

Einstein's Mistakes - echair
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-hans-ohanian12-2008oct12,0,2289223.story

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ajross
FTA:

 _"The speed of light is either constant or not, and only measurement can
decide what it is," Ohanian writes. For Einstein to make a postulation rather
than propose it as a hypothesis to be tested may seem like a fine distinction.
[...] But to Ohanian, the act was as outrageous as when Indiana lawmakers
tried to legislate the value for pi. And so he adds it to his roster of
Einstein's mistakes._

The reviewer missed something, here. Ohanian is an expert in the field, and
clearly knows that the Michaelson-Morley experiment
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment>) predates special
relativity by almost two decades. I think he must be making a subtler point
that the review author failed to grok.

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jerf
Somebody's screwing up badly, that's for sure, be that Ohanian or Johnson.
Einstein is (as Einstein says!) emphatically not making a point about the
speed of light at all, but saying that he is taking "The light from two events
reaches me at the same time" as the definition of simultaneous. (Although,
only for a moment, to show that even as the best definition of simultaneous
there is, it has fundamental contradictions. That comes later in the
argument.)

Anyone who misses this has no place judging Einstein! This definition of
"simultaneous" is critical to understanding the thought process that led
Einstein to relativity. Ironically, whoever missed this fact shows themselves
to be firmly planted in the very pre-relativity physics worldview that
Einstein proceeded to shred so very conclusively...

