[geocentrism] babys bathwater.
- From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:30:40 +1000
Fair enough Martin. I hope I was not throwing out Lense-Thirring .. I better
look back.. I thought I was merely throwing in some MS to demonstrate just how
confused MS is in reality, to Paul, who takes heliocentrism as almost Godly.
Mind you I can be sympathetic to some theories pertaining to relativity,
without giving credence to its alledged author. Particularly as regards time
and space being one object. This seems to be the way scripture points.
I might search specific quotes.
Philip.
PS yes about wiki, but I like it because I find it allows diversity of lateral
input, from all and not just government agents, whilst self admitting the
shortcomings thereof.
----- Original Message -----
From: Martin G. Selbrede
To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 1:20 AM
Subject: [geocentrism] Re: Question begging
On Mar 21, 2007, at 6:53 PM, philip madsen wrote:
In fact most of the selected paragraphs I offer below from Wikipaedia,
(admittedly not gospel) merely add more confusion as to what is reality and
what is imagination.
Imagine that -- how can it be that paragraphs from Wikipaedia add confusion?
Oh, and Sinbad the comedian is dead too -- so reported the Wickipaedia a touch
prematurely.
If you're getting the impression I have little faith in the Wikipaedia (or
Wickipedia for those who hate dipthongs and digraphs), you'd be right. The
place to go for somewhat more useful information on this would be Physical
Review D, Nature, and the journal Gravitation and General Relativity.
Let's clear the air about a few things. First, you have a baby-vs-bathwater
problem if you tie Lense-Thirring to General Relativity (GR). I'm no fan of GR
either: I think it's ripe for overthrow for a host of compelling reasons. But
the Lense-Thirring effect also arises out of Mach's Principle, and about half
of all informed physicists believe that Mach's Principle is incompatible with
GR. So, there's no necessity to tie the Lense-Thirring effect to GR, then
pooh-pooh GR, and thus disparage Lense-Thirring for a guilty association. That
line of reasoning doesn't fly. Lense-Thirring has been readily defended outside
of GR's formalism: the death of one does not entail the death of the other.
There's more reason not to chain Lense-Thirring to GR: the coefficients for
the predicted magnitudes differ, based on how you derive Lense-Thirring. You
follow the original GR-based derivation, you get one value; you follow Mach's
Principle, something different pops up.
Second, the Lense-Thirring effect is important to geocentricity: it has a
bearing on Einstein's letter to Ernst Mach where the former explains how the
Foucault pendulum's plane of oscillation precesses when a shell of matter
surrounding the pendulum is rotated. If the shell is sufficiently massive, the
precession period matches the period of the shell's rotation (known as "perfect
frame dragging"). It so happens that THIS is the situation the geocentric
universe finds itself in: the rotating cosmos causes the Foucault pendulum to
move in sync with the universal mass (perfect frame dragging). Throw out
Lense-Thirring, and this explanation becomes more than suspect. Throwing out
Lense-Thirring is cutting off our nose to spite our face. (Ironically, that
means that all the "attempts" to measure Lense-Thirring are missing the
800-pound gorilla sitting in the living room -- the Foucault pendulum is
undergoing a huge Lense-Thirring effect, since the rotating mass of the cosmos
is causing the entire thing at the macro level to precess.)
So, let's be careful not to inflict damage on some of our best evidence.
So-called "friendly fire," where you shoot your own troops inadvertently,
should be avoided.*
In no way, however, do I assert that Lense-Thirring, as a physical effect,
directly points to GR or spacetime or other non-classical physics models. It
can be codified within a more classical regime (including aether-based regimes,
depending on the nature of the aether being proposed). So, we need to be
discerning enough to discriminate between the baby and the bathwater. Throw
out the bathwater all you want: don't kill the baby -- we need this particular
baby.
Third, there's a time to demand "direct" proof, and a time to accept
sufficient "indirect" proof as adequate warrant. I apply the former to the
issue of alleged dark matter and or the alleged existence of black holes (all
alleged discoveries are invariably based on "indirect" proof -- the proviso is
usually added, if the journalist is forthcoming and honest, that there is no
direct proof they exist). In other circumstances, however, an indirect proof
can be compelling. Lense-Thirring evidence tends to be in this latter category.
The difference is that for black holes, we should have no problem detecting
them directly if they exist; but the Lense-Thirring effect is difficult to
detect directly. So we cut some provisional slack for the latter, while being
hard-nosed over the former.
For what it's worth,
Martin
* I don't know why, but the idea of shooting your own troops reminds me of
some dated dialogue on the old Dragnet TV series, where the detective (named
Friday) interviews a woman. I'm paraphrasing from memory here--
Woman to Friday: "You're policemen! Why are you here? Did something happen?"
Friday: "Yes, ma'am. It's about your boyfriend, Paul."
Woman: "Something bad happened to Paul?"
Friday: "You could say that, ma'am."
Woman: "How bad is it?"
Friday: "As bad as it can get."
Woman: "He's dead?"
Friday: "Mmm hmmm. It was a gun that killed him."
Woman: "I'm sure it was an accident. You know how it goes with gun collectors
like Paul. You're cleaning your gun, and it accidentally goes off."
Friday: "Six times in the back of the head, ma'am?"
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