makc wrote:here he goes again. man, I would love to see that non-symmetric thing math done correctly; that's really all you have to do to get people listening.
makc, Einstein said already in 1950 that metric can't be symmetric (obvious to physicists, just common sense, not to mathematicians though) and they didn't listen. They (Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler in their 1973 Bible
"Gravitation") said the metric is symmetric. I sent one (non symmetric) to
"Phys. Rev. Lett." and they said, "it won't interest our readers". Why don't you write a non symmetric metric yourself and see if ou get them listening? And why would they? Except a few retired physicists nobody gives a damn about the universe. Here we tend to think that it is an important thing since we are interested in it. But even here there is more moderators than regular guys interested in the discussion (and one of them even a regular nut case
). If not for the moderators the discussion would die for lack of interest.
So editors of
"Phys. Rev. Lett." were right: no one in the real world gives a damn whether the universe is expanding or not. Most likely the universe is not expanding as Einstein already shown with his field equation and the right value of cosmological constant (whatever it is, it just keeps the universe put forever).
There are always guys who claim crazy thing against logic (even if it is such good logic as Einstein's). Apparently Einstein just ignored such claims. He said
"I believe my theory of relativity to be true. But it will only be proved for certain in 1981, when I am dead." It was not proved yet since some people still think that the universe is not "Einstein's" and that it is expanding. But just think how long people believed in
attractive gravitational force despite that even Newton was against it. Now they believe, against Einstein, in the "expansion of space". I give that belief a few more years and then they switch since for how long one can live on math only and ignore physics and observations? Astronomers get already a little bit nervous with the predictions of the Big Bang cosmology being opposite to the observations and necessity to support them with new epicycles.
Wheeler wrote about cosmological constant as about Einstein's biggest blunder. In 1998 observations showed that there must be a non zero cosmological constant so Wheeler was wrong and Einstein was right. Wheeler's metric is symmetric, Einstein's is non symmetric. Want to bet who comes out right this time? Actually it wouldn't be fair bet since I know that symmetric metric is mathematical impossibility if energy is conserved, and most physicists believe it is. Just wait until the non symmetric metric becomes official, and all other things in which Wheeler failed as a mathematician and a physicists get popularized as well. Feynman might have Wheeler (his teacher) on his mind when he said "...such people are not only bad physicists but also bad mathematicians..."
