E=mc^2 Verified In Quantum Chromodynamic Calculation 268
chirishnique and other readers sent in a story in AFP about a heroic supercomputer computation that has verified Einstein's most famous equation at the level of subatomic particles for the first time. "A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms. ... [T]he mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five per cent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 per cent? The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons. ... [E]nergy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905." Update: 11/21 15:50 GMT by
KD : New Scientist has a slightly more technical look at the accomplishment.
Pretty cool (Score:2, Insightful)
All that computing power to verify what Einstein figured out with his head and a chalkboard.
Re:Pretty cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pretty cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pretty cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Einstein may have demonstrated that the math had to be right, but this sort of result was needed to demonstrate that the math correctly described the universe.
Re:Pretty cool (Score:2, Insightful)
It is remarkable in the fact that all of the previous attempts to mix Quantum-"anything" with Relativity have pretty much spectacularly failed.
I'm quite impressed.
Re:Also on Yahoo, (Score:2, Insightful)
Its NOT E=mc^2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mathmatically verifiable (Score:5, Insightful)
Science can't tell you whether some theoretical construct is "really" there. That's a matter of philosophical definition. All science can tell you is whether the predictions of theories agree with what is observed in the world.
Re:I've only got one thing to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah, so THERE'S the dark matter everyone looks f (Score:3, Insightful)
> Take 'global warmming' both sides have a lot of theory but very little in the way of good tests that can prove it one way or the other.
No, they don't. One side has a vast array of scientists who all draw the same conclusions from peer-reviewed research with near universal accord. They also have a good deal of data to back up their theories.
The other side has a bunch of deliberately designed, mutually contradictory, un-peer-reviewed theories for the sole purpose of making non-climate-scientists believe that the science is bad on both sides.
It's deliberately designed to appeal to people who don't know the difference between climate and weather. It should be pretty clear that I can predict that it'll be colder in January than August (in the northern hemisphere) without being able to tell you it will rain tomorrow.
There is science on one side, and a deliberately anti-scientific campaign on the other. Science has uncertainty, quantified and part of the theory. The other side exploits that people don't understand how scientists deal with uncertainty to achieve a political, not scientific, goal.
Re:Mathmatically verifiable (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, all scientific theories will eventually be proven wrong when better data is available.
As a man of science, coming to grips with this fact is central to not getting cought up in the "religion" of science (this theory says that, it is science, thus it is the 'truth'). As 'Weird' Al wrote, "Everything you know is wrong."
Science. It works, Bitches. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've only got one thing to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've only got one thing to say... (Score:1, Insightful)
That is a scientifically meaningless statement. Newtonian Mechanics is correct at non-relativistic speeds, because it is correct within the possible precision of measurement. If "right" means EXACTLY right, then ALL scientific theories are wrong, including SR, as no experiment can ever verify them to infinite precision. Moreover, as relativity contains singularities, the reasonable assumption should be that relativity becomes wrong at the extremes near it which it produces singularities. The belief that any theory is perfect can be nothing but delusional, in my opinion.
Re:Scientists are bankers (Score:2, Insightful)
The vacuum isn't nothing. The vacuum is everything.
Re:Pretty cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Seatbelts and airbags won't do much for a drop from signifcant altitude... evacuation via parachute would basically be required.
Re:My proof (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pretty cool (Score:4, Insightful)
So you contest then, that atomic bombs would not work if it were E=mc**3?