the Editor to reflect, not.bring, discredits;putting the

of Naturenotto makeit words "bring discredit"

necessaryfor in quotation

marks in the letteromerely makesthis a quotationfrom the original misquotationin the

editorial articleT.

Returning to the chronological sequence,the next significant reaction in Nature

after the above-mentionededitorial original heading "Dingle Jingle"S

article , which

(apart from a readers^may

limerick, under the brilliantly assessfor themselves)was a

review of Dingle's book by ProfessorJ.M. Zimane. There are many featuresof this

review that areworthy of study.

to

theFworoerdxsam'opHleo,waifstetrhqeusoltoinwgeDr-iwngolrek'isnqgculeosctkiodnis(atisnwgeuihsahveedq?u"o),Zteimdiat

in Chapter3, up n says"This is a

perfectly reasonablequestionto which statesexplicitly thatthe answeris simp

scienceshouldindeed give an le,andstatesthatthe answeris:

a"tnhsewfears."teHstewoarlsko-

ing clock betweenany two eventsis one that travelsbetweenthem by free fall". In view

of the fact that the questionaskedwhich clocks,Ziman's answeris comparableto Boeing 70'7or a747?" by replying "The

of two clocks answeringthe fastestairline

worked slower, not question"Which fl ris the Concorde."

which of a1 ies slower,a Whetherthe

statementis true.ornot, it is simply not an answerto the questionthat was asked.

Like the writer of the editorial articlel0, Ziman also falls into the trap of confusing

the clock-paradoxcontroversywith Dingle's claim that there is a contradictionin thp

theory. For public reply

example,commentingon Dingle's claim that therehas to his objections,Ziman writes: "But here,again,he is

been an inadequate grosslyunfair. The

clock paradox, and its resolution, was discussedin detail by Einstein himself, and by

many later scholars." SinceEinsteinwasdeadbeforeDingle everclaimedthattherewas

a contradictionin the theory,it can scarcelybe claimed that Einsteinrefuted Dingle's

objectionsto the theory. After citing somebooks (none of which discussthe claimed

contradictionto any significantextent)and mentioninghow thoroughlythey have been

studied,Ziman and then goeso

saysth n to sa

at y:

this is "The

as much of an answeras fact thathe,oneman in a

Dingle can reasonablyexpect, thousandt,hinks differentlyis

scarcelya major flaw in the scientificconsensus."This raisesthe interestinsidea of

knowledgeby consensusw, hich I discussin Chapter19.

A J. Maddox, "Integrity in Science,"Nature 255 p. 520(I975). 5 . H. Dingle, "Integrity in Science," Nature 255 pp. sr9-520 (alsovol. 256,p. 162)(r91s). 6. J. Maddox, "Integrity in Science,"Nature 255p. 520(I975). 7 . "Dingle's Answcr", Nature 239 p.242 (September29 1972). 8 . J.Letts,"Dingle Jinglc," Nature240p. 59 (1972).
9 . J. Ziman, " Scicncein an EccentricMiror, " Nature 241 pp. 143-144(1973). 1 0 . "Dingle's Answcr", Nature 239p.242 (Septembe2r 9 I9j2).

19

In the last paragraphof thereview, Ziman describedthe book as "dishonest". The apology that was later publishedrr may serveas a confirmationthat Dingle's narrativeis factually accurate, and it is in the truth of its factual statementsthat, according to Dinglel2, the whole significance of his book lies.

Another interesting review of Dingle's book was written by Roxburghl3. Although

this review is tains a rather

more sympathetictowardsDingle's point extraordinary attempt to refute Dingle's

of view than someothers,it conargument. After quoting "The

Argument" (see Chapter 3), Roxburgh remarks that Dingle does not even discuss what he meansby "faster", andthen goeson to say:

Secondly,why is it impossiblefor A to go fasterthanB andB to go fasterthan A? This dependson the definition of faster. To illustratethis, considerthe following two statements:
TheMoon is biggerthantheSun. The Sunis biggerthantheMoon. Are thesestatementms utuallycontradictory?This dependson themeaningof bigger. For terrestrialbeingsthe first statemenits true, for Martiansthe secondis true. The relative sizedependsuponthepositionof theobserver.Soit is with time andclocks. If it is important to define "faster", it is also important to useother words precisely, yet it is clear from the quotation that Roxburgh does not literally mean "is" in the two contrastedstatements,in which caseany similarity betweenhis argumentand Dingle's disappears. Or, if he does intend his words to be taken literally, then he, as a terrestrial being, is defending special relativity by assertingthat the moon is bigger than the sun. Although we are terrestrial beings, we know that the sun is bigger than the moon, and, what is more, we know it from observationsthat have beenmade from the earth.
Clearly, any two contradictory statementscan be reconciled if one is at liberty to disregard the literal meanings of one or both of the statementsand re-interpret them in such a way as to avoid the contradiction; it is scarcely surprising that Roxburgh is able to avoid finding a contradiction in the theory.
Roxburgh does agreewith Dingle to the extent that he saysthat Lorentz's theory of aabnsdohluetestsapteascteh,aatntdhecloLcokrernattzesadnedpEeinndsetenint otnheaobrsieosluaterem"ootbiosne,rvhaatsionnoatllby eienndidsitsinpgrouvisehd-, able".
Another interesting attempt to answer.Dingle's question about the equatorial and polar clockshasbeenmadeby G.J.Whitrowr+, in thefollowing statement:

For a supporterof relativity,the essentiadl ifferencebetweenthetwo clocksis that relative

1 1 . "ProfessoHr erbertDingle:An Apology", Nature243p.315 (1973). 12. H. Dingle,"Dingle's Answer,"Nature243p.366 (June8,1973).
13. I. Roxburgh,"Is SpecialRelativityRight or Wrong?,"New Scientisr55, No. 813p. 602 (28 Septembe1r 972).
14. G.J.Whitrow, Reviewof "Scienceat the Crossroads", British Journalfor thePhilosophy of Science 26 pp.358-362(1975).

20
to thecentreof theEarth(whichfor thepurposeconcemedcanbe regardedastheoriginof an inertialframe)the clock at the cquatordescribesa circleandso cannotbe associated with aninertialframe,whercasthepolarclockis at restandcanbe associatewdith aninertial framefor a periodof time during which the curvatureof the Eanh's orbit can be neglected. If, as Whitrow suggests,the equatorialclock cannot be associatedwith an inertial frame, then it is beyond the scopeof the specialtheory which, as Einstein pointed out15, applies only to inertial frames.It is thereforenot valid to infer any conclusionfrom the specialtheory aboutthe relativeratesof the two clocks. Although it is not directly related to the scientific world's reactions to professor Dingle's book, it is interestingto note what anotherscientisthaswritten on this subiect. A reviewer, identified only by the initials J.P.S.,wrore as fo11ows1i6n a review in i'ttysicsin Canadaof L. LandauandYu. Rumer's book What is the Theoryof Retativity:
Occasionallyh,owever,in their effortto simplify,the authorsmakesomeincorrectstatemcnts.Themostglaringexampleis in thediscussioonf thetwin paradoxw, heretheyhave onetwin travellingon a largecircularrailwaytrack,ignoringthe fact that the frameof rcferenceis not aninertialone,sois beyondthc scopeof speciarlelativity. The twin moving along a circular track has the samestatusin relation to soecial relativity as the equatorialclock in Einstein'soriginal paperon specialrelativitylT. If the circular railway track is a glaring error, why doesnot someonesay that Einstein made a glaring error too? Furthermore,I suggestthat Whitrow is quite wrong in suggestingthat there is h differencein kind betweenthe pathsof the two clocks. If the equatorialclock cannotbe associatedwith an inertial frame becauseit movesin a circle, then the polar clock, which follows an elliptical path aroundthe sun, cannotbe associatedwith an inertial frame either;the crucialpropertythat both pathshavein commonis that they both departfrom straight-line uniform motion. At least one reviewer,G. Stadlen18d, id admit the possibility that Einsteinmight have made a minor error in his statementabout the polar and equatorialclocks; here is whathe said:
But the relativemoLioninvolvedin this case,beingcircular,is non-uniform.I submit, thereforet,hatEinsteinwaswrongin sayingthathispredictionfollowedfromthespccialtheory,whichdealsonly with theeffectsof uniformmotion. Thisis notto saythatthe predictionwasinvalid. For Einstcinwas,intuitively,anticipatinghis latergeneratlheory, accordingto whichthcequatoriacllockrunsslowerbecausocf thc centripetaflorceexcrted
1 5 . A. Einstein and L. Infeld, TheEvolution of Physics,CambridgeUniversity Prcss(1938). 1 6 . J.P.s.,"Rclativity Theory for Everyman," physicsin canada 39, No 2pp. 52-53(March
1983). (Reviewsof threebooks,by LandauandRumer,Lillcy, andEvett.j 77. H. A. Lorenlz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, and H. wcyl, The principle of Relativity,
Methuen (1923). 1 8 . G. Stadlen,"Dingle's Chal1enge,"The Listener88, No. 2270pp.411-412 (2g scptember
r972).

2l
upon it.
This answeris inconsistentwith at least two of the previous answers:it disagrees with Whitrow about whether the result follows from the special theory, and it disagrees with the Nature editorial article about whether the slower working is real or merely dependenton the motion of the observer. Furthermore, the fact that the predicted slowing follows from the generaltheory does not make Einstein's predictionfrom the special theory valid; it is a well known fact of logic that the truth of the conclusionof an argument doesnot guaranteethe validity of the argument. If Einstein'spredictiondid not follow from the special theory, then his inclusion of that prediction was irrational and, therefore,not valid. Also, the suggestionthat Einsteinwas so easily able to anticipatehis generaltheory, which took him aboutanotherdecadeto develop,is ratherunconvincing.
Stadlen's review is interesting in that it is about the only one even to mention Dingle's claim that the experimentalevidencein favour of specialrelativity restson circular arguments, or his claim that all observers will agree on whether a pair of relatively-stationaryclocks are synchronizedwith one another. Both of thesepoints are highly significant,and will be discussedin more detail later.
Another interesting comment appearsin a review by Kilmisterl9; referring to Dingle's choice of Einstein'soriginal paperon specialrelativity as the canonicaltext, he writes:
Thisis a goodbasisfor a debateb, ut suppostehat,on onepage,Einsteinhadmadea stupid blunder;is this therebyincorporatedfor everin thetheory?
Is Kilmister suggestingthat Einstein did make sucha blunder,or is he not? If he is suggesting that Einstein did, what is the blunder? Without such clarification, Kilmister's statementis a red herring and contributespreciselynothing to the debate.
Although it appearedabout a decade before the appearanceof Dingle's book, another criticism of Dingle's argumentsseemsto be relevant to this discussion. Bronowski20argued,in a manner similar to Whitrow's argumentdiscussedabove,that the differencein ratesof the two clocks is justified by the fact that the equatorialclock is not in an inertial frame. He was actually discussingan analogousexperiment involving a rotating disc, but he relatedit directly to Einstein'sprediction about the equatorialand polar clocks, and to the prediction of asymmetricalageingin the clock paradox or twin paradox experiment. This is how he justified the conclusionthat it was the equatorial clock that worked more slowly:
Relativity only postulatesthat observersmoving in inertial systemscannottell which of themis moving. By contrasta, nobservewr homovesin anacceleratesdystemcantell that hehasmoved,simplyby carryinganacceleromet(eorr abucketof water).
19. C.W. Kilmister, Review of "Scienceat the Crossroads", The Observatory93, No. 1995p. 154(1973August).
20. J. Bronowski,"Dr. BronowskRi epliesto ProfessoDr ingle," NewScientistll, No. 250p. 542(3r August1961).

22

In theHarwellexperiment,herotatingdiscis not aninertialsystem.Thatis, a point on the circumferencies not in uniformmotionin a straightline; it is in constanat cceleration, which anobserverat thepoint coulddetectby carryinganaccelerometer. Utalicsin theoriginal.l

Dr. Bronowski's argumentsuffersfrom the sameflaw as ProfessorWhitrow's: if a

clock at the circumferenceof the rotating disc is in constantaccelerationi,t is not valid to

infer any conclusion-from the special theory about the rate of that clock. Unfortunately

tahdediEndgitthoar to"fPNroefwesSsocireDnitnisgtldeiswcioshnetisnuitetdothbee

correspondenceafter Bronowski,s known that he doesnot acceptthe

lettei, argu-

ments in Dr. Bronowski's letter." However, in a later comment on the twin paradix,

involving twins Peterand Paul,Dingle referredto Bronowski'sjustification of the asym-

metricalageingasfollows2l:

Neverthelesdsuring a recentcontroversymany physiciss (for example,J. Bronowski, in The New Scientist,Aug. 31, 1961)have continuedto maintainthat paul's accelerationon reversapl reventstheapplicationof thespecialtheoryto theproblem. Curiously enough,however,they do not thereforerefrain from applyingit but regardthemselvesasentitledto useits equationswith a meaningof their ow.rin placeof thatwhichthe risel"aptrivoivtyepdo"sttouflaotllegoiwvefrsothmeEmi.nTshteeirne'sssuplet-c- inaetlheediot rbye.Tsahiedr?e--aidsethrmautasstbyemlemftettoricaapalpgreainisge this procedurefor himself.

In caseariy readermay think that an eminent scientistlike Bronowski would not

make such an obvious error,^I will now give a similar writings. In one of his books22,Bronowski describesthe

ewxeallm-kpnleowfrnom"Beulfsfoenw'hsenreeiendhleisl,

experiment,in which the value of n is estimated,using probability theory, by tossinga

needlemany times onto a horizontal surfaceon which ttiere is a grid of Lquitty-rpu""O

parallel straight lines. The estimateis basedon the length of the needle,the spacing

betweenthe lines, the total numberof tosses,andthe numberof tossesfor which the nee-

dle falls on a line. Bronowski,just after warning againstrelying on probabilistic deduc-

tions basedon too few data, tells his readersabout an Italiin mathematicianwho sup-

posedly achievedan estimatefor n on an experiment involving "well

which was correct to the sixth decimal place, based over 3,000" throws of the needle.The number of

throws in the experimenthe mentionsis not nearly enough for the accuracyclaimed,

sinceone more throw, whatever its outcome,would make the error in the estimatemuch

larger than the hundredthousandthpart of one per cent that Bronowski statesthat it is:

even though Bronowski explicitly warns againstthis type of error in the previous para-

graph of his book, he presentsthe experimentalresult with obvious apprwal. The pub-

lished experimental result was probably a minor hoax; interested.*d"rr can find a

detaileddiscussionin a very interestingbook by O'Beirne23.

In his book The Retativity Explosionz4,the well-known writer Martin Gardner also

2 1 . H' BergsonD, urationandSimultaneiry,Bobbs-MenCillo. Inc. (1965). (Translatebdv L. Jacobsonw, ith anIntroductionby HerberDt ingle.)
22. J.Bronowski,Thecommonsenseof sciencew, illiam Heinemann(1951). L 3 - T.H. o'Beime,PuzzlesandParadoxeso,xford Universitypress(1965). 24. M. GardnerT, heRelativityExplosion,y intageBooks(1976).

23 misrepresentsDingle's arguments;like so many others, Gardner missesthe point that Dingle was not arguing about the asymmetrical ageing involved in the orthodox resoluti_onof the clock paradox. The following sentenceshows the misrepresentation:,.No physicist exceptProfessorDingle doubtsthat the astronaut'sclock, *h"n he returns,will be slightly out of phasewith a nuclearclock that stayedat home." Although Gardner appendsto that sentencea footnote which refers to Scienceat the Crossroads (and which alsoadmits that Dingle is not quite alonein his beliefs),the views attributedto him in the sentencequoted are completely contrary to those expressedby him in his book. Gardner also claims that Dingle believed that all of relativity is *rong, both the special and general theories; whatever Gardner's authority may be for making that claim, that is certainly not statedas Dingle's belief in scienceat the crossroads.
Of all the various misstatementsabout Herbert Dingle, one of the most startling appearedin a belated review of Scienceat-the Crossroadi that appeared in 1976in The BritishJournalfor the History of Science25,claiming rhat he had died in 1974. In this instancethe reviewer and the-journalwere unableto ivoid admitting the cogencyof professorDingle's subsequenrtebuttal26.
In the next chapter we shall continue the story of the responseof the scientific community to Science at the Crossroads, stafting with publications that appearedsoon after ProfessorZiman' s review in Nature2T.
25. L' Pyenson, Reviewof "scienceat the Crossroads", BritishJourn^alfortheHistoryof Science 9 pp.336-337(1976).
26. H. Dingle,BritishJournaflor theHistoryof Sciencel0 p. 94 (1977). 27. I. ziman, "Sciencein anEccentricMirror," Nature 241pp. 143-144(1973).

24
CHAPTER 6 THE DEBATE CONTINUES In thosedayswebelievedin thetriumphof reasono, f the 'brain'. We hadyetto leamthatit is notthebrainwhichcontrolshumanbeingsbutthespinalcord-- seat of theinstinctsandof blindpassibnsE. venscientistasrenoexceptiotno this. Max Bom: TheBorn-EinsteinLetters.

Continuing the story of the controversy, let us start by noting some of the

correspondencethat appearedin Nature after Ziman's reviewr, which is discussedin the

previous chapter.

answ'Ge.rFto.RD. iEnlglilse2'sdQesucersibtieodnZwimasa"nt'hserefvaisetwesatws boerkiningg"caldomckirabbeltew"e, eannadnyagtwreoeedtvheantttshise

one that travels betweenthem by free fall". H.L. Armstrong pointed out that none of the critics appearedto have faced Dingle's claim that "all of the^alleged experimental

vEbellelriis.f'i.sc.a.a"t,niosanwdsdeiirnnbvgeo:c"lavseuuspceptihrocesueqlauthreasattrniogenuiwtmhaeesnro"twsf ithnhicethchleooicfr ktihsnewtetawrpsorine.t.far.et"i;eoofna"osllt,.""a4wnhdicahlsoof

criticized all possi-

Dingle5 also publisheda criticism of the Ziman-Ellis answer,saying "Neither of the events need be at either of the clocks concemed, so the statement,'the fastestwork-

ing clock between any two events is one that travels between them by free fall', is

futile." Unfortunately, in the sameletter, in trying to reformulate his Question, Dingle

made the situation somewhat more confused by writing as follows, referring to time

intervalsmeasuredby two clocks A andB:

My questionis: how doesthe theoryindicatewhich clock givesthe largerinterval? If A hasvelocity 0 andB velocity v, the Lorentztransformationmakesthat clock A; if B has
velocity0 andA velocityv, it makesttratclockB.

two

I believe that this events "occurring

statementis too general,becauseit refers to the intervalsbetween at any ascertainablepositionsat any times", whereasDingle had

claimed elsewhereothat the result dependedon the pair of eventschosen. To be more

specific, if the clocks A and B mentioned above are taken to correspond to clocks A and

t . J. Ziman,"Sciencein anEccentricMirror," Nature241pp, 143-144(1973). 2. G.F.R.Ellis, "SpecialRelativityAgain," Nature242p. 143(1973). J . H.L. Armstrong", In Defenceof Dingle," Nature242p.214 (1973).
4 . H.L. Armstrong','FreelyFallingClocks", Nature244p. 26 (1973).
5 . H. Dingle,"Dingle's Question,"Nature242p. aB (Apil 6 1973). 6. H. Dingle,"RelativityandElectromagnetismA:n EpistemologicaAlppraisal,"Philosophy
of Science27,No. 3 pp.233-253(July1960).

25

B respectively in an earlier paperT,then the time intervals measuredby the two clocks, between the events En and E, describedin that earlier papgr, do not seemto correspond to the statementquotUdabov6. I believe that, in his leitef, Dingle was making a pu.aphraseof the claim by various advocatesof the theory that "a moving clock runs slow", and inadvertentlymadea somewhatmore sweepingstatementhan wasjustified.

Unfortunately the threerepliesto this letter that were publit1t"69-11concenffatedon the question of the events, and therefore did not answer the original question. One of these replies (by Stedman) included a comment on the Ziman-Ellis answer to Dingle's questiorl, referring to a paperl2 which pointed out that it is possible for two clocks to travel between the samepair of eventsby different free-fall paths; since the Ziman-Ellis
answergives no way of distinguishingbetweenthese,it doesnot even answerthe question "which of all possibleclocks . . .", much lessthe original question.

Dingle subsequentlypublished yet another f_ormulationof his question, which appearedin the August ZI tgll issue of Naturel3. After some months had elapsed. without further publishedanswers,he submittedanotherletter, dated30th January 1974, to Nature, but the Editor would not publish it. It was later publishedelsewherel4. The letter of refusal from the Editor (Dr. David Davies) has alreadybeenpublished.in fulll5; let us study the following excerpt from it:

Many scientistsB, om, McCrea,ZimanandRoxburghamongsthem,havedoneyou

the courtesyof discussingyour question,and yet I their answersarenot acceptable.Instead,they are

asceceunsoeddoefm"oenvastsriavteiocnboymymoeunotsf "wahnyd

"intricate mathematics"-- evenwhenthereis barely a mathematicasl ymbol around. A

simplequestiondoesnot necessarilyield a simpleanswenasa scientistyou know thatas

well asI.

It is interesting to compare the last sentenceof the above quotation with the explicit
statement of one of the Editor's chosen authorities, J.M. Ziman, that the answer to
Dingle's Questionis simple. Ziman's and Roxburgh's attemptsto answerDingle were discussedin the previouschapter;let us now seewhat Born and McCrea have said.

Born's reply to Dingle is discussedon pages42-43 of Scienceat the Crossraods, where it is pointed out that Born claimed that Dingle should have asked a different

7. H. Dingle, "The CaseAgainstSpeciaRl elativity," Nature216pp. 1.19-122(1967).
8 . H. Dingle,"Dingle's Question,"Nature242p. 423(Apil 6 1973). 9 . R. Jacob,"AnotherAnswerto Dingle'sQuestion,"Nature244p. 27 (1973). 10. M. Whippman",Whippman'sAnswer,"Nature244p.27(1973).
1 1 . G.E.Stedman",Stedman'sAnswer,"Nature244p.27 (1973).
72. B.R. HolsteinandA.R. Swift, "The RelativityTwins in FreeFall," AmericanJournal of Physics40 pp. 746-750(1972).
t3. H. Dingle,"Dingle's Question,"Nature244pp.567-568(August31 1973).
14. "30th January,1974:Dngle's Letter to 'Nature"', The New-ChurchMagazine93pp. l2l -123(October-Decembe1r974).
1 5 . "22nd February,1974:I-etterto Dingle from Editor of 'Nature'(David Davies)", Ihe New-ChurchMagazine93 pp. 123-L24(October-Decembe1r974).

26
questionfrom the one he actually asked,and that Born changedthe wording of the question and then answeredthe new question. At least one supporterof the theory, Dr. L. Marder, was critical of Born's attemptto answerDingle, and made the following commentsaboutit16:
In a sensei,t wasapity thatBom thentookup thechallengeb,ecausea satisfactorryeplyto NDaintgulreen,ceoendseisdmteodlarergtiemlyeotfhaan'cBoormrecwtiisohnet' odtDoindgelveo'steqtouethsteiomn(ahtaterdr.lHyiiikseblryietof rperpoldy,uince thedesiredeffect)anda partiallyexplainedspace-timdeiagram.
In addition to changing Dingle's question,Bom also made a seriouslogical error when he made the following claim:
The simple fact that all relationsbetweenspaceco-ordinatesand time expressedby the Lorentz transformationcan be representedgeometricallyby Minkowski diagramsshould sufficeto showthattherecanbeno logicalcontradictionin thetheory.
That statementis illogical becausethe lorentz ransformation is only a part of the special theory of relativity, and it is not valid to claim that consistency(or any otherpropeny) of part of the theory is a sufficient condition for the whole theory to be free of logical contradiction. (Further discussion of the relationship between the transformation and the theory can be found in Chapter13.)
The disturbing featureof this situationis that, during the many yearssinceBorn's illogical claim was made, not a single supporterof the theory, as far as I am aware,hps publisheda word of protestat this illogical claim; furthermore,the Editor of Nature actually upheld Born's reply as an exampleshowingthat further discussionwas unnecessary.
Bom himself, accord.ingto Dinglel7, refusedeven to read Dingle's reply, claiming that his own argumentwas irrefutable. In view of the fact that Dingle had issueda challengeto the integrity of scientists,.onemight have hopedfor a more open-mindedattitude from Born, who wrote elsewhererdthat "the beiief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possessionof it, seemsto me the deepestroot of all that is evil in the world."
In May 1980 I sentto ProfessorSir Karl Poppera copy of a brief note which I had then recently published, a correspondenceitem in the Canadian Electrical Engineering Journalrv which also criticized Born's note. Popperpointed out, quite correctly,that the wording of one of my sentenceswas unsatisfactory,as I had written there,referring to Born's sentencethat I quoted above "That sentencecontainsan elementarylogical fallacy, in that it claims a property of part of the theory (fhe Lorentz transformation) to be a sufficient condition for the validity of the whole theory." Popperpointed out that Born
r 6 . L. Marder,TimeandtheSpace-TravelleAr,llen & Unwin (1971).
t 7 . H. Dingie,Scienceat theCrossroadsM, artinBrian& O'Keeffe,London(1972).
1 8 . M. Bom,My Life andMy Visws,CharlesScribner'sSons(1968). 19. I. McCausland",Scienceon the Defensive,"CanadianElectricalEngineeringJournal5,
No.2 pp.3a (April 1980).

27
had not claimed that the theory was valid, but only that it was free of logical contradiction. In a letter to Popper, dated August 12, 1980, I concededthat the word "consistency" would have beenbetterthan the word "validity" in the sentenceI wrote, and expressedmy criticism of Born in the following argument, which I still believe to be valid:
Bom's argumenitnvolvestwo propositionsw, hichmaybeexpresseadsfollows: (1) The LorentztransformationpossessepsropertyX (thenatureof whichis not in dispute). (2) Einstein'sspecialtheoryof relativityis freeof logicalcontradiction.
Born's argumentstatesthat (1) is a sufficientconditiontor (2). I believethat this argumentis logically fallacious,becausethe transformationdoesnot containthe theory, nor is it identicalto thetheory. Thetheorycontainsthetransformationb,ut not viceversa.
In a letter of reply, dated 2 September,1980, Popper agreed that the Lorentz transformationis not the whole of Einstein's theory, but would not agreewith my argument as a whole. In the sameletter he told me that he had known both Dingle and Born, that Dingle was a minor light at his best,but that Born was a very greatman, both in his tremendousachievementsas a physicist and as a moral being. When I replied on September 22I sentPopper a copy of a very glowing tribute to Dingle that Popperhad written as a letter on the occasionof Dingle's seventiethbirthday in 1960; the text of that letter can be found in a note publishediy Haymon20. Popper seemedrather surprisedat being reminded of that letter; he made some comments on it in an attempt (which I did not find very convincing) to reconcile it with the comment he had made in his letter to me. I shall not discuss his comments,partly becausesome of them were made in confidence,andpartly becausethe relative eminenceof Dingle and Born, asphysicistsor anything else,is not relevantto the questionof the validity of specialrelativity.
In the sameletter to me as his commentson his letter of tribute to Dingle, Popper told me that I had made severalmistakes (which he did not identify further) in my commentson Born, but that Born had madeno mistake;he also saidthat he had shown this "to anybody's satisfactionwho is not as stubbornas Dingle", and made some other comments which appearedto mean that he was unwilling to discussthe matter further. I wrote one more letter to him but, receiving no reply, gave up. The situation, then, is that this eminent professorof logic, while agreeingthat the Lorentz transformation is not the whole of the special theory, continued to uphold Born's claim that a property of the Lorentz ffansformation is a sufficient condition for the whole theory to be free of logical contradiction. This seemsto me to be a very strangesituation.
Let us now turn to McCrea's answer to Dingle's criticisms. Professor W.H. McCrea was one of Dingle's most prominentcritics during the debateon the clock paradox, at which time ProfessorDingle believed the theory to be valid, and he has also attemptedto refute Dingle's claim that the theory containsa contradiction. In one of his utt"-pm to refute DinglE's argument,McCrea wiote asfollows2l:
20. M. Haymon,"HerbertDingle,1890-1978,"Journalof theBritishAstronomicaAl ssociation89p.394 (1979).
21. W.H. McCrea,"Why theSpeciaTl heoryof Relativityis Correct,"Nature216pp. 122-124 (re67).

28

Aboutthe fint thing thatrelativity theorydoesis to denyanyoperationaml eaningto the notion of simultaneityat two differentplaces. Naturally,this fundamentafleaturein thetheoryis not affectedin theslightestby anyarbitraryconventionswe may adoptfor the synchronizationof clocks. The latter is merelya particularway of puttingthe readingsof
two relativelystationaryclocksin 1-1correspondencweith eachother.

This seemsto be a ve^rystrangeargument. In fact, one paper on specialrelativity zz carriesthe title "Definition of

sectionof Einstein's original Simultaneity", in the course

of which he writes:

Thuswith thehelpof certainimaginaryphysicalexperimentswe havesettledwhatis tdoebnetlyuonbdtearisnteodoadbdyesfiynnitciohnroonf "osuismtautltioannaeroyculso,c"okrsl"oscyantcehdraotndoifufesr,e"anntpdloafce"tsim,aned."haveevi-

It is on this definition, as well ason the two postulateswhich are statedlater in the paper, that the theory is based. One needonly glance at almost any book on specialrelativity to seehow much useis madeof ses of synchronizedclocks in deriving many of the results of the theory. As Dingle pointedout i; his reply to McCrea23,if onJ wishesto be free to chooseanotherdefinition one must first repudiatethe theory and then start again from scratch.
In a later attemptto refute Dingle, McCrea, referring to a.requestby Dingle for the false stepin his argumentto be pointedout, replied asfollowsza:

The false stepis that Dingle regardsthe situationtreatedby relativity as the symmetric comparisonof one singleclock with anotheridentical singleclock (in relative motiot'r). This is not the situation. Actually many colleagueshave pointed this out, or given an equivalentanswer.

But, as the readeris aware,Einstein statedexplicitly that a (single) clock at the

equator would work more slowly than an Unfortunately McCrea did not identify any

identical (single) clock at of the "many colleagues"

one of the poles. whom he claimed

to support his argument,but it is clear that Ziman, for example,doesnot; he statedthat

Dingle's required

question, about which of wo to work slower than the other,

cloclcs was "a

in unifurm relative motion the perfectly reasonablequestion to

theory which

scienceshouldindeedgive an answer".

From our discussion of the replies of Born, McCrea, Ziman, and Roxburgh, the reader may judge the cogency of the reasonsgiven by the Editor of Nature, in the letter in which he upheld the replies of thesescientistsas if they were authoritative,for refusing to publish a letter from Dingle askingfor an answerto his arguments.

It may be appropriateto describehere a minor sequelto the eventsdescribedin this chapter. I rewrote my article The Dingle Affair, which was mentioned in Chapter 5, and

22. H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein,H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl, The Principle of Relativity, Methuen(1923).
23. H. Dingle, "The CaseAgains the SpecialTheory of Relativity," Nature 217pp. 19-20 (1968).
24. W.H. McCrea,"DefinitionsandRealities,"TheListener82p.315 (1969).

29

publishedit privately as a booklet in 1977. In it I quotedthe sentencereferring ro Born, McCrea, Ziman and Roxburgh, from the aforementioned letter written by Dr. David Davies to ProfessorDingle, and I pointed out someof the unsatisfactoryfeaiuresof their 91g8u, 1_917t:71;ttsh:eHfaovllionwgisnegnitsaacnoepxycoefrpthtferobmoomklyetietottDerr:. Davies,I later *rote to him on July

mosfqIrutuwoihgbemoehjseurttyoclindooftaonubtghw'reaeIlmfgeianltnabaitneokodretNvt,i9i.esanIqktvpuwunalreao9elircuwd?ieel.,dasofos,tbfhrtaeheenagnxatlmaasrmdgaeuyntpomtIleeaken,wsnnckhoetiwnew.Ifthsh*yeuteortprhiyutpetodrorueyorortsnoutoyfilwotlymubooeuuahllrkaideervnevaeofepuawtohsnabsaeiletttwtoiwvhepieitlruulsientbeesglnip.settoeho.nrnttehscxeetetIophiqtoaoeustnmoeyettohoienuerd

Dr Daviesreplied on July 26; theentiretext of his letteris asfollows: I haveno particularplansto setthis harein motionagainin Nature. I cannotthink of
anythingthatneedsto be saidwhichhasn'talreadybeensaid.

I leave it to the reader to decide from this reply believein the validity of the sentencein question

whether Dr.

Davies continuedto

30

CHAPTER 7
THE ROYAL SOCIETY
Thegreatcommunionof scienceis not unlikea religion,or a Church,in ourmodem society. The doctrinesof observationaal ccuracy,rationaltheoryandexperimental verificationshallbe ourTrinity, with thePresidenot f theRoyalSocietyasour Pope andtheNobellaureatesasour patronsaints.With theScienceResearchCouncilasa Collegeof Cardinalsw, ith laboratorydirectorsasabbotsw, ith thegreataccelerators andradiotelescopeassourcathedralsth, emodelis complete. But, alas,we haveno martyrs.Sincethatequivocael pisodeof poorold Galileo,it hasbeena wonderfulsuccesstory,a primitivesectwaxingmightyuntil madeone with the State.Withoutconflict,withoutblood,withoutthe oppositionof the temporalto thespiritualpower,wehavebeenincorporatedin theEstablishment. J.M.Ziman:Impactof SciencoenSocietyY, ol.2l, l97l
And thetroubleis thatman,by a seriesof enormoutsechnologicaaldvancems adein very recenttimes,hasacquiredalmostunlimitedpower,at a time whenhis social progressgivesno guarantetehatthispowerwill bewiselyused. LordTodd:PresidentiaAlddressB. ritishAssociation1.970.

The purposeof this chapteris to place on record a corespondencebetweenProfessor Dingle and Lord Todd, soon after the latter had beenelectedPresidentof the Royal Society. Since ProfessorDingle sent to Lord Todd a copy of some correspondence between one of his collaborators,Mr. Mark Haymon, and the Editor of Nature, thdt correspondenceis recorded first. Mr. Haymon, a London lawyer who had become interested in Professor Dingle's crusade after the publication of Science at the Crossroads,wrote a letter to the Editor of Nature in December 1915.The following is the text of that letter, the publicationsreferredto in the first sentencebeing Dingle's two notes,both entitled "Integrity in Science", appearingin the issuesof Nature datedJune 12 andluJy17,1975:

INTEGRITYIN SCIENCE-- DINGLE'SQUESTION

FivemonthshavepassedsinceProfessoDr ingleissuedin yourcolumnsthelatestof

his appealsfor an answerto (NatureJanuary12 1973)as

a a

"ppaet er fnetcl yt lsyi mr epalseoqnuaebsltqei ounedsetsi ocnrtiob ewdbhyi cPh rsocfieesnscoesrZhi mo ualnd

indeedgive an answcr." Accordingto his book,Scienceat the Crossroadsr,eviewedby

ProfessoZr imanin thatissueof Nature,ProfessoDr ingle'sappealshavenow beenmade

tohvcehroanpoeuriraondodcf rneedaitrolyft"wsocidcenccaed"edseY.peetnndoonathneswpreorhvaissiaopnopfeaanreadanlsthwocurbguhtnaoltsoon,ilnyvdioeews

of thenatureof modernphysicael xperimentsp,ossiblythesafetyof thewholepopulation.

The questionis too plainly simplefor any normallyintelligcntperson,scientistor not,to mistakeanevasionof it for ananswert,houghhemaybeunqualifiedto havejudged
the soundnesosf an answehr adonecmergedT. he questionis simplythis. The special relativitytheory(which,accordingto a Natureeditorial,pervadesthe whole of modem physics)saysthat if two similarclocks(or personsm) oveuniformlyat differentspeeds,
theywork (or age)at differentrates,theslower-movinhgavingthefasterrate. But it says alsothatsinceall standardosf restareequallyvalid,eitherclockmayrightlybecalledthe slowcr-moving.The theory thereforeseemsinevitablyto requireeachclock to work

31

uniformly faster than the other, which is plainly absurd. The obvious question, then, is: how does the theory distinguish the actual slower worker from the other? The facts cited in Dingle's letter in Nature of August 3L, 1973prove conclusivelythat the theory doesclaim the rate-differenceto be actual,as Ziman's comment also must imply; so unless a distinguishing featureexists(and clearly nothing canjustify a non-disclosureof it if it does)Dingle seemsunanswerablewhen he saysthat the theory crumbles and the imposing ediflce of modem physics,with all that it houses,restson sand:what becomesof such structureswas foretold long ago. Nevertheless,the long-awaitedstatementof the distinguishingfeature
continuesto be withheld.

In his letter to Nature of June 12 1975,Dingle givestwo forms of answerto his question which quite obviously admits of no third form. It cannotbe answeredby experiment: it doesnot ask what happensbut what the theory requiresto happen. Thereforeany physi-
cist who understandsand acceptsthe theory must at oncebe able,and hasthe duty, to justify his use of it by completing the unfinishedsentencein Dingle's answer(1) (viz. -- the
slower-working clock is that which . . .). Yet, during 17 yearsof applicationof the challengedtheory,not onehasdoneso.

"scienI chea"vetorefauslloll nwtohbaet lZieimveaInvdoeiccelatrheestmo ibse-gitivsidnugtsyo,famfaainluyreatatchciseninteuxaptelidcbaybflteefafailcutrtehoaft

the latest purported previous "answer",

answer,by including

Mr. Maddox in Nature, Ziman's, only in being

June 72, one of a

7975, agreeswith every successionof unrelated

obscurities,none of which meetsthe questionasked. Mr. Maddox's statementrequiresus

to bclieve that a theory is important precisely becauseit requireseach of two identical

clocks to work at the same time faster than the other. Your readers.who believe them-

sclvcsintelligent enoughto deservea strongerreasonfor rejectingcommonsensea, re enti-

tlcd to requestfrom those,whoeverthey may be, who direct the courseof experimcntsin

atomic energy establishments,universities and elsewhere,in whose integrity we are ali

compellcd to trust, an early and long overdue published authoritative choice between

Dingle's two forms of answerto his question. Persistencein failure to meet this rcquest can now leaveno doubt in anyone'smind of the presentmoral stateof "science" andmust

lead inevitably to the use of all proper meansof protection againstsuch an abuseof the

unrestrictedfreedomof experimentwhich physical scientistsnow enjoy.

I trust, Sir, that by early publication of this letter, you will enableNature to take an honourablepart in regainingfor "science" the respectit is steadilylosing.

The Editor of Nature, Dr. David Davies, replied to Mr. Haymon on 19th December 1975 as follows:

I cannotseeanythingnew in your letter of 17thDecemberwhich makesa compclling casefor us to publish it in Nature. I think Dingle's questionis so well known to scicntists,
that the continuedrepetitionof thc samematerialprofits no-one.

On January9,IgJ6, ProfessorDingle sent a long letter to Lord Todd, then recently elected as President of the Royal Society; as already mentioned, he enclosed with the letter a copy of Mr. Haymon's letter to the Editor of Nature, and also the Editor's reply. The following is the text of Professor Dingle's letter to Lord Todd:
In sendingmy respectfulcongratulationson your election to the high office which you now hold, I ventureto bring to your notice a situationof the existenceof which I have no doubt you are awarebut of the detailsandbasicsignificanceof which it is very unlikely that you shouldbe. May I say at oncethat I write with no personalaim. In my 86th year I haveno ambitionsof anykind in sucha matter,andwish nothing more fervently thanto be able with a quiet conscienceto retire from the whole affair and spendmy short remaining timc on more peaceful and appropriatesubjectsof meditation. The present position,

32
however,is suchthat I cannotdo so,for my uniqueknowledgeand experienceof the whole controvcrsyand its implications make it impossiblefor me honourablyto withdraw so long as I might still in some measurehelp to prevent an outcome which, unlessthe scienti{ic community can be awakenedin time to the moral stateinto which it has lapsed (mainly unconsciously,I am sure)must sooneror later be disastrousin more than one respect.
To be asbrief aspossibleI introducethe subjectby enclosinga copy of a very recent correspondencebetweenMr. M. Haymon, one of a large and growing number of educated but scientifically lay membersof the public (he is a man of standingin the legal world who, I may say, was personally unknown to me until after my book, Scienceat the Crossroads (1972), was published and whose concem with the matter therefore arosequite independently)and the editor of Nature, togetherwith someof the recentcorrcspondence in Nature which was its immediatecause. A copy of my book relatingthe previoushistory has already been sent to the Royal Society. Mr. Haymon's correspondenceenclosesthe kemel of the matter in assmall a nutshell aspossible;its essenceis that a crucial question, on the answerto which dependsthe validity of the most fundamentaltheory in modem science-- a questionwhich is simple enoughto be fully understoodby any normal personand has been acknowledgedby a Nature reviewer as one which "scicncc should indeed answer" -- remainsstill, after many years,unanswered,while researchprocecdsasthough it had neverbeenasked. This not only violatesthe basicelementof the moral codeof science(asexpressedf,or instance,by the late Sir Henry Dale, whosewords arequotedon lhe first page of Chapter1 of my book and form, so to speak,its theme-song),but also betrays the trust which, under presentconditions,the entire public is compelled to place in the intcgrity of scientists,whose detailedoperationsare necessarilyfar beyond generalunderstanding. The reasongiven by the leading scientificjournal (and I may saythat no other is more opento legitimatepublic questioning)for refusingto allow the educatedpublic to as( "science" to fulfll its acknowledgedobligation is that there is "nothing new" in the request,since the "question is well known to scientists": the fact that it has not been answeredis apparentlyinsignificant. Clearly, nothing new can be given except an answer to the question,and sincenone of thosefrom whom a genuineanswermight properly be expcctcdis willing to give one, and the scientificpressis the only medium through which the public can ask it to do so, scientific activity, however apparentlyirresponsible,is now wholly free from legitimate public questioning. This, I know from personalexperience, was very far from Dale's motive in striving for freedom for science,and it would, I am convinced.have horilied him if he could have foreseenthat the frecdom, when obtained, would havebeenusedto liberatescientistsfrom the duty of meetinginformed criticiam.
I know, from my own embarrassinglylarge correspondenceh, ow widespreadis the dissatisfactionat this situation among educatedpeople of all types (I am not speakingof cranks,of course,of whom thereis never any lack on all sidesof a question),and should a disasteroccur in physical researcht,hough the causemight be undiscoverablet,he outcry at this indefensibleneglectof a much repeatedwaming would be suchthat "science" would find it impossibleto live it down, and the demandfor restrictionsto be placedon its activitics would be irresistible,and fully justified. None of us wishesthis, of course,but unless evidence is quickly forthcoming that scientistsdo realize thcir rcsponsibilitiesand are preparedto meet them whatever the consequencesto their thcories, it is certainly what would happen.
My long intercoursewith leading scientistsall over the world leavesme in no doubt of the actualnatureof the situation. I do not for one moment believethat, with negligible exceptions,there is any deliberatemalevolenceor consciousviolation of the moral ideals of science. It is simply that physicistshave, unawares,allowed their trust in specialrelativity to escapethe control of reasonandbecomea blind slaveryto dogma,for the defence

33

of which any means is held permissible. The best of them (e.g. Blackett, Lovell, Lonsdale, . . . , 0Squoted in my book) acknowledgedthat they did not understandthe theory (I am surethey did, but mistook their perceptionof its impossibility for failure to graspit), but the more mathematical, to whom the experimenterslook for guidance, cannot rise to the moral height (greater,of course,in their case)of confessinglack of understanding,even if, which is at least doubtful, they are fully awareof it. The result is that they have become unableto look at my questionasit is, in all its simplicity, but automaticallyseethrough it to the inevitable consequenceof the only possible answer-- that special relativity is wrong -- and this it has become impossible for them to believe. They are therefore convinced that there must be an answerto my question that doesnot destroy special relativity, but as they cannot see it they either remain silent or produce some irrelevant statement abstruse enoughto reducethe non-specialisto silence.

The phenomenonis familiar enoughto studentsof the history of science. Prejudices which, after they have been supersededthrough the advanceof knowledge, are so obviously such that it is difficult to understandhow they could ever have been thought other, are nevertheless quite unrecognised while their day lasts. Many of those who rejected Galileo's clearly fatal criticism of Ptolemaicastronomy,and Harvey's of Galen's physiology, for example, were neither knaves nor fools, but were among the wisest and most honourable of their time; but they were simply unable to look at what Galileo and Harvey had to show becausetheir field of vision was fully occupied by their preconceptions,and anything obscuring those was simply an obstaclenot to be examined but removed, so asto restore clear sight of the "truth". The parallel with the present case is unmistakable -with the all-important difference that then one could afford to wait for time to set things right, while the consequencesof modem experimentsbased on an illusion might be unspeakably calamitous.

One of the strongestpiecesof evidencefor this diagnosisis the variety of the eva-

sions,to say nothing of their character,of my questionwhich havebeenoffercd as answers to it -- a fact which has astonishedthe non-specialistsin the subject. A Canadianphysicist,

Armstrong, for instance(Nature, July 6, 1973)appealedin vain for the authoritiesto agrce

on so simple a matter instead of each offering a different solution (his letter managed to

squeezeinto publication during the interval betweenthe editors; others,writing similarly at

other times, have been less fortunate), and even in the brief correspondenceherewith enclosed,it may be seenhow the "answers" of Ziman, Maddox, Kilmister and Syngeare

totally "error"

unrelated to one another. privately condole with

Indeed, the frequency me on the ineptitude

with which those who show me my of the pubiished replies is the one

touch of humour in an otherwise wholly grim situation.

I will not weary you with a number of examplesof the character of the "answers", but restrict myself to the one most pertinent in this context -- that of Ziman inhis Nature

review of my book (Jan. 12, 1973) where, as Haymon has noted, he acknowledgedthe responsibility of "science" to answermy question. After a long dissertationon noneuclideangeometry,unintelligible to all but very specialisedreaders,he concluded: "the answerto Dingle's 'question' is simple: the fastestworking clock betweenany two events is one that travels between them by free fall. " Remembering that the question, correctly

paraphrasedby Haymon, was: which of two specifiedclocks (which could not possibly

both travel between any two events) worked the faster, one seesthat this is equivalent to a historian, askedwho lived the longer, Julius Caesaror Napoleon,replying "The longestliving man was Methuselah". This, in its inelevance(thoughin nothing else),is typical of

all the answersso far given.

Ziman is neither a knave nor a fool. He admits that my question is "perfectly reasonable", and sciencemust indeed answerit, and then producesan "answer" that makes it

34

difflcult to believe that he cannotbe one or the other. I seeno explanation but that his eyes are blind to the actual question and capable of seeing only that special relativity must be saved somehow, and therefore something must be said that will pass for an answer, any means being justified for so necessaryan end. Naturally, the intelligent non-scientist, like Haymon, to whom the question is perfectly intelligible, seesthat Ziman's "answer" is a clear evasion, and draws his own conclusions about Ziman and physicists generally who have nothing bener to offer -- conclusionswhich Nature's treatment of the "question" seemsamply to confirm. The experimental physicists,however, having written off special relativity as beyond their comprehension,accept whatever they are told by those who they supposedo understandit, and proceed happily with their work. Whatever the truth about special relativity may be, it is inescapablyplain that those who "take it for granted" (Max
Bom) and apply it in the operation of the most dangerousinstruments in the world, are in a state of complete mental confusion about it. The result, if this continues, is inevitable; the only question is how soon and at what cost.

This, then, is ttre state of affairs which, with all deference, I submit for your con-

sideration. I know, of course,that formally the function of the Royal Society is not to

adjudicateon particular scientificquestions,but the now existing defacto situationis very different from the dejure one. When the Royal Society was founded, sciencehad next to

no impact on public life: to-day it is the dominant material influence in civilisation, and the

Royal Society that "science"

is, in this country, its chief embodiment. If still preservesin practicethe moral code so

the public seeks an assurance clearly proclaimedby Dale, it

is to the Royal Society that it must naturally look for that assurance;it has no other

recourse,and even for that the pressis not now an availablemedium. And if (I should say

when, but I formally leave it hypothetical) the normal course of research,whether harm-

lessly or otherwise,makesit impossibleany longer to maintain the validity of specialrel4tivity, the responsibility for the attitude of "science" to this criticism of the theory, of

which overwhelming evidenceis alreadyon record,and which is epitomisedin Nature's

reply to Haymon as clearly as anything could be, will inevitably fall mainly on the Royal

Society. It would, of course,be presumptuousof me evento suggestwhat coursethat body

should take, but I should fail in my own duty if I did not lay the position before you as

clearly as I can, so that, if possible, past failures may be redeemedwithin the scientific

community before I yield to the pressurethat is being brought to bear on me from various

quarters at home and overseasto seek the co-operation of extra-scientific agencies pri-

marily concemed with public welfare and the preservation of integrity in public institu-

tions. That is a course which I should be most reluctant to take; I would far rather that ttre

situation were rectified through the spontaneousobedienceof scienceto its own moral pre-

cepts("science . . . not toleratingany lapsefrom precisionor neglectof any anomaly,fearing only prejudice and preconception" -- H.H. Dale) than through extemal pressuregen-

eratedin part by considerationsof physicalsafety;butif Nature's reply to Haymon's letter,

the significanceof which it is impossiblefor any intelligent open-mindedpersonto miss, remainsthe last word of "science" on the subject,it will be impossiblefor me to rejectit.

The following is the text of Lord Todd's reply, dated 3 February 1976, which he has kindly given me permission to publish:

First of all let me thank you for your very kind congratulationson my electionto the presidency.

I do, ofcourse, understandyour concem aboutthe problem you outline in your letter and as Sir Henry Dale was my father-in-lawI am well awareof his views on science. At the sametime I agreewith my predecessor,Sir Alan Hodgkin, who wrote to you on an earlier occasion pointing out that it is not for the Royal Society to adjudicate in any scientific disputes and I feel, therefore, that there is little I or the Society can usefully contribute

35
towardssolving your problem.
Professor Dingle wrote again to Lord Todd, in a letter dated February 13, 1976, as follows:
Thank you very much for your reply of Feb. 3 to my letter of Jan. 8. Though the content is disappointing, I do appreciatethe literal accuracyof what you say, and it is not for me to question it, though perhaps I should make clear that I was not asking the Royal Society "to adjudicatein a scientiflcdispute" (a scientificmatter)but to deal with a situation in which an admittedly legitimate and important scientific question had received no answer but only a large variety of incompatible evasions (a moral matter). Clearly a dispute cannot arise until a possibly disputable answer exists, and I merely hoped for the Society's assistancein the effort to obtain one.
Your letter, however, imposes on me the duty of approaching you with a further inquiry which I hoped could be avoided. I cannot ignore the incalculably dangerouspotentialities of a situation in which "the world cannot afford to lose such a contribution lthat of sciencedescribedby Sir Henry Dalel to the moral framework of its civilisation", and yet no-one with any influence or authority in the scientific community -- the Royal Society, the scientific press,any individual scientist-- will acknowledgean obligation to maintain that contribution or even to take any stepsat all to seethat it is maintained and not transformed into a worldwide menace. That this situation actually exists is shown conclusively by the fact indicatedabove-- that, to stateit more explicitly, a very simple question,fully within the understanding of any normal mature person, which is clearly, and in fact has been admitted by a recognisedauthority to be, "a perfectly reasonablequestionto which science [unfortunately left as an unapproachableabstraction] should indeed give an answer", and to which it is obvious, not only to me but to a large number of highly intelligent persons, including both professionalsand laymen in science(and, I have no doubt, to everyonewho understandsthe English language),that an answermust be expressible,and can be seento be genuinely an answer only when so expressed,in one of the two single-sentenceforms given in my letter in Nature of June 12 last -- a question,moreover,on the right answerto which dependthe effects of the whole future course of physical rcsearchand so the possible safety of the whole population -- has for many years been consistently brushed aside and still remainsunanswered. I am bound, therefore,to ask your guidance,asPresidentof the publicly supportedand acknowledgedleading organisationof "science" in this country, as to the meansby which the public may receiveits due assurancethat this menaceto its safetyeithcr doesnot exist or will at oncebe removed.
I want to stressthat I do not make this requestin any spirit of resennnentor provocation or anything of that kind, but becauseI haveno honourable altemative. The facts, however seemingly incredible, are on open record and are indisputable, and the duty they place on any conscientiouscitizen who is aware of them and their necessaryimplications, is equally clear and is compulsory. I cannotbelievethat, despitethe limitations of its formal commitments,the Royal Societyshouldbe, or is, indifferent to the effectsof "science" on public welfare, and it is on my faith that it is not so indifferent that I basemy justification for asking you to instruct me asto the agencywhich, when there are,asnow, widely shared grounds for suspecting that the activities of scientists are avoidably endangering public safety, bearsthe responsibility for allaying those suspicions,and so may, with your approval, in the presentinstancerightly be askedto exact a genuine answerto my question, which the Royal Society finds itself prohibited from trying to elicit.
Having received no reply to his letter of February 13, Professor Dingle wrote again on March 221976 asfollows:

36
I trust you wili not think me impatientif I askfor anearly reply to my letter of February 13. At my ageI am finding that, in more than one respect,thc physicaleffectsof a few weeks are equivalentto thoseof severalmonths not so long ago, and my responsibilityin ttris matter is such that I have no longer the right to let secondaryconsiderations(I have beendoing so for nearly two decades)threatenmy ability to dischargeit before it bccomes too 1ate. As the matter now stands,the whole organisationof sciencein this country, like individual scientists,either ignoresor deniesthe obligation to heed public questioningof the moral integrity and possiblesocial effectsof scientificactivities,and the Royal Society in particulargivesneitherhelp nor guidanceto thoselegitimately seekingreassurancen,otwithstanding clear unrefuted evidence of the need for it.
In such circumstancesit would be inexcusablefor me to refrain from using whatever channelsmight be most effective, by whatever means, and leaving nothing unrevealed,in order to give the widest possiblepublicity to ttre reality and dire implications of the situation, thus exposing the scientiflc community to chargesagainstwhich it would have no acceptabledefence. I assureyou that such a coursewould be utterly repugnantto me, and I should not take it if any worthy altemativeexisted,but, for reasonsalreadystatedwhich I need not repeat,unless a genuine answerto my crucial question is quickly forthcoming, before the inevitable operationof the laws of naturerobs both questionand answerof all significance,therc is no such alternative,and I should be culpable in the extrcme if I allowed personalrevulsionto preventmy performanceof sucha duty.
I cannotstresstoo stronglythat this is not, exceptincidentarlly,a problcm within science,but one concemingthe basic function of scienceitself. The issueis not betweenspecial relativity and a theory of mine -- I havenone (seechapter10 of my book): it is whether challengesto acceptedtheoriesshall be met or evaded,whetherthe inflexible purposeof scicnceshall be to seekor to avoid the discoveryof truth, whateverthe truth might be. The ultimate outcome is certain-- truth is inescapable-- but on the result of the presentaction, which, in addition to its own intrinsic importance,symbolisesthe whole conflict, depends the honour of scientists,the suryival or otherwiseof special relativity, and thereforethe whole future courseof physical research,and so the possiblesafety of the population. If the Royal Societyis not the arenafor sucha conflict, then I am boundto askyour adviceas to whereit shouldtakeplace.
I will do anythingwithin reasonand within my power to producethe right answerin ttreleastobtrusiveway. I am willing to go anywhereaccessibleto me to discussthe mattcr with anyonc consideredcompctentto pronounceon the requirementsof the theory, and if he will show that my question is not reasonableand fundamentally important (Mr. Haymon's statcmentof it will suffice),or will undertaketo publish in Nature his own completion of the unfinishedscntencein my letter thereof June 12 last or his discoveryof anything in the divers existing reactionsto the questionthat makesit possiblefor him to provide a completion acceptableto him, I will publicly withdraw what I have written on lhe subjcct and acknowledgethat I have been mistaken. If by any means the truth of the matter,whateverit may be, is brought clearly to light, I will claim no priority for anything concemedwith it, but be most thankful to be relieved of a great responsibilityand to be able to lapse into obscurity. I will take any other coursewithin my power that might be proposed,regardlessof its personaleffect on me, that will rightly restoreconfldencein the moral integrity and senseof social responsibilityof scientists.But if the mattcr remainsin its presentstate,I must, with the assistanceof others,do whatever will most ef{'ectively provide a rcmedy,howeverotherwiseundesirable.
May I hope that you will make this unnecessaryby soon advising me of the propcr courseopen to membcrsof the public, when they have reasonablegroundsfor fearing that the activities of scientistsdo not accord with their moral and social obligations or with

37

their own professedethicalprinciples,in orderthat suchfearsmay be authoritativelyand convincinglyremoved?
Having received no reply to the above letter either, Professor Dingle sent the following letter to The Times (London) on April 13, 1976.

SCIENCEANDTHE PUBLIC

The purposeof this letteris not to discussa scientificproblem,but to makeit known thatno meansexistto ensurethatscientistsfulfil their moralandsocialresponsibilities.In a currentcase,after many inquirershad failed with leading scientistsand the scientific porbetassin,trheeaRssouyraalnScowechieernygweansuaisnkemeditshgeivgienngearraolsqeu:tehsetoionnlhyorwepmlyeombbtaeirnsoafbtlehweapsu:b"Tlihcecroeuilsd little the Societycanusefullycontributetowardssolvingyour problem." Whatit did con-
tributewasnothing.

Sincethis is an actual,not hypothetical,case,and,with its momentousimplications,

is understandablbey all, its descriptionis neededfor a trueappreciationof whatmight oth-

erwisebe hardto credit. The specialrelativity theory saysthat if two similar clocks (or

persons)move at different uniform speeds(,1) the swifter works (or ages)more slowly

thanthe other;(2) all standardsof restareequallyvalid, soeitherclock may rightly beheld

the swifter. Hence,unlessthe theoryindicatessomeotherdistinguishingfeature,it must

requireeachclock to work theory must then be false.

Amltohroeusglohwmlyanthyahnatvheeroetpheeart,eadnldyassinkecedtthheisqiuseimstipoons"swibhlaetthise

tshtaisnfdeiantguaruet?h"o,ritityre,tombaein"stuankaennsfwoer rgerday,nettetdh,tehtehweohroylecoonf taintoumesic,inphtyhseicwsoisrdmseorfgaendwoiutht-

it." Everyoneknowswhat might occurif atomicexperimentsarewrongly planned.The influenceof the theoryin the world of ideas-- philosophy,religion,etc. -- is well known

andprofound.

Thatthequestionis not misconceivedis sufficientlyshownby theverdictof Nature's chosenreviewer(who supportsthetheory);he wrote:"This is a perfectlyreasonablequestion to which scienceshouldindeedgive an answer",thusdismissingthe illusion that the etrfafencstppioresitssutlahteeidmispnoostsoibbjielictytoivf eplryerveeanl.tNineg"vsecniehneclees"sfnr,oomanfrseweelyrhfalosuctoinmgeit,saonbdlwighaattinoonws.

The variousmoral andsocialresultsof this canhereonly be adumbrated.An Open

University teacher,who has failed to get his inquiriesmet, is expectedto teachwhat he

cannothonestlyaccept.A wider andsubtlerconsequencies shownby thelatestpublished

defenceof none;their

the theoryagainsthis menace(notby avoidanceof the menaceis absolute)--

athpartathcetisthinegosrcyiiesnimtisptob, ruttadnits"porwenceisdeblyy

because"it modifiescommonsens(eNature,June12, 1975).Protestsagainsthis prepos-

tdearnoguesrcolauismthraeraetrteofuthseedtpruusbtliicnatthioen."sYaevtinthgecaosmsemrtoionnsdeonessee"wxphricehssiasnthaectluifael-abnlodomdoosft democracy. It stemsfrom a confusionof two meaningsof the word -- spontaneous

unreasonedfeeling,like thatof theEarth'sflatnessandimmobility, whichmaydelude;and

the starkrationalnecessitythat bansthis behaviourof undistinguishedclocks,which can-

not. The fallibility of the former is tacitly foistedon the other;the public therebyunwittingly becomesproneto acceptanysophistrycallingitself "science"; andno agencyexists

throughwhichthis or anyabuseof thefreedomgrantedto sciencecanbe challenged.

It is necessartyhatthis widely-feltconcemshallbeopenlyvoiced,sothatif thesituation is herefalselyportrayed,the perversionmaybe convincinglyexposed:if it is not, its withholdingfrom publicknowledgewouldbeindefensible.

38

The aboveletter was not publishedinTheTimes. On July 13,I976, after somepreliminary correspondencewhich neednot be recordedin detail, ProfessorDingle submitted a letter to Nature, the text of which is asfollows:

qaunesswtIeinorna.":"f"TaSihrcliysierinseccaeep"n,etorreffevccioetulwyrrisneeaNi,ssaoatnunaraebb,lPeqsturroeafsecttsiiosonointnorJc.waZphimaicbahlnesowcfire"oantnecsecswohneocruienlmdgin"inadgneaeystdhcgiiienvngets,iafoinc, unlessthe statementis meaninglessi,t implies the existenceof someconcreteagency which hasthe authority,andon which reststhe duty,to answersuchquestions.In view of theextentto whichpubliclife is now dependenot n the activitiesof scientistst,henecessity for this is obvious,yet, despitewidespreadinquiry,the identityof suchan agencyis undiscoverable.I think (andinquiry conflrmsthis) mostpeopleregardtheRoyal Society,sofar asthis countryis concerneda, sa body opento reasonablepublic questioningon scientific mattersaffectingpublic welfare,but that is not so. It hasdeniedsuchresponsibility,and directinquiry hasfailedto elicit from it thenamingof anyotherbody to which the public can appealfor enlightenmenwt hen it hasreasonto believethat the practiceof scientists doesnot accordwith the ethicalprinciplesthey professor with the regardthey owe to the demandsof public welfareandsafety. The purposeof this letter is to makethis fact generally known, andto askwhateveragencymay neverthelesesxist,to which the public has the right of appealin suchmatters,to revealits identity as a matterof plain andurgent
necessity.

no "sOponkeeimsmpoarnta"fnotrmsiscuienndceecrsatnapnodsinsmgibulsyetbxeisatst oinncceenroemhuomveadn.aItuhthaosbrietyecnacnlapirmoneodtuhnacte

on mafferson which,accordingto thebasictenetsof sciencen, atureandthelawsof reason arethesolearbiters.That,of coursei,s unquestionablbeu, t theissuehereis quiteother.it

concemsthe fact that no agencyexistsfor enlighteningthe public, not on the courseof naturebut on the beliefsandvoluntaryactsof scientiststhemselves-- no agencyfor providing informationwhich scientists houldpossessa,ndclaim to possessa,ndwhich the public hasa right, asZiman's statemenut nequivocallyimplies,to haveimpanedto it. No onewould expectanyspecialisedorganisationto pronouncedogmaticallyon theeffecs of alcoholon the humanbody, but it is the obviousduty of the producersof a beverageto answerthe questionwhetherit containsalcoholor not. The questionsherereferredto, of

which that commentedon by Zimm is one,areof the lattertype. That questionconcems therequirementsof a theory(i.e. thecontentsof thetheory,like thoseof thebeveragen, ot

its potentialitiesor validity) which therehavebeeninnumerablepurportedexplanationsfor ntthhoeenoperuoybtfrltiuhce,eaomnr hdfaaslpospeoe?nn"eswtbouhctico"hWnitthagainotthedesoweaisntthshoweutehtrtseoaotyrhiynissgaqthyuoeenpstuthiboislnicp.Iiotsiinsetne?tm"it.lpehdatoticuanldlyenrostt"aInsdbt,huet

This, however,is but oneexample-- thoughperhapsthemostimportantnow -- of the

generalanomalythat althoughthereareadmittedlyquestionswhich the to askof "science",whichsodeeplyaffectsits wholeconditionsof life,

p"sucbileicnhcaes" aharisgnhot

obligationto answerthem,andthepublicno courtof appealif it fails to do so. I hope,Sir,

that as a leadingmediumof communicationbetweenscienceandthe public, Nature will

recognisethe disclosureof this little known,but most important,fact, as an essentiapl art

of its function.

The above letter was not published in Nature. In the next few chapterswe shall describesomefurther attemptsby ProfessorDingle and Mr. Haymon to obtain an answer to Dingle's Question.