[WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce at hotmail.com: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--]

[Tim Starling]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
> Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
> are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
> made here?

A quick google search shows that this guy is a sci.physics.relativity 
crackpot. See:

http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=XySVa.41611%24F92.4248%40afrodite.telenet-ops.be&rnum=2

> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com> -----
> 
> From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
> To: jwales at joey.bomis.com
> Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--
> 
> Dear Mr. Wales,
> 
> Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies to 
> the
> addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it 
> seems to
> be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical - facts 
> to the
> Wiki special relativity article.

That's right, it's impossible to add facts permanently if they are 
considered by community consensus to be inaccurate. It's the nature of 
the process. Sounds like he's experiencing some Usenet withdrawal symptoms.


> I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following statements 
> for
> yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):
> 
> [1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one way).
> 
> [2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the lack
> of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
> making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
> version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should 
> wonder
> why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)

If anyone cares, this is what he's talking about:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0ac0bee.0211081401.61c7eee9%40posting.google.com&rnum=1

Suffice to say that he doesn't seem to have any supporters on s.p.r, 
where he's been plugging his theories for years. The tactic he's using 
is a typical red herring: he suggests a direct test of some aspect of 
relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically 
impossible. He ignores the huge body of slightly less direct tests of 
the same theory, and then obliquely suggests some sort of conspiracy 
theory to explain why no-one is spending millions of dollars on his 
simple test. Everywhere he goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring 
mainstream physicists, who are out to suppress the "truth" he has 
discovered. It's a common story.

> My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
> relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any 
> encyclopedia.

Anyone can add them, and anyone can take them away. Luckily for us, 
Wikipedian co-conspirators greatly outnumber the enlightened individuals 
who want to expose the shocking truth.

-- Tim Starling.