Good bye Dark Matter, Hello General Relativity 688
dr. loser writes "The CERN newsletter reports that a new paper by scientists at the University of Victoria has demonstrated that one of the prime observational justifications for the existence of dark matter can be explained without any dark matter at all, by a proper use of general relativity! What does this imply for cosmology and particle physics, both of which have been worrying about other aspects of dark matter?"
And next . . . (Score:1, Interesting)
And in 10 years... (Score:1, Interesting)
Science just isn't definite these days, is it?
From the Abstract (Score:5, Interesting)
That's really interesting. It makes sense to model a galaxy as a fluid on a very large scale. After all, gravity is a relatively weak force. I haven't gone through the paper, but if their math is right, since the assumption is relatively benign, this seems like it would be experimentally verified.
Since the model assumes that a galaxy is a fluid (on a large scale), the model would predict fluid-like phenomena. What I wonder is if there is a galactic analogue to solitary waves. How would these manifest? (A friend wrote his thesis on solitons)
And then refuted virtually instantaneously... (Score:5, Interesting)
No magic pixie dust after all (Score:3, Interesting)
They're blinding us with science... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As usual... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not against it, but it seems to be taken on faith that the universe should be simple and elegant. So far the track record is pretty good, but that doesn't mean that it's a scientific belief. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a simple-and-elegant universe; I just haven't heard any scientific explanation why it should be so.
Re:And in 10 years... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a matter of new ideas (a) explaining all of the old observations and experimental results that supported the old theory, as well as (b) explaining observations and experimental results that the old theory could not.
I am not capable of reviewing the observations and redoing the math to verify whether GR by itself explains the observed rotation rates of distant galaxies. Over the next few months more qualified scientists will look at this and publish what they think. Dark matter may go the way of the luminiferous aether. Once it is gone, it is very unlikely to come back in its original form or for its original purpose.
I wonder if this analysis has an effect on the chain of inferences leading to the conclusion that the galactic expansion is accelerating.
Maybe. However, dark energy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: As usual... (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely GR & QM are better than the super-simple Newtonian/Euclidian model that went before.
Still uses dark matter (Score:5, Interesting)
The poster title is misleading, the paper still leaves a place for dark matter, but on very smaller amounts and far from the halo. So, this matter could easily be barionic (paper's conclusion).
What is really interesting is that the third galaxy didn't fit the model as well as the others. It may be because of the inacuracy of the calculations (is the inacuracy measurable? The paper should have said that) or because there is something different on this one, maybe a smaller concentration of dark matter near the center.
Have they been using Newtonian physics?! (Score:3, Interesting)
I can live with newtonian approximations on a solar system level, but doing cosmology on the scale of galaxies, the age of the universe it self and so forth they really should have used the sharpest tool in the tool box.
If I had the knowledge and the machine power to do simulations my self I would've done so, but I don't so I trusted the astronomers. They really shuldn't have taken the shortcuts, escpecially after their scientific profgress went boink and they started devicing exotic new models just to cover up their seemingly faulty theories! Shouldn't they have done a simmulation without the approximations just to evaluate how good their approximations was?
I'm dissapointed!
Re:And in 10 years... (Score:3, Interesting)
Luminiferous Ether of our times (Score:3, Interesting)
What does this imply for cosmology and particle physics, both of which have been worrying about other aspects of dark matter?
I think it implies that we can stop chasing for something that probably doesn't exist, and get about the business of finding out what's really going on out there.
Maybe it's just me, but the first time I heard about dark matter and how it "must be out there" because it makes the calculations add up nicely...first thing I thought of was the ether. For a long time we needed an ether to explain radio waves, light propogation, etc. Turns out the truth of the matter is something totally other. And it's a far more facinating other, IMHO.
I'm guessing that hundreds of years from now, physics students will be reading about dark matter and chuckling. Same way we do today when we read about the luminiferous ether [wikipedia.org].
Is this evidence *against* dark matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now it is consistent. But is it consistent with the visible matter plus any significant amount of dark matter? That is, does the GR calculation show that there can't be much if any dark matter?
Re:No magic pixie dust after all (Score:3, Interesting)
However, dark matter became a strong hypothesis when we started getting high precision data on the cosmic microwave background radiation. This data *also* suggested that the universe was mostly dark matter, and to about the same amount needed to make the galactic rotation rates work out. With that new data, specific hypotheses about what dark matter was could be falsified, and those that remained gained some legitimacy.
Re:And in 10 years... (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with (a) but disagree with (b). Saying (b) is simply ignoring the social aspects of science because they aren't pretty. But that in fact is how science often works. The new ideas cannot gain traction while the old guard is in control. The new scientists are able to see both theories for what they are, and choose the better one, but the old scientists (a) have too much vested in the old model (like their entire reputations), and (b) after agreeing with a particular model for an extended length of time, have trouble seeing the difference between something which disagrees with their model and something that disagrees with reality. After a while, they become one and the same.
Re:Have they been using Newtonian physics?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Really?! I'm interessted in astronomy and physics at a hobbyist level, and have always assumed that the simulations of gravity and galaxy formation was done with relativistic mathematics. Instead they have used approximations using newtonian theories? WTF? No wonder they came out wrong!
Newton's gravity is what you get from relativity when your velocity is a lot less than the speed of light and your mass density is small enough. It's the limit of relativity. So, in a sense, when you're using Newton's gravity in a regime where that's the limit of relativity, you are using relativity.
This is the reason that my physical intutition goes squick at this new model. I'll have to read and think about the paper to find out of my physical intuition is flawed, but we shouldn't need the full equations of GR to figure out how fast gas and stars rotate about the galaxy any more than we need to do the full quantum mechanical proton-by-proton and electron-by-electron treatment to figure out simple fluid flow problems.
-Rob
Modified Newtonian Dynamics... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_d
Re:And in 10 years... (Score:3, Interesting)
An interesting question is "is the rate of expansion increasing or decreasing?" GR (even classical Newtonian gravitation) suggests that the expansion rate should be slowing. Observations of Type-I SuperNovae over the last decade or so suggest that they are brighter than we would expect if the expansion were slowing. This brightness is usually taken to indicate that they are closer than we think they are. Which suggests that their recession rate was smaller in the past than we observe now. Which implies that recession rates are growing, which is to say the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
Alternative sets of laws of physics (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, we still have a few gaps, including that small things appear not to behave the same way as big things. No doubt, if we can quantify the differences* -- or explain why that would be impossible -- we can take a stab at a single Grand Unifying Theory which would underpin all of Physics.
It's also possible that there could be another possible set of laws of physics which would be mutually consistent, even consistent with the G.U.T., just contrary to all our observations. If there existed a parallel universe which obeyed this set of laws, one of four things could happen:
- It would collapse to a single point in our space
- A single point of space in that universe would be bigger than the whole of this universe
- It would exist for only a brief instant of our time
- A single instant of time in that universe would last longer than the lifetime of our universe
Of course, it's also possible {but extremely unlikely} that there is no Grand Unifying Theory, just a supreme being with a sick sense of humour who keeps changing the rules slightly every time we get close to discovering what they are* Canonical example of difference between quantum and classical phenomena: Why can't a chair just spontaneously shift position? My own take is that quantum wave functions do exist in large systems, but "quantum" phenomena are not generally observed because the waves are not coherent {just as you don't see interference fringes where the light from two candles falls on the same surface}.
Re:Have they been using Newtonian physics?! (Score:2, Interesting)
And this paper hasn't exactly been "proven" correct yet. There are lots of astronomers who would love to be rid of dark matter, but it fits lots of evidence, so it may not be so easy.
Universal Fudge Factor On A Universal Scale (Score:2, Interesting)
Hypothesizing Dark Matter isn't a bad idea, but it seems as if it bypassed the vetting process and became accepted as fact too quickly. It does fill a need (accounting for unknowns in the previous model), but it's hardly the only possible explanation. It's almost a scientific equivalent of Haliburton's "no-bid" contracts in Iraq.
People don't like unknowns, and sometimes let their imaginations fill in the gap. Get enough people together imagining the same thing and belief system forms. Carry this too far and it becomes institutionalized. A lot is then staked on that basic belief.
Right now, "Intelligent" Design is making inroads into the American education system. It answers questions a lot of people have, but in no way holds up to scientific scrutiny. Teachers careers have been ruined by opposing it. Education becomes indoctrination and critical thinking becomes the enemy.
Acceptance of the Dark Matter model is hardly on that level, but there quite a few scientific reputations dependent upon it. I wonder how much thought and experimentation may have been stifled because it threatened someone higher up.
Re:New discoveries lead to new theories (Score:5, Interesting)
Black holes are, well, dark... so all the 'dark' matter is concentrated in localized places, namely the center of the galaxies.
Black holes at the center of galaxies have masses of 10^6 to 10^9 times the mass of the Sun. (Our Galaxy's black hole is towards the smaller side of that range.
Large galaxies themselves have masses of 10^11 to 10^12 times the mass of the Sun.
The black holes at the centers of galaxies, as far as just gravity is concerned, are dynamically unimportant to the outer parts of the galaxies.
Plus, the problem is more than that. It's not just that we don't have enough matter to explain the rotation curves of galaxies or the velocity dispersion of galaxy clusters, it's not in the right place. As you get farther from the center of the galaxy, you need more and more matter compared to what we see. Adding more matter right at the center wouldn't help that, even if the black holes were big enough (which they aren't).
(The black holes may be dynamically important to the evolution of galaxy structure for other more complicated reasons-- the generation of energy in their accretion disks can create jets and such that may limit the growth of galaxies-- but that's a separate issue from expalining the rotation curves we see in spiral galaxies.)
-Rob
Re:And then refuted virtually instantaneously... (Score:5, Interesting)
My question: (Score:5, Interesting)
If gravity has no "speed" then the advisories against instantaneous communication are violated as a change in the relative position of mass A to mass B would instantly be signaled even across the galaxies.
If gravity does have a speed then wouldn't this "dark matter" be explained as all of the extra grativational "signals" making their way through the universe?
Re:Einstein has once again, Powned modern physicis (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dark Matter is far from an accepted Hypothesis, yet seemingly intelligent people defend it on the basis that it's the best thing going.
That's just stupid. Science isn't about being right, or falling into lockstep with "accepted theories", it is about continually asking questions.
My question about dark matter has always been "Why is it more acceptable to make up a new type of matter, rather than deal with the idea that the fundamental forces may work differently than is believed?"
Why is one SO MUCH better than the other? There is precedent for both possibilities.
My two cents as a physicist (Score:5, Interesting)
First, I will say that I have not gone through this new paper in detail. I'm skeptical at a gut level that their results seem to depend on general relativity, because GR should not be relevant on the scale of galactic rotation curves: there is good reason why all the calculations ignore GR. It makes me think that there is a flaw in their calculation, and indeed another poster referred to a potential rebuttal of their GR analysis.
Second, as yet another poster mentioned, galactic rotation curves are just ONE evidence for dark matter. We have evidence from the aforementioned stellar orbits in galaxies, plus the motions of satellite dwarf galaxies, gravitational lensing, measurements of galactic gas temperatures (depends on the local gravitational neighborhood), anisotropies in the CMBR, the rate and structure of large-scale cosmological structure formation, etc.
(There are also a bunch of theoretical reasons to believe that dark matter particles could exist purely on the basis of particle physics, even if you ignore the astrophysical evidence; see axions, supersymmetry, etc.)
It's not surprising to come up with an alternative that can explain ONE of these phenomena. In fact, there is already another alternative that can also explain galactic rotation curves: MOND (MOdified Newtonian Dynamics), an alterating of Newton's laws of gravity. (There is a relativistic extension by Bekenstein, although it's currently even more ad hoc than dark matter appears to be.)
The problem is coming up with explanations for ALL of these phenomena. Dark matter is the only theory that has been able to do so, and it's not for lack of trying. Contrary to popular Slashdot groupthink, scientists are not in love with coming up with the most absurd and exotic possibilities they can. Most astronomers hated dark matter. For decades. I even know one who only came around to it a few years ago. It's simply that dark matter works, and everything else people tried to propose in its place didn't. As Carl Sagan said, "No physicist started out impatient with commensense notions, eager to replace them with some mathematical abstraction... Instead, they began, as we all do, with comfortable, standard, commonplace notions. The trouble is that Nature does not comply."
Now, this is not to say that dark matter is the end-all, unassailable dogma. It's possible there are alternatives, including modifications to gravity. I like to compare it to the discovery of Neptune and the perihelion precession of Mercury. People say that it's ad hoc to postulate unseen matter to explain gravitational anomalies. But that's precisely what led to the discovery of Neptune: its gravitational effects on Uranus. On the other hand, you can't always get away with postulating unseen matter: when Mecury's orbit wasn't behaving right, people tried inventing an unseen planet ("Vulcan"), but it turned out that general relativity was the answer, modifying the laws of gravity. Either can be right a priori.
In the dark matter case, it was once true that the evidence in its favor was strong and there were a number of competing theories, but now there is a lot more evidence, and higher standards for theories, and dark matter is pretty much all that's left. People should and do continue trying to come up with alternatives, but as of now, dark matter is still the best game in town. Far from claims of ad-hockery and epicycles, dark matter is actually a robust physical theory: most theories of dark matter have already been falsified because they make such specific predictions about what we should see. It's only a very specific type, quantity, and distribution of dark matter that can work. That's the hallmark of a good theory, not unfalsifiable wish-fulfillment.
Finally: this is a
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:3, Interesting)
What astonishes me is that a GR calculation seems to be done only now: I would have expected this to be the first thing to check before introducing anything new, be it dark matter or modified laws of physics.
Disclaimer: I'm neither in astrophysics nor in particle physics, therefore the above is just an educated guess.
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:5, Interesting)
My question about dark matter has always been "Why is it more acceptable to make up a new type of matter, rather than deal with the idea that the fundamental forces may work differently than is believed?"
Well, because there was no theoretical framework to explain the data without the use of darkmatter. Let's face it, the whole darkmatter hypothesis is extremely ad-hoc, a fudge factor added into galactic rotation calulations to make them fit to what was expected. The outcome was a predicition that darkmatter must exist.Now, there is nothing particularly unscientific about this. Go take a look at particle physics where all kinds of particles were predicted to exist, and as a result many particle physicists went out looking for these particles. When they were found, this confirmed the theory, when the particles were not found, they continued to look, or they revised the theory.
The same kind of thing happened here. People have been looking for darkmatter for quite some time, however, it appears that a revision to the models used to predict galactic rotation curves *and* galactic clustering is what's needed.
Why was the existance of darkmatter more "acceptable?" 1) Basically, because it was a prediction that fit the models. That's something that scientists like a lot, it gives the experimentalists something to really sink their teeth into. And 2) there was no way to predict that a change in the theory was needed without having already developed a theoretical framework that could explain galactic rotation curves without the need for darkmatter.
As an astronomer, I would say that you're not wrong to ask your question, however, without having any idea of how our theory might need to be changed, it's kind of a pointless question. And in this case, it sounds like we really don't need to change our theory at all, it turns out that the range of validity of Newtonian gravity is a lot smaller than we thought.
I think the bigger question in my mind is why hadn't someone tried to do this before now? In some sense, it's one of those things that just kind of surprises you, because all of a sudden you realize that *everyone* has been operating under the same false assumption about Newtonian gravity, and then you wonder why nobody thought to check that out.
Of course, this all assumes that this new model using relativity is correct... It probably is, but I think it does need to under go the usual scrutiny just to be sure.
Submitted to ApJ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, I don't mean to imply that the authors are cranks or similar; I'm not in the GR community, and I've no reason to believe that they're anything but sincere and competent. But it does add fuel to the fire, and something for the "I've always known dark matter is a crock"/"those scientists don't know what they're doing"/"they're repressing alternative ideas" folks to consider.
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay. How about this [indiatimes.com]?
Re:Tentative results (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Neat (Score:5, Interesting)
In a relativistic plasma, a photon doesn't go very far before "hitting" an electron, so the plasma is effectively opaque, but glowing with so much heat that electrons are almost never in a low-energy state, so photons are constantly being re-emitted. The "light pressure" is therefore the dominate force, and the "electron photon soup" acts like a compressible liquid that tries to expand. Over a large enough scale, this is balanced by gravity.
Given we know that the universe was at an extremely uniform temperature, we can predict that it consisted of large cells of gas alternately expanding and contracting. By observing the parrern of temperature differences revealed by the CMB radiation, we can get direct observational evidence about the size and motion of these cells. From our knowledge of plasma physics we can figure the ratio of mass to energy. From the CMB data we can figure the ratio of baryonic mass, which is affected by both light pressure and gravity, and non-baryonic darm matter, which is affected only be gravity.
We actualy have those numbers to about 2 significant digits, which is better than cosmology has ever done in the past with anything. However, the one simplifying assumption in all of this is that the non-baryonic dark matter doesn't interact with light in some strange and complicated way, and while that's the proper assumption to start with, we don't actually know what dark matter is, so who knows.
Re:NOT Informative (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't quite buy the whole idea of Dark Matter, it wasn't scientific enough. We took a stab and said that there were phantom particles that we couldn't see and they were causing our observations to be different from what they should be. It just seems like we assembled a mythos. DarkMatter, the God of the Slow Galactic Turn, floats unseen at the edge of all galaxies. 90% of all matter is dark matter, and no you cannot see any of it (short of one lensing effect from an unknown object). So verifying this theory is next to impossible. And after a while we took the leap to say that we were correct. Even though we just invented stuff to 'fix' the flawed equations. Not that we can't guess right the first time, but just inventing a solution with no basis shouldn't hit the nail on the head.
I think the comparison between Luminiferous Aether and Dark Matter is one of the most prudent ones I've heard in a long while. Making something up to force your data to fit is a pretty bad idea. We can't be wrong. There's something that we cannot see that exists (does some calculations)... here; that makes the data roughly fit. It might as well have been the law of invisible elves of slow rotation.
And yes, if by some odd happening this gets peer reviewed dead... I still believe everything I said.
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:2, Interesting)
From the astronomical point of view, the answer is that both ways have been tried. Modified newtonian dynamics (MOND) is an effort to revise gravity (a failed one, it looks to me). Another one involved a much stronger galactic magnetic field (another failed attempt, since it does not reproduce available observations). And there are other attempts that involve magnetohydrodynamical effects to fool observers (the cited velocity measurements look at the interstellar gas, while the stars, with most of the galactic mass, might orbit at a very different speed).
On the other hand, the introduction of the idea dark matter have explained a lot of other observations, not only the flat rotation curve of galactic disks. It has succesfully predicted observations, and is able to reproduce results in other (quite independet) fields.
As a scientist, I do not like the idea of dark matter, at all. To me, it feels like a cheap hack. But the observational evidence is overwhelming. I just have to welcome the results presented in the article, and hope that they'll survive the challenges!
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, the point is that the theory of dark matter kills a lot of birds with one stone. So it's very attractive from that point of view. And there are literaly dozens of yet-untested theories that can explain dark matter as exotic particles, compact massive objects, and so on. Many of these theories have been either disproved or damaged by careful experiments, but by no means all of them. So the existence of dark matter doesn't seem all that far-fetched either.
A second point is that a lot of this discussion has to do with scientific theories being "falsifiable", a term very much at the heart of the debate on creationism being taught in science classes. I don't think many people appreciate what the term means. Science cannot prove a theory to be true. You can only prove it to be false. Take "Newton's laws" example. It took somewhere around 250 years to prove those wrong, and relativity suffered a lot of ridicule from scientists still unwilling to let go of them.
Well, even though there's no way to really prove a theory to be correct, a theorist still has to start somewhere -- put their faith in some basic assumptions before any progress can be made. The choice of these assumptions is mostly a matter of taste, and a little bit of cleverness -- how can you keep your set of assumptions as small and palatable as possible?
General relativity is a really nice theory, and has stood up to a great deal of testing. It is thought to break down only on small scales far beyond our experimental reach, and there is no compelling reason to suspect its accuracy on even cosmically large distance scales. So it makes for a nice starting assumption for astrophysics. I guess the point of this paper is that some details have been forgotten about when modeling galactic rotation. It was thought that because of the small speeds involved, and weak gravitational field, that newtonian gravity (which is much easier to deal with computationally) was a perfectly good approximation. The author of this paper realized why it was not, and points this out.
I can only imagine that, if the math is correct, this will have a huge impact on the astrophysics community. For example, they mention why newtonian gravity works so well for our solar system still, but I'm not sure any more that it would work well for cloud collapse and star formation models. If it affects these models, it will probably also affect cosmologists modeling the evolution of structure.
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wasn't referring to evolution the observed phenomena. I was referring to Evolution (The proof that we don't have a creator). If you don't think it's taught that way then your either blind or self-deluded.
Here is your problem, you havent' assualted the theory, you only state you object to it's implications. This has nothing to do with the science behind it, only your inability to accept it as part of you belief system.
It does in fact give a possible origin of life. The exact origin is nebulous. Either life evolved here on earth, or else it evolved else where and was transported here via meteor. As far we know both cases are equally valid. There is somewhat mroe unlikely possibilities that is was intentially transported. Biologists/chemists have been workign on the viability of it just happening and according to our modern organic chemistry, over large periods of time it is very likely.
This does not say that god didn't create it all, since the universe is apparently deterministic and that at some point it was "created" he/she/it problably set it up so that life would be favorable. You can't prove or disprove that though so it has no place in science.
Your problem isn't with "evolution as a origin theory" your problem is that you need to have god directly intervene to create people or else your religion has somewhat less meaning. You can't just say "well evolution is a origin story so it must be lumped in with other origin stories". The chinese origin story abotu a lotus blossum on the sea of the universe is a quaint story, evolution is a well supported branch of biology. Not theory, it's a whole freaking branch. It's actually the lions share of biology.
I wasn't referring to evolution the observed phenomena. I was referring to Evolution (The proof that we don't have a creator). If you don't think it's taught that way then your either blind or self-deluded.
Evolution explains a mechanism. This mechanism removes the need to have a "origin" story or to have direct divine intrvention. This upsets you. This does not however change anything. God is God. Whether he used evolution to create things or he blinks them into exsistance with the wriggle of his/her/it's nose is of no consequence. You are argueing for confusing and denying a valid scientific idea because it doesn't fit with your particular brand of theism. This is stupid. Evolution should be taught, ID/creationism should not. If you deny there is a god and use evolution to support you claim fine, I'll simply state that god works in mysterious ways, and that since the universe is deterministic it meant that the liklihood of some external force causing it all to happen is not provable/disprovable and that I will continue beliving in a god thank you very much.
You however must have some sort of weak assed faith that folds like a house of cards when faced with uncomfortable facts. I suggests you try and find truth instead of comfort.
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:5, Interesting)
You start with an observation, come up with a reasonable hypothesis to explain it, then test it.
Eventually your hypothesis fails at some level. So based on your observation, you create another reasonable hypothesis....
That's scientific progress. Each step along the way we learn more. And often, we get led down the wrong path, for any one of many reasons -most are not evil.
As a scientist, I can tell how I think many things work. Of course that leads to the question, "Don't you know for sure?" from a non-scientific public who wants to know that the levy will hold or the vaccine will protect them from disease and not cause it.
No, I don't know for sure. But that's not what anybody wants to hear. And that's not what anybody will report in the press. That's not what politicians base decisions on. The overwhelming majority of times you see science misused as you stated above its by companies/politicians/people taking scientific data and theory and restating it as scientific fact. Its rarely the scientist doing the study who says such things.
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am being schooled in philosophy right now, and my emphasis is in the philosophy of science and epistemology. I always loved the physical sciences, but find them to be overly dogmatic and non-questioning, or non-self-questioning. Philosophy must exist to keep an eye of the sciences to keep them on track, since the sciences do not meta-analyze themselves enough, or ever. Science seems to think it discovers certanty at certain junctures, which is hubris, since there were many historically certain theories which were later proven completely wrong, we might have to accept ANY of our current understandings as wrong as more emperical date comes in.
Emperical data is king though, no theory is worth much without a backing in reality.
One of my friends at ASU doing Physics/Math and I have very nice conversations about such things. Nothing is more intellectually rewardsing that conversations between scientific disciplines and philosophy (not to say that aspects of phi cannot be scientific). Through both we realize a grounding. Philosophy is here to teach others humility, and to show the limitations of logical systems.
Re:NOT Informative (Score:3, Interesting)
YES YES YES (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Well it clearly matters to some people... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty glad to hear of your experience. The Copenhagen institute has a mythical quality for those of us looking at the last 100 years of science. Niels cast a pretty big shadow. I'm glad that it's still pretty open and free.
I've been following cosmology for ages, and the current mainstream ideas seem like an exercise in being exotic for exoticness' sake. I've been singularly unsurprised at information coming back from Spitzer and the like that we're still finding normal galaxies 13.3 billion light years away. I've been reading some of the material from the 30's and 40's, and quite frankly, we haven't addressed their concerns very well in the intervening 65+ years. But I digress :)
Quantum Mechanics is pretty amazing, all things considered. No matter what weird experiments have been thrown at it, including Einstein's objections, it just works. It's freaky and awe-inspiring that the universe has an utterly "invincible" underpinning that isn't about actual waves or particles of matter or energy, but probability. Do your probability wave math, run the experiment, and watch the statistics pile up. I must admit, I still don't know how to absorb the fact that you can get individual electrons seemingly "interfering with themselves".
It's a little embarrassing that we really have no idea what quantum mechanics means. If Nick Herbert's summary is still valid, we have four, completely separate mathematical ways of looking at quantum mechanics and eight major camps of interpretation. All of the mathematical means (Feynman's sum-over-histories, Heisenberg's matrices, etc.) are utterly indistinguishable. It's an embarrassment of riches in the 'possible explanations' department.
Personally, though, I'll take the options that don't require some airy-fairy "consciousness" as the only observer that can 'collapse the wave function', making consciousness mystical instead of an extremely complicated but theoretically understandable biological process, and options that don't prevent further questioning (I don't want any "the theory is all there is" bits like with, ironically named considering the open atmosphere, the Copenhagen interpretation :).
Nick Herbert's book, albeit some 20 years old now, is still excellent. I just finished it recently, and reviewed it [nimblebrain.net] on my blog.
It's a sobering thought that so many 'realities' could describe what's going on in quantum mechanics.
Re:NOT Informative (Score:3, Interesting)
Regards,
Steve