Physical and Mathematical Errors in the Alleged Planck-Ether Theory. A Vindication of Max Planck

A radical attempt to develop the Planck ether theory has been made by Winterberg who, however, assumes positive and negative Planck masses in order to have a zero cosmological constant and to overcome the divergence problems of quantum electrodynamics. Now, it is evident that two opposite Planckions,interact- ing with each other have parallel accelerations, thus going on accelerating each other up to infinite energy. We also show that a negative inertia leads to self-acceleration of a simple particle because of the fields present in any interaction, even those relative to " contact" actions which are unable to produce Winterberg’s vortex rings without the use of long range forces. The appearance of the electric field in the Planckion model is unjustified and in contradiction with MacCullagh’s condition used by Winterberg, We suggest a possible solution. Other difficulties regard the nonannihilation of the positive and negative Planckions, although they are antiparticles to each other, and the justification of the elementary particle masses which are small submultiples of the Planck masses. Finally, Winterberg thinks of having derived special relativity from prerelativistic physics by demanding invariance of the Lorentz condition under both Galilei and Lorentz transformations, which is impossible. What is worse is that Wintorberg does not refer to the same space-time events in writing his transforma- tions. Suggestions to improve Winterberg’s theory are given.