There May Be A Fifth Force of Nature, Study Suggests (space.com) 240
According to a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, physicists at the University of California, Irvine, may have discovered a previously unknown subatomic particle that's evidence of a fifth fundamental force of nature. Space.com reports: "[Professor of physics and astronomy Jonathan Feng] and his colleagues analyzed data gathered recently by experimental nuclear physicists at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who were trying to find 'dark photons' -- hypothetical indicators of mysterious dark matter. Dark matter is thought to make up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe, but it neither absorbs nor emits light, so it's impossible to detect directly. 'The experimentalists weren't able to claim that it was a new force,' Feng said. 'They simply saw an excess of events that indicated a new particle, but it was not clear to them whether it was a matter particle or a force-carrying particle.' The new work by Feng and his team suggests that the Hungarians found not a 'dark photon' but rather a 'protophobic X boson' -- a strange particle whose existence could indicate a fifth force of nature. The known electromagnetic force acts on protons and electrons, but this newfound particle apparently interacts only with protons and neutrons, and then only at very short distances, researchers said. The potential fifth force may be linked to the electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces, as 'manifestations of one grander, more fundamental force,' Feng said. It's also possible that the universe of 'normal' matter and forces has a parallel 'dark' sector, with its own matter and forces, Feng added. 'It's possible that these two sectors talk to each other and interact with one another through somewhat veiled but fundamental interactions,' Feng said. 'This dark-sector force may manifest itself as this protophobic force we're seeing as a result of the Hungarian experiment. In a broader sense, it fits in with our original research to understand the nature of dark matter.'"
Locke2005 writes: I've always speculated that there might be forces of nature that we never observed because they were on a much larger or smaller scale than we could detect easily. But now Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, is suggesting there may actually be a fifth force. Of course, this might vanish just like the Higgs Boson evidence did. Can anybody explain better what it was they detected, and why it is being interpreted as evidence of a previously unknown force?
Locke2005 writes: I've always speculated that there might be forces of nature that we never observed because they were on a much larger or smaller scale than we could detect easily. But now Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, is suggesting there may actually be a fifth force. Of course, this might vanish just like the Higgs Boson evidence did. Can anybody explain better what it was they detected, and why it is being interpreted as evidence of a previously unknown force?
The Higgs boson evidence didn't vanish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you're thinking of the 750 GeV "bump" that turned out to be a statistical deviation?
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Perhaps you're thinking of the 750 GeV "bump" that turned out to be a statistical deviation?
Maybe The Higgs Boson morphed info The Dark Higgs Boson . . . ?
Re:The Higgs boson evidence didn't vanish... (Score:4, Funny)
Higgs still there (Score:5, Informative)
The evidence for the Higgs Boson didn't disappear, it was possible evidence for a heavier particle than Higgs that has been shown to be a statistical fluke.
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The debunked new particle referred to the so-called 750 GeV excess. And yeah, it was NOT the Higgs boson.
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Further, we know what the "fifth force" is: we call it Dark Energy.
Once upon a time Feynman gave a lecture explaining how we knew there wasn't a fifth force, because a very precise experiment had been done to measure the attraction between two objects, and it was exactly what we expected from gravity. No mystery left to explain.
Well, two ways that can be wrong, and it looks like he might have been wrong in both ways: a force which was simply to weak to measure by any earthbound experiment, or a force which
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...As for the latter: we still don't really know how dark matter works, and maybe it has its own forces (some oddball ones have been proposed).
And that is the motivation discussed in the cited paper, that this could be related to dark matter.
Asserting that we "know" that dark energy is a fifth force, in the same sense as the other four forces in the Standard Model, is claiming more than we actually know at this point. Maybe it is, but there are no good theories at this point that make it one, and it could be something quite different from the particle/force models physicists have been working with. Physics derived from the behavior of the Cosmolog
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"in the same sense as the other four forces in the Standard Model" is more than I clamed. Gravity still isn't really a force in that sense. But dark energy clearly causes mass to accelerate, and is thus a force (though I guess you can argue semantics about anything). Once would expect any new force to be outside the Standard Model at this point.
The fifth force is... (Score:5, Funny)
The fifth force is... LOVE!? Who's been screwing with this thing?
Re: The fifth force is... (Score:5, Funny)
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If you are lucky enough to get paid to hunt ghosts, you are going to provide enough evidence that your ghost hunting is providing the possibility of even more ghosts. In turn you need more funding to hunt for more elusive ghosts. If you can BS your way through talking about stuff that nobody can possibly understand your results, or even replicate your results, you can turn your ghost hunting into a life long career that pays very well, and never really do anything in life.
I applaud these guys. Good for them.
Back, back to Hell with you, you Evil(tm) Climate denier! Scum like you would probably even vote for Trump!
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Yes, that movie was actually great with a "Oh Hell No! WTF ?!" ending.
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No, that's the Fifth Element.
Signed, Mr. Buzzkill.
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The fifth force is... LOVE!? Who's been screwing with this thing?
According to some work done in the 1960's by an Englishman named Lennon, the other forces of nature are largely irrelevant .
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Is Ted Turner involved? I'm expecting Captain Planet to come screaming out saying "Recycle or I'll fuck you up."
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Physical Review Letters (Score:5, Informative)
Attempting to up the hype a bit... Physical Review Letters is the well respected publication where Einstein his paper 1936 “Do gravitational waves exist?”, in which he concludes they do not, which turned out to be wrong. A couple of takeaways here: 1) Physical Review Letters is a forum for heavyweight players in the physics world; 2) that doesn't mean it's always right; 3) Einstein predicted gravity waves in 1916. Later he changed his mind and thought that he was wrong, but he was wrong about that.
Re:Physical Review Letters (Score:5, Informative)
A slight clarification: the journal in which Einstein published his 1936 paper is Physical Review. Physical Review Letters is a spin-off, established in 1958, for short, significant papers - so, if anything, it's more prestigious (though more likely to contain speculative results which may later turn out to be wrong).
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A further clarification: Einstein submitted his 1936 paper to Physical Review, but after a negative response from the referee, he published it in the Journal of the Franklin Institute instead. This was in the early days of peer review: he was actually surprised and offended that the editor at Physical Review had shown the manuscript to another physicist. There's a slideshow about it here [uark.edu].
Less Hype Needed, Highly Speculative (Score:5, Insightful)
Attempting to up the hype a bit
Please don't. The paper contains a wildly speculative idea which, while technically possible, is based on a single, unconfirmed experimental result. Hundreds of these are published every year even in PRL and the overwhelming majority do not pan out. This is just the very early stage in the scientific brain storming process looking for new ideas which might be right and at this stage almost none of them are. The time to start getting interested is when another experiment appears to have data confirming one of the predictions of this new theory - and even then it does not always work out!
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The time to start getting interested is when another experiment appears to have data confirming one of the predictions of this new theory - and even then it does not always work out!
I dunno, I find myself just as interested in the crazy new unconfirmed results and speculative additions/revisions to our model of the universe as I am when most turn out to be wrong...and maybe a few turn out to be correct! I suppose I enjoy this small window I have into the process of experimental physics because I have enough patience for a result to evolve...but not nearly enough to get a ph.D and do it myself.
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Attempting to up the hype a bit
Please don't. The paper contains a wildly speculative idea which, while technically possible, is based on a single, unconfirmed experimental result.
This. The first thing I noticed in TFA (I know, that was my first mistake) was the headline leading with "Physicists confirm"... and then trailing off -- before the end of the headline! -- into speculative weasel words like "possible", "if true", "may be", etc. Which is it, phys.org? Did scientists confirm it, or is it just a possible discovery?
Then people wonder why scientific discoveries are so badly misreported.
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For some really weird reason there's a large-ish segment of Slashdot that gets really fucking angry about dark matter. I think they are often the same people who get angry about climate change. Someone in this thread thinks dark matter is a 'secular left' conspiracy.
Weird as fuck.
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Maybe. But I think you'd have your work cut out for you to show it. And you'd have to explain at some point why e.g. the Coulomb interaction doesn't demonstrate it as a direct augmentation of Coulomb interactions and meso-scale deviation from 1/r^2 form with its much greater (and hence easier to observe) interaction strength.
Standing waves in EM fields (where we can easily observe them in e.g. lasers, Fabry-Perot interferometers, etc) require reflectors at both sides of a cavity. They arise out of solut
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Oh, dear, I you misunderstand the nature of evidence and theory, sir or madam. One does not usually "refute" a hypothesis in physics, and absence of evidence is not sufficient evidence of absence. The best that can be said for or against fifth force theories in physics is that there is little sound evidence to support any specific one of them. At the same time, there is AMPLE evidence that our knowledge of physics is incomplete, and there are large scale, clearly visible phenomena (like the galactic ro
Re: Physical Review Letters (Score:2)
My point about the Bible was that despite ample discussion and explanation of time theology, people regularly try to make the same arguments that were answered do long ago, either thinking they have found a new problem, or the old answers simply don't apply. Minimal study would illuminate these issues, but they really don't care, they just want to argue.
Physics is rotten with arguers...
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Again, I have to say this feels like a complete non-sequitor. I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to suggest with your assertion of "ample discussion and explanation of time theology" and how the "same arguments... were answered so long ago". When I google "time theology" (which I wasn't even aware was a reasonable "subject" of hermeneutics, if one imagines that making stuff up so that it all works out is somehow either a subject or reasonable) I get several hits but they do not illuminate your state
No link to PRL article; does it exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
The summary and the PHYS.org article link to Arxiv, not a peer-reviewed Phys Rev Letters article. The Arvix article is also way too long to be published in PRL. So what gives? Where is the peer-reviewed article?
That's a pretty light particle... (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems kind of bewildering to me that signs weren't seen of its existence decades ago. oO
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i've been studying this for 25 years (as a reverse-engineer from a software background). i've started to have to go to the field of optics to fully understand why it is that this "extra force or maybe a particle" has not been discovered. look up the work by "Ido Kaminer" and his team and you find that (for the purposes of creating "optical tweezers" - google it) it's possible to create phase-coherent X-Ray beams that *LITERALLY* bend in parabolic arcs or even semi-circles, and as they do so the phase rota
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Love it. Almost as good as time cube.
Your assertions are absolutely fine to make: but to convince me, I'll need to see some evidence. Ideally some repeatable experiments showing that your insight on the fundamental structure of the universe has some merit.
Looking forward to it, I too am a physicist and am frustrated that over the course of my professional career (not quite 25 years) these fundamental questions have not been answered.
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Anime bendy-beams are a thing, no need for a fifth force... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Simple, really. The internet had to become become enough to amplify the effects.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
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Hard to see, the dark side is. but Once you start down the dark research path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
Yes, but it will also make you powerfull!
Don't you know that all the great discoveries were make by monomanical megalomanical maniacs in search of greater power?
The Force (Score:2)
I suggest we call it "The Force"
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And if it doesn't pan out, "The Farce"
Too early to get excited (Score:3)
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Here come the New Age Quantum Woo Peddlers (Score:2)
I am just waiting for the torrent of New Age clickbait on my facebook feed saying that physics has finally found evidence of the mystical magical quantum life force energy that their super-dooper-quantum-yoga tradition has known for centuries.
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Actually it's the 6th force of nature (Score:2)
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I thought it was Milla Jovovich.
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Maybe when the Large Hardon Collider is back up we can we can mate Norris with Jovovich and conceive the true 5th force.
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No, she was the fifth element.
It's the 1980's again (Score:2)
Back in the 1980's there was a reanalysis of some old gravity measurements made by Roland von Eotvos which suggested that gravity might have a short-range, composition-dependent component, a "fifth force". This inspired a number of experiments, with some positives and some negative results. Eventually, the positive results were all explained and the fifth force went away.
Coincidentally, in regard to this recent research, one of the hard to explain positive results also came out of UC Irvine.
Previous erroneous claims by group (Score:5, Informative)
This blog entry by a senior scientist at Fermi Lab has interesting comments on previous experimental results from the Hungarian group the UCI theoretical work is based on:
http://www.livescience.com/552... [livescience.com]
What about the Hungarian group? I know none of them personally, but the article was published in Physical Review Letters — a chalk mark in the win column. However, the group has also published two previous papers in which comparable anomalies were observed, including a possible particle with a mass of 12 million electron volts and a second publication claiming the discovery of a particle with a mass of about 14 million electron volts. Both of these claims were subsequently falsified by other experiments.
Further, the Hungarian group has never satisfactorily disclosed what error was made that resulted in these erroneous claims. Another possible red flag is that the group rarely publishes data that doesn't claim anomalies. That is improbable. In my own research career, most publications were confirmation of existing theories. Anomalies that persist are very, very, rare.
Depends on how you count the forces (Score:2)
My teacher said gravity isn't a force, it's "just" geometry. Electromagnetic and weak is the after certain energy levels. On the other hand we used to count magnetic and electric forces as related but separate.
It surrounds us... (Score:2)
It penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.
Peter Gabriel (Score:2)
Peter Gabriel just called from Scotland. He says it's the Fifth of Force.
Surely at least four more (Score:2)
What about charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness?
maybe just the strong force (Score:2)
Not much is known about the nature of the strong force. Perhaps this is some more "color" on the nature of the strong force (which is suspected to bind protons and neutrons, but in it's "color-ed" form is suspected to bind quarks together).
It;s all true - we just need to add another 14 .. (Score:2)
We just need to add another 14 dimensions..
Ok - how about doing some real world experiments ..
Too much BS already this week...
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Occam's razor. Some things are more likely to be contained in dark matter, others are unlikely without some kind of additional and convincing evidence.
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You prefer to think it's simpler to believe in what you can't find, rather than what you haven't previously seen?
Interesting application. I'm trying to work that out.
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Yes. Its part of a chain of evidence, not a stand-alone question and I prefer to follow the scientific evidence. So far this hasn't provided any evidence for a non-secular answer. Come back if we suddenly find any evidence of a God sitting in the middle making it work.
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There is no reason why someone else should be the one to "come back".
We have precisely the same scientific knowledge for all conjectures. That is, none. Your bias isn't the correct one "by default".
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Fair enough - I wasn't aware of the evidence for a higher power directing the forces in the standard model. If you can point me to it I will reeducate myself and we can discuss further.
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The application of the standard model would say nothing about the content of Dark Matter, any more than by saying if we stipulate X amount of matter within Y space, you can thereby say what that matter contains in our "everyday" observable universe. That is the statement of mine you are responding to, not what physics applies. Does it contain complex structures? Life? We have no idea. You appear to be angling for a categorical dismissal you have no basis to make based on a red herring of what system of
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Thanks. I might just do that.
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The worst application of Occam's Razor I've yet seen on a site full of twisted interpretations.
Let me give you a hint. Occam's Razor says nothing about what is "likely", and Occam was theist.
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Thanks, but following previous evidence is not an assumption. Occam's beliefs are irrelevant to choosing the less assumptive path.
It seems you like to pretend you have no preconceptions - but the secular comment shows otherwise. There is no evidence to show a higher power - discuss.
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Dark Matter could contain anything... but conveniently the secular Left has determined what kinds of things it definitely doesn't contain.
That helps with the physics... right?
All bow before the Gap God!
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All bow before the Gap God!
Whoa, heathen. Don't go putting your weirdo deities on everyone else. Some of us pray to J. Crew Jesus or the Old Navy Oversoul.
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Re: A priori analysis (Score:2)
"Dark Matter could contain anything... but conveniently the secular Left has determined what kinds of things it definitely doesn't contain."
If they're suggesting that it doesn't contain God or Trump, then I tend to agree.
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I am absolutely certain that dark matter is not made of boiled peanuts or teeny tiny dancing bobcats.
Am I a member of the secular left yet? Do I get a card? Is there an oath or something?
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My example is implicit--but clearly understood, and hence immediately downmodded, regardless of scientific rationality of doing so, based on the premise stated. ;)
For the four forces versus five forces question, I'll likewise let scientific inquiry play out.
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My example is implicit--but clearly understood, and hence immediately downmodded, regardless of scientific rationality of doing so, based on the premise stated. ;)
What? Link to the people who have decided what DM is. They need to unambiguously be 'secular left' for your point to make sense. Go ahead and do it now.
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It seems that this is an example of the 'that's interesting' phenomenon. You know, when scientists are studying something and they see an interesting and unexpected observation.
Such events have led to interesting discoveries. I like this one better than string theory and using Dark Matter to fine tune those equations that 'splain everything.
And at this point, 'like' is entirely appropriate. Gonna need a lot more work to get to certainty.
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Okay, troll. You know nothing about me, you have no ability to know anything about me. No point in spooling out your content-free nonsense. Enjoy.
Well, we know your first post doesn't really make any sense. We know you like to just say the secular left and leave it at that as if it's supposed to mean something and we know you seem to think other people think they have physic powers when no such claims were made or even insinuated and we know you discard concern for your wellbeing with thinly veiled contempt. Based on that I'd agree that you might not quite be right in the head and could do with some professional advice. Unless they are part of the se
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We may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean that they are not, in fact, out to get us...
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And it is, as of yet, untested. Therefore, the details of what it does or does not contain, science has no statement on.
No conclusion can be drawn, scientifically. Even if one has a preference for a "sciencey-sounding" set of preemptive conclusions. That is not science.
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I have no idea what you are going on about now.
Hypotheses are formed, then tested. Until they are tested, no scientific conclusion can be formed. Since a conclusion has not been formed regarding the specifics of content of Dark Matter, science says precisely zero about what may or may not be present.
In no way does this mean your "educated guess" means anything scientifically at all. There is no need to bring in your False Dichotomy thinking on this. If you need to present this within a typical fallacio
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If you google "what are the forces of nature" the first result says there are 5.
When I searched for "what are the forces of nature" (without the quotes) in Google just now, the first result was the Wikipedia disambiguation page for "Force of nature" [wikipedia.org], which says "In physics, there are four fundamental forces." as the second line. The second result is the Wikipedia page for Forces of Nature [wikipedia.org], a romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock, and the third result is for a HowStuffWorks page entitled "What are the four fundamental forces of nature?" [howstuffworks.com].
Below that are some news arti
Re: Google beat you to it (Score:4, Informative)
That's weird, this [profmattstrassler.com] is what I got. I guess it's a sponsored link? It even showed a blurb from the site above the link as if Google were just answering my question.
No, Strassler's a Real Physicist, and that link does show up, later in the list, in my search.
However, whilst the Higgs field might be a force field (in the sense of something that can change the motion of an object [wikipedia.org], i.e. can transfer momentum), it's apparently not considered one of the "fundamental" forces; the Standard Model has only four "fundamental" forces. The proposed new force would be a fifth.
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Three actually. The electromagnetic and weak force are manifestations of the same force at different scales.
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Sounds like the fifth and strongest force of nature is willfull ignorance.
I wonder how your kind would have reacted when all the previous discoveries were first announced.
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Pony science? Which pony, exactly? ;)
Back to the subject on hand: what force is everyone here hoping gets discovered? I'm really rooting for a space-dilating inflation gravity; that could potentially resolve all black hole paradoxes by eliminating singularities and disjoint regions of spacetime, explain inflation, and greatly illuminate the nature of the Big Bang.
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And warp space, enable a cool ftl drive, and cause ridges on the foreheads of those who work too close to it.
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Well... not exactly. More to the point, exactly the opposite. An inflationary force would make distances between regions of spacetime greater, not reduce them.
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You can't have an opposite without it's own opposite.
"An inflationary force would make distances between regions of spacetime greater, not reduce them."
And the impact on adjacent spacetime regions would be to
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Basing another religion on unfounded behaviour is NOT science
What the fuck are you on about?
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You mean physics isn't finished yet!? Oh the horror!
Physics has always been "in a muddle", from the time before Newton, in the sense you assert since there has never been a time when we thought we understood it all.
There was a short time at the end of the 1800s when some made a silly claim that physics was complete, around 1888 when electromagnetic radiation was discovered. Except for the Ultraviolet Catastrophe prediction that all hot objects would radiate infinitely high frequency photons, and the photoel
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Man stupidity.
Irony.
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It rarely hurts to insert a little topical humor in these discussions.