The Flat Earth Society

Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Investigations => Topic started by: Wesley Ooms on April 26, 2021, 01:44:18 PM

Title: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Wesley Ooms on April 26, 2021, 01:44:18 PM
Hi All,

I'm new here. Thanks for letting me join! And thanks for this central point of information.

I came here after my own journey. I believe the earth is not a spinning sphere. I have some arguments against it, that I thought of myself, that I didn't find yet in the main page.
I thought I'd share them with you so that maybe you hear something interesting new.

One is the false cavendish experiment where they conveniently forgot diamagnetism and the experiment calculations never give a conclusive answer. They do the experiment a hundred times and pick the one that gives the desired outcome.

Now the second argument is about kinetic energy ((1/2)mv^2, m being mass, and v being velocity). If you are 200 kg and go 10m/s steady state together with your environment (this is just an example to make calculation easy), then, to change speed with 1 m/s in one direction would take 2100 joules whereas changing speed by 1 m/s in the other direction would take 1900 joules. (Huh? nobody ever could explain me this. If you're a physicists reading this, please explain).

Third, Earths precession is another scam. It is told to be around 20.000 years. But due to the well known Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, it is impossible to state with any finite accuracy, the period of a harmonic of which less than half the period has been measured. We haven't measured even close to 10.000 years.

If I can help in any way, please let me know.

I studied science and know (and have worked with the equations) quite a lot about Newton, Euler-lagrange equations of motion. Lorentz contraction and special relativity. And from linear dynamics (fourier transform), to nonlinear dynamics to chaos theory and finally quantum dynamics with Maxwells equations. I went deep into the rabit hole and since I have used it for my profession, I dare to say I know pretty much the ins and outs, and problems with all these theories.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2021, 02:32:26 PM
One is the false cavendish experiment where they conveniently forgot diamagnetism and the experiment calculations never give a conclusive answer. They do the experiment a hundred times and pick the one that gives the desired outcome.

Incorrect.  The answer does vary depending on which version of the cavendish experiment is performed.  It has moved beyond the torsion balance method and now setups using atomic fountains that measure quantum interference has been used.  The accuracy of the measurements are extremely high and variances of more than .001% are considered large.  There are plans to use do the atomic fountain set up with strontium atoms instead of rubidium which will eliminate the effects of magnetic interference and increase the accuract by orders of magnitude.

Quote
Third, Earths precession is another scam. It is told to be around 20.000 years. But due to the well known Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, it is impossible to state with any finite accuracy, the period of a harmonic of which less than half the period has been measured. We haven't measured even close to 10.000 years.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applies to quantum mechanics not orbital mechanics.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on April 26, 2021, 05:21:52 PM
Quote
Now the second argument is about kinetic energy ((1/2)mv^2, m being mass, and v being velocity). If you are 200 kg and go 10m/s steady state together with your environment (this is just an example to make calculation easy), then, to change speed with 1 m/s in one direction would take 2100 joules whereas changing speed by 1 m/s in the other direction would take 1900 joules. (Huh? nobody ever could explain me this. If you're a physicists reading this, please explain).

I don't understand the question.  What do you mean by "change speed with 1/ms in one direction"? And what does the question have to do with the shape of the earth?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 26, 2021, 05:33:20 PM
Now the second argument is about kinetic energy ((1/2)mv^2, m being mass, and v being velocity). If you are 200 kg and go 10m/s steady state together with your environment (this is just an example to make calculation easy), then, to change speed with 1 m/s in one direction would take 2100 joules whereas changing speed by 1 m/s in the other direction would take 1900 joules. (Huh? nobody ever could explain me this. If you're a physicists reading this, please explain).

I share fisherman's view - what does this have to do with the shape of the earth, and what exactly is the problem?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Wesley Ooms on April 26, 2021, 07:01:03 PM
Quote
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applies to quantum mechanics not orbital mechanics.

That's not correct. It's a general rule that applies to any Fourrier transform. In signal processing, it's better known as Nyquist theorem.

Quote
I don't understand the question.  What do you mean by "change speed with 1/ms in one direction"? And what does the question have to do with the shape of the earth?

It has to do with a earth being stationary. If you travel 9 m/s, your kinetic energy is 8.100 joule (at 200 kg), at 10 m/s, it's 10.000 joule, and at 11 m/s, it's 12.100 Joules. Now if you move at 10 m/s, and your environment (earth) does so too, what they claim with the spheircal earth, you would perceive as standing still. But it would cost more energy to change speed in one direction, than that it would in the other direction.

Quote
Incorrect.  The answer does vary depending on which version of the cavendish experiment is performed.  It has moved beyond the torsion balance method and now setups using atomic fountains that measure quantum interference has been used.  The accuracy of the measurements are extremely high and variances of more than .001% are considered large.  There are plans to use do the atomic fountain set up with strontium atoms instead of rubidium which will eliminate the effects of magnetic interference and increase the accuract by orders of magnitude.

I can argue with you about this but it's going to be a 'yes it is', 'no it isn't' discussion. I'm talking about the original experiment. Show me one youtube video that calculates the correct result.
About the atomic fountains method, I don't know, I have no experience. Is it someting eeny meeny tiny so that you cannot see it and have to use a computer? Then I know enough. I worked in semicon tools development for a decade now.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 26, 2021, 07:27:20 PM
It has to do with a earth being stationary. If you travel 9 m/s, your kinetic energy is 8.100 joule (at 200 kg), at 10 m/s, it's 10.000 joule, and at 11 m/s, it's 12.100 Joules. Now if you move at 10 m/s, and your environment (earth) does so too, what they claim with the spheircal earth, you would perceive as standing still. But it would cost more energy to change speed in one direction, than that it would in the other direction.

That's not how it works. What matters is your velocity with respect to an inertial reference frame. Consider being on a train, or an aircraft, travelling smoothly along at some constant speed. There's no way of determining the direction of travel from how things feel - it's no easier to walk one way up the carriage than the other. If you had the room, and the ride was smooth enough, you could quite happily play table tennis just as you could at rest. Whether you choose the train or the track as your inertial reference frame, the forces work exactly the same. Your kinetic energy, of course, will be higher if you choose the track as your datum, but then your 'zero', ie at rest with respect to the train, will still have a huge amount of energy.

It's the same with the earth - for convenience, we choose it as our inertial datum. It's actually not strictly inert - it is both accelerating (towards the sun) and rotating, meaning we experience small forces that cause very small errors in the calculations, but for all but the most sensitive of applications, they can be ignored.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on April 26, 2021, 07:40:13 PM
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It has to do with a earth being stationary. If you travel 9 m/s, your kinetic energy is 8.100 joule (at 200 kg), at 10 m/s, it's 10.000 joule, and at 11 m/s, it's 12.100 Joules. Now if you move at 10 m/s, and your environment (earth) does so too, what they claim with the spheircal earth, you would perceive as standing still. But it would cost more energy to change speed in one direction, than that it would in the other direction.

I think Bob beat me to it. Still not sure I understand what you are getting at, but it seems like you are missing the fact that because velocity is relative, so it kinetic energy.  If it seems like it takes it takes more energy to change speed in one direction, than in the other, then its because you are using two different reference frames.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2021, 11:25:05 PM
Quote from: Wesley Ooms
I can argue with you about this but it's going to be a 'yes it is', 'no it isn't' discussion. I'm talking about the original experiment. Show me one youtube video that calculates the correct result.

How about you show me your credentials. If you’re asking for a YouTube video it seems far more likely that you’re a larping high school student than someone who has any expertise in the matter.

Quote
About the atomic fountains method, I don't know, I have no experience. Is it someting eeny meeny tiny so that you cannot see it and have to use a computer? Then I know enough. I worked in semicon tools development for a decade now.

You don’t know anything about it, but you know enough? Ok. I won’t waste any more time.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on April 26, 2021, 11:34:56 PM
The results are not accurate. An astrophysicist says that there are systemic errors, akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather on an old pair of scales outdoors during a breeze.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Cavendish_Experiment

Quote
From a Futurism Article Is the Gravitational Constant Really a Constant? (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) by Astrophysicist Colin Robson (bio (https://futurism.com/authors/colin-fqtq)):

  “ So far as we can tell, the gravitational constant has remained constant throughout the entire history of the universe. This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic. Even as the techniques that we use now are far more advanced and sensitive than were used two centuries ago, the true value of the gravitational constant remains elusive.

In 2013, a group of researchers working out of France took the measurement of the gravitational constant, using the same machine that they’d used some 2 years earlier. Improvements were made on the machine to improve the sensitivity and give a more accurate result. The machine, which uses two independent methods to calculate the constant, averages the results of the two. This, in theory, should help reduce systematic errors. What did they find? A different result!

At first it may seem strange that the gravitational constant is so hard to determine. There are four fundamental forces in the universe:

- Strong Force
- Weak Force
- Electromagnetism
- Gravity

Gravity is by far the weakest of the four forces, which, may also sound a little strange considering what we see in the universe. When looking out into the cosmos, gravity appears to be the reigning king of all. Gravity is so strong that it causes stars to fuse hydrogen into helium, collapses stellar cores into neutron stars and black holes, creates quasars and dictates the flow of matter within the entire universe.

On a large scale, gravity wins. But, as was previously mentioned, gravity is the weakest of the four forces. The reason for this discrepancy is, as a force, gravity travels further and has a slower fall off. The strongest of the four forces, the Strong Force, becomes almost non-existent at distances outside of a nucleus. What makes gravity stronger in macro circumstances is that it is accumulative. The more matter there is, the more gravity. But still, gravity is weaker. Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.  ”
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on April 27, 2021, 01:00:53 AM
I would say more that the results are accurate, but not very precise. Here's a link where the difference is explained: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_constant , the gravitational constant has been known to be about 6.7 since the 1680s. This has not actually changed, though since 1969, we seem to have gotten consistently precise down to 6.67, with the next number being around 3-4. Compared to, say, the speed of light, which, before it became a definition, was known to about 9 digits. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light ), it's certainly massively less precise. But just because it's less precise doesn't mean it's wrong. Add to that that the variance is less than 1%. That's not even imprecise. For most applications, that's a trivial error. It's certainly well below what most instruments will register.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 27, 2021, 01:26:19 AM
The results are not accurate. An astrophysicist says that there are systemic errors, akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather on an old pair of scales outdoors during a breeze.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Cavendish_Experiment

Quote
From a Futurism Article Is the Gravitational Constant Really a Constant? (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) by Astrophysicist Colin Robson (bio (https://futurism.com/authors/colin-fqtq)):

  “ So far as we can tell, the gravitational constant has remained constant throughout the entire history of the universe. This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic. Even as the techniques that we use now are far more advanced and sensitive than were used two centuries ago, the true value of the gravitational constant remains elusive.

In 2013, a group of researchers working out of France took the measurement of the gravitational constant, using the same machine that they’d used some 2 years earlier. Improvements were made on the machine to improve the sensitivity and give a more accurate result. The machine, which uses two independent methods to calculate the constant, averages the results of the two. This, in theory, should help reduce systematic errors. What did they find? A different result!

At first it may seem strange that the gravitational constant is so hard to determine. There are four fundamental forces in the universe:

- Strong Force
- Weak Force
- Electromagnetism
- Gravity

Gravity is by far the weakest of the four forces, which, may also sound a little strange considering what we see in the universe. When looking out into the cosmos, gravity appears to be the reigning king of all. Gravity is so strong that it causes stars to fuse hydrogen into helium, collapses stellar cores into neutron stars and black holes, creates quasars and dictates the flow of matter within the entire universe.

On a large scale, gravity wins. But, as was previously mentioned, gravity is the weakest of the four forces. The reason for this discrepancy is, as a force, gravity travels further and has a slower fall off. The strongest of the four forces, the Strong Force, becomes almost non-existent at distances outside of a nucleus. What makes gravity stronger in macro circumstances is that it is accumulative. The more matter there is, the more gravity. But still, gravity is weaker. Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.  ”

Difficult does not mean impossible.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on April 27, 2021, 01:37:16 AM
Articles in 'Futurism' absolutely carry as much weight as scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. The words and imagery were in no way simplified or generalized for a general audience's lack of technical background.

Not that it matters, but does Colin Robson have a graduate degree? In past threads you've denounced anyone without a PhD in subject matter as lacking adequate credentials to refute claims...just curious where the goal posts have been set in this instance?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on April 27, 2021, 01:42:47 AM
He has a Masters in Astrophysics (https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-robson-54915184?originalSubdomain=au)

Feel free to find someone with equal or greater relevant credentials who supports your position that the experiments are not filled with systematic errors which dominate the results.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on April 27, 2021, 02:15:25 AM
He was also explaining that's it's hard to tell for sure whether the gravitational constant because our measurements are imprecise. When he said earlier in the same article "The Gravitational Constant has a value of 6.67384×10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2", he didn't follow it up by inferring that the actual value might be closer to 3 or something. He's not disputing the value or its accuracy. He's saying that the lack of precision makes the question in question "Is The Gravitational Constant Really Constant?" hard to answer. Essentially, we can't tell if the reason why we keep getting very slightly different values is because the constant fluctuates a tiny bit or if, more likely, it's because our measurements are just not excruciatingly precise.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on April 27, 2021, 02:15:40 AM
So he does! (Good for him!)  Hes got a cool little observatory/astrophotography enterprise going now too.

Next question: is this the only gravity-related article written by him that we can trust on the subject? Or are any of his other several articles like the creation of black holes, or gravitational redshifts to be trusted as well?

Those are, admittedly, not directly about the Cavendish experiment results, but I would argue they still hold relevance to the potential discussion here, given that our understanding of gravity is a little bit important in those phenomena.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 27, 2021, 09:39:08 AM
He has a Masters in Astrophysics (https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-robson-54915184?originalSubdomain=au)

Feel free to find someone with equal or greater relevant credentials who supports your position that the experiments are not filled with systematic errors which dominate the results.

That’s not even what he said. He said they “can” cause systematic errors.  The “dominate the results” nonsense is just you dishonestly poisoning the well.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on April 27, 2021, 10:34:21 AM
The results are not accurate. An astrophysicist says that there are systemic errors, akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather on an old pair of scales outdoors during a breeze.
He also explains why it's so hard to measure.
And there's no doubt from the part where he talks about the effects of gravity that he isn't a flat earther, so are you accepting his authority about the shape of the earth too or are you just cherry picking again?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on April 27, 2021, 01:48:52 PM
He has a Masters in Astrophysics (https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-robson-54915184?originalSubdomain=au)

Feel free to find someone with equal or greater relevant credentials who supports your position that the experiments are not filled with systematic errors which dominate the results.

That’s not even what he said. He said they “can” cause systematic errors.  The “dominate the results” nonsense is just you dishonestly poisoning the well.

Incorrect. The entire article is about how gravity is difficult to measure and how they have been getting different results. He said that "This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic.". Not 'can', not 'sometimes', he said 'have been'. I would suggest that you  try to present something that supports your case, rather than plugging your ears and pretending that the author said something else and is being misquoted.

Seriously, I present a source from an astrophysicist who says these things directly and you guys have nothing in the way of an equivalent source for us except your own personal statements/knowledge/interpretation/excuses. You may as well be citing your garbage man's opinion here as he comes by to pick up your trash.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on April 27, 2021, 02:00:07 PM
Quote
Incorrect. The entire article is about how gravity is difficult to measure and how they have been getting different results. He said that "This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic.". Not 'can', not 'sometimes', he said 'have been'. I would suggest that you  try to present something that supports your case, rather than plugging your ears and pretending that the author said something else and is being misquoted.

What difference does it make if the measurements aren't exact?  The fact that it can be measured at all is proof of its existence.

If lack of consistency in the measurements is a problem, it is a bigger one for FE/UA.  RE embraces the idea that the gravitational force can vary, FE/UA rejects the idea.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 27, 2021, 02:06:40 PM
He has a Masters in Astrophysics (https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-robson-54915184?originalSubdomain=au)

Feel free to find someone with equal or greater relevant credentials who supports your position that the experiments are not filled with systematic errors which dominate the results.

That’s not even what he said. He said they “can” cause systematic errors.  The “dominate the results” nonsense is just you dishonestly poisoning the well.

Incorrect. The entire article is about how gravity is difficult to measure and how they have been getting different results. He said that "This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic.". Not 'can', not 'sometimes', he said 'have been'. I would suggest that you  try to present something that supports your case, rather than plugging your ears and pretending that the author said something else and is being misquoted.

Seriously, I present a source from an astrophysicist who says these things directly and you guys have nothing in the way of an equivalent source for us except your own personal statements/knowledge/interpretation/excuses. You may as well be citing your garbage man's opinion here as he comes by to pick up your trash.

Tom - are you suggesting that, because measuring the gravitational constant is difficult to do, gravity therefore doesn't exist?

To be absolutely clear, even the most remarkable, outlying experiment that you yourself referenced has an error tolerance of around 0.15%, meaning the debate is focusing around the 3rd/4th significant figure. Poor by comparison with other known universal constants, but certainly not evidence for the complete non existence of the force. If the force doesn't exist, what exactly are all these different competing scientists actually measuring, given that they are all coming up with a number around the 6.67 x 10-11 mark? Surely that's evidence that a gravitational force does exist? Given its weakness in comparison to other forces, we would absolutely expect it to be hard to measure accurately, would we not?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on April 27, 2021, 02:07:15 PM
The entire article is about how gravity is difficult to measure and how they have been getting different results.
And he explains why. Because gravity is a very weak force.

He also says:

Quote
Gravity is so strong that it causes stars to fuse hydrogen into helium, collapses stellar cores into neutron stars and black holes, creates quasars and dictates the flow of matter within the entire universe.

So he clearly believes gravity is a thing and believes the mainstream scientific view. He doesn't at any point cast doubt on gravity existing or the shape of the earth. So do you accept his authority on those things too?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 27, 2021, 02:10:50 PM
He has a Masters in Astrophysics (https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-robson-54915184?originalSubdomain=au)

Feel free to find someone with equal or greater relevant credentials who supports your position that the experiments are not filled with systematic errors which dominate the results.

That’s not even what he said. He said they “can” cause systematic errors.  The “dominate the results” nonsense is just you dishonestly poisoning the well.

Incorrect.

It's literally what the part you bolded says.

Quote
The entire article is about how gravity is difficult to measure and how they have been getting different results.

I agree it is difficult to measure.  It is not impossible and has been done with precision increasing every year.

Quote
Seriously, I present a source from an astrophysicist who says these things directly and you guys have nothing in the way of an equivalent source for us except your own personal statements/knowledge/interpretation/excuses. You may as well be citing your garbage man's opinion here as he comes by to pick up your trash.

I just called you out on your attempts to use rhetoric like "dominate the results" and you get really defensive.  How do you learn when your ego reacts this way?  Anyway, here is an article that cites multiple published papers describing the methods accuracy and precision of measuring G. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5018785/

Far from impossible, it supports my claim that these measurements, although not as accurate as other constants in physics, is measured with ever increasing precision and results largely agree.

Anyway, I am happy that you are trusting scientists who believe the Earth is round.  It's a good start towards accepting the truth.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on April 27, 2021, 03:35:47 PM
Seriously, I present a source from an astrophysicist who says these things directly and you guys have nothing in the way of an equivalent source for us except your own personal statements/knowledge/interpretation/excuses. You may as well be citing your garbage man's opinion here as he comes by to pick up your trash.

People are using an equivalent source. They're, in fact, using an equal source. Your source. The very article you're quoting from, to show you how your personal interpretation of the quote is wildly at odds with the views and intents of its author.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tumeni on April 27, 2021, 04:07:13 PM
The measurements may vary, but so what if they do?

An analogy might be that the measurements of tidal levels at ports such as Hull or Portsmouth give varying results, but at the end of the day, your boat still floats up to the harbour wall...
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 28, 2021, 10:18:13 AM
Quote
Incorrect. The entire article is about how gravity is difficult to measure and how they have been getting different results. He said that "This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic.". Not 'can', not 'sometimes', he said 'have been'. I would suggest that you  try to present something that supports your case, rather than plugging your ears and pretending that the author said something else and is being misquoted.

What difference does it make if the measurements aren't exact?  The fact that it can be measured at all is proof of its existence.

If lack of consistency in the measurements is a problem, it is a bigger one for FE/UA.  RE embraces the idea that the gravitational force can vary, FE/UA rejects the idea.
There is nothing wrong with embracing fictional ideas .

There is something wrong with embracing fictional ideas and calling them science, rather than science fiction, which describes gravity perfectly.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 28, 2021, 03:42:03 PM
There is nothing wrong with embracing fictional ideas .

There is something wrong with embracing fictional ideas and calling them science, rather than science fiction, which describes gravity perfectly.

Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it so. What exactly is your reason for thinking that gravity is 'science fiction'? Which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? Do you share Tom's absurd view that, because it's hard to measure to more than 3 or 4 significant figures, it must not exist?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 10:46:28 AM
There is nothing wrong with embracing fictional ideas .

There is something wrong with embracing fictional ideas and calling them science, rather than science fiction, which describes gravity perfectly.

Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it so. What exactly is your reason for thinking that gravity is 'science fiction'? Which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? Do you share Tom's absurd view that, because it's hard to measure to more than 3 or 4 significant figures, it must not exist?
How about Newton?

"That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 30, 2021, 11:17:58 AM
There is nothing wrong with embracing fictional ideas .

There is something wrong with embracing fictional ideas and calling them science, rather than science fiction, which describes gravity perfectly.

Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it so. What exactly is your reason for thinking that gravity is 'science fiction'? Which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? Do you share Tom's absurd view that, because it's hard to measure to more than 3 or 4 significant figures, it must not exist?
How about Newton?

"That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

Sir Isaac was a 17th century scientist working at the cutting edge of science and maths. He was wrong about many things, including light and its composition, for example. He was a great scientist, but the world has moved on, and so should we - many others have followed him and tested and refined his ideas. That's what happens in science.

I asked you which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? and you've responded with a letter written in 1693. Can you perhaps actually come up with an observable thing, some challenge perhaps to the current theory of gravity? Why can the world not, for example, be a globe of around 25000 mile circumference, exerting a force equal to mg on all matter around it? Where is the 'fiction'?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 11:31:20 AM
There is nothing wrong with embracing fictional ideas .

There is something wrong with embracing fictional ideas and calling them science, rather than science fiction, which describes gravity perfectly.

Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it so. What exactly is your reason for thinking that gravity is 'science fiction'? Which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? Do you share Tom's absurd view that, because it's hard to measure to more than 3 or 4 significant figures, it must not exist?
How about Newton?

"That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

Sir Isaac was a 17th century scientist working at the cutting edge of science and maths. He was wrong about many things, including light and its composition, for example. He was a great scientist, but the world has moved on, and so should we - many others have followed him and tested and refined his ideas. That's what happens in science.

I asked you which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? and you've responded with a letter written in 1693. Can you perhaps actually come up with an observable thing, some challenge perhaps to the current theory of gravity? Why can the world not, for example, be a globe of around 25000 mile circumference, exerting a force equal to mg on all matter around it? Where is the 'fiction'?
I do not care what Newton was wrong about.

Neither do you.

Everybody has been wrong about a great many number of things.

Mostly you.

The fiction is gravity.

Period.

I know water will not adhere to a sphere.

You claim it will because of gravity.

I claim it will not and offer the supposed "father," of gravity, who also states it is pure rubbish.

But go ahead.

Describe the mechanism by which gravity causes 326 trillion gallons of water to perform this marvelous magic.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 12:11:29 PM
Is the trillions parts meant to make it seem like too much water for the earth to attract? Considering the Earth’s mass is a trillion times the mass of the water it seems like an insignificant mass comparatively. Combined with there being no comparatively large mass nearby to work against the Earth’s gravitation it seems really trivial.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 12:18:18 PM
Is the trillions parts meant to make it seem like too much water for the earth to attract? Considering the Earth’s mass is a trillion times the mass of the water it seems like an insignificant mass comparatively. Combined with there being no comparatively large mass nearby to work against the Earth’s gravitation it seems really trivial.
Describe the mechanism gravity uses for just one ounce of water to stick the surface of the earth.

I didn't mean to confuse you with such large numbers.

My apologies.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 30, 2021, 12:20:56 PM

I do not care what Newton was wrong about.

Neither do you.

Everybody has been wrong about a great many number of things.

Mostly you.

The fiction is gravity.

Period.

I know water will not adhere to a sphere.

You claim it will because of gravity.

I claim it will not and offer the supposed "father," of gravity, who also states it is pure rubbish.

But go ahead.

Describe the mechanism by which gravity causes 326 trillion gallons of water to perform this marvelous magic.

Well, Newton certainly wasn't describing it as pure rubbish in the quote you cited, but rather challenging its ability to reach across a vacuum without some material of transmission. This was deep philosophical stuff at the time, wrapped up in theology as well as maths and physics. Newton would have laughed hard at the notion that earth was flat - he was way, way beyond that. Indeed, he was instrumental in proposing that it was an oblate spheroid and not just a sphere - he's probably not your best choice of champion.

Saying that 'water won't adhere to a sphere' isn't really an argument. Are you saying that water wouldn't adhere to planet earth even if there was a force equal to mg acting on every particle on the surface of the planet? Or are you saying that there isn't a force equal to mg acting on every particle on the surface of the earth?

The theory is very simple - there is a physical property of matter called mass. If you apply a force to a mass, M, then it will accelerate at a rate given by F=MA. That's what mass is.

There is a mutually attractive force that acts between masses. It is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. That is what gravity is.

Earth's mass is such that every mass on the surface experiences a force equal to its own mass multiplied by 9.81 - the 'acceleration due to gravity', or g. So F = mg = ma, or g = a, meaning everything falls at the same initial rate, until aerodynamic drag takes effect.

But we can measure the effect of gravity with smaller masses - that's what the Cavendish experiment was about, and what numerous other experiments have done. Tom's assertion that the lack of precision in the results invalidates them is absurd - even his own source indicates an agreement between multiple different methodologies of 3-4 significant figures for the gravitation constant. If it isn't a gravity force they are detecting, what is it?

Which part of all of this do you actually disagree with , and why? And saying 'you're wrong' or 'all of it' or 'because Newton' isn't a valid argument.   
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 12:35:43 PM

I do not care what Newton was wrong about.

Neither do you.

Everybody has been wrong about a great many number of things.

Mostly you.

The fiction is gravity.

Period.

I know water will not adhere to a sphere.

You claim it will because of gravity.

I claim it will not and offer the supposed "father," of gravity, who also states it is pure rubbish.

But go ahead.

Describe the mechanism by which gravity causes 326 trillion gallons of water to perform this marvelous magic.

Well, Newton certainly wasn't describing it as pure rubbish in the quote you cited, but rather challenging its ability to reach across a vacuum without some material of transmission. This was deep philosophical stuff at the time, wrapped up in theology as well as maths and physics. Newton would have laughed hard at the notion that earth was flat - he was way, way beyond that. Indeed, he was instrumental in proposing that it was an oblate spheroid and not just a sphere - he's probably not your best choice of champion.

Saying that 'water won't adhere to a sphere' isn't really an argument. Are you saying that water wouldn't adhere to planet earth even if there was a force equal to mg acting on every particle on the surface of the planet? Or are you saying that there isn't a force equal to mg acting on every particle on the surface of the earth?

The theory is very simple - there is a physical property of matter called mass. If you apply a force to a mass, M, then it will accelerate at a rate given by F=MA. That's what mass is.

There is a mutually attractive force that acts between masses. It is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. That is what gravity is.

Earth's mass is such that every mass on the surface experiences a force equal to its own mass multiplied by 9.81 - the 'acceleration due to gravity', or g. So F = mg = ma, or g = a, meaning everything falls at the same initial rate, until aerodynamic drag takes effect.

But we can measure the effect of gravity with smaller masses - that's what the Cavendish experiment was about, and what numerous other experiments have done. Tom's assertion that the lack of precision in the results invalidates them is absurd - even his own source indicates an agreement between multiple different methodologies of 3-4 significant figures for the gravitation constant. If it isn't a gravity force they are detecting, what is it?

Which part of all of this do you actually disagree with , and why? And saying 'you're wrong' or 'all of it' or 'because Newton' isn't a valid argument.   
I am telling you and all other readers here that yes, "absurdity," when uttered by Newton does = rubbish.

And Newton the word "absurdity," when talking about gravity.

As far as measuring gravity, you might as well be talking about the length of lines on your palm or how many tarot cards were flipped over before the death card was witnessed by all. Those, too, are measurable. The difference is, we know the mechanisms in place for both of those.

Now, once again, I want you to provide the mechanism by which gravity performs all its wonders.

Go ahead.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 12:46:42 PM
Is the trillions parts meant to make it seem like too much water for the earth to attract? Considering the Earth’s mass is a trillion times the mass of the water it seems like an insignificant mass comparatively. Combined with there being no comparatively large mass nearby to work against the Earth’s gravitation it seems really trivial.
Describe the mechanism gravity uses for just one ounce of water to stick the surface of the earth.

The theoretical conception is that the Earth warps space time so that the most conservative path for the water is towards the Earth.

This has always seemed like a strange tactic by FEers because the answer for gravity is just as esoteric as the QM answer for why opposite electrical charges attract. Virtual photons are pretty elusive!

Quote
I didn't mean to confuse you with such large numbers.

My apologies.

No need for personal attacks. Save it for AR, Lackey.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 12:52:24 PM
Is the trillions parts meant to make it seem like too much water for the earth to attract? Considering the Earth’s mass is a trillion times the mass of the water it seems like an insignificant mass comparatively. Combined with there being no comparatively large mass nearby to work against the Earth’s gravitation it seems really trivial.
Describe the mechanism gravity uses for just one ounce of water to stick the surface of the earth.

The theoretical conception is that the Earth warps space time so that the most conservative path for the water is towards the Earth.

This has always seemed like a strange tactic by FEers because the answer for gravity is just as esoteric as the QM answer for why opposite electrical charges attract. Virtual photons are pretty elusive!
So there is no mechanism.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 12:59:16 PM
So there is no mechanism.

Thanks.

The warping of spacetime is the mechanism.  I just explained that.  If you have an issue with that, you should say so instead of your low effort dismissal.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on April 30, 2021, 01:00:45 PM
Now, once again, I want you to provide the mechanism by which gravity performs all its wonders.

Go ahead.
Why? I don't need to understand the mechanism behind something to observe an effect.

Let's say I don't know anything about how cars work. I observe that I turn the key, it makes some noise, I press a pedal and it starts moving.
After a while it stops moving and I find that if I put more gas in it starts working again.
I can theorise that it's the great car god who makes it move and who accepts gas as a sacrifice.
I don't have to know anything about engines or the mechanism to observe that when I turn the key and press a pedal then the car moves, and I don't have to know anything about gravity to observe that things fall and that the Cavendish experiment demonstrates that masses attract. What Newton was calling absurd was the way gravity seemed to act over vast distances. Einstein explained it, the fact you don't understand that explanation is neither here nor there.

And why is that lack of understanding an issue when you have no mechanism for UA or EA or how the sun moves or why it doesn't vary in angular size through the course of a day despite the greatly varying distances. Why isn't that an issue for you?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 01:02:38 PM
So there is no mechanism.

Thanks.

The warping of spacetime is the mechanism.  I just explained that.  If you have an issue with that, you should say so instead of your low effort dismissal.
No, you didn't explain a mechanism.

You stated a postulate.

Stated postulate =/= explained mechanism.

Good day to you.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 01:04:09 PM
Now, once again, I want you to provide the mechanism by which gravity performs all its wonders.

Go ahead.
Why? I don't need to understand the mechanism behind something to observe an effect.

Let's say I don't know anything about how cars work. I observe that I turn the key, it makes some noise, I press a pedal and it starts moving.
After a while it stops moving and I find that if I put more gas in it starts working again.
I can theorise that it's the great car god who makes it move and who accepts gas as a sacrifice.
I don't have to know anything about engines or the mechanism to observe that when I turn the key and press a pedal then the car moves, and I don't have to know anything about gravity to observe that things fall and that the Cavendish experiment demonstrates that masses attract. What Newton was calling absurd was the way gravity seemed to act over vast distances. Einstein explained it, the fact you don't understand that explanation is neither here nor there.

And why is that lack of understanding an issue when you have no mechanism for UA or EA or how the sun moves or why it doesn't vary in angular size through the course of a day despite the greatly varying distances. Why isn't that an issue for you?
You don't have a mechanism either.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 01:09:51 PM
No, you didn't explain a mechanism.

You stated a postulate.

Stated postulate =/= explained mechanism.

Good day to you.

Your semantic game doesn't change that warped space time is the postulated mechanism that causes the water to fall towards the Earth.  A postulate that has a good deal of empirical evidence to boot.  I hope you can deal with this substantively.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on April 30, 2021, 01:11:06 PM
You don't have a mechanism either.

Thanks.
Can you explain the mechanism behind the things you believe?
If not, why do you believe them?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 01:23:04 PM
No, you didn't explain a mechanism.

You stated a postulate.

Stated postulate =/= explained mechanism.

Good day to you.

Your semantic game doesn't change that warped space time is the postulated mechanism that causes the water to fall towards the Earth.  A postulate that has a good deal of empirical evidence to boot.  I hope you can deal with this substantively.
Why should I deal with something (your postulate) that has no substance in a substantive manner?

Further, stating the words, "warped space time," does not = an explanation.

Neither does it = gravity.

Hope you can substantively deal with these failures on your part.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 01:26:58 PM
You don't have a mechanism either.

Thanks.
Can you explain the mechanism behind the things you believe?
If not, why do you believe them?
Are you going to stick to the topic, or will you continue with these diversionary tactics?

If you cannot explain the mechanism for gravity, then just say so and be done with it.

Newton did so.

The difference is he called people who believed in gravity to be people of low intellect.

You need to take that up with Newton.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on April 30, 2021, 01:29:27 PM
You don't have a mechanism either.

Thanks.
Can you explain the mechanism behind the things you believe?
If not, why do you believe them?
Are you going to stick to the topic, or will you continue with these diversionary tactics?
You don't have a mechanism either.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 01:30:52 PM
Why should I deal with something (your postulate) that has no substance in a substantive manner?

Further, stating the words, "warped space time," does not = an explanation.

Neither does it = gravity.

Hope you can substantively deal with these failures on your part.

Then I suggest you study General Relativity because you are just letting your ignorance become a virtue.  The entire history of the theory deals with what I briefly explained and it is supported by large amounts of empirical evidence.  If you aren't interested in learning about it, then by all means carry on, but don't pretend that I have failed or that you have rebutted the mechanism for gravity under a GR framework.  The only accurate follow up would be that there is no known mechanism for why mass-energy-momentum warps space-time, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not space time warps.  LIGO has unambiguously observed warped space time.  Astronomers observe it every solar eclipse.  The warping of space-time is accounted for by GPS systems.  To ignore this is to be an ostrich in the modern world.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 01:57:57 PM
There is nothing wrong with embracing fictional ideas .

There is something wrong with embracing fictional ideas and calling them science, rather than science fiction, which describes gravity perfectly.

Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it so. What exactly is your reason for thinking that gravity is 'science fiction'? Which part of our observable world, or indeed solar system / universe is at odds with our understanding of gravity? Do you share Tom's absurd view that, because it's hard to measure to more than 3 or 4 significant figures, it must not exist?
How about Newton?

"That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

This is a pretty silly quote to bring up considering that even though Newton could not explain the mechanism for gravity, he showed that gravitation indeed did occur.  He tried, and failed, to explain it using a model of pressure exerted through a medium.  As AATW has pointed out, the mechanism was irrelevant to the observations that were being made and the theory predicted observations extremely well with a few famous exceptions.  So cherry-picking Newton in an attempt at a "Gotcha!" is very ineffective.

Some other Newton quotes:

“Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, "By thinking about it all the time.”
“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.”
"...Gravity must be caused by an agent...but whether that agent be material or immaterial I leave to my readers.” (The important finale to your quote)
“Kepler's laws, although not rigidly true, are sufficiently near to the truth to have led to the discovery of the law of attraction of the bodies of the solar system."

This seems quite far from someone who doubts the existence of gravity (what an absurd thought, that Newton didn't believe in gravity).  Instead it appears that the truth of what he discovered was astounding and it's mechanism was inexplicable to him.  Fortunately, Einstein and his associates, gave the world a theory which described gravity, but also described other phenomena springing from the same cause.  These phenomena have been quatitatively predicted and subsequently observed.  The world owes Newton a great debt of gratitude, but Einstein expanded his knowledge greatly.  One more quote from Newton explains Einstein's position in the history of science well, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on April 30, 2021, 02:04:24 PM
Why should I deal with something (your postulate) that has no substance in a substantive manner?

Further, stating the words, "warped space time," does not = an explanation.

Neither does it = gravity.

Hope you can substantively deal with these failures on your part.

Then I suggest you study General Relativity because you are just letting your ignorance become a virtue.  The entire history of the theory deals with what I briefly explained and it is supported by large amounts of empirical evidence.  If you aren't interested in learning about it, then by all means carry on, but don't pretend that I have failed or that you have rebutted the mechanism for gravity under a GR framework.  The only accurate follow up would be that there is no known mechanism for why mass-energy-momentum warps space-time, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not space time warps.  LIGO has unambiguously observed warped space time.  Astronomers observe it every solar eclipse.  The warping of space-time is accounted for by GPS systems.  To ignore this is to be an ostrich in the modern world.
Totally laughable in that one who would offer a supposed result of gravity in action as the supposed mechanism by which it acts.

Ridiculous.

As far a LIGO actually observing such nonsense, I can just as easily claim having observed your failure and making a firm accounting of it.

You have no experience with the warping of space-time whatsoever, merely the supposed fantasies built upon the fantasies of others.

Again, you explained nothing. You stated a postulate.

Newton never showed "occurring gravitation."
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on April 30, 2021, 02:14:56 PM
Why should I deal with something (your postulate) that has no substance in a substantive manner?

Further, stating the words, "warped space time," does not = an explanation.

Neither does it = gravity.

Hope you can substantively deal with these failures on your part.

Then I suggest you study General Relativity because you are just letting your ignorance become a virtue.  The entire history of the theory deals with what I briefly explained and it is supported by large amounts of empirical evidence.  If you aren't interested in learning about it, then by all means carry on, but don't pretend that I have failed or that you have rebutted the mechanism for gravity under a GR framework.  The only accurate follow up would be that there is no known mechanism for why mass-energy-momentum warps space-time, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not space time warps.  LIGO has unambiguously observed warped space time.  Astronomers observe it every solar eclipse.  The warping of space-time is accounted for by GPS systems.  To ignore this is to be an ostrich in the modern world.
Totally laughable in that one who would offer a supposed result of gravity in action as the supposed mechanism by which it acts.

Ridiculous.

You have it wrong. Gravity isn’t what causes space-time to warp. The warping of space-time is what causes the effects we observe as gravitation. We don’t have an explanation for why mass-energy-momentum warps space-time.

As far a LIGO actually observing such nonsense, I can just as easily claim having observed your failure and making a firm accounting of it.

Quote
You have no experience with the warping of space-time whatsoever, merely the supposed fantasies built upon the fantasies of others.

I experience the warping of space-time every time I jump.

Quote
Again, you explained nothing. You stated a postulate.

If you want GR explained to you, I suggest you are in the wrong place. What that has to do with your request to state the mechanism is beyond me.

Quote
Newton never showed "occurring gravitation."

Your sentence is badly formed. I am happy to respond to it if you can explain what “showed ‘occurring gravitation’” [sic] means.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on April 30, 2021, 03:26:40 PM
Quote
No, you didn't explain a mechanism.

You stated a postulate.

Stated postulate =/= explained mechanism.

Good day to you.

Einstein's field equations explain the mechanism.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on April 30, 2021, 07:04:10 PM
Are you going to stick to the topic, or will you continue with these diversionary tactics?

If you cannot explain the mechanism for gravity, then just say so and be done with it.

Newton did so.

The difference is he called people who believed in gravity to be people of low intellect.

You need to take that up with Newton.

You haven't even understood the Newton quote that you yourself produced. That's not what he said at all. He was in no doubt at all about gravity, indeed he used it to formulate his view on the shape of the earth. Spoiler alert: not flat.

His issue, which by the way was in the middle of becoming a 'formed view' at the time of the letter you quoted, was the manner which gravity was transmitted.

You seem to be obsessing about mechanism. We can have that discussion if you wish - you'll clearly dismiss anything we present, so it's probably pointless, but there you go. I see you've already dismissed LIGO without evidence.

But I think the broader point is that there doesn't need to be a mechanism. You don't need to know how magnets work to observe and measure magnetism. I don't have a the deep physics knowledge to fully comprehend it, and from my light reading of the matter, it sounds like it's not fully settled, although I gather photons, both real and virtual, are involved. But magnets clearly work. A lack of detail on the mechanism does not negate the existence of the force.

The same is true of gravity. It has been measured. Cavendish measured it. Lots of people have measured it and they are with 0.15% of each other for the gravitational constant. Why do you need a mechanism before you acknowledge that something is there?

And you haven't answered my other question - are you saying that water wouldn't adhere to the earth even if gravity existed, or are you saying it would stick but gravity doesn't exist? They are two very different arguments. Which one are you picking?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 11:33:05 AM
Are you going to stick to the topic, or will you continue with these diversionary tactics?

If you cannot explain the mechanism for gravity, then just say so and be done with it.

Newton did so.

The difference is he called people who believed in gravity to be people of low intellect.

You need to take that up with Newton.

You haven't even understood the Newton quote that you yourself produced. That's not what he said at all. He was in no doubt at all about gravity, indeed he used it to formulate his view on the shape of the earth. Spoiler alert: not flat.

His issue, which by the way was in the middle of becoming a 'formed view' at the time of the letter you quoted, was the manner which gravity was transmitted.

You seem to be obsessing about mechanism. We can have that discussion if you wish - you'll clearly dismiss anything we present, so it's probably pointless, but there you go. I see you've already dismissed LIGO without evidence.

But I think the broader point is that there doesn't need to be a mechanism. You don't need to know how magnets work to observe and measure magnetism. I don't have a the deep physics knowledge to fully comprehend it, and from my light reading of the matter, it sounds like it's not fully settled, although I gather photons, both real and virtual, are involved. But magnets clearly work. A lack of detail on the mechanism does not negate the existence of the force.

The same is true of gravity. It has been measured. Cavendish measured it. Lots of people have measured it and they are with 0.15% of each other for the gravitational constant. Why do you need a mechanism before you acknowledge that something is there?

And you haven't answered my other question - are you saying that water wouldn't adhere to the earth even if gravity existed, or are you saying it would stick but gravity doesn't exist? They are two very different arguments. Which one are you picking?
Yeah, and now we have it.

Newton did not say what Newton did say.

Well, I am no longer going to entertain your total BS show.

Water rolls off any ball. Period.

We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Another BS piece of garbage uttered by you.

Along with the rest of the BS mechanisms, like space time warping causing water to stick to a ball.

One big freaking joke.


Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 03, 2021, 11:52:19 AM
Water rolls off any ball. Period.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zWwaloPiMfI

Quote
We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Why does the mechanism matter?
For thousands of people people observed things like earthquakes and volcanos without understanding the mechanisms behind them.
And why do you think things fall? What’s the mechanism behind your explanation?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 12:16:52 PM
Water rolls off any ball. Period.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zWwaloPiMfI

Quote
We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Why does the mechanism matter?
For thousands of people people observed things like earthquakes and volcanos without understanding the mechanisms behind them.
And why do you think things fall? What’s the mechanism behind your explanation?
Thank you for demonstrating that water will fall off a ball, although we did not need to see such a clear demonstration of that principle.

And thanks for pointing out that you have no explanation for a fictional force, yet your faith demands obedience.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 03, 2021, 12:46:47 PM
Water didn’t fall off the ball. You shouldn’t make thing up like that. It’s really dishonest.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 03, 2021, 12:52:19 PM
Water rolls off any ball. Period.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zWwaloPiMfI

Quote
We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Why does the mechanism matter?
For thousands of people people observed things like earthquakes and volcanos without understanding the mechanisms behind them.
And why do you think things fall? What’s the mechanism behind your explanation?
Thank you for demonstrating that water will fall off a ball, although we did not need to see such a clear demonstration of that principle.

And thanks for pointing out that you have no explanation for a fictional force, yet your faith demands obedience.

I'll ask again. It's a really straightforward question. Are you saying you don't think water would adhere to the earth even if gravity worked in the manner that is generally considered to be true and the earth was a globe, or are you saying that gravity doesn't exist therefore water wouldn't stick to the earth?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 01:08:51 PM
Water didn’t fall off the ball. You shouldn’t make thing up like that. It’s really dishonest.
Posting a video of surface tension after effects as being relative to gravity is the only dishonest thing being presented here. Water did fall off the ball. It sure didn't stick to the side of the ball. And regardless, the subject of this thread is Cavendish and his measurements of gravity.

No mechanism? Then no force can be claimed.

Simple.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 01:15:58 PM
Water rolls off any ball. Period.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zWwaloPiMfI

Quote
We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Why does the mechanism matter?
For thousands of people people observed things like earthquakes and volcanos without understanding the mechanisms behind them.
And why do you think things fall? What’s the mechanism behind your explanation?
Thank you for demonstrating that water will fall off a ball, although we did not need to see such a clear demonstration of that principle.

And thanks for pointing out that you have no explanation for a fictional force, yet your faith demands obedience.

I'll ask again. It's a really straightforward question. Are you saying you don't think water would adhere to the earth even if gravity worked in the manner that is generally considered to be true and the earth was a globe, or are you saying that gravity doesn't exist therefore water wouldn't stick to the earth?
Your question isn't straightforward and you know it.

There are two things I know.

The only reason water sticks to any surface has to do with electromagnetic or chemical bonding processes.

Gravity does not exist.

I guess I should relate one more thing.

Just because something has a consistent measured rate does not indicate the something that is being measured actually is the cause.

That would be like me attributing your screen name as the reason why the process of casting out nines when done with your screen name is working.

When it isn't.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 03, 2021, 01:16:37 PM
Water didn’t fall off the ball. You shouldn’t make thing up like that. It’s really dishonest.
No mechanism? Then no force can be claimed.


You making up criteria and declaring victory is pretty poor. As has been mentioned many times, there is a mechanism Space-Time curvature and even if that were not so, being unable to explain a mechanism doesn’t negate the existence of something.

Even more telling is the utter failure of FEers to support their own model but projecting that failure on to gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 01:20:46 PM
Water didn’t fall off the ball. You shouldn’t make thing up like that. It’s really dishonest.
No mechanism? Then no force can be claimed.


You making up criteria and declaring victory is pretty poor. As has been mentioned many times, there is a mechanism Space-Time curvature and even if that were not so, being unable to explain a mechanism doesn’t negate the existence of something.

Even more telling is the utter failure of FEers to support their own model but projecting that failure on to gravity.
Yes.

No mechanism, no force.

Very simple.

Even Newton knew that and admitted it : "That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

I will take the word of Newton, thanks.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tumeni on May 03, 2021, 01:30:51 PM
Posting a video of surface tension after effects as being relative to gravity is the only dishonest thing being presented here.

... but you didn't ask for "relative to gravity". You said "Water rolls off any ball. Period."

Water did fall off the ball. It sure didn't stick to the side of the ball.

Try it with a few different types; basketball, football, squash, ping-pong, golf, globe model, tennis ball, etc.

Immerse in water, then remove. Even if the majority of the water rolls to the lower hemisphere, and remains as droplets, if the side or upper hemi is still wet, water is sticking to the ball.

The test is to take dry tissue paper, and touch the upper surface. If the tissue paper gets wet, water is sticking to the ball.

Seriously. Go try.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 03, 2021, 01:38:43 PM
Quote
Yeah, and now we have it.

Newton did not say what Newton did say.

Well, I am no longer going to entertain your total BS show.

Water rolls off any ball. Period.

We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Another BS piece of garbage uttered by you.

Along with the rest of the BS mechanisms, like space time warping causing water to stick to a ball.

One big freaking joke
.

The part of the quote you leave out is that Newton left the mechanism of gravity “to the consideration of the reader”.  Einstein took him up on it.

The mechanism of gravity is understood. The motion of all bodies is determined by the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein’s field equations inform us how the field interacts with matter and influences its motion. Just because you reject that explanation, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.


Quote
No mechanism? Then no force can be claimed
.

Neither do we have an explanation as to why why particles emit magnetic fields, but that lack of explanation doesn’t seem to keep you from accepting that magnetic fields exist. No explanation as to how the UA force works either, but that doesn't keep many people from accepting it.

Gravity isn't a force...so why are you demanding that an explanation of the mechanism is necessary?

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 03, 2021, 01:41:12 PM
Your question isn't straightforward and you know it.

There are two things I know.

The only reason water sticks to any surface has to do with electromagnetic or chemical bonding processes.

Gravity does not exist.

I guess I should relate one more thing.

Just because something has a consistent measured rate does not indicate the something that is being measured actually is the cause.

That would be like me attributing your screen name as the reason why the process of casting out nines when done with your screen name is working.

When it isn't.

It really is pretty simple. If gravity existed, and the earth was round, then would water stick to it?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 03, 2021, 02:01:35 PM
Thank you for demonstrating that water will fall off a ball
Oh dear. Denying the evidence of your own eyes again? This is “rockets in vacuums” all over again. Those water droplets at the bottom of the ball. They didn’t fall, did they?  :)

Quote
Gravity does not exist.
So what causes things to fall and what is the mechanism behind it?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 03, 2021, 02:09:05 PM
Water didn’t fall off the ball. You shouldn’t make thing up like that. It’s really dishonest.
No mechanism? Then no force can be claimed.


You making up criteria and declaring victory is pretty poor. As has been mentioned many times, there is a mechanism Space-Time curvature and even if that were not so, being unable to explain a mechanism doesn’t negate the existence of something.

Even more telling is the utter failure of FEers to support their own model but projecting that failure on to gravity.
Yes.

No mechanism, no force.

Very simple.

Even Newton knew that and admitted it : "That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

I will take the word of Newton, thanks.

Well Newton surely thought gravity existed so I will take your self-own then. I presented multiple quotes from Newton talking about gravity as a thing he discovered and worked on.

Newton was not perplexed by gravity’s existence, he simply thought that it required a medium to act through, as did everyone up until Einstein mathematicallly proved it wasn’t necessary. His math explained mercury’s orbit, bending light, gravity waves and time dilation as well as all of classical gravity as a result of curving space-time and experiments confirmed the predictions. So curving space time is a perfectly satisfactory explanation for the mechanism by which gravity occurs. Now we just wait for you to combine your cherry picking combined with appealing to authority again or perhaps you can answer substantially? I hope for the latter but fear it will be the first.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 03, 2021, 02:27:04 PM
Action80 demonstrating some impressively poor understanding of how anything works!

Take any ball between the size of a golf ball and a soft ball. Immerse it in water. Pull it out and give it a quick shake. The thin film of water remaining on the ball is about the same proportion as the oceans covering the earth. That film stays on the ball, even if you move it around, spin it at 1 rev/dat, whatever. And that's in the presence of an external force acting on the whole mini-system.

Want to put more water onto balls? Freeze some of the water...or add a force like static electricity, or do it in near-zero force environment like the ISS (or vomit comet).

But if you really want lots of water, like trillions of gallons... stick it to a spinning ball with a radius of several thousand km.  2.5km deep ocean on a ~5600 km radius earth equates to a layer of water on a ball that is 0.04% of its radius.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 03:43:21 PM
Posting a video of surface tension after effects as being relative to gravity is the only dishonest thing being presented here.

... but you didn't ask for "relative to gravity". You said "Water rolls off any ball. Period."
I cannot help it if you and the rest refuse to discuss a point within the confines of gravity and want to present dishonest evidence in support of your religion.

Nice try though.
Water did fall off the ball. It sure didn't stick to the side of the ball.

Try it with a few different types; basketball, football, squash, ping-pong, golf, globe model, tennis ball, etc.

Immerse in water, then remove. Even if the majority of the water rolls to the lower hemisphere, and remains as droplets, if the side or upper hemi is still wet, water is sticking to the ball.

The test is to take dry tissue paper, and touch the upper surface. If the tissue paper gets wet, water is sticking to the ball.

Seriously. Go try.
Yeah. Already answered.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 03:46:47 PM
Quote
Yeah, and now we have it.

Newton did not say what Newton did say.

Well, I am no longer going to entertain your total BS show.

Water rolls off any ball. Period.

We understand the mechanisms of magnetism.

Another BS piece of garbage uttered by you.

Along with the rest of the BS mechanisms, like space time warping causing water to stick to a ball.

One big freaking joke
.

The part of the quote you leave out is that Newton left the mechanism of gravity “to the consideration of the reader”.  Einstein took him up on it.
Newton stated any half wit would reject the concept that such a thing as gravity exists.
The mechanism of gravity is understood. The motion of all bodies is determined by the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein’s field equations inform us how the field interacts with matter and influences its motion. Just because you reject that explanation, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Again, stating another possibility is not stating a mechanism.

Quote
No mechanism? Then no force can be claimed
.

Neither do we have an explanation as to why why particles emit magnetic fields, but that lack of explanation doesn’t seem to keep you from accepting that magnetic fields exist. No explanation as to how the UA force works either, but that doesn't keep many people from accepting it.

Gravity isn't a force...so why are you demanding that an explanation of the mechanism is necessary?
BWAHAHAHA!!!

Thanks for the laugh!
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 03, 2021, 04:39:14 PM
Quote
Newton stated any half wit would reject the concept that such a thing as gravity exists.Newton stated any half wit would reject the concept that such a thing as gravity exists
.

Newton wasn't a half-wit, that's why he didn't reject it.  Instead he spent his life describing and studying it.  Perhaps you've heard of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation?  It states that  every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.

He was so convinced it existed, he formulated a law to describe its action.

Quote
BWAHAHAHA!!!

Thanks for the laugh!

I'm often funny without realizing it.  What exactly is funny about what I said?

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 03, 2021, 04:40:29 PM
This is why I hadn’t posted up here in a long time. Multiple reasonable points have rebutted what Lackey said and he dragged us down to his level and beat us with experience.

It’s super obvious that there is a mechanism in GR. It’s super obvious a lack of mechanism doesn’t refute the existence of gravity. It’s super obvious Newton believed gravity existed. The Cavendish experiment gets more and more accurate with every iteration but a “FE of the Gaps” argument will continue to be deployed.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 03, 2021, 04:54:38 PM
Quote
Again, stating another possibility is not stating a mechanism
.

I don't think you understand the word "mechanism".  It means the means by which an effect is produced.  The inertio-gravitational field is the means by which inertial and gravitational effects are produced.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 03, 2021, 05:26:20 PM
I cannot help it if you and the rest refuse to discuss a point within the confines of gravity...

Is your question what makes water stick to the Earth within the confines of gravity? Gravity is the answer. Gravity is the reason why anything sticks to the Earth, including water, rocks and air. It's also what make the earth stick together at all. But I feel like you must have known that already.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 03, 2021, 05:33:55 PM
Newton stated any half wit would reject the concept that such a thing as gravity exists.

There seems to be a lot of quoting of people that clearly agreed that gravity exists to pretend that they think otherwise. But what seems more likely, that these people, including the person who described for us the equations that form the literal Theory of Gravity, didn't think they exist or that the quoter has simply misunderstood what they were trying to say? By picking out a single quote and placing it wildly out of context, perhaps? Maybe, before quoting a scientist, it would behoove one to think about whether that scientist actually agreed with what one is trying to argue for?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 03, 2021, 05:42:35 PM
Gravity isn't a force...so why are you demanding that an explanation of the mechanism is necessary? [emphasis mine]
Quote
Newton stated any half wit would reject the concept that such a thing as gravity exists.

Newton wasn't a half-wit, that's why he didn't reject it.  Instead he spent his life describing and studying it.  Perhaps you've heard of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation?  It states that  every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force [emphasis mine] that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.

He was so convinced it existed, he formulated a law to describe its action.

Quote
BWAHAHAHA!!!

Thanks for the laugh!

I'm often funny without realizing it.  What exactly is funny about what I said?
Anyone that will write gravity isn't a force and then within the next few minutes or so write that gravity is a force is awfully funny.

Mad cap I tell you!

BWAHAHAHA!!!
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 03, 2021, 05:58:31 PM
What do you think makes things fall?
And what is the mechanism behind it?
In your own time. :)
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 03, 2021, 06:05:47 PM
Quote
Newton stated any half wit would reject the concept that such a thing as gravity exists.

Newton wasn't a half-wit, that's why he didn't reject it.  Instead he spent his life describing and studying it.  Perhaps you've heard of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation?  It states that  every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force [emphasis mine] that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.

You are conflating the Newton perception of gravity and GR.  In GR, gravity is not a force.  This is why GR "solved" how gravity reaches out and causes an effect from a distance.

Newton was puzzled how a force could do that.  Einstein realized it was because gravity wasn't a force, as Newton thought.  GR solves the problem that Newton struggled with.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 03, 2021, 07:35:54 PM
What do you think makes things fall?
And what is the mechanism behind it?
In your own time. :)

Since Action80 won’t take you up on your challenge, I’ll take a shot and see if he has a response.

Let’s consider an apple on the branch of a tree.  What causes it to fall?  While the apple is still on the tree, we could consider the tree/apple being accelerated up by UA or at rest in a gravitational field.  Either works right up until the apple falls. After it separates from the tree, UA can again explain its motion, but it doesn’t explain why it separated from the tree in the first place. 

GR does explain it.  In GR, the tree and apple, while at rest in a gravitational field, are traveling along a geodesic.  The stem is holding the apple to the tree, so it is following the geodesic of the tree, not its own geodesic.  As the apple ripens the stem weakens and eventually breaks.  When the stem breaks, the apples is no longer prevented from traveling along its own geodesic and beings to travel independently along its own geodesic.

One could argue that when the stem breaks, the apple just stops accelerating up with the tree and waits patiently while the earth rises up.  This is not a valid argument because according to Newton’s first law, if the apple was traveling in uniform motion while it was attached to the tree, it would continue with that uniform motion whether it was attached to the tree or not.  IOW, the apple would continue its acceleration upwards at 9.81 m/s2. “Stopping” is a change in velocity and a change in velocity is acceleration.  UA offers no explanation for that acceleration. This is the fatal flaw of UA.  It rises and falls (pun intended) on the EP, but the EP doesn’t apply to accelerated motion.

Even if, by some miracle FE could come up with some explanation for how the UA force works, or even what it is, they still could not be able to account for why things fall.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: WTF_Seriously on May 03, 2021, 07:45:44 PM

One could argue that when the stem breaks, the apple just stops accelerating up with the tree and waits patiently while the earth rises up.  This is not a valid argument because according to Newton’s first law, if the apple was traveling in uniform motion while it was attached to the tree, it would continue with that uniform motion whether it was attached to the tree or not.  IOW, the apple would continue its acceleration upwards at 9.81 m/s2. “Stopping” is a change in velocity and a change in velocity is acceleration. 

Newton's 1st says that the apple will continue at the same velocity it had when the stem breaks.  It doesn't say that it will continue accelerating because there is no longer a force being applied to cause the acceleration.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 03, 2021, 08:07:44 PM
Quote
Newton's 1st says that the apple will continue at the same velocity it had when the stem breaks.  It doesn't say that it will continue accelerating because there is no longer a force being applied to cause the acceleration.

There is still a force being applied to it.  The same force that was being applied to it while it was on the tree. Or have you forgotten our discussion on how FE defines terminal velocity?  "Falling objects" are accelerated up.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: WTF_Seriously on May 03, 2021, 08:25:32 PM
Quote
Newton's 1st says that the apple will continue at the same velocity it had when the stem breaks.  It doesn't say that it will continue accelerating because there is no longer a force being applied to cause the acceleration.

There is still a force being applied to it.  The same force that was being applied to it while it was on the tree. Or have you forgotten our discussion on how FE defines terminal velocity?  "Falling objects" are accelerated up.

Well, yes.  But until TV is established, acceleration up is less than UA acceleration so velocity becomes less,  etc. etc.  Would have to look at it again to see exactly where it ended up.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 03, 2021, 08:36:24 PM
I'm just interested in Lackey's answer because he has spent the last couple of pages saying that if you can't explain the mechanism behind gravity then that shows that gravity is a load of nonsense. But things demonstrably fall. So I'm interested to know what he thinks causes that to happen and whether he can explain the mechanism behind it. His failure to respond is pretty telling.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 03, 2021, 09:37:50 PM
I'm just interested in Lackey's answer because he has spent the last couple of pages saying that if you can't explain the mechanism behind gravity then that shows that gravity is a load of nonsense. But things demonstrably fall. So I'm interested to know what he thinks causes that to happen and whether he can explain the mechanism behind it. His failure to respond is pretty telling.

Indeed. I'd also add that I asked him (her?) several pages back precisely what observation or what aspect of our physical world is at odds with the consensus view on gravity. The only answer we've had since then is an appeal to authority from 1693, which he completely failed to understand and continues to misrepresent, no matter how many times people point that Newton was, in fact, rather keen on the whole gravity idea. This is taking argument fallacies to a whole new level - when appealing to authority, most wayward debaters at least choose an authority that supports their argument.

So, to summarise the case against thus far, we have:

- the fact that measurements of the gravitational constant are tricky to do and only accurate to 3-4 sig figs. Therefore, earth is flat.
- Isaac Newton didn't think that gravity could transmit across a vacuum. Therefore, earth is flat.
- the science around the precise mechanism for gravity is still subject to debate and development. Therefore, earth is flat
- water doesn't stick to balls, therefore earth is flat

Have I summed that up fairly enough?

Still waiting for an observation of our physical world that contradicts the consensus view on gravity. Also still waiting for the answer to my question on whether we all at least agree that, if the earth was a globe and gravity existed, then water would stick to it just fine.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 03, 2021, 10:09:19 PM
The same is true of gravity. It has been measured. Cavendish measured it. Lots of people have measured it and they are with 0.15% of each other for the gravitational constant. Why do you need a mechanism before you acknowledge that something is there?

The effect of gravity is much smaller than that range. The 0.15% deviation is dominated by effects which are not gravity. See this section: https://wiki.tfes.org/Cavendish_Experiment#A_Small_Effect

Since the noise highly dominates the effect, how do you know that the effect is actually being measured?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 03, 2021, 10:18:27 PM

The effect of gravity is much smaller than that range. The 0.15% deviation is dominated by effects which are not gravity. See this section: https://wiki.tfes.org/Cavendish_Experiment#A_Small_Effect

Since the noise highly dominates the effect, how do you know that the effect is actually being measured?

So the error is caused by errors? So 0.15% is attributable to errors, and the other 99.85%, or thereabouts, is down to the thing we are trying to measure, which is gravity. You can try to twist it as much as you like, but none of the people you are quoting are even close to suggesting that any of the experiments indicate that gravity doesn’t exist.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 03, 2021, 10:21:29 PM
The gravity effect being measured is only equivalent to the weight of a few cells, very small. That gravity effect is be being dominated over ten fold by effects which are not gravity.

How do we know if it's measuring gravity if the noise level dominates the effect being measured? The results are erratic. It could just be measuring noise in that range.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 03, 2021, 10:27:28 PM
none of the people you are quoting are even close to suggesting that any of the experiments indicate that gravity doesn’t exist.

Wrong. They clearly admit that the problem is so concerning that they don't know if they are measuring it at all.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/

"In fact, the discrepancy is such a problem that Quinn is organizing a meeting in February at the Royal Society in London to come up with a game plan for resolving the impasse. The meeting’s title—“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”—reveals the general consternation."
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 03, 2021, 10:37:19 PM
The gravity effect being measured is only equivalent to the weight of a few cells, very small. That gravity effect is be being dominated over ten fold by effects which are not gravity.

How do we know if it's measuring gravity if the noise level dominates the effect being measured? The results are erratic. It could just be measuring noise in that range.

Because numerous experiments all arrive at numbers that are very close to each other. That article you yourself cited mentions two different methods getting very similar results, for example.

The frustration is that discrepancies between results exceed estimated errors, meaning error estimation is poor. That in no way nullifies the results.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 03, 2021, 10:44:34 PM
Ten fold differences from the expected uncertainties aren't similar results. They are different results. The effect of gravity is dominated by other effects on that range. If we don't have a consistent effect then we cannot say that it is gravity. It could be electrostatic forces at that level.

You need to purify the experiment enough so that noise doesn't dominate the results, in order to separate one phenomena from another. They have not yet been able to do that.

From the previous link:

" But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists. “It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved,” he adds. “We should be able to measure gravity.” "

Obviously the implication there is that they can't measure gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 04, 2021, 12:21:30 AM
The same is true of gravity. It has been measured. Cavendish measured it. Lots of people have measured it and they are with 0.15% of each other for the gravitational constant. Why do you need a mechanism before you acknowledge that something is there?

The effect of gravity is much smaller than that range. The 0.15% deviation is dominated by effects which are not gravity. See this section: https://wiki.tfes.org/Cavendish_Experiment#A_Small_Effect

Since the noise highly dominates the effect, how do you know that the effect is actually being measured?

It isn't dominated, that is your own ideological editorial.  There is a small variance, just larger than they would like, but they have no doubt as to what is being measured.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 04, 2021, 01:15:19 AM
It isn't dominated

If you are forced to refer to yourself as a source you may as well say nothing at all. It's a sign of defeated position. Surely if there were mountains of evidence for this on your side you would be able to quote it directly from appropriate sources in order to directly contradict it.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 04, 2021, 01:22:27 AM
You're acting like the futurism article is the only source that matters on the topic, when the reality is that the Cavendish experiment has been performed many times (vacuum chamber, electrically grounded masses) and is continually updated and improved to explore the limits of gravitational attraction

https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11761

Granted, no one is satisfied with the lack of precision compared to other universal constants, but science is more than just a body of knowledge, it's the search for answers to questions we might not have even though to ask yet.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 04, 2021, 02:11:14 AM
You're acting like the futurism article is the only source that matters on the topic, when the reality is that the Cavendish experiment has been performed many times (vacuum chamber, electrically grounded masses) and is continually updated and improved to explore the limits of gravitational attraction

https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11761

Granted, no one is satisfied with the lack of precision compared to other universal constants, but science is more than just a body of knowledge, it's the search for answers to questions we might not have even though to ask yet.

That's not a Cavendish-type experiment. That's an experiment testing the Equivalence Principle with a torsion balance like these ones: https://wiki.tfes.org/Torsion_Balance_Tests
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 04, 2021, 03:55:20 AM
Quote
Well, yes.  But until TV is established, acceleration up is less than UA acceleration so velocity becomes less,  etc. etc.  Would have to look at it again to see exactly where it ended up.

As far as I am concerned, it is established.  The language in the wiki is clear and if I am misunderstanding, not FEer has seen fit to correct me. 

Consider the apple and tree in a vacuum if it makes you feel better.  The principle is still the same.

The bottom line is that the EP only applies when an object is "at rest"...in an unaccelerated state. If an object is being accelerated upwards, whether it is being slowed down by drag or not, it is still being accelerated.  They can't have it both ways and apply the EP, but also claim an object is being accelerated.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 04, 2021, 04:30:28 AM
We have a 99.85% consistent effect. Like I said before, no one is suggesting that the constant might really be under 6 or over 7. They're just all frustrated that they can't get a precision of more than a few digits, instead of about 9, like they can for other constants. This goes back to the quoting problems I've mentioned elsewhere. None of these sources think for a moment that gravity doesn't exist or that there isn't a gravitational constant or that it isn't about 6.67. Misinterpreting quotes to pretend like they do does nothing but show a severe lack of understanding of the subject.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 04, 2021, 04:37:03 AM
It isn't dominated

If you are forced to refer to yourself as a source you may as well say nothing at all. It's a sign of defeated position. Surely if there were mountains of evidence for this on your side you would be able to quote it directly from appropriate sources in order to directly contradict it.

I am forced to call bull shit on your mischaracterization of your own source (no one is surprised).  At no time does it say the measurement is dominated by noise.  No where.  You are making that up for hperbolic purposes.  I have already posted a link to an article which cites multiple scientific papers where they discuss the difficulties in measuring G as well as the increasing precision of their experiments.  Keep ignoring it.  I expect nothing less.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 04, 2021, 06:02:57 AM
Ten fold differences from the expected uncertainties aren't similar results. They are different results. The effect of gravity is dominated by other effects on that range. If we don't have a consistent effect then we cannot say that it is gravity. It could be electrostatic forces at that level.

You need to purify the experiment enough so that noise doesn't dominate the results, in order to separate one phenomena from another. They have not yet been able to do that.

From the previous link:

" But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists. “It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved,” he adds. “We should be able to measure gravity.” "

From the article:

Quote
The team also took the further step of adding a second, independent way of measuring the gravitational attraction: In addition to observing how much the bar twisted, the researchers also conducted experiments with electrodes placed inside the torsion balance that prevented it from twisting. The strength of the voltage needed to prevent the rotation was directly related to the pull of gravity. “A strong point of Quinn’s experiment is the fact that they use two different methods to measure G,” says Stephan Schlamminger of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., who led a separate attempt in 2006 to calculate big G using a beam balance setup. “It is difficult to see how the two methods can produce two numbers that are wrong, but yet agree with each other.”

Through these dual experiments, Quinn’s team arrived at a value of 6.67545 X 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2. That’s 241 parts per million above the standard value of 6.67384(80) X 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2, which was arrived at by a special task force of the International Council for Science’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) (pdf) in 2010 by calculating a weighted average of all the various experimental values. These values differ from one another by as much as 450 ppm of the constant, even though most of them have estimated uncertainties of only about 40 ppm. “Clearly, many of them or most of them are subject either to serious significant errors or grossly underestimated uncertainties,” Quinn says. Making matters even more complex is the fact that the new measurement is strikingly close to a calculation of big G made by Quinn and his colleagues more than 10 years ago, published in 2001, that used similar methods but a completely separate laboratory setup.
Most scientists think all these discrepancies reflect human sources of error, rather than a true inconstancy of big G. We know the strength of gravity hasn’t been fluctuating over the past 200 years, for example, because if so, the orbits of the planets around the sun would have changed, Quinn says. Still, it’s possible that the incompatible measurements are pointing to unknown subtleties of gravity—perhaps its strength varies depending on how it’s measured or where on Earth the measurements are being made?
“Either something is wrong with the experiments, or there is a flaw in our understanding of gravity,” says Mark Kasevich, a Stanford University physicist who conducted an unrelated measurement of big G in 2007 using atom interferometry. “Further work is required to clarify the situation.”

If the true value of big G turns out to be closer to the Quinn team’s measurement than the CODATA value, then calculations that depend on G will have to be revised. For example, the estimated masses of the solar system’s planets, including Earth, would change slightly. Such a revision, however, wouldn’t alter any fundamental laws of physics, and would have very little practical effect on anyone’s life, Quinn says. But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists.

Quinn used two completely different methods and got results that were in agreement with each other. There are numerous ways of measure G - here's an article summing up the challenges: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4994619 (https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4994619)

You can distract, deflect and quote out of context all you like, but you can't avoid the fact that the noise you say 'dominates' the results simply doesn't. Even the article you yourself points that out - yes, mismatches between different experiments in excess of the individual forecast tolerances is disappointing, but you are talking about discrepancies of 450ppm - that's 0.045% instead of 0.004%. These are tiny, tiny errors. Nobody is in any doubt that big G is around 6.67 x 10-11. The debate is around the 3/4/5th sig fig. The notion that this uncertainty means the whole concept of G is in doubt is utterly ridiculous - there is no one alternative source of attractive force that could provide such similar results across a wide range of experimental methods.

Here's an interesting update on some of the latest work on the subject. As with all science - progress is being made.

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/7/12/1796/5721261 (https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/7/12/1796/5721261)

I think your last point says it all:

Quote
Obviously the implication there is that they can't measure gravity.

That just shows the kind of bad faith debating style you are using. It 'obviously' shows no such thing, and twisting his words like that seems a bit desperate, frankly. He is clearly suggesting that they should be able to do better - and indeed they have, as the last link shows.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 04, 2021, 06:42:53 AM
none of the people you are quoting are even close to suggesting that any of the experiments indicate that gravity doesn’t exist.

Wrong. They clearly admit that the problem is so concerning that they don't know if they are measuring it at all.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/

"In fact, the discrepancy is such a problem that Quinn is organizing a meeting in February at the Royal Society in London to come up with a game plan for resolving the impasse. The meeting’s title—“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”—reveals the general consternation."

You “accidentally” forgot to quote this part of that article:

Quote
If the true value of big G turns out to be closer to the Quinn team’s measurement than the CODATA value, then calculations that depend on G will have to be revised. For example, the estimated masses of the solar system’s planets, including Earth, would change slightly. Such a revision, however, wouldn’t alter any fundamental laws of physics, and would have very little practical effect on anyone’s life, Quinn says. But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists. “It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved,” he adds. “We should be able to measure gravity.”

There is clearly no doubt that gravity is a thing, but our ability to measure it is imperfect because it is such a weak force.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 04, 2021, 05:44:00 PM
Thank you for demonstrating that water will fall off a ball
Oh dear. Denying the evidence of your own eyes again? This is “rockets in vacuums” all over again. Those water droplets at the bottom of the ball. They didn’t fall, did they?  :)

Quote
Gravity does not exist.
So what causes things to fall and what is the mechanism behind it?
Presenting surface tension as an argument for the existence of gravity is laughable.

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.

Matter and weight are inseparable and elemental facts.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 04, 2021, 05:48:08 PM
Strap a scale to the bottom of your feet and go up for a rip in the vomit comet, or out into space. Think the number on the scale is going to stay constant?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: WTF_Seriously on May 04, 2021, 05:48:34 PM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 04, 2021, 05:52:25 PM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: WTF_Seriously on May 04, 2021, 05:58:01 PM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.

Weight=mechanism.  Admittedly, not everyone can be as brilliant as you.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 04, 2021, 06:34:23 PM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.

Honestly, you misunderstanding of basic high school physics is so incredibly painful.  Nothing in the universe "stays in the same place".  Literally every celestial body that is observed has some sort of motion relative to the Earth.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 04, 2021, 07:07:26 PM
Quote
Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.

Matter and weight are inseparable and elemental facts.

But yet, on the Vomit Comet, material things have mass, but they don't have weight.  Do you even know the definition of weight?

When you are on a elevator or a roller coaster, your weight will change, but your mass doesn't.  It's almost as if there is something else that determines your weight, besides mass.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 05, 2021, 10:47:55 AM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.
Nothing in the universe "stays in the same place".  Literally every celestial body that is observed has some sort of motion relative to the Earth.
When the motion remains in the same relative place, that is the same place.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 05, 2021, 11:03:31 AM

From the article:

Quote
Through these dual experiments, Quinn’s team arrived at a value of 6.67545 X 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2. That’s 241 parts per million above the standard value of 6.67384(80) X 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2, which was arrived at by a special task force of the International Council for Science’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) (pdf) in 2010 by calculating a weighted average of all the various experimental values. These values differ from one another by as much as 450 ppm of the constant, even though most of them have estimated uncertainties of only about 40 ppm. “Clearly, many of them or most of them are subject either to serious significant errors or grossly underestimated uncertainties,” Quinn says.

You can distract, deflect and quote out of context all you like, but you can't avoid the fact that the noise you say 'dominates' the results simply doesn't.

What you quoted says exactly that. The results differ by 450ppm from the constant even though the equipment used have experimental uncertainties of about 40ppm. The noise and non-gravity effects dominates the effect of gravity.

It's like the previous analogy to the issues with the inconsistent gravity experiments the astrophysicist gave, of weighing a feather on a scale while outside in a small breeze. The small effect of the breeze dominates the effect of the feather's weight. He said this clearly, and you discarded his analysis, pretending that you know better about this. You don't.  ::)

Once again, your source on your statements is your own self; an unqualified individual trying to argue that black is white and arguing that the things you are reading aren't really saying what they appear to be saying.

none of the people you are quoting are even close to suggesting that any of the experiments indicate that gravity doesn’t exist.

Wrong. They clearly admit that the problem is so concerning that they don't know if they are measuring it at all.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/

"In fact, the discrepancy is such a problem that Quinn is organizing a meeting in February at the Royal Society in London to come up with a game plan for resolving the impasse. The meeting’s title—“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”—reveals the general consternation."

You “accidentally” forgot to quote this part of that article:

Quote
If the true value of big G turns out to be closer to the Quinn team’s measurement than the CODATA value, then calculations that depend on G will have to be revised. For example, the estimated masses of the solar system’s planets, including Earth, would change slightly. Such a revision, however, wouldn’t alter any fundamental laws of physics, and would have very little practical effect on anyone’s life, Quinn says. But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists. “It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved,” he adds. “We should be able to measure gravity.”

There is clearly no doubt that gravity is a thing, but our ability to measure it is imperfect because it is such a weak force.

Read your own quote. It says that if the true value of gravity matches this team's results then xx. It doesn't say that multiple teams aren't getting contradicting results.

None of that contradicts the rest of the article which says that the results from different teams are inconsistent.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 05, 2021, 11:19:31 AM
It's like the previous analogy of the issues with the inconsistent gravity experiments the astrophysicist gave, of weighing a feather on a scale while outside in a small breeze. The small effect of the breeze dominates the effect of the feather's weight. He said this clearly, and you discarded his analysis, pretending that you know better about this. You don't.  ::)
Which doesn't mean feathers don't have weight or that scales don't work or even that feathers don't exist.
The model of gravity demonstrably works and can be used to make predictions which match observations.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 05, 2021, 12:01:33 PM
It's like the previous analogy of the issues with the inconsistent gravity experiments the astrophysicist gave, of weighing a feather on a scale while outside in a small breeze. The small effect of the breeze dominates the effect of the feather's weight. He said this clearly, and you discarded his analysis, pretending that you know better about this. You don't.  ::)

No. It's like weighing something on a scale in a breeze, whereby the breeze contributes 0.045% of the result and the feather, or whatever else is being weighed, makes up the other 99.9955%.

And then, to continue the analogy, it's like then getting loads of scientists all over the world to devote huge chunks of their professional careers to the problem, and having them measure the weight of the same thing using a variety of different methods, and all coming up with results that match to within a very close tolerance.

And then, when you publish paper saying that you wish you could measure the thing even better, somebody on the internet claims that your desire to measure the thing better indicates that the thing in fact, doesn't exist at all because you aren't able to get more precise result, and that the breeze must be 'dominating' the result.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 05, 2021, 12:13:33 PM
It's like the previous analogy of the issues with the inconsistent gravity experiments the astrophysicist gave, of weighing a feather on a scale while outside in a small breeze. The small effect of the breeze dominates the effect of the feather's weight. He said this clearly, and you discarded his analysis, pretending that you know better about this. You don't.  ::)

No. It's like weighing something on a scale in a breeze, whereby the breeze contributes 0.045% of the result and the feather, or whatever else is being weighed, makes up the other 99.9955%.

No, that is not the analogy that was made. You are bringing in analogies which were not stated. The astophyscist didn't say that. You did. You are an unqualified individual in comparison.

We can take your assessment, which entirely backwards and wrong to what is occuring, crumple it up, and toss it away like the garbage that it is.

Do let us know when you can quote something from an appropriate source which directly contradicts the quotes we have seen here.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 05, 2021, 12:31:53 PM
Do let us know when you can quote something from an appropriate source which directly contradicts the quotes we have seen here.
Do any of the authorities you are appealing to question the existence of gravity or the shape of the earth?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 05, 2021, 01:32:09 PM

No, that is not the analogy that was made. You are bringing in analogies which were not stated. The astophyscist didn't say that. You did. You are an unqualified individual in comparison.

We can take your assessment, which entirely backwards and wrong to what is occuring, crumple it up, and toss it away like the garbage that it is.

Do let us know when you can quote something from an appropriate source which directly contradicts the quotes we have seen here.

If you wish to continue to use the analogy from the article, you'll need to adhere to the totality of what the author was saying, and not just the bits you've cherry-picked.

He clearly outlines strategies for compensating for the challenges - the 'breeze', if you like, and if you care to read any of the papers on the subject, such as those I linked to, you'll find plenty more detail. The net effect is evident from the results - the 'breeze' has been reduced to a tiny fraction of the result. We know this because of multiple experiments using different methodologies that all arrive at the same result, albeit with a larger than hoped for, but still tiny, error range.

You seem to be ignoring all that and clinging on to the phrasing to the analogy. Seems somewhat desperate. 
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 05, 2021, 01:52:46 PM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.
Nothing in the universe "stays in the same place".  Literally every celestial body that is observed has some sort of motion relative to the Earth.
When the motion remains in the same relative place, that is the same place.

There are no celestial bodies that we don’t observe moving so let’s move on.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 05, 2021, 01:58:29 PM
It's like the previous analogy of the issues with the inconsistent gravity experiments the astrophysicist gave, of weighing a feather on a scale while outside in a small breeze. The small effect of the breeze dominates the effect of the feather's weight. He said this clearly, and you discarded his analysis, pretending that you know better about this. You don't.  ::)

No. It's like weighing something on a scale in a breeze, whereby the breeze contributes 0.045% of the result and the feather, or whatever else is being weighed, makes up the other 99.9955%.

No, that is not the analogy that was made. You are bringing in analogies which were not stated. The astophyscist didn't say that. You did. You are an unqualified individual in comparison.

The analogy was that it was a difficult measurement. Sorry, a VERY difficult measurement. So what? It doesn’t say it’s impossible, unusable or anything else you are implying. Even if the measurement of G was “dominated by noise” as you dishonestly assert, it still doesn’t mean gravity exists. Everything you are doing here gets you no closer to your goals and it still leaves the real work of making FET viable, incomplete.

Quote
We can take your assessment, which entirely backwards and wrong to what is occuring, crumple it up, and toss it away like the garbage that it is.

Nice opinion.

Quote
Do let us know when you can quote something from an appropriate source which directly contradicts the quotes we have seen here.

I previously pointed to an article that links to multiple scientific papers from credentialed journals that explains the uncertainty in the measurement and how it is consistently reducing with time.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 05, 2021, 04:04:27 PM
What you quoted says exactly that. The results differ by 450ppm from the constant even though the equipment used have experimental uncertainties of about 40ppm. The noise and non-gravity effects dominates the effect of gravity.

Maybe a graph will help. So here's a pie chart. Explanations to follow.

(https://i.imgur.com/VQJ1uvs.png)

The entire circle represents the measured value. It's 1000000 ppm or a million parts per million. That's the same as saying 100%. It's the whole thing.

The blue area represents experimental uncertainties of 40ppm. 40 millionth of the measured value.

The red area represents an extra 450ppm difference due to noise and such. I've labeled it 'Circumstantial uncertainties'.

The green area, I would have preferred to keep unlabeled, but this particular tool doesn't allow that, so it's the lower value bound. What the true value is if the measured value has overestimated by the entire experimental and circumstantial error. The true value lies somewhere between this and the size of the whole circle plus the size of the uncertainties.

I think it's clear that, while the circumstantial uncertainties are much bigger than the experimental uncertainties, dominating them, perhaps, the entire uncertainty area far from dominates the circle.

Now, you might notice that neither uncertainties are actually visible. That's simply because the circle is much too small to show them. But I feel like this only emphasizes just how insignificant they are.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 08, 2021, 01:19:08 PM

No, that is not the analogy that was made. You are bringing in analogies which were not stated. The astophyscist didn't say that. You did. You are an unqualified individual in comparison.

We can take your assessment, which entirely backwards and wrong to what is occuring, crumple it up, and toss it away like the garbage that it is.

Do let us know when you can quote something from an appropriate source which directly contradicts the quotes we have seen here.

If you wish to continue to use the analogy from the article, you'll need to adhere to the totality of what the author was saying, and not just the bits you've cherry-picked.

He clearly outlines strategies for compensating for the challenges - the 'breeze', if you like, and if you care to read any of the papers on the subject, such as those I linked to, you'll find plenty more detail. The net effect is evident from the results - the 'breeze' has been reduced to a tiny fraction of the result. We know this because of multiple experiments using different methodologies that all arrive at the same result, albeit with a larger than hoped for, but still tiny, error range.

You seem to be ignoring all that and clinging on to the phrasing to the analogy. Seems somewhat desperate.

None of that is a citation from a physicist, sorry. All I see is an interpretation from an unqualified individual.

Maybe a graph will help. So here's a pie chart. Explanations to follow.

Does that chart and explanation come from a physicist? It doesn't appear so. It appears to come from you, an unqualified individual on the internet trying to reinterpret the explanations and statements from qualified individuals.

If you can't prove to us that you are equally qualified then your statements are pretty much garbage.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 08, 2021, 02:21:17 PM

None of that is a citation from a physicist, sorry. All I see is an interpretation from an unqualified individual.

Eh?

I’m referring to the article you quoted, and a couple of papers by very well qualified scientists that you appear to be ignoring. Which part of what I said isn’t supported by a reliable source?

And if we’re going to go down this road - your choice, remember - what are your qualifications, precisely? What credibility lies behind your various experiments? Should we reject those for the reasons you’ve proposed here?

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 08, 2021, 03:35:38 PM
Does that chart and explanation come from a physicist?
It’s based on data from the article you posted.

And why do you think that you, an unqualified individual on the internet, should be taken seriously when all the physicists you are quoting agree that gravity is a thing and that the earth is a globe?

If you can't prove to us that you are equally qualified then your statements on the shape of the earth are pretty much garbage.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 08, 2021, 05:29:48 PM

None of that is a citation from a physicist, sorry. All I see is an interpretation from an unqualified individual.

Eh?

I’m referring to the article you quoted, and a couple of papers by very well qualified scientists that you appear to be ignoring. Which part of what I said isn’t supported by a reliable source?

And if we’re going to go down this road - your choice, remember - what are your qualifications, precisely? What credibility lies behind your various experiments? Should we reject those for the reasons you’ve proposed here?

I directly cited the astophysicist who likened the situation to trying to measure the weight of a feather on a crude pair of scale outdoors in a slight breeze. That wasn't my analogy. Your response was to provide a 'better' analogy and argue that the astophyscist was wrong. If you are doing that you are pretty much citing yourself as a better source than the astrophyscist.

My position is that anonymous people on an internet message forum are not better sources for technical matters on this subject than astrophysicists.

You should be searching the internet for qualified opinions to cite. Instead of doing this you keep posting here insisting that you know better than astrophysicists and can correct their statements.  ::)
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 08, 2021, 05:44:09 PM
I directly cited the astophysicist who likened the situation to trying to measure the weight of a feather on a crude pair of scale outdoors in a slight breeze. That wasn't my analogy. Your response was to provide a "better" analogy and argue that the astophyscist was wrong.
Incorrect, as you are wont to say.
The astrophysicist was explaining why it’s difficult to measure G - basically, gravity is very weak compared to other forces.

SteelyBob is comparing the discrepancies in the value of G being measured compared with the value. It is neither a better or worse analogy, it’s making a completely different point. The first point is explaining how hard it is to measure, the second is how despite that the experiments are measuring it with impressive accuracy. The fact you don’t understand that these are different points speaks volumes.

Quote
If you are doing that you are pretty much citing yourself as a better source than the astrophysicist

Well, he isn’t doing that. And the astrophysicist is not casting any doubt on the existence of gravity or the shape of the earth. You are doing those things, so are you citing yourself as a better source than the astrophysicist? On what basis?

My position is that anonymous people on an internet message forum are not better sources  on these subjects than astrophysicists.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 08, 2021, 06:06:02 PM
Quote
SteelyBob is comparing the discrepancies in the value of G being measured compared with the value. It is neither a better or worse analogy, it’s making a completely different point.

I don't want SteelyBob's points or analogies. I want the points and analogies of qualified individuals. If you can't provide that then you guys have lost the argument.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 08, 2021, 06:44:52 PM
Quote
You are doing those things, so are you citing yourself as a better source than the astrophysicist? On what basis?

Yet another question you’ve completely ignored Tom. Is that because you don’t have an answer?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 08, 2021, 07:04:52 PM
I'm merely citing the physicists directly for the point.

One astrophysicist says (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant):

" Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales. "

Scientific American says: (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/)

" These values differ from one another by as much as 450 ppm of the constant, even though most of them have estimated uncertainties of only about 40 ppm. “Clearly, many of them or most of them are subject either to serious significant errors or grossly underestimated uncertainties,” Quinn says "

Another quote from that Scientific American article says:

" Although gravity seems like one of the most salient of nature’s forces in our daily lives, it’s actually by far the weakest, making attempts to calculate its strength an uphill battle. “Two one-kilogram masses that are one meter apart attract each other with a force equivalent to the weight of a few human cells,” says University of Washington physicist Jens Gundlach, who worked on a separate 2000 measurement of big G. “Measuring such small forces on kg-objects to 10-4 or 10-5 precision is just not easy. There are a many effects that could overwhelm gravitational effects, and all of these have to be properly understood and taken into account.” "

Another physicist cited by Scientific American says:

" But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists. “It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved,” he adds. “We should be able to measure gravity.” "

AIP Review of Scientific Instruments says: (https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.4994619)

 “ By many accounts, the Newtonian constant of gravitation G is the fundamental constant that is most difficult to measure accurately. Over the past three decades, more than a dozen precision measurements of this constant have been performed. However, the scatter of the data points is much larger than the uncertainties assigned to each individual measurement ”

A Forbes article by an astrophysicist says: (https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/09/06/scientists-admit-embarrassingly-we-dont-know-how-strong-the-force-of-gravity-is/#134781692c3e)

“ As you might expect, the values got better and better through time, with the uncertainties dropping from 0.1% to 0.04% all the way down to just 0.012% in the late 1990s, owing mostly to the work of Barry Taylor at NIST...

This is why it was such a shock, in 1998, when a very careful team got a result that differed by a spectacular 0.15% from the previous results, when the errors on those earlier results were claimed to be more than a factor of ten below that difference....Multiple teams, using different methods, were getting values for G that conflicted with each other at the 0.15% level, more than ten times the previously reported uncertainties. ”


These physicists are quoted directly for this, whereas you guys are posting paragraphs of your own reinterpretation to make your point. You are not a qualified source. You need to find and quote a qualified source to make your point.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 08, 2021, 07:38:39 PM
You said, for example:

Quote
That gravity effect is be being dominated over ten fold by effects which are not gravity.

Where is your citation for that?

As an aside, have we now established that all opinion without expert citation can be treated as garbage? Can we put your post like this one: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=17742.msg234227#msg234227 (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=17742.msg234227#msg234227) in the same category, or are we allowed to offer opinions of our own and not rely on appeals to authority?

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 08, 2021, 09:29:29 PM
I don't want SteelyBob's points or analogies. I want the points and analogies of qualified individuals.
You don’t though, do you?
Because all those qualified individuals are saying that gravity is a thing which means that the earth is a globe. You are dishonestly selective about the points you will accept from qualified individuals. I have made this point several times and you have ignored it which is telling.

Yes, you have some quote from people who say measuring gravity is hard. And they explain why it’s hard. But they also say that despite that they can measure it with impressive accuracy. That is not SteelyBob's point, it’s the point made by the “qualified individuals”. SteelyBob simply put it in graphical form to make it easier to visualise and understand.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 12:10:24 AM
Does that chart and explanation come from a physicist? It doesn't appear so. It appears to come from you, an unqualified individual on the internet trying to reinterpret the explanations and statements from qualified individuals.

I made that chart based on the numbers in the post that I quoted, which is, in fact, your post. Is there anything in particular in it you disagree with? The 40 ppm? The 450 ppm? The definition of ppm I used? Because, from what I can tell, all I did was show what 450 ppm looks like in a format that's easy to understand. I don't think that this required any particular interpretation on my part. At least, nothing past understanding how fractions work.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 09, 2021, 02:30:24 AM
Some additional quotes from Dr. Quinn (originally quoted from the Sci. Am. Article above) from a short note he wrote in Nature:

"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment..."

"Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer — G is difficult to measure but it should not be too difficult!"

Excerpts from : https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t


Side note, Dr. Quinn isnt an astrophysicist by man is he ever qualified for that work! Very impressive resume.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 09, 2021, 10:08:23 AM
Does that chart and explanation come from a physicist? It doesn't appear so. It appears to come from you, an unqualified individual on the internet trying to reinterpret the explanations and statements from qualified individuals.

I made that chart based on the numbers in the post that I quoted, which is, in fact, your post. Is there anything in particular in it you disagree with? The 40 ppm? The 450 ppm? The definition of ppm I used? Because, from what I can tell, all I did was show what 450 ppm looks like in a format that's easy to understand. I don't think that this required any particular interpretation on my part. At least, nothing past understanding how fractions work.

This often happens. We've got to a point in the debate where Tom's argument hangs in tatters and his best tactic is shift to some other distracting point which is, quite often, this particular tactic of a meta-debate about the nature of the argument itself. Tom has shifted the goalposts to appeals to authority, which he knows is utterly absurd, especially given his numerous posts and wiki entries with homemade nonsense diagrams.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 04:52:05 PM
You said, for example:

Quote
That gravity effect is be being dominated over ten fold by effects which are not gravity.

Where is your citation for that?

It's there in the quotes. The experiments differ on a range of 450 ppm despite the experiments having experimental uncertainties for gravity of under 40 ppm.

Quote
As an aside, have we now established that all opinion without expert citation can be treated as garbage? Can we put your post like this one: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=17742.msg234227#msg234227 (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=17742.msg234227#msg234227) in the same category, or are we allowed to offer opinions of our own and not rely on appeals to authority?

If you can find a mathematician who can act as a point of authority in your favor on that particular point then feel free to quote them, and we will prefer their geometric analysis. It is unlikely that you will find that on such a narrow discussion point, but I can only encourage you to actually do the research to find something to build your case for once.

In this situation we have physicists making direct statements and your response is to reinterpret and tell us "ACKUALLY"

No. If the physicists really thought what you allege  then you should be able to quote them directly and communicate through their direct quotes rather than paragraphs of your personal reassessment. Anything less than direct statements from those sources is garbage.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 09, 2021, 05:01:32 PM
In this situation we have physicists making direct statements

We do. And they all agree that gravity exists and therefore the earth is a globe.

You seem to accept them as authorities so do you accept their expertise on this? If not then why are you being so dishonestly selective about what you will and will not accept from authorities?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 05:16:35 PM
We are discussing the Cavendish Experiment here and on this experiment they are indeed questioning whether they are measuring gravity:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/

" In fact, the discrepancy is such a problem that Quinn is organizing a meeting in February at the Royal Society in London to come up with a game plan for resolving the impasse. The meeting’s title—“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”—reveals the general consternation. "

" But getting to the bottom of the issue is more a matter of principle to the scientists. “It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved,” he adds. “We should be able to measure gravity.” "
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 09, 2021, 05:31:28 PM
You “accidentally” left out these quotes:

Quote
Most scientists think all these discrepancies reflect human sources of error, rather than a true inconstancy of big G.

And

Quote
If the true value of big G turns out to be closer to the Quinn team’s measurement than the CODATA value, then calculations that depend on G will have to be revised. For example, the estimated masses of the solar system’s planets, including Earth, would change slightly. Such a revision, however, wouldn’t alter any fundamental laws of physics, and would have very little practical effect on anyone’s life

Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity. At most there’s some discussion about whether there’s some subtlety of gravity which hasn’t been understood. But even if we take that discrepancy of of 450ppm, that’s still under 1 in 2000. It’s like people measuring something 2 meters wide, getting differences of a millimetre. Yes, they’d like to do better but no one is casting any doubt on gravity existing or the shape of the earth. So what is your actual point here in citing these authorities?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 05:41:18 PM
Quote
Measuring such small forces on kg-objects to 10-4 or 10-5 precision is just not easy
Emphasis mine.

This essentially what this article and every quote you've trotted out is saying. The precision mentioned here is important. Everything less precise than that is fine and accepted and completely uncontroversial.

And, really, if any of these people thought that gravity wasn't a thing, they'd say that clearly. They'd make entire articles about exactly that. That would be enormous news if that was true! They wouldn't bury it in some quote that says something else in the middle of an article that's about something completely different.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 09, 2021, 05:49:48 PM
You said, for example:

Quote
That gravity effect is be being dominated over ten fold by effects which are not gravity.

Where is your citation for that?

It's there in the quotes. The experiments differ on a range of 450 ppm despite the experiments having experimental uncertainties for gravity of under 40 ppm.

The discrepancy between experiments is 'tenfold' over expectations. That is not even approximately close to non-gravity effects dominating gravity by a factor of ten. In a typical experiment, gravity is over 99.9% of the result, and the rest is other effects. You are simply massively misrepresenting what the article is saying. 
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 07:01:27 PM
You said, for example:

Quote
That gravity effect is be being dominated over ten fold by effects which are not gravity.

Where is your citation for that?

It's there in the quotes. The experiments differ on a range of 450 ppm despite the experiments having experimental uncertainties for gravity of under 40 ppm.

The discrepancy between experiments is 'tenfold' over expectations. That is not even approximately close to non-gravity effects dominating gravity by a factor of ten. In a typical experiment, gravity is over 99.9% of the result, and the rest is other effects. You are simply massively misrepresenting what the article is saying.

Interesting. Now back up your prattle with qualified sources. Internet forum persona "SteelyBob" is not a qualified source, and has no known credentials.

We already have an astrophyscist telling us the situation is anlogous to trying to weigh a feather on a crude pair of scales outside in a slight breeze. This is contradictory to what you allege. Please support your statement with a qualified source.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 07:04:36 PM
You “accidentally” left out these quotes:

Quote
Most scientists think all these discrepancies reflect human sources of error, rather than a true inconstancy of big G.

And

Quote
If the true value of big G turns out to be closer to the Quinn team’s measurement than the CODATA value, then calculations that depend on G will have to be revised. For example, the estimated masses of the solar system’s planets, including Earth, would change slightly. Such a revision, however, wouldn’t alter any fundamental laws of physics, and would have very little practical effect on anyone’s life

Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity. At most there’s some discussion about whether there’s some subtlety of gravity which hasn’t been understood. But even if we take that discrepancy of of 450ppm, that’s still under 1 in 2000. It’s like people measuring something 2 meters wide, getting differences of a millimetre. Yes, they’d like to do better but no one is casting any doubt on gravity existing or the shape of the earth. So what is your actual point here in citing these authorities?

It doesn't matter if they think that the discrepancies are human sources of error, or that gravity is there somewhere but they just can't get ahold of it. The end result is the same. They can't measure gravity. They say this themselves. There goes your Cavendish proof.

And, really, if any of these people thought that gravity wasn't a thing, they'd say that clearly.

They think it's there but admit that they can't measure it, and that other effects are getting in the way. They say that pretty clearly, and which ultimately invalidates your position for the human measurement of the gravity between horizonal masses.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 07:59:33 PM
They think it's there but admit that they can't measure it, and that other effects are getting in the way. They say that pretty clearly, and which ultimately invalidates your position for the human measurement of the gravity between horizonal masses.

No, all of the quotes you've given clearly say something different than what you're pretending that they're saying. This has already been explained in multiple ways and in detail. I recommend that you go to those quotes again and really read them carefully. Make sure that you properly understand every word and every term used. Then go to the place they're quoted from and do the same again. Make sure you really grasp the context. Think to yourself 'Is this physicist really saying that gravity doesn't exist or am I misinterpreting something?'
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 08:00:37 PM
If you think the quotes are not saying what they appear to be saying then I can't wait for you to prove yourself with quotes from physicists which clarify it for us. So far you are only citing yourself on this.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 08:03:06 PM
If you think the quotes are not saying what they appear to be saying then I can't wait for you to prove yourself with quotes from physicists which clarify it for us. So far you are only citing yourself on this.

Sorry, I think you misunderstand. You're saying that the quotes are not saying what they appear to be saying. Can you prove yourself with quotes from physicists that clearly say that gravity doesn't exist? Otherwise, you are only citing yourself on this.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 08:05:25 PM
If you think the quotes are not saying what they appear to be saying then I can't wait for you to prove yourself with quotes from physicists which clarify it for us. So far you are only citing yourself on this.

Sorry, I think you misunderstand. You're saying that the quotes are not saying what they appear to be saying. Can you prove yourself with quotes from physicists that clearly say that gravity doesn't exist? Otherwise, you are only citing yourself on this.

The physicists already made the scale analogy and the other statements directly. If you are saying that the analogies and statements they made are wrong in what they appear to be saying then lets now see quotes from physicists which clarify it for us. Surely the situation isn't that physicists are making statements implying one thing and only you know the real truth.

Let us now see the real truth. Please provide a list of clarifying quotes which shows the truth of the situation.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 09, 2021, 08:07:41 PM
Interesting. Now back up your prattle with qualified sources. Internet forum persona "SteelyBob" is not a qualified source and has no known credentials.

We already have an astrophyscist telling us the situation is anlogous to trying to weigh a feather on a crude pair of scales outside in a slight breeze. This is contradictory to what you allege. Please support your statement with a qualified source.

Internet forum persona "Tom Bishop" is not a qualified source and has no known credentials.

In this instance, however, we don't need another source - you've kindly provided one for us. All we are discussing here is the correct interpretation of that source. You have read that article (and presumably the other papers involved, and those that I linked to - you wouldn't express an opinion on something like this without fully reading around the subject would you Tom?)and concluded that, because the results between different experiments differed by up to roughly 10 times the typical predicted experimental error, that this means that the gravity that was being measured was 'dominated' by other effects 'tenfold'. Have I got that right?

And you're choosing to back this up by using the feather / scales / breeze quote? That's your tenfold citation is it?

Because I, and I think pretty much everybody else reading this, read the same articles, and the associated papers, and concluded that scientists are able to measure G using a variety of methods and return the same result to with a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of each other.

Quote
“A strong point of Quinn’s experiment is the fact that they use two different methods to measure G,” says Stephan Schlamminger of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., who led a separate attempt in 2006 to calculate big G using a beam balance setup. “It is difficult to see how the two methods can produce two numbers that are wrong, but yet agree with each other.”

That's from your source.

And, despite all this, you still haven't come up with a credible explanation for how the other effects are dominating gravity by a factor of 10. Your article does not say that, and nothing you've come up with explains it. It's just a lame attempt to twist what is being said. If other effects were dominating the thing being measured, gravity, by a factor of 10, then we'd see errors of around 90%. But we don't - we get errors well below 1%, and that's using different methods.

Pony up an astrophysicist who says they're measuring something else other than G when they come up with these remarkably consistent figures for a thing you claim doesn't exist (apart from the bits of the wiki, of course, that sort of say it does...), or just politely admit you were wrong and we can move along.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 08:16:40 PM
Your quote says "It is difficult to see how the two methods can produce two numbers that are wrong, but yet agree with each other"

How does this prove that 99.85% of what they are measuring is gravity? It doesn't say that at all. You are pathetically grasping at straws.

Another quote cited at the top of the page says that the are trying to measure something with the weight of a few human cells, Futurism says that gravity is incredibly weak, and numerous references to the weakness of gravity are likewise made in the articles.

You have not shown sufficient evidence that they are actually measuring gravity. You do not have direct quotes from qualified sources for your imaginary scenerio of what is occuring. We need to trust "SteelyBob" on this one.   ::)
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 08:19:45 PM
The physicists already made the scale analogy and the other statements directly. If you are saying that the analogies and statements they made are wrong in what they appear to be saying then lets now see quotes from physicists which clarify it for us. Surely the situation isn't that physicists are making statements implying one thing and only you know the real truth.

No. Your personal misinterpretation of what these quotes clearly say is, as already well established both invalid and incorrect. Again, please provide a clear quote that specifically says that gravity doesn't exist without any interpretation needed.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 08:26:46 PM
Your quote says "It is difficult to see how the two methods can produce two numbers that are wrong, but yet agree with each other"

Therefore the two methods produce numbers that are right.

How does this prove that 99.85% of what they are measuring is gravity? It doesn't say that at all. You are pathetically grasping at straws.

So you believe their numbers but don't believe they're doing what they say they're doing?

Another quote cited at the top of the page says that the are trying to measure something with the weight of a few human cells, Futurism says that gravity is incredibly weak, and numerous references to the weakness of gravity are likewise made in the articles.

Gravity is weak. Gravity is difficult to measure. No one has disagreed with wither of these things. But difficult is not the same thing as impossible.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 09, 2021, 08:35:57 PM
Your quote says "It is difficult to see how the two methods can produce two numbers that are wrong, but yet agree with each other"

How does this prove that 99.85% of what they are measuring is gravity? It doesn't say that at all. You are pathetically grasping at straws.

It doesn’t prove that. The rest of the information in your sources absolutely does though. If you yourself agree that there was, for example, a range of 0.15% between the different experiments and that this represents the ‘error’ (or go with the 450ppm figure if you’d prefer to use that) then by definition the remnant has to be ‘not error’, ie the thing that was being measured.

Quote
Another quote cited at the top of the page says that the are trying to measure something with the weight of a few human cells, Futurism says that gravity is incredibly weak, and numerous references to the weakness of gravity are likewise made in the articles.

You have not shown sufficient evidence that they are actually measuring gravity. You do not have direct quotes from qualified sources for your imaginary scenerio of what is occuring. We need to trust "SteelyBob" on this one.   ::)

You’ve provided all the evidence we needed, thank you. And very interesting it was too. Did you read those links I posted, by the way? Fascinating how the challenge of measuring G has progressed.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 09, 2021, 08:51:43 PM
Quote
They can't measure gravity. They say this themselves. There goes your Cavendish proof.
No they don't.
They say that measuring gravity is hard because it is such a weak force.
They also say that despite this they can measure it with a discrepancy of 450ppm - as I said this is less that 1 in 2000.
They also say that they would like to do better, but that even if G does turn out to be different from what they think it is, it wouldn't change any laws of physics - it is clear they are not saying that they don't think gravity is a thing.

Your argument is basically that because the variations are 450ppm that means they aren't measuring gravity, which is absolutely not what is being said. It's like saying that I'm measuring a table which is about 2 meters long and some people are claiming that it's only 1.999m long and you are concluding that tables don't exist, or tape measures don't work.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 09, 2021, 10:34:00 PM
It doesn’t prove that. The rest of the information in your sources absolutely does though. If you yourself agree that there was, for example, a range of 0.15% between the different experiments and that this represents the ‘error’ (or go with the 450ppm figure if you’d prefer to use that) then by definition the remnant has to be ‘not error’, ie the thing that was being measured.

It's nice that you have your own interpretation of a number that you read, but you are simply not a physicist, and you refuse to provide quotes from a qualified source saying what you want them to say.

Quote
They also say that despite this they can measure it with a discrepancy of 450ppm

As they stated, the experimental uncertainty for the equipment is about 40ppm. They are measuring a range of results across 450ppm. If gravity is a constant then they are measuring a range of effects above and around that, and not gravity solely or directly.

They are measuring something, but the inconsistency shows that other effects are involved and it's difficult to pinpoint it down as to exactly what is being measured.

Again, this is all stated directly. Your message is that it's good enough, but the fact that they are measuring non gravitational effects says otherwise.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 09, 2021, 10:42:31 PM
It doesn’t prove that. The rest of the information in your sources absolutely does though. If you yourself agree that there was, for example, a range of 0.15% between the different experiments and that this represents the ‘error’ (or go with the 450ppm figure if you’d prefer to use that) then by definition the remnant has to be ‘not error’, ie the thing that was being measured.

It's nice that you have your own interpretation of a number that you read, but you are simply not a physicist, and you refuse to provide quotes from a qualified source saying what you want them to say.

But they are saying what we want them to say. G is difficult to measure, isn’t as accurate as they would like, but gravity exists. I mean, everyone agrees that’s what it says, right?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 09, 2021, 11:21:10 PM
Quote
They also say that despite this they can measure it with a discrepancy of 450ppm

As they stated, the experimental uncertainty for the equipment is about 40ppm. They are measuring a range of results across 450ppm. If gravity is a constant then they are measuring a range of effects above that, and not gravity solely or directly.

They are measuring something, but the inconsistency shows that other effects are involved and it's difficult to pinpoint it down as to exactly what is being measured.

Again, this is all stated directly. Your message is that it's good enough, but the fact that they are measuring non gravitational effects says otherwise.

They are measuring a range of results across 450ppm. The rest is the bit that is not uncertain. The rest of the million parts. Again, do you understand what ppm means? How it's used?

They are measuring something, which is gravity. The inconsistency shows that other effects are involved, of course, as is the case with all measurements. And it's difficult to pinpoint the value of gravity to the accuracy that they wish it to be, as we've all agreed.

Why is it that you personally believe, against the opinion of all these people that you are quoting that the minuscule uncertainty in the value of the gravity constant means that gravity doesn't exist.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 10, 2021, 06:07:08 AM
Why is it that you personally believe, against the opinion of all these people that you are quoting that the minuscule uncertainty in the value of the gravity constant means that gravity doesn't exist.
I mean, you know why.
Were Tom to accept gravity then the whole of FET (such as it is) falls apart. So Tom does here what he does a lot. He quotes selectively from “authorities” and then dishonestly misinterprets what they say. He ignores the parts where they say things he doesn’t want to believe - he doesn’t accept them as an authority on those parts, strangely.
It’s possibly a combination of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, but I think it’s more likely trolling.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 10, 2021, 10:52:42 AM
A questionable and inconsistent proof of gravity polluted by other effects is exactly what we should expect to find if we had a civilization pretending that gravity exists.

If this was chemistry or any other hard physical science this matter would be thrown out, and a better proof for a phenomena would be sought, as that which is inconsistent proves nothing. But no, there are very few proofs of gravity and this must be clinged to without shame.

Obviously something is wrong if things are like this. It is unfortunate that there is no honesty or self reflection about it.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 11:52:09 AM

Material things (i.e., matter) fall because they have weight.


Celestial bodies don't fall yet they have weight.  You do understand what 'mechanism' means, don't you?
Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.
Nothing in the universe "stays in the same place".  Literally every celestial body that is observed has some sort of motion relative to the Earth.
When the motion remains in the same relative place, that is the same place.

There are no celestial bodies that we don’t observe moving so let’s move on.
Yeah, and we observe them moving in the same place.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 10, 2021, 11:54:45 AM
A questionable and inconsistent proof of gravity polluted by other effects is exactly what we should expect to find if we had a civilization pretending that gravity exists.

If this was chemistry or any other hard physical science this matter would be thrown out, and a better proof for a phenomena would be sought, as that which is inconsistent proves nothing. But no, there are very few proofs of gravity and this must be clinged to without shame.

Obviously something is wrong if things are like this. It is unfortunate that there is no honesty or self reflection about it.

This is a whole lot of opinions from internet persona Tom Bishop. Do you have any sources to back this up? It seems that physicists disagree with you and that gravity actually exists.

Perhaps it just has to do with you not appreciating how small the variation in measurements of G is? A simple pie chart was provided.

To recap: your source pointed out measuring G was difficult, it’s not as accurate as people would like and that gravity certainly exists. If you wish to contradict your source, feel free to.

Yeah, and we observe them moving in the same place.

Let’s just let this sink in.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 11:56:59 AM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 11:59:25 AM

Yeah, and we observe them moving in the same place.

Let’s just let this sink in.
You act as if things moving in the same paths over periods of time is incongruous with my statement.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 12:30:24 PM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.

You cannot just isolate this sentence out of the entire document and claim that it implies that gravity does not exist.

It is the same as me taking into isolation "seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity" and say that Action80 wrote that it only seems to cast doubt on the existence of gravity so Action80 supports that it does not cast doubt on the existence of gravity.

Edited for clarity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 10, 2021, 12:34:55 PM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.

Something being difficult to measure does not mean the same thing as not existing. Nowhere does the article
Mention the stunning revelation that gravity doesn’t exist. It gives a couple of other possibilities why G is difficult to measure accurately. Your homework is to find those and report back to the class.


Yeah, and we observe them moving in the same place.

Let’s just let this sink in.
You act as if things moving in the same paths over periods of time is incongruous with my statement.

You said gravity keeps things in place. This is incorrect and asserting that moving along the same path encompasses the “moving but keeps them in place” contradiction is a badly conceived way to try and save your badly conceived objection. Look up how Kepler derived his orbital laws directly from Newton. It’s extremely intuitive, elegant and logical. There is no contradiction.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 12:46:57 PM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.

You cannot just isolate this sentence out of the entire document and claim that it implies that gravity does not exist.

It is the same as me taking into isolation "seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity" and say that Action80 wrote that it only seems to cast doubt on the existence of gravity so Action80 supports that it does not cast doubt on the existence of gravity.

Edited for clarity.
I do not believe a more feeble attempt to communicate a point has ever been made here on this forum.

Regardless, Quinn stating "We should be able to measure gravity," doesn't imply anything.

It admits that gravity cannot be measured and has not been measured.

From that, I can infer gravity doesn't exist.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 12:55:50 PM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.

Something being difficult to measure does not mean the same thing as not existing. Nowhere does the article
Mention the stunning revelation that gravity doesn’t exist. It gives a couple of other possibilities why G is difficult to measure accurately. Your homework is to find those and report back to the class.
Since Quinn already admitted they cannot measure it, that means they cannot measure it.

Not being able to measure it =/= difficult to measure.

You have some set theory to study.

Yeah, and we observe them moving in the same place.

Let’s just let this sink in.
You act as if things moving in the same paths over periods of time is incongruous with my statement.

You said gravity keeps things in place. This is incorrect and asserting that moving along the same path encompasses the “moving but keeps them in place” contradiction is a badly conceived way to try and save your badly conceived objection. Look up how Kepler derived his orbital laws directly from Newton. It’s extremely intuitive, elegant and logical. There is no contradiction.
I offered no contradiction and you know it.

Your framing it that way is just a feeble attempt to muddy the water.

Now you're  claiming that gravity doesn't fit with orbital mechanics, at the same time offering Newton and Kepler.

Interesting style of debate, I must say.

Which farm boots were you wearing when you pulled this style from the pasture?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 01:04:45 PM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.

You cannot just isolate this sentence out of the entire document and claim that it implies that gravity does not exist.

It is the same as me taking into isolation "seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity" and say that Action80 wrote that it only seems to cast doubt on the existence of gravity so Action80 supports that it does not cast doubt on the existence of gravity.

Edited for clarity.
I do not believe a more feeble attempt to communicate a point has ever been made here on this forum.

Regardless, Quinn stating "We should be able to measure gravity," doesn't imply anything.

It admits that gravity cannot be measured and has not been measured.

From that, I can infer gravity doesn't exist.

If you read the entire article you will see that he only means that they should be able to measure gravity more accurately.
Your attempt to say that he means that they cannot measure gravity at all sounds much more feeble than my comment actually.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 01:18:20 PM
Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity.
Quinn stating:  “We should be able to measure gravity.” - seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity, considering that is a full admission they cannot measure it.

You cannot just isolate this sentence out of the entire document and claim that it implies that gravity does not exist.

It is the same as me taking into isolation "seems to cast huge doubt on the existence of gravity" and say that Action80 wrote that it only seems to cast doubt on the existence of gravity so Action80 supports that it does not cast doubt on the existence of gravity.

Edited for clarity.
I do not believe a more feeble attempt to communicate a point has ever been made here on this forum.

Regardless, Quinn stating "We should be able to measure gravity," doesn't imply anything.

It admits that gravity cannot be measured and has not been measured.

From that, I can infer gravity doesn't exist.

If you read the entire article you will see that he only means that they should be able to measure gravity more accurately.
Your attempt to say that he means that they cannot measure gravity at all sounds much more feeble than my comment actually.
Again, you have no basis on which to interpret the statement, "We should be able to measure gravity," as somehow containing the words, "more accurately."

I am not attempting to state what he means.

He stated what he means.

When someone states "We should be able to measure gravity," that means someone should be able to measure gravity.

Further, stating "We should be able to measure gravity," clearly indicates it has not been measured.

Now, if you want to speak for Quinn, I suggest you contact him and do an interview, then ask his permission.

Otherwise, don't.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 10, 2021, 01:19:44 PM
Action and TB keep quoting half a sentence from Dr. Quinn in the Sci. Am and Futurism articles, but if you take 30 seconds and look up what Dr. Quinn does for a living, what he has published himself, and the projects he's been involved in, the ridiculousness of this repeated exchange is plainly obvious.


Some additional quotes from Dr. Quinn (originally quoted from the Sci. Am. Article above) from a short note he wrote in Nature:

"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment..."

"Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer — G is difficult to measure but it should not be too difficult!"

Excerpts from : https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t


Side note, Dr. Quinn isnt an astrophysicist by man is he ever qualified for that work! Very impressive resume.

Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 10, 2021, 01:22:17 PM

Since Quinn already admitted they cannot measure it, that means they cannot measure it.

Not being able to measure it =/= difficult to measure.

You have some set theory to study.

Thats just because you didn't include the entire quote.  He says, "It’s embarrassing to have a fundamental constant that we cannot measure how strong it is."  Which doesn't mean they can't measure it, it means they can't measure it's magnitude.  If you read the entire article it's perfectly clear that they are measuring the constant and the measurements are consistent but not accurate and the accuracy is what they are having trouble achieving.

Quote
I offered no contradiction and you know it.

Your framing it that way is just a feeble attempt to muddy the water.

Please don't lie:

Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.

Your interpretation is that the thing that causes things to fell is the same thing that is responsible for "keeping all things in the same place"  is "in short, nonsense".  You proposed a contradiction here, and not only that, but your proposed contradiction does not even accurately portray how gravity works.  It's a failure on top of a failure.


Quote
Now claiming that gravity doesn't fit with orbital mechanics, at the same time offering Newton and Kepler.

Interesting style of debate, I must say.

I actually said that gravity agrees with orbital mechanics in an extremely elegant way.  Do not put words in my mouth.

Quote
Which farm boots were you wearing when you pulled this from the pasture?

And do not make personal attacks.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 01:26:29 PM
Action and TB keep quoting half a sentence from Dr. Quinn in the Sci. Am and Futurism articles, but if you take 30 seconds and look up what Dr. Quinn does for a living, what he has published himself, and the projects he's been involved in, the ridiculousness of this repeated exchange is plainly obvious.


Some additional quotes from Dr. Quinn (originally quoted from the Sci. Am. Article above) from a short note he wrote in Nature:

"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment..."

"Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer — G is difficult to measure but it should not be too difficult!"

Excerpts from : https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t


Side note, Dr. Quinn isnt an astrophysicist by man is he ever qualified for that work! Very impressive resume.
Yeah, he studies how to measure things.

And he admits they cannot measure gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 01:31:34 PM

Since Quinn already admitted they cannot measure it, that means they cannot measure it.

Not being able to measure it =/= difficult to measure.

You have some set theory to study.

Thats just because you didn't include the entire quote.  He says, "It’s embarrassing to have a fundamental constant that we cannot measure how strong it is."  Which doesn't mean they can't measure it, it means they can't measure it's magnitude.  If you read the entire article it's perfectly clear that they are measuring the constant and the measurements are consistent but not accurate and the accuracy is what they are having trouble achieving.

Quote
I offered no contradiction and you know it.

Your framing it that way is just a feeble attempt to muddy the water.

Please don't lie:

Yeah, I understand it so much as to hear you claim the thing that somehow causes things to fall is the same thing that is somehow also responsible for keeping all things in the same place.

In short, nonsense.

Your interpretation is that the thing that causes things to fell is the same thing that is responsible for "keeping all things in the same place"  is "in short, nonsense".  You proposed a contradiction here, and not only that, but your proposed contradiction does not even accurately portray how gravity works.  It's a failure on top of a failure.


Quote
Now claiming that gravity doesn't fit with orbital mechanics, at the same time offering Newton and Kepler.

Interesting style of debate, I must say.

I actually said that gravity agrees with orbital mechanics in an extremely elegant way.  Do not put words in my mouth.

Quote
Which farm boots were you wearing when you pulled this from the pasture?

And do not make personal attacks.
I am not engaging you in any sort of personal attack.

I did make an observation of your argumentation style.

Gravity, according to Kepler and Newton, is the force allowing for orbital mechanics.

So, it is the same thing that causes things to have weight, fall, and keeping things in their same place.

Totally ridiculous.

Quinn stated the following: "We should be able to measure gravity."

The reason why he stated this is because they cannot measure gravity.

Plain, pure, and simple.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 10, 2021, 01:38:49 PM
I am not engaging you in any sort of personal attack.

Quote
Which farm boots were you wearing when you pulled this from the pasture?

Don't make comments like this, or I will report it as a personal attack.  It's simple.

Quote
Gravity, according to Kepler and Newton, is the force allowing for orbital mechanics.

Yes.

Quote
So, it is the same thing that causes things to have weight, fall, and keeping things in their same place.

If this is what you understand orbital mechanics to be, then you don't understand orbital mechanics.  Have a look at Newton's Cannonball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball)

Quote
Quinn stated the following: "We should be able to measure gravity."

The reason why he stated this is because they cannot measure gravity.

Plain, pure, and simple.

Ignoring the entire article and context makes you more wrong, not less.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 02:14:42 PM
I am not engaging you in any sort of personal attack.

Quote
Which farm boots were you wearing when you pulled this from the pasture?

Don't make comments like this, or I will report it as a personal attack.  It's simple.

Quote
Gravity, according to Kepler and Newton, is the force allowing for orbital mechanics.

Yes.
Like I wrote earlier, it wasn't.

But go ahead.

Gaslighting, such as the type you are exhibiting here, is the type of thing needing to remain in the pasture.

Gravity, you claim is what is allowing for orbital mechanics.

Quote
So, it is the same thing that causes things to have weight, fall, and keeping things in their same place.

If this is what you understand orbital mechanics to be, then you don't understand orbital mechanics.  Have a look at Newton's Cannonball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball)
Having weight and falling is not the same thing as orbital mechanics and I claimed nothing of the sort.

Gravity, the force allowing for weight to exist and for things falling and for keeping things in orbit.

That is what you claim.

It is ridiculous.
Quote
Quinn stated the following: "We should be able to measure gravity."

The reason why he stated this is because they cannot measure gravity.

Plain, pure, and simple.

Ignoring the entire article and context makes you more wrong, not less.
Kindly demonstrate some competency in interpreting context first.

Do you have some sort of certificate from some online diploma mill in this area of expertise?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 03:02:59 PM
So T. Quinn said that the results vary by as much as 450ppm (parts per million in case you do not know what ppm is).
He also said "although at present there is no pressing problem in theoretical physics that requires an accurate value of G, accurate values of the fundamental constants are an essential part of the foundations of physics".
Elsewhere he said "We should be able to measure gravity".

In what way does the interpretation of the above as meaning "we should be able to measure gravity accurately" misrepresent what T. Quinn said?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 03:22:56 PM
So T. Quinn said that the results vary by as much as 450ppm (parts per million in case you do not know what ppm is).
He also said "although at present there is no pressing problem in theoretical physics that requires an accurate value of G, accurate values of the fundamental constants are an essential part of the foundations of physics".
Elsewhere he said "We should be able to measure gravity".

In what way does the interpretation of the above as meaning "we should be able to measure gravity accurately" misrepresent what T. Quinn said?
Generally, stating "We should be able to measure gravity accurately," = "We should be able to measure gravity accurately, whereas, stating "We should be able to measure gravity," = "We should be able to measure gravity."

It appears that as of right now, there truly has been no experiment capable of doing this, due to systematic errors within the experiments. Even Quinn states there is only an estimate as to validity of results.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 03:48:01 PM
Yes, but he did not just say "we should be able to measure gravity" in isolation. This is just one of the sentences of an article. You cannot just take this sentence and ignore the rest of the article.

As T. Quinn himself says, there have been many experiments that have measured gravity. The problem is that the results of these experiments differ by up to 450ppm and he believes that they need to do better than that.

Just read this: https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t

Among other things he says "Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces".

He clearly speaks about an unsatisfactory level of accuracy in the measurement rather than an inability to measure at all.


Edited to correct a spelling error
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 04:05:36 PM
Yes, but he did not just say "we should be able to measure gravity" in isolation. This is just one of the sentences of an article. You cannot just take this sentence and ignore the rest of the article.

As T. Quinn himself says, there have been many experiments that have measured gravity. The problem is that the results of these experiments differ by up to 450ppm and he believes that they need to do better than that.

Just read this: https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t

Among other things he says "Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces".

He clearly speaks about an unsatisfactory level of accuracy in the measurement rather than an inability to measure at all.


Edited to correct a spelling error
Quinn is an expert in measuring things.

As an expert, when he writes, "We should be able to measure gravity," that means we currently cannot measure gravity.

When he writes, ""Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces," that means the measurements cannot be ascribed any degree of confidence in either what is being measured, how it is being measured, or both.

Pretty simple stuff.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 10, 2021, 04:22:17 PM
What he never says, not even once, is that gravity doesn’t exist.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 04:30:06 PM
How do you get from  "Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)" to "that means the measurements cannot be ascribed any degree of confidence in either what is being measured, how it is being measured, or both"?

He says that a more accurate numerical value is not needed rather than that the measurements do not have any degree of confidence. He actually said that the degree of error is 450ppm. How can you ignore that?

Note that we are not arguing on whether what he says is correct or not. We are arguing on whether he can be used as a reference when one tries to debunk gravity as a thing.



Edited for a correction again. Sorry about that.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 04:42:44 PM
How do you get from  "Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)" to "that means the measurements cannot be ascribed any degree of confidence in either what is being measured, how it is being measured, or both"?

He says that a more accurate numerical value is not needed rather than that the measurements do not have any degree of confidence. He actually said that the degree of error is 450ppm. How can you ignore that?

Note that we are not arguing on whether what he says is correct or not. We are arguing on whether he can be used as a reference when one tries to debunk gravity as a thing.



Edited for a correction again. Sorry about that.
Holy crap.

Here is the whole quote again: "Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces."

No confidence in how it is being measured, what is being measured, or even in the validity of the experiments themselves.

No one needs an accurate measurement of gravity, because it has no bearing on anything at all. It is mythical to begin with.

Quinn said, "We should be able to measure gravity."

When you cannot measure something, it doesn't exist.

Period.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 05:00:58 PM
Where do you see that he has no confidence in "how it is being measured, what is being measured, or even in the validity of the experiments themselves"? He simply does not say that.

He does not say that no one needs an accurate measurement of gravity.
He says that no one needs a "more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)".

Also you cannot really mean that if something cannot be measured then it cannot exist.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 10, 2021, 05:03:00 PM
No one needs an accurate measurement of gravity, because it has no bearing on anything at all. It is mythical to begin with.
And here you are twisting the words.
Quinn says we don't need a more accurate measure. He is not saying the measure we have isn't accurate. Obviously science always seeks to do better but the value we have is plenty good enough for all practical purposes. Even if we take 450ppm - the very biggest discrepancy mentioned - that's still less than 1 in 2000.
As I said, this is like us both measuring a table, me coming up with a value of 1m 99.9cm and you coming up with a value of 2m dead and you concluding that because we are a millimetre out over a 2m span that it means that tables can't be measured, or don't exist, or that tape measures don't work.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 05:25:18 PM
Where do you see that he has no confidence in "how it is being measured, what is being measured, or even in the validity of the experiments themselves"? He simply does not say that.

He does not say that no one needs an accurate measurement of gravity.
He says that no one needs a "more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)".

Also you cannot really mean that if something cannot be measured then it cannot exist.
Yeah, I pretty much do mean that.

When you have no confidence in the metrology that specifically means you have no confidence in the science of measuring things.

In this particular case, those measurements being reported as lacking confidence have to do with gravity.

The lack of confidence stems from either how the measurements are gathered or what is actually being measured or systematic failures in the experiments themselves.

Quinn states that himself.

Just because something has a value does not mean that something to which the value is assigned actually exists.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 10, 2021, 05:38:40 PM
Where do you see that he has no confidence in "how it is being measured, what is being measured, or even in the validity of the experiments themselves"? He simply does not say that.

He does not say that no one needs an accurate measurement of gravity.
He says that no one needs a "more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)".

Also you cannot really mean that if something cannot be measured then it cannot exist.
Yeah, I pretty much do mean that.

When you have no confidence in the metrology that specifically means you have no confidence in the science of measuring things.

In this particular case, those measurements being reported as lacking confidence have to do with gravity.

The lack of confidence stems from either how the measurements are gathered or what is actually being measured or systematic failures in the experiments themselves.

Quinn states that himself.

Just because something has a value does not mean that something to which the value is assigned actually exists.

The measurement of G is not the sole way to observe gravity. If it were your cherry picking other have some solid foundation.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 10, 2021, 05:44:35 PM
Where do you see that he has no confidence in "how it is being measured, what is being measured, or even in the validity of the experiments themselves"? He simply does not say that.

He does not say that no one needs an accurate measurement of gravity.
He says that no one needs a "more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)".

Also you cannot really mean that if something cannot be measured then it cannot exist.
Yeah, I pretty much do mean that.

When you have no confidence in the metrology that specifically means you have no confidence in the science of measuring things.

In this particular case, those measurements being reported as lacking confidence have to do with gravity.

The lack of confidence stems from either how the measurements are gathered or what is actually being measured or systematic failures in the experiments themselves.

Quinn states that himself.

Just because something has a value does not mean that something to which the value is assigned actually exists.

The measurement of G is not the sole way to observe gravity. If it were your cherry picking other have some solid foundation.
It would not surprise me in the least to find that any other observations that have been made and ascribing the reasons for the observations to gravity, have, in fact, been ascribed to the wrong cause.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 10, 2021, 05:47:36 PM
Quinn says "Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer"
At the top of the article you can see that the "unresolved discrepancies" are "about 400ppm".

It is clear that he believes that it is the differences of up to 400ppm that are caused by the systematic errors. He does not say that the systematic errors give him any lack of confidence beyond these discrepancies.
Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity. He rather talks about the degree of precision to which we can measure it.

As I said, you cannot really believe that something that cannot be measured cannot exist. To give you an example, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon? Can it be measured within FE?

Also to give you an example which is more analogous to the discussion on what Quinn says, can you measure your height in micrometers (μm)? If not, does this mean that you do not exist?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 10, 2021, 08:06:18 PM
Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity.

Actually, he does. Maybe you should read the article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/

" In fact, the discrepancy is such a problem that Quinn is organizing a meeting in February at the Royal Society in London to come up with a game plan for resolving the impasse. The meeting’s title—“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”—reveals the general consternation. "

He clearly thinks it's too difficult to measure, going hand-in-hand with his statement that "We should be able to measure gravity."

Quote
Also to give you an example which is more analogous to the discussion on what Quinn says, can you measure your height in micrometers (μm)? If not, does this mean that you do not exist?

This is nothing like measuring a person's height to increasing precision. In your example you have multiple measurements getting the bulk of the same 5 foot 8 inches (or whatever the person's main height is) in each attempt.

In this case the the the measurements do not often do not overlap and are spread out across a range of over ten times the estimated uncertainties. It's clearly measuring something else that is not gravity in that range. The results are being polluted by something that is not gravity.

There is a graphic here:

https://physicsworld.com/a/the-lure-of-g/

Quote

(https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PW2014-02-Cartwright-Fig-2.jpg)

Low precision alone is enough to keep a metrologist up all night. But in recent years, a much more serious problem has arisen: measurements of big G are in wild disagreement with one another (figure 1). Since the turn of this century, values recorded by some of the best labs in the world have been spread apart by more than 10 times their estimated uncertainties. Something is amiss – yet no-one is quite sure what. “You go over it, and over it, and over it,” says Speake. “And there comes a time when you say, I just can’t think of anything we’ve done wrong.”

As stated, the results are in "wild disagreement" with each other.

If the results can be polluted by other non-gravitational effects, then they can also be created by non-gravitational effects. They just don't know what they are measuring, as stated by Quinn above.

They are trying to measure the force equivalent of the weight of a few cells. The more appropriate analogy is the one given by the astrophysicist earlier; of trying to measure the weight of a feather on a crude pair of scales outside in a slight breeze. There are effects dominating the experiment and disrupting the measurement, giving a wild result and dwarfing the thing they are trying to measure.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 10, 2021, 08:31:36 PM
Yes there is noise in the data. And the spread of the data outside the reported error bars for each measurement is cause for further investigation of the sources of noise, and identifying potential human error and or experimental design flaws that are contributing to this pack of precision.

Let's now take this more recent physicist you're quoting, Clive Speake. Does he think gravity can't be measured or that it isnt real? No. He's involved in more recent work to improve big G's measurement, since that flurry of discussion in 2014 following Quinn's groups measurement of G.

From Physics Letters A, vol. 382: Speake and Collins: "Torsion balances with fibres of zero length"

Here Speake describes a new method of simulating a torsion balance using electrostatic charges or magnetic superconductors. This has the effect of limiting ground noise, and reducing the effective distance of force being measured to <50micrometers.

Doesnt sound like someone who's given up on gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 10, 2021, 08:41:09 PM
If the results can be polluted by other non-gravitational effects, then they can also be created by non-gravitational effects.

Evidence, please, that the second half of that sentence follows from the first. Quote me a physicist (because you're just a random internet person, you see) who actually say that the existence of an error source in an experiment could mean that the totality of the result is in fact something other than that which they thought was being measured.

They just don't know what they are measuring, as stated by Quinn above.
Where does Quinn say he doesn't know what they are measuring? He certainly says, as do his colleagues, that they can't account for all of the errors, but there is no doubt in any of their extensive work that they doubt the existence of G. The wildest assertions anybody is making outside of this forum is that G might in some way be slightly variable, but even that is generally viewed as a fairly wild opinion.

Since you only listen to physicists (apart from when they describe the shape of the earth or the existence of gravity), here's our man Quinn introducing the very Royal Society event that you have bizarrely used to imply that G doesn't exist:

Quote
A misunderstanding of the metrology of weak force physics may in turn imply that the experimental tests that have established the inverse square law and the universality of free fall thus far are flawed in some subtle fashion. This makes for a potentially exciting situation and perhaps explains the general interest shown in our apparently mundane and painstaking work on G.

It's great read - lots of detail from Quinn, and numerous papers outlining many fascinating ways of measuring G. No mention of anybody believing that G doesn't exist, or that the earth might be flat, but to fair I didn't read them all. Do let us know if you find any juicy quotes Tom.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0253?cookieSet=1 (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0253?cookieSet=1)
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 11, 2021, 12:11:46 AM
If the results can be polluted by other non-gravitational effects, then they can also be created by non-gravitational effects.

Evidence, please, that the second half of that sentence follows from the first. Quote me a physicist (because you're just a random internet person, you see) who actually say that the existence of an error source in an experiment could mean that the totality of the result is in fact something other than that which they thought was being measured.

The analogy we looked at earlier by the astrophyscist (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) earlier shows that the non-gravity effects can create the recorded effects:

Quote
Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.

In the above example the breeze makes up the majority of the effect, creating systemic errors.

Quinn doubts that he is measuring gravity in his statement "We should be able to measure gravity." Obviously if he is not measuring gravity he is measuring something else.

In the link you posted Quinn also suggests that it could be that gravity isn't universal and that it only applies on astrophysical scales:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0253

Quote
What matters then is not the actual value of G itself (give or take a percentage or so) but its uncertainty. The real importance of the accuracy of G is arguably that it can be taken as a measure, in popular culture, of how well we understand our most familiar force: the discrepant results may signify some new physics, or they may demonstrate that we do not understand the metrology of measuring weak forces. Owing to the lack of theoretical understanding of gravity, as alluded to earlier, there is an abundance of respectable theories that predict violations of the inverse square law or violations of the universality of free fall. In fact, a growing view is that G is not truly universal and may depend on matter density on astrophysical scales, for example. A misunderstanding of the metrology of weak force physics may in turn imply that the experimental tests that have established the inverse square law and the universality of free fall thus far are flawed in some subtle fashion. This makes for a potentially exciting situation and perhaps explains the general interest shown in our apparently mundane and painstaking work on G.

This clearly shows a suggestion that he is not measuring gravity in the Cavendish Experiment; that it doesn't apply at smaller scales in the laboratory.

The "new physics" Quinn refers to is that gravity doesn't exist in the Cavendish Experiment test because it only mainly applies at larger scales in that suggestion.

Another quote from the Scientific American article (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/) says that the non-gravity effects could easily overwhelm the experiment and make up the effect:

Quote
Although gravity seems like one of the most salient of nature’s forces in our daily lives, it’s actually by far the weakest, making attempts to calculate its strength an uphill battle. “Two one-kilogram masses that are one meter apart attract each other with a force equivalent to the weight of a few human cells,” says University of Washington physicist Jens Gundlach, who worked on a separate 2000 measurement of big G. “Measuring such small forces on kg-objects to 10-4 or 10-5 precision is just not easy. There are a many effects that could overwhelm gravitational effects, and all of these have to be properly understood and taken into account.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: stack on May 11, 2021, 12:31:36 AM
The analogy we looked at earlier by the astrophyscist (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) earlier shows that the non-gravity effects can create the recorded effects:

Quote
Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.

In the above example the breeze makes up the majority of the effect.

Does the feather not exist?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 11, 2021, 12:54:14 AM
The analogy we looked at earlier by the astrophyscist (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) earlier shows that the non-gravity effects can create the recorded effects:

Quote
Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.

In the above example the breeze makes up the majority of the effect.

Does the feather not exist?

The analogy is clearly such that the feather could not be there and the results would have no significant difference.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 11, 2021, 12:56:18 AM
 :-X
If the results can be polluted by other non-gravitational effects, then they can also be created by non-gravitational effects.

Evidence, please, that the second half of that sentence follows from the first. Quote me a physicist (because you're just a random internet person, you see) who actually say that the existence of an error source in an experiment could mean that the totality of the result is in fact something other than that which they thought was being measured.

The analogy we looked at earlier by the astrophyscist (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) earlier shows that the non-gravity effects can create the recorded effects:

Quote
Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.

In the above example the breeze makes up the majority of the effect, creating systemic errors.

Making measurement difficult, not impossible.

Quote
Quinn doubts that he is measuring gravity in his statement "We should be able to measure gravity." Obviously if he is not measuring gravity he is measuring something else.

He doesn’t say he is not measuring gravity so your conclusion is arrived at from a faulty premise.

Quote
In the link you posted Quinn also suggests that it could be that gravity isn't universal and that it only applies on astrophysical scales:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0253

Quote
What matters then is not the actual value of G itself (give or take a percentage or so) but its uncertainty. The real importance of the accuracy of G is arguably that it can be taken as a measure, in popular culture, of how well we understand our most familiar force: the discrepant results may signify some new physics, or they may demonstrate that we do not understand the metrology of measuring weak forces. Owing to the lack of theoretical understanding of gravity, as alluded to earlier, there is an abundance of respectable theories that predict violations of the inverse square law or violations of the universality of free fall. In fact, a growing view is that G is not truly universal and may depend on matter density on astrophysical scales, for example. A misunderstanding of the metrology of weak force physics may in turn imply that the experimental tests that have established the inverse square law and the universality of free fall thus far are flawed in some subtle fashion. This makes for a potentially exciting situation and perhaps explains the general interest shown in our apparently mundane and painstaking work on G.

This clearly shows a suggestion that he is not measuring gravity in the Cavendish Experiment; that it doesn't apply at smaller scales in the laboratory.

The "new physics" Quinn refers to is that gravity doesn't exist in the Cavendish Experiment test because it only mainly applies at larger scales in that suggestion.

Another quote from the Scientific American article (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/) says that the non-gravity effects could easily overwhelm the experiment and make up the effect:

Quote
Although gravity seems like one of the most salient of nature’s forces in our daily lives, it’s actually by far the weakest, making attempts to calculate its strength an uphill battle. “Two one-kilogram masses that are one meter apart attract each other with a force equivalent to the weight of a few human cells,” says University of Washington physicist Jens Gundlach, who worked on a separate 2000 measurement of big G. “Measuring such small forces on kg-objects to 10-4 or 10-5 precision is just not easy. There are a many effects that could overwhelm gravitational effects, and all of these have to be properly understood and taken into account.

Saying G is not universal is not the same as saying gravity isn’t universal. G is the constant that mediates the relationship between the mass product and 1/r2, not gravity itself. He is definitely saying gravity exists just that it may not be constant like the other forces. He also says nothing about how likely that hypothesis is.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: stack on May 11, 2021, 01:52:30 AM
The analogy we looked at earlier by the astrophyscist (https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant) earlier shows that the non-gravity effects can create the recorded effects:

Quote
Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.

In the above example the breeze makes up the majority of the effect.

Does the feather not exist?

The analogy is clearly such that the feather could not be there and the results would have no significant difference.

How can that be? How do you get that interpretation when he is actually, literally/analogously, saying he is trying to measure a thing, a feather (gravity), but there are other things that make it difficult? The thing exists that he is measuring, it's just hard to measure. Where is it clearly stated that he is trying to measure nothing? Does a feather mean the same to you as nothing?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 11, 2021, 06:52:33 AM
Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity.

Actually, he does. Maybe you should read the article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/



I would ask that whenever you quote me you do not cherry pick to misrepresent what I wrote.
The full quote is:

"Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity. He rather talks about the degree of precision to which we can measure it."

The above is consistent to what is written in the article that you posted and also to the one I posted.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 11, 2021, 11:41:37 AM
Quinn says "Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer"
At the top of the article you can see that the "unresolved discrepancies" are "about 400ppm".

It is clear that he believes that it is the differences of up to 400ppm that are caused by the systematic errors. He does not say that the systematic errors give him any lack of confidence beyond these discrepancies.
Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity. He rather talks about the degree of precision to which we can measure it.

As I said, you cannot really believe that something that cannot be measured cannot exist. To give you an example, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon? Can it be measured within FE?

Also to give you an example which is more analogous to the discussion on what Quinn says, can you measure your height in micrometers (μm)? If not, does this mean that you do not exist?
If you have a tool marked in micrometers, then yes, I could do so.

Let me know when you get one.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 11, 2021, 11:52:30 AM
Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity.

Actually, he does. Maybe you should read the article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/



I would ask that whenever you quote me you do not cherry pick to misrepresent what I wrote.
The full quote is:

"Quinn does not talk about being able to measure gravity. He rather talks about the degree of precision to which we can measure it."

The above is consistent to what is written in the article that you posted and also to the one I posted.

Incorrect.

“It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved, we should be able to measure gravity.”

“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”

He is literally talking about the ability to measure gravity there in those quotes.

How can that be? How do you get that interpretation when he is actually, literally/analogously, saying he is trying to measure a thing, a feather (gravity), but there are other things that make it difficult? The thing exists that he is measuring, it's just hard to measure. Where is it clearly stated that he is trying to measure nothing? Does a feather mean the same to you as nothing?

I didn't say that the scientists don't think that the feather is there. Most of them do think that they are trying to measure something that exists. The problem is that they can't do it reliably; there are other dominating effects at that range getting in the way, creating results that are in "wild disagreement with each other", to the point that some speculate on "new physics" where gravity's effect only applies on astrophysical scales.

Whether you call it human error, the presence of dominating effects, or claim that the theory of gravity is non-universal and wrong, all of this has the same result: We can't measure gravity in this experiment.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: macattack on May 11, 2021, 01:00:27 PM
They just cannot measure the gravity constant to the accuracy they would expect to be able to.  Plancks constant,  speed of light, pi.  Did he post anything about the shape of the Earth. Utterly ridiculous.  Fact: matter has three dimensions.  The inability to do math does not invalidate science.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 11, 2021, 01:06:31 PM
They just cannot measure the gravity constant to the accuracy they would expect to be able to.  Plancks constant,  speed of light, pi.  Did he post anything about the shape of the Earth. Utterly ridiculous.  Fact: matter has three dimensions.  The inability to do math does not invalidate science.
I don't think that anyone has accurately measured the speed of light either.

That means all of it is just speculation.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 11, 2021, 01:14:13 PM
If you have a tool marked in micrometers, then yes, I could do so.

Let me know when you get one.
Right. But this is the exact point. Micrometres are small and therefore hard to measure.
With a regular tape measure you can't measure them.

That doesn't mean that tape measures don't work or you can't measure distances or that distances don't exist.
It just means with the tools at hand you can only measure things to a certain precision - which is always the case, actually.

And sure, they would like to be able to measure G more accurately, but the values they measure at the moment have a discrepancy of less than 1 part in 2000. Plenty good enough for all practical purposes.

Nothing in these quotes casts any doubt on the existence of gravity. The model we have of gravity is good enough to land rovers on Mars and send probes to Pluto. I reckon that's a pretty successful model.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 11, 2021, 01:29:39 PM
If you have a tool marked in micrometers, then yes, I could do so.

Let me know when you get one.
Right. But this is the exact point. Micrometres are small and therefore hard to measure.
With a regular tape measure you can't measure them.

That doesn't mean that tape measures don't work or you can't measure distances or that distances don't exist.
It just means with the tools at hand you can only measure things to a certain precision - which is always the case, actually.

And sure, they would like to be able to measure G more accurately, but the values they measure at the moment have a discrepancy of less than 1 part in 2000. Plenty good enough for all practical purposes.

Nothing in these quotes casts any doubt on the existence of gravity. The model we have of gravity is good enough to land rovers on Mars and send probes to Pluto. I reckon that's a pretty successful model.

More importantly the measurements of the Cavendish experiment agree with practical applications of Newton’s law to a high degree. Whatever failings the experts are complaining about, it’s not as big a deal as the FEers are making it.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 11, 2021, 01:33:23 PM
If you have a tool marked in micrometers, then yes, I could do so.

Let me know when you get one.
Right. But this is the exact point. Micrometres are small and therefore hard to measure.
With a regular tape measure you can't measure them.

That doesn't mean that tape measures don't work or you can't measure distances or that distances don't exist.
It just means with the tools at hand you can only measure things to a certain precision - which is always the case, actually.

And sure, they would like to be able to measure G more accurately, but the values they measure at the moment have a discrepancy of less than 1 part in 2000. Plenty good enough for all practical purposes.

Nothing in these quotes casts any doubt on the existence of gravity. The model we have of gravity is good enough to land rovers on Mars and send probes to Pluto. I reckon that's a pretty successful model.
I didn't state they were not measuring anything.

I, of course, do not believe any of the malarkey concerning Pluto and Mars, but that is another thread.

I merely pointed out that Quinn states they cannot measure gravity.

They have numbers, not a measurement of gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 11, 2021, 01:47:50 PM
I merely pointed out that Quinn states they cannot measure gravity.
But you are cherry picking that statement and not looking at it in the context of the article which basically says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better". Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity, it explicitly says that this doesn't change any scientific theories.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 11, 2021, 02:04:50 PM
I merely pointed out that Quinn states they cannot measure gravity.
But you are cherry picking that statement and not looking at it in the context of the article which basically says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better". Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity, it explicitly says that this doesn't change any scientific theories.

Nope. Saying that they need do do better isn't a statement that they are measuring gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 11, 2021, 03:32:32 PM
I merely pointed out that Quinn states they cannot measure gravity.
But you are cherry picking that statement and not looking at it in the context of the article which basically says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better". Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity, it explicitly says that this doesn't change any scientific theories.

Nope. Saying that they need do do better isn't a statement that they are measuring gravity.

When he says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better" what do you think that he is saying that they are measuring?
In what way is it not a statement that they are measuring gravity?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 11, 2021, 04:01:32 PM
I merely pointed out that Quinn states they cannot measure gravity.
But you are cherry picking that statement and not looking at it in the context of the article which basically says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better". Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity, it explicitly says that this doesn't change any scientific theories.

Nope. Saying that they need do do better isn't a statement that they are measuring gravity.

When he says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better" what do you think that he is saying that they are measuring?
In what way is it not a statement that they are measuring gravity?
Tom plays these semantic games endlessly to pretend people are saying things which they clearly aren't saying.
As we've seen in this thread, it can go on for pages.
And he's extremely selective about what he will accept from people who are "authorities".
The people he's quoting here clearly think that gravity is a thing and that the earth is a sphere.
Why he doesn't accept their authority on those points remains a mystery.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 11, 2021, 04:58:39 PM
I merely pointed out that Quinn states they cannot measure gravity.
But you are cherry picking that statement and not looking at it in the context of the article which basically says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better". Nothing in that article casts any doubt on the existence of gravity, it explicitly says that this doesn't change any scientific theories.

Nope. Saying that they need do do better isn't a statement that they are measuring gravity.

When he says "measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better" what do you think that he is saying that they are measuring?
In what way is it not a statement that they are measuring gravity?
Quinn explains what he is saying when states, "We should be able to measure gravity."

That clearly means he understands we are not currently measuring gravity, due to the issue of systematic errors in the experiments.

Pretty simple and not so hard to understand.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 11, 2021, 05:11:04 PM
I didn't say that the scientists don't think that the feather is there. Most of them do think that they are trying to measure something that exists. The problem is that they can't do it reliably; there are other dominating effects at that range getting in the way, creating results that are in "wild disagreement with each other", to the point that some speculate on "new physics" where gravity's effect only applies on astrophysical scales.

Whether you call it human error, the presence of dominating effects, or claim that the theory of gravity is non-universal and wrong, all of this has the same result: We can't measure gravity in this experiment.

That's some vintage word twisting right there. Nobody in any of the sources we've discussed is saying that.

The comment was:

Quote
G is not truly universal and may depend on matter density on astrophysical scales

That is not the same thing. G is the gravitational constant - the point being that some are speculating that it might vary, depending on matter density on astrophysical scales.

Stop it. You aren't very good at this, and everybody can see through it.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Action80 on May 11, 2021, 05:24:45 PM
I didn't say that the scientists don't think that the feather is there. Most of them do think that they are trying to measure something that exists. The problem is that they can't do it reliably; there are other dominating effects at that range getting in the way, creating results that are in "wild disagreement with each other", to the point that some speculate on "new physics" where gravity's effect only applies on astrophysical scales.

Whether you call it human error, the presence of dominating effects, or claim that the theory of gravity is non-universal and wrong, all of this has the same result: We can't measure gravity in this experiment.

That's some vintage word twisting right there. Nobody in any of the sources we've discussed is saying that.

The comment was:

Quote
G is not truly universal and may depend on matter density on astrophysical scales

That is not the same thing. G is the gravitational constant - the point being that some are speculating that it might vary, depending on matter density on astrophysical scales.

Stop it. You aren't very good at this, and everybody can see through it.
There is no gravitational constant is the point.

The word, "constant,"  pretty much means "fixed."

And, as detailed by Quinn, "constant," cannot be applied as an adjective when things are not "constant."

So, you do as you would wish Tom do, only first.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 11, 2021, 05:51:00 PM
And yet physicists, metrologists, and amateur experimenters constantly get values right around the reported value, just with a spread that exceeds the uncertainty ranges calculated for individual results and they (the former two groups) are constantly developing new ways to investigate and minimize the sources of the uncertainty.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 11, 2021, 06:29:59 PM
There is no gravitational constant is the point.

The word, "constant,"  pretty much means "fixed."

And, as detailed by Quinn, "constant," cannot be applied as an adjective when things are not "constant."

So, you do as you would wish Tom do, only first.

But if the source of the roughly 400ppm error is variability in G - which, by the way, none of the scientists agree on - that means that G exists, but it's just a function of something else and at a local level here on earth it's close enough to being a constant as to not matter much. And they've measured it pretty well. And if G exists, so does gravity.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: fisherman on May 11, 2021, 07:45:19 PM
Quote
I don't want SteelyBob's points or analogies. I want the points and analogies of qualified individuals. If you can't provide that then you guys have lost the argument.

What exactly do you need these qualified individuals to say?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 11, 2021, 09:57:11 PM
Tom plays these semantic games endlessly to pretend people are saying things which they clearly aren't saying.
As we've seen in this thread, it can go on for pages.

No. That is your MO.

I quoted this as Quinn saying that he can't measure gravity:

“It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved, we should be able to measure gravity.”

“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”

You denied this and quoted this from Quinn in your defense:

"measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better"

That's the best you could provide. A statement that it's hard and they need to do better isn't a statement that he's doing it. You are the person playing semantic word games here, attempting to warp clear statements with vain interpretations. You are stamping your feet and just can't accept being wrong.  ::)
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 11, 2021, 10:41:48 PM
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/09/06/scientists-admit-embarrassingly-we-dont-know-how-strong-the-force-of-gravity-is/?sh=58baec562c3e

This article goes over much of the same ground and is written by an astrophsicist.  As he says, the lack of precision compared with other constants is uncomfortable, but there is no doubt that gravity exists and that they measure it:

"The gravitational constant of the Universe, G, was the first constant to ever be measured. Yet more than 350 years after we first determined its value, it is truly embarrassing how poorly known, compared to all the other constants, our knowledge of this one is. We use this constant in a whole slew of measurements and calculations, from gravitational waves to pulsar timing to the expansion of the Universe. Yet our ability to determine it is rooted in small-scale measurements made right here on Earth. The tiniest sources of uncertainty, from the density of materials to seismic vibrations across the globe, can weave their way into our attempts to determine it. Until we can do better, there will be an inherent, uncomfortably large uncertainty anywhere the gravitational phenomenon is important. It's 2018, and we still don't know how strong gravity actually is."

They are uncomfortable with G's uncertainty because they know other constants to a range of 8 to 14 significant digits.  Compared to the insane precision with which they can measure them, G is virtually unknown, but it still is known extremely well to 3 significant digits.  It has been used to make many predictions and the Cavendish experiment consistently returns that result.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 11, 2021, 11:32:22 PM

I quoted this as Quinn saying that he can't measure gravity:

“It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved, we should be able to measure gravity.”

“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”

You denied this and quoted this from Quinn in your defense:

"measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better"

That's the best you could provide. A statement that it's hard and they need to do better isn't a statement that he's doing it. You are the person playing semantic word games here, attempting to warp clear statements with vain interpretations. You are stamping your feet and just can't accept being wrong.  ::)

You keep using the same quote of Dr Quinn, take from the Sci. Am. and Futurism articles.

It has been pointed out that Dr. Quinn, and the other physicists quoted on both articles, have had much more to say on the matter of measuring G than the few words you keep regurgitating ad nasuem. I would recommend that you (and anyone else reading through this mess of a thread) look up what the scientists say on the matter themselves, in their peer-reviewed publications.

From Dr Quinn:
"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment..."

"Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer — G is difficult to measure but it should not be too difficult!"

Excerpts from : https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t

Or go to Dr. Speake's google Scholar profile and look up the work hes done since his PhD, including recent developmental of new methodologies to mimic a torsion balance experiment while limiting external sources of noise from ground movements due to farfield seismic vibration.

Do the same for all the physicists in the articles described here, and in the wiki. Decide for yourself what the experts have to say.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: c0i9z on May 12, 2021, 12:21:01 AM
“It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved, we should be able to measure gravity.”

"We should be able to measure gravity." and "We can measure gravity." are not contradictory statements. Have you tried to read the rest of the article to understand the context here?

“The Newtonian constant of gravitation, a constant too difficult to measure?”

If you'll notice the last character, here? It's a question mark. This makes this a question, not a statement. The answer to the statement is 'no, not to a reasonable precision', as the article itself establishes.

"measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better"

"measuring G is hard": true
"we should be able to do better": true

Nothing here says that measuring gravity isn't a thing that is done. Notice that this doesn't say "measuring G is impossible". These are different things. Are you aware of this?

You are the person playing semantic word games here, attempting to warp clear statements with vain interpretations. You are stamping your feet and just can't accept being wrong.  ::)

Please take that finger and point it right back at you, where it belongs, thanks.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 12, 2021, 09:32:56 AM
“It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved, we should be able to measure gravity.”

"We should be able to measure gravity." and "We can measure gravity." are not contradictory statements. Have you tried to read the rest of the article to understand the context here?
Tom isn't interested in context. He routinely does this. Picks out a snippet of a quote from someone and deliberately leaves out the context or quotes elsewhere in the same article which make the views of the person he is quoting clear.
Another good example of this is on the Equivalence Principle Wiki page where he quotes part of "Gravity: A Very Short Introduction" which he thinks backs up his point but ignores quotes elsewhere in the book which clearly talks about the earth as a globe and a planet orbiting the sun. He not only cherry picks quotes, he extends that to cherry picking what he will accept people as "experts" on. You see him in this thread citing experts, but those experts clearly believe that gravity exists and that the earth is a globe. Strangely, he doesn't accept their views about that.

The only question is whether this is delusion, dishonestly or downright trolling. But the article is clear that gravity is a thing and can be measured to a level of precision plenty good enough for all practical purposes.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 09:39:15 AM
“It’s not a thing one likes to leave unresolved, we should be able to measure gravity.”

"We should be able to measure gravity." and "We can measure gravity." are not contradictory statements. Have you tried to read the rest of the article to understand the context here?

The question is whether is is saying that he is or is not measuring gravity. "We should be able to measure gravity" and "We are measuring gravity" are contradictory statements. 'Can' is already presumed in the effort.

Why is it that you guys cannot understand simple English and must attempt to twist clear and direct sentences? Oh wait, I know why.

Quote from: AllAroundTheWorld
Tom isn't interested in context. He routinely does this. Picks out a snippet of a quote from someone and deliberately leaves out the context or quotes elsewhere in the same article which make the views of the person he is quoting clear.

Too bad you have failed to show any of Quinn's quotes to show that he was quoted out of context, and likewise cannot actually show that anything is quoted out of context in the of the rest of the Wiki. The one quote from Quinn you did provide here did not say what you wanted it to say. You posted:

"measuring G is hard, but we should be able to do better"

Again, a statement that it is hard is not a statement that he is measuring gravity. You have absolutely failed to show this. You are clearly the one trying to twist direct sentences here. Yet you continue to spam and rant, but utterly fail to demonstrate your case.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 12, 2021, 09:51:54 AM

The question is whether is is saying that he is or is not measuring gravity. "We should be able to measure gravity" and "We are measuring gravity" are contradictory statements. 'Can' is already presumed in the effort.

Why is it that you guys cannot understand simple English and must attempt to twist clear and direct sentences? Oh wait, I know why.

'I should be able to ride a bike'

'I can ride a bike'

These are not contradictory statements Tom. At least we've got down to the actual point of disagreement I guess. We're reading a large body of available quotes and papers from a large group of esteemed scientists who are experts in their field (measuring G, amongst other things, just to be clear). We're understanding context, and reading the short phrases you keep quoting in light of the broader debate being had - the desire to measure G to the same standard as other constants.

You, on the other hand, are doggedly sticking to a perceived literal reading of some illustrative analogies and quotations out of context and, whilst bizarrely appealing to the authority of a bunch of people who profoundly disagree with the point you are making, hoping that the whole thing sticks together to form some kind of coherent argument.

Look, we're well past trying to persuade you of anything. Most of us here don't even think you actually believe the stuff you're writing. We're just calling you out in the hope that other people reading this don't get sucked into the con.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 09:59:23 AM
'I should be able to ride a bike'

'I can ride a bike'

These are not contradictory statements Tom.

Yet that is not the question at all. The question is whether Quinn believes that he did or did not measure gravity in his long multi-year efforts in the laboratory. If he is saying "we should be able to measure gravity" then he clearly believes that he did not measure gravity in his efforts.

Why is this difficult to understand? Maybe because you can't stand being wrong and need to make up a fabrication to suit yourself?

If you want context, Terence Quinn is a British physicist who spent many years studying gravity and was emeritus director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. If he says it, it's golden.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on May 12, 2021, 10:10:14 AM
Yet that is not the question at all. The question is whether Quinn believes that he did or did not measure gravity in his long efforts. If he is saying "we should be able to measure gravity" then he clearly believes that he did not measure gravity in his efforts.

Why is this difficult for you to understand? Maybe because you can't stand being wrong and need to make up a fabrication to suit yourself?

Taken in isolation, 'we should be able to measure gravity' could mean many things. It is entirely consistent, in fairness to your argument, with somebody who wishes to measure gravity but cannot, for whatever reason. No dispute there. However, it is also entirely consistent with somebody working in a very niche field describing their frustration at not being able to measure something more precisely.

So to work out what he is taking about, we have to look at the context. And the context makes it very obvious. If there was any doubt whatsoever that G existed, then it would be in the article and indeed the numerous papers relating to experiments to measure it. But it isn't. Just lots and lots of very different experiments all measuring G to within 400ppm of each other. You keep quoting the scales/breeze/feather analogy as if it's of equal significance to the vast volume of information explaining exactly how they go about removing the 'breeze' and improving the 'scales' to better measure the 'feather' - that's the whole point. The fact that completely different methodologies all return values for such a difficult to measure constant that are so close together is very good confirmation that G exists. The only debate, and it is a fairly fringe view, is that some of the error could be caused by variations in G itself. Emphasis on variations - nobody, apart from some random on the internet, is saying it doesn't exist at all.   
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 11:10:22 AM
Quote
So to work out what he is taking about, we have to look at the context. And the context makes it very obvious. If there was any doubt whatsoever that G existed, then it would be in the article and indeed the numerous papers relating to experiments to measure it. But it isn't

If you want to look at context and believe in keeping the story straight then you can start by accepting that Quinn believes in gravity, and that gravity exists, but he says that he can't measure it.

Quote
However, it is also entirely consistent with somebody working in a very niche field describing their frustration at not being able to measure something more precisely.

He says that 'we should be able to measure gravity' after spending many years in the laboratory on these experiments.

He penned an article with a title stating that the Newtonian constant is too difficult to measure.

Finally, Quinn suggests in the article that you posted that gravity mainly applies at astrophysical scales and isn't universal. He clearly thinks that he can't detect it in the laboratory and that is possible that gravity is different than conceived.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 12, 2021, 11:18:50 AM
If you want to look at context and believe in keeping the story straight then you can start by accepting that Quinn believes in gravity, and that gravity exists

If you want context, Terence Quinn is a British physicist who spent many years studying gravity and was emeritus director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. If he says it, it's golden.

Cool. So you accept his authority that gravity exists then? Good, we're making progress.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 11:20:11 AM
If you want to look at context and believe in keeping the story straight then you can start by accepting that Quinn believes in gravity, and that gravity exists

If you want context, Terence Quinn is a British physicist who spent many years studying gravity and was emeritus director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. If he says it, it's golden.

Cool. So you accept his authority that gravity exists then? Good, we're making progress.

Wrong. On his authority he believes gravity exists and that experiments fail to measure it.

This would evidence that gravity is merely a belief.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 12, 2021, 11:26:35 AM
If you want to look at context and believe in keeping the story straight then you can start by accepting that Quinn believes in gravity, and that gravity exists

If you want context, Terence Quinn is a British physicist who spent many years studying gravity and was emeritus director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. If he says it, it's golden.

Cool. So you accept his authority that gravity exists then? Good, we're making progress.

Wrong. On his authority he believes gravity exists and that experiments fail to measure it.

This is evidence that gravity is merely a belief.

The Cavendish experiment is not the only test of gravity, so his awareness of the imprecision of the Cavendish Experiment isn't evidence that "gravity is merely a belief".
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 11:27:58 AM
The Cavendish experiment is not the only test of gravity, so his awareness of the imprecision of the Cavendish Experiment isn't evidence that "gravity is merely a belief".

He is aware that he can't measure gravity. Refer to the previous quotations.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 12, 2021, 11:32:12 AM
Look, we're well past trying to persuade you of anything. Most of us here don't even think you actually believe the stuff you're writing. We're just calling you out in the hope that other people reading this don't get sucked into the con.
Correct. I think we should all stop feeding the troll.
It's clear what the article is about if you look at the context, no matter how many times certain people try to quote small parts selectively or twist things to try and make them mean something they clearly don't mean.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 11:37:04 AM
Look, we're well past trying to persuade you of anything. Most of us here don't even think you actually believe the stuff you're writing. We're just calling you out in the hope that other people reading this don't get sucked into the con.
Correct. I think we should all stop feeding the troll.
It's clear what the article is about if you look at the context, no matter how many times certain people try to quote small parts selectively or twist things to try and make them mean something they clearly don't mean.

It is crystal clear what "we should be able to measure gravity" from someone who has spent years in the laboratory trying to measure it means.

Obviously if I am trying to measure the weight of a feather on a crude pair of scales outside in a slight breeze where the values shift around I'm not going to jump up and down and claim that I measured the weight of a feather. This is the analogy an astrophysicist gave on this, and is the only legitimate one in this thread.

I have direct quotes and direct analogies on my side from qualified sources and you have nothing at all.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Rama Set on May 12, 2021, 11:39:26 AM
The Cavendish experiment is not the only test of gravity, so his awareness of the imprecision of the Cavendish Experiment isn't evidence that "gravity is merely a belief".

He is aware that he can't measure gravity. Refer to the previous quotations.

He is talking about the Cavendish Experiment and it's pretty clear in the broader context that it was a matter of unsatisfactory precision.  This position is supported by the comments of other astrophysicists, as I showed you earlier.  He was not talking about the observation and measurement of gravity broadly, so your interpretation is untenable.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 12, 2021, 11:52:26 AM
...Terence Quinn is a British physicist who spent many years studying gravity and was emeritus director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. If he says it, it's golden.

Okay great, he said this in a nature piece:
"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment..."

https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t


 I guess were done here?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on May 12, 2021, 12:01:44 PM
...Terence Quinn is a British physicist who spent many years studying gravity and was emeritus director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. If he says it, it's golden.

Okay great, he said this in a nature piece:
"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment..."

https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651?proof=t


 I guess were done here?

Here is his quote:

"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value6 is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces. Although it is true that the orbits of the planets depend on the product of G and the mass of the Sun — the structures of all astrophysical objects are determined by the balance of gravity and other forces produced by, for example, gas, photon or degeneracy pressure — ab initio models of the Sun are still an order of magnitude away from predicting a value of G at a level comparable with laboratory determinations. We do not need a value of G to test for departures from the inverse square law or the equivalence principle. There is as yet no prospect of a theory of quantum gravity that would predict a value for G that could be tested by experiment."

The part you cut out after "nobody for the moment..." says that this value undermines their science in the metrology of small forces. He clearly suggests the recommended range is invalid and questionable there, rather than your suggestion that he is supporting it wholeheartedly. This is another point against you.

Trivializing the need for G doesn't directly address the matter of whether he thinks that he measured it. He is talking about the practical purpose for the such a measurement, in non-cavendish situations and measurements. He is correct that G is not needed for the equivalence principle tests. That's something else, showing that gravity does not depart on various ranges and situations from the concept that the Earth is accelerating upwards. The EP tests are highly and accurately verified.

Quinn's "we should be able to measure gravity" statement says that he cannot measure gravity in the Cavendish Experiment. In the quote you referenced we see a statement that the recommended range undermines their science in the metrology of small forces, showing that he is certainly not endorsing it. You're right. We are done here. We have talked about this for pages and you are still unable to substantiate your argument.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Iceman on May 12, 2021, 01:04:48 PM
Yes that's great, the more quotes we can get from Dr. Quinn the better :) hes smarter than all of us on the matter!

"Could these unresolved discrepancies in G hide some new physics? This seems unlikely. I believe undiscovered systematic errors in all or some of these new experiments is the answer — G is difficult to measure but it should not be too difficult!"
- from the nature piece linked above

Now someone else's turn!
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: AATW on May 12, 2021, 05:05:13 PM
Now someone else's turn!
Go on then. I don't think this has any quotes from him, but it's an interesting article about the multiple ways they have of measuring gravity:

https://www.nature.com/articles/35050187?foxtrotcallback=true

For such a weak force it's impressive how accurate they can get the value of G and multiple methods of measuring it show that it can't be coincidence. It will be interesting to see if some of the newer experiments which claim a smaller error margin can do better still.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Kokorikos on May 15, 2021, 06:00:32 AM

He clearly suggests the recommended range is invalid and questionable there, rather than your suggestion that he is supporting it wholeheartedly. This is another point against you.


How do you get to the conclusion that "he clearly suggests the recommended range is invalid and questionable there"? He simply does not say that. He does not mention the range at all in this quote. What he only talks about is our ability to measure small forces. He always talks about being able to take accurate measurements rather than measurements in general.

This is a another article from Quinn:

https://www.nature.com/articles/35050187?foxtrotcallback=true

It starts with "Newton's constant, G, which governs the strength of the gravitational attraction between two masses, is difficult to measure accurately".
He does not even question the existence of gravity as he takes it for granted both in this latest link and in the part from the other article that you quoted.

You can accept what he says or reject it, but you cannot use him as a reference for the notion that gravity does not exist.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Christy on July 26, 2021, 03:55:22 PM
what exactly are all these different competing scientists actually measuring, given that they are all coming up with a number around the 6.67 x 10-11 mark?

It seems like you don't believe there exists corruption in science community. The popular view of science community is no way to guarantee it is truthful.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on July 27, 2021, 10:16:08 PM
It seems like you don't believe there exists corruption in science community. The popular view of science community is no way to guarantee it is truthful.

Nothing I said in my post supports your contention. Scientists exhibit all of the failings of other human beings - of course they do. I simply pointed out that lots of different scientific teams all measured something, using different methods, and came up with remarkably similar numbers.

I'll repeat my question: what then, exactly, were they measuring, if not G?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on July 27, 2021, 10:19:03 PM
It's not remarkably similar. The physicist Terence Quinn above says that the range undermines their science of the metrology of the small forces.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651.pdf?proof=t

"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces."

"Despite intensified efforts, measurements of the gravitational constant continue to fail to converge, as Terry Quinn explains."
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on July 27, 2021, 11:04:33 PM
It's not remarkably similar. The physicist Terence Quinn above says that the range undermines their science of the metrology of the small forces.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3651.pdf?proof=t

"Who needs a more accurate numerical value of G (the current recommended value is 6.67408 ± 0.00031 × 10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2)? The short answer is, nobody, for the moment, but being apparently unable to converge on a value for G undermines our confidence in the metrology of small forces."

"Despite intensified efforts, measurements of the gravitational constant continue to fail to converge, as Terry Quinn explains."

I'll repeat my question (again): what then, exactly, were they measuring, if not G?
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on July 27, 2021, 11:09:35 PM
They don't know what they're measuring.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/puzzling-measurement-of-big-g-gravitational-constant-ignites-debate-slide-show/

Quote
Although gravity seems like one of the most salient of nature’s forces in our daily lives, it’s actually by far the weakest, making attempts to calculate its strength an uphill battle. “Two one-kilogram masses that are one meter apart attract each other with a force equivalent to the weight of a few human cells,” says University of Washington physicist Jens Gundlach, who worked on a separate 2000 measurement of big G. “Measuring such small forces on kg-objects to 10-4 or 10-5 precision is just not easy. There are a many effects that could overwhelm gravitational effects, and all of these have to be properly understood and taken into account.

https://futurism.com/the-gravitational-constant-is-it-really-constant

Quote
So far as we can tell, the gravitational constant has remained constant throughout the entire history of the universe. This has, however, been VERY difficult to prove! Measurements of the gravitational constant over the past 200 years have been erratic. Even as the techniques that we use now are far more advanced and sensitive than were used two centuries ago, the true value of the gravitational constant remains elusive.

In 2013, a group of researchers working out of France took the measurement of the gravitational constant, using the same machine that they’d used some 2 years earlier. Improvements were made on the machine to improve the sensitivity and give a more accurate result. The machine, which uses two independent methods to calculate the constant, averages the results of the two. This, in theory, should help reduce systematic errors. What did they find? A different result!

At first it may seem strange that the gravitational constant is so hard to determine. There are four fundamental forces in the universe:

Strong Force
Weak Force
Electromagnetism
Gravity

Gravity is by far the weakest of the four forces, which, may also sound a little strange considering what we see in the universe. When looking out into the cosmos, gravity appears to be the reigning king of all. Gravity is so strong that it causes stars to fuse hydrogen into helium, collapses stellar cores into neutron stars and black holes, creates quasars and dictates the flow of matter within the entire universe.

On a large scale, gravity wins. But, as was previously mentioned, gravity is the weakest of the four forces. The reason for this discrepancy is, as a force, gravity travels further and has a slower fall off. The strongest of the four forces, the Strong Force, becomes almost non-existent at distances outside of a nucleus. What makes gravity stronger in macro circumstances is that it is accumulative. The more matter there is, the more gravity. But still, gravity is weaker. Therefore, when trying to measure it, the other forces can cause systematic errors. It is akin to trying to measure the weight of a feather, outdoors, in a slight breeze, with an old pair of scales.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0253

Quote
What matters then is not the actual value of G itself (give or take a percentage or so) but its uncertainty. The real importance of the accuracy of G is arguably that it can be taken as a measure, in popular culture, of how well we understand our most familiar force: the discrepant results may signify some new physics, or they may demonstrate that we do not understand the metrology of measuring weak forces. Owing to the lack of theoretical understanding of gravity, as alluded to earlier, there is an abundance of respectable theories that predict violations of the inverse square law or violations of the universality of free fall. In fact, a growing view is that G is not truly universal and may depend on matter density on astrophysical scales, for example. A misunderstanding of the metrology of weak force physics may in turn imply that the experimental tests that have established the inverse square law and the universality of free fall thus far are flawed in some subtle fashion. This makes for a potentially exciting situation and perhaps explains the general interest shown in our apparently mundane and painstaking work on G.

Either new physics or they are misunderstanding something about the forces that exist at that range.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on July 28, 2021, 09:13:16 AM
I didn’t ask you whether or not they understand it. I asked you what they were measuring. Given that different methods are all returning a number for G that is remarkably consistent, considering the challenge, we must surely conclude that G is indeed a thing, and it clearly relates to a force between bodies of mass.

Your argument seems to be that a lack of precision (although you don’t specify what degree of precision would cause you to change your mind) indicates that the experiments aren’t measuring anything. That is an absurd argument.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: Tom Bishop on July 28, 2021, 07:32:21 PM
If you are trying to measure the weight of a feather with a crude pair of scales outside during a slight breeze, and the view of the feather was obscured, it's difficult to say whether there is actually a feather on the scale. The feather-scale analogy is the analogy the astrophysicist at Futurism gave.

In the Cavendish Experiment it's trying to measure the force equivalent of the weight of a few cells. Very slight. If they can't target that, it's difficult to say what it's measuring at all.
Title: Re: Cavendish experiment
Post by: SteelyBob on July 28, 2021, 09:01:17 PM
The feather thing is an analogy. It’s not literally what they are trying to do. Clinging on to that phrase is starting to look a little desperate, frankly.

But if you want to play with the analogy…several different teams of scientists have all tried to weigh the feather, so to speak. They did it using all kinds of different methods - maybe different old scales, to stretch it further, in a variety of wind conditions.

And they all came up with numbers within 400ppm of each other. Most people would conclude that the number must be, give it take a few hundred ppm, the weight of the feather. You are saying the lack of better (non specific - it’s always non specific around here, isn’t it?!) precision means the feather doesn’t exist, and/or the scientists don’t understand the feather.