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> He doubts a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today's academic culture, because of the expectations on academics to collaborate and keep churning out
by fargolime 13y ago
> He doubts a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today's academic culture, because of the expectations on academics to collaborate and keep churning out papers.
The opposite of an Einstein or Higgs. Academia no longer tolerates deep, unconventional thinking. Physics used to be a hobby, now its an industry to be protected from major change. For example, if you have basic knowledge of relativity you can go to http://finbot.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/dark-energy-obviated/ http://finbot.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/dark-energy-obviated/ and use the steps there in conjunction with generally accepted equations (from the Usenet Physics FAQ) to see that free objects launched upward from Earth at close to the speed of light must accelerate away from us, solving the big mystery of dark energy. But even assuming this idea is valid it couldn't make it into a respected peer-reviewed journal today. Ideas for hunting dark energy particles, however, would be welcomed, since those could lead to lucrative grants.
- jbri 13y agoReading your link, it appears that the author just flatly assumes that space is not expanding, and everything else stems from that assumption. The author provides another article to attempt to support that assumption, but their argument for that is incomplete, and while their alternative appears to offer explanations for some observations, it ignores other things (like cosmological redshift). Add in the fact that that the article appears targeted towards laypeople and there's no scientific paper to be found suggests that it's more psuedoscience and thought experiments than actual scientific investigation. It seems unreasonable to claim that academia would reject the idea out of hand when no-one's even written a paper to attempt to submit to a peer-reviewed journal. I suspect the reason academia ignores the supposition is not commercial interest like you claim.
- fargolime 13y agoI've been a student of that blog. It doesn't ignore cosmological redshift. Rather, the dark energy solution notes that space measurably expands, but in a relative (it depends on the observer) way as opposed to the absolute (observed by all observers) way that is generally accepted today. When space measurably expands (whether relative or absolute) you have cosmological redshift. Space itself not expanding is the absence of an assumption. Today it's generally accepted that space itself expands, an assumption. > Add in the fact that that the article appears targeted towards laypeople and there's no scientific paper to be found suggests that it's more psuedoscience and thought experiments than actual scientific investigation. Thought experiments are scientific investigation. Nothing in the rest of your point actually suggests pseudoscience.
- jbri 13y agoIt seems unreasonable to claim that academia would reject the idea out of hand when no-one's even written a paper to attempt to submit to a peer-reviewed journal. If you showed me scientific papers that had been rejected by peer reviewers, then you might have a point. But if it's entirely articles targeted at laypeople and no scientific papers, it's pseudoscience.
- fargolime 13y agoIt's not pseudoscience for that reason alone. You're using the definition incorrectly, even if yours is the definition commonly improperly used. For example Einstein's Relativity of Simultaneity thought experiment is targeted at laypeople and is both scientific and a logical proof. Had he put the idea into a blog and nothing more it still would've been an advance of physics, regardless whether anyone else paid it mind. (I probably won't say anything more because I get tired of this type of discussion.)
- mikeash 13y agoYou're right, of course. It's not pseudoscience because it's a blog targeted at a non-scientific audience. It's pseudoscience because it's complete nonsense.
- fargolime 13y agoI've seen many people say that, but none who proved it scientifically. After all, it simply uses generally accepted equations to make its point. As the author suggests, I've plugged the equations into Excel to get the same charts. My favorite part is this: - The Relativistic Rocket site reports that a rocket accelerating / decelerating at 1 Earth gravity can travel from Earth to the Andromeda galaxy, 2 million light years away and arriving at low speed, in 28 years on the crew’s clock. Then the rocket’s crew would observe a beacon floating at the midpoint between the galaxies recede 1 million light years in the 14 years after they pass it. That's an unassailable conclusion, and it follows that the beacon would accelerate away from the crew as they observe, since the beacon moved away from them at an average rate greater than that the rate at which they passed it. That's the explanation for dark energy in a nutshell.
- chunky1994 13y agoIn reading that link here are just a few things that seem to be wrong with it on first glance. (In the link attempting explain the flatness problem), one cannot just assume all galaxies are moving towards each other without first positioning a center (of those galaxies). That in itself invalidates the rest of the flatness argument, which is required for the article on your link. This was based on a precursory read, so it may not be entirely right
- fargolime 13y agoThere's no need for a center. Take the infinite universe as it is, and steadily decrease all the distances between the galaxies. There you have it: all galaxies moving towards each other with no cosmic center. It's definitely possible in principle.