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Some of your contributors find it difficult to accept my contention (WW October, 1978) that Einstein?s theory of relativity is invalidated by its internal errors. Butterfield for example (WW February, 1987) denies that there is any duplication of units or any harm in obtaining results from thought-experiments. Moreover, if my contention is correct, the new experimental work described by Aspden (EWW, August, 1987 ) is not required to disprove the theory, although it might confirm that his assumptions were wrong. This is not to suggest that experimental results are not important but they should be considered as steps in the development of new theories.

Discussions about the theory tend to be very involved and your readers may be interested in a brief history of the subject which I wrote some time ago for a friend who wanted to know what the controversy was about and in particular what was the significance of the clock paradox...

This paper presents a transcription of a letter from Louis Essen to Dr. Carl Zapffe. It briefly summarises Dr. Essen's criticism of special relativity in a few lines. Its most memorable statement is that relativity is "not a theory".  A commentary by Harry Ricker puts Dr. Essen's letter into perspective.

I enjoyed reading M. G. Wellard's "Appreciation of James Clerk Maxwell" (March issue) with his penetrating analysis of modern theoretical physics. The criticisms he makes in a general way were clearly in Vallee's mind when he developed his uniform field theory referred to in my earlier article (October 1978 issue). Vallee starts with a model of space and, in view of the obvious presence of various forms of electromagnetic waves, he makes the assumption that all the energy in space, including, gravitational energy, is in an electromagnetic form. Realising too that the mathematical equation relating to the waves are continuous and that the superposition of waves would eventually lead to infinite values of the field, he postulates that then: is an upper limit of field at which the properties of space alter so as to prevent any further increase...

Most people now know that all time measurements and time signals throughout the world are based on atomic clocks but the need to adjust them by one second at the end of the year is not well understood. It follow. from the fact that the signals must not only give precise uniform intervals of time but must also give the time of day which is determined by the non-uniform rotation of the earth. The transfer from astronomical to atomic time and the co-ordination of the two systems was an important step in the advance of science and it is surprising that the full story his never been told. The requirements of radio engineers were always prominent in the discussions.

One of the earliest applications of radio was the transmission of time signals as an aid to sea navigation and today signals are used to synchronize atomic time throughout the world for navigational and other purposes. The comparison of distant clocks by radio is now a precise and well known technique. This was not the case in 1905 when Einstein published his famous paper on relativity and there is some excuse for the mistakes he made in the thought experiments which he described in order to determine the relative rates of two identical clicks in uniform relative motion. But there is not excuse for their repetition in the current literature.

The authors of the Hafele and Keating atomic clock experiment in their theorical discussion, ignore detailed and fully documented criticisms of Einstein's relativity theory which have been made and have not been refuted.

The units of measurement used in science for evaluating the fundamental quantities length and time are the metre and the second. Although originally related to a particular dimension of the Earth, the metre has since 1889 been defined as the distance, under specified conditions, between two parallel lines engraved on a platinum-iridium bar (the International Prototype Metre) which is carefully preserved in a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sevres in France. Two astronomical units of time are now recognised one, the mean solar second, which is related to the diurnal period of rotation of the Earth, and the other, more precisely defined and designated in 1956 as the second,* which is related to the period of revolution of the Earth about the Sun as represented by the duration of a particular tropical year. During the next few years there is every prospect that new definitions of the metre and the second will become adopted which will be expressed in terms of certain fundamental characteristics of the atom...

The importance of the velocity of light in the development of electrical theory and practice is sometimes overlooked and in this review special emphasis will therefore be given to this aspect of the work and to the determinations of the velocity by electrical methods. It will moreover be assumed at the outset that in accordance with theory the value is independent of the frequency of the waves. The electrical, radio, and optical methods are all measurements of the same constant and the different titles of the various papers are merely indications of the particular technique employed. If there are discrepancies in the results then the theory must be re-examined; but so far no significant discrepancies have been found...