[Tom Bishop]

I'm merely citing the physicists directly for the point.

One astrophysicist says:

" 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:

" 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:

 “ 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:

“ 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.

[SteelyBob]

You said, for example:

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 in the same category, or are we allowed to offer opinions of our own and not rely on appeals to authority?

[AATW]

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.

[c0i9z]

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.

[Iceman]

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.

[SteelyBob]

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.

[Tom Bishop]

You said, for example:

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.

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 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.

[AATW]

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?

[Tom Bishop]

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.” "

[AATW]

You “accidentally” left out these quotes:

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

And

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?

[c0i9z]

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.

[SteelyBob]

You said, for example:

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. 

[Tom Bishop]

You said, for example:

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.

[Tom Bishop]

You “accidentally” left out these quotes:

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

And

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.

[c0i9z]

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?'

[Tom Bishop]

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.

[c0i9z]

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.

[Tom Bishop]

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.

[SteelyBob]

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.

“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.

[Tom Bishop]

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.