from the glacier

If you look at the statistical argument for the end of the world coming, as given in the last post, you see a funny parallel between the scientist/gambler, and the rapture squawking fundamentalist Christian. Only scientists like to drag in "Mr. Billion" to make it seem as though they are not saying that the world is about to end now, just relatively speaking to the overall duration. I do think it would be funny to see physicists in lab coats marching around a university with "the statistical end of the universe is coming" cake-board signs.

But all of this got me to thinking: what are the ominous parallels between the scientist and the fundie, besides this one? Hmm......

"Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior?" compared to experiment as the only method of knowledge. Both require a personal experience with a higher thing (laws of physics, God) as the only roads to "salvation" - Hallelujah vs. Eureka! Both think that there is one particular way to reach that truth, and look with scorn on any other methodology. Hmm....

Both love dissention. If a fundie doesn't like what another one says, he just goes off and founds a new church. If a scientist has a disagreement with another one, he comes up with his own theory of how the universe runs according to laws - while publishing papers to discredit the other one. Hmm.......

The fundie has private revelation of a secret (i.e. his salvation) which elevates him beyond the sinners of the world, to a new-made higher class. The scientist uses private language to become a new intellegencia - a higher class of knowers. He is elevated above the common man by his rationality and "detached reserve". Hmm.......

Ominous Parallels....

Postulate: the universe evolved through chance causes. The slight statistical "advantage" that particles have of slipping into matter as opposed to anti-matter made there "be" something material at the big bang. That same statistical percentage accounts for why the universe is "lumpy" and not a homogeneous heat death. Again, the sun is only a few billion years old, as opposed to the oldest stars that have burned out (say eighteen billion by current estimates). The earth is five billion or so years old so it has had time to cool and develop atmosphere. The earth is close enough to the sun to be warm, but far enough away not to be too hot. There was enough of the correct type of organic chemicals to create amino acids in the middle-early years of this planet. "Survival of the fittest" works well enough to create favorable evolutionary mutations. Here we are. All of this is chance (by the postulate).

Now, I don't want to calculate the statistical odds of all of this (were I even capable), but I think anyone can reasonably say that they are long odds.

Thought experiment: suppose I have two coffee cans. One has ten poker chips in it, one has one-hundred. All of the chips in each can are red except one blue one in each. We can easily see the odds of me pulling out the blue chip in each case. But we aren't going to discuss that. Suppose I have been pulling out chips one at a time - unknown in numbers to you. I show you the blue chip, which I have just pulled out. Would you say that I had a lot of chips left, or very little in each coffee can? In the case of ten chips, the odds are fairly good that I will come up with the blue chip in any order - first, eighth, etc. But in the case of the one-hundred chips we would all bet that there were more chips pulled out than left in - because as I pull chips my odds of getting the blue one get better all the time. So, for me, and I'm sure for everyone else, we would bet that the blue chip came out well after the halfway point - not that we would always be right. There is actually a statistical method for obtaining this - but let's just go on common sense here. Now say I have billions and billions of red chips - and still only one blue one? Would we bet on the blue one coming very close to the "end" of pulling out red chips?

If the universe being in such a way as we could come to be is by chance, the odds are horribly bad. And, from our betting game of poker chips in coffee cans, we can see that the one in a million will almost certainly come at the end of the road. The universe is eighteen billion years old. We came to be by chance. Therefore, the universe is almost at an end.

Which gives you three choices:

1: Relief?

2: Dread?

3: This is all very silly. . .

The more I think about the revolution in physics in terms of general relativity, the more I like the idea of changing the focus of quantum mechanics (see last post[s]). For example, we all remember the basic Newtonian formula for "gravity": F=g*m*m/d^2. Translation: the force of gravity equals the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance between the two objects (multiplied by "g" to get the units right). Einstein gave us a new equation, which, as we know from the appendicies to "Relativity" correct the apparent error in the perhelion of Mercury. This is the so-called "Einstein's field equation": Gmv=8'pi'Tmv. The interesting difference is that there are not two objects here to discuss "gravitation". All is with reference to one body. Gravitation is rather the mass of one body "warping" the space time continuum around the body, as opposed to the mutual attraction of two bodies. Again, we can examine the Geodesic discussion and the lead ball on the cushion of a previous post. . .

So I think that this leads us to re-define our notion of space and time further than just simply saying: "space time continuum". It is easy for us to say, "if there were no massive bodies, then space would be Euclidean and flat." But there is a deep seated error hidden in that statement. I say: "without massive bodies there would be no space". Space and time are not independant of one another, but, more strongly, they are not independent of bodies either. Augustine was right when he says that God created time when God created stuff. I think we could also hypothesize that the gravitational field surrounding bodies is really just the extension of space time around them caused by being the sort of things they are: massive bodies. So I think it is an error to say that gravity causes time and space to "bend" or "curve" or "dialate". We should rather think of all material bodies as not bounded by their surface, but rather as continually creating the world around them by their very material existence. This is why in a static spherical single body setup it is possible to work out Einstein's field equation to a solution that gives a particular distance for a particular mass to determine the "infinite" warpage of time and space. Of course, spining, non-spherical bodies provide so much of a mathematical puzzle that they use "super-computers" to attempt to figure out the solutions. I digress...

In a perpetual effort for brevity, I will try to wrap up. Physicists have measured the mass and relative distances of various sub-atomic particles in relation to one another. I still think that it would be possible to take a proton, given the mass, and derive the Schwarzchild equation for it. If anyone would like to try, since I have been a little busy lately, look up the mass of a proton, and plug it into the following equation:

[I really wish that blogger had a fucking font where I could type mathematical statements, or even fucking Greek letters - ed.]

I was thinking . . .

More and more of what I wrote in my last post seems to be to be clearer in terms of the revolution that is required in modern physics. I guess I had a "theory" [not saying it is original - ed.] occur to me this afternoon. But, as usual, I will need to start with some background information. A lot of this will come as "highlights" of my last two posts.

First, it is essential to note two of the consequences of general relativity: time and space dilation. It is certainly evident from the mathematics that the space time continuum is subject to flexing based on the motions of the objects in question. The faster one goes (relative to a certain frame of reference) the "slower" time goes, and the "longer" distance gets. This is of course proportionally opposite in the other case. Also, remembering our general relativity, mass also has the effect of bending the space time continuum.

Relativity, historically, never really had too strong of an objection from theoretical physics. But as time has gone on, various experiments have shown that the theory of relativity, though certainly not a complete mathematical description of nature, at least capture part of that description. I spoke of pulsars in my last post as a means of furnishing empirical evidence for relativity. Another is the decay rate of muons. The scientists say that muons are a dense sub-atomic particle. They "rain down" from outer space and can be detected by a simple Geiger counter. But muons that are made in laboratories decay so rapidly, that there is hardly and time for them to move. So physicists wondered how "natural" muons could travel from wherever they came from, go all the way through the atmosphere, and be detected by a Geiger counter. The trick was considering relativity. In relation to our frame of reference, the "natural" muon lived for a long period of time compared to the lab muon. But then the "natural" muon is also moving at a high fraction of the speed of light. So physicists corrected for the speed differential and compared the time that the "natural" muon "lived" before decay, and found it to be the same as a lab muon, corrected of course for the relativistic motion. The muon, in either case, looked at "from itself" as being at rest has always and everywhere the say rate of decay. It is only when we try to measure it whizzing by that the difficult arose.

Secondly, in the 1910's a mathematician, Karl Schwarzchild, was analyzing Einstein's field equations, and in doing so he discovered something odd. The field equations show that the amount of time dilation depends on the gravity of the object being studied. If we use the example of a sphere, the warpage in time directly relates to the contraction of the radius. He found that for a sphere with close to the same gravity as the sun would have a critical dimension when the time warpage would be "infinite" - aptly named the "Schwarzchild Radius". For the sun, this distance is a little less than two miles. This is what mathematically gave rise - decades later - to the theory of black holes and so forth. We could get into the observational evidence and so forth for black holes, but then we would start looking like Hawking, and drawing "light cones" and "event horizons" and I find the whole thing rather tedious. Top-down is the way to proceed here. But it is enough for my eventual point to remember the idea of a critical point where time warps greatly.

From these two observations on relativity I think it is possible to lay the groundwork for a new theory uniting quantum physics and relativity. (Of course, someone would have to look at the mathematical details - I am kind of talking out my ass here - just had some sort of "traffic jam inspiration") First, sub-atomic particles are subject to the rules of relativity, otherwise we would not have observable time dilation in muons. If muons have time dilation and can only be compared as decay rates when looked at "from themselves" then is it safe to apply this to all other sub-atomic particles (or at least the ones that have mass)? If it is the case that we can apply this to sub-atomic particles, can we also apply the bending of the space time continuum based on the mass of the particle in question? Of course, it seems clear that for the relativistic quantum mechanics to be possible we should have to apply these laws to them as well. Then we would necessarily have to apply these to the massive sub-atomic particles of the proton and neutron. Here's the difficulty for me, because I haven't worked out the math yet, what, then, is the Schwarzchild radius for a very small mass? I know we are talking of a factor of millions upon millions in mass, but we are also talking of a factor of millions and millions in terms of distance. Could it be that quantum uncertainty in the "kangaroo hops" of the orbit of an electron is caused by a severe bending of space time locally around the nucleus of an atom accordingly as it approaches its own Schwarzchild radius? especially when we consider that most of the experiments involving quantum mechanics are taken at a high rate of speed, or the bombardment of atoms with photons or other radiation that does in fact travel at the speed of light.

What is the upshot? Perhaps the method of working with statistical mechanics (or Dirac's insistence on proceeding from the Hamiltonian) are efforts in the wrong direction to unite quantum mechanics and relativity. (Again, not saying that the statistical mechanized method of understanding quantum mechanics is wrong) Perhaps we should cast aside the thought that gravitational fields do not matter on the nuclear scale and examine what would happen if we considered the time and space dilation as primary in understanding the jumpy motions of things. I wrote earlier about the geodesic, and how "straight" becomes very difficult to analyze in four dimensional space time. Perhaps the electron travels in a geodesic of its own around the nucleus of the atom, it just remain to figure how the warpage of space and time could create that path. The attractiveness of understanding quantum physics - at least in principle - from this angle is that it would make it subordinate to relativity, which, as I spent much of the last post arguing, is the more known and more noble pillar of physics.

Sadly, I fear, the more elegant, the less the likelihood of veracity.

I have remarked, and am not alone in this, about the ideas behind relativity having their inception in Aristotle. It is clear from the argument that Aristotle gives, that relativity is a natural consequence. For Aristotle, and perhaps in fact, time is the number of motion. He says that since there is one motion, the celestial sphere, there is one time. Subsequent centuries have shown the celestial sphere to be false. But can we so quickly give up on Aristotle's definition of time? A complete lack of a universal "at rest" seems to further strengthen Aristotle's definition. Einstein is clearly not disagreeing with the ancients, but rather with the physicists of the generation before, in their strict Newtonian mechanism. Newton defines "absolute time" as that which flows without respect to anything. Without remarking on the philosophical difficulties that accompany such a definition, it is clear to the casual observer that this definition is in stark contrast to Aristotle. The Philosopher ties time to motion - explicitly. A fact that is ignored, and a definition that is ignored, up until the advent of special relativity. Physicists construct experiments based on the pulses of binary neutron stars to "prove" the theory of relativity. But let us take a step back and examine nature "top-down" as Einstein did, and also Aristotle. Begin with the general theory, then move further to the details. Why associate Aristotelian physics with "dark age" backwardness, when really there is no disagreement in principle with the definitions of motion given by the modern physicist? See here on Univocism for a good exposition on the subject. Einstein (the modern day "saint" of science - brilliant and disheveled) was a top-down thinker - a man who made theories and let others work out the grimy details. So was Aristotle. Both men had ideas about how the nature of the universe should be, and they ran with it. I just find it interesting to note that if Aristotle had the Astronomical data that we have today, he would have easily deduced the theory of relativity - if not mathematically (see the Lorentz transformations) at least in theory. His writing paves the way intellectually for it. But, I digress, this is just a first point leading into the next argument.

In all science, we proceed from the more known to the less known. The typical exposition of this includes the "scientific method:" experiment, then theorize, then make laws (find laws?) of nature. Let's consider now relativity and quantum mechanics. Relativity, as we argued above, is easily deduced philosophically from simple observation. Clearly there can be no void. Therefore distance is determined by the "stuff" and what is "in between". But it is also shown that all that "stuff" is moving. Motion determines time. Everything is moving. Time is relative to motion. But if time is relative to motion, and there is no void, distance is also determined by the various motions of the "stuff" that makes up distance. As we can see, everything in the realm of relativity is clearly a logical consequence of what is clear to reason, without the aid of specific experiments (though they do help to "flesh out" the theory). Relativity in physics, as well as natural philosophy, is clearly known, and from first principles. (aside - Paul Davies, in About Time, says that to understand relativity you need a barely highschool mathematics education. This should be very distasteful to the priesthood of initiated physicists...) Let us turn an eye to quantum physics.

The other pillar of modern physics is quantum mechanics, not a study of motion in the same way as relativity, but, as I put it, the study of the "way too small". Of course, as a caveat to begin, no one can deny the predictive power of quantum physics, nor its practical applications' success. These alone give some credence to the theory. But what I would like to propose is that there is not a real quality of "the smallest things" that the scientists study in actuality. The reasoning goes as follows:

First, relativity is the more known to the less known, the only way to proceed in human understanding. Quantum mechanics can not, as yet, be made to agree with general relativity, in mathematical form. Of course, we remember, that the mathematical form is the only form quantum mechanics can take, for it denies pictorial representation, is too small to see, and its calculated effects are demonstrated from other larger things. If the two disagree, then one is to be kept at all cost: the theory that is more known, follows from first principles, and is (on the scale of human existence) empirically verifiable. Therefore, we must reject quantum mechanics insofar as it claims actual existing things, not insofar as it claims statistical results.

Secondly, there is the matter of observation. As was briefly mentioned above, the theory of relativity has been tested with great accuracy by measuring the pulsations of binary pulsar star systems. It is almost as if God has provided the perfect stellar laboratory outside of us in the heavens to show the accuracy of the theory. The pulsar stars can be seen, in some cases, emit radio waves that can be monitored, in all cases, and requires no "special instruments" to discern. (it does require more precise instruments that a cheap telescope and a T.V. antenna, but not different in kind) Examine particle physics. Particle accelerators, electron microscopes, and so forth. Shooting a muon at .9c and measuring the rate of decay does not appear to me to be a procedure following the textbook "scientific theory". Even if we can call these experiments "observation" it is in a restricted, possibly even analogical sense. So we can see that relativity is more verifiable, in the sense that it is clearer to the sensation of man, in addition to being clearer to his reason.

Thirdly, there is the problem of the observer in quantum mechanics. Looking at Heisenberg's principle, Schrodinger's Cat (hypothetical experiment) and others, we see that the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics always resolve to the problem of the viewer. Man (see post on Thomas and Heisenberg) brings something with him whenever he attempts to distill a particular experience of nature. In natural philosophy we can see that the observation of nature differs from man to man depending on various factors. For example, take myself and Kodiak out into nature, stripped of all modern accoutrements, and ask what we see. Kodiak might view all of the scene in its splendor, and describe it in great detail, whereas I, in my nearsightedness, would be confined to describing clearly only those things within arm's length. But when we take this one step further, into the lab, there is such an emphasis on the distilled experience that our observing itself makes the behavior of the "particles" unsure. Many of the results of quantum mechanics are based on this "unsureness". But if we step back and examine relativity as being based on the individual motion of the perceptor of time, then we can clearly see that this (or something like this) takes place in the experiment of the "way too small".

Finally, I guess this thought process is just made to say that relativity is in accord with proper natural philosophy. Quantum mechanics is on shakier ground. It is my personal belief that in order to "get a quantum mechanics that agrees with relativity" we must first step back and consider the activity of the scientist when disturbing nature to the point of having sub-atomic experiments. If time and motion (and distance) are all relative to the observer, then why can't we push this further and say the destruction of things (atoms) into smaller things (particles) is another activity on the part of the intellectual observer that changes the nature of the problem?

Quantum physics will agree with relativity if and only if quantum mechanic takes into account the intellectual act of the experiment maker, whereby the experiment is made actual.

Do I have any experiments to back me up? No. Do I have any suggestions on how this could be done? No. But, fuck it, I'm a top-down thinker.....

Dirac was a physicist whose writing seems very concerned with a mathematical explication of quantum field theory. But, like all modern physicists, he was keenly aware of the problem, and tension between, quantum physics and the theory of relativity. So, he sets himself a task of examining the field, in terms of quanta, and how that would relate to a relativistic space.

So we have relativity. It is a pretty tried and tested theory of how motion, time, space and gravity are connected. It provides good predictions and corrects the errors of classical mechanics in terms of the orbits of planets. It accounts for the finite speed of the propagation of light. But, if one, like Dirac, wants to examine a quantum physics in terms of relativity, we have to make the mathematical descriptions of what happens to the "particle" agree with any other mathematical description regardless of the frame of reference. But this, as we know, will only make it agree with special relativity. General relativity goes on to show that the space-time continuum is "bent" due to the effect of massive bodies (gravitation). So, not only will our mathematical description have to be equally valid without regard to "absolute" velocity, or the time of one frame of reference, but it must be made to agree as described on a curved continuous surface.

Dirac's mathematics are difficult to grasp, but he proceeds in a very logical order. He begins with two elementary equations, one he calls an "action integral" which is a particular formal mathematical description that is an equation of motion. It makes it easier to think of a Cartesian plane, with the equation y= -gx^2 + b, describing a parabola. Following along the Galilean thought lines, this upside down parabola describe the motion of a falling body moving along the x-axis with some uniform velocity. The action integral that Dirac uses is the same sort of thing, only the Cartesian plane is eliminated. He follows this by deriving a mathematical way to proceed from this "classical" mechanics of particles to what is called the "Hamiltonian" giving way to a quantum mathematical description of the motions of particles. The first two of the four lectures follow along these lines, first picturing how we could mathematically go from classical mechanics and a description of motion, to a quantum description. The second lecture does just that, moves from classical mechanics into quantum mechanics.

But once he has passed from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics he wonders about how this would agree with relativity. The equations starting off his derivation, though not explicitly in agreement with relativity, they are made from relativistic assumptions. But the problem arises when he uses quantifiers to pass over from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics, there are certain assumptions that must be made. We (as mathematicians and physicists) have to choose the order of our factors, and in so choosing, we may introduce a quantifier which will make the result at odds with relativity. So Dirac starts over. He redoes the "action integral" with a different time variable. He then shows that with this derivative - going quickly through the same steps as the first two lectures, yields an equation that also is quantum, thus showing that there is not any absolute time variable. Then he has shown that there is not one observer in his descriptions, because there is not one time, and therefore at least in this way it agrees with relativity.

Dirac then tries to construct his equations on a curved surface. He shows that it can't work. Finally, he shows that he can make some simple cases in quantum mechanics work out on flat Euclidean space, which is good enough o get his mechanics to agree in simple cases with special relativity, but which cannot be in accord with general relativity. Close, but not quite the "Grand Unified Theory". He recapitulates by pointing out all of the difficulties in quantization of quantum mechanics, and how far mathematical physics is from being complete. He brings up again the idea of "degrees of freedom" in the motion. They have to restrict the degrees of freedom to a certain finite amount in order for his theory of quantization to work. But he points out that the actual fact is that the thing described has "infinite degrees of freedom". Specifically, he says:

This is getting quite long, but I have a couple preliminary reflections to make, to be elaborated later. First, compare relativity with Aristotelian motion and time (with the given empirical data superadded to Aristotle). Consider quantum mechanics then as the problem of the way too small, both in the breaking of substance, and the problem with the intellectual observer in the way too small. Consider, finally, the priority of the more known to the less known, and the relationship of relativity to quantum mechanics in that light. Perhaps these few questions will shed some light on a melding of natural philosophy, what is heard of nature, and physics, what is calculated about nature.

referring to my last post, there is a scale issue in modern science, and in human knowing in general. Man occupies the central place. Things that appear to him on this scale of himself include the dichotomy of subject and object, and there is a philosophical tension therein. But classical physics made use of this division to "objectify" the world and explain it in purely mechanistic terms. With the advent of the new Physics, however, this dichotomy vanishes. I will limit myself to two examples, for the sake of (failed) brevity.

First, there is the case where we are dealing with things that are much larger than ourselves, moving much faster, relatively (relativity) speaking. With the advances of general relativity we can see that the measuring stick, the time and the motion can only be described from a frame of reference, not absolutely. Newtonian "absolute time" and "absolute space" have vanished. So we see that in our observations (just thinking of special relativity first) man's own position and speed determines his measure. The object cannot, therefore, be perfectly detached from the measurer, because the state of the measurer affects the measuring of the object. Extending to General Relativity, where gravitation is included, the Geodesics described by moving objects are affected not only by position and speed, but also by the mass of the bodies that they are near. Simply being a massive body creates a curvature in space-time, so again, even on the smaller scale of man, the fact that there is a massive body next to the observable object creates a variation in space-time, creating a variation in measurement. One cannot divorce the two, because relativity shows we cannot.

Secondly, there is the case of objects that are very much smaller than we are. If we look at the "structure" of the atom, as it is described by the quantum physicist, we will see a picture painted much differently from our high school chemistry classes. Instead of a large massive center - made up of protons and neutrons - "orbited" by electrons - like a tiny solar system - we have a much more uncertain picture. Electrons "are" in an orbit, they say, but do not move in orbits. One Physicist describes them as "kangaroo hops". But there is no telling why or how they end up in any particular position. Also, in 1917 Einstein showed that atoms not only collapse under the influence of radiation, but they can - and frequently do - collapse spontaneously of their own accord. There is an indeterminacy in the structure itself. Enter Schrodinger's cat. Suppose we have a closed container with a living cat in it. And we have isolated a system so that within a certain time frame if one atom decays, then Hydrogen Cyanide is released, killing the cat. The odds of the atom decaying are also set to fifty-fifty because of the certain time frame. If the atom decays, dead cat; if it doesn't, live cat. In the world of subatomic particles they can be in both places "virtually" and there are effects from both places. The particles only "fix" themselves if we look at them. Schrodinger concludes that there is a dead and live cat in the box at the same time. (He found it problematic, because he didn't see that indeterminacy on the quantum level would mean indeterminacy in the observable level) Until we open the box and look, there is both - but only in the realm of quantum mechanics. So, subject and object - to make a long story short, do not exist at the quantum level, because observation changes the things observed. (See also Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - the reason for the uncertainty is the viewer)

Recapitulation - once we escape classical mechanistic physics we also avoid objectifying nature as simply the object observed. We can see this from general relativity and quantum mechanics. Read my post on Aquinas and Heisenberg for more thoughts on the possible reason why.

Sir James Jeans wrote a neat little book in the Forties called "Physics and Philosophy" that I just finished. Interesting. But there are a few points that I would like to bring out for those who will most likely never read this book. They bring about the questions of the possibility of a (as I would like to create) "science of physical method". First we attend to the problem of scale.

Man is, well, man-sized. Pretty big compared to atoms. Pretty small compared to nebulae. Oddly, however, man occupies the central size. Ratio: atom : man :: man : nebula. Now look at "classical physics" of Newton. Gravitation (in its mathematical form) works well enough to land some people on the moon, and predict missile trajectories well enough to assure global destruction (from the military aspect). But as things get smaller, Newton breaks down. Even if there was such a thing as a "force" of gravity, which modern science denies, the action of electrons around a nucleus evade the results predicted by Newton, as does the diffusion of light. Further, although we predict how long it will take my empty beer bottle to go from my hand to the garbage can (given my height and G) we still (as Einstein points out in one of the appendices to "Relativity") can't precisely locate where the perihelion of Mercury is supposed to be. Scale. It all resolves to a problem of scale. I guess it seems logical from a homocentric point of view to put us in the middle, as it is we who observe, but I don't think it is an accident that when we change scales the number that work for us don't work in another frame of reference. Let's examine the larger frame of reference first, because more of "my public" is familiar with Relativity.

First of all, Newton assumed absolute time and space. Not true. Space and time become conceived of as relative to bodies - simply. This makes more logical sense anyway. Einstein shows the General Principle pretty well, every law in K applies to K prime. If you read the appendix on Minkowski space and the mathematical ramifications of the Lorenz transformations, you see that the proof that light is propagated with a finite (though huge) speed, implies that the "time variable" depends on the motion of the frame of reference. Space and time can no longer be thought of as X,Y,Z and T (the red-headed stepchild of mathematical physics' variables) but rather as X1, X2, X3, and X4, a time-space continuum. This replaces the theory of "forces" in the way that Newton wrote about them. What is the difference between "love and strife" a la Empedocles, "gravitas" of Newton, the pagan belief in moon gods, and Angelic Heavenly spheres? NOTHING. But as soon as you replace time and 3D space with a continuum of space-time, you lose inverse square law as a method of description. To quote:

Re-read to digest if necessary. All that is shown is that all moving bodies travel in straight lines. (Newton's first Law [!?]), but since space and time are not divisible in nature, those straight lines are now called Geodesics, because the shortest distance between two points is now through a "curved space". Planets travel around the sun in ellipses because, given the gravitational effects of the sun on space-time, ellipses are the mathematical "Geodesic", or straight line in curved space-time. It is like an extended conservation law - "everything goes straight. If space curves, then they curve. But they're still going straight". It is elegant. The you boil down the principle of gravitation (and all that hideous Geometry of the Principia) to a specialized case of Occam's Razor. I know it is difficult to envision 4D space-time and ellipses being straight, but there are other ways to visualize by analogy. Imagine Venus and the sun. The principle of this new way of viewing gravitation and straight lines would say that the shortest distance to get to the other side of the sun for the planet is straight through the sun. But as space curves so much more where mass is greater (examine Jeans' example of the lead ball on the cushion and replace it with a bowling ball, see what happens) it takes less distance (4D) to go around. And the closer you get to the mass the more it curves and the harder it gets, so Venus goes faster, conserving the straight (ish) line (remember time is in the 4D continuum too). It is easier to visualize a flat surface, like the cushion and the lead ball, and see the difference in distance if you have to go down to the bottom of where the ball pushes the custion. Around is a shorter distance (assuming that space requires you to stay in contact with the cushion, which is the claim of a curved space-time continuum - you can step outside it). I think general relativity is much more elegant that the poor Lorenz transformations of uniform translation found in the special theory. It preserves straight lines as the motion of choice (redefining "straight"), it more accurately describes nature, and it does away with the problematic idea of "force". (sort of, but more on that at another time) But it is enough to see that a reduction of principles from gravitation down to more a a conservation principle is definite progress in our understanding. But enough of the bigger than man side of physics.........

I was going to write about the small side of physics. But this got way too long. So, I will return to this at a later date (Fuck quantum uncertainty! [again again, for those who know - ed.])