Gotthard Barth

Gotthard Barth (born February 4, 1913 in Reichenberg , Bohemia , today Liberec , Czech Republic , † March 31, 1996 in Zwingendorf ) was a private Austrian scholar . He devoted the majority of his life to refuting Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity . He became known to a wider Austrian public in 1974 with the Barth-Sexl-Einstein affair . This affair triggered a controversy that Gotthard Barth had passionately led until 1986 with the one in Viennaacting theoretical physicist Roman Sexl .

Life

Gotthard Barth was born into a middle-class family in the Bohemian Giant Mountains. The father, Heinrich Barth, was a grammar school teacher for Latin, Greek and philosophy. His mother Rosa Barth , maiden name Scholz, was a housewife. Gotthard Barth attended a humanistic grammar school. While at school he was enthusiastic about the natural sciences, especially physics, and carried out small experiments himself. After graduating from high school , Barth began studying medicine, which he broke off after five semesters. He switched to physics and studied with Felix Ehrenhaft , whom Barth declared his most important teacher, and Hans Thirring , among others . Barth married while still studying. The young family around his wife Margaretha ("Grete") and their children Ursula , Dietlinde and Rotraut forced Barth to drop out of his studies for financial reasons and to take up a subordinate job at the Austrian Post .

After the Second World War, Barth , who had returned from captivity , enrolled again at the University of Vienna and studied physics and mathematics. But he also heard lectures on philosophy, among others with Erich Heintel , from whom he also wanted to do his doctorate on “The One and the Becoming” . After twelve semesters, he had to leave the university again for financial reasons. According to his own statements, he only had one chance to gain access to the academic world. The mechanical engineer Franz Lösel from the Technical University of Vienna , whom Barth confronted with his doubts about thermodynamics, offered Barth a degree at his institute. However, Barth's living conditions no longer allowed him to take up a new academic degree. After Barth's failure to develop a classical academic career, he turned to a non-academic career. From 1954 he tried to refute classical thermodynamics and the special theory of relativity. This marked his path as a private scholar in the scientific outsider .

From then on, Barth earned his family's livelihood through employment as a curator and tour guide , which forced him to move many times in the further course of his life and led him to several Austrian castles. Stages in the life of the Barths, which were constantly threatened and shaped by poverty, were Untertullnerbach in the Vienna Woods in 1954 , Greifenstein Castle in the municipality of Sankt Andrä- Wierter in 1958 and Liechtenstein Castle in the municipality of Maria Enzersdorf and Hardegg in 1962 . The third edition of his self-published work "Antirelativus - Einstein refuted" was published in 1968 in Alt-Prerau, Wildendürnbach community . They lived in Hessendorf near Langau in the Waldviertel for a longer period from the late 1960s to the late 1970s . At the beginning of the 1980s Gotthard and Grete Barth finally moved into their retirement home, the old customs house in Zwingendorf , which Barth referred to as "Haus Bradley" , after the astronomer James Bradley , who first mathematically formulated the aberration of starlight and its formula (the aberration cosine ) Barth unceremoniously painted on the facade of his home. In 1981, after a four-year break, the first issue of his magazine “Wissen im Werden” appears in the 14th year with the publisher's address Zwingendorf. The last issue of the 13th year was published in 1977 with the location Hessendorf.

Barth's precarious professional activities gave him the freedom in the omnipresent material hardship that he filled as a passionate private scholar. Gotthard Barth died on March 31, 1996 and was buried on April 9, 1996 in the cemetery in Zwingendorf. One of the funeral speeches was given by his companion from the 1980s, Ekkehard Friebe.

A rich source for the biographical details and the motives of Einstein's opponent Gotthard Barth are the interviews that the Austrian science journalist Reinhard Schlögl recorded in Zwingendorf in 1991 and which are archived as image and sound recordings in the Austrian media library . In addition, Reinhard Schlögl created two radio programs with Gotthard Barth and his two companions Walter Theimer and Ekkehard Friebe, which were broadcast on ORF Radio Austria 1 .

Working as a private scholar

At the beginning of the 1950s, Gotthard Barth had to break off his academic training. Disappointed with scientific teaching, he worked as a private scholar from 1953 and tried to refute classical thermodynamics and the special theory of relativity. In 1958 the philosopher Karl Sapper founded the "Society for Rational Physics and Natural Philosophy" together with Gotthard Barth and Ernst Gehrcke . The founding conference was organized on the initiative of Gotthard Barth at Greifenstein Castle, where he was custodian at the time. A year before that, in 1957, the first issue of Barth's magazine “Wissen im Werden” appeared , in which he published his critical articles and guest contributions from other outsiders and fellow campaigners. He also self-published his monographs “Antirelativus” (1954), “Rationale Physik” (1962) and “Das Eine und das Werden” (1967). So far, Barth was only known to a small group of people, primarily his colleagues. That changed when the theoretical physicist Roman Sexl published an article about scientific outsiders in the physical papers in 1974 and quoted Gotthard Barth in it. Sexl made a mishap. As the place where Barth's article was published, he wrote Tullnerfeld instead of Untertullnerbach . This “contempt” angered Gotthard Barth. Called Barth-Sexl-Einstein as the affair by Barth , this sparked a controversy between Roman Sexl and Gotthard Barth, which both sides carried on with passion. Roman Sexl used to hang up Gotthard Barth's letters at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Vienna . In return, Gotthard Barth regularly published his pamphlets as answers in his magazine “Wissen im Werden” . The controversy culminated in 1985 with an outraged letter from Barth to the then Minister of Science and later Federal President Heinz Fischer : “... that Univ. Prof. Dr. Roman Sexl, Vienna, knowingly cheating on his students and the people… ” . He replied calmly: "... I have taken note of your comments with interest and remain ... H. Fischer" .

When Barth and his family moved into the old customs house in Zwingendorf, he met the Austrian writer Alfred Komarek , who had set up his domicile in neighboring Obritz . Alfred Komarek wrote several times about Gotthard Barth in various magazines, dedicated a chapter to Barth in his book “Weinviertel - Dives in the Green Sea” and had him appear in the role of private scholar Dieter Wehdorn in the detective novel “Flowers for Polt” .

Works

• Knowledge in becoming, Gotthard Barth, magazine, self-published, 1957 to 1993.
• Antirelativus, Gotthard Barth, self-published, 1958.
• Rational Physics, Gotthard Barth, self-published, 1962.
• One and the next, Gotthard Barth, self-published, 1967.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ These statements by Barth are at least doubtful in their chronology. Franz Lösel taught at the Vienna University of Technology from around the early 1930s until the end of the Second World War. After that, Lösel and two of his employees were brought to Moscow by the Red Army. From there, Lösel did not return to Austria until his death.
2. ↑ Can Einstein be refuted? Pros and Cons of Relativity Theory, Salzburg Night Studio, ORF Radio Austria 1 . January 12, 1994. Archived from the original on November 28, 2016. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 27, 2016. 
3. ↑ The point - reflections that lead to nothing, audio images - a broadcast by the feature editorial team, ORF Radio Austria 1 . Archived from the original on November 28, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 27, 2016. 
4. ^ Sexl, Roman U .: Outsiders of the natural sciences . In: Physical sheets . 30, 1974, pp. 19-21. ISSN  0342-4472 .
5. ↑ Alfred Komarek: Let's forget about Einstein . In: Diners Club Magazin . 1988.
6. ^ Alfred Komarek: I also have bees . In: cultural news from the Weinviertel . 1994.
7. ^ Alfred Komarek: Weinviertel . Dives in the green sea. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-218-00641-4 , p. 243-246 .
8. ^ Alfred Komarek: Flowers for Polt . Diogenes, Zurich 2000, ISBN 978-3-257-23295-0 .