pervect - Please understand that I know this is simply a difference of opinion and I can certainly respect your opinion.
pervect said:
It's not just proportionality, it's identity.
This part is not an opinion, it is a incorrect statement. There is a huge difference between
identity and
equality. When you claim that it is an identitiy, as you are, you're claiming that the term "relativistic mass" is a name which was created to mean the exact same thing as "energy", I.e. a synonym. That is incorrect. Relativistic mass is defined in one way (as the m such that mv is a conserved quantity) and
inertial energy, T (which is the notation used in some portions of Goldstein 3rd Ed.), is defined in another way, i.e. T = energy in the absense of potential energy, V. This is sometimes called
free-particle energy (e.g. Jackson 2nd Ed.). It is then
proven that T = mc
2.
Refering to it as an identity gives the false impression that this is not something that has to be proven. It also gives the impression that it includes potential energy. I had an extremely hard time trying to convince one person that it doesn't contain potential energy of position, but it was a lost cause because people almost always refer to T as "energy" and label it "E".
Yes. I'm quite familiar with that web page. However its arguments are quite poor. That is why I don't choose to abadon relativistic mass and why I think its bad to refer to it as such.
A fuller answer to "what curves spacetime" would be "the stress energy tensor" rather than just "energy", of course.
That view confuses the physical quantities which generate the gravitational field with the mathematical quantity which describes them. But to each his own. But if that is your view then it would be inconsistent to say that charge generates an EM field. So you might want to avoid that in the future should the subject arise. To be consistent with your view then you'd have to say that 4-current generates a EM field. Note: There can be g-fields in the absesnce of matter (e.g. gravitational radiation) and there can be EM fields in the absence of charge (e.g. cosmic background radiation).
Notice how I left out "curves spacetime" in all my responses? That is because a non-vanishing energy-momentum tensor can generate a non-vanishing gravitational field with no spacetime curvature (at points separate from where the energy-momentum tensor does not vanish).
Pete