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Would you be "skeptical" if a meta-analysis of physics paper showed a statistically significant outcome of a particular unexpected particle being created in dif

• jerf 16y ago
  The only answer to your question I can imagine would really be "it depends". I'd probably wait for more data to come in on the grounds that I don't have any compelling need to make a decision anyhow, so whatever you're trying to get at this is probably not a great question to do it with. I am interested in particle physics but only as a passive observer. (Further edit: Oh, you're probably trying to say I shouldn't be skeptical in light of the meta-analysis. The correct thing to do here is to do some more experiments that continue to show the effect shown in the metaanalysis, there's too many ways a metaanalysis can screw up. Particle physics is a really different world than psi research. If it remains, great. I'm actually not too invested in the "time flows in one direction" theory, because in point of fact relativity itself disproves it even before you get to quantum mechanics; it is at best partially ordered and in fact some things happen in quite counterintuitive ways in straight-up relativity even though they ultimately resolve into something that matches our intuitive understanding of time. In ways that would exceed an HN posting to describe, though, I think that relativity ultimately forbids reverse-time information flow even more strongly than you'd think as a result, not less strongly. I'd suggest googling up "Reflections on Relativity" and be prepared to spend some serious hours with it; it is not light reading.)