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Hubble Too Sharp? Quantum Theory Flaws?
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."
The hubble telescope kicks ass!
This is a bad thing because?
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
First too blurry, now too sharp.
Some people...
Damn! I knew it should never have been repaired!
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
Perhaps the rules were relaxed for what were assumed to be distant objects beyond the scope of our simulation. =)
There is no spoon...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Yeah, that's why they through it up into space. The bulk of atmospheric abberation happens due to the lower atmosphere, not the upper 25%.
this is not a sig.
The problems with quantum theory seem to have come with some of the proposed properties of a merger with general relativity. In other words, this isn't going to affect non-relativistic quantum mechanics or even QED, except insofar as those theories are already incomplete or incorrect. Briefly, the scientists looked at Hubble photographs for signs of the quantization of space and time expected by many working on general relativity/quantum theory mergers, and didn't find any evidence of it. Interesting, if true, but not earth-shattering yet.
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.
Heck, even I can figure this one out, and I'm a cs major!
Gosh they sure make you smart up there at the Devry School Of Computer Science and Refrigeration Repair. My advice to you is sick with the counter-strike major and don't dabble in physics.
that the universe is just a painted backdrop, and the NASA "moon missions" _were_ a hoax!
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
Wouldn't the distance be too short then?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I can already hear the "I told you so"s from the creationists.
Don't be cruel, some parts of the light have special needs.
Did they remember to look at Hubble's raw images and not the 'enhanced' ones the public usually sees?
If you are interested in actually reading the papers, they can be found on the arXiv.org e-Print archive, and directly here and here. I would suggest the first article - the math doesn't look so hairy.
Okay...
:= modern interpretation of quantum theory, with time and space quantized.
:= space-time is quantum foam
:= Hubble telescope images should be blurry due to quantum foam.
:= Observations
1. A
2. A -> C, where c
3. C -> B, where B
4. O
O != B.
Therefore step 1,2,3 or 4 is incorrect. 4 is assumes to be correct, 3 is mathematically accurate from modern interpretations, 2 may be incorrect, but likely is not, since it follows very naturally from 1. Therefore, it is likely our initial assumption, A, in step 1, is the assumption in error.
(Just trying to be more mathematical about it. ^_^)
~ kjrose
The universe is pretty amazing. Its design is something that we still struggle with and, IMHO we will always struggle with it. It seems that the more we discover, the more questions we have.
they checked with the Hubble folks to make sure that they hadn't applied some sort of (pseudo)sharpening techniques along with all the other processing (like false-coloring, et al) that they do. The article didn't say that they analyzed raw data.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Hubble space telescope's pictures are too sharp
Isn't that a bit like complaining that a programmers code is too efficient?
Hubble pictures are crisp and clear, no matter the distance to the object. And that, say two separate teams of researchers, might mean there are flaws in quantum theory.
Now I'm confused. Are there actually people who believe our understanding is that good that there wouldn't be flaws in such theories?
It's like someone once told me that the laws of physics break down as we approach the singularity of a black hole. I answered that by suggesting that the only thing to break down might well be our understanding.
DeVry doesn't offer degrees in Computer Science.
Nice try, though.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
"If time doesn't become 'fuzzy' beneath a Planck interval, this discovery will present problems to several astrophysical and cosmological models, including the Big Bang model of the universe,"
Hubble HAS to be wrong! Or we'll have to re-work them quantum physics theories over!
I dunno about you, but this smells a bit of blaming the data when the hypothesis doesn't hold up, back during the days of high-school science lab classes.
They are working on a new space scope that is supposed to be even sharper than Hubble. What if by chance Hubble is close to (but not at) the threshold where this quantum blurring shows up. If so, then the next generation scope may be over-engineered and not much of an improvement over Hubble. We could be wasting billions building a scope to specifications that cannot contribute to better views. It seems no longer just an academic problem/issue, but a financial one as well.
Table-ized A.I.
void CompensateForQuantumErrors( BYTE* pRawData );
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
If you want more than the Space.com article, read the PDF preprint entitled "Lack of observational evidence for quantum structure of space-time at Planck scales".
Just so people understand what's going on here, this work affects the many (untested) theories that posit some kind of "quantum of distance". There are two basic reasons that people are considering these types of theories:
Anyway, what the current work does is put a bound on the "graininess" of space. Pretty clever, if correct.
And for some reason the idea of a goatcex nebula makes me think of Lovecraft. Horror and evil beyond comprehension...
No kidding. My first reservation was reading about how the article "will be published." One of the things to always be leery of is research that is released to the media before published. And they've talked to massive numbers of pseudo-scientific journalists and websites. Second, it's being published in a "letters" journal. Not the highest standards, because they're not publishing a full article. Third, these claims are being put out by groups from places like the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I'm not saying great research CAN'T be done at such places...but combined with the way they've gone about publishing, it smacks of someone trying to drum up their own PR.
Now, as for the actual claims in the article, they're talking about how blurred these pictures should be, with reference to the Planck time, and invoked a quantum gravity argument. The existence of a quantum gravity has never been proven rigorously, and has been a bane to the efforts of unifying the four major forces for years. So, if anything, they've managed to poke holes in a theory that everyone admits is thoroughly "under construction."
The next problem is that the entire fundamental point of their study assumes that uncertainties in time propogate over distance, and that the uncertainty in wavelength can be interpreted as a superposition of waves of complete certainty. This is a sketchy and controversial means of implementing this. Had they stopped before they got here, and said that their results imply that maybe this big assumption is dead wrong, they would have made a significant contribution.
However, they don't stop there. They then go on to discuss potential implications including an infinitely dense universe at the time of the big bang, which assumes that both their results as well as the flawed theories they invoke are correct, but that the collected works on theoretical physics are wrong. It's happened before, but not usually. It's a massive reach, but they include it because doing so is likely to get them more exposure than their more legitimate claims. And have no doubt, this will gather much more attention in the "Scientific American" crowd of science-groupies than it will in academia.
My problem with this isn't that they didn't do a cool experiment - they did. The problem is that they extended its impact far too wide. When confronted with their evidence that invalidates one of two theories, they choose to interpret it as invalidating the more established theory, as that gets them more press. Their research was fine on its own, but it seems they are more interested in publicity. Reminds me of a group in Utah about 15 years ago...
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
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
Fair distinction - I will amend what I originally wrote. There are two groups working on this, one from Huntsville, AB, and one from Planck/Italy. Here are two quotes from these guys, the first one from Planck, the second from UAH:
"You don't see a universe that is blurred," he said. "If you take any Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field image you see sharp images, which is enough to tell us that the light has not been distorted or perturbed by fluctuations in space-time from the source to the observer." (Roberto Ragazzoni, Planck)
"If time doesn't become 'fuzzy' beneath a Planck interval, this discovery will present problems to several astrophysical and cosmological models, including the Big Bang model of the universe," (Richard Lieu, UAH).
Now, I have no problem with Ragazzoni's statement, but Lieu's is ridiculous - having the audacity that this result will cause problems to the big bang model? I think it's a bit early to even think of saying that.
This Lieu guy has given multiple interviews, and they all have similarly "grand" conclusions. The Planck guy, who is established, speaks cautiously, while the Associate Professor at UAH (read: still doesn't have an endowed position) plugs himself as much as possible. I don't have any problem with being optimstic that you do something amazing, but this guy doesn't seem to have that degree of cautiousness and suspicion about one's results that scientists HAVE to have. Lacking that, embarassment will result. It's something we all learn...most of us.
Additionally, this isn't the first time he's done this. Back in 99, he made a moderately interesting discovery regarding some phantom radiation from what seemed like empty space. He then insinuated that he had found a major source of dark matter - a big stretch given what he actually did. I'm just saying, this guy has a pattern of drumming up PR and overstating claims.
Basically, I think the space.com interview might be best done AFTER publication, and it might be best to let others decide how good your work is. And as for blaming this on an overzealous PR department - I don't know where his university's PR flunkies would have gotten this info if not from him, and for this to happen twice - I dunno about that. I don't want to sound too critical, but I've seen this stuff too often at conferences and such, and it always gets disproven/retracted/downplayed.
For what it's worth, I still think it was a really cool, and even important experiment. I think it stood on its own without the suspicious and grandiose claims...but that's what it needed to get in MSNBC. Hope his tenure committee considered MSNBC to be a publication.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
As I understand it, quantum theory does not call for time and space to be quantized. It allows for it, but the two ideas (quantum theory and quantized space-time) are distinguishable.
I just read a "Spacedaily" article that seems clear enough on the point:
"Using two HST images, astronomers from Italy and Germany looked for but did not find evidence supporting a prevailing scientific theory that says time, space and gravity are composed of tiny quantum bits.
"'You can say,' said Ragazzoni, 'that this measurement constrains the quantum gravity theory to certain parameters.'"
"The Planck-scale quantum theories of time, space and gravity were derived from attempts to calculate the theoretical limits to electromagnetic energy, according to a UAH physicist, Dr. Richard Lieu.
"In his theory of general relativity, Einstein theorized that time, space and gravity are different manifestations of the same phenomenon, much as light and thunder are signatures of the electrical discharge in lightning. If time is made up of quantum bits, that would also mean space and gravity should also be composed of quantum units.
"Since the expected blurring 'signature' of quantum space time isn't seen, however, it might mean that time isn't made of quantum bits, and neither are space or gravity."
Spacedaily: Astronomers Deal Blow To Quantum Theories Of Time, Space, Gravity
I know a lot of smug geeks who used to like to insist we all contemplate ideas of, for example, quantum time, as if just thinking of such things meant they were better people than everyone else. Hah! I guess this will show 'em!
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
A little anecdote: a couple of days ago, I was at a seminar for beginning researchers. We had a lady, a head of an association of science journalists. She explained to us that:
- science journalists, as all journalists, work in a hurry ( 2 hours for most articles in daily papers);
- consequently, they check facts very fast, maybe calling some researchers or the PR staff at their institute (unsaid: they don't cross-check);
- they of course don't have the expertise to judge, since their scientific training is very generic;
- they most often than not don't write the title of the article, which is chosen to catch the eye;
- they like catchy phrases and analogies; nuances and reservations that scientists like to make are bad, because they cut the sensation;
- scientists do not generally read the article before publication.
Talking about alpha-interferon action on the outer membrane of 3-beta cells doesn't cut it - you have to add that it may mean a "cure for cancer". Astronomical discoveries have to be made up into studies about possible extraterrestrial life.
So what you describe is very likely: the researchers make reasonable claims, but PR staff and journalists turns it into some sensationalist stuff.
I may add that I was once interviewed by a journalist, and my quotations were truncated so that they seemed more aggressive. Do not assume that anything quoted is verbatim.