An ether model which gives the Standard Model of particle physics

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Schmelzer, Dec 2, 2015.

  1. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    The model I want to present here is a condensed matter or ether interpretation of the established modern field theory of particle physics, the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics.

    A popular presentation can be found at http://ilja-schmelzer.de/matter/

    The model itself has been published in a peer-reviewed journal as
    I. Schmelzer, A condensed matter interpretation of SM fermions and gauge fields, Foundations of Physics, vol. 39, nr. 1, p. 73 (2009) and this paper can be downloaded frpm http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.0591
    An improved version with some additional results about the masses have been published as
    I. Schmelzer, The Standard Model fermions as excitations of an ether, in: Reimer, A. (ed.), Horizons in World Physics, Volume 278, Nova Science Publishers (2012) and can be downloaded from http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.3892

    What is the main point of this model? The SM is very well tested, and if one looks at it from point of view of its agreement with observation, everything is fine with the SM. But it has a weak point: It does not explain anything. It contains a lot of fields - three types of force fields (EM, strong and weak), where the strong contains 8 and the weak 3 field similar to the EM field, which already contains 6 components itself - and three generations of fermions, each generation containing a pair of leptons and three pairs of quarks, while each of these fermion fields contains 8 (4 complex) components. Each fermion has also charges for each of the three forces and masses. So, the SM is a quite complicate set of fields, and the SM does not give any hint why we have these fields, and not some others. This is what we observe, that's all the SM tells us.

    The ether model proposed here allows to explain this, based on a surprisingly simple model - a lattice of elementary cells, with some other material between them. The state of each cell is defined by a simple affine transformation from some reference cell, and such a transformation is a simple 3x(3+1) matrix. And this 3x(3+1) matrix is what we find in the SM too: Three generations, and in each generation one pair of leptons and three pairs of colored quarks.
     
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  3. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    What we observe at large distances are, of course, not the cells themself, but only waves. There are different types of waves which may have visible effects for large distances, in particular homogeneous waves, where neighbour cells move in the same direction, but also oscillating waves, where the neighbour cells move in opposite directions. This difference appears in each of the three spatial directions, which gives a factor of 8. And we have, of course, actual position and momentum. Thus, to describe such waves, we need 16 degrees of freedom, which is exactly what a pair of fermions gives.

    Then, the model also predicts two types of forces: One is related with distortions of the medium between the cells. This gives, almost exactly, the strong force together with the EM field. Another force is related with distortions of the lattice itself. This gives, also almost exactly, the weak force. But not only the forces themself are obtained. The model tells us also how these forces influence the different degrees of freedom of the cells.

    In particular, the theory has Euclidean symmetry. A consequence of the Euclidean symmetry is that the forces do not change if the lattice is rotated. It follows that all three generations of fermions have to have the same charges. Another consequence is that moving the whole lattice does not lead to any forces. That means, the degrees of freedom associated with translations of the whole lattice cannot have any non-trivial charge. These are the right-handed neutrinos of the SM, which are, indeed, completely uncharged.
     
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  5. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Some of us never bought into string theory. I watched it being born, and the consensus Edward Witten slap-dashed together about the way it was supposed to develop never impressed. I attended one of Witten's first colloquia on string theory as three competing versions were coming together into one. Strings had only one degree of freedom in those early days. They were missing degrees of freedom that everything made of energy in our universe manifestly has. Nothing in string theory ever allows energy events or bosons to interact directly with strings, because they are at a level of abstraction that is below that of quarks. You've got a nerve, calling anything that is like string theory compatible with the Standard Model. The Standard Model categorizes but does not dissect quarks.

    The words "unmitigated" and "audacity" came to mind when I attended Witten's early colloquia on string theory. Much later, I read his paper about the topology of the quantum sigma field, and it made me glad I didn't follow the subject any more closely than I did something like Bode's law or Astrology.

    An aether model in which the aether has inertia violates both Newton's third law AND the Standard Model force pairs derived of boson interaction. Forces come in pairs. Failure of a model to account for unbalanced forces leads to the possibility of perpetual motion machines and reactionless thrust drives. Just talking about them as if they were science is usually sufficient to get permanently banned on most science discussion boards. All any such model needs to get traction is something like your "lattice". Do you believe us to be fools?

    There are THREE varieties / generations of neutrinos in the SM, NOT only two, as your description of "right-handed" vs. "left-handed" would suggest. There is a supercomputer model of workings of the interior of our Sun which now supports three generations of neutrinos, and which agrees with both theory and experiment. An associate of mine worked with Ray Davis at the Homestead mine where the first perchloroethane neutrino detectors were deployed. Ray was awarded a Nobel prize for his neutrino work. If your theory rails against these models, predictions and over 30 years of experiments with neutrinos, you are pushing a stone with a ponderable mass uphill. Watch your next step.

    If you need a "lattice" to transmit waves of photon energy, you are committing to an absolute space. It's not necessary, since 1905. The Higgs field, of which the Higgs boson is an excitation, is not a "lattice", so why do we need one? Is the Higgs field part of your model? Why not? It's the foundation of the Standard Model. I'm not making this up.

    Is there anything in your model that explains something we didn't know already? It does not seem to be 100% consistent with the science we already know to a high degree of certainty. Do you have some other motivation for putting it forward, or is that (the website) the whole theory? Have you been able to make any predictions that can be tested with it? String theory predicts that protons will eventually decay, but evidently this will not happen before all of the black holes evaporate. Do you believe information like this is useful? To whom?

    "Degrees of freedom" seems to be a holdover from gas laws, yet you seem to be applying the term to something more akin to a solid, in a structure in which each element has a particular orientation and relationship with respect to the rest of the lattice. Are all of the elements of the lattice of the same charge? It would fly apart. Are they of the same magnetic polarity? Are they monopoles? Are they made of strings?

    "oscillating waves" is redundant, but what kind of wave energy is supported by your lattice? EM only? Electroweak? Strong? What?
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2015
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  7. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    I do not name anything like string theory compatible with the SM. There is the old joke that our universe is, according to string theory, an exceptional one: the only one which cannot be described by string theory. Whatever, I do not care about this. My ether theory is, in comparison with the \(10^{500}\) or so vacuum states, quite predictive and predicts the SM gauge group as well as it fermions quite accurate.
    I prefer not to talk about "inertia" and "forces". The equations of my theory contain standard laws of classical condensed matter theory, namely continuity and Euler equations, which are conservation laws, classically for mass and momentum, so, they are not in conflict with classical ideas about inertia and forces.

    The idea that I have used a lattice to get some traction is nonsense. My aim was to explain the SM, and not to care what fools think about the results.
    Of course, there are three generations of all fermions, in the SM as well as in my model. And all Dirac fermions have left-handed and right-handed components. Older variants of the SM have had only left-handed neutrinos (but also three generations of them), but this would not allow for massive neutrinos, and the results about neutrino oscillations have shown that the neutrinos have also right-handed components. So, the actual version of the SM contains three generations of left-handed as well as three generation of right-handen neutrinos. My model is in full agreement with this.
    I do not care what is necessary since 1905, but I care about what is necessary today to explain the properties of the SM. Properties which have been unknown 1905. An absolute space is necessary for a quantum theory of gravity.
    The Higgs is part of the SM, but certainly not a foundation of it. Those who present it in such a way are usually bad science journalists, who want to present the latest result - that the Higgs seems to have been found - in an especially pompous way.

    There are a lot of fields in my theory which are similar in important aspects to the Higgs. For every electroweak pair of fermions, there is also a massive scalar field. Then, for every massless gauge field, there is also a corresponding scalar field. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to obtain any predictions about its mass. I do not think that, even if these fields are quite similar (they are also scalar fields) that they are exactly the Higgs fields of the actual version of the SM.
    The additional massive scalar fields are quite nice candidates for cold Dark Matter.
    I see here only the Higgs sector as potentially critical. But this is also the most unknown part of the SM.

    I think that fundamental theory has actually only one aim: To explain us how the universe works. Pure interest. We want to know it. This is sufficient, at least for me, I do not need further motivation.

    Some predictions which appear later to be correct are, of course, a very strong argument for a theory which makes the prediction. But a "postdiction", an explanation of what we already know, is also a sufficiently strong argument in favor of a theory. And what is much more important is comparison between different proposals.
    "Degrees of freedom" is simply a technical term, has nothing to do with gas laws (but, of course, in a book about gas laws this phrase may be used too). Then, the elementary cells of the ether are not made of the material we know, with the properties we know, like charge. So your question sounds similar to the question if quarks are made of gold or silver, or if the green quarks contain chlorophyll. And they have nothing to do with string theory.

    The formulation may not be optimal. See at page 8 of http://ilja-schmelzer.de/papers/presentation.pdf the picture. There may be waves which look similar to the red curves, and waves which look like the blue curve. The point is that the equations show that all the even nodes behave very similar, all odd too, but there may be differences between even and odd nodes.
     
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  8. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    At least, the motivation is good.

    What was the main deficiency you observed in the Standard Model which convinced you, a new or a better explanation for some part or all of it was needed? If successful, would your aether theory replace some of it, all of it, or what critical parts would it extend?

    I hope you noticed, my extension of Higgs presents literally nothing that is new or revolutionary to science in its final form. It simply follows through with what Einstein and others started. If yours can say the same, which existing theories were your most important influence?

    Your website said it was string theory. If that is true, that's bad. If it isn't, you should change it to whatever you really mean. Otherwise, your strategy appears similar to that of JACKIE JEROME, who own hundreds of pseudoscience domains and blogs, each of them with a slightly different QUACKPOT theory. At one point, Jackie contacted me by email to see if I had any interest in playing his little game. I wasn't. Were you?
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2015
  9. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    The main deficiency of the Standard Model is the complete absence of any explanation. The SM is a list, we have this gauge group SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1), 24 fermions, with the following list of charges .... and the following masses ... All this without any attempt of explanation, why this group, why these fermions, why do they have these charges and these masses.

    So, the point is not a better explanation, the point is to start to have an explanation at all.

    With the explanation of the fermions and the gauge field it has already reached an important success, much more than string theory even dreams about today. I can hope for some extension for the Higgs-like particles. In this domain, the theory has yet to be further developed, to obtain a better understanding of the masses in general.

    It has nice candidates for dark matter, namely massive scalar particles which do not interact with any other particles. There are also some other, by analogy even more massive, scalar particles with strong interaction, so these may become even observable, if the masses are small enough.
    I don't understand what you say about the Higgs, so cannot say if my theory says something similar, I would guess not. Important influences? Essentially none. I have, of course, tried to remain as close as possible to GR and SM. Some results about numerical computations for the SM (Wilson lattice gauge fields, fermion doubling) have heavily influenced me. Mathematically Clifford algebras have played a role, even if in the final version this is hardly visible.
    I have not been able to find this place on my website which says something positive about string theory. It may be described as interesting mathematics, as a competitor, which has not reached such results, as an example of the negative results of the actual way to organize science. So, please quote.
     
  10. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    From your own website: http://ilja-schmelzer.de/matter/

    "On the other hand, there is a long list of concepts shared with the old ether idea:
    • Absolute space: We have a classical, Euclidean space R3, with the classical (global) Euclidean symmetry group E(3), generated by translations and rotations in space.
    • Absolute time: We have a classical, Newtonian concept of absolute, true time.
    • Time dilation caused by the ether: The time measured by clocks is distorted by effects of the ether: Moving clocks are slower.
    • Length contraction caused by the ether: As well, ether effects lead to a contraction of moving rulers. Thus, relativistic effects are described in a way similar to the Lorentz ether.
    • Medium fills space: The space is filled with some medium — the ether. This medium has parts, and these parts have a well-defined (even if unobservable) velocity.
    • Speed of light as the speed of sound of the medium: The speed of light in the vacuum is the characteristic speed of waves in this medium, similar to the speed of sound."
    This kills it. If you had put this snippet at the beginning of your blog, no one would read any further. What you are saying here, in no uncertain terms is: "I'm smarter then Einstein." You do understand what we think when you say something like that, don't you? Let me explain it in more detail.

    Einstein had a theory that WORKED. It's STILL WORKING over 100 years later. It doesn't bother anyone but a neo-nazi that the man was right, even about the side he took in the second World War. His theory is still right over 100 years later. We use his GR field equations each and every day in the 21st century to calculate corrected time for GPS satellites. THEY DON'T WORK THE WAY THEY DO BECAUSE OF ABSOLUTE TIME, YOU IDIOT. Super powers in the 20th century built nuclear weapons since the middle of the 20th century based on the predictions of SR which requires nothing like absolute space or absolute time. Bringing something like ABSOLUTE SPACE OR ABSOLUTE TIME back is not progress; it's regressive. If there were either absolute space or absolute time, either you would be able to measure it LIKE MICHAELSON-MORELY TRIED TO DO, or else it doesn't exist.

    Sorry, no sale. With a model like this, you will explain exactly nothing. Since 1905.

    The invariant speed of light IS NOTHING LIKE anything as mundane as the speed of sound or anything like it. It is not the origin of time itself. It is only the rate of linear propagation of bulk energy in a vacuum, but its invariance is also the reason it is possible to do physics (like measuring the SAME speed of light) in every inertial reference frame regardless of time dilation effects. Something like the speed of sound can do nothing like this. Do you even give what you write a "nonsense" check before you put it up on your blog?

    The prosecution rests. No follow-up questions. Thanks.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2015
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  11. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Reading this, I had to think: Is this a nice satirical piece about the reaction of a stupid believer in Holy Relativity, or is this really serious? But, even if I'm not really sure, I tend to think that this is really serious. So, sorry if I have misinterpreted this: If it was satirical, it was really good.

    On the other hand, this seems to be a fate of modern time: It becomes more and more difficult to make good satirical things because reality appears even worse. So, let's answer as if this was meant seriously.
    No, it doesn't. And science is not at all about this. And even if I would think so, it would not matter at all for a scientist. Because a scientist would care about the arguments I propose in favor of my theory. You obviously don't care about them, thus, your .... is irrelevant.
    The point of this is? You obviously don't understand what it means that in the limit \(\Xi,\Upsilon \to 0\) the equations become the Einstein equations of GR in harmonic coordinates. And that there are only a few domains where the additional terms become relevant at all, namely in cosmology and extremely close to the surface of a black hole. The consequence is that for everything else, inclusive GPS, one can use the Einstein equations of GR as today, even if my theory is true. So I do not question this even a single bit.

    Now let's see what you cry:
    The first sentence makes no sense at all, the second is some irrelevant speculation about progress, and the last a primitive error. Nature is not obliged to show us everything. One can, of course, make the reasonable argument that if something exists, but cannot be measured, then this requires an explanation. What makes it impossible to measure it?

    A reasonable question, and I have an answer for it. The answer is part of the derivation of the ether theory of gravity, where the Einstein Equivalence Principle is derived. It is derived from another symmetry, a symmetry which is inherent in the Lagrange formalism, namely the "action equals reaction" symmetry.

    LOL, this is the best - the speed of light is nothing mundane like the speed of sound, it is Holy.

    In fact, you obviously don't know that the equation for sound waves has a similar Lorentz symmetry as SR, with the speed of sound, let's denote it C, instead of c. The equation for a sound wave would be \(\partial_t^2 \varphi(x,t) - C^2 \partial_x^2 \varphi(x,t) = 0\). When, if \(\varphi(x,t) \) is a solution, and you write a Lorentz transformation for some coordinates x'(x,t), t'(x,t), only with C instead of c, then the function \(\varphi(x'(x,t),t'(x,t)) \) is also a solution of the same wave equation for sound waves. And if you like, you can also use for somebody who moves with subsonic speed the analogon of Einstein synchronization with sound waves to obtain some skew "synchronization" which depends on the speed of the observer.

    Of course, the primitive variant of the sound analogy fails because out of primitive sound waves it seems impossible to construct clocks and rulers. But the SM of particle physics is, if one looks at the equations, nothing conceptually more complicate.
     
  12. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    Illiterate bullshit. This thread should go to pseudoscience.
     
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  13. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    Guilty and illiterate as charged where string theory is concerned, and proud of it. If it is your cup of tea, you are absolutely entitled to read as much as you want about it, and don't let me discourage you. Even as flawed as string theory is, it's still much better and more consistent than this aether theory of Schmetzer's. So is Astrology.

    I also agree with your assessment of the entire thread. The man claims there is absolute time, but hasn't a clue about what that means. Even Mr <id> could understand something as simple as that. Away with it to the cesspool or pseudoscience or wherever it goes. Certainly not physics and math.
     
  14. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    You do understand, we're not laughing WITH you.

    This aether theory of yours is much further from being blessed or Holy than Einstein's single assumption of an invariant speed of light for relativity, my dull witted forum associate.

    But don't take my word for it. Move the section I quoted to the beginning of your blog and see if traffic increases or decreases, and monitor how many and how long people stay to look at it. Jackie Jerome will tell you when the traffic dwindles to zero and you need to start paying higher rates to maintain it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2015
  15. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    As if I would be interested in how many people follow cheap prejudices and reject a site because it is Anathema to Holy Relativity, and not because of scientific arguments.
     
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  16. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    Or AS IF you would be interested to know that in a universe in which TIME IS AN ABSOLUTE, you can take two clocks at the same location, set them to the same time, and have an expectation that if you launch one in a GPS satellite, it will maintain the same time as one left on the ground. It doesn't work like that, just like your theory doesn't work if it is based on absolute time.

    This is the main reason that Holy relativity is not going to be replaced by Holy Schmelzer neo-aether theory in our lifetime. Save yourself some embarrassment here and elsewhere. Take down your website, hitch a ride on a big wave in your aether and propagate away. Post an FAQ about it on Metapedia or something. They just love anything that is anti-Einstein over there.

    The ignorance is strong in this one.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2015
  17. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    As if this would be what my theory claims. You have forgotten one important point of what you have cited yourself:
    • Time dilation caused by the ether: The time measured by clocks is distorted by effects of the ether: Moving clocks are slower.
    Because of this time dilation, absolute time is not the time we measure with clocks. Two different clocks will not maintain the same time, because above clocks are influenced differently as by their own velocity against the ether, as by the different state of the ether at the place where they are. And the formula which describes the "time" which is measured by clocks (which is not absolute time) is the same as in GR, namely the formula for proper time \(\tau = \int \sqrt{g_{mn}\frac{dx^m}{dt}\frac{dn^n}{dt}} dt\).

    This is not an independent postulate, but a consequence of what I have already explained, namely that the matter Lagrangian (which is, obviously, also the Lagrangian which describes the behavior of clock) has to be covariant.

    So, please, try to understand the basic claims of a theory (or at least those you quote yourself) before criticizing it in a nonsensical way.
     
  18. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah I saw that too. Do YOU understand that by claiming absolute time in the Newtonian sense, YOU CONTRADICT YOURSELF? You can't have it both ways. Time dilation is from relativity. Absolute time is from Newton. It's either one or the other. You can't have both at the same time, in the same theory. Which one is it going to be?
     
  19. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Above notions of time are from Newton. To quote him:
    So that time measurements with clocks have to be distinguished from true time is well-known. And what is named "proper time" in GR, which I prefer to name clock time, is clearly Newton's relative, apparent and common time. And once Newton can have above times in his theory, I can have them too.

    BTW, modern quantum theory also have these two different times. One time, the absolute, true and mathematical time of QT, is the time parameter t used in the Schrödinger equation. Instead, relative, apparent and common time has to be described by some self-adjoint operator for time measurement.

    And there are well-known results that there exists no such self-adjoint operator which measures time. Even more, there are theorems that each clock has, in quantum theory, a nonzero probability to go even backward in true time. So, to obtain a theory compatible with quantum theory I have to distinguish these two different concepts of time too.
     
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  20. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Proper time is well understood, by me at least. It is a consequence of the invariance of the speed of light. BUT YOU have already dismissed the idea that the invariance of the speed of light is no more special or "Holy", as you put it, than the speed of sound. Too bad, because understanding this would be about the only thing that could salvage even a scrap of consistency within your theory.

    So your GPS SATELLITE ACTION PLAN would be to go ahead and lunch with the uncorrected clock and hope against hope that "proper time" will somehow sort it all out? With apologies to Donald Trump for using his catch phrase, YOU'RE FIRED!

    The contradictions within your theory now begin compounding themselves with interest (but NOT my interest, which has now expired). Good day, and good luck with your next job. My advice would be to something you are better at.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2015
  21. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    As if to canonize proper time or the speed of light would change anything. And, don't forget, I'm a professional scientist with several published papers and do not need your help undergraduate basics of GR or even SR.
    Of course not. My recommendation for GPS satellites is to follow the same receipt they follow by assuming GR is true, because my theory of gravity makes the same predictions about clocks as GR in this domain. Even if not exactly the same, any corrections would be so minor that they would be below the accuracy of the best available clocks.

    And you are not in a position to fire me.
     
  22. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    Without those corrections, over the course of a day, GPS location data would drift by several meters. Over a week, all such devices would be useless, kind of like a theory that seems to think it can somehow be equivalent to GR by keeping its most important calculation as its own, while discarding all of the assumptions on which it is based.

    Not only useless, but a fraud. Your credentials avail you nothing with arguments like yours.
     
  23. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    The facts about GPS I know. And I can keep the most important calculations of GR, because I have derived the equation of my theory from my first principles, and, then, have proven a theorem that in the limit \(\Xi, \Upsilon \to 0\) the equations of my theory become the Einstein equations of GR in harmonic coordinates, and made some other computations which show that these parameters should have so small values that the modifications play no role at all in any Solar system measurements.

    So, I do not simply think that they can somehow be equivalent, but I have proven theorems about this.
     

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