STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES of the THEORY OF RELATIVITY

**Motor Daddy** · 08-04-12, 07:42 AM

James, Are you well versed in every crank theory that has been proposed? No? Then how do you know the theories are false if you haven't studied them for years? What? What's that you say? You say that you don't need to bother wasting your time learning every aspect of a crank theory in order to know that it's BS? Well then, there you have it. Why should I waste my time trying to learn every aspect of relativity when I've already shown that it's BS? At the start, the second postulate is WRONG! If I have a theory that is based on two postulates of the earth being flat, do you really need to go any further??

**Motor Daddy** · 08-04-12, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by James R

Are you able to answer the following question yet?

Is an object always at rest in its own reference frame?

Silly you, James. Do you propose that an object can be in motion relative to itself?

**James R** · 08-04-12, 08:25 AM

Motor Daddy:

Originally Posted by Motor Daddy

James, Are you well versed in every crank theory that has been proposed? No?

Of course not. I take them as I find them, one crank at a time. Mostly they come to me, not the other way round.

Then how do you know the theories are false if you haven't studied them for years?

I don't know they are false until I have examined them.

What? What's that you say? You say that you don't need to bother wasting your time learning every aspect of a crank theory in order to know that it's BS? Well then, there you have it.

Obviously, if there's a fundamental mistake in page 1 of a 100 page theory, there's no need to read further...

Why should I waste my time trying to learn every aspect of relativity when I've already shown that it's BS? At the start, the second postulate is WRONG! If I have a theory that is based on two postulates of the earth being flat, do you really need to go any further??

You don't even know the basics of relativity, as is well evidenced by your posts here. Despite my taking considerable time in a futile attempt to bring you a little up to speed, you still haven't grasped the concept of a reference frame, on which the whole of relativity is based. And it's been years, hasn't it? Years of no progress at all.

Where have you shown that relativity is BS? Not on sciforums. Anybody can review the thread I've linked above, where your many errors and misconceptions were laid bare for all to see.

The second postulate of relativity (speed of light postulate) is supported by experimental evidence. Your proposed alternative is supported by nothing, as I clearly showed in the above-linked thread.

Originally Posted by Motor Daddy

Silly you, James. Do you propose that an object can be in motion relative to itself?

It's ok. I'm happy to wait another 6 months for you to try to grapple with coming up with an answer.

**brucep** · 08-04-12, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Motor Daddy

James, Are you well versed in every crank theory that has been proposed? No? Then how do you know the theories are false if you haven't studied them for years? What? What's that you say? You say that you don't need to bother wasting your time learning every aspect of a crank theory in order to know that it's BS? Well then, there you have it. Why should I waste my time trying to learn every aspect of relativity when I've already shown that it's BS? At the start, the second postulate is WRONG! If I have a theory that is based on two postulates of the earth being flat, do you really need to go any further??

Crank theory is really easy to round file. They 'almost always' make a claim or prediction that has already been empirically falsified. Makes it really easy to ignore. Just as James said. You've shown that relativity is wrong? How can that be when the theory of relativity hasn't been empirically falsified? You don't falsify theory with 'chicken scratch' nonsense you post in a public science forum. Especially when the learned folks in the public science forum conclude your efforts are clueless.

**AlphaNumeric** · 08-04-12, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by Sibilia

WEAKNESSES

1 - All reference frames are equally valid. (Only applies to the speed of light in vacuum).
2 - Time is a dimension of space. (The time is flowing, the space is static, the bodies move in).
3 - It is possible the time travel.
4 - Gravity is not a force.
5 - The cosmological constant.

Points 1, 2 and 5 aren't weaknesses, they are strengths, especially 1. Any kind of symmetry or invariance or independence is always a help when formulating mathematical models of something physical. Phase invariance in electromagnetics leads to charge conservation for example. In the case of the reference frames etc, the two postulates of special relativity lead to Lorentz and Poincare transforms, which lead to momentum, angular momentum and energy conservation in relativity. Point 3 is not a weakness if time travel is physically possible, not to mention the fact relativity doesn't demand time travel to be possible, it just has the possibility to describe it. And Point 4 is a matter of semantics and interpretation and ultimately irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Motor Daddy

James, Are you well versed in every crank theory that has been proposed? No? Then how do you know the theories are false if you haven't studied them for years? What? What's that you say? You say that you don't need to bother wasting your time learning every aspect of a crank theory in order to know that it's BS? Well then, there you have it. Why should I waste my time trying to learn every aspect of relativity when I've already shown that it's BS? At the start, the second postulate is WRONG! If I have a theory that is based on two postulates of the earth being flat, do you really need to go any further??

It's a matter of the scientific method and Occam's razor.

General relativity is presently the most tested, accurate and developed model of gravity known to science. It has a century (or rather 97 years) of work examining it and even had technologies come about because of it (GPS network). As such it has demonstrably utility. This doesn't mean it is perfect but even if it weren't perfect it has demonstrable utility. It's for that reason physics students still learn the work of Maxwell and Newton, even though pretty much everything they did has been surpassed since then.

GR is thus the benchmark. A contender to replace it would need to demonstrate it can model just as much just as well. No crank's work has ever managed that. Few even manage to make testable predictions or formalise anything mathematicially. If you can give an example of one which works as well as GR please do. But for this reason JamesR is justified in not having to sift through every single nut idea on gravity. This is not the case for you and GR. You claim it's wrong but you cannot provide an experiment which demonstrates it. You have attempted to argue against it on the grounds of logical consistency but you've shown you don't know the relevant details. You are saying "Relativity is wrong in what it says about....." but you then demonstrate you don't know what relativity actually says. Your 'light sphere in a box' nonsense illustrates that. There's plenty of books and lecture notes and websites freely available which will help you learn the specifics of what relativity says about such systems but you don't seem to bother to look at them. As such you're whining about something you haven't actually understood. Someone like myself dismissing the claims of people like Farsight or QQ or Martillo when it comes to gravity is different, in that those people cannot demonstrate their assertions lead to anything quantitative and thus there's nothing of any substance to dismiss. General relativity has demonstrated it has things of substance and a great many people have learnt it over the last century. You're claiming to have reason to dismiss it but when you demonstrate you haven't even looked into how relativity constructs it's predictions you completely undermine your position.

Trying to excuse this by saying JamesR is being just as badly when he doesn't go through every crank claim in detail is just laughable. It's laughable for the reason I just explained and it's laughable because it amounts to saying "Well if I'm doing something in the wrong way then so are you!", which is an admission your approach is flawed. Two wrongs don't make a right and in your case you usually clock up about 10 wrongs in short order.

**Sibilia** · 08-04-12, 04:09 PM

Brucep days:
You're delusional. You're explanations are delusional. You're relativity illiterate and certifiably blind if you think it's clear to you.

If I agree with the Relativity, I understand it, and if not, I am delusional.
I prefer to be delusional than to be in mistake.

James R says:
Please give an example of one of the laws of nature that this contradicts.

S = d/t, S is speed, d = distance, t = time

How do you calculate S using the concept of spacetime?

**Sibilia** · 08-04-12, 05:04 PM

To whoever wanted to answer:

Why Albert Einstein not received the Nobel Prize for Relativity?

**Tach** · 08-04-12, 05:39 PM

Originally Posted by Sibilia

To whoever wanted to answer:

Why Albert Einstein not received the Nobel Prize for Relativity?

This is turning into a full-blown crackpot thread.

**AlphaNumeric** · 08-04-12, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by Sibilia

If I agree with the Relativity, I understand it, and if not, I am delusional.
I prefer to be delusional than to be in mistake.

S = d/t, S is speed, d = distance, t = time

How do you calculate S using the concept of spacetime?

The very fact you're asking that question suggests you're insufficiently familiar with relativity to be making the assertions about it you are.

The computation of position and motion through space-time is the central principles of general relativity, as they follow from the main mathematical object, the metric. This encodes notions of distance and action, from which dynamics can be extracted. The definition of a line element is $\textrm{d}s^{2} = g_{ab}\textrm{d}x^{a}\textrm{d}x^{b}$ for the metric g in some coordinates $\{x^{a}\}$ . The length of some curve C is then computed via integration, $s(C) = \int_{C} \textrm{d}s = \int_{C} \sqrt{g_{ab}\textrm{d}x^{a}\textrm{d}x^{b}}$ . We parametrise the curve by the proper time of something moving along the curve via $\mathbf{x}(\tau) \sim x^{a}(\tau)$ to give $s(C) = \int_{0}^{1} \sqrt{g_{ab}\dot{x}^{a}\dot{x}^{b}} d\tau$ . An object which is not experiencing an external force will follow a geodesic. The geodesic equation follows from the length expression I've just given via the Euler-Lagrange equations and gives $\ddot{x}^{a} + \Gamma_{bc}^{a}\dot{x}^{b}\dot{x}^{c} = 0$ for $\Gamma_{bc}^{a} = \frac{1}{2}g^{ad}(g_{bd,c} + g_{dc,b} - g_{bc,d})$ . This is essentially the generalisation of Newton's 2nd Law $\ddot{x} = F$ (for unit mass). The geodesic equation is 2nd order so it requires a pair of initial conditions, for instance an initial position and an initial velocity but then you just plug them into the equation and solve. This gives you the motion of something moving along a geodesic, ie the position as a function of proper time and thus velocity.

The expression you gave is what you get when you make pretty much every possible simplifying assumption you can possibly do so it isn't surprising it doesn't seem to work properly for more elaborate scenarios. s=d/t is only valid if the speed was constant and in a straight line and you have a universal notion of t, which isn't the case in relativity. You're making the same mistake Motor Daddy and chinglu do, which is to dismiss relativity without having any understanding of how it works and what it's predictions are. Given it's demonstrable success and the complete lack of anything even remotely close to the level of predictive power and verification GR has dismissing it in the manner you are is a tad unwise.

**brucep** · 08-04-12, 09:06 PM

Originally Posted by AlphaNumeric

The very fact you're asking that question suggests you're insufficiently familiar with relativity to be making the assertions about it you are.

The computation of position and motion through space-time is the central principles of general relativity, as they follow from the main mathematical object, the metric. This encodes notions of distance and action, from which dynamics can be extracted. The definition of a line element is $\textrm{d}s^{2} = g_{ab}\textrm{d}x^{a}\textrm{d}x^{b}$ for the metric g in some coordinates $\{x^{a}\}$ . The length of some curve C is then computed via integration, $s(C) = \int_{C} \textrm{d}s = \int_{C} \sqrt{g_{ab}\textrm{d}x^{a}\textrm{d}x^{b}}$ . We parametrise the curve by the proper time of something moving along the curve via $\mathbf{x}(\tau) \sim x^{a}(\tau)$ to give $s(C) = \int_{0}^{1} \sqrt{g_{ab}\dot{x}^{a}\dot{x}^{b}} d\tau$ . An object which is not experiencing an external force will follow a geodesic. The geodesic equation follows from the length expression I've just given via the Euler-Lagrange equations and gives $\ddot{x}^{a} + \Gamma_{bc}^{a}\dot{x}^{b}\dot{x}^{c} = 0$ for $\Gamma_{bc}^{a} = \frac{1}{2}g^{ad}(g_{bd,c} + g_{dc,b} - g_{bc,d})$ . This is essentially the generalisation of Newton's 2nd Law $\ddot{x} = F$ (for unit mass). The geodesic equation is 2nd order so it requires a pair of initial conditions, for instance an initial position and an initial velocity but then you just plug them into the equation and solve. This gives you the motion of something moving along a geodesic, ie the position as a function of proper time and thus velocity.

The expression you gave is what you get when you make pretty much every possible simplifying assumption you can possibly do so it isn't surprising it doesn't seem to work properly for more elaborate scenarios. s=d/t is only valid if the speed was constant and in a straight line and you have a universal notion of t, which isn't the case in relativity. You're making the same mistake Motor Daddy and chinglu do, which is to dismiss relativity without having any understanding of how it works and what it's predictions are. Given it's demonstrable success and the complete lack of anything even remotely close to the level of predictive power and verification GR has dismissing it in the manner you are is a tad unwise.

I was being nice saying delusional. It's much worse being intellectually dishonest. That's what happens when you make pronouncements without making a real effort to understand why the pronouncements are bs.

**kaduseus** · 08-04-12, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by prometheus

I'm going to give you a chance to explain this in a bit more detail. Please define "local background."
Again, please explain what you mean by "planar" in this context.

I'm not entirely sure I can define local background adequately without derailing this thread, but seeing as it's going in the bin soon, i'll make a quick attempt.
Background :- the (natural) constraint(s) imposed upon an object by it's surroundings.
Local background :- additional constraint(s) imposed by local conditions.
The assumption is that the periodicity (of elements and subatomic particles) is universal.
However, if ALL experimentation is performed using apparatus comprising of materials with an observed periodicity, then how can we detect other periodicities?
How can we make such an assumption that one particular periodicity is universal?
When we impose immense electric fields on gasses in vacuum at 2 kelvin, are we changing the local background?
Why shouldn't particles travel faster than light if we impose different conditions?
Can we accurately predict the periodicity of subatomic particles if we go changing the machine and the energies we use? (answer is no)
It's a bit more complicated than that but you get the drift I hope, even if you disagree.

"Planar" :- geometrically flat, two-dimensional Euclidean space, suffering from the same problems that date back to Copernicus (ie r=0 r=∞)
I know we have had this argument before, and I'll agree that even though your simply rotating the planar function to suit, it is still a good approximation by any measure, it doesn't however make it anything more than a simple planar model.
("The non-planar model is so complicated however that it remains impossible for you puny humans to even simulate with your current technology" - Dave the alien)

**Sibilia** · 08-05-12, 09:18 AM

Tach says:
This is turning into a full-blown crackpot thread.

Tach, you have to psichoanalyze yourself. Nobody understood Relativity, even Einstein.

Einstein was not able to unify all forces. He was a genius but he was human.

Alphanumeric, thanks for your contribution, but I think Calculus is a tool to the service of our
personal thought.

**Sibilia** · 08-05-12, 09:25 AM

DUALITY BECOMING-TIME

We have suggested that the duration is a duality: becoming-time. The duration is the stay or course of events in reality. Becoming is the inherent property of matter to experience changes. no a cause for the becoming, nor be deprived the matter of this property. Therefore the becoming is absolute. Time is the rhythm or speed, in one sense, that phenomena and events occur. We refer to a steady and conventional rhythm (clocks) to measure the duration of events. The rhythm of time can be variable, this is regarded as relative.

**AlexG** · 08-05-12, 10:09 AM

Nobody understood Relativity, even Einstein.

Einstein understood it quite well.
I think the only thing we know for sure is that you don't understand Relativity.

Tach says:
This is turning into a full-blown crackpot thread.

Oh yeah.

**Sibilia** · 08-05-12, 10:16 AM

Einstein understood it quite well.
I think the only thing we know for sure is that you don't understand Relativity.

I will continue despite your criticism, that does not affect me. With all due respect.

**brucep** · 08-05-12, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Sibilia

DUALITY BECOMING-TIME

We have suggested that the duration is a duality: becoming-time. The duration is the stay or course of events in reality. Becoming is the inherent property of matter to experience changes. no a cause for the becoming, nor be deprived the matter of this property. Therefore the becoming is absolute. Time is the rhythm or speed, in one sense, that phenomena and events occur. We refer to a steady and conventional rhythm (clocks) to measure the duration of events. The rhythm of time can be variable, this is regarded as relative.

Whose we? Write it down so we know how it works. Duality B-S.

**AlphaNumeric** · 08-05-12, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by Sibilia

Alphanumeric, thanks for your contribution, but I think Calculus is a tool to the service of our
personal thought.

Calculus is a methodical, logically sound, way of constricting implications of postulates. Given the postulates of special relativity we can derive the mass-energy relationship, Lorentz transforms and make quantitative predictions. It helps remove our tendencies to make unsound choices.

The post of yours which followed what I just quoted is a hair's breath away from getting the thread kicked to pseudo-science. It's still here because it has prompted sound discussion. Don't ruin that by posting random nonsense you just pulled from nowhere.

**Syne** · 08-05-12, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by AlphaNumeric

The post of yours which followed what I just quoted is a hair's breath away from getting the thread kicked to pseudo-science. It's still here because it has prompted sound discussion. Don't ruin that by posting random nonsense you just pulled from nowhere.

That, or philosophy, as becoming has no concise meaning in physics, only philosophy (or as concise as philosophy ever gets anyway).

**OnlyMe** · 08-05-12, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by AlphaNumeric

The post of yours which followed what I just quoted is a hair's breath away from getting the thread kicked to pseudo-science. It's still here because it has prompted sound discussion. Don't ruin that by posting random nonsense you just pulled from nowhere.

When possible try spitting a thread rather than condemning the whole thing to the "aether". (pun intended)

**Emil** · 08-05-12, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by brucep

No, it's not a force.

Huh? C'mon ... learn some basic physics! The Universal Law of Gravitation

Originally Posted by brucep

Objects follow the natural path, geodesic path, through spacetime curvature unless acted upon by a FORCE. The geodetic effect was measured in the proper frame of the GPB experimental apparatus. Spacetime curvature is an experimentally confirmed fact of nature.

Delirious .... the trajectory of objects depends on their speed !
There is for each speed, another curvature of space ?

Originally Posted by brucep

How about learning something rather than making incoherent comments about stuff you don't understand. So far you're just trolling anybody who does understand this stuff.

Look in the mirror!