Editing Herbert Dingle

{{short description|English physicist and philosopher of science (1890–1978)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox person
|image       = Herbert Dingle 440.jpg
|birth_place = London, England
|birth_date  = 2 August 1890
|death_place = [[Kingston upon Hull]], England
|death_date  = {{Death date and age|1978|9|4|1890|8|2|df=y}}
|occupation  = physicist, philosopher of science
}}

'''Herbert Dingle''' (2 August 1890 – 4 September 1978) was an English physicist and philosopher of science, who served as president of the [[Royal Astronomical Society]] from 1951 to 1953. He is best known for [[Criticism of the theory of relativity|his opposition]] to [[Albert Einstein]]'s [[special theory of relativity]] and the protracted controversy that this provoked.

==Biography==
Dingle was born in [[London]], but spent his early years in [[Plymouth]], 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 government [[eclipse]] 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 theoretical cosmologist [[Richard C. Tolman|R.&nbsp;C. Tolman]], and studied relativistic [[cosmology]].

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.<ref name="whitrow"/> 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''.<ref name="whitrow">{{cite journal
 | title= Obituaries: Herbert Dingle
 | author = [[G. J. Whitrow]] 
 | date= 1980
 | publisher= [[Royal Astronomical Society]]
 | pages= 333–338
 | bibcode= 1980QJRAS..21..333W
 | journal= [[Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society]]
 | volume= 21
}}</ref>

Dingle was the author of "Modern Astrophysics" (1924) and "Practical Applications of Spectrum Analysis" (1950). He also wrote the essay "Relativity for All" (1922)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/relativityforal00dinggoog Relativity for All] (1922)</ref> 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.<ref>''The Scientific Adventure: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science'', Pitman 1952, re-published in 1970 by Ayer Publishing.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uFyTKW6gjo4C The Scientific Adventure: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science] Pitman 1953</ref> He also took an interest in English literature, and published ''Science and Literary Criticism'' in 1949, and ''The Mind of Emily Brontë'' in 1974.

==Controversies==
Dingle participated in two very public scientific controversies. The first of these took place during the 1930s and was triggered by Dingle's criticism of [[Arthur Milne|E. A. Milne]]'s cosmological model and the associated theoretical methodology, which Dingle considered overly speculative and not based on empirical data.<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmology-30s "Cosmology: Methodological Debates in the 1930s and 1940s"] from the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''</ref> [[Arthur Stanley Eddington|A. S. Eddington]] was another target of Dingle's criticism, 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, notably [[Willem 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 subsequently accepted the validity of the hypothetico-deductive method of Milne.<ref>[[Thomas Lepeltier]], "Edward Milne's influence on modern cosmology", ''Annals of Science'', {{ISSN|1464-505X}}, Vol. 63, Iss. 4, 2006, pp. 471–481, which states that "The hypothetico-deductive method is now an integral part of cosmology...".</ref><ref>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 official story of the scientific nature of relativistic cosmology...</ref>

The second dispute began in the late 1950s, following Dingle's retirement and centered on the theory of [[special relativity]].<ref>
 {{cite journal
   | last=Dingle | first=H.
   | title=The Case against Special Relativity
   | journal = Nature | pages=119–122 | date=October 14, 1967
 | doi = 10.1038/216119a0
   | volume=216
   | issue=5111
 |bibcode = 1967Natur.216..119D | s2cid=40108362
 }}
</ref><ref>
 {{cite journal
   | last=McCrea | first=W. H. | author-link=William McCrea (astronomer)
   | title=Why The Special Theory of Relativity is Correct
   | journal = Nature | pages=122–124 | date=October 14, 1967
  | doi = 10.1038/216122a0
   | volume=216
   | issue=5111
 |bibcode = 1967Natur.216..122M | s2cid=22430870 }}</ref>
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.  However, Dingle then came to realize and acknowledge that his understanding of the problem 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.<ref>{{cite book |title=Origin and Concept of Relativity |author1=G. H. Keswani |edition=1st |publisher=A. P. Books |year=2009 |isbn=978-81-88853-29-8 |page=57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_wKbOfv3bpQC}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=_wKbOfv3bpQC&pg=PA57 Extract of page 57]</ref> Ultimately, Dingle re-focused his criticism to claim that special relativity was logically inconsistent, declaring that 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."<ref>Dingle, ''Science at the Crossroads'', p. 17.</ref> Hence he asserted that the well-known reciprocity of the [[Lorentz transformation]] is self-evidently impossible.<ref>Commentary on the Dingle Dispute in the journal ''Nature'', 1967, reproduced in Dingle's 1972 book ''Science at the Crossroads''.</ref> As Whitrow explained in his obituary for Dingle, this is not correct, as it rests on Dingle's mistaken assumption that the conflicting ratios of event times used by Dingle are invariants.<ref name="whitrow"/>

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,<ref>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); [[John Ziman|Ziman, J.]], ''Nature'', 241, 143 (1973); Ellis, G. F. R., ''Nature'', 242, 143 (1973); Armstrong, H. L., ''Nature'', 244, 26 (1973).</ref> but Dingle rejected all the explanations.<ref>For example, Dingle wrote in a Letter to ''Nature'' 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."</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite book | last = Dingle | first = Herbert | title = Science at the Crossroads | date = 1972 | publisher = Martin Brian & O'Keeffe  | location = London | isbn = 0-85616-060-1 }}</ref>
The consensus in the physics community is that Dingle's objections to the logical consistency of special relativity were unfounded.<ref name="whitrow"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Science, Churchill and Me: The Autobiography of Hermann Bondi |edition=revised |first1=Hermann |last1=Bondi |last2=Lord Carrington |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4832-9603-6 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bSaLBQAAQBAJ}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=bSaLBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA90 Extract of p. 90]</ref><ref>Prokhovnik, S.J., ''The Logic of Special Relativity'', Cambridge University Press, 1967</ref><ref>[[Paul Davies|Davies, P. C. W.]], ''About Time'', Simon and Schushter, 1995</ref> According to [[Max Born]], "Dingle's objections are just a matter of superficial formulation and confusion."<ref>{{cite book|author=Dingle|title=Science at the Crossroads|page=25}}</ref>

==Selected publications==
*"Values of {{math|''T''&thinsp;{{su|b=''μ''|p=''ν''}}}} and the Christoffel symbols for a line element of considerable generality" ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' '''19'''(5): 559–563 {{doi|10.1073/pnas.19.5.559}}
*With [[Joseph Harold Sheldon|J. H. Sheldon]]: {{cite journal|title=A spectrographic examination of the mineral content of human and other milk|journal=Biochem J|date=June 1938|volume=32|issue=6|pages=1078–1086|pmc=1264149|doi=10.1042/bj0321078|pmid=16746716|last1=Dingle|first1=Herbert|last2=Sheldon|first2=J. H.}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Herbert Dingle}}
*[http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath024/kmath024.htm What Happened to Dingle?]
*[http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath317/kmath317.htm Herbert Dingle and the Twins]

{{Authority control}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2024}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dingle, Herbert}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
[[Category:1978 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century English astronomers]]
[[Category:Alumni of Imperial College London]]
[[Category:British physicists]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society]]
[[Category:Relativity critics]]