Abstract

Professor Herbert Dingle was a long-time critic of the special theory of relativity, who believed for many years that the theory was self-contradictory. Although he was unsuccessful in persuading the scientific world of the inconsistency of the theory, his questions and arguments were not satisfactorily answered during his life. Now, thirty years after his death, the subject is of historical interest. This paper examines two main problems that have contributed to the confusion that still surrounds this issue. The first problem is the fact that some scientists answered Dingle's Question, which is explicitly about the special theory, by invoking the general theory. It is argued that, if there is a valid answer to Dingle's Question, it would have been valid if the same question had been asked in 1905 before the general theory appeared. The second problem is that many scientists have claimed that Dingle's thesis has been refuted by experiment, although experimental results cannot disprove the existence of an internal contradiction. An answer to Dingle's Question is still wanting.