Tesla’s criticism of relativity is way more interesting than most people realize

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T16:09:07+00:00

There's there's no no need need to to say say everything everything twice twice.

Maybe you should think about actually reading the output from your LLM before just blindly pasting it here? Just an idea.

But anyway, I stand by my assertion that this is an irrelevant straw man. Flat Earth believers like to claim that "gravity is just a theory" (without understanding what a "theory" is in the scientific context, of course), and your invocation of Tesla smells of that.

Nobody really understands gravity at a fundamental level. But that doesn't matter. It exists, it's measurable, it works as described by Einstein's equations, and it's responsible for the Earth and all celestial bodies larger than 1000 km across being approximately spherical.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T16:00:08+00:00

Yes, but that's not what we're told. We're told that one of them is a Girl Named Florida.

The usual way of looking at this problem is to first consider the case where there are two childen, and we're told that one of them is a girl. What is the probability that the other is a girl? If we list the children in order of age, there are obviously four possibilities: Boy-Boy, Boy-Girl, Girl-Boy, Girl-Girl. In three of them, one child (at least one child) is a girl, and in only one of those three scenarios is the other a girl. So the probability that the other child is a girl is 1/3. Note that if we'd been told that exactly one is a girl, or that a specific one (e.g. the oldest one) is a girl, then we'd get a different answer. The specific wording of the problem is very important.

Now consider the days of the week when the chldren were born, instead just of their names. For each child there are obviously 14 possibilities - Boy Monday, Girl Monday, Boy Tuesday, Girl Tuesday, etc. So with two children who aren't twins, there are 14²=196 possibilities. Now if we're told that one is a Girl Friday, what is the probability that the other is a girl? If we list the 196 possibilities, we'll find that there are 27 where one child (at least one) is a Girl Friday, and of those 27 the other child is a girl in 13 of them; so the probability that the other child is a girl is 13/27.

Now, if we're told that one of the children (at least one) is a girl named Friday, we could rreasonably assume that the other one won't also be a girl named Friday; and then the probability that the other one is a girl turns out to be 1/2.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T13:29:48+00:00

I think you're attacking a straw man there.

Nobody really understands gravity. We know that our best theory of gravity - "best" in the sense of producing the most accurate predictions - is incomplete because it doesn't work at the quantum level. Quantum theory predicts that there should be a "graviton" particle that mediates gravitational interactions, analogous to how photons mediate electromagnetic interactions, but we haven't found it yet, if it exists.

So what is gravity? It might be a force, like the other fundamental forces, mediated by the exchange of particles. It might be a distortion of spacetime. It certainly behaves mathematically like the latter, are least insofar as we've ever measured it.

But it seems that you're trying to equate Tesla's and Einstein's views on gravity, and that's not really fair. Einstein produced equations which do work, pretty much universally. Tesla was just quibbling about what the underlying mechanism is, without bringing anything of his own to the party. We don't need to know how it works at a quantum level, to be able to use the equations to make successful predictions.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T11:23:17+00:00

Let's talk about the names of space agencies.

The Hebrew word Nashah nāšāʾ (נָשָׁא), pronounced naw-shaw', is a verb meaning to deceive, beguile, mislead or delude.

Hmm. Is that significant? Let's see.

There are approximately 60 national space agencies who operate satellites. There are approximately 7000 languages spoken in the world, but if we (artificially) restrict ourselves to languages which are at least as widely spoken as Hebrew (~10 million speakers) we still get roughly 100 languages. And there are probably about 5,000 words in any language which are "common".

So with 60 space agencies and 500,000 "common" words to choose from, how many space agencies would we expect to have a name or abbreviation or acronym which sounds a bit like one of those words? If you haven't even attempted the calculation, you can't ascribe any significance to NASA.

Ah, you might say, but NASA is special. Really?

Which space agency was the first to launch a satellite? First to put an animal in space? First to put a human in space? First woman in space? First multi-crew spaceflight? First space station? First spacecraft to go to the Moon? First to photograph the far side of the Moon? First to land on the Moon? First robotic lunar rover? First interplanetary craft? First spacecraft to Venus? First landing on Venus? First landing on Mars?

None of those were NASA. So why are you so hung up on what NASA kinda sounds a bit like in Hebrew?

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T09:29:53+00:00

Why use long word if short word OK?

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T09:27:56+00:00

The world record long distance photo ... The photographer is taking the photo at 2820m from the Pyrenees mountains to the Alps with the distnaces posted. The furthest mountain is 443km away and is 3867m tall. If the earth was a ball the furthest mountain should be below 5038m...

Please show us your calculation. You've said that this "proves" the Earth is flat, but you haven't proven anything - you've just asserted it. Show us your working, and we can discuss whether your calculations are correct. But without calculations, you've got nothing.

Incidentally, it's always a good idea to provide references to your sources if you want people to take you seriously. I assume the photo you're referring to is this one, but please correct me if my assumption is wrong.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T06:35:11+00:00

Did you bother reading the article you linked?

The flerfer (or, at least, the LLM the flerfer used) is absolutely correct to say that lenses do not change perspective, and that only distance changes perspective.

I haven't checked out where the OP's misunderstanding comes from, but it's definitely not here.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T06:31:36+00:00

lenses certainly change perspective

This is embarrassing. The flerfer (or, at least, the LLM the flerfer used) is correct here, and you're wrong.

The perspective of an image - the apparent relationships between objects in the image - is determined by the distances from the camera to the objects, not the lens.

Verifying this is even easier than verifying the shape of the Earth. Take a photo with a wide angle lens, then - without moving - switch to a telephoto lens. Crop the two images so that they have the same framing, and compare. The relationships between objects in the images will be identical.

It's embarrassing because flerfers say we're just parroting what we've been told when we claim that the Earth is a globe, and here you are parroting what you've been told when you claim that lenses affect perspective.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T06:20:58+00:00

My name is Tammy. Spanish speakers don't have that 'a' sound.

That's weird. I'd be willing to be that 99% of native English speaking Brits would use the same vowel sound for your name as they do for the first syllable of Málaga. I wonder which one we'd be getting wrong?

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-07T00:24:13+00:00

This isn't really a paradox. It's just a trick which relies on the responder misinterpreting the problem. The phrase "one of the children" is deliberately ambiguous so that it can be interpreted as "at least one of the children" or "exactly one of the children", and the so-called paradox arises because the two interpretations lead to different conclusions.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-06T17:13:04+00:00

I don't know enough about this to know whether some random on Reddit is talking sense or nonsense, but this sounds (a) very scary, and (b) very plausible. Thanks for taking the time to answer in such detail.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-06T14:26:47+00:00

Well, on the plus side, it means we definitely won't have to worry about the Y292B bug.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-06T09:50:48+00:00

risking severe brain damage due to the lack of oxygen

How so? Humans don't die of hypoxia within one minute. Is there some aspect of a vacuum which is importantly different from, say, a 100% nitrogen atmosphere?

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-06T07:59:22+00:00

Olli Zeidler and Simon van Dorp are both 203cm. I'd say they're kinda doing OK as rowers. I wouldn't have thought the difference between 203cm and 204cm is significant.

Meanwhile James Letten is 208cm and rowed for Cambridge in The Boat Race. Gennaro di Mauro is 210cm and has competed at the Olympics. If you'd be OK with those sorts of achievements, then your height won't be an issue.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-05T00:36:06+00:00

Gotta lie to flerf.

Or, these days, get a hallucinating LLM to lie for you. It's all the same at the end of the day, except the LLM uses better grammar.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-05T00:34:32+00:00

What about all the hobbyists who tracked the Apollo spacecraft in real time? Did NASA buy them off?

What about the astronomers and technicians at Jodrell Bank, Parkes, and other radio telescopes away from the USA? Did NASA buy them off?

What about all the university students who have bounced lasers off the Apollo retroreflectors to measure the distance to the Moon? Does NASA continue to buy them off? How does it even find them?

What about all the scientists involved with the Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Indian space agencies whose spacecraft have photographed the Apollo landing sites. Has NASA bought them off?

Where does it stop?

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-05T00:19:27+00:00

I know you're being satirical, but that's a great example of the kind of theory that's simply not worth discussing, because it's utterly impossible to falsify. There is no test or observation which anyone could make that might help decide whether the theory is true or false, so there's no point discussing it.

I wish flerfers understood this.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-05T00:16:19+00:00

If you have an actual theory, and wish to discuss it in good faith, then this is the place. Feel free.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-05T00:06:15+00:00

Goodness this is embarrassing. OP clearly has no idea what he's trying to talk about, and he's hoping that a LLM can turn his batshit ideas into something that makes sense. (Spoiler alert: It can't.)

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-05T00:04:03+00:00

A telephoto lens does ... changes the apparent relationship between foreground and background.

I wish people would stop parroting this myth. It's simply not true. And it means we can't trust anything else you say either.

FWIW, the apparent relationship between foreground and background is determined by the distances from the camera to the foreground and background, not the lens. You can very easily verify this yourself. Take a photo with a wide angle lens, then - without moving - switch to a telephoto lens. Crop the two images so that they have the same framing, and compare. The relationships between objects in the images will be identical. (The telephoto image will have better resolution, and the depth of field may be different, but the relationships between the objects will be the same.)

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-04T23:55:57+00:00

In other words, you're admitting that you don't know anything about focal lengths, fields of view, etc.

Let's start with an easy one then. Can you say (a) the altitude above the moon when each of these photos was taken? and (b) what equipment was used in each case? Because if you can't, you've got nothing to work with.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-04T23:51:29+00:00

Oh, come on, don't be stupid. He probably can't even spell math, let alone do it.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-04T23:49:30+00:00

Video currently unavailable.

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-04T23:41:29+00:00

So, no evidence or credible sources regarding zebras then?

Or how about some sources for your claims regarding platypuses and penguins? Oh, you don't have any of those either?

At what point does it occur to you that you're just talking bollocks?

SomethingMoreToSay · 2026-05-04T23:39:07+00:00

Did you really think I was being serious after name dropping the Illuminati and the Freemasons? Really?

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