Talk:Dynamic theory of gravity

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on April 18, 2007. The result of the discussion was redirect to Nikola Tesla.
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[edit] Cleanup

This article was terribly disorganized, so I have cleaned it up and tried to make it read more gracefully and to make it more WP:NPOV. One important disclaimer: I am worried about the provenance of the alleged 1937 press statement by Tesla. I took the original authors at their word, but the only source I can find for this statement is a website which I would consider extremely cranky. Unless someone can produce a scan of a notarized photocopy of a contemporary newspaper from the vault, I thing we must regard the quotations from this statement as unverified (but plausible). Hence the occurrence of allegedly in the current version (hopefully not too distracting). ---CH 09:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope it will be largely acceptable to everyone; should anyone wish to object to anything I wrote, I hope they will take it here, so that I can attempt to rewrite the article in the same style as the current version.

The talk page was getting rather bloated, so I archived the earlier discussions, which I understand to have been closed. ---CH 09:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The press statement seems to mesh with [1], for what it's worth. It would indeed be good to have some verifiable sources. - mako 09:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd be very cautious about uncritically accepting something found at one of these crank websites (google this one to see what I mean) without authentication from a mainstream source. Writers at these cites are very prone to making wild assertions claiming special knowledge of secret governemnt work and so forth. An alleged reprint of a press release seems innocuous enough... but I'd still urge great caution in using anything you can find only at such sites.---CH 05:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

That NYT article does indeed exist; I just checked through ProQuest. The full press release is another matter. - mako 07:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Precision?

To be fair, these arguments are not easy nor without error

could somebody give comments on that ? It is supposed to mean that the original arguments of Einstein had some errors or that there are true errors when asserting that free bodies have a geodesic motion ? thx! LeYaYa

"without error" seems to be misleading, and probably wrong, so I've removed it William M. Connolley 12:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC).
Hi, 72.144.71.99, I liked most of your tweaks, but WMC is right; you misunderstood what I meant there. When I find time to write decent articles on EIH and related background, you'll see more clearly why I wrote these arguments are not easy but added they are regarded as essentially correct. ---CH 05:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Factual Error

"feel anticipates Ernest Rutherford's plum-pudding model of the atom"

Rutherford's model of the atom superseeded the "plum pudding model" where the +ve and -ve charge were evenly spread out in the atom, with the current model of electrons orbiting a nucleus. Have edited page accordingly.

Also "'infinitesimal world, with molecules and their atoms spinning and moving in orbits, in much the same manner as celestial bodies carrying with them static charges', which some feel anticipates Ernest Rutherford's nuclear model of the atom"

I do not believe this refers to a model of the atom but of atomic interaction... just a thought, im not going to edit "some" people's opinion without feedback

Wow that was a v fast edit thanq --AjP 09:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yet another error

The page stated that Tesla felt energy could not be obtained from nuclear fission. This amounts to a widespread but nonetheless completely incorrect misinterpretation of nuclear reactions. The mass-energy relationship E=mc2 is NOT necessary to explain nuclear reactions. In the absence of SR, one could still say that nuclear fission occurs, but that the rest mass of the products would not be different.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.184.88.44 (talk • contribs)

Just to be clear: the misconception was Tesla's. ---CH 19:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speculation and Guesswork

It is a pity that Tesla's notes are lost, as he tended to bring a fresh look and originality to the discussion, rather than simply regurgitating the current dogma. Having achieved the 'impossible' of an AC electric motor, and together with Westinghouse, proposed AC distribution networks when most of his contemporaries were wasting their time with highly impractical DC systems, his opinion ought to carry some weight.

Such an intellect should not be dismissed lightly. Even if quite wrong, I'm sure he would have brought some original speculation to what has become a highly dogmatic, practically stagnant, area of debate.

At worst he may have sinned against the great god relativity, but then so did Einstein fall by the wayside in refusing to accept the quantum mechanics doctrine. Yet Einstein was granted absolution by the scientific establishment.

Perhaps it was in his character that he needed to be out of step with his contemporaries, so that he refused to accept the current wisdom as a matter of pure obstinacy, who knows?

The argument that he was wrong because general relativity is 'right' has absolutely no place in science. We have no way of knowing what experiments he proposed to disprove general relativity, or what their outcome might be.

This article needs to restrict itself to the facts. Gordon Vigurs 10:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Shall we replace it with the simple statement that "nothing of any significance is known of teslas theory"? William M. Connolley 21:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No. I think the article should be deleted, and what little factual information is here should be included in an entry on Nikola Tesla. At least it will then be in the context of all the other bizarre ideas he had towards the end of his career. Gordon Vigurs

It appears Nicolai Tesla is a red link. Is this crackpot nonsense the sole entry in Wikipedia which purports to describe his work? Gordon Vigurs 09:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it is. But Nikola Tesla isn't William M. Connolley 09:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - excuse my spelling. The article is well worth a look! Gordon Vigurs 21:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PRODIGAL GENIUS

The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O'Neill (1944) Complete On-Line Volume http://rastko.org.yu/istorija/tesla/oniell-tesla.html

Fourth Part SELF-MADE SUPERMAN http://rastko.org.yu/istorija/tesla/oniell-tesla.html#_Toc496780563

134.193.94.173 19:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New edits (sigh)

Anon, with edit comment There's lots of good information in the PESwiki article. Despite the sites controversial nature. It's been cleared of any dubious statements., added [2]

The Dynamic Theory of Gravity is a unified field theory developed by Nikola Tesla in the late 1930s. The theory explains the relation between gravitation and electromagnetic force by unifying all the fundamental forces and particle responses into a single theoretical framework.

amongst other stuff. Now... is this statement, as claimed, clear of any dubiousness? Certainly not. The assertion that it *is* anything is dubious: DTOG has no known content at all. Ditto for the unification. Any statement about the theory must be qualified by "and we have no details about it at all" or similar. And

There is still a halo of mystery around his death - even the exact date is not certain. It is speculated that his death may have been caused by too much "pressure" by agents in order to extract and obtain the secret documents regarding this theory.

is just total speculation with no source whatsoever William M. Connolley 10:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


We know what the theory was about from his announcements, though we don't know the details. There's no reason not to mention that the theory was meant to unify all fundamental forces and explain the connection between gravity and electromagnetism. 72.144.71.66
No, we don't. We know what he asserted it is about. You appear to believe him. I don't. I the absence of any detail, all we know is that he wanted such a theory to exist William M. Connolley 11:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
We know that was the intent of the theory and thus we can say thats what the theory is about. 72.144.71.66 11:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
No, because ot say the theory *is* about strongly implies that it was properly worked out and coherent. And there is no evidence for either William M. Connolley 11:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Then replace the word "is". We already mention its not worked out. We don't know if it was coherent. What's the big deal? 72.144.71.66 11:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
If you replace "is" with... "might have been"? "is speculated to have been"? then you might as well stick with the current text: The dynamic theory of gravity was an alleged unified field theory which, late in life, the distinguished inventor Nikola Tesla claimed to have constructed. According to a 1937 press statement by Tesla, he had succeeded in unifying gravity and electromagnetism. Since Tesla never published his own theory, and since no notes describing it in detail seem to be extant, it is impossible to say much with certainty about it. Even the claims allegedly made by Tesla himself before his death, as described below, appear difficult to verify. Tesla's apparently unverifiable claims concerning his own work cannot be said to constitute a contribution to theoretical physics, but they nonetheless remain of absorbing interest to a minority. What do you think is wrong with that text? William M. Connolley 11:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Revert. Whatever you feel is strange from PESwiki, remove. (sigh). That was right in the edit comment. 72.144.71.66 10:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
And I still don't see how a few questionable parts like that would merit removing the entire article. 72.144.71.66 10:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
If the article is to only contain verifiable content, then little will remain. Certainly, DTOG *is*, unqualified, cannot remain William M. Connolley 11:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
So apparently your solution is to scrap the entire article, regardless of how others approach it? 72.144.71.66 11:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Why are you repeating this nonsense? Try to be constructive William M. Connolley 11:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I can't be. You locked the page. 72.144.71.66 11:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

None of the added material appears to meet verifiability requirements, anyway. - mako 08:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Baffled by the section "Tesla's description of his theory"

Reading the lines "... he issued a news release asserting that he had "worked out a dynamic theory of gravity" that he soon hoped to give to the world. This statement allegedly read, in part...." I am completely baffled. Either the statement did so or did NOT so read. Either we have a reliable version of his statement of we do NOT. Why is there a long extract from an "alleged" statement? Why is it only "alleged" to be his statement and not regarded as absolutely geniune? This really requires some explanation, or a change in the article's wording! Hi There 08:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK "we" have never seen a copy of the press statement. I've never seen it. Have you? William M. Connolley 19:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I would never even have guessed that such a thing existed. But then again, I just came here to find out something about this "Dynamic Theory of Gravity" of which there is a reference in the "Gravitation" article. But where are these quotes coming from, if the person who wrote about it is not even sure of its existence? The origin and provenance of the citations requires some explanation, don't you think? To quote, at length, a document that might or not might exist, or might or not be spurious, is just absurd, unless there are, somewhere in the article, some notes about the problems with the source. Hi There 21:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out the link. I've removed it. Teslas theory is far too vague and badly documented to be worth linking. As to the sources... the problem is the Teslaphiles being very assiduous at ferreting out abstruse documents that no-one else can be bothered to verify. They may exist... they may not. Who knows? William M. Connolley 22:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article is very very bad!

If you are not a scholar of physics, this article dosen´t explain anything. It does not explain the theory nor how it has been criticized. Sorry, I love you all, more than anyone, you who are working on wikipedia!! But it is also my duty to say when something is wrong, even if I can´t improve it myself. 82.181.229.8 11:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The article, hopefully, points out that the theory has no known content. What more is there to say? William M. Connolley 11:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, the only purpose of this article is to answer the question, "What was Tesla'a dynamic theory of gravity?", which is linked from the Tesla article. It seems to say about as much as can be said, under the circumstances. We could add that it has the earmarks of a crackpot theory, but that would probably violate the NPOV policy. — DAGwyn 22:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shorten?

Moved from my talk page, in response to my edit comment that there is little fact to it:

Well then let it be short or better, merge it with Nikola Tesla. Still, its not encyclopedic for someone to be analyzing whether the theory knew what it was talking about or even existed. A simple "Tesla claimed to make theory blah. It was supppose to do blah. [Present quotes from articles]. Nothing more is known. Done." would do fine. Horvat Den 21:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

But I feel reluctant to do this. The Tesla quotes are arguably of some use; the total-lack-of-content ditto William M. Connolley 22:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The quotes are fine. What's messy is how the article looks like its giving people a modern physics lecture. Horvat Den 22:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Its trying to give some modern perspective on the theory, which seems useful William M. Connolley 23:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The statement "Tesla's murky description of his unified field theory could perhaps have been described as fringe science in 1937. Today it could only be described as not even wrong." seems to me like slander, and should be removed. You cannot say it is not even wrong, when the actual theory of Tesla is not known 85.165.249.35 23:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You can't slander dead people William M. Connolley 13:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relativity

"This statement appears to reflect misconceptions concerning Albert Einstein's theory of gravitation: General relativity does give a self-consistent description of the motion of celestial bodies. "

Back then perhaps this held truth, but right now it is not true. General relativity is not sufficient for describing all motions of all celestial bodies. Inventions like black holes, dark matter and such are weaknesses in relativity, making the mentioned quote of Tesla in which he expresses to be afraid that this mathematical theory might separate itself from observed and proven reality a rather smart one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology

[edit] DON'T DELETE IT! TOO MUCH OF TESLA'S HISTORY IS ALREADY LOST!!

Regardless of how many people can agree/disagree about tesla's history he did form a DTOG, and that is worth respecting. You are talking about a man who had a photographic memory and could work with objects in his mind at a very high level. DTOG needs to stay at an article because it is part of tesla's history. The article already specifies that it is an "alleged" theory, and that is discredit enough.

Don't let the government wipe his history out, that seems to be the common trend of this man's incredible work.