I was busy yesterday at work, so I managed to avoid looking at the "Conservapedia" until James Nicoll, the bastard, drew my attention to the entry on Relativity:
Unlike most advances in physics, the theory of relativity was proposed based on mathematical theory rather than observation. The theory rests on two postulates that are difficult to test, and then derives mathematically what the physical consequences should be. Those two postulates are that the speed of light never changes, and that all laws of physics are the same in every (inertial) frame of reference no matter where it is or how fast it is traveling. This theory rejects Isaac Newton's God-given theory of gravitation and replaces it with a concept that there is a continuum of space and time, and that large masses (like the sun) bend space in a manner similar to how a finger can depress an area of a balloon. From this proposed bending of space the expression arose that "space is curved." But experiments later proved that space is flat overall.
Wow. It's like a contentious transcription of somebody's notes from "Physics for Poets."
I'm just going to choose to believe that this is satire.
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I'm going to trust you and the others who have quoted from this joke. I'm going to stay away. I'm not going to be like the fraternity boys who pass around some terrible-tasting, poisonous liquid concoction, saying, "This is terrible, try it!"
This is wonderful. I hope someone is saving all this. It's hard to believe that parody this good will last.
Newton's "God-given theory of gravitation"???! What is *that* about? Do they think the Almighty appeared to Newton in a burning bush and gave him the law of gravitation carved on a stone tablet?
someone's already edited this segment. less provocative and no reference to god.
It sounds like an article from the onion.
...God-given?
It gets really interesting when you look into the history of the entry. Then it becomes obvious that any attempt to give a proper explanation is doomed. And they call wikipedia biased!
"Newton's God-given theory of gravitation"?
In the language of the King James Version of the Bible, Exodus 20:3-17 (also Deuteronomy 5:7-21), which is how God spoke to Christians in Newton's day:
-3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
-2. The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors; in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.
-1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
0. Thou shalt invent Fluxions, and woe unto those who say that Leibnitz invented them and called the Calculus. But no Complex Analysis, which I do not think is simple enough for lesser mortals.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3.Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
They left out:
"And the sun rotates around the earth" brings up the knotty theopolitical problem of Giordano Bruno (burnt at the stake), Galileo (house arrest, but a very nice house), and their colleagues. Also, we're still arguing about:
"On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: 'O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.' So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies. as it is written in the book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man."
[Joshua 10:12-4]
Seems to Uncle Al that adding a lead ball to a tensioned flat elastic membrane positioned tangent to the geoid creates triangles whose interior angles sum to less than 180 degrees. Adding a star to flat space creates creates triangles whose interior angles sum to more than 180 degrees. Has somebody changed gravitation to be consistent with the rubber sheet model?
"... flat elastic membrane ..." is too close for comfort to a female condom. So ye be banished into outermost Euclidean Newtonian abolute space, vile lefty heretic follower of apostate Einstein.
Epitaph on Newton:
"Nature and Nature's law
lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!,"
and all was light.
[added by Sir John Collings Squire:
It did not last:
the Devil shouting "Ho.
Let Einstein be,"
restored the status quo]"
[Aaron Hill's version:
"O'er Nature's laws God cast the veil of night,
Out blaz'd a Newton's soul and all was light."
Also, speaking of Pope (good name for Catholics, but not so good for Protestants)
"Order is Heaven's first law."
An Essay on Man IV.