Measuring the curvature of spacetime

An event happens at a place and a time alright, and unless the event is entangled when it occurs, and even if the event does involve bound energy, THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE SPACE OR ABSOLUTE TIME ASSOCIATED WITH THAT EVENT EVER AGAIN. The event DOES have an absolute rest frame energy that is associated with it. If your math treats it differently, it is wrong. That would include any absolute curvature of space, which is so much nonsense, because it is a throwback to the absolute space of the aether, which is 19th century physics.

There is exactly zero chance any 21st century physicist will be able to determine what inertia is or what it means to the physical universe using math that is based on either absolute space or absolute time. This is why particle physicists are having such a tough time making the connection between inertial and gravitational mass. In General Relativity, they have always been exactly the same mass, and to a higher accuracy than that which GR synchronizes GPS every single second of every single day. Those synchronization events are predicted by means of manipulating time dilation calculations, not space curvature.

 

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There never has been such an issue. Of course, my ether theory is a different theory. In the limit \(\Xi, \Upsilon\to 0\) the limit becomes the ether interpretation of the Einstein equations of GR. This is a theory with the same Einstein equations as GR, but it remains slightly different, because there are no wormholes and no causal loops in this theory.

Whatever, my criticism how state-paid science is organized today is nor a conspiracy, nor a criticism of the scientific method itself. The scientific method does not consider at all who pays scientists.

Given that I have no conspiracy, of course not.

All scientific theories are free inventions of the human mind. If my claims are true is something you seem unable to evaluate.

 

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It's done by measuring the Doppler shift of the GPS satellite carrier frequency. Curvature of anything has nothing to do with it.

 

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No, his star pupil Hilbert carried on the 4D geometric interpretations of GR after Minkowski's appendix ruptured and killed him in 1909.

Hilbert carried on the work with Minkowski's 4D intervals; in fact, it was Hilbert who inspired Minkowski to develop them, to try and persuade colleagues that he was a better physicist and mathematician than Einstein, who barely managed a passing grade.

The most complete account I have ever read of Hilbert's involvement with the final form of GR (which was mainly, to irritate Einstein while he was finishing it), appeared in an article by Brian Greene in the October, 2015 issue of Smithsonian magazine. Here is an excerpt:

"A few months earlier, Einstein had met with the renowned German mathematician David Hilbert, and had shared all his thinking about his new gravitational theory. Apparently, Einstein learned to his dismay, the meeting had so stoked Hilbert’s interest that he was now racing Einstein to the finish line.

A series of postcards and letters the two exchanged throughout November 1915 documents a cordial but intense rivalry as each closed in on general relativity’s equations. Hilbert considered it fair game to pursue an opening in a promising but as yet unfinished theory of gravity; Einstein considered it atrociously bad form for Hilbert to muscle in on his solo expedition so near the summit. Moreover, Einstein anxiously realized, Hilbert’s deeper mathematical reserves presented a serious threat. His years of hard work notwithstanding, Einstein might get scooped.

The worry was well-founded. On Saturday, November 13, Einstein received an invitation from Hilbert to join him in Göttingen on the following Tuesday to learn in “very complete detail” the “solution to your great problem.” Einstein demurred. “I must refrain from traveling to Göttingen for the moment and rather must wait patiently until I can study your system from the printed article; for I am tired out and plagued by stomach pains besides.”

But that Thursday, when Einstein opened his mail, he was confronted by Hilbert’s manuscript. Einstein immediately wrote back, hardly cloaking his irritation: “The system you furnish agrees—as far as I can see—exactly with what I found in the last few weeks and have presented to the Academy.” To his friend Heinrich Zangger, Einstein confided, “In my personal experience I have not learnt any better the wretchedness of the human species as on occasion of this theory….”"

 

Bullshit:

Your pointless rant changes nothing. Standard accepted cosmology stands as unchallenged with regards to GR and curved spacetime. In essence you are pissing into the wind with your rants.
Spacetime curvature has been entirely evident in many tests beginning with the Eddington experiment and culminating in GP-B. Gravitational lensing is a fact: Gravitational lensing is caused by light travelling in geodesics in curved spacetime: Curved spacetime in the presence of mass, is a postulate of GR. Gravitational lensing is evidence of spacetime curvature.
GR and spacetime curvature stands as unchallenged at this time, despite the swarm of alternative brigade we have on this forum at this time.
Of course, as per usual, they have no where else to spray their nonsensical take on present day cosmology.

From a lay person's point of view, the most amazing thing I find about Einstein's GR and spacetime curvature is the fact that in essence it was formulated and derived from pure logical thought, not as a result of experiment: Yet since that momentous day, it has passed all tests thrown at it in the classical sense and there is absolutely no experimental or observational reason to either modify or abandon it.
Simply put, it works!
ps: Yes, it does not apply at the quantum level but that is expected as GR is a purely classical theory. [not withstanding the usual god botherers and cranks]

https://einstein.stanford.edu/MISSION/mission6.html#successful_mission
Extraordinary Accomplishments

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/may/HQ_11-134_Gravity_Probe_B.html

http://einstein.stanford.edu/

http://einstein.stanford.edu/MISSION/mission1.html

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/04may_epic/


http://www.askamathematician.com/2010/12/q-why-does-curved-space-time-cause-gravity-a-better-answer/

http://www.hawking.org.uk/space-and-time-warps.html


http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/universe/questions_and_ideas/general_relativity

 

So far your peers don't agree with you to the point your claims are ignored. Scientists who do theoretical research in the field of modern physics are paid mostly by institutions who support their research and who hired them to also help educate there student body. Clearly the difference in your ether theory predictions and predictions by the theory of general relativity is the hidden variables you invoke associated with the manifold you choose to do the physics on. Lorentz ether theory predictions are identical to SR. You must be given credit for having written 'the ether theory of gravity'. It's interesting that it doesn't make identical predictions to GR. I see your claims as a statement that Einstein chose the wrong manifold to do the physics on

 

GP-B was able to further validate with even greater precision, the effects of spacetime curvature and the Lense Thirring effect, chiefly due to the following accomplishments.......
https://einstein.stanford.edu/MISSION/mission6.html#successful_mission
Extraordinary Accomplishments
Following is a list of some of the extraordinary accomplishments achieved by GP-B during the 17 months of its flight mission.

• Over the course of the 17.3-month mission, we communicated with the spacecraft over 4,000 times, and the Mission Planning team successfully transmitted over 106,000 commands to the spacecraft.
• GP-B is the first spacecraft ever to achieve nine degrees of freedom in control. The spacecraft itself maintained three degrees of freedom in attitude control (pitch, yaw, and roll), plus three degrees of freedom in translational drag-free control (front-to-back, side-to-side, and up-down). In addition, the Gyro Suspension System (GSS) for each gyro maintained three degrees of freedom in controlling the location of its spherical rotor within the gyro housing.
• The GP-B gyros, which performed extraordinarily well in orbit, have been listed in the Guinness Database of World Records as being the roundest objects ever manufactured.
• The spin-down rates of all four gyros were considerably better than expected. GP-B’s conservative requirement was a characteristic spin-down period (time required to slow down to ~37% of its initial speed) of 2,300 years. Measurements during IOC showed that the average characteristic spin-down period of the GP-B gyros was approximately 15,000 years—well beyond the requirement.
• The magnetic field surrounding the gyros and SQUIDs (Super-conducting QUantum Interference Device) was reduced to 10-7 gauss, less than one millionth of the Earth’s magnetic field—the lowest ever achieved in space.
• The gyro readout measurements from the SQUID magnetometers had unprecedented precision, detecting fields to 10-13 gauss, less than one trillionth of the strength of Earth’s magnetic field.
• The gyro suspension system operated magnificently. It had to be able to operate both on the ground for testing purposes prior to launch, as well as in space. This meant that the suspension system had to operate over 11 orders of magnitude—an enormous dynamic control range—and its performance throughout the mission was outstanding.
• The science telescope on board the spacecraft tracked the guide star, IM Pegasi (HR 8703), to superb accuracy, and it also collected a year’s worth of brightness data on that star. The brightness data we collected on IM Pegasi represents the most continuous data ever collected on any star in the universe.
• ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Obviously it stands as one of mankind's greatest engineering achievements along with the LHC and HST.
The benefits and knowledge gained have been immense and indispensable.

 

Agreed!

 

Interesting. Thanks Bruce. I read up on curvature and see that I had some misconceptions. You pointed the way with the approximation of the tangent space being 1AU. I was able to find the correct definition of curvature based on that. Surprisingly, there seem to be a lot of different definitions for curvature. My misconception involved some diagrams from some sources that seem to be at odds with accepted GR definitions. Anyway, thanks for the correction.

Still, it is interesting that such small curvatures, such as we experience here on the Earth, are so small as to be undetectable in the laboratory and yet yield considerable gravitational effects. Most physics courses remark about how weak gravity is. And yet when the curvature is high, gravity is able to overwhelm all the other forces. It seems that small amounts of curvature can have a quite strong effect.

It occurs to me that the reason that so many people are opposed to the idea of curved spacetime is that we here on Earth can't experience any distortion in our perceived environment. Just as we can't perceive any SR time and space dilation, curvature and dilation too small to detect in our daily experience. The fact that we live in an environment that is low velocity and low curvature does not allow us to grasp it, and integrate it into our understanding. We do not experience any distortion in our normal lives. And it is a good thing that we do live in such a low relativity environment. High relativity environments are very lethal. Obviously there were similar objections to the theory of atoms, theory of germs and the like. People don't like to accept that which is different than their perception. But we seem to have passed through that objection and SR and GR are the correct answer. The deniers are a diminishing but vocal breed.

 

In math, it is possible to obtain answers which are close enough using assumptions that are wrong, particularly in cases where an effect, in this case, the presumptive SLIGHT CURVATURE effect, is a much smaller contribution than the larger kinematic relativistic time dilation. That's because the standard of efficacy of the math renders only an incremental correction term to a cumulative time base, not something that really evaluates or challenges our understanding of the cause of gravitation.

An empty inertialess region of space by definition has no curvature. If you are going to introduce the idea of curvature to a region of space having gravitation, either you must be able to explain where that effect comes from (not just the magnitude positing different manifolds) or you must admit that you have no idea. What is it exactly that makes one manifold the "right" one, and the other choices the "wrong" one? Both cannot be right, unless it makes no difference.

Newton's law of gravitation "worked" too, and he made no attempt to explain his fudge factor 'G', or in which EXACT DIRECTION G-d's "divine hand" induced objects to move when they fell, other than toward a presumptive geometric center a rock has no trouble finding sans a degree in math. Your curvature is like that divine hand in some respects. The divine hand is still there, but the instrumentation has improved so that we have orbiting gyroscopes (INSTEAD OF A SIMPLE PLUMB BOB!) to basically tell us the same thing.

Bullocks. In the 21st century, the source of inertial mass has been discovered. Unortunately, the math that predicted the existence of that particle is incompatible with the math of General Relativity. They can't both be right, can they? PICK ONE, and stick with it until either you know for certain it is correct, or can tell us why it isn't. You are going to have to come up with a better explanation of gravity than "curvature" of the space surrounding massive objects, or arguing about which manifold is prettier. The Standard Model is at loggerheads with GR's principle of equivalence. Tell us why, and don't pretend that math explains everything. It doesn't. What's more, it never will, at this rate.

So far, all this fancy curvature math is telling me is that the Earth isn't flat. BIG deal.

 

"Measuring the curvature of spacetime" is like counting hen's teeth

 

Yes, and if ignorance would be a valid argument, I would be the loser. But it isn't.

The differences exist, but are minimal. For \(\Xi,\Upsilon\to 0\) even the equations are the same, all what is added are some global restrictions - what without doubt exists locally, always, should also exist globally. For \(\Xi > 0,\Upsilon < 0\) there appears additionally some massless dark matter, which does not interact with anything else, in principle observable, de facto not, as well as a nice cosmological parameter which moves the universe toward a linear expansion, but without acceleration. \(\Xi > 0,\Upsilon > 0\) gives greater differences - inflation in form of a big bounce, and stable gravastars. Because of these greater differences, I have initially preferred it. But, in fact, there are no good arguments for any such choices, except for the \(\Xi \neq 0,\Upsilon \neq 0\), because only in this case we have a Lagrange formalism for the harmonic condition and corresponding local energy- and momentum conservation via Noether theorem.

I think Einstein's "error" is different, and not really an error. There is a fundamental principle, the Equivalence Principle, and one should try to extend the domain of applicability as strong as possible, and as far as possible. Which is that everything should follow this principle, in its strongest version (Strong Equivalence Principle) up to the most fundamental things, and there should be a real equivalence. The "error" is only that the followers have not recognized that this extension was successful only up to a certain degree, and after this failed. That they have not tried the other possibility, that the domain of applicability is limited. This is clearly not the first thing to try, one has to consider this only if the first choice leads to problems. But then it has to be tried - among other possibilities to solve these problems - but it has to be tried.

This is what I have tried, after recognizing that in quantum gravity all the different gravitational fields in a superpositional state have to share something, a common background. And then I have simply taken everything what is available on the road if one accepts a common background. That is learning the physics, and thinking about what a common background can give here. And if something nice is compatible with that background, needs such a background, then add it to the basket, and look elsewhere what this new item can give. The first such item was absolute time, and it was applicable to Bell's theorem. And so on.

 

Genonomically speaking, hens are capable of growing teeth. How many?

 

2

 

That's the simple kind of math anyone can agree with!

Are the teeth curved? How much? Why?

Are you certain, it has nothing to do with spacetime curvature? I'm not sure...

Which came first, the hen or the egg? Just a minute; why are EGGS curved?

Why are mathematician's brains so self- referential? Probably for the sake of consistency, they are incomplete.

 

And as I so often say, forums such as this are their only outlet: BTW, nice post.

 

Your research path is instructive. Thanks for writing it down. Good luck with your research this coming year.

 

Instructive post. A most interesting thing about our universe is the local spacetime curvature is an infinitesimal in all local proper frames. Even in the strong field. For the strong field the tangent space area decreases. The area that determines the geometry of the tangent space. It seems like the local earth surface gravity is pretty strong just based on the fact our weight is ten times what it would be if the earth disappeared and we continued our freefall path, natural geodesic path, through the local spacetime. The reason it seems like it's really strong is because it's the force of the earth surface blocking our natural path. Not spacetime curvature which is gravity. A famous thought experiment where an observer and two particles are in freefall within a freefalling elevator illustrates the local spacetime is an infinitesimal. The distance that the system falls before the observer could measure any deviation in the particles path illustrate how small the deviation is over the entire freefall path. This is also a way you could calculate the area of the tangent space in the local proper frame of the system. The distance the system falls before the deviation in the particle paths is the area of the local proper laboratory frame. I added the laboratory frame since it's the local proper frame where we conduct experiments. General Relativity is a magnificent work of scientific art. Even I have a chance to understand it. Not with the complete scholarship required for research but the metric solutions of the field equations make it possible for me to understand how the theory works. I enjoy talking about it. Thanks for your instructive comments.
A correction would be our weight would be 0 in freefall if the earth suddenly disappeared. LOL.

 

You misunderstood. What I said:

I still claim that your general scientific and political beliefs are your own, along with your long winded rants and semantics about what is or what isn't a conspiracy, which again, I say you often dabble in.
My mention of the scientific method not being perfect was an aside, and a correct aside.
Nothing is perfect.

I suppose I could list quite afew examples, but all I would get in return is a ramble about semantics and such: Similar to your cop out excuses with regards to your adhoms [which you claim as not adhoms] and my adhoms which you claim are adhoms. Confusing? So are your many excuses and cop outs.

Your claims [paper] languishes without citations. My evaluation seems to align with the scientific communities in general.

 

Some mantra repetition deleted.

Indeed. Because you use conspiracy simply as a bad word, without caring what it means. So you apply it incorrectly.

I have never said that I don't use ad homs. I sometimes use them. They are simply very weak arguments. Most often, they are used by people who have no more arguments about the content. That's why they start ad hominems. I use them if I'm simply too tired. Like when I argue with joepistole, where talk is essentially meaningless. But I answer often enough, give evidence even if he is known to reject any evidence. But sometimes I'm too lazy, and simply use some ad hominem.

The scientific community in general has not expressed any opinion about my ether theories. Nor a positive, nor a negative. The reaction in talks I have given in many universities was much more positive than negative.

Your "evaluation" (LOL) corresponds to prejudices against the ether, which are widely distributed in the scientific community, and based on the rejection of old ether theories and the non-existence of viable ether theories of gravity and of the SM of particle physics. Of course, if I would not have found these theories, I would fully agree with you that ether theory is dead. There was a viable Lorentz ether at the time of SR, but it has not been extended to gravity, while the spacetime has. There were interesting models for the ether as a medium which explains the EM field. But there was no extension to all the other fields of modern physics, as described by the SM. This would have been my position, and every scientist, who does not know that this is no longer correct, would agree. And find this completely sufficient to reject the ether.