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Water burns!
"Cecil Moore" wrote in message t... Tom Ring wrote: No violation Cecil, space bends, not light. Is a straight line through bent space still a straight line? :-) -- 73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com Cecil It was Richard Feynman who 'proved' that light always travels by the most direct route (i.e. a straight line) between two objects. In doing that, he also managed to 'prove' that light took every other possible route too and by mutual interference between all the possible paths, arrived at the shortest route. Light travels by the most direct route even through curved space. Our perception that the light has been bent is apparently due to deficiencies in the way we see the universe. At least that's what I think the theory says. His proof is ingenious and somewhat counter intuitive. As he won a Nobel prize for this sort of stuff, I'm not inclined to argue. Mike G0ULI |
Water burns!
Mike Kaliski wrote:
It was Richard Feynman who 'proved' that light always travels by the most direct route (i.e. a straight line) between two objects. The famous relativity experiment that allowed men to "see" a star "hidden" by the sun is a good example. My point was that man's imperfect "laws of physics" are often violated and have to be revised or discarded in favor of a new set of laws of physics. If the scientific progress over the next 1000 years equals that of the last 1000 years, most of what we think we know now will no doubt be revised or proved incorrect and discarded. For instance: The laws of physics based on non-empty space (ether) were discarded only to be revived in different form by the discovery that empty space is far from empty. -- 73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com |
Water burns!
"Cecil Moore" wrote in message t... Mike Kaliski wrote: It was Richard Feynman who 'proved' that light always travels by the most direct route (i.e. a straight line) between two objects. The famous relativity experiment that allowed men to "see" a star "hidden" by the sun is a good example. My point was that man's imperfect "laws of physics" are often violated and have to be revised or discarded in favor of a new set of laws of physics. If the scientific progress over the next 1000 years equals that of the last 1000 years, most of what we think we know now will no doubt be revised or proved incorrect and discarded. For instance: The laws of physics based on non-empty space (ether) were discarded only to be revived in different form by the discovery that empty space is far from empty. -- 73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com Indeed Cecil, Even as a youngster, I was never happy with the concept of space vacuum being completely devoid of anything. I first started studying radio and electronics because I couldn't see how signals could propagate through absolute nothingness. With the benefit of age and experience, I can accept the concept that electromagnetic radiation is self sustaining, oscillating between magnetic and electric field incarnations and complete in itself. But there was always that nagging doubt that this was not the whole picture. I don't really expect most of our current laws of physics will be overturned in the next 1000 years. I think new phenomena that exist outside of our normal everyday experience will be discovered and whole new areas of research will open up operating in parallel to our current understanding. Current quantum research seems to suggest that we are all ultimately made up of a series of coherent waves, with no solidity whatsoever. It's just a kind of electrostatic repulsion that stops us falling through the floor. Whatever the truth of the matter, it has very little impact on our daily lives and it still hurts like hell when I stub my toe on the table leg. Cheers Mike G0ULI |
Water burns!
Cecil Moore wrote:
Mike Kaliski wrote: It was Richard Feynman who 'proved' that light always travels by the most direct route (i.e. a straight line) between two objects. The famous relativity experiment that allowed men to "see" a star "hidden" by the sun is a good example. My point was that man's imperfect "laws of physics" are often violated and have to be revised or discarded in favor of a new set of laws of physics. If the scientific progress over the next 1000 years equals that of the last 1000 years, most of what we think we know now will no doubt be revised or proved incorrect and discarded. Except that isn't true. Any new physics must encompass and explain everything already proven. As a simplistic example, relativistic physics doesn't make Newtonian physics "wrong", discard it or revise it, Newton just becomes a subset, a special case where if velocity is much, much smaller than c, the effects of velocity can be ignored. If some new discovery allows for travel faster than c, relativistic physics as we now know it becomes a special case for velocity less than c as it is already experimentally validated and must become a subset of the new physics. -- Jim Pennino Remove .spam.sux to reply. |
Water burns!
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Water burns!
Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote: As a simplistic example, relativistic physics doesn't make Newtonian physics "wrong", discard it or revise it, Newton just becomes a subset, a special case where if velocity is much, much smaller than c, the effects of velocity can be ignored. As an earlier simplistic example, the four elements of fire, earth, air, and water are not all the elements that exist although one might rationalize that those four elements are a subset of the periodic table of the elements. Except no one ever did experiments to prove the hypothesis that fire, earth, air, and water were elements, so it remained a hypothesis until experiments were conducted to define elements, at which time the hypothesis was discarded. Hypotheses are discarded all the time, theories aren't. You do know the difference between a scientific theory and a scientific hypothesis, don't you? Forcing boundary conditions on existing "laws of physics" doesn't make things like Newtonian physics any more accurate. It just makes some of us human beings feel better about our sacred cows. :-) Nonsense, it is just reality. Everything has boundary conditions, except maybe your proclivity to try and stir the pot. -- Jim Pennino Remove .spam.sux to reply. |
Water burns!
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Water burns!
Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote: Hypotheses are discarded all the time, theories aren't. Quoted from: ************************************************** ******** Ask A Scientist - General Science Archive ---------------------------------------------------------- Theories Proven Wrong Question - Where can I find information on theories that were proven wrong? --------------------------------------- Answer: Rumor has it that "Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner is just what your looking for. Every scientific theory is wrong in some respect. There is no scientific theory of "everything". ************************************************** ******** Apples and oranges. A "scientific theory of everything" is meaningless babble thrown around by the clueless. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence. In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In physics, the term theory is generally used for a mathematical framework - derived from a small set of basic principles (usually symmetries - like equality of locations in space or in time, or identity of electrons, etc) - which is capable of producing experimental predictions for a given category of physical systems. Note the words "a given category of physical systems". As for the "aether", no observations that are predictive, logical or testable except in the negative. -- Jim Pennino Remove .spam.sux to reply. |
Water burns!
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Water burns!
Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote: A "scientific theory of everything" is meaningless babble thrown around by the clueless. Is that your theory? :-) Such "meaningless babble" was quoted from an "Ask a Scientist" web page. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. Or a theory is "a reasonable guess or conjecture", (quoted from Webster's). That isn't the scientific definition of "theory" and you know it. Why do you insist on playing these silly games? snip remaining word games -- Jim Pennino Remove .spam.sux to reply. |
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