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Originally Posted by CraigS
Sorry Carl, countless falsification tests have been conducted for decades !
These must have been devised from the premise of 'Einstein might be wrong' !
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All the falsification tests in the world prove nothing if the original test cannot adequately test the theory. You can only test and falsify a theory within the boundaries of the knowledge you have at present. Who's to say that in 100, 200 or 1000 years any theory, let alone Einstein's, is going to hold up to scrutiny. It's not to say that Einstein is going to be 100% wrong (or even right)...what we might know of whatever his (or any other ) theory is going to be applicable to the knowledge base of science at that time is anyone's guess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
I presume you are using the emboldened phrases in the colloquial sense .. not in a scientific sense ?? Please clarify.
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The emboldened phrases were made to emphasise a point. You cannot divorce his words from his insights or his thought processes. They go hand in hand and cannot be separated. One without the other is lost. His words convey his insights, his thoughts and the way he went about bringing his ideas and thoughts to reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
This is news to me .. can you elaborate on the 'instances' (and thus circumstances), where GR or SR don't 'work' ?
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News....well I can tell from that you don't really understand either. Why do they have such a hard time trying to reconcile quantum physics with general relativity?? Why is a quantum theory of gravity eluding their best efforts to formulate. Why does GR breakdown at the singularity level?? It's because the equations and the descriptive science of GR, which deals with the macroscopic level of reality, has a very hard time trying to reconcile itself with what occurs at the quantum level of reality. SR deals with the accelerated motion of objects within relative inertial frames of reference and GR deals with large scale geometry of spacetime (essentially how gravity works on large scales). SR doesn't have as hard a time dealing with the quantum world because it's not dealing with spacetime geometries. You can develop good working theories of SR and quantum physics together...e.g. the Dirac Equation (that great long equation that describes spin and other properties of subatomic particles), or the Standard Model. SR itself is not applicable in situations where GR can adequately explain the structure of spacetime, i.e. large gravitational fields, non flat spacetimes. SR is only applicable where the spacetime has a gravitational potential that is less than C^2. What that means is that for SR to be accurate, it must be formulated in the absence of strong gravitational fields i.e. curved spacetimes. Basically space must be flat otherwise the space-like paths of the spacetime in question allow for violations of time-like motion (they essentially can break the c limit). That's where GR comes into its own. GR basically describes the spacetime curvature in the presence of significant gravitational fields whilst conserving the premise of the universal speed limit (c) as formulated in SR.
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Originally Posted by CraigS
'Doing' science (aka following a scientific process), is not the same as telling a story.
Someone can tell me a story coming from their past, but this completely different from my experiencing the same deliberately recreated phenomenon, in present day physical reality, and drawing my own inferences from that. Big difference !
Cheers
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What do you do when you tell a story?? You start with a premise, you then develop on that premise and come up with other ideas, some you reject, others you keep. You then give that story a plausible flow and eventually come to a conclusion which (hopefully) ties up everything that you have added to the timeline of your tale.
In essence, that's exactly what you do in science. You come up with an idea (Hypothesis), you then test that hypothesis by looking for any evidence by which you can disprove (falsify) it. If you can falsify it, you discard it. If you can't falsify it, you accept it until you can test it again and go through the same process all over again. You either come to a conclusion or you have to leave it open ended.
Many a great story are open ended "come back next time and I'll continue on with the tale". Science is the same...it's a quest for knowledge and (hopefully) understanding. Some of the best stories are scientific ones. That's why science fiction is so good. Whether its fact or fiction, it is the telling of a story. Your own statement answers the question for you. You can take what you want from a tale told by a stranger about something that happened long ago. It maybe outside your experience of reality, but that doesn't make it any less real. You just haven't experienced it. Even if you recreate it (as in an experiment), you can only make it as real as you experience it. Even if that experience repeats exactly what everyone else has found (as in a repeatedly tested and proven theory), it is still a story that is being told by you. The scientific method is very much a story being told by those that undertake its use. Whilst it's not strictly storytelling as you would define it and as would be commonly understood, it is nevertheless, the telling of a story. As I have already said, it's the quest for knowledge and understanding. Quests at their very heart, are stories.