Pushing Gravity Book and General Relativity

Enrico,

I would not attempt to answer for TVF but in my view Tom is right and not just gravity but all matters Relativity predicts "Affects" and never provides a "Cause". It is my greatest objection to Relativity. It is purely mathematical whereas other views such as "Pushing Gravity" and "UniKEF" yield the same "Affects" with a "Cause".




Knowing to believe only half of what you hear is a sign of intelligence. Knowing which half to believe can make you a genius.

Mac,

Thanks for your note. However, you didn't answer the specific comment or question or objection but you just stated that GR doesn't provide a cause. I'm afraid to say that your statement is devoid of any useful context, although I appreciate your effort.

From what I've read about GR (I'm by no means an expert or even well-educated in these matters), it seems that the motion occurs because you're following the shortest path in space-time, not just space.

Due to the "curvature" of space-time, a point with the same space coords but a time epsilon ahead can be farther away than a point epsilon ahead and epsilon to the positive <i>x</i> direction. So the object just follows the shortest path as time progresses. It's kind of strange to me, but it works mathematically if the weak equivalence principle holds.

All of the rest of physics has always been based on fields, so I think a formulation in those terms will be more consistent and easier (if possible in the first place) to integrate with the rest of the forces.

Rahul Jain

Professional Computer Programmer
Amateur Theoretical Physicist

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Enrico</i>
<br />Tom Van Flandern shows a rubber-sheet analogy of curved spacetime and claims that the theory doesn't provide a cause for objects to follow the geodesic paths.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Specifically, GR has no antecedent, proximate cause as required by the principles of physics; nor does it have a source for the new momentum transferred to a target body, thereby requiring creation of momentum from nothing -- something else forbidden by the principles of physics. (The principles are axioms, the only logical alternative to which is magic or a miracle.)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">After talking about this with a GR "expert", I was told that the rubber-sheet analogy isn't relevant or appropriate<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

On the contrary, it is highly relevant to making my point that curvature of anything does not provide a cause to initiate motion. And it's an analogy commonly used in GR textbooks.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">objects follow the geodesic paths because time dilation enters in the metric of 4-D space time and in this way time "flows" from the 4-D velocity to cause 3-D velocity and motion.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

These are words that convey no meaning in physics. A cause must be material and tangible in order to affect other material, tangible substances. But time is not material or tangible. Moreover, time is continually flowing, but nothing is induced to move on that account.

What the claimant means is that time flows in 4-space (by definition). But that dodges the question. Lots of things remain at rest as time flows. So what is the cause of the 3-space motion of target bodies? What possible difference can it make to a body at rest whether time flows at a "normal" rate of a "dilated" rate?

I would go my previous statement one better and state flatly that the field equations contain no cause of motion. They merely describe the shape of the potential field. One must then, apart from the field equations, take a gradient of the potential to get a "force" or an equation of motion. But the gradient is necessarily a 3-space function. So the argument you quoted is rendered meaningless with respect to the physics of initiating motion.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I asked what happens at t=0 and when the object is at rest but I was told that no such state is possible, as everything is in a continuous flows. I was really asking whether time dilation by itself can affect motion and I got a positive answer.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Yoy asked a 3-space question and were given a 4-space answer. This is a frequent dodge by relativists who are used to thinking mathematically and unaccustomed to the constraints imposed by physics that mathematics does not have.

In 3-space, quite obviously, states of rest are possible and are significant to the matter under discussion. The fact that time is still flowing while the body is at rest is irrelevant. So you were right to focus on any instant of time and ask about the cause allegedly inducing motion. But there is none in the field equations.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The conclusion is then according to the "expert" I talked to, that GR also provides a cause for motion in gravitation, being the curved time, and it's a complete theory.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Note the subtle change of language from "dilated" time to "curved" time. We can readily understand time speeding up or slowing down. But what exactly does it mean for time to "curve"? The "answer" can be found in the metric. See my simple argument at [url] metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/spacetime.asp [/url], showing that the metric does not describe curvature of space or time, but simply the difference between proper and coordinate time. When one generalizes that argument by including the full GR tensors, this conclusion remains the same.

It is good that you are pointing out these inconsistencies to relativists. Their initial reaction is always complete assurance that everything is in order, and the apparent problems just reflect our limited understanding of GR. But I've had these conversations with many relativsits, some of them publicly on USENET. And not even the experts have any substance behind their understandings of GR. The geometric interpretation of GR is now falsified in favor of the field inetrpretation. And it says so in print in our latest peer-reviewed paper: “Experimental Repeal of the Speed Limit for Gravitational, Electrodynamic, and Quantum Field Interactions”, T. Van Flandern and J.P. Vigier, Found.Phys. 32(#7), 1031-1068 (2002). That is a new reality relativists will have to get accustomed to or become increasingly obsolete. -|Tom|-

Thank you Dr. Tom Van Flandern for the answers. It seems those GR people have fierce responces. One responce I got is that I confuse 3-space accelerated motion, which indeed requires a cause, with 4-space motion, which is really not accelerated in 4-space but only n 3-space. Specifically, the argument was that in your article you are wrong because 4-space geodesic motion is non-accelerated and therefore does not require a cause. The explanation given was based on a diagram where the y-axis is curved time and the x-axis the geodesic. During motion, both axes curve and the resulting 4-space motion is uniform, although 3-space motion is accelerated. Therefore, if that's the case mathematically, the theory does not require a cause, or in another sense, the added dimension takes care of the cause.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Enrico</i>
<br />4-space geodesic motion is non-accelerated and therefore does not require a cause.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

This is a play on words. The 4-space motion is only non-accelerated because the meaning of the word "acceleration" (the time rate of change of velocity) has been changed. And the claim that it does not require a cause is equally made up and spurious. All change requires a cause. Moreover, 3-space acceleration is a change of momentum, and that new momentum requires a source.

Mathematical relativists are so used to using physically impossible concepts (causeless changes, creation ex nihilo, singularities, infinite forces, time reversal, immaterial things affecting material things, etc., etc.) that they seem no longer able to think about the constraints applied by the principles of physics. But the argument in the paper I cited was challenged in just this way, and the reviewers were unable to come up with a substantive counter-argument to the one I outlined for you.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The explanation given was based on a diagram where the y-axis is curved time and the x-axis the geodesic. During motion, both axes curve and the resulting 4-space motion is uniform, although 3-space motion is accelerated. Therefore, if that's the case mathematically, the theory does not require a cause, or in another sense, the added dimension takes care of the cause.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Motion that is accelerated in 3-space requires a cause and a source of the new momentum unconditionally. The fact that there also exists a 4-space interpretation (which Feynman correctly describes as "marvelous, but unnecessary to physics") is irrelevant to the 3-space arguments.

In 4-space, in a meaningful sense, nothing ever changes; and only in that sense is a cause avoided. But that sense, taken literally, implies that the future co-exists with the present and is already determined.

As I said, the relativists must deal with the fact that the geometric interpretation of GR ("curved space-time") is now claimed to be falsified in print. Failure to do so simply makes them more obsolete and irrelevant to reality every day that passes. -|Tom|-