Physics of the Future by Thomas G
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Physics of the Future by Thomas G. Barnes

Thomas G. Barnes, a well respected physicist, is not alone in feeling great unease at the direction that science has taken since it left the search for the truth of God's creation for the pursuit of secular humanist goals. His pioneering work towards moving physics back to common sense has been followed by others (see for example Common Sense Science).

In the following excerpt from the introduction to his "Physics of the Future" (ICR, 1983) Barnes makes the case that all is not well.

I-I Philosophical indoctrination in physics

Technology has advanced at an ever increasing rate. Within a life span there has been the transition from hand cranked calculators to tele-computing systems that have revolutionized business and industry. There has been the transition from the horse and buggy to spacecraft- Surprisingly some recent technological advances turn out to be ingenious applications of old fundamental principles in physics. The trajectories of spacecraft are computed electronically but the physics goes back to fundamental physics known in the eighteenth century. The physics is old. The technology is new.

While the advances in technology have been continuously upward, it is a matter of opinion as to which way the curve slants on the rate of real advances in the fundamentals of modern physics. Dr. C.S. Cook made a study of the Nobel Prize winners in physics since about 1940. He concluded that most of them had been to older physicists whose prize winning work was many years prior to the time of their award. The conclusion was that progress in making real fundamental discoveries in physics is on the downgrade.

The philosophical pendulum in physics has swung too far to the left. The spirit of individual creative potential has all too frequently been discouraged. The young physicists are overwhelmed by an excessive emphasis on complex mathematics and a minimum of physical reasoning. The whole structure of modern physics appears to thrive on the very opposite of common sense.

It is a hazardous thing in science to attempt to define common sense, but the normal person has some concept of what the term means. It certainly would imply clear and rational thinking, and in physics would associate physical effects with physical causes. The layman might expect the prevailing views in the theoretical foundations of modern physics to be based on a measure of common sense. Not so! The elite position taken by most theoreticians in modern physics is to leave no place for common sense in the development of the basic principles.

In the early days of physics when physics was known as natural philosophy, common sense was at a premium. That type of physics is now called classical physics. The physics of Isaac Newton. Michael Faraday. James Clerk Maxwell. Lord Rayleigh. Lord Kelvin. Karl Gauss, and Ernest Rutherford is classical physics. The space flights achieved by NASA are illustrations of applied classical physics.

The underlying theoretical principles of all modern physics are: I) Einsteinian relativity and 2) quantum mechanics. Those principles are not common-sense principles. While acknowledging many successes with those principles in modern physics, the author contends that there must be a better way, one that associates physical effects with physical causes, a common-sense approach.

I-2 The need for a change

There has now been several generations of indoctrination in a philosophical acceptance of "no need to be concerned with cause and effect relationships." The result is an unquestioning acceptance of the philosophy of: putting the cart before the horse, assuming that one can start with mathematics and explain the physics rather than starting with physical reasoning and employing mathematics to help elucidate that reasoning. This inverted type of logic frequently leads to self-contradictions and sheer nonsense.

Herbert Dingle exposes that type of nonsense in the writings of the noted astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle. Hoyle goes beyond the bounds of common sense in the use of mathematics. Dingle quotes Hoyle as follows:

"To the scientist war starts because human behaviour is representable in terms of mathematical equations possessing discontinuous solutions."

Dingle then explains:

''This must not be dismissed as a humorous wisecrack: Hoyle, and others of his type, really believe that this is so. They were not necessarily born deficient of common-sense: They have exceptional mathematical ability which has been mistaken for exceptional intelligence, and have been so trained that their normal intelligence has expired thorough desuetude: much mathematics has made them - what they are."

It is the courage and great scholarship of scientists like Herbert Dingle that encouraged the author to question the Einstein theories of relativity, and to develop alternatives. Many other scientists have now joined Herbert Dingle's bandwagon and openly question Einstein's theories of relativity. Some question other phases of modern physics. There is a need not only to give alternatives to the re1ativity theories but also to give alternatives to the other foundational principles of modern physics. That is far too much for one individual to achieve. The aim of this book is to present illustrative examples of plausible alternatives to be considered. It will be seen from these illustrations that when one foundational principle is changed it also requires changes in the other principles. Hence there is a need to eventually revamp the entire framework of modern physics.

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