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Look, we KNOW that the sun revolves the earth and is affixed to a crystal sphere, like the planets. It's clear from all observations that this is the case. I me

Look, we KNOW that the sun revolves the earth and is affixed to a crystal sphere, like the planets. It's clear from all observations that this is the case. I mean, we understand epicycles perfectly, and they're due to the motion of the spheres. The chance that some crackpot would expose new physics and prove that the Earth orbits the Sun is so near to zero as to be negligible. Your argument is the same as those made around relativity, as it disagreed with Newton, and what could some fucking patent clerk possibly know that the Greatest Scientist Ever didn't?

raverbashing 11y ago
> Your argument is the same as those made around relativity Of that we can be sure The good thing is that "Of course it doesn't work" has not gotten anyone a Nobel price And it may even not violate conservation of momentum
jschwartzi 11y ago
The people discounting Kepler and Einstein had actually read their work. They discounted it based on the lack of physical evidence(experimental results). People in Einstein's time were still confused and trying to understand the outcome of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. As for Kepler, he didn't provide any new evidence either. The only advantage to changing the center of the system was to eliminate the need to calculate epicycles when creating an ephemeris. I could certainly see how both theories would have attracted some disbelief in their time. In Einstein's case, people started to accept SR when new experimental results came that only made sense if the speed of light were constant and the laws of physics were invariant in all inertial reference frames. Why do we have to accept that something novel is happening in this case? Can you find any way to explain this effect with existing theory? More importantly, what would have to be changed to accommodate this phenomenon? Is it possible that the engineers are just measuring noise? These are important questions that have to be answered.
scott_s 11y ago
No, it is not the same. Einstein proposed a theory which was largely consistent with our experimental evidence in support of Newtonian mechanics. It also agreed with recent experiments which would not find an aether. Relativity made predictions about the orbit of Mercury that were more consistent with the data than orbits predicted by Newtonian mechanics. In this instance, we have a device which is proposed to work by means that violate basic laws of conservation. There is no accompanying theory for why that is. It has been tested by several groups, and as these groups improve their testing methodology, the resultant "thrust" decreases. That is not promising. If the effect under test decreases as experimental rigor goes up, then the default assumption should be there is probably nothing there.

raverbashing 11y ago

> Your argument is the same as those made around relativity Of that we can be sure The good thing is that "Of course it doesn't work" has not gotten anyone a Nobel price And it may even not violate conservation of momentum

jschwartzi 11y ago

The people discounting Kepler and Einstein had actually read their work. They discounted it based on the lack of physical evidence(experimental results). People in Einstein's time were still confused and trying to understand the outcome of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. As for Kepler, he didn't provide any new evidence either. The only advantage to changing the center of the system was to eliminate the need to calculate epicycles when creating an ephemeris. I could certainly see how both theories would have attracted some disbelief in their time. In Einstein's case, people started to accept SR when new experimental results came that only made sense if the speed of light were constant and the laws of physics were invariant in all inertial reference frames. Why do we have to accept that something novel is happening in this case? Can you find any way to explain this effect with existing theory? More importantly, what would have to be changed to accommodate this phenomenon? Is it possible that the engineers are just measuring noise? These are important questions that have to be answered.

scott_s 11y ago

No, it is not the same. Einstein proposed a theory which was largely consistent with our experimental evidence in support of Newtonian mechanics. It also agreed with recent experiments which would not find an aether. Relativity made predictions about the orbit of Mercury that were more consistent with the data than orbits predicted by Newtonian mechanics. In this instance, we have a device which is proposed to work by means that violate basic laws of conservation. There is no accompanying theory for why that is. It has been tested by several groups, and as these groups improve their testing methodology, the resultant "thrust" decreases. That is not promising. If the effect under test decreases as experimental rigor goes up, then the default assumption should be there is probably nothing there.