Gravity

Originally posted by humy
I don't think there is much hope of him (and most theists) understanding general relatively, which is harder than special relativity because general relativity deals with accelerating frames of reference. Even I barely half understand only a very few of its concepts and none of the equations and at least I have reasonable understanding of basic Newtonian ...[text shortened]... tial understanding of special relativity and of some of its equations. I doubt he even has that.

Not sure what theism has to do with this or why it should be mentioned in the SCIENCE forum.

I'm a rockhard atheist, and fully agree with Whodey in not understanding what gravity actually DOES. Sometimes I think I grasp some of it, but then I think about it for a little bit longer and *poof*, it's all gone.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
I'm a rockhard atheist, and fully agree with Whodey in not understanding what gravity actually DOES. Sometimes I think I grasp some of it, but then I think about it for a little bit longer and *poof*, it's all gone.

Unless I am mistaken, under general relativity, gravity doesn't even exist. There is only space time curvature. Gravity as a force is just a mathematical tool to simplify matters.

Originally posted by humy
I just like to point out that any religious faith, Christian or not, is logically inconsistent with scientific method, which is a fundamental principle behind all the sciences including cosmic science. The only sense in which the two are 'comparable' is in the very narrow psychological sense that some people can sometimes mentally apply one 'logic' (scie ...[text shortened]... atible to them.
But the fact remains that the two are not 'comparable' logically.

I'm not contesting that religion and science are not logically comparable - of course they aren't. This is what I object to:

originally posted by humy
I don't think there is much hope of him (and most theists) understanding general relatively...

There is probably not much hope of most atheists understanding general relativity either - because it's complicated highly advanced science requiring a significant platform of prior academic learning - not because they are atheists. However, I do accept that many religionist theists reject scientific fact due to their indoctrination. Just don't chuck us all into the same basket. Thanks.

Originally posted by divegeester
I'm not contesting that religion and science are not logically comparable - of course they aren't. This is what I object to:

originally posted by humy
[b]I don't think there is much hope of him (and most theists) understanding general relatively...

There is probably not much hope of most atheists understanding general relativity either ...[text shortened]... ientific fact due to their indoctrination. Just don't chuck us all into the same basket. Thanks.[/b]

I meant to say "...(and most theists here)..." i.e. in this forum (thus not implying anything about in society as a whole), -that was what I was what I really thinking by my quote. I apologize for not saying exactly what I meant there. My verbal&editing skills are not good (and ironically I am currently writing a science book for publication!). I guess most atheist on this science forum might be scientists and possibly also capable of understanding it (in general and only if they really put their mind to it) while, most theists on this science forum are probability not scientists (nor, by far, scientifically minded judging from many of their comments I have seen) thus not capable of understanding it (in general).

Originally posted by twhitehead
Unless I am mistaken, under general relativity, gravity doesn't even exist. There is only space time curvature. Gravity as a force is just a mathematical tool to simplify matters.

Right, but there must be "something" to cause that spacetime curvature?

As I remember, there are four fundamental forces in nature. Are you saying there would be essentially only three?

I remember reading something about Gravity "leaking" into our "universe" from another dimension.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The "bending" of space is an analogy used to visualize what the formulae tell us. This picture make some sense because we can, for instance, see the "bending" of light through gravitational lensing.

If you want to understand gravity, study general relativity.

Wouldn't it be correct to say though that a certain region of space which is under the influence of a mass is indeed bent (more) compared to another region of space which is far less under the influence of said mass?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Right, but there must be "something" to cause that spacetime curvature?

Mass.

Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler

As I remember, there are four fundamental forces in nature. Are you saying there would be essentially only three?
Yes. That is why unifying quantum theory with general relativity is kind of tricky.
And don't ask me how the other forces work either. Maybe they are also spacetime bending in another dimension?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Wouldn't it be correct to say though that a certain region of space which is under the influence of a mass is indeed bent (more) compared to another region of space which is far less under the influence of said mass?

With the understanding that it is all four dimensions that bend (space-time). They also get bent out of shape if you move too fast.

Originally posted by twhitehead
With the understanding that it is all four dimensions that bend (space-time). They also get bent out of shape if you move too fast.

But only for you in the spacecraft, right? An observer would see no warping of space or time as that ship goes by would it?

Originally posted by humy
As far as I am aware, he was an agnostic. When he spoke of "God", he didn't mean some kind of supernatural human-like being but merely "everything" or "the universe and its natural laws" and he protested bitterly when people kept saying he meant a supernatural and/or human-like God.

That's why I said he held "partially" theistic views.

Originally posted by humy
I had no intent to offend. But most modern scientists are atheist/agnostic and tend to be the most intelligently people in society. Not intending to offend, I will leave it to you to figure out why that is rather than tell you explicitly. I don't think that is mere statistical coincidence, do you?

And my response to your two assertions are;

1) where did I ...[text shortened]... usive in relativity as you go along, although I think that wouldn't be the best way of doing it.

1) Your post clearly implies that you believe that your intellect/scientific understanding is some type benchmark on which others should compare themselves against. Making you authoritarian on who could understand a concept which you can't understand yourself. You seem to be missing the obvious logical inconsistency in that, but are all to quick to point out others inconsistencies.

2) Newtonian Physics is a simplification of Relitivistic mechanics. So I disagree that you can compitently learn relativity without fully understanding it's simplified version. ( you said you had a 'basic' understanding of the latter).

Originally posted by sonhouse
But only for you in the spacecraft, right? An observer would see no warping of space or time as that ship goes by would it?

No, even an external observer sees warping - but different warping! And to be clear this has nothing to do with observers ie the warping occurs with or without observers.

Enjoy:
YouTube
http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/g-gollin/relativity/p112_relativity_11.html

Originally posted by humy
I had no intent to offend. But most modern scientists are atheist/agnostic and tend to be the most intelligently people in society. Not intending to offend, I will leave it to you to figure out why that is rather than tell you explicitly. I don't think that is mere statistical coincidence, do you?

And my response to your two assertions are;

1) where did I ...[text shortened]... usive in relativity as you go along, although I think that wouldn't be the best way of doing it.

No, this isn't true there are plenty of perfectly competent scientists who are also theists. I dispute your statistical facts. As part of an argument over in Spirituality once I looked at the rate of college attendance by religion. The highest was not among atheists, but Unitarians, with several other religious groups also scoring highly. The ones that scored lower than atheists were the mad Protestant groups who believe in young Earths and so forth. Essentially the correlation seems to be that groups that attempt to make one believe things that blatantly contradict scientific wisdom score lowly, but groups that do not, such as the Anglicans, score as well as atheists on that measure.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Not sure what theism has to do with this or why it should be mentioned in the SCIENCE forum.

I'm a rockhard atheist, and fully agree with Whodey in not understanding what gravity actually DOES. Sometimes I think I grasp some of it, but then I think about it for a little bit longer and *poof*, it's all gone.

That's easy, what gravity does is make you come back down again when you jump.

Originally posted by joe shmo
1) Your post clearly implies that you believe that your intellect/scientific understanding is some type benchmark on which others should compare themselves against. Making you authoritarian on who could understand a concept which you can't understand yourself. You seem to be missing the obvious logical inconsistency in that, but are all to quick to point ...[text shortened]... nderstanding it's simplified version. ( you said you had a 'basic' understanding of the latter).

No, you're confusing understanding maths with understanding a collection of statements. To fully understand the whole of Newtonian mechanics one has to understand the Hamilton-Jacobi formulation. Not knowing about that is no barrier to understanding special relativity (it helps with General relativity if one is interested in calculating geodesics). A physical theory consists of a set of statements such as "The speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames.". This doesn't need any mathematical skill to understand. Essentially mathematics provides a language for making very precise statements about the world as well as a means for making deductions, but it isn't the only language. Amateurs don't need to be able to calculate results or make predictions, that is what professionals are for. Clearly professionals understand their field better than interested amateurs, but interested amateurs do not not understand a field just because they don't have the complete professional toolkit.