🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:34:41 -0800 (PST), Pentcho Valev
<pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote:

>http://philipball.blogspot.com/2007/09/arthur-eddington-was-innocent-this-is.html
>"With the technology then available, measuring the bending of
>starlight was very challenging. And contrary to popular belief,
>Newtonian physics did not predict that light would remain undeflected
>- Einstein himself pointed out in 1911 that Newtonian gravity should
>cause some deviation too. So the matter was not that of an all-or-
>nothing shift in stars' positions, but hinged on the exact numbers."
>
>However Budding Young Einsteins are taught in a different way:
>
>http://pirsa.org/speaker/Lee_Smolin
>Lee Smolin - ISSYP Keynote Session
>Speaker(s): Lee Smolin
>Abstract:
>Date: 01/08/2007 - 1:00 pm
>
>http://streamer.perimeterinstitute.ca/mediasite/viewer/?peid=5f32739a-624d-4ec8-9ecc-4d44d3d16fe9
>Lee Smolin: "Newton's theory predicts that light goes in straight
>lines and therefore if the star passes behind the sun, we can't see
>it. Einstein's theory predicts that light is bent...."
>
>Pentcho Valev
>pvalev@yahoo.com


Okay, agreed, Smolin got that badly wrong. <sigh>


Newton light-bending refs:
:   Principia, vol.1, Prop XCVI (etc.).
:   Opticks, "Queries"

The sad thing here is that Newton's two main publications both
contradict the myth, they're both currently in print in paperback,
they're probably in every uni library, and many physicists //still//
can't be bothered to check their data against a primary source.

The irony is that physicists tend to believe that fact-checking in
their community is quite excellent. So they get complacent,  and
things that really should get picked up and emphatically corrected
often don't. Everyone just trusts that certain common statements
/must/ be true, or else they wouldn't be in print. 

So, because people believe that fact-checking is obviously so much
better in physics than in the other hard sciences, it's often a lot
worse. 

In fact, it's often absolutely appalling. 

=Erk= (Eric Baird)
: Policeman, to hand-held device: 
:    " Maniac has responded with a scornful remark! " 
:   -- Demolition Man (1993)