Gamma demystified

my "point" is that a "polarized electro-
magnetic medium" is not a void;
there is only relative vacuum.

it's obvious, but no-one will say, Boo!

K_h wrote:
"Tom Roberts" wrote in message
...
K_h wrote:
"Tom Roberts" wrote in message
...
K_h wrote:
The "aether" does not exist.
Say, rather, that no successful theory has ever been discovered with both a
reasonable domain and an aether, while SR and GR, which have no aether,
have large domains and are very successful. We can never know for certain
whether an aether exists, but we do know that our best models don't have
it.
The aether is just like the ectoplasm of 19th century spiritualism.
I disagree. Within a limited domain, aether theories can be indistinguishable
from SR, and cannot be dismissed cavalierly because they are JUST AS VIABLE
as is SR. Spiritualism and ectoplasm, on the other hand, were never a viable
scientific theory.

Science disagrees with you here.

No, it doesn't. You have a rather incorrect view of what science is, and what it
is capable of.

Do you seriously think that Maxwell, Lorentz, and essentially all of the
physicists in between, were not doing science???? Back then, all of
electrodynamics was based on aether theories.


A scientific theory must include only
testable hypotheses

Not true. A scientific THEORY must be testable, but there's no requirement that
every quantity, aspect, or prediction of a theory must be testable, including
its hypotheses [@]. Indeed, most scientific theories do have aspects that aren't
testable, and often have important quantities that are completely unobservable.
For example, the wave function of quantum mechanics is on a par with the aether
of these aether theories, in that it is an essential hypothesis of the theory,
yet is completely unobservable. That's OK, because the CONSEQUENCES AND
PREDICTIONS of the theory (including its wave function) are testable, and have
been tested to high accuracy.

[@] Compare yourself to kenseto and his insistence that "length
contraction" has never been directly tested.


Relativity is true.
That's like trying to say "blue is true" -- both attempt to use the
relation "is" to relate two completely incommensurate concepts. Relativity
is a theory of physics, and "true" does not apply to physical theories --
we can never know how
Relativity is true beyond a reasonable doubt, the experimental evidence for
it is so overwhelming that we can just go ahead and say it is true.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is a legalistic criterion that is irrelevant to
science. In science the criterion is agreement with experiments, and in the

The term is totally relevant in science. The experimental evidence for
relativity is so overwhelming that is it safe to consider it proven.

Clearly you have never actually sat down and considered what science is and what
it is capable of. I suggest you do so before making further ridiculous remarks
like this.

To start, ask yourself the following questions:

What does my mind process?

What possible relationship is there between thoughts and the real world?

If you think about this at all, you'll realize that your mind can process only
thoughts, and that thoughts cannot possibly "be" the real world, at best they
can be MODELS of the world. This inherently puts limits on what science can do;
in particular, we can never "prove" any theory, and can never be sure that any
given theory reflects "how nature really works", because we can never know the
latter (thoughts being incommensurate with nature). This implies what I have
been saying -- we build models, and test those models experimentally; more to
the point: that class of aether theories is as well tested as is SR, within
their common domain.


After you think about all that sufficiently well, you will be able to understand
this:

Indeed, most quantities in physical theories are not directly observable --
where is your body's "energy sensor", or "velocity sensor", or ... sensor??? You
NEVER directly perceive energy, you only observe its effects; you can only
observe motion via direct contact and instead mostly observe artifacts such as
light rays reflected from moving objects, etc. Indeed, the human body is quite
limited in its sensors, and can only observe objects in direct contact with it
(light or sound from an object is NOT the object itself); we go to great lengths
to construct instruments capable of transforming and transporting quantities of
interest to detectable input to our sensors. So you need MODELS of how those
instruments work. There is not a single physical theory of motion that also
includes a description of how motion can be observed via light reflected from
moving objects into your eyes [#]. But because every human has constructed a
MODEL of how the world works, and has been improving and validating it since
birth, we know how to apply those (incomplete) theories -- you need to think
about this sufficiently well to recognize this. Models of the world are
EVERYWHERE throughout your life, and they account for EVERYTHING you think you
know about the world. What we call "physical theories" cover only a very small
part of your experience; the rest is handled by a general model you have been
constructing since birth, just like every other human being on the planet --
this model is so pervasive throughout your life that you rarely (if ever) think
about it, but to assess science you MUST DO SO.

[#] This is a VERY GOOD THING, or Newton would have had to
come up with QED and atomic theory and advanced physiology before
being able to write the _Principia_!

All this NECESSARILY puts your mind rather far removed from the quantities in
ANY physical theory. Fortunately that does not matter, because science does not
require direct inputs to the mind, only testable consequences that satisfy the
tests. That is, testable MODELS.

That is the difference between MODELS OF THE WORLD, and "truth"; it is the
difference between science and whatever it is you are trying to discuss.

Fish do not recognize the water, but educated human beings must
be able to recognize their own mental processes. And limitations.


Case in point: Special Relativity and the class of aether theories equivalent
to SR have a common domain, have equal experimental support, and none are
refuted

NO! There is no experimental support for the existence of a space filling
medium!

Nobody said there is. But nobody said there must be such evidence for aether
theories to be VALID, either. The theories I mentioned are very bit as valid as
SR, within their common domain. Every piece of experimental support for SR
applies to every one of these aether theories, equally well.

As I have also said, they have quite serious theoretical deficiencies
that ensure their rejected by the physics community. This does not
make them "wrong" or invalid, it just makes then unsuitable.

If you are so hung up on "testable hypotheses", ask yourself this: how could one
possibly test for the wave function of non-rel QM? -- be honest, and apply the
same (incorrect) standards you attempt to apply to aether. You'll find you must
reject QM just as much as you reject aether theories. My point is that such
rejection is unjustified, because your basic approach is wrong.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that you got these notions from
television shows about fictional doctors, cops, and lawyers,
that discuss "scientific proof" as if it meant something, and
were not actually an oxymoron. Such programs are unrealistic
on very many levels, and this is just a very minor aspect of
their unreality.


Indeed, recognizing the pervasiveness of models in (modern) human lives, and how
models at different levels with different domains inter-operate, permits one to
understand in much better detail how progress in science is possible. Newton did
not need to come up with QED, because he already had a self-generated mental
MODEL that served the purpose; and it did not matter that his model of light is
now known to be invalid, because it served HIS purpose well enough....


Tom Roberts

I barf on your nettiquette, dood. anyway,
it is not true of the electrodynamics of Ampere,
the originator, and of Weber.

the only required medium of space is,
no absolute -- zero point, pascalian plenum etc. -- vacuum;
one doesn't have to reply, of course,
to an amateur.

as for Newton, see if you can stand this:
Newton handlers,” appeared at around this time. He had contacted
Leibniz in 1715, claiming to be one of Leibniz’s followers,
and offered to ferry letters between him and Newton, personally,
to smooth the waters between them. Conti’s more immediate
project, though, was to help Newton’s doctor, Samuel
Clarke, brainwash Caroline of Ansbach, Leibniz’s former student
and wife of the future King George II, to believe in Newton.
Leibniz’s letters back and forth with her form the body of
the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, and begin with Leibniz
illustrating the effects of the Venetian psy-war on the English
academics. At one point, Caroline complained to Leibniz that
Conti had “lost” key sections of Leibniz’s letters.14
After Leibniz died, Conti would lead the charge to set up
“Newton salons” all around Europe, in cahoots with Voltaire
and other agents, in order to attempt an erasure of Leibniz’s
legacy. This operation was at issue when Kästner issued his
counterattack, which demolished the main accomplishment
of Newton’s Principia. Kästner’s counterattack was just one
of many that made up the standard mathematics textbook at
Göttingen University.

Back then, all of
electrodynamics was based on aether theories.

NO! *There is no experimental support for the existence of *a space filling
medium!

Indeed, recognizing the pervasiveness of models in (modern) human lives, and how
models at different levels with different domains inter-operate, permits one to
understand in much better detail how progress in science is possible. Newton did
not need to come up with QED, because he already had a self-generated mental
MODEL that served the purpose; and it did not matter that his model of light is
now known to be invalid, because it served HIS purpose well enough....

thus:
one has only to look at the hodographs
of DCMiller's update to M&M -- and
to comprehend the labels of the graphs --
to forever be dysabused of the say-so
about "the God-am null results."

this is the first time I have seen the hodographs
in the actual article;
my first exposure was a secondary expository article,
many years ago.

Website maintained by friends of Maurice Allais
http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/index.htm

On 9/8/11 9/8/11 - 11:27 PM, 1treePetrifiedForestLane wrote:
one has only to look at the hodographs
of DCMiller's update to M&M -- and
to comprehend the labels of the graphs --
to forever be dysabused of the say-so
about "the God-am null results."

One FIRST must look at the errorbars on his results -- they GREATLY exceed the
variations. In those hodographs, the errorbars do not even fit on the paper
because they are so large. Miller saw what he wanted to see, not what was
objectively contained in his data. You blindly make the same mistake.

Miller did not have the benefit of modern signal processing techniques, and did
not live in a time when error analysis was routine and well established. Had he
known about either one, he would have realized his errors. YOU, on the other
hand, have no such excuse.

See http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0608238


Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts wrote in
:

On 9/8/11 9/8/11 - 11:27 PM, 1treePetrifiedForestLane wrote:
one has only to look at the hodographs
of DCMiller's update to M&M -- and
to comprehend the labels of the graphs --
to forever be dysabused of the say-so
about "the God-am null results."

One FIRST must look at the errorbars on his results -- they GREATLY
exceed the variations. In those hodographs, the errorbars do not even
fit on the paper because they are so large. Miller saw what he wanted
to see, not what was objectively contained in his data. You blindly
make the same mistake.

Miller did not have the benefit of modern signal processing
techniques, and did not live in a time when error analysis was routine
and well established. Had he known about either one, he would have
realized his errors. YOU, on the other hand, have no such excuse.

See http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0608238


Tom Roberts


This being one of the rare times when a poster cites his own arXiv
publication and isn't a crank.

Does it annoy you nearly as much as it looks like to see people (morons)
continually cite Miller's results as if they had any merit in 2011?

On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 21:27:54 -0700 (PDT), 1treePetrifiedForestLane
wrote:


one has only to look at the hodographs
of DCMiller's update to M&M -- and
to comprehend the labels of the graphs --
to forever be dysabused of the say-so
about "the God-am null results."

this is the first time I have seen the hodographs
in the actual article;
my first exposure was a secondary expository article,
many years ago.

Website maintained by friends of Maurice Allais
http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/index.htm


There is an interesting related paper he

Resolving Spacecraft Earth-Flyby Anomalies with Measured Light Speed
Anisotropy
Reginald T. Cahill (Flinders University)
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.0039

On Sep 9, 12:17*pm, Surfer wrote:

There is an interesting related paper he

snip crackpot reference

Back to Cahill ass licking, Peter?

Surfer wrote in news:8dik67hvurljif585n19j79m9h2m5anadm@
4ax.com:

On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 21:27:54 -0700 (PDT), 1treePetrifiedForestLane
wrote:


one has only to look at the hodographs
of DCMiller's update to M&M -- and
to comprehend the labels of the graphs --
to forever be dysabused of the say-so
about "the God-am null results."

this is the first time I have seen the hodographs
in the actual article;
my first exposure was a secondary expository article,
many years ago.

Website maintained by friends of Maurice Allais
http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/index.htm


There is an interesting related paper he

Resolving Spacecraft Earth-Flyby Anomalies with Measured Light Speed
Anisotropy
Reginald T. Cahill (Flinders University)
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.0039


Since there is no measured anisotropy, I can't help but wonder what your
motivation is for spewing Cahill.

Timo Nieminen wrote:
On Mon, 5 Sep 2011, Tom Roberts wrote:
GR [...] is KNOWN to be incompatible with current quantum theories,
and is KNOWN TO BE NOT VALID at atomic scales.

Is it so?

Yes.


How is GR incompatible with current quantum theories? [...]
Where is the experimental invalidation of QR at atomic scales?

["QR" = GR]

The absorption or emission of EM radiation by an atom. GR requires that
continuous derivatives of the energy-momentum tensor exist, and the quantum jump
in the atom's total energy is discontinuous, as is the energy in the EM field.
It goes deeper, because continuity is required down to arbitrarily small scales,
much smaller than an atom, but the electrons of an atom cannot be so localized,
and neither can the energy change of a quantum jump in the electrons' energy
levels. Similar problems apply to nuclear energy levels, and to every inelastic
interaction of elementary particles, etc.


Is there some theoretical difficulty that turns up at small scales?

Yes -- continuity is violated by quantum processes. They also violate the
locality assumptions of GR (i.e. that the energy-momentum tensor is a field on
the manifold, but quantum processes and quantum objects cannot be localized to
points of the manifold).


(Different subject)
But none of the experimental tests of
SR can rule out an infinite class of aether theories (all of which are
experimentally indistinguishable from SR).

... and any of the infinity of aether theories would have the problem that
not of the rest of them could be distinguished from each other by the same
tests, either.

Sure. As I have said, however, the ability to extend these theories into more
general theories with wider domains is quite different, and SR is the only
member of the class that has been found to be useful, basically because it is
based on symmetry principles and the others are not.


Tom Roberts

On 9/9/11 9/9/11 - 11:30 PM, Tom Roberts wrote:
Timo Nieminen wrote:
Is there some theoretical difficulty [with GR] that turns up at small scales?

Yes -- continuity is violated by quantum processes. They also violate the
locality assumptions of GR (i.e. that the energy-momentum tensor is a field on
the manifold, but quantum processes and quantum objects cannot be localized to
points of the manifold).

I should have pointed out how quantum mechanics avoids this problem.

QM uses wavefunctions that are continuous functions on spacetime, and different
states of the system correspond to different wavefunctions. The whole structure
of the theory is different, and in QM the energy-momentum tensor is not a
function on spacetime, but rather a functional of the wavefunctions. This avoids
the continuity problem, and shows the non-localizability of quantum processes
(transition probabilities between states are related to the overlap integral of
the wavefunctions, not merely a function on the manifold; the wavefunctions
always have support over a finite volume of the manifold).

Quantum Field Theory avoids the problem in a different manner, via path
integrals. All possible paths are used in each integral, and again the
energy-momentum tensor is not simply a function on the manifold, but rather a
functional of the amplitudes from the path integrals.


Tom Roberts