Talk:Theory of relativity

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Jfraatz's comments

Andrew;

Relativity predicts absurd physical discontinuities

I've studied relativity in depth, and those paradoxes all have very neat resolutions once you account for the change in reference frame.

"and it contradicts logic,"

That doesn't follow. Relativity is based on two premises and follows very logically from them.

"the evidence,"

On the contrary:

Special relativity:

1. E=mc^2: nuclear power and the atomic bomb

2. Time dilation: The airplane experiments, and the time dilation of subatomic particle decay rates in a particle accelerator. 3.Mass increase: The exponential increase in energy required to get things fractionally closer to the speed of light.

General relativity:

1. Prediction of a non-static universe.

2. Gravity waves -detected by their combined perturbative effect to a the rotation of a neutron star 3. Gravitational microlensing. 4. Time dilation experiments conducted with skyscrapers 5. Red-shifting near gravitational sources.

"and the Bible."

That is a very bizarre claim. There is nothing in the Bible that contradicts relativity and it is about like saying that the theory that the sky is blue contradicts the Bible. I'm curious. Where did you get this idea?

"The biggest promoters of relativity today are more liberal than the Democratic Party, and that's saying a lot."

""First of all that's an ad hominem. Secondly it's not true. The physics department at my SECULAR university has a higher predominance of conservative and Christian people than any of the other sciences and much more so than the Marxist laden humanities departments.

The professor who taught my relativity class -who happens to be the department expert on general relativity and quantum gravity- even invited us all to a talk after class once regarding the possibility of intelligent design of the physical constants. As it turns out this talk about intelligent design of the physical constants was given by a world famous physicist who happened to specialize in general relativity.

"Promoting relativity causes a great deal of harm in how people view the world,"

No, you're confusing relativity with relativism. The two are radically different. My other interest is in philosophy and the people in the philosophy dept. -many of whom are left-wing- laugh at the postmodernists who try to prove relativism with relativity.

One is a physical theory based on constancy of the speed of light in all reference frames and the equivalence of physics in all reference frames. The other is a moral and epistemological theory that says that there are no absolutes. Special and general relativity are founded on absolutes. RelativiTY does not cause any harm. RelativiSM causes a lot of trouble. The two have nothing in common though save for a similar sounding name.

"and has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars on fruitless projects like LIGO."

LIGO, (which my university participates in -we do the supercomputer analysis of the data) has no results yet because they still need to make the instruments another order of magnitude stronger before they can get results.

And LIGO is not a waste of money. Once they can detect gravity waves they will have a whole new way to study astronomy. The idea is to turn it into the gravity wave equivalent of a telescope. Instead of seeing the universe in light only we can see it in gravity waves as well. The advances in science accomplished by this are well worth the money put into them. A few million dollars is nothing compared to the billions the government wastes on social programs, and is a legitimate usage of money rather than money wasted on welfare programs. It's like funding NASA, you'd agree that manned moon landings are worth while right?

":You've heard none of this before because liberals control universities and don't allow open discussion and debate about their pet theories."

No I've heard them before, but the arguments made are easily debunked and are rather pseudoscientific in nature. Usually the people making them don't even understand the theory properly. And I have no idea where you get the idea that they would have a political agenda that needs relativity to support it. Once again relativity and relativism are two very different things. Einstein even once said that he though that the theory of relativity was a poor choice of names.

"Perhaps you think man-made global warming is not a liberal theory either?"

Where do you come off comparing the two? One is a derived science open to much biased interpretation and data manipulation, the other is experimentally validated every time we turn on a particle accelerator. In fact some of the experiments they do at these labs require relativity to work. If relativity is false then they could not be doing the experiments that they are doing.

And no Newtonian Mechanics and Atomic theory are not liberal theories either.

I'm awfully curious as to what motivated this anti-relativity view. Your implication that relativity is "liberal" in any sense is highly bizarre. Also why single out relavity rather than QM classical mechanics or electrodynamics?

--Johanan Raatz

I would like to note that I have used a political analog of general relativity as a means to create a model for how to warp the political fabric with corporatism so as to correct the democratic failure causing abortion. By modifying the analog of an "economic status-debt" tensor one can leverage misbehaving abortive parents into proper behavior by using corporate leverage on the democratic process. Johanan Raatz

Johanan, relativity is disproved by the Pioneer anomaly, for starters. The absurd discontinuities include what happens in the limit as velocity approaches the speed of light. The logical flaws include the defect of relativistic mass. Relativity has produced nothing of value, and certainly not the achievements you claim above. It's wasted hundreds of millions in taxpayer money and confused the minds of many.

Pick your very best argument and be concise if you have an open mind and want to discuss this. If your mind is closed and made up, then I recommend Wikipedia for you.--Andy Schlafly 13:07, 25 November 2009 (EST)

No, the Pioneer anomaly does not disprove relativity. It barely has anything to do with relativity. How do you think that NASA is ever able to have any successful space missions, if all its theories of gravity have been disproved? There are no discontinuities or logical flaws. Relativistic mass was already being confirmed in 1901, just a couple of years after it was predicted. Do you have any reliable sources for any of what you say? RSchlafly 16:13, 25 November 2009 (EST)

You say, "the Pioneer anomaly does not disprove relativity." What do you think the "anomaly" is from, if not relativity?

Perhaps you agree with Wikipedians, who admit that the data from the spacecraft is contrary to what is "predicted", but the Wikipedians refuse to admit that the contradicted theory is the theory of relativity![1] Maybe that omission fools some people, but it doesn't fool conservatives aware of liberal bias.--Andy Schlafly 16:28, 25 November 2009 (EST)

I was the one who told you about the Pioneer anomaly. Possible explanations are listed on the WP page. One possibility is a gravitational effect different from known theories (Newton and relativity). But what is your point? The WP page already says that. You are not addressing the errors in this article. The stuff about discontinuities, hypotheses, resistance, and quantum mechanics are all false. RSchlafly 18:25, 25 November 2009 (EST)

The "point" is that Wikipedians (liberal wannabee scientists) won't state which theory is contradicted by the data. You're just guessing when you say "Newton and relativity."

This is like the feminists who won't use certain words, like "girl" or "gentlemanly". If confronted with a situation where no substitute works, a feminist will still find a way not to say the "forbidden" word. They'll congratulate a new mother on her baby girl by calling her a "baby woman"!

Try saying expressly on Wikipedia that the theory of relativity is contradicted by the Pioneer data and watch that be erased by its liberal editors. Do you think that is science, or logic?--Andy Schlafly 18:32, 25 November 2009 (EST)

I am not guessing. Just read the WP page. It says, "The Pioneer anomaly or Pioneer effect is the observed deviation ... slowing down slightly more than expected ... The anomaly has no universally accepted explanation." Possible explanations include "modification of the law of gravity." Newtonian and relativistic gravity are essentially the same in this range. They are either both accurate or inaccurate. What more do you want? The article has links to modified gravity theories. What does this have to do with this CP relativity page? RSchlafly 19:31, 25 November 2009 (EST)