Is k-calculus a viable alternative to general relativity?

[Sir_Deenicus]

Hello, I stumbled upon this work some time ago. It is based on the k-calculus and claims to be a viable alternative to GR. It seems to me to be a whole load of arm waving and even exagerated claims. I am no expert on this though and so would like some more knowledgeable opinions on whether the paper should be taken seriously.

 

[pervect]

K-calculus is fine and well established as a way to understand special relativity.

As far as geometric optics goes, I'm not terribly familiar with it, but the paper itself gives us a Big Clue.

In recent times the author has written several papers on the subject of his proposed
alternative to general relativity, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] all of them rejected by the journals
to which they were submitted;

 

[Chronos]

It's nonsense IMO. K-calculus has big problems in GR. That is, btw, a personal opinion and does not represent the views of PG management.

 

[Hans de Vries]

The first on the reference list (other than to his own work) is:

[6] Tom Van Flandern. The speed of gravity – what the experiments say.
Phys. Lett. A, 250:1–11, 1998.

Not really helpful if one proposes an alternative to GR...



Regards, Hans

 

[pervect]

It's nonsense IMO. K-calculus has big problems in GR. That is, btw, a personal opinion and does not represent the views of PG management.

K-calculus == special relativity, not general relativity, at least in its standard form. Let's not through out the baby with the bathwater - K-calculus is a perfectly fine way to understand SR. One of the benefits of the K-calculus approach is it's simplicity - it doesnt' require more than high school math, so it's a good way to teach SR to high school students.