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From: kay@warwick.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.origins
Subject: Re: Bogus physics reamplified
Message-ID: <472@snow.warwick.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Apr-86 18:17:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: snow.472
Posted: Wed Apr 23 18:17:37 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 1-May-86 03:27:37 EDT
References: <368@ihnet.UUCP> <2057@jhunix.UUCP> <2874@sjuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: kay@warwick.UUCP (Kay Dekker)
Distribution: net
Organization: Computer Science, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 27
Keywords: general relativity, justifying assertions, name-calling
Xref: watmath net.physics:4229 net.origins:3052

[Tom Courtney]
>>Hmm, the way a foucalt pendumlum behaves proves that the earth is rotating?
>>I was taught that in school too, but then I read an article claiming that
>>if the universe rotated around the earth, the pendulum would do the same
>>thing.

[David desJardins]
>   Yes, exactly.  This is the point that Matt Wiener and others have been
>trying to make (I hope I can speak for him).  From the fact that these two
>descriptions lead to the same result, we conclude that it is meaningless
>to say that the universe is rotating about the Earth (since it is equivalent
>to the simpler assumption that the Earth is rotating).  Meaningless but
>definitely not wrong.

If the two descriptions lead to the same result (I don't disagree with this)
then how can one be considered "meaningless" unless we also consider the
other to be identically "meaningless"?  Surely all we may say is that the
two descriptions are restatements of "the Earth and the Universe have relative
rotation"?  The principle of parsimony may indeed lead us to prefer the
first description on grounds of local utility, but it does not allow us to
affirm that the second is meaningless.

						Kay.

-- 
"I AM; YOU ARE; HELLO: all else is poetry"
			... mcvax!ukc!warwick!kay