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How is searching the internet, especially when it finds "no evidence" of something nobody expected there to be evidence for, something that should be a topic fo

by powera 11y ago

How is searching the internet, especially when it finds "no evidence" of something nobody expected there to be evidence for, something that should be a topic for a "classic physics journal"?

tempestn 11y ago
In general, publishing studies with negative results can still be very valuable. If nothing else, they save time that might otherwise have been wasted investigating the same thing. Conversely they may provide a starting point for other researchers to look into something similar with potentially different results. They may also be useful as part of the basis of meta-studies. So the fact that no supporting evidence of a hypothesis was found certainly shouldn't disqualify a paper from publication. I also can't see any reason why it's relevant that their work primarily involved searching the internet. They provided logical reasoning that if time travelers exist, it would potentially be possible to discover them through this technique. Most likely time travelers don't exist, and so they don't expect to find anything, but that doesn't make it worthless to try. And since the feasibility of time travel is (as far as I understand) still technically an open question of physics, it does appear to be an appropriate, if unconventional, topic for a classic physics journal. I'm not necessarily saying I disagree with the editors' decisions to reject the paper, and it's certainly their decision to make, but I don't see it as a foregone conclusion.
- powera 11y ago
  What would a positive result have even looked like? "We found evidence of time travelers, but it's probably just a sign our model is bad?" or "We discovered people from the future hiding perfectly from us, until this (presumably well-known in this future) paper was published that revealed them?" If it's inconceivable that there could be a positive result, it's not science. It's fodder for publicity.
  - hyperion2010 11y ago
    Your argument presupposes that we actually know something to be true before ever looking at the data. If you have the data and refuse to look at it because you think you already know what it says that is not science, that is dogma.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >If it's inconceivable that there could be a positive result, it's not science If it's "inconceivable" from the start then you're not following the scientific method, in which nothing is "inconceivable" until proven so (not even macro-world logical impossibilities, as quantum mechanics have a few). There's nothing really inconceivable about time travel. Greatly impossible yes, but totally conceivable. Physicists have even come up with a few mechanisms. And that's for the past. For travelling forward in time, all it takes is going faster (literally).
    - powera 11y ago
      I find it completely inconceivable that there are secret time travelers who would be found by searching the internet. I think it's legitimately more likely that you would discover dragons living in the earth's core by searching the internet.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        With all the knowledge we have of what's possible and empirical data, your assumption is wrong. Finding time travellers on the internet would be much more likely (even if still very unlikely) than finding "dragons living in the earth's core".
  - tempestn 11y ago
    In fact, they gave an opportunity for future time travelers to contact them, requesting that the contact be made before the offer was extended. Since they obviously knew at the time that that hadn't happened, the only value was in proving that if time travelers do indeed exist, they don't wish to make themselves known. (A fact that may seem obvious, but I could see a legitimate time traveler having a difficult time proving their existence, given that people will ignore significant evidence in the face of the impossible.) So in that case they actually know the result will be negative, but there's still some value in doing it.
    - powera 11y ago
      I hate to use science fiction as an argument, but basically every sci-fi movie with time travel as a plot has no problem coming up with some way of using knowledge about the future to (at a minimum) massive profit. If Elon Musk or some other billionaire said "I'm actually from the future, here's evidence of 20 more things from the future", it would be reasonable to try to verify that claim.
- SilasX 11y ago
  As I said the last time this story got discussed on HN: just because it's publishable, doesn't mean it's publishable in a physics journal. The method they're using would provide a nice, orthogonal, independent piece of evidence on the topic of time travel. However, it doesn't fall into a physicist's area of expertise (sorry, "wheelhouse" is the hip term now). Their method depends heavily on related hypotheses about when people would post about things, and thus relies more on the expertise of sociologists and journalists. So they were right to reject it from physics journals, although they probably should have said, "hey, this would be of greater interest to the guys in this other kind of journal ..."
Frqy3 11y ago
Why should research showing that 'alternative medicine' is ineffective be published in a medical journal? It provided a method and showed the negative results. Next time you are in discussion with someone who claims that time travelers are possible, you can now refer to this research. Even if the first two journals rejected it, it sounds like the "third physics journal geared more toward the philosophy of physics" should have been a good fit.
- tempestn 11y ago
  I agree with your point in general, but technically this paper doesn't disprove the possibility of time travel. It does however appear to prove, or at least strongly suggest, that if time travelers exist, they don't want to be found.
fsloth 11y ago
Negative results are as important as positive ones when trying to discover new things. The problem in general is that they are far less sexy than positive results.

by powera 11y ago

How is searching the internet, especially when it finds "no evidence" of something nobody expected there to be evidence for, something that should be a topic for a "classic physics journal"?

tempestn 11y ago

In general, publishing studies with negative results can still be very valuable. If nothing else, they save time that might otherwise have been wasted investigating the same thing. Conversely they may provide a starting point for other researchers to look into something similar with potentially different results. They may also be useful as part of the basis of meta-studies. So the fact that no supporting evidence of a hypothesis was found certainly shouldn't disqualify a paper from publication. I also can't see any reason why it's relevant that their work primarily involved searching the internet. They provided logical reasoning that if time travelers exist, it would potentially be possible to discover them through this technique. Most likely time travelers don't exist, and so they don't expect to find anything, but that doesn't make it worthless to try. And since the feasibility of time travel is (as far as I understand) still technically an open question of physics, it does appear to be an appropriate, if unconventional, topic for a classic physics journal. I'm not necessarily saying I disagree with the editors' decisions to reject the paper, and it's certainly their decision to make, but I don't see it as a foregone conclusion.

powera 11y ago
What would a positive result have even looked like? "We found evidence of time travelers, but it's probably just a sign our model is bad?" or "We discovered people from the future hiding perfectly from us, until this (presumably well-known in this future) paper was published that revealed them?" If it's inconceivable that there could be a positive result, it's not science. It's fodder for publicity.
- hyperion2010 11y ago
  Your argument presupposes that we actually know something to be true before ever looking at the data. If you have the data and refuse to look at it because you think you already know what it says that is not science, that is dogma.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >If it's inconceivable that there could be a positive result, it's not science If it's "inconceivable" from the start then you're not following the scientific method, in which nothing is "inconceivable" until proven so (not even macro-world logical impossibilities, as quantum mechanics have a few). There's nothing really inconceivable about time travel. Greatly impossible yes, but totally conceivable. Physicists have even come up with a few mechanisms. And that's for the past. For travelling forward in time, all it takes is going faster (literally).
  - powera 11y ago
    I find it completely inconceivable that there are secret time travelers who would be found by searching the internet. I think it's legitimately more likely that you would discover dragons living in the earth's core by searching the internet.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      With all the knowledge we have of what's possible and empirical data, your assumption is wrong. Finding time travellers on the internet would be much more likely (even if still very unlikely) than finding "dragons living in the earth's core".
- tempestn 11y ago
  In fact, they gave an opportunity for future time travelers to contact them, requesting that the contact be made before the offer was extended. Since they obviously knew at the time that that hadn't happened, the only value was in proving that if time travelers do indeed exist, they don't wish to make themselves known. (A fact that may seem obvious, but I could see a legitimate time traveler having a difficult time proving their existence, given that people will ignore significant evidence in the face of the impossible.) So in that case they actually know the result will be negative, but there's still some value in doing it.
  - powera 11y ago
    I hate to use science fiction as an argument, but basically every sci-fi movie with time travel as a plot has no problem coming up with some way of using knowledge about the future to (at a minimum) massive profit. If Elon Musk or some other billionaire said "I'm actually from the future, here's evidence of 20 more things from the future", it would be reasonable to try to verify that claim.
SilasX 11y ago
As I said the last time this story got discussed on HN: just because it's publishable, doesn't mean it's publishable in a physics journal. The method they're using would provide a nice, orthogonal, independent piece of evidence on the topic of time travel. However, it doesn't fall into a physicist's area of expertise (sorry, "wheelhouse" is the hip term now). Their method depends heavily on related hypotheses about when people would post about things, and thus relies more on the expertise of sociologists and journalists. So they were right to reject it from physics journals, although they probably should have said, "hey, this would be of greater interest to the guys in this other kind of journal ..."

Frqy3 11y ago

Why should research showing that 'alternative medicine' is ineffective be published in a medical journal? It provided a method and showed the negative results. Next time you are in discussion with someone who claims that time travelers are possible, you can now refer to this research. Even if the first two journals rejected it, it sounds like the "third physics journal geared more toward the philosophy of physics" should have been a good fit.

tempestn 11y ago
I agree with your point in general, but technically this paper doesn't disprove the possibility of time travel. It does however appear to prove, or at least strongly suggest, that if time travelers exist, they don't want to be found.

fsloth 11y ago

Negative results are as important as positive ones when trying to discover new things. The problem in general is that they are far less sexy than positive results.