🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep28.221735.35@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> b5249-23@mathcs.sjsu.edu (Kurt Stocklmeir) writes:
>Robert Firth
> His article
>
>Some other people have confused you.  Look at Gravitation
>Misner, Thorne, Wheeler P.177.  There are also some other parts
>of the book that include the area of gravity having an infinite
>velocity.

>Physics teachers give hours of homework problems to physics students and
>because of that physics students do not ever have time to learn
>anything about physics.  That explains why John Baez and others
>do not know and can not figure out P.177.  

Why, 'cause I'm too busy grading the resulting masses of homework?

>The only thing that was meant on P.177 was that gravity travels
>faster than the speed of light.  But in relativity, nothing
>travels faster than the speed of light.  That means any gravity
>moving faster than the speed of light does not fit into relativity.

No, it says that Newtonian gravity travels at infinite speed,
hence is inconsistent with relativity.  That's why Einstein invented
a BETTER theory of gravity in which gravity DOES move at the speed of
light.  It's called general relativity.

(I'm beginning to like these capital letters!)

>For example, the direction of gravity from the sun to the Earth is
>straight to the Earth.  The direction of light from the sun to the
>Earth is not straight from the sun.  Therefore, gravity moves faster
>than light.  The Earth orbits the sun.  The Earth does not orbit
>the place where light from the sun is coming from.  If it tried, the Earth
>could not orbit the sun.  The same is true for galaxies.  Stars
>orbit the same place in a galaxy.  This is associated with a center of
>mass.  I do not think I need to tell you how long it takes light
>to travel through a galaxy.  If gravity travels at the speed of light
>there would not be any stars in a galaxy.  If there were any stars,
>they would all be orbiting different places.

This apparent paradox has recently been explained for the nth time here
on sci.physics.

>Paul Davies said that imaginary forces have an infinite velocity.

Yes, and imaginary people drive imaginary cars at infinite velocity.

>Gravity that is observed can not fit into relativity.  That is what
>is meant on P.177.  

Bull-oney!  The whole friggin' book is about how one fits gravity into
relativity.  That's what general relativity is about.  Try reading the
whole book, not just a couple of sentences taken out of context.