Felix Alba-Juez > Quotes

“There is no problem more difficult to solve than that created by ourselves.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Sound - The Grand Cosmic Conspiracy

“Why is it so difficult for us to think in relative terms? Well, for the good reason that human nature loves absoluteness, and erroneously considers it as a state of higher knowledge.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Who was Right: Ptolemy or Copernicus?

“The command of our language is crucial to focusing our thoughts and communicating them with precision to others.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - Einstein, Relativity, and Folklore

“To believe in nothing is as ridiculous as to believe in everything. Reason and factual evidence may convert a belief into knowledge.”
― Felix Alba-Juez

“When we say two bodies 'touch', what we mean (without knowing it) is that both electromagnetic fields are interacting to avoid physical interpenetration and ... that happens well before subatomic particles touch!”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Sound - The Grand Cosmic Conspiracy

“Subjectivity is strange to Science, while Relativity is an objective part of it.”
― Felix Alba-Juez

“... One can know very much but comprehend very little and, besides, ... different objectives require different levels of knowledge - though always with the maximum possible comprehension suited to the purpose.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - Einstein, Relativity, and Folklore

“After some cogitation, it is difficult not to agree with Herman Bondi (1919 - 2005), who in his book 'Relativity and Common Sense' says:
... The surprising thing, surely, is that molecules in a gas behave so much as billiard balls, not that electrons behave so little like billiard balls.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, E=mc^2: The Most Famous Equation in History... and its Folklore

“If Relativity Theory kills our deepest convictions, why not start by finding out why we believed in them for millennia?”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - Einstein, Relativity, and Folklore

“Einstein's theory, experimentally corroborated for the last hundred years, regardless of how outlandish and opposed to our prejudices (disguised as they are with the 'common sense' costume), is rational, consistent, and intelligible to the layperson - if s/he has the audacity of accepting the unfounded nature of those prejudices.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“The universal character of the centrifugal forces leaves us impotent as to discern whether what is going on inside the carrousel is because we are rotating with respect to terra firma (remember my eyes are closed), or because – for some unknown reason unrelated to motion – radial gravitational field has temporarily emerged while the carrousel is as in repose as it was before the given impulse. The latter would have certainly been the interpretation adopted by an intelligent being, had s/he been born and grown up inside the carrousel, without any access whatsoever to the exterior world.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, When Celestial Dynamics becomes Kinematics Again - General Relativity

“It is curious that the human mind could blindly accept an infinite speed but had reservations to accept a finite one, simply because it was too large!”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Sound - The Grand Cosmic Conspiracy

“Truth is not as pompous and romantic as myth ... but it has the immeasurable value of being the Truth.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, E=mc^2: The Most Famous Equation in History... and its Folklore

“Teaching the layperson (divulgare) is not distorting (tergiversare) the subject, but educating the public; and it is our duty as scientists to educate without distorting the essence of the scientific knowledge attained by humanity. The future of our society depends upon this premise.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - Einstein, Relativity, and Folklore

“One of the various theories proposed to explain the negative result of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment with light waves (conceived to measure the absolute space), was based on the ballistic hypothesis, i.e. on postulating that the speed of light predicted by Maxwell's equations was not given as relative to the medium but as relative to the transmitter (firearm). Had that been the case, the experiment negative results would have not caused such perplexity and frustration (as we shall see in forthcoming sections).”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Sound - The Grand Cosmic Conspiracy

“Is numerical equality (forced by the use of specific physical units) the same as conceptual equality? Of course NOT!”
― Felix Alba-Juez, E=mc^2: The Most Famous Equation in History... and its Folklore

“So strong was the preconception of absolute space and time in the scientific mentality of those days, that Lorentz did not realize the grand transcendence of what he had discovered, and contented himself with remodeling the edifice of Physics -- instead of rebuilding it with a new foundation.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Sound - The Grand Cosmic Conspiracy

“Swiftness is the enemy of comprehension.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - Einstein, Relativity, and Folklore

“The objective and merit of Einstein's theory is to identify those physical magnitudes which are absolute, i.e. common for all Inertial Frames, distinguishing them from those which are a mere perspective, only shared by those observers in repose within a given Inertial Frame.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“It is worth noting that a wrong folkoric definition of an Inertial Frame in the Popular Science literature (even in text books) reads that 'it is a frame in uniform motion'. We know very well by now that the idea of motion requires a frame of reference, so that such a definition of an Inertial Frame has no meaning whatsoever, confusing the reader because it tacitly reaffirms the idea of absolute motion -- when the goal of every didactic exposition of Relativity Theory should be precisely the opposite.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Who was Right: Ptolemy or Copernicus?

“It is not the reverence for words, but for their meaning that determines our deepness of comprehension of a given assertion about Nature.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, The Seduction of Pseudoknowledge

“The past and the future are not a collection of instants shared by all space, but a collection of events that correspond to a possible relation of causal order with the present event.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“The difference between Lorentz's Transformation in Lorentz's theory and Lorentz's Transformation in Einstein's Special Relativity is not mathematical but ontological and epistemological and, being so, it was to be expected the emergence of historians, scientists, and philosophers that, not having understood in depth the philosophical content and transcendence of the theory, would minimize Einstein's contribution.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“The present is not an instant shared by all space, but an event, i.e. an instant at a place in space.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“Such is how Science makes progress: not destroying the past, but learning from it, and building on it.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, When Celestial Dynamics becomes Kinematics Again - General Relativity

“It is also worth noting that the earth gravitational field though locally ‘vertical’ is globally radial as the centrifugal field in the carrousel is. However, the big difference between the two is that the former decreases in intensity with distance from its center, while the latter increases its intensity with distance from the rotation center. But … (think about it a little), the farther from the center of rotation, the closer we are to the rest of the Universe!”
― Felix Alba-Juez, When Celestial Dynamics becomes Kinematics Again - General Relativity

“As we already pointed out, 'special' means 'restricted to Inertial Frames of Reference', i.e. this theory cannot describe the Universe from an arbitrary reference frame. This restricted scope is not to be ignored, though not overemphasized either. ...

Ironically, and precisely because of the great success of this simple version of Relativity Theory, most of its detractors have chosen to ignore (out of ignorance or malice -- you judge case by case) its philosophical foundation and restriction to Inertial Frames, so as to declare it invalid.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“Both space and time are metrically amorphous, i.e. they do not have - despite how strongly we believe so - an inherent metric which would allow us to measure them without any definitions. In this sense, thus, neither space nor time is absolute.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity

“The notion of Local Inertial Frame is crucial to understanding Nature and, in particular, General Relativity. Notwithstanding, very few popular science books (not even textbooks) emphasize enough its fundamental character.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, When Celestial Dynamics becomes Kinematics Again - General Relativity

“A good part of what appears to us - prima facie - as objective reality is, instead, just a consequence of our conventions to discover it.”
― Felix Alba-Juez, Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity