On Mar 29, 2010, at 10:52 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:
So, is this what t'Hooft had in mind when he wrote,
"They find some support from ancient publications by famous physicists; in the first decades of
the 20th century, indeed, Karl Schwarzschild, Hermann Weyl, and even Albert Einstein, had
misconceptions about the theory, which at that time was brand new, and these pioneers indeed
had not yet grasped the full implications. They can be excused for that, but today's professional
scientists know better."
Ironically, in the above t'Hooft appears to agree with my position that Einstein's original version
of the EP (below) is not in fact supported by the modern version of GR.
On your particular point I have seen Einstein write explicitly he meant in the small! You are caught in a semantic quibble of no importance - in my opinion.
Which has been my position all along. What t'Hooft doesn't explicitly acknowledge here is
that among Einstein's "misconceptions" about his 1916 theory of gravity was his entire concept
of what he called "general relativity"!
The critical point here is that the modern version of EP, unlike Einstein's classic version below, is
not a generalized relativity principle. It is merely a GR <-> SR correspondence principle, which is
only strictly valid (and need only be strictly valid) inside an infinitesimal spacetime region, and
even then only with respect to a restricted subclass of "local" measurements.
The onus, the burden of proof is on you to prove that your imagined difference here makes a significant difference to the foundations of physics. I think not. Prove me wrong.
