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Hubble Too Sharp? Quantum Theory Flaws?

Posted by michael on from the telephoto dept.

sckienle writes "Space.com has an article suggesting that the Hubble space telescope's pictures are too sharp. At least they are based on current interpretations of quantum theory. When viewing distant objects, 'the expected quantum effect is like a subtle version of the blurring caused by Earth's atmosphere, which makes stars twinkle.' But those effects do not seem to be present. The research will be published April 10 in the journal Astrophysical Research-Letters."

3 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. About time... by oren · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Applying relativity to the cosmos at large requires us to come up with exotic explanations for the "dark matter" problem. So far quantum mechanics had the luxury of not having such a problem. It is nice to know it has finally acuired one. It makes things more fair, somehow :-)

    What I'd love to see is someone showing that the effect on light over long distances was not to blur it, but rather to shift it to the red. Now *that* would really make a "big bang" out of our theories :-)

  2. Re:Alright! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except that the effect thats missing is one due to interpreting space-time as a "quantum foam", not a direct interpretation of quantum theory itself.

  3. What does it mean by Muhammar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It just means that some current extensions of Standart model and/or some of its interpretations may not hold. Maybe there is no quantum foam at all - and everything is made of rubber (strings).

    Standart model of quantum physics is known to be incomplete - there is no satisfying Grand unification with relativistic theory of gravity and while there are many modifications possible in quantum physics, we do not know which theory (if any) from the current extensions - or complete overhauls like String theory - are correct.

    The search beyond the standart model is hampered by the available power of particle accelerators - it is simply hard to get on the level of energies where we could see the new physics.
    I hope this observation turns out to be a good piece of experimental data which can show the theorists the right direction.

    --
    I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it