Wow - I somehow hadn't realised that you were wobbly about GR - and I think I'm right that the Standard Model is built on GR - so that is a big wobble! I am pleased to know that I am in good company in my dislike of space-time curvature!
I don't know if you viewed the Ron Hatch video, but here is one of the designers of the GPS system saying that the GPS results are inconsistent with GR - definitely not the usual story! Unfortunately most of that lecture went over my head!
What is the PPN framework (in simplified form)?
David
David,
The Standard Model doesn't include GR, but don't worry, there is still plenty of room for big wobbles in the Standard Model, even without GR ;-) Quantum Gravity is supposed to unite GR and the Standard Model, but as you know, serious work in progress. You'll also be pleased to know there were at least 3 folks in my graduating class that did not like astrophysics - they didn't trust it, because they couldn't bring the objects of study down into the lab. Maybe distrust is a bit strong, but they at least had an uneasy feeling about astrophysics and cosmology.
I've got work colleagues that work in the GPS area and have looked into the corrections being used. I haven't looked into it myself, but the math used to make those corrections supposedly comes straight out of GR and SR . It's part of the calculation (there are a host of non-relativistic corrections too) and it works, so I'm not sure how we can say it's wrong, or inconsistent with Relativity?
I might watch the video, but to be honest I don't really find the Electric Universe crowd very convincing, especially when it comes to the technical details (which they seem to avoid more often than not, or at least that's my impression). I do find it aesthetically pleasing in some ways, but that's about as far as it goes with me. It's like the one video Lone Shaman put up a ways back. I just thought it was a really bad mathematical argument against GR. I could have made a very similar argument about Electromagnetism, the very phenomenon they're in favor of. Anyhow, I'm of the personal opinion to take anything those guys say with a grain of salt, but I know many on here would disagree
Looks like Wiki has a decent page on PPN, just skip to the section about alternate formulations.
EDIT: I probably should have mentioned, that the Standard Model is kind of built on Special Relativity, in that Quantum Field Theory essentially combines Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity. But, the further details of GR aren't really included.