The Stern Syndrom

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Introduction

Meet Anthony Stern, the man who boldly ventures where no scientist has gone before, mostly because they know better. In his groundbreaking (or more accurately, ground-shaking) new book “Dave vs Hal 9001”, which he should have entitled “I want to believe that Relativity is wrong, no matter what”, Anthony takes on one of the greatest scientific theories of all time with a weapon more powerful than logic or evidence: Complete and utter ignorance.



Now, here’s the kicker: He's selling this literary gem on Amazon for a mere $0.99! Even at this bargain-bin price, it’s still a scam. Honestly, Anthony should be paying you to wade through his rag, and possibly compensating you for the brain cells lost in the process. Yet, here we are, with Stern asking for a whole 99 cents to fund his defamation of a theory he clearly doesn't understand.

Sure, he may have mentioned in his own abstract that he doesn’t know the first thing about physics, but why should that stop him? After all, why let a lack of knowledge get in the way of disproving Einstein, right? Anthony Stern’s theory may be the only one in history that can defy both the laws of Relativity and the laws of common sense. So if you’re looking for a book full of confidence but devoid of facts, or if you're in the market for an elaborate scam disguised as pseudo-scientific rebellion, look no further! Welcome to the world of Stern, where science gets thrown out the window and replaced by sheer audacity.

Grab your copy today... or don't. I recommend the latter.

The character's claims

Anthony has recently turned his attention to my humble video tutorial, where I rigorously derive the Lorentz transformation using a simple thought experiment involving a light clock. You know the one: A photon bounces up and down between two parallel mirrors, and when the clock moves horizontally, an observer at rest naturally sees the photon travel along an oblique path which is longer than the vertical path when the clock is at rest. It’s a classic illustration of time dilation.



But not according to Stern! He claims that the observer would still see the photon moving vertically, just as if the clock were at rest. Apparently, in Anthony's universe, photons no longer stay between the mirrors when the clock is in uniform motion. Yes, Stern defies the 1^st postulate of Relativity that implies that the photons should remain centered with respect to the mirrors, whether the clock is in uniform motion or at rest. That's right, in Anthony Stern's universe, even Galileo's principle of Relativity is wrong (or maybe he thinks he discovered that the Pythagorean theorem is wrong?!!).

In order to support his untenable claim, Stern made a video in which he decided to replace Einsein's light clock experiment by one of his own without notifying his audience that it is completely different, so that the result could fit with what he wants to believe. In his modified experiment, the clock is initially at rest and the photon is fired, then the clock instantly starts moving with a finite velocity (thus there is a hidden infinite acceleration). In other words, his light clock changes to another inertial frame, and of course in that case the beam no longer remains centered with respect to the mirrors. So, he is trying to make Relativity say what he wants it to say, so that he can claim it to be wrong. Unfortunately (for him), he doesn't understand that lying about what the theory really says will never make it wrong. Watch his video by clicking the image below (note that I shortened it because it was incredibly boring, anyway it is meaningless):

In my last attempt to explain him why he's wrong, I told him to consider something even simpler, a situation where the light-clock is always at rest with respect to the Earth. In experiment #1, Alice and Bob at both at rest with the light clock. At this point, I believe that he agrees with me that the photon remains centered with respect to the mirrors. Here is an illustration of the situation from both Alice and Bob's point of view:



Then, in experiment #2, the light clock and Alice are still at rest with respect to the Earth, but Bob is now moving at constant velocity v with respect to the Earth. Only a crackpot (or a liar) would claim that this affects the photon's behavior, right? So, the photon must remain centered with respect to the mirrors. Here is what Alice sees:



He hasn't confirmed whether he still agrees about this or not. Anyway, now here is the point: Still considering the same experiment, here is the situation as seen by Bob:



The fact that it is the same experiment implies that the photon must remain centered with respect to the mirrors, so the only possible outcome is that for Bob the photon must follow an oblique path. It doesn't take more than two neurons to understand that, right? But, no, Anthony's two neurons are both fighting for the 3rd place!

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