| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"Eric Baird" |
| Date: |
29 Sep 2007 07:19:23 PM |
| Object: |
new r********y (and other things) book |
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime" , ISBN 0955706807
Yeah, I know, we aren't supposed to discuss relativity on sci.physics,
but there's quite a lot of other stuff in the book, some aimed at a
general audience, some, not so much.
[ http://www.relativitybook.com/book_contents.html ]
The "cosmology" section is "Brief History of Time"-level stuff (but
with a wider range and more pictures), the "Trouble with Wormholes"
section cherry-picks some of the aspects of wormhole theory that I
thought were most interesting, and extends one or two of them, and the
section on warp drive theory attempts to look at the warpdrive idea in
a calm, non-wide-eyed, non-crazy way (think of Robert Forward's old
Am.J.Phys article on gravitomagnetism, but larger, with more diagrams
and discission, and no nasty math).
There's also a section on "limitations of language and procedure" that
might appeal to people who liked Barrow's "Impossibility" book. The
first three chapters also examine the relationships between light,
gravity and time is a pretty general way, to explain things like
gravitational time dilation without using any specific theory. There's
a tiny chapter on quantum mechanics, as a lead-in to the black holes
section, and a section of how Newton's model went wrong.
And yes, there's also great big chunks on relativity theory, both
standard and non-standard, but we won't mention those here! ;D
Anyway, just sayin' ...
=Erk= (Eric Baird)
: "Childrens _do_learn_ ..."
: - George W. Bush, 2007, on education
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| User: "Androcles" |
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| Title: Re: new r********y (and other things) book |
30 Sep 2007 02:06:48 AM |
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<Eric Baird> wrote in message
news:m0qtf3d672v098rvnl9a0ppk1qjuogkckk@4ax.com...
: "Relativity in Curved Spacetime" , ISBN 0955706807
:
: Yeah, I know, we aren't supposed to discuss relativity on sci.physics,
: but there's quite a lot of other stuff in the book, some aimed at a
: general audience, some, not so much.
:
: [ http://www.relativitybook.com/book_contents.html ]
:
: The "cosmology" section is "Brief History of Time"-level stuff (but
: with a wider range and more pictures), the "Trouble with Wormholes"
: section cherry-picks some of the aspects of wormhole theory that I
: thought were most interesting, and extends one or two of them, and the
: section on warp drive theory attempts to look at the warpdrive idea in
: a calm, non-wide-eyed, non-crazy way
Hahahahaha!
--
'we establish by definition that the "time" required by
light to travel from A to B equals the "time" it requires
to travel from B to A' because I SAY SO and you have to
agree because I'm the great genius, STOOOPID, don't you
dare question it. -- Rabbi Albert Einstein
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Smart/tAB=tBA.gif
"Neither [frame] is stationary, which is your problem." -- Blind
"I'm not a troll" Poe.
Ref: news:1189468758.944626.39450@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com
'we establish by definition that the "time" required by
light to travel from A to B doesn't equal the "time" it requires
to travel from B to A in the stationary system, obviously.' --
Heretic Jan Bielawski, assistant light-bulb changer.
Ref: news:1188363019.673281.67710@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com
"SR is GR with G=0." -- Uncle Stooopid.
The Uncle Stooopid doctrine:
http://sound.westhost.com/counterfeit.jpg
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without
evidence." -- Uncle Stooopid.
"Counterfactual assumptions yield nonsense.
If such a thing were actually observed, reliably and reproducibly, then
relativity would immediately need a major overhaul if not a complete
replacement." -- Humpty Roberts.
Rabbi Albert Einstein in 1895 failed an examination that would
have allowed him to study for a diploma as an electrical engineer
at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich
(couldn't even pass the SATs).
According to Phuckwit Duck it was geography and history that Einstein
failed on, as if Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule would give a
damn. That tells you the lengths these lying bastards will go to to
protect their tin god, but its always a laugh when they slip up.
Trolls, the lot of them.
"This is PHYSICS, not math or logic, and "proof" is completely
irrelevant." -- Humpty Roberts.
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| User: "Sam Wormley" |
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| Title: Re: new r********y (and other things) book |
29 Sep 2007 10:39:01 PM |
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Eric Baird wrote:
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime" , ISBN 0955706807
http://www.relativitybook.com/
"The structure of relativity theory in the Twentieth Century
was divided into two layers: "gravity-free" physics was dealt
with by Einstein's special theory (which assumed flat spacetime),
and the general theory of relativity added an additional layer
of theory to deal with curvature effects. But this two-stage
approach led to a number of stresses and potential conflicts
within the structure, thanks to special relativity's use of
assumptions that were fundamentally at odds with the principles
of the general theory".
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| User: "Eric Baird" |
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| Title: Re: new r********y (and other things) book |
30 Sep 2007 08:57:07 AM |
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On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:39:01 GMT, Sam Wormley <swormley1@mchsi.com>
wrote:
Eric Baird wrote:
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime" , ISBN 0955706807
http://www.relativitybook.com/
"The structure of relativity theory in the Twentieth Century
was divided into two layers: "gravity-free" physics was dealt
with by Einstein's special theory (which assumed flat spacetime),
and the general theory of relativity added an additional layer
of theory to deal with curvature effects. But this two-stage
approach led to a number of stresses and potential conflicts
within the structure, thanks to special relativity's use of
assumptions that were fundamentally at odds with the principles
of the general theory".
Cheers!
If //I'd// posted that here, people would have told me off for
posting something that the ng charter says not to post. <grin>
The idea was to do any SR-based debates regarding the book's contents
over on s.p.r, and the other physics debates here on s.p .
One of the questions asked in the book is whether we might be able to
extend the "curved-spacetime" paradigm all the way down to quantum
mechanics.
On the small scale, QM allows a moving particle to interact with
nearby light by the magic of quantum field theory, on much larger
scales, GR generates analogous interactions between matter and light
thanks to gravitomagnetism. On the medium scale, we know that
composite particulate objects drag light along, too (e.g. the water in
Fizeau's tubes), even though they're larger than quantum-scale, but
too small to normally be considered as having significant conventional
gravitational fields.
Since all these forms of dragging ought to affect lightbeams, they
ought to //all// be reconsiderable as problems in curved spacetime.
If they can, and if we can produce a single set of curvature-based
rules that works across all scales, then all these tedious ongoing
arguments about SR, which led to the subject being exiled to its own
newsgroup, become irrelevant. Even if one accepted the perfection of
SR as an abstract mathematical system, if real physics was built on
curvature there wouldn't be a "flat-spacetime domain" in real physics
for the SR equations and Minkowski metric to apply to. The Minkowski
metric could be reconsidered as a perfect, provably-correct answer to
an unphysical question.
Instead of having to put up with another thirty years of tedious
arguments about the pros and cons of SR, we could exile these debates
not just out of sci.physics, but out of physics altogether.
Some sci.physics people might like that idea. <g>
hmmm. Maybe I should start another thread here specifically on
spacetime curvature, and on how far people think the idea can be
taken, in which nobody is supposed to use the "R" word ... should be
possible ...
=Erk= (Eric Baird)
: "It is too much to imagine that one has yet made enough mistakes in
: this domain of thought to explore such ideas with any degree of good
: judgement."
: - John Archibald Wheeler, 1964, on pregeometry
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| User: "Sam Wormley" |
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| Title: Re: new r********y (and other things) book |
29 Sep 2007 10:35:07 PM |
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Eric Baird wrote:
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime" , ISBN 0955706807
Full title
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime: Life Without Special Relativity"
Red Flag?
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| User: "Eric Baird" |
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| Title: Re: new r********y (and other things) book |
30 Sep 2007 08:48:41 AM |
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On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:35:07 GMT, Sam Wormley <swormley1@mchsi.com>
wrote:
Eric Baird wrote:
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime" , ISBN 0955706807
Full title
"Relativity in Curved Spacetime: Life Without Special Relativity"
Red Flag?
[Shrugs] You cant try to tackle wormhole or warpdrive problems by
assuming flat spacetime, and some would say you can't even do
cosmology properly assuming flat spacetime.
Most of the interesting stuff to do with optics involves bending
lightbeams, or dealing with the particulate aspects of matter that
special relativity explicitly doesn't attempt to deal with. Gravity is
also an interesting thing, and that doesn't play nice with special
relativity either. Ditto gravitomagnetism.
And the quantum gravity guys are increasingly adopting acoustic
metrics to try to model things like trans-horizon radiation, which
work well in some archaic models, but are incompatible with modern
SR-based GR.
Quantum principles also intrude into larger-scale subjects like
sociology and economics, and you can think of the "market forces" idea
as being a precursor to QM, as a way of reducing the bulk reaction of
a complex chaotic (and largely undefined) system to a series of
applied potentials and reactions.
So there's all sorts of cool stuff that you can study scientifically
outside special relativity, by pretending that the special theory
doesn't exist. Not all that interesting stuff would normally be
classified as relativity theory. In fact, most of it wouldn't.
Gravity, quantum theory, system behaviour cosmology ... a lot of
people would say that those things are just "physics".
The original idea of the book was to try not to mention SR at all.
But as the book grew, I reckoned that I was probably going to be
expected to give the thing a cursory runthrough, just to be able to
say to physics people, yes, the theory exists, yes I understand it,
and no, its not neccessarily all that relevant to the more interesting
problems involving particles, warped spacetime, and attempts to
combine the two together, that I want to explore.
=Erk= (Eric Baird)
: "1958 ... Oppenheimer ... suggested that a Nobel-like prize be
: given to an experimental physicist who did //not// discover a
: new particle."
: - Jeremy Bernstein, "Cranks, Quarks and the Cosmos" (1993)
.
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