A physical reality of our universe is that the speed of light is always the same, irrespective of the speed of the source of light or the speed of the observer. This special status regarding the speed of light violated Galilean-Newtonian physics (which for short we will call Newtonian physics or classical physics) and necessitated a revision of physics. Albert Einstein provided a revision. Classical physics was consistent with the “common sense” or intuitive notion that objects would be seen to move at changed speeds by observers, depending on speed of the observer and its direction. For observers looking at moving mass, the speed they measure is affected by their own motion. How or why does light behave differently, in that an observer’s own speed does not matter when looking at light and measuring its speed? How did Einstein explain this strange reality? Einstein had no direct explanation, no mechanism, and no details of what makes this happen. We do!

 . . .

Special relativity dramatically broke from classical physics because of the below postulate.

Light postulate: The speed of light has the same value in space in all (inertial) frames of reference.

The other postulate of special relativity is: The laws of physics are the same in all (inertial) frames of reference. This postulate is largely consistent with what was already known from Galilean-Newtonian physics; in chapter 3, we address the question of arguable fine differences between it and what was before.

The experimental evidence for the light postulate is overwhelming, and there are no credible experimental results against it. Our theory agrees with both the postulates and thus all the experimental evidence in favor of the postulates also supports our theory. (The experimental failures of special relativity that we referred to above are not of the postulates but of other parts, where our theory diverges from special relativity).

Let us first review classical physics, which was so dramatically contradicted by the light postulate. As we know, velocity is just speed with direction specified, thus for our purposes of discussion we can interchange one for other.

We consider two cars moving on the road. Commonly, when we say a car is moving at a certain speed we refer to its speed relative to the road, and that is what we mean here. We can skip the units of speed. One car is moving at 20 and the other at 30 in the same direction as shown. We refer to the occupants of the cars as You and Other.

u and v are commonly used as symbols in physics to denote speed or velocity. You are going to the right at u=20. Other is going to right at v=30.

According to classical physics, You will see Other going to the right at v’= v – u = 30 – 20 = 10 relative to you. And, of course, this classical velocity addition makes perfect sense from experience because Other is 10 faster than You. But to make the light postulate hold true, it can be shown that all velocity additions have to change, so this answer of 10 is not perfectly accurate, but at speeds much slower than light the error is miniscule.

Now suppose You are going to the right at 0.9 times the speed of light, u = 0.9c, and the Other you are observing is Light, v=c.

Then by classical physics, You would see Light going at v’ = v – u = 1c – 0.9c = 0.1c relative to you i.e. light will be faster than you by 0.1 c. But according to above light postulate of special relativity, all observers always see the speed of light to be the same. That means, no matter what speed You are moving at, you will see light to be moving to the right at 1c. Thus classical physics and the “common sense” expectation that you would be catching up to light and therefore would see light at 0.1c is wrong! Even if You increase your speed to, say, 0.999999c, you will observe light to be traveling at 1c.

We provide below a simple explanation for the constancy of speed of light. Einstein simply assumed this constancy of speed of light and called it a postulate. It often is the situation in physics that we have discovered something we can experimentally confirm, and that is where the physics of the situation ends. If one could answer further “how” and “why” something holds true then that could be new physics.

We actually give below the “how” and “why” which Einstein was not able to provide, and that does lead to new physics; in fact, it leads to new equations which are different from and contradict those that Einstein found. To understand our answer to the “how” and “why” of the light postulate let us detour back to classical physics, forgetting about special relativity – for a moment only.

Light has long been known to have a high but finite speed. Special relativity also says (correctly) that no mass can travel faster than the speed of light.

However, in classical physics mass could be made to travel with there being no maximum limit. We are taking a momentary hypothetical detour from special relativity only for the purpose of visiting the concept of infinity (∞). We are only illustrating a mathematical concept and do not suggest that any mass would actually travel with infinite speed in classical physics, and thus do not need to go into what such actual travel at infinity would physically mean.

In mathematics, when you add or subtract a finite number from ∞ you still get ∞. For example, ∞ – 4700000 = ∞ and ∞ + 99999999999999 = ∞.

Then applying this rule of mathematics to below diagram, no matter how fast a finite speed You have, you will always see Other travel at ∞.

In above v’ = v – u= ∞ – 9000000= ∞. The answer from rules of classical physics would be ∞ whether you had u = 9000000 or u = 99999999999999 or any other finite value.

 . . .

Light, in having this property of its speed being constant, is behaving the way an object moving at infinite velocity would in classical physics, in that the speed of the observer would not matter. For light to behave this way there should, in our view, be a hidden infinity in the mathematics of relativity which corresponds to the speed of light. We parted from Einstein and actually found this hidden infinity in the mathematics of velocity addition.

In physics we have the famous notions of “quantum jump” and “discreteness.” These come from quantum mechanics, where at small scales things are not continuous but “granular.” Many physicists have been suggesting a lattice structure for space, or some other way whereby space takes on a discrete character. But giving space such structures would not explain “how” and “why” of the light postulate and tell us where the hidden infinity in the mathematics of the motion of light is which causes the speed of the observer to not matter.

In classical physics and in the theory of relativity all motion is continuous. In our theory we abandon continuous motion for mass and thereby unite relativity with the discrete nature of quantum mechanics. However, very importantly, we hold on to light (or massless particles) having continuous motion. Mass moves through space discretely, “jumping” from one point to another without passing through the points in between. On the other hand, the motion of light through space is continuous.

The book cover design is an illustration of this. The continuous lines at the top represent motion of light and the lines at the bottom depict discrete motion of mass.

 . . .

Now let us look at a stretch of space that mass and light are moving through. In a unit time a discretely moving point mass particle will be at a finite number of points and will have made a finite number of jumps; in this time light will travel continuously over all points in its path. Continuous motion is not discrete motion, as the latter has number of jumps per time and length of jumps. However, we can consider the number of jumps in continuous motion to be infinite, with the jump length being zero. By thus using infinity and zero, continuous motion mathematically parallels discrete. Therefore light will effectively have made an infinite number of jumps.

Thus we have the hidden infinity we were looking for.

In our theory, addition of velocities depends on adding (or subtracting) the number of jumps per unit time. The number of jumps per unit time is infinite (∞) for light and finite for an observer having mass. When an observer looks at light, addition and subtraction will involve adding or subtracting a finite number from ∞ and the result will still be ∞. Thus the speed of the observer will not matter and that is what explains the light postulate.

 . . .

Physics books and papers repeatedly state that time dilation has been experimentally confirmed. Despite what physicists think and claim, time dilation – that time itself dilates – has never been shown to be true; to show it to be true we need to simultaneously test it across multiple clock mechanisms and that has not been done. Clocks are mechanisms that are affected by motion, and by gravity and various forces, so they show different times when these differ. Our equations also lead to different time measurements by observers. However, unlike special relativity, in our theory, the ratio between the time measured by the two observers takes into account the mechanics of the event being measured. To illustrate special relativity’s time dilation many textbooks and popular books give the example of the “light clock,” whose mechanism we detail in chapter 3. In this case our equations yield the same time factor as special relativity. But in our theory different clock mechanisms observed by the same two observers could give different time ratios. Special relativity has a time dilation formula that applies between the inertial frames of the two observers. Using this formula, the ratio of time rates between clocks in the two inertial frames is computed from the relative velocity between the frames. This formula has been tested multiple times using atomic clocks. In special relativity the ratio between the time measured by observers in these two frames will have this same computed value, no matter what the clock mechanism or the event being measured. So to confirm this we need to simultaneously test with different clock mechanisms and show that time dilation remains the same irrespective of clock mechanism. Unfortunately for special relativity, as we discuss below and in full detail in chapter 3, it has already been shown that natural cosmic clocks – quasars being an example of a such a clock – behave differently than atomic clocks when it comes to time dilation. Special relativity has failed this test involving different clock mechanisms!

Length contraction has not been experimentally tested at all. In our theory length of an object remains invariant, and there is no length contraction. Many in physics look only at the mathematics of a physics theory and they can correctly point out that, mathematically, there is no problem with length contraction. However, we are talking physics, and we doubted it was physical reality. What is special relativity’s length contraction? From the Lorentz transformations it follows that length of an object moving relative to you contracts parallel to the direction of motion. Suppose Other and You both have a measuring stick of the same length. Other gets into a very fast vehicle and zooms past You; assume that both sticks are aligned parallel to Other’s direction of motion. As Other passes You, you will notice that Other’s stick is shorter. At v = 0.866c Other’s stick would have contracted to half the length of your stick. It is not just the stick, Other’s vehicle and everything in it will all contract parallel to the direction of motion. And, of course, this happens all the time as people move relative to each other, except that the contraction is so small at everyday speeds that you cannot observe it. We consider length contraction to be one of the strangest claims in the history of physics, and we have always felt that special relativity came with a clear expiry date because the day length contraction claim is experimentally tested would be the day this theory falls. However, giving a rigid body enough speed would be a technological challenge. We also always felt that time itself does not dilate and that properly testing time dilation, by using diverse clock mechanisms, would experimentally topple special relativity before failure of its length contraction does. Where we did agree with Einstein was that the two postulates of special relativity were physical reality.

 . . .

Professors who compile or disseminate on experimental status of relativity – examples are Professors Clifford Will and John Baez and we give more details later in the book – do so on a biased basis, which always carries the message that special relativity has passed all tests. We have already mentioned suppression of the time dilation failure of special relativity. Beyond this, such professors, and at least these two in particular, love to throw the word “crackpot” at those who question special relativity. In our view, there perhaps can be no greater crackpot than a professor who provides and disseminates a compilation that continues to spread misinformation on experimental status throughout the world. Professors Baez and Will are two such notorious relativity worshipping professors.

 . . .

Physics has put all its eggs in one basket with the faith in special relativity and in general relativity, which rests on special relativity! Thus there is good reason why physics authorities want our equations as well as the failure of the Lorentz transformations of special relativity suppressed forever. The fall of special relativity would wipe out the theoretical life work of current physics authorities and of so many past others, which was all based on absolute faith in special relativity.

 . . .

Our counterexample to Einstein’s derivation is also being suppressed by authorities, with three Nobel Prize winners – Gerard ‘t Hooft, Steven Weinberg and Frank Wilczek – commenting on our paper but evading the question of whether we have a counterexample. Either our equations form a counterexample to Einstein’s derivation or they don’t. How much simpler in its thesis and in its invite to find a flaw in the technical arguments could a paper be? If there was no counterexample they would surely have pointed that out with glee. In chapter 4 we document their comments, as well as those of others.

 . . .

In the next chapter we examine reasons why the dogmas of scientists can be stronger than those of traditional religions, and in chapter 6 we show that this was actually the case during the time of Galileo. The methodologies used by dogmatic physics authorities to prevent dissemination of scientific facts that go against their most cherished beliefs regarding the physical world are also of similar nature to methodologies that have often been employed by authorities of traditional churches. A fundamental difference between science and religion centers on the existence and role of God; it seems the existence and role of God will never be proved or disproved and thus will never be settled. Events such as miracles in religious texts result from the will of God, and since these do not happen in the normal course of events they escape the demand of scientific replication.

 . . .

We live in a special time in physics history because never before (since the post-Galileo period) has there been such authoritarian religious worship of a theory and suppression of facts against it by physics authorities. It is for this reason that we call today’s physics establishment the relativity worshipping Church of Physics. (In this book, unless otherwise specified, we use “church” as a generic word for a place of worship or religious organization).

We continue the discussion in the previous chapter of Einstein’s path to the equations of special relativity, called Lorentz transformations. And we discuss in more detail some of the related philosophical matters.

 . . .

There are other books and websites devoted to attacks on special relativity. We do not make a frivolous or amateurish attack. In most attacks on special relativity, the light postulate speed limit is the one questioned; most such attacks are by amateurs who are looking to remove the speed limit but do not offer equations of their own. Many people want a future where we can zoom across the universe as fast as we want. After all, even at the speed of light travel to the nearest star would take years, which means we are not going anywhere in a hurry and are effectively restricted to lifetime travel to a very small region of the vast universe. In science fiction they have the concept of warped space or hyperspace, without which the Star Trek crew would reach nowhere in their five year missions. In fact, as we see below, even mainstream scientists having a need to modify special relativity’s equations would modify the constancy of the speed of light – though only slightly. A potential replacement of special relativity, we felt, would involve one that offers equations explaining the constancy of the speed of light, not one that in some way alters the constancy. Our equations keep the two postulates perfectly intact and, by explaining the light postulate and thus making it not a postulate, completely rule out the faster than light travel for mass that is proposed by many amateurs and mainstream scientists.

In May 2017, Nobel Prize winner Gerard ‘t Hooft replied to us regarding our forming alternative equations to special relativity that also preserved the postulates and thus were a counterexample to Einstein’s derivation: “[T]hink can outsmart more than a century of theoretical physicists  . . .  Please be assured that this is elementary physics, taught to freshmen students in a few weeks time.” (This was part of the same email that we quote from in chapter 1, regarding infinity).

Gerard ‘t Hooft’s absolute confidence and blind faith that special relativity’s foundations cannot be toppled has been the problem with special relativity, with students being indoctrinated into accepting their professors’ faith. What fool will question the foundational derivation of what is today deemed “elementary physics”? Students swiftly and faithfully memorize the Lorentz transformations along with Einstein’s derivation that shows no other equations consistent with the two postulates are possible; in such pursuit they follow the same scientific tradition and practice by which much of Aristotelian scientific reasoning was uncritically memorized. Professors who today are the experts in charge, including ‘t Hooft, are products of this ongoing system of deep faith in special relativity. This is the current physics life path to a secure career, just like the path of faithfully following Aristotelian reasoning was once the way. We saw our fellow physics students ready to charge on to a lifetime devoted to building on relativity. But we held on to our doubts regarding the validity of Einstein’s derivation, finally toppling the derivation. The dogma that Einstein has a derivation that shows that postulates imply the Lorentz transformations, and no other set of equations, is the central dogma of the relativity worshipping church. Anti-intellectual evasion is the methodology that church professors today employ to preserve this dogma.

 . . .

Besides contempt for philosophy, there is also the shared contempt within the church of physics for independent reasoning that goes against the reasoning of Einstein. Logic is a branch of philosophy that relativity worshippers, who have all accepted the reasoning in Einstein’s derivation of the Lorentz transformations, seemingly do not like to practice at all and they even ignore the logic of a counterexample to the derivation. Perhaps the church of physics authorities should change their above anti-philosophy proclamations to “against logic” and “logic is dead.” There are consequences when a field abandons logic which, at minimum, are the eventual invalidation of the life work of scientists whose success is centered around such evasion and suppression of inconvenient logic by physics authorities; their highly awarded and rewarded life work is important only temporarily and is not going to last beyond the point where these powerful fact and reason evading experts lose control of the field.

Einstein biographer Abraham Pais talks of the “admiration of his peers” and the “general public”:

He is a new Moses come down from the mountain to bring the law  . . .  Behold, a new man appears. His mathematical language is sacred yet amenable to transcription in the profane: the fourth dimension  . . .  He fulfills two profound needs in man, the need to know and the need not to know but to believe (italics mine).^[22]

Physicists today religiously believe in the fourth dimension and to them the messiah’s derivation and his mathematical language are sacred. The famous fourth dimension is something we did not share the “admiration of his peers” for or their “need not to know but to believe” in; we wanted to remove this fourth dimension and successfully did, going back to three dimensions and a separate time, while also incorporating and explaining the constancy of the speed of light. We did what their messiah’s worshipped logic, reasoning and proclamations showed to not be possible. But such science cannot persuade relativity worshippers because they will evade reasoning and reality when it goes against dogmas founded on their messianic special relativity.

What separates today’s physics authorities from Einstein, and from physics authorities of Einstein’s time, is that Einstein intellectually addressed any genuine matters that arose – even after relativity had become dominant – rather than suppress and ignore such matters.

 . . .

What can cause scientific dogma to be greater than religious dogma? What can cause scientists to be more inclined than priests of traditional religions to suppress scientific truths and to also be better able to do so? We suggest below ten reasons:

Reason 1: Traditional churches may be more open to truths of nature that contradict their texts because these churches can often defend what is scientifically incorrect in their scriptures by simply reinterpreting the scripture or declaring certain text to have been metaphorical and not meant to have been taken literally. An example is the creation versus evolution debate. Pope Francis, accepting scientific reality, thus stated the new position of the church: “Evolution of nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings which evolve.” The religious scripture having a scientific statement here or there that comes under question does not shake the foundations which have messiahs, teachings, and literature text which as their core. Scientific statements are mostly on the periphery of the religious scripture, and are few and far between. Further, the scientific claim in religious scriptures is usually just conclusion, without a convincing intellectual paradigm built on some combination of reasoning and data that an army of great geniuses have examined, understood and built on. The traditional religious churches also do not have any scientific proof or logical fallacy, such as a counterexample, to their fundamental belief in a creator God, and are thus on far more unshakable ground regarding their God foundations. On the other hand, practitioners of science fields like physics, who often operate with similar lifetime devotion to the written text as do traditional religions, deal with equations that often leave no wiggle room, and come with attached reasoning showing those conclusions to be true. All this precise details does not allow a reinterpretation. Thus discovery of problems with the equations or conclusions in their texts, irrespective of whether these problems arise from empirical testing or flaws in the reasoning that led to them, can be fatal, and there may be great resistance to acknowledgment and dissemination of such fatal truths.

 . . .

Reason 2: Scientists read the affirmations of other great scientists concurring with the revered foundational theory and read publications building on the foundational theory. With a growing number of great names praising and building on the theory, doubters become increasingly rare with time. In science, extreme reverence by experts for what a great scientist laid down, when it grows with repeated affirmations by other revered scientists who have spent their lives studying and building on those original foundations, can begin to exceed the reverence of a church priest for what is laid down in religious scriptures. Traditional religions do not have such repeat proclamations by great intellectuals, and have only the original words. Skepticism and openness to doubting can all vanish in time, with a theory in science becoming a greater shared dogma than any scriptural scientific statement. Special relativity rose to become such a theory.

Reason 3: Dogmatic scientific authorities are able to cement the faith of believers by creating confirmations through objective experimentation as well as through selective experimentation, and by selective conclusion made from experiments (one common unjustified special relativity conclusion being that an experiment showed that time itself dilates), whereas other churches cannot create new facts to support their scriptures. Whether experimentation or conclusion is objective can also depend on the authorities in charge.

 . . .

Reason 5: Scientific dogma can in practice be a greater obstacle to pursuit of truth in that scientists can set up a peer review methodology in a way that they can use to can get away with suppressing scientific truth far more successfully than traditional churches; other churches do not have such a working methodology at hand that is available for such misuse. A major advantage that today’s church of physics has over other churches when it comes to science that challenges what is in their texts is that the authorities are the gatekeepers of science while authorities of other churches lack power in that they are not gatekeepers of science – at least not today – and thus cannot attempt suppression of scientific facts that go against what is in their texts. Today, the church of physics is able to prevent dissemination of scientific facts that challenge the foundations of special relativity. Meanwhile, other churches are forced to acknowledge scientific reality, which means they have to address, reevaluate or reinterpret what they have previously worshipped as being fact.

Scientists can, and today do, successfully use power and use colleagues in power at journals to ban alternative theories. Journals that, after peer review, publish work against the mainstream view have been black-listed by physics authorities as publishing crackpot papers, and so have their editors, and getting a paper published there is doom for the paper. The public hears the term “peer review” but the real requirement, at least at the current time in physics, is to work within the major foundational theory, rather than challenge it, or be blacklisted.

 . . .

Carlo Rovelli, among the greatest admirers of general relativity, talks of both special and general relativity in his books, noting that “Special relativity is a subtle and conceptually difficult theory. It is more difficult to digest than general relativity (italics mine)”.^[35] Special relativity is “subtle,” in our view, in that the physics question of what equations follow from the constancy of speed of light is subtle. And for us special relativity is “difficult to digest” because of its lack of rigor in providing the answer, thus allowing a counterexample to its derivation and, additionally, because of its lack of explanation for constancy of speed of light.

 . . .

Wilczek further notes in his Nobel Prize lecture^[41]:

Quantum mechanics and special relativity are two great theories of twentieth-century physics. Both are very successful. But these two theories are based on entirely different ideas, which are not easy to reconcile. In particular, special relativity puts space and time on the same footing, but quantum mechanics treats them very differently. This leads to a creative tension, whose resolution has led to three previous Nobel Prizes (and ours is another).

And Wilczek notes the theoretical foundations of particle physics: “combining quantum mechanics and special relativity seemed to lead inevitably to quantum field theory [QFT].”

Wilczek spent many years staying in the house where Einstein lived; it might have been wise for him to also spend some years at Newton’s old house pondering how his physics did not have a space and time that was so dramatically incompatible with quantum mechanics, and whether special relativity was the only possible way to resolve the matter of speed of light.

 . . .

We differed philosophically regarding infinity and the physical world, and went back to 1905 and actually incorporated infinity as the means of explaining the constancy of speed of light, leading to new equations that would replace those of special relativity. Our theory has discrete motion for mass, but not discrete space with a minimum length; such minimum length is a path away from infinite divisibility, and we were not looking to escape the reality of the infinite in the physical world. And our path leads to the constancy of length and not having time itself dilating, thus avoiding these troubling incompatibilities with quantum mechanics.

 . . .

The philosophy of time has an increasing number of books, articles, and video lectures about it nowadays, discussing the evolution of time from Newton to Einstein and their respective “time flow” and “time flow affected by motion.” Both these “time flow” concepts can be brought down using clock experiments; finally, emerging experimental reality is at hand to bring an end to centuries of mistaken philosophy. This wrong “time flow” philosophy, which states time to be an independent physical entity, came from Newtonian physics and then was built upon – not repudiated as philosophers and physicists say – by Einstein. Our focus is on the common Newton-Einstein philosophy regarding there being “time flow” and on the further Einsteinian modification that time itself dilates. Our time philosophy aligns back with the ancient pre-Newtonian philosophy that time does not flow as an independent physical entity; we agree with the philosophy that time is a measure of change and thus there needs to be some physical change for time to exist. We unite this ancient philosophy of time with the modern reality of the constancy of speed of light.

A favorite description by authors narrating the path from Newton to Einstein is that Einstein freed us from the “absolute time” of Newtonian physics. We would agree that this is true. But things are not that simple. While the Lorentz transformations, the equations of special relativity, do remove the “absolute time” flow of Newtonian physics, they preserve the concept of time flowing as an independent physical quantity. (We will address the matter of relativity’s spacetime later in the chapter.) Physicists summarize special relativity’s modification of Newtonian time flow with phrases such as, “Motion affects the flow of time.”[52]

 . . .

Let us now examine Einstein’s reasoning connecting velocity and time, from which he made the conclusion that “Motion affects the flow of time.”

 . . .

Lee Smolin discusses this logic in his book, The Trouble with Physics:

The key is that we do not measure speed directly. Speed is a ratio: It is a certain distance per a certain time. The central realization of Einstein is that different observers measure a photon [light] to have the same speed, even if they are moving with respect to each other, because they measure space and time differently. Their measurements of time and distance vary from each other in such a way that one speed, that of light, is universal.[54]

Einstein’s above conclusion that for different observers to measure light to have the same speed it is necessary that observers measure lengths in space differently and measure time differently was wrong. We can argue that if we rearrange and put time=distance/speed then speed is no longer a ratio and time becomes the ratio, and then it is time and not speed that we can supposedly claim to not measure directly. The relationship between time and speed and whether one, and which one, should be considered the primary physical quantity is an interesting philosophical question. Time, and not speed, being a primary quantity is a dogma that we explicitly rejected in chapter 1. There we gave our simple reasons why, in our theory, we “have velocity and not time as the quantity we prefer to work with as a starting point.” Philosophically, we believe that change (such as that represented by velocity) is associated with the very existence of time rather than time flowing independently of anything else, and that philosophy affected our choice of what we start with: velocity (change) or time. And this different philosophy yielded different equations! The physics reality is that through our theory’s equations, we are able to explain the constancy of speed of light without observers measuring length of objects differently and without time itself dilating. The reasoning about the necessary implications of speed=distance/time is thus shown to be wrong. This unstated and wrong assumption about speed and time was central to Einstein’s thinking.

 . . .

There is no doubt that t’ = t equation holds true in classical physics and we have different observers measuring the same time for the same event. But our interpretation does not take the absolute time of Newtonian physics to have meant that time itself “flows” as an independent physical quantity. We could attempt to make a similar statement about observers in different frames and relativity’s relative time flow; however, in relativity time necessarily is an independent physical quantity and we have actual time dilation.

 . . .

If it was time itself that was dilating, as it does in special relativity, then all clocks being compared between the observers’ frames would necessarily record the same dilation. Again, in our theory time itself does not dilate. In particular the equations of our theory state that there will be no measured time variance whatsoever when one looks at an event that involves emission of light from a source and in which the source is observed to be moving along the same line of motion as the light emitted by the source. For observers on Earth, cosmic clocks such as quasars match both criteria; these objects are being observed to show no time dilation in a clear violation of special relativity’s time dilation.

 . . .

New Scientist reported in an article titled Time waits for no quasar – even though it should: [65]

Using observations of nearly 900 quasars made over periods of up to 28 years, Hawkins compared patterns in the light between quasars about 6 billion light years from us with those at 10 billion light years away.

All quasars are broadly similar  . . .  So one would expect that a brightness variation on the scale of, say, a month in the closer group would be stretched to two months in the more distant group.

[Article quotes Hawkins:] “To my amazement, the [light signatures] were exactly the same  . . .  There was no time dilation in the more distant objects.”

 . . .

Is relativity one big conspiracy? No, the behavior of named physicists and their related fear of truth and evasion of truth is associated with the nature of dogma and unshakable belief. As detailed in chapter 2 and illustrated historically in chapter 6, scientific dogma often is greater than religious dogma. Thus science often behaves worse than a church would behave. Then, in our view, the proper question is whether churches sometimes hide or ignore truth that goes against their teachings. The behavior of churches has not been constant in history, and varies with the nature of the authorities in power.

 . . .

In special relativity length and time are distorted as one looks out at relatively moving celestial bodies in the universe. God, in our theory, keeps the celestial shapes undistorted. Further, in our theory, the cosmic clocks in our expanding universe would not have the distortion of special relativity’s time dilation and would blink and flicker at the same rate. The physical power of infinity keeps the speed of light the same for all observers while also keeping observations of the celestial universe, both in length and time, the same for all.

 . . .

Our paper was completed in January 2005 and was rejected by journal editors, mostly without comments on specifics, with our final attempts being in 2018. This is a history of that evasion and rejection, with some renowned names involved.

 . . .

Evasion of the kind we encountered from famous names has not been standard physics practice; traditionally, scientists would give a reason. The nature of a field of science, as we have discussed earlier, varies with the nature of the authorities in charge.

 . . .

Most of the people mentioned below have great expertise with special relativity; these include the three Nobel Prize winners we quote below – whose expertise partly comes from quantum field theory (QFT) which is built to be consistent with special relativity. Others included those who had themselves had been working on possible modifications of special relativity as part of their pursuit of quantum gravity (uniting relativity with quantum mechanics).

 . . .

Our paper was then submitted to Annals of Physics Editor and physics Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek on May 2, 2005:

Dear Esteemed Professor Wilczek:

 . . .  I share your great admiration for the works of Albert Einstein. However, Einstein wrongly thought that his equations are the only ones that can be shown to follow from his two postulates. My theory presents an interesting alternative  . . .

We got this intermediate email from journal administrator:

Submissions are normally made through our publisher, Elsevier, via the submission tool at their site: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/aop and I look forward to receiving your paper through that site. I will log your ms. and assign a number, however, so that if you prefer to wait to do this until Prof. Wilczek had made a decision regarding publication, you may do so.

Cordially,

Eve Sullivan for ANNALS OF PHYSICS

And then Sullivan sent the rejection decision on May 21:

The editor has reviewed your paper and finds it to be too speculative. Thank you for having given us the opportunity of considering it. There is no further report.

“Too speculative” is seemingly a term available to editors looking to reject potentially revolutionary papers that they do not like, without sending them to referees. Again, looking at our argument above regarding Einstein publishing his arguably more speculative paper, what has changed in physics?

 . . .

Wilczek, Weinberg and others hide the reality of their power to evade and suppress, which power pre-WWII physics authorities did not exercise and did not allow others to exercise. Physics now has a system where journals and media hide experimental and theoretical problems with special relativity: its time dilation and its central derivation.

Wilczek cites books by Sabine Hossenfelder, John Horgan and others and counter-argues:

I get asked about these books and their dismal messages frequently  . . .  For theoretical physicists they are a kind of reproach, since they argue that today’s physics has gotten itself into a dead-end  . . .  What’s going on here? Opinions may differ about the current health of physics, but  . . .  20th-century breakthroughs  . . .  relativity  . . .  our theoretical understanding reached a very high plateau  . . .  a pinnacle of human achievement  . . . When you have reached a high plateau, ascending still higher gets more difficult  . . .  Really, the plateau we’ve reached is a good place to be (italics mine).^[75]

 . . .

The dramatic problem with modern physics has been that its two main theories – relativity and quantum mechanics – are incompatible with each other. That itself should have been cause for caution regarding the extraordinary confidence in relativity. Special relativity, in our view, needs to be foundationally replaced and we have the replacement. But those foundations are sacred to Wilczek and other authorities. Our paper points to specific theoretical and experimental clouds over special relativity, which specifics physicists in power want to hide. Dogmatic physics authorities, who cannot counter these specifics, have turned physics into a power and suppression game.

 . . .

Telescopes and their observations were in news. While browsing about telescope observations of celestial bodies in 2014, we discovered that quasars had failed special relativity’s time dilation all the way back in 2001! That further dramatically shook our trust in the objectivity of the physics powers-that-be when it comes to special relativity.

 . . .

The paper was submitted to Foundations of Physics in November 2014, with a letter addressed to ‘t Hooft.

We got the below rejection email:

 . . .  I regret to inform you that the editors had to conclude that this work is not suitable for publication in Foundations of Physics.

Gerard ‘t Hooft, Editor in Chief

Specific comments from a member of the Editorial Board:

The author of this manuscript fails to make clear how his/her work relates to current discussions in the foundations of physics. Regrettably, this fact places the current submission outside the scope of Foundations of Physics.

This is displayed by a lack of references to recent literature.

We responded:

Professor ‘t Hooft – The most recent reference mentioned in my submitted paper was the 2010 Quasars paper, where quasars are not showing Time Dilation. There should have been vigorous discussion of this experimental failure of Special Relativity in physics journals. But since today’s editors and authors are relativity-worshippers there is no such discussion.

From later correspondence with ‘t Hooft it seemed that the “editorial board” had entirely handled the submission and ‘t Hooft was not personally involved, though he seemed to have looked at the issue after we connected by email.

 . . .

The last email we received from ‘t Hooft was on Dec 9, 2017 where he said: “[Y]ou shouldn’t formulate the laws of relativity by guessing velocity addition rules.” We replied: “You ignore the advantages of my equations that I listed. You can call my equations a ‘guess’ since there is no derivation, but I would rather have a correct guess than have a mistaken derivation, to which a counterexample exists, as the foundation.”

 . . .

Foundations of Physics  . . .  editorial board had three names who had themselves been looking to modify special relativity: Carlo Rovelli who was editor in chief, Lee Smolin and Alan Kostelecký. In chapters 2 and 3, we have discussed our work and compared it with theirs.

Rovelli and Smolin were highly conversant with the matter of discrete versus continuous and the need to modify properties of special relativity such as its length contraction. They were also experts on the matter of time, having written entire books on it.

 . . .

Our final email regarding the submission was sent on Jun 3, 2018:

I appeal to the Editorial Board of Foundations of Physics  . . .

 . . .

Carlo Rovelli: You are an expert on possible modifications on special relativity, and my paper cites your papers on the topic. You note that “The worst enemies of knowledge are  . . .  those who would never accept their certainties to be questioned” and “the credibility that science enjoys rely on the intellectual honesty of the scientists.” I urge you to publish the paper, or give a reason for rejection.

  . . .

For how many more decades will physicists waste their lives dogmatically building on what is not reality by refusing to replace special relativity?

Special relativity is the foundation upon which general relativity is built. Since the Lorentz transformations of special relativity are not reality, Minkowski spacetime reformulation of these cannot be reality and, in turn, the curved spacetime of general relativity, which is founded on this, cannot be reality.

We have toppled general relativity by taking out its special relativity foundations. However, we do not have a new theory of gravity. A theory of gravity to replace Newtonian gravitational theory was needed because Newtonian theory makes wrong predictions even within our solar system. A further theoretical problem with Newtonian gravity was that gravity was instantaneous whereas we have a speed of light limit in special relativity (and in our theory.) That Newtonian gravity can be reinterpreted to have the speed of gravity be equal to the speed of light is, arguably, a possibility (though some would challenge that and say it cannot be done without substantial problems arising). However, the key victory of general relativity over Newtonian gravity was in making the right predictions within our solar system.

 . . .

The showdown between Newtonian gravity and general relativity occurred during a solar eclipse in 1919, and media coverage of that result made Einstein a celebrity overnight. Newtonian gravity had light bending by half the amount that was predicted by general relativity.

 . . .

If there is no dark matter then general relativity is a wrong theory and all those additional bells and whistles in its favor will not save it. No number of experiments can prove a theory right but a single contradiction to its key foundations or predictions can prove it wrong.

 . . .

A further LIGO claim is regarding events such as that in August 2017 which was supposed to be a neutron star merger that produced both gravitational and electromagnetic waves. This event with two types of waves would be a confirmation that what LIGO detected was not noise but an actual event that can be independently confirmed. In this event, LIGO detected gravitational waves while simultaneously, 2 seconds later, independent telescopes detected electromagnetic waves. But how do we know what LIGO detected were also not electromagnetic waves or noise, as LIGO would term such? Again, telescopes only detect the electromagnetic ranges they are designed to but LIGO, on the other hand, can seemingly detect all ranges of electromagnetic noise. Further, over the following weeks, this merger kept producing various ranges of electromagnetic waves, which were detected by observatories designed for different ranges; thus diverse electromagnetic radiation seems to be a possible feature of such events. We believe it quite likely that for the first 2 seconds the merger produced electromagnetic waves outside the range of other observatories. There were other problems too with the August 2017 event.

 . . .

General relativity has a curved spacetime based on a 4-dimensional geometry. This curvature of space (or spacetime) should be measurable. How do we directly measure the curvature of space?  . . .  light rays in flat space would remain parallel, whereas in curved space (or spacetime) they would diverge away from each other or converge towards one another. By focussing on light reaching us from very far away objects we can make a determination  . . .

 . . .

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) has visible distant “patches” or “spots” and their size has been measured to determine flatness. Physicists now largely accept, based on experimental data from high precision measurements by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and by the Planck satellite, that the universe is flat within a 0.4% margin of error. Parallel light rays in our universe stay parallel, and there is no hint of the exotic geometry of general relativity being reality.

 . . .