Einstein's "Imprints" on the RAS website

The other day, many Russian mass media bypassed the sensation: “ Russian scientists complemented the theory of relativity ” (MK); “ Tomsk scientists have clarified the theory of relativity of Einstein ” (“Rambler”). The headlines are already hinting at themselves that the “discovery” is an illiterate nonsense. This is true. Here are a couple of statements of one of the authors (quotes from a press release of the Tomsk Polytechnic University).

“In most works on theoretical physics, which relate to the theory of gravity and nuclear physics, it is almost axiomatic that the metric of space-time determines the features of physical processes. We adhered to another, less popular among physicists of the theory, according to which it is physical processes that determine the local metric of space-time. ” (In the general theory of relativity, just physical processes affect the metric through the tensor of the energy-pulse included in Einstein's equations.)

“For example, today it is generally accepted that a photon - a particle of light - has no mass. However, there are assumptions that the photon still has a mass. Moreover, it has an internal structure. The formalism we proposed will help to get an indisputable answer to this question. ” (The existing experimental restriction on the mass of the photon is m <10-18 eV; the authors, apparently, intend to somehow refute it.)

We are not going to consider the essence of the work of the authors in detail. For people familiar with theoretical physics, everything is clear from these quotes. The rest we ask us to believe that this has nothing to do with science.

As physics say in such cases - pathology. However, we have no complaints about the authors. This is not a crime, this is a misfortune when professionally wealthy people rush into an alien area for them at an epoch -making discovery and put up for a laughing stock. And both author, of course, are professionally wealthy people (we will not once again flutter their names), but in a completely different area.

We would generally refrain from this publication, if not for one circumstance. It consists in the fact that the sensation was published not only by the yellow media: a press release entitled “The study of TPU scientists and RAS introduced a serious clarification in the general theory of relativity of Einstein” published on the RAS website.

Here is the link in force on January 27, 2018: www.ras.ru/news/shownews.aspx?id=529aba05-130d-4811-aeac-f3e981D91F65

We hope that when the reader reads this note, the publication will already be removed. But she was, and the news of this publication scattered through social networks. Why did this news get there? Who forms this news? It is unlikely that a person with a wide scientific horizons. Or maybe in general, a robot pecking at keywords. Is it difficult to subject this news at least some kind of examination? For this, even large money is not necessary - many scientists will agree to do this voluntarily. Money is needed only for a tiny edition who would take on dispatch functions.

When the authors of a pretentious illiterate work put themselves on the laughing stock, this is a personal misfortune. When a respected institution, designed to personify the highest achievements of the mind, does the same, this is already a common misfortune. We urge the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences to find funds and reform the site, achieve the scientific literacy of its content. To do this, it is worthwhile to attract qualified people who have proven themselves in scientific journalism to his work.

Valery Rubakov,
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Boris Stern,
Vedas. scientific. sore. Institute of Nuclear
Research of RAS