Re: More Evidence Supports Relativity
Posted by Uncle Al on Jul 13, 2002 at 12:46
(68.5.243.16)Re: More Evidence Supports Relativity (DA Morgan)
Does this comprehensive link to scholarly General Relativity challenges shows up in green?
Relativity is extraordinarily tested on scales from sub-atomic (decay half-lives of relativistic particles) to universal (orbital precession, Einstein rings; pulsar orbital decay from energy loss due to gravitational radiation). The math is wholly debugged and self-consistent. It contains no mistakes.
Can Relativity be empirically overthrown? Experiments conducted to test its predictions are guaranteed to be in support unless they challenge a postulate. (All triangles' interior angles sum to 180 degrees says Euclid - and they do in flat planes, but not on the surface of a sphere that violates Euclid's Fifth Postulate). GR postulates the Equivalence Principle, that all local bodies fall identically. Spacetime curvature unavoidably follows.
Conserved properties arise from symmetries via Noether's theorem. General Relativity models continuous spacetime, going beyond conformal symmetry (scale independence) to symmetry under all smooth coordinate transformations - general covariance (the stress-energy tensor embodying local energy and momentum) - resisting quantization. The discontinuous external symmetry parity has *never* had its physical manifestation tested against the Equivalence Principle.