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Author Topic:   What is "the fabric" of space-time?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 4 of 327 (457722)
02-25-2008 1:05 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Calypso
02-25-2008 12:17 AM


It's a metaphor. People are trying to explain spacetime to you as though it was a thing sitting in space (which obviously it isn't) because that's all the analogies there are. What else can we compare it to except some thing? But a thing (anything, any thing) sits in spacetime, and there the analogy breaks down.
What we can compare it to, which is not misleading, is the predictions made by mathematical models, which introduce no ontological claims about the things they're modelling: that is, they tell you how spacetime works without making any claims about how it's like a rubber sheet, etc.

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 Message 1 by Calypso, posted 02-25-2008 12:17 AM Calypso has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 325 of 327 (475174)
07-13-2008 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 324 by john6zx
07-13-2008 8:16 PM


Re: the gravity of general relativity
This whole belief that there is some cosmic fabric that exists in space is bordering on an almost religious belief. Where is the hard cold science that provides any shred of evidence in the physical existance of this cosmic fabric?
That would be all the evidence for G.R. That's kinda what makes it different from a "religious belief".
Is there any other aspect of the bleedin' obvious that you need explaining to you?

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 Message 324 by john6zx, posted 07-13-2008 8:16 PM john6zx has not replied

  
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