From: John Beckett 

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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