Valo wrote:Very informative post. It's not as accurate as you want to project, is all. In order to participate in this adult conversation you must accept the premise that general relativity is flawed, in a big way. If you can't accept that premise, you can't be talking about the same thing as what this conversation is about
I'm willing to accept that general relativity is flawed. But what is general relativity? The descriptions of measuring light in my last post comprise special relativity in a nutshell. I'm willing to accept that general relativity is pure bunk, but we have to be on the same page as to what general relativity is in the first place.
In my last post, I described a kid riding a skateboard and shining a flashlight. The light measures at c on the skateboard. As he approaches me, instead of measuring c+ 10 mph, it still measures c. For a person behind the kid, light doesn't measure at c - 10 mph, it measures at c. The light from the flashlight also measures c at Pluto. If he were throwing a ball, it's totally different. The speed of the ball would be b, b + c, and b - c for the first three situations. Light is totally different. This example = special relativity.
Now suppose the kid instead of moving at 10mph, is slowly increasing his speed. He's accelerating. Now he shines the flashlight. It still measures c at his skateboard, it measures at c in front of him, behind him, on the planet Pluto, and everywhere else. Okay, we're done. That's general relativity. I'm scratching my head at how this could be bunk?
If the aether winds can't be reconciled to explain the measurements of light when the aether is drifting in a simple way, such as approaching my light-measuring instruments directly from the north at 10 mph, then adding in more complicated movement like acceleration isn't going to help.
Some follow up details extraneous to our essential conversation about the aether:
accelerating 1G in a spaceship, physical laws are the same as 1G of planetary gravity. If I have a lab in an elevator in space accelerating at 1g, all my measurements should be the same as if the lab is on a planet with 1g. But I know what an elevator is, it's rope pulling up my little carriage, but even though I have equations that describe gravity perfectly in all those situations where Newton's equations failed (because of all the implications from the speed of light as constant in the examples I gave), what is gravity? Nobody knows. We know that matter tells space how to curve and space tells matter how to move, but we don't know exactly what gravity is. We (not me necessarily) can calculate interactions between complicated systems of masses.
Okay, so somebody says, "I know the answer! Gravity is the aether flowing into the earth and getting annihilated."
Well, we already know enough about measuring light that there is no way to make the motion of aether consistent with "moving into the earth" , so it's out. But perhaps we're redefining what aether is? Let's say were scrapping the aether as in, the medium for light to propagate through as a wave. And now we are saying aether is this mysterious stuff that flows into the earth causing gravity, but it isn't anymore the medium for light to propagate within. That would then change the discussion. But up until now, the DS has not said the aether has a totally new role, and nothing to do with its previous role.
Also, a point of clarification. All mass has gravity. A pea has gravity. Tons of experiments with small objects showing they attract each other just like planets. Is the aether (this potentially new kind of aether) flowing into every pea? Flowing into every rock? And if so, are there equations that refine the descriptions of how peas and rocks pull on each other better than the equations of general relativity?
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