Sorry I’ve been silent… here’s a quick update:
I’m in Pasadena, California, working at JPL and Caltech on various tasks related to the Planck Surveyor Cosmic Microwave Background satellite, to be launched in a couple of years (which means “soon” in this game).
I’m sure you’re waiting breathlessly to hear my commentary on such crucial subjects as Pluto’s planetary status (or lack thereof; but really, who cares?), the nature of the Dark Matter, the cosmological dark ages, and the fine cuisine of Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘n Waffles.
But you’ll just have to wait.
One response to “Quick update”
Gravity whose nature is fundamental to the understanding of solar system, galaxies and the structure and evolution of the Universe, is theorized by the assumption of curved spacetime, according to Einstein`s general theory of relativity (EGR). Particles which experience gravity only, move on curved spacetime along straight lines (geodesics). The geodesics are determined by curved-spacetime metric. In the last year, I proposed the mirrored version of EGR, the flat-spacetime general relativity (FGR), in which particles move along curved lines on flat spacetime. This puts gravitational study back to the traditional Lagrangian formulation. The Lagragian on flat spacetime is simply taken to be the curved spacetime metric of EGR. In fact, all acclaimed accurate verification of general relativity is the verification of FGR, because relativists when confronting GR to observational data, calculate time, distance, or angle by directly using the coordinates in Schwarzschild solution or in post Newtonian formulation. For example, two famous tests of general relativity are about angles. All mainstream textbooks and papers calculate the angles by directly using the coordinate $ \phi $. However, only when spacetime is flat does there exist one coordinate system which has direct meaning of time, distance, angle, and vice verse. This is the famous Riemann theorem when he pioneered the concept of curved space. According to the theorem, all coordinates on a curved space are merely parameters. Real angles and distances have to be calculated by employing coefficients of the spatial metric. If we do follow the geometry of curved spacetime (EGR) then the deflection of light at the limb of the sun is 1.65 arcseconds (Crothers, 2005). The publicly cited value (1.75 arcseconds) which best fits observational data is predicted by FGR. Therefore, the more claims are made that classical tests of general relativity fits data with great accuracy, the more falsified is the curved-spacetime assumption. That is, the claim is specious to EGR. Relativists made three specious claims as collected in the present paper. An experiment is proposed whose results will completely decide the fate of curved spacetime assumption.
I have deposited my paper to arxiv :
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512614