Talk:Scalar theories of gravitation

message: In response to the criticisms by Hillman I have made changes to the article to make clear
* The results of Scalar Gravity are not compatible with current experimental results
* The theory satifies Special Relativity (which does not need a metric) but not General Relativity
* This is not the web book author's original theory but a theory considered by many including Einstein before he arrived at General Relativity. There is no reason to hide this historical and interesting fact.
* Hillman concedes that Scalar Gravity theories can be useful and hence this is good reason to have an article on Wikipedia about them.
* The value, m, results from the fact that the source term of the wave equation is the mass-energy field and that the 2 is convential (see General Relativity) in order that the theory reduces to Newtonian physics without redefining the constants. This is well known standard practice.
Finally I object to the word drek which is 'inflamatory' and should not be used on Wikipedia.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.137.135.0 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 7 November 2005  (UTC)
:I guess the article would be more acceptable if it made clear that this is just a toy model (assuming that is the case), which is perhaps being studied to get some kind of feeling, but which is not being considered as a possible alternative to general relativity. The authors' web page does at least give the impression that he thinks of it as a viable physical theory, and that seems to be an extremely rare, perhaps unique, opinion. 
:Furthermore, provide more references, for instance for the fact that the theory was considered by Einstein, or for the four-derivative form, and the guess that that's renormalisable. If it is a theory considered by many, then that shouldn't be hard. 
:There are some more problems, in that it pretends in the introduction that there is a single theory of scalar gravity, while there seem to be more, and that it presupposes a lot of knowledge without mentioning it.
:Finally, a caveat: I am not a physicist. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  This anon's comments only help to impeach him/her.  Perhaps the most egregous is the odd assertion that SR does not "need" a metric.  SR very much is a metric theory, albeit one without a gravitational field.  Also, while it is true that scalar gravity was "considered by Einstein", the researcher who did much of the early work on "scalar gravity" theories was Gunnar Nordström.  Finally, as shown in this arXiv article of scalar gavity (which BTW looks to me like a good starting point for rewriting this article), the field equations (and probably also the metrics) given in the current article are not at all the ones the Nordtröm experimented with. --EMS | Talk 05:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  P.S.  I find this editor's objections to the use of the word "drek" to hardly be worthy of support.  While perhaps more direct than is preferable, it certainly gets the point across about the unsuitability of this article as written by this anon. --EMS | Talk 05:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to criticisms 

message: I assume that I need not elaborate on the deficiencies of the previous version which led to this.  Suffice it to say that I suggest that the new version be kept but renamed to scalar theories of gravitation as described above and in the AfD page. --EMS | Talk 04:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ed, good job.  (I'm still officially on break, just dropped by to check for messages.) ---CH 01:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article rewritten 

message: This article still needs a lot of work, although it might be useful to postpone revision until more good articles on specific theories are available in WP.  Some problems I noticed:
#the section of Nordström's theory and Einstein (should probably be Einstein-Grossmann) scalar theory say nothing  not said more clearly in Nordström's theory of gravitation.  That article isn't perfect either, of course, and it would be good to have a comparable article on the Einstein-Grossman theory as part of the history of science project, linked to the articles on hole argument and the article on Nordström's theory.
#the last section is veering off into a list of classical theories of gravitation, including an obscure scalar-tensor theory of Zee which apparently is not available on-line (and is probably insufficiently notable).
HTH ---CH 21:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs more work

message: This has been added since it was from a secondary source that was published. Here is the wikipedia page on the science journal establishing that the source is valid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acta_Physica_Polonica). GravityForce (talk) 10:23, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a wp:primary source. - DVdm (talk) 11:11, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

text: No it is not. Published secondary source. Also referenced in a physics essay publication. GravityForce (talk) 11:32, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Gravity Theory Based on Mass-Energy Equivalence

message: I think there should be a minus sign in Newtonian gravity. At least that would make it compatible to the fourdimensional ansatz mentioned below it. --Diogenes2000 (talk) 21:47, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minus sign in Newtonian gravity