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Unlimitedly Adjustable Models in Physics
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Pentcho Valev
Jul 27, 2017, 7:07:19 PM7/27/17
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Sabine Hossenfelder: "Many of my colleagues believe this forest of theories will eventually be chopped down by data. But in the foundations of physics it has become extremely rare for any model to be ruled out. The accepted practice is instead to adjust the model so that it continues to agree with the lack of empirical support."
http://www.nature.com.proxy.readcube.com/nphys/journal/v13/n4/full/nphys4079.html
Sabine Hossenfelder (Bee): "The criticism you raise that there are lots of speculative models that have no known relevance for the description of nature has very little to do with string theory but is a general disease of the research area. Lots of theorists produce lots of models that have no chance of ever being tested or ruled out because that's how they earn a living. The smaller the probability of the model being ruled out in their lifetime, the better. It's basic economics. Survival of the 'fittest' resulting in the natural selection of invincible models that can forever be amended." http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9375
Models that can forever be adjusted and amended - what kind of science is this? What is certain is that such models are unfalsifiable - science deniers may even say that this is not science at all.
Can special relativity be forever adjusted and amended? It can't. Changes that are not deducible from the postulates are forbidden. Special relativity is a DEDUCTIVE theory.
Can general relativity be forever adjusted and amended? Yes it can. Here Michel Janssen describes the anti-deductive approach of Einstein and his mathematical friends - endlessly adjusting and amending the model until "excellent agreement with observation" is reached:
https://netfiles.umn.edu/users/janss011/home%20page/EBms.pdf
Michel Janssen: "But - as we know from a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht of December 24, 1907 - one of the goals that Einstein set himself early on, was to use his new theory of gravity, whatever it might turn out to be, to explain the discrepancy between the observed motion of the perihelion of the planet Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newtonian gravitational theory. [...] The Einstein-Grossmann theory - also known as the "Entwurf" ("outline") theory after the title of Einstein and Grossmann's paper - is, in fact, already very close to the version of general relativity published in November 1915 and constitutes an enormous advance over Einstein's first attempt at a generalized theory of relativity and theory of gravitation published in 1912. The crucial breakthrough had been that Einstein had recognized that the gravitational field - or, as we would now say, the inertio-gravitational field - should not be described by a variable speed of light as he had attempted in 1912, but by the so-called metric tensor field. The metric tensor is a mathematical object of 16 components, 10 of which independent, that characterizes the geometry of space and time. In this way, gravity is no longer a force in space and time, but part of the fabric of space and time itself: gravity is part of the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein had turned to Grossmann for help with the difficult and unfamiliar mathematics needed to formulate a theory along these lines. [...] Einstein did not give up the Einstein-Grossmann theory once he had established that it could not fully explain the Mercury anomaly. He continued to work on the theory and never even mentioned the disappointing result of his work with Besso in print. So Einstein did not do what the influential philosopher Sir Karl Popper claimed all good scientists do: once they have found an empirical refutation of their theory, they abandon that theory and go back to the drawing board. [...] On November 4, 1915, he presented a paper to the Berlin Academy officially retracting the Einstein-Grossmann equations and replacing them with new ones. On November 11, a short addendum to this paper followed, once again changing his field equations. A week later, on November 18, Einstein presented the paper containing his celebrated explanation of the perihelion motion of Mercury on the basis of this new theory. Another week later he changed the field equations once more. These are the equations still used today. This last change did not affect the result for the perihelion of Mercury. Besso is not acknowledged in Einstein's paper on the perihelion problem. Apparently, Besso's help with this technical problem had not been as valuable to Einstein as his role as sounding board that had earned Besso the famous acknowledgment in the special relativity paper of 1905. Still, an acknowledgment would have been appropriate. After all, what Einstein had done that week in November, was simply to redo the calculation he had done with Besso in June 1913, using his new field equations instead of the Einstein-Grossmann equations. It is not hard to imagine Einstein's excitement when he inserted the numbers for Mercury into the new expression he found and the result was 43", in excellent agreement with observation."
So, since general relativity and the models criticized by Sabine Hossenfelder are not deductive, they are empirical compilations, according to the following definitions of Einstein:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/works/1910s/relative/ap03.htm
Albert Einstein: "From a systematic theoretical point of view, we may imagine the process of evolution of an empirical science to be a continuous process of induction. Theories are evolved and are expressed in short compass as statements of a large number of individual observations in the form of empirical laws, from which the general laws can be ascertained by comparison. Regarded in this way, the development of a science bears some resemblance to the compilation of a classified catalogue. It is, as it were, a purely empirical enterprise. But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms."
Pentcho Valev
http://www.nature.com.proxy.readcube.com/nphys/journal/v13/n4/full/nphys4079.html
Sabine Hossenfelder (Bee): "The criticism you raise that there are lots of speculative models that have no known relevance for the description of nature has very little to do with string theory but is a general disease of the research area. Lots of theorists produce lots of models that have no chance of ever being tested or ruled out because that's how they earn a living. The smaller the probability of the model being ruled out in their lifetime, the better. It's basic economics. Survival of the 'fittest' resulting in the natural selection of invincible models that can forever be amended." http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9375
Models that can forever be adjusted and amended - what kind of science is this? What is certain is that such models are unfalsifiable - science deniers may even say that this is not science at all.
Can special relativity be forever adjusted and amended? It can't. Changes that are not deducible from the postulates are forbidden. Special relativity is a DEDUCTIVE theory.
Can general relativity be forever adjusted and amended? Yes it can. Here Michel Janssen describes the anti-deductive approach of Einstein and his mathematical friends - endlessly adjusting and amending the model until "excellent agreement with observation" is reached:
https://netfiles.umn.edu/users/janss011/home%20page/EBms.pdf
Michel Janssen: "But - as we know from a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht of December 24, 1907 - one of the goals that Einstein set himself early on, was to use his new theory of gravity, whatever it might turn out to be, to explain the discrepancy between the observed motion of the perihelion of the planet Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newtonian gravitational theory. [...] The Einstein-Grossmann theory - also known as the "Entwurf" ("outline") theory after the title of Einstein and Grossmann's paper - is, in fact, already very close to the version of general relativity published in November 1915 and constitutes an enormous advance over Einstein's first attempt at a generalized theory of relativity and theory of gravitation published in 1912. The crucial breakthrough had been that Einstein had recognized that the gravitational field - or, as we would now say, the inertio-gravitational field - should not be described by a variable speed of light as he had attempted in 1912, but by the so-called metric tensor field. The metric tensor is a mathematical object of 16 components, 10 of which independent, that characterizes the geometry of space and time. In this way, gravity is no longer a force in space and time, but part of the fabric of space and time itself: gravity is part of the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein had turned to Grossmann for help with the difficult and unfamiliar mathematics needed to formulate a theory along these lines. [...] Einstein did not give up the Einstein-Grossmann theory once he had established that it could not fully explain the Mercury anomaly. He continued to work on the theory and never even mentioned the disappointing result of his work with Besso in print. So Einstein did not do what the influential philosopher Sir Karl Popper claimed all good scientists do: once they have found an empirical refutation of their theory, they abandon that theory and go back to the drawing board. [...] On November 4, 1915, he presented a paper to the Berlin Academy officially retracting the Einstein-Grossmann equations and replacing them with new ones. On November 11, a short addendum to this paper followed, once again changing his field equations. A week later, on November 18, Einstein presented the paper containing his celebrated explanation of the perihelion motion of Mercury on the basis of this new theory. Another week later he changed the field equations once more. These are the equations still used today. This last change did not affect the result for the perihelion of Mercury. Besso is not acknowledged in Einstein's paper on the perihelion problem. Apparently, Besso's help with this technical problem had not been as valuable to Einstein as his role as sounding board that had earned Besso the famous acknowledgment in the special relativity paper of 1905. Still, an acknowledgment would have been appropriate. After all, what Einstein had done that week in November, was simply to redo the calculation he had done with Besso in June 1913, using his new field equations instead of the Einstein-Grossmann equations. It is not hard to imagine Einstein's excitement when he inserted the numbers for Mercury into the new expression he found and the result was 43", in excellent agreement with observation."
So, since general relativity and the models criticized by Sabine Hossenfelder are not deductive, they are empirical compilations, according to the following definitions of Einstein:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/works/1910s/relative/ap03.htm
Albert Einstein: "From a systematic theoretical point of view, we may imagine the process of evolution of an empirical science to be a continuous process of induction. Theories are evolved and are expressed in short compass as statements of a large number of individual observations in the form of empirical laws, from which the general laws can be ascertained by comparison. Regarded in this way, the development of a science bears some resemblance to the compilation of a classified catalogue. It is, as it were, a purely empirical enterprise. But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms."
Pentcho Valev
Pentcho Valev
Jul 28, 2017, 7:04:49 AM7/28/17
to
Even a single fudge factor is enough to show that the "theory" is a not-even-wrong empirical concoction:
"A fudge factor is an ad hoc quantity introduced into a calculation, formula or model in order to make it fit observations or expectations. Examples include Einstein's Cosmological Constant..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fudge_factor
"In 1916 Einstein found what he considered a glitch in his new theory of general relativity. His equations showed that the contents of the universe should be moving - either expanding or contracting. But at the time, the universe seemed the very definition of stasis. All the data, facts, and phenomena known in the early 1900s said that the Milky Way was the cosmos itself and that its stars moved slowly, if at all. Einstein had presented the definitive version of the general theory of relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences the previous year, and he was not inclined to retract it. So he invented a fudge factor, called lambda, that could function mathematically to hold the universe at a standstill. [...] Lambda, also known as the cosmological constant, has come in handy of late."
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep/the-masters-mistakes/
Ken Croswell, Magnificent Universe, p. 179: "Ever since, the cosmological constant has lived in infamy, a fudge factor concocted merely to make theory agree with observation." http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Universe-Ken-Croswell/dp/0684845946
In order to be consistent with dark matter, general relativity needs four fudge factors:
"Verlinde's calculations fit the new study's observations without resorting to free parameters – essentially values that can be tweaked at will to make theory and observation match. By contrast, says Brouwer, conventional dark matter models need four free parameters to be adjusted to explain the data."
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2116446-first-test-of-rival-to-einsteins-gravity-kills-off-dark-matter/
How many fudge factors LIGO conspirators needed in order to model the nonexistent gravitational waves is a deep mystery:
"Cornell professors Saul Teukolsky, astrophysics, and Larry Kidder, astronomy, played an instrumental role in the first detection of gravitational waves, a century after Albert Einstein predicted their existence in his theory of general relativity. [...] The LIGO and Virgo group confirmed that these gravitational waves had come from the collision of black holes by comparing their data with a theoretical model developed at Cornell. Teukolsky and the Cornell-founded Simulation of eXtreme Spacetimes collaboration group have been developing this model since 2000, according to the University." http://cornellsun.com/2016/02/10/cornell-scientists-validate-einsteins-theory-of-relativity/
Pentcho Valev
"A fudge factor is an ad hoc quantity introduced into a calculation, formula or model in order to make it fit observations or expectations. Examples include Einstein's Cosmological Constant..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fudge_factor
"In 1916 Einstein found what he considered a glitch in his new theory of general relativity. His equations showed that the contents of the universe should be moving - either expanding or contracting. But at the time, the universe seemed the very definition of stasis. All the data, facts, and phenomena known in the early 1900s said that the Milky Way was the cosmos itself and that its stars moved slowly, if at all. Einstein had presented the definitive version of the general theory of relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences the previous year, and he was not inclined to retract it. So he invented a fudge factor, called lambda, that could function mathematically to hold the universe at a standstill. [...] Lambda, also known as the cosmological constant, has come in handy of late."
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep/the-masters-mistakes/
Ken Croswell, Magnificent Universe, p. 179: "Ever since, the cosmological constant has lived in infamy, a fudge factor concocted merely to make theory agree with observation." http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Universe-Ken-Croswell/dp/0684845946
In order to be consistent with dark matter, general relativity needs four fudge factors:
"Verlinde's calculations fit the new study's observations without resorting to free parameters – essentially values that can be tweaked at will to make theory and observation match. By contrast, says Brouwer, conventional dark matter models need four free parameters to be adjusted to explain the data."
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2116446-first-test-of-rival-to-einsteins-gravity-kills-off-dark-matter/
How many fudge factors LIGO conspirators needed in order to model the nonexistent gravitational waves is a deep mystery:
"Cornell professors Saul Teukolsky, astrophysics, and Larry Kidder, astronomy, played an instrumental role in the first detection of gravitational waves, a century after Albert Einstein predicted their existence in his theory of general relativity. [...] The LIGO and Virgo group confirmed that these gravitational waves had come from the collision of black holes by comparing their data with a theoretical model developed at Cornell. Teukolsky and the Cornell-founded Simulation of eXtreme Spacetimes collaboration group have been developing this model since 2000, according to the University." http://cornellsun.com/2016/02/10/cornell-scientists-validate-einsteins-theory-of-relativity/
Pentcho Valev
Pentcho Valev
Jul 28, 2017, 10:33:08 AM7/28/17
to
Einstein's general relativity is an empirical concoction - a malleable combination of ad hoc equations and fudge factors allowing Einsteinians to predict anything they want. This means that general relativity has no postulates:
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-postulates-of-General-Relativity
What are the postulates of General Relativity? Alexander Poltorak, Adjunct Professor of Physics at the CCNY: "In 2005 I started writing a paper, "The Four Cornerstones of General Relativity on which it doesn't Rest." Unfortunately, I never had a chance to finish it. The idea behind that unfinished article was this: there are four principles that are often described as "postulates" of General Relativity:
1. Principle of general relativity
2. Principle of general covariance
3. Equivalence principle
4. Mach principle
The truth is, however, that General Relativity is not really based on any of these "postulates" although, without a doubt, they played important heuristic roles in the development of the theory." [end of quotation]
Sometimes Einsteinians call Einstein's 1915 final ad hoc equations "postulates" (we all live in Einstein's schizophrenic world, don't we):
http://math.stanford.edu/~schoen/trieste2012/lecture_3.pdf
"Postulates of General Relativity
Postulate 1: A spacetime (M^4, g) is a Riemannian 4-manifold M^4 with a Lorentzian metric g.
Postulate 2: A test mass beginning at rest moves along a timelike geodesic. (Geodesic equation) ...
Postulate 3: Einstein equation is satisfied. (Einstein equation) ..." [end of quotation]
For a deductive theory, demonstrating an absurdity implies that a postulate is false - the theory can be falsified in this way (reductio ad absurdum). For a non-deductive model (empirical concoction), demonstrating an absurdity has no consequences because there are no postulates. The demonstrated absurdity remains a small local nuisance, apparently unrelated to other results of the model, and can be either ignored by the modelers or neutralized by introducing some additional fudge factor.
So in Einstein's general relativity we find the absurdity ("idiocy" is more precise) that the speed of light DECREASES as the light falls towards the source of gravity - in the gravitational field of the Earth the acceleration of falling photons is NEGATIVE, -2g. This is not deduced from postulates of course - the absurdity is a fudge factor Einstein and his mathematical friends had to introduce to make the gravitational redshift and gravitational time dilation compatible:
https://archive.is/wn4PV
Albert Einstein: "Second, this consequence shows that the law of the constancy of the speed of light no longer holds, according to the general theory of relativity, in spaces that have gravitational fields. As a simple geometric consideration shows, the curvature of light rays occurs only in spaces where the speed of light is spatially variable."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ2SVPahBzg
"The change in speed of light with change in height is dc/dh=g/c."
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm
"Contrary to intuition, the speed of light (properly defined) decreases as the black hole is approached."
http://www.speed-light.info/speed_of_light_variable.htm
"Einstein wrote this paper in 1911 in German. [...] ...you will find in section 3 of that paper Einstein's derivation of the variable speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is: c'=c0(1+φ/c^2) where φ is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light c0 is measured. Simply put: Light appears to travel slower in stronger gravitational fields (near bigger mass). [...] You can find a more sophisticated derivation later by Einstein (1955) from the full theory of general relativity in the weak field approximation. [...] Namely the 1955 approximation shows a variation in km/sec twice as much as first predicted in 1911."
http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm
"Specifically, Einstein wrote in 1911 that the speed of light at a place with the gravitational potential φ would be c(1+φ/c^2), where c is the nominal speed of light in the absence of gravity. In geometrical units we define c=1, so Einstein's 1911 formula can be written simply as c'=1+φ. However, this formula for the speed of light (not to mention this whole approach to gravity) turned out to be incorrect, as Einstein realized during the years leading up to 1915 and the completion of the general theory. [...] ...we have c_r =1+2φ, which corresponds to Einstein's 1911 equation, except that we have a factor of 2 instead of 1 on the potential term."
The negative acceleration of photons, -2g, is essentially equivalent to the parameters of the "empirical models" defined here:
http://collum.chem.cornell.edu/documents/Intro_Curve_Fitting.pdf
"The objective of curve fitting is to theoretically describe experimental data with a model (function or equation) and to find the parameters associated with this model. Models of primary importance to us are mechanistic models. Mechanistic models are specifically formulated to provide insight into a chemical, biological, or physical process that is thought to govern the phenomenon under study. Parameters derived from mechanistic models are quantitative estimates of real system properties (rate constants, dissociation constants, catalytic velocities etc.). It is important to distinguish mechanistic models from empirical models that are mathematical functions formulated to fit a particular curve but whose parameters do not necessarily correspond to a biological, chemical or physical property."
Pentcho Valev
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-postulates-of-General-Relativity
What are the postulates of General Relativity? Alexander Poltorak, Adjunct Professor of Physics at the CCNY: "In 2005 I started writing a paper, "The Four Cornerstones of General Relativity on which it doesn't Rest." Unfortunately, I never had a chance to finish it. The idea behind that unfinished article was this: there are four principles that are often described as "postulates" of General Relativity:
1. Principle of general relativity
2. Principle of general covariance
3. Equivalence principle
4. Mach principle
The truth is, however, that General Relativity is not really based on any of these "postulates" although, without a doubt, they played important heuristic roles in the development of the theory." [end of quotation]
Sometimes Einsteinians call Einstein's 1915 final ad hoc equations "postulates" (we all live in Einstein's schizophrenic world, don't we):
http://math.stanford.edu/~schoen/trieste2012/lecture_3.pdf
"Postulates of General Relativity
Postulate 1: A spacetime (M^4, g) is a Riemannian 4-manifold M^4 with a Lorentzian metric g.
Postulate 2: A test mass beginning at rest moves along a timelike geodesic. (Geodesic equation) ...
Postulate 3: Einstein equation is satisfied. (Einstein equation) ..." [end of quotation]
For a deductive theory, demonstrating an absurdity implies that a postulate is false - the theory can be falsified in this way (reductio ad absurdum). For a non-deductive model (empirical concoction), demonstrating an absurdity has no consequences because there are no postulates. The demonstrated absurdity remains a small local nuisance, apparently unrelated to other results of the model, and can be either ignored by the modelers or neutralized by introducing some additional fudge factor.
So in Einstein's general relativity we find the absurdity ("idiocy" is more precise) that the speed of light DECREASES as the light falls towards the source of gravity - in the gravitational field of the Earth the acceleration of falling photons is NEGATIVE, -2g. This is not deduced from postulates of course - the absurdity is a fudge factor Einstein and his mathematical friends had to introduce to make the gravitational redshift and gravitational time dilation compatible:
https://archive.is/wn4PV
Albert Einstein: "Second, this consequence shows that the law of the constancy of the speed of light no longer holds, according to the general theory of relativity, in spaces that have gravitational fields. As a simple geometric consideration shows, the curvature of light rays occurs only in spaces where the speed of light is spatially variable."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ2SVPahBzg
"The change in speed of light with change in height is dc/dh=g/c."
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm
"Contrary to intuition, the speed of light (properly defined) decreases as the black hole is approached."
http://www.speed-light.info/speed_of_light_variable.htm
"Einstein wrote this paper in 1911 in German. [...] ...you will find in section 3 of that paper Einstein's derivation of the variable speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is: c'=c0(1+φ/c^2) where φ is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light c0 is measured. Simply put: Light appears to travel slower in stronger gravitational fields (near bigger mass). [...] You can find a more sophisticated derivation later by Einstein (1955) from the full theory of general relativity in the weak field approximation. [...] Namely the 1955 approximation shows a variation in km/sec twice as much as first predicted in 1911."
http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm
"Specifically, Einstein wrote in 1911 that the speed of light at a place with the gravitational potential φ would be c(1+φ/c^2), where c is the nominal speed of light in the absence of gravity. In geometrical units we define c=1, so Einstein's 1911 formula can be written simply as c'=1+φ. However, this formula for the speed of light (not to mention this whole approach to gravity) turned out to be incorrect, as Einstein realized during the years leading up to 1915 and the completion of the general theory. [...] ...we have c_r =1+2φ, which corresponds to Einstein's 1911 equation, except that we have a factor of 2 instead of 1 on the potential term."
The negative acceleration of photons, -2g, is essentially equivalent to the parameters of the "empirical models" defined here:
http://collum.chem.cornell.edu/documents/Intro_Curve_Fitting.pdf
"The objective of curve fitting is to theoretically describe experimental data with a model (function or equation) and to find the parameters associated with this model. Models of primary importance to us are mechanistic models. Mechanistic models are specifically formulated to provide insight into a chemical, biological, or physical process that is thought to govern the phenomenon under study. Parameters derived from mechanistic models are quantitative estimates of real system properties (rate constants, dissociation constants, catalytic velocities etc.). It is important to distinguish mechanistic models from empirical models that are mathematical functions formulated to fit a particular curve but whose parameters do not necessarily correspond to a biological, chemical or physical property."
Pentcho Valev
Pentcho Valev
Jul 29, 2017, 7:37:37 AM7/29/17
to
In this video, at 0:57 and 2:16, one can see the essence of Einstein's "science":
https://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/spaces-deepest-secrets/videos/einsteins-biggest-blunder
SPACE'S DEEPEST SECRETS Einstein's "Biggest Blunder"
Pentcho Valev
https://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/spaces-deepest-secrets/videos/einsteins-biggest-blunder
SPACE'S DEEPEST SECRETS Einstein's "Biggest Blunder"
Pentcho Valev
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