Elysium and Interior Solutions

I think it is fair to say that most physicists see themselves as being pretty good at logical reasoning. Let's consider three sub-groups of physicists (among the several that we might differentiate) whose views may be applied to the subject of this thread.

First, I should point out that we have at least two empirically unanswered questions on our hands even if we totally disregard everything I've suggested about extra dimensions:

1) What is it with all those positive accelerometer readings? All the accelerometers attached to the seemingly static massive body say they are accelerating upward. Why is that? And

2) What happens when we drop a test object into a hole through a uniformly dense sphere?

Now, one of the sub-groups (call it Group 1) using their chosen gedanken experiments and their interpretation of the rules of logic, explains the accelerometer readings as being due to a static warpage of spacetime. Based on this interpretation, they say the dropped test object oscillates in the hole.

The next sub-group (call it Group 2) using their chosen gedanken experiments and their interpretation of the rules of logic, explains the accelerometer readings as being due to the "exchange" of gravitons, i.e., particles that go around "tugging" everything toward everything else. Based on this interpretation, they also say the dropped test object oscillates in the hole.

The next sub-group (call it Group 3) using the gedanken experiments and rules of logic approved of by Meta Research, explains the accelerometer readings as being due to a swarm of ultra-fast particles, also called gravitons, that go around "pushing" everything toward everything else. Based on this interpretation, they also say (or at least imply) that the dropped test object oscillates in the hole.

Obviously, I am not satisfied with any of these explanations. Rather than argue about it though, I would prefer to have an experiment performed to test Question #2 because, unlike all three of the above groups, I entertain the possibility that the accelerometers are simply telling the truth about their state of motion; the massive body they are attached to is not a static thing. If this is true, then the dropped test object will not oscillate in the hole.

One of the things I find fascinating about this situation is how little interest has been expressed (except on my part) in doing the experiment. By this omission, one gets the impression that other participants are sufficiently well convinced by their gedanken experiments and their interpretation of the rules of logic as to think it unnecessary to subject them to this empirical test. This strikes me as a profound act of faith.

Of course the lack of experimental motivation may spring not only from faith, but from the fact that, for this particular experiment, the prediction of Group 3 agrees with the predictions of Groups 1 and 2. It is only the groupless newcomer who suggests that all three Groups may be wrong. Science is such a funny business.


RBenish

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Benish</i>
<br />1) What is it with all those positive accelerometer readings? All the accelerometers attached to the seemingly static massive body say they are accelerating upward. Why is that?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I answered that early on and you ignored my answewr. Here it is again:

Accelerometers respond to both accelerations and forces. If someone had chosen to name the instrument a "forceometer" instead, would you have developed a model with forces but no accelerations?

The key point is that accelerometers do NOT simply measure accelerations. They measure forces too. So claiming that a non-zero reading means the instrument must be accelerating is, well, illogical.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">2) What happens when we drop a test object into a hole through a uniformly dense sphere?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I answered that also. We know what happens inside and outside a single uniform spherical shell. Logically, the same rules should apply to two concentric uniform spherical shells because the force exerted by each is independent of the presence of the other. So we KNOW what happens inside a multi-shell body such as Earth.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Obviously, I am not satisfied with any of these explanations. Rather than argue about it though, I would prefer to have an experiment performed to test Question #2 because, unlike all three of the above groups, I entertain the possibility that the accelerometers are simply telling the truth about their state of motion; the massive body they are attached to is not a static thing. If this is true, then the dropped test object will not oscillate in the hole.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You might propose that gravity under an apple tree might be different from gravity under a peach tree. But if I can see no logical reason for such a difference, I will say "Go ahead and do your experiment, if you are so inclined. I have other ambitions for what I want to do with my limited lifespan."

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">one gets the impression that other participants are sufficiently well convinced by their gedanken experiments and their interpretation of the rules of logic as to think it unnecessary to subject them to this empirical test. This strikes me as a profound act of faith.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">All conclusions appear to be acts of faith if you do not see the validity of the logical syllogisms supporting them. But you cannot convince someone who has drawn conclusions from a syllogism unless you can elucidate the logical flaw in their reasoning.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Of course the lack of experimental motivation may spring not only from faith, but from the fact that, for this particular experiment, the prediction of Group 3 agrees with the predictions of Groups 1 and 2. It is only the groupless newcomer who suggests that all three Groups may be wrong. Science is such a funny business.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That would be a highly self-serving argument for you, but is condescending to the point of insult to those who make it a habit to follow scientific method and would never "appeal to authority", much less a majority vote. It would be doubly weird for anyone in Meta Research because we are usually in the role of the odd-group-out. -|Tom|-

Tom,

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The key point is that accelerometers do NOT simply measure accelerations. They measure forces too. So claiming that a non-zero reading means the instrument must be accelerating is, well, illogical.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I have never claimed the instrument "must" be accelerating. I have only suggested that it might be. I have asked what are the consequences if we assume that it is. I think it would be worthwhile to perform an experiment to see whether it is or not. But you claim to already know the answer:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">We know what happens inside and outside a single uniform spherical shell. Logically, the same rules should apply to two concentric uniform spherical shells because the force exerted by each is independent of the presence of the other. So we KNOW what happens inside a multi-shell body such as Earth.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Your logic tacitly assumes that the force exerted by the shells is imparted to falling objects. I do not accept this assumption. I propose we test it. IF a positive accelerometer reading means the accelerometer is accelerating, THEN the force which causes this reading is not exerted upon the falling object; it is exerted upon the accelerometer. The trajectory of the falling object would in this case be much different inside a massive body than it would be if the force acts as you have assumed it does. I propose a test to see which case is correct.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Of course the lack of experimental motivation may spring not only from faith, but from the fact that, for this particular experiment, the prediction of Group 3 agrees with the predictions of Groups 1 and 2. It is only the groupless newcomer who suggests that all three Groups may be wrong. Science is such a funny business.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> That would be a highly self-serving argument for you, but is condescending to the point of insult to those who make it a habit to follow scientific method and would never "appeal to authority", much less a majority vote. It would be doubly weird for anyone in Meta Research because we are usually in the role of the odd-group-out.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I intended neither condescension nor insult. I'm sorry for not seeing that my comment could be taken as such. But I did intend a touch of irony. I was not thinking of having been outvoted, only that my suggestions may have been dismissed prematurely for more or less the same (seemingly sound) reasons across the board. Groups 1 and 2 are just as uninterested in my experimental proposal as Group 3 is. The three "groups" are very different when compared to each other. Yet their foundational assumptions overlap so as to concur on the tunneled sphere problem. If there were a conflict among these groups with regard to the tunneled sphere problem, I'd guess a test would have already been proposed and carried out. (And I would be doing something else with my limited lifespan.)

I think I understand why, based so firmly on your assumptions and your logic, you have such confidence. I think I can see how preposterous my ideas must seem from that point of view. With all due respect, I question your assumptions. The force indicated by an accelerometer reading perhaps does not correspond to a force being imparted, in the opposite direction, to a nearby falling object. As I have stated in an earlier post, I assume that the acceleration measured by an accelerometer and the force measured by an accelerometer have the same direction. (On a rotating body the direction is inward; on a massive body the direction is outward.)

If you continue to insist that this is illogical or impossible and that you KNOW the test object oscillates even though no one has ever seen it do so, I suppose we will get no further. I would leave you then with some additional thoughts that I would hope might inspire you to revise your standards of logic:

"It is absolutely necessary that we should learn to doubt the conditions we assume, and acknowledge we are uncertain… In the pursuit of physical science, the imagination should be taught to present the subject investigated in all possible and even in impossible views; to search for analogies of likeness and (if I may say so) of opposition – inverse or contrasted analogies; to present the fundamental idea in every form, proportion, and condition; to clothe it with suppositions and probabilities – that all cases may pass in review, and be touched, if needful by the Ithuriel spear of experiment."

Michael Faraday

RBenish

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Benish</i>
<br />Your logic tacitly assumes that the force exerted by the shells is imparted to falling objects.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">No, as I explained, uniform spherical shells exert a normal, inverse-square force on exterios bodies, and no force at all on interior bodies. So as a projectile falls through a hole in a multi-shell body, it feels normal inverse-square force from all the interior shells and no force from all the exterior shells.

The book "Pushing Gravity" gives some observational and logical reasons to doubt Newton's universal law (in subtle ways, none of which will help your case). Until we have some logical reason to doubt Newton's universal law in your case, it would be a waste of time to chase every thought-butterfly that floats by. And we already have some observational evidence of what happens to a body falling through the Earth because we have measured gravity at the bottom of deep mine shafts. It changes by easily measured amounts, but fully conforms with Newton's law. So you are left with wishful thinking without a logical or empirical motivation because the dropped projectile would behave as advertised for at least the first few miles down.

As for your accelerometers, we already know from modern high-precision measuring devices such as GPS, VLBI, and satellite laser ranging that Earth is not expanding at a rate of centimeters per year, much less accelerating at 10 meters per second per second. So it makes no sense to interpret accelerometer readings as acceleration rather than force. -|Tom|-

Tom

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> Originally posted by Benish
Your logic tacitly assumes that the force exerted by the shells is imparted to falling objects.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by TVF
No, as I explained, uniform spherical shells exert a normal, inverse-square force on exterios bodies, and no force at all on interior bodies. So as a projectile falls through a hole in a multi-shell body, it feels normal inverse-square force from all the interior shells and no force from all the exterior shells.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Evidently I omitted the word, "interior" before the word, "shells." You say a projectile "feels normal inverse-square force from all the interior shells..." You assume this to be true and I do not.

I have expressed my reasons for questioning this assumption as clearly as I can in previous posts and elsewhere. I will leave it to other readers to judge whether these reasons are still not clear enough or they are as misguided butterflies that may safely be ignored.

RBenish

Tom,

Just in case you missed it, Benish is arguing that gravitation is (or at least might be) caused by the continuous accelerating expansion of all masses, rather than by a force between all masses. When an accelerometer on Earth's surface says "9.8 meters per second per second", that is litterally what it means. Earth's surface is accelerating (radially outward) at that rate. And of course Earth's diameter is growing at twice that rate.

In the unlikely event that he is right, a mass dropped in a tunnel would actually not oscillate.



==

Benish,

Your willingness to put time, effort and other resources into a real experiment is commendable. I believe that your modified Cavendish Balance has the potential to answer the “mass in a tunnel” question without going into space. In order to realize that potential, I suggest that you:
<ul>
<li>Bite the bullet and go to a full magnetic suspension, rather than the hybrid system you have now.</li>
<li>Operate the experiment inside a vacuum chamber. </li></ul>

All possible sources of drag must be eliminated. Detractors can always blame a failure to oscillate on drag if you have not totally eliminated it. Finding a way to convince others that it (drag) has in fact been eliminated (they may claim faulty equipment design or faulty experimental technique, for example) will probably be harder than actually eliminating it. That may not be “fair”, but it is the way people are.

Really dropping a mass into a tunnel somewhere out in space, of course, would be the best experiment. Those with the resources to make that happen might be prompted to do so if you succeed. IOW, if you can demonstrate [to the satisfaction of at least some independent observers with “clout“] that drag in your apparatus is negligible, and if no other serious objections are raised, and if the results match your expectation.

My expectation is that, if you solve the engineering problems you’ve already found, and probably a few more you haven’t found yet, the test masses will oscillate inside the source masses. Your expectation is that the test masses will asymptotically approach the center of the source masses.

Theoretical expectations are more than just opinions, but not much more. “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is.” (Yogi Berra?)

===

My expectation is based on the theory that gravitation is caused by a force between all masses. Your expectation is based on the theory that gravitation is caused by the continuous accelerating expansion of all masses.

(These theories can’t both be right, but they can both be wrong.)

While we are waiting for you to solve your engineering problems, I have another question for you. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen some other Expanding Matter theories and I’d like to see how you have solved some problems that are common to them.

===

Suppose we have two masses, m_1 and m_2. Their radii are equal (r_2 = r_1) but the density of m_2 is twice the density of m_1, so that m_2 = (2 * m_1).

If we place an accelerometer on the surface of m_1, it reads a_1. An accelerometer on the surface of m_2 reads a_2, where a_2 = (2 * a_1).


My second question for you is -

How is it that after watching these masses for a while they are still the same size (r_2 still equals r_1)?