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There's also the matter of simply "accepting" something, when a phenomenon is consistent with a theory that is already known to be valid.  The recoil from a gun is an example of this.  Everyone knows that there is a backward recoil when a gun is fired.  This is explained to people when they are first being taught how to use a gun, and they get used to it with practice.  The reason for the recoil is that it is an obvious consequence of Newtons' laws of motion.  But people don't specifically think about Newton's laws, or consider this to be a "proof", when they are firing a gun.  They just accept that the recoil is a known consequence of those laws.  Newton's laws of motion have been validated through thousands of experiments much more focused than the firing of a gun.

There's also the matter of simply "accepting" something, when a phenomenon is consistent with a theory that is already known to be valid.  The recoil from a gun is an example of this.  Everyone knows that there is a backward recoil when a gun is fired.  This is explained to people when they are first being taught how to use a gun, and they get used to it with practice.  The reason for the recoil is that it is an obvious consequence of Newtons' laws of motion.  But people don't specifically think about Newton's laws, or consider this to be a "proof", when they are firing a gun.  They just accept that the recoil is a known consequence of those laws.  Newton's laws of motion have been validated through thousands of experiments much more focused than the firing of a gun.

The [[Cockcroft and Walton Experiment|Cockcroft/Walton experiment]] is an example of this kind of acceptance.  The results are consistent (to within 5% when analyzed carefully) with Special Relativity, and many people consider it to be a validation of SR.  But there were too many other things going on, such as the use of the newly-invented particle accelerator, to make it a definitive test.  Assumptions have to be made about what is happening in the experiment in order to assert anything about [[E=mc2]].  See [[Cockcroft and Walton Experiment]].

The [[Cockcroft and Walton Experiment|Cockcroft/Walton experiment]] is an example of this kind of acceptance.  The results are consistent (to within 5% when analyzed carefully) with Special Relativity, and many people consider it to be a validation of SR.  But there were too many other things going on, such as the use of the newly-invented particle accelerator, to make it a definitive test.  One would have to think very carefully about what assumptions have to be made about what is happening in the experiment if one wanted to use it to assert anything about [[E=mc²]].  However, famous as the experiment was at the time, it is no longer suggested as a validation of this formula.  Special Relativity had already been validated through more focused and definitive tests.  There are no known alternative theories, published in the scientific literature or listed in [[Counterexamples to Relativity]], explaining this result.  See [[Cockcroft and Walton Experiment]].

The anomalous behavior of the timing signals from [[GPS]] satellites is another example.  The phenomenon is well known—the system compensates for this; otherwise it wouldn't work—and the phenomenon is known to be a consequence of both special and general relativity.  But the GPS system should not be considered and experiment to test relativity.  No sensible person would build the GPS system as a test of relativity, if only because it exhibits two phenomena (time dilation of special relativity, 7 milliseconds per day, and time compression of general relativity, 45 milliseconds per day) that work against each other.  No one would design an experiment that tests two phenomena working against each other.  Newtonian physics also predicts the bending of light and might be fit to the observed GPS data as relativists do.

The anomalous behavior of the timing signals from [[GPS]] satellites is another example.  The phenomenon is well known—the system compensates for this; otherwise it wouldn't work—and the phenomenon is known to be a consequence of both special and general relativity.  But the GPS system should not be considered and experiment to test relativity.  No sensible person would build the GPS system as a test of relativity, if only because it exhibits two phenomena (time dilation of special relativity, 7 milliseconds per day, and time compression of general relativity, 45 milliseconds per day) that work against each other.  No one would design an experiment that tests two phenomena working against each other.  Newtonian physics also predicts the bending of light and might be fit to the observed GPS data as relativists do.