Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity Quotes

“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 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

“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

“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 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

“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