UFO Design

[Randall]

I tried messaging you privately but it didn't work so I apologize for doing it here:

I listen to the Paracast every week and you seem to be a great replacement host. I almost ditched the paracast after Chris left but I really like what you bring so I am staying. I created this profile specifically to reach out to you and get your feelings on something. I have been receiving emails from Gene for years and even have given him some money. I read over the stuff out there on him and it seems like Gene has done some pretty shady stuff and it's all public record. I asked him about it a year or so ago and he deflected and just called me a troll. I'm not a troll, I'm a long time listener that is curious what's going on and I wanted to check with you. I have never posted or really wanted to be involved with the forums but I enjoy reading them. Lately there seems to be zero real activity and Gene comes across like a jerk anytime he feels threatened.

Do you trust him? If so just tell me I am being paranoid and I will drop it. Honestly from my point of view he has some explaining to do and I think he has irreparably hurt the Paracast. I think you should buy it and bring it back to the glory days.

-Yonder A.

Thank you for your kind words on what I'm attempting to bring to the show, as well as the opportunity to dissolve some of the negative perceptions that others have promoted about Gene. I would be happy to elaborate in some further detail in private, and will see if I can create a conversation for that.

But in the meantime, to reassure visitors and listeners, it is my personal experience as a long time member of the Paracast and as someone who has seen all the complaints levelled against Gene, and as someone who has actually done some business with him, that virtually all the evidence used against Gene is either unfairly exaggerated or twisted in a negative manner that serves as nothing more than a smear campaign.

I personally would not have accepted the cohost position with the show had I believed the criticism of Gene carried any real substance. At best it is highly subjective opinion that can be looked at from other points of view. I think Gene has become so worn down by all the negativity that his own barbed responses are all he's left with and has patience for. Please try to forgive him for that. My hope is that we can weather our way through it and eventually leave all that negativity behind.

 

[Randall]

Here you go:

“So, what good is this geodesic description of the force of gravity? Can't we just think of gravity as a force and be done with it?

It turns out that there are two cases where this description of the effect of gravity gives vastly different results compared to the concept of gravity as a force. The first is for objects moving very very fast, close to the speed of light. Newtonian gravity doesn't correctly account for the effect of the energy of the object in this case. A particularly important example is for exactly massless particles, such as photons (light). One of the first experimental confirmations of general relativity was that light can be deflected by a mass, such as the sun.”
If gravity isn't a force, how does it accelerate objects? (Advanced) - Curious About Astronomy? Ask an Astronomer

“Since then, general relativity has been acknowledged as the theory that best explains gravity. In GR, gravitation is not viewed as a force, but rather, objects moving freely in gravitational fields travel under their own inertia in straight lines through curved space-time – defined as the shortest space-time path between two space-time events.”
Fundamental Physics/Force/Gravity Force - Wikiversity

“In general relativity, gravity is not a force between masses. Instead gravity is an effect of the warping of space and time in the presence of mass. Without a force acting upon it, an object will move in a straight line. If you draw a line on a sheet of paper, and then twist or bend the paper, the line will no longer appear straight. In the same way, the straight path of an object is bent when space and time is bent. This explains why all objects fall at the same rate. The gravity warps spacetime in a particular way, so the straight paths of all objects are bent in the same way near the Earth.”
How We Know Gravity is Not (Just) a Force - Universe Today

You’ll see people talking about “the force of gravity” all over the place, but it’s a misnomer. Here in the post-Newtonian world of physics, gravitation is understood to be an acceleration field, not a force field, but old habits die hard and it’s easier to say “force of gravity” than “the acceleration field of gravity,” so it’ll probably never completely go away.


No – the equivalence principle is not simply a comparison between gravitation and an accelerated reference frame, it’s a true equivalence, and that equivalence is a fundamental postulate of general relativity. That’s why gravity is called an acceleration field: an observer at a point in spacetime cannot distinguish between an acceleration produced by the curvature of spacetime, and an acceleration of the observer’s reference frame. Even Wikipedia gets it right occasionally:

“The equivalence principle was properly introduced by Albert Einstein in 1907, when he observed that the acceleration of bodies towards the center of the Earth at a rate of 1g (g = 9.81 m/s2 being a standard reference of gravitational acceleration at the Earth's surface) is equivalent to the acceleration of an inertially moving body that would be observed on a rocket in free space being accelerated at a rate of 1g. Einstein stated it thus:

we [...] assume the complete physical equivalence of a gravitational field and a corresponding acceleration of the reference system.
— Einstein, 1907

That is, being on the surface of the Earth is equivalent to being inside a spaceship (far from any sources of gravity) that is being accelerated by its engines.”
Equivalence principle - Wikipedia

Anyway this has all gone off-topic, and debating basic undergrad physics concepts is a boring, tedious, and thankless chore. I’m done here.

You've made some valid and interesting points, but failed to address the logic of why acceleration cannot be gravity, specifically, the truth that acceleration requires a steady increase in velocity over time whereas gravity does not. Nor can it be gravity that pushes you back in your seat when you accelerate your car. If it was, then you'd still feel pushed back in your seat whether you were accelerating or not. Just like you're pulled down in your seat even when you're not accelerating.

Unfortunately for you, you seem to have a difficult time accepting these truths, and by choosing to disengage rather than adapt, you are demonstrating a preference for remaining blind to them. Consequently you are preventing yourself from understanding the inaccuracy of your statement, "Gravity is not a force but an acceleration". Hopefully that will change in the future. You are certainly welcome back if it does and would like to carry on the discussion.