Could you please explain how all the engines you refer are supposed to deliver movement? All of them, equivalently to everything moving everywhere (until apparently now) apply conservation of momentum/energy.
On earth, we have friction and this (well, together with quite a few other things) is what allows, for example, the engine to ultimately move the car (or you to walk). The engine moves the wheels and its rotational movement is converted, via friction against the road, into the linear movement which you see. For all this to happen, there have been a set of connected movements, each of them triggering the following one (gas pedal -> engine pistons -> wheels -> car moving forward, etc. An extremely summarised version by bearing in mind that all this happens at the microscopic level; for example: all the chemical reactions after burning the fuel). The lack of friction in space is what brings reaction into picture; but the story doesn't change: a movement is always triggered by another movement. Or using different words, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transmitted.
As per our current understanding of nature, any phenomenon against the conservation of momentum/energy is pure magic.
I am pretty much the opposite to a blind status-quo defender or repeating-what-many-say parrot (some of my previous comments here give a good proof of it), but you have to draw the line somewhere.
If something works in certain way over 99999999999999999999999999999... (much bigger than that, virtually an infinite number; all the physical phenomena agreeing with classical mechanics during the last hundreds of years!!) times, you build a solid theory fully explaining it and, suddenly, you find one case going against such a theory, the most logical behaviour is assuming that you made a mistake in that one case. A different behaviour would be indicative of either ignorance or disproportionate/dreamy/delusional expectations (subtype of ignorance in its widest sense) or a hidden interest. On the other hand, any sensible person should be able to differentiate between theory explaining a given phenomenon and the phenomenon itself and, consequently, shouldn't find any problem to disprove/update/extend the applicability of a theory as soon as needed.
Even in case of having actually working prototypes (lots of them, under many different conditions and always delivering the expected output), I wouldn't be sure about its validity until after having properly understood the reasons for such a behaviour (or, at least, having a huge number of always-working empirical results). Even by assuming that all this is in place, I wouldn't ever dare to (linearly, exponentially? what is the magic here?) extrapolate conclusions from such an exceptional and non-understood phenomenon to completely different conditions. For example: if I have proven that this approach can be as fast as 1 cm/s, for up to 1 hour under highly controlled lab conditions; how could I dare to conclude what might be its performance in a completely different situation (reaching Mars in x time?!). This wouldn’t make any sense even when dealing with fully understood phenomena. "Scaling up" isn't scientific/physics/engineering talk, but business talk. What works in certain way at 1 doesn't have to work at 0.00000000001 or at 10000000000. In fact, we know the applicability of such a statement to mechanics since over 100 years ago (side note: I am certain about the multiple errors of some of these old implementations, but also about the validity of their underlying ideas; that is, our theories can only be applied within very restricted conditions), how could anyone dare to contravene such a reality too?
In summary, I think that all this EmDrive ideas are a pure nonsense (e.g., the original theory being shown as a game-changer with no explanation and virtually no validation; talking about investing so much money in such a thing; scientists accepting "it shouldn't be and I don't understand it, but will throw it out there just in case", etc.). I am very far away from being the typical naysayer/against-progress person, but for me this whole idea is completely preposterous and represents a new example of (capital-, media-, ignorance-, other-? driven) pseudo-science.
Both versions are fine. It is 3.3 times faster or 4.3 times the original value.
If the original velocity is 1, 4.3 would be 3.3 times faster. 1 + 3.3 * 1 = the actual velocity + another velocity which is 3.3 times the original one. Alternatively, 4.3 is 4.3 times the original value.
Finally a sensible and true-science-based post in this thread!
I fully agree with most of your ideas; but even in case of disagreeing with you, I would have appraised your attitude. A post like yours can only be downvoted by a fanatic (kind of ironic seeing this behaviour among people who call themselves scientists). Unfortunately, I don't have any mod points left.
A curious episode that happened to me some weeks ago:
I was working on a data-analysis challenge in my spare time. The application was expected to deal with English expressions in a specific sub-field with which I am not too familiar. So, I was doing quite a few searches for certain terms (which I never do and have nothing to do with my work or my typical search activity) during some days at different hours. I used google.com and google.es without being logged-in in any site (I have various browsers, where I am logged-in with different accounts; one of them is unlogged from anywhere and this is the one I used here). During the next week or so, most of the advertisement being shown to me virtually everywhere (like in Twitter or here) was about that specific field of expertise; a type of advertisement which I rarely see anywhere.
In summary:
- They spend resources (to track, store, analyse, transmit, etc.).
- Act in the pure limit, if not legally at least clients-being-pissed-off speaking.
- Their activity is intuitively detected without any effort.
- And what is even much, much worse: they aren't able to show relevant-to-me advertisement!
This experience explains well what I think about private information being systematically stolen: it is certainly bad, but I honestly don't care. They are much more worried about collecting everything than about actually understanding what they have. Firstly, I did find the episode slightly annoying, but this feeling quickly disappeared. It was like seeing a not-too-honest-but-kind-of-nice trickster trying over and over to impress me and always failing.
First thing to clarify, I am not a conspiracy-fan at absolutely any level. I know the reality: relativity has no real-life (= all the technology we use) implications + has wrong/non-correctable origins; but quite a few people seem to be very interested in telling otherwise (I found particularly surprising the worldwide celebration of the some-days-ago really-saying-nothing news). Also you can read a big proportion of the comments here (or in other relativity or Einstein posts) just saying how marvellous and perfect each single bit is, most of the times by relying on faulty or plainly-untrue statements; to not mention the tremendous commercialisation of Einstein, his formula, his theory, etc. If you ask random people about the most perfect being who ever lived, a big proportion of them would say Einstein (even without understanding his theory at all or having any relationships with physics). This is what I call converting someone into a prophet/saint. In any case, I am sure that a big proportion of people working on relativity (mainly the youngest ones) seriously believe in it; on the other hand, I also know that a relevant proportion of them (mainly more experienced people) have had serious doubts about it since long time ago. Scientists in doubt are expected to work on confirming/dismissing the given point; but most of the aforementioned people for whom some things don't make too much sense haven't done any effort to analyse the problem properly (and, after having done it, I can confirm that it isn't so difficult). Additionally, there are quite a few more-egoist interests involved into all this (a very important revenue generation at many levels) for whom scientific goals, like finding the truth, are irrelevant. This is what I think. Is this a conspiracy? Not sure; but I am certainly not a conspiracy theoretician.
"say all such formulas are wrong" -> I understand that this might sound a bit excessive (it surprised me a lot when I firstly realised about it, even despite of having never believed in the theory; note that I did this analysis around 10 years ago), but this is the reality and there is nothing you can do to “fix it”. Let me put an example: imagine that I create a new theory based upon a new formula for velocity, v = (s+2)/t. You believe it, together with all my justifications and the associated implications (e.g., I assumed that there is a new particle we haven't even seen which I call alvaron and affects everything just a little bit; I even came up with a set of formulae to calculate the variation provoked by it in the most common physical phenomena). You start to extend/improve my theory and to apply it to many other different situations. Years later, it has grown much bigger than what I firstly created; but someone proves that my assumptions were wrong and that my original v = (s+2)/t didn't make any sense. All what you built on that assumption is also wrong now; your proofs are either faulty or the result of limited precision in the measurements or misinterpretation of the results or even pure chance; either way, none them make any sense. The whole theory of relativity is just (-> this point seems to not be too clear to the public opinion; why? -> a conspiracy? No. Just the reality) an application of the Lorentz Transformation (Lorentz created the basic formulae for converting space/time and Einstein plainly applied these formulae to further situations, like calculations involving energy); if the Lorentz Transformation is wrong, the whole relativity (all its formulae) is also wrong. The Lorentz equations are completely and absolute wrong (perhaps they made sense 100 years ago among people who were starting to understand that their so-far-assumed-perfect knowledge had a limited applicability) and, consequently, all what Einstein created based upon them (e.g., E=mc2) is also wrong. Logically, I am saying all this without minimising the very important impact of this theory in the evolution of modern physics (i.e., the ideas were fine; the actual implementation was wrong. Continue
(Sorry for the delay in replying, but you know... ACs don't trigger a warning in the control panel and I cannot come to regularly to check whether someone replied me or not)
I don't want to be impolite, but I have gone down this road quite a few times in the past (I wrote this article some months ago and, at the start, I tried to trigger a discussion in many places). Here you have some basic ideas: there is no other alternative to Lorentz; these equations represent the starting point of relativity and of all what came afterwards (even Minkowski and his space-time was an interpretation of these equations). The point I am trying to prove is that this is a completely wrong development (i.e., there is no way to correct it). The relativity was created by interpreting wrong equations; all the ideas, all the formulae (e.g., E=mc2) are wrong; all this without denying the impact of such a theory to revolutionise physics (and to help us understand better the surrounding complexity). All these contents are public domain (as any other thing in my sites) and self-descriptive enough. I have also included clear references about my exact expectations (= getting a bit of free advertisement). I seriously don't want to get involved into (IMHO) faith-based discussions which have not direct effect on my professional activity (= software development). On the other hand, I think that the label "science" is associated with certain requisites and goals and that's why consider fair to openly criticise people mostly interested in not-too-scientific goals (i.e., proving the validity of something no matter what; creating kind of prophets and miracles exclusively based "it has to be like this"; etc.). Additionally, I cannot tolerate anyone to damage me or unmotivatedly criticise my knowledge/attitude/expectations.
Although I do understand that my comment was quite strong, it is the reaction to a previous non-provoked insult. The "person" arbitrarily insulting me was modded up and my answer was modded-down as troll?! Shouldn't both comments have been modded down as off-topic? Anyway... I guess that this is what you get when dealing with fans of relativity.
(Sorry for the delay in replying, but AC's replies are not warned in my control panel)
Honestly, I didn't read the summary; and this has nothing to do with the typical attitude of Slashdotters (I am new here, but have read a lot about this) of never reading the summary, just commenting. I didn't read the summary because this isn't information for me, just a set of lies. Even though, the point of my comment wasn't highlighting this fact (that this is a tremendous lie and set of manipulation’s with not relationship whatsoever with science), but how curious was all this evolution; I followed it via Twitter, where I read the being already peer-reviewed issue. In summary: I wasn't commenting about this specific article (which I didn't read), not even about specific lies; I was commenting about the peculiarities of this whole "discovery". If I misunderstood some point (e.g., time enough to have been properly peer-reviewed), a nice warning would have been more than for having apologised and corrected my position on this point. In any case, I want to highlight that "took place in September 2015" doesn't imply anything; the measurements might have been taken on that date, but the paper might have been written (and peer-reviewed) much later.
Regarding the rest of things you are saying, it is pure nonsense: most of the statements in your second paragraph are completely wrong and denote your low understanding of this specific matter; you are basically talking abstractly about what you don't know. Your last paragraph is plainly a joke as far as you are using words which you don't seem to even understand; for example: "empirical" is pretty much the opposite to all what relativity means; relativity is a theory which haven't ever been validated and which is plainly wrong. You are repeating sentences which other people with the same limited knowledge than you repeated before (do you also think that GPS systems work thanks to relativity?).
The part I like the most (of you people, in general) is your last sentence "frankly I doubt you even understand what you're arguing, for or against". I am sorry if reality affects the dreams and hopes of people wanting to believe in magic, but I cannot afford to allow a completely clueless person to, firstly, insult me and to secondly try to show an absolute lack of understanding as proof of knowledge and attack others on account of such a nonsense. So, I don't understand? Perhaps because I am an engineer using physics as they were originally meant to be used? As a preliminary step helping us to understand the surrounding world, but by assuming that elucubrations (= abstract theories) can rarely accurately model the reality and EMPIRICALLY (-> yes, the word you use and you don't understand is the one defining me and people like me, not the opposite) correct them to have reliable results, measurements, machines, etc. But some theoretical physicists (and, since some years ago, blind followers with no real knowledge, but liking nice-looking equations, crazy hair, fantastic worlds of complexities anyone can understand and, on top of everything, believing on something/someone which/who is and always will be nice and perfect) forgot about all this quite a few years ago and started to build a world of made-up ideas and concepts which have no justification, other than being based on previous sets of ideas and concepts... and so on until reaching a starting point which, FYI, I have analysed and proven wrong. This starting point is called the Lorentz equations; a tremendously wrong mathematical development started from basic classic formulae (v = s/t), which was taken 100 years ago as an excuse to build up a fantastic world which has never (and will ever) be empirically validated. Better: you can even forget (what is impossible by applying maths/science) about the pure nonsense defining this starting point and just focus on its results to understand its true relevance (= none). The Lorentz equations (remember that the whole relativity was built on this) have no practical utility;
"A 4-gigahertz CPU gets its signal traveling at speed of light" -> we know about quite a few things travelling at speed of light (light itself is a good example), but we cannot measure what is happening at these speeds. We know the start and the end, what is happening in between is still a mystery.
"Relativity may be inaccurate" -> it is certainly inaccurate (http://varocarbas.com/relativity/lorentz_general/ -> critical analysis of the Lorentz equations, which represent the first step for all the relativity equations)
"There may be extra factors" -> there are many factors we don't know. All the physics theories (relativity too) are very simplified versions of a reality assumed to be too complex. The whole point of a theory/set of equations is delivering adequately accurate results under the given conditions (which might eventually be slightly corrected to increase accuracy); this is not the case with relativity. Additionally and in modest opinion, it has blown everything out of proportions by coming up with a fantastic world of ideas which may never be validated (or be actually useful for anything). The sole contribution of this theory (other than all the associated marketing and hair-styling benefits) was highlighting the complexity of the physical world and the limited applicability of classical mechanics beyond earth-like macroscopic conditions. All this was useful in the first half of the previous century but doesn't make too much sense now. Expecting to come up with a comprehensive theory able to perfectly explain the extremely complex physical world (about which we still know very little) is not a sensible goal. If additionally you want to accomplish this by relying on a theory which was created 100 years ago (on wrong premises, as shown in the aforementioned link) via a illuminati-like process, I wouldn't be too sure about your exact motivation; but getting an accurate grasp about what is really going on doesn't seem to be one of your top priorities.
By assuming that you can see how all the GPS calculations are performed right away, you would find quite a few correction factors which merely indicate our limited knowledge about the reality. Theories are excellent to get an understanding of the underlying phenomena, but they cannot deliver the kind of accuracy that nowadays technology needs. Engineering relies a lot on corrections factors, which might be slightly inspired in a theoretical understanding (i.e., the results of this formula have to be slightly greater because certain phenomenon might be occurring); but these values are always created on an empirical basis (= the ones proven to work better after having been tested under many different conditions are the ones which are used). Bear in mind that the whole relativity is just a correction factor (which is only relevant at very high speeds) of classical mechanics formulae. In fact, I am in a position to tell you that this specific correction factor is certainly wrong (even by bearing in mind how difficult is confirming the validity of something under so extreme conditions).
In summary: observing differences between the reality and our theoretical understanding should only be interpreted as a result of our limited grasp about the surrounding reality. Trying to see an implicit validation of any random theory via "it doesn't work with the old theory, so the new one should be right" is quite naive and almost dishonest. No, GPSs don't prove relativity. Nothing can prove relativity, firstly because it is wrong (sorry about that again); and secondly because its requirements (i.e., close-to-speed-of-light speeds) are still too demanding for our technology.
"I think you know incredibly little about me" -> I don't know absolutely anything about you, why would I think otherwise? You misunderstood my previous comment. With my "you expect to find the solution somewhere else" I was referring to your "A large group is quite likely wrong in its majority views...". The point of my comment was differentiating between finding (someone having) the right opinion and discussing to come up with the right opinion. I wasn't trying to define you, just trying to (nicely) avoid getting involved in the kind of discussion which I don’t don't like too much. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
“Your latest post amounts to an Ad hominem”-> (thanks for the link with the explanations, honestly it was helpful. Although I should know more Latin than you, not just because of being Spaniard, but also because of having studied Latin) -> This is completely wrong. I am a very objective person always focused on abstract ideas like correctness, fairness, etc. I rarely take things personally and don't expect anyone to do so; unless pushed to do it; for example, a stupid AC insulted me in a comment below and I did take things personally (currently, I am in a period of no tolerance with stupidity). I might get a bit passionate in a discussion (or perhaps might use sarcasm too much...) and some people might misunderstand some of my words/actions. But I assure you that I never expressly focus on the personality/attitude/weakness of the person; unless as a defense/reaction. For example: an insult (well... quite a few of them:)), as a reaction to an insult; or giving a small lesson of humility to a not-too-knowledgeable individual unfairly and unmotivatedly showing a condescending attitude (note that the fact of being not too knowledgeable represents an extra-motivation for me in application of the idea "you are starting a war without weapons?! You are too stupid for this world! And I will certainly enjoy helping you to see some light").
"followed by a deflecting "we're all different"" -> I am a very straightforward person who doesn't need to deflect anything. Additionally, not sure from where have you got this sentence; I usually say "we all are equal", but with different personalities (which I don't have to like).
"carefully avoiding further discussion" -> again something which isn't just untrue, but also completely against my personality. If I want to avoid a discussion, I would plainly say it, in any context and with anyone; why wouldn't I do it with a person who I don't even know while talking about something not too relevant to me? I didn't avoid any discussion; just didn't want to deepen in a chat about abstract issues, what I don't enjoy. Additionally, I wasn't sure if you understood what the peer-review process was. Regarding my opinion about this peer-reviewing, I am not involved into this world (not a researcher) and that's why I cannot have a worthy opinion. But as said before, big groups are stupid and easily manipulable; additionally, they are rarely knowledgeable (and most of them are not even aware or don't care). So, the opinion of a few million people might be completely useless; they might be a bunch of noisy followers adequately manipulated by low self-esteem idiots (-> it seems that being surrounded and supported by many blind followers help them). In any case, all this doesn't make any sense at the scientific level; science is too specialised and complex to be judged by random individuals. Relativity is the kind of easy complexity (= not complexity at all; but shown as complexity to the less educated persons) which might be appealing to the kind of give-me-a-sentence-to-repeat member of a big group, but this isn't science.
Well played, sir. -> (please, don't get offended) Have you seen the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? (if not, see it; excellent show, I think that my favourite one in the last years). This last sentence of yours reminded me to Dennis, in one of his fantastic mind games (with himself). Sorry to disappointed you, but I haven't played anything; apparently, you were playing all alone. I was just trying to cut a conversation which seemed to start going in a direction I don't like too much (= this long message).
You have described it even better this time (commented to other of your comments, but didn't replied me...): "...kids, and they know he was really smart and had crazy hair". Hearing the opinions of kids and looking at the hair of the people are perhaps the two more accurate ways to confirm a theory. That's why I personally didn't need today's picture, because I knew already that kids couldn't be wrong much less about a man with a so cool hair. Although today's 2D graph is a tremendous proof too! I mean... I can see how the space-time is changing (almost dancing) in front of my eyes!
Some people believe in empirically-verifiable & practically useful science, being completely consistent with the remaining human knowledge and whose only goal is pursuing the truth. But why being bored with ugly numbers and uncomfortable conclusions, when you can have happy kids and a nice crazy hair (AND a 2D graph)!
PS: sorry about the sarcasm, but I have read too many weird things today (and an AC dared to call me "ape" a while ago, incredible!) which aren’t kind of fair. If you want to call something science, you should accept the consequences: drawing arbitrary conclusions without any kind of proof (other than being consistent with other arbitrary conclusions, which were drawn from other arbitrary conclusions which were, etc.) isn't science.
Ape?! Excuse, piece of crap, why on the fucking hell a stupid, COWARD dares to talk to me in this way?! I didn't have any idea about this thing of being detected in September (what sounds still a bit weird to me -> firstly because a stupid like you usually delivers crap and lies), in that case it would make a bit of sense. I LOGICALLY (as any non-extremely-stupid crap should immediately understand) thought that it was something done in the last days.
Seriously, what of the hell is going wrong with the world to having to tolerate such an answer after what I wrote?! Do you want to really feel frustrated or angry against me (because this is what stupid crap like you do when the magical world they live in disappears)? Here you have a good reason: RELATIVITY IS COMPLETELY WRONG. This stupidity of the gravitational waves is a scam (nobody under absolutely any circumstance can seriously know the exact implications of the measured results; other than stupids living in denial like you)! NOW you have a reason to try to insult me, piece of crap, because this is what pathetical in-denial idiots do: get angry with the world they cannot understand. PS: I never said that I was fully involved in peer reviewing. I did work very close to a research team, but this was a long time ago.
There is a clear difference between you and me: you expect to find the solution somewhere else (i.e., a person/group of persons being right); but I try to find the solution myself (i.e., by understanding the given issue with or without help). Our goals are different and that's why we have different expectations regarding the best way to reach them:)
PS: your "relativity (which is actually applied in GPS systems)" is a generic statement whose real applicability is most likely none (i.e., some corrections are applied, but most likely the ones proven to be more reliable rather than theoretical values). The fact of using correction factors is only indicative of the tremendous complexity of the given reality (and of our limited knowledge), not an absolute proof of validity of certain theory. Additionally, this is a normal proceeding in engineering (i.e., weighting to make something work, even without fully understanding it); generic formulae/theories are rarely applied directly. I am a mechanical engineer and only learned about relativity (or modern physics) in an introductory/anecdotal subject, because nothing of this is useful for us.
PPS: I don't have too much knowledge about QM. I was under the impression that some of its theorems derived directly from the relativity, but might be wrong.
I think that you didn't understand my point. Within the research world (University Professors, PhDs, etc. publishing papers), there is a required requisite called peer-review where other scientists review your work and decide whether it is worthy or not. No research paper can be published in a scientific magazine before being peer-reviewed (= all the scientific papers have to pass through this). This process is quite slow; but surprisingly not here and this was the point of my comment.
In any case and by answering to your question: I don't care about the number of persons repeating an idea; I care about reasons and justifications. But if I have to give a quick and absolute answer, here it goes: groups of people tend to be very stupid (the bigger the group, the more stupid), so I would choose the small group.
According to all the religions I know, their prophets had a perfect life and all what they did/said was wise, accurate and useful even thousands of years later. Perhaps these persons were really wise and delivered perfection each single second of their lives. On the other hand, it might also be possible that people in charge of telling you all these marvellous miracles (because you know about all this through middle-men) decided to tell you a version which was more beneficial to them.
Logically, the aforementioned ideas are only applicable in cases where you cannot prove/dismiss by your own what you are told. For example: you can be sure that f = m *a because there are ways to confirm it. Confirming/dismissing something like gravity waves, the exact meaning/applicability of certain not-too-informative picture or further impossible-to-be-empirically-validated issues is a completely different story.
Just to clarify, I am not looking for dissident opinions (I have a VERY strong one myself:)). I tried to highlight how curious has been this whole process. For example, I have read that the paper was peer-reviewed before the press conference?! What is way beyond abnormally quick.
I don't think that I like the kind of people/organisations/interests/expectations involved into all this (not talking about seriously-believing, hardworking physicists).
PS: I realised now that, curiously, one of the articles in the summary is from the Economist. It makes kind of sense to me (because of the aforementioned reason), although it might be a bit confusing to those thinking that this announcement has only to do with science/physics.
Basically, it mostly matters to the theoretical-physicists-based economy. To all these people for whom the validity of the Relativity is required (together with all what follows to it, like Quantum Mechanics), because in case of being proven wrong (and/or useless), lots of big projects/reputations/money-generations might be lost.
In any case, I am sure that scientists (or similar) with a bit of self-respect will never lie (to themselves or others) by doing something against one of the defining principles of the scientific community: finding the truth, no matter what.
Not just in Slashdot. And everywhere the same disproportionate happiness and involvement (even of people with no solid background) about something whose practical interest seems none.
After reading quite a few references, I haven't seen a single critical/deep analysis; just the same sentences repeated over and over. Together with pure nonsense like "I see how the space-time is being affected" (-> in a simplistic 2D plot?!).
I want all my relevant online contributions to be considered public domain. Ironically, the sites where I write (StackOverflow or Slashdot) can apply their more-restricted-copyright policies (a different story is people respecting such decisions).
Slashdot Mirror
Could you please explain how all the engines you refer are supposed to deliver movement? All of them, equivalently to everything moving everywhere (until apparently now) apply conservation of momentum/energy.
On earth, we have friction and this (well, together with quite a few other things) is what allows, for example, the engine to ultimately move the car (or you to walk). The engine moves the wheels and its rotational movement is converted, via friction against the road, into the linear movement which you see. For all this to happen, there have been a set of connected movements, each of them triggering the following one (gas pedal -> engine pistons -> wheels -> car moving forward, etc. An extremely summarised version by bearing in mind that all this happens at the microscopic level; for example: all the chemical reactions after burning the fuel). The lack of friction in space is what brings reaction into picture; but the story doesn't change: a movement is always triggered by another movement. Or using different words, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transmitted.
As per our current understanding of nature, any phenomenon against the conservation of momentum/energy is pure magic.
I am pretty much the opposite to a blind status-quo defender or repeating-what-many-say parrot (some of my previous comments here give a good proof of it), but you have to draw the line somewhere.
If something works in certain way over 99999999999999999999999999999... (much bigger than that, virtually an infinite number; all the physical phenomena agreeing with classical mechanics during the last hundreds of years!!) times, you build a solid theory fully explaining it and, suddenly, you find one case going against such a theory, the most logical behaviour is assuming that you made a mistake in that one case. A different behaviour would be indicative of either ignorance or disproportionate/dreamy/delusional expectations (subtype of ignorance in its widest sense) or a hidden interest. On the other hand, any sensible person should be able to differentiate between theory explaining a given phenomenon and the phenomenon itself and, consequently, shouldn't find any problem to disprove/update/extend the applicability of a theory as soon as needed.
Even in case of having actually working prototypes (lots of them, under many different conditions and always delivering the expected output), I wouldn't be sure about its validity until after having properly understood the reasons for such a behaviour (or, at least, having a huge number of always-working empirical results). Even by assuming that all this is in place, I wouldn't ever dare to (linearly, exponentially? what is the magic here?) extrapolate conclusions from such an exceptional and non-understood phenomenon to completely different conditions. For example: if I have proven that this approach can be as fast as 1 cm/s, for up to 1 hour under highly controlled lab conditions; how could I dare to conclude what might be its performance in a completely different situation (reaching Mars in x time?!). This wouldn’t make any sense even when dealing with fully understood phenomena. "Scaling up" isn't scientific/physics/engineering talk, but business talk. What works in certain way at 1 doesn't have to work at 0.00000000001 or at 10000000000. In fact, we know the applicability of such a statement to mechanics since over 100 years ago (side note: I am certain about the multiple errors of some of these old implementations, but also about the validity of their underlying ideas; that is, our theories can only be applied within very restricted conditions), how could anyone dare to contravene such a reality too?
In summary, I think that all this EmDrive ideas are a pure nonsense (e.g., the original theory being shown as a game-changer with no explanation and virtually no validation; talking about investing so much money in such a thing; scientists accepting "it shouldn't be and I don't understand it, but will throw it out there just in case", etc.). I am very far away from being the typical naysayer/against-progress person, but for me this whole idea is completely preposterous and represents a new example of (capital-, media-, ignorance-, other-? driven) pseudo-science.
Both versions are fine. It is 3.3 times faster or 4.3 times the original value.
If the original velocity is 1, 4.3 would be 3.3 times faster. 1 + 3.3 * 1 = the actual velocity + another velocity which is 3.3 times the original one. Alternatively, 4.3 is 4.3 times the original value.
Finally a sensible and true-science-based post in this thread!
I fully agree with most of your ideas; but even in case of disagreeing with you, I would have appraised your attitude. A post like yours can only be downvoted by a fanatic (kind of ironic seeing this behaviour among people who call themselves scientists). Unfortunately, I don't have any mod points left.
Isn't the title clear enough?!
A curious episode that happened to me some weeks ago:
I was working on a data-analysis challenge in my spare time. The application was expected to deal with English expressions in a specific sub-field with which I am not too familiar. So, I was doing quite a few searches for certain terms (which I never do and have nothing to do with my work or my typical search activity) during some days at different hours. I used google.com and google.es without being logged-in in any site (I have various browsers, where I am logged-in with different accounts; one of them is unlogged from anywhere and this is the one I used here). During the next week or so, most of the advertisement being shown to me virtually everywhere (like in Twitter or here) was about that specific field of expertise; a type of advertisement which I rarely see anywhere.
In summary:
- They spend resources (to track, store, analyse, transmit, etc.).
- Act in the pure limit, if not legally at least clients-being-pissed-off speaking.
- Their activity is intuitively detected without any effort.
- And what is even much, much worse: they aren't able to show relevant-to-me advertisement!
This experience explains well what I think about private information being systematically stolen: it is certainly bad, but I honestly don't care. They are much more worried about collecting everything than about actually understanding what they have. Firstly, I did find the episode slightly annoying, but this feeling quickly disappeared. It was like seeing a not-too-honest-but-kind-of-nice trickster trying over and over to impress me and always failing.
First thing to clarify, I am not a conspiracy-fan at absolutely any level. I know the reality: relativity has no real-life (= all the technology we use) implications + has wrong/non-correctable origins; but quite a few people seem to be very interested in telling otherwise (I found particularly surprising the worldwide celebration of the some-days-ago really-saying-nothing news). Also you can read a big proportion of the comments here (or in other relativity or Einstein posts) just saying how marvellous and perfect each single bit is, most of the times by relying on faulty or plainly-untrue statements; to not mention the tremendous commercialisation of Einstein, his formula, his theory, etc. If you ask random people about the most perfect being who ever lived, a big proportion of them would say Einstein (even without understanding his theory at all or having any relationships with physics). This is what I call converting someone into a prophet/saint. In any case, I am sure that a big proportion of people working on relativity (mainly the youngest ones) seriously believe in it; on the other hand, I also know that a relevant proportion of them (mainly more experienced people) have had serious doubts about it since long time ago. Scientists in doubt are expected to work on confirming/dismissing the given point; but most of the aforementioned people for whom some things don't make too much sense haven't done any effort to analyse the problem properly (and, after having done it, I can confirm that it isn't so difficult). Additionally, there are quite a few more-egoist interests involved into all this (a very important revenue generation at many levels) for whom scientific goals, like finding the truth, are irrelevant. This is what I think. Is this a conspiracy? Not sure; but I am certainly not a conspiracy theoretician.
"say all such formulas are wrong" -> I understand that this might sound a bit excessive (it surprised me a lot when I firstly realised about it, even despite of having never believed in the theory; note that I did this analysis around 10 years ago), but this is the reality and there is nothing you can do to “fix it”. Let me put an example: imagine that I create a new theory based upon a new formula for velocity, v = (s+2)/t. You believe it, together with all my justifications and the associated implications (e.g., I assumed that there is a new particle we haven't even seen which I call alvaron and affects everything just a little bit; I even came up with a set of formulae to calculate the variation provoked by it in the most common physical phenomena). You start to extend/improve my theory and to apply it to many other different situations. Years later, it has grown much bigger than what I firstly created; but someone proves that my assumptions were wrong and that my original v = (s+2)/t didn't make any sense. All what you built on that assumption is also wrong now; your proofs are either faulty or the result of limited precision in the measurements or misinterpretation of the results or even pure chance; either way, none them make any sense. The whole theory of relativity is just (-> this point seems to not be too clear to the public opinion; why? -> a conspiracy? No. Just the reality) an application of the Lorentz Transformation (Lorentz created the basic formulae for converting space/time and Einstein plainly applied these formulae to further situations, like calculations involving energy); if the Lorentz Transformation is wrong, the whole relativity (all its formulae) is also wrong. The Lorentz equations are completely and absolute wrong (perhaps they made sense 100 years ago among people who were starting to understand that their so-far-assumed-perfect knowledge had a limited applicability) and, consequently, all what Einstein created based upon them (e.g., E=mc2) is also wrong. Logically, I am saying all this without minimising the very important impact of this theory in the evolution of modern physics (i.e., the ideas were fine; the actual implementation was wrong. Continue
(Sorry for the delay in replying, but you know... ACs don't trigger a warning in the control panel and I cannot come to regularly to check whether someone replied me or not)
I don't want to be impolite, but I have gone down this road quite a few times in the past (I wrote this article some months ago and, at the start, I tried to trigger a discussion in many places). Here you have some basic ideas: there is no other alternative to Lorentz; these equations represent the starting point of relativity and of all what came afterwards (even Minkowski and his space-time was an interpretation of these equations). The point I am trying to prove is that this is a completely wrong development (i.e., there is no way to correct it). The relativity was created by interpreting wrong equations; all the ideas, all the formulae (e.g., E=mc2) are wrong; all this without denying the impact of such a theory to revolutionise physics (and to help us understand better the surrounding complexity). All these contents are public domain (as any other thing in my sites) and self-descriptive enough. I have also included clear references about my exact expectations (= getting a bit of free advertisement). I seriously don't want to get involved into (IMHO) faith-based discussions which have not direct effect on my professional activity (= software development). On the other hand, I think that the label "science" is associated with certain requisites and goals and that's why consider fair to openly criticise people mostly interested in not-too-scientific goals (i.e., proving the validity of something no matter what; creating kind of prophets and miracles exclusively based "it has to be like this"; etc.). Additionally, I cannot tolerate anyone to damage me or unmotivatedly criticise my knowledge/attitude/expectations.
No problem. I make lots of typos like this myself.
Although I do understand that my comment was quite strong, it is the reaction to a previous non-provoked insult. The "person" arbitrarily insulting me was modded up and my answer was modded-down as troll?! Shouldn't both comments have been modded down as off-topic? Anyway... I guess that this is what you get when dealing with fans of relativity.
(Sorry for the delay in replying, but AC's replies are not warned in my control panel)
Honestly, I didn't read the summary; and this has nothing to do with the typical attitude of Slashdotters (I am new here, but have read a lot about this) of never reading the summary, just commenting. I didn't read the summary because this isn't information for me, just a set of lies. Even though, the point of my comment wasn't highlighting this fact (that this is a tremendous lie and set of manipulation’s with not relationship whatsoever with science), but how curious was all this evolution; I followed it via Twitter, where I read the being already peer-reviewed issue. In summary: I wasn't commenting about this specific article (which I didn't read), not even about specific lies; I was commenting about the peculiarities of this whole "discovery". If I misunderstood some point (e.g., time enough to have been properly peer-reviewed), a nice warning would have been more than for having apologised and corrected my position on this point. In any case, I want to highlight that "took place in September 2015" doesn't imply anything; the measurements might have been taken on that date, but the paper might have been written (and peer-reviewed) much later.
Regarding the rest of things you are saying, it is pure nonsense: most of the statements in your second paragraph are completely wrong and denote your low understanding of this specific matter; you are basically talking abstractly about what you don't know. Your last paragraph is plainly a joke as far as you are using words which you don't seem to even understand; for example: "empirical" is pretty much the opposite to all what relativity means; relativity is a theory which haven't ever been validated and which is plainly wrong. You are repeating sentences which other people with the same limited knowledge than you repeated before (do you also think that GPS systems work thanks to relativity?).
The part I like the most (of you people, in general) is your last sentence "frankly I doubt you even understand what you're arguing, for or against". I am sorry if reality affects the dreams and hopes of people wanting to believe in magic, but I cannot afford to allow a completely clueless person to, firstly, insult me and to secondly try to show an absolute lack of understanding as proof of knowledge and attack others on account of such a nonsense. So, I don't understand? Perhaps because I am an engineer using physics as they were originally meant to be used? As a preliminary step helping us to understand the surrounding world, but by assuming that elucubrations (= abstract theories) can rarely accurately model the reality and EMPIRICALLY (-> yes, the word you use and you don't understand is the one defining me and people like me, not the opposite) correct them to have reliable results, measurements, machines, etc. But some theoretical physicists (and, since some years ago, blind followers with no real knowledge, but liking nice-looking equations, crazy hair, fantastic worlds of complexities anyone can understand and, on top of everything, believing on something/someone which/who is and always will be nice and perfect) forgot about all this quite a few years ago and started to build a world of made-up ideas and concepts which have no justification, other than being based on previous sets of ideas and concepts... and so on until reaching a starting point which, FYI, I have analysed and proven wrong. This starting point is called the Lorentz equations; a tremendously wrong mathematical development started from basic classic formulae (v = s/t), which was taken 100 years ago as an excuse to build up a fantastic world which has never (and will ever) be empirically validated. Better: you can even forget (what is impossible by applying maths/science) about the pure nonsense defining this starting point and just focus on its results to understand its true relevance (= none). The Lorentz equations (remember that the whole relativity was built on this) have no practical utility;
"A 4-gigahertz CPU gets its signal traveling at speed of light" -> we know about quite a few things travelling at speed of light (light itself is a good example), but we cannot measure what is happening at these speeds. We know the start and the end, what is happening in between is still a mystery.
"Relativity may be inaccurate" -> it is certainly inaccurate (http://varocarbas.com/relativity/lorentz_general/ -> critical analysis of the Lorentz equations, which represent the first step for all the relativity equations)
"There may be extra factors" -> there are many factors we don't know. All the physics theories (relativity too) are very simplified versions of a reality assumed to be too complex. The whole point of a theory/set of equations is delivering adequately accurate results under the given conditions (which might eventually be slightly corrected to increase accuracy); this is not the case with relativity. Additionally and in modest opinion, it has blown everything out of proportions by coming up with a fantastic world of ideas which may never be validated (or be actually useful for anything). The sole contribution of this theory (other than all the associated marketing and hair-styling benefits) was highlighting the complexity of the physical world and the limited applicability of classical mechanics beyond earth-like macroscopic conditions. All this was useful in the first half of the previous century but doesn't make too much sense now. Expecting to come up with a comprehensive theory able to perfectly explain the extremely complex physical world (about which we still know very little) is not a sensible goal. If additionally you want to accomplish this by relying on a theory which was created 100 years ago (on wrong premises, as shown in the aforementioned link) via a illuminati-like process, I wouldn't be too sure about your exact motivation; but getting an accurate grasp about what is really going on doesn't seem to be one of your top priorities.
Sorry to blow your bubble but this isn't true.
By assuming that you can see how all the GPS calculations are performed right away, you would find quite a few correction factors which merely indicate our limited knowledge about the reality. Theories are excellent to get an understanding of the underlying phenomena, but they cannot deliver the kind of accuracy that nowadays technology needs. Engineering relies a lot on corrections factors, which might be slightly inspired in a theoretical understanding (i.e., the results of this formula have to be slightly greater because certain phenomenon might be occurring); but these values are always created on an empirical basis (= the ones proven to work better after having been tested under many different conditions are the ones which are used). Bear in mind that the whole relativity is just a correction factor (which is only relevant at very high speeds) of classical mechanics formulae. In fact, I am in a position to tell you that this specific correction factor is certainly wrong (even by bearing in mind how difficult is confirming the validity of something under so extreme conditions).
In summary: observing differences between the reality and our theoretical understanding should only be interpreted as a result of our limited grasp about the surrounding reality. Trying to see an implicit validation of any random theory via "it doesn't work with the old theory, so the new one should be right" is quite naive and almost dishonest. No, GPSs don't prove relativity. Nothing can prove relativity, firstly because it is wrong (sorry about that again); and secondly because its requirements (i.e., close-to-speed-of-light speeds) are still too demanding for our technology.
"I think you know incredibly little about me" -> I don't know absolutely anything about you, why would I think otherwise? You misunderstood my previous comment. With my "you expect to find the solution somewhere else" I was referring to your "A large group is quite likely wrong in its majority views...". The point of my comment was differentiating between finding (someone having) the right opinion and discussing to come up with the right opinion. I wasn't trying to define you, just trying to (nicely) avoid getting involved in the kind of discussion which I don’t don't like too much. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
:)), as a reaction to an insult; or giving a small lesson of humility to a not-too-knowledgeable individual unfairly and unmotivatedly showing a condescending attitude (note that the fact of being not too knowledgeable represents an extra-motivation for me in application of the idea "you are starting a war without weapons?! You are too stupid for this world! And I will certainly enjoy helping you to see some light").
“Your latest post amounts to an Ad hominem”-> (thanks for the link with the explanations, honestly it was helpful. Although I should know more Latin than you, not just because of being Spaniard, but also because of having studied Latin) -> This is completely wrong. I am a very objective person always focused on abstract ideas like correctness, fairness, etc. I rarely take things personally and don't expect anyone to do so; unless pushed to do it; for example, a stupid AC insulted me in a comment below and I did take things personally (currently, I am in a period of no tolerance with stupidity). I might get a bit passionate in a discussion (or perhaps might use sarcasm too much...) and some people might misunderstand some of my words/actions. But I assure you that I never expressly focus on the personality/attitude/weakness of the person; unless as a defense/reaction. For example: an insult (well... quite a few of them
"followed by a deflecting "we're all different"" -> I am a very straightforward person who doesn't need to deflect anything. Additionally, not sure from where have you got this sentence; I usually say "we all are equal", but with different personalities (which I don't have to like).
"carefully avoiding further discussion" -> again something which isn't just untrue, but also completely against my personality. If I want to avoid a discussion, I would plainly say it, in any context and with anyone; why wouldn't I do it with a person who I don't even know while talking about something not too relevant to me? I didn't avoid any discussion; just didn't want to deepen in a chat about abstract issues, what I don't enjoy. Additionally, I wasn't sure if you understood what the peer-review process was. Regarding my opinion about this peer-reviewing, I am not involved into this world (not a researcher) and that's why I cannot have a worthy opinion. But as said before, big groups are stupid and easily manipulable; additionally, they are rarely knowledgeable (and most of them are not even aware or don't care). So, the opinion of a few million people might be completely useless; they might be a bunch of noisy followers adequately manipulated by low self-esteem idiots (-> it seems that being surrounded and supported by many blind followers help them). In any case, all this doesn't make any sense at the scientific level; science is too specialised and complex to be judged by random individuals. Relativity is the kind of easy complexity (= not complexity at all; but shown as complexity to the less educated persons) which might be appealing to the kind of give-me-a-sentence-to-repeat member of a big group, but this isn't science.
Well played, sir. -> (please, don't get offended) Have you seen the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? (if not, see it; excellent show, I think that my favourite one in the last years). This last sentence of yours reminded me to Dennis, in one of his fantastic mind games (with himself). Sorry to disappointed you, but I haven't played anything; apparently, you were playing all alone. I was just trying to cut a conversation which seemed to start going in a direction I don't like too much (= this long message).
You have described it even better this time (commented to other of your comments, but didn't replied me...): "...kids, and they know he was really smart and had crazy hair". Hearing the opinions of kids and looking at the hair of the people are perhaps the two more accurate ways to confirm a theory. That's why I personally didn't need today's picture, because I knew already that kids couldn't be wrong much less about a man with a so cool hair. Although today's 2D graph is a tremendous proof too! I mean... I can see how the space-time is changing (almost dancing) in front of my eyes!
Some people believe in empirically-verifiable & practically useful science, being completely consistent with the remaining human knowledge and whose only goal is pursuing the truth. But why being bored with ugly numbers and uncomfortable conclusions, when you can have happy kids and a nice crazy hair (AND a 2D graph)!
PS: sorry about the sarcasm, but I have read too many weird things today (and an AC dared to call me "ape" a while ago, incredible!) which aren’t kind of fair. If you want to call something science, you should accept the consequences: drawing arbitrary conclusions without any kind of proof (other than being consistent with other arbitrary conclusions, which were drawn from other arbitrary conclusions which were, etc.) isn't science.
Ape?! Excuse, piece of crap, why on the fucking hell a stupid, COWARD dares to talk to me in this way?! I didn't have any idea about this thing of being detected in September (what sounds still a bit weird to me -> firstly because a stupid like you usually delivers crap and lies), in that case it would make a bit of sense. I LOGICALLY (as any non-extremely-stupid crap should immediately understand) thought that it was something done in the last days.
Seriously, what of the hell is going wrong with the world to having to tolerate such an answer after what I wrote?! Do you want to really feel frustrated or angry against me (because this is what stupid crap like you do when the magical world they live in disappears)? Here you have a good reason: RELATIVITY IS COMPLETELY WRONG. This stupidity of the gravitational waves is a scam (nobody under absolutely any circumstance can seriously know the exact implications of the measured results; other than stupids living in denial like you)! NOW you have a reason to try to insult me, piece of crap, because this is what pathetical in-denial idiots do: get angry with the world they cannot understand. PS: I never said that I was fully involved in peer reviewing. I did work very close to a research team, but this was a long time ago.
There is a clear difference between you and me: you expect to find the solution somewhere else (i.e., a person/group of persons being right); but I try to find the solution myself (i.e., by understanding the given issue with or without help). Our goals are different and that's why we have different expectations regarding the best way to reach them :)
As a mathematician, you might be interested in taking a look at this: http://varocarbas.com/relativi...
PS: your "relativity (which is actually applied in GPS systems)" is a generic statement whose real applicability is most likely none (i.e., some corrections are applied, but most likely the ones proven to be more reliable rather than theoretical values). The fact of using correction factors is only indicative of the tremendous complexity of the given reality (and of our limited knowledge), not an absolute proof of validity of certain theory. Additionally, this is a normal proceeding in engineering (i.e., weighting to make something work, even without fully understanding it); generic formulae/theories are rarely applied directly. I am a mechanical engineer and only learned about relativity (or modern physics) in an introductory/anecdotal subject, because nothing of this is useful for us.
PPS: I don't have too much knowledge about QM. I was under the impression that some of its theorems derived directly from the relativity, but might be wrong.
I think that you didn't understand my point. Within the research world (University Professors, PhDs, etc. publishing papers), there is a required requisite called peer-review where other scientists review your work and decide whether it is worthy or not. No research paper can be published in a scientific magazine before being peer-reviewed (= all the scientific papers have to pass through this). This process is quite slow; but surprisingly not here and this was the point of my comment. In any case and by answering to your question: I don't care about the number of persons repeating an idea; I care about reasons and justifications. But if I have to give a quick and absolute answer, here it goes: groups of people tend to be very stupid (the bigger the group, the more stupid), so I would choose the small group.
According to all the religions I know, their prophets had a perfect life and all what they did/said was wise, accurate and useful even thousands of years later. Perhaps these persons were really wise and delivered perfection each single second of their lives. On the other hand, it might also be possible that people in charge of telling you all these marvellous miracles (because you know about all this through middle-men) decided to tell you a version which was more beneficial to them.
Logically, the aforementioned ideas are only applicable in cases where you cannot prove/dismiss by your own what you are told. For example: you can be sure that f = m *a because there are ways to confirm it. Confirming/dismissing something like gravity waves, the exact meaning/applicability of certain not-too-informative picture or further impossible-to-be-empirically-validated issues is a completely different story.
Thanks for sharing.
:)). I tried to highlight how curious has been this whole process. For example, I have read that the paper was peer-reviewed before the press conference?! What is way beyond abnormally quick.
Just to clarify, I am not looking for dissident opinions (I have a VERY strong one myself
I don't think that I like the kind of people/organisations/interests/expectations involved into all this (not talking about seriously-believing, hardworking physicists).
PS: I realised now that, curiously, one of the articles in the summary is from the Economist. It makes kind of sense to me (because of the aforementioned reason), although it might be a bit confusing to those thinking that this announcement has only to do with science/physics.
Basically, it mostly matters to the theoretical-physicists-based economy. To all these people for whom the validity of the Relativity is required (together with all what follows to it, like Quantum Mechanics), because in case of being proven wrong (and/or useless), lots of big projects/reputations/money-generations might be lost.
In any case, I am sure that scientists (or similar) with a bit of self-respect will never lie (to themselves or others) by doing something against one of the defining principles of the scientific community: finding the truth, no matter what.
Not just in Slashdot. And everywhere the same disproportionate happiness and involvement (even of people with no solid background) about something whose practical interest seems none.
After reading quite a few references, I haven't seen a single critical/deep analysis; just the same sentences repeated over and over. Together with pure nonsense like "I see how the space-time is being affected" (-> in a simplistic 2D plot?!).
I want all my relevant online contributions to be considered public domain. Ironically, the sites where I write (StackOverflow or Slashdot) can apply their more-restricted-copyright policies (a different story is people respecting such decisions).
Note that I have updated my SO profile description to include all these ideas: http://stackoverflow.com/users...