[music-dsp][ot] DSP vs analog circuits

[Bob Cain]

Yaakov Stein wrote:
> 
> However, no matter how Einstein stated it in 1905,
> the fact still remains that the constancy of the velocity
> of light is a direct consequence of Maxwell's equations.
> It is not an independent assumption on Einstein's or anyone
> else's part.

In the sense that they only work without anomoly if one adds the
assumption that light speed is constant in all moving frames then yes,
they are implicit.  It took an Einstein to finally see that and
postulate it within what he called the relativity principle.  I'm not
sure why you won't give that to Einstein as it is considered the
fundamental contribution of the paper.  Have you read Abraham Pais'
technical biography of Eisntein?  Fabulous book.  He looses me in many
places relative to statistical mechanics and the general geometric
framework that leads to GR but it is a great read regardless.

> 
> Also, even if Einstein did in fact know about Michelson-Morley,
> it does not play any significant role in his development.

Only in the sense that he offers it as the experimental evidence of his
relativity principle before developing the consequences of it.  How
instrumetal it was in formulating the thought is equivocal and even
ambiguous by Einstein's own statments relative to it.  If he knew of it
when the idea came to him I don't see how it could fail to be part of
the gestalt that enclosed the idea.

> The main line of thought is beautifully clean,
> and COULD have been developed in a closed room
> without any experimental knwoledge of anything beyond Maxwell's
> equations. Indeed, Maxwell himself could have derived it all
> (had he thought of it) and saved us a lot of time.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.  :-)  Fact is not he nor any successor until
Einstein did so and some really smart people were chewing on it.  I
certainly agree about the beauty and completeness of the paper.  As many
other explanations of SR as I have looked at over the years, none comes
close to the clarity of the original. Anybody with high school physics
can easily follow the first section which develops the essential
kinematics that were considered revolutionary at the time.  The
application to Maxwell's theory is a bit deeper.

> 
> This is what has always impressed me about the 1905 paper.
> The other 1905 paper (the note about E = m c^2)
> pales in comparison, although that's what the layman thinks
> of when Einstein's name is mentioned.

We totally agree on at least one thing.  :-)


Bob
-- 

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler."

                                             A. Einstein


////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

 To contribute your unused processor cycles to the fight against cancer:

     http://www.intel.com/cure

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////////

dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info,
FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links
http://shoko.calarts.edu/musicdsp/