Earth, a Giant Pinball Machine 19
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have long probed Earth's interior by monitoring seismic waves (if earthquakes don't make them, they can be induced with explosives, and one nuke test actually triggered an earthquake!), which reveal the inner structure of the planet. But what if the method is wrong? LiveScience reports on a new study suggesting Earth is like a pinball machine, with sound waves careening around before they get to the surface. What is interpreted as a broad layer change could be nothing more than a localized density variation."
fooled again (Score:4, Funny)
The core (Score:2, Funny)
We'll have to watch the movie "The Core" to the end to see how we fix it and that willl cause the extinction of our species.
Re:Pinball? Did someone say pinball? (Score:1)
If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the method is wrong, then our model of the Earth's interior will most likely be wrong. If that's the case, as we continue to gather more data in greater detail, it will become increasingly obvious that the data doesn't fit the model. Once we reach that point, we will either adjust the current model, or create a completely new model, that the data fits the model once again.
In other words, it'll be business as usual for the scientific method...
Re:If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:3, Informative)
Eventually it is almost forgotten, but remembered just well enough that anyone who it occurs to, and checks, will see that someone else already thought of that and the theory was found to be incorrect (since it clashed with our new false model).
Sure som
Re:If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is simply that the solutions generally found are not necessarily unique, if one assumes a very simple model and doesn't apply additional, independent knowledge to the problem.
However, as another person posted, the reality is that "we've" been doing a pretty good
The longest ST episode title (Score:3, Funny)
"For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky"
I can't see the words "Earth's interior" without thinking of that title. : )
Re:If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:3, Interesting)
The scientific method coupled with peer review is wonderful, it has brought us far. Unfortunately it is inherently flawed.
It is flawed because the scientific method relies on the belief that when all evidence is presented the conclusion one logically arrives, which fits all said evidence and symptoms, is the correct one.
Re:If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:2)
1) There is no assumption that we will find the perfectly correct solution to a problem. The assumption is that we will get so close with approximations to the exact solution that for all intents and purposes it'll be "right". There's a difference--one implies that science can get to the "absolute truth", and the other implies that science can provide a working model that is very close to reality.
2) There
Re:If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:2)
I certainly never said we didn't produce anything, I said the opposite. I said our current method was a cheap hack that has resulted in us producing MORE in a short period of time than we would without it. The problem isn't in what we've produced, the problem is you can only build a house of straw so tall before it col
Re:If it's wrong, we'll fix it... (Score:2)
However, there are also established facts that are observations, not theories. These observations may be explaine
pinball, schimball (Score:3, Funny)
If this is true. (Score:3, Informative)
Money is the prime driver in many forms of research, and nobody has as much money vested in geologic surveys as the oil companies. Why haven't they already discovered this effect?
Question: Do seismic surveys currently employ a Radon transform (like how CAT scans reconstruct a 2D image from 1D projections)? If so, how would this "pinball effect" affect that?
Re:If this is true. (Score:2, Informative)
Smallest Pinball machine ... (Score:1, Offtopic)
East L. (Score:4, Funny)
And you thought low-riders were all play.