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#20
by
SteveKelsey
on 19 Jul, 2019 14:08
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Theories are only as good as their success with describing we can observe in the universe, nothing else matters. As an obvious example GR is not consistent with Quantum Mechanics, but both describe aspects of the universe to great fidelity. It is not a requirement that any new theory is consistent with current theory, only that it is a better description of the universe. Should such a theory emerge it would make clear where older theories were in error. To assume current theories are the yardstick against which new theories should be measured is not useful.
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#21
by
whitelancer64
on 19 Jul, 2019 14:30
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"There is a simple prerequisite in science for new theories: they have to be consistent with what we already know. "
Politely disagree. There is a prerequisite in science for new theories be consistent with the observed universe, nothing else.
"what we know" and "what we have observed' are basically the same thing.
A scientific Theory is not the same thing as a "theory" to a lay-person, where a "theory" is synonymous with a guess, or speculation.
A scientific Theory is a framework that is used to explain and understand what is observed in that field of science.
So if someone wants to create a new Theory to replace an existing one, then it has to produce results that are either - at the very least - consistent with what the previous Theory produces (that is to say, its predictions for known values must match), or it must produce results that more accurately match observations than the previous Theory's results. If the predictions made by the new theory do not match what is observed, then the new theory is probably not useful.
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#22
by
SteveKelsey
on 19 Jul, 2019 14:58
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"So if someone wants to create a new Theory to replace an existing one, then it has to produce results that are either - at the very least - consistent with what the previous Theory produces (that is to say, its predictions for known values must match),"
No
" or it must produce results that more accurately match observations than the previous Theory's results. "
Yes
"If the predictions made by the new theory do not match what is observed, then the new theory is probably not useful."
Yes
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#23
by
whitelancer64
on 19 Jul, 2019 15:09
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"So if someone wants to create a new Theory to replace an existing one, then it has to produce results that are either - at the very least - consistent with what the previous Theory produces (that is to say, its predictions for known values must match),"
No
*snip*
Yes.
A new theory must, at the very least, produce results as good as an existing Theory. If it is producing results that do not match established values, we can be pretty confident in saying it is not correct.
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#24
by
SteveKelsey
on 19 Jul, 2019 15:22
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This is becoming repetitive so this will be my final comment on the topic. There is no requirement for a new theory to meet the predictions of any existing theory. It is only necessary for it to describe the universe more accurately.
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#25
by
whitelancer64
on 19 Jul, 2019 15:34
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This is becoming repetitive so this will be my final comment on the topic. There is no requirement for a new theory to meet the predictions of any existing theory. It is only necessary for it to describe the universe more accurately.
I can think of several examples where that's not true, but OK.
For example, there have been plenty of theories which would eliminate Dark Matter and better match observations, but fail because they do not accurately describe some other well-established aspect of physics.
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#26
by
meberbs
on 19 Jul, 2019 18:30
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It is not a requirement that any new theory is consistent with current theory, only that it is a better description of the universe.
No one has said anything different than that. New theories don't have to be consistent with the previous theories, but they do have to be consistent with the predictions of the previous theories that have been experimentally confirmed. Actually there is a slight problem with your statement, since you are leaving the threshold at "better," when a theory only needs to be "as good."
"So if someone wants to create a new Theory to replace an existing one, then it has to produce results that are either - at the very least - consistent with what the previous Theory produces (that is to say, its predictions for known values must match),"
No
" or it must produce results that more accurately match observations than the previous Theory's results. "
Yes
You still don't seem to be understanding, since you just contradicted yourself. How can a theory more accurately match observations, if it doesn't make predictions that are consistent with the previous theory in regimes where there is no discernible difference between the previous theory and observations?
As far as I can tell we are in violent agreement, but you haven't recognized yet that we are using different words to say the same thing.
Also, often, the simplest way to show that a theory is matches known results is to show that it simply reduces to the previous theory in some limit. This can be done for special relativity for example, where it reduces to Newtonian mechanics in the low velocity limit, which covers basically all experimental results before it was developed. For something like McCulloch's theory, it is clearly inconsistent with the basic principles of GR, so instead it takes a lot more work to show that his theory can predict results such as the precession of Mercury and other things that GR predicts to within experimental error. Again, since you keep misinterpreting this, this is NOT saying it has to meet these predictions solely because GR makes them. It is required because we have experimental and observational evidence of these phenomena. The reference to GR is for 2 reasons: 1. "Standard tests of GR" is a convenient shorthand that anyone in the field would recognize without detailed description. and 2. This limits it to things that we already have a good theory for. A new theory does not have to explain dark energy, inconsistencies in measurements of the cosmological constant, or other observations that we don't have an accepted explanation for. It is only expected to be as good as current theories, better is nice but should not be required.
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#27
by
MikeMcCulloch
on 20 Jul, 2019 13:41
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I disagree with meberbs comment in the above debate that, to slightly condense it: "new theories have to be consistent with what we already know. That means a new theory has to match conservation laws". I agree with SteveKelsey that conservation laws are not empirical data. Take, for example, heat. At first the generation of heat through friction seemed to break the conservation laws, until those laws were extended. QI suggests we need to extend the conservation laws to include information, and the data (eg QI predicts galaxy rotation) backs that addition.
The only important criterion for selecting theories is that they predict nature 'before the observations are made'. Otherwise they are not useful. They have to be predictive. General relativity does not do that in low acceleration regimes (must of the cosmos). For example, you have to use GR to predict galaxy rotation speeds, then notice how wrong it is (usually by a factor of ten!) and add the right amount of invisible dark matter arbitrarily to make it work. No clear-minded scientist can be happy with that. GR cannot predict most of nature without looking at it first! However. GR does predict well at high acceleration and of course QI has to compete there as well, eg light bending by the Sun. I am working to see if QI also does that for a workshop in Prague, oddly enough.
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#28
by
meberbs
on 20 Jul, 2019 15:06
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I disagree with meberbs comment in the above debate that, to slightly condense it: "new theories have to be consistent with what we already know. That means a new theory has to match conservation laws". I agree with SteveKelsey that conservation laws are not empirical data. Take, for example, heat. At first the generation of heat through friction seemed to break the conservation laws, until those laws were extended. QI suggests we need to extend the conservation laws to include information, and the data (eg QI predicts galaxy rotation) backs that addition.
You claim to be disagreeing with me, but nothing you said actually disagrees with my point. You need conservation laws, no one said they have to look exactly the same (I would use electromagnetism and special relativity as an example, if there was ever any confusion about friction and thermal energy, it happened long enough ago that no one really cares anymore.) Noether's theorem is the mathematical proof that a reasonable consistent theory should obey some form of conservation laws. As I already demonstrated in this thread, your theory currently does not provide a working alternative to conservation of energy, let alone momentum. The fact that you attempted to find a way to rescue conservation of energy shows that you have at least some understanding of the importance of maintaining some form of conservation laws.
The only important criterion for selecting theories is that they predict nature 'before the observations are made'.
That is a terrible criteria, under either of the 2 readings of it I can think of.
Under the first way I see it, it means that your theory fails always and forever, because you came up with it in response to observations of galaxy rotation and not the other way around. This obviously shouldn't be an actual criteria, because theories being modified or developed in response to unexpected observations is a completely valid order of events.
The other way, which seems to be what you meant based on the rest of your post isn't any better. No theory exists that can make predictions without observational data on the system. You can't predict the motion of an electron in an electric field without knowing its charge/mass ratio. You can't predict the orbit of the moon around the Earth without first measuring the mass of the Earth, even allowing you to know the starting positions and velocities. This is a direct analogy with dark matter. Out best estimates of the mass of the Earth (and other large bodies in the Solar system) come from measuring orbits. If there is additional matter that can't easily be seen around galaxies, then of course you have to measure that somehow. Even if it was just regular old dust and gas, the best way to measure the total amount would still end up being observing its gravitational effects. For dark matter, we know there would have to be enough to at least have some detectable effect on the light passing through if it was regular matter, but even imagining an alternate universe where it was regular matter, we wouldn't be able to measure the total amount very well except through gravitational effects. Meanwhile, you still haven't pointed me to an actual derivation of how the Hubble diameter ends up in your equation, which leaves me with nothing but your word that it wasn't picked to tune the numbers to match the acceleration you wanted. (This matters less for the validity of your theory than for the potential hypocrisy in your complaints about GR.)
However. GR does predict well at high acceleration and of course QI has to compete there as well, eg light bending by the Sun. I am working to see if QI also does that for a workshop in Prague, oddly enough.
The only odd thing is how many years you have spent on your theory without doing such a basic test. After that, there is gravitational redshift (In GR this also covers time dilation as it affects GPS satellites), and the precession of Mercury before you can reasonably start claiming that you have a possible alternative theory. Of course you really should also cover more modern tests like frame dragging and gravitational waves as well.
Actually I do have some idea why you haven't shown your theory actually matches the above listed experiments, it is because you seem to spend all of your time and energy trying to discredit GR, with what amounts to really weak arguments, rather than trying to actually demonstrate that your theory works. The way you replace a theory in physics is by showing that the new one is better, not that the old one is wrong. I know someone who really likes the quote "all models are wrong; some are useful." You have yet to actually demonstrate that yours is useful. Scientists already know that GR is wrong at some level (though generally it isn't in many of the ways you try to claim.) At this point you have dug yourself into a hole, especially with things like the Pioneer anomaly. (No really, read my previous posts about it again, and don't bother complaining about the resolution unless you are willing to first learn something about standard thermal modelling techniques.)
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#29
by
SteveKelsey
on 20 Jul, 2019 17:16
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“No theory exists that can make predictions without observational data on the system.”
Politely disagree.
Dirac predicted the existence of antimatter as a consequence of his proposed theory of relativistic quantum mechanics. The ‘negative energy’ aspect of his theory fell out of the math. Contemporaries of Dirac thought this disproved his theory because no such phenomena had been observed, but Dirac insisted the math was so elegant it must be correct.
“After ruling out the possibility that this particle was simply the proton – which has a hugely greater mass – Dirac predicted the existence of a new particle with the same mass of the electron but with a charge that was positive rather than negative.
That particle was found experimentally on 2 August 1930. Carl Anderson was observing the trails produced in the particle shower that was created in his cloud chamber when cosmic rays passed through it. His observations included a particle with the same mass as the electron but the opposite charge – its track bent in the “wrong” direction in a magnetic field. Anderson coined the name “positron” for his new discovery.
In 1933 Dirac went on to predict the existence of the antiproton, the counterpart to the proton. It was discovered in 1955 by Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain at the University of California, Berkeley.”
From
https://www.iop.org/resources/topic/archive/antimatter/index.html
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#30
by
MikeMcCulloch
on 20 Jul, 2019 17:21
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To quote meberbs "You claim to be disagreeing with me, but nothing you said actually disagrees with my point. You need conservation laws, no one said they have to look exactly the same"
OK, we agree then. We can change the conservation laws.
"if there was ever any confusion about friction and thermal energy, it happened long enough ago that no one really cares anymore."
I was trying to make a historical analogy, but you apparently don't like history. You should, because history provides real data on which scientific attitudes work and which don't.
"That is a terrible criteria"
No, predictability is the best criteria we have. If science does not predict what we do not yet know then it is worthless.
"You can't predict the orbit of the moon around the Earth without first measuring the mass of the Earth"
Most of your points are misunderstandings of what I am saying. I'm saying a theory should be able to predict observations before we have them. This means a theory should be able to predict the orbit of the Moon without us having to observe the orbit of the moon. Of course, we need to know some things such as the Earth's mass, but that is not what we are trying to predict!
"The only odd thing is how many years you have spent on your theory without doing such a basic test"
I started out by focusing on the observations that physics could not predict, all of them at low accelerations, such as galaxy rotation. This is quite a normal empirical attitude, and I assumed that GR was still valid in high acceleration regimes for which the effect of QI are predicted to vanish. I am moving to the view that GR is wrong in principle even at high accelerations..
"You have yet to actually demonstrate that yours is useful"
QI is already useful. It predicts galaxy rotation whereas no other theory can (without fudging). Of course, that use is quite academic I suppose, and QI is not yet directly useful in the sense that it can power a car or propel a spacecraft, but that is a future possibility.
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#31
by
meberbs
on 21 Jul, 2019 00:25
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“No theory exists that can make predictions without observational data on the system.”
Politely disagree.
Dirac predicted the existence of antimatter as a consequence of his proposed theory of relativistic quantum mechanics. ...
You seem to have missed the point I was making. We could have a long detailed discussion about whether or not the special case you brought up counts as an exception to my statement. This would generally be a waste of time though, because none of the reasons that you could consider that an exception apply to any of the theories that are on topic for this thread.
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#32
by
meberbs
on 21 Jul, 2019 01:15
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To quote meberbs "You claim to be disagreeing with me, but nothing you said actually disagrees with my point. You need conservation laws, no one said they have to look exactly the same"
OK, we agree then. We can change the conservation laws.
And I would be quite interested if you can propose some new conservation laws that you can demonstrate actually equates to something being conserved. (At some point when I have time, I intend to go back to that step I skipped in my previous post, but that is mostly for fun, it already is clear that your proposal doesn't work as a conservation law.)
"if there was ever any confusion about friction and thermal energy, it happened long enough ago that no one really cares anymore."
I was trying to make a historical analogy, but you apparently don't like history. You should, because history provides real data on which scientific attitudes work and which don't.
And now you move into personal attacks, falsely claiming that I don't like history, even after I suggested a historical example that I felt was more relevant than yours. My statement about debates about friction and thermal energy was a general one, not a personal one. Of all of the history lessons that got embedded in science classes (and there were quite a good amount) debate about friction and thermal energy never made the cut, so it doesn't seem to be one that is generally considered notable.
"That is a terrible criteria"
No, predictability is the best criteria we have. If science does not predict what we do not yet know then it is worthless.
Cool, GR met that criteria easily, your theory doesn't. The criteria I gave should be a lower bar than yours taken literally.
"You can't predict the orbit of the moon around the Earth without first measuring the mass of the Earth"
Most of your points are misunderstandings of what I am saying. I'm saying a theory should be able to predict observations before we have them. This means a theory should be able to predict the orbit of the Moon without us having to observe the orbit of the moon. Of course, we need to know some things such as the Earth's mass, but that is not what we are trying to predict!
You think I am misunderstanding? You seem to have a major misunderstanding:
We don't know the Earth's mass independently. The best measurement we have of it backs the mass out from gravitational effects, not the other way around. You are asking for the impossible.
"The only odd thing is how many years you have spent on your theory without doing such a basic test"
I started out by focusing on the observations that physics could not predict, all of them at low accelerations, such as galaxy rotation. This is quite a normal empirical attitude, and I assumed that GR was still valid in high acceleration regimes for which the effect of QI are predicted to vanish. I am moving to the view that GR is wrong in principle even at high accelerations..
A key word you just used "empirical." Your theory is at the end of the day is purely empirical. That means it describes galactic rotation, but it does not predict them. I have lost count of how many posts I have written that implicitly or explicitly asked you for a derivation of the constant term in your equation. You have yet to provide anything resembling a derivation. Based on your repeated refusal to provide this derivation, for now I can only assume that this is just an invented number that you tied into some properties of the universe that gave about the right answer.
Your theory is sufficiently different from GR that for your theory to be correct, your statement about GR being wrong in principle at "high accelerations" would have to be correct. The problem is that GR has in fact made a number of predictions that have been confirmed by later experiments. Until and unless you can at least show your theory actual also can replicate those results at a minimum, all of your talk about GR being wrong and your theory being great amounts to nothing but misleading rhetoric.
"You have yet to actually demonstrate that yours is useful"
QI is already useful. It predicts galaxy rotation whereas no other theory can (without fudging). Of course, that use is quite academic I suppose, and QI is not yet directly useful in the sense that it can power a car or propel a spacecraft, but that is a future possibility.
You seem to be missing what useful was intended to mean in this context. It doesn't need to have immediate practical application (little of GR does) but it needs to provide value as a theory. Empirical models have their uses too, but they are different than a theory. Your claims so far are more at the level of an empirical model than a theory. You continuing to refer to dark matter as a "fudge factor" amounts to simply ignoring the details of the actual current model (lambda-CDM) which does a lot more than just predict galaxy rotation curves. Your theory honestly looks like just a fudge factor to me. I have already listed the basic expectations if you want to move your work from the level of limited empirical model to general theory, it is up to you to do them.*
*Clarification on this point for any who may need it: What I have asked from McCulloch is something that should be expected to take a while if he hasn't already done the work (which it appears he hasn't.) The only thing that should reasonably be expected in the near term is for him to tone down his claims until he has actually done the work to support them.
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#33
by
SteveKelsey
on 22 Jul, 2019 10:41
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I think we need to give Dr McCulloch time and space to develop his theory. To expect him to deliver a theory that instantly meets all the criteria that fully developed theories describe is to set too high a standard. After all, even Einstein could not meet this standard.
Special relativity was published in September 1905 after many years effort including the contributions of Poincare and Lorentz. It was an incomplete description as it omitted gravity and GR followed ten years latter in 1915.Despite its beauty and power it was also incomplete. In fact it had a serious problem in that energy was not conserved. This would be a flaw that you might be tempted to use to reject GR had you been an interested engineer in the 1900’s. As you know Emmy Noether rescued GR in 1919.
So it took from circa 1900 to 1919 for GR to emerge as the description of reality that we understand today.
In a way we are very lucky. Via the internet we can observe the development of new theories as they are formed, something that Einstein and Noether were not exposed to.
While I am at it, my Dirac example it is not as special a case as you suggest. I note below a brief list of phenomena that “fell out of the math” and could not be based on observation as, like antimatter, they were not described by earlier theories and were completely unanticipated by them.
Special Relativity
length contraction,
time dilation,
relativistic mass,
mass–energy equivalence,
a universal speed limit,
General Relativity added
Black Holes
Singularities
Event Horizons
Wormholes
Closed time-like curves
I will not make a list but just note that solving that irritating blackbody radiation problem at the end of the 19th Century led to a vast array of quantum mechanical phenomena that had not been observed before.
I think you might find it rewarding to read more about how science actually advances.
You may bridle at his criticism of GR, but I think he is no more critical than the more enquiring physicists were of the luminous aether theories that thrived before Special Relativity consigned them to history. In fact, if you read the history of that time there are strong parallels between the luminous aether debate and dark matter now. Dr McCulloch is far from being alone in believing Dark Matter is an unhelpful cut-de-sac. Dr McCulloch instincts I find to be sound. He is exploring the territory the current physics cannot explain in the search for better theory. This is an attempt to be encouraged, critiqued of course, criticism is an essential part of the scientific method, but let’s be realistic about what we can expect at this time in the development.
As for relevance, we are in the New Physics for Space Propulsion thread discussing Dr McCulloch’s theory. I think all the contributions are relevant
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#34
by
X_RaY
on 09 Oct, 2019 18:19
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#35
by
Zlatan Stojanovic
on 12 Mar, 2020 06:27
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I was asked to post the following link here as well, as it is relevant for this thread.
FYI
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334987450_A_sceptical_analysis_of_Quantized_Inertia
It should be noted that Dr. McCulloch has referred even on Twitter that reference, when It was first published on viXra. It was the act of intellectual honesty.
Also, I have had original article in my hand on QI superluminal travel and asked my opinion on it in JSE. Dr. McCulloch has put that QI implication even though he did not need to. Who would put FTL implication of his theory in its development? Also which journal would published such implication? This approach deserves to be researched further. In mainstream theories there are also issues. This framework deserves research!
Regards
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#36
by
cvbn
on 12 Mar, 2020 12:49
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It should be also noted that he was the reviewer of that paper, so if he wanted he could have reviewed it negatively (blocking the publication of this paper in that journal) or radically influence the content of the paper and its wording (that actually could have been good, as the paper includes two adjustments of the theory, which can influence it in special circumstances, but in the introduction section it says that it may invalidate the theory, which does not seem to be true, it is an exageration).
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#37
by
meberbs
on 12 Mar, 2020 15:31
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Also, I have had original article in my hand on QI superluminal travel and asked my opinion on it in JSE. Dr. McCulloch has put that QI implication even though he did not need to. Who would put FTL implication of his theory in its development? Also which journal would published such implication? This approach deserves to be researched further. In mainstream theories there are also issues. This framework deserves research!
Any honest scientist who actually has a theory that includes FTL would say so when they publish it, of course most would triple check their theory first as the presence of FTL likely means that it does not match reality. Certain forms of FTL could potentially exist, and it is known that GR allows for such (though generally in non-achievable situations) so journals would not necessarily reject a paper for this, if it was addressed in an appropriate manner. Of course in this case, as I mentioned up thread, McCulloch has been using a journal known to act as a predatory journal, probably having no peer review even if they claim to. Publishing in known predatory journals is not recommended, it is just a way to fund scammers.
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#38
by
meberbs
on 12 Mar, 2020 15:45
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It should be also noted that he was the reviewer of that paper, so if he wanted he could have reviewed it negatively (blocking the publication of this paper in that journal) or radically influence the content of the paper and its wording (that actually could have been good, as the paper includes two adjustments of the theory, which can influence it in special circumstances, but in the introduction section it says that it may invalidate the theory, which does not seem to be true, it is an exageration).
No, reviewers do not generally have the level of power you ascribe to them. You may be confused with editors, or people who actually work at the journal in question.
The paper is fully justified in claiming "Such flaws, if they do not invalidate, at least will require a major rethinking of the whole theory" This, by the way, is from the conclusion, not the abstract or the introduction. They found very fundamental problems, and results that show things that McCulloch has been treating as basic principles of his theory, such as a "minimum acceleration" do not actually exist. Based on this, absolutely no claim from McCulloch to date can be considered as valid, all of the work needs to be redone.
What they show actually has potential to resolve some of the issues in the theory that I brought up in this thread, as it does away with the fundamental illogical situations caused by the insistence on a minimum acceleration. It seems much more likely to be possible to write down a sensible set of conservation laws in this situation among other things. It still remains McCulloch's responsibility to go through this work and update his theory and claims.
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#39
by
cvbn
on 12 Mar, 2020 16:32
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