Re: Energy of Gravity is Nonlocal

From: Bill Hobba (bhobba_at_rubbish.net.au)
Date: 11/02/04 

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 09:43:08 GMT

"vonroach" <hadrainc@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:ghabo0pcoiockknakni70upaoaate86qn7@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:46:36 GMT, "Bill Hobba" <bhobba@rubbish.net.au>
> wrote:
>
> > It is hard to even conceive of an
> >alternative theory that could explain the basic features of the observed
> >Universe.
>
> Do my ears deceive me? You sound like a contemporary of Newton.

First I am not the one who wrote that. But if you doubt it then detail your
alternative.

>
> >We are not 100% confident of that at all - but what really going on is
> >probably beyond your ken.
>
> Is that the best you can do?

Just in case I am wrong here is the detail. The POR gives the Lorentz
transformations up to an undetermined constant whose value must be found
from experiment. That value is found to be the speed of light to a very
high degree of accuracy. But it is possible for light to have a very small
mass so it strictly is not the same speed in all inertial frames. If that
was true it would in no way change the fact that such a speed exists and is
finite which is basically what SR is about - see
ttp://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~phys16/Textbook/ch10.pdf and the section
on relativity without c

> >
> >> Sounds closer to hubris than intellectual appeal. I
> >> tend to be a bit cynical.
> >
> >Your cynicism is fine - simply do not confuse it with science.
> >
> It is the essence of science.

Not really - correspondence with experiment is.

>
> >> IMHO, even our invented language of mathematics has more `intellectual
> >> appeal' than the above melange of assumptions that appear to have
> >> worked for the anecdotal period of a few hundred years in vicinity of
> >> a small star.
> >>
> >> But carry on, it gives you something to do while DNA plays out its
> >> game.
> >
> >It is obvious the above poster understands nothing or at the most little
> >about science. His philosophical evaluation of a theories foundations
are
> >irrelevant - what is relevant is correspondence with experiment. Now I
> >wonder if he has any concerns on those grounds?
> >
> Billy, I wasn't aware that any experiments had successfully found any
> definite evidence of gravitons, gravity waves, or energy strings
> beyond `mathematical conceptual models'.

Vonroachy (you don't mind if I call you Vonroachy do you - Billy is fine by
me) science does not require direct experimental confirmation of every
prediction or assumption of a theory. We however do have evidence for
gravity waves.

> I don't even know if there is
> a way to prove these `concepts' wrong.

Sure there is - simply find an experiment that is in disagreement with
theories that predict or assume them.

> Then there is a horizon beyond
> which we cannot see with the most powerful telescopes arrayed in
> space. The light had not disengaged and the Universe was dark. A
> `philosopher' might say this destroys the credibility of these
> concepts beyond mathematical curiosities.

Philosophers ask many things - a lot of which science can not answer - see
http://www.friesian.com/feynman.htm.

>
> I can see that my reference to human destiny on this speck of rock was
> a bit over your head.

Sure is - like a lot of philosphiocal rot is eg the following rubbish by
Hegel:

'All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he
possesses only through the State... For Truth is the unity of the universal
and subjective will; and the Universal is to be found in the State, in its
laws, its universal and rational arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea
as it exists on earth. We have in it, therefore, the object of history in a
more definite shape than before; that in which Freedom obtains objectivity.
For Law is the objectivity of the Spirit'

Bill

>
> >Bill
> >
>

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