The Final Theory

[infamous]

Here is a thought by George Bernard Shaw on how I think he might view the topic, The Final Theory.

 

"Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached it's goal".

 

The following is my own quote: "There will be NO final theory, period!"

[ldsoftwaresteve]

infamous:

"There will be NO final theory, period!"

Sounds pretty final to me. ;)

Steve

[Tom Palmer]

I'll try Tom, but honestly, I'm not capable of handling it correctly with any certainty.

Steve,

 

Thanks for the reply and the quotes about tides from McC’s book. Before I weigh in with my thoughts, please be assured that it is McC who is on the hot seat here, not your estimable self! In fact, it is only thanks to you that I can even do this.

 

Repeater makes a good point when he asks

If the wobble of the earth that causes the tides indeed originates from the day of moon creation...any reason why it is still in sync with the moon? Seems to be a bit of a tall tale...the moon simply influencing the tides seems like a much simpler explanation. So simple that I'd think I'd like evidence against it. Any existent?

I thought the same thing when I read McC’s quote. In line with Repeater’s observation about lunar gravitation being the simpler explanation, it may suffice to note that a proxigean tide—the granddaddy of them all, a spring tide on steroids—will only occur when the moon is nearest the earth (and on the same side of earth as the sun). So the proximity of the moon (further enhanced by the solar contribution) at this time obviously has a great deal to do with the exceptional magnitude of the resulting tide.

 

I see nothing in McC’s rationale that would, or even could, account for the uncommon intensity of a proxigean tide. I have every confidence that he could—or perhaps somewhere in those seven pages even has—come up with a way around it. He’s good at that sort of thing. But it would likely be just another ad-hoc conjectural complication. As I had mentioned, the beauty of gravitation theory is that it explains all the tide varieties in one fell swoop, all with the same simple “GmM/r**2.”

 

Another hurdle McC must surmount: The “tidal bulge” has a twin—another almost-identical bulge occurring simultaneously on the opposite side of the earth. Notice how the inverse-square law of Newton’s equation so nicely accounts for the twin-bulge phenomenon.

 

The oceans are fluid, highly deformable. The solid earth, on the other hand, is a coherent, essentially rigid body. The side of the solid earth facing the moon is closer to it and thus more strongly attracted than the opposite side of the earth, which at the equator is 8,000 miles farther from the moon—giving a significant gravitational force differential. But since the solid body of the earth is not very deformable, both the near and the far sides (and everything in between) will only move in tandem. (The solid earth does have a slight deformability; that is why there are also very weak “earth tides” and even “atmospheric tides.”)

 

So the solid body of the earth as a single indivisible entity moves as a whole, in accord with its gravitational average, which would be about the same as the pull felt at its midpoint, the center of the earth. The water on the side facing the moon is roughly 3 percent more strongly attracted than the “averaged-out” solid earth, so the oceans move toward the moon while the solid earth lags behind, thus creating a frontal water bulge.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch—on the other, far side of the earth, the water is roughly 3 percent less strongly attracted to the moon than is the earth’s solid body. So this time, the solid earth as a whole is the more strongly attracted of the two, while the far-side oceans lag behind, thus creating another water bulge, antipodal to the frontal one.

 

It is basically simple, but hard to explain (as you can see from my labored attempts). Please let me know if you need further clarification.

 

Thanks again.

 

Tom Palmer

[repeater]

Here is a thought by George Bernard Shaw on how I think he might view the topic, The Final Theory.

 

"Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached it's goal".

 

The following is my own quote: "There will be NO final theory, period!"

 

A wise point to make, but...

 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

-- Shakespeare

 

Pause and smell the flower my friend...smell it! Is it a rose? Hmm is it indeed?

[repeater]

Repeater: ;) I'm sure they do have a kind soul. must have missed it or I didn't have a clue how to answer. Assuming McCutcheon is correct, it should, from the perspective of the sun, behave exactly as it behaves today.

This is a great question though. Just for drill, help me out in visualizing what the end result would be, ok? I'll take a stab at it and if I'm wrong, help me out. Since there has been discussion about the moon being between the earth and the sun (new moon?) as well as the earth being between the moon and the sun (full moon?), that would mean from the perspective of the sun the moon rotates once from new moon to new moon. I don't know if the moon's orbit is on the same plane as the earth-sun orbital plane but I'm guessing that if it isn't, its not off by much. The moon would then appear to orbit the sun almost in a sign-wave sort of motion where the 'new' moon position puts it closest to the sun and the 'full' moon position puts it the farthest from the sun. It would do that roughly what, 12 times per full orbit?

 

Yep that seems right, it would make a little spirally motion all around the sun. Now that seems a little bit silly and undignified, we'd expect the moon to move and occupy a new orbit or meet its doom in the depths of the sun.

 

Now as I understand it (note I haven't read the book), in McC's fabled ;) description he introduces us to orbits by depicting two expanding objects moving past one another. Now once we see "yes indeed it curves", and once we drop all our absolute motion baggage, understanding orbits should follow from that. So you extend that to other situations and voila. I'm not sold, but I see where you are coming from.

 

But now we've got this case where you consider 3 objects. If we consider 2 groups/objects at a time his theory still makes sense doesn't it? Earth vs Moon, (Earth,Moon) vs Sun. Yet it still seems to me that from the perspective of the sun, the earth has a undeniable influence on the moon. When the earth is removed from the scenario, the movement of the moon relative to the sun will change.

 

Far be it for me to argue for a non-violent solar system history but I can say that gravity waves haven't been all that easy to prove (a tall tale too?) so I don't know how you can say its easier. ;) McCutcheon does say that there is one experiment that would prove him right or wrong. Take gravity measurements on the near and far side of the moon. They should be different and not make sense using Standard theory.

 

Definitely, I'm no great fan of other gravity theories either. But the evidence of the influence of the moon/sun on the tides seem very strong. What Tom wrote about the proxigean tide and bulges is excellent examples.

 

Relative to what? I think you'd say that the velocity of a planet orbiting the sun changes direction every instant. Straight line velocity anyway. Angular velocity probably doesn't assuming its a perfect circle. Maybe I missed the point of the question. However, to visualize this is by far the hardest thing I've ever tried to do for an extended period of time well, second only to walking and chewing gum that is.

 

The moon's velocity relative to the earth. So in short: Will the expansion influence the moon's initial velocity relative to the earth at all? If not, it seems orbits will happen very easily. And it doesn't seem right if you ask me.

 

Thanks for your reply! And if you know anything about equations describing Pioneer Anomaly I'd like to hear about it as well. ;)

 

Regards

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Repeater:

What Tom wrote about the proxigean tide and bulges is excellent examples.

Sure sounds good. And, if McC is correct, then more work needs to be done in that area.

Tom Palmer:

I see nothing in McC’s rationale that would, or even could, account for the uncommon intensity of a proxigean tide. I have every confidence that he could—or perhaps somewhere in those seven pages even has—come up with a way around it. He’s good at that sort of thing. But it would likely be just another ad-hoc conjectural complication. As I had mentioned, the beauty of gravitation theory is that it explains all the tide varieties in one fell swoop, all with the same simple “GmM/r**2.”

You make good strong arguments Tom, thanks. And the breadth of your understanding is inspiring and leaves me feeling completely inadequate. ;) Having said that however, if expansion is taking place and is as McC describes, then it will be very unfortunate that the simple explanation doesn't describe what's actually happening. And I truly mean that. One beautiful thing about the human mind is that we can create elegant and simple explanations for things that are in fact very, very hard to grasp. We are good at that sort of thing too. ;)

If we can get Nasa to measure the gravitational effect on the near and far side of the moon, perhaps we could get an answer that would get us all moving in one direction.

Steve

[Beagleworth]

No, they don't at all. F=-Gm1m2/r^2 =m1a. => a =-Gm2/r^2. All objects being pulled under gravity at the same point have the same acceleration. This is the basis of the equivalnce principle.

 

Thanks, Erasmus00, that clears up a lot.

 

But still, I find strange that you can compute the acceleration without considering the mass of the other planet, because the force itself required both masses. I can see the math, but I am missing the logic and can't see to wrap the concept.

 

Do you have any more insights?

 

Also, if the rock and string is not what Newton used, what did he used? And why is that used in school to teach? It was used in mine at least to explain gravity to us and derive equations.

 

And even though you say McCutcheon direction for the derivation is wrong, the final equation is the same. So wouldn't that give some credibility to someone saying Newton's equations have a rock on a string built-in?

[Tom Palmer]

Hello, everybody.

 

I just discovered in my “physics” file an old draft that I never actually posted—why I didn’t, I have no idea. It was from back on August 16. I’ll post it now, out of order, rather than let it go to waste. For what it’s worth, here it is.—Tom Palmer

... gravity seems to be faster than light ...

Questor, you touched on a point that I’ve been itching to discuss: The “speed of gravity.” As you know, I have many objections to McCutcheon’s way of sidestepping, dismissing or “disproving” evidence which appears to support standard theory rather than his own theory of everything. But when I read that first chapter, one of the things that particularly outraged me was—as it appeared to me, at least—his cunning deception about the speed of gravity.

 

First, he informs the reader that in Newton’s view gravity is instantaneous—that is, if body A suddenly changes position, body B will “feel” the resulting gravitational effect at that same instant, regardless of its distance from body A.. Now, it’s true enough that this effect is implicit in Newton’s model—and this keeps the equations simpler than they would otherwise be.

 

McCutcheon then informs the reader that in Einstein’s general theory of gravitation, gravity requires time to traverse distance, which is true. His opinion: “However, this is only a proposed solution since the actual speed of gravity is unknown—no direct tests have been done to determine it.” (p. 26)

 

First of all, that jest ain’t so. A space probe, as it approaches a massive planet like Jupiter or Saturn, speeds up just as one would expect, so the distance separating the planet and the probe is continuously changing. If the gravitational effect of this continually changing position (with respect to the probe) didn’t propagate at exactly the speed of light—and neither more nor less—the cumulative effect would eventually become strikingly evident in the growing disparity between the visual images and ranging measurements of the planet’s apparent (i.e., “optical”) location, on the one hand, and the changing rates of gravitationally-induced acceleration of the probe on the other.

 

McCutcheon really doesn’t want to concede that Einstein might have been right, and so implies that his ‘finite speed of gravity’ view is unsatisfactory and is yet unproven. He concludes: “So, we have the choice of Newton’s simple and intuitive theory, which violates the speed-of-light limit, or Einstein’s complex and mysterious theory, which offers an unproven solution to this violation.”

 

Despite its starting out with a correct statement, that is a truly terrible sentence (alas, just one among many). For one thing, it implies that neither theory is really satisfactory, and therefore only McCutcheon’s can be right—Hobson’s choice. For another, it alleges that the Newton and the Einstein theories are fundamentally different and hopelessly at odds (“simple and intuitive...violates...etc.” versus “complex and mysterious...unproven solution...etc.”).

 

This allegation is simply not true. The truth of the matter is that Newton’s theory can be derived as an approximation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity in the limit of infinite light-speed in a Euclidean (“flat”) spacetime. As such, its general validity for lower-speed (“non-relativistic”) phenomena has been abundantly confirmed. In fact,“approximatibility” (new-word alert!) is the general case when comparing the relationship between an older theory which was reasonably valid within certain limits, and its newer, more precise, more broadly applicable replacement.

 

Old theories never die—they just get upgraded.

 

Tom Palmer

[Beagleworth]

If we can get Nasa to measure the gravitational effect on the near and far side of the moon, perhaps we could get an answer that would get us all moving in one direction.

Steve

 

Unfortunately I am not sure it would prove or disprove anything. Because if you take McC creation scenario, one side of the moon build from less dense matter than the other side, then shouldn't that give a gravitational difference on both sides too with the standard theory?

[Beagleworth]

Was there ever a test of dropping a slinky in a vaccum? I am asking that because from if expanding matter is true, then if you hold a slinky at rest in your hand and quickly remove your hand, than it should stay at rest until the ground hits it.

 

But if there is an attracting force, it should open because the bottom rings would be attracted more strongly than the top.

 

Was there ever a test like that or is my premise is incorrect for either theory?

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Beagleworth:

Unfortunately I am not sure it would prove or disprove anything. Because if you take McC creation scenario, one side of the moon build from less dense matter than the other side, then shouldn't that give a gravitational difference on both sides too with the standard theory?

Good point. But wouldn't standard theory result in an opposite prediction to McC? The near side (more dense) would be greater and the far side (less dense) would be weaker (standard theory), whereas McC would predict the opposite.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Tom Palmer:

First of all, that jest ain’t so. A space probe, as it approaches a massive planet like Jupiter or Saturn, speeds up just as one would expect, so the distance separating the planet and the probe is continuously changing. If the gravitational effect of this continually changing position (with respect to the probe) didn’t propagate at exactly the speed of light—and neither more nor less—the cumulative effect would eventually become strikingly evident in the growing disparity between the visual images and ranging measurements of the planet’s apparent (i.e., “optical”) location, on the one hand, and the changing rates of gravitationally-induced acceleration of the probe on the other.

Beautiful point Tom. Could you go into more detail just so I can visualize it better?

Steve

[Beagleworth]

Beagleworth: Good point. But wouldn't standard theory result in an opposite prediction to McC? The near side (more dense) would be greater and the far side (less dense) would be weaker (standard theory), whereas McC would predict the opposite.

 

You are right.

[Tom Palmer]

Could you go into more detail just so I can visualize it better?

Steve

First, Steve, I should mention that the example I quoted there is a good indication that the speeds of gravity and light are equal, but in strict scientific terms does not constitute proof that gravity travels at the speed of light, or count as a “measurement” of that speed.

 

In fact, the speed of gravity has been a hot topic among physicists because it depends on the speed of gravitational waves (general relativity), and these would be so exceedingly weak as to be undetectable—although precise measurements from binary pulsars have provided intriguing evidence of their existence.

 

However, ingenuity triumphed, and now we have a bona fide measurement to back up Einstein’s assertion. You can find a brief summary of it at http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/7/1/2 ("Gravity and light move at the same speed"), and more detailed accounts at other sites.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Tom Palmer

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Tom Palmer:

Hope this helps.

lol. It did, a little. I'm having a heck of a hard time trying to visualize the darn thing. Although, I guess it did help in the sense that I think I'm getting closer to being able to at least contemplate it. My thought process is going something like this: If McC is correct, then all particles are expanding at the same rate simultaneously. That would include light too, since McC asserts that light is a particle. And that's a real pain to visualize. So, if gravity is the effect of expansion, the light of the pictures would be expanding too and so the effect would be simultaneous with the light. As I said, closer. I'm not there yet.

Steve

[Erasmus00]

But still, I find strange that you can compute the acceleration without considering the mass of the other planet, because the force itself required both masses. I can see the math, but I am missing the logic and can't see to wrap the concept.

 

In Newtonian theory, its entirely coincidence. But Einstein said "hold on! Clearly comething very fundamental is going on! The mass of an object has nothing to do with its acceleration." This idea is the very basis fo General Relativity.

 

Also, if the rock and string is not what Newton used, what did he used? And why is that used in school to teach? It was used in mine at least to explain gravity to us and derive equations.

 

Its used because its simple. Once you know what the right answer to a question is, you can come up with all sorts of explanations (many of them flawed) that lead to the right answer.

 

What Newton said is basically this. It's empirically established that all objects in our solar system move in conic sections (ellipses, parabola, hyperbola). We also know a few things more about our planets. They sweep out equal areas in equal times, and their period squared is proportional to their semimajor axis^3 (these are Kepler's laws).

 

Newton's idea is to pretend for a moment there is an inverse square law attracting between any two objects of the form F=-GM1M2/r^2. He then demonstrated that in such a force, the general orbits are conic sections. Moreover, elliptical planets then have all the properties of Kepler's laws. I should also note that closed elliptical orbits are ONLY possible in an inverse square law force.

 

On top of this, Newton went on to show that such a force can be applied to our everyday concept of falling toward the Earth. It also explains the tides, as Tom Palmer has been expertly explaining.

 

And even though you say McCutcheon direction for the derivation is wrong, the final equation is the same. So wouldn't that give some credibility to someone saying Newton's equations have a rock on a string built-in?

 

Not at all. You can only get the rock on the string analogy if plants orbits were perfectly circular. They are not. You simply cannot make the rock on a string analogy for elliptical orbits, which is what we need to look at.

-Will

[ldsoftwaresteve]

All, I have to share something that just hit me today. McC's theory, especially with respect to gravity, describes an 'attractive' force pure and simple or what we could call an attractive force.

I can't believe I didn't see this before. I guess maybe it's like playing the piano, something happens and the left hand just starts doing its own thing. (or perhaps something snapped.;))

If everything is expanding, then everything is acting as though it's being attracted by everything else. Contrary to a previous post, the space between two objects is not expanding. Only particles expand. anything made of particles expands. The net result to the behavior of all objects is that they will appear to attract and be attracted to all other objects. And, it will be simultaneous. This explains why the theory based upon attraction works. The expansion is in 3 dimensions so all things in 3 dimensions 'experience' the net effect of expansion as a pure attraction. Therefore, all rules as they apply to attraction should still work and that includes the math.

 

Steve