1 hour ago, novacova said:

Another error you have there and your terminology is also incorrect.

In general relativity the notion is quantitative, not arbitrary. The local curvature scale is set by the Riemann tensor, roughly a radius of curvature. In any region of which size is much smaller than that scale, deviations from flat Minkowski geometry fall as higher order terms and can be made arbitrarily small simply by shrinking the region. That is a controlled approximation, not an arbitrary cutoff. In other words, negligible has a precise operational meaning, the error can be reduced below any chosen tolerance by restricting attention to a sufficiently small neighborhood. This puts you Lightyears behind of understanding what it is that you’re trying to reconcile with.

And, can we also not forget PLANCK UNITS....????

Personally, I am in love with all things small....

If we wish to scale way down, then Planck Units are helpful...

One Planck Length, for example:

And....Our Hero....Planck...:

Scientists are NOT as smart as they once were.....so obviously....

But why?

Because, most scientists today spend most of their time watching and posting on YOU-TUBE.....

Something which is TOTALLY unproductive.....as I am sure that you know.

Edited August 10Aug 10 by GammaGlobulin

3 hours ago, novacova said:

False. Light travels in straight lines, null geodesics, in locally flat spacetime. Gravity curves those paths on larger scales, so your absolute claim that light never travels straight is incorrect. PERIOD…end of story…

Here is a question for you, though....

Let us say we examine space at One Planck Length (in order to look LOCALLY....), the I ask you....

Is Space Curved or Flat?

The primary mechanisms dictating this geometric breakdown are:

• Metric Fluctuations: Applying the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to the fundamental spacetime metric tensor $g_{\mu\nu}$ requires violent quantum fluctuations of the spacetime metric at extreme microscopic scales. This volatile energy density continually bends spacetime, rendering local geometric flatness impossible.

• Spacetime Foam: As established by John Wheeler, these intense fluctuations create a turbulent, multiply-connected topology termed quantum foam. Rather than exhibiting a static curve, the local geometry is characterized by the spontaneous formation and annihilation of microscopic wormholes and virtual black holes.

• Quantization of Space: Frameworks such as Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) replace the continuous manifold entirely. Space is defined by discrete, quantized operators for area and volume. Because this geometry is non-commutative, continuous spatial curvature is mathematically undefined at this absolute limit.

Classical curvature requires a smooth, predictable geometric substrate. At one Planck length, that substrate dissolves into a probabilistic, fluctuating lattice.

And so, Sir, as I have already stated, LIGHT does NOT travel in a straight line, in our universe.

Read it and weep.....

9 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

BALONEY......really.....

The QUESTION is.....

How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

DUH.....One must, obviously, resort to original sources, and verify, Verify....VERIFY.......

You know this is true.

However, merely for the purpose of "argument and debate", you pretend that you do not know.

Maybe you are bored, and you are just taking a position....which you do not really agree with....for the "heck of it"......?

Are you sure that you did not attend Penn?

I thought you stated that you had.

And, recently, you have stated that you never did.

Anyway.....I do recall that someone mentioned this, during the past two years....and I though it was you.

So, feel free to trust EVERYTHING you read coughed up by an AI......

OR....of course.....

You will need to spend a great deal of time to separate out what is true from that which is false.

This will take a great deal of time.

FORTUNATELY....as you DO know, and as I DO know.....

A genius who already knows the answers, and the truth, can profitably use AI to jog one's memory about that which one has already researched....in the distant past....

And one does not NEED to waste much time deciding when AI goes off-tracke.

THIS is why, in order to use an AI, in a constructive way.....one must STILL be a .....

Genius, and know more than the AI, about any topic being analysed by the AI.

That leaves you out. Again, you can research to find the answers.

On 8/7/2026 at 8:35 PM, scottiejohn said:

Not according to MAYO clinic!

Current evidence does not support a link between testosterone replacement therapy and new development of prostate cancer.

Current evidence does not support a link between testosterone replacement therapy and new development of prostate cancer.

That was an example of a hypothesis that was taken as scientific fact for decades.

16 hours ago, Hummin said:

You tend to lean towards a creative reality as an author and writer of science fiction, while people like me have to lean on realism and practical science. Take a farmer who grew up on a farm. You can claim farming can be done without science, but learned experience itself comes from observing what works and what does not. In the end, it comes down to survival in a competitive world, where we rely on science with straight lines and dots.

We can assume we live in some kind of created reality, but then again, that created reality is most likely built on numbers, lines and dots too. 😅

A farmer could claim that successful farming is done by following his own intuition 🙇‍♂️, by applying his father's rules 🙎‍♂️, by praying to God 🥷, or by applying scientific suggestions 🔬.

It's all the same to me 🤷‍♂️.

2 hours ago, WDSmart said:

A farmer could claim that successful farming is done by following his own intuition 🙇‍♂️, by applying his father's rules 🙎‍♂️, by praying to God 🥷, or by applying scientific suggestions 🔬.

It's all the same to me 🤷‍♂️.

You cannot choose or treat science as a personal belief. Evidence does not depend on what you choose to believe.

15 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Yes....

But, it is my preference to push the limits here, and I do not accept, and I will never accept, the term negligible.

This is my prerogative.

This is precisely what keeps folks such as yourself in a state of perpetual ignorance.

14 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

I know you do not know what I am talking about.

I also know that you do not know what YOU are talking about.

So, in the interests of elucidating my valid point, I will, this one time, resort to Gemini AI, but just this once:

I quote:

Yes, one can rigorously argue that a truly flat space cannot be achieved in general relativity, because tidal forces and the non-vanishing Riemann curvature tensor mean that true local flatness is an idealized mathematical limit rather than a physical reality at any finite scale.

THIS is why I spoke of LIMITS.....previously....but then....obviously, while you were asking your AI....my important comment passed HIGH ABOVE your head.....

And so....

This is the way it is, in our universe....

If you are unhappy with this, then...feel free to move yourself to a different universe...and....

PREPARE TO BE SURPRISED....Sir.....!!!!!

14 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

And, can we also not forget PLANCK UNITS....????

Personally, I am in love with all things small....

If we wish to scale way down, then Planck Units are helpful...

One Planck Length, for example:

And....Our Hero....Planck...:

Scientists are NOT as smart as they once were.....so obviously....

But why?

Because, most scientists today spend most of their time watching and posting on YOU-TUBE.....

Something which is TOTALLY unproductive.....as I am sure that you know.

13 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Here is a question for you, though....

Let us say we examine space at One Planck Length (in order to look LOCALLY....), the I ask you....

Is Space Curved or Flat?

The primary mechanisms dictating this geometric breakdown are:

• Metric Fluctuations: Applying the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to the fundamental spacetime metric tensor $g_{\mu\nu}$ requires violent quantum fluctuations of the spacetime metric at extreme microscopic scales. This volatile energy density continually bends spacetime, rendering local geometric flatness impossible.

• Spacetime Foam: As established by John Wheeler, these intense fluctuations create a turbulent, multiply-connected topology termed quantum foam. Rather than exhibiting a static curve, the local geometry is characterized by the spontaneous formation and annihilation of microscopic wormholes and virtual black holes.

• Quantization of Space: Frameworks such as Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) replace the continuous manifold entirely. Space is defined by discrete, quantized operators for area and volume. Because this geometry is non-commutative, continuous spatial curvature is mathematically undefined at this absolute limit.

Classical curvature requires a smooth, predictable geometric substrate. At one Planck length, that substrate dissolves into a probabilistic, fluctuating lattice.

And so, Sir, as I have already stated, LIGHT does NOT travel in a straight line, in our universe.

Read it and weep.....

Lame, and you were shown to be wrong and so you decided go off on a defensive tangent with incoherent out of context insertions in an attempt to cover up and escape your erroneous claims about light trajectories and natural right angles of which the principals of both, general relativity and crystallography, that have been applied and explained here on this thread that you so willingly ignorantly foolishly chose to consciously deny. The idiocy of some folks is astounding in their desperation of trying look like something that they are not, and with that this leaves your credibility null and void at the bottom of the tank.

2 hours ago, WDSmart said:

A farmer could claim that successful farming is done by following his own intuition 🙇‍♂️, by applying his father's rules 🙎‍♂️, by praying to God 🥷, or by applying scientific suggestions 🔬.

It's all the same to me 🤷‍♂️.

Praying might help, though that depends on the weather and how productive, experience and knowledgeable the farmer is.

Intuition isn’t a sixth sense, it’s a subconscious calculation of the brain. The farmer’s father had trial and error experience, that is a form of science that is refined from one generation to the next as science isn’t static.

3 hours ago, Hummin said:

3 hours ago, Hummin said:

6 hours ago, WDSmart said:

A farmer could claim that successful farming is done by following his own intuition 🙇‍♂️, by applying his father's rules 🙎‍♂️, by praying to God 🥷, or by applying scientific suggestions 🔬.

It's all the same to me 🤷‍♂️.

You cannot choose or treat science as a personal belief. Evidence does not depend on what you choose to believe.

The belief in science is a personal belief. You haven't done all the experiments that have produced any scientific suggestions you might have. These suggestions were not based on evidence you collected. Your confidence in science is based on your belief in scientists who did the experiments and came to the suggested conclusions. Just as, by the way, is your faith in your own intuition, your father's suggestions, or whatever God tells you. They are all the same - belief in some process to give you the best suggestions on how to farm.

3 hours ago, novacova said:

Praying might help, though that depends on the weather and how productive, experience and knowledgeable the farmer is.

Intuition isn’t a sixth sense, it’s a subconscious calculation of the brain. The farmer’s father had trial and error experience, that is a form of science that is refined from one generation to the next as science isn’t static.

They are all the same. They are based on faith in whichever system the farmer wants to listen to.

9 minutes ago, WDSmart said:

They are all the same. They are based on faith in whichever system the farmer wants to listen to.

11 minutes ago, WDSmart said:

The belief in science is a personal belief. You haven't done all the experiments that have produced any scientific suggestions you might have. These suggestions were not based on evidence you collected. Your confidence in science is based on your belief in scientists who did the experiments and came to the suggested conclusions. Just as, by the way, is your faith in your own intuition, your father's suggestions, or whatever God tells you. They are all the same - belief in some process to give you the best suggestions on how to farm.

The core of science is that claims, not beliefs, have to be testable and the evidence independently verified or reproduced. Some scientific results do not meet that standard, and we know people misuse anything they can to take advantage of false claims. That is where belief can start replacing science.

But you are right about one thing. To produce scientific proof, there normally has to be a belief or disbelief, an idea worth testing in the first place. The difference is what happens next. Science asks you to test it, not just believe it.

1 hour ago, Hummin said:

The core of science is that claims, not beliefs, have to be testable and the evidence independently verified or reproduced. Some scientific results do not meet that standard, and we know people misuse anything they can to take advantage of false claims. That is where belief can start replacing science.

But you are right about one thing. To produce scientific proof, there normally has to be a belief or disbelief, an idea worth testing in the first place. The difference is what happens next. Science asks you to test it, not just believe it.

I agree with most of what you say above, but even if "Science asks you to test it,...." Most people never test it. They just believe it.

15 minutes ago, WDSmart said:

I agree with most of what you say above, but even if "Science asks you to test it,...." Most people never test it. They just believe it.

That’s a human error, or a leadership problem caused or pushed by politicians and those with personal or corporate interests. Not science itself.

There are many times I am tempted to believe something because I want to. But if I chase my own idea or belief and find evidence that goes against it, I will change my mind, even if it goes against my personal interest. But sometimes you end up in no man’s land because science has used different angles of attack, different techniques, different numbers of test subjects, different time periods, or different geographical locations.

You have to treat science for what it is, and not for what it is not. Science can describe and explain a great deal, but not every human experience can be reduced to raw data alone. If that was the case, would there be any religion left?

13 minutes ago, Hummin said:

...would there be any religion left?

We can only hope...

5 minutes ago, WDSmart said:

We can only hope...

Life is short, too short to get stuck in impossible mind games and beliefs. ;-)