Talk:Herbert Dingle

Suggested Guidelines

After turning against Einstein's theories of relativity, Dingle was marginilized from the mainstream scientific community. That is a fact. It doesn't need any citations because we all know that relativity is the ruling theory.

The professional way to state this fact in the main article is exactly in that manner. The existing way is very unprofessional in that it emphasizes the fact that the mainstream scientific community believe that Dingle was wrong and then they back it up with a quote by a man called Chang and give almost divine authority to his quote purely on the basis that his quote is published in a peer reviewed journal.

That is a shear case of anti-Dingle elements getting carried away with wikipedia rules and regulations in order to emphasize their own belief that Dingle was wrong.

We must never overlook the fact that as history progesses, the scientific community change their minds many times. At the moment, we are living in an Einstein era and Dingle's anti-Einstein stance in the 1960's got him marginilized.

Dingle grew up in an era when Einstein's theories were by no means automatically accepted. The 1920's was the era of anti-Einstein giants such as Tesla and Heisenberg, yet Herbert Dingle fully supported Einstein.

After the second world war, we entered into the age of Einstein and most of the old generation anti-Einstein scientists were either dead or retired.

In the 1960's, Dingle then made a U-turn. He had a famous dispute with Prof. McCrea in the Nature magazine and was subsequently marginilized by his contemporaries.

On the issue of the term 'ruthlessly suppressed' in the main article, the term 'suppressed' is absolutely correct and should remain, but the term 'ruthlessly' is over the top and perhaps ought to be removed.

Regarding family details and biography, I think there is sufficient there already. There is no doubt that anti-Dingle elements have been invading this article in the past to beef it up with family trivia in order to dilute the main message. Contrary to what they say, the main message is that Dingle turned against the theory of relativity. That is why he is famous. That is why people want to read about him. We don't read about Faraday to find out what his shoe laces were made of.

Only a person who fears Dingle's heresy would try to argue that there should be more information about what pets Dingle's Aunt Sally kept in her back garden. These kind of people really are showing themselves up for the fact that they sleep uneasy about the idea of too many people knowing about what Dingle was all about, and they in fact serve to prove Dingle's point.

These people prove that it is not all cut and dry and that if too many people were to find out about Dingle's heresy that there might be a swinging of the pendulum. No doubt their life's work has been invested in Einstein and that's why they jealously hover over this article day and night, subtely changing the wording until hopefully the day when there is no mention at all of Dingle's argument with McCrea.(Herbert Dingle 07:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)).

Well, it appears that I was correct after all: There are editors who sought (and still seek) to expunge relevant biographical material such as making a one-sentence mention of Dingle's marriage and child. Since that editor took the liberty of deleting my comment explaining why I thought (and think) this material is appropriate, I will take the liberty of reinstating it:

I disagree with whoever removed the info about Dingle getting married and having a son. This is a biography of the man. It's perfectly appropriate to state when and to whom he married, and whether he had children. These are significant biographical facts. Whoever deleted them gave the reason for deletion: "Trying to dilute the main point of the article". I think that is a self-disqualifying reason. The article's "point" is to present a biography of Herbert Dingle. This article is not about "Herbert Dingle's Campaign Against Special Relativity During His Retirement Years". It should cover his whole life, and all his activities. I say again: The September 16 version had it right, and if anything, the article needs MORE (not less) genuine biographical information.

Let me also add that I think it best for editors not to remove other people's comments from this Discussion page.63.24.54.58 13:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem with me if you go back to the version of 16-sep. It was indeed the last more or less stable version, lasting a whopping 2 weeks (!), before someone's sockpuppets (with and without Wiki-names) started working on it. If you can find a source for the marital status, no-one will have a reason to remove it, not even a valid one ;-) . You also might want (and/or need) to talk with Harald about the Chang-reference.

By the way, do you have a particular reason for not taking a Wiki-username? It would be really handy to be able to recognize regular contributor's entries by some nickname, as opposed to some ever changing ip-address, which is really very annoying. Please consider taking a Wiki-name? Thanks. - DVdm 14:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

To 63.24.54.58, nobody has removed the bit about Dingle's marriage and son and you know that fine well. It is still there. So you are making a rather specious argument. Biographical details should be in the article and I am totally in favour of retaining that one that you have just mentioned.

However, you should never lose sight of the higher picture. The bulk of the article should be about the controversy which made Dingle famous.

I suggest that if you wish to be taken seriously that you should get a username. (Nurse Hilditch 14:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC))

Nurse Hilditch is mistaken in saying "nobody has removed the bit about Dingle's marriage and son". The fact that Dingle's wife died in 1947 was removed. I've actually been trying to find out the date and circumstances of the death of Dingle's son, who was some kind of engineer, but died while Dingle was still alive. If I can find it, I propose adding it to the article, along with any other biographical information that can be found. I say again: We should not be suppressing legitimate biographical information in a biography. The death of a spouse and the death of a child qualify as legitimate biographical information (in my opinion).

I also think more should be said about Dingle's battle with Milne and the other "new Aristotleans", especially since in that argument there was actually some validity in his side of the debate. It's even possible to (with charity and some revisionism) give him some benefit of doubt in the mid 1950's debate. But by 1960 - and even moreso by 1970 - when he wrote all the things for which is he revered by neo-Dingles, he was simply nuts, and there's really not much more that can rationally be said on the subject. I suppose we could devote a section to the an examination of the latter-day phenomenon of modern lunatics who espouse Dingle's irrational utterings... but it seems kind of pointless. Kooks are always with us.63.24.126.3 02:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This is just POV nonsense. Certainly we can have more about his biographical details if anybody is willing to supply the information. If I wanted to find out information about Michael Faraday's family, I would look up an encyclopaedia article about Michael Faraday in the hope that I might get some such information. I would never of course expect the article to contain an abundance of such information. I would also realize that an encyclopaedia article about Faraday would only exist at all because of his experiments in electromagnetism and his discovery of electromagnetic induction, and I would expect the encyclopaedia article to predominantly contain information relating to those issues.

Likewise with Dingle. He is famous because he challenged Einstein's theories. That should hence be the main thrust of the article.

Yes, he was rejected by the establishment and that fact should be recorded. But 63.24.126.3 cannot expect his strong anti-Dingle views expressed above to be recorded in the main article. In fact it is quite transparent that 63.24.126.3's disapproval of Dingle is totally incompatible with his wish to have more biographical information included unless for the reason of being part of a strategy to dilute the real aspects of interest surrounding Dingle. I would venture to guess that 63.24.126.3 feels threatened by Dingle and wants to drown him out. (58.147.22.174 10:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

Five Citations

There are five citations listed to back up the fact that a Mr. Chang has stated that the scientific community think that Dingle was wrong.

Very unprofessional. This is the anti-Dingle bias coming through.

Simply state that Dingle was marginalized from the scientific community after adopting his anti-Einstein stance. And give no citations. No citations are necessary (61.7.167.211 09:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC))

Please see WP:CITE! In Wikipedia, citations are important, and the more the merrier. It is though citations that a statement like Dingle's being marginalized is justified! Without citations, that statement takes on a air of unsourced opinion which can be changed at will. Believe it or not, some of the editors here very much dislike the fact than Dingle was marginalized and would rather the statement not be there at all. The citations are what defends that statement, and so they must stay. --EMS | Talk 14:20, 4 October 2007(UTC)

Right. References are the pillars of Wikipedia, this encyclopdia is worthless without them.

However, the allegation is wrong: There was only one citation of a reliable source about the general opinion of the scientific community. On top of that, the same source (and the citation of it) balanced it with criticism that the scientific community poorly understood DIngle, so that it's incorrect to call it "anti-Dingle". Due to its doubly-critical nature the citation was deleted by intolerant pro-Dingle and anti-Dingle editors. But such high quality reviews are certainly relevant and their use is highly encouraged: Interpretations and syntheses must be attributed to reliable sources that make these interpretations and syntheses - WP:NOR.

Harald88 10:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The Chronology

The main reason why anybody wants to read about Herbert Dingle is to find out more about the controversy surrounding Einstein's theories of relativity. A bit of biography is always interesting too.

But eventually we need to get to the main point. This entire controversy surrounds the changing attitudes in physics between the war years.

Einstein's theories of relativity began to take on a higher degree of credibility following the 1919 eclipse of the Sun, in which starlight was observed to have bent while passing the Sun. This fact had been predicted by Einstein's 1915 general theory of relativity.

However, at that time many of the contemporary top physicists remained fervently opposed to Einstein's theories. Off hand I can think of Lorentz, Larmor, Heisenberg, and Tesla, but I'm sure I could find more.

Prof. Herbert Dingle was one of the first scientists to openly support Einsetin's theories. He wrote about relativity and became an accepted authority on the topic.

By the late thirties, the question of atomic fission and its relationship to Einsetin's mass energy equivalence relationship started to become a matter of intense interest due to the impending possibility of global warfare.

The details of the subsequent Manhattan project and the atomic bomb have always been shrouded in mystery as they are subject to military secrecy laws.

At any rate, the 1950's began a new post war era with new educational curriculums, and we had by then firmly entered into an age in which Einstein's theories were in the ascendancy. That is still the case today.

Herbert Dingle rocked the boat in the 1960's with his U-turn on relativity, and his argument with Prof. McCrea was recorded in the Nature magazine. Dingle then came to believe that a conspircay exists to suppress all opposition to Einstein's theories and he writes about this in his 1972 book 'Science at the Crossroads'.

Dingle was then totally marginalized by the physics community and he died in 1978.

Mainstream physics today is very much in favour of Einstein's theories. Mainstream journals very seldom, if ever, publish material that is critical of Einstein. This is in line with what is predicted in Dingle's book.

An active fringe element continue to argue against Einstein and they get publications in a number of fringe journals such as Apeiron and Galilean Electrodynamics. This fringe element contains both professionals and amateurs.

I believe that the new article should reflect this chronology. Anybody who is opposed to this chronology of events is clearly opposed to the truth. This chronology is not POV. It requires no citations. It is common knowledge and that is the way it should be presented in wikipedia. (Brigadier Armstrong 10:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)).

I have a few remarks on this. First, the traditional histories claim that special relativity became accepted physics circa 1911. Second the hoopla surrounding the eclipse expidition of 1919 pretty much made the general theory the accepted theory during the 1920s. There was a flood of books promoting Einstein' theories, special and general during this period. It would seem that it was accepted physics during this period. I am not certain I would class Dingle as a relativity expert during these years as he only published a low level exposition on relativity. The real break came in the 1930s when Dingle disovered that there were clocks that did not adhere to the relativistic transformation law for time. His claims were disputed and never resolved. He did not disown relativity but sought to modify it to resolve the descrepancies he discovered. His attempts were attacked repeatedly. In the 1940s his book Special Theory of Relativity was severely criticised by an Einstein follower. Again in the 1950s he was similarly attacked by Grunbaum who repeated the previous attacks. Dingle still did not disown relativity. It was only in the late 1950s about 1958 that Dingle discovered additional reasons to question relativity. He was again attacked. Since he was now retired, and had no academic position to hold onto, he apparently decided that relativity was seriously flawed. He was again ignored and attacked for his findings. This entire history shows that relativists were unable to objectively examine the issues and preferred to attack their critics rather than examine the evidence in an objective manner. This attitude continues to this day. The difficulty originally discovered by Dingle in the 1930s has never been resolved. This is that there are some physical processes that do not obey the relativistic law for time dilation. Since this problem has basically been ignored and swept under the scientific rug, one suspects that there is not any real effort to be scientific in this matter.72.64.40.71 16:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Undid special purpose account sock-puppet contributions

I Undid "Brigadeer Armstrong's" removal of relevant refs and "Dr. Seaweed's" unsourced POVs and irrelevant 'examples'. This was already discussed on this talk page before. Both accounts are clearly special purpose accounts and strongly suspected to be two of the sock-puppets of Electrodynamicist. See also archived indicent. This kind of disruptive editing is beginning to look like vandalism. Perhaps article should be more than semi-protected? - DVdm 10:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Another instance of the special purpose Dingle account: 58.147.22.174 - DVdm 13:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Another instance of the special purpose Dingle account: The Marmosets - DVdm 14:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Another instance of the special purpose Dingle account: 124.157.246.207 - DVdm 15:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

DVdm, suspected sock puppet of Denveron and special user account

It would appear that DVdm's entire purpose on wikipedia is to suppress any notion at all that anybody might even be as much as questioning Einstein's theories.

DVdm, would you prefer it if we removed all references to the Dingle controversy and concentrated exclusively on his biographical details. That would help to avoid bringing attention to the fact that a prominent physicist once dared to challenge Einstein.

DVdm, please read special purpose Dingle account: (The Marmosets 14:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

Herbert Dingle Was Not An Astronomer

As a mater of simple factual accuracy, this article fails because Dingle was a physicist and not an astronomer. He did work in spectroscopy in his early years at Imperial College. Since spectroscopy is an important astronomical tool one could say he did work useful to astronomy. He was not trained as an astronomer, but as a phyicist and natural philosopher. He apparently came to natural philosophy under the influence of A. N. Whitehead during Whitehead's years at Imprial College and University College. Now notice that Whitehead had a theory of relativity different from Einstein's. Since Dingle was a student of Whitehead, it is natural to assume that many of the attacks upon him were because Einstein's followers were opposed to Whitehead's theory of relativity. That theory is currently given a negative review here in Wikipedia which reinforces my opinion that much of the Dingle bashing was motivated by Einstein's crew in their attempts to suppress Whiehead's theoretical viewpoint.

In any event the factual accuracy of the Dingle article continues to suffer from a pro Einstein bias and contains factual errors that reflect upon the poor scholarship of Wikipedia editors. This is all too common a problem with Wikipedia. I just don't understand why Wikipedia continues to let editors who are evidently incapable of factual accuracy and obviously biased in their views continue to dominate this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.64.40.71 (talk) 15:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Message to DVdm

Can you please explain what aspects of the article you are not happy with. Point out a single untruth in it. Why do you want to try to hide the truth about what made Herbert Dingle encyclopaedia-worthy? Is he a threat to your own researches? Are you afraid that too much truth might tip the scales and undermine Einstin's theories?

Why is it also that you never discuss the matter. You play out the wikipedia rules to the full by leaving sneaky little warnings in trays and quoting nonsense such as 'single purpose users' which you yourself are a prime example of? You are always sneaking off to the wikipedia administrator's message board seeking to get them unto your side as if you are a good little boy. And you use sockpuppets. I'm very sorry that they can't see right through you. ( Brigadier Armstrong 16:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC) )

The Chang Articles

To those who are so keen to put in the 'Chang' references, put them in the main reference section. Who is Chang anyway? What makes his opinion so special that it has to take prime of place and act as the definitive word on Dingle's credibility? I was discussing this subject before Chang was born. (Brigadier Armstrong 16:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

No, there are no "Chang references". In peer-reviewed scientific publications, the name of the author is of little importance. If you discussed the topic in a respected journal (and thus passed peer review), please cite it!

Apart of that (I repeat): References are the pillars of Wikipedia, this encyclopdia is worthless without them.

There was only one citation of a reliable source about the general opinion of the scientific community. On top of that, the same source (and the citation of it) balanced it with criticism that the scientific community poorly understood Dingle. Due to its doubly-critical nature the citation was deleted by intolerant pro-Dingle and anti-Dingle editors. But such high quality reviews are certainly relevant and their use is highly encouraged: Interpretations and syntheses must be attributed to reliable sources that make these interpretations and syntheses - WP:NOR.

There is much more information on the Dingle controversy in that same review, and if you can find other reviews that would be nice. Harald88 10:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Harald88 10:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The editors are desperate to find some peer reviewed publication that they can use to cite as secondary source evidence to support their biased viewpoint that Dingle was wrong. Since there are basically no other such published secondary sources and they are incapable of interpreting the primary sources without bias, they have only that one to cite as evidence to support their biased viewpoint. It is typical of the editors that they use this paper in a negative way rather than using it as a source of information about Dingle and his arguments critical of relativity. The basic attempt of this article about Dingle is to say Dingle was wrong. But there is no proof of this only unsubstantiated opinion. Now since the consensus of the scientific community is simply just unsubstantiated opinion, mostly uninformed as to the actual facts of the case, they need some kind of expert opinion to cite that says Dingle was wrong. Hence the need to cite Chang as a source that says that for them. The basic facts are that no proof that Dingle was wrong has ever been produced. Claims that he was wrong basically consisted of unproved claims and slanders that were never backed up with solid proof. (They were never published in peer reviewed journals.) Hence the belief that Dingle was wrong is simply a matter of claims based on uninformed opinions of the matter.There is simply no proof of that opinion.

What this article fails to recognise is that Dingle's controversies were the result of his discoveries of flaws in the special theory. Rather than accept the proof of these flaws with the spirit of the search for scientific truth, his opponents refused to accept them as real. This denial of reality by Dingle's opponents eventually led to open war after many years of attacks upon Dingle and his attempts to correct flaws in the special theory. No evidence was ever produced that Dingle's discoveries were false. Hence we have the peculiar situation that flaws exist in the special theory, but they are being denied and ignored by the scientific community.72.64.40.71 17:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The Argument going on outside of the mainstream

It has already been conceded that the mainstream are not convinced by Dingle's arguments and the article records that fact. The bit that you deleted was merely pointing out that the matter is still debated by dissidents outside of the mainstream. Do a google search on Einstein or relativity and you will find no end of websites critical of Einstein.

One of the journals that deals with this debate is Galilean Electrodynamics for which there exists a wikipedia article. (Brigadier Armstrong 18:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

Subsequent to writing this, I have just noticed that Wwoods has removed the relevant clause again claiming that it is a crank statement. Can he clarify that claim? Can he look up the wikipedia article on Galilean Electrodynamics and then tell me that this subject is not being discussed by dissidents? Brigadier Armstrong 18:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, to make this statement, you need to find a reliable source that makes that statement verifiable and cite it in the article. Expecting readers to visit other articles and see debate would constitute original research. That said, "crank" edit summaries are not especially helpful.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It is irrelevant what the mainstream believes, since that is simply opinion. The facts are these. Dingle discovered flaws in the special theory of relativity. Refutations were produced by opponents. The truth of the matter is unresolved. What Wikipedia says the mainstream believes is is an opinion of an opinion with no factual basis. It would be hearsay.71.251.188.80 11:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Protected

Time to stop edit warring and discuss changes here.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, although you seem to have protected the article at a dirty version. Other than the requests I made here and here, there is really nothing to discuss - specially not with people who don't play by any set of rules. DVdm 18:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's always the wrong version to someone. I just protect whichever version exists at the time; it's not in any way an endorsement of the version I protected. Unless there is something libelous in it, the protected article should stay as is until it is unprotected. I didn't even see the ANI reports until after I protected it.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

DVdm, if you claim to play by the rules, now is your chance to prove it. Please point out exactly why the current version is a dirty version. You have the full opportunity to do so on these talk pages.

On my part, I'm upset that Wwoods chose to remove all references to the true fact that this controversy is being debated outside of the mainstream. I even gave a refernce to Galilean Electrodynamics and it was totally ignored and brushed aside.

So what exactly is your grievance? (Brigadier Armstrong 18:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)).

See my and Eliminator JR's comment above. Your statement isn't adequate sourcing to add that text and appears to constitute original research.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying that my claim that dissidents are debating the Dingle controversy is original research? (Brigadier Armstrong 18:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)).

I'm saying that to add that text to the article, you need to provided verifiable information from a reliable source demonstrating that dissidents are indeed debating the Dingle controversy. So far, I've not see adequate sourcing provided for that claim that would allow it to stand in the article were I reviewing this article.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

How many times do you want me to give it to you? Click on the Galilean Electrodynamics link. (Brigadier Armstrong 18:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

Oh I see. What you want is a non-dissident source which claims that dissidents are discussing the Dingle controversy in dissident journals. The fact of the existence of a dissident journal by the name of Galilean Electrodynamics is not admissible is it? (Brigadier Armstrong 18:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

I clicked... and at risk of repeating myself, neither the Galilean Electrodynamics wikipedia article or the linked website in any way prove to make that statement verifiable from a reliable source. How about exact links, articles, page numbers, etc... I want verification from a reliable source. So far, other than your claims that they are discussing Dingle, I see no concrete evidence that can be fact checked.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Beyond that, I'd also add that one journal having articles discussing Dingle, wouldn't source that claim, it would just source something like "The Galilean Electrodynamics occassionally publishes material supporting the work of Dingle".--Isotope23 ^talk 19:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Why the Currently Protected Article is Bad

Following is an explanation of why the neo-Dingle version of the article is inaccurate and not suitable for Wikipedia. I’ll take it one sentence at a time.

• "Dingle was involved in two highly public and polemical disputes. The first took place during the 1930s, triggered by Dingle's criticism of E. A. Milne's cosmological model and the associated theoretical methodology, which Dingle considered overly speculative and not based on empirical facts.[3]"

The above sentence is fine. It’s identical to the consensus version.

• "The second was the notorious dispute with astrophysicist Professor McCrea and it took place in the 1960s. It was published in the Nature magazine and it centered on Dingle's objections to Einstein's theory of special relativity."

The above sentence is inaccurate and misleading on several counts. First, the dispute was not with McCrea alone, second, it was not confined to ‘Nature’, and third, it was not just in the 1960’s. Literally dozen’s of people were involved in sending explanations of Dingle’s errors, and they appeared in many different periodicals (and even some books), and it took place beginning about 1955 and continued until Dingle’s death in 1978. Also, the characterization of the incident as “notorious” is inappropriate. (A better word would be “pathetic”, so you can see how POV such adjectives can be.) The consensus version of this article gives a more accurate summary, and is non-POV.

• "In his early years, Dingle was actually one of the first open supporters of Einstein's theories of relativity in an era when many of the leading scientists of the day such as Werner Heisenberg, Hendrik Lorentz, Joseph Larmor, and Nikola Tesla were strongly opposed to Einstein."

The above sentence is false and misleading on several counts. First, Dingle was not “one of the first supporters of Einstein’s theories”, because (1) 1922 was not “early” for the special theory, and (2) Dingle was never really a supporter of special relativity. He believed he was, at the time, but he later realized that he was not a supporter, because he realized that the ideas he supported were not relativity. Basically, Dingle was taught “relativity” by A.N.Whitehead, who was an opponent of Einstein’s relativity, and Whitehead passed his POV misconceptions along to Dingle, who unfortunately passed them along to a whole generation of students, with unfortunate consequences even to this day. Second, Heisenberg was an early and ardant enthusiast for Einstein’s special relativity. (It’s true that in later life, after Einstein rejected Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics, the two men came to detest each other, but Heisenberg never stopped being appreciative of relativity.) Lorentz was always warmly appreciative of Einstein’s relativity, both special and general, despite the fact that he (Lorentz) maintained a preference for his own interpretation. He certainly never disputed the logical consistency or validity of either special or general relativity. Quite the contrary, he frequently spoke in praise of them. Nikola “Death Ray” Tesla was never a leading scientist, he was more of an inventor, like his rival Thomas Edison. Joseph Larmor originally embraced Einstein’s theories, but then later reverted to his own earlier ideas. So, your list of “leading scientists” who were “strongly opposed to Einstein” is highly inaccurate, misleading, and POV.

• "After the Second World War, however, the consensus amongst the new generation scientific community was very much in favour of Einstein's theories of relativity, and Herbert Dingle was considered to be quite an authority on the subject."

The above sentence is inaccurate on several counts. First, the theories of relativity were well established within the scientific community PRIOR TO the second world war. Second, although Dingle represented himself as an expert on the subject of special relativity, he was never an “authority” on the subject, as witness the fact that his writings on the subject were frequently challenged, because it was clear to every real expert that Dingle mis-understood and mis-represented what relativity was. Look at how Einstein dissed him in the Schlipp volume in 1949. And most importantly, Dingle himself acknowledged subsequently that he had never understood relativity during the years when he was writing about it. He even says in the preface to the 1961 edition of his 1940 book on special relativity that he now believes special relativity is totally wrong and logically inconsistent, but fortunately he can still re-publish his book on the subject because it doesn’t contain anything wrong or logically inconsistent! In other words, his book on special relativity wasn’t about special relativity at all.

• "In 1922 he had written an essay, "Relativity for All", and in 1940 he wrote a monograph The Special Theory of Relativity. A collection of Dingle's lectures on the history and philosophy of science was published in 1954.[6]"

The above statement is okay. It is identical to what is in the consensus article.

• "His U-turn in the 1960's and his argument with Professor McCrea resulted in him being marginalized from the mainstream scientific community."

As explained above, Dingle didn’t make a U turn. He had always misunderstood relativity, believing (for example) that a traveling twin would be the same age as his brother when re-united. Only after 40 years of erroneously presenting his misconceptions as “relativity” did he finally realize that he wasn’t describing relativity at all, and in fact he didn’t understand the first thing about relativity. Also, the argument wasn’t just with McCrea, it was with the entire scientific community. Also, it is inaccurate to say he was “marginalized” because that word means to place someone where they can have no influence. Dingle’s views were published very prominently, and given a very generous hearing. The reason he had no influence is that he was self-evidently wrong.

• "This culminated in his 1972 book, Science at the Crossroads in which he claims that any attempts to argue against Einstein's theories of relativity will be ignored.[7][8]"

The above sentence is not a very accurate summary of his claim. It wasn’t so much that his claims were ignored. He received many many responses. His complaint is that no one agreed with him. Of course, after answering his foolish challenges dozens of times, people did begin to ignore him, but as a summary of what he claims in his book, the above sentence is not representative. Paul Davies has published an accurate summary, but it was removed from the article. My heavens... it appears that any attempts to argue against Dingle are being suppressed! [sarcasm]

• "There exists even today a growing number of dissenters who support Herbert Dingle's arguments."

The above statement is both unsubstantiated and false. Granted there are always a number of physics crackpots, but there’s no evidence (from a reputable source) to show that the number is increasing.

• "Their writings tend to be confined to specialized journals since the mainstream journals usually have a strict policy of refusing to publish material that is critical of Einstein."

The above statement is clearly not appropriate or relevant. The fact there are crackpots who traffic in such nonsense is lamentably true, but it doesn’t need to be stated in this article. It would be more suitable for an article on physics crackpots.

In summary, the currently protected article is a pure crackpot fabrication (except for the parts taken from the consensus version). It should be removed and replaced with the consensus version.Denveron 18:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Please submit a request for unprotection. While I certainly agree the current version isn't ideal, I'm not going to edit a page I protected and I'm fairly certain that unprotecting this will simply lead back to edit warring, so I'm not willing to personally unprotect it at this time.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have in the interim tagged it as disputed on the grounds of factual accuracy as I imagine given the discussion here that would be an accurate statement.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Denveron, have you got any sources for all your allegations of inaccuracy? Sources are very important. Alot of what you say above is extremely POV and derogatory about Herbert Dingle. I don't see any POV in the existing article. (Brigadier Armstrong 19:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

This comment by Denveron is a bit strange. It weaves factual innacuracies into a biased view of Dingle. There is no proof that he misunderstood relativity any more than Einstein or his followers did. One can read any textbook today and find that the author misunderstands relativity. That is all too common an ailment. One finds it all over this comment page. The issue is this. Given the divergent opinions about relativity,can you state with certainty that Dingle was wrong? You can not. So dont try. All that can be stated objectively is what he wrote, and there is actually nothing of that in this article. Try sticking to the facts and the article will come out just fine. The problem is that the writers want the article to come out that Dingle was wrong. That is not the purpose of this article.71.251.188.80 18:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Dingle's error

How about including some version of Dingle's problem, e.g.

“ It would naturally be supposed that the point at issue, even if less esoteric than it is generally supposed to be, must still be too subtle and profound for the ordinary reader to be expected to understand it. On the contrary, it is of the most extreme simplicity. According to the theory, if you have two exactly similar clocks, A and B, and one is moving with respect to the other, they must work at different rates (a more detailed, but equally simple, statement is given on pp. 45-6, but this gives the full essence of the matter), i.e. one works more slowly than the other. But the theory also requires that you cannot distinguish which clock is the 'moving' one; it is equally true to say that A rests while B moves and that B rests while A moves. The question therefore arises: how does one determine, consistently with the theory, which clock works the more slowly? Unless this question is answerable, the theory unavoidably requires that A works more slowly than B and B more slowly than A --which it requires no super-intelligence to see is impossible. Now, clearly, a theory that requires an impossibility cannot be true, and scientific integrity requires, therefore, either that the question just posed shall be answered, or else that the theory shall be acknowledged to be false. But, as I have said, more than 13 years of continuous effort have failed to produce either response. The question is left by the experimenters to the mathematical specialists, who either ignore it or shroud it in various obscurities, while experiments involving enormous physical risk go on being performed.
Science at the Crossroads, p.7, via blog.hasslberger.com ”

, to show that apparently Dingle never did understand special relativity?

Something from "What Happened to Dingle?" would also be good.
—wwoods 23:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Wwoods, this is not about discussing whether Dingle was right or wrong. You clearly have your opinion, and I have mine.

This dispute is not even about factual accuracy. Denveron's cricticisms of the article were highly POV. Denveron was merely stating that he believes that Dingle was wrong. The facts are that Dingle was once pro-relativity and in later years he turned anti-relativity and got into a dispute with his peers. The argument in Nature is exclusively with Prof. McCrea.

It is wrong that this article should be tagged as disputed on the grounds of factual accuracy.

It is disputed by DVdm and Denveron on the grounds that they feel totally uncomfortable about having an article that even exposes the fact that a man called Dingle should even dare to challenge Einstein's theories. That is what the dispute is all about.

Denveron wants to re-write the article to drown out that point and to emphasize his own belief that Dingle was wrong and confused. You are obviously party to that POV as well as has now been proved from you entry above, and this also explains your readiness to back up DVdm as soon as Dvdm blows the whistle. (Brigadier Armstrong 08:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC))

Wwoods, I think that's a very good idea. Just include that piece of Dingle's own text - without of course mentioning anything about its validity or lack thereof. On the one hand it clearly shows to anyone who understands the first page of relativity, how wrong a person can be. On the other hand it clearly shows to anyone who fails to understand that first page, how wrong the greater part of mankind can be. Result: Everyone satisfied, no further discussion necessary. DVdm 10:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I would actually agree. Put that quote from 'Science at the Crossroads' in the main article just after the reference to that book. You could say that here is a quote which illustrates Dingle's attitude to the relativity question.

No comments should be made either agreeing or disagreeing with this quote. (Brigadier Armstrong 11:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC))

I suggest that a link to Hafele-Keating experiment would be a good idea as well. - Ehheh 14:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The second half of the current (locked) article (the half written by the crackpot) contains several highly inaccurate statements, identified in the Discussion on "Why the Current Article is Bad" above. Also, the current article already contains a link to Dingle's "Crossroads" book, so anyone who is interested can see for themselves the sad condition of his mentality when he wrote that book (at the age of 82). However, the current article conscipuously fails to state the abundantly verifiable fact that the consensus of the scientific community is that Dingle's objections to the logical consistence of special relativity were unfounded. (It's ironic that people here are agonizing over whether it's appropriate for the article to mention that a handful of crackpots agree with Dingle, while the article doesn't even mention that the entire scientific community disagrees with Dingle. So it goes...)

The consensus version of the article had it right. The only things lacking were some more detail on Dingle's life and career. For example, his major work was on spectroscopy, and it was on the strength of that work that he was elected President of the Royal Astronomical Society. Also the article should include a summary of his general philosophy of science (which seems appropriate for an article on a philosopher of science).

But the article is locked now (at the crackpot version), so none of these things can be fixed. For the time being, this is just another bogus Wikipedia article authored by a crackpot.Denveron 15:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Denveron you're going to have to moderate your personal insults. Please don't take advantage of the fact that I am not that sneaky kind of character who plays out this game by leaving warning messages in the trays of the people that I am arguing with, or goes running off to squeal at that wikipedia administrators' notice board as soon as my edits are not sticking.

I like to debate these matters reasonably and rationally. It was my work colleague Brenda Seaweed that you referred to as a crackpot. She gave me the draft for the bits that you are referring to.

Please remember that this is not an article for the purposes of expressing our opinions on Dingle's stance. The facts are that Dingle started of pro-relativity and later did a U-turn. That U-Turn caused him to be marginalized from the mainstrean scientific community. The facts are all accurately recorded in the existing article.

The true reason that you don't like the existing article is because it is not worded in such a way as to undermine Dingle's credibility to the extent that you would prefer.

The existence of impalatable truths is a sign of a corrupt organization and it certainly appears that the very phenomenon of Dingle is a reminder of some by impalatable truths.(Brigadier Armstrong 15:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC))

To Ehheh, please feel free to include a link to the Keating-Hafele experiment if you believe that this reported event proves Dingle wrong. I wouldn't mind reading it again myself. I lost my copy 30 years ago. (Brigadier Armstrong 16:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC))

You can download it off of Science's website for 10 bucks. Link is in the references section at Hafele-Keating experiment. It's certainly interesting to note that just a few months after Dingle wrote (in the preface): 'Had we but world enough and time, or wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love (since I too like invoking the English, and even the Irish, poets), we could indeed make a direct test...' someone had published the results of a direct test. - Ehheh 16:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really want to get involved in an argument about whether Dingle was right or wrong. The Keating Hafele experiment doesn't prove anything unless you believe the theoretical calculations and approximations, and believe that the theoretical calculations are in line with Special relativity, and if you actually believe Keating and Hafele at all.

The proximity in time between Dingle's statement and that experiment has led other people to even suggest that they contrived that experiment as a direct consequence of Dingle's statement in order to put the matter to rest.

You are welcome to believe it if it suits you to, and by all means put it in the article. I don't believe in hiding any material facts.(Brigadier Armstrong 17:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC))

The article What Happened To Dingle on the internet is an absurd slander. It claims he had dimentia. No evidence to back this up. It is certainly not an example of an unbiased claim. Why dont you guys just stick to the real facts as they are and stop trying to prove Dingle was wrong when you have no proof of that, and have to cite hack internet sites based on the unproved claim that Dingle was mentally ill. Oh. By the way. The math in it is also false and incorrect, so it it bogus on two counts.71.251.188.80 11:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

"The question therefore arises: how does one determine, consistently with the theory, which clock works the more slowly? Unless this question is answerable, the theory unavoidably requires that A works more slowly than B and B more slowly than A --which it requires no super-intelligence to see is impossible."

Special relativity's answer to Dingle's question is counter-intuitive but quite clear and self-consistent: whichever clock is moving faster runs slower. There are frames of reference in which A is moving faster and others in which B is moving faster — and one in which they are moving at the same speed, so they run at the same rate.

This is not a matter of opinion; it's mathematics, and capable of proof. It becomes physics when you go on to say that SR is an accurate description of reality. Strictly speaking, that can't be proved, but a century of experience very strongly suggests that it's true.

Understanding this stuff is pretty basic to understanding SR. That Dingle was evidently incapable of accepting the answers he was given to variations of this question over a period of more than a decade shows that he didn't then have a real understanding of SR, and makes one wonder whether he ever did, or whether he lost it late in life.

—wwoods 16:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Persistent Confusion In the Facts Of This Article

The persistent confusion about the facts could be cleared up if the writers actually investigated Dingle's published material. The statement regarding Dingle's controversy with Milne in the article is not really relevant. It does show a difference in scientific philosophy, which was the issue in that debate.

In my view it is doubtful that Dingle was an "expert in relativity". I think it more reasonable to conclude he was a physicist who changed his primary interest from physics to natural philosophy. A fact proved by his change in academic position after the war. This needs to be mentioned in the article. So he was interpreting physics from a viewpoint of natural philosophy. This is reflected in his books which try to make relativity understandable to an audiance of non-physicists. While doing this he encountered anamolies which he felt needed explaination. The first was his discovery in the 1930s of clocks which did not obey the time dilation law. This discovery was rejected and severely criticised. To say that he misunderstood relativity is false, since no one ever proved he made a mistake in this claim.

Most people want to focus on the debates by assigning right and wrong. But that is a mistaken view of it. Dingle demonstrated flaws in the theory of relativity that have never been sufficiently answered. That is the main fact of the matter. Some people want to resolve this by asserting Dingle was wrong, or that he misunderstood relativity or all of that kind of nonsense. The best approach is to state what Dingle discovered in a clear and precise way, and leave it to the reader to decide if he is right or wrong.71.251.188.80 19:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Quoting:

• "that he misunderstood relativity is false, since no one ever proved he made a mistake in this claim."
• "Dingle demonstrated flaws in the theory of relativity that have never been sufficiently answered"

==> Do you mean that Dingle demostrated flaws in the theory like, and no one ever proved a mistake, like this?

Unlike Dingle and the other neo-Dinglians here, do you understand page 1 of the theory? DVdm 19:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Stated clearly and precisely, what Dingle "discovered" is that 2 equals 1/2. This was the result of his failure to understand the relativity of simultaneity, which led him to think that the partial of t with respect to t' (at constant x')must equal the reciprocal of the partial of t' with respect to t (at constant x). There is no doubt at all (outside the minds of a few crackpots) that Dingle's "discovery" was erroneous.

The criterion for inclusion in a Wikipedia article is verifiability from reputable sources. There is an abundance of reputable sources for the fact that special relativity is logically self-consistent, and for the fact that the "twin paradox" does not entail any inconsistency, and even for the specific fact that Dingle was wrong. No reputable source claims otherwise. Therefore, the article should state that the consensus of the scientific community is that Dingle's objection to the logical consistency of special relativity was unfounded.Denveron 19:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree totally with everything that 71.251.188.80 has said. The current version of the article reports that a controversy has occurred and it gives a historical background to the issues in question. It is not POV.

DVdm and Denveron have been attempting to get it overturned and replaced with an article that would emphasize their own personal prejudice that Dingle was wrong. DVdm has been very cleverly presenting a case to the administrators that he is the good boy in this, and that he is working to prevent vandalism. He uses the wikipedia regulations very cleverly and he knows how to falsely discredit his opponents. One of his tactics is to make lots of unsubstantiated complaints, and then later to point out to an administrator that this person cannot have any credibility because there have been many complaints made against him.

DVdm uses calumny against his opponnents just as he is using calumny against Dingle. DVdm's motives need to be investigated and DVdm needs to be monitored. (Brigadier Armstrong 04:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC))

I am answering a slander from Mr DVdm who insists upon denigrating people who have a valid right to think for themselves. I am certain that I understand the theory of relativity and that understanding leads me to conclude that it is false. Mr DVdm of course has an opinion that it is true. But this does not give him the right to enforce that opinion on others. This is his basic goal. His claim that I do not understand relativity is of course true in one sense. That is I do not understand beleiving in a theory I beleive is false. I do not beleive in false theories just because the DVdm and "the mainstream" tells me to. Sorry, I am insisting upon an unbiased version of this Dingle article and I reject your attempts to make be beleive in a false scientific theory.71.251.188.80 16:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that calling people who do not beleive this silly theory crackpots is not acceptable in my view and only illustrates your contemptibility as a person.71.251.188.80 16:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

DVdm's request for page protection

DVdm; I see that you put in a request for page protection. And you tried to insinuate that those who don't go along with your plans for a highly anti-Dingle POV version are vandals and disrupters who have been subject to allegations of such. Did you tell them that it was you who made all those allegations? (Brigadier Armstrong 11:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC))

A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Wikipedia Policy

Some editors here seem to be operating under a fundamental misunderstanding of the policies of Wikipedia, arguing against including the consensus view of the scientific community by calling it "hearsay" and "opinion". The policy of Wikipedia (indeed, one of it's guiding principles) is to be based on reputable sources, i.e., hearsay from reputable sources. Please note that the criterion for inclusion in a Wikipedia article is NOT whether something is true or false, but whether it has been stated in a reputable source. This then places importance on the definition of a "reputable source". Wikipedia policy defines it (for science matters) as something published by an academic publishing house or an established publisher of journals or books with a good reputation in the scientific community. Now, on this basis, there is an abundance of reputable sources for the material that I believe needs to be in this article, and there are ZERO reputable sources for the material that I think should not be in this article.

For example, the assertion that special relativity is logically consistent (contrary to Herbert Dingle's claim) is verifiable from literally hundreds of highly reputable sources. On the other hand, the assertion that Werner Heisenberg and Hendrik Lorentz were "strongly opposed" to the logical consistency of special relativity is not supported by any reputable source. Therefore, the statement about Dingle being wrong meets the criteria established by Wikipedia for inclusion in the article, whereas the statements about Heisenberg and Lorentz does not. I think the mainstream editors of this article are actually bending over backwards to be fair, by stating that "it is the consensus of scientific opinion that Dingle was wrong", rather than insisting on the stronger (and still verifiable from reputable sources) statement that "Dingle was wrong".

This can all be resolved by simply adhering to the Wikipedia policies. Every statement in the article should be traceable to a reputable source. (Needless to say, "Galilean Electrodynamics" and similar crackpot literature does not qualify as reputable sources.)63.24.108.55 13:34, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree, but do be aware of the fact that the crackpot contributors here take "Galilean Electrodycrankics" as the reliable source par excellence. DVdm 13:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Since you define a reputable source as that which agrees with your opinion of what should be true, I doubt if that is a good definition. Your attempts to justify your bias and write an article about Dingle that adheres to that bias are pathetic. Please do not use insults when referring to people who have a valid reason to disagree with your opinions. You only illustrate why Wikipedia is a poor source of information.71.251.188.80 16:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Dvdm, if you agree with 63.24.108.55 that all we need to do is adhere to wikipedia policy, then you should know that you cannot push your own strong POV that Dingle was wrong, and that is exactly what you want to do as soon as the article becomes unblocked. (Brigadier Armstrong 16:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC))

For the information of editors, here is the verbatim quote of how Wikipedia defines a "reputable soure"

Reputable publications include peer-reviewed journals, books published by a known academic publishing house or university press, and divisions of a general publisher which have a good reputation for scholarly publications.

According to Wikipedia policy, the article is to be based entirely on material that is verifiable from reputable publications. (Please note that the above definition was crafted specifically to exclude things such as "Galilean Electrodynamics" and other obvious crackpot literature.) Some editors may feel that Wikipedia's policies inevitably result in articles that fail to reflect their own crackpot POV, but this is precisely what those policies were intended to accomplish. Yes, the article is going to end up stating the abundantly verifiable fact that the consensus of the scientific community is that Dingle was wrong. And in the end, the article is not going to state unverifiable things, such as the claim that Heisenberg and Lorentz strongly regarded special relativity as logically inconsistent. This is just how Wikipedia works. It represents verifiable views as found in reputable sources. Anyone who doesn't wish to adhere to these policies should refrain from participating here.63.24.35.145 17:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed again. But note that a certain class of contributors here will effectively not adhere to these policies, and shall not refrain from participating either. They will do everyting to wear you down with discussions over the "reputable quality" of there private electrodynamics :-) DVdm 17:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Dvdm and EMS, the dispute about the entry regarding the dissident element is already over so why are you going on about it? That line was deleted and does not appear in the existing version. Galilean Electrodynamics was not being advocated to back up any particular theory or POV. I was using it to back up the statement that a dissident fringe existed. It was not accepted by the administrators and it was deleted. I argued with Isotope23 for a while, but that argument is now over. The offending section is gone so you don't need to labour that point.

On the other matter, Lorentz, Larmor and Tesla were definitely not in agreement with Einstein's theories. I had always believed that Heisenberg was also opposed to Einstein. Heisenberg worked for Hitler and my understanding is that the Nazi's objected to Einstein's theories.

However, I stand to be corrected as regards Heisenberg. Can you provide any sources that show that Heisenberg supported Einstein? At any rate it is irrelevant. The point is that it wasn't until the 1919 eclipse of the sun that existing scientists began to take Einstein seriously. There was a growing trend in favour of Einstein from that point in time, but I believe that something around the year 1938 swung it all more in Einstein's favour.

Dingle was an early supporter of Einstein and there are sources and references in the existing article to that extent.

The existing article also makes it clear that Dingle was not supported by the scientific establishement after he made is U-turn in the 1960's. So what more do you want? You really want to make a big issue about the fact that he was going against the establishment. But we all know that. That's why its a controversy.

But you have been trying to play the controversy down. Your ally Wwoods has already made it into two controversies despite the fact that the first one is hardly known. There has been no end of attempts to dilute the main controversy and the reason why Dingle is most well known.

You are the one who wanted to beef up the biography section and do away with all matters relating to the controversy. Shall we just remove the controversy section altogether and pretend that Dingle was just an ordinary man with a wife and kids and then finish off by stating your personal bias that he was a crackpot who didn't understand Einstein's theories?

That is not the professional manner in which encyclopaediae operate. We stick to the facts and let the readers decide who was right. We have already told the readers that Dingle was swimming against the tide. (Brigadier Armstrong 18:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC))

Brigadier, there are plenty references of Lorentz explaining (and thereby defending) SRT as his own theory and GRT as Einstein's theory. Even Dingle remarked that SRT is the theory of Einstein and Lorentz! But why write such claims in an article about Dingle?? For example, I know of no good source that claims that Tesla's opinion of relativity had anyhing to do with Dingle's opinions. The article must be based on reliable sources.Harald88 12:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Harald88, No matter who claimed what, Lorentz's theory was fundamentally different from Einstein's. Lorentz's theory involved an aether wind. Lorentz did not therefore agree with Einstein's special theory of relativity.

Lorentz and Tesla are both relevant to this article as examples of past heavyweights who disagreed with Einstein. Their mention is needed to counterbalance the insistence of the anti-Dingle editors that Dingle was a crackpot with no supporters.

We have all conceded that Dingle was swimming against the tide in the 1960's and that the tide today is still an Einstein tide. That is however no basis for castigating Dingle. Let the readers decide themselves.

The anti-Dingle brigade are actually trying to deny that anybody at all opposes Einstein. We have agreed that the mainstream don't oppose Einstein, but there are many dissidents who do. That is a true fact and it has not been permitted to include this fact into the main article.

If the anti-Dingle brigade insist on trying to insert insults about Dingle's credibility and insist in going over the top and labouring the issue about his non-acceptance by the mainstream, and denying that even a fringe element oppose him, then the pro-Dingle brigade will continue to undo it. The edit war will go on for a very long time.

The current version of the article is a compromise as it doesn't mention the dissident fringe. Can you please tell me what aspects of the article that you are not satisfied with. (Brigadier Armstrong 14:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)).

Wikipedia Policy Against "Physics Cranks"

Quote of Official Wikipedia Policy:

---

begin quote-------------

Wikipedia's founder, Jimbo Wales, has described original research as follows: The phrase "original research" originated primarily as a practical means to deal with physics cranks, of which of course there are a number on the Web. The basic concept is as follows: It can be quite difficult for us to make any valid judgment as to whether a particular thing is true or not. It isn't appropriate for us to try to determine whether someone's novel theory of physics is valid; we aren't really equipped to do that. But what we can do is check whether or not it actually has been published in reputable journals or by reputable publishers. So it's quite convenient to avoid judging the credibility of things by simply sticking to things that have been judged credible by people much better equipped to decide. The exact same principle will hold true for history" (WikiEN-l, December 3, 2004).

The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts or ideas that, in the words of Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".

If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia ... regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

---

end quote----------

Hopefully the above statement of Wikipedia policy helps to clarify for editors of this article the criteria for including statements and views in the article. The criterion is not whether something is true or false, it is whether you can back it up with a reputable source. Naturally this policy has the effect of excluding crackpot views, which is precisely the effect it was intended to have. Anyone who doesn't like this policy should go elsewhere to present their views.63.24.121.14 19:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting quote. Next time, please mention the source? Thanks. DVdm 19:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

If this actually is a correct interpretation, then Wikipedia is just junk, as it appears to be. I certaintly would not reccomend using it to anybody. But I doubt if this claimed interpretation is really accurate. Is is just here to justify the POV of the editor who wrote it. Thanks, but I dont agree. Anyway, this article is not about a physics theory. It is about a famous reputable physicist, the article mistakenly refers to him as an astronomer, who demonstrated flaws in a theory of physics. This is all that needs to be said here since the conclusion regarding the correctness of the claims is still undecided.71.251.176.49 14:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Original Research

We are being reminded above about the wikipedia rules regarding original research. Who exactly is advocating original research? What original research are you referring to? It strikes me that you are stirring up a fuss about absolutely nothing just because you were unable to impose your own POV on this article. (Brigadier Armstrong 07:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC))

The Way Forward

The recent comments make it clear (if it wasn't clear already) that the numerous inaccuracies and blatent crackpot POV of the current (locked) article are the work of just a single crackpot individual, who has made statements in the article that all other editors realize are non-verifiable (not to mention false). The single individual has been given a detailed listing of the inaccuracies of his version, but he declines to acknowledge any of those inaccuracies.

The only real problem here is that someone unwisely sought "protection" for this page. Protection doesn't resolve edit conflicts with individuals of the sort we are dealing with here. This article needs only two steps to be taken to enable editors to fix it: (1) It needs to be unlocked (and LEFT unlocked), and (2) the 3rr rule needs to be enforced, taking into account sock puppetry. The individual in question will undoubtedly continue to revert the article to his crackpot version, but this will be of little consequence, because it will immediately be reverted back to a decent version, written in accord with Wikipedia policies. This will need to be done only three times per day if the 3rr rule is followed. Bear in mind that as soon as the Brigadier violates the 3rr rule (which he undoubtedly will), not only will his named account be banned, but so will his IP addresses, of which he can have only a limited number. It will become progressively more difficult for him to continue to vandalize the article, and eventually (not soon, but eventually) he will become frustrated and go away. In the mean time, the crackpot version will only show for about 3 minutes per day.

It isn't pretty, but historically this is how Wikipedia has dealt with individuals like the Brigadier, and it really is the only feasible way of dealing with them.Denveron 17:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

==> "The only real problem here is that someone unwisely sought "protection" for this page". That is not what happened. The invidual in question made an entry on the notice board and as a result the article got protected to the crackpot version. A bit later I filed a request to revert to the "stable" version of 2-Oct and keep it there for a while. Anyway, I think that the block will expire on 17-oct or so. Just be patient :-) DVdm 19:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, here's the previous version; how should it be improved?

Dingle is best known for his participation in two highly public and polemical disputes. The first took place during the 1930s, triggered by Dingle's criticism of E. A. Milne's cosmological model and the associated theoretical methodology, which Dingle considered overly speculative and not based on empirical facts.[2] The second took place in the 1960s, and centered on Dingle's objection to Einstein's theory of special relativity.[3][4] This culminated in his 1972 book, Science at the Crossroads.[5][6] In both of these disputes, Dingle was opposed by (among others) the astrophysicist William H. McCrea. The consensus in the physics community is that Dingle's objections to special relativity were unfounded.[7][8][9][10].

Dingle is also known for his 1922 essay, "Relativity for All", and his 1940 monograph The Special Theory of Relativity. A collection of Dingle's lectures on the history and philosophy of science was published in 1954.[11] He also took an interest in English literature, and published "Science and Literary Criticism" in 1949, and "The Mind of Emily Bronte" in 1974.

There's also this — Talk:Herbert Dingle/Draft revision — which I suppose can be worked on.

—wwoods 00:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

This was and is okay with me. If I'm not mistaken it was the first version by Denveron of 10-oct which triggered the special purpose puppets to emerge. DVdm 10:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey you editors! Maybe you wouldnt have a problem if you did a good and fair writing job the first time around. But wait, that is not your purpose is it? You want the article to be biased to your views.71.251.176.49 14:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• I'm going to unlock the article for the time being because it would appear there is a consensus here on the article in regards to the preferred version. That said I will be keeping an eye on the article and I want to remind everyone here to avoid edit warring, WP:3RR is not a "hard rule" to be gamed (editors can be blocked for less than 3RR), and be careful about accusations of sockpuppetry (and on a side note, there is an active RFCU which will hopefully clear that situation up).--Isotope23 ^talk 14:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have reverted to the more or less 'stable' version before the edit war. We'll see where this leads... DVdm 15:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem... and I hope everyone who isn't familiar with the concept of consensus in the Wikipedia sense takes the time to read that policy link.--Isotope23 ^talk 15:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Why I (Still) Think the October 10 [17:35] Version Should Be Restored

There are some problems with the current version (in my opinion). I pointed these problems out previously, but it seems to have been forgotten, so here they are again (in no particular order):

(1) The current Oct 15 version says "Dingle claimed Einstein's prediction about a moving clock was in error and experiments showed Einstein right". That's completely garbled. In the late 1950's Dingle argued that special relativity does not predict different lapses of proper time for the twins after they re-unite, but by 1959 he realized that he was wrong about this, and that in fact special relativity DOES predict different lapses of proper time for the twins. He THEN changed his argument, and began to claim that special relativity is logically inconsistent. As to whether or not asymmetric aging actually occurs, he suspected that it didn't (and of course he was wrong about that), but this isn't relevant to either his pre-1960 or his post-1960 complaint. Experimental findings had no bearing on Dingle's views, one way or the other, certainly not up to the point of writing Science at the Crossroads in 1971.

(2) The Oct 15 version says "An article by Chang about Dingle's "rebellion" argues that his objections were largely philosophical and not well understood." This is bogus, because it is placed at the wrong point. I have specifically asked Chang about this, and he assured me that he did not (and does not) support the post-1960 Dingle position. His paper refers only to the late 1950's period, when Dingle still considered himself to be a proponent of special relativity (although he admitted later that he totally misunderstood it), and was advocating a relational theory of motion. It's totally misleading to put this statement in the article as if Chang is sympathetic to the post-1960 Dingle. Chang does NOT think (and his paper does not say) that Dingle was misunderstood when Dingle said special relativity is logically inconsistent, nor does Chang think that this is a philosophical point. And Dingle himself certainly denied that his charge of logical inconsistency was "philosophical". I think the Chang cite should stay in the article only if (a) It is presented accurately as referring to Dingle’s pro-relativity phase, and (b) it is balanced with the more widespread view in the scientific community. See for example the quote from P.C.W. Davies.

(3) The Oct 15 article says Dingle objected to Einstein's 1918 explanation, but this is redundant. Dingle (post 1960) objected to the relativistic explanation of the twins, and EVERY presentation of it, all of which make the same points. It's misleading to suggest that there was something special about Einstein's 1918 paper in this regard. Dingle equally objected to the explanation of time dilation in Einstein's 1905 paper.

(4) If the article is really going to include an assessment of (and opinions on) Dingle's ideas, then his ideas (and how they changed over time) must be presented accurately. He didn't just promote a single coherent set of ideas. He believed (erroneously but understandably) one set of ideas for 40 years, and then when his misunderstandings came to light (in the late 1950’s, after his retirement), he switched to belief in a completely loony set of ideas. It is these latter ideas that the neo-Dingles espouse, but they try to claim for these ideas some of the respect that accorded to Dingle's sane ideas, before he went off the deep end. One must distinguish clearly between the two phases of Dingle's thinking. The boundary between them was roughly his 70th birthday. But do we really WANT to get into this?

(5) I disagree with the removal of the date of the death of Dingle’s wife. This is a biography of the man. It's perfectly appropriate to state when his wife died. Whoever deleted that fact gave their reason as follows: "It is trying to dilute the main point of the article". I think that is an invalid reason. The article's "point" is to present a biography of Herbert Dingle. This article is not about "Herbert Dingle's Campaign Against Special Relativity During His Retirement Years". It should cover his whole life, and all his activities.

(6) The current (Oct 15) version includes a kooky statement about "ruthless suppression". Can anyone read that with a straight face? We should get rid of that kind of kooky talk (in my opinion). However, I wouldn't be opposed to mentioning Dingle's eventual paranoia, but I doubt that any accurate words would be acceptable to the neo-Dingles, and I don't think it's necessary. The article present has links to the most damning possible document for Dingle's reputation (namely, Science at the Crossroads). No sane person who actually reads that book can be left with any doubt as to the man's mental state.

(7) The current (Oct 15) version says Dingle regarded Milne’s philosophy as pernicious, which it true, but the Oct 10 version was better, because it explained why Dingle thought this, i.e., overly speculative and not based on empirical facts.

So, for the reasons noted above, I still think the October 10 17:35 version is the better baseline from which to build. For future improvements, I’d suggest a few more words on Dingle’s work in spectroscopy, and we should also mention his scathing appraisal of his fellow Quaker Eddington’s philosophy of science.Denveron 20:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me. DVdm 21:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you really serious? The statements made here are factually incorrect. You seem to think that factual inaccuracies are OK as long as you have a reference to justify the mistakes. The notice that the article contains disputed facts should be restored. It needs to warn readers that the editors are incapable of obtaining the correct facts, because they are entirely biased and do not understand the issues involved.71.251.176.49 20:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, factual inaccuracies are indeed OK as long as there are enough sufficiently reliable references to justify the "mistakes". Read the remark from the founder of Wikipedia above. You don't have to repeat your response - it is still there. If indeed you think that "Wikipedia is just junk, as it appears to be", and if you "certaintly would not reccomend using it to anybody", then perhaps it is not a good idea to continue contributing to it? DVdm 21:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Comments on Latest Version

I don't think the extended quote from Dingle's book adds much to the article, because it's redundant to the summary of Dingle's position given in the preceding paragraph. I suppose it doesn't hurt, although I would edit out the parenthetical reference to a previous page of the book, which doesn't have much value here. More importantly, I suggest improving the resolution statement following the Dingle quote. Naturally there are infinitely many ways of explaining Dingle's error, but I don't think the current statement at the end of the article really addresses Dingle's objection. In fact, to some extent it buys into (and re-enforces) his misconception. Dingle asks "Which clock works the more slowly?", and the current answer at the end of the article says "whichever clock is moving faster runs slower... There are frames in which A is moving faster and others in which B is moving faster...". Suitably interpreted and adjusted, these words could be made true, but they essentially just repeat Dingle's argument, i.e., we can get different answers for which clock is running the slower depending on which frame of reference we choose. This doesn't answer Dingle, it simply re-capitulates what he said. The real problem is in Dingle's implicit notion of clocks "running slow", and with his asertion that this state of affairs is logically inconsistent (because each clock cannot be running slower than the other, according to Dingle). This is what needs to be answered, and in fact it has been answered previously in the article. This is why I don't think the whole quote plus resolution that has been added really helps the article. It is redundant for Dingle's argument, and it doesn't really provide the answer to his objection. In effect, we end up with THREE statements of Dingle's argument: The summary, The Crossroads quote, and then The attempted resolution which is really just a re-statement of Dingle's premise. The previous version of the article was better, because it accurately described Dingle's complaint and then gave the resolution. Denveron 17:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

One more comment: I don't think making a separate section entitled "The Dingle Controversies" is appropriate, because the first was a genuine controversy of which Dingle was only one of the vocal participants (should it wasn't really Dingle's controversy exclusively), whereas the second was exclusively focused on Dingle but wasn't really a controversy (precisely because it was focused exclusively on the misconceptions of a single individual and his letter-writing campaign). Again, the previous version was better. If anything, it could stand to be economized a bit.Denveron 18:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the big quote (it's almost overkill) is probably better left out, and indeed the 'resolution' doesn't really sound well. Wwoods, agree?

And indeed, the section header is better left out. DVdm 18:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The quote does look big... The parentheses should go, and maybe the last sentence, since Dingle's fear of '"immeasurably calamitous" (though unspecified) consequences' is also mentioned. Maybe everything after '--which it requires no super-intelligence to see is impossible.'

But IMHO it's easier to see where he's going when the subject is the relativity of time dilation rather than the twin paradox, which is time dilation compounded. Dingle's claim is that 'SR says A is running slower than B, and B is running slower than A, which is impossible' — but it's not, they're just two different but equally valid perspectives. I thought of moving the discussion of the Lorentz transformation below the quote ... but jeez, I had three edit conflicts just adding the quote and the rest of that edit! Also, I wasn't sure what to say; dropped in like that, I don't think the equations will help anyone who doesn't already know what they mean.

I thought it was better to pull the controversy out of the general biography and bibliography, since that's inevitably going to take a more involved explication than the rest of his career, but I'm not wedded to that.

—wwoods 19:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that the presence of the section header really should depend on the length of the article, and ... let's keep the article as short as possible :-) DVdm 21:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Still Factually Incorrect And Biased

I see that the facts are still incorrect and the tone is clearly biased and negative. Dingle was not the only critic of the new philosophical trend in the 19030s yet you make it seem as if he was overly critical. This is a bit over the top and unnecessary. You still have the historical facts wrong as usual. Again, get your facts straight and drop the biased argumentive tone. You really do have a long way to go to fix the problems. It would be better if you would take a factual stance and objective tone. You should replace the comments I entered as they are factually correct yet you deleted them.71.251.176.49 20:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If you can identify the specific inaccuracies, I'm sure all the editors would be happy to have them corrected. No one wants the article to be inaccurate. Of course, accuracy doesn't mean "truth". We're not here to argue about what we personally think is true, we're here to report what has been written in reputable and verifiable sources.

I don't think the current article states or implies that Dingle was alone in his objection to the methodology of Milne, et al. In fact, the article specifically says that others (notably de Sitter) agreed with Dingle. Admittedly the article mentions Dingle's very agressive rhetoric, but every article about Dingle makes note of the fact that he wrote in a very inflamatory way, telling people that they were "delusional" and were "treacherous" and traitors, and so on. This is the language he used, and he was well known for it throughout his career. It is notable, in my opinion. Granted, it isn't flattering, but there is no rule that says everything in a biography has to be flattering.130.76.32.181 21:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

He obviously didn't suffer fools gladly. (Herbert Dingle 08:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC))

What is Denveron still whinging about?

I've just looked at the current article in its frozen state. I don't know who locked it, or why. What is Denveron not happy about? There is a biographical section where he is free to write everything that he knows about Alice.

There is also a section dealing with the issues for which Dingle is known. It explains exactly what those controversies were.

It states that the physics community disagreed with Dingle. That is more or less true although there are quite a few exceptions.

So what is Denveron still whinging about? Does he want the whole article removed completely and replaced with a single sentence saying that Herbert Dingle was wrong and he had a wife called Alice? (125.27.174.0 08:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC))

Regarding the controversies, where all the controversies of equal magnitude? I would have thought that the Einstein controversy was the main controversy. I never heard of that other controversy before, but then that's the benefit of an encyclopaedia. We read and we learn. (Fagrah Sawdust 08:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC))