Better Persol, While I don't accept your respoonse without reply, I did want to take this opportunity to say that it is at least an acceptable tone. Thanks. ANS: Likewise nobody has demonstrated an ability to produce an affect without a cause. The mere act of being an observer is not a cause. Where is your cause? The answer to that is science at its best, anything short of that is not. ANS: Simular answer to the above. Based on that philosophy one shouldn't accept nor use Relativity since you have never seen a cause. You don't have a correct answer without cause. ANS: I would have hoped the simple analogy would have given you cause to think. Team "A" is dilussional and their views are based on unsupported postulates that is frought with pitfalls because it is not based on truth and it becomes much more complicated by adding "band-aid" solutions to its format to cover the descrepancies - i.e. "Velocity Addition Formula" and adjusments to Quasar observed proper velocity, etc. ANS: I have not suggested that you assume an ether. I am suggesting you should not only be willing to accept one but interested to determine if there is in fact one. That is the scientific way. ANS: I don't accept this as a realistic response. By what basis have you assumed an ether must also have a medium? And all the crying about discussing the Chiral Condensate really is a surprise. It is illusive, it contains energy and definitely holds the potential of actually being the ether and its properties may well explain Relativity. Now you have a complete "Theory"not just a postulate. You would have the physical underpinings required to make Relativity understandable to anyone and it would infact simplify Relativity almost to a Newtonian level. Why would you resist that? Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe will make you a genius.
Re: Better Originally posted by MacM While I don't accept your respoonse without reply, I did want to take this opportunity to say that it is at least an acceptable tone. Well that's nice, but I could care less how you like my tone. Likewise nobody has demonstrated an ability to produce an affect without a cause. The mere act of being an observer is not a cause. Where is your cause? The answer to that is science at its best, anything short of that is not. You can look for a cause, but you don't just randomly pick one and say 'this must be it'. Simular answer to the above. Based on that philosophy one shouldn't accept nor use Relativity since you have never seen a cause. You don't have a correct answer without cause. The generation of life has never shown a cause, but we use biology. You don't use a theory because it 'has cause', but because it provides results. I would have hoped the simple analogy would have given you cause to think. Team "A" is dilussional and their views are based on unsupported postulates... Well no. If they do not have previous knowledge of air, then team B is using unsupported postulates. that is frought with pitfalls because it is not based on truth You keep saying that, but have yet to show any reason why it is the truth. You are just randomly picking again. ANS: I have not suggested that you assume an ether. I am suggesting you should not only be willing to accept one but interested to determine if there is in fact one. It would be interesting to try and determine one, but guess what... it was tried. It failed. Move on. Do you see any credible scientists still looking for the edge of the earth? I don't accept this as a realistic response. By what basis have you assumed an ether must also have a medium? By what basis do you assume space/light must have a medium. None. And all the crying about discussing the Chiral Condensate really is a surprise. The complaining is due to your misrepresenting it. Nothing more. The research itself is actually interesting. It's the crackpots who have latched onto it that are annoying. Now you have a complete "Theory"not just a postulate. You would have the physical underpinings required to make Relativity understandable to anyone and it would infact simplify Relativity almost to a Newtonian level. Why would you resist that? Because we do not know if this is the case. You are jumping the gun and saying that this is the holy graile, when it may be much less. Plus, it wouldn't simplify anything to Newtonian level. You would still need the same equations to do the work... and to be honest, if you can't do the math then what do you care about relativity for? It's like looking at the cover of a book and thinking you can argue with somebody who's read it about the content. This will, more likely than not, clarify quantum physics... not relativity. That is why the people researching it are quantum physists.
Persol, ANS: Guess what and I care less about your opinion of me. Since it appears to be a postulate without any underpinning.
And just what I have claimed about the ether that is inconsistant with what is known? Not about the ether, about the chiral condensate. This is the only thing you have said that has any real merit and that is a maybe It is no maybe... look at the names on the reports and the content of the math. It's quantum, not relativity. Since you still seem confused about this, I will repeat: A CAUSE IS NOT NEEDED. Sure, it would be nice, but it doesn't change the math or the predictions. At best, it makes it more complicated. As has happened everytime in science when a new 'cause' is found. Note, that these causes are not do to someone randomly guessing at causes (as in ether), but by seeing the result of an experiment, and then theorizing. There are an infinite number of causes for anything that you can dream up. You can only make you guess likely once you have reason to choose something. There is no reason to choose ether.
Hi MacM, The analogy with the wind is seriously flawed. The wind does not affect the way measurement apparati behave (i.e. length contraction and time dilatation). Furthermore, you still do not seem to realize that saying "aether exists" is as much as a postulate as the principle of relativity (which you haven chosen to attack today), because you ASSUME it, and that is all a postulate is. And it is a much heavier postulate than the principle of relativity, which merely tells you something about the existence of inertial frames, while aether already talks about some structure within spacetime. That is what we mean we say "special relativity is a simple theory". It uses exactly the postulates (= 2 small, insignificant, very acceptable) one needs, nothing less, and especially nothing more, and it still is incredibly accurate. Finding a theory that is equally good should be thrown out by Occam on sight. Finding a theory that is better... well, that wouldn't be announced on this forum anyway. "I have to disagree with that. This wasn't a closed loop. Supposedly it was also coaxial, not fiber. Even so, you would (I think) get a constant phase difference, not an increasing one." I agree, it wasn't a directly closed loop and it wasn't the same material (but coaxial or fiber will not really make a difference; whether it is light or an electromagnetic field traveling). I suspect he did have to close his loop to put a detector near the start of his experiment. I see no way of properly synchronizing one detector and another one 5 km further without using light - which is ofcourse not allowed in this experiment. But as many crackpot experiments, they do not know how to report it and conveniently left things like an experimental setup out of the report. Bye! Crisp
Pay attention. It's a guessing game. Mac tells us it exists, and we have to guess what it is. If you guess wrong then you are deemed completely stupid. If you guess right, but do not agree it exists, you are deemed completely stupid. If you guess right and agree that it exists but think he has a misunderstanding of the the real nature of it then you are completely stupid. If you guess right and completely agree with Mac then (presumably) you achieve the first prize, this being that you don't get continually insulted by him as if you were an idiot. As far as I know no one has achieved this unique state yet. Good luck.
MacM: <i>Two team of young students (having no scientific knowledge about the existance of air, etc) are given an assignment to develope a theory and mathematical formulas to explain the following ... Team "A" concludes that the rotation of the anemometer is a function of the relative speed of the car to them as observers and they write a formula that seems to support that view. Their formula is tested and their postulate regarding relative velocity is verified. Team "B" takes another view. They develoope this theory that there is a medium which they can't see or feel that the car must be moving through and that the velocity of the car through this medium causes it to rotate. They write their formula and it too is verified.</i> Both teams have theories based on postulates. The postulates are: Team A: the rotation rate depends only on the relative velocity between the car and the observer. Team B: the rotation rate depends only on the relative velocity between the car and the air. Team B's theory is better than Team A's theory. That is an experimentally determined fact. But it doesn't alter the fact that Team B's theory is still based on a postulate.
"Team B's theory is better than Team A's theory." You shouldn't have said that, now MacM will think you agree with an aether theory, while you are only trying to say that in this particular case the theory of a medium would be better Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Bye! Crisp
Crisp, FYI: No complaint about the quote other than to point out it has been attributed to me and I didn't post it. ANS: I would never do thatPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! . We seem to have a difference in definition. "Postulate" a concept wich states no cause for action or reactions. "Theory" a concept that states a cause for action or reactions. Team "A" is a postulate Team "B" is a Theory, albeit it may be un-proven, an assumption which may or may not be proven correct but that makes it testable. That's why it becomes a "Theory" vs being a "Postulate" which has no testable stated cause.
AndersHermansson, I am surprised. If I type "Chiral Condensate" and search MSN I get 1,372 hits. I found the following one interesting. It is correlating it to possible Dark Energy and gravity. That was one of the "Assumptions" I had made which James seems to feel was unwarranted on my part and I've been called Crackpot and accused of misrepresenting what Chiral Condensate is or may be. I'm not going to discuss UniKEF here but only want to point out that it has viewed gravity and "Dark Energy" expansion as being one and the same thing. That is what they now refer to as "Dark Energy" would be the UniKEF field which also produces gravity and predicted the accelerating expansion. So I may be a crackpot and not know anything, it seems my view is becoming accepted reality. Imagine that.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! BTW: These views and predictions were made 49 years ago. Please note, while I have not found the units in this section yet , nor the original sites that I had quoted and have been chastized for, the graph scale on this site is generally equivelent to the one I had found which was stated as 2E138 ergs.cm^3. This graph seems to have numerical values 1,000 times smaller but then I can't read the units either. http://www.thphys.uni-heidelberg.de/home/cosmology/dark_cssless.html As an exercise out of couriousity try converting 2E138 ergs/cm^3 into mass via E=mc^2. Does that answer the question why they may have referred to it as a "Super Solid"? You see I didn't make that up, I merely referred to statements being made by the researchers and I will find that quote and I will post the link. So be ready to argue with somebodyelse not me. Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe will make you a genius.
<i>"Postulate" a concept wich states no cause for action or reactions. "Theory" a concept that states a cause for action or reactions.</i> Team A: Cause = relative motion of car and observer. Team B: Cause = relative motion of car and air. Both are theories, according to your definition.
Symantics James R., If you are willing to claim being an observer is a cause, I would suppose so but there is no explanation of how being an observer could cause the reaction. On inspection it will be found that being an observer is invalid since any natural wind or movement of the observer causes the "Theory" to fail. Being an observer is not a sound premis for "Theory". Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe will make you a genius.
"If you are willing to claim being an observer is a cause, I would suppose so but there is no explanation of how being an observer could cause the reaction. " Ever heard of quantum mechanics ? Being an observer there has dramatic consequences for the system in consideration. "Being an observer is not a sound premis for "Theory"." I'm sorry, but judging by your replies you have absolutely no idea what the difference between "a theory" and "postulates" is. A physical theory is by definition (so to speak) built on a set of postulates, or assumptions if you like. In a decent mathematical theory, ALL assumptions are taken into account, including the possible effect of an observer, or even the very definition of what an observer in the theory can do or cannot do. You can even put that a theory is totally equivalent to its postulates, simply because the results contained in the theory are in some way or another proven by mathematics, starting from the postulates (this is what scientists refer to as "proof by first principles", highly appreciated by the way). The exact nature of these postulates can differ quite a lot between theories, but a general rule of thumb is that if you want a sensible theory, you'll need sensible postulates. A sensible postulate seems to me "there exists something as an observer and he has four coordinates to his disposal, 3 spatial and one time". A less sensible postulate seems to me "there is an absolute frame of reference called aether, which deforms instruments to escape its detection". It has this metaphysical feeling to it, don't you agree ? I do not see what there is more to say. It seems you want to make some extremely wierd distinction between good and bad postulates, arguing that the observer postulate of special relativity (more appropriately called the postulate or principle of relativity) is not good. Well, surprise surprise, the exact, identically same postulate is also used in Newtonian mechanics (though not as explicit in Newton's laws as in most textbooks on SR). So if you are arguing that the principle of relativity is a bad principle, then you are also throwing classical mechanics out of the window. Sorry, but this seems like a final (desperate?) attempt to bring down relativity. We seem to have convinced you that in order to attack a theory, you need to attack its postulates. You have chosen the wrong postulate of the two that constitute SR; if you really want to make a case about SR, then attack the postulate that the speed of light in vacuum is constant for all observers. There, isn't that nice of me, I even put you in the right direction on how to tear down the theory that you (incorrectly) think I love so much. But first you might want to have a talk with Prosoothus, who (I think) also realized that tearing down SR involves tearing down that particular postulate. There have already been many discussions, well, this time it is my turn to present to you 164 pages of threads on this forum to read Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Bye! Crisp
Good Crisp, Good post. It is a shame that it just isn't right.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Actually, my comments would apply to anyhing based on shear jpostulates. It simply is an error to stop there (my opinion) but your post is well taken. Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe will make you a genius.
Standard Persol, That is standard or at least at one time it was. You ask yourself WHAT and HOW is an action caused. You do make SWAG's (If you are unfamiliar with the term I'll explain it to you) and you test SWAGS until you find one that fits your requirement. When you finish you may or may not be right but you will have a physical explanation that works until somethingelse is discovered. In the current discussion assuming an observer is the WHAT fails to describe HOW the affect is caused and that is because an observer is a poor choice of describing WHAT is causing Relativity. Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe will make you a genius.
Ah, so you suggest making a random guess. Odd, you were yelling at relativity for that a couple days ago. It is different if you have proof (and can make an educated guess), but in this case none exists.
SWAG Persol, ANS:So you don't know what a SWAG is. I'll wait for you to ask. Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe will make you a genius.
You really are a pompous ass. It's a silly guess, which should have been more then clear from my response. You don't make random guesses into an attempt at a full fledge theory when you have no proof that your guess is right. Even more so, because your original guesses should be educated guesses, not just "let's try this".
