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Equivalence principle experiment using the elevator as example is flawed for at least two reasons. Such a thought experiments belongs to the human thought domain and human imagination and got very little to do with actual physical reality.
If you are put in the elevator in under influence of gravitational field you will experience gravity imminently. However if the equivalent weight of you (apparent gravity) is due to the acceleration, such an apparent gravity will build over the period of time. As far we know no mass can accelerate from 0 to n speed in instant. Therefore you would know if the apparent gravity you are experiencing is due to acceleration or gravity.
If by some magical means (ala Scotty beam me up) you can be put in the elevator that is already under influence of either gravitational field or acceleration (what happen to causality?), then over the period of time if you are under influence of gravitational field (orbiting a star) your weight will remain constant. However if your apparent gravity is due to the acceleration, you will eventually come to gravitational field of some star somewhere in the universe. Then you can measure acceleration or de-acceleration due to the gravitational influence of such a star.
Now here comes fudge factor. People who will disagree with this will say, “if there are not any stars”, “if you can get to the elevator that is already under influence of gravity or acceleration”. My answer to this is that what my grandma used to tell me when I started with IF. “If you could catch fish on the road you would not need to go the river”.
Alex’s assumptions regarding space and the aether seems to display a lot of thought or intuition. If we assume that Big Bang theory is correct and the space and the time was created at moment of Big Bang, it is very reasonable to assume that the space is just some kind of conversion of matter or energy. The time itself is not real physical entity being just property of the space. This would explain the problem of electromagnetic waves propagating via medium without any substance. It may even provide answer to dark matter assumption, the dark matter being the space itself.
Again I have to point out that this tread started with link to the article that presents good arguments for speed of gravity being faster then speed of light. So far no one presented any reasonable argument as why it cannot be. The only answer seems to be that nothing can travel faster then light – why? Because Einstein say so.
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