Einstein's Theory To Go Beta Testing

pinqkandi writes: "This article over at CNN looks into the relativity of Einstein's theory of relativity (pun intended) as equipment becomes more and more precise. Soon atomic clocks will be placed in the International Space Station to analyze the accuracy of Einstein's theories. One of the lead researchers says that if Einstein's theory is not right, it will only need minor adjustments to account for changes in space-time, due to its deadly accurate precision."

Comments

Or other existing equipment

[GMontag]

What is wrong with using existing equipment, like that hive of atomic clocks in the GPS system? They already transmit their time to just anybody that wants to receive it and all of the adjustments for relativity, etc., are known and can be removed for "raw" time measurement.

I guess the hammer and feather experiment just gets more expensive in proportion to the expansion of the beurocracy.

Re:Relativity vs. Quantum Mechanics

[Yunzil]

Remember, none of this has totaly been proven.

But remember, nothing is even totally proven in science. The best we ever have is a theory that hasn't been proven wrong yet.

Questionable journalistic value

[xihr]

The CNN article is a good example of journalism's tendency to misrepresent scientific news, even subtly. The URL contains the string "einstein.wrong," and the headline on the CNN article is, "Has time run out on Einstein's theory?" suggesting that there is some new doubt that general relativity is accurate. (Note also that the article's description of the special theory of relativity is pretty meaningless, particularly to a layman -- and it isn't even special relativity that is being tested.)

In fact the opposite is the case. No one has any reason to believe that general relativity is in error, but as part of good science it is being tested anyway. One can never prove a theory; one can only disprove it. So the best you can do is test your theories with greater and greater precision as the opportunities present themselves.

It's a case where this is, in effect, a pretty mundane story (a very well-established theory is being routinely tested), but the journalist in question is implying that there is some doubt as to its validity. Of course, it's possible the experiment will reveal deviations from general relativity's predictions, which would indeed involve "minor corrections" to the theory since it is so accurate in other areas, but there is a definite spin being put on the story which isn't in the underlying facts.