Mark, if all measurements that we can manage indicate concordance with the phrase, "it is as though space is curved" then I don't see the utility of the words, "it is as though".

If every test of this object (strikes cup on object) tells me that it behaves like a table, well, Occam's trusty tool tells me that I might as well call it a table.

Until I find contrary data.

The presence of a quadrupole moment in the Sun is not, by itself, exceptional - the 'vanilla' interpretation is that it arises from asymmetries in the mass distribution - but other tests of GR have yet to reveal smoking-gun-like problems.

(gravitational redshift for GPS corrections etc.)

I had an question:

Can we design the orbit of a satellite with Einstein’s curved space?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_we_design_the_orbit_of_a_satellite_with_Einsteins_curved_space

@ Mark

Yes, models are introduced to explain a given observed phenomena, so they have to be taken seriously. But there are guidelines on how a given model is chosen over another. And one of the golden rules is the theory should hold parsimony. It implies that the chosen theory should be the simplest scientific explanation that fits the evidence. General theory of relativity (GTR) is favored over others for the very same reason. 

Second, it is both ways as John Wheeler mentioned "Mass tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells mass how to move". Gravitation is the manifestation of space-time curvature.

Third, observed perihelion of mercury is approx. 574 while Sun's quadrupole moment contribution is only around 0.02. See attached link.

Principle of Equivalence as of today is still considered universal. Regarding the respective argument of yours, could you estimate the "enough volume".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury

Yes, Mark, space IS curved. 

But I'm curious re your asking a question that is so deeply embedded in Physics. -- Frank

In physics, the interpretations are as important as the models.  Space-time is a geometrical object, then is must be mapped to the observations.  There has been the Newtonian interpretation of space and time, but now that has changed with special relativity, in which they are defined operatively, through measurement procedures.  Using these procedures, we can say whether space-time is Euclidian or flat, or whether it is curved, and it is so in a gravitational fied. For instance, the angles of a triangle can be measured and summed, with a result equal to or different from 180°.

General Relativity states that all coordinate systems, not only inertial, are equivalent with respect to the laws of physics.  This lead to covariance, and also to the equivalence principle when inertia is taken into account.  But they are local coordinate systems.  In any bounded region, a coordinate system can be chosen such that the gravitational field cancels. But in the whole space-time, that is not possible if there is any mass. In that respect, it is analogous the gauge theories that describe the other interactions. But the difference is that General Relativity is universal, since it applies in the same way to every particles, charged or not, with a rest mass or not.

Vikash:

GR hardly proves more than the double bending of light, which Einstein knew unofficially since the 1914 eclipse, and all the other "proofs", starting at Mercury's perihelion advance are only obtained after multiple intrusive approximations (as with Schwarzschild, and Mercury's perihelion) or downright falsifications (as with the gravitomagnetism-ersatz) or additional fabrications (Kerr,...) or appropriate curve-fitting (as with the binaries-decline data).

See annexed link. It explains that the perihelion advance is found after numerous approximations, and that the real advance is zero. Can you disprove this?

Article Einstein's Paper:“Explanation of the Perihelion Motion of Me...

Thierry,

As part of a PhD course, I have calculated CMBR spectrum starting from the GR. CMBR is well observed! Isn't it a good enough proof?

Vikash: No, it isn't a good enough proof. It is clear that you will have used some of the multiple faces of linearized GR (Minkowski, Schwarzschild, Kerr,...), with the necessary approximations and predilection. So, it is incomplete anyway. It will certainly not be calculated from a blank sheet, without any bias.

The falsifications that I have mentioned are totally neglected by you and by the mainstream community, spites Popper (who by the way was only partially right). Popper says that when a theory is falsified, it must be replaced.

Not only that should be done with GR; moreover, there exists already a much better model for gravity, as proposed by the genius Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and confirmed by numerous tests, by O. Jefimenko, Martin Tajmar, and so on. It is gravitomagnetism.

It explains disc galaxies' stars' velocities without dark matter, the shape of exploding supernovae like SN 1987A, galactic bursts, the properties of asteroids in the Asteroid Belt, Satun's rings, and so on.

The whole cosmology is biased, because it is a priori linked to GR.

The CMBR spectrum itself is biased. It makes creationist "prove" that the Earth is at the center of the universe, due to the symmetry line in the middle. On the other hand, Prof Robitaille have good reasons to think that the measurements are strongly influenced by the microwave emission of the oceans on the Earth. And so on and so on...

One tries to prove GR, and comes to "proofs" that are more and more away from our galaxy, with more and more sophisticated and uncontrolable methods, but one forgets to simply reject GR due to the falsification of Mercury's perihelion advance.

Mainstream hangs by a fine, silk thread ...

@ Thierry,

Could you please provide any reference for the Hilbert's gravity model which you have mentioned?

Secondly, regarding gravitomagnetism, see attached. It is not invariant under coordinate transformation. Thought I must admit that after going through the article on GEM, I have myself felt intimidated by it. There could be some shortcomings in GR, but yet as a single theory it can explain many phenomenon; the parsimony!

Not sure but if the message in the attached second link is true, then it will confirm the superiority of GR over others. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitoelectromagnetism#Lack_of_invariance

http://phys.org/news/2016-01-gravitational-rumors-ripple-science-world.html

There have been many different theories of gravitation, with or without unification of electromagnetism, with or without a Riemannian manifold. But they all have been rejected, none of them pass the tests as well as General Relativity.  That is perhaps not known, but in any case, GR is the least bad one.

It is certain that for calculating precisely the perihelion shift, many approximations are necessary, since GR is mathematically very complex.  But conceptually it is very simple, and it is clear that it predicts a perihelion shift, while some other theories don't.  The space being curved, the circle ratio is no longer pi, and Kepler laws don't apply.  If the theories that need many approximations should be rejected, there would remains nothing in physics.

Vikash: I haven't mentioned Hilbert's gravity model. It was O. Heaviside, first link in the Wiki page you mentioned. Attention: the symbols in that paper are different than to what we are used to.

Concerning the so-called Lorentz invariance, it is a principle that has been invented by the proponents of SR, but that is a misinterpretation:

In Einstein's 1905 paper, where he deduces the retarded electromagnetic fields in another, moving reference frame, the new fields according to the Lorentz force are found. When you calculate back from the second frame expressed in terms of that second frame, the result is Lorentz-like, but not totally identical.

The Lorentz-invariance is wrongly seen as if the two results should be identical, which is not true. That is the basic error of SR proponents, and the error has been pointed out by Oleg Jefimenko in his excellent book: "Electromagnetic Retardation and Theory of Relativity".

Electromagnetism is correct, and gravitomagnetism is the transposition of it into gravity, whereby the static field is described by Newton, and the motion of masses is described by the magnetic-like second field. It solves many issues, as you can find out in my papers and my book.

Concerning your gravitational ripples: not only should they be found to support GR, they would anyway not disprove the superior gravitomagnetism, on the contrary.

But 'they' will try to make ripples found, like they made the Higg's boson found. How biased it that!

However, that doesn't undo GR's falsification of Mercury's perihelion advance, and that doesn't undo the many results gravitomagnetism brings, including the Gravity Probe B results.

Finally, please give me a single valid result of GR. If you say, the bending of light, okay, Einstein knew that unofficially in 1914 and made his theory according to that. If you say: Mercury's perihelion advance, it has been disproved. The binaries decay: it was a curve fit, like the authors wrote in their paper, and moreover, that calculus was based upon gravitomagnetism. What else? All the rest, including the alleged Big Bang and the actual cosmology are biased deductions, based upon an -apparently- almighty but useless GR...

No, the only valid results are obtained by gravitomagnetism. However, the numerous deductions from GR in cosmology makes the community believe that it is valid. It is a vicious circle, since there are also numerous observations that fit with a rather static universe.

Thierry,

I guess you have some valid points. None theory is completely correct. The book you mentioned "Electromagnetic Retardation and Theory of Relativity" seems like a valid reference. I can say only when I have gone through that. Also, it is not wise to downgrade the discovery of Higgs boson, unless you have evidence for it. In some cases, yes discoveries have been found flawed or cheated. And sometimes they even pass the peer-reviewing checks. But still...

However, I do not like that your replies are being down voted by someone.

Dear Vikash: I am sure you will enjoy reading Jefimenko's "Electromagnetic Retardation and Theory of Relativity", and I truly appreciate your openness, which demonstrates a great intelligence (unlike the downvoter's).

Concerning the Higgs boson, I have of course no evidence, but what was compelling is that CERN officially announced that they had decided to stop searching for the Higgs boson within the delay of a few months, because they hadn't found it during years of research. The scientific community was "not amused". Then, a few weeks before the deadline, the declared they had found it... The result was "in the range" of the expected mass of the Higgs boson.

I cannot explain that line of events, nor can I evaluate it objectively, but it makes me at least very suspicious.

Claude Pierre: "It is certain that for calculating precisely the perihelion shift, many approximations are necessary...".

That is a contradictio in terminis, but it allows to make believe that a wrong theory is perfect. This principle has also been used to falsely pretend that gravitomagnetism is deducible from GR.

What Anatoli Vankov has proven is that when the approximations are not applied, one finds a perihelion advance of zero. This provides from the official 43" to which the remaining part from the approximations (-43") has been added by him.

Moreover, Anatoli Vankov found that the official 43" calculus is of the opposite sign that alleged, thus a retardation instead of an advance.

So, using many approximations to get a very tiny effect proven is fraud.

It was the corner stone which Einstein needed in order to give value to his theory.

Most calculations in physics uses approximations.  That doesn't mean the result isn't exact within measurement accuracy.  Approximations are usually of the order of 10^3, and often much much less than that.  I leave you calculate the accuracy for the non relativistic motion of a car.  So, approximations can be and most of the time are precise. In GR, one thing we can be sure with an infinite accuracy is that the perihelion shift is not zero.  Often, the calculations aren't tractable at all, approximations are essential.  Then most certainly, if the guy succeeded in calculating without approximation and found zero, he is not in the framework of GR.

Charles: "gravitomagnetism is very simply proven in the PPN formalism using only SR"

That is a downright lie. It is a fabrication. I will show that with the reference you give me. Indeed, gravitomagnetism is very much needed by GR proponents, because it proves the Gravity Probe B results and many other issues, something which GR can not.

You are afraid to get into debate concerning Anatoli Vankov's disproof of GR's Mercury's Perihelion result. Moreover, you are not able to show a single success of GR whatsoever, that is not biased.

However, gravitomagnetism results in many successes, as shown in annexed presentation.

Hence, GR should be abolished. But this is an inconvenient truth for your job, of course...

Charles : it is symptomatic that you systematically downvote my answers and attack me ad hominem, just because of your general relativity confession, that I don't support due to several detailed technical reasons which I explained and documented to you, spites I give you the chance to disprove technically my issues, and spites I gave you repeatingly the chance to show any valid success whatsoever of GR. Moreover, I gave you the detailed information about Gravitomagnetism, that you are unable to approach with an open and unbiased mind, spites its numerous successes in explaining cosmic issues.

Finally, you systematically attack The General Science Journal, which is the sole journal that don't silence opinions just because they are not mainstream. This journal is a think tank, free of charge, and is open to any scientific ideas. If you have critics upon non-mainstream research or developments, you must document them the unbiased way, and don't hide yourself behind big mama mainstream.

Your posts say much more about yourself than about me. Since you identify yourself with GR, maybe you consider all my answers regarding GR as personal, which is clearly symptomatic too, but only a shrink will say...

Concerning your link, I can hardly believe that you dare to present this as a “proof of gravitomagnetism derivated from GR”. Every decent and unbiased scientist will call that a farce.

Your page just shows a matrix notation of vectors, applied for electric and magnetic vectors.

The PPN formalism has nothing to do with it. It is one of the numerous fa(r)ces of GR, that are not directly derived from it and which has many free parameters. This metric is used when it is convenient, just as the Minkowski metric, the Schwarzschild metric, PN formalism, the Kerr metric,.... These forms are not GR, but either vague decoctions or pure fabrications that are used when it suits the user, and which in fact are necessarily contradicting.

I am still awaiting for your single unbiased example of GR's success, except the empiric double bending of light, known since the great 1914 eclipse.

In real science, anyone has the chance to discuss and to disprove any paper published in The General Science Journal. Only dishonest dictators will try to silence them...

Mark Hagmann: Would it be better to say "It is as though space is curved"?

Do we take models too seriously?

Like the reader can see, Mark is totally right. The alienation of theories with respect to the real physics in which we live not only has created a religious belief in some outcomes (not even observed), also the parallel and the successive alleged deductions from one sole equation has fabricated a gravitational and cosmological world that in fact doesn't exist, and cannot be proven without a biased approach, which is in fact inspired by the Judeo-Islamic-Christian belief in cosmic creationism. Moreover, this religious belief authorized that "scientific" group to make a dictatorial coup upon the whole scientific domains, lasting since several generations, and systematically excluding all alternatives to GR (and its bastard children) and to cosmologic expansion.

It is time that this takes an end, and that we learn looking to alternatives to the continuous patching of non-working theories. GR can only "work" for one sole mass, if it does anyway. Its bastard children allegedly "work" but don't solve anything close-by, only at an uncontrollable, large distance. Time dilatation is still seen as universal, while in fact it is only clock-dependent. Gravitomagnetism is not recognized as an independent theory, which it is, and is not even taught, spites all the evidence and solutions it brings. Many observational hints for a static universe exist, and the energy decrease of light by other means than the fancy expansive explanation should be considered.

I agree with Thierry,

but just because an initial singularity was inspired by, or happily adopted by, a belief in cosmic creationism, does not mean cosmic creationism is not the reality, or that Standard Cosmology Models might ever be able to explain it, even if cosmic creation from an initial singularity is the reality.

Here is a one page infographic that tries to clarify the position of a cosmological redshift hypothesis that i think is consistent with cosmic creation starting with an initial singularity to our present somewhat static / stable steady state oscillation, and gravitomagnetism  theory.

Charles not sure who you were addressing, but:

Not everyone is/was privy to the same historic narrative, and not every historic narrative is accurate.

would you not agree some scientists embraced the big bang for ideological reasons,

and some resisted it for ideological reasons, 

and or 

some for and against for purely scientific reasons ,

and some or against for a combo of the two?

There must have been a beginning, because otherwise there would be an infinity of souls.  The concept of infinity was not self evident at the time of Newton and Leibniz, and actually, they got it wrong.  That's why they believed time can't be backward infinite, since that would mean an infinite time to traverse to get now, so we can't be today.  More than a faith issue, it was a metaphysical, and even a mathematical one.

Boundaries require additional assumptions, it is not any more natural.  In modern terms, no beginning would mean infinite entropy, if applicable to the Universe as a whole, but there is no constraint for the ending.

Please read the paper, may be helpful for you.

A new approach to the correction of

Galilean transformation

To me, closed system has nothing to do with subsystem.  If the subsystem is closed, that makes no difference whether it is a subsystem or not.  Gravity allows no subsystem means it has no degrees of freedom, another inconsistency.  That seems more mythology, the phenix born again from its ashes, than rigorous physics.  How the initial condition can be reset?  Again, that clashes with true randomness in quantum mechanics.

``See annexed link. It explains that the perihelion advance is found after numerous approximations, and that the real advance is zero. Can you disprove this?''

I readily can. The basic argument lies in a simple (too simple) computation, in which he shows that a precessing ellipse does not satisfy the equation of motion. That is correct, but only reflects the fact that the precessing orbit has a change of shape with respect to the ellipse, at the same order as the precession. But these differences do not add up with time, and so are essentially unobservable.

But the exact solution, given by an integral, does show the precession to the appropriate order in the smallness parameter. Tha approximations are simply linearisations, and thus entirely controlled. On the other hand, Vankov's approach consists in substituting an arbitrary form for the solution, which turns out to be insufficiently accurate, so that it indeed does not satisfy the equation of motion.

There are several approaches to obtaining the same result for the Mercury precession, whereas Vankov's result is based on a careless computation. Arguing in favor of Vankov against the standard result is simply mistaken.

``The falsifications that I have mentioned are totally neglected by you and by the mainstream community.''

I look forward to your taking seriously my falsification of Vankov.

F. Leyvraz: I urge you to refer to Vankov's paper I was bringing up. Not to the other one he wrote, on the elliptic motion.

In the paper I brought up, he just explains the errors in calculating Mercury's advance, There, he found that in reality GR should find a null value for the perihelion advance.

I annex the paper again. If you can show an error in his development, and not general thoughts, you might be taken more seriously...

I read this paper, and it is *hopelessly* wrong. The very least of its mistakes is found in (3.7) and (3.8) where an exactly precessing elllipse is substituted into the equation from GR and found not to work. This is true, but the first order solution is not exactly an ellipse: it has periodic variations of first order around the elliptical orbit. This follows in a quite elementary manner from the calculations presented, say, in 

But Vankov hoimself can hardly be taken seriously: he nowhere points out an actual mistake. He claims that ``a mathematical approximation is made due to the assumption that the impact of the GR term on the classical roots x1 and x2 is negligible.'' This is, of course, not an approximation, but something that is readily verified by explicit computation. Vankov does not show this approximation to be invalid, as indeed he cannot.

He also says things like Delta theta = 3 pi alpha / r0, for a circular orbit. As I have repeatedly stated, the perihelion of a circular orbit does not exist, so it is profoundly inappropriate to compute its advance. He also believes that part of Einstein's approximation involved low eccentricity, which is, of course, altogether false.he says ``Let us consider an almost circular orbit of a radius r0 in the classical case and the radius tilde r0 in the GR case under similar conditions. The fact is that the GR term makes a circumference of the circular orbit shorter by 3πα, which in turn makes

a deficit of angle of rotation Delta π = 6πrg/r0.'' There are so many mistakes one does not know where to begin: first, we do not deal with near-circular orbits: arbitrary eccentricity is taken into account. Second, the change in radius, or circumference, of a near circular orbit has nothing to do with precession: precession is entirely defined by the difference between the frequency at which the radius goes from largest value to smallest and back, compared with the frequency with which the polar angle makes a full turn. These frequencies are equal in Keplerian motion, and that equality is broken by the additional terms present in a GR treatment.

Just a final remark, concerning near circularity: one of the reasons the perihelion advance of Mercury can be calculated with reasonable precision is because Mercury's eccentricity is in fact quite large (0.2, the largest of the whole Solar System except Pluto)

Sorry I left out the reference in my previous post:

``This follows in a quite elementary manner from the calculations presented, say, in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_geodesics''