In the same context as the other quotes from Smolin (on p. 257, in The Trouble With Physicis) he wrote: "Motion is frozen, and a whole history of constant motion and change is presented to us as something static and unchanging." Evidently, he is referring to the common relativistic notion of...
A reference that may clarify and tie loose ends in this thread is a 1961 paper by N. W. Taylor, 'Note on the Harmonic Oscillator in General Relativity,' in the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, vol. 2.
Google: journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1446788700026677
Taylor's...
What's missing in all the above discussion is empirical evidence for the predicted effect.
The effect is too small to measure for massive bodies of any convenient size. And the centers of astronomical bodies are obviously inaccessible. But an indirect test could be done with a modified...
Questions about dark matter and cosmology are certainly interesting and relevant for any gravity model's large scale properties. But since this thread has long been dormant, I'll chime back in with a different angle on its original question: "What will gravity turn out to be?"
The "angle"...
A tunnel through the center of Earth is obviously impractical. The next best thing would be to prove Newton's law for the insides of massive bodies on a laboratory scale. A laboratory version of the oscillation prediction is testable using a modified Cavendish balance.
Imagine the large...
Gravity probe B is in orbit over Earth's surface. It has provided nice support for predictions of General Relativity involving a couple of its minute deviations from Newton's predictions for this exterior, "weak field" circumstance.
General Relativity, of course, also predicts simple harmonic...
The simple harmonic motion prediction for radial free-fall through a uniformly dense spherical mass (such as the idealized Earth discussed here) is very well known. Does anyone feel a desire (or need?) to verify this prediction empirically?
Though a high orbit satellite experiment would be the...
The Foster and Nightingale equation is attached as a jpg. The initial distance is given by r_0 and the final distance by r.
The General Relativity equation for the clock frequency has in its argument one term for the location ("potential") and one for the speed (squared). They are simply...
The speed of light in opposite directions with respect to rotating observers is greater or less than c. Because the effect involves rotation and therefore non-inertial reference frames, there is no conflict with Special Relativity. As this discussion demonstrates, however, something still...
As kev has pointed out, Special Relativity accounts for the Sagnac effect. It is probably relevant to add that, although some authors refer to the effect as being a "Special Relativity effect" per se, in his mathpages Kevin Brown points out that actually it is a classical effect, because it...
Foster and Nightingale give an equation for the proper time of a radially falling clock between any two distances. (Short Course in General Relativity, 1979, p. 128.) As they state, the equation is the "same as its Newtonian counterpart." So there are no factors representing any slowing of the...