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From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.origins
Subject: Re: Bogus physics reamplified
Message-ID: <12547@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 23:56:15 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12547
Posted: Fri Mar 21 23:56:15 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 23:09:05 EST
References: <368@ihnet.UUCP> <2057@jhunix.UUCP> <2874@sjuvax.UUCP>
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Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener)
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Keywords: general relativity, justifying assertions, name-calling
Xref: watmath net.physics:3962 net.origins:2976

Follow ups are to net.physics only.

In article <556@lanl.ARPA> jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles) writes:
>>In article <424@lanl.ARPA> jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles) writes:
>>>For the definition of 'frame' and 'local' I suggest you read the first few
>>>chapters of MTW ('Gravitation') again.  I just did - fascinating stuff!

Actually, the definitions are not in the book.

>>    You need to do more than read it (we both have, apparently). You need
>>to understand it. Read it again, using your noggin.

>Note: I have always said 'local reference frame', which in GR is ALWAYS
>a Lorentz frame.

It is?  Do you make this up as you go along?  Is it congenital?

As a matter of fact, all GR frames are Lorentzian, which is totally different
than saying all frames are Lorentz frames, which, as you admit is what YOU'VE
been saying all along.  The preference for Lorentz frames IS a mathematical
convenience: "Physics is simple only when analyzed locally."  There is
nothing physical about coordinate systems per se.  That is the whole point of
emphasizing the geometry of space-time in the first place.  And if you do not
realize that, then you just do not understand GR at all.

A rotating frame is still a frame.  It is not a Lorentz frame, but it is
still Lorentzian.

Why do you think Einstein called it the GENERAL theory?  Since it holds
under ALL frames, not just the special relativity Lorentz frames.

Bertrand Russell IS correct, and I wish you'd stop spewing your nonsense.
You are worse than Ted Holden actually: even the non-experts can tell that
he spouts gibber, but your misreadings of MTW might confuse a lot of people.

>                  See box 1.3 in "Gravitation".  End of Note.

Try READING the box, not just looking at it.  And the surrounding text:

	These theorems lend themselves to empirical test in the
	appropriate, very special coordinate systems: ... local
	Lorentz coordinates ... in the local Lorentz geometry
	of physics.  However, the theorems rise above all coordinate
	systems in their content.  [pp 19,23]

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720