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It's really shocking that the following question was voted down twice although the question is yet to be answered by anyone.

So please read the following and give an answer why physics community has taken a double standard in the following case.

We know about Michelson's experiment. We also know that despite of the null result how many times the experiment was revisited with the hope to get a positive result.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for Ehrenhaft's experiments (http://www.rexresearch.com/ehrenhaf/ehrenhaf.htm).

We have already performed a lot of experiments to find a real or artificial magnetic monopole but no monopole is found yet through any experiment.

Furthermore, while studying literature on magnetic monopole, I have found that very few researchers even recognized the work of Ehrenhaft who published more than 60 papers on this topic.

I don't understand why his work is so much ignored in the mainstream physics.

Is there a large number of references (I don't expect this number to be comparable to the number of experimental attempts made in case of Michelson's experiment. I only expect a significant number of repetitions which can firmly conclude about the experimental outcome.) which show that his experiments were revisited thoroughly, carefully and honestly but his claimed outcome could not be reproduced?

Please give your opinion about the following possible answers:

  1. Michelson's NULL result was favorable to Einstein's Relativity, while Ehrenhaft's result was not.
  2. Ehrenhaft's magnetic monopole was not in agreement with Dirac's theory of magnetic monopole.
Subhra
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  • Last paragraph in the Historical Background section explains why he hasn't found a true monopole: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole – Thermo's Second Law Jul 12 '14 at 13:19
  • There isn't any reference to his work in the wikipedia. – Subhra Jul 12 '14 at 15:58
  • Ehrenhaft's wikipedia page cites a history of science article on the exchange of correspondence between Ehrenhaft and Einstein. – rob Jul 12 '14 at 18:25
  • Yes, I had already read that book. Ehrenhaft's experimental results and their interpretations seems to contradict Einstein's theory as well as Maxwell's equation. In science, it is unexpected that since A's arguments contradict a famous B's arguments, A's arguments are baseless and should simply be ignored. The only way to test the arguments of Ehrenhaft is to revisit his experiments with an unbiased mind. We have already spent millions to detect monopole. Ehrenhaft's experiments are comparatively very much simpler and cheaper. Why can't we give them a try? – Subhra Jul 13 '14 at 04:59
  • @Subhra the paragraph I mentioned goes like this: Some condensed matter systems propose a structure superficially similar to a magnetic monopole, known as a flux tube. The ends of a flux tube form a magnetic dipole, but since they move independently, they can be treated for many purposes as independent magnetic monopole quasiparticles. Since 2009, numerous news reports from the popular media have incorrectly described these systems as the long-awaited discovery of the magnetic monopoles (...). AFAIK, that was Ehrenhaft's experiment there. – Thermo's Second Law Jul 13 '14 at 07:49
  • I am sorry Renan, I am not sure whether Ehrenhaft used any condensed matter system for monopole experiment. It will be convenient for me if you can give me a suitable reference so that I can check that experiment by Ehrenhaft. – Subhra Jul 13 '14 at 10:42
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    Wiki gives the answer; "Ehrenhaft's thinking started to diverge strikingly from the mainstream of physics... he was all too willing to adopt alternate theories to explain experiments." So, you do not want to firmly disagree with the mainstream for too long. You can argue until the mainstream decides to accept something and move on. From then on you must abide by or be ignored. See the Copenhagen Interpretation: the guys didn't win the debate - they just found more followers who decided to accept it and now the axioms cannot be questioned. And some even say this is what science is all about – bright magus Jul 14 '14 at 08:45
  • @bright magus: I fully agree with you and wish to carry on this discussion. Please post your comment as an answer as the comment section is getting a bit lengthy. – Subhra Jul 14 '14 at 16:05
  • @Subhra: I have very unpleasant experiences with posting unpopular answers. People downvote any opinions and ideas that question status quo. See here, for instance: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109982/how-is-a-vacuum-able-to-propagate-light/110776#110776. But, if conversation will become lengthy it can always be converted to chat. (Or if you insist, I will post this as an answer :) ) – bright magus Jul 14 '14 at 18:31
  • Let us continue the discussion in chat. – Subhra Jul 15 '14 at 09:25
  • @Subhra: "It's really shocking that the following question was voted down twice although the question is yet to be answered by anyone." That's the sad confirmation of the Wiki quote. Thou shall not question the mainstream. And if you do, there will be no mercy ... – bright magus Jul 16 '14 at 12:49
  • @ bright magus: I am planning to revisit the experiments of Ehrenhaft. If the mainstream physicists are confident about the null result of the experiments why are they scared to revisit them? I don't think that the cost to perform the experiments should be an issue in this case. – Subhra Jul 16 '14 at 13:54
  • @ bright magus: Please don't take the following words personally. "And if you do, there will be no mercy .." - I am nobody and so I am not scared about loosing anything. Unless the administration of this website ban me, I will raise such questions on the double standards of the mainstream physicists. Those who have voted the question down should also have the guts to answer my question and show that a reasonable number of fruitless attempts have been made to test the claim of Ehrenhaft. – Subhra Jul 16 '14 at 14:05
  • @Subhra: You are not going to get banned for such questions. They will be either ignored or downvoted. (You might also get some unpleasant comments, of which "naive" will probably be the nicest.) You see, that's the usual hard path of thinking out of the box, despite claims these days are over. :) (Personally, when I get responses like this, I just see that's the best they can do, so ... it's fun actually :) ) (By the way, if you put space between the @ and the nickname, I do not get notifications of the comments) – bright magus Jul 16 '14 at 15:23
  • @Subhra: But I fully agree, you should not get discouraged by downvoting here. Actually, it seems kind of elevating. Look here: http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/3177/43402. Lubos Motls (see his profile) claims that a way to disprove the String Theory is "By detecting a mathematical inconsistency in our world, for example that 2+2 can be equal both to 4 as well as 5" (see other - equally insightful claims of his there). For which he received 1640 points! :) – bright magus Jul 16 '14 at 16:14
  • @bright magus: Thanks. I am not at all feeling discouraged. I have well understood the psychology of the mainstream physicists. If you are interested please visit physics.stackexchange.com/questions/126565/… and see how they are defending SR in the context of relativity of simultaneity. – Subhra Jul 16 '14 at 17:29

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