Thank you, Mr. Starling, for helping to lower my "stress quotient"!
(And please note that I did not really call anyone a liar, but instead gave the choice between that and someone who really has not taken the time to check out the facts of the case.)
(I also would like to point out the fact that Mr. Poor misquoted me by snipping my "buffer" phrase "I hate to say this, but".)
(I would also like to note that it seems odd to me that whereas the main party [you] has actually apologized, I still got several strong reprimands from "parties of the second part.")
(Finally, as far as this initial top-posting stuff goes, let me correct Mr. Axel Boldt's assumption that I have a theory or theories by stating that this is untrue. My whole point was simply that critical facts have been left out of the WIKI special relativity article, and I have proved my point.)
From: "Tim Starling" ts4294967296@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request REaWIKIArticle--] Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 16:40:36 +1000
[snip]
The fact that E=mc^2 does not support SR is not merely "my fact."
I never said anything about that one, remember? I snipped it. I didn't want to get into a technical discussion on this mailing list, where most readers are not familiar with relativity. Save it for the talk page of the article.
Your many references to cranks in the context of my first post made it necessary for me to try to defend myself, and it seemed to me that this could best be done by showing that E=mc^2 is not a part of SR.
Regarding your "save it for the talk page" advice, you are actually at a disadvantage because you did not know that I had already tried that, and found that it did not work - so I tried taking my case to the "main dude" himself, James Wales; however, since he assumed that he could not handle the physics, he "tossed me to the 'wolves' of this list." (said with a smile, Mr. Poor!)
I really wanted the chance to prove to Mr. Wales that there were indeed critical scientific facts omitted from "his" WIKI SR article. And I firmly believe that I can still do this, so I will post my new for-the-layman proof for Mr. Wales.
[snip]
I challenge anyone here to find where I lost any argument to anyone in the Newsgroups.
Who said anything about losing arguments? I've never known a crackpot to lose an argument, by their own concession.
Actually, it is easy to tell who has won an argument in the Newsgroups if one cares to find out. The main two ways are [1] if no one replies to one's final posting (re the main subject), or [2] if there are only ad hominem or "you ain't right" or "you're just a troll and a crank" kinds of replies. (I certainly would not dream of asking you to simply take my word that I had won.)
I hate to say this, but Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an easily-fooled person because I have never - by any stretch of anyone's imagination - except Starling's - suggested "a direct test of some aspect of relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically impossible."
Two very important questions:
- What would be my motivation to lie?
- Who am I being fooled by?
It would be of course the same motivation that led you to dismiss me instantly as some sort of crackpot. I wish I knew what it was!
You could be fooled by various sources, one of which could be the WIKI SR article which falsely states that SR is supported by E=mc^2. You could also be fooled by those in the Newsgroups who have tried to label anything that they're not familiar with as "BS from a crank."
And I have never ignored "the huge body of slightly less direct tests of the same theory," and I have not then "obliquely suggested some sort of conspiracy theory to explain why no-one is spending millions of dollars on his simple test." And it is complete balderdash to say of me that "Everywhere he goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring mainstream physicists, who are out to suppress the 'truth' he has discovered."
Mr. Starling, I demand either an apology or some proof of the above serious accusations.
I apologise. I was making generalisations. As a matter of curiosity, what is your estimate for the cost of this experiment?
Thanks, but it seemed to me to be a direct attack on my credibility, so I got pretty defensive (which I rarely do).
As for "the cost of this experiment," I am not sure to which experiment you are referring, but I assume it is a two-clock measurement of light's one-way speed. Since we are actually talking about theoretical physics (note that my main topic is SR), the cost is practically zero because it is all done on paper.
For some reason, everyone assumes that I am either presenting a theory of my own or calling for some exorbitant test of SR. Instead, I am simply trying to clarify the meaning of SR. [snip]
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