Friday, September 23, 2011

Does E Really Equal MC Squared? The universe just got a whole lot more complicated

As if it wasn't already.

Scientists at the Geneva-based CERN physics lab have clocked subatomic particles called "neutrinos" going faster than the speed of light, something which, under Einstein's special theory of relativity, is impossible. Says the BBC:
The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and the entirety of modern physics--as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity--depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.
Says the Atlantic Wire:
Understandably, reports are using adjectives like "baffled" and "astounded" to describe the scientists. "This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," a theoretical physicist at CERN named John Ellis tells the AP. CERN found that a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light, a difference that is statistically significant even with the margin of error. The lab's researchers have checked and rechecked their work and are still asking scientists in the U.S. and Japan to confirm the results. What hangs in the balance? Oh, just the laws of nature and our understanding of the universe.
But we must remember that, even though one of the bedrock theories of physics may now being hanging in the balance, we must not think that the findings of science can be questioned (in the sense of, like, actually questioning them) or that anyone who questions the certainty of these theories is not a blithering ignoramus, which, of course, we know they must be.

Just sayin'.

10 comments:

Lee said...

Read an article a while back about a fellow at UC-Boulder who challenged the entire Einstein paradigm. Petr Beckmann, I think was his name. Wrote a book, "Einstein Plus 2", as I recall.

Claimed that the variable not taken into account in Michelson-Morley was gravitational pull. Beckmann's idea was that the speed of light varies depending on the strength of the local gravitational pull. Also claimed that, whereas it took Einstein several pages of tensor calculus to make his theory work, he (Beckmann) just needed a few lines of algebra.

I certainly wouldn't know if any of that is true. But it does seem a "wait and see" attitude can serve science well.

Singring said...

A quite remarkable illustartion of why you can't win with a commited religious dogmatist.

Scientists reporting a finding that could invalidate a bedrock theory of science is touted as an illustration of how science mustn't be questioned.

It's a whacky world here at VR.

Scientific theories are questioned all the time - when the empirical evidence no longer supports them.

Scientific theories are not questioned just because they disagree with someone fantasies of a God.

Lee:

'I certainly wouldn't know if any of that is true. But it does seem a "wait and see" attitude can serve science well.'

I think this is the first time I have literally facepalmed at VR.

The 'wait and see' attitude is at the very heart of science. The article above is an illustration of exactly that! The fact that you don't know or understand that speaks volumes. And its an especially rich thing to say, coming from someone who already knows exactly what the universe is, who created and what we are supposed to do in it.

Singring said...

Goodness me, the article at BBC is such a perfect illustration of the scientific principle at work that I just have to quote it:

'"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.

"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"'

Here you have it in a nutshell: the evidence dictates what happens in science even when the scientists don't necessarily like the implications and the entire foundation of a well-established theory is questioned.

The contrast to dogmatic and unchanging religious belief couldn't be more obvious.

Lee said...

Singring, all you're doing here is illustrating what I already knew, namely, that I can't say anything that pleases you even when I'm pleading ignorance.

I would have thought we could at least agree on that.

And I'm still looking for a 'wait and see' attitude concerning Darwinism and global warming, where at present writing it's all "settled science."

Singring said...

'Singring, all you're doing here is illustrating what I already knew, namely, that I can't say anything that pleases you even when I'm pleading ignorance.'

Lee, my point had nothing to do with your anecdote about Einstein's equations or your ignorance thereof. It had to do with the fact that you commented on this story as if science were some sort of immutable dogmatism that would be better served by a 'wait and see' attitude, ignoring the fact that this is precisely the basis of all scientific endeavor. If you want to malign something, at least malign it accurately.

'And I'm still looking for a 'wait and see' attitude concerning Darwinism and global warming, where at present writing it's all "settled science.'

Lee, you are confusing a 'wait and see' principle in science (i.e. we wait and see what the empirical evidence tells us) with a fundamentalist or possibly even postmodernist kind of 'wait and see' attitude in the face of the best evidence available.

If you saw that a pipe in your house had sprung a big leak, would you take measures to plug it, or would you adopt a 'wait and see' attitude because you just couldn't be sure that it would be a problem?

When we are presented with a vast amount of avidence in support of a particular theory (e.g. evolution and climate change) then we are best advised to act accordingly based upon that best available evidence.

Of course, because science is predicated on theories being supported by the evidence ('wait and see' what the evidence says), when we get evidence that does not support the theory, we have to be open to the possibility that the theory might have to be discarded and replaced with a more parsimonious one.

It does not mean that we shouldn't draw conclusions based on the best evidence we have in the absence of significant contradictory evidence and adopt some sort of radical 'wait and see' attitude that defeats any kind of rational thinking from the get go.

Lee said...

> It had to do with the fact that you commented on this story as if science were some sort of immutable dogmatism that would be better served by a 'wait and see' attitude, ignoring the fact that this is precisely the basis of all scientific endeavor. If you want to malign something, at least malign it accurately.

So you're saying, what, that scientists are never dogmatic?

Sorry, I'm not the one here mistaking "should" for "is". 'Wait and see' may indeed be the proper attitude of the scientist. That doesn't mean it is.

KyCobb said...

Martin,

You shouldn't get all excited by scientists who report an earthshattering find to the mainstream press instead of publishing in a scientific journal. That's how "cold fusion" became a temporary sensation. In all likelihood, further investigation will uncover some sort of measurement error, because Einstein's theory has been repeatedly verified by numerous observations.

You should also take note that these scientists actually made observations which are falsifiable. Which is more than any Intelligent Design advocate has done to support their vague notions. Scientific theories (unlike religious dogma) can be questioned, if you have evidence which brings them into question. IDists have nothing.

Singring said...

'So you're saying, what, that scientists are never dogmatic?'

Of course not. When did I ever say that? I was talking about the foundations of science. Dogmatic scientists are *almost* as bad as dogmatists in any other area.

''Wait and see' may indeed be the proper attitude of the scientist. That doesn't mean it is.'

Do you have any data on the proportion of scientists that are dogmatists? Have you ever been to a scientific conference and heard how scientists speak about their discoveries? Have you read scientific publications to see how scientists talk about their results? I am currently working on articles for publication in biological journals. The most common phrases in there are not 'defintiely', 'certainly' or 'absolutely', but 'may', 'possibly', 'likely' and 'probable'.

If you have good, solid evidence for dogmatism in science and how this is distorting the empirical evidence, then provide it and we can discuss.

One Brow said...

Lee said...
Beckmann's idea was that the speed of light varies depending on the strength of the local gravitational pull.

Thjt's part of general relativity, as well. Light slows down in a gramitational well. Although I can'[t imagine how that impacts the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiment.

Also claimed that, whereas it took Einstein several pages of tensor calculus to make his theory work, he (Beckmann) just needed a few lines of algebra.

The trick would be getting the theory to explain all the observations with just linear algebra. I'm skeptical.

Singring said...

'Thjt's part of general relativity, as well. Light slows down in a gramitational well. Although I can'[t imagine how that impacts the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiment.'

Light doesn't slow down in a gravitational well, its path is deflected by the curvature of space-time caused by the gravitational source. But even on the scale of he sun that deflection is hard to detect and I am hugely sceptical that comparatively trifling gravity of the earth would create enough of a deflection of a light beam in the Michelson Morley experiment (light path was what - a couple of feet?) to create any kind of measurable effect. Michealson were trying to detect the 'ether' the supposed carrying medium for light and they could not measure light speed directly - they were simply measuring the interference pattern of light beams. So quite frankly, I have no idea who this Beckmann character is and what he was talking about.