On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:21:15 GMT, "Androcles" Androcles@
MyPlace.org wrote:


wrote in message
roups.com...

| http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ianandmar...relativity.htm

"Relativity (both Special and General) has impeccable experimental
credentials, so much so that anyone who questions the theory must have
mischievous intent. Let us look at them."

This is so silly.

Ptolemy's epicycles have impeccable observational credentials, so much
so that anyone who questions the theory must have mischievous intent.

Conclusion: Copernicus had mischievous intent.

The difference is, of course, that the Ptolemaic system was
descriptive and could not make a prediction. Discovery of a new
orbiting body would require the creation of new epicycles,
whereas the Newtonian theory of gravitation will explain newly
discovered orbits without kludges like epicycles. Copernican and
Keplerian mechanics are easily seen as subcases of the
application of the inverse square gravity law. In fact,
derivation of Kepler's laws is one of the little exercises for
students in a classical mechanics course.


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