Fudge Factors

I hate fudge factors, it's like giving up.  For example dark matter bugs me, because it just seems like an excuse.  There was all this great work done in quantum mechanics and relativity and then all of a sudden we stopped coming up with new math and just said; oh it must be stuff we can't see so lets go and try to find it. 

Same idea with using gravitons in favor of FE/RE arguments; we've never found them nor readily explainable.  RE propents can't say Gravitons are what causes things to attract even though we don't know for sure.  But then again FE proponents can't go dismissing gravity because we don't know what mechanism (gravitons = magic lol) causes things to have a gravitational affect on each other.  We may not know WHYYYY but that doesn't mean gravity is not caused by an object's mass. 

FE proposes the Universal Acceleration, but why is the universe accelerating?  What's causing this, it's not explained yet its still used in arguments. 

Don't fudge your arguments, get your logic straight   

<TomB>You don't believe in the Accelerating Universe?</TomB>

FET doesn't dismiss gravity, at least I don't when it comes to an FE. Shutting out basic information doesn't help their cause.

And that's a poor excuse to try and discredit an argument. We don't know why, but that doesn't make an argument less valid. Police don't immediately know a killer's motive, but they still investigate. As a defense attorney, I'd love to see you dismiss the evidence of the crime by stating that his motive is unknown. Motives help juries understand the reason for the crime, but not knowing them doesn't derail factual evidence.

And Gulliver says he has pictures of Dark Matter. We are waiting for him to contact the people in the news post I posted here so that he can collect his Nobel Prize.

I have millions of pictures of dark matter. Unfortunately they are very very hard to see.

Gulliver has some. 

Don't forget that I posted some as well.

Don't forget that I posted some as well.

Oh, have you missed the thread?

http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=16244.0

Quick, hurry before Gulliver steals the glory!

FET doesn't dismiss gravity, at least I don't when it comes to an FE. Shutting out basic information doesn't help their cause.

I know they don't deny gravity, but whenever someone says "mass bends space time" its counteracted by "what's the mechanism" running the argument down a slippery slope

I can haz darc mattah?

but whenever someone says "mass bends space time" its counteracted by "what's the mechanism" running the argument down a slippery slope

That's only because people incorrectly try to use the unknown nature of the mechanism for the UA as some type of problem to the theory. It defies logic to accept that one theory has an unknown mechanism, and then criticize another for not knowing their own.

Quote from: sketipical physics on August 16, 2007, 12:41:56 PM

but whenever someone says "mass bends space time" its counteracted by "what's the mechanism" running the argument down a slippery slope

That's only because people incorrectly try to use the unknown nature of the mechanism for the UA as some type of problem to the theory. It defies logic to accept that one theory has an unknown mechanism, and then criticize another for not knowing their own.

That's wrong.

The unknown nature of the mechanism for the UA is a problem for FE. The unknown mechanism, if any, of gravity is a problem too, but for both theories since, as you point out, FE must rely on gravity to describe the rest of the Universe. Now, all other things equal or better for RE, RE wins our confidence as the simpler, more predictive theory.

The unknown mechanism... of gravity is a problem...

Another victory for FE!

Quote from: sketipical physics on August 16, 2007, 12:41:56 PM

but whenever someone says "mass bends space time" its counteracted by "what's the mechanism" running the argument down a slippery slope

That's only because people incorrectly try to use the unknown nature of the mechanism for the UA as some type of problem to the theory. It defies logic to accept that one theory has an unknown mechanism, and then criticize another for not knowing their own.

It's not so much the fact that the unknown mechanism is a problem for the theory, but the following little conundrum:

You have an earth in which things thrown in the air fall back down to the earth. Thus you have one of two possibilities: Earth has its own gravitational field which causes the item to fall, or Earth is accelerating, creating an apparent gravitational field.

FE relies on the assumption that this gravitational effect is an apparent one caused by acceleration. It then goes on to say, with no documented evidence, that there is something out there in space accelerating Earth through the cosmos. It seems, that with all of the assumptions and dismissals of other, more possible theories, by this point one should at least have some kind of an answer for what it is that is accelerating Earth. If one is going to believe in it (presumably someone does) then there comes a point where their belief should be confirmed not by a series of assumptions, but rather by evidence or perhaps a theoretical mechanism for what is causing the acceleration. This is where one begins to see some semblance of a necessity for a mechanism, since nothing else indicates there is any acceleration taking place (like measurements that show a non-uniform gravitational field). At least if there were a mechanism devised one could perhaps begin to entertain the possibility.

At the same time, the theory of gravitation, though perhaps lacking an intimate understanding of why or how mass bends space, is a far more reasonable conclusion to draw than a universal accelerator. Suggesting gravity also does not even rely on knowledge of a mechanism, because there are enough experiments, studies, observations and examples of evidence that suggest it exists and acts in ways that we have predicted, and that it can be applied directly to Earth.

This is where one begins to see some semblance of a necessity for a mechanism, since nothing else indicates there is any acceleration taking place (like measurements that show a non-uniform gravitational field).

Countless observations show that the entire universe is accelerating! How does this not imply that the Earth might also be accelerating?

If one is going to believe in it (presumably someone does) then there comes a point where their belief should be confirmed not by a series of assumptions, but rather by evidence or perhaps a theoretical mechanism for what is causing the acceleration.

We've already provided a theoretical mechanism. The Universal Accelerator invokes the Quintessence form of negative pressure which fills all of existence. The Quintessence form utilizes tracker behavior which closely tracks the radiation density of an object until there is an equality of matter-radiation. Matter is drawn into a single vector by this cosmological constant of negative pressure through a form of buoyancy.

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This is where one begins to see some semblance of a necessity for a mechanism, since nothing else indicates there is any acceleration taking place (like measurements that show a non-uniform gravitational field).

Countless observations show that the entire universe is accelerating! How does this not imply that the Earth might also be accelerating?

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If one is going to believe in it (presumably someone does) then there comes a point where their belief should be confirmed not by a series of assumptions, but rather by evidence or perhaps a theoretical mechanism for what is causing the acceleration.

We've already provided a theoretical mechanism. The Universal Accelerator invokes the Quintessence form of negative pressure which fills all of existence. The Quintessence form utilizes tracker behavior which closely tracks the radiation density of an object until there is an equality of matter-radiation. Matter is drawn into a single vector by this cosmological constant of negative pressure through a form of buoyancy.

What mechanism of the UA allows comets and asteroids to move as they please?   

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This is where one begins to see some semblance of a necessity for a mechanism, since nothing else indicates there is any acceleration taking place (like measurements that show a non-uniform gravitational field).

Countless observations show that the entire universe is accelerating! How does this not imply that the Earth might also be accelerating?

Those same observations do not indicate any gravitational effects (redshifts aside) on those bodies being created due to acceleration. It still doesn't even begin to support a flat earth theory where the earth's apparent gravity is caused by acceleration. In an expanding, accelerating universe the bodies are not accelerating through space. Space itself is accelerating. That is not what the UA is suggesting for FE, where the earth itself is the object being accelerated, not the space in which it resides. And that is the only way in which apparent gravity would be created on our planet - if Earth was accelerating through space, not if space itself were accelerating.

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If one is going to believe in it (presumably someone does) then there comes a point where their belief should be confirmed not by a series of assumptions, but rather by evidence or perhaps a theoretical mechanism for what is causing the acceleration.

We've already provided a theoretical mechanism. The Universal Accelerator invokes the Quintessence form of negative pressure which fills all of existence. The Quintessence form utilizes tracker behavior which closely tracks the radiation density of an object until there is an equality of matter-radiation. Matter is drawn into a single vector by this cosmological constant of negative pressure through a form of buoyancy.

[/quote]

I know what quintessence is. However, it's questionable that for people being so adamant against the proposed mechanism of gravity (simply because it is not 100% understood) you are so willing to accept the quintessence as your mechanism - a substance far less understood or observed than gravity. I believe that your support of this theory renders your argument against gravity null and void. However, quintessence would not cause the earth to accelerate through space at a constant rate. But if you are saying the UA is a separate entity from quintessence, and merely "invokes" it, I'd like to read how.

Countless observations show that the entire universe is accelerating!

Just to be clear, this is in no way the open and shut case that the above quote makes it sound like.

Most cosmologists accept the idea that the universal expansion is accelerating (I know I do) but there are not "countless observations" to support the idea.  In fact, there are remarkably few data sets to support it.

The evidence is hard to get at, since it involves making detailed observations of supernova in primordial galaxies, which is an incredibly difficult task, involving months of careful observation, and even then, there are several things that could invalidate the observations, requiring even more hard work.

So there is evidence that the universe is expanding, but there is much less of it then most cosmologists would like before really accepting the idea.


Also, ironically, a non-trivial amount of the data taken to indicate that the universal expansion is accelerating was taken with telescopes in orbit, which can't exist in FE. . .