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Constants Not Constant?
grytpype writes: "According to this story, a team of astronomers have determined (based on their observations of distant quasars) that [certain physical constants] may have been different in the far past of the universe. The discovery (if validated) is said to be good news for string theorists."
Here's a quick summary, for those opposed to NYTimes registration (incidentally, feel free to use the login slashdot66, password slashdot):
Astrophysicists have observed spectra from metallic atoms in gas clouds up to 12 billion light years away. Certain patterns in these spectra cannot be explained with current physics, and suggest that the fine structure constant (alpha) had a value slightly different in that place and time. From memory, I believe alpha is a dimensionless number with a value near (but not exactly) 137. The difference between alpha as we know it, and the apparent alpha in these gas clouds is about 0.001%. The observation was made from the Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Something like this, if confirmed, would almost certainly win the discoverers a Nobel Prize. Also, such a discovery would apparently also support string theory (although that's outside my area of research).
I'll stop karma whoring now, and return you to your regularly-scheduled uninformed flamefest.
Let's see. It's changed by 1 part in 100,000 over the last 12 billion years. So, we're dating fossil remains from about 100 million years ago. Assuming the same error, we'd be off by (hmm... carry the five, move the three, divide by pi, ignore the remainder, add 1 for good measure, and we get) about 1000 years. Gosh, yes, we 'evolutionists' are worried.
Try reading a book on the arrow of time, such as Zeh or Price. Thermodynamics hasn't resolved the issue.
Mathematical constants are "constants" in the sense that it won't change whatever the universe's physics behave. Pi, for example, is always 3.14... in a flat euclidean space (which can be defined and have nothing to do with the real universe which may not be flat, nor is it euclidean).
Physical constants, like Grav Constant (which by the way, is NOT a composite), however, are constants in the sense that they come out of a theory that needs MEASURED parameters to make it work.
The "constant" in the article refers to the fine structure constant, is a quantity that is either a constant or not dependent on which theory you believe. Currently the Standard Model (which is believed to be wrong at some level) thinks it is. If it is varying with time, like the article says it is, then the interesting thing is that it allows to speculate what the real "underlying" theory is actually is (Not the Standard Model).
YOur idea about the "Atomic constant" and "composite constant" are just plain misunderstanding of what a constant really is. There is no such jargon as "atomic constant". We use the word "fundamental constants of a theory", which is theory/physics dependent. The other constants, like Pi, are mathematical and has NOTHING to do with physics, for chrissake!
So the Greeks cannot square the circle, ever.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Just look at the creationist sites and you'll find hundreds of attempts to disprove evolution, usually by demonstrating apparent impossibilities. For example, a whale buried vertically through several geological strata would be kind of impossible according to standard theories of stratification. Of course, the only instance the creationists have given, is a false one. However, were the case really what they claim it is, it would give a heavy blow to geology (and therefore to evolutionary theory). Similar claims would include combined dinosaur and human fossils, etc, etc.
It does. Just consider the basic idea that all species have begun from a single cell. Therefore, a raise in complexity over time would be required. We can therefore predict, that the organisms in young strata are, on average, more complex than the ones in much older strata. This is, in fact, what we have observed. There are, for example, no complex animals (such as mammals) in 3 billion years old strata, and the fossils actually have a very rough ascending trend in complexity. (Assuming that fossilised skeletal complexity correlates with genetic complexity.) We can also roughly observe the birth of radically new features, which the older fossils didn't have, such as wings.
Actually, the creationist hypothesis also makes a similar prediction; there would be no observable trend in the fossil record through the "apparent time". However, this hypothesis is in disagreement with the observations. Nevertheless, it's also testable in this way.
I guess it's often though that evolutionary theory can't make predictions because we can't observe large-scale evolution right now. But that's not at all necessary. We don't have to do it right now. To give an analogy, we can't "test" a murder after it has happened. However, we can prove it with evidence. For example, we can have theories about the murder of JFK, but can't "test" it. However, if we found out that there had been a surveillance camera filming the apartment where the killer would have been according to a theory, we could make a prediction that the film shows him, and the film could provide the observation. So the idea is that historical events can be observed through the record of evidence they leave, just as a nuclear physics experiment might be analyzed from film plates later. Similarly, to test the astrophysical prediction that some stars blow up at some time in their life, we don't actually have to test it with our Sun, but we can observe the explosions that happened thousands or millions years ago.
The speed of light in a medium varies and depends on the frequency of light, but the speed of light in vacuum does not.
It's not necesarily true, an infinitely long irrational number does not necessarily include every other possible number sequence. Go here for more info.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
The difference is this: Scientists pursue accurate, reproducible models of the way the universe functions. Creationists pursue Unchanging, Anointed by God Truth. You can't have both.
I'll fly in an airplane designed by people who are good at science, thank you very much.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
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AC, to answer your inquiry: Buddhists accept perception and inference as the most important & reliable means of knowledge. Contrary to this, creationists typically accept verbal testimony and/or scriptual authority as the most important & reliable means of knowledge. Thusly, Buddhists will not inherently have difficulty with scientific theory/inquiry whereas a creationist would. Note that Buddhists typically are not concerned with the focus & direction which science typically pursues as it has little to do with the nature of suffering. =jombee
N = 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +
2N = 2 + 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 +
or
2N = 2 + N => N = 2
Simple proof of convergence.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm not sure what you mean by "observational science". All science is observational, in the science that observation and experiment is the ultimate test of theory. If it wasn't, it would either be math, philosophy, or just pure bullshit. I agree with you that evolutionary theory isn't a very good theory, but I hold that it's better than creationism.
About your point that radioisotope dating methods may not be accurate due to changes in physical constants, please stop being ridiculous. Scientists have possible evidence for a 0.001% change in a physical constant unrelated to radioactive decay in a place 12 billion light years away and time 12 billion years ago. That's hardly reason to criticize radioisotope dating. You're obviously tremendously biased towards anything that might lend a shred of support to your theory. That's not objective science.
As to why I have issues with evolutionary theory, here are my tests for a good scientific theory:
1. Must be falsifiable. If there is no reasonable way it could be proved wrong, it's not science.
2. Must make verifiable predictions. If a theory doesn't make any predictions that can be checked, it's not terribly useful.
It's pretty damn hard to think of how you could disprove evolution. Just about anything you find, the biologists will make up an explanation for. Evolutionary theory also doesn't really make testable predictions. About all it's good for is explaining things after-the-fact. Of course, creationism fails both tests in an even worse manner. Thus, lacking a better alternative, I believe in evolution, but hold healthy doubts.
Actually if you understand that the hebrew language is mathematical, you get a much better value of PI from the bible. I used to have the explanation memorized (I love arguing random crap like that), but I don't anymore, but basically each letter/word of the alphabit of the hebrew language has a mathematical meaning and the word "line" is used twice in the setence, but a different word is used the second time. If you take the (second word/first word)*3 you get 3.14156 or something like that, which is even closer than the egyptians reportably knew of pi.
(figured I'd do a google search for this before I submitted this, came up with this)
http://www.yfiles.com/pi.html
This is (quite literally) not the end of the world, and also not relevant to the evolution debate (although it will surely be blown out of proportion a billion-fold by shoddy journalists). Some info for the crowd:
The fine structure constant (alpha) is found by combining several other "universal constants" in such a way that all of the units (such as meters per second) cancel out. You get a dimensionless number, like pi, whose particular value (about 137) is basically built in to the universe. One formula is:
where
So if alpha is actually not constant, any one of those items may have changed while others remained constant. And more importantly, the research points to a change of only 0.001% over the past 12 billion years. In short, warp drive this ain't.
Not true. It did, however, come close to happening..
end communication
see
Je t'aime Stéphanie
alpha =(e^2)/((h-bar)*c)
where e is the charge on an electron, h-bar (normally a lover case script h with a horizontal line through the stem just above the round part) is Plank's constant divided by 2*pi, and c is the speed of light. the answer is a dimensionless 1/137.036.
(Your link didn't work.) Nah, that's an old red herring. The adjacent biblical verses say that the vessel was a handsbreath in thickness, so if you measure from the inside you get pretty close to 3.14 depending on your assumptions about cubits, etc. See this mostly secular analysis or this more religiously-oriented site's explanation.
Will this myth never end?
And evolution is falsifiable, and has made verifiable (and verified) predictions. I commend the Gentle Reader to the Talk.Origins Archive, which has much information on these subjects.
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
You also have to realize they're only claiming a four-sigma result. Four sigma is very convincing if it's really four sigma, but experimentalists never really truly know their error bars that well --- four sigma could really be two sigma, which could be wrong.
And anyway, say they're right. So what? It would be interesting, but I don't think it revolutionizes physics. The link to string theory suggested in the NY Times article is kinda silly, since string theory would only have produced significant effects at times a zillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Also, it's not news that the fine structure constant isn't constant. In quantum field theory, coupling constants are not absolute constants; they have different values on different distance scales. So yes, it's surprising if atomic spectra have changed, but it doesn't bring all of physics to its knees.
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---How can you claim someone is lying when we are discussing theories? ---
When people use and reuse logical fallacy, even after its been pointed out them, I think it's fair to call that "lying," or at least "dishonesty" (making an argument that is logically falacious is almost by definition dishonest: as per Lincoln's famous maxim that "he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.")
When Behe claims, for instance, that no papers have ever been published on the evolution of flagellum, he's lying. When creationists claim that complexity inherently demonstrates design, they're lying. When creationists claim that no transitional fossils exist, they're lying. It's that simple. I hear the same fallacious arguments over and over: often because even after being conclusively and publically debunked, creationists continue to try and use the same faulty arguments to convince others, who then go on to parrot these same claims to me.
And the bottom line is that creationists, even well-read ones, are not doing science. They are not publishing theories about how creation happened based on empirical evidence. If creationism were to become a science, it would be the first modern science to exist without any testable theories or any articles published for peer review. In fact, still to this day what the majority of "creationists" do is not even elaborate the workings of their supposed alternate theory of creationism (because all they have is "poof" and "the creator is beyond understanding), but attack evolution in the mistaken (and again, logicaly fallacious by false dilemna) belief that if evolution is discredited, then a creator making creation is the default state (itself, apparently, requiring no proof or elaboration!).
Now, attacking evolution, or any theory, is a healthy thing. But by and large, few creationists have advanced any helpful or even meaningful criticisms of evolutionary theory: largely because they can rarely even muster an non-staw man description of what the theory actually says.
The actual paper. Also, here is an article from sci.physics.research. It urges taking this with a grain of salt, because although the experimenters are careful, there are other more sensitive experiments that haven't detected this effect.