Slashdot Mirror
Einstein's Biggest Blunder That Wasn't
jose parinas writes "The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a "cosmological constant" to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research.
The enigmatic "dark energy" that drives the acceleration of the Universe behaves just like Einstein's famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). Their observations reveal that the dark energy behaves like Einstein's cosmological constant to a precision of 10%."
Dark energy, so evil makes the universe expand huh???
NO~, I read Slashdot because I think it's stupid.....
The cosmological constant is an extra term in Einstein's equations of general relativity which physically represents the possibility that there is a density and pressure associated with "empty" space. The inclusion of this vacuum energy term can greatly effect cosmological theories.. html
t
http://super.colorado.edu/~michaele/Lambda/lambda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constan
Will Einstein's genius never cease to amaze us post-humously? Probably not.
This will be a great thing for students to look up if they are doing (or going to do) relativity in school.
Can anyone explain the idea behind dark matter and dark energy ? I mean if it is just a mathematical problem or has some experimental justification as well.
IIRC, Einstein "fudged" his equations (i.e., introduced the cosmological constant) to stop them from predicting that the universe would expand. Subsequently, Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding after all. Still later, it was found that the rate of expansion was not in line with Einstein's un-fudged equations. Since then, the value of the cosmological constant has really depended on what value you measure for the expansion of the universe.
So, why is this news?
If he's so smart how come he's dead?
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
That was really insightful. Thanks for sharing :)
Alright, Einstein's blunder is no longer his "comsmological constant"...
His blunder has merely changed to the premature retraction of his "cosmological constant."
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
what's up with this?
last month scientists proved that they were wrongly using newtonian physics to measure the amount of matter in the universe, but when they changed their equations to einsteinian physics, there was no need of any dark matter to make up 'lost' matter in the universe. as einstein said, 'everything is just-as-it-is.
if all that is true, why does anyone need dark matter to 'prove' the cosmological constant?
regards,
roger born
"always drink upstream from the herd."
All is forgiven!
Task Mangler
10% isnt a precision, it's a disaster. You cant possibly claim a constant is valid if the empirical evidence varies from it by 10%
And like many geeks, he suffered from premature retraction too.
Better than many failed monument architects who suffer from erectile dysfunction.
Hello All,
Please respect that Moving Dimensions Theory is just a theory. Unlike String Theory, Moving Dimensions Theory is rooted in logic and reason, and it comes complete with a postulate:
THE FIRST POSTULATE OF MOVING DIMENSIONS THEORY:
1. The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.
More specifically, the fouuth dimension is expanding relative to the
three spatial dimensions in units of planck length at the rate of c.
I look forward to feedback and insights regarding its logic.
Moving Dimensions Theory
http://physicsmathforums.com/
Questions Addressed by MDT:
Why is the speed of light constant in all frames?
Why are light and energy quantized?
How can matter display both wave and particle properties?
Why are there non-local effects in quantum mechanics?
Why does time stop at the speed of light?
How come a photon does not age?
Why are inertial mass and gravitational mass the same thing?
Why do moving bodies exhibit length contraction?
Why are mass and energy equivalent?
Why does time's arrow point in the direction it points in? Why
entropy?
Why do photons appear as spherically-symmetric wavefronts traveling
with the velocity c?
Why is there a minus sign in the following metric?
x^2+y^2+z^2-c^2t^2=s^2
What deeper reality underlies Einstein's postulates of relativity?
What deeper reality underlies Newton's laws?
What underlies the laws of Inertia?
Why does general relativity fail at short distances? Why does quantum
mechanics dominate at short distances?
Why have so many great minds, Einestin, Godel, Wheeler, Hawking, and
Penrose called for a new conception of time?
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
--Albert Einstein
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
--Isaac Newton
Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, felt that the pioneer
scientist must have "a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are
not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination."
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually
winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the
opponents gradually die out.
--Max Planck
Moving Dimensions Theory (MDT)
Today I am writing regarding Moving Dimensions Theory-a deeper model
for explaining diverse phenomena in both quantum mechanics and
relativity.
The General Postulate of Moving Dimensions Theory:
The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial
dimensions.
The Specific Postulate of Moving Dimensions Theory:
The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial
dimensions at the rate of c in quantized units of the Planck length.
Relativistic, classical, and quantum mechanical phenomena, as well as
time itself, are emergent properties of this fundamental principle.
Newton's laws, the principle of Inertia, Einstein's postulates, and
the inherent wave-particle duality of QM may be explained with this
model.
A FEW YEARS BACK
A few years back, while surfing a towering wave on the Outer Banks of
North Carolina, a beautiful thought occurred to me. Suppose the wave I
was riding represented a coordinate in a dimension. Then although I was
approaching shore, I was not moving in this dimension.
The dimension itself was moving with me-I was surfing the dimension.
In a flash I saw that that is why photons never age-they are moving
along with the fourth dimension, and thus stationary relative to it. In
another flash I saw that that is why a photon's space-time interval
is represented by a null vector, or a 0, no matter how far it travels.
Indeed Einstein stated that an object's velocity through space-time
was always c-even stationary objects are traveling at the velocity c
through time! How could this be, were it not for a fourth expanding
dimension, which matter could surf as photo
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
The aliens gave him the theory -- including the cosmological constant. Unfortunately, there wasn't actually a justification for it. Thinking quickly, Einstein ad-libbed that it without it, the universe would be expanding, "and, uhh, we all know that's not true, right, fellas?", sacrificing the chance to be the first one to "predict" this. He copied the answer from the back of the book and got busted for not showing all the work. C'mon, who hasn't that happened to?
G.W. Bush is alive, what a genius!
You can't handle the truth.
In later years, studies will show that Einstein actually CREATED the universe in some kind of unconcious blunder, giving him the "Genius" over the universal equations we praise today.
What a fraud, and I would assume would be then, a god.
~--~
Do not mind the one with the crazy, for he is sane
dark matter anymore as per this past story.
Granted, it's unproven at this point, but Occam's Razor and all, I vote for the theory that makes sense with matter and energy as-is and doesn't require some exotic matter/energy that exists only as speculation to fill an unknown.
I think it's quite stupid to post such hardcore physics on slashdot. It's impossible to understand that kind of article without MS in astrophysics or something.
IIRC his biggest blunder was discounting quantum physics and spending the last half of his life trying to come up with an alternative model that didn't require the universe to be probabilistic.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Dark Energy is at least as much of a fudge as Einstein's cosmological constant IMO. There is no direct evidence for it.
The equations of relativity don't agree with observed data. So rather than questioning whether Einsteins theory of gravity holds at these scales, or looking for other explanations for the data, we simply say some mysterious force nobody has ever observed first hand must be pushing against gravity. Might be true, but it's a long way from proven.
The evidence for dark energy and dark matter have always been tenuous, they're just things we postulate must exist for other theories to still be true.
Consider a spherical mass of uniform density. If an observer stands at the surface, the gravitational vectors sum to a unit vector from surface to center. If the observer stands at the center of the mass, the gravitational vectors sum to zero (all vectors cancel). If the observer stands at any location in between the first and second position, the gravitational vectors can be given as two sums, zero (canceled) for an equidistant radius from the observer's position to the surface and towards the center, and a distance vector from the observer's position and the residual (uncanceled) mass.
The distance vector between the observer and the residual center of mass is constant at any point between the surface and the center of the mass. The residual mass decreases linearly as the observer descends towards the center. The gravitational force on the observer decreases linearly to zero over this domain. The radius of the sphere is the radius of maximum gravitation.
Gravitational force may cause the radius of the sphere to contract. As the radius shrinks, it approaches the center of mass and therefore increases the gravitational force upon an observer standing at the radius as the inverse square of the change in radius until it relativistically approaches a point at which escape velocity equals the speed of light. To an external observer, the radius will seem to shrink more and more slowly until it seems to stop as it approaches this point. Likewise for the internal observer, but neither mass nor energy can now escape from inside the radius to the outside, so we cannot communicate with him unless we shift our perspective to his.
Staying with our external perspective for the moment, however, we can measure the gravitational force at some distance from the radius, and observe how it acts upon other masses. Nearby matter may get swept into this gravity well, adding to the total mass of our system and increasing its externally determinable radius. But by appearing to slow down and stop at a radius greater than that of our original mass, it would not seem to reach the original radius at all.
Now let's depart our external universe and try to figure out what's going on with our inside observer. First of all, he's not seeing any in-falling matter because his frame of reference is also much slower than that of the radius, in fact he'd have to wait infinitely long before anything like that would happen, so let's just say it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that he cannot observe any effects at all.
What our man on the inside discovers is that there is intense energy, in the form of pressure, being applied to his little micro-universe. This pressure continues to build and build, charging our little spherical mass like a battery, until maximum energy density is reached. But the pressure continues, so the mass does what it has to do, it inflates.
Our mass isn't just expanding in space; it is expanding "space." As pressure energy continues to pour in, the inflation continues until certain physical properties of matter and energy begin to assert themselves; and the inflation proceeds outwards and away from the original mass -- into the new universe.
This is one possible explanation of how our universe may have begun. In searching for evidence of such a hypothesis, one might hope to find some sort of inflationary pressure which seems to operate against gravity. Since this "dark energy" seems probably, this may be a feasible cosmology.
Peace and love, y'all
"Affect"... "Can greatly affect"... 'effect' is a different word, with a different usage.
An informative post, and I'll accept moderator punishment for grammar nazi-ism.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
The cosmological constant was a "hack". Einstein was right to retract it. I have always felt that Einstein's genius was his intuition and his ability to do "thought experiments" where he ran certain physical models until they contradicted common sense.
But Einstein's intuition did him in and he was convinced the Universe was not expanding, so in comes the cosmological constant. It was the wrong reason to add it to his math models, despite subsequent evidence that some form of "fudge factor" may be needed to make the models work.
In some ways it's better to be wrong in the right way.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You are talking about dark matter
This article is talking about dark energy
These are different things.
Personally I would suspect that, similar to dark matter, dark energy will come in time to be derided as an unnecessary mathematical kludge introduced to paper over problems introduced by an oversight we made somewhere else. However, this hasn't happened yet.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
[humor]
.. it's all canadian-french-funded )
Hey ! We build it. We keep it.
If you want your own "dark matter", just go and build yours !
Stop fucking with our ICANN^Wuniverse !!
[/humor]
( yeah
You know its good stuff.
That turns out not to be the case. And I was far from the only poster to point that out. Please read the Slashdot comments for critical analysis, not just the blurbs.
Besides which, dark matter has nothing to do with dark energy.
I thought the whole "Dark matter" thing was discredited, its something no one can explain, detect, or prove but its their because it provides an easy solution to a problem? Please, youve got to have more of an explanation than that.
I hate that problem !
Isn't there a medical solution for these things?
Do astronomers have more of these than the rest of us?
Or do physicists and mathematicians also suffer from it?
Gads, even Einstein had the problem.
Hmm, that statement was retracted by Einstein, wasn't it?
Dark energy is the subtler form of dark matter. And even subtler is dark information - the stuff that nemory is made of.
--
make install -not war
Actually Einstein was chagrined that he included the cosmological constant. He could have postulated the expanding nature of the universe years before Hubble measured the red shift of distint astronomical objects. He was disappointed that he used this factor to make his equations fit the static universe model that was the standard of his time.
Shut up, you ignorant slut.
This is funny, like grammar school, when the brightest student makes a mistake and some idiot corrects him or her, the idiot starts gloating. So what if Einstein made mistakes, everyone makes mistakes, it's part of life, if we gloat about other's mistakes, we just end up looking even stupider.
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
That's my take on modern cosmology. That there exists this one substance, the vacum substance, the stubstance of space-time itself. It can be imagined as a drop of water, or equally as a cloud of moisture. It contains volumes within it that are "denser" than other volumes. We say that there is "more space" (or less?) within those volumes. All "material" goods are then just some kind of configuration of this "space-time" stuff. I think also that based on quantum mechanics, and the "Beckenstein bound", material within a given volume can be realized in much the same way pictures are made up of "pixels" on a computer screen. Think of it. Your computer screen resolution determines all objects that are "realizable" within its resolution. The Beckenstein bound then formulates a given volume for space-time in which objects of a given size can fit. The relationship of the "density" of space-time then should directly influence the Beckenstein bound such that, if there is "more space", then there should be the possibility of a larger number of possible quantum states within the abstract volume of space-time.
If you had a glass sphere the size of a basketball, what are all the material objects that are realizable within that space? Well, we can put car keys, pens, small animals/insects, etc. But we cannot put a house inside a basketball right? Well maybe a doll house. But how would we go about putting a real house in a volume the size of a basketball? Simple, just increase the density of space-time within that abstract volume. That will increase the number of quantum states possible just like increasing the resolution of your computer screen. But what do we mean when we say "space is dense"? Since the vacum is matters "opposite", we would probably conclude that space would be "denser" where matter is not. So we might say that within a "black-hole" there is theoretically "no space". A black hole would then indeed be a hold within space-time, a tear in the fabric of reality for example. But this may not be the case. It could be that a black hole is a place were the density of space is so high as to be exactly "solid" space-time. In this respect matter flows into a black hole and then becomes converted to "space-time", which then slowly and inexorably flows outward. Space-time is being generated by a black-hole by the conversion of matter to space-time.
If space-time is a substance of some kind, and all matter is just some configuration of it, then that would explain why we cannot move faster than light. This would be the case if we were somehow made of configurations and vortices of "air". Since we being made of "air", we could not move faster than sound right? Of course doesn't the speed of sound vary with the density of air? Would not the speed of light vary with the density of space-time? Of course it does, this was Einsteins great find, that light travels along a space-time geodesic. The geodesic caused by the "density" of space-time.
Based on all these analogies, I don't see why we have to think about the fourth dimension at all. We just need to imagine space-time as a volume with varying densities. Within a high density of space-time, you can have more matter, and more quantum states. It is abstract I know, but for my mind it works. Is there a reason that these analogies can be viewed as "wrong"? I'm willing to take an alternate view.
Read the article. At the end, they mention how these observations were based on about 10% of the total data they expect the telescope to gather. Something about "precision increasing by orders of magnitude."
Causation can cause correlation
I thought dark energy was added to make our modern theories "work" to our expectations without knowing what dark energy was, and now it's told a concept that Einstein added to make his equations work to his expectations "sort of" matches (10% is still a big deviation) with this.
So, since we know basically nothing either about what dark energy is or what the constant represent, are we sure that it's not both current researchers and Einstein that make a similar blunder?
This would be oh so much easier if there was at least an ounce of empirical evidence to it.
Am I wrong and there is?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
That's really very moving, and very pretty. Would you like some more drugs?
These stories always say it was Einstein's great blunder and it has been vindicated, but it really hasn't. The reason Einstein put it in was that he couldn't find any solutions to his equations that resulted in a static universe. (At the time, Hubble's revolutionary results on the recession of distant galaxies had not been completed, so it was thought the universe must be static) All of his model universes were expanding or contracting. So he added the constant to balance out the contraction in his favoured model (which was also closed, another historical assumption in cosmology that has been disposed of).
OK, but the cosmological constant we see now is being used to explain the _acceleration_ of the universe, nothing like what Einstein put the constant in for. His blunder wasn't really the constant, it was the assumption that the universe was static, which turned out to be totally wrong.
But you have to admire Einstein - out of pure thought and mathematics he produced a theory which is still held up as a foundation of modern physics, even though practically every cosmological observation was made years after he published it (and all the observations have supported the theory to great accuracy). Compare this to, say, quantum mechanics, where many theorists struggled for decades to explain observations that had already been made, and Einstein's one-man theory is truly impressive.
Yeah. That. Put that on my wishlist.
--Dad
Is "imagine a Beowulf cluster" really +5 Funny ? -1 Redundant seems more like it...
Obviously you haven't kept up with the decline in status of patent clerks as corporations and others are allowed by politicians to patent rotary motion facilitators. The only patent clerk I've known personally had a PhD and a law degree, and was definitely not Bob from Accounting. OK, I know that was meant to be a joke, but it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding. And, BTW, the dark matter in the post is Mrs. Einstein who did at least half of his best work. She still doesn't get enough credit, whereas at least history (and Scientific American) is doing the right thing by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
Pining for the fjords
He impressed me before I'd even heard of humous, let alone eaten it.
Shouldn't there be some mentioning of cubes and evil teachers in there?
- Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant
- Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae (note: Omega refers to, roughly speaking, universal mean energy density and Lambda the cosmological constant)
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
- New Constraints on Omega_M, Omega_Lambda, and w from an Independent Set of Eleven High-Redshift Supernovae Observed with HST
- A measurement of Omega from the North American test flight of BOOMERANG (includes observational constraints on Lambda)
And not to put too fine a point on it, but here's a quote from Living with Lambda, written 7 years ago: Slashdot: news for nerds, almost a decade late.FWIW, there are alternatives to a cosmological constant to explain the observed acceleration, such as new gravitational physics, variable speed of light, or Cardassian expansion (let the Star Trek jokes begin), but if you click through, you'll see that most of these face their own problems. I think a varying fine-structure constant has been proposed to explain the supernova observations, but it's no good for the others.
Disclaimer: IANAP, merely an undergrad astrophysics student who reads way too many papers on the arXiv. Linking to a paper does not necessarily imply endorsement of everything in it. YMMV and all that.
Special disclaimer on VSL: I haven't kept very current on this topic, so I don't really know whether I'm missing some serious problems about it's use to explain cosmological acceleration (beyond the thorny issues you run into when you lose Lorentz invariance or when c deviates far from 1).
This is sqrt(not) a sig.
It says the very same thing in book called "Universe in a nuthsell" by Stephen Hawkin, and that was published quite a few years back.. WTF Slashdot!
A genuis who added a "constant".
Is this a little bit overstated?
hey, i remember seeing something about this on public television...... about 10 years ago.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
So is this good or bad for Einstein? I don't know what "vindicated" means. It sounds like he's in trouble with the law... ???
This is known in Superstring Theory since about '96.m l
See http://www.superstringtheory.com/cosmo/cosmo5a.ht
I suspect it wasn't an attempt to "impose rigid constraints", but rather to point out that we should not confuse the two words and hence lose one of them altogether. The grandparent *was* a comment (and an informative one at that) about a scientific subject, and such comments should at least try to be precise and clear. I suspect the original poster would just say "oops, my mistake" and agree. I'd bet on this reply of mine having one error somewhere, I just accept it and move along. Not all grammar errors are symptoms of underlying shift in laguage usage! Some are just errors... BTW, for a good read on language and its state, I recommend Steven Pinkers "The Language Instinct" - he makes the point you making about the dynamicism of all languages and decries the "Language Mavens".
If you take a snapshot of the universe, if you discount its expansion, then the existence of dark energy, remnant of the big bang, is requisite to explain certain phenomena and balance out equations.
Why is it weird these two are similar?
Using density as an analogy, as you have in your post, I couldn't help be reminded of the old TARDIS. By increasing the effective density of space-time within a police-box, you could possibly fit enough inside it to resemble that famous timeship.
Who knows - perhaps the travelling in time and the density of space-time have further connections, even?
On topic:
:)
Fudge factor (Einstein) == fudge factor (dark energy/matter)
What exactly is surprising about this? They were/are both added to represent something unknown, a pure speculation which is likely to fall (or be changed to the extreme) by Occams razor as science and knowledge progresses.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/anthol/fudge.html
Einstein retracted his fudge while still alive and I have a suspicion those championing dark matter/energy will have to as well
Slightly off topic:
Hmm was this the first valid and correct reference to Occams razor on Slashdot ever? Probably the first time here it wasn't used in a faulty manner applying it with anti-religious or ideological/political arguments (one would think people would get a clue from the fact that Occams razor was created by a Franciscan friar).
religion != science
Occams razor = intended for scientific theories (given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler)
Occams razor != rational to apply to religion
*doesn't even need a flameretardant suit*
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Actually, it was Einstein himself who called the "cosmological constant" his greatest blunder. And I think you point out the reason in your post why Einstein thought it was a great blunder; Einstein added the constant to his equation not because the physics demanded it but because of his own "prejudice" about the making of the universe. Remember, all what was needed for formulating the theory of special relativity was understood first by other great scientists like Lorentz and Poincare, but it was only Einstein who understood that our old "prejudice" about time was what was blocking to make a good physical theory. So, Einstein knew better than any other that you have to keep an open mind when formulating a theory in physics. It is not easy.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
It is true that we can rule out 1).
2) has a lot of momentum behind it but we cannot rule it out.
3) is the easiest way out.
Tully Fisher's relation (which is what MOND derives) makes
3) not an easy way out for any scientist that compares MOND
and Dark Matter.
Dark Matter is ad-hoc. It is basically fitting the theories
by assuming that something exists that we cannot see.
Normally it would be a good choice, but MOND gives a simple
equation which fits the curves of most galaxies without any
extra parameters. The real problem is the fact that MOND fits
so well.
This makes the task of Dark Matter difficult because now its required
to also come up with a reason for the well functioning of MOND.
I do not believe that MOND is the correct theory. Actually its
not even a theory. But what it does allude to is that our
understanding of Gravity beyond Solar System Scales may be faulty.
If we do assume that we do not know how Gravity functions
beyond our planetary system. Then we also cannot assume that the
Gravitational Lensing will work the same way. Actually most of what
we know of the Standard Model becomes suspect.
So one option is to cling to the Dark Matter and turn a blind eye
to this important observational problem or hunt for a better solution.
Ofcourse the research will reward the very few who find out the real
truth but for the rest it will be a bad thing. I think our Scientific
Community is searching for safety rather than challenges.
I am waiting eagerly for the EU Gravity Probe. I am almost certain that
it will come up with some unexpected findings.
There are other problems also
1) The Pioneer Effect.
2) GR does not work well with Quantum Theory.
3) There are higher order theories that give the same equations in the
Solar System scale, and different equations on larger scales. Why should
GR and only GR be the correct theory, when we only know without doubt
results in our own solar system.
The only theory that looks good to me is Mannheim's Conformal Field Theory,
although it still has a lot of problems. But then not many people are working
on it.
I like it because it is a 4th order theory matching with our 4 Dimensional
Universe. It also fits MOND (which I believe is the most important test for any
new theory) where it matters. I don't believe they have yet found a reason for
the pioneer effect within it though. It should be the second most important test.
And it's only in the last month that I have ever heard of Poincare. He seems (like so many others) to have been on the cusp of greatness, but not quite made it. Still, reading his story, and how he compares to Einstein, reminds me that Einstein is great because he stood on the shoulders of giants. I am also reminded that science and philosophy are intertwined much more than most people realise.
BTW, is your sig a quote from "Benson"?
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Something I want to know, is have astro-physicists tried to account for all of the photons zinging around the universe? If they behave as both wave and particle, then do they have mass? If they have mass, are they quantified in the calculations of the mass of the universe?
Wouldn't it be ironic if the "dark matter" were actually light?
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
This month's issue of Physics Today has an article by Steven Weinberg, no slouch himself in physics, on
"Einstein's mistakes".
His take is that given what Einstein and others knew about the cosmos at the time it was perfectly reasonable for him to introduce the cosmological constant to try to obtain a 'static' description of the universe.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats
When talking to dim people struggling with a problem
Geez, you don't need to be Alfred Einstein to work that out!"
Of course, had Poincare discovered the special theory of relativity his name would have been as great in physics as in maths, but few, even among people of Poincare's stature, can claim to be big in more than one field of science. For instance, Einstein was never a great mathematician even though he ranks with the best in physics. (Not to say that Einstein did not know any maths, but it is well known that Einstein had to work hard to master the maths needed to formulate the general relativity, maths developed by Riemann).
Don't know where my sig is from, just don't have anything better to say.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
I remember reading somewhere that Einsteins wife was a Mathematician and that she was the one who actually worked the theory through but he took all of the credit (hence he was awarded the Nobel Prize but gave all of the money to her). He might not have been given his ideas by aliens. It is more likely he was given them by his wife.
1. I can't help bringing up a quote: "'Those are many questions, bother', said the monk, and that's why he didn't answer any of them." (the monk and his god, Bert Oosterhout)
:)
2. You asked: "How can matter display both wave and particle properties?"
Um, a medium ('ether') ?
No serious, I never understood the problem, compare it to soundwaves going through a medium, like air. They are waves when you measure the pressure, and moving particles when you look at the individual molecules.
Same for the waves in the sea, aren't they made out of particles?
I know proposing a medium is highly illegal after the old ether theories. But it would be so helpful, also in making models for gravity.
And if the scientists come up with strings, and/or a dimension extra for every problem, I don't see what's wrong with proposing a medium.
Even when he's 'wrong' he's right.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
There is an interesting read on Einstein's "mistakes", including the cosmological constant, at Physics Today.
His Hypothesis was that everything was relative- and here is why, blah. The theory from the hypothesis then showed: Yes, everything is relative, here is why.
It always irks me when people do this.
"The enigmatic "dark energy" that drives the acceleration of the Universe behaves just like Einstein's famed cosmological constant"
Said like it's fact-- as if the universe IS expanding and that there IS dark matter. Ohh, the religion that science has become.....
'Behold, and hear not the words of Hubble, for the cosmic thunderclap that was then, but never before, that has always been but never was, did set forth upon the space and upon the time. And in its wake was left the stars that did shine, and the galaxies that did spin... And spin they so did, but see not, with thine own eyes, their arms curled and twisted, for this is the deception of time, and times master the devil-- question not these radial appendages but bow-down and have faith; faith in the matter and the energy that is not of light, but is of dark. Have faith in this darkness through which no light has shone, and no eye has seen, this impenetrable dark through which all questions shall be answered, all doubts erased, and the voice of the ney-sayers shall drowned by the cosmic thunderclap'
There is no proof for the existance of Dark Matter or Dark Energy. They were both created to explain-away the shortcomings of some popular theories.
Coincidentally, there is no proof that the universe is expanding. Most people don't know this because the 'bangers' (big-bangers, specifically) have been loudy shouting out their theory for so long..
Google 'no big bang' or 'compton effect'.
You are a submarine troll. Know what that means? You post to Slashdot for a week looking for karma and then burn it all off on blatantly offensive comments. Remember that whole flaming tree you posted about a gay governor a few months ago? How about that whole unfounded Griffin critcism?
That's *MR.* Self-Righteous Asshat.
Mods, don't feed this guy. Maybe without a karma stash he won't go on these trolling runs.
--
Trolling all trolls since 2001.
I realize that this is probably a stupid question. I haven't had the math or physics yet to really understand probably all the reasons it's a stupid question, so I'll put it out there and see what people have to say on this (slightly) off-topic issue.
Why is it not possible that the universe is simultaneously expanding and contracting?
One question I've had for a while is, why couldn't the universe be shaped in such a way that the force causing accelleration on the expansion of the universe is actually the gravitational force of the universe contracting.
To sort of illustrate my point, think of the game Asteroids. If you fly out of the top of the screen, you appear back on the bottom, and if you fly out the left side of the screen, you appear on the right side. Why couldn't there be some n-dimensional version of that concept in the universe such that as it expands it's actually approaching an earlier state?
Anyway, if this is just the stupidist thing ever, please be kind in saying so. IAONAP (I Am Obviously Not A Physisist).
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Blunder that wasn't -- well, either he made a blunder by introducing a cosmological constant, or made a blunder by removing it. In either case, he madea blunder. And 10% isn't really that close, unless you're playing horseshoues or handgrenades.
I must address something that has been bothering me. At first it was just a tremor of doubt, but now it is gaining steam...will it become a roaring thunder...
EINSTEIN WAS HUMAN! Whew! I said it! He made mistakes, and not just the blunder being refered to here. For instance, he rejected much of quantum mechanics that has now become fairly well accepted. I am sure there's plenty more.
It bothers me that this man has such reverance in modern pop-sci, where he has become such a cultural icon that his fuzzy hair and moustache are an ideogram for genius. NOt only has he been wrong in the past, some parts of his lauded theories will most likely be proven wrong in the future -- but you may not hear about such proof until years later, if ever, because so few in the scientific community are willing to suggest he was in error. What if we can't ever measure gravity waves? Does that mean we aren't good enough, or does it mean that Einstein was wrong about their existance? Where is this blind faith we have in the man based? So many would seem to claim that Einstein was behind the A-bomb's invention (which he would disclaim, because he wanted to be "a man of peace"), and the contributions of others like Fermi are mere footnoes. Another fallacy is that the A-bomb ensured U.S. Victory in WW2, which is false: By the time The Bomb(s) were dropped, The Axis in Europe had been defeated, and Japan was on the brink of starvation. Neither did the invention of the A-bomb do any good against the Soviet Union, as traitors in the US and UK soon gave the USSR The Bomb.
I'll stop here, but I think it's time that this Einstein bubble was burst. Maybe I'll write a book.
I know proposing a medium is highly illegal after the old ether theories. But it would be so helpful, also in making models for gravity.
Actually, a common interpretation of the scientific issues would disagree. Einstein didn't really disprove the existence of the "luminiferous aether"; he merely ignored it because his theories didn't need it.
There is a lot of scientific precedent for this. One that's in a number of science-history texts: At one time, physicists had two competing concepts called "impetus" and "momentum". I've forgotten the exact definition of "impetus"; the two were almost but not quite the same. Then Newton came along and published his theories that used only momentum. He didn't disprove the existence of impetus; he merely ignored it as not useful in his equations.
Similarly, someone may eventually come up with a good theory that extends general relativity in a way that requires that space be treated as a physical medium with matter-like properties. If it's good science that passes the appropriate tests, we'll see that physicists don't decry the reintroduction of the "ether" to physics.
As with the recent suggestions that Einstein's cosmological constant may not have been an error, physicists will mostly just shrug, say "That's interesting", and go on with their work. Their work will, of course, include attempting at all opportunities to shoot holes in the new theory. But including new things in the universe won't be a very strong mark against a new theory.
The ether isn't nearly as radical as cosmic strings, after all. And that "sea of virtual particles" is damned close to a variant of the ether.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
We can have a rational discussion because all parties argue rationally. If one party started to explain the difference in theory and observation of galaxy rotation with "Duh, God did it", then the rational discussion would quickly end.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
"and Einstein's one-man theory is truly impressive."
Its impressive, but far from being a one-man theory. It was also supported by experiment, namely the famous Michelson-Morley experiment that ruled out a preferred "ether" frame for the propagation of light.Special relativity also drew from works by poincare, lorentz, hilbert, and others. Einstein's greatness was both in bringing everything into one coherent picture, and in having the courage to do so when almost none of his colleagues at that time believed a word of it.
Funny part is this:
Merriam-Webster Online
Main Entry: [3]affect
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from affectus, past participle of afficere
: to produce an effect upon: as a : to produce a material influence upon or alteration in b : to act upon (as a person or a person's mind or feelings) so as to effect a response : INFLUENCE
According to this, "affect" is appropriate as long as it's used as a verb.
Some people think the Nazi's were wrong, too.
well.. working hard is not uncommon, even for mathematicians. Einstein worked hard in order to get a good working understanding so that he could apply it. Riemann worked hard in order to develop his maths.
Einstein, much moreso than most of us, knew that prevailing models were insufficient to explain the universe's nature. We haven't a clue--maybe a better clue than 80 years ago--but close to no clue how the universe developed. But science is an evolving affair. Furthermore, WOW, this post is really late and I am more and more convinced that people only read little blurbs on Slashdot rather than read the literature or...books. The COBE satellite and then the WMAP already suggested an anti-gravitational energy--several years ago.
Moving Dimensions Theory isn't proposing a medium.
It's just saying that the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.
http://physicsmathforums.com/
Philosophical and Physical Barriers to Moving Dimensions
Many trained physicists have a knee-jerk reaction that the time
dimension cannot be moving because "dimensions cannot move." First
off, since the universe is expanding, space-time is also expanding,
demonstrating that dimensions are moving and expanding. Secondly,
general relativity demonstrates that massive objects warp space-time,
meaning that as a massive object moves though space-time, it stretches
space-time, showing again that space-time in one area can move, or
deform, relative to space-time in another area. GR is a sound theory,
backed up with multiple high-profile experiments, including the
demonstration that starlight is bent by the sun and the verification
that orbiting stars radiate energy in the form of gravity waves. Thus
there exist neither philosophical nor physical barriers to the concept
of moving dimensions, but for artificial ones within lazy minds.
A curious sign of the times is that physicists will accept on blind
faith the existence of ten, twenty, or thirty dimensions, dimensions
that are curled up, or too small to measure, and yet they will reel in
shock and horror at a perfectly obvious postulate-the fourth
dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.
They are to be forgiven-it has been a long time since a simple
postulate has been offered in the realm of physics, and the foreign
nature of truth's simple beauty is seen as a violent affront to the
String Theorist's convoluted sensibilities.
Moving Dimensions Theory Can Unify GR & QM:
By offering an underlying reality from where both branches of physics
emerge-an underlying reality of a fourth dimension expanding relative
to three spatial dimensions, MDT unifies relativity and quantum
mechanics not with indecipherable mathematical mythologies, but with a
simple postulate. MDT explains quantum mechanical effects such as
wave-particle duality, the EPR effect, and the quantization of light
and energy, as well as the two postulates of relativity: the speed of
light is constant in all inertial frames and the laws of physics are
the same for all inertial observers. MDT also explains relativistic
effects such as time dilation and length contraction. The beauty of
Moving Dimensions Theory is that it explains properties of quantum
mechanics and relativity in the deeper context of a unified framework,
opening a door to a deeper physical reality-the fourth dimension is
expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.
The Purpose of Physics
The purpose of physics has ever been to unify diverse physical
phenomena with simple postulates, laws, and formulas reflecting the
deeper physical reality. MDT unifies relativity and quantum mechanics
by positing that they are both emergent properties of moving
dimensions. MDT's simple postulate-the fourth dimension is
expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions-offers the first
satisfactory explanation of the Einstein Podolsky Rosen (EPR) effect
and the nonlocal behavior inherent to the math and physical reality of
quantum mechanics. Time itself is viewed not as the fourth dimension,
but as an emergent phenomena arising from the expansion of the fourth
dimension relative to the three spatial dimensions. This logic
alleviates a confusion of time with an actual fourth dimension where
one can travel back and forth at will, thus addressing Godel's,
Einstein's, Hawking's, Barbour's, and Penrose's concerns about
frozen time, and accounting for time's relentless arrow, the second
law of thermodynamics, and entropy.
Brian Greene's Treatment-The Time Dimension is Moving Relative to
the Spatial Dimension
As Bria
You are a submarine troll. Know what that means? You post to Slashdot for a week looking for karma and then burn it all off on blatantly offensive comments. Remember that whole flaming tree you posted about a gay governor a few months ago? How about that whole unfounded Griffin critcism?
That's *MR.* Self-Righteous Asshat.
Mods, don't feed this guy. Maybe without a karma stash he won't go on these trolling runs.
--
Trolling all trolls since 2001.
affect (v.) to cause a change. (e.g.: "Your grammar naziism doesn't affect me!")
affect (n.) emotion or expression thereof (e.g.: "a flat affect" -- meaning a blank expression on the face).
effect (v.) to cause to occur (e.g.: "I want to effect change in the quality of Slashdot vocabulary usage")
effect (n.) The result of a change (e.g.: "This thread had tremendous effects on the way people use words around here. Or not.")
The major difference between affect the verb and effect the verb is the object: the recipient of the change is "affected"; the change itself is "effected."
Sheesh -- did I really just waste time on this?!
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
...could be in the Pioneer Anomaly. From Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly
"The Pioneer anomaly or Pioneer effect refers to the observed deviation from expectations of the trajectories of various unmanned spacecraft visiting the outer Solar system, notably Pioneer 10 and 11. As of 2005, there is no universally accepted explanation for this phenomenon; while it is possible that the explanation will be prosaic--such as thrust from gas leakage--the possibility of entirely new physics is also being considered."
Being that Pioneer is moving into less "dense" space, perhaps this is why it's changing course. I can imagine it in the same way you shine a beam of light through a class of water and watch it bend.
I had this crazy idea of mine I called Proportional Displacement that tried to explain this (written sometime ago on Slashot). Hmmmm, maybe I'm on to something...
Life is not for the lazy.
I always thought he introduced the cosmological constant to stop the universe from collapsing, unaware at the time that the universe was expanding. The removal of the CC was later vindicated by Hubble who discovered the expansion of the universe. I do not think that in its original form the CC had anything to do with dark matter.
You never catch me alive
No, Einstein didn't "add" the constant. It arises as a constant of integration: there is no choice but to have it in the theory. However he did assume for the reason you gave that it was non-zero.
The cosmological constant emerges naturally from the derivation of relativity as an arbitrary constant of integration. Such constants cannot be derived theoretically--they have to be determined from the boundary conditions--i.e. by observation.
What Einstein's referred to as "his greatest mistake" was not adding the constant--it was already there, and in fact was unavoidable--but not assuming that it had a value of zero. There was at the time no actual basis for making such an arbitrary assumption, except that it simplified the equations and made them a bit more elegant. A cosmological constant of zero predicts an expanding universe, so if Einstein had assumed a value of zero, he could have predicted the expanding universe prior to Hubble's observations.
Instead, Einstein chose a value that fit the then-current view of a static universe. Strictly speaking, this is the scientifically rigorous way of determining the value of such a constant--by observation. Unfortunately, the observations were wrong. So Einstein's "mistake" was choosing to make his model fit the conventional scientific wisdom instead of his intuition.
The "Einstein's mistake wasn't a mistake" spin is misleading also, since the value of the cosmological constant now being selected is different from Einstein's value--Einstein chose a value to prevent the universe from expanding; the more recent evidence suggests that the value of the constant is such as to accelerate the expansion.
Nietzsche beleived this, and said to live each day as though it were your last, but to make each decision as though you'd make it a thousand times more
Ahh, but an interesting side-note... assuming the universe's expansion/contraction cycles were perfectly deterministic (the same every time), each version of you would also be completely deterministic. So would you really be making a decision over and over, or would that "decision" be more a reflection of what you are?
On the other hand, if the cycles aren't deterministic, then it seems improbable that you'd be around time after time.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
I wish they'd let me pay my bills to an accuracy of 10%..
Me: "I know my loan payment is $300, but how about I just give you $270 and we call it even."
Bank: "Done And Done!"
Seriously, 10% isn't anywhere near accurate in any science that I know of.
Overshoot your max depth in a sub by 5% and you probably won't see daylight again.
A 90% success rate for birth control would be about the same as not using protection.
"I'm fired?!? But I'm only late every other week!"
Your 1024x768 LCD must have at least 78,643 dead pixels before it's considered defective.
I mean, what are the odds of guessing the rate of expansion of the universe to within ten percent? Something like, I dunno.. one in ten??
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
My pastor told me that science can't explain LIFE AND JESUS, so why should i listen to your prattle! The Big Bang you talk about sounds a lot like pagan sun-worship to me. you scientists fret and moan about global warming but your all actually quite dumb because JESUS IS COMING BACK IN LIKE 60 YEARS!!! HELLO!!! WAKUP!!! even your precious IDOL ISAAC NEWTON thought so! none of that matters, your either saved or you have SATAN'S versoin of the "environment" to worry about. science is the crappiest religion ever, have fun being dammed for ever.
Here's a good analogy of "surfing a wave" that sheds light on Moving
Dimensions Theory.
Surfing a Dimension: The Birth of Moving Dimesnions Theory
http://physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?t=60
A few years back, while surfing a towering wave on the Outer Banks of North
Carolina, a beautiful thought occurred to me. Suppose the wave I was riding
represented a coordinate in a dimension. Then although I was approaching
shore, I was not moving in this dimension. The dimension itself was
moving--I was stationary with respect to this dimension, but moving
relative to other dimensions. I was "surfing" a moving dimension.
The General Postulate of Moving Dimensions Theory: The
fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three
spatial dimensions.
In a flash I saw that that is why photons never age--they are moving along
with the fourth dimension, and thus stationary relative to the fourth
dimension, while moving at the velocity of light relative to the three
spatial dimensions.
And behold! I saw that "moving dimensions" explained the equivalence of
mass and energy. E=mc^2 arose because whenever matter "surfs" the
expanding time dimension, it appears as energy in the three spatial
dimensions.
In another flash I saw that that is why a photon's space-time interval is
represented by a null vector, or a 0, no matter how far it travels through
space.
Indeed, in his special theory of relaitivty, Einstein stated that an
object's velocity through space-time is always c. This means that even
objects stationary in the three spatial dimensions yet have a velocity c
through the fourth dimension. How could this be unless the fourth
dimension is moving relative to the three spatial dimensions? Even
"stationary" objects sitting on your desk are traveling at the velocity c
through time! How could this be were it not that the fourth dimension is
traveling at the vecolicty c relative to the object that is stationary in
the three spatial dimensions?
Thus there exists a fourth expanding dimension, which matter can surf as
photons, giving rise to our notion of time, as well as the equivalence of
mass and energy in E=mc^2. And so it is that Moving Dimensions Theory was
born as the wave crested and crashed about me, thundering on down, as I
fought to remain surfing amidst the foam, facing the setting sun
silhouetting the Hatteras light.
What Does It Mean For A Dimension to Move?
Einstein's well-regarded theory of General Relativity inherntly
necessitates the reality of moving dimensions. And yet some trained
physicists have a knee-jerk reaction that the fourth dimension cannot be
moving because "dimensions cannot move."
But dimensions can and do move relative to one-another.
First off, since the universe is expanding, space-time is also expanding,
demonstrating that dimensions are moving and expanding. Secondly, general
relativity demonstrates that massive objects warp space-time, meaning that
as a massive object moves though space-time, it stretches space-time,
showing again that space-time in one area can move, or deform, relative to
space-time in another area. GR is a sound theory, backed up with multiple
high-profile experiments, including the demonstration that starlight is
bent by the sun and the verification that orbiting stars radiate energy in
the form of gravity waves. Thus there exist neither philosophical nor
physical barriers to the concept of moving dimensions, but for artificial
ones within lazy minds.
A curious sign of the times is that some physicists will accept on blind
faith the existence of ten, twenty, or thirty dimensions, dimensions that
are curled up, or too small to measure, and yet they will reel in shock and
horror at a perfectly obvious postulate--the fourth dimension is expanding
relative to the three spatial dimensions.
The
For example, I'm presuming they got their cosmological constant after using a Newtonian simulation. What happens if they assume that the ejected mass has a small relativistic effect? It's only a hunch, but something tells me that that alone would make the constant go away.
Finding God in a Dog
the inherent problem with trying to measure the cosmological constant is that we are standing in a gravity well. if we could get outside of the gravity well of the solar system, we might find that time and space has a different constant. after all, time and the appearance of speed SLOW DOWN in a gravity well, as it also changes when observed at relativistic speeds. it probably also changes in the presence of extreme cold, such as is found at intersteller places.
think about it.
if time is slower in a gravity well, and within great speeds and in the presence of 0 degrees Kelvin, what makes us think we can even measure the constant at all? our measurement is skewed. therefore, the universe may be quite different in size and shape than we can observe here on earth or in local earth orbit. we may never know the true shape of the universe or be able to observe its conents until we get well outside of the ortt cloud, imo.
anyone ever do any research on this idea?
i know i am late to the party here, but email me if you know anything about this, please.
or start up another slashdot blog about it.
thanks
roger born
roger@borngraphics.com
'time flies like an arrow. fruit flies like a banana'
The cosmological constant is measured by the rate at which other galaxies are receding from us (or rather, the rate at which that rate is changing). We can't measure it locally within the solar system. The rate of that recession is precisely due to the gravitational field of the universe between us and the distant galaxies, so that is pretty much taken into account already.
Incidentally, the gravitational field in the Solar system is not much stronger than the gravitational field in the Oort Cloud, as far as time dilation is concerned; there is only a small correction to be made (which we know how to make on the basis of general relativity anyway).