TimS comments on Configurations and Amplitude - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2008 07:41AM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 16 April 2012 11:27:14PM *  4 points [-]

You know, that comic has always bugged me a bit. The quantum electrodynamics bit makes sense, but I see no way all that GPS devices are dependent on relativity to work. To get them to work right, we have to design them to account for the predictions of relativity, rather than just classical mechanics, but if the universe ran on classical mechanics rather than relativity, I can't see any way in which it would prevent us from creating GPS devices; it seems to me that it would be even easier.

Relativity has loads of experimental support, but unless you count nuclear energy, which was already observed before the advent of the theory of relativity, if not explained, then I'm stuffed for examples on how industry's benefited from it being true.

Comment author: TimS 19 April 2012 02:24:43AM *  0 points [-]

I did not know that the GPS - relativity connection was wrong. Thanks.

Comment author: thomblake 19 April 2012 02:21:21PM 3 points [-]

Well it's not so much that the connection was wrong. It just didn't fit the pattern of "If this were real, people would be making a lot of money from it". Because relativity doesn't make GPS easier or cheaper. It's just that if relativity were false, our GPS systems would be constructed differently.

Comment author: TimS 19 April 2012 02:23:06PM 0 points [-]

Failing to fit the pattern counts as wrong. The comic I cited is making an implicit assertion that that pattern holds, and this assertion is wrong.