From: utzoo!decvax!cca!REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.space
Title: 
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.2457
Posted: Thu Aug  5 03:32:33 1982
Received: Sun Aug  8 01:03:19 1982

From: Robert Elton Maas 
My understanding of general relativity slightly contradicts what was said in this digest by menlo70!sri-unix!hplabs!menlo70!sytek!zehntel!teklabs!tekmdp!dadla-b!dadla-a!steve at Ucb-C70.

Accelleration and gravity are indistinguishable locally, i.e. if a
single measurement is made at a point . But if measurements are made at
different points then indeed a global picture may be obtained which
can possibly separate gravity and centrifugal force from true delta-vee/tee.
Note that this global analysis isn't trivial, for example mascons can
create gravity measurements that look more like non-gravity, and
there's no such thing as absolute space and absolute time so you can't
arrange measurements to be "simultaneous" so if forces are changing
with time you may have trouble getting any consistent global picture
at all. But at least with multiple measurements you can distinguish
the simple cases from each other.

Re sf, I see no reason sf has to contradict known and well-established
scientific theories. What's wrong with sticking to known science and
postulating new engineering uses for these, such as black-hole
mass-to-energy conversion, Dyson spheres, encyclopedia gallactica, etc.?
I'd rather see a good story about how to maintain a stable economy
when major shipments of precious metals arrive from the asteroid
mining colonies once every 14 months, bigger each time, sort of like
the bonus armies in the game of Risk; than read somebody's idlebrained
speculation about how if we could only go faster than light we could
...