Reply to BB

Hello BB,

You know I cannot get very interested in semantics, especially when
the main function seems to be to obscure issues that should be very
transparent.

Two of my favorite predictions concerned the discovery of galaxies,
and the solar eclipse experiment of 1919.

Galaxies: At one time there were two groups of astronomers who had
very different interpretation of certain "nebulae". One group said
they were what we now call galaxies (distant "island universes"), and
the other group said they were local nebulae, or smudges on the
telescope lens, etc. Well, a very nice prediction arose. In one case
they were at huge distances and the other hypothesis predicted "short"
distances. The rest is history.

Solar eclipse of 1919: Everyone knows this, or should. Yes, there are
various complications that are overlooked in the usual retelling, but
the bottom line was that Newtonian gravitation predicted one value and
General Relativity predicted another. The rest is history.

Predictions like this are very special. When we talk about predictions
we need emphasize actual historical examples, not engage in a lot of
semantic arm-waving, unnecessary complexification and obfuscation.

Yours in science
Knecht
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw