First problem. Science rarely, if ever, claims to have "all" of anything, let alone "all the
math."
They do when it comes to measuring the LAW of gravity.
That means science is not going to investigate further, they are done with it.
They do when it comes to the speed of light.
They do when it comes to 2 body/3 body orbital mechanics.
They do when it comes to Kepler Laws (notice again LAWS, not theory).
So, every CGI rendering will have to account for these LAWS and it will be readily apparent if these laws were utilized in the CGI creation.
Your argument is hinging on the fact that we call something a "law" versus a "theory" and vice versa.
You're making a similar mistake to what Tom Bishop did in another thread, flailing around terms like "empiricism" and "rationalization" irresponsibly. In the same post, I pointed out pretty cogently that he either doesn't know what those words mean or doesn't care to know, so long as it sounds good to his ears. You're doing something similar here with "law" and "theory."
You have at least a cursory grasp of what the terms mean in everyday speech, but your mistake is that you aren't using them in their scientific context. If you're going to criticize how scientists do science, you should at least try to represent them accurately.
Anything less demonstrates either confusion or a willingness to straw-man your opponent, leading to further confusion. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're only incompetent and not malicious.
Gonna go off topic here for a few paragraphs, so you're welcome to skip past this part and get to the rebuttal on science, I just wanna say a couple things.
...
I'm sincerely reluctant to characterize it in those terms - as in, you're either incompetent or malicious - but there's only so many ways to sugarcoat it. I generally prefer the term "mistaken" over "incompetent." Everybody makes mistakes. I can forgive mistakes. I can only hope you would be willing to do the same for me.
Either way, the point is, it’s difficult enough to tell positively when someone is incompetent or just playing the fool to be malicious (see: trolling, the classic definition). It's precisely BECAUSE of that difficulty that being incompetent is ALMOST as bad as being malicious. It is a COMPLETE waste of time and a DISSERVICE to BOTH parties and SOCIETY AT LARGE to have a conversation like this unless BOTH parties are being intellectually honest, and that means admitting fault, openly and without shame, from time to time.
Like I said, I can forgive someone for being incompetent, but someone owes me a FUCKING apology for wasting my time, and playing dumb in a vain denial of their own confusion and incompetence, if that is indeed the case. Yes, you can take this tone as accusatory. Like I'll say a little later in this reply, "I'm willing to see my suspicion proven wrong, but that depends on" your ability to be logically consistent and intellectually honest.
Whether I'm right or wrong about you, the take-away should be that NOTHING I've just said, other than accusing you personally of course, should be difficult for you to agree with. These should be the terms REGARDLESS of which side of the aisle you're on.
NOBODY should have to waste their FUCKING time on anyone who's just going to dig in their heels and fling shit and ignorance around like a God damn incontinent space monkey until something sticks... or abandon the thread when all else fails.
All I can do is try to practice what I preach for the sake of the discussion, because I can't control whether or not you and others adhere to the same principle. I'm asking you, if I'm wrong about you, to please show me I'm wrong. Please, lackey.
I want to believe that I'm wrong about you. I want to at least believe that you're only incompetent, like I said from the start. I just can't reconcile that desire with the way you conduct yourself in an open forum.
And that's not meant to brow-beat necessarily, or condescend to you from my ivory tower. I been there, dude. I been an ass-hat, refusing to budge. I still do it from time to time. I wager everyone does it, for one reason or another, at some point.
In my case, it's usually when a loved one tells me I need to stop being a fucking fatass, eat right, exercise, get a girlfriend, etc. Even if I deny their cogent criticisms - which at this point, other than lying about what I've eaten that day, I don't deny fault - I still admit to myself, in private, that they're right.
But you gotta at least try, dude. That shit ain't automatic.
If anything, the human brain instinctively refuses to admit when it is mistaken. Did you know that the brain exhibits the "fight or flight" response when presented with new information contradictory to the person's belief? It's a survival mechanism.
My point, in bringing up that little factoid, is that we're better than our instincts, and we gotta fight em' to even come close to something resembling "truth."
That's all I'm saying, dude.
...I digress...
A
scientific "law," for all intents and purposes, is supported by mathematics. It describes something that can be both measured and applied, successfully and repeatedly, to predictive calculations.
The "law" of gravity refers specifically to Newton's law of universal gravitation, which doesn't explain the HOW or the WHY, merely the WHAT, with respect to the force we call "gravity." All Newton did is to measure and comprehend the force itself with enough accuracy that it could be expressed mathematically and applied to predictive calculations. That's why we're able to accurately predict things like where artillery will land, or how fast objects accelerate in a vacuum. All of that is based on the mathematics. I don't know if you think the applied science is just guesswork or what, but it isn't; pretty much every practical model of applied science is first worked out mathematically before being tested in reality.
A
scientific "theory," by contrast, is an attempt to compile a large body of observations - usually gathered by applying scientific LAW to specific sets of experiments - into a cohesive, logically consistent, scientifically accurate explanation of the HOW and WHY behind that body of observations.
Einstein's "theory" of general relativity brings "spacetime" into the picture. He THEORIZES that the REASON things fall the way they do has to do with the way gravity bends "spacetime" around massive objects, pulling nearby less massive objects inward. He's not trying to describe or measure WHAT gravity is but rather hypothesizing as to HOW and WHY the force we call "gravity" - the measurable, predictable force described in Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" - can even be there for us to measure in the first place.
That's a REALLY important distinction to grasp.
With only your surface understanding of the terms "law" and "theory," NONE of what you said about science contradicts anything I said. Laws can always be ameliorated and changed and reconciled with new information, or else they only exist within the boundaries of a given framework. Straight from Wikipedia, you can see a few examples for yourself:
Ohm's law only applies to linear networks, Newton's law of universal gravitation only applies in weak gravitational fields, the early laws of aerodynamics such as Bernoulli's principle do not apply in case of compressible flow such as occurs in transonic and supersonic flight, Hooke's law only applies to strain below the elastic limit, etc. These laws remain useful, but only under the conditions where they apply.
"Scientific Law," Overview, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law
So I say again, science DOES NOT claim to have "all the math," just enough for us to form a comprehensive model of reality that we can rely on well enough to make predictions. But that's too wordy for the public at large, so it's much easier to say that we "know" a scientific law "works," and this is partly where the confusion comes from.
With respect to how the stars would be plotted and predicted if indeed it works the way NASA claims, I agree with your final statement; we SHOULD be able to tell, by looking at the math, whether or not NASA's CGI calculations comport with scientific law in reality - whether it "does compute" or "does not compute."
My only objection is that I wasn't contesting that fact. I was responding to your positive claim that the maths "does not compute," which, as I said, IMPLIES that you have done the maths yourself or at least had someone explain it to you.
But you haven't done either of those things, have you?
2 + 2 = 5 "does not compute" unless we're talking about measurements on a non-linear scale, and you and I can see WHY 2 + 2 = 5 "does not compute" at a glance. Something more complex like a parabolic or sinusoidal function or a quadratic equation might take longer to comprehend, but we can still check the maths and see WHY a given function "does not compute." All I was asking you to do is walk us through, step by step, and show us how you came to that does not compute" conclusion. At the very least, you could have shown us your maths so that we could check it ourselves, like I had done with the "drop height" calculation. It's not complicated, just a simple good faith gesture.
I suspect that the reason you didn't simply copy-paste your calculations is because you haven't done anything of the sort, and you're just hand-waving about conspiracy. If you have, show us. If you haven't, then you're just hand-waving about conspiracy. That's all I was objecting to. I'm willing to see my suspicion proven wrong, but that depends on your willingness to open Notepad, load your saved calculations, and paste them here.
And I'm more than happy to show you any of the maths I have at my disposal, but it's generally considered good etiquette to wait until the first claim has been ferreted out before moving on to the next.
I never made a positive claim. What I did is ask you to substantiate
your claim that the maths "does not compute." I didn't positively say that the maths proves one thing or another, or at least nothing to do with your claim. I only announced my skepticism that you had actually done the maths.
I then showed you an example of how that process works in an attempt at a good faith gesture. I thought if I showed you how one makes a mathematical statement of fact, demonstrates that statement mathematically, and then shows the maths to allow others to test it for themselves, you would pick up on that right away and respond in kind.
Instead of doing that, you made an irrelevant and totally inaccurate observation about why you think science is wrong because you don't ACTUALLY understand the difference between "law" and "theory." More importantly, as I already said before, you didn't even answer the question; how can you know that the maths "does not compute" unless you've run the numbers yourself or had someone explain it to you?
As soon as I said to you
Surely you should be able to demonstrate for us how and why the maths "does not compute."
that should have set off alarm bells in your mathematical mind that all blared "SHOW HIM THE MATHS" at a fever pitch.
As soon as your eyeballs scrolled across those words on your screen, proving me wrong - walking us through the maths, or at least showing your maths and your terms, as I did -
really shouldn't be that difficult for someone who speaks as stridently as you do. In other words, you
talk like you really know what you're talking about. One would think you could demonstrate the maths and why it's wrong as easily as you dismissed it.
I won't repeat myself again; you didn't even answer the question. Thinking, somehow, that you had done so, you then moved quickly along to quote my maths and foist upon me the burden of proof, eager to off load it from your own shoulders.
I feel compelled to remind you once more that I never made a positive claim. I asked you to show me the maths, then I demonstrated how someone does that by showing you ( A ) the "8 inches per mile squared" measurement is not correct, ( B ) what the correct calculation for curvature and specifically "drop height" looks like, and ( C ) how one demonstrates a mathematical statement by SHOWING THE MATHS.
You even had the
gall to ask me to find and provide the NASA calculations
for you when I asked you to demonstrate your affirmative statement about them.
Surely you have to realize how transparent that makes your claim of "does not compute."
You could always simply concede that you HAVEN'T done the maths and you're ONLY hand-waving about conspiracy. That would be FAR more honest and worthy of respect and honor than the song and dance you've put on display here. Though, to be fair, the latter is a pretty low bar to clear.
This next section here is a bit confusing. I'd like you to expand on your responses, if you would, please:
Citation please. Where did you hear this, and just how uncertain are we really?
Would have been done already.
What would have been done already?
Well, you're convinced that it can't, and if I'm mistaken, I want to be SHOWN that I'm mistaken, so I can stop being mistaken.
So I guess what I'm saying is, yes, I want to know why.
Would have been done already.
What would have been done already? I'm not trying to fuck with you or anything; your answers here are really terse and vague and not helpful at all.
What I asked you to do is to show me the maths, seeing as you objected to that specifically. What you just did is to begin talking about maths and then said "they won't release the formulas."
How do you know it's faulty if you yourself haven't even run the numbers? We can explore this further if you want, but for you to say it "does not compute" implies that you've taken the time to actually work out the formulae yourself and SEE that they don't compute.
What you said in the end wasn't an answer to "why does the maths not compute," it was an answer to "why totallackey thinks we can't even access the maths to begin with."
Give me the model and give me the inputs used.
I will investigate further.
I feel like this is proof positive that you haven't actually run the numbers, ever.
This is just me talking, but don't say things like "the math does not compute" unless you know for a fact that it doesn't. Maths aren't guesswork you can just fling shit at until it sticks, rather they are built on solid, logical principles and mechanics. If your arguments are any indication, you could stand to benefit from studying mathematics a bit more closely.
As far as your request that
I go and fetch the formulae that
you claimed "does not compute," we can spend a little time investigating together and do just that, but let's just be clear;
you've never run the numbers and therefore you
don't know whether or not they "does not compute.” What you’ve done is merely assert that they MUST not compute, because conspiracy. Again, if you had only come out and SAID THAT, rather than say something you KNOW isn’t true, that would be way more honest and respectable than saying something like "it does not compute" when in fact you have no idea one way or the other.
For someone who likes to lay into people who don't provide direct proof for their assertions, you seem to follow a "do as I say, not as I do" philosophy when it comes to having your own assertions challenged.
It's not a calculation for a sphere, it's a calculation for "drop height" along a single axis - the one you're STANDING ON when you face the horizon - perpendicular to the horizon. You need to understand what it is before you can ask me to do anything with it at all.
And yes, friend, I know that light bends when it passes through a medium. That’s why the foreword to the examples clearly states the assumption - because this equation doesn’t factor in the refraction of light.
Here are a few examples I worked out the other day:
...
Have at it.
Graph it out and let me look at it.
I don't really have access to a graphing simulator at the moment, though I'd be willing to do the legwork if that's what you insist on. Instead, I can show you an example image, straight from the source of the method in question.
You can also play with the virtual calculator on GitHub, here:
Earth Curve CalculatorHow would your math translate to this picture?
I promise to address that question in my next post. That image looks like it deserves some time and attention before I can reconcile it in a way that makes any sense to you, and I've already spent a lot of time on this response so far. Be patient with me, and I promise I'll address this question.