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Charles Lane Poor
(18 Jan 1866 - 27 Sep 1951)
American astronomer was a professor of celestial mechanics at Columbia University, and was a vocal critic of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. His published papers and a monograph indicate his failure to understand the theory of relativity. He also invented some navigational devices.
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Science Quotes by Charles Lane Poor (2 quotes)
I have read various articles on the fourth dimension, the relativity theory of Einstein, and other psychological speculation on the constitution of the universe; and after reading them I feel as Senator Brandegee felt after a celebrated dinner in Washington. “I feel,” he said, “as if I had been wandering with Alice in Wonderland and had tea with the Mad Hatter.”
— Charles Lane Poor
Quoted in Michio Kaku, Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (2005), 118-119. [Note:Brandegee's original remark was in the context of politics after a White House conference with President Wilson (Feb 1917), and unrelated to Einstein's theory.]
The supposed astronomical proofs of the theory [of relativity], as cited and claimed by Einstein, do not exist. He is a confusionist. The Einstein theory is a fallacy. The theory that ether does not exist, and that gravity is not a force but a property of space can only be described as a
crazy vagary, a disgrace to our age.
— Charles Lane Poor
Quoted in Elizabeth Dilling, A "Who's Who" and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots (1934), 49.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
