There’s intriguing and then there’s intriguing. If you read an issue of, say, New Scientist you’ll find about seven of these articles. The first issue makes you go Wow! The next issue has seven more and you marvel at Science! Then the third issue has seven more and you start to wonder why these aren’t making the cover. After a year you notice that the same things that were overturned a year ago are being overturned again. After two years you realize that the proofs of experimental errors are also there, sometimes, in smaller type. And nothing major ever gets rewritten.
That’s a layman’s perspective, though from someone who is fairly familiar with popular science writing. Every good experiment gets published. Some get hyped. But almost none of even the good experiments change anything fundamental. Look at the Large Hadron Collider. Years and years of searching for the Higgs and at the end they had a definite maybe. But in those years and years you could have read hundreds of articles, all with headline claims.
My advice is to stop paying attention to the details. If everything were to change you’d hear about it. Science doesn’t stop being fascinating because individual experiments fail to upend well-established notions. But you’ll get disillusioned and jaded if you run in waving every paper and asking, “Is this IT?!” Science doesn’t work that way.
And for a better explanation why, try Notorious big G: The struggle to pin down gravity. That’s the full article, from behind the paywall, so I’m not sure if you’ll see it. Here are some pertinent paragraphs.
Those things all help, but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and so too with experimental error. The existence of interferometers might mean that you can eliminate the position of the test masses as a source of significant error… But that just means that something else ends up being the dominant error source, instead. And once you’ve gotten some particular source of error down below the next-biggest source of error, further improvements in that piece of equipment no longer get you much benefit. It’s a game of whack-a-mole.
I’ve already said it’s interesting but at this point I have no interest in investing much energy into getting excited about a result that is likely experimental error.
I also really don’t get why you keep going on about it being referenced in the Fermilab newsletter.
I’m sure you’re trying to be helpful and I appreciate that, but I don’t appreciate the condescension. I’ve been following the popular science press for 30 years - which how long I’ve subscribed to Science News. So I’m quite familiar with science reporting - good science reporting.
I’ve also subscribed to the Fermilab newsletter long enough to know that they don’t toss out popsci articles willy nilly. And btw, I also subscribe to New Scientist so I know that they do tend to plump things up to make them more appealing. But they also generally make an effort to give you the full picture as they do here.
Jesus. I’m well aware of that. Have I said anything to indicate otherwise? Do you people think that maybe we can stick to the issues in future posts rather than any issues you have with me personally? That’s what the pit is for.
My god you’re right. You know I hear they have a very powerful particle accelerator. That must count for a lot!
Now, incase you missed it
I’m no more impressed that it’s mentioned in a Fermilab newsletter than I would be if it came from the UofT’s physic’s department. The topic is interesting, it comes from the IBWM and it deals with G.
Look I would’ve flipped that around - you seem to be having problems with our answers. What exactly are you hoping for here? Your OP was basically a MPSIMS post and once we dig out your questions which apparently were buried in the article (as though we were to know your questions were in there) you come across as upset that we’re not nearly as impressed by this article as you are.
Allowing G to vary is not in the realms of pseudoscience: Brans-Dicke theory replaces the (scalar) constant G with a scalar field. Brans-Dicke theory can recreate all predictions of general relativity, simply because GR is simply a special case of BDT.
Of course though until there’s a solid reason to favour Brans-Dicke theory of the simpler general relativity, the simpler theory is more preferable.
And yet you appear to be totally unfamiliar with the difficulties of measuring the strength of gravity. And with why any anomalous report will instantly be branded experimental error.
We’re responding to your words, which are all we have to work with. Your words say, hey, this must be super-important - it got published. You have a long posting history of doing so. And you are always annoyed when you are told otherwise. We have to assume there’s something you’re not getting.
I read vast amounts of material covering subjects from molecular biology to economics to cosmology. I’m an admitted dilettante. If there weren’t gaps in my knowledge, it would be astounding. Your criticism however was directed at my apparent naivete. I hope you now stand corrected and can manage to stay on topic from now on.
The problem with magazines like New Scientist is that they decontextualise results/discoveries by presenting them at their very highest when in reality their importance usually falls well short of this.
Exactly. That’s why I posted this. To get context. But I’m not really getting any. I appreciate your comment before but as I said earlier, what I really want is background.
This thread went a little off track for the bounds of GQ. Since it seems to be getting back on track on its own I’m not going to issue any warnings or anything at this time. This is just a friendly reminder to keep everything GQ appropriate.
There are actually quite a few different alternate models of which GR is a special case. Most of them (including Brans-Dicke) can be encompassed in the Paramaterized Post-Newtonian formalism.
