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Faster than light? Someone with a big brain can help?
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on September 27, 2011, 11:50:57 am ---To those new to the thread here is a summary:
Everyone: - Science is all pixie dust and make believe"
Pdoolittle: - No its not, its actually a well thought out series of reasoned, provable thought
Everyone - Its all just theory, its a waste of time, we don't know anything and can prove anything
PD - Um, actually we CAN prove some stuff, and thanks to what we have grown to understand we have created things like that computer which you are using your clunky neandrathal hands on right now
Everyone - its all just opinion, nothing is real
PD - actually there is thing called the scientific method, and yes it is real
Everyone - what makes you think your opinions are better than ours?
PD - I am a scientist with hands on intricate knowledge
Everyone - I don't see how you can think your views are any better than mine
PD - but I am a scientist, its sort of my job to understand these things
Everyone - I think everyone's opinions should be treated the same
PD - But its not opinion, I am just trying to educate you people about what is going on
Everyone - we don't need no education
Everyone - Hey I love Pink Floyd!
Everyone - Pink is such a a lame-o color, and what is with the Wizard of Oz TOTALLY ripping off dark side of the moon, or something like that!
PD - (shakes head and walks away)
--- End quote ---
I hate to burst your bubble, but in the rhealm of Astrophysics most things can't be proven according to the strictest definition of the scientific process. You can't experiment and you can't test and repeat results. Sure there are some very very basic things that you can do with super-colliders, but it's incredibly primative in terms of the data that can be understood and recorded from such experiments. Physicists use math to help support their theories, but without physical, repeatable, observations, or lab experiments they can never be proven. Some day many of the theories might be proveable but only when we have advanced to the point of which we would already know as common knowledge anyway.
Many of the "sciences" are like this. Psycology comes to mind. Aside from some rudimentary understanding of how the brain works and which areas of the brain (which is actually more related to other fields of science) we know absolutely nothing about the emotional makeup of a person and what effects it. Almost anything we can prove is either really really basic stuff or stuck in "theory land" because we just don't have a core understanding of what we are trying to study.
So long story short, we don't know anything, or rather we know very little.
Let's use this example:
Let's say you want to study an apple. Easy right? You can touch it, take photos, measure it's size and density. You can cut it up take an analysis of it's composition ect...
Now let's say somebody moves the apple two miles away before you ever lay eyes on it and you aren't allowed to get any closer.
Things are considerably harder now, but you can still learn a little. We know it's an apple, so we can compare it to other apples by viewing it via a high powered telescope. We can establish a few facts, like the profile of the apple, it's color, ect. Many things would be stuck as theories though. We couldn't be sure of the density and size due to the inability to handle the apple. Mind you the theories are pretty much fact due to studies on other apples, but we could never be certain.
Now let's say that the apple is two miles away, but you don't know it. What's more we don't even know what an apple is. We MIGHT stumble upon the apple via observation, but it's unlikely. Even if we do ther isn't any frame of reference so any theories would be rampant speculation with zero facts other than perhaps "there is something over there".
Taking those analogies into account this is how the sum of human knowledge breaks down:
0.000000001% Is the apple in our hand.
0.999999990% Is the apple two miles down the road.
99% Is the apple two miles down the road that we don't even know exists.
And I'm being EXTREMELY generous with the first two. ;)
Vigo:
KABLAM! CERN miffed it.
http://now.msn.com/now/0608-cern-admits-einstein-right.aspx?ocid=media_nowcontrol2
Einstein is still top dog and his redheaded step child is allowed back into the Burger King kids club. All is right with the world. 8)
Samstag:
--- Quote from: Vigo on June 08, 2012, 03:36:09 pm ---KABLAM! CERN miffed it.
http://now.msn.com/now/0608-cern-admits-einstein-right.aspx?ocid=media_nowcontrol2
Einstein is still top dog and his redheaded step child is allowed back into the Burger King kids club. All is right with the world. 8)
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Samstag on September 23, 2011, 04:03:47 pm ---
</obligatory xkcd>
--- End quote ---
Time to go collect my winnings!
SithMaster:
--- Quote from: pinballwizard79 on September 22, 2011, 07:15:49 pm ---Whatev
The expansion of our universe & everything in it (even my Cruis'n World arcade) currently outpaces light speed (relative to what is unknown) so obviouisly there are laws FROM other dimensions that influence ours.
We try to put rules & theories of how it all works or might work but at the end of the day we are here, not there, so its all for nothing.
Do you think CERN can build a working Star Wars controller & actually ship it?
--- End quote ---
Cern is too busy making jelly bananas unfortunately.
fascco:
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on September 22, 2011, 06:06:05 pm ---
--- Quote ---Conceivably, there could be some other factor that falls outside of our range of senses, that functions as a constant on a macroscopic scale in our atmosphere and under our gravity, but has a different value outside of it. We have very little data, if any real data, outside of the realm of our solar system, and precious little data outside of our planet. We've made alot of assumptions that what holds true here, holds true everywhere. There's no reason the actual equation couldn't be E/X = MC^2 where X is some factor we haven't yet recognized.
--- End quote ---
This is wrong. We have not made "assumptions" we have tested theories, there is a distinction in that. The main reason we believe these things to be true is that these theories can be tested in a predictive nature, the whole "if x then y". There is a great reason why E/X = MC^2, its the fact that if E=MC^2 then we shouldn't be able to control and predict things like nuclear reactions. If there were no universal laws, then science wouldn't be worth studying because then everything would be a special case.
Its likely a measuring error, or something to do with the quantum nature of the particles, I doubt its a fundamental flaw in one of the cornerstones of physics, but hey, you never know.
--- End quote ---
I think you missed the point about "constants".
Let me rephrase what I believe he was trying to say...
There are assumptions, scientific community is split in at least two halves regarding many of the essential theories.
It's because more than one theory can explain the same phenomena, practically it's about constants. "Constant" is a number you look up in some table where other variables you get by taking measurements. Each constant potentially presents a whole world of complex interactions, but it also can be used to hide that complexity and so to simplify our equations, and then they are just substitutes for measured or deduced quantities of unknown origin or cause.
It's just that, there is only one constant. One universal. It is the only real truth. Causality - action, reaction. Cause and effect. It's what gives you that "if x then y", and what is called "exact science". Newton law of motion for example has no constants, only causality: F= m*a, and once you confirm it indeed describes (predicts) reality then you know that relation is the actual signature of a true physical law.
And then there is quantum mechanics, contradicting those basic laws of motions. However QM is not exact science to start with, it's "statistical science", and there is no more "if x then y", no more cause and effect, but it's all about chance, probability and likelihood. It's full of constants and look-up tables, no real equations since you are not supposed to even be able to make any proper measurements according to it. Still you can get working and useful equations, but you get lots of them, with lots of constants, lots exceptions and special cases, and it's ugly.
It's similar to fluid dynamics in some way, where even though the interaction on molecular scale is rather random and very complex there is some harmony emerging from within that chaos, so as a result you can simplify a lot of it and substitute with constants without any concerns about micro-dynamics going on deeper inside.
Although not as bad as QM there are lots of constants (unknowns) in General and Special Relativity as well, but the real point here is that all of these theories contradict each other, they only work within boundaries of their own domain. It is widely believed this disagreement means all of them are incomplete and so there is this quest to find "unified theory of everything".
Only, there is not enough money to test everyone's theory, so the sad story not many are aware of, even though it is well documented throughout the history of science, is that "scientists of old" are always holding onto their positions and reputations, to the extent they are willing to label everything else as a hoax, so the real truth may very well be with some poor guy locked away in asylum. What I am trying to say here is that history teach us we should never be too sure in our present theory, even if it works and explains. It's that skepticism towards your own believes that makes you keep trying, experimenting and discovering, finding even better theories. Otherwise scientists too could just write their own bible believing they already know everything and then that would be it, the end of science.
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