Nick Percival
Nick Percival | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | September 30, 1942 |
| Residence | Ridgefield, CT, United States |
| Nationality | USA |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (A.B. Physics, 1964) |
| Known for | Twin-paradox analysis; critiques of special relativity's treatment of time |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Foundations of physics (Twin Paradox, Relativity), Software entrepreneurship |
| Website | http://twinparadox.net/ |
Nick Percival (born 30 September 1942) is an American independent physics researcher and software entrepreneur, best known for his work criticizing and re-interpreting Einstein's special theory of relativity's treatment of time — in particular the Twin Paradox. He entered Harvard University in 1959 at the age of 17 and graduated in 1964 with a degree in physics; that launched a focus on the Twin Paradox spanning more than fifty years, from which he developed a distinctive view of the relationship between special relativity and aether (preferred-frame) theory.
Scientific work
Percival argues that special relativity's account of time contains a fundamental flaw. Echoing the physicist Herbert Dingle's well-known objection — that special relativity "unavoidably requires that clock A works more slowly than clock B and clock B more slowly than clock A" — he contends that relativistic time dilation must be a merely "observed" effect rather than a real physical one, since a genuinely reciprocal physical slowing would be a logical impossibility. On his view, the physically correct account is given by a preferred-frame (aether) theory, in which clock rates and other process rates depend on absolute velocity, while special relativity can still yield correct numbers for certain limited phenomena even though the physics it implies is wrong.
Percival initially debated many individual professors who held the standard view of how the net proper-time difference accumulates in a Twin Paradox scenario. The difficulties in those debates led him to define a new debate methodology conducted entirely in terms of pairs of events and the proper time between those event pairs — a technique described at his site twinparadox.net. He published several technical papers (2006–2016) setting out these views. Despite what he regarded as successful debates, they had little impact on the mainstream physics community; his more recent focus is on data from GPS, which he argues shows that asymmetric clock retardation (a preferred-frame effect) — rather than special relativity's symmetric time dilation — is the correct model. He further holds that clock-rate data usually cited in support of special relativity is in fact consistent with, and in some cases actually supports, preferred-frame theory.
Percival is a member of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society (CNPS) and, since 2016, one of its directors and officers (Secretary).
Professional career
As an entrepreneur, Percival founded several companies. In the late 1990s he co-founded TeacherWeb.com, a service giving teachers and educators an easy way to create and update web pages for communicating with students and parents; he was its sole software developer and received a patent for the technology that made the system usable even by people unfamiliar with computers or the Internet. TeacherWeb is reported to have been used by more than 500,000 teachers. He also developed the related site WorkNotes.com.
YouTube channel
Percival hosts a YouTube channel, "Nick of Time", on which he presents his ideas about the Twin Paradox and special relativity.
CNPS talks
He has presented in the CNPS online seminar and livestream series, on the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society YouTube channel:
- "Special Relativity's Mis-use of the Inertial Frame Construct" (16 September 2023) — argues that special relativity's reliance on relative velocity between inertial frames rests on a misunderstanding of the role of those frames.
- "Lifetime Achievement Award: Nicholas Percival for his work with Time" (28 January 2023) — CNPS award conversation recognizing his 50+ years of work on time, special relativity, and the Twin Paradox.
- "History of Time – Part 3: Surprise Ending" (26 March 2022) — his conclusion, after 55 years of analysis, that "time" is a purely mental construct with no independent physical existence.
- "Time: Post-MMX, Lorentz Aether & Special Relativity" (12 March 2022) — Part 2 of 3: the transition in the concept of "time" from the late 19th century through the Michelson–Morley experiment to special relativity.
- "The Past-Present-Future of Time in Physics" (26 February 2022) — Part 1 of 3, in the series "Evolving Perspectives on the History of Science."
- "50 Year Analysis of 'Time in Physics'" (13 February 2021) — a summary of 50 years spent examining how special and general relativity treat "time," and his debates over the Twin Paradox.
Abstracts
- 2016 - "Analyzing Special Relativity’s Time Dilation Within The Context of Lorentz Relativity"
- 2013 - "Data That Allegedly Proves Special Relativity Disproves It" (Read in full)
- 2012 - "Twin Paradox Project Update Including the Mainstream Response" (Read in full)
- 2009 - "Implications For SRT: Observations From A Long Odyssey"
- 2009 - "The Twin Paradox: How To Win The Debate"
- 2006 - "A Very Doable Experiment For NASA To Look Inside The Twin Paradox" (Read in full)
Media
- 2011 - A Very Doable Experiment for NASA To Look Inside the Twin Paradox (Video Lecture)
- 2009 - The Twin Paradox - How to Win the Debate (Video Lecture)
External links
- TwinParadox.net — Percival's site on the Twin Paradox
- "Nick of Time" — YouTube channel
- Nick Percival profile at Beyond Mainstream