Who is your favorite Physicist?

In the case of Galileo, he thought he had OTHER, empirically-derived, information from OTHER sources to justify the conclusion that the earth did indeed, and did in fact, orbit the sun, rather than vice versa.

In making this proclamation, he was implicitly treating the sun as the preferred (stationary) frame of reference as between the two.

Had he wanted to adhere to the then-prevailing geocentric view, then he would have posited the earth, instead of the sun, to be preferred frame.

But he rejected the geocentric viewpoint and accepted (advocated) the heliocentric viewpoint.

At no time did he EVER (except perhaps insincerely, under the threat of torture) say that the two viewpoints were "equally correct." He did NOT believe that.

That claim came much, much later, with special relativity.

Nor did he believe that "galilean relativity" contradicted and logically precluded his heliocentric viewpoint. He was entirely correct in that belief. There is no contradiction whatsoever.

As a matter of fact, he used "galilean relativity" to buttress his claim that the earth "actually" revolved around the sun, even though we couldn't detect our motion with our senses.

Feel free to tell me if you think I have misstated anything about Galileo, his claims, his assumptions, and/or his logic, eh, Max?

Trying to advocate on behalf of Einstein, and to impute his claims to Galileo, when evaluating Galileo in all these aspects, as you have been trying to do, is a serious historical mistake.

Talk to Dr. George Smoot, and the multitude of current physicists who agree with him, about the argument, eh, Ollie? Educate yourself, if your religion allows that.

Dear readers and Max and Layman, I am not a physicist, but I see myself to be into truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man’s conscious intelligence.

Honestly, I have not read the whole thread of “Who is your favorite physicist?”

Still at this point in time, I like to propose some steps to us all, in order that what appears to me to be an impasse in the exchange between Max and Layman can be resolved.

This is the situation between Layman and Max at this point in time:





Here are my proposed steps for Max and Layman to resolve their impasse:

1. Keep Galileo out of their discussion, because the man is dead and no amount of arguing from his writing will ever get to whatever is his correct position on the matter at hand.

2. Concur on what is the matter at hand between Layman and Max.*

3. Take into account the fact that everyone here has traveled in a boat and has seen the shore from his location in the boat, which boat is moving on the sea surface.

4. Now, what is the experience of everyone who lives on land and also having had the experience of being on board in a boat which is sailing on the surface of a sea.

5. Answer the question, “What do you observe the land to be into, moving or not moving, as you are on board the boat sailing on the surface of the sea?

6. Is the land moving or not?
________________________

There, everyone, my own conclusion in regard to how to resolve the impasse between Max and Layman is that: we and they two must always bring in our experiences of life as observing and intelligently reasoning animate entities.

* The question is, assuming that you go up to top deck (or look out a window) and realize that there is relative motion between the ship and the shore, is there any way to confidently say which is moving, and which is "at rest?"


Further affiant sayeth naught, except hehehehehehehe.

That was the whole point of the discussion, for reasons which go way back between me and Max. Max thinks that Galileo thinks (thought) exactly what he (Max) thinks.

My ultimate goal was to lead him to realize where some of the assumptions which he presents as facts come from.

But I don't think he's really capable of any such analytical thinking, truth be told. What he believes to be true is (for him) true, was always true, and everyone who ever existed knows/knew it is and was true. If he believes it, then it's a proposition that is self-evident, and needs no justification or explanation whatsoever.

Roll up, roll up for the Troll Fest ! Its cheaper than going down the pub !

You're not even saying anything... You're at the end of your rope, condemned to name dropping, like fresco.

When I said that L.A. and you were moving at 1 million miles per hour towards the Leo constellation, I based that on an estimate of the solar system's velocity in the "local comoving frame". If i understand well, that's a type of frame well suited to measure our solar system's speed relative to the neighbouring galaxies. "Comoving" means that the frame's axes are growing at the same speed as the universe expands. It's a special kind of frame well-suited for this kind of computations.

Of course, the result would have been different if I had chosen another frame of reference, like a non-comoving frame. But that's not the important point.

The important point is that this estimate of the solar system velocity relative to our galactic neighbourhood is totally irrelevant to our daily lives. It might as well be zero; it makes no difference to us whatsoever as long as the movement is inertial.

In your riddle about the plane flying to L.A., the useful question is NOT "who is REALLY moving?" Everything is always REALLY moving because everything is subject to forces, including L.A.

The only meaningful question then is: "will I make it to L.A., and when?" And all you need to answer that question is your velocity relative to L.A. Or L.A.'s velocity relative to your plane. It's the same thing, the same concept and the same figure. That's what Galilean relativity is all about.

https://able2know.org/topic/391613-1

Should I take that as a "yes"? :-)

You should take it as "educate yourself, if your religion allows that."

You have a very strange definition of the word "educate". Education usually means doing the hard work to listen to lectures, do problem sets, perform experiments, write papers, get feedback from professors who know more than you. This is what education generally means. The process of education is hard work, and it challenges you to give up your preconceived ideas. After you go through education, you have much different understand than when you started.

You seem to use the word "educate" to mean; take what makes sense to you, google quotes from famous people to take out of context, and watch Youtube videos. I am not singling you out Layman, since you clearly are set in your ideas.... and you and I both know you aren't going to change your mind no matter what anyone says.

But you are a good example. In our society today education, and expertise are no longer valued. Everyone pretends that education isn't needed, you especially see this in science.

Modern science is difficult. A mathematical understanding through differential equations and linear algebra is required to understand the concepts, as is two or three years of study to master Classical Physics.. It is impossible to understand General Relativity, or Quantum Mechanics, without this background. It takes 6 or 7 years at least of hard work to master a basic basic understanding of science. You can read the English summaries of the science... but English summaries are imprecise and you will get misconceptions from them. That is why Scientists use mathematics.

There are no shortcuts in science. Popular science isn't science, and it isn't really even a step toward a real understanding.

You have to do the work.

Does your religion allow you to agree with people who've been to college and university, or does it commend that you disagree with them?

That's about the 1,000th time you've posted your boilerplate "education" ramblings, Max. We've heard it. Ad nauseum.

You can train a stupid-ass pigeon to play a piano. That's what YOU would call "education," no doubt.

Just answer the damn question.

Did you teach yourself Latin as well?

I think you at this point you might try a bit of your Poincare' name dropping !

I'm always willing to explain what a particular guy said, if I like it, but that's what I do: I try to explain. I don't stop at a vague gesture towards Derrida.

I am trying to imagine this. Does it involve slapping the upper arm and then raising the fist? I suppose that is the opposite of vague. By the way, I see there is a new Indochine album out next month. They are not what they were. Alice et June was the last good one. Still there is Mickey 3d.

Nothing vague about Derrida's point that context is paramount. Your own 'irrelevence to normal life' comments illustrate that point, as does my earlier highlighting of Galileo's use of the word 'move' in the context of accusations of heresy. Indeed, Derrida claimed that no text had its meaning set in stone, even for its own author ! But rather than mere iconoclasm, I like to think of Derrida as the literary counterpart to a more mathematical concept of 'state transitional' views of perception and cognition (Piaget for example), which at the macro level could relate to Kuhn's shifting paradigms.
In short the function of citing a 'name' is a shorthand attempt at setting up a semantic field/backcloth for subsequent discourse, which of course some of those unfamiliar with that author will resent .

That's the sketch, the outline for a possible argument. Better than name dropping but still pretty vague. Try and develop it so that we can all see if it holds water or not. Including you.

The problem with name dropping is precisely that all sentences are polysemic. So by quoting a guy's word what are you saying? Until you describe what you mean in some detail, nobody can guess which interpretation of Derrida's thought you have in mind.