Relativity

[CharlesChandler]

Oh and then there are just a few more steps, in case steps 1~8 leave anybody unconvinced that density gradients cannot deflect light in a non-dispersive way:

• Stick to the assumption that density gradients deflect light like a prism, and hope that nobody realizes that it's just an assumption.
• Conclude that anybody who asserts that density gradients are non-dispersive, given that they are assumed to be, must also be asserting the presence of something else in there (a.k.a., a "mystery material"), with the ability to put the dispersed frequencies back together again, assuming that dispersion had to have occurred, and without undoing the deflection.
• Call attention to the absence of evidence of said "mystery material".
• Count the number of moving parts in the "density gradient plus mystery material" thingy, versus GR.
• Call attention to the fact that you just manufactured something even more mysterious than GR.
• Invoke Occam's Razor to make it go away.
• Hope nobody realizes that it was a straw man argument.

Note that I don't actually believe that you're deliberately trying to get away with fallacious reasoning, since there is evidence that you understand the nuances of critical thought. I think that you just don't realize how deeply embedded your assumptions are. The bare-faced fact here is that as time goes on, initial assumptions upon which subsequent works are based get firmed up into things that seem to behave like facts. And this has happened with GR. After 100 years, Einsteinian hunchology is now taken as gospel. Somewhere in there, a postulate that got used in so many different theorems starts to behave like a theorem itself, even if it was never actually proved. Then trying to call it an unproved postulate will get you some stiff resistance, even from reasonable people -- if they don't realize that their assumptions got compressed into false facts.

[Sain84]

Let's discuss the actual assumptions of both models rather than simply misrepresenting my claims to the extraordinary double standard you have constructed.

For a refractive model:
1) Assume non-disperse refraction occurs in a single material from optical to radio with no known example of such a material (hence the "mystery material"). It's important to note it doesn't matter if this "mysterial material" is a new one or one we know of today, the argument is the same, we know of no material that has this property. It could be hydrogen for all we know but it wouldn't matter.
2) Assume the principles of GR are incorrect and thus GR is false (this cannot be ignored, as you show a negative assumption is just as much an assumption as a positive one)
3) Construct a model of this material to fit the observed non-dispersive lensing, many parameters will be needed to fit the distribution and it's tendency to cling to all massive bodies.

For a GR model.
1) Assume non-disperse refraction does not occur.
2) Assume the principles of GR are correct and thus GR is true and lensing occurs.

Even if you choose to ignore the second assumption of the refractive model you are still left with more assumptions. it's a complete double standard to state that the model of GR makes more assumptions. Also note, you invoked Occam's Razor not me. It's not fallacious logic at all.

Lastly I'd like to ask if you believe that non-dispersive refraction happens in the atmosphere why doesn't it occur in observations of lensing? After all the radio measurements were made from the ground and the optical measurements I quoted were made in space and yet they agree on the value of gamma.

[CharlesChandler]

Assume non-disperse refraction occurs in a single material from optical to radio with no known example of such a material (hence the "mystery material"). It's important to note it doesn't matter if this "mysterial material" is a new one or one we know of today, the argument is the same, we know of no material that has this property. It could be hydrogen for all we know but it wouldn't matter.

Why does this have to be an assumption? All that needs to happen here is for somebody to take a spectroscope out into the parking lot on a hot, sunny summer day, and measure the spectrum in a mirror-image mirage, versus line-of-sight light, to see if there is any measurable dispersion. How could this not be considered simple due diligence? Gravitational lensing is one of the cornerstones of the new physics -- what kind of physics is this, that doesn't require the simplest of double-checks?

So you repeat your "count the moving parts" argument, saying that gravitational lensing is simpler, and therefore better. Here you're revealing a fundamental disconnect from reality, which is typical in the mainstream these days. You fail to realize that there is more to a model than just the number of moving parts. Whether or not it has anything to do with reality is also a factor. Within the present context, you're saying gravity is deflecting the photons, and I'm saying that density gradients are doing the work. But the implications go far beyond just the number of moving parts in each model. Models make predictions. Models based on the true nature of the explanandum make good predictions. Models based on mis-attributed observations make poor predictions. For example, given a measured amount of deflection, my model estimates the density gradient in the atmosphere surrounding the gravity source, while yours denies that there is an atmosphere (otherwise there would be dispersion), and estimates the mass of the gravity source. Subsequent data collection will then confirm which predictions were correct. Does that matter?

If simplicity is the only issue, why aren't you arguing that we return to Aristotlean physics? Fewer moving parts...

Lastly I'd like to ask if you believe that non-dispersive refraction happens in the atmosphere why doesn't it occur in observations of lensing? After all the radio measurements were made from the ground and the optical measurements I quoted were made in space and yet they agree on the value of gamma.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

[Sain84]

Why does this have to be an assumption? All that needs to happen here is for somebody to take a spectroscope out into the parking lot on a hot, sunny summer day, and measure the spectrum in a mirror-image mirage, versus line-of-sight light, to see if there is any measurable dispersion.

If you nor I am aware of any experiment that proves it either way it's an assumption. A spectrum won't measure dispersion easily, you need images to see where the colours have split. Most importantly you would need to calculate the expected result given the sensitivity of your set up to see whether or not you are wasting your time. You don't know what amount of dispersion you would get, nor do I, assuming it would be easily detectable shows nothing. As I have told you some of us find the green flash convincing as you can simulate it using just refraction, the same goes for the refraction of starlight and dispersion seen in water based mirage analogues.

So you repeat your "count the moving parts" argument, saying that gravitational lensing is simpler, and therefore better. Here you're revealing a fundamental disconnect from reality, which is typical in the mainstream these days.

That's Occam's Razor, you know the thing you tried to use to assert that a refractive model was better. Note I never said it was better in that post, I said your model is not free of big assumptions. The next bit is a complete strawman. I never implied predictions were irreverent. Also note as I have said 20 times, the fact that there is no obvious dispersion is not a problem for a refractive medium. You're going on and on about how many assumptions the standard picture makes, then when I point out yours does too you say I have neglected practical results. Quite the opposite GR provides practical predictions, lensing being just one.

If we could please talk about physics rather than constant accusations of corruption in modern physics or whatever.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

How is it that these density gradients show non-dispersive refraction and yet do not interfere with observations of gravitational lensing? These are very fine measurements of the positions of sources on the sky some from the ground others from space. If they do bend the light like this then the radio measurements on the ground would have been refracted by the atmosphere but it wouldn't have been removed because it was not frequency dependent. As a result there would have been whopping errors. Fundamentally the space based measurements would disagree with the ground based ones. This didn't occur, why not?

[CharlesChandler]

If you nor I am aware of any experiment that proves it either way it's an assumption.

Of course. The point there was that the properties of mirages have not been investigated, and I'm questioning why not.

Fundamentally the space based measurements would disagree with the ground based ones.

In what sense would they have disagreed?

[Sain84]

Fundamentally the space based measurements would disagree with the ground based ones.

In what sense would they have disagreed?

It's not that the disagree, it's that under your model they would. If non-dispersive refraction occurred in the atmosphere then the atmosphere would refract the light from distant objects throwing off the lensing measurements done from the ground. The space based measurements wouldn't have this factor, they would disagree with ground based measurements. So why didn't they disagree?

[CharlesChandler]

So why didn't they disagree?

Probably because somebody assumed the conclusion, and never bothered to establish benchmarks. But you're right about one thing -- we have hit an impasse. You cannot be forced to acknowledge what you're taking for granted. And if I don't take the same things for granted, you call it an assumption on my part! For me, the discussion was actually never about which model was correct -- my point is the GR camp isn't doing their due diligence. Every time I ask questions about how results were obtained, I get evasive answers, and preformed conclusions. GR is not meant to be challenged. Therefore, I conclude that GR is bad science. I find it absolutely mind-boggling that gravitational lensing has been universally accepted, and yet nobody has even bothered to make direct measurements of the characteristics of mirages. You don't see the issue -- GR gets the results that it wants, so studying mirages would be assuming that there is a problem when actually there is none. I don't see it that way -- I think that it would be one more part of our world that we'd understand, and oh by the way, if mirages are dispersive, we'd have the quantification thereof. And if they're not, we'd have discovered a new type of deflection. But that's just me.

[Sain84]

Probably because somebody assumed the conclusion, and never bothered to establish benchmarks. But you're right about one thing -- we have hit an impasse. You cannot be forced to acknowledge what you're taking for granted. And if I don't take the same things for granted, you call it an assumption on my part! For me, the discussion was actually never about which model was correct -- my point is the GR camp isn't doing their due diligence. Every time I ask questions about how results were obtained, I get evasive answers, and preformed conclusions. GR is not meant to be challenged. Therefore, I conclude that GR is bad science. I find it absolutely mind-boggling that gravitational lensing has been universally accepted, and yet nobody has even bothered to make direct measurements of the characteristics of mirages. You don't see the issue -- GR gets the results that it wants, so studying mirages would be assuming that there is a problem when actually there is none. I don't see it that way -- I think that it would be one more part of our world that we'd understand, and oh by the way, if mirages are dispersive, we'd have the quantification thereof. And if they're not, we'd have discovered a new type of deflection. But that's just me.

And this is what I would call bad science. If you're hypothesis is contradicted by the data the first answer is never to throw out the data without even considering the possibility your hypothesis is false. Benchmarks are not the problem.

I have and will happily admit that it is assumed there is no dispersion free refraction but that conclusion is supported by the agreement of these two measurement types. You on the other hand will not admit it's an assumption to say such a process does occur despite the lack of supporting evidence meaning it must be assumed.

People study mirages but you assume these properties are easy to measure. It's nobody's job to prove your suppositions, nobody owes you anything, if you believe it prove it.

I cannot support a hypothesis which is only saved by assuming fraud with no evidence to support the hypothesis or the accusation. Thank you for the polite and engaging discussion.

[chrimony]

Models make predictions. Models based on the true nature of the explanandum make good predictions. Models based on mis-attributed observations make poor predictions. For example, given a measured amount of deflection, my model estimates the density gradient in the atmosphere surrounding the gravity source, while yours denies that there is an atmosphere (otherwise there would be dispersion), and estimates the mass of the gravity source. Subsequent data collection will then confirm which predictions were correct. Does that matter?

Where is your predictive model? I haven't seen any equations or predictions. 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.

[karnak]

This morning on my drive to work I saw a sundog. Normally they come in pairs, but this morning it was just the one on the left, nothing on the right. The sundog, instead of being just a bright spot, presented itself as a mini rainbow with three colours visible. Explain that. Why was only one sundog visible, and why did it appear as a spectrum and not as a bright spot.

[CharlesChandler]

Where is your predictive model? I haven't seen any equations or predictions.

Good point -- I haven't done the field work, so I don't have the base data to quantify.

But don't try any argumentum ad ignorantiam here, or it will just call more attention to the fact that I'm not the only one who hasn't quantified mirages -- the mainstream hasn't either -- but that didn't stop them from buying into GR. Now I come along 100 years later, when GR is taken for granted, and before I accept it, I want to know how it was proved, and how the classical explanation was ruled out, and I get nothing but rhetorical responses. So I conclude that GR is BS (i.e., Bad Science).

And don't bother trying to put the burden of proof on me, the way Sain84 attempted (and where I didn't even bother engaging), saying that if I'm going to argue against an accepted paradigm, I have to do all of the work. The classical explanation was accepted, before the equivalence of mass & energy was proposed (with its gravitational lensing implications). Then scientists dropped the classical approach in lieu of GR, without doing the work to prove it. So you'll be saying that if I want to go along with GR, imagination is more important than knowledge, and thought experiments are more important than field work, but if I want to go against GR, I have to show incontrovertible proof. Well, OK, but who am I going to show incontrovertible proof TO??? People who think that thought experiments are more important than field work??? They'll laugh at me for wasting my time!!! Besides, I have shown definitive proof to scientists before (in another discipline), and they were not impressed. For people like that, if you put all of the proofs in one pile, and all of the money they can make going along with the current political agenda in another pile, they'll always go for the money, and shrug as they turn their backs on the proofs. So no, I'm not going to prove anything to the mainstream. But that doesn't matter. Galileo never convinced the scholastic monks of anything, and it didn't hold him back. I just have to develop a model that marshals more of the phenomena into a framework that makes more sense, and (ultimately) makes better predictions, and prove it to people who are willing to consider proofs, because they don't have an economic incentive to disregard them. And such is always how scientific progress is made. This isn't the exception -- it's the rule.

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.

But even if the numbers were more accurate, it wouldn't prove that the light was deflected by gravity, because it wouldn't rule out the mirage effect. But that doesn't mean that both models are equivalent, if they both make the same predictions. One of them corresponds to the physical reality, and one of them does not. We might not have the data to determine which one is correct, but that doesn't mean that it's a closed case, where GR has been confirmed, and further investigation is not necessary. Rather, we don't have the data to tell what's going on, so it's still wide open.

Then comes the question concerning why we don't do the terrestrial investigations to rule out the mirage effect? I "think" that the answer is that thought experiments are more important than field data, and political agenda are definitely more important than rigorous proofs. But that's your game, not mine. I'm seeking the truth, not funding. Sometimes it is necessary to choose between truth and money. I choose truth.

[CharlesChandler]

This morning on my drive to work I saw a sundog. Normally they come in pairs, but this morning it was just the one on the left, nothing on the right. The sundog, instead of being just a bright spot, presented itself as a mini rainbow with three colours visible. Explain that. Why was only one sundog visible, and why did it appear as a spectrum and not as a bright spot.

Rainbows are well-described by classical optics. If they are dancing around, it's because the aerosols are in an electric field that is rapidly changing, due to discharges within the cloud. The shape of the droplets gets distorted by the electric field, so when the field changes, the refraction changes.

[chrimony]

Where is your predictive model? I haven't seen any equations or predictions.

Good point -- I haven't done the field work, so I don't have the base data to quantify.

But don't try any argumentum ad ignorantiam here, or it will just call more attention to the fact that I'm not the only one who hasn't quantified mirages -- the mainstream hasn't either -- but that didn't stop them from buying into GR. Now I come along 100 years later, when GR is taken for granted, and before I accept it, I want to know how it was proved, and how the classical explanation was ruled out, and I get nothing but rhetorical responses. So I conclude that GR is BS (i.e., Bad Science).

You say "the" classical explanation, and you've been harping on mirages. Yet scientists have been trying to rule out classical explanations by performing many different experiments. One source of error is the Earth's atmosphere, and space probes have been used. One source of error is the Sun's atmosphere, so different wavelengths are tested which are known, under classical science, to be affected differently. Now you come along and demand that GR science is garbage until they show that your underspecified and unpredictive model of a mirage doesn't account for the predicted effect under GR.

And don't bother trying to put the burden of proof on me, the way Sain84 attempted (and where I didn't even bother engaging), saying that if I'm going to argue against an accepted paradigm, I have to do all of the work.

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?

The classical explanation was accepted, before the equivalence of mass & energy was proposed (with its gravitational lensing implications). Then scientists dropped the classical approach in lieu of GR, without doing the work to prove it.

The classical explanation of what was accepted? The experiments for star deflection were made after and in response to Einstein's predictions.

So you'll be saying that if I want to go along with GR, imagination is more important than knowledge, and thought experiments are more important than field work, but if I want to go against GR, I have to show incontrovertible proof. Well, OK, but who am I going to show incontrovertible proof TO??? People who think that thought experiments are more important than field work???

What we have is speculative imagination on your side, based on a novel theory of mirages that works across a broad range of spectrums unlike classical refraction, versus the many experiments on the side of GR using actual data and predictions.

They'll laugh at me for wasting my time!!! Besides, I have shown definitive proof to scientists before (in another discipline), and they were not impressed. For people like that, if you put all of the proofs in one pile, and all of the money they can make going along with the current political agenda in another pile, they'll always go for the money, and shrug as they turn their backs on the proofs.

Excuses are not a persuasive argument.

So no, I'm not going to prove anything to the mainstream. But that doesn't matter. Galileo never convinced the scholastic monks of anything, and it didn't hold him back. I just have to develop a model that marshals more of the phenomena into a framework that makes more sense, and (ultimately) makes better predictions, and prove it to people who are willing to consider proofs, because they don't have an economic incentive to disregard them. And such is always how scientific progress is made. This isn't the exception -- it's the rule.

Great. I'm looking forward to your field work on mirages and calculations to show how it matches the data real scientists have already gathered. In the meantime, comparing yourself to Galileo is a joke.

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.

Measurements are at milli-arcseconds.

But even if the numbers were more accurate, it wouldn't prove that the light was deflected by gravity, because it wouldn't rule out the mirage effect.

Science is about the burden of evidence. There is no final "proof" of anything. Your novel, underspecified and unpredictive model of mirages barely tips the scales.

But that doesn't mean that both models are equivalent, if they both make the same predictions.

But you haven't made any predictions.

One of them corresponds to the physical reality, and one of them does not.

Or maybe another model altogether. But right now, the evidence points to GR.

We might not have the data to determine which one is correct, but that doesn't mean that it's a closed case, where GR has been confirmed, and further investigation is not necessary. Rather, we don't have the data to tell what's going on, so it's still wide open.

It's only wide open in your mind, where you easily dismiss the actual predictions and the countless hours and hard work put into actual field experiments done to verify them.

Then comes the question concerning why we don't do the terrestrial investigations to rule out the mirage effect? I "think" that the answer is that thought experiments are more important than field data, and political agenda are definitely more important than rigorous proofs. But that's your game, not mine. I'm seeking the truth, not funding. Sometimes it is necessary to choose between truth and money. I choose truth.

I "think" the answer is that scientists don't find it a plausible mechanism for the reasons already gone over by Sain84. They absolutely have taken into account classical atmospheric effects that don't rely on a novel interpretation of a mirage.

[CharlesChandler]

You say "the" classical explanation, and you've been harping on mirages. Yet scientists have been trying to rule out classical explanations by performing many different experiments. One source of error is the Earth's atmosphere, and space probes have been used. One source of error is the Sun's atmosphere, so different wavelengths are tested which are known, under classical science, to be affected differently. Now you come along and demand that GR science is garbage until they show that your underspecified and unpredictive model of a mirage doesn't account for the predicted effect under GR.

That's correct. The reason for my interest in mirages is that they would be a lot easier to measure than near-horizon refraction in the Earth's atmosphere, and near-limb refraction above the solar surface. After all, in the conditions that produce mirages, we can just walk out there and make direct measurements (temperature, chemical composition, etc.), so that we can determine the actual density gradient. How are you going to get instrumented data on the density gradient in the Earth's atmosphere, or the Sun's, to that degree of accuracy? So if it's still valid that more accurate measurements that are easier to get are better, and if good science has a strong preference for good data, we ought to get direct measurements of the effects of density gradients on photons by measuring mirages. But despite how legitimate that reasoning actually is, scientists appear to be contending that GR already got the results it wanted, and no additional investigation is necessary -- case closed. That's what draws the charge of bad science on the GR camp. So you can do the argumentum ad ignorantiam thing all you want, but calling attention to the lack of instrumented in situ data on density gradients doesn't dismiss my argument -- it calls your process into question -- and that's my point. And until mirages are directly studied, there's no getting around that. Sorry.

[chrimony]

That's what draws the charge of bad science on the GR camp. So you can do the argumentum ad ignorantiam thing all you want, but calling attention to the lack of instrumented in situ data on density gradients doesn't dismiss my argument -- it calls your process into question -- and that's my point. And until mirages are directly studied, there's no getting around that. Sorry.

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. But carry on, would-be Galileo.