Re: Lorentz Ether Theory and FTL Paradoxes

From: Ilja Schmelzer (q6867901_at_mailstore.fernuni-hagen.de)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:35:02 +0200

"ueb" <Ulrich.Bruchholz@t-online.de> schrieb
> >> > Gravity is a field with 10 components. According to my
generalization
> > >> of LET to gravity these 10 components are:
> >>
> >> > 1. Ether density rho (1 component)
> >> > 2. Ether velocity v^i (3 components)
> >> > 3. Ether stress tensor (symmetric 3x3 tensor, 6 components)
> >>
> >> Anything that has a density, a velocity, and a "stress" must be
> >> a medium. Is there any evidence for the existence of such medium ?
>
> > Yep. The fact that the fields we observe fit in such a nice and simple
> > way into the scheme of fields which are appropriate for condensed
> > matter theory.
>
> Nice. Do I rightly understand you stating that your theory is proved
> by another theory ?

No. Physical theories cannot be proven. Instead, they should be
falsifiable. If such a falsifiable theory is falsified, we know it is wrong
and has to be modified. If we have several unfalsified theories, we
have to use other criteria to chose between them.

Important criteria are predictive power (the ability to make nontrivial
predictions) and explanatory power (the ability to explain observations
or phenomenological theories).

Now, the situation with my general Lorentz ether theory is the following:

In essential parts, it makes predictions similar to GR. In some other
parts,
the predictions are different. But there is a large part there the
predictions
agree. In this part, any experiment which supports GR predictions
supports in the same way the predictions of my ether theory.

This is a quite common situation in science, and therefore it is important
not to claim that any of these experiments which support GR "prove" GR.

Then there are other predictions made by my theory not made by GR.
For example, my theory predicts a globally flat universe and inflation.
Inflation falsifies some versions of GR, but it is possible to invent
strange
kinds of matter such that GR with this strange kind of matter predicts
inflation too.

> - I must admit that I have still to learn this new kind of evidence. :-)

Indeed :-). The situation with explanatory power is even more subtle.

Ilja

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