From: John Beckett 

Robert Comer  wrote in message
news::
> You implied Relativity and Special Relativity is fact, not theory and
> that's just wrong, simple as that, nothing more..

Perhaps we should define some terms. If Special Relativity is "just a
theory", what is an example of something better? How about the Law of
Conservation of Mass?

If a statement is "just a theory", does that mean that the
statement is inadequate? Or wrong?

Please give an example of a substantive statement which is better than
"just a theory".

The above queries are my way of exploring what it means to say that Special
Relativity is just a theory and not a fact. Are you reverting to "life
is just an illusion", so no facts are known?

> The evidence enough is that the scientific community still call it a
> theory.

Well they would say that, wouldn't they? By definition, everything in
science is falsifiable. Moreover, the scientific community use the word
"theory' with a totally different meaning from the general public.

> I have no problem with that statement, but that isn't the only way to
> convert mass to energy, that's what I've been saying all along,
> E=MC**2 is not just expressed in a nuclear explosion, it works for all
> mass conversions to energy.

Sure, scientists can mess about in particle accelerators, and produce a
graph with conclusion "therefore we see that a tiny amount of mass has
been converted to a tiny amount of energy". However, only specialists
can follow the argument. The first widely-accessible proof that mass could
be converted to energy was in the first nuclear explosion. Of course
nuclear power stations do the same, but they came later.

John

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