481–490 of 502 posts
Einstein wasn't sure at first. It was Feynman who introduced the thought experiment that settled the debate in the physics community: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_bead_argument
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I'm old enough to remember Pons-Fleischmann. But not so old as to forget the more recent faster than light neutrinos social media storm. I've been thinking about the nature of scientific claims for more than twenty years. Few people are intentionally wrong: that doesn't mean astronomers as men of science didn't sware by the Ptolemaic cosmology. To be clear, I am not denying the possibility of the earth expanding in a…
Except: If you're not denying the possibility, then what exactly are you trying to say here? That you're skeptical that the experiment detected anything, or that the "anything" it detected is what they are saying it is? Clearly the first can and will be found out over time as other detectors are being built to replicate these findings. However, I believe there is enough scrutiny of their claims that this kind of skep…
Oscillations show up everywhere in nature, and even a pattern as specific as a frequency sweep with ringdown could be the result of many different phenomena. Even if in this case many possible sources have been ruled out, there must be others that we do not know about. Since the only observation we have to go on is the signal (so far), we should remember that the cause implied by the model is contingent on the signal not being one of these unknown sources.
Some commentary: Imagining alternative explanations is only half of the work that comes next. Once more of these alternatives are found, we also need new experiments that will be designed to rule them out. It sounds like the space-based interferometers will go a long way toward ruling out potential "terrestrial" factors. And if the same signal is detected in both ground-based and space-based systems that is an even greater step forward.
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I agree with you that if a new theory was to replace the old one for making specific set of predictions, it should give predictions of similar or better accuracy. But I do not think that replacement is necessary for the new theory to compete or be accepted; it is the new benefit it brings, whatever its nature may be, that is crucial. The two can temporarily both be accepted to coexist, if both have their strengths. F…
> quantum theory does not make the same predictions as classical theory when it comes to classical experiments (mechanics, basic EM phenomena) Yes, it does. Do you know how the classical limit of quantum theory works? That limit is what allows us to use classical physics in the domain where it works. If that limit didn't work, we would have a serious problem with consistency. > It only gives probabilities of results…
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> quantum theory does not make the same predictions as classical theory when it comes to classical experiments (mechanics, basic EM phenomena) Yes, it does. Do you know how the classical limit of quantum theory works? That limit is what allows us to use classical physics in the domain where it works. If that limit didn't work, we would have a serious problem with consistency. > It only gives probabilities of results…
As I wrote above, I agree with you on the requirements for replacement theory. My point is that a new theory of a phenomenon does not need to replace and reproduce all the results of the old theory to be considered worthwile, competing, acceptable.
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Except: If you're not denying the possibility, then what exactly are you trying to say here? That you're skeptical that the experiment detected anything, or that the "anything" it detected is what they are saying it is? Clearly the first can and will be found out over time as other detectors are being built to replicate these findings. However, I believe there is enough scrutiny of their claims that this kind of skep…
Maybe it would help to re-frame the relevant part of the (apparent) argument: Oscillations show up everywhere in nature, and even a pattern as specific as a frequency sweep with ringdown could be the result of many different phenomena. Even if in this case many possible sources have been ruled out, there must be others that we do not know about. Since the only observation we have to go on is the signal (so far), we s…
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I'm going with the theory that black holes ARE gravitons themselves.
There always seem to be pairs (as in yin and yang), so could something like anti-gravitons exist too?
I like the idea of anti-gravitons being the inside of a graviton, or inside of a black hole. Given the inside of a black hole is essentially the end of time, coming out of a black hole or coming out of an anti-graviton, could equal going back to the beginning of time.
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How do we know dark matter is some mysterious form of matter and not just small distributed particles (gas or solid) that are beyond our ability to detect? Do we have proof of a specific, exotic, non-atomic matter?
Scientists are not prone to falling back on explaining observations via postulating a new kind of matter we can scarcely observe. Ever since the first indications of "dark matter" scientists have been attempting to explain it as something more familiar to us, some kind of atomic matter or some-such, maybe gas or dust or lots of planets or dark stars or something. At every single turn they've been stymied, and instead…
You mean like ether?
The coalescing holes pumped 50 times more energy into space this way than the whole of the rest of the universe emitted in light, radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays combined.