Robittybob1

That is a different question than you asked me before. I'll attempt it in the morning. Basically you are wanting me to know the difference between a law and a theory. In the quote it did refer to theory: But it will need a bit more work than that for what sort of theory has only 1 law? It has a wider scope (OK I'd need to know what that "wider scope" means too).

A thread without any OP statement! What I was wondering was why in GR there was non-conservation of energy? I was told today by Strange that GR did not conserve energy (that's how I took it), as before that I was completely ignorant of that fact (is it a fact?). So here is a chance to increase our understanding of conservation of energy in GR and classical physics in order to understand why there is this difference (if there is any?). Not knowing the facts I can't even be specific in the wording of the OP statement sorry. [bedtime for me. I'll reply in the morning.]

That's good to picture that image of the skimming stone making its way around the curved surface. I'm not sure if I can really reply to it as such. It seems more like a memory rather than something we can use at the moment to discover what a gravitational wave is. Thanks Mike.

I have been looking into the meaning of scientific laws and I would say that the description given in Wikipedia is second to none. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_science#Classical_laws Scientific laws summarize and explain a large collection of facts determined by experiment, and are tested based on their ability to predict the results of future experiments. They are developed either from facts or through mathematics, and are strongly supported by empirical evidence. It is generally understood that they reflect causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented.

I was good at science at school, and took on a role as a veterinarian, but for the last 16 years I have dabbling in the revision of science and in spiritual things. In was all in an attempt to "solve Genesis". That takes you from the origin of the Universe to abiogenesis and formation of the Solar System and on and on, so much to think about if you were to ever attempt to explain how everything fits together. The one thing I am useless at is math and science revolves around the formulas. I'm seriously thinking of going back to school to learn maths.

Makes you think doesn't it.... X Files on TV plus Strange asking me what I mean as "wrong". It made me think of what we've covered in this thread, how all those ideas Man has thought as correct and now in the rubbish bin. So what is correct is what is considered correct at the moment, whether it remains right or it will be found "wrong" sometime in the future.

Makes me feel like having a holiday, sea, waves, beaches and playing pool. Cheers

That's the unanswered question at the moment. Energy has mass is that a law? Mass has gravity is that a law? Does gravitational radiation have energy hence took mass away from the spinning masses? do you know?

@Mordred - Did you make any headway on this?

What about the question: in http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93564-ockhams-razor-could-be-wrong/page-2#entry906730 "Does the mechanism become part of the law or is it just the correctness of the result?"

Seemed to be a lot questions being asked in both of those references. Maybe there will be an answer since we have had a BH merger. In that first link can you understand all that they are talking about? There seems a bit of uncertainty expressed in it.

Yes but how do you make mass curve through space (orbit) OK we call it gravity, but is it due to curved spacetime or mass/energy curving in spacetime? If gravity is mediated by these massless theoretical gravitons do the gravitons curve spacetime or interact with matter and make it curve as if it was rolling on a curved rubber sheet? So this how I would expect to see it if it ever becomes proven. Quantum gravity would be quantum like in nature, with packets (gravitons) so that would mean matter took little steps to make a curve rather than a continuous curvature. Does curved spacetime have a grainy surface (like pixels) or is it absolutely smooth?

As I understand it in the picture imagine the globe in the center is the Earth, with you standing on the Earth this would be represented by you standing on the lowest point on the rubber sheet or maybe just above the rubber sheet but directly above the lowest point. So you are not going to orbit but just fall straight to the center of the Earth (represented as the lowest point on the sheet).

Especially on places like science forums where new ideas are springing up all the time. Just had an idea to do a historic search to see what threads on this forum discussed Occam's razor to any depth. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/24820-failures-of-occams-razor-in-medicine/page-2#entry334864was a pretty good summary at the end of a lively debate. There will be others but that one in particular had an interesting title that attracted my attention. "Failures of Occam's Razor In Medicine"

You could be right again! I was thinking originally that the low tilt might make the poles warmer but you are picking a higher tilt will do this. Mercury which has virtually no tilt and has very cold poles (well put it this way; there is still water ice in the craters on the poles of Mercury yet the rest of the planet is bone dry).

Can anyone give us a quick reminder what happens to the conservation of energy in general relativity please? It might be worth exploring as a separate topic.

@EdEarl - can't reply to that but it gives us an idea what it could have been like. I wonder if the advocates for those ideas used the Occam's razor argument to show why they were right and the new idea was wrong? If they are just overturned no issue. Some of them may have meet opposition from the religious leaders but I doubt if one of their arguments would have involved the Occam's razor., and it really isn't worth the effort to find out.

I haven't had to argue along these lines before so I'm not even certain I had defined "wrong". OK Newton and Einstein had a totally different mechanism and speed for the interaction of gravity. Does the mechanism become part of the law or is it just the correctness of the result? This is how I recollect it. The improvement to the orbit of Mercury by relativity was an extremely small amount but it accounted for the little tiny bit they couldn't account for by Newtonian mechanics alone. But Newtonian mechanism alone would not be able to explain the mergers of the two black holes detected last year.

Thanks Janus. Good point about the terminal velocity.

I did say that in haste. For some reason I thought that thread was on my list of favorites but it wasn't. But I had read up to Swanson's critique and I thought this thread is not going anywhere. OK I was wrong. No, I am fully in favour of keeping this forum strong. I did write to one of the moderators regarding my "view new content button" for it wasn't working, but so far I haven't worked out how to fix it. I reviewed the other thread discussing laws of physics "Can the laws of physics be wrong?" and its too argumentative to really be worth reading. Some good posts though. #4 and #15 Newton's law of gravitation got slightly modified by Einstein's relativity. (still much the same in most situations isn't it?)

That's not so bad!

That thread didn't get much traction, for the comment made the OP "lacks all rigor. You're just claiming this with nothing to support your idea except "It doesn't seem likely to me". This is known as the Argument from Incredulity, it's a logical fallacy, and a poor method of learning". It was stopped in its track. The thread I started is asking are there laws and can they be violated?

You sound like a difficult student. Did you pass? I wish I knew a whole lot more about calculus. Are you saying we can't get a handle on any law in order to prove that it exists? Explain what you mean by differential please?

I didn't mean to ignore your post, sorry. It was in fact a very good and well thought out argument.

Based on the following definition of jurisprudence I am happy to leave it out: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/jurisprudence