Martin G. Selbrede,
My comments in red. - Regner
Martin G. Selbrede wrote:
On Mar 17, 2008, at 12:57 PM, Paul Deema wrote:
Martin
S
Where have you been? I've missed you!
Paul D
Hi Paul,
I find your approach a bit odd:
I've been following all the discussions very closely for months,
wondering when Regner would make a mistake. It took this long for him
to make that misstep
-- he's formidable,
Well, thank you.
but not invincible.
I don't have divine powers to consult.
He wasn't sufficiently well-read in the general relativity
literature to avoid the error regarding the effect of a rotating cosmos
on a stationary earth.
Correct - and I apologize for previously having
considered that a profusely esoteric subject.
We'll see how that plays out -- I want to see how he reacts to
the situation.
Why don't you ask me instead?
It can't be fun being lectured by your opponents on something
this basic.
This is not a political debate - it is (supposed
to be) a scientific debate.
He's been a gentleman to this point, so I harbor some hope that
the dialogue will continue on a collegial level.
If I could just enjoy the same privileges from my
opponents...
- I do from most, I would hasten to add.
Still, I was very surprised that he hadn't encountered the
general relativity exposition of the centrifugal force undertaken with
the earth at rest. Still, on first principles, one would have thought
the error avoidable simply by taking general covariance seriously. Even
if one was unaware of why the Schwarzchild solution applied to the
local spacetime wouldn't apply, mere cognizance of general covariance
should have given Regner pause. This was an uncharacteristic oversight
on his part -- he's usually so very careful in applying physics to the
question at hand.
It seems to me that you have a strange idea of
what science is.
Science is not the knowledge - it's the method. Scientists are mere
mortals,
and probably more than others, know what a vast Universe of knowledge
there is to be known - and how little of it a single person can know.
No scientist (including me) would ever claim to know everything - and
I
actually thought it would be blasphemous of you guys to expect that of
us.
We, do however, have the tools to find out. My rough estimate, that I
couldn't
think of a force that would cause a centrifugal bulge on a stationary
Earth in a
rotating Universe was obviously not a detailed calculation, and I must
admit
that I don't find it worthwhile to pursue it with a GR calculation at
present.
It seems to me like shooting flies with a canon. If at a later point,
this issue is
the only one standing between a Geo-centric Universe and a Helio-centric
Solar system, then we can return to it.
- Regner
Anyway, Paul, you've also been having some good clean fun at the
others' expense while I became a fly on the wall, and I've enjoyed
reading the resulting exchanges, although you and I do indeed find
ourselves, with all due mutual respect, on the opposite sides of most
issues.
Martin
--------
Martin G. Selbrede
Chief Scientist
Uni-Pixel Displays,
Inc.
8708 Technology
Forest Place, Suite 100
The Woodlands, TX
77381
281-825-4500 main
line (281) 825-4507 direct line (281) 825-4599 fax (512) 422-4919 cell
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