From: Robert Comer 

>I don't think any scientist expects to find a "perfect
theory" - one that
>is 100% accurate in all places and all times, from the tiniest subatomic
>particle, up to galaxies and beyond.

That's what they're looking for with the Unified Field theory.


But anyway, I decided not to be a scientist, so I have a bit more leeway in
what I want. 

>It is known that special relativity has definite limits, beyond which it
>is wrong. So it is "just a theory". But so is everything else!

Yep!  Theories get supplanted by better theories is all.

I think our problem here is you place to much emphases in my saying it's
"just a theory".  Just a theory is all we can have in a lot of
cases, there's nothing wrong with it being theory in my eyes, it explains
things to the best of our ability now and that's all we can do.

>This thread is based on three out of ten Republican Presidential
>candidates declaring that they don't believe in the theory of evolution.
>In these dangerous times, I think it is worth insisting on a little rigour
>where one can.

You cannot trample on someone's religious beliefs, that's not the way this
country works.  If you don't like what they say, you don't vote for them.

>We started by agreeing that special relativity was a
>theory, then you seemed to think it somehow profound to note that it was
>"just a theory", as if it was therefore ok for you to not
bother working
>out whether your claim about E=mc^2 and nuclear explosions was correct.

Not correct, it's you that seemed fixated on "just a theory"  As
I said about, just a theory is the best we can do.  (And I was correct in
what I said about E=MC2.)

--
Bob Comer



On Fri, 18 May 2007 20:41:19 +1000, John Beckett
 wrote:

>Robert Comer  wrote in message
>news::
>> >The theory of special relativity is an attempt to describe how
things work
>> >in general - here, there and everywhere.
>>
>> The key here is attempt, and it will continue to be a theory until it
>> does describe how things work, here, there, and everywhere.
>
>I don't think any scientist expects to find a "perfect
theory" - one that
>is 100% accurate in all places and all times, from the tiniest subatomic
>particle, up to galaxies and beyond.
>
>Certainly there is no such animal in current knowledge (although I suppose
>the laws of thermodynamics might be thought to qualify).
>
>It is known that special relativity has definite limits, beyond which it
>is wrong. So it is "just a theory". But so is everything else!
>
>This thread is based on three out of ten Republican Presidential
>candidates declaring that they don't believe in the theory of evolution.
>In these dangerous times, I think it is worth insisting on a little rigour
>where one can. We started by agreeing that special relativity was a
>theory, then you seemed to think it somehow profound to note that it was
>"just a theory", as if it was therefore ok for you to not
bother working
>out whether your claim about E=mc^2 and nuclear explosions was correct.
>
>Special relativity is one of the most spectacularly successful theories of
>all time, and it will remain so despite its limitations.
>
>It's quite reasonable to say it's just a theory that Oswald shot Kennedy.
>Everything we know about that case could be wrong.
>
>However, a theory like special relativity is completely different - it
>will never be wrong (given the absence of nearby extreme gravity).
>
>John

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