Freedom of Science

General Relativity is Popfly for physics.

Let’s explain.

“General Relativity” is a label. Nature does not recognize labels. In database language “General Relativity” is a string. You cannot do calculations with a string. For instance, General Relativity * 2 is a meaningless statement.¹

What is the thing labeled General Relativity?

General Relativity is a label for Einstein Field Equations.

What are Einstein Field Equations?

In physics lingo Einstein Field Equations are “coupled hyperbolic-elliptic partial differential equations.”

Let’s write this thing as a list:

1. differential equations
2. partial
3. non-linear
4. hyperbolic-elliptic
5. coupled

In this list only “differential equations” is relevant because the rest are properties of the differential equations.

Therefore, Einstein Field Equations are differential equations.

But differential equations are not equations. Physicists call any statement which includes the equality sign an equation. Differential equations are definitions made with symbols arranged on either side of an equality sign. Nature does not recognize differential equations either. You cannot make calculations with differential equations. Example: Differential Equations * 2 is a meaningless statement

In order to do calculations differential equations must be solved.

What are solutions to Einstein equations?

What the solutions are is irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are an infinite number of solutions to Einstein Equations.

This is the reason Einstein named his theory “General.” “General” in “General Relativity Theory” refers to the fact that General Relativity is absolutely general and covers all potential potentialities. There is absolutely nothing a physicist cannot prove or disprove by using the words “General Relativity.”

Welcome to new scholasticism same as the old scholasticism.

A physicist will Pick & Choose his favorite General Relativistic terms and assign to them values he wants and then combine them and prove or disprove any point he wants.

General Relativity is also infinitely scalable. It can be reduced to Newtonism or it can be scaled up to cosmogonix. Reducing to Newtonism means eliminating absurd principles Einstein attached to Kepler’s rule. Since physicists call Kepler’s rule Newton’s law they think they scaled one absurdity to another. Scaling up to cosmogonix means supping up those absurd principles.

This is the state of physics today. Physics is a depository of infinite solutions from which physicists Pick & Choose to prove or disprove any speculation they choose to speculate about.

The two defining characteristics of the General Relativity is Pick & Choose and Infinite Scalability. Here’s an example showing physicists in action.

The article is entitled “Exact Bianchi type-I solutions of the Einstein equations with Dirac field.” The abstract is

We present the solutions of the Einstein-Dirac equations in a Bianchi type-I space-time with cosmological constant LAMBDA. According to the value of a dimensionless parameter PHI, three classes of solutions of the Einstein-Dirac equations exist. If PHI < 1, these solutions have two singularities t1 and t2: as t goes to t1, t2 the metric tensor is of Kasner type, whereas, as t goes to plus or minus infinity, it becomes isotropic and, because of LAMDA, has a stationary-type behavior.

Scholastic physicists who wrote this commentary on General Relativity started by flavoring Einstein Equation with Dirac field. It’s so undergraduate just to use Einstein Equation plain vanilla.

They picked a Bianchi type-I spacetime. The inventory of spacetimes is rich and it is a matter of taste to choose one of the more than 2000 available spacetimes. If none suits the purpose at hand the physicist will simply define a new one or modify an existing one.

They chose to go along with cosmological constant. Cosmological constant is a decorative element in Einstein Equation. You can leave it out or leave it in or you can just do whatever you want with it and set its value to whatever.

They thought a Kasner type metric tensor would best suit their purpose so a Kasner type metric pops up in their result.

They threw in a dimensionless parameter PHI to taste and cooked up three classes of solutions.

No commentary on General Relativity will be complete without a discussion of singularities so these physicists duly investigate singularities. Physics is in singularities.

In physics there are ready-made modules which are all approved and official because they had been published in peer backslapped organs of the profession and any physicist who thinks he needs to publish not to perish just applies Pick & Choose method and connects the modules with philosophical polemics and writes down standard mathematical algorithms all culled from literature and fills the rest of the paper with links to outside authorities.

The process of doing physics clearly shows that physics is a network of scholastic mashups and General Relativity is the best tool to create physics mashups.²

1. In Ruby ”General Relativity” * 2 will result in General Relativity General Relativity. [↩]
2. Web mashups are useful but General Relativity is only scholastic fodder to write more commentary on General Relativity. [↩]

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