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I’ve always felt that theoretical physicists should give more thought to the implication that gravitational waves don’t exist. Just maybe it would require rewor
by lbenes 11y ago
I’ve always felt that theoretical physicists should give more thought to the implication that gravitational waves don’t exist. Just maybe it would require reworking relativity in a way that’s more compatible with quantum mechanics. Sadly, it seems that everyone seems to think the flaw is with the standard model not the other way around.
- biswaroop 11y agoA lack of gravitational waves would mean information can travel infinitely fast, a Lorentz violation. There's no evidence in QM (or anywhere, really) that this is true.
- Manishearth 11y agoWe usually build up our QM models assuming Lorentz invariance, so this is somewhat a self fulfilling prophecy.
- cdelsolar 11y agoBut why do they have to be "waves"?
- lurcio 11y agoI'd rather take evidence from observation than from QM: let theory burn, as the current paradigm surely will if science ever trumps politics and regains its senses.
- drjesusphd 11y agoLack of evidence is not evidence of lacking. You'd have to do a lot better than that to disprove the most successful scientific theory of all time.
- drjesusphd 11y agoI had thought that the lack of gravitational waves makes it harder to reconcile with QM. It would be as if you could not detect real photons, only observe the indirect effect of virtual photons.
- BlackFly 11y agoThe fact that gravitational waves must exist follows from the idea that information must travel at a finite speed. Whatever theory you come up with, if it has a causal structure, it will have a wave structure.