Einstein's Theory Passes Strict New Test 243
FiReaNGeL writes with an excerpt from a story at e! Science News: "Taking advantage of a unique cosmic configuration, astronomers have measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in the extremely strong gravity of a pair of superdense neutron stars. Essentially, the famed physicist's 93-year-old theory passed yet another test. Scientists at McGill University used the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to do a four-year study of a double-star system unlike any other known in the Universe. The system is a pair of neutron stars, both of which are seen as pulsars that emit lighthouse-like beams of radio waves."
And that, boys and girls, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't be right (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate it when people discuss science in this banal way. It is as if they think that the physical theories are what cause nature to act (the Laws of Nature). This is wrong. These physical theories only describe how nature appears to act. Quantum mechanics is a classic example. Look at all the different formulations that describe how the state vector or wave function or whatever you want to call it acts (Heisenberg's, Schrödinger's, Dirac's, Feynman's, etc.). They are all good theories because they explain the experimental evidence, they are simple, and they can predict things. Take a look at the so-called wave-particle duality. A photon, for example, doesn't act as a wave or as a particle. It acts as a photon (paraphrasing Feynman). We only describe it as acting as a wave or a particle.
The truth about science is that it may very well not be possible to understand why the Universe acts as it does. It may not even be possible to understand the most basic laws governing it. But we can certainly study and try to understand its behavior where we can observe it. General relativity does that well, and quantum mechanics does that well. Calling one right and the other wrong sort of loses its meaning in this context when both theories describe their data exceptionally well for the ranges that they observe. Neither of them proposes to govern nature, nor should we ever expect that of a physical theory.
Re:Can't be right (Score:5, Insightful)
You are exactly right, but to paraphrase:
"All models are wrong, but some are useful." [wikiquote.org]
Re:Can't be right (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling one right and the other wrong sort of loses its meaning in this context
I agree. Once again science... REAL science, is never about "right" or "wrong". It's about "can I use what you just told me in a predictable manner?". If it's BS and it doesn't work, then leave me alone I have stuff to do. :)
Re:It's a shame really (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't prove things in physics.
No, really.
Re:Relativity vs. Quantum (Score:4, Insightful)
So, more evidence supporting general relativity, but we still insist on viewing it as an approximation of a quantum-mechanical system (like how Newtonian physics can be viewed as an approximation of relativity).
Um, no, no one insists that you view it that way.
My understanding is that relativity has been directly observed several times, whereas quantum theory is still just based on the interpretation of a series of controlled laboratory experiments, which mostly amounts to sifting through the wreckage of a high-energy collision and trying to derive the original state from the leftover pieces.
No. Relatively and quantum theory are only directly observed on the pages of scientific journals, since they're theories and that's where you observe theories being printed. If you mean the predicted effects of the theory have been observed, this is true, but the same is equally true of quantum theory, in far more contexts that you mention (just as relativistic effects have been observed in more than just the bending of light during an eclipse).
Isn't it about time to abandon the concept of the graviton and just accept that gravity is not a fundamental force, but is simply the observed effect of the curvature of spacetime due to the presence of matter and energy?
Nope. Impatience does not suit science. Easier problems have taken multiple centuries to get right -- quantum theory is barely a century old, and has been one of the most spectacularly successful theories in the history of science. It has rough edges and will take time to work it all out, to be sure, but if it suggests something is right, it takes a bit more than a short period of time looking with inadequate instruments and incomplete understanding to declare it definitely wrong on the subject.
There's a saying in engineering: When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
Of course it does, to an engineer. Engineers rarely have the patience for actual science. Taking a few centuries to hone a tool isn't practical. But science isn't about practicality.
Re:And that, boys and girls, (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the value of good old fashioned visual thinking and geometry actually, einstein's theories were so powerful correct BECAUSE he was an excellent visual thinker and thought in terms of geometry. Geometry is highly under-rated in mathematics and physics in my opinion.
Re:Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope? Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Being out of touch with today's society is one of the most important functions of the Senate.
Re:Relativity vs. Quantum (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that relativity has been directly observed several times, whereas quantum theory is still just based on the interpretation of a series of controlled laboratory experiments, which mostly amounts to sifting through the wreckage of a high-energy collision and trying to derive the original state from the leftover pieces.
Nope. Quantum mechanics is vastly, overwhelmingly, massively tested. Compared to general relativity, quantum mechanics is easy to test in the lab, and there are many many many experimental validations of it
And general relativity, also, is getting to be well tested.
Both theories have passed all the tests that they have been put to.
The problem is: quantum mechanics becomes important for things that are very small. General relativity becomes important for objects with strong gravity. The only range where you can test both of them together is if you can find objects that are both extremely small, and have extremely high gravity. Unfortunately, that realm is outside the experimental range of any experiments, now or anytime in the forseeable future.
Re:Can't be right (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that isn't possible, because theories that hold up well at describing things like gravity on a large scale break down horribly at the quantum level. Even basic interactions between particles cannot be described in the sense of, say, a truck hitting a telephone pole.
Re:Can't be right (Score:5, Insightful)
You are aware that "impossible" means "cannot be done" and not just "we can't do it right now", right?
Model Worshipers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Laws and Theories (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that, most of the time anyway, "law" as used in science has an even more specific meaning: a "law" is a relation (often an equation) between two or more variables. For instance, Boyle's Law [wikipedia.org] states "for a fixed amount of gas kept at a fixed temperature, pressure and volume are inversely proportional". This is, strictly speaking, not true of reality. It describes an ideal gas with completely elastic collisions, a property that no real gas has. But it's close enough to true with real gases that it offers a good guess of how a real gas will behave.
Newton's Laws are used similarly. No reasonable person still accepts Newton's Theories of Motion and Gravity, because Einstein's two Theories of Relativity have supplanted them and have thoroughly demonstrated their predictive power. However, Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity are still taught to students. Laws are not "correct" vs. "incorrect", because they're abstract mathematical relationships; instead, laws get sorted into "useful" vs. "not useful" categories, and Newton's Laws are good enough at estimating reality that they're still useful. But they won't stop being "correct" any more than "f(x)=x^2" will stop being "correct", because a law continues to be a law even when no surviving theory references it.
Re:Einstein: Really Smart (Score:3, Insightful)
So Leo would have starved to death, which ticked off Einstein. People croaking because of ammonia leaking fridges ticked him off as well, so he decided to play with the idea of making a better fridge.
Andy
Re:Can't be right (Score:1, Insightful)
And you're essentially person C who then says that man will just grow wings and fly anyway.
You know, the fact that some obstacles can be overcome doesn't mean all obstacles can be overcome. Will there ever be interstellar travel? I haven't got the slightest, but while your naive optimism is not without charm, your apparent idea that there is no doubt that it will be possible - that, in fact, *everything* will be possible sooner or later - fails the laugh test.
Re:Can't be right (Score:3, Insightful)
And chimpanzees don't get termites, spit-covered sticks do.
Technology is as much a part of humanity as wings are of birds.
Re:hypothesis - 1 of 4 scientific terms (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>>Fact: Objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass.
>>How exactly is this a fact? At best it's a generalization based on facts involving specific objects. It sounds more like a law.
Moreover, it's wrong. Heavier objects will fall slightly faster since they pull the earth up towards them as they fall.
It's a great example of how we can think we know something that's "proven" by science, but yet still have the ignorant people (that think a hammer falls faster than a feather in a vacuum) actually be right.
Re:And that, boys and girls, (Score:3, Insightful)