If gravity is
geometry then it SHOULD affect all masses in the same way.
This is a commonly heard assertion, usually delivered with emphasis as if
it were a clinching argument. Hitting the table with one's fist while
delivering it is a nice touch. Proof by intimidation. Only a dolt would
doubt it.
Ok. I'll bite. *Why* is this assertion true? What experimental evidence
can confirm it for *all* possible situations? (Not just for gravity.) How
could this assertion be falsified experimentally? What does it mean to say
"gravity is geometry"? Are electric and magnetic fields also "only
geometry? What other things in *physics* are "only geometry" and therefore
conform to this assertion for the same reason? What is the criterion for
judging whether a thing is only geometry, or is something more? Is it
possible that we might be clever enough someday to show that *everything*
is geometry (properly interpreted)? Leave aside the obvious fact that math
is not physics and physics is not math. I assume you are speaking of
geometry not as a branch of pure math, but in its historical sense as a
"science of measurement" and in its modern sense as a science which
describes the metric of space.
It's not at all obvious to this dolt, for I can think of universes in
which such far-reaching assertion would not be true.
-- Donald
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Dr. Donald E. Simanek Office: 717-893-2079
Professor of Physics FAX: 717-893-2048
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
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