Was Einstein Wrong??

simu

Okay, this has gone way off topic. Normally I'd split the thread but in this case it's too messy as at least two other topics have been brought up. Start new threads if you want to discuss aspects of the philosophy of science or people's interpretation of pop science or whatever.

From here on, anyone not sticking to answering the OP's question in this thread gets a ban. Also, Planck2, desist from calling people "pompous asses" and the like or I'll have to ban you.

Son Goku

I doubt Einstein was wrong because there is far too much experimental evidence for his theories.
I can't really see another Mathematical model which could replace it.

More specifically I can't imagine how it could match experimentation so well if it was wrong.

nesf

planck2 wrote:

I'm not rude tbh. I'll try and put people on the right track, but if they want to continue with their misheld opinions am I not entitled to get annoyed?

You're trying to be technical. Thats is rudeness in my opinion on this forum.

If I can use plain English to make my posts readable to people who haven't studied physics then you can too. There is no call for being over technical, especially on a general science board.

Throwing around technical terms will not impress me or anyone else here who has studied the subject. All it serves to do is alienate anyone who hasn't studied the subject because they won't get the jargon. And that is all it is, jargon. It doesn't signify understanding, for all I know you could have just googled that term up.

Not that I have any authority here or anything. But if I was in the security forum with my rudimentary knowledge of it, and I asked why the TCP/IP "rules" allow exploits, port scanning and such and asked why they hadn't be replaced with something more secure, and all I got in reply was some muppet telling me that I knew nothing about security and then he launches into jargon.

You know what I'd think of him? I'd think he was someone pretending to be smarter and better educated than he is, because if he was a truly intelligent person, he'd be able to explain it without resorting to jargon.

Then again, that's just my opinion

simu

Nesf - banned for 3 days.

ISAW

planck2 wrote:

Yes I am tired of it, I know something of relativity, not as much as I would like, but I don't have time for people who start talking about GR or QM when they haven't really studied them.

So do you also refuse to talk about abortion or care of the elderly in specific ilnessess because you didnt first study medicine and then specialise in obstetretics pediatrics etc.

isaw wrote:

I was pointing to the idea of someone claiming "Einstein was wrong". Whatever do they mean? I was suggesting they sometimes come from the "science is evil " or "science is not sufficient" camp and encounter "science is everything" people when they attack science.

Yes ISAW this exactly what I was getting at many who claim Einstein was wrong don't know what they are talking about this is why I said such things should be left to scientists

Some people dont understand genetics. does this mean they can not have an opinion on whether a blastocyst is a person? If you look at what I wrote you would see that you have labeled me entirely wrong. I didn't make the claim Einstein was wrong. I attempted to explore what was the underlying motivation. Furthermore I do NOT believe such things should be left only to scientists. "Father knows best" arguments will not curry favour with policy makers or the general public. And it is those people who pay the bills of scientists. They are after all public servants not scientists' servants and they answer to the public and not to other scientists.

Maybe we are on different wavelenghts. Science has its own internal system of peer review which determines great scientists and maintains standards within science. But that is not sufficient. The ultimate worth of a theory is in how it relates to things outside science.

If an investor said to you not to ask about your money that they have actuaries that use complicated math to work out what to do with your money and have made money in the past would you leave them to it or would you only comment after you had studied the math and accountancy, business law etc. necessary to understand what they do? So why don't you leave incvestments to the experts? Or are you such an academic snob that GR Physicists are so superior to other mere mortals that only they can not be questioned and other "lesser" areas of science economics and arts can be questioned?

By the way even if they had the ability, I doubt anyone has the time or inclination to learn QCD, GR, abiogenesis, investment game theory and a whole host of other fields before they can comment on it.

simu

ISAW - 3 day ban

[nicK]

this thread is hilarious!

[edit] btw, i don't think einstein is wrong [/edit]

planck2

I'm not going to reply to any of the above posts.

Back to the original post. I took a look at the paper by the Mexican physicist (Alcubierre) that investigates warp drive possibilities. Basically what he says is that if the spacecraft can cause an expansion of space-time behind the spaceship and a contraction of spacetime in front of it then to an observer far enough away the spacecraft will be able to travel large distances in an arbitarily small time( i.e. travel faster than the speed of light), without the need for wormholes. However, the spacecraft will locally be travelling at velocity less than that of light( This is what gr says, that massive particles travel locally at velocities less than the speed of light)

To create such expansions and contractions the author I think suggests the need for some sort of exotic matter( stuff other than protons, electrons, quarks, neutrinos,tauons, muons....).

There is also some mention of negative energy densities. A guy I know is starting to work for ESA later this year to investigate warp drive physics.