Gravitational waves observed for the first time, proving Albert Einstein right 100 years on.

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#1492116 14-Feb-2016 16:14

Dreal:

joker97: General relativity has been proven beyond doubt due to the observed apparent bending of light when it passes by objects with great mass. The medium in which light (, photons) travel is gravitational field. Further insight however is only possible with the discovery of the graviton.

Well photons have mass, so we'd expect them to be effected by gravity. That doesn't prove time-space is curved, does it?

I mean that might have been taken as such when we didn't know for sure that light has mass (even though we have had light windmills for ages!). But given it has mass, surely we'd expect it's path to curve anyway even if relativity was wrong?

Photons has no mass. Anything with any mass is not capable of travelling at the speed of light without infinite energy applied.

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#1492131 14-Feb-2016 16:54

Core scientific theory is pretty useful here. It tells us that something needs direct measurement, in order to be firmly falsifiable. If you are indirectly measuring something, and it can't be directly measured, it isn't firmly falsifiable - which threatens to make an idea psuedoscience, or at least soft science. Being firmly falsifiable is a criteria for science.

And here we are measuring the influence of gravity directly. Not time-space directly (which may be impossible)

It's a threat to string theory, to conciousness emergence in the many brain theories, and from my reading of relativity, also the supposed curvature of time space. Certainly it sounds neat and cool, and a lot of people believe in it. It might even be right, but I wonder if it is actually valid science to claim time space is curved? (not according to popular opinion, but the foundational ideas of scientific theory)

Indeed, if relativity is also wrong, as is the standard model, you have to wonder about the wisdom of blindly adhering to all of their concepts and postulates. Because whatever will take both their places, will no doubt have in some areas, significantly differing concepts and postulations.

Be careful there, you are challenging the core and fundamentals of things that people hold on so dearly to, that, depending on which way you look at it, does not conform ... [sorry I'm no expert in those things so I better not state]

Yeah I love theoretical physics. I admire their courage and mathematical genius, and passion!

There is another branch called experimental physics - they try to find proof for the theorists. Must be a pretty dull environment!

I still maintain, at the fundamental heart of the atom, we can't even understand the atom, it's all probabilities ...yet you and I are real as real, breathing oxygen, having it carried to the brain and finger, typing this on a piece of super-transistor arrangement ... and yet, just all are being built on gazillion bits of just a probability of each bit.

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#1492141 14-Feb-2016 17:45

joker97:

...

I still maintain, at the fundamental heart of the atom, we can't even understand the atom, it's all probabilities ...yet you and I are real as real, breathing oxygen, having it carried to the brain and finger, typing this on a piece of super-transistor arrangement ... and yet, just all are being built on gazillion bits of just a probability of each bit.

I think there is a complete and consistent model of the atom.

It is part of the Standard Model.

We know what it is made of, what holds it together, and what breaks it apart.

Just because there is probability and uncertainty, doesn't mean it isn't real.

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#1492159 14-Feb-2016 18:31

JWR:

joker97:

...

I still maintain, at the fundamental heart of the atom, we can't even understand the atom, it's all probabilities ...yet you and I are real as real, breathing oxygen, having it carried to the brain and finger, typing this on a piece of super-transistor arrangement ... and yet, just all are being built on gazillion bits of just a probability of each bit.

I think there is a complete and consistent model of the atom.

It is part of the Standard Model.

We know what it is made of, what holds it together, and what breaks it apart.

Just because there is probability and uncertainty, doesn't mean it isn't real.

If you like, the way the Standard Model looks at particles is a like how we get taught concepts in primary school. Then in secondary school they teach a bit more, at Uni level you get taught all the deficiencies, and most people accept it and leave and make money while a select few try to figure out the deficiencies.

When one looks at particles at the quantum level, nothing makes sense, the bits doesn't even exist if you don't measure it [actually it is anywhere and everywhere, with a probability curve]. It's been said the quantum computer is very very very very powerful, but only if you don't look at it.

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#1492307 14-Feb-2016 22:21

joker97:

Dreal:

joker97: General relativity has been proven beyond doubt due to the observed apparent bending of light when it passes by objects with great mass. The medium in which light (, photons) travel is gravitational field. Further insight however is only possible with the discovery of the graviton.

Well photons have mass, so we'd expect them to be effected by gravity. That doesn't prove time-space is curved, does it?

I mean that might have been taken as such when we didn't know for sure that light has mass (even though we have had light windmills for ages!). But given it has mass, surely we'd expect it's path to curve anyway even if relativity was wrong?

Photons has no mass. Anything with any mass is not capable of travelling at the speed of light without infinite energy applied.

Ok I explored your core science fundamental thingy and it turns out yeah, NO we have not proven General Relativity, just that [almost?] every experiment ever conducted supports it. So my apologies.

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#1492336 14-Feb-2016 23:37

joker97:

Photons has no mass. Anything with any mass is not capable of travelling at the speed of light without infinite energy applied.

Yeah I've heard people claim that photons have 'no resting mass' because they don't rest, a sort of circular almost semantic distinction that is core to the interpretation of most relativists.

But they push light sails, are effected by gravity, you can calculate their relativistic mass, and I am pretty sure by anyones normal definition, that means they have mass - just not in the tricky language of relativists. They 'hit stuff' and are 'hit by stuff', unlike say, a virtual particle.

There is no boson sail, or windmill, nor would that be possible. And you wouldn't expect virtual particles to be effected by gravity . For all the semantics, given the way they behave, I think most ordinary people would class them in the side of 'mass stuff' versus 'massless stuff'. And it's intuitive they'd be effected by gravity because of these properties, however otherwise weird they are next to mass-y stuff.

As for then not being able to travel at the speed of light with a non zero mass -well thats what special relativity says, but because you can't measure the rest mass of the photon to prove it is zero.....and particle accelerators take particles with substantial mass to .999999 of c. If c were non-zero at rest (in theory, even though it can't rest) seems like it would be entirely possible for the equations to still work, and us not to notice...and that pretty much becomes circular reasoning. It has zero mass, because we say it has zero mass.

I mean, we are just figuring out what actually imparts mass, and it's still pretty confusing. What if more that one virtual particle gave mass, and they had differing properties regarding speed. Indeed, I could black out, just trying to work out the logic of whatever the hell is happening on the virtual particle level. I am sure pretty anyone would. So confidence about what mass is or isn't, does or doesn't do, well to me that seems weird. Perhaps if the old einstein was alive to see all the crazy stuff we've discovered, he'd have turned these equations and concepts right on their head. In fact I am fairly sure he'd have at least revised his intepretation away from concepts like 'spacetime' to something less specific.

I mean, time is still a mystery, and yet we have this concept called 'timespace'. There are people in the science community arguing about what time is, and whether it is in fact related to space (many say its not), right now - so much so, I don't think you could even get a good consensus. And that's pretty wild, when we compare that make with the old timespace concept - that thinking that it was all dimensional, forward moving, and clear cut, that's actually pretty old fashioned. We have entered into a lot more confusion about matter, time, space, due to datapoints and lines of thinking that didn't exist when e was alive.

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#1492340 14-Feb-2016 23:47

I think there is a complete and consistent model of the atom.

It is part of the Standard Model.

We know what it is made of, what holds it together, and what breaks it apart.

Just because there is probability and uncertainty, doesn't mean it isn't real.

No the standard model isn't at all complete. It doesn't include the higgs, and certainty not at the mass it found to have. It doesn't scale to the macro, and thusly relativity is used for all astrophysics, and quantum mechanics for everything nano. Both theories, are demonstratably incomplete/wrong. We are waiting for the likely paradigm destroying replacement for both. I think the mass of the higgs which is a little towards many worlds theory, without being there, provides a sort of hint that will guide us there in part.

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#1492341 14-Feb-2016 23:56

joker97:

Ok I explored your core science fundamental thingy and it turns out yeah, NO we have not proven General Relativity, just that [almost?] every experiment ever conducted supports it. So my apologies.

As I said in the last post - there are elements that have been disproven, such as the function on a nano-scale. But beyond that, something like 'spacetime curvature' isn't directly measurable. And so it isn't firmly falsifiable. It sort of drifts in the kind of nearly metaphysical space of theories of conciousness, string theory, hidden variable theory, many worlds theory - in that it looks like it cannot be proven, and I can't think of any experiment that would disprove the existance of this supposed but invisible 'spacetime' - and anything that 'confirms' it, could confirm something else that also distorts length, or caused light to be effected by gravity.

So far as I can reason, it does not appear to be a scientific claim. And I know people won't like me saying that, just like when I say it about the un-falsifiability of many models of conciousness. There are some things, we are unlikely to be able to directly measure. The existance of god, if anything like it exists, a soul if anything like it exists, other dimensions, or many worlds, if they exist, conciousness itself (can only be experienced and reported, not directly measured), and spacetime, being like aether, in that everything is in, and subject to it, and it has no measurable substance of its own - seems to be the same.

But the math that Einstein developed, and that which modern science also borrowed from Maxwell and Lorentz is all pretty elegant. It matches up in some way, just not nessasarily with the exact model he had in mind (and if it is, we may have no way of knowing).

Relativity on a time level, relative positions in space and so, does seem to have some definate reality in the world. Again, perhaps not exactly like it was pictured but the math is accurate to a very fine level and we use it all the time. Same in astrophysics.

The math is nearly perfect (apart from the nano scale where it fails), but the model we can question seperately from the math - because there is a) a better math that we will one day find given enough time b) there are equivilant mathematical equations, such as Lorentz's transformations (that serve as the basis for the equations, and were borrowed for that purpose). So we need not confuse math with model.

The conception, or interpretation of elements of the model, _are allowed to be wrong_, even when the math is accurate, because math and model are not the same. There are theoretically a bunch of equivilant math containing models with differing interpretations on what that practically, conceptually means. If there wasn't we'd be screwed because both relativity and the standard model are wrong. So there could be no space time as a curved medium, but length still changes for example in response to gravitational waves, they just have a differing, but mathematically equivilant explaination.

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#1492419 15-Feb-2016 09:26

Dreal:

As I said in the last post - there are elements that have been disproven, such as the function on a nano-scale. But beyond that, something like 'spacetime curvature' isn't directly measurable. And so it isn't firmly falsifiable. It sort of drifts in the kind of nearly metaphysical space of theories of conciousness, string theory, hidden variable theory, many worlds theory - in that it looks like it cannot be proven, and I can't think of any experiment that would disprove the existance of this supposed but invisible 'spacetime' - and anything that 'confirms' it, could confirm something else that also distorts length, or caused light to be effected by gravity.

So far as I can reason, it does not appear to be a scientific claim. And I know people won't like me saying that, just like when I say it about the un-falsifiability of many models of conciousness. There are some things, we are unlikely to be able to directly measure. The existance of god, if anything like it exists, a soul if anything like it exists, other dimensions, or many worlds, if they exist, conciousness itself (can only be experienced and reported, not directly measured), and spacetime, being like aether, in that everything is in, and subject to it, and it has no measurable substance of its own - seems to be the same.

How do you directly measure evolution? How do you directly measure whether smoking causes lung cancer? How can you directly measure the concentration of a certain medicine or chemotherapy within the cell or tissue it's supposed to work in? How can you directly measure whether it's going to snow or rain? How can you directly measure where the electrons are in a simple electrical circuit? Can you directly measure how far the sun is from the earth? Can you directly measure how old a bone/earth/moon/tree/cat/frog is?

Yet we all seem to be happy to believe those sciences. Some through indirect measurements. Some through indirect observations. But we know they're there. Or maybe not?

But the math that Einstein developed, and that which modern science also borrowed from Maxwell and Lorentz is all pretty elegant. It matches up in some way, just not nessasarily with the exact model he had in mind (and if it is, we may have no way of knowing).

Relativity on a time level, relative positions in space and so, does seem to have some definate reality in the world. Again, perhaps not exactly like it was pictured but the math is accurate to a very fine level and we use it all the time. Same in astrophysics.

The math is nearly perfect (apart from the nano scale where it fails), but the model we can question seperately from the math - because there is a) a better math that we will one day find given enough time b) there are equivilant mathematical equations, such as Lorentz's transformations (that serve as the basis for the equations, and were borrowed for that purpose). So we need not confuse math with model.

The conception, or interpretation of elements of the model, _are allowed to be wrong_, even when the math is accurate, because math and model are not the same. There are theoretically a bunch of equivilant math containing models with differing interpretations on what that practically, conceptually means. If there wasn't we'd be screwed because both relativity and the standard model are wrong. So there could be no space time as a curved medium, but length still changes for example in response to gravitational waves, they just have a differing, but mathematically equivilant explaination.

I think in general, most people accept his theory of general relativity. If you look on the internet there are people who disagree. There are people who disagree with just about anything. But they are disagreeing the fine prints and because of that the science is disproven. Not so easy I don't think.

But yeah it's up to people to believe. I think Kanye West believes the earth is flat because he took photos to prove that recently. [Or was it someone else]

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#1492549 15-Feb-2016 12:18

LIGO team AMA on Reddit

Really interesting covers similar questions as here, including photon/mass.

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#1492559 15-Feb-2016 12:30

Dreal:

joker97:

Photons has no mass. Anything with any mass is not capable of travelling at the speed of light without infinite energy applied.

Yeah I've heard people claim that photons have 'no resting mass' because they don't rest, a sort of circular almost semantic distinction that is core to the interpretation of most relativists.

But they push light sails, are effected by gravity, you can calculate their relativistic mass, and I am pretty sure by anyones normal definition, that means they have mass - just not in the tricky language of relativists. They 'hit stuff' and are 'hit by stuff', unlike say, a virtual particle.

There is no boson sail, or windmill, nor would that be possible. And you wouldn't expect virtual particles to be effected by gravity . For all the semantics, given the way they behave, I think most ordinary people would class them in the side of 'mass stuff' versus 'massless stuff'. And it's intuitive they'd be effected by gravity because of these properties, however otherwise weird they are next to mass-y stuff.

As for then not being able to travel at the speed of light with a non zero mass -well thats what special relativity says, but because you can't measure the rest mass of the photon to prove it is zero.....and particle accelerators take particles with substantial mass to .999999 of c. If c were non-zero at rest (in theory, even though it can't rest) seems like it would be entirely possible for the equations to still work, and us not to notice...and that pretty much becomes circular reasoning. It has zero mass, because we say it has zero mass.

I mean, we are just figuring out what actually imparts mass, and it's still pretty confusing. What if more that one virtual particle gave mass, and they had differing properties regarding speed. Indeed, I could black out, just trying to work out the logic of whatever the hell is happening on the virtual particle level. I am sure pretty anyone would. So confidence about what mass is or isn't, does or doesn't do, well to me that seems weird. Perhaps if the old einstein was alive to see all the crazy stuff we've discovered, he'd have turned these equations and concepts right on their head. In fact I am fairly sure he'd have at least revised his intepretation away from concepts like 'spacetime' to something less specific.

I mean, time is still a mystery, and yet we have this concept called 'timespace'. There are people in the science community arguing about what time is, and whether it is in fact related to space (many say its not), right now - so much so, I don't think you could even get a good consensus. And that's pretty wild, when we compare that make with the old timespace concept - that thinking that it was all dimensional, forward moving, and clear cut, that's actually pretty old fashioned. We have entered into a lot more confusion about matter, time, space, due to datapoints and lines of thinking that didn't exist when e was alive.

note edited, yes all valid points, except that

most of these theories and calculations were present WHILE Einstein was alive. eg when quantum mechanics was validated Einstein made the comment that god does not play dice, in dissent. anyway, I don't he'd have shied away. He is a scientist. Which means if the maths prove it, he will have no choice but to try to explain it. Not ignore it.

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#1492634 15-Feb-2016 14:05

joker97:

note edited, yes all valid points, except that

most of these theories and calculations were present WHILE Einstein was alive. eg when quantum mechanics was validated Einstein made the comment that god does not play dice, in dissent. anyway, I don't he'd have shied away. He is a scientist. Which means if the maths prove it, he will have no choice but to try to explain it. Not ignore it.

Yes, most of pervailing current models were around then. But then we had not got a point where people had started treating time differently in the math. A lot of people are dropping the so called forth dimension, and finding the math works better or treating time in a way that is different from before. Scientists working with relativity even. Time has started being treated as 'it's own thing'. And a lot of modern thinking has gone into new conceptions of time and what it actually is. Even when I was young, this change was starting regarding our conception of time.

And we have evidence for the higgs boson now, which changes our perception of mass (and the standard models, for which none are a proper fit - neither supersymmetry, nor many words matches the mass of the higgs).

And a lot of stuff that was conjecture then, has shown experimental evidence. There are datapoints that simply didn't exist back then.

There is some math that resolves a lot of quantum issues using bohms equations (recent work 2015), which predicts gravitons makes up 'quantum fluid' and that there was no big bang or dark energy, instead the age of the universe is infinite. The interesting thing about that is, while not proven experimentally, it resolves a lot of issues with quantum models, and it would be of particular interest to Einstein because in Bohmian mechanics particles do actually have a state before observation (ie, no dice). Theory only, but elegant, and I found this once particularly interesting. If they find a graviton, maybe one day it could be confirmed.

I can't help but think all of this, if Einstein were alive, would have evolved his theories. It would be an interesting thing to see, especially because Einstein, like Rutherford, was fond of thought experiments and more creative thinking, that scientists in general do not often possess. I love that about him.

I find physics fascinating. I always love learning about new discoveries, like this one the length contraction - should it prove to survive replication and peer review. But most of all I look forward to seeing our current conceptions evolve, for our old paradigms to be challenged. Sometimes people like the old ideas so much, that it starts to seem like there is less room for new ones. And that's the same problem E faced when he first proposed relativity - resistance from a scientific community, that was displaying bias due to established ways of thinking. Science could have moved faster, if there was less of that, and more - okay, let's think about that, and check it out.

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#1492650 15-Feb-2016 14:26

joker97:

How do you directly measure evolution?

We have seen species evolve, in real time. However, evolution is also an incomplete theory. It cannot explain the cell and DNA origins to anyones satisfaction, nor does mutation account for the full amount of genetic change. I suspect this theory will also be supplanted by a more accurate one.

joker97:

How do you directly measure whether smoking causes lung cancer?

We can directly study cells to prove carcinogenicity.

joker97:

How can you directly measure the concentration of a certain medicine or chemotherapy within the cell or tissue it's supposed to work in?

Cell studies.

joker97:

How can you directly measure whether it's going to snow or rain?

You can't, it's mathematical prediction. But you can tell if its accurate, if it does.

joker97:

How can you directly measure where the electrons are in a simple electrical circuit? Can you directly measure how far the sun is from the earth? Can you directly measure how old a bone/earth/moon/tree/cat/frog is?

Yet we all seem to be happy to believe those sciences. Some through indirect measurements. Some through indirect observations. But we know they're there. Or maybe not?

Indeed, maybe not. Only a direct measurement can firmly falsify something. Sure science often works with the 'soft' such as psychology. But we do not regard the findings of psychology especially the indirect to be firmly proven, as many do the full theory of relativity, despite in fact it being disproven, and incomplete.

joker97:

I think in general, most people accept his theory of general relativity. If you look on the internet there are people who disagree. There are people who disagree with just about anything. But they are disagreeing the fine prints and because of that the science is disproven. Not so easy I don't think.

Reality doesn't work by consensus. If it did the world would be flat, and Einstien would be wrong in all regards before he submitted a single paper. The number of people who believe something does not make it true. Experimental data that can firmly falsify something, repeatedly performed is what determines in science, what is true, not popular opinion.

Unless IDK, most americans believing in a 9/11 conspiracy, or aliens, or jesus makes those true :P

Relativity has been firmly disproven on the nano scale. It is, definately, with no doubt, like the standard model _wrong_. It's just that on some scales the math works very nicely. As for the claim about time-space as a curved medium for reality - I don't think there is any experiment that could firmly falsify it, because it's not directly measured. Believe in it if you will, but in terms of the deductive reasoning of science, I don't think it has any ground to stand on.

Can you think of any experiment that could firmly and definatively falsify something we cannot directly measure? Logically impossible. At worst, all that would be needed is a shifting of the goalposts, as lorentz did with aether.

Take for example idk - ghosts. We can't directly measure ghosts. Now what if we were to observe a whole bunch of indirect datapoints that matched out mathematical theory about ghosts - would that make ghosts real even if the match was super compelling? Would it be falsifiable? If I made a theory about god, or aliens, but never directly measured either, would it be falsifiable?

If you make a claim about something you can't measure, you end up just making it up as you go along. That's well outside the logic of how scientific theory holds itself together. I guess casual observers and even scientists sometimes miss this - science has a very clear logic for how it establishes information. And that is completely distinct from how many people believe in it. And that logic requires the ability to firmly falsify. If it cannot be, at best, it is a 'notion' or something that might be true (like say, some theories in psychology), not something science can actually establish as probably true with repeated testing.

Which does put stuff like spacetime as a medium, theories of conciousness, string theory, and a lot of other stuff in the, not actually supported by the basic scientific theory logic basket.

Like it or not, that's also where the wackier theories of psychology, neurobiology, parapsychology and fringe or pseudoscience sit.

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#1492652 15-Feb-2016 14:28

I knew people wouldn't like this. They never do when I talk about the scientific requirement of being able to firmly falsify ideas, and thusly what qualifies as science, and what has unknowingly walked of some edge where things sound like science, but aren't actually.

Science isn't the only form of logic. Not the only approach to truth. And science not being able to test something, doesn't mean it's automatically untrue - it just means that science can't really confirm or deny.

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#1492658 15-Feb-2016 14:35

Dreal:

joker97:

How do you directly measure evolution?

We have seen species evolve, in real time. However, evolution is also an incomplete theory. It cannot explain the cell and DNA origins to anyones satisfaction, nor does mutation account for the full amount of genetic change. I suspect this theory will also be supplanted by a more accurate one.

.....

If you make a claim about something you can't measure, you end up just making it up as you go along. That's well outside the logic of how scientific theory holds itself together. I guess casual observers and even scientists sometimes miss this - science has a very clear logic for how it establishes information. And that is completely distinct from how many people believe in it. And that logic requires the ability to firmly falsify.

Which does put stuff like spacetime as a medium, theories of conciousness, string theory, and a lot of other stuff in the, not actually supported by the basic scientific theory logic basket.

And evolution too?

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