Gravitational conundrums

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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #30 on: May 08, 2014, 06:26:32 AM »
Einstein's use of the word ether has about as much to do with the FET use of the word as this:

The original ether hypothesis was that everything in the universe was suspended in a thin fluid of some kind, the assumption was that perhaps this was the medium that light waves propagate through (they aren't that kind of wave). It turned out that there was no such thing.

Einstein was using the word in almost a playful way. Until relativity, space (no longer being saturated with ether) was taken to be a simple and featureless vacuum, he was making the point that spacetime itself did actually have some properties of its own (curvature) that could be measured. Ie, it was a 'thing' again rather than an empty stage in which the rest of physics took place.

The FET use of the word ether is a sort of catch-all mystery substance, field, force or mcguffin that has whatever effect is necessary at the time to dismiss or explain any otherwise problematic observations.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2014, 07:05:23 AM by Goddamnit, Clown »
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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #31 on: May 08, 2014, 10:10:08 AM »
No, aether has been tested and proven to exist.  Opening up a highschool textbook will explain this to you.
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markjo

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #32 on: May 08, 2014, 10:57:35 AM »
No, aether has been tested and proven to exist.  Opening up a highschool textbook will explain this to you.
Would you please provide the name and author of one such textbook?
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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #33 on: May 08, 2014, 11:14:21 AM »
No, aether has been tested and proven to exist.  Opening up a highschool textbook will explain this to you.
Hi again. Why don't you post the first google image search result of "your", "real" textbook which proves this? Remember to add "19th century" to your search terms.

Or we can just look at the experiments which showed none of the effects predicted by the ether hypothesis.
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V

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #34 on: May 08, 2014, 12:08:12 PM »
No, aether has been tested and proven to exist.  Opening up a highschool textbook will explain this to you.
I thought textbooks were intended to indoctrinate the public. They must be full of nonsense, right? They do say that the earth is round, so you can't trust them.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2014, 12:48:13 PM by V »
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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #35 on: May 08, 2014, 12:51:36 PM »
I was referring to Einstien's view on aether.
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V

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #36 on: May 08, 2014, 01:17:07 PM »
I was referring to Einstien's view on aether.
You told us to open up a textbook, didn't you?
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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #37 on: May 08, 2014, 01:18:26 PM »
I was referring to Einstien's view on aether.
Personal opinions don't matter, even from a great physicist. Einstein spent all the later part of his life trying to disprove some consequences of quantum mechanics, like entanglement. He failed, and entanglement is still taught and experienced today, while aether isn't. (and anyway Einstein's aether wasn't the aether you're talking about)
If you have some evidence for the existence of aether please bring it forward. Appeal to authority doesn't work here.
I have yet to see evidence that Lunar Eclipses even exist.  Have you ever seen one?

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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #38 on: May 08, 2014, 01:40:25 PM »
A famous physicist using the word ether to describe something unrelated doesn't really help your case one way or another.

However, for anyone who's interested, Einstein said quite specifically that one can speak about a "new ether", but one may not speak of motion in relation to that ether. He was using the term, as I've already explained, to describe the fact that we were once again thinking about empty space as having properties of its own, akin to the way we did when we thought it was a thing of substance which propagated light. Which it isn't.

Ultimately it wasn't a helpful term in describing what was going on, so it didn't stick.
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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #39 on: May 08, 2014, 04:32:31 PM »
If he wasn't talking about "our aether" then what was he talking about? Marijuana?
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V

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #40 on: May 08, 2014, 05:06:05 PM »
If he wasn't talking about "our aether" then what was he talking about? Marijuana?
Einstein's ether (which was proven nonexistent) was a supposed required medium for light to travel through, as the fact that light was a wave was misunderstood as being like a water wave (which requires a medium.)
Your ether slows down light and causes inconsistencies in gravitation and 23904328409328094 other things - whatever inconsistency you want it to cover.

Also, there is always this kind of ether:

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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #41 on: May 08, 2014, 05:08:38 PM »
So because Einstein believed in a different aether that means our aether doesn't exist? That's a strong appeal to authority.  ::)
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V

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #42 on: May 08, 2014, 05:17:23 PM »
So because Einstein believed in a different aether that means our aether doesn't exist? That's a strong appeal to authority.  ::)
No, that's not the point I'm making. Both Einstein's and your ether are nonexistent, and the burden of proof is on you to prove its existence.
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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #43 on: May 08, 2014, 05:33:31 PM »
We'll call it "Your ether" if you like. Ok. Your ether led to several predictions, all of which turned out to be false, so everyone let it die in 1905.
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Son of Orospu

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #44 on: May 08, 2014, 06:20:44 PM »
If everyone let it die in 1905 (I assume you are referring to SR), then why did Einstein mention aether in his 1920 speech?  Refer to my first quote. 

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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #45 on: May 08, 2014, 06:28:51 PM »
I've said it before, but hey when is once enough?

He was reusing a recently obsolete term for stuff-space-was-full-of to describe the then-new idea that space turned out not to be entirely nothing-y but actually had measurable properties: curvature. He specifically made distinctions between his use of the term and the old one, in fact if there's a single important take away from relativity as a whole it's that there is absolutely not an impartial 'background' to the universe which we're moving through.

Even his peers at the time and since thought that it wasn't a helpful term to reuse.
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Son of Orospu

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #46 on: May 08, 2014, 06:33:44 PM »
Nikola Tesla was his peer and devoted a lot of time into proving that the aether is real.  Maybe he was just too dumb to use the word correctly as well? 

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V

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Re: Explain me this
« Reply #47 on: May 08, 2014, 06:36:21 PM »
Nikola Tesla was his peer and devoted a lot of time into proving that the aether is real.  Maybe he was just too dumb to use the word correctly as well?
Maybe the FEther and Tesla's ether are not the same.
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Son of Orospu

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #48 on: May 08, 2014, 06:41:05 PM »
How many different aethers are there now?  Does everyone just have their own aether?

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V

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Re: Explain me this
« Reply #49 on: May 08, 2014, 06:44:04 PM »
How many different aethers are there now?  Does everyone just have their own aether?
There are no ethers other than my avatar.
Tesla and Einstein's was proven not to exist, so if you want one ether then you've got experimental evidence it doesn't exist.
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Son of Orospu

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #50 on: May 08, 2014, 06:48:46 PM »
When and how were either of their theories "proven not to exist?"  Maybe someone just theorized that they don't exist and you think that is proof? 

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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #51 on: May 08, 2014, 06:50:35 PM »
Tesla, while one of the truly great electrical engineers of all time, one of the best engineers of any stripe even, was often full of shit. To be blunt.

He made many outrageous claims that perhaps seemed almost within reach to him at the time, but were just science fiction. I've heard this attributed to desperation to attract funding or to vindicate perceived slights or lack of public credit for his real accomplishments but I'm not sure. Perhaps he was just so full of ideas that he felt less limited by what was actually possible. Maybe he was just hooked on proving people wrong? If his reputation with the public, his peers even himself was built on doing the impossible, maybe he was looking for the next impossible thing.

Fascinating guy, but when a man who designed spaceship drives, antigravity, deathrays, intercontinental wireless power transmission and earthquake machines also looked for the ether, I'm not going to throw a century of observation and solid theory away over it.

edit:
When and how were either of their theories "proven not to exist?"  Maybe someone just theorized that they don't exist and you think that is proof? 
The ether hypothesis predicted results which were not found and is fundamentally incompatible with relativity which predicts results which are found.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2014, 06:53:58 PM by Goddamnit, Clown »
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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #52 on: May 08, 2014, 08:14:29 PM »
The documentary I watched on Tesla showed that he could clone human beings and cats. Are you saying that this isn't true?
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RealScientist

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #53 on: May 08, 2014, 08:48:01 PM »
I was referring to Einstien's view on aether.
Here we can all see the difference between a true scientist like Einstein and a dumb quote miner like Vauxhall. There is a difference between the hard science done by Einstein and which is as strong now as ever, and his tentative work and speculations, which ended in no great scientific breakthroughs from his last decades' work.

As with any other scientist, most of his work ended in unsubstantiated speculation and was forgotten, while his great achievements will be celebrated now and forever. Einstein had, as so many other scientists, a vague idea that empty space is not quite empty if it has properties, and gave the name "aether" to this vague idea, which never even got a clear definition. He just as well could have named it "queasiness" or "jaundice". The fact that he gave a name to this work in progress (which never stopped being a work in progress) means nothing.

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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #54 on: May 08, 2014, 08:54:55 PM »
I stopped reading after the personal attacks. Come back when you get some matutirty and grow some balls.
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sokarul

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #55 on: May 08, 2014, 09:49:03 PM »
The documentary I watched on Tesla showed that he could clone human beings and cats. Are you saying that this isn't true?
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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #56 on: May 08, 2014, 11:25:51 PM »
So that documentary was lying?
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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #57 on: May 08, 2014, 11:30:44 PM »
So that documentary was lying?
Name of documentary please. Do you think he did?
« Last Edit: May 09, 2014, 12:43:35 AM by inquisitive »

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Vauxhall

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #58 on: May 09, 2014, 12:44:42 AM »
I can't remember the name of the documentary. I do remember that David Bowie played Tesla in the dramatization parts. But I could be wrong.

Either way, no one has given a convincing argument agaisnt aether other than "because it was proven false". I'd expect at least one of you to have some sort of indoctrined RE pseudo-science dribble to explain it away, but I see its out of RETs grasp. 
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Goddamnit, Clown

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Re: Gravitational conundrums
« Reply #59 on: May 09, 2014, 01:02:39 AM »
The ether hypothesis predicted results which were not found and is fundamentally incompatible with relativity which predicts results which are found.
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