now i am really confused

Irrelevant. Do try to stay on topic.

It was perfectly relevant to the post I was responding to. Trig claimed that Einstein demonstrated experimentally his reasons for challenging accepted knowledge, and I simply asked him to substantiate that. I apologise if that is too difficult a concept for you, and advise that you may be better able to grasp the somewhat less technically oriented postings in the Random Musings subforum.

Quote from: ClockTower on September 23, 2010, 07:11:19 AM

Irrelevant. Do try to stay on topic.

It was perfectly relevant to the post I was responding to. Trig claimed that Einstein demonstrated experimentally his reasons for challenging accepted knowledge, and I simply asked him to substantiate that. I apologise if that is too difficult a concept for you, and advise that you may be better able to grasp the somewhat less technically oriented postings in the Random Musings subforum.

Again, irrelevant, but now with extra false. Trig made no such claim. I do hope you can stop lying soon.

Trig made no such claim.

Incorrect. See:

They gave solid reasons to change the accepted knowledge, and limited their changes to what could be demonstrated experimentally.

The initial problem was the lack of paragraph brakes. And a few sentences that don't make sense or are too long, I've found. Allow me to help.

I came across this site almost 2years ago, and while at first I just wanted to come on, post some comments and make some threads - which in hindsight were actually really really stupid, possibly quite offensive not in favor for RET at all. After much deliberation on the subject and a slight bit of maturity on my behalf, I have realized that the more science progresses the more it can be used to support FET as well as RET... and thus have found myself seriously questioning my own belief on what shape our earth is.

  To sustain a belief in God you need a strong faith necessary to hold your views and opinions together, however to believe RET requires a strong faith in our supposed world leaders. I think this cannot be and shouldn't be in any respect compared to God. Following this line of thought all I can come up with is that people are generally good and would not partake in such heinous activities to present the rest of mankind with complete and utter lies. But you should look at the whole picture and see the world for what it is. See the people who inhabit it for who they are, see that people are not actually good at all, and you can gather that they would be very capable of pulling off the biggest conspiracy we have ever seen.

With all this taken into account, I still cannot fathom the information this site has put forward. In a life or death situation I would have to agree that the world is a ball and gravity exists etc, even thoough in the back of my mind I almost know that I would be adding 2+2 and answering 5. What is it going to take to completely convince people one way or another, and hopefully in support of FET? i like to look at this whole argument for and against as a big philosophical exploration into the human condition and have come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter what shape the earth it... so why would adherents to FET be trying to tell us otherwise? just as people ask what gain is there for NASA and company. what gain is there for FEers ? there is personal selfish motivations behind every action anyone carries out, so what is there to gain from a FEers point of view? i hope this makes sense to the people who read it and to some extent analyze what i have said. if it doesnt make sense im sorry, i just really made it up as i went along.

Quote from: ClockTower on September 23, 2010, 07:16:57 AM

Trig made no such claim.

Incorrect. See:

Quote from: trig on September 23, 2010, 06:55:24 AM

They gave solid reasons to change the accepted knowledge, and limited their changes to what could be demonstrated experimentally.

You're still wrong. "Einstein" appears nowhere in that quote. Epic Fail.

You're still wrong. "Einstein" appears nowhere in that quote. Epic Fail.

Go back and read that quote in context. "They" refers to Einstein, among others.

Not necessarily.

Quote from: ClockTower on September 23, 2010, 08:50:38 AM

You're still wrong. "Einstein" appears nowhere in that quote. Epic Fail.

Go back and read that quote in context. "They" refers to Einstein, among others.

As Kira-SY says, not necessarily. What part of the quote requires Einstein to do any experiment? If a baseball team is required to pitch the ball, does the outfielder have to do the pitching? If Einstein makes an advancement in theory, can't some other scientist do the verifying experiment during the next solar eclispe?

As Kira-SY says, not necessarily. What part of the quote requires Einstein to do any experiment? If a baseball team is required to pitch the ball, does the outfielder have to do the pitching? If Einstein makes an advancement in theory, can't some other scientist do the verifying experiment during the next solar eclispe?

But then Einstein's advancements would have been unsupported until that experiment came along.

Quote from: ClockTower on September 23, 2010, 09:03:41 AM

As Kira-SY says, not necessarily. What part of the quote requires Einstein to do any experiment? If a baseball team is required to pitch the ball, does the outfielder have to do the pitching? If Einstein makes an advancement in theory, can't some other scientist do the verifying experiment during the next solar eclispe?

But then Einstein's advancements would have been unsupported until that experiment came along.

Incorrect. Einstein's advancements were supported by M&M and his own logic, reasoning, and proofs. You still haven't answered my questions above.

Incorrect. Einstein's advancements were supported by M&M and his own logic, reasoning, and proofs. You still haven't answered my questions above.

Assuming that by "M&M" you mean "Michaelson and Morley", their experiment did not support Einstein's postulates specifically, it was only compatible with them. And no, Einstein's logic, reasoning and proofs derived from his postulates, they were not used to arrive at them. (Hint: Look up "postulate".)

In conclusion, Einstein had no experimental support for his postulates at the time of their publication.

Quote from: ClockTower on September 23, 2010, 09:09:08 AM

Incorrect. Einstein's advancements were supported by M&M and his own logic, reasoning, and proofs. You still haven't answered my questions above.

Assuming that by "M&M" you mean "Michaelson and Morley", their experiment did not support Einstein's postulates specifically, it was only compatible with them. And no, Einstein's logic, reasoning and proofs derived from his postulates, they were not used to arrive at them. (Hint: Look up "postulate".)

In conclusion, Einstein had no experimental support for his postulates at the time of their publication.

Irrevelant. We're talking about his advancements (I refer you to your own last question.).

Irrevelant. We're talking about his advancements (I refer you to your own last question.).

Everything else in Special Relativity derives from the postulates. In order to support the rest of it, the postulates must first be supported. Additionally, the postulates constituted advancements in themselves.

(Also, my last question in this thread was 'What is "it"?'. I fail to see the relevance of this to the subject at hand.)

Quote from: trig on September 23, 2010, 06:55:24 AM

Correction: they questioned the accepted knowledge of their day and performed experiments. They gave solid reasons to change the accepted knowledge, and limited their changes to what could be demonstrated experimentally.

Please describe how Einstein experimentally validated the first postulate of Special Relativity.

Apparently you don't understand what the word "postulate" means, otherwise you wouldn't be asking such a silly question.

Definition of POSTULATE
1: a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning
2: axiom

Quote from: Parsifal on September 23, 2010, 07:05:16 AM

Quote from: trig on September 23, 2010, 06:55:24 AM

Correction: they questioned the accepted knowledge of their day and performed experiments. They gave solid reasons to change the accepted knowledge, and limited their changes to what could be demonstrated experimentally.

Please describe how Einstein experimentally validated the first postulate of Special Relativity.

Apparently you don't understand what the word "postulate" means, otherwise you wouldn't be asking such a silly question.

Quote from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postulate?show=1&t=1285262912

Definition of POSTULATE
1: a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning
2: axiom

So Einstein had no experimental justification for his ideas?

Quote from: markjo on September 23, 2010, 10:29:57 AM

Quote from: Parsifal on September 23, 2010, 07:05:16 AM

Quote from: trig on September 23, 2010, 06:55:24 AM

Correction: they questioned the accepted knowledge of their day and performed experiments. They gave solid reasons to change the accepted knowledge, and limited their changes to what could be demonstrated experimentally.

Please describe how Einstein experimentally validated the first postulate of Special Relativity.

Apparently you don't understand what the word "postulate" means, otherwise you wouldn't be asking such a silly question.

Quote from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postulate?show=1&t=1285262912

Definition of POSTULATE
1: a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning
2: axiom

So Einstein had no experimental justification for his ideas?

How in the world did you reach that conclusion?

How in the world did you reach that conclusion?

His premises were unfounded.

So Einstein had no experimental justification for his ideas?

You don't need experimental justification to form a postulate.  However, many of the theories based on those postulates do have experimental justification and validation.

Quote from: ClockTower on September 23, 2010, 11:06:39 AM

How in the world did you reach that conclusion?

His premises were unfounded.

What premises were unfounded? Do you have any evidence to support your claim? How is this relevant? How does this support your conclusion?

You don't need experimental justification to form a postulate.  However, many of the theories based on those postulates do have experimental justification and validation.

If they are based upon unfounded premises, how can they be trusted?

Parsifal has tried to make a big wave over a very small, irrelevant detail: Einstein did few or no experiments himself. But the fact that others did the actual experiments and Einstein only designed them is totally irrelevant.

The Michelson-Morely experiment had been made repeatedly before Einstein used its results, the apparent movement of stars close to the Sun during a solar eclipse was predicted by Einstein before it was seen experimentally by Sir Arthur Eddington, and other experiments were only performed after Einstein's death, like the one in which a clock is kept on the ground while another is taken on a trip by airplane.

But behind all this there is just an attempt by Parsifal to derail the discussion. All the great scientists have used models, predicted phenomena through the use of those models and somebody has made the experiments that confirm the model. On the other hand, FE "theorists" have done very few experiments, have defined only the most elemental models, usually just by showing a diagram, and have made almost no predictions at all. And most of the predictions that can be made through these models do not match with experimental data.

An example of he utter failure of these "FE models" is that the direction in which the Sun sets and rises does not correspond with the predictions of FE but conform nicely to the predictions by real science.

Parsifal has tried to make a big wave over a very small, irrelevant detail: Einstein did few or no experiments himself. But the fact that others did the actual experiments and Einstein only designed them is totally irrelevant.

The Michelson-Morely experiment had been made repeatedly before Einstein used its results, the apparent movement of stars close to the Sun during a solar eclipse was predicted by Einstein before it was seen experimentally by Sir Arthur Eddington, and other experiments were only performed after Einstein's death, like the one in which a clock is kept on the ground while another is taken on a trip by airplane.

But behind all this there is just an attempt by Parsifal to derail the discussion. All the great scientists have used models, predicted phenomena through the use of those models and somebody has made the experiments that confirm the model. On the other hand, FE "theorists" have done very few experiments, have defined only the most elemental models, usually just by showing a diagram, and have made almost no predictions at all. And most of the predictions that can be made through these models do not match with experimental data.

An example of he utter failure of these "FE models" is that the direction in which the Sun sets and rises does not correspond with the predictions of FE but conform nicely to the predictions by real science.

Agreed. Well posted. Parsifal fails epically again.

Quote from: markjo on September 23, 2010, 11:24:13 AM

You don't need experimental justification to form a postulate.  However, many of the theories based on those postulates do have experimental justification and validation.

If they are based upon unfounded premises, how can they be trusted?

By testing theories based on those "unfounded premises".

By testing theories based on those "unfounded premises".

They were unfounded at the time they were developed. Surely that made Einstein weak minded, in the same way it is being claimed that FEers are weak minded now?

Quote from: markjo on September 23, 2010, 12:52:26 PM

By testing theories based on those "unfounded premises".

They were unfounded at the time they were developed. Surely that made Einstein weak minded, in the same way it is being claimed that FEers are weak minded now?

Not at all. The difference is that Einstein's advancements included predictions that could be, and indeed have been, tested. Now, let's compare that with say your EAT... Any predictions? Nope. You don't have a handle on the Bishop Constant. You don't have an accurate formula for light traveling along the Earth's surface. I guess we can safely say that Einstein does a better job than you.

Quote from: markjo on September 23, 2010, 12:52:26 PM

By testing theories based on those "unfounded premises".

They were unfounded at the time they were developed.

Irrelevant.