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Herbert Dingle

Herbert Dingle (2 August 1890 – 4 September 1978) was an English physicist and
Herbert Dingle
natural philosopher, who served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society
from 1951 to 1953. He is best known for his opposition to Albert Einstein's special Born 2 August 1890
theory of relativity and the protracted controversy that this provoked. London, England
Died 4 September 1978
(aged 88)
Kingston upon Hull,
Contents England
Biography Nationality English
Controversies
Occupation physicist, natural
Selected publications
philosopher
References
External links

Biography
Dingle was born in London, but spent his early years inPlymouth, where he was taken following the death of his father
, and where he
attended Plymouth Science, Art and Technical Schools. Due to lack of money, he left school at the age of 14 and found employment
as a clerk, a job which he held for 11 years. At age 25 he won a scholarship to the Imperial College, London, from which he
graduated in 1918. In that same year, Dingle married Alice Westacott who later gave birth to a son. As a Quaker, Dingle was exempt
from military service during World War I. He took a position as a Demonstrator in the Physics Department, and devoted himself to
the study of spectroscopy (following his mentor Alfred Fowler), especially its applications in astronomy. He was elected a Fellow of
the Royal Astronomical Society in 1922.

Dingle was a member of the British governmenteclipse expeditions of 1927 (Colwyn Bay) and 1932 (Montreal), both of which failed
to make any observations due to overcast skies. He spent most of 1932 at the California Institute of Technology as a Rockefeller
Foundation Scholar. There he met the theoreticalcosmologist R. C. Tolman, and studied relativisticcosmology.

Dingle became a professor of Natural Philosophy at Imperial College in 1938, and was a professor of History and Philosophy of
Science at University College London from 1946 until his retirement in 1955. Thereafter he held the customary title of Professor
Emeritus from that institution. He was one of the founders of the British Society for the History of Science, and served as President
from 1955 to 1957.[1] He founded what later became the British Society for the Philosophy of Science as well as its journal, the
British Journal for The Philosophy of Science.[1]

Dingle was the author of "Modern Astrophysics" (1924) and "Practical Applications of Spectrum Analysis" (1950). He also wrote the
essay "Relativity for All" (1922)[2] and the monograph The Special Theory of Relativity (1940). A collection of Dingle's lectures on
the history and philosophy of science was published in 1954.[3][4] He also took an interest in English literature, and published
Science and Literary Criticismin 1949, and The Mind of Emily Brontë in 1974.

Controversies
Dingle participated 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 data.[5] A. S. Eddington was another target of Dingle's critique, and the ensuing debate eventually involved nearly
every prominent astrophysicist and cosmologist in Britain. Dingle characterized his opponents as "traitors" to the scientific method,
and called them "the modern Aristotelians" because he believed their theorizing was based on rationalism rather than empiricism.
Some other scientists, notablyWillem de Sitter, while not endorsing Dingle's more extreme rhetoric, nevertheless agreed with Dingle
that the cosmological models of Milne, Eddington, and others were overly speculative. However, most modern cosmologists
[6][7]
subsequently accepted the validity of the hypothetico-deductive method of Milne.

The second dispute began in the late 1950s, following Dingle's retirement and centered on the theory of special relativity.[8] [9]

Initially Dingle argued that, contrary to the usual understanding of the famous twin paradox, special relativity did not predict unequal
aging of twins, one of whom makes a high-speed voyage and returns to Earth, but he then came to realize and acknowledge that his
understanding had been mistaken. He then began to argue that special relativity was empirically wrong in its predictions, although
experimental evidence showed he was mistaken about this.[10] Ultimately Dingle re-focused his criticism to claim that special
relativity was logically inconsistent: "The theory [special relativity] 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."[11] Hence he asserted that the well-known
reciprocity of the Lorentz transformationis self-evidently impossible.[12] As Whitrow explained in his obituary for Dingle, this is not
[1]
correct, as it rests on Dingle's mistaken assumption that the conflicting ratios of event times used by Dingle are invariants.

Dingle carried on a highly public and contentious campaign to get this conclusion accepted by the scientific community, mostly
through letters to the editors of various scientific periodicals, including Nature. Dozens of scientists responded with answers to
Dingle's claims, explaining why the reciprocity of the Lorentz transformation does not entail any logical inconsistency,[13] but Dingle
rejected all the explanations.[14] This culminated in his 1972 book, Science at the Crossroads in which Dingle stated that "a proof
that Einstein's special theory of relativity is false has been advanced; and ignored, evaded, suppressed and, indeed, treated in every
possible way except that of answering it, by the whole scientific world." He also warned: "Since this theory is basic to practically all
physical experiments, the consequences if it is false, modern atomic experiments being what they are, may be immeasurably
calamitous."[15] The consensus in the physics community is that Dingle's objections to the logical consistency of special relativity
were unfounded.[1][16][17][18] According to Max Born, "Dingle's objections are just a matter of superficial formulation and
confusion."[19]

Selected publications
ν
"Values of T μ and the Christoffel symbols for a line element of considerable generality"Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America19(5): 559–563 doi:10.1073/pnas.19.5.559
with J. H. Sheldon: "A spectrographic examination of the mineral content of human and other milk" . Biochem J. 32
(6): 1078–1086. June 1938.PMC 1264149.

References
1. Whitrow, G.J. (1980). "Obituaries: Herbert Dingle". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society
. Royal
Astronomical Society. 21: 333–338. Bibcode:1980QJRAS..21..333W(http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980QJRAS..2
1..333W).
2. Relativity for All (https://books.google.com/books?id=hwpKAAAAIAAJ)(1922)
3. The Scientific Adventure: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science
, Pitman 1952, re-published in 1970 by
Ayer Publishing.
4. The Scientific Adventure: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science
(https://books.google.com/books?id=uFy
TKW6gjo4C) Pitman 1953
5. "Cosmology: Methodological Debates in the 1930s and 1940s"(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmology-30s)
from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
6. Thomas Lepeltier, "Edward Milne's influenceon modern cosmology", Annals of Science, 1464-505X, o Vlume 63,
Issue 4, 2006, Pages 471 – 481, which states that "The hypothetico-deductive method is now an integral part of
cosmology...".
7. Norriss S. Hetherington, Cosmology, 1993. See particularly the article by Georege Gale and John Urani, stating that
"This view [the hypothetico-deductive method], quintessentially Milne, survives the attacks of Dingle and the other
empiricist traditionalists, in the end becoming the of
ficial story of the scientific nature of relativistic cosmology
...
8. Dingle, H. (October 14, 1967). "The Case against Special Relativity".Nature. 216 (5111): 119.
Bibcode:1967Natur.216..119D (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1967Natur .216..119D). doi:10.1038/216119a0 (https://
doi.org/10.1038%2F216119a0).
9. McCrea, W. H. (October 14, 1967). "Why The Special Theory of Relativity is Correct".
Nature. 216 (5111): 122.
Bibcode:1967Natur.216..122M (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1967Natur .216..122M). doi:10.1038/216122a0 (http
s://doi.org/10.1038%2F216122a0).
10. Giulini, Domenico, Special Relativity: A First Encounter, 100 Years since Einstein, 2005.
11. Dingle, Science at the Crossroads, p. 17.
12. Commentary on the Dingle Dispute in the journalNature, 1967, reproduced in Dingle's 1972 bookScience at the
Crossroads.
13. 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).
14. For example, Dingle wrote in a Letter toNature in 1957 "Dr. Frank S. Crawford's further communication is welcome
as the first attempt to answer my arguments. Hitherto they have been ignored, and independent reasons, which I
reject, have been adduced for the opposite conclusion." Sixteen years later he wrote wearily , "It would be profitless
to deal separately with the latest "answers" to my question; their diversity tells its own tale, and the writers may see
their misjudgments corrected in my book."
15. Dingle, Herbert (1972).Science at the Crossroads. London: Martin Brian & O'Keeffe. ISBN 0-85616-060-1.
16. Bondi, Hermann; Lord Carrington (2014).Science, Churchill and Me: The Autobiography of Hermann Bondi(https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=bSaLBQAAQBAJ)(revised ed.). Elsevier. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-4832-9603-6. Extract of
page 90 (https://books.google.com/books?id=bSaLBQAAQBAJ&pg=P A90)
17. Prokhovnik, S.J., The Logic of Special Relativity, Cambridge University Press, 1967
18. Davies, P. C. W. , About Time, Simon and Schushter, 1995
19. Dingle. Science at the Crossroads. p. 25.

External links
Works by or about Herbert Dingleat Internet Archive
What Happened to Dingle?
Herbert Dingle and the Twins

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