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!
 

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!
 

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!
 

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.