I apologize for being abhorrent, I regretted posting that immediately after. Must have really not been in a good mood that day. It came out very ugly.
The difference I was trying to make is this, that single post might have made me come off as this highly rational pragmatist, prickly particle physics thumper, but really I am very much opposite of that. I have my own perceptions and ideas of reality, my own metaphysics. And I also believe there are some massive holes (hah) in the standard model, especially on the astronomical scale. I believe much of it is due to distortion, no matter what we do everything we see is refracted and limited to the small window of our perception. Any self-respecting, truth seeking physicist would also agree. In my own experience, the more I learn about physics, in various experiments, or the discovery of new properties (super-conductance for example) , and in educating myself in the hypothetical mechanisms, the deeper my own perception and my own personal meta-physics becomes, and appreciation of the sheer beauty that exists in this reality.
More often then not, we think we understand something without fully understanding the concept.
As Richard Feymann once said, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics" and of course, this applies not just to quantum mechanics, but anything and everything.
Our personal lack of understanding of that concept needs to comes first, before you are able dismiss the concept itself. Otherwise you won't even know what you are dismissing, you cannot search for the truth if you do not look. No stone must be left unturned. This is the mechanism of science.
Of course the theories themselves are constantly evolving, and they will never be complete. We have no way of knowing of what is a dead end or not unless we spend the time and energy, to do our due diligence. It's a tough journey, imagine the scientists of centuries ago, spending their entire lives searching and uncovering information, developing understandings and theories that today we know are obsolete, though not entirely wrong. It's our only way forward. If it weren't for them we wouldn't be here today.
In my experience only small percentage be the close-minded, defensive of their particular field/pet-theory, so I understand where you are coming from with the 'dogma'. Your perception of this is skewed, similar to how the mainstream media regularly broadcasts uncommon occurrences, for the reason that it sells, and it gives the perception that it happens much more often than it does to the people who limit themselves to that one source of information.
xss27 said:
Direct current and alternating current, our practical manifestation of electricity for human needs, were invented/discovered long before relativity theory. Neither system requires relativistic thinking for their operation, though mathematically I think there is some interchangeable thing going on between some of the classical formulas associated with electrical theory and special relativity.
That is not the issue. The crux of the matter is that we're talking about theories, which are subject to alteration, revision, superseded or even abandonment. The question you posed should be directed at those who hold those theories to be impenetrable dogma. I have no issue with questioning anything and everything, if I did I wouldn't be doubting relativity theory.
'Good-enough' and 'best we have' is a different matter. I freely admit that the theory may fit the reality picture we have, but that doesn't mean the theory is actually correct or not in fundamental error. That is the problem with theoretical physics that relies too heavily on mathematics. I nor 99% of others can dissect the mathematics because we're not trained to that level, so we rely on the simplified explanations provided in order to make sense of the theory and it's those explanations that do not, to my mind, appear to be correct.
I can't offer an alternative theory or paradigm, all I can say is I do not believe space-time to exist, that it is a metaphysical abstraction arising from mathematical speculation and that it exists solely on paper. No one can directly observe space-time, or dark matter/energy, only the supposed effects of these abstractions. I say that whilst the mathematics may explain elements of what we see in experiments, that doesn't mean the theory itself is correct.
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You want and demand evidence to satisfy your own conditions. I can't give anything that will meet your requirements, you know that (*). Respectfully I counter your assertion my position is based on faith and say it is actually your position (assuming you believe relativity theory) that is based on faith - space-time is an abstraction that can not be reproduced anywhere except on paper, that is an act of faith. Irrespective of whether the mathematics appears to make sense, to which I have not denied it does, you still can only infer its existence and can't actually prove its existence beyond an abstraction.
I have no issue with the mathematics appearing to be congruent with experiment and observation. I just refuse to accept an abstraction that to my mind and intuition appears incorrect.
(*) Any example I could pull up which puts relativity into doubt you will deny anyway. Personally I feel the best angle from which it can be legitimately attacked, for your conditions, is from within astrophysics. When galaxy rotation was observed to be inconsistent with what we expected to find given a relativistic gravity based paradigm, what happened.. they just invented dark matter to plug the gaping mathematical hole. This is deliberate mathematical fudging and again it is faith on your part to presume dark matter, dark energy, and any other thing that can't actually be measured directly exists. Observational data was clearly inconsistent with what we expected to find.
There is nothing that is going to convince me that time dilates or that space has any sort of geometry that can be distorted. Not until you can make either one of those variables tangible enough to be observed or measured directly, which is an impossibility because they are abstractions created for the convenience of man. You may be satisfied by mathematical proof alone, I will never be - mathematics should explain what we see, not what we imagine we see.
What I can't understand is where your assertions are coming from. You seem to be very inconsistent in your reasoning. Why do you accept some theories on faith but not others? Where do you draw the line and why? Help me understand your reasoning and why you draw your conclusions. I don't need you to give me evidence I would just like to hear how you came to these conclusions. It's a more productive to discussion rather than just stating "I believe this is true, don't ask me why, and nothing can change my mind".
I can't understand why you believe one thing but deny another, especially when the two are directly related to another. You seem to idolize Tesla, so lets start with electromagnetism.
Direct current and alternating current, our practical manifestation of electricity for human needs, were invented/discovered long before relativity theory. Neither system requires relativistic thinking for their operation, though mathematically I think there is some interchangeable thing going on between some of the classical formulas associated with electrical theory and special relativity.
Actually, yes, it does. This is what led to the discovery of relativity and the speed of light.
The mathematics here is very simple, and the phenomenon its available through direct observation and measurement of the observed phenomenon. And in every case, mathematics our first hint into problems what is wrong with the theory.
A moving electric charge generates a magnetic field, and you can determine the strength of this field using Maxwell's equations. These are the fundamental equations of electromagnetism, fundamental to electricity in direct and alternating current. At any speed, from any frame of reference, the field is measured to be the same.
The problem came when you tried to use Maxwell's equation to calculate the strength of the magnetic field from a different frame of reference. If you measure the strength of a magnetic field weather you are stationary, or travelling on the highway, or taking into account the earth is moving 67000 mph, the measured field strength is always the same regardless of velocity.
mathematics should explain what we see, not what we imagine we see.
This is exactly what were doing here.
If you calculate the field strength using Maxwell's equations, you get drastically different results on whether you were measuring from the car speed or from a static position.
This meant there was something fundamentally wrong with the assumptions underlying classical mechanics ( that velocities add together v1+v2 = v total, and that distance and time do not depend on velocity).
So if you assume the universe makes sense, that you should be able to calculate the magnetic field irrespective of position and velocity, since both of these are changing rapidly all the time as we circle around the sun and the sun circles around the galaxy and so on and so forth. Just assume basic consistency between these fundamental statements.
The transformation that satisfies these axioms, called the Lorentz transformation, requires one parameter, a specific velocity. That value has to be a combination of the fundamental constants of Maxwell's equations. For the laws of electromagnetism to work as we measure them, we need a finite maximum speed.
Effectively, this transformation predicts a cosmic speed limit, and it just so happens to to define the speed of electromagnetic waves. It is the speed of light, but first it is the speed of causality. It is the maximum speed of cause and effect, the interaction or relationship between two massless entities. And it is the only speed those massless entities can travel.
The very existence of mass, space, and time, tells us this speed limit must be finite. They are unavoidable conclusions if you accept the laws of electromagnetism.
As a result, the speed of causality is constant for all reference frames, the only thing that changes with velocity is the observed speed and change of events from another reference frame. So the speed remains the same, but the light must travel more distance, depending on the velocity relative to the observer.
All of these predictions are directly observable and measurable using lasers, no faith required, no imagination necessary. And recently one of the final predictions of these conclusions was measured, the long awaited detection gravitational waves. So much so the actually discovery wasn't even that exciting, because of how predictable it was in accordance with everything that came before.
If this speed was infinite, all locations would be communicating simultaneously, there would be no cause and effect, meaning there would be no time, there would be no distance, no space. An infinite here and now.
By contrast, if one were travelling at the speed of light, it would take an infinite amount of time to witness any two entities in the universe to communicate with one another, and correspondingly an infinite amount of distance. This is why massless particles, in isolation, do not experience time or space. Reality as we know it only exists when it is in communication with itself. Cause and effect. Through this interaction arises mass, space and time. They are emergent phenomena.
I don't understand why you wouldn't agree with quantum mechanics either, if you like tesla so much.
He said "If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
Quantum mechanics is exactly this, this is what we observe. I think you are misunderstanding the term particle. The energy isn't composed of physical particles, not like you imagine. It just a useful description to describe the quantized nature of waves. All particles are indeed waves, they have frequencies, wavelengths, amplitudes, resonances, they carry energy, and they are delocalized across a field. They just so happen to also carry indivisible, quantized packets of information, properties like charge. And not just the traditional photons and electrons, physical atoms, molecules... Which are also (more obviously) quantized. When we want to look at molecules, we place them inside a powerful super-conducting electromagnet, to polarize the atoms inside the magnetic field, it is then tuned to the specific frequency of a to a particular atom, to generate a state of resonance and measure the corresponding signal. This means the molecules aren't little particles balls stuck together in a specific manner, they are a set of superimposed quantized interdependent vibrating fields, interacting in a specific reproducible manner. I spend hours doing this everyday.
Many other beautiful phenomenon rely on these same principles. Super-conductance works due to a resonance, between the electron waves and the phonon (crystal lattice vibration) waves of the metal or material. When the crystal lattice is vibrating at the right harmonic frequency of the electron field, the electrons can 'surf' the phonon waves, and move with zero resistance, infinite current.
I'd think for a Tesla worshiper you'd be more into that.
This is why I really think if you took a deeper look, took the time to really understand the concepts, I think you would find you like it. Its empowering to be a contrarian but its not very fulfilling.
