In my experience, he doesn't think scientists are idiots, he just thinks that he is more informed than them. His political views come across very strongly in his posts, and he feels that due to his political beliefs he can "see more clearly" than people who are "blinded by science." (or by the liberal media, or left wing brainwashing, or whatever his ire is currently directed at.)
For the alternative theorists:
- Thread starter paddoboy
- Start date
In my experience, he doesn't think scientists are idiots, he just thinks that he is more informed than them. His political views come across very strongly in his posts, and he feels that due to his political beliefs he can "see more clearly" than people who are "blinded by science." (or by the liberal media, or left wing brainwashing, or whatever his ire is currently directed at.)
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
The only purpose of science is to find out how the universe works. To equate this ultimate kind of enlightenment to "blinding" is insanity.
This is exactly how religion works: "We don't NEED to find out how the universe works. A bunch of guys wrote a book about that in the Bronze Age and it explains everything."
How do you know this?
Scientists aren't even sure what dark matter and dark energy are, so how can you know that we can't observe them in a laboratory?
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Do be charitable, maybe what he was trying to say is that we haven't invented a way to see them yet.
Let me firstly say, that at least you do seem to come to this forum, with at least some humility.
I must also say that I still strongly disagree with your hypothesis.
As a layman, the only reasons I can give are that what your hypothesis claims, simply defies what cosmologists have observed over the past 80 to 100 years.
Just as I have put to the more arrogant alternative pushers I have crossed swords with, I see the need to say to you.
I see the chances of someone coming here, and rewriting cosmology as pretty rare....Yep, there is a non zero chance you maybe the new Einstein, but in my opinion, a chance that is far closer to zero then the other end.
I find the following conclusive remarks in your paper as extremely unlikely for the reasons I have stated.
" According to the analyses herein the reason why dark energy
was postulated in the first place was seemingly because of the miscalculation of distances by the Hubble formula.
The alternative model and its equations, on the other hand, indicate no need for the theoretical complications of
the accelerated and/or decelerated expansion of the universe and dark energy. The alternative cosmological
model proposes that the observable universe is not expanding, that space itself does not expand or warp. It
proposes that the most distant entities, galaxies, quasars, and supernovae, currently observable having
wavelengths of roughly z =1.5 or greater, are at distances much greater than the present Hubble formula could allow"
How can we know that when we don't know what it is?
Lenses have been known about since the second century (Ptolemy). Reading stones were used in 10th century europe. Then there's the words by Robert Grosseteste from the 13th century:
"This part of optics, when well understood, shows us how we make things a very long distance off appear as if placed very close, and large near things appear very small, and how we may make small things placed at a distance appear any size we want so that it may be possible for us to read the smallest letters at incredible distances..."
400 years elapsed before somebody used existing tools to perform a novel experiment to confirm a explain an obsetvation dating to antiquity.
At the moment what we know about dark matter is pretty much this:
It doesn't interact with electromagnetism.
It does interact with gravity.
It might interact with the weak force.
If the last is true then:
It might explain the anomalous gamma rays from the galactic core.
It might be detectable using a setup similar to neutrino detectors. This may not actually be feasible because of the shielding required.
Which brings me to my actual point. We may already possess the technology, it just hasn't been used in the right way - much like the telescope.
It may even have been detected already, however, because we don't know what signal to look for we haven't recognized it - it's buried in the margins of error of some other experiment.
Something similar happened with, I think it was with hubble, where they went back with a novel processing techniquw through hubble's archives and found what are effectively pre discovery images of some things.
There's a point, pre discovery images of comets, asteroids, and supernovae are yet another example of this.
It doesn't interact via gravity????
the voyager probes were also gravitationally affected by this anomaly, dark matter or whatever it is.
it might not be matter at all.
it could be our theory of gravitation is wrong.
No, It's not wrong...limited maybe, but not wrong.
Previous post explains the now non existent Pioneer anomaly.
And you can bet "your short n curlies" that the new physics [QGT or similar] would be discovered by mainstream scientists.....
Since we are talking possible "new physics"this article may be of Interest.....
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Will new physics sail on gravitational waves?
19 March 2014
Magazine issue 2961. Subscribe and save
For similar stories, visit the Leaders and Cosmology Topic Guides
The discovery of primordial ripples in space-time is exciting. But does it really herald a new era for cosmology?
A SIGNAL from the beginning of the universe, detected at the end of the Earth. To find the faint marks left by gravitational waves on the big bang's afterglow, physicists had to hunker down at the South Pole; one heroic researcher endured three harsh Antarctic winters in succession.
The BICEP2 team's efforts were rewarded this week, when they announced to mass acclamation that they had indeed found those marks. Their finding supports inflation – the idea that the universe "boomed" briefly in its infancy – which in turn hints that our universe may be only one of many (see "Multiverse gets real with glimpse of big bang ripples"). It is a champagne moment for physicists, made all the sweeter because many felt it would never come.
Should we all drink to their triumph? It somewhat resembles the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. In both cases, the researchers knew what they were looking for, guided by precise theory and earlier results. While the Higgs result was a triumph for the particle's discoverers, it mostly confirmed what we already knew, providing little food for future thought.
Will this latest finding fall similarly flat? Certainly, once the brouhaha has died down we will probably find that it hasn't moved us on terribly far – particularly as long as it remains unconfirmed by other experimenters.
But there are good reasons to expect the indecision to clear up soon. The reported signal is surprisingly strong, meaning telescopes in Chile and Antarctica should be able to quickly verify or refute the result. The Planck satellite, which has measured temperature differences across the sky in unprecedented detail, will also play a vital role.
The theoreticians will be busy, too. Unlike the Higgs result, this one opens up many possibilities, so in the coming days and weeks, we can expect a deluge of papers chewing over the results from BICEP2 and its rivals. Modelling inflation is a bit like playing whack-a-mole; while the new result will knock some out, more will pop up to take their place. And there are deeper questions. Why did inflation happen at all, and what is behind it? What does it mean for the fate of our universe – and of others?
What will it take to answer these? The story of a lowly Swiss patent clerk called Einstein has seduced us into thinking major advances in physics need genius. And so they do: inflation was an idea born of genius, sorely lacking evidence. But it takes discoveries, too: the kinds of discoveries that can only be made by those willing to go to the ends of the Earth for them. Their efforts rightly deserve applause.
http://www.newscientist.com/article...sail-on-gravitational-waves.html#.U2wrvoGSxco
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Will new physics sail on gravitational waves?
19 March 2014
Magazine issue 2961. Subscribe and save
For similar stories, visit the Leaders and Cosmology Topic Guides
The discovery of primordial ripples in space-time is exciting. But does it really herald a new era for cosmology?
A SIGNAL from the beginning of the universe, detected at the end of the Earth. To find the faint marks left by gravitational waves on the big bang's afterglow, physicists had to hunker down at the South Pole; one heroic researcher endured three harsh Antarctic winters in succession.
The BICEP2 team's efforts were rewarded this week, when they announced to mass acclamation that they had indeed found those marks. Their finding supports inflation – the idea that the universe "boomed" briefly in its infancy – which in turn hints that our universe may be only one of many (see "Multiverse gets real with glimpse of big bang ripples"). It is a champagne moment for physicists, made all the sweeter because many felt it would never come.
Should we all drink to their triumph? It somewhat resembles the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. In both cases, the researchers knew what they were looking for, guided by precise theory and earlier results. While the Higgs result was a triumph for the particle's discoverers, it mostly confirmed what we already knew, providing little food for future thought.
Will this latest finding fall similarly flat? Certainly, once the brouhaha has died down we will probably find that it hasn't moved us on terribly far – particularly as long as it remains unconfirmed by other experimenters.
But there are good reasons to expect the indecision to clear up soon. The reported signal is surprisingly strong, meaning telescopes in Chile and Antarctica should be able to quickly verify or refute the result. The Planck satellite, which has measured temperature differences across the sky in unprecedented detail, will also play a vital role.
The theoreticians will be busy, too. Unlike the Higgs result, this one opens up many possibilities, so in the coming days and weeks, we can expect a deluge of papers chewing over the results from BICEP2 and its rivals. Modelling inflation is a bit like playing whack-a-mole; while the new result will knock some out, more will pop up to take their place. And there are deeper questions. Why did inflation happen at all, and what is behind it? What does it mean for the fate of our universe – and of others?
What will it take to answer these? The story of a lowly Swiss patent clerk called Einstein has seduced us into thinking major advances in physics need genius. And so they do: inflation was an idea born of genius, sorely lacking evidence. But it takes discoveries, too: the kinds of discoveries that can only be made by those willing to go to the ends of the Earth for them. Their efforts rightly deserve applause.
http://www.newscientist.com/article...sail-on-gravitational-waves.html#.U2wrvoGSxco
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not pioneer, voyager.
voyager came after pioneer.
after accounting for all causes, NASA found there was still a retarding effect on distance traveled.
i believe they made this discovery at or around the heliopause.
I really don't understand peoples' problems with dark matter. Is it just that the name sounds mysterious?
On a basic level, there's nothing mysterious about the idea of there being matter out there in the universe that we can't see. Asteroids, dust, free hydrogen atoms - we already know there is a lot of it in our own solar system and galaxy. We also know that observing gravitational interaction is an easy and solidly proven method for detecting unseen objects. We've found planets and asteroids in our own solar sytem that way and lots of exoplanets that way. So when you see a system performing differently than the matter you can see would suggest, there is nothing exotic about the conclusion that it contains matter you can't see. This is one of the more basic tools in the astronomer's toolkit.
Now, the nature of dark matter is mysterious. It appears that it is probably not like ordinary matter. And what that exact nature is is very speculative at this point.
But don't make the mistake of thinking that the speculative nature of dark matter calls into question the existence of dark matter. They are completely separate questions and one is well proven while the other isn't.
On a basic level, there's nothing mysterious about the idea of there being matter out there in the universe that we can't see. Asteroids, dust, free hydrogen atoms - we already know there is a lot of it in our own solar system and galaxy. We also know that observing gravitational interaction is an easy and solidly proven method for detecting unseen objects. We've found planets and asteroids in our own solar sytem that way and lots of exoplanets that way. So when you see a system performing differently than the matter you can see would suggest, there is nothing exotic about the conclusion that it contains matter you can't see. This is one of the more basic tools in the astronomer's toolkit.
Now, the nature of dark matter is mysterious. It appears that it is probably not like ordinary matter. And what that exact nature is is very speculative at this point.
But don't make the mistake of thinking that the speculative nature of dark matter calls into question the existence of dark matter. They are completely separate questions and one is well proven while the other isn't.
It isn't. Maybe you missed it earlier, but such anomalies can be explained by missing matter, but can't be explained by changing our theory of gravity.leopold said:
Patent clerk? Why, newscientist, why?