52 Years and $750 Million Prove Einstein Was Right • Hacker News Board

Re: 52 Years and $750 Million Prove Einstein Was Right

#31

Post by icandoitbetter » Fri, May 06, 2011, 12:20 AM UTC

mattlanger wrote: post #9

For Dr. Everitt, who joined the Gravity Probe experiment in 1962 as a young postdoctoral fellow and has worked on nothing else since, the announcement on Wednesday capped a career-long journey. There's something so profound about that. To think of how many jobs I've held in my comparatively short life, how many minor career changes I've had here and there, how many massive shifts in interest and passion I've had over…

Why is this so inspiring? I'm not trying to put down his career, I just don't see why his selflessness is something to be admired. Is it because it's not something you would choose? Does that fact alone make that lifestyle profound?

Re: 52 Years and $750 Million Prove Einstein Was Right

#32

Post by starwed » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:23 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #26

ars wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's was actually systematic shift, but a periodic one. It wasn't random noise.

Well, true. If the noise was truly random, you couldn't model it, of course. I just meant "noise" in the sense of "apparently random variations that actually aren't random".

That's not quite true, since a small signal+random noise will certainly give you a prediction that is testable.

Re: 52 Years and $750 Million Prove Einstein Was Right

#33

Post by mildweed » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:44 PM UTC

wmobit wrote: post #16

mildweed wrote: post #13

Does this mean that it is no longer the Theory of Relativity, but now the Law of Relativity?

That's not how theories work. A scientific theory is more like a framework and not really the same meaning as what people usually mean by theory (which is closer to hypothesis). Also nothing in science can ever be 100% definite; the term law shouldn't really ever be used.

per Wikipedia:

A common distinction made in science is between theories and hypotheses, with the former being considered as satisfactorily tested or proven and the latter used to denote conjectures or proposed descriptions or models which have not yet been tested or proven to the same standard.