The Flat Earth society
- Thread starter parsifal
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mikewint
Captain
Exactly Wayne...You got it
mikewint
Captain
That's Immaterial actually Whats been moved to the outfield
mikewint
Captain
Precisely!! The presence of mass dimples the fabric of Spacetime. Masses simply follow that curvature as do photons
I have not been following this thread, and that appears to be a good thing.
Please tell me I'm wrong, but does Mike deny gravity and believe that the earth is flat? I'm getting this just from reading tidbits.
Please tell me I'm wrong, but does Mike deny gravity and believe that the earth is flat? I'm getting this just from reading tidbits.
Well, I was mostly talking about being weighed down by an awesomely arrayed load of bull-manure, but gravity *is* technically a curvature in the fabric of space-time -- the thing is these curves tend to produce spheroid shapes as all the mass accumulates in the middle and the curvature produced by the mass radiates out evenly in all directions
Adler, well you asked. Mike flits between actual laws of physics and theories proposed by flat earthers. I saw a couple of obvious howlers in the argument but couldn't be bothered. You have been up in the air more than me I am sure and I have seen we live on a sphere, that is enough for me.
wuzak
Captain
The warping of space-time IS gravity.
Is that in a world with flat or a spherical earth?
wuzak
Captain
Definitely a spherical earth.
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
What says, that the earth isn't a square? 
mikewint
Captain
Chris, as to the former, I unequivocally deny that it is a FORCE. As to the latter I object to objecting to it (Flat Earth) using the same pseudo-scientific non-knowledge that they (Flatearthers) use to promote it up to an including ridicule. There are plenty of real actual scientific reasons to obviate it. I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
Real, actual forces all have force carriers. Something must "carry" or transmit the force from one point to another. There are FOUR fundamental Forces -
1. The WEAK FORCE carried by the W+, W-, & Z Bosons it acts on Quarks and Leptons to change their Flavor
2. The ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE carried by Photons, it act on all electrically charged particles attracting unlike or repelling like charges
*N.B.* Now unified into a single ELECTROWEAK FORCE
3. The FUNDAMENTAL STRONG FORCE carried by Gluons, it acts on Quarks to bind them together due to their their Color
4. The RESIDUAL STRONG FORCE carried by Mesons, it acts on Hadrons to bind the atomic nucleus together against P+/P+ repulsion
Newton identified GRAVITY as a universal force and formulated a law of universal gravitation which was sufficient to describe all motion within the solar system UNTIL the 20th century. A supposed carrier was even proposed and named, i.e.: the graviton. Unfortunately gravitational force could NEVER be reconciled with the other actual forces and the graviton could never be found. In addition small discrepancies in actual motion from predicted motion remained and a huge error was observed in the predicted and actual motion of the planet Mercury. Proponents of Newtonian Gravitational Force even went so far as to proposed another planet, Vulcan, to expain the perturbations observed in Mercury's orbit.
When Einstein formulated his General Theory of Relativity he looked at the actual orbit of Mercury and found that his theory could explain it. In GR, gravitation is not viewed as a force, but rather, objects actually move freely under their own inertia in straight lines through curved space-time (masses warp the fabric of space and time – space-time). From the perspective of the object, all motion occurs as if there were no gravitation whatsoever. It is only when observing the motion in a global sense that the curvature of space-time can be observed and the force is inferred from the object's curved path. Thus, the straight line path in space-time is seen as a curved line in space, and becomes a ballistic trajectory from an Earth based frame of reference. For example, a basketball thrown from the ground is observed to move in a parabola, as if it were in a uniform gravitational field. Its space-time trajectory is almost a straight line, slightly curved (with the radius of curvature of the order of few light-years) due to the Earth's mass curving the local space-time. The time derivative of the changing momentum of the object is what we label as "gravitational force".
Within the Earth based reference frame, Newtonian Gravitation formulas are excellent and simple ways to predict and describe the motion. The minuscule errors are inconsequential. BUT when extreme accuracy is required Relativity MUST be taken into account.
GPS satellites aren't moving at anything close to the speed of light but, they are moving at roughly 10,000 kph and are sending signals to ground stations on Earth. For the required accuracy the satellites use clocks that are accurate to a few billionths of a second (nanoseconds). Since each satellite is 12,600 miles (20,300 kilometers) above Earth and moves at about 6,000 miles per hour (10,000 km/h), there's a relativistic time dilation that tacks on about 4 microseconds each day. Add in the effects of space-time curvature and the figure goes up to about 7 microseconds. That's 7,000 nanoseconds. While this may seem inconsequential the difference is very real: if no relativistic effects were accounted for, a GPS unit that tells you it's a half mile (0.8 km) to the next gas station would be 5 miles (8 km) off after only one day.
mikewint
Captain
There is no "technically" about it. Gravity as a force is non-existent. Space-time is warped by the simple presence of a mass. Photons which have no mass could not be affected by "gravity" which Newton defined as an attractive force between two masses. Yet light curves around the sun as the photons follow the warped space-time produced by the mass of the sun
Mike actually knows the actual modern Theories of Modern Physics and not the popularize pseudoscience of "everybody knows"
"Howlers"?? Please elaborate. I'm always willing to be educated
No it is not, but the path of things moving through Space-time warped by the presence of mass gives the illusion of a force acting on the object, just as an object sliding across the seat of your car gives the illusion of a force pulling it across the seat. The Earth orbits the sun NOT because of an illusory force but because it is following the warped space-time caused by the presence of the sun's mass.
Interesting how you didn't address the rest of what I wrote...
mikewint
Captain
Mostly because it is semi-correct. The biggest flaw is that you seem to consider space and time as separate entities whereas they are manifestations of a single entity. We simply do not have the vocabulary to adequately discuss the actual dimensional nature of spacetime. Curve and even sphere are 3 dimensional constructs whereas GR Theory requires a minimum of four. Additionally I have no idea as to what time is other than the dimension: duration. Now depending upon your particular belief system Super String posits 10 dimensions; M-Theory has 11; and Bosonic String has 26.
So please enlarge on the point of the rest of you posting that I ignored
