Re: Is this serious?


Tom Roberts wrote:
bergeron wrote:
karandash2000@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Anyone with more knowledge of GR, please comment:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/physics/papers/0204/0204044.pdf

What you are reading, to rephrase the abstract, is confusion by
the author about the literature on general relativity. Specifically,
the point the author is trying to make is moot apart from the author's
misunderstanding.

Yes.


If the connection coefficients turn out to be significant as the
``real fields,''

Can't happen. Real phenomena cannot depend on arbitrary human imaginary
constructs like coordinates;

What is "real"? Can you please then define "real phenomena" and give
an example?


the connection coefficients depend on the
choice of coordinates. Invariant ways of specifying the connection (e.g.
via a covariant derivative) can be valid models of real phenomena, but
the connection coefficients themselves can not.

"can not" what?






As far as general relativity is concerned, the
``real gravitational field'' is the spacetime curvature.

As I said before, I think this is not as definitive as you claim,
because the underlying question is not well posed:
As you can
see, the article you referenced is an answer to an ill-posed (and
unstated) question which is somewhat of a non-sequitur.


What Einstein's opinion was, is uncertain, since he is dead and is
not in a position to tell us. What we have are his writings which
essentially tell us that he, like everyone else at the time, was
struggling to get a better handle on the theory.

Yes. Absolutely!

In any case, what one calls "the gravitational field", or "gravity", is
not central to physics, as long as one understands that science is
TESTING THEORIES.

Science is much, much more than just testing theories. Testing a theory
is part of the scientific method, which includes the development and
evaluation of theories, or more precicely, development and evaluation
of explanatory hypotheses.

You can spend all you life testing theories worth nothing. That does
not make you a scientist, in the full sense of the term.

Mike








Tom Roberts

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