General Relativity was an aether theory

[NorthernSoul]

Your theory of a doughnut-shaped universe is intriguing... I may have to steal it.

[PhysBang]

QUOTE=Farsight;71464]There are things out there like time travel and parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions, that have as much supporting evidence as fairies and the paranormal. But people swallow them hook line and sinker. I don't. Instead I'm the super-skeptic, and I can provide the evidence and the logic that demolishes the nonsense. But some of you will go into denial and find all sorts of ways to dismiss the logic and ignore the evidence, just like our creationist friends. [/quote]
These are not parts of accepted General Relativity theory. Just because some people believe crazy things does not give you warrant to produce claims that are equally crazy.

If you're sharp, you will have noticed that General Relativity really was an aether theory. And the speed of light really is variable. The evidence is there, nobody can counter it. But it runs counter to your current conviction, and hence you find difficulty in taking a rational approach to what I'm saying. That's what people are like, that's why they believe in garbage, be it ghoulies or gravitinos.

That's simply a pile of nonsense. It is difficult to take a rational approach to the things you write because you simply do not address the General Theory of Relativity. You never address the actual mathematics that makes the theory what it is.

Why can't you consider that it is you who believes garbage?

You say things like, "Show him The Foundation of The General Theory of Relativity and ask him to show you where Einstein talked about curved spacetime. He can't." But you ignore that I did point out exactly where Einstein used curved spacetime. You simply cannot recognize these passages as discussing curved spacetime because you cannot follow Einstein's mathematics. "Curved spacetime" is the use of the Riemann tensor to define the geometry of space and time. This is the core mathematical insight in GR and without it there is no GR.

[Farsight]

If someone persistently fails to convince scientists that they're right, that's usually because they're wrong, either through ignorance, delusion, or trying something on.

This is crystal sphere logic, Tolman.

People who really have come up with a new and correct idea often have had trouble convincing everyone, immediately.
However, it's surprising how often quite radical changes have been rapidly accepted, if promoted by someone capable of showing from experiment that their ideas are better than the existing ones.

They aren't new ideas, they're old ideas. And take a look at page 53 of Graham Farmelo's The Strangest Man. There you read how DAMTP guys were still sneering at relativity in 1923.

If someone's ideas are not capable of being discriminated from existing accepted theories by any conceivably practical experiment, then it's likely that they're either saying the same thing as the existing theories in some other form, or that both the new idea and the existing theory are sufficiently far from practical reality that it's arguable whether they should be called 'science', rather than 'potential or speculative science'.

That's true, but not relevant here.

The far-from-practical theories are of limited importance unless they ultimately lead to some practical application, in which case, there would then be a mechanism for working out which ideas best fitted practical reality.

String theory isn't science. It offers no predictions, it's been going for 25 years, and it's passed off as mainstream physics and the only game in town.

In the first instance, I'll leave it to specialists to work out what seems to make sense. History has demonstrated that someone who thinks they have a scientific theory but who persistently fails to arouse the interest and support of any scientists in the generally relevant field is highly likely to be mistaken, deluded, or simply not saying anything of novelty.

Crystal spheres again.

[Farsight]

These are not parts of accepted General Relativity theory. Just because some people believe crazy things does not give you warrant to produce claims that are equally crazy.

My "claims" aren't crazy, PhysBang. As I've demonstrated, they're backed up with historical and factual evidence.

That's simply a pile of nonsense. It is difficult to take a rational approach to the things you write because you simply do not address the General Theory of Relativity. You never address the actual mathematics that makes the theory what it is.

You're a perfect example of intellectual arrogance, dismissing the actual evidence that proves you wrong. I suggest you read Einstein's Leyden address of 1920 and then comment further.

Why can't you consider that it is you who believes garbage?

I do. And then I look at what Einstein said, and Feynman, and Dirac, and Schrodinger, and Kelvin and Maxwell and Faraday and Newton. They're saying the same things. It isn't garbage.

You say things like, "Show him The Foundation of The General Theory of Relativity and ask him to show you where Einstein talked about curved spacetime. He can't." But you ignore that I did point out exactly where Einstein used curved spacetime.

No, you didn't. And you dismissed this paper http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204044 as the work of a crank, along with all the references and evidence that back up what we see in the abstract: The interpretation of gravity as a curvature in space-time is an interpretation Einstein did not agree with.

You simply cannot recognize these passages as discussing curved spacetime because you cannot follow Einstein's mathematics. "Curved spacetime" is the use of the Riemann tensor to define the geometry of space and time. This is the core mathematical insight in GR and without it there is no GR.

Baloney. What part of The interpretation of gravity as a curvature in space-time is an interpretation Einstein did not agree with don't you get? And you still haven't commented on http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0256-307X/25/5/014 where the title is Inhomogeneous Vacuum: An Alternative Interpretation of Curved Spacetime. Do you understand what the word interpretation means? It means the mathematics is the same, but the understanding derived therefrom is different. And don't forget, Einstein presented those equations as the equations of motion. Not curved spacetime. Curved spacetime was popularized by Dicke in the sixties.

You're suffering from conviction, Physbang. You're so utterly convinced that you're right that you refuse to examine the evidence that proves you wrong. You dismiss it all. One day you'll realise that you display the same traits as a creationist, and that this is a human problem that affects scientists too.

Now, can we stay on topic please. General relativity was an aether theory. Does anybody deny it?

[tolman]

If someone persistently fails to convince scientists that they're right, that's usually because they're wrong, either through ignorance, delusion, or trying something on.

This is crystal sphere logic, Tolman.

No it isn't. It's simple learning from history.

They aren't new ideas, they're old ideas. And take a look at page 53 of Graham Farmelo's The Strangest Man. There you read how DAMTP guys were still sneering at relativity in 1923.

If the ideas you're claiming to promote are old, not superceded, and of any use, then people would very likely be using them already, and you wouldn't be here.
You're also missing the point of what I said. I didn't say that a good theory would always rapidly convince everyone.
However, a good idea would usually convince enough relevant people sufficiently quickly that there's no obvious point in someone with a good idea trying convincing people who aren't relevant, which covers most of the people here.
The best someone might hope to practically achieve by propounding their theory here is selling a few books, but that's not an easy task for someone who turns up to a skeptic's site with an attitude of superiority.

Crystal spheres again.

No, merely practical thinking.
Until an idea has practical implications, it really doesn't affect me.
To the extent that an idea *could* have meaningful practical implications, it is likely to get explored sooner or later, even if that's just as a result of some anomaly or other arising.
A good idea in theoretical physics is also not likely to get practically explored any sooner as a result of my believing in it.

[Mulder]

Same kind of deal. They aren't individual "billiard ball particles". They're a way of describing a tension that keeps a proton together.

I note how some predictions of successful physical theories, in your world, are real while others are just a 'way of describing things'.

But substitute virtual particles with tiny dancing angels, and the Casimir effect could be taken as proof of that too. It proves something is there, but it doesn't prove that what's there is transient photons.

The Casimir Effect was predicted as a demonstration of virtual particles. Now that it's been found, it seems a bit harsh to say the theory that predicted them was wrong all along!

No, it isn't my take. It's there in the wikipedia article, and this guy told me about it: http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/.../0/1/0/all/0/1

Has that paper been accepted for publication - it isn't obvious? Is it actually proposing an alternative to the Casimir Effect - it isn't obvious from the abstract?

The dimensionality of energy is pressure x volume, and an electromagnetic wave conveys energy just like a wave in the ocean. It doesn't convey water, it conveys pressure. That's why there's a bulge running along the surface of the sea.

Are we talking radiation pressure here? If so, why not just say so?

Space is made of space, and so is everything else. Yes, space is clumpy, but it isn't "my" space. It goes back to Kelvin, plus many others. A gravitational anomaloy is the result of inhomogeneous space. It equates to "curved spacetime" as indicated by this abstract: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0256-307X/25/5/014.

That link doesn't work. So what causes space to clump?

Everything is mundane, Mulder. And I had Sunday lunch with a pilot.

Sometimes the lack of an answer says more than an answer.

Then there is no evidence for ghosties and ghoulies and faeries et cetera.

Is it the 'super' bit in super skeptic that prevents you from understanding this point? There is evidence; there is interpretation of evidence; two very different things. It's odd because your interpretation of evidence differs from many physicists, so I would have thought you would get this point.

It's just space, the vacuum. It's all around you, and light travels through it. It isn't made of anything, but it does have properties, so it isn't the same thing as nothing. Some people like to call it the Higgs field.

So why call it by the name of a discredited medieval concept?

Yep. It explains everything better, like gravity and particles and mass and charge and antimatter and the unification of the forces. It makes heaps of predictions like: use transient GPS clock desynchronisation to detect gravity waves, throw as much as you can into a quark-gluon plasma for matter/energy conversion, get into orbit on the cheap using an evanescant wave, or use pentaquarks for super-hard material. But I'm not here to talk about it.

Just as well because, given what you've said here, I'm afraid I'm not really interested any more. I'm afraid I won't be buying your book either.

[Cuddles]

There are things out there like time travel and parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions, that have as much supporting evidence as fairies and the paranormal. But people swallow them hook line and sinker. I don't. Instead I'm the super-skeptic, and I can provide the evidence and the logic that demolishes the nonsense.

Says the person who believes we're being visited by alien spaceships that can travel faster than light.

String theory isn't science. It offers no predictions, it's been going for 25 years, and it's passed off as mainstream physics and the only game in town.

Oh goody, yet another idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about string theory. Firstly, string theory is irrelevant. It was a nice set of theories, but was very much incomplete and has now been superseded by superstring theories and M-theory. If you're going to pretend to be a scientist at least try to keep up with current theories, you're a least a decade behind at the moment.

Secondly, even were that not the case, it is simply not true that string theory does not make predictions. It makes all the predictions you could ever wish for. The problem is simply that string theory (and superstring and M-theory) is not a single theory, it is a set of similar theories, and the predictions they make are similar enough that we are not able to tell them apart with contemporary experiments.

Anyone who claims that string theory makes no predictions has just given two very clear indications that they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about.

[Mulder]

Agreed. But substitute virtual particles with tiny dancing angels, and the Casimir effect could be taken as proof of that too. It proves something is there, but it doesn't prove that what's there is transient photons.

No, it isn't my take. It's there in the wikipedia article, and this guy told me about it: http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/.../0/1/0/all/0/1

I tracked this paper down (not difficult!) to http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0902/0902.0682.pdf.

However, it does not appear to me to address the Casimir Effect. In the Casimir Effect, two uncharged conducting metal plates are held in parallel very close (nanometres) but apart in a vacuum. At that distance, only virtual photons with specifics wavelengths can exist, those with longer wavelengths being excluded. So the space between the plates contains fewer virtual photos than that outside it, creating a pressure difference. This has been measured at a billionth of a Newton with a plate separation of 750 nm. At a distance of 10 nm it is predicted to be around 10 N per sq metre.

The paper, which is about improving thermophotovoltiac cells, concerns two dieletric surfaces, separated by a small gap, deliberately held at different temperatures. The temperature difference causes radiation to flow across the gap (of around 100 nm), which is why the near and far field are important in this application. Given that the size of the gap is smaller than the wavelength of the induced radiation, it is a near field problem. The paper examines how near field resonant coupling explains the high efficiency of radiation transfer in such devices.

The paper is all about radiation across tiny gaps, not virtual photos or how the vacuum behaves at small scales. So I don't see how it is relevant to these topics.

[brianp]

Farsight seems to believe that Einstein did not accept curved spacetime. However, the analogy Einstein used in 1922 in conversation with his son suggests otherwise.

In 1922, 12 year-old Eduard Einstein asked his father why he was famous. Einstein replied: "When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it doesn't notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn't notice."

[PhysBang]

My "claims" aren't crazy, PhysBang. As I've demonstrated, they're backed up with historical and factual evidence.

You're a perfect example of intellectual arrogance, dismissing the actual evidence that proves you wrong. I suggest you read Einstein's Leyden address of 1920 and then comment further.

I've seen the address. In it Einstein says that spacetime itself can be thought of as analogous to Lortentz' aether. This is not a particularly radical idea. However, in order to understand the context of the claim, we have to know how Einstein produced his theory. He produced his theory by turning the geometry of spacetime into the variable geometry of Riemann. Do you deny that Einstein used Riemann's geometry to describe spacetime and that he used Riemann geometry to describe the effects of gravity?

I do. And then I look at what Einstein said, and Feynman, and Dirac, and Schrodinger, and Kelvin and Maxwell and Faraday and Newton. They're saying the same things. It isn't garbage.

Did any of these people say that all particles are composed of photons? Did any of these people say that Einstein did not use Riemannian geometry?

No, you didn't.

Per your reference to The Foundations of the General Theory of Relativity: "What is the use of Christoffel's equations in the work if not for curved spacetime? [See page 168, 177, 179 in particular.] What does Einstein mean on page 197 when he writes, "Thus Euclidean geometry does not hold even to a first approximation in the gravitational field..."

That's a start. If you could read through that reference that you provided and tell us how Einstein really uses Riemann geometry, that would be great.

And you dismissed this paper http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204044 as the work of a crank, along with all the references and evidence that back up what we see in the abstract: The interpretation of gravity as a curvature in space-time is an interpretation Einstein did not agree with.

I rejected that paper because it said something that was clearly untrue. That it is the work of a crank is suggested by two things: 1) that the conclusion of the paper is obviously false, 2) that "Peter M Brown" is not an endorser at arXiv. Reading through the paper does even more to convince the reader that the author is a crank, because of the style of writing and the confusion on basic concepts that physicists and philosophers of science have gone over for decades.

Baloney. What part of The interpretation of gravity as a curvature in space-time is an interpretation Einstein did not agree with don't you get?

What I get is that it is a false claim. "Curved spacetime" = "Riemannian geometry". If you want to deny that Einstein used Riemannian geometry, you have to explain a lot of the equations in his books.

And you still haven't commented on http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0256-307X/25/5/014 where the title is Inhomogeneous Vacuum: An Alternative Interpretation of Curved Spacetime.

Did you actually read that paper, or did you simply cherry-pick the title? If you read the paper, you discover that what the authors are doing is producing a way to mimic the effects of GR using refraction. While this may be the beginning of producing a viable alternative theory, it is still a long way off from replacing GR. According to the authors, GR uses curved spacetime to produce gravitational lensing.

Do you understand what the word interpretation means? It means the mathematics is the same, but the understanding derived therefrom is different. And don't forget, Einstein presented those equations as the equations of motion. Not curved spacetime.

If you could follow the mathematics, you would see that Einstein identifies the equations of motions with the determination of lines through... curved spacetime. But instead of trying to learn the theory, you would rather make bizarre, unsupportable claims about how you would like the theory to be.

Curved spacetime was popularized by Dicke in the sixties.

Where do you get the bizarre idea that Dicke was responsible for making GR into a theory that uses curved spacetime? Did Dicke go back and rewrite all of Einstein's work to include Riemann's geometry?

You're suffering from conviction, Physbang. You're so utterly convinced that you're right that you refuse to examine the evidence that proves you wrong. You dismiss it all. One day you'll realise that you display the same traits as a creationist, and that this is a human problem that affects scientists too.

But the difference between the situation here is that I am the one reading the science and you are the one cherry-picking favourable quotations in ignorance. Did you actually read the Chinese Physics Letters article you cited above? Do you admit that Einstein uses Riemann's geometry in his theory?

Now, can we stay on topic please. General relativity was an aether theory. Does anybody deny it?

But this is the heart of the topic. The only way that GR can be considered to be an aether theory is if we accept the context of Einstein's claims about curved spacetime. Einstein said, "To deny the ether is ultimately to assign that empty space has no physical qualities whatever." And Einstein did not do this, rather, Einstein assigned to empty space that it was part of spacetime that responded to the stress-energy density of matter and energy. This response is carried out by the geometry of the spacetime.

Einstein writes, "Mach's idea finds its full development in the ether of the general theory of relativity. According to this theory the metrical qualities of the continuum of space-time differ in the environment of different points of space-time, and are partly conditioned by the matter existing outside of the territory under consideration." The "metrical qualities" to which Einstein refers is the use of the variable geometry of Riemann used by Einstein to build his theory.

[Farsight]

No it isn't. It's simple learning from history.

It is crystal sphere logic. Your conviction puts up a barrier of denial that says "you can't persuade anybody so I won't listen to what you're saying. It isn't a rational scientific stance. And besides, it isn't true.

If the ideas you're claiming to promote are old, not superceded, and of any use, then people would very likely be using them already, and you wouldn't be here.

More of the same.

You're also missing the point of what I said. I didn't say that a good theory would always rapidly convince everyone.
However, a good idea would usually convince enough relevant people sufficiently quickly that there's no obvious point in someone with a good idea trying convincing people who aren't relevant, which covers most of the people here.

I'm here by invitation, somebody sent a circular email to everybody who had ever looked into the forum. I got one, looked afresh, saw something to do with aether that had been moved to pseudoscience, and thought you guys would appreciate a little intellectual stimulation.

The best someone might hope to practically achieve by propounding their theory here is selling a few books, but that's not an easy task for someone who turns up to a skeptic's site with an attitude of superiority.

It wasn't me who mentioned it. Now please, let's stick to the subject of this thread, and let's have no more red herrings to justify denial of the evidence I've provided.

No, merely practical thinking. Until an idea has practical implications, it really doesn't affect me...

Sorry if I mistook you for somebody who was interested in things.

[tolman]

It is crystal sphere logic. Your conviction puts up a barrier of denial that says "you can't persuade anybody so I won't listen to what you're saying. It isn't a rational scientific stance. And besides, it isn't true.

I don't have any conviction that any particular theory is correct, complete, perfect or true. That's about as close to zero personal investment as it's possible to get.
It's fairly obvious from the history of science that ideas do get modified, supplemented or overturned from time to time.
However, it's also fairly obvious that there are all kinds of fools and cranks (not to mention the odd pathetic troll) trying to push some idea or other, often trying to push it onto the wider public because they can't get taken seriously by people who know that the idea is either nonsense, so vauge as to be meaningless, or stuff that people already know dressed up as something new, or some combination thereof.

The clear optimum strategy seems to be not to take very seriously people who:
a) favour flitting from factoid to factoid rather than trying to put forward a clear argument.
b) start off by acting superior, which is more indicative of someone who isn't bright or stable enough to recognise their own limitations than of a truly intelligent person.
c) seem not to be bright enough to vary their replies, relying instead on the nice comfort-blanket of stock phrases ('crystal spheres', 'super skeptic')
etc.
d) repeat points they've made even when someone like Physbang (who, unlike you, actually writes in a way that makes it appear they really *do* know what they're talking about) has already argued that the point is either incorrect or irrelevant.

Since writing is a reflection of thought processes, intelligent people with a command of their subject really do let that show by the way they write and the way they respond to criticism, such as by systematically addressing points someone else has made, rather than seeming to ignore most of them.

Similarly, people who don't really understand what they're talking about (even if they think they do understand it) tend to make that fairly clear by the way they write.

Sorry if I mistook you for somebody who was interested in things.

Oh, I *am* interested in many things, though usually I tend to stick to things explained well by people who appear to know what they're talking about, and who aren't so arrogant, pathetic or insecure that they have to keep saying how 'super' they are, or how dense everyone else is.
That approach actually seems to be working out fairly well for me so far.

[Farsight]

I note how some predictions of successful physical theories, in your world, are real while others are just a 'way of describing things'.

That's how it is. For example when thinking of relativity, light is real, as is its curvilinear motion. But a light cone is an abstraction.

The Casimir Effect was predicted as a demonstration of virtual particles. Now that it's been found, it seems a bit harsh to say the theory that predicted them was wrong all along!

Whoa, you won't find me rubbishing quantum mechanics. I'll have a go at the Copenhagen Interpretation or the Many Worlds Interpretation, but not say QED. I'm a bit of a Feynman fan, and as per relativity, you have to read the original (eg see http://www.amazon.co.uk/QED-Strange-Theory-Penguin-Science/dp/0140125051 ) instead of getting a secondhand version that isn't in keeping with the original.

Has that paper been accepted for publication - it isn't obvious? Is it actually proposing an alternative to the Casimir Effect - it isn't obvious from the abstract?

That's a whole series of papers, click on each one to find where they've been accepted and you see stuff like this: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Volume 53, Issue 6, Part 1, Dec. 2006 Page(s):3779 - 3785.

Are we talking radiation pressure here? If so, why not just say so?

No, we're not.

That link doesn't work. So what causes space to clump?

Sorry, my mistake, there was a full-stop on the end of the URL. Try this http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0256-307X/25/5/014 . Space “clumps” because it isn’t uniform. On the larger scale the initial minor variations magnify, galaxies form, the space within doesn’t expand whilst the space beyond does. On the smaller scale the expansion of the original fireball dumps out high-energy photons that form electrons/protons etc, and then hydrogen/helium aggregate to form clouds then stars and planets and me and you. It’s a big subject.

Sometimes the lack of an answer says more than an answer.

The guy told me something went past the plane at “what must have been mach 3, then it just.. stopped. Then it came back the other way and back over the top of us, then we lost it”. Something like that. I’m very cynical about Mandlebrot crop circles and people who make a living out of hub-cap home movies, but amongst all the chaff and nonsense there does appear to be something very interesting.

Is it the 'super' bit in super skeptic that prevents you from understanding this point? There is evidence; there is interpretation of evidence; two very different things. It's odd because your interpretation of evidence differs from many physicists, so I would have thought you would get this point.

No, it’s the ‘super’ that makes me dig my heels in. Let me give you an example: people say gravitational anomalies are evidence for dark matter, but they aren’t. Dark matter is a hypothesis that attempts to explain the evidence. The evidence is the gravitational anomaly, be it flat galactic rotation curves or the oddities of the bullet cluster. If I took your viewpoint, I could dream up a theory that replaces dark matter with tiny dancing angels, and then proclaim flat galactic rotation curves are the evidence for their existence. It just isn’t.

So why call it by the name of a discredited medieval concept?

Because that’s what Einstein called it. He said:

"Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it".

Just as well because, given what you've said here, I'm afraid I'm not really interested any more. I'm afraid I won't be buying your book either.

Shrug. That’s not the point. The point is this: general relativity was an aether theory.

Edit:

I tracked this paper down (not difficult!)... So I don't see how it is relevant to these topics.

It isn't. I gave a link to tell you who told me about virtual particles equating to the evanescent wave. I didn't intend to link to a paper.

[Farsight]

Says the person who believes we're being visited by alien spaceships that can travel faster than light.

Pay attention Cuddles. Nothing can travel faster than light.

Oh goody, yet another idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about string theory. Firstly, string theory is irrelevant. It was a nice set of theories, but was very much incomplete and has now been superseded by superstring theories and M-theory. If you're going to pretend to be a scientist at least try to keep up with current theories, you're a least a decade behind at the moment.

LOL, don't you just love it? Here's a guy who believes in tiny vibrating strings and branes and little curled up dimensions. But wait a minute, there's no evidence for any of this. And what? No predictions either! Not is there only no evidence whatsoever to support the existence of the graviton, but there's no evidence whatsoever for the gravitino either. And so with all the puff and pomp of a medieval geomancer, Cuddles exactly proves the point I'm here to make.

Secondly, even were that not the case, it is simply not true that string theory does not make predictions. It makes all the predictions you could ever wish for. The problem is simply that string theory (and superstring and M-theory) is not a single theory, it is a set of similar theories, and the predictions they make are similar enough that we are not able to tell them apart with contemporary experiments.

Blah blah. Come on then, let's have a laugh: list the predictions of string theory.

Anyone who claims that string theory makes no predictions has just given two very clear indications that they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about.

Keep digging Cuddles. So come on then: list the predictions of string theory.

[Farsight]

Farsight seems to believe that Einstein did not accept curved spacetime. However, the analogy Einstein used in 1922 in conversation with his son suggests otherwise.

In 1922, 12 year-old Eduard Einstein asked his father why he was famous. Einstein replied: "When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it doesn't notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn't notice."

I'm pleased that somebody is offering evidence in an attempt to counter the evidence I offer. But the "suggestion" is wishful thinking, your evidence isn't adequate. Einstein talked a great deal about curvilinear motion, and the above is more of the same. What's important is that the "modern interpretation" of general relativity ascribes the cause of this curvilinear motion to curved spacetime, whilst Einstein did not. Curved spacetime is the effect. Paraphrasing, Einstein said a photon travels in a curved path through space over time because the matter/energy of a planet has "conditioned" the local space it travels through, creating a gradient in the speed of light which causes the photon to veer. This is usually dismissed without examination of the original material, see post 22. For further reading I again refer you to Pete Brown's paper Einstein's gravitational field. It's well worth reading. Here's an excerpt:


It is widely assumed that, according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, gravitation is a curvature in space-time. There is a well accepted definition of

space-time curvature. As stated by Thorne:

space-time curvature and tidal gravity are the same thing expressed in different languages, the former in the language of relativity, the later in the language of Newtonian gravity.

However one of the main tenets of general relativity is the Principle of Equivalence: A uniform gravitational field is equivalent to a uniformly accelerating frame of reference. This implies that one can create a uniform gravitational field simply by changing one’s frame of reference from an inertial frame of reference to an accelerating frame, which is rather difficult idea to accept. A uniform gravitational field has, by definition, no tidal forces and thus no space-time curvature. Thus according to the interpretation of gravity as a curvature in spacetime a uniform gravitational field becomes a contradiction in terms (i.e. no tidal forces where there are tidal forces). This apparent contradiction is obviously quite confusing and can certainly be misleading. In A brief history of relativity published in the above mentioned issue of Time, Stephen Hawking writes:

I still get two or three letters a week telling me Einstein was wrong. Nevertheless, the theory of relativity is now completely accepted by the scientific community, and its predictions have been verified in countless applications. [...] His idea was that mass and energy would warp spacetime in some manner ... Objects like apples or planets would try to move on straight lines through space-time, but their paths would appear bent by a gravitational field because space-time is curved.

Given such a statement by a respected physicists and with a great deal of experimental data to back up this claim is it reasonable to question this notion of gravity being a curvature in space-time? Is it reasonable to assume that the bent path an object takes when moving through a gravitational field is due to the of space-time curvature? Did Einstein actually hold the view that gravity is a curvature in space-time? At this point let us whet your appetite. No. Einstein never said nor implied in anyway that gravity is a curvature in space-time. This apparent disparity is a result of a change of interpretation. However it would be a great injustice to imply that there is no relationship between gravity and spacetime curvature. Curvature plays a very important role in general relativity and its importance should not be underestimated. However the aforementioned change in interpretation is most likely the source of various errors in the scientific literature.

The following is, in part, an historical journey through the origins of general relativity. Our purpose in doing so is to aid in our attempt to certain problematic areas. The following discussion will be address two different interpretations of general relativity. Therefore, for reasons of clarity, Einstein’s vision of general relativity, as defined in The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity and other publications, will be referred to as EGR (Einstein’s General Relativity). General relativity as to it is widely understood at present will be referred to as MGR (Modern General Relativity).