Herbert Dingle

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Herbert Dingle (born August 2, 1890 in London , † September 4, 1978 in Hull ) was a British astrophysicist and natural philosopher . He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1951 to 1953 .

Life

Dingle was born in London but spent his first years in Plymouth following the death of his father . Due to insufficient financial means, however, he had to leave school there and work as an employee for 11 years. At 25, he won a scholarship to Imperial College in London and graduated in 1918. That same year he married Alice Westacott, with whom he had a son. As Quakers Dingle was the military service in World War enacted. He received a position as an assistant in the physics department, and devoted himself (following his mentor Alfred Fowler) to the study of spectroscopy and, above all, its application in astronomy . In 1922 Dingle became a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Astronomical Society , of which he was president from 1951 to 1953.

Dingle was a member of the British government's occultation expeditions in 1927 ( Colwyn Bay ) and 1932 ( Montreal ), both of which failed due to overcast skies. In 1932 he spent most of his time at the California Institute of Technology as a Rockefeller Foundation scholar. Here he met the theoretical cosomologist Richard C. Tolman and studied relativistic cosmology.

In 1938 Dingle became professor of natural philosophy at Imperial College and was professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London from 1946 until his retirement in 1955. He then carried the title of "Professor Emeritus" for this institution. He was a co-founder of the British Society for the History of Science , whose Dingle Prize is named in his honor, and founded the British Society for the Philosophy of Science and, related to it, the British Journal for The Philosophy of Science .

Dingle was the author of Modern Astrophysics (1924) and Practical Applications of Spectrum Analysis (1950). He also wrote introductory papers on relativity such as Relativity for All (1922) and the monograph The Special Theory of Relativity (1940). A collection of Dingles' readings on the history and philosophy of science was published in 1954. He was also interested in English literature and published Science and Literary Criticism (1949) and The Mind of Emily Brontë (1974).

Controversy

Dingle also became known for his participation in various public and polemical disputes. In the 1930s, for example, he criticized Edward Arthur Milne's cosmological model as being too speculative and not based on experience. He also criticized Arthur Stanley Eddington , with almost every prominent British astrophysicist and cosmologist participating in this debate. Dingle characterized his opponents as "traitors" to the scientific method and called them "the modern Aristotelians " because he believed that their theoretical considerations were based more on rationalism than empiricism . Willem de Sitter supported some of the less radical statements in Dingle's criticism of Milne and Eddington. However, modern cosmologists believe that Milne's hypothetical deductive method is valid.

Although he was one of the first to write a textbook on Special Theory of Relativity (SRT) in the 1920s and originally accepted it, Dingle turned away and discarded it in retirement. Originally he argued that the SRT in the twin paradox did not predict different ages of twins, but he himself recognized his flaws in the reasoning. He then claimed that the SRT's predictions were empirically wrong, even though the experiments showed the opposite. After that, Dingle focused his criticism again on the assumption that the SRT was logically inconsistent. Above all, Dingle referred to time dilation , according to which each observer sees each other's clocks running more slowly. For him, the reciprocity of the Lorentz transformation was an obvious absurdity.

Dingle brought his criticism to the public in an extensive public campaign, such as letters to the journal Nature . Many scientists (including Whitrow) replied, explaining that the reciprocity of the Lorentz transformation can easily be demonstrated and thus the SRT is by no means inconsistent. However, Dingle rejected the solutions and finally published (1972) the book Science at the Crossroads , in which he claimed that the refutation of the SRT had been achieved, but had been ignored or suppressed by the entire scientific world. The consensus in the scientific community, however, is that Dingle's objections to the logical consistency of the SRT are unfounded.

See also

Web links

Literature by and about Herbert Dingle in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Single receipts

  1. ↑ a b c G.J. Whitrow: Obituaries: Herbert Dingle . In: Royal Astronomical Society (Ed.): Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society . tape 21 , 1980, pp. 333–338 , bibcode : 1980QJRAS..21..333W .
  2. ^ The Scientific Adventure: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science , 1954, re-published in 1970 by Ayer Publishing.
  3. ^ "Cosmology: Methodological Debates in the 1930s and 1940s" from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  4. ^ H. Dingle: The Case against Special Relativity . In: Nature . October 14, 1967, p. 119.
  5. ^ WH McCrea: Why The Special Theory of Relativity is Correct . In: Nature . October 14, 1967, p. 122.
  6. ↑ Giulini, Domenico, Special Relativity: A First Encounter, 100 Years since Einstein , 2005.
  7. ^ Commentary on the Dingle Dispute in the journal Nature , 1967, reprinted in Dingle's book Science at the Crossroads .
  8. ↑ For answers to Dingle see, for example: Crawford, Frank S., Bull. Inst. Phys. , 7, 314 (1956); Fremlin, J.H., Nature , 180, 499 (1957); Darwin, Charles, Nature , 180, 976 (1957); Crawford, F.S., Nature , 179, 1071 (1957); Landsberg, P. T., Math. Gaz. , 47, 197 (1964); McCrea, W.H., Nature , 216, 122 (1967); Fullerton, J.H., Nature , 216, 524 (1967); Barrett, W., Nature , 216, 524 (1967); Landsberg, P.T., Nature , 220, 1182 (1968); Fremlin, F.H., Nature , 244, 27 (1973); Jacob, R., Nature , 244, 27 (1973); Whippman, M., Nature , 244, 27 (1973); Stedman, G. E., Nature , 244, 27 (1973); Ziman, J. , Nature , 241, 143 (1973); Ellis, G.F.R., Nature , 242, 143 (1973); Armstrong, H.L., Nature , 244, 26 (1973).
  9. ^ Herbert Dingle: Science at the Crossroads . Martin Brian & O'Keeffe, London 1972, ISBN 0-85616-060-1 .
  10. ^ Prokhovnik, SJ , The Logic of Special Relativity , Cambridge University Press, 1967
  11. ↑ Davies, P. C. W.  , About Time , Simon and Schushter, 1995

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Dingle, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English astrophysicist and natural philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 4th September 1978
Place of death Hull