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Talk:Essay:Quantifying Openmindedness (view source)
Revision as of 05:01, October 2, 2009
, 05:01, October 2, 2009no edit summary
:::: I think there was a physics paper published about a hundred years ago indicating that an observed anomaly in orbits could be explained by an exponential like 2.000001. But mathematical physicists instinctively oppose the suggestion, just as we've seen here, and moved to relativity theories rather than explore this further. After all, who would expect to win a Nobel Prize for explaining anomalies in orbit with such an inelegant approach!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:33, 2 October 2009 (EDT)
:::: I think there was a physics paper published about a hundred years ago indicating that an observed anomaly in orbits could be explained by an exponential like 2.000001. But mathematical physicists instinctively oppose the suggestion, just as we've seen here, and moved to relativity theories rather than explore this further. After all, who would expect to win a Nobel Prize for explaining anomalies in orbit with such an inelegant approach!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:33, 2 October 2009 (EDT)
:::::If I understand correctly, it is claimed that relativity accounts for the red shift of light from deep-space objects. Would a variation in the exponent do the same? (Tapering off of gravitational wells at a distance would mean that photons would lose energy approaching us, thus drop in frequency) [[User:DouglasA|DouglasA]] 00:41, 2 October 2009 (EDT)
:::::If I understand correctly, it is claimed that relativity accounts for the red shift of light from deep-space objects. Would a variation in the exponent do the same? (Tapering off of gravitational wells at a distance would mean that photons would lose energy approaching us, thus drop in frequency) [[User:DouglasA|DouglasA]] 00:41, 2 October 2009 (EDT)
::::::I don't mean to argue that it's a priori impossible that the exponent isn't exactly 2. My point is that the strength of gravity is something that's closely tied to the geometry of space, it's not just an arbitrary constant. In Newtonian mechanics, space is flat, and there's no escaping an inverse square law. If the exponent weren't exactly 2, this would just mean that space isn't quite flat. That certainly doesn't imply that the theory is wrong: relativity too is just another prediction of how space is curved! DouglasA, I'm not a physicist by any means, but that sounds plausible to me. The effect in either case would really be the same phenomenon: deviations from a flat Newtonian universe.
::::::Mr. Schlafly, I don't know about the paper you cite, but I believe there was another paper just a couple years ago arguing that redshift observations imply that gravity isn't an inverse-square law on very large scales. I'll see if I can't dig it up. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 01:01, 2 October 2009 (EDT)