Why Einstein geometrized away Newton's "force of gravity"

From Yahoo Groups Sarfatti_Physics_Seminars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOPTriLG5cU

On Feb 18, 2009, at 4:51 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:

JACK SARFATTI wrote:
If you have read the proof correctly, which I strongly doubt, then I
will concede you were correct. I am not too worried that will be the
case.
Not bad science to be wrong, it's bad to be not even wrong! Right?
Surely you agree with that?

Z: I'm just trying to set you straight on a basic mathematical issue,
that's all. After that we can move on to tetrad and gauge fields.

J: Until you can show Levi-Civita's alleged proof nothing useful can
be said.
: BTW - basic idea of Einstein's insight - gravity force is an
illusion qualitatively different from electrical force.

Z: I say that Einstein's *insight* is an an illusion -- not the first-
order gravitational field.

J: Then you do not understand what I argue below. I will say it again.
Any "force" must "push" a massive test particle off the true timelike
geodesic world line. In any correct physics theory. That is the
meaning of "force". In Newtonian physics the timelike geodesic is very
simple. It is a straight line in flat space along which the test
particle moves at constant speed. Gravity seems to "push" the particle
off that geodesic. That is an illusion because you have assumed the
wrong geodesic. Any time one computes a "force" in a situation in
which there is no local g-force on the test particle (imagine a tiny
accelerometer riding with it), that means it is not a real force in
the same way that the electric force it. There is never a situation in
electromagnetism in which g-forces are not measured when a charge is
in an electromagnetic field with Fuv =/= 0. That's my point. That's
why curved space-time is absolutely essential to properly understand
gravity in a conceptually consistent non-ugly manner.
With electrical force by itself you always feel g-force (the push, the
weight). With gravity force by itself you don't.

Z: What you feel as "weight" in both models for GR is the inertial
resistance of a test object to being pushed away from
its gravitationally deformed geodesic trajectory in 4D spacetime. My
interpretation of GR doesn't change this.

J: What you wrote above is completely garbled self-contradictory and
completely misses my point. In Newton's theory there is no
"gravitationally deformed geodesic". Also, there is no weight felt
when the "force" is not zero and there is weight felt when the net
force on the test particle is zero in the Newtonian theory of gravity.

That is, in Newton's theory

Fg = - Grad(GMm/r) is a weightless force on m - very bizarre concept
if you think of it i.e. a push-less push! Yet, Newton would say that
the parabola of Baron Munchausen's trajectory is not a geodesic! So
then you have a contradiction, you have an object pushed away from a
geodesic without any inertial resistance at all! You cannot have your
cake and eat it too here. However, you try to make sense of the
situation it becomes a self-contradictory mess of conflicting concepts
on the level of Bohm's informal language. Only Einstein's curved space-
time saves the day with a completely consistent narrative!

Note there is no disagreement on the equations here. The problem is
how in plain language to properly interpret the meaning of the
equations. This same problem happens in quantum measurement theory -
but much worse! All sorts of nonsense like "collapse of the state" - I
mean the quantum state not the world economy which has collapsed like
a bunch of wilted broccoli.

So, if it were not for this continuous stream of motor impulses from
the Brain
We would collapse like a bunch of broccoli
http://lyrics.astraweb.com/display/220/young_frankenstein..musical_ost..the_brain.html

In contrast

Fe = - Grad(Qq/r) is a proper force with a g-force felt by the test
charge q.



There is no weight felt by Baron Munchausen riding the cannon ball on
a parabolic path. There is no "inertial resistance" detected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0e5g13QB5U


Yet, Newton says there is a "gravity force" acting on the cannon ball
and the Baron. Any force that cannot be directly felt is not a force
in the proper sense of the word. Newton's theory also leads to the
bizarre idea that in statics, there is weight measured even when the
total vector force on the object is zero. In Newton's theory, the
Earth's gravity field exerts a downward force on you that is exactly
cancelled by the upward electrical force of the ground on you. Yet you
feel weight. This is confused inconsistent thinking. The best way to
think of this, is that there is no non-tidal gravity force at all,
there is only the electrical force that is in fact accelerating you in
fixed position relative to Earth's COM because spacetime is curved and
not flat. You have not carefully thought this through Z.

Here we are fixed on surface of Earth. According to Newtonian physics
there is a balance - gravity force pushes us down, but electrical
force pushes us up.

Z: Correct.

J: If we did a vector equation the total force acting on us is zero.

Z: Correct.

J: In other words we should be force free moving at constant speed in
a straight line. That would mean we should feel no g-force, but we do!
So that shows something very wrong with the naive Newton force picture
when it comes to gravity!

Z: Correct. Although Newton's theory still "works" empirically, to a
very good approximation.

J: That is not the issue. We all agree on that. Do you think you are
the only one who can do "Philofawzy" (Feynman). I studied it at
Cornell with Max Black dontchya forget it.

Z: The only way to really understand gravity is Einstein's curved
spacetime.

Z: My model for GR does not do away with curved spacetime.

J: I don't understand your model. Seems only words to me until you
provide this alleged "proof" of Levi-Civita's. I mean the Yilmaz
approach that Eric Davis likes to defend.

Z: It just expands to meaning of "curved"
to include a "flat warp" where the metric field is still covariantly
changing to first order, even while
R^u_vwl = 0.

J: This is meaningless word salad to me. Are you talking about illegal
Mexican food smuggled over the border? Do you mean "flat wraps"?

Z: So in addition to objective Riemannian curvature (second order
metric deformation) I am adding
objective first-order metric deformation to the definition of the
objective gravitational field, within
the metric-affine framework of 1916 GR.

Z: Promises, promises. Sounds like another Ponzi scheme to me. ;-) -
unless you mean the tetrad Cartan 1-forms e^I, but you don't.

J: You cannot use a Yilmaz approach consistently.

Z: I am not proposing Yilmaz's theory. However, the math I have been
talking about may help us understand
the relationship between Yilmaz's theory and plain vanilla GR a lot
better.

J: Not all theories are worth understanding. Yilmaz's is one of those.
I heard not even he believes it any more.

J: We are constantly accelerating away from the center of Earth in
warped spacetime when we stand still on Earth's surface.

Z: We are accelerating away from our geodesic trajectories, yes.

J: Again my point eludes you. In the naive particle-physics approach
to "unify the four forces" everything is based on the timelike
geodesics of global special relativity - even Feynman's guv = nuv +
huv theory of spin 2 tensor field on the Minkowski background - he
wriggles out of that by summing an infinite number of Feynman diagrams
of a special type - like in BCS superconductivity i.e. a ground state
phase transition that is non-perturbative!
Since in the real theory, i.e. Einstein's geometrodynamics, the Baron
is on a timelike geodesic there is no force on him at all! There is no
non-tidal gravity force as a matter of principle. Therefore, it
follows with correct logic that the only force acting on us standing
still on surface of the Earth is the electrical force. We stand still
in curved spacetime because there is a true unbalanced non-gravity
force on us! That push away from the timelike geodesic is the
ponderable g-force measured objectively by the deflection of the
pointer needle on an accelerometer. That's weight. Weight is the
unbalanced electrical force needed to keep us as static constant r
LNIF observers in the simple SSS vacuum geometry.

The only force acting on us is the electrical force of the rock
beneath our feet pushing us off the natural curved spacetime timelike
geodesic. That's the only consistent way to think about it.

Z: Same in my model.


J: The time like geodesic in Newton's theory is the straight line in
Euclidean space at constant speed. Assuming this, old physics writes

V = - GM/r

as the gravity potential energy per unit test mass

with the Newtonian "force" per unit test mass

f = - GradV

The superficial analogy with electricity

Coulomb's law

U = - Q/r

F/e = - GradU

throws many people way off the mark in trying to unify electricity
with gravity!

Z: You keep talking about Newtonian forces, but there are no Newtonian
gravitational forces in my model for GR!

J: I am only talking about the sloppy way even smart particle
physicists talk about gravity forces - in Newtonian terms, which is
not good. Leads to confusion.

Z: Freely falling test objects move along geodesics in my version just
as they do in plain vanilla GR.

J: You are contradicting yourself. I think what you have done is to
identify the static observer's non-gravity force as the true "non-
tidal" gravity force. This is basically Newtonian and it is
inconsistent for reasons I gave above. At the very least you have to
say there are two kinds of forces those that show g-force and those
that don't. This is ugly. This is not parsimonious to my mind.
Einstein's solution is much prettier.

Z: It is the definition of "the gravitational field" that is different
in my model. In my model for GR, the gravitational
field is fully covariant to first *and* second order. Nothing depends
on any observer's world line, other than
*appearances*.

J: Hand waving. You have not proved this with a real properly posed
equation.


Z: This differs from Einstein's original definition of the
gravitational field based in the LC connection, and also differs
from the so-called "modern" definition of the gravitational field
based on locally non-vanishing Riemann curvature
(R^u_vwl(x) =/= 0).

J: Prove it with the math. Show at least a coherent formal argument in
enough detail to be intelligible beyond ambiguous words.



On Feb 17, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:



On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 5:44 PM, JACK SARFATTI <sarfatti@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hogwash
simply scan the 3 pages

I don't have a scanner.

I suppose I could take photographs, for your edification.

why are you delaying
put up or shut up
you can easily prove your case

I've already proved it over and over.

What is really ironic here is that this has been lying around in plain
site for almost 90 years!

obviously you are not being candid

So what are you going to say when I post Levi-Civita's proof?

On Feb 17, 2009, at 2:37 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:

You really need to get a copy of Levi-Civita's book. You can order the
Dover edition used from
Amazon.

i don't have the time
i am in NYC

You should have Levi-Civita's book in any case.


.

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