Intellectual Inertia and the International Mafia

   This letter written 26 Aug'04 and received 30 Aug'04 from Dr.Florentin Smarandache, co-author of the 2004 book BEGIN THE ADVENTURE: How to Break the Light Barrier by A.D.2070:

Dear Homer,
  I put the book file in Los Alamos National Laboratory web site, where I put other math papers, but the International Mafia removed it.
  See attached what this international mafia e-mailed me. I don't know what kind of "free" science is it since we are not allowed to criticize people from the mafia or others supported by the mafia.  
Florentin, 8/26/04

   "International Mafia" is Florentin's picturesque way of referring to "The Scientific Establishment."  Their e-mail he referred to reads:

 "Your submission has been removed upon a notice from our moderators who determined it inappropriate for the physics archive.
   Your submission had no research content whatsoever. Under no circumstances should you ever submit material of this nature to arXiv.
  Please direct all questions and concerns regarding moderation to the moderation@arXiv.org address.
arXiv admin"

The primary author's response:

"No research content whatsoever"?  "Determined...inappropriate"?  "Under no circumstances...[re]submit"?  Wow.

   The book does not pretend to be a research report.  The "moderators" clearly did not read and understand the book.  It is a small book of about 70 pages, clearly written for even the amateur scientist to understand.
   Einstein gave respectability to the term "gedanken Experimente"; no research needed there.  But the book does not even concern a gedanken Experimente.  It is more basic than that.  It calls only for a reexamination of the meaning of relativity.
For a hundred years those who put a negative spin on relativity have ruled the day: "You cannot exceed the velocity of light in a meaningful way under any circumstances. Relativity does not permit it."  How can anyone be so cocksure?  Yes, such a "barrier" does rear its ugly head under some circumstances, but under all?  Do you have proof of that? Are you sure the proof you would cite is truly all inclusive?  Have you thought about the subject in depth, or have you only taken prior experts' word for it.
   The book presents a ray of hope for our star travel aspirations.  Are we truly limited to speeds much less than the speed of light as the experts say?
   ...Or even to less than the speed of light in all conceivable situations?  Is it even possible to know such a thing?  Those experts would hold humanity back and they seem to be happy about it as if they were clandestine alien emissaries bent on keeping us forever on our home planet.  Perhaps they think they are intellectually superior and the only and proper ultimate judges of what scientific literature should and should not see the light of day, perhaps because they are not at odds with Einstein.  Florentin lived under Communism in Eastern Europe during the Cold War and he is able to recognize totalitarianism when he sees it.
   There is room for interpretation of the relativistic effects. Einstein taught that the relativistic effects reflect reality, but Lorentz said at one point, "I never thought that this new time was real."  And PoincarÇ did not teach that the relativistic effects were anything other than appearances.  Has humanity suddenly become incapable of independent thought since the death of Einstein in 1955? Have we no brains?  Einstein was, after all, only a man not a god.
   That is what the book is about. Its purpose is to inspire fresh thought on the meaning and consequences of relativity.  Zeno, no slouch himself, concluded that Achilles could never beat the tortoise in a race in which the tortoise was given a head start, and Einstein concluded that there is no hope of ever reaching Rigel, for example, before Marconi's orignal radio signal does, some 400 years from now.  Yes, "concluded" is the right word. He characterized it that way himself.  There is nothing in relativity that proves Einstein's conclusion as he stated it (Relativity, p.43): "From this we conclude that in the theory of relativity the velocity c plays the part of a limiting velocity, which can neither be reached nor exceeded by any real body."  That was a conclusion which satisfied his longing to know what it would be like to ride on a lightbeam, and a conclusion which has dashed the hopes of humanity to ever reach the stars in a meaningful way.
To summarily reject the book without giving it fair exposure illustrates the destructive nature of The Ptolemy Syndrome, the bane of humanity present in moderators and all of us unless we recognize it and actively oppose it.  That's the syndrome which prevents well-meaning scientists from thinking independently.  Chapter 2, "The Human Barrier" deals with that syndrome.  And Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini found ca.1975 that cognitive illusions "rule our thoughts" - including the thoughts of geniuses even to the point of making them believe what they desire. Einstein desired to know what it would be like to ride on a light beam.
   Perhaps, Florentin, the invitation to appeal to the moderation@arXiv.org address should be followed up.  You may enclose the above argument if you concur with it. ...HBT