"K. Carson" wrote...
in message ...
In article ,
Painius wrote:

A "general" theory is supposed to handle everything, both
locally and nonlocally. If it cannot do this, then it is no
longer "general". It then becomes "special". So you are
basically saying that the CBB model along with the FSP is,
sort of, "more general" than GR.

The word "relativity" is a reflection of the consequences of the speed
of light being measured to be the same value in all frames of
reference. Special Relativity defines these consequences for motion
alone. GR is "general" in the sense that the gravitational field
equations include SR, as well as Newtonian gravitation.

Carson! Been a bit ill for a few days, but i'm feeling
better now.

Einstein went a bit further than that with GR. His
field equations were meant to include SR, Newton's
gravitation, and gravitational effects that were not
included in Newtonian gravitation. That's what *he*
felt made his GR "beautiful" and "general". The fact
that it predicted the already known anomaly in the
orbit of planet Mercury was truly awesome to him,
much like oc feels about the Flowing Space model
predicting the pioneer and fly-by effects.

He also, at first a bit timidly, predicted the bending
of light in a gravitational field to be twice as much
as Newtonian gravitation predicted. And later, the
famous expeditions to S. America and Africa were
able to confirm this. There was some controversy,
especially in the Brazilian results, which were said
to be closer to Newton's prediction. But when more
observations were made, this turned out to be a
rather huge feather in relativity's "cap".

So Einstein felt that GR was about as "general" as
general can get, at least with the technology of his
times. And we can remember, too, that the math
of Friedman, and later the conclusions of Hubble,
led Einstein to add a little bit of refinement to his
own ideas about GR, as noted in Appendix IV of his
_Relativity_.

To me, this shows that the strength of a theory lies
moreso in its ability to predict an anomaly to an
existing theory that has not yet been measured,
but *can* be measured. To predict a "known"
anomaly is okay, but expected. To predict that an
anomaly exists that has not yet been confirmed,
and somebody can figure out some way to confirm
it, now *THAT'S* what can make or break a theory.

happy new days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Indelibly yours,
Paine Ellsworth

P.S.: "In real life, I assure you, there is no such
thing as algebra." Fran Lebowitz

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