Comments from "Does the gravitational distortion of mass still exist in the past?"

[javisot]

Do you have a reference that supports this? It looks like personal theory to me, which is off limits here.

The curvature of spacetime, the energy conditions, and the Minkoswski solution are all part of general relativity. I don't know what you think of it as a personal theory.

 

[PeterDonis]

The curvature of spacetime, the energy conditions, and the Minkoswski solution are all part of general relativity. I don't know what you think of it as a personal theory.

Because the fact that the curvature of spacetime, the energy conditions, and the Minkowski solution are all part of GR does not mean that any sentence you string together that happens to contain those words is a meaningful sentence in terms of standard GR.

When you make a claim and are asked for a reference to back it up, the PF rules you signed up to when you joined say you need to provide one. If you can't do that, your post will be deleted and you will be banned from further posting in this thread.

 

[javisot]

Because the fact that the curvature of spacetime, the energy conditions, and the Minkowski solution are all part of GR does not mean that any sentence you string together that happens to contain those words is a meaningful sentence in terms of standard GR.

When you make a claim and are asked for a reference to back it up, the PF rules you signed up to when you joined say you need to provide one. If you can't do that, your post will be deleted and you will be banned from further posting in this thread.

You use the request for references as a weapon, no one on the entire forum does the same, Peter.

We've been through this before. You're misinterpreting things that aren't written anywhere, using some kind of prejudice to tell me I'm hijacking the thread and should be banned. We can skip to the end, if you'd like.

 

[Jaime Rudas]

When you make a claim and are asked for a reference to back it up, the PF rules you signed up to when you joined say you need to provide one.

Do you have a reference that supports this?

 

[Ibix]

You're misinterpreting things that aren't written anywhere,

I must say I don't follow what it was you were trying to describe in #4. I'm not sure a reference would help here, but perhaps a revised description of the scenario you were considering might do. Were you describing some region of space (however defined) that was empty, then at a later period some stress-energy entered, and finally a still later period where the stress-energy had left? Or were you considering something like a sequence of spacetimes where you change the $M$ parameter of Schwarzschild spacetime from zero to some positive value and back to zero? Or something else? And I'm not sure where energy conditions come into it - matter that has left a region can certainly continue to have a gravitational effect on that region (although not in the sense of a trail) without violating energy conditions.

 

[Dale]

You use the request for references as a weapon, no one on the entire forum does the same, Peter.

I think that you may misunderstand the purpose that @PeterDonis and I (and other mentors) have for requesting references. It is actually the opposite.

We request references for statements that we think are probably outside of the professional scientific literature, such as your statements about elastic vs inelastic spacetime curvature and the energy conditions. We do so because we recognize that we don't know everything in the literature and we could be unaware of something that is in fact in the literature.

It is not a weapon, it is an opportunity for the person receiving the request to either show the support that does exist in the literature or to rephrase or back-off from a claim that went too far. A weapon is not needed because we could have just deleted the original post immediately.

Do you have a reference that supports this?

See:

Acceptable Sources:
Generally, discussion topics should be traceable to standard textbooks or to peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Honoring a request for references is the standard way that we implement this. We do not require that people provide such references for every post, in advance, but instead when anyone requests a reference then the person should show how their comment is traceable to the professional scientific literature.

Not all the mentors agree with me on this, but I personally feel pretty strongly about this part of our site culture. I feel there are only two appropriate responses to a request for references:

1) provide a reference
2) retract or modify the claim

A request for references, in my opinion, should always be honored even if the requestee feels that the requestor is doing so disingenuously. In particular, I feel fairly strongly that it is not up to the requestee to judge if the statement is "common knowledge". If it is then it should be easy to provide a reference, so just do so.

If you feel that a person is abusing this and using the request as a "weapon", then please report them to the mentors and we will look and see. In this specific case, I agree with the request. I also don't know how your statement that "In informal terms, space-time can be deformed elastically if all energy conditions are respected, or plastically if the energy conditions are violated" is supported in the literature. The appropriate responses would have been either to provide a reference supporting that statement or retracting/rewording the statement.

 

[javisot]

I think that you may misunderstand the purpose that @PeterDonis and I (and other mentors) have for requesting references. It is actually the opposite.

We request references for statements that we think are probably outside of the professional scientific literature, such as your statements about elastic vs inelastic spacetime curvature and the energy conditions. We do so because we recognize that we don't know everything in the literature and we could be unaware of something that is in fact in the literature.

It is not a weapon, it is an opportunity for the person receiving the request to either show the support that does exist in the literature or to rephrase or back-off from a claim that went too far. A weapon is not needed because we could have just deleted the original post immediately.


See:


Honoring a request for references is the standard way that we implement this. We do not require that people provide such references for every post, in advance, but instead when anyone requests a reference then the person should show how their comment is traceable to the professional scientific literature.

Not all the mentors agree with me on this, but I personally feel pretty strongly about this part of our site culture. I feel there are only two appropriate responses to a request for references:

1) provide a reference
2) retract or modify the claim

A request for references, in my opinion, should always be honored even if the requestee feels that the requestor is doing so disingenuously. In particular, I feel fairly strongly that it is not up to the requestee to judge if the statement is "common knowledge". If it is then it should be easy to provide a reference, so just do so.

If you feel that a person is abusing this and using the request as a "weapon", then please report them to the mentors and we will look and see. In this specific case, I agree with the request. I also don't know how your statement that "In informal terms, space-time can be deformed elastically if all energy conditions are respected, or plastically if the energy conditions are violated" is supported in the literature. The appropriate responses would have been either to provide a reference supporting that statement or retracting/rewording the statement.

I'm flattered that you and Peter think the matching process at GR is a personal theory of mine. In any case, it doesn't make the slightest sense to ask for references for a sentence that begins with "in informal terms...", by definition.

Obviously this is an absurd request for references which cannot be satisfied.

I'll give you an example, but Jaime put it correctly in that last sarcastic response:

 

[javisot]

.See:


Honoring a request for references is the standard way that we implement this. We do not require that people provide such references for every post, in advance, but instead when anyone requests a reference then the person should show how their comment is traceable to the professional scientific literature.

Not all the mentors agree with me on this, but I personally feel pretty strongly about this part of our site culture. I feel there are only two appropriate responses to a request for references:

1) provide a reference
2) retract or modify the claim

A request for references, in my opinion, should always be honored even if the requestee feels that the requestor is doing so disingenuously. In particular, I feel fairly strongly that it is not up to the requestee to judge if the statement is "common knowledge". If it is then it should be easy to provide a reference, so just do so.

If you feel that a person is abusing this and using the request as a "weapon", then please report them to the mentors and we will look and see. In this specific case, I agree with the request. I also don't know how your statement that "In informal terms, space-time can be deformed elastically if all energy conditions are respected, or plastically if the energy conditions are violated" is supported in the literature. The appropriate responses would have been either to provide a reference supporting that statement or retracting/rewording the statement.

You haven't shared any references here; you simply stated that it can be interpreted based on a standard, but there's no reference to support it. So, knowing this, I can ask: Do you have any references to support this?

You don't have any direct, explicit references to offer, so you're refusing to reference what you've written, and your comment should be deleted as you're violating forum rules.

But the reality is that the request for references I just made is absurd.

 

[Dale]

Do you have any references to support this? …

You haven't shared any references here

I did. I linked to the exact quote from the rules:

Acceptable Sources:
Generally, discussion topics should be traceable to standard textbooks or to peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The linked forum rules are the definitive reference for expectations on this website.

 

[weirdoguy]

it doesn't make the slightest sense to ask for references for a sentence that begins with "in informal terms...", by definition.

It does, if after "in informal terms..." you write some nonsense.

 

[javisot]

It does, if after "in informal terms..." you write some nonsense.

Explain what the nonsense is. I'm not saying you should repeat my words, I'm saying you should explain in detail why what I said is nonsense.

And I also ask you some specific questions: Do you know what matching is in GR? Do you know what matching conditions are? And what about the relationship between energy conditions and matching?

If during an explanation I use "elastic deformation" to refer to the fulfillment of all energy conditions and "plastic deformation" to refer to their non-fulfillment, this is entirely analogous, linguistic, and trivial. There's no new theory behind it.

 

[javisot]

Not all the mentors agree with me on this, but I personally feel pretty strongly about this part of our site culture. I feel there are only two appropriate responses to a request for references:

Any reference that specifically supports this?
If you can't share any references, you're breaking the rules.

Note that I'm simply demonstrating that requests for references can be used negatively. Not every request for references is automatically correct and consistent.

I've seen Peter make the right requests for references many times. Many people ask for references, get them, and are grateful for having solid references. But that's not always the case.

 

[Dale]

Not every request for references is automatically correct and consistent.

The one that @PeterDonis asked you for was correct and consistent. You should have responded to that request seriously.

Any reference that specifically supports this?
If you can't share any references, you're breaking the rules.

sure, yes. And as I already said:

If you feel that a person is abusing this and using the request as a "weapon", then please report them to the mentors and we will look and see.

Which I have now done.

We aren’t lawyers and the rules aren’t an act of congress.

And I also ask you some specific questions: Do you know what matching is in GR? Do you know what matching conditions are? And what about the relationship between energy conditions and matching?

If during an explanation I use "elastic deformation" to refer to the fulfillment of all energy conditions and "plastic deformation" to refer to their non-fulfillment, this is entirely analogous, linguistic, and trivial. There's no new theory behind it.

The appropriate response to the original request would have been to provide a reference to matching and energy conditions and to state how your "informal terms" were intended to refer to them.