Religion and Science

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 2:59 pm

Just keep in mind that at the level of active research, you'll find a lot of papers that contradict each other.

Post by **Maria** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:55 pm

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:27 pm

Well, that's how it works, Maria: studies conflict, people refine the work, and eventually (ideally) a consensus emerges. The key word being "eventually." The medical books I edit often pronounce issues unresolved that people have been publishing on for decades.

Of course, in some cases that may be because the evidence points one way and the writer's preferred answer points another.

Post by **River** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:40 pm

A good review article can sometimes point to where the consensus is sort of pointed. With an emphasis on "sometimes" and "sort of".

One of my labmates is studying a weird property of DNA. This property was discovered around 15 years ago and over a thousand papers later, no one understands what's really going on. Early last year or late in 2009 (not going to bother finding the citation) someone did an experiment that would supposedly settle the debate. It was hailed as "the smoking gun" in the field. Even my incredibly rigorous labmate was convinced. But then he and my boss thought about it a little bit more and realized that the debate might not be settled after all. So they did another experiment and blew the debate open again.

Post by **SirDennis** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:09 pm

All y'all should check out the movie Splice (2009) if you get a chance.

Post by **anthriel** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 3:44 pm

Speed of Light "Broken" by Scientists

This is exciting stuff, and EXACTLY what I was talking about earlier... that nothing postulated by science is exactly sacred (I won't go into the whole evolution thing, since it is so emotionally tied to the creation vs. not-creation debate).

That particular apparently unquestionable fact aside

, what I love about science is that it can ALL be questioned. Love, love, love it!

If the speed of light is not a threshhold in physics, as postulated by Mr. Einstein himself in 1905, then a LOT of other ideas are possible. I have no more than the average public school graduate's understanding of Einstein's theory of special relativity, but even *I* am getting goosebumps. If this faster than light experiment ends up holding water, can you imagine what that fact will do to the collective "knowledge" of how the universe works? Why, it's almost like the earth isn't flat, after all!

Golly.

Post by **ToshoftheWuffingas** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:33 pm

That news report made me sit up too, Anthy. But what struck me was how anxiously the scientists in question wanted their observations to be explained away as a mistake. I think they would be relieved if some error could be discovered. It is this which speaks to the essential honesty of Science.

Post by **Frelga** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:42 pm

Yes, exactly, Tosh. That's exactly how serious scientists go
about overturning existing theories. They don't make one observation and go selling books about how everything we know is wrong. They consider possible errors they made, alternative explanations for the results, and then make all their data to other scientists to recreate the experiment.

And the reaction from science blogs like Bad Astronomy is much like anthy's - it's probably an error in measurements, but if it's right, hey, warp drive!

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 5:48 pm

Well, we'll know (more) in a few years!

Post by **Lalaith** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 5:53 pm

Very cool!

Post by **tinwë** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:28 pm

I never understood the idea of the speed of light as a threshold. I mean if the speed of light is a gazillion miles per second then all you'd have to do to go faster is to hit a gazillion and one miles per second, right?

I think Star Trek had it right - the threshold of speed is infinity, the point at which you are, in effect, everywhere at once.

Post by **Holbytla** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:47 pm

I'm not ready to ignore the whole mass turns to energy thing just yet.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:49 pm

Except you can't go faster because the equations say that when you hit the speed of light, your mass becomes infinite, your length in the direction of travel becomes zero, and time dilates so much that the universe dies in what is to you a single instant of time. It's not a speed limit; it's the point at which speed becomes meaningless.

Or so we've all thought up until now.

Post by **Holbytla** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:31 pm

There is no such thing as zero length.

Post by **vison** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:40 pm

You may say so, but if there wasn't, everything would fall apart.

A "point" is zero length. Just as a "line" is imagined or needed to be 2 dimensional.

Post by **Inanna** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:13 pm

Given the position I am in right now, I am thinking of poor tenure-track scientists with years of research, under review, to be submitted, which builds on the speed of light physics going "ohmigod, I am so never getting tenure".

Post by **Holbytla** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:21 pm

vison wrote:You may say so, but if there wasn't, everything would fall apart.

A "point" is zero length. Just as a "line" is imagined or needed to be 2 dimensional.

I disagree. Those things are undefined which is not the same as zero.

Post by **vison** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:29 pm

It's like the square root of -1. It's needed and as long as you don't look at it sideways, it works.

Post by **Holbytla** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:37 pm

Zero is nothing, so nothing multiplied by anything, including one is still nothing.
A pie cut in half over and over again will never reach zero.
Points planes and lines can also never be zero because they would cease to be what they are.
It's all semantics maybe, but some things preclude others.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 12:13 am

Points, lines, and planes are mathematical concepts. A point has no length because if it did, it would be a line. A line has no width because if it did, it would be a plane. A plane has no depth because. . . . etc.

They're all as real as any mathematical idea. And math has a pretty good record at describing reality.

I predict that if there is in fact FTL motion, it will be a special case of relativity that applies only in certain peculiar circumstances, just as relativity itself is a special case of plain Newtonian physics that applies only if you are, for example, approaching the speed of light. Einstein didn't supersede Newton, he just showed what happened to Newton's physics under physical circumstances Newton could not have imagined.