On Jan 3, 03:26, Tom Roberts wrote in
sci.physics.relativity:
JanPB wrote:
I'm no expert on this but the dark matter always seemed to me like an
arbitrary tunable parameter thrown in our of sheer desperation.

To assume that we already know about all possible stable elementary
particles is absurd. If there happen to be additional stable elementary
particles that don't appear in our labs, then they must be quite
different from ordinary matter, and several plausible extensions to
current theories behave just as dark matter behaves in current
observations. So there's no a priori reason to reject dark matter.

But
then I have the same opinion of the string theory :-)

That is QUITE different! Specifically: dark matter has lots of
experimental support, but string theory has none.

Not enough Roberts Roberts not enough. Your sycophancy is insufficient
for the moment and Master Lee Smolin is not ready to appoint you as a
member of the Perimeter Institute. Master Lee Smolin believes you have
gone too far in the following two statements of yours:

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.ph...8645e95fdc29e?
Tom Roberts, Dec 26, 2007: "There has been a renaissance in tests of
Special Relativity (SR), in part because considerations of quantum
gravity imply that SR may well be violated at appropriate scales (very
small distance, very high energy). It has been seven years since the
last update of this page, and there are over 60 new experiments, many
of which are recent, ingenious, and improve bounds on violations of
local Lorentz invariance by several or many orders of magnitude."

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.ph...cc9ce0b836800?
Tom Roberts, Dec 31, 2007: "The key property of all fundamental
theories of modern physics is Lorentz invariance. So that is what had
better be compatible with some alternative theory, or its proponents
must re-create all of modern physics. Yes, that is a daunting thought,
but it cannot be avoided if you want to seriously propose some other
theory (be it emission/ballistic or other)."

Pentcho Valev

Tom Roberts, the Albert Einstein of our generation:

http://www.iit.edu/~bcps/database/se...culty_web_page

Unlike the original Albert Einstein who was just a plagiarist, Tom
Roberts the Albert Einstein of our generation is both plagiarist and
sycophant:

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.ph...4dc146100e32c?
Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a
nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant
speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both
Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains
of applicability would be reduced)."

http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/chronogeometrie.pdf
Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond: "D'autre part, nous savons aujourd'hui que
l'invariance de la vitesse de la lumiere est une consequence de la
nullite de la masse du photon. Mais, empiriquement, cette masse, aussi
faible soit son actuelle borne superieure experimentale, ne peut et ne
pourra jamais etre consideree avec certitude comme rigoureusement
nulle. Il se pourrait meme que de futures mesures mettent en evidence
une masse infime, mais non-nulle, du photon ; la lumiere alors n'irait
plus a la "vitesse de la lumiere", ou, plus precisement, la vitesse de
la lumiere, desormais variable, ne s'identifierait plus a la vitesse
limite invariante. Les procedures operationnelles mises en jeu par le
"second postulat" deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La theorie elle-
meme en serait-elle invalidee ? Heureusement, il n'en est rien ; mais,
pour s'en assurer, il convient de la refonder sur des bases plus
solides, et d'ailleurs plus economiques. En verite, le "premier
postulat" suffit, a la condition de l'exploiter a fond."

http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/onemorederivation.pdf
Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond: "This is the point of view from wich I intend
to criticize the overemphasized role of the speed of light in the
foundations of the special relativity, and to propose an approach to
these foundations that dispenses with the hypothesis of the invariance
of c....We believe that special relativity at the present time stands
as a universal theory discribing the structure of a common space-time
arena in which all fundamental processes take place....The evidence of
the nonzero mass of the photon would not, as such, shake in any way
the validity of the special relativity. It would, however, nullify all
its derivations which are based on the invariance of the photon
velocity."

Pentcho Valev