On 11-07-17 20:34, Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain wrote:

Le 11-07-17 17:06, Fred J. McCall a écrit :
Alain wrote:

On 11-07-17 03:26, Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain wrote:


Also, the fact
is that you need to take into account both Special and General
Relativity for GPS to work. The satellites are moving fast enough and
are far enough out of the gravity well for both effects to be
significant. The relevant equations of Special Relativity were
originally from Lorentz, and Poincaré showed that they were applicable
in real life so it isn't really Einstein's Special Relativity that is
needed, it is Poincaré's Relativity. Poincaré used observations of
Mercury's orbit for his work. And Einstein used Special Relativity to
develop General Relativity and was also aware that tweaking
gravitational laws was necessary to accommodate Mercury.


Mercury was a proof, not a prerequisite.

Go read Henri Poindcaré. It isn't a prerequisite, but it was
instrumental in the development of his relativity which predates
Einstein's Special Relativity.


Irrelevant.

Yes it is relevant, try to follow the discussion.


No it is not relevant, try to follow the discussion.

Poincaré's relativity is needed for GPS to work. Poincaré used
telescopic observations of Mercury to develop his relativity.
Do you see how telescopic observations were relevant for GPS now?

Of
course you don't need to know about mass-energy equivalence to make
vegetable soup but it still is important in our everyday lives.


Is it? How?

As I said, for instance GPS.


GPS isn't about mass-energy equivalence.

I wasn't talking specifically about mass-energy equivalence.


Uh, please reading the preceding quoted material and explain to me
again how you weren't talking about mass-energy equivalence IN
RESPONSE TO A DIRECT QUESTION ASKING HOW MASS-ENERGY EQUIVALENCE IS
IMPORTANT IN OUR EVERYDAY LIVES.

Well if you put back in there the sentence just befo "GPS would not
work if we didn't take into account relativity. Of course you don't need
to know about mass-energy equivalence to make vegetable soup but it
still is important in our everyday lives." then you see that we were not
talking only about mass-energy equivalence, but about relativity. I
admit that the second sentence isn't very well constructed. I meant the
"it" in "it is still important in our every day lives" to mean
relativity. As for the importance of mass-energy equivalence in our
everyday lives as I have all ready said, anyone who knows anything about
nuclear power plants knows that it is important.


Wriggle all you like. When asked HOW DOES MASS-ENERGY EQUIVALENCE
AFFECT OUR DAILY LIVES *YOU* brought up GPS.

You didn't ask "HOW DOES MASS-ENERGY EQUIVALENCE AFFECT OUR DAILY LIVES"
what you wrote was "Is it? How?" Because english is not a formal
langage, the meaning of "it" can be more than one thing. As I already
explained there is a sentence up there that I didn't construct very well
bringing confusion to the meaning of "it". Therefore when I brought up
GPS I was bringing it up as an example of the importance of relativity
in our everyday lives not of mass-energy equivalence.

There I hope that makes this clear for you. If not please follow-up in
alt.semantics.idiocy, I promise I will give your response there all the
attention it warrants.

GPS uses
Special and General relativity. For usage of mass-energy equivalence in
our every day lives, maybe your computer is connected to an electric
grid. Maybe there is some nuclear power plant on that grid.

You probably already knew about nuclear power plants. I think you are
trolling, you are getting close to plonk territory.


Perhaps you should stop these handwaving arguments of yours, then, if
someone pointing them out upsets you so?

I don't mind people pointing out errors in my arguments. I just don't
like people trolling. My point is only that telescopes did lead to
discoveries that are important.


But you then preceded to offer up a bunch of stuff that didn't require
telescopes.

Poincaré did use telescopic measurements to develop his relativity which
is a very important scientific theory with implications in our every day
lives. Newton used indirectly telescopic observations from Tyco Brahe to
develop his theory of gravitation. Even if you want to ignore this it is
true.

And I don't think you have provided
anything significant to refute that. If you see an error in my argument
please point it out. But trying to pretend that mass-energy equivalence
has no implication in our every day lives is not very useful in this
discussion.


And offering up GPS as the reason it does is less than useful.

As said above and in a previous post, my GPS remark was about relativity
not about mass-energy equivalence. Once again if you want to continue to
debate that point go to alt.semantics.idiocy.

Another way that telescopes were useful for the discovery of nuclear
energy is that Einstein and other scientists at the time were well aware
of the "black energy" of that time. That is, they knew that the Sun
could not have as an energy source something like burning coal. It
wouldn't last long enough. So looking for large amounts of energy hidden
within the atom wasn't completely out of nowhere.


It also had nothing to do with telescopes.

See my reply to Quadibloc.


Yeah, like they couldn't see THE SUN without a telescope....

Did you read my reply to Quadibloc? Telescopes were used to make the
first serious estimate of the Earth-Sun distance. It could have been
done without telescopes but it wasn't, because it would have been harder
to do without telescopes.


It was done numerous times long before the invention of telescopes.
Solar parallax can be done without telescopes (and was). In point of
fact, the first measurements using telescopes (Wendelin - 1635)
weren't all that much more accurate than those of Aristarchus in the
3rd Century BC.

Thank you for the information. I think this is the first useful thing
you have said in this thread. You see it isn't all that difficult.
Of course, the fact that telescopic observations were not used for the
first measurements of the Earth-Sun distance doesn't change the fact
that they were used for the other examples given above (Newton's gravity
and Poincaré's relativity). Therefore I stand by my statement that
telescopes have been useful in making scientific discoveries important
in our every day lives in the past.


Alain Fournier