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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Michelson Morley experiment
Message-ID: <1564@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 13:56:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1564
Posted: Fri Jul  5 13:56:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 01:30:16 EDT
References: <338@sri-arpa.ARPA>, <1613@hao.UUCP>
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 30

> From:  ALBERS 
> How about if we say that a mass causes a curvature in the ETHER instead
> of a curvature in space?  Then how bout we say that it isn't a curvature
> its a change in density.  [..and so on in this vein..]

Suppose you and I go to the equator and (starting about 100 miles apart)
begin walking due north.  After a long walk (and swim, with some
bushwacking and rock climbing thrown in) we arrive at the pole.
Assuming that we are illiterate jocks (the only folks liable to
undertake such a project - and if you're an illiterate jock rest assured
I'm speaking of the OTHER illiterate jocks), we are puzzled by the fact
that we have been pulled together by some mysterious force between us.

Repeating the experiment, we determine that we are drawn together no
matter what mass each of us happens to have on a given trip, so that we
always reach contact at the same point (the pole).  So we decide the
force must be proportional to inertial mass.  How mysterious!  Why
should the "charge" this force reacts to be proportional to inertial
mass?  Eventually someone suggests that there is no force at all - the
surface of the Earth is merely curved.  "Curved space?" we gasp.  "How
difficult a concept.  Wouldn't it be easier to assume the air is filled
with magical fairy dust?"

[Apologies to Taylor and Wheeler, from whom I lifted the curved Earth
analogy if memory serves.]
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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