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difference between free fall and zero gravity?

Whatever you what to believe, I'm OK with it....

Paul

:) :) :)

There are many audio woo-woo's out there too, feel free to call me anything you want, remember I didn't name call you.
"Whatever I want to believe?" Here we are again, this is woo. It's not about what I believe. It's about a well-proven theory of gravitational and spacetime physics called the Theory of General Relativity, which has a well-known and well-proven postulate called the Equivalence Principle, which states that there is

no difference between acceleration and gravity at the local level.

You are stating that this principle is not actually true; and since it is a postulate upon which GRT is built, in turn stating that GRT is wrong.

It's not name calling; it's identification of people whose views constitute extraordinary claims, but who cannot provide the extraordinary evidence to support their extraordinary claims. If you got it, bring it. If not, then don't say it in the first place.
 
The problem is that you are wrong, I never said that time wasn't warped too, if you don't believe it, that is fine with me, I will try again, bye and have a good day and life.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
The problem is that you are wrong, I never said that time wasn't warped too, if you don't believe it, that is fine with me, I will try again, bye and have a good day and life.

Paul

:) :) :)
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2560960&postcount=93

I said, "Fourth, it's warping of spacetime, see above, not warping of space."
You said, "No, space is warped."

Now I don't know about you, but when I see "no" in that context, I figure it means, "no, spacetime is not warped," and when I see it followed by, "space is warped," that interpretation is confirmed; and if you say, "no" that way, when the referent previous is spacetime, then that is the claim that time is not warped by gravity.

And that makes the post I'm replying to simply untrue, period, nothing more, nothing less.
 
Besides, not that is as anything to do with this thread, but I am babysitting my mother's dog, the dog is dying from cancer, give me a freaking break. If you don’t know where I am coming from, after a point it isn’t my problem are anyone else’s, rule 8 rule 8 rule 8.

Paul

:) :) :)

I'm going sell snake-oil, there is a big freaking market for it.
 
Non-god, didn't I say that it has to be a closed system, with no input from the outside, geeeee.

Paul

:) :) :)
Paul, the effects are indistinguishable, period. There is no local experiment you can perform that will show a difference; and the ones that do, all show the difference between the spherical, inverse-square-falloff gravity field, and the planar, no-falloff "field" of acceleration. This is the literal meaning of the Equivalence principle. Acceleration and gravity are, at root, the same thing; the differences we observe are all due to the fact that in our universe, gravity is caused by the existence of massive objects, and as far as we've ever been able to observe exclusively by massive objects. Gravity therefore can be viewed as emanating from those objects. It therefore behaves as a field, with a source, with a spherical shape, and with inverse-square falloff in its strength as one moves away from the source. But what Einstein said is, even though this manifestation makes gravity look different from acceleration, that's not the truth; the truth is, gravity is acceleration, in a very fundamental, basic way, and this answers a number of questions about the character of the universe.

They're testing this right now; Gravity Probe B's data turned out to have a couple of effects they had to compensate for, and that compensation process is going to take a while because they have to reprocess the data. Otherwise, we'd already know whether the phenomenon of frame dragging, which is a (so far theoretical) consequence of the rotation of the massive body creating the gravity field, really happens or not.

ETA: and to make it clear, the "thing" that acceleration and gravity both are, is the warping of spacetime. That's the meaning of GRT.
 
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Despite being rather frustrated, I sympathize with your experiences. But no, that doesn't make you right.
 
You know Randi was right, he doesn't spend much time on forums, he says he has better things to do, he is right, and when I see him next month I will tell him that. You are making a very poor assumptions about me, and I am tired plain and simple, I have enough with people on a one to one who jump to conclusions on the next thing I will say before I say it. It has been nice, but I will be gone from here for some time.

bye bye...
 
I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't appreciate you blaming it on me. I didn't cause the dog's cancer, nor cause you to have to babysit it.

As for jumping to conclusions about what you're going to say, I don't see me doing that; I see me responding to what you said. But I do see you doing that; right there.

Honestly, Paul, get a grip. If you don't want to have an argument, don't tell someone they're wrong; and if you don't want to lose that argument, don't tell them they're wrong and not have proof to back it up.
 
Rather than get into frames of reference, tensors and virtual particles, I usually try to just tell people that what they think of as gravity is actually the space between the objects shrinking. That is to illustrate that the concept of a mechanical force pushing or pulling things is not really appropriate. Although it certainly is useful in engineering.
 
Bye, want part of bye don't you understand
The parts where you:
1. Pretend it's some sort of philosophical disagreement, rather than a disagreement about hard science,
2. Try to blame all of how you feel on me despite the fact that I didn't cause it,
3. Make many posts that contradict not only the known facts and well-supported theories, but contradict one another,
4. And just want to walk away like it never happened.

I'll remember this a long time, Paul, and not to your credit. I'll remember it less long if you acknowledge you screwed up and apologize for it.
 
Really interesting. If you feel a "resistant force" in a constant direction you are accelerating. Is this correct?


Well ... you're accelerating relative to someone who doesn't feel that force.

Not sure how well that answers your question...

If you're standing on the ground, and someone nearby is in a falling elevator, he's accelerating downward relative to you, and you're accelerating upward relative to him. Usually, you'd be considered "really standing still" and he'd be considered "really accelerating downward". That's just because it's usual to measure things relative to the surface of the earth. But there is an important sense in which his motion is the more natural one and yours is the forced one: he feels no force acting on him as he floats in the elevator, while you feel the ground pressing up against your feet.

If it is, can we then assume that the changes in the "speed of time" in relation to other inertial frames its because of the actual warping of space due to acceleration. Gravity would be irrelevant, in this sense. Am I right?


I can't quite figure out what you're asking here.

Not that I'd necessarily know the answer even if I could, of course...
 
One last point. Special Relativity says there is no absolute motion. But that doesn't mean there is no absolute acceleration; in fact, as far as we can tell, acceleration is absolute. You can always tell if you're accelerating by performing a local experiment. What you can't tell is whether that acceleration is due to acceleration by gravity, or by another force.


Ok, same question for you: what do you mean by "acceleration by gravity"? If you're sitting still in your chair, is gravity accelerating you? If you've just jumped out of a plane and are falling freely, is gravity accelerating you?
 
The answer differs based on the frame, of course. In the inertial frame of reference you would experience if you jumped out of a rocket ship, whether near a gravity source (well, at least until you hit the surface), or far from one, a person sitting on the surface of a planet is experiencing upward acceleration. And there is a strong argument that that is the only invariant frame of reference.

On the other hand, in the frame of reference of someone sitting on the surface of a planet, and therefore being continuously accelerated upward, an object in an inertial frame is "accelerated by gravity."

Which frame is "the truth?" Of course, the correct answer is "neither," or more correctly, "both." A frame is a frame, inertial or not. So from one frame's point of view, the inertial frame, anyone standing still in a gravity field is being accelerated upward. From the other's point of view, the accelerated frame standing still in a gravity field, anyone in an inertial frame is "falling," that is, experiencing a downward acceleration.

Finally, in answer to your question, what did I mean by "acceleration by gravity," I meant in the accelerated frame, in which gravity is perceived as a force that acts to curve the path of any object in an inertial frame.
 
Second, most physicists don't see time as something that passes, they rather see time as a dimension, in which events have particular positions. Because of the way we experience the world, we can be said to either "see time passing," or "see ourselves moving through time." Both of these are illusions, because of the way our physical brains operate; we actually exist at all the times we occupy, in the spaces we occupy at those times; a long pink worm of "meness" stretching from a womb to a grave through spacetime.

Yes, I know about this intriguing point of view. Still, I believe that, in a sense, it opens more questions than it answers. For example, if time "doesnt exists" (in the common sense aproach), the future is already "there".

But, it is not. The experience of time might be subjective, but still the changes are from existence to not existence, from being to not being. Sorry I cant put it in a better way. Past is determined fixed, like points in certain (measurable) space, but future is open.

Fifth, gravity would not be irrelevant; the effects are gravity.

Regarding this I still believe such "effects" are irrelevant, in the sense that we might be well just to experience the acceleration because its the only causal force involved. Im thinking that we cant experience gravity because falling its the same as no movement, or acceleration, at all. In this sense, gravity is as relative as movement. Its not a cause, but an effect, so to speak.
 
Usually, you'd be considered "really standing still" and he'd be considered "really accelerating downward". That's just because it's usual to measure things relative to the surface of the earth.

Exactly, there are no "privileged" points of view. More correctly, there are no "truer" points of view. Acceleration is absolute in the sense of its measurable opposing force (in Gs). Speed is only a relative function, the same as non accelerated movement, and, Im willing to bet, gravity.
 
The answer differs based on the frame, of course. In the inertial frame of reference you would experience if you jumped out of a rocket ship, whether near a gravity source (well, at least until you hit the surface), or far from one, a person sitting on the surface of a planet is experiencing upward acceleration. And there is a strong argument that that is the only invariant frame of reference.

On the other hand, in the frame of reference of someone sitting on the surface of a planet, and therefore being continuously accelerated upward, an object in an inertial frame is "accelerated by gravity."

Which frame is "the truth?" Of course, the correct answer is "neither," or more correctly, "both." A frame is a frame, inertial or not. So from one frame's point of view, the inertial frame, anyone standing still in a gravity field is being accelerated upward. From the other's point of view, the accelerated frame standing still in a gravity field, anyone in an inertial frame is "falling," that is, experiencing a downward acceleration.

Finally, in answer to your question, what did I mean by "acceleration by gravity," I meant in the accelerated frame, in which gravity is perceived as a force that acts to curve the path of any object in an inertial frame.


It sounds like you know what you're talking about. But the way you word things is a bit confusing. You switch back and forth between talking about acceleration as a purely kinematic concept---first derivative of velocity---which can be measured equally well with respect to any chosen reference frame, and talking about acceleration as a dynamic concept synonymous with non-inertial motion.

For example, you say "On the other hand, in the frame of reference of someone sitting on the surface of a planet, and therefore being continuously accelerated upward, an object in an inertial frame is 'accelerated by gravity.' " You use "accelerated upward" to mean that the person's motion is non-inertial and then in the same sentence you use "accelerated by gravity" to mean that the object's speed relative to the person is changing. These are not the same concept. Obviously, the person's speed relative to himself isn't changing---it's always zero.
 
Actually, it's the same- just from different frames. That's how things work in this universe of ours.

If two observers in a gravity field, one inertial and one motionless, view one another, they'll each say the other one is accelerating, but one (the inertial one) will feel no acceleration of gravity, whereas the other will feel the acceleration of gravity. As a result, the second one is technically wrong; he feels the acceleration so he is the one accelerating. But we don't look at it that way because we live on a planet, not in open space.
 
Yes, I know about this intriguing point of view. Still, I believe that, in a sense, it opens more questions than it answers. For example, if time "doesnt exists" (in the common sense aproach), the future is already "there".

But, it is not. The experience of time might be subjective, but still the changes are from existence to not existence, from being to not being. Sorry I cant put it in a better way. Past is determined fixed, like points in certain (measurable) space, but future is open.
You put it fine. You have actually touched on one of the unsolved parts of physics. The descriptions that quantum mechanics and relativity give us of spacetime do not include this notion of an "open" future, but because of the inherent probabilistic nature of quantum mechanical descriptions of particle interactions, we can't precisely predict what's going to happen until it already has. In fact, when something happens, there are only certain parts of it we can know, or can ever have known later. This is because of the uncertainty principle.

At the point in spacetime where a particle interaction occurs, according to the idea of decoherence, a measurement occurs of the interacting particles; until that happens, their parameters are only probabilistic calculations of what their values would be if they were measured right then. But at the point where the interaction actually occurs, some of the values get measured, and others become unmeasurable.

Now the laws of physics according to both relativity and quantum mechanics are time-reversal symmetric; that is, if you see an interaction happen in a certain manner, you can be sure that it would be a valid interaction if it happened in reverse. Actually, it's deeper than that; you also have to reverse the charges, and something else called the parity, a spatial symmetry of the individual particles, for complete reversal symmetry. But since relativity doesn't directly deal with either charge or parity, it is truly time-reversal symmetric.

So the fact that individual interactions, and this in turn through something called the Fluctuation Theorem leads to the laws of thermodynamics, specifically the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which as you no doubt know is not time-reversal symmetric as we experience things, are time-reversal symmetric indicates that something very odd is going on. The really interesting part is that it turns out that the 2LOT really is time-reversal symmetric, but only if the entropy is so high that it's almost constant; in a low-entropy system, like our universe, it becomes asymmetric.

There are no clear answers from physics in this area. What we know is that the universe started in an extraordinarily low state of entropy, and has been increasing ever since. Still, on an absolute scale, even though it's been 13.5 billion years since the universe began, the entropy is still quite low. It will take a very, very long time- trillions of years, that is, thousands of billions- scores or hundreds of times as long as it has existed now- for the entropy of the universe to become high, though it is increasing all the time very slowly. Until that happens, the entropy of the universe will remain very low, and we will see time-reversal asymmetry in the 2LOT. Most physicists believe that the extraordinarily low entropy of the early universe is responsible for the time asymmetry that we see, but they can't prove it, and they won't really be happy until they can, or they find out something else that accounts for the asymmetry we see around us.

Regarding this I still believe such "effects" are irrelevant, in the sense that we might be well just to experience the acceleration because its the only causal force involved. Im thinking that we cant experience gravity because falling its the same as no movement, or acceleration, at all. In this sense, gravity is as relative as movement. Its not a cause, but an effect, so to speak.
Hmmm. Well, there are two points of view, as I pointed out to 69dodge. Our ordinary point of view is that we are "sitting still" poised on the surface of the Earth in a gravity field. We observe that inertial objects move relative to us, and that motionless objects (we ourselves, for example) experience acceleration.

We think this is a natural state of affairs, since it is all we have ever experienced; but in fact, the natural state of affairs is just what Newton said: a body in motion remains in motion, at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force. We, on the other hand, observe that bodies in motion fall to the ground and stop. This is not a natural state of affairs in the universe at large, however; we only see things this way because we live in a gravity field, and think in those terms. You must cast aside this, for want of a better word, prejudice, that the situation you see around you is the natural one, and understand that everything you see and everything you experience is influenced by this gravity field.

From this, Einstein understood that the inertial frame of reference is the natural state of motion, and all motion must be measured relative to the inertial frame. From this point of view, we are not motionless; we are accelerating upward forever. What an inertial object will see is that we will accelerate upward toward and past it (assuming it can fall through the Earth). This is the true state of affairs, and thus we can see that gravity is acceleration. To understand relativity, you must accept this as a proven fact.
 

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