Relativity

[CharlesChandler]

Funny how the charges of bad science and argumentum ad ignorantiam come from somebody who has done no field work and not made a single prediction.

My predictions concerning mirages are at the end of this previous post.

But carry on, would-be Galileo.

Thanks!

[chrimony]

My predictions concerning mirages are at the end of this previous post.

Fair enough. So just to record this for posterity:

In the absence of instrumented data, the only thing that can be done is to issue predictions, and to collect the field data to test them. So here are my predictions.

1. Temperatures should be similar those obtained in the study cited above, with a hot skin layer 1 cm deep, a warm surface layer 20 cm deep, and ambient temps above that.
2. The humidity should follow the same gradient as the temperature, with high humidity in the skin layer, moderate humidity in the surface layer, and low humidity above that.
3. There shouldn't be any measurable convection (i.e., <0.1 m/s), despite the buoyancy necessary to drive a powerful updraft.
4. There should be an inverted fair weather electric field, with the surface of the asphalt being positively charged, and the skin layer being negatively charged (>10-4 Coulombs per cubic meter). The surface layer should have a slight charge (~10-9 Coulombs per cubic meter), and the air above that should have no detectable charge.
5. There shouldn't be any measurable chromatic dispersion.

The last 2 items would take more expensive instrumentation to measure, but the first 3 could be tested quite easily.

What's crucially lacking is how this model applies to the Sun and deflection of starlight around it, which is what Einstein did when he put forth his theory of General Relativity.

[CharlesChandler]

What's crucially lacking is how this model applies to the Sun and deflection of starlight around it, which is what Einstein did when he put forth his theory of General Relativity.

What makes you think that my model would only apply to terrestrial density gradients (or that Einstein's only applied to the Sun)?

[chrimony]

What makes you think that my model would only apply to terrestrial density gradients (or that Einstein's only applied to the Sun)?

I said neither. What you have not done, and what Einstein did, was to come up with a precise model and make a numerical prediction. I'm talking about the Sun because that's the experiment under discussion. I feel like I'm having to belabor the obvious here.

[CharlesChandler]

Am I wrong, before my work is complete?

Was Einstein right, before his work was complete?

The bottom line here is that it is always a mistake to prematurely rule out possibilities. I'm insisting on clear explanations of how things work, and if I don't get them, I conclude that there is still something that we don't know about this Universe. This is the premise of all scientific progress. You're convinced that GR is a closed case. I'm not. Ironically, Einstein would have agreed with me, and not with you. Same with Newton, and Galileo. I might not be qualified to play in the big leagues, with heavy hitters like those guys. But at least I understand the game. So I could be a bat boy or something. You, on the other hand, are only qualified to be a spectator in a game like this. So why don't you just sit back and watch, while players have a go at this? Why conclude that the game is already over, for all time? I like this game.

[chrimony]

Am I wrong, before my work is complete?

Was Einstein right, before his work was complete?

The issue here isn't whether you are right or wrong, it is your hypocrisy about how the mainstream is doing bad science when they are the ones actually doing science. They made the numerical predictions and did the field work. Yet you toss out a novel interpretation of a mirage and then act like their betters when you have made no precise predictions or done anything to validate your ideas.

The bottom line here is that it is always a mistake to prematurely rule out possibilities. I'm insisting on clear explanations of how things work, and if I don't get them, I conclude that there is still something that we don't know about this Universe. This is the premise of all scientific progress.

That's all fine and dandy. But the details of this conversation matter. Tossing out a single phenomenon that you'd like further investigated doesn't overturn all the evidence for General Relativity.

You're convinced that GR is a closed case. I'm not.

You again prescribe a position to me that I have not stated (straw man), and in fact I have said the opposite ("Science is about the burden of evidence. There is no final "proof" of anything. [..] Or maybe another model altogether. But right now, the evidence points to GR."). Do you read and then promptly forget whenever something doesn't match your biases? It seems that way.

Ironically, Einstein would have agreed with me, and not with you. Same with Newton, and Galileo.

I'm pretty sure all of those guys would find your attitude towards scientists who have done actual predictions and field work repugnant, and tell you to stop disparaging the work of others when you have done no science to back it up.

You, on the other hand, are only qualified to be a spectator in a game like this. So why don't you just sit back and watch, while players have a go at this?

I'd ask you the same question, because compared to the scientists you like to disparage, you have done nothing and shown no particular skill.

[CharlesChandler]

You're convinced that GR is a closed case. I'm not.

But right now, the evidence points to GR.

But when you say that alternative interpretations need not be investigated, isn't that a closed case???

BTW, I've been doing some more reading, and it might turn out that everybody was wrong about the optical properties of mirages (including myself). For example, see:

Zhou, H. et al., 2011: Road surface mirage: A bunch of hot air? Chinese Science Bulletin, 56 (10): 962-968

The researchers note that cars can drive straight through mirages, and to the observer at a distance, the mirages are not disturbed. Since there's no way that the air in the wake of the car would not be disturbed, the optical phenomenon cannot possibly be refraction in a density gradient. The researchers go on to maintain that the mirage is actually a reflection directly off of the road surface. (See the references in the article for their review of others who have held this position also.) They're basically saying that at a small enough angle of incidence, surface scattering combines into a "reflected" image. I find that unconvincing, and they didn't seem to account for the fact that this only happens when the Sun is shining. For other reasons, I'm convinced that the surface has gotten photo-ionized. I have no idea how an ionized surface becomes reflective, but I "think" that it's the only variable left, so that deserves investigating. Maybe the ionization polarizes the remaining electrons, and then they emit photons that they receive in a specific direction, which they wouldn't otherwise do, thus making the surface reflective. And that would explain why there is no apparent dispersion in inferior mirages -- it isn't refraction at all.

Does this mean that density gradients are insufficient to deflect light as I previously argued? I don't know, but anything's possible. Until they are directly measured, we have no way of knowing.

I'm actually considering the possibility that density gradients don't refract light at all. In inferior mirages, my model asserts that there is a chemical differentiation, with a boundary layer that is much richer in water vapor than the air above. There is also instrumented data showing an anomalous build-up of heat in that boundary layer. I'm attributing that to the ability of water vapor to absorb infrared radiation, which diatomic nitrogen and oxygen cannot do. The water molecules are all negative ions, bound tightly to the surface, which is positively charged due to photo-ionization. So I was thinking that it wasn't so much the heat, but the difference in refractive indexes between water vapor and diatomic nitrogen or oxygen. If the mirage is actually just specular reflection, that goes out the window. But we definitely know that chemical differences can deflect photons. (Look closely across the top of a cup containing gasoline to see wavering in the air due to gas vapors that treat photons differently from the surrounding air, without any density gradient.)

Back to the issue at hand: does the GR position get stronger, if one of its adversaries bites the dust? Not exactly. Could the atmosphere around a distant gravity source have chemical differentiation that deflects light? Yes.

My point is this: when I hear things that don't ring true, I ask questions, and I learn. Sometimes I end up proving the position I was challenging, though nobody ever thanked me for this. Sometimes I end up on an alternative road, which I later find to have been traveled before. And sometimes I find myself bushwhacking through the wilderness. But no matter what, I learn something. And I have fun! I guess the GR folks find playing follow the leader to be fun too. To each his own, I guess. I have fun getting past people like that!!!

[chrimony]

But when you say that alternative interpretations need not be investigated, isn't that a closed case???

Another straw man and a case of binary thinking from you. I never said "alternative interpretations need not be investigated". However, not all alternative explanations are equal. Unfortunately, I'm having to repeat myself a lot here. What I said was: "If you want to make fringe claims of dubious value, while ranting and raving about the "garbage science" the other side is doing, the onus is on you. If you find these mirages so fascinating why haven't you done the field work?"

Back to the issue at hand: does the GR position get stronger, if one of its adversaries bites the dust? Not exactly. Could the atmosphere around a distant gravity source have chemical differentiation that deflects light? Yes.

Fine, you have yet another model of mirages that makes no scientific predictions about deflection of light around the Sun. Per this debate, nothing has changed.

I guess the GR folks find playing follow the leader to be fun too. To each his own, I guess. I have fun getting past people like that!!!

Too bad you can't do your "science" without disparaging the work of others. Despite what you think, tests of GR using new approaches continue. As an aside, I have noticed a negative relationship between the amount of silly emoticons in a post and the quality of the argument.

[Frantic]

But when you say that alternative interpretations need not be investigated, isn't that a closed case???

Another straw man and a case of binary thinking from you. I never said "alternative interpretations need not be investigated". However, not all alternative explanations are equal. Unfortunately, I'm having to repeat myself a lot here. What I said was: "If you want to make fringe claims of dubious value, while ranting and raving about the "garbage science" the other side is doing, the onus is on you. If you find these mirages so fascinating why haven't you done the field work?"

Back to the issue at hand: does the GR position get stronger, if one of its adversaries bites the dust? Not exactly. Could the atmosphere around a distant gravity source have chemical differentiation that deflects light? Yes.

Fine, you have yet another model of mirages that makes no scientific predictions about deflection of light around the Sun. Per this debate, nothing has changed.

I guess the GR folks find playing follow the leader to be fun too. To each his own, I guess. I have fun getting past people like that!!!

Too bad you can't do your "science" without disparaging the work of others. Despite what you think, tests of GR using new approaches continue. As an aside, I have noticed a negative relationship between the amount of silly emoticons in a post and the quality of the argument.

Chrimony, your post does not facilitate the discussion or conversation in any way. I am sick of seeing the term Straw Man and likely most of us on this forum, as the term straw man, implies we are all ignorant and that a straw man fallacy will be accepted by us ignorant folk on the EU boards. So you have disparaged the EU as much as Charles has the mainstream.

[chrimony]

Chrimony, your post does not facilitate the discussion or conversation in any way.

Funny, that's what I feel about your post.

I am sick of seeing the term Straw Man and likely most of us on this forum, as the term straw man, implies we are all ignorant and that a straw man fallacy will be accepted by us ignorant folk on the EU boards. So you have disparaged the EU as much as Charles has the mainstream.

Huh? When Charles makes a straw man argument, Charles did that, not the entire forum. When I call out Charles for doing that, I call out Charles, not the entire forum. And if Charles misprepresents what I said, I will call him out on it, and rightfully so.

[David]

Just speaking for myself alone, I have enjoyed following this conversation and hope it continues. It's been a good debate.

[Frantic]

Chrimony, your post does not facilitate the discussion or conversation in any way.

Funny, that's what I feel about your post.

I am sick of seeing the term Straw Man and likely most of us on this forum, as the term straw man, implies we are all ignorant and that a straw man fallacy will be accepted by us ignorant folk on the EU boards. So you have disparaged the EU as much as Charles has the mainstream.

Huh? When Charles makes a straw man argument, Charles did that, not the entire forum. When I call out Charles for doing that, I call out Charles, not the entire forum. And if Charles misprepresents what I said, I will call him out on it, and rightfully so.

I guess you missed my point, if you feel the need to point out a straw man argument you are inferring you have more detailed knowledge than the rest of the forum and we need your expertise to see the fallacy. It's in your WIKI definition that it requires an uninformed ignorant audience for a straw man argument to succeed.

Sometimes the Straw Man knocks down the straw man, and we just watch them fight I guess

There are theories like the big bang that are infallible, as disproving even the CMBR would only be a straw man to them if they could accept it at all. Red shift if disproven would be called another straw man. Only going back in time and stopping the big bang from happening would disprove it.

Not saying he's the next Genius of our generation, but if Charles were able to be accepted by and work with these other scientists as colleagues perhaps he would not be so adversarial, but we all know how the world works and there are few ways to draw attention to otherwise missed ideas. Are his ideas something that could just be tested in his garage? I don't know. Strange that all experiments are preceded with degrees and dollars not observations and logic.

Straw man really is an overused derogatory expression, thought I could be a peacekeeper on an internet forum ... How stupid am I? Guess I do need to be informed when someone is making a straw man.

Last post, sorry. Like David I enjoy the thread. Do not mean to derail the conversation.

[chrimony]

I guess you missed my point, if you feel the need to point out a straw man argument you are inferring you have more detailed knowledge than the rest of the forum and we need your expertise to see the fallacy. It's in your WIKI definition that it requires an uninformed ignorant audience for a straw man argument to succeed.

You're right, I did miss that bit from Wikipedia. I don't even know why it is in there, as any logical fallacy requires in some sense the audience not to pick up on it. Practically speaking, if somebody misrepresented your position I'm sure you or anybody else in the same scenario would correct the misinformation. It's quite a stretch to claim that it's an insult to the readers to do so.

Straw man really is an overused derogatory expression, thought I could be a peacekeeper on an internet forum ... How stupid am I? Guess I do need to be informed when someone is making a straw man.

I agree it can be overused, but when it applies, it applies. You also have a funny way of being a peacekeeper.

[CharlesChandler]

Just speaking for myself alone, I have enjoyed following this conversation and hope it continues. It's been a good debate.

There has been good to it, but I'm not sure why we would continue. I think that the principle positions have been restated several times, and the only progress that I saw in all of that was that my position concerning the optical properties of density gradients shifted. But my essential position concerning the process of GR hasn't changed, which is what, for me, this discussion was about from the beginning. GR is presented as well-supported, and yet there are fundamental issues that are still in flux. For me, this means that the whole thing is, and should be, a wide open debate.

But when you say that alternative interpretations need not be investigated, isn't that a closed case???

Another straw man and a case of binary thinking from you. I never said "alternative interpretations need not be investigated". However, not all alternative explanations are equal. Unfortunately, I'm having to repeat myself a lot here. What I said was: "If you want to make fringe claims of dubious value, while ranting and raving about the "garbage science" the other side is doing, the onus is on you. If you find these mirages so fascinating why haven't you done the field work?"

This is how people respond when they can't defend their territory on scientific grounds. Most tellingly...

Also, the mass of the Sun has been measured by other means, so if it matches what General Relativity predicts when it comes to deflection of light, that is independent confirmation.

You're going to predict deflection to within a couple of arc-seconds on the basis of the mass of the Sun, and with the force of gravity accurate only to within 1.2 × 10−4, and call it confirmation? That's making assertions that are finer than the experimental deviation. Without a more accurate definition of G, gravitational lensing can't even be tested, much less confirmed.

I never got a come-back to that one. chrimony did follow up with a correction, stating that the measurements of "gravitational lensing" are actually in milli-arc-seconds, but perhaps without realizing that this only exasperates the problem of assertions that are finer than the experimental deviation, given the approximate value of G. Everything past that point from chrimony was ad hom attacks. Go figure.

In the end, chrimony's position is just a double standard. The onus is on the one who challenges the mainstream. Sure it is. But then chrimony seems to believe that people challenging the mainstream should keep very quiet about it -- never discussing their ideas with like minds on forums. Before you disagree with GR, you'd better do all of the work to support your position, or you're doing bad science. So, without funding, and without online discussions, what chance does an alternative view have? No chance! Of course, that would suit the mainstream just fine. But people in the mainstream get to discuss stuff online, knocking ideas around, and mentioning relevant literature. They get to challenge methods, results, implications, and conclusions. But then they'll tell you that before you go challenging the mainstream, you'd better have all of that worked out. If you don't, all manner of ad hom attacks are justified. But that's a double standard.

And that's why alternative forums get started, like this one. And this particular forum even tolerates people challenging the positions of the people who set up the forum, which speaks volumes about what kind of people they are. I might disagree with them, but I have a great deal of respect for the work that they have already done, and even more respect for the way they tolerate dissenting opinions, because that's the mark of true scientists. I get an ad hom attack out of the EU every once in a while -- there's no avoiding that, especially if the topic is methodology, and I'm guilty of it too. As long as there are still legitimate points that can be sifted out of the rhetoric, there is still value, and people looking for intrinsic merit just blow past the rhetoric. The time to walk away is when it's nothing but rhetoric. And I'm afraid that such is the trend in this thread.

In closing, I'd like to call people's attention to the abstract from the paper on mirages that I'm currently studying.

Zhou, H. et al., 2011: Road surface mirage: A bunch of hot air? Chinese Science Bulletin, 56 (10): 962-968

The inferior mirage from road surfaces is a common phenomenon, which can be easily seen in everyday life. It has been recognized in the literature as a light refraction phenomenon due to the refractive index gradient caused by the temperature gradient in the air strata above the road surfaces. However, it was also suggested that the mirage is just a phenomenon of specular reflection at grazing incidence. Because of the lack of reasonable and quantitative evidence, the generally accepted light refraction theory has not yet been refuted. Here we show some mirror-like reflection images captured from a road surface stretch in Yujiashan North Road, Wuhan, China, when there was no obvious temperature gradient on or above the road, measured on a winter day in December 2009. This provided direct evidence to doubt the temperature induced light refraction mechanism of the inferior mirage. Furthermore, the critical grazing angle of about 0.2° to the road plane where the mirror-like reflection appears could not make the rough surface scatter incident light as a smooth surface according to the Rayleigh criterion. Therefore the phenomenon is a mirror-like observation effect of scattering from the surface, which cannot be entirely explained by light refraction via air strata. The results demonstrate that the image-formation mechanism and the observer-based-analysis method shown here potentially offer a means of understanding a wide range of scattering phenomena from rough surfaces at grazing angle; for example, the superior mirages of unusual brightness occasionally observed over frozen lakes and the off-specular reflection phenomenon.

So here we are, over 300 years after Sir Isaac Newton started formalizing the principles of optics, and we're not really sure whether inferior mirages are refractions in density gradients, or specular reflections due to some unknown mechanism. Wow. Some people seem to believe that scientists are pretty sure that they've figured out pretty much everything, and the only ongoing research has to do with extremely large and extremely small scale stuff (but all of the evidence definitely suggests that GR and QM respectively are the most promising paradigms). That's laughable. There are tons of uninvestigated assumptions embedded in everyday science that might all turn out to be false. And if that's how scientists treat simple stuff that's right in front of their faces, how are we going to interpret what they're saying about what's going on at extremely large/small scales? With an open mind, and with large doses of healthy skepticism. And we should share our ideas, so that others can find the flaws, and reveal opportunities for progress. Scientists who think that they pretty much have it all worked out aren't going to give us progress, because they're not even looking for it. Progress can only come from those who question.

Cheers!

[chrimony]

There has been good to it, but I'm not sure why we would continue. I think that the principle positions have been restated several times

We agree on that much, though I would not need to repeat myself so much if you did not keep on misrepresenting my position.

This is how people respond when they can't defend their territory on scientific grounds. Most tellingly...

And this is how you respond when I clearly show that you misrepresented my position, with previous quotes included. There's no response at all, except to claim that I'm the one not responding!

I never got a come-back to that one. chrimony did follow up with a correction, stating that the measurements of "gravitational lensing" are actually in milli-arc-seconds, but perhaps without realizing that this only exasperates the problem of assertions that are finer than the experimental deviation, given the approximate value of G. Everything past that point from chrimony was ad hom attacks. Go figure.

You contradict yourself in the first two sentences. I gave you a comeback, and you chose not to respond to it until just now as a misdirection from your misrepresentations. But let's talk about it. You say, "Without a more accurate definition of G, gravitational lensing can't even be tested, much less confirmed." It would seem very strange to me if all the scientists who have worked on GR missed such a basic problem. Would you agree that either you are making a gross error or they are?

Also, any ad hom attacks on you are in response to your ad hom attacks on the mainstream. You accuse them of bad science, yet they do all the actual science. You accuse them of imaginative theories and talk about predictions and field work, but they've made the actual predictions and done the actual field work, where you have done none.

In the end, chrimony's position is just a double standard. The onus is on the one who challenges the mainstream. Sure it is. But then chrimony seems to believe that people challenging the mainstream should keep very quiet about it -- never discussing their ideas with like minds on forums.

Again with the straw man. Sorry for those who have a knee-jerk reaction to the term, but this is a classic case of grossly misrepresenting my position and then proceeding to knock it down. I have never said people should "keep very quiet" about challenging the mainstream. But if you're going to do so in a derogatory fashion, throwing out terms like "bad science" and claiming that your issues with mirages overturns the mountain of science done for GR, then expect to be challenged yourself.

Before you disagree with GR, you'd better do all of the work to support your position, or you're doing bad science. So, without funding, and without online discussions, what chance does an alternative view have? No chance! Of course, that would suit the mainstream just fine. But people in the mainstream get to discuss stuff online, knocking ideas around, and mentioning relevant literature. They get to challenge methods, results, implications, and conclusions. But then they'll tell you that before you go challenging the mainstream, you'd better have all of that worked out. If you don't, all manner of ad hom attacks are justified. But that's a double standard.

No, the double standard is yours. You accuse others of bad science but practice no science in your critique. How would you feel if I crapped all over your work on earthquakes when I don't have the prerequisite knowledge to do so? All I can say is it seems interesting, and maybe you should focus on that instead of accusing scientists of "bad science" for a well-studied field that you know very little about.