Philosophy Now Forum

No matter how you try and slice and dice it, uwot, it's still a non-mechanical, spooky-action-at-a-distance aether theory which you're advocating. It's no improvement on Newton's god hypothesis.

Obvious Leo wrote:No matter how you try and slice and dice it, uwot, it's still a non-mechanical, spooky-action-at-a-distance...

That in a nutshell is precisely what it isn't. As I have said, I think the best explanation of gravity is that it is refraction. I mean that literally, the mechanical medium that is big bang stuff is denser around material objects, in part because 'matter'- as in fundamental particles and aggregations thereof-is essentially condensed big bang stuff.

Obvious Leo wrote:...aether theory which you're advocating.

Well the name has unfortunate connotations, but it's a fair cop. You got me bang to rights.

Obvious Leo wrote:It's no improvement on Newton's god hypothesis.

Some people like God, some people like stuff. Although, if I'm right, then the gravity at the equator of a spinning object should be greater than at the poles; more than can be accounted for by oblateness. As it happens, I think that goes some way to explain why galaxies aren't flying apart in the way that dark matter is invoked to stop them.

uwot wrote: I mean that literally, the mechanical medium that is big bang stuff is denser around material objects, in part because 'matter'- as in fundamental particles and aggregations thereof-is essentially condensed big bang stuff.

That is certainly true.

uwot wrote: Although, if I'm right, then the gravity at the equator of a spinning object should be greater than at the poles; more than can be accounted for by oblateness. As it happens, I think that goes some way to explain why galaxies aren't flying apart in the way that dark matter is invoked to stop them.

Why should it be greater?

uwot wrote: As it happens, I think that goes some way to explain why galaxies aren't flying apart in the way that dark matter is invoked to stop them.

Dark matter is predicted by the theory but NOT by the evidence. In fact most of the galaxies are flying apart, including the one we're living in. Galaxies have been pulling each other to bits and merging together for as long as there have been galaxies.

Obvious Leo wrote:

uwot wrote: As it happens, I think that goes some way to explain why galaxies aren't flying apart in the way that dark matter is invoked to stop them.

Dark matter is predicted by the theory but NOT by the evidence. In fact most of the galaxies are flying apart, including the one we're living in. Galaxies have been pulling each other to bits and merging together for as long as there have been galaxies.

You can't use current telemetry data concerning the movement of galaxies. The premises used to calculate motion and location are wrong (most notably Doppler red-shifting).

JSS wrote:

uwot wrote: I mean that literally, the mechanical medium that is big bang stuff is denser around material objects, in part because 'matter'- as in fundamental particles and aggregations thereof-is essentially condensed big bang stuff.

That is certainly true.

I wouldn't go that far: it is a workable hypothesis, or at any rate, it works for me.

JSS wrote:

uwot wrote: Although, if I'm right, then the gravity at the equator of a spinning object should be greater than at the poles; more than can be accounted for by oblateness. As it happens, I think that goes some way to explain why galaxies aren't flying apart in the way that dark matter is invoked to stop them.

Why should it be greater?

Well, it's a long story of personal fruitloopery, but basically big bang stuff expanded from a tiny little thing, to a bloody great universe. I see no reason to believe it has stopped. The stuff that matter and energy are eddies and waves in is expanding, which is what makes tiny things like atoms so energetic. Fundamental particles themselves do not expand, they are just turbulence, solitons, if you like. Anyway, as this big bang stuff streams out into the cosmos (dark energy, in my view), it is unimpeded at the poles, but dragged at the equator, hence denser. It's more or less the same reasoning behind the energy emission of pulsars.

Obvious Leo wrote:Dark matter is predicted by the theory but NOT by the evidence.

What theory is that Leo?

uwot wrote:

JSS wrote: That is certainly true.

I wouldn't go that far: it is a workable hypothesis, or at any rate, it works for me.

I believe in certainty.

uwot wrote: it is unimpeded at the poles, but dragged at the equator, hence denser. It's more or less the same reasoning behind the energy emission of pulsars.

But why would "dragging" it make it more dense?

JSS wrote:I believe in certainty.

We all have our idiosyncrasies.

JSS wrote:But why would "dragging" it make it more dense?

Well, if you imagine a source of points, the points radiate in straight lines and form a sphere. If the source is rotating, the trajectory of the points emitted at the equator is parabolic, relative to its point of origin. If a points speed is relative to its origin, then it is closer to the surface than a point emitted at a pole and the shape described by all the points is more like a Rugby ball, or football, if you happen to be American. Unlike you, however, I don't believe in certainty.

uwot wrote: Obvious Leo wrote:
Dark matter is predicted by the theory but NOT by the evidence.


What theory is that Leo?

General Relativity.

JSS wrote: I believe in certainty.

Probably neither philosophy nor science would be a wise career choice for you then, JSS, and perhaps you ought to consider an alternative line of work. The priesthood might be an option.

Obvious Leo wrote:

uwot wrote:What theory is that Leo?

General Relativity.

I wasn't aware that General Relativity predicted dark matter. Can you elucidate?

uwot wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:

uwot wrote:What theory is that Leo?

General Relativity.

I wasn't aware that General Relativity predicted dark matter. Can you elucidate?

GR predicts that the galaxies should be gravitationally bound and yet calculations show that they don't contain enough mass to bind them in the way that theory predicts. The mathematics of this is not for the fainthearted but it essentially began with the virial theorem of Fritz Zwicky back in 1933. This mathematical treatment derives from the tensor equations of GR and explaining it all is way above my pay grade. However most physicists agree that if GR is true then dark matter is true and if GR is false then it's back to the drawing board.

GR still treats galaxies as "island universes" and essentially ignores the relativistic effects they have on each other, but what do you reckon a galaxy that's being pulled apart by the gravitational effects of nearby galaxies would look like? Check out the Pinwheel galaxy and you'll have your answer.

uwot wrote:

JSS wrote:I believe in certainty.

We all have our idiosyncrasies.

JSS wrote:But why would "dragging" it make it more dense?

Well, if you imagine a source of points, the points radiate in straight lines and form a sphere. If the source is rotating, the trajectory of the points emitted at the equator is parabolic, relative to its point of origin. If a points speed is relative to its origin, then it is closer to the surface than a point emitted at a pole and the shape described by all the points is more like a Rugby ball, or football, if you happen to be American. Unlike you, however, I don't believe in certainty.

So you are assuming that the "points" are being emitted by the Earth?

For every "point" being emitted, there must be a point being absorbed (conservation of the mass). I think that would cancel the effect that you are talking about.

Obvious Leo wrote:Probably neither philosophy nor science would be a wise career choice for you then, JSS, and perhaps you ought to consider an alternative line of work. The priesthood might be an option.

My career (when I was young) was Intelligence Design .. a little out of your league.

JSS wrote:My career (when I was young) was Intelligence Design .. a little out of your league.

True. The English language is more my forte and thus I know that the term "Intelligence Design" is an oxymoron. It it's intelligence then it hasn't been designed.

Obvious Leo wrote:GR predicts that the galaxies should be gravitationally bound and yet calculations show that they don't contain enough mass to bind them in the way that theory predicts.

This is just wrong, Leo. GR simply predicts that all matter attracts all other, it does not make any claim about how much mass there is in any galaxy.

uwot wrote:it does not make any claim about how much mass there is in any galaxy.

That's not what I said. I said that GR cannot account for the gravitational effects which galaxies have on each other and the reason for this is that the relativistic motion of galaxies cannot be determined, even in principle, because there simply is no law which determines this. Relativistic motion is self-determining and this is the very reason why Henri Poincare immediately rejected SR. Poincare didn't live long enough to see the publication of GR but he would he have rejected it on the same grounds. However, had he lived to see it, he would have immediately recognised the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for what it is. It is a simple statement about the effects of gravity on relativistic motion. We cannot specify both the location and the momentum of a subatomic particle for the same reason that we can't do this for a jumbo jet, a planet, a star or a galaxy. The three-body problem had been known of since Newton and the simple truth it reveals is that statements about location and momentum always need to specify relative to what and what is a true statement relative to one body is automatically a false statement relative to another. In other words the GR field equations are not relativistic enough when it comes to galaxies.