Does True Randomness Actually Exist? ( ^&*#^%$&#% )

Geezz..... Elroch, all that copy'/paste just to add a silly comment?

Ten comments actually. None of them "silly".

You seem to think of the thread as a school room, with red lining, colored pencils, grades being handed out along with the obligatory pointing out the right and wrong way to think.

It doesn't really do so. A "light wave" heading straight for a massive object will hit it unless its deflected due to a collision with some other entity.

A light wave travelling obliquely to the centre of mass of an object, however, will be deflected towards the centre of mass of the object, due to a force proportional to the inverse square of the distance, so it'll deflect towards a straight line projected between the centre of mass and the photon and therefore tend to curve around the object.

If Newtonian physics predicts less bending than happens then it is likely that the entity (photon) has different properties than is assumed in regard to its interaction with gravity.

The properties of a photon are its energy, momentum and velocity. These are what they are, so it is more that Newtonian physics just doesn't work for photons.

The path of a photon or any other particle in general relativity is the analog of a straight line (called a "geodesic"). The way space and time are part of the same thing means the actual geodesic depends on the speed (unlike classical geodesics on the spherical surface of the Earth. These are great circles regardless of the speed you are going, because space and time are separate).

However, the explanation I gave is correct in general terms so why are you so keen to criticise?

If you get a bit of space and chuck a pebble into it, the pebble will be a small, moving, massive object. Qualitatively, are there any differences between what happens here and the interaction of, say, a large star and a photon, both which can be assumed to have been randomly chucked there?

Yes, several crucial differences.

This means that the "curvature of space" is just a means to DEPICT the effects of gravity. We have no reason to assume it's real but, as usual, the mathematicians take their own metaphors literally.

So, a false statement "means" another statement is true. You know enough logic to know now that even if the inference was valid, the conclusion wouldn't be.

The reason physicists use the models they do is that they are the best known models. If you had produced a better one that would put you in a position to disagree with them. Note also the only meaning of "real" for a model in physics is if its predictions are correct. General relativity (with a positive cosmological constant) is currently consistent with all experimental data.

<<<The properties of a photon are its energy, momentum and velocity. These are what they are, so it is more that Newtonian physics just doesn't work for photons.>>>

Of course it does, insofar as it works for the momentum.

Newton's laws are approximately true in a relativistic context. Not exactly true. There is local conservation of momentum, but this can't be made global in the way it can in Newtonian physics.

Since momentum is a product of mass and speed,

No it isn't. Photons have zero mass.

I think you should have written "mass, energy, position and velocity".

See above.

It's accepted that not all of these can be "knowns" at any one time.

This is true. But position does not affect momentum in flat space-time, and you can know the others.

I'm quite prepared to think that energy itself might well affect the result. Off the top of my head, it could be that energy imparts a "stickyness" in a similar fashion to the way some blind people can differentiate between colours due to how sticky they feel: the stickiness being a function of colour and therefore of energy. There was a fair bit of experimentation done on that, I think in the 60s.

You are mistakenly guessing a lot with the incorrect idea that this would be more reliable than learning what is known. Ignoring tested knowledge (models that work) is an error.

<<<I have had a problem on a physics site with one narrow-minded person in a position of influence, who seems to spend most of his time regurgitating basic physics on the net but who appears unable to intelligently discuss physics that is not yet set in stone. My response, don't waste time where there are such people.>>>

You're saying that you also had that experience? Obviously, at the time it was a learning curve for me. I realised what was happening. I used to visit various online sites often two or three dedicated to a mparticular subject at a time. First it was sites dedicated to discussions of atheism and theism. Most of these people, of both persuasions, spend their time howling at each other. Then it was political sites with especial reference to the Tibet-China problem. A lot of these people hack each other and generally act badly. Then, it was high IQ sites, starting with Mensa and progressing through various others up to the ceiling presented by requirements to sit their tests or show evidence. The rivalry and dislike between groups dedicated to different IQ levels was laughable and basically the sites were full, of nutters, often pretending to be something they weren't. That takes us to about ten years ago, when I joined several physics sites. In general, they are populated by idiots who are manipulated by others. After that, sites dedicated to people like Gurdjieff. And so on up to about five years ago, after which I thought I'd learned what I wanted to learn about online behaviour.

In truth, neither of us are in a great position to discuss the bleeding edge boundaries of physics. This is a job for full-time professionals, and we are part time spectators. Neither are we in a position to unilaterally reject areas of knowledge which experts generally accept.

Thank you king! strait from my soul.

Prefer my wife by a long way.
No it isn't. Photons have zero mass.
Really??
But they act as if they have mass.

All you are doing is repeating that the experts know best. They might well be experts on elephants' toenails but they aren't tall enough to see the whole elephant and they don't live long enough to walk halfway round it.

In the Facebook age, the world is full of people who reject expertise based on their own ignorance of it.

Expertise is tested and works. And the test is a lot harder than you being able to type something in a forum and feel happy about it.