From: doug on


Jonah Thomas wrote:

> doug <xx(a)xx.com> wrote:
>
>>Henry Wilson, DSc wrote:
>
>
>>>Jonah, you will have noticed that relativists like to hunt in packs
>>>like wolves. They can't put up a good argument on their own so they
>>>have an unwritten agreement to support each other in bringing down
>>>anyone who dares to point out that Einstein was a fake.
>>>There are a great many reputations at stake. The main aim of the
>>>wolf pack is to waste our time.
>>
>>Of course we are wasting your time. You want to think you are right
>>and we know you are an idiot and a liar.
>
>
> I am beginning to wonder why you bother.

Henry (his real name is Ralph) is here for our entertainment. He
is a complete uneducateable fool and liar.


If you are right, he will never
> understand the truth and admit you are right.

He just lies when his mistakes are pointed out.

Are you worried that if
> you do not refute him twenty times a day that some naive beginning
> physicist might listen to him and be corrupted?

No, we are just having fun with him.
From: doug on


Jonah Thomas wrote:

> doug <xx(a)xx.com> wrote:
>
>>Jonah Thomas wrote:
>>
>>>doug <xx(a)xx.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>>Or you do not understand any of the physics done in the last
>>>>century. However, you are free to believe what you want and
>>>>are not bound to believe in reality.
>>>
>>>
>>>Why not respond on substantive grounds and explain why my argument
>>>is wrong?
>>
>>Why are you not willing to do some study on your own? There are books
>>and articles that cover this very well and will give you all the
>>detail that you could want.
>>Start off with the articles listed here:
>>http://www.edu-observatory.org/physics-faq/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#Sagnac
>>This was all settled a long time ago.
>
>
> A link! Thank you.
>
> Looking at your link led me directly to:
>
> http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9805089

1. Be careful of arxiv articles. Check to see if the results were
published in a refereed journal later. Lots of garbage shows up
since there is no refereeing.
2. Be careful of papers spending a lot of times on cranks. They are
quoting someone who claims that SR is not self consistent. This
is known to be wrong.
>
> I notice that as I search the net I find a variety of papers explaining
> why the traditional SR view of Sagnac is wrong, and proposing new
> explanations.

Well, it seems you did not understand that very well.

Like, one of them explained that if you line the sagnac
> ring with clocks there is no way that you can calibrate them all to tell
> the same time, inevitably when you complete the circle you will find
> that they have different times.

You might want to look up an explaination done by Paul Anderson which
showed Wilson to be a fool yet again. I do not have the link now but
you can search on "paul anderson sagnac" and it will probably show up.
>
> I am not certain that this was all settled a long time ago.

If you were to very carefully study and understand an explaination
given by a competent scientist, you would see it has been settled.

I tend to
> discount the anti-relativity cranks who explain that Sagnac proves
> relativity wrong according to their interpretation of relativity. It's
> harder to discount the papers that explain why the previous explanations
> how SR is compatible with Sagnac are wrong and provide new ones.

I think you are missing the point of the articles.

>
> I haven't been tracking the ones in refereed journals because after I
> read the abstract then I'd have to pay for the article.

There are also libraries which are free. Most of science is in those
collections and there is much wonderful reading to do.

From: Jonah Thomas on
"Inertial" <relatively(a)rest.com> wrote:
> "Jonah Thomas" <jethomas5(a)gmail.com> wrote

> > I don't have much prejudice against SR. I have a prejudice against
> > minkowski spaces but not an irrational prejudice. What bothers me is
> > that division isn't closed. You can divide one nonzero number by
> > another nonzero number and get zero.
>
> Eh?
>
> > If that doesn't bother you then you have a
> > shallow understanding of arithmetic.
>
> Why do you think that happens in minkowski space?

That's minkowski space. Everybody knows that, right?

-------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space#The_Minkowski_inner_product

The Minkowski inner product is a map ?: M ? M ? R (i.e. given any two
vectors v, w in M we define ?(v,w) as a real number) which satisfies
properties (1), (2), (3) listed here, as well as property (4) given
below:

1. bilinear ?(au + v,w) = a?(u,w) + ?(v,w)

for all a ? R and u, v, w in M.
2 symmetric ?(v,w) = ?(w,v)

for all v, w ? M.
3. nondegenerate if ?(v,w) = 0 for all w ? M then v = 0.

Note that this is not an inner product in the usual sense, since it is
not positive-definite, i.e. the Minkowski norm ||v|| of a vector v,
defined as ||v||2 = ?(v,v), need not be positive. The positive-definite
condition has been replaced by the weaker condition of nondegeneracy
(every positive-definite form is nondegenerate but not vice-versa).
-------------

The product of two vectors each with nozero length can be a vector with
nozero length.

This is why you get singularities in minkowski space.

I don't like singularities, they make me nervous.

If it's possible to describe the real world with a system where the
product of nonzero things is not zero, I'd very much prefer to.

But if it turns out that the real world is not positive-definite then
I'll have to live with it.
From: Jonah Thomas on
Sorry, I don't know how that typo got in.

Jonah Thomas <jethomas5(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> "Inertial" <relatively(a)rest.com> wrote:
> > "Jonah Thomas" <jethomas5(a)gmail.com> wrote
>
> > > I don't have much prejudice against SR. I have a prejudice against
> > > minkowski spaces but not an irrational prejudice. What bothers me
> > > is that division isn't closed. You can divide one nonzero number
> > > by another nonzero number and get zero.
> >
> > Eh?
> >
> > > If that doesn't bother you then you have a
> > > shallow understanding of arithmetic.
> >
> > Why do you think that happens in minkowski space?
>
> That's minkowski space. Everybody knows that, right?
>
> -------------
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space#The_Minkowski_inner_product
>
> The Minkowski inner product is a map ?: M ? M ? R (i.e. given any two
> vectors v, w in M we define ?(v,w) as a real number) which satisfies
> properties (1), (2), (3) listed here, as well as property (4) given
> below:
>
> 1. bilinear ?(au + v,w) = a?(u,w) + ?(v,w)
>
> for all a ? R and u, v, w in M.
> 2 symmetric ?(v,w) = ?(w,v)
>
> for all v, w ? M.
> 3. nondegenerate if ?(v,w) = 0 for all w ? M then v = 0.
>
> Note that this is not an inner product in the usual sense, since it is
> not positive-definite, i.e. the Minkowski norm ||v|| of a vector v,
> defined as ||v||2 = ?(v,v), need not be positive. The
> positive-definite condition has been replaced by the weaker condition
> of nondegeneracy(every positive-definite form is nondegenerate but not
> vice-versa). -------------

****************
> The product of two vectors each with nozero length can be a vector
> with nozero length.
****************

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The product of two vectors each with nonzero length can be a vector with
zero length!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

> This is why you get singularities in minkowski space.
>
> I don't like singularities, they make me nervous.
>
> If it's possible to describe the real world with a system where the
> product of nonzero things is not zero, I'd very much prefer to.
>
> But if it turns out that the real world is not positive-definite then
> I'll have to live with it.
From: Jonah Thomas on
doug <xx(a)xx.com> wrote:
> Jonah Thomas wrote:

> >>>There are disdvantages to relativity. It takes a long time to
> >learn,>>and people with common sense are barred from physics.
> >>
> >>This is your prejudice talking. Common sense is accepting that the
> >>world is the way it is. Wanting it to be something else is
> >>philosophy.
> >
> > Unfortunately, no. Common sense is accepting that the world works
> > the way common sense says it does. Accepting things that violate
> > common sense requires some sort of uncommon sense.
>
> This is so wrong that it is laughable. The universe does not
> care what your think common sense is. Common sense is another
> word for our prejudices. Anyone who has travelled to another
> country or dealt with another religion will quickly see just
> how culturally defined the term "common sense" is.

I agree with you completely here. And I consider it something of a
problem that people who have common sense cannot become physicists.

> >>>But you can't expect
> >>>physicists to switch to something better until about a generation
> >>>after something is known which is clearly better, and we don't have
> >>>anything better yet.
> >>
> >>Relativity has been verified in our frames to parts in maybe 10^15
> >and>has never shown a problem. Any different description of the
> >universe>has to reduce to relativity in its applicable limit.
> >
> > Of course. And ptolemaic epicycles was verified to the degree of
> > accuracy available. The new approach reduced to epicycles. Just,
> > after they had something that worked better, after awhile nobody
> > wanted to reduce it to epicycles.
>
> You are stretching big time here. Relativity is the simplest
> description of geometry and has in basis in science. Epicycles
> were ad hoc add ons with no scientific background.

Relativity might not be the simplest geometric description. Or maybe it
is. It might be provable that there is no simpler geometry that can get
the good parts of relativity and leave out the bad parts. Or maybe the
bad parts are features and not bugs.

> >>>When something better arrives it will probably include a degree of
> >>>time dilation. While it's possible that all the experiments that
> >>>people claim involve time dilation are self-delusion, it's also
> >>>quite possible that there's something real going on there.
> >>
> >>What is this supposed to mean?
> >
> > Time dilation is probably real, or at least part of it is probably
> > real. So any better theory would probably include some form of time
> > dilation. As a result it would tend to violate common sense though
> > perhaps in a way that was more palatable.
>
> So what does this mean? You are completely ignoring the fact that any
> new theory has to explain all existing experiments as well or better
> than relativity. The number of tests, the range of tests and the
> accuracy of those tests put an incredible limit on the details of
> a theory. It is a waste of time looking for a different theory
> in the range it has been tested. That is why science is pursuing
> looking at ranges where it has not been tested.

What is this supposed to mean?
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