Re: Light speed invariance

From: sal (believer_at_nospam.org)
Date: 06/29/04 

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:25:33 -0400

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 18:21:05 -0700, Cozmo Man wrote:

> sal wrote:
>
>>
>>
> I left all your words intact so that people could see your passion.

But I've seen them already so I snipped them -- hope you don't mind.

> I have
> only been here a few days and do not recall seeing your posts but I get
> the feeling that you may have been on the receiving end of the "attacks"
> that you describe.

No, never, not in the least.

I'm just an amateur in the field but nonetheless my views, and
mathematics, are completely mainstream, and I am quite well aware of the
difference between a relation and a function.

In fact, I've been called a liar -- or something close to it -- once or
twice by Androcles, but that's about it for flames directed at me.

None the less I dislike ad hominem attacks, and I see them constantly in
this newsgroup. I also dislike it when someone joins the group and, it
seems, also joins almost immediately in the ad hominems.

> But even if not I think you miss something I saw the
> first day I arrived. People are usually not laughed at simply because they
> say "something about math or physics which ... was foolish".

And then you corrected him and he got stubborn about it. You left that
out, but it's certainly part of the scenario. I know; I've been there.
I've argued with Androcles too.

I argued him to a standstill over a course of several months (standstill
== we were both sufficiently sick of it to stop, and neither of us was
convincing the other of anything further at that point). We argued in
email as well as in the newsgroup. And I can tell you from experience
that it can be done without resorting to personal insults, which _never_
increase the odds that someone will listen to you.

You exchanged perhaps 4 posts with him and resorted to attacking his
person rather than his posts. Maybe I'm a wimp ... but I don't like that.

> What I have
> seen is that people are laughed at because they they use their foolishness
> to attack and ridicule the theory of relativity that they do not
> understand. That is what I saw right away in Androcles and the math bit of
> Mr. Van de moortel was just a convenient and easy thing to laugh about.

Yes, of course. That's obvious. And you joined in the laughter.

What you may not have realized is that VDM has said in the past that he
wouldn't ever consider discussing physics (and, presumably, math) with
Androcles, and Androcles has said in the past that he wouldn't so much as
read anything from VDM -- and now they've just sent perhaps 100 posts
each arguing over the "correct" definition of a function, which is at best
silly.

Frankly, I think they're both bored.

> Same thing with Androcles referring to the "nonsense" that Einstein wrote.

Yeah, but I think Einstein's reputation will survive the damage :-)

> I read a number of posts here where obviously educated people explained to
> others how relativity or other physics works. But why would anyone want to
> spend time explaining relativity to someone who spits on the theory? The
> choice is either to ignore these nutty blokes or make fun them. Which one
> you choose is optional.

There's a third choice. You exchange occasional posts with the
person, listen to them when they make sense, and ignore the bits you don't
like. You'd be surprised how many people actually know things about
stuff, even when they _don't_ know much about your particular specialty.

> About why I "don't attack stronger members like Paul Andersen".

Sorry, inside reference.

Androcles has posted a great deal of material attacking Andersen. But
Andersen happens to be among the best educated and most well-respected
members of the NG, so the attacks haven't had a big effect.

I was contrasting this with attacks on Androcles, who makes himself into a
very easy target.

> Since I do
> not even know who Paul Andersen is, attacking him would be silly. But I am
> not afraid of challenging someone even though they are obviously on "my
> side" in understanding and respecting relativity. I read a few posts by
> Mr. Roberts and it is clear he understands relativity, but I challenged
> what he said about Einstein's paper. And about "Always attack someone
> who's outside the mainstream" I have no idea why you think that.

Hyperbole.

In any case, I don't believe you no idea why I might think that. If you
truly don't, then ... well, we'll see, I guess.

> In my
> field I myself have cosmological views that are "outside the mainstream".

Uh huh.

You believe things _all_ established scientists believe are absolutely
false?

 
>>> As to your "longitude of perihelion" you first need to understand how
>>> the usual six constants of integration are specified after integrating
>>> the six second-order differential equations of motion for orbits in
>>> space. These six constants of integration are usually known as the
>>> elements of orbits. In the standard configuration, with the Sun in a
>>> central position we lay out one direction toward the vernal equinox
>>> and another toward the north pole of the ecliptic. The plane of the
>>> orbit cuts the celestial sphere in a great circle and we refer to the
>>> ascending mode as the point where the body in orbit rises north of the
>>> ecliptic. We refer to the descending node as the point at which the
>>> body actually crosses the ecliptic, toward south. We refer to the
>>> longitude of the ascending node as the angle measured eastward around
>>> the ecliptic and the angle between the plane of the orbit and the
>>> ecliptic is known as the inclination. So, finally, the longitude of
>>> the perihelion is measured first in the ecliptic to the ascending mode
>>> and then to the plane of the orbit to the direction of perihelion.
>>
>> Nice bunch of words. You could also have said GR predicts that gravity
>> won't go _exactly_ as 1/r^2 and so the ellipses won't quite close, but
>> that wouldn't have looked nearly as erudite, would it?
>
> Sal, you seem to have a very big chip on your shoulder.

No, not true.

The issue I had was that this part of the post is accurate but beside the
point, and certainly wasn't intended to demonstrate anything to the
alleged target of the post ... save for the main point: you know more than
he does.

> Maybe you have
> been beaten up many times, which is unfortunate,

:-) No, never.

> but the world is not a
> bad place and everyone in it does not have the strange motives that you
> would like to think they have.

I have looked at a number of your posts since you joined the group.

I don't attribute strange motives to you. No, not strange at all; all too
common, in fact.

I dislike flaming, and had a "fantasy", if you will, that I might be able
to convince you to cut down the heat a little.

Doesn't sound likely, though, does it?

[ ... ] 

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