From: jthorn@astro.indiana-zebra.edu   
      
   Gerry Quinn  wrote:   
   > If general relativity is false, there exists a local property which   
   > we may call gravitational potential (at least after lumping /   
   > scalarisation), and this property becomes extreme at the Schwarzschild   
   > radius[*].   
      
   I don't see that we know that.  There are a lot of different   
   non-general-relativity relativistic gravity theories, and we don't know   
   which -- if any -- of them are "the correct theory".  So I don't see that   
   we can say whether or not "the correct theory" has the specific property   
   (different from general relativity) which the author suggests.   
      
   Ultimately, this is a question which needs to be answered experimentally:   
   can {general relativity, alternative theory A, alternative theory B, ...}   
   consistently model the data from {experiment #1, experiment #2, ...}.   
   	[Note that figuring out whether a theory can consistently   
   	model the data from an experiment may be a major   
   	research problem on its own.  E.g., to try to model   
   	the recent LIGO/Virgo observations requires large   
   	and very complicated numerical simulations to figure   
   	out the predicted gravitational waves emitted by   
   	various candidate binary black hole systems.   
   	There has been some work done on extending these   
   	numerical simulations to also use non-general-relativity   
   	relativistic gravity theories, but a lot more work   
   	is needed.]   
      
   But until we have some clear experimental evidence to let us select a   
   specific non-general-relativity relativistic gravity theory or theories,   
   I think the author's assertion is premature.   
      
   --   
   -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"    
      Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA   
      "There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched   
       at any given moment.  How often, or on what system, the Thought Police   
       plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.  It was even conceivable   
       that they watched everybody all the time."  -- George Orwell, "1984"   
      
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