[Vision2020] Newtonian Gravity Replaced by Space/Time Geometry

[Art Deco]

Ted, Donovan,

This is a dispute over the meaning/usage of words:

Below is a link to a famous essay on this kind of dispute.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/james.htm

For your information below is the first bit of this essay which focuses on these kinds of problems.

The Logical Positivists and Wittgenstein also extensively discuss these kinds of disputes.


Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com

_______________________________________________________
From:  "What Pragmatism Means" by William James

SOME YEARS AGO, being with a camping party in the mountains, I returned from a solitary ramble to find every one engaged in a ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a squirrel - a live squirrel supposed to be clinging to one side of a tree-trunk; while over against the tree's opposite side a human being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: Does the man go round the squirrel or not? He goes round the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he go round the squirrel? In the unlimited leisure of the wilderness, discussion had been worn threadbare. Every one had taken sides, and was obstinate; and the numbers on both sides were even. Each side, when I appeared therefore appealed to me to make it a majority. Mindful of the scholastic adage that whenever you meet a contradiction you must make a distinction, I immediately sought and found one, as follows: "Which party is right," I said, "depends on what you practically mean by 'going round' the squirrel. If you mean passing from the north of him to the east, then to the south, then to the west, and then to the north of him again, obviously the man does go round him, for he occupies these successive positions. But if on the contrary you mean being first in front of him, then on the right of him, then behind him, then on his left, and finally in front again, it is quite as obvious that the man fails to go round him, for by the compensating movements the squirrel makes, he keeps his belly turned towards the man all the time, and his back turned away. Make the distinction, and there is no occasion for any farther dispute. You are both right and both wrong according as you conceive the verb 'to go round' in one practical fashion or the other."

Although one or two of the hotter disputants called my speech a shuffling evasion, saying they wanted no quibbling or scholastic hair-splitting, but meant just plain honest English 'round,' the majority seemed to think that the distinction had assuaged the dispute.

I tell this trivial anecdote because it is a peculiarly simple example of what I wish now to speak of as the pragmatic method. The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable. Is the world one or many? - fated or free? - material or spiritual? - here are notions either of which may or may not hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are unending. The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right.

__________________________________________



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
To: <Tbertruss at aol.com>; <whayman at adelphia.net>; <predator75 at moscow.com>; <dgray at uidaho.edu>
Cc: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Newtonian Gravity Replaced by Space/Time Geometry


> Ted,
> 
> Where we are mainly disagreeing is that you are
> confusing observable fact for fact. They are not the
> same thing. 
> 
> Your write,
> 
> "You're starting to sound like the advocates of
> teaching creationism as a scientific theory in the
> public schools who state over and over that evolution
> is not a "fact" but an unproved theory."
> 
> No Ted. Creationists argue that we throw out an
> unproven theory for a disproved one. I am not
> suggesting this. I am arguing that your terminology
> regarding validation of scientific theory is
> incorrect. 
> 
> "Scientific facts that verify the truth of theories is
> how science operates: no empirical facts to validate a
> theory, a theory remains just a theory.  Replication
> of experimental findings that verify theories is the
> cornerstone of how science connects theory with fact."
> 
> No Ted! That is incorrect. Empirical data cannot PROVE
> a theory as TRUE. A theory can ONLY be disproved, it
> cannot be PROVED. Therefore it cannot ever be fact.  
> 
> There was a theory that the Sun and planets traveled
> around the Earth. This theory was mathematically
> calculated and written so that you could find the
> location of the known planets in the sky at any time
> of the year. There was verifiable empirical evidence
> that this theory was correct. It could be repeated,
> and other scientists could replicate the findings. But
> that does not mean that the Sun goes around the Earth
> because someone can come up with a mathematical
> formula and can predict where Mars, Venus, the Moon,
> and Jupiter will be six months from now.
> 
> According to your thinking it was fact that the Sun
> use to revolve around the Earth. It never did, even
> though a theory was supported by verifiable empirical
> observation. 
> 
> Empirical data provides evidence for or against a
> theory. Some theories are "close enough" to be of
> practical use and are generally accepted as fact
> because they are so close and applicable. But that
> does not mean that they are fact. 
> 
> Just as you write,
> 
> "Gravity in Relativity no longer exists as it is
> described in Newtonian Physics." 
> 
> No longer exists?! How could a theory be fact, then
> all of a sudden no longer be fact? Are you saying that
> physics changed because we discovered a more accurate
> theory? Or are you saying that the empirical data
> supporting the previous theory was recorded
> improperly? I do not think so.
> 
> The reality is we do not know, we cannot know, if a
> theory is correct or incorrect unless it is disproved
> by an advancement in our understanding of physics,
> which means we can only disprove a theory or lend
> support to a theory through empirical observation. So
> we can never say a theory is fact unless we know
> everything, which we do not. We can only say empirical
> observation supports a theory. If enough empirical
> data supports a theory most people will accept it as
> factual, like Newtonian Physics because it shadows
> their reality close enough. But you cannot PROVE it to
> be fact. 
> 
> I also wish to point out to you Ted that many of
> Einstein's theories appear to have been disproved
> through empirical data observation and collection on
> quantum level experiments. I invite you to read on
> recent findings involving particle entanglement and
> photon tunneling.  
> 
> http://www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/~mpoessel/Physik/FTL/tunnelingftl.html
> 
> http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1993PhRvL..71..708S&amp;db_key=INST
> 
> http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/Quantum-World1nov02.htm
> 
> I leave you with the difference between a mechanic and
> a physicist.
> 
> If you place a man and women on opposite ends of a 20
> foot room and ask them to each move 1/2 the distance
> between them every minute when will they meet?
> 
> The physicist will respond with, "Never".
> 
> The mechanic will respond, "For all practical
> purposes, less then 10 minutes." 
> 
> Take Care,
> 
> Donovan J Arnold
> 
> 
> --- Tbertruss at aol.com wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Donovan wrote:
>> 
>> "In science the Theory of Gravity is still
>> just a theory."  
>> 
>> Gravity in Relativity no longer exists as it is
>> described in Newtonian 
>> Physics.  It has been replaced by mass altering the
>> geometry of space/time.  Objects 
>> near a mass (our Sun, for example) follow the
>> geometry of space/time (Earth's 
>> orbit follows this geometry) that the mass creates,
>> but are not acted upon by 
>> a force (gravity) at a distance, which is the
>> intuitive notion that we often 
>> think of to imagine gravity keeping the Earth in
>> orbit around our Sun.
>> 
>> Nonetheless, the Newtonian equations dealing with
>> gravity, speed, mass and 
>> force are perfectly workable to launch satellites
>> into orbit above Earth.  I 
>> doubt anyone at NASA uses Relativity to do the math
>> to successfully launch a 
>> satellite into a required orbit, though I have not
>> verified this.  Newtonian 
>> physics does the job just fine.
>> 
>> Though I disagree with you that the theory of
>> gravity is "just a theory," 
>> given that its predictions have been empirically
>> validated over and over given 
>> certain limitations, it is a good example of a
>> scientific theory which has been 
>> replaced by a more accurate theory (Relativity) to
>> predict the behavior of 
>> matter in those cases where it is required.
>> 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
>> 
>> This below is from the link above:
>> 
>> How spacetime curvature simulates gravitational
>> force
>> 
>> The curvature of spacetime considered as a whole
>> implies a rather complex 
>> picture that is usually treated with the tools of
>> differential geometry and that 
>> requires the use of tensor calculus. It is possible
>> though to understand - at 
>> least approximately - the mechanism of gravitation
>> without tensors when the 
>> total curvature of spacetime is split into two
>> components:
>> 
>> curvature of space 
>> time dilation. 
>> 
>> The above components of the curvature of spacetime,
>> and only these, are 
>> responsible for the gravitation according to
>> Einstein's theory.The effect of the 
>> first component, the curvature of space, is
>> negligible in all cases when the 
>> velocities of objects are much smaller than the
>> speed of light and when the 
>> ratios of masses divided by the distances separating
>> their centers of mass are much 
>> smaller than a specific constant, namely the ratio
>> of speed of light squared 
>> to Newtonian gravitational constant: . So for the
>> majority of cases in the 
>> universe, and certainly for almost all cases in our
>> solar system except 
>> precession of perihelion of Mercury and deflection
>> of light rays in the vicinity of the 
>> Sun, we may treat the space as flat, as ordinary
>> Euclidean space. It leaves 
>> us only with the gravitational time dilation as a
>> possible reason for the 
>> illusion of "gravitational force" acting at the
>> distance. Assuming that the ratio 
>> of masses to distances between them are smaller than
>> the constant above, the 
>> time dilation is tiny, but it is enough to cause
>> "Newtonian gravitational 
>> attractive force" as we know it.The reason for this
>> illusion is this: any mass in 
>> the universe modifies the rate of time in its
>> vicinity this way that time runs 
>> slower closer to the mass and the change of time
>> rate is controlled by an 
>> equation having exactly the same form as the
>> equation that Newton discovered as his 
>> "Law of Universal Gravitation". The difference
>> between them is in essence not 
>> in form since the Newtonian potential is replaced by
>> the Einsteinian time 
>> rate dt / dt, where t is the time at a point at
>> vicinity of the mass (the proper 
>> time of objects at this point in space, the time
>> that is measured by the 
>> clocks in this point) and t is the time at observer
>> at infinity, with the right 
>> side of the equation  staying the same as in
>> Newtonian equation (with accuracy to 
>> irrelevant constants). Because of the same form of
>> both equations, the path 
>> of the object that takes an extremum of proper time
>> while traveling, and by 
>> this taking a geodesic in spacetime, is the same
>> (with accuracy to the negligible 
>> in this case curvature of space) as the Newtonian
>> orbit of this object around 
>> the mass. So it looks as if the path of the object
>> were bent by some "force 
>> of attraction" between the object and the mass.
>> Since bending of the object's 
>> path is clearly visible and the time dilation
>> extremely difficult to notice, a 
>> (fictitious) "gravitational force" has been assumed
>> rather than a (real, 
>> presently measured with precise enough and formerly
>> unavailable clocks) time 
>> dilation as the reason for bending the paths of
>> objects moving in vicinity of 
>> masses.So without any force involved into keeping
>> the traveling object in line the 
>> object follows the Newtonian orbit in space just by
>> following a geodesic in 
>> spacetime. This is Einstein's explanation why
>> without any "gravitational forces" 
>> all the objects follow Newtonian orbits and at the
>> same time why the Newtonian 
>> gravitation is the approximation of the Einsteinian
>> gravitation.In this way 
>> the Newton's "Law of Universal Gravitation" that
>> looked to people who tried to 
>> interpret it as an equation describing a
>> hypothetical "force of gravitational 
>> attraction" acting at a distance (except to Newton
>> himself who didn't believe 
>> that "action at a distance" is possible) turned out
>> to be really an equation 
>> describing spacetime geodesics in Euclidean space.
>> We may say that Newton 
>> discovered the geodesic motion in spacetime and
>> Einstein, by applying Riemannian 
>> geometry to it, extended it to the curved spacetime,
>> disclosed the hidden 
>> Newtonian physics, and made its math accurate.
>> --------------------------------------
>> V2020 post by Ted Moffett
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> >
> _____________________________________________________
>>  List services made available by First Step
>> Internet, 
>>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. 
>>  
>>                http://www.fsr.net                   
>>    
>>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yahoo! Mail
> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
> 
> _____________________________________________________
> List services made available by First Step Internet, 
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
>               http://www.fsr.net                       
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
> 
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20050508/8eadf666/attachment-0001.htm