Braun Tibor, Schubert András (szerk.): Szakértői bírálat (peer review) a tudományos kutatásban : Válogatott tanulmányok a téma szakirodalmából (A MTAK Informatikai És Tudományelemzési Sorozata 7., 1993)
MARTIN RUDERFER: The Fallacy of Peer Review: Judgement without Science and a Case History
193 RUDERI ER: T IIK I' A I.I ACY O l PEER REVIEW The referee recommends against publication, stating the author attempted to explain the Cannon-Jensen discovery to be due to anisotropy in the one-way speed of light despite the Cannon-Jensen retraction of their claims and the three criticisms of their paper published in Science showing their discoveries to be without experimental support. To demonstrate that the submitted paper has neither experimental nor theoretical support the referee offers this theory: For <p = 2irfT as the phase of the stationary clock at its location, the phase at some position x is 2rr(fT - x/X). At the receiving clock at Xj = x(T) the phase is <t>, = 2rr[fT-x(T)/X] for propagation in the x-direction. The received variable frequency wave by the moving clock should be 27r J 0 t LdTj, not fjTj, since dT ( is "the elapsed proper time on the moving clock". Equation (7) becomes 2jr[fT-x(T)/X] = 2TT f.dT; On substituting the Einstein time dilation relation this becomes, using fX = c f[T - x(T)/c ] = // fj(T)(l - v 2/c 2 )» dT where v is relative velocity. Equations (9) and (10) are incorrect because the author's differentiation for an observer travelling with a wave front of constant phase is impossible due to the constant phase wavefront travelling with speed c with respect to the stationary observer, since clocks cannot travel at speed c. Moreover, the last equation may be differentiated with respect to T to give fi = f(l -x/c)/(l -v 2/c 2)" to obtain the correct Doppler signal fj - f received by the moving clock, noting that the "change" df occurs in equation (10). Because the emitted frequency of the stationary clock is fixed, f cannot change so df has no meaning. Also f/T has been treated as a constant in equation (11) and the received, instead of emitted, frequency is misinterpreted as f. This is illogical, because the integral is over dt and it is not possible to distinguish "between dt and dT. T = t is the coordinate time in the frame of the stationary clock." The correct Doppler shift replacing equation (11), including longitudinal and transverse cases, should be Af = f, -f = f r -f t = f,[l -(1 - x/c)/(l -v 2/c 2)*] Equation (13) is thus incorrect, there are a number of errors in the derivation, and T is not rigorously defined, e.g. for an emitted spherical wave and a circling receiver, the source-receiver distance is constant and hence T = 0. No Doppler shift is predicted so the transverse Doppler shift seems to be overlooked.