China seems to say, "The impossible is possible."

[warmingwarmingwarming]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/1580 ... ent-micius

It seems they aren't stuck in the realm of 'what we learned five years or fifty years ago or 100 years ago has to remain the way things are thought to be.'

[Chris Peterson]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/1580 ... ent-micius

It seems they aren't stuck in the realm of 'what we learned five years or fifty years ago or 100 years ago has to remain the way things are thought to be.'

Much of this is stuff that we learned 50 years ago. What do you think they're doing that anybody has claimed is impossible? All they're doing is extending the distance over which a well understood physical principle is applied.

This is a technological advance, not a scientific one.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/1580 ... ent-micius

It seems they aren't stuck in the realm of 'what we learned five years or fifty years ago or 100 years ago has to remain the way things are thought to be.'

Much of this is stuff that we learned 50 years ago. What do you think they're doing that anybody has claimed is impossible? All they're doing is extending the distance over which a well understood physical principle is applied.

This is a technological advance, not a scientific one.

So how come it's China doing it instead of the U.S.A. which seems stuck on the worship of consensus?

[Chris Peterson]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/1580 ... ent-micius

It seems they aren't stuck in the realm of 'what we learned five years or fifty years ago or 100 years ago has to remain the way things are thought to be.'

Much of this is stuff that we learned 50 years ago. What do you think they're doing that anybody has claimed is impossible? All they're doing is extending the distance over which a well understood physical principle is applied.

This is a technological advance, not a scientific one.

So how come it's China doing it instead of the U.S.A. which seems stuck on the worship of consensus?

What does any of this have to do with "consensus"? It's just an experiment. Why shouldn't China do it? You seem to be under the false assumption that something about either the experiment or the conclusion goes against scientific consensus. What's being done here is an engineering project based on mainstream scientific thinking. Most of the foundational quantum entanglement experiments were performed in the U.S.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Much of this is stuff that we learned 50 years ago. What do you think they're doing that anybody has claimed is impossible? All they're doing is extending the distance over which a well understood physical principle is applied.

This is a technological advance, not a scientific one.

So how come it's China doing it instead of the U.S.A. which seems stuck on the worship of consensus?

What does any of this have to do with "consensus"? It's just an experiment. Why shouldn't China do it? You seem to be under the false assumption that something about either the experiment or the conclusion goes against scientific consensus. What's being done here is an engineering project based on mainstream scientific thinking. Most of the foundational quantum entanglement experiments were performed in the U.S.

Well, the majority of posters on apod are solidly consensus types, with advanced thought and experimentation roundly rejected .. if the apod flavour is the mainstream flavour in U.S. science it's simply no wonder why the Chinese made the leap instead of the U.S. .. and it is a HUGE leap.

[Chris Peterson]

What does any of this have to do with "consensus"? It's just an experiment. Why shouldn't China do it? You seem to be under the false assumption that something about either the experiment or the conclusion goes against scientific consensus. What's being done here is an engineering project based on mainstream scientific thinking. Most of the foundational quantum entanglement experiments were performed in the U.S.

Well, the majority of posters on apod are solidly consensus types, with advanced thought and experimentation roundly rejected .. if the apod flavour is the mainstream flavour in U.S. science it's simply no wonder why the Chinese made the leap instead of the U.S. .. and it is a HUGE leap.

Sorry, I have no clue what you're talking about, as you refuse to answer my questions.

There was no "leap" here at all. The Chinese merely replicated something that's been done in many labs. There was no new science here at all.

[rstevenson]

... Well, the majority of posters on apod are solidly consensus types, with advanced thought and experimentation roundly rejected .. ...

Nonsense! We may appear to be "solidly consensus types", but that may only be because we read the rules for posting in this forum and abide by them.

As for "advanced thought and experimentation roundly rejected" -- are you are the arbiter of what "advanced thought and experimentation" is?

At any rate, if you want to discuss speculative ideas, there are plenty of other forums that will welcome your input. Why keep butting heads here?

Rob

[geckzilla]

Why keep butting heads here?

Some lost souls out there seek vindication against the moderators here for banning them, and also against anyone who disagrees with them. New usernames, same old Galileo fallacies. I could ban them again, but you all seem to be enjoying it. You already know how pointless it is. We are all bound by our nature.

[Ann]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/1580 ... ent-micius

It seems they aren't stuck in the realm of 'what we learned five years or fifty years ago or 100 years ago has to remain the way things are thought to be.'

There are some Swedes involved in this electron experiment, and I listened to a description of it on Swedish radio. No one there suggested that this was a scientific breakthrough, just, as Chris said, a technological one.

I don't take a huge interest in the quantum world, but I remember seeing a TV documentary about quantum mechanics perhaps twenty years ago, where it was explained that electrons can become "paired". The paired electrons "know about one another" even if they are separated by many light-years. The TV documentary didn't suggest that this property of electrons can be used by humans, but now apparently some researchers are trying to find a way to make this "electron pairing" useful for humans.

Like Chris said, this doesn't sound like a scientific breakthrough at all. The weird and wonderful electron pairing has been known for many decades. The Chinese experiment would seem to be all about applied science, not about new science.

Ann

[Nitpicker]

The line between scientific and technological breakthroughs is not always well defined. There is cross-over. A lot of people would consider the detection of gravitational waves to be in the former category, whereas I would consider it more in the latter.

[Chris Peterson]

The line between scientific and technological breakthroughs is not always well defined. There is cross-over. A lot of people would consider the detection of gravitational waves to be in the former category, whereas I would consider it more in the latter.

Scientific advances may depend upon technological advances, and vice versa. But they're very different things.

The detection of gravitational waves was a fundamental scientific breakthrough, because it independently confirmed a prediction based on theory. That's at the core of the scientific method. We truly did not know if gravitational waves existed, or if the theory that described them was accurate, until that first detection was made. Subsequent detections are confirming theory describing how black holes behave during collisions. We need the instrument, but the work is all about novel science. Furthermore, there was no technological goal. The reason for developing the technology was only to extend the science.

The confirmation of quantum entanglement (based on theory nearly a century old) depended upon the development of technology, as well, and wasn't experimentally confirmed until (I think) the 1980s or 1990s, and has subsequently been confirmed with particles other than photons. Again, those confirmations, no matter how dependent on technology, were fundamental science.

The Chinese quantum communication satellites, however, are not. Based on what I've read, they are impressive technology, but don't appear to extend the science at all. They offer no new observations confirming uncertain theoretical predictions. Quantum entanglement and quantum encryption are well understood and well explored in the laboratory (but not fully developed, and therefore still areas of active research). The purpose of these satellites is to explore technological advances allowing additional applications of this science, not to extend our understanding of the scientific theory itself.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/1580 ... ent-micius

It seems they aren't stuck in the realm of 'what we learned five years or fifty years ago or 100 years ago has to remain the way things are thought to be.'

There are some Swedes involved in this electron experiment, and I listened to a description of it on Swedish radio. No one there suggested that this was a scientific breakthrough, just, as Chris said, a technological one.

I don't take a huge interest in the quantum world, but I remember seeing a TV documentary about quantum mechanics perhaps twenty years ago, where it was explained that electrons can become "paired". The paired electrons "know about one another" even if they are separated by many light-years. The TV documentary didn't suggest that this property of electrons can be used by humans, but now apparently some researchers are trying to find a way to make this "electron pairing" useful for humans.

Like Chris said, this doesn't sound like a scientific breakthrough at all. The weird and wonderful electron pairing has been known for many decades. The Chinese experiment would seem to be all about applied science, not about new science.

Ann

I repeat, why was it not done first by the 'exemplary science and technology' of the U.S.? Because, there are simply far too many in the western scientific community content to sit on what they learned 20 years ago in school. Same applies to technology. Even Canada has been decades ahead of the U.S. in science and technology, the Avro Arrow is one example, Blackberry another, Canadian computers at the time of Arrow, that is why the head of every department of the U.S. moon mission was headed by a Canadian from the Canadian A.V. Roe enterprise. The U.S. shut down A.V. Roe because they had nothing to shoot down the Mach One and Mach 2 Arrows with .. AND because they needed BRAINS which had not stagnated because of a sense of superiority .. consensus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada Peterborough Ontario was the first all electric lit city in the world. Carbon fibre was developed in Alberta. The light bulb was invented by a Canadian. Insulin. The list is nearly endless. BECAUSE Canadians had not developed the 'superior' attitude .. the 'we know it all' attitude that is consensus, and that stunts development.
Now, you may say technology is not science, but if engineering is not science, what is it?

[warmingwarmingwarming]

The line between scientific and technological breakthroughs is not always well defined. There is cross-over. A lot of people would consider the detection of gravitational waves to be in the former category, whereas I would consider it more in the latter.

http://engsci.utoronto.ca/explore_our_p ... ut_engsci/

"One of the most advanced .... in the world." And in Toronto, Canada.

[Chris Peterson]

The line between scientific and technological breakthroughs is not always well defined. There is cross-over. A lot of people would consider the detection of gravitational waves to be in the former category, whereas I would consider it more in the latter.

http://engsci.utoronto.ca/explore_our_p ... ut_engsci/

"One of the most advanced .... in the world." And in Toronto, Canada.

It would be good if more engineering programs worked this way. It's common at serious science schools like MIT and Caltech, but a great many colleges turn out engineers who have woefully inadequate training in science. This is quite apparent when we see how many engineers end up promoting various sorts of pseudoscience and science denialism.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

The line between scientific and technological breakthroughs is not always well defined. There is cross-over. A lot of people would consider the detection of gravitational waves to be in the former category, whereas I would consider it more in the latter.

http://engsci.utoronto.ca/explore_our_p ... ut_engsci/

"One of the most advanced .... in the world." And in Toronto, Canada.

It would be good if more engineering programs worked this way. It's common at serious science schools like MIT and Caltech, but a great many colleges turn out engineers who have woefully inadequate training in science. This is quite apparent when we see how many engineers end up promoting various sorts of pseudoscience and science denialism.

And we see people who have training in cosmology denying new breakthroughs in cosmology because they can't get beyond what they learned 20 or 30 years ago.

[Chris Peterson]

http://engsci.utoronto.ca/explore_our_p ... ut_engsci/

"One of the most advanced .... in the world." And in Toronto, Canada.

It would be good if more engineering programs worked this way. It's common at serious science schools like MIT and Caltech, but a great many colleges turn out engineers who have woefully inadequate training in science. This is quite apparent when we see how many engineers end up promoting various sorts of pseudoscience and science denialism.

And we see people who have training in cosmology denying new breakthroughs in cosmology because they can't get beyond what they learned 20 or 30 years ago.

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

It would be good if more engineering programs worked this way. It's common at serious science schools like MIT and Caltech, but a great many colleges turn out engineers who have woefully inadequate training in science. This is quite apparent when we see how many engineers end up promoting various sorts of pseudoscience and science denialism.

And we see people who have training in cosmology denying new breakthroughs in cosmology because they can't get beyond what they learned 20 or 30 years ago.

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

I totally disagree .. Aristarchus was denied for over well over a thousand years .. (and please don't blame religion, it was science doing the denying.) This is science denying itself. Theory held forth as fact is also science denying itself. I am comfortable with disagreeing. I hope you are too.

[Chris Peterson]

And we see people who have training in cosmology denying new breakthroughs in cosmology because they can't get beyond what they learned 20 or 30 years ago.

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

I totally disagree .. Aristarchus was denied for over well over a thousand years .. (and please don't blame religion, it was science doing the denying.) This is science denying itself. Theory held forth as fact is also science denying itself. I am comfortable with disagreeing. I hope you are too.

No, Aristarchus wasn't denied. He was largely unknown. He was unchallenged. He was unchallenged because there was no cultural institution of science, no cultural interest in a systematic understanding of nature. Much of that was because of the religious nature of society, which provided a different kind of "truth".

In my view, there was really no such thing as science (and certainly not at a cultural level) until a few hundred years ago, and truly modern science, in its current, highly productive form, is barely a century old.

[Ann]

And we see people who have training in cosmology denying new breakthroughs in cosmology because they can't get beyond what they learned 20 or 30 years ago.

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

I love your way of putting it, Chris.

Science is not about the people practicing it. It is not even about the conclusions, the results.

Science is about the methods being used in the pursuit of the best possible answers. Science is about postulating a hypothesis, finding a method to test the hypothesis, and formally describing the hypothesis, the method used to test it, and the results acquired. And then it is about inviting others to test the same hypothesis by the same means or by other means all over again, to see if the hypothesis can still stand its tests.

Click to view full size image

Okay - the picture describes a scene in 16th century Ireland.

That is science. So when people say that religion is better than science because religion always knows the answer and science often doesn't, then they don't understand the concept of science.

Consider life in 16th century England. They had pretty much the same religion back then that Christian people have today, but their way of living was so much more primitive, their health was worse and their lifespans were much shorter. So why do we live better lives today? It's not because we have studied the Bible more carefully than our 16th century forbears, so that we can implement the teachings of the Bible in a better way. No, it's because of the scientific and technological revolution of the Western civilization during the last few centuries.

I'm not saying, of course, that religious people can't be great scientists, and several of the greatest scientists have certainly been religious - Newton in particular comes to mind. But when Newton made his great mathematical breakthroughs, he wasn't using the Bible to find the facts or the formulas that he needed.

Everyone can be wrong. Einstein was a bit misguided during his later years. And he was stubborn, and not willing to concede the new picture of the universe that quantum mechanics in particular presented to him. No matter. Why should we remember him for his mistakes? Yes, we may certainly remember his human shortcomings, but it is more important to remember him for his brilliance and his amazing breakthroughs.

And we should remember him every time scientists throw some new test at his general relativity, and we find that general relativity comes through with flying colors once again.

Ann

[neufer]

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

<<Fred August Kummerow (October 4, 1914 – May 31, 2017) was a German-born American biochemist who authored at least 460 journal articles over the course of his career. He published the first paper suggesting a connection between trans fats and heart disease in 1957. The article, which appeared in Science, did not initially meet with widespread acceptance; it took decades before the link between trans fat-consumption and heart disease was fully accepted. Kummerow's work, however, helped to cement the inclusion of trans fats into the Nurses' Health Study; the results of that study further confirmed the link. He also helped discover that it is oxidized cholesterol (oxysterols), rather than cholesterol alone, that causes heart disease.

In 2009, at the age of 94, Kummerow filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a federal ban on artificial trans fats. The FDA did not act on his petition for four years, and in 2013 Kummerow filed a lawsuit against the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, seeking to compel the FDA to respond to his petition and "to ban partially hydrogenated oils unless a complete administrative review finds new evidence for their safety." Kummerow 's petition stated that "Artificial trans fat is a poisonous and deleterious substance, and the FDA has acknowledged the danger."

Three months after the suit was filed, on June 16, 2015, the FDA moved to eliminate artificial trans fats from the U.S. food supply, giving manufacturers a deadline of three years. Kummerow stated: "Science won out." The ban is believed to prevent about 90,000 premature deaths annually. Around his 100th birthday, Kummerow switched his focus to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's research, rather than heart disease, saying that he "felt that he was through with heart disease.">>

[Chris Peterson]

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

<<Fred August Kummerow (October 4, 1914 – May 31, 2017) was a German-born American biochemist who authored at least 460 journal articles over the course of his career. He published the first paper suggesting a connection between trans fats and heart disease in 1957. The article, which appeared in Science, did not initially meet with widespread acceptance; it took decades before the link between trans fat-consumption and heart disease was fully accepted. Kummerow's work, however, helped to cement the inclusion of trans fats into the Nurses' Health Study; the results of that study further confirmed the link. He also helped discover that it is oxidized cholesterol (oxysterols), rather than cholesterol alone, that causes heart disease.

There was a fair bit of poor science surrounding the issue of fat in the diet. But I think the bigger problem was one of poor science policy. Essentially, a political problem. There were a lot of conflicting interests, which among other things means that high quality studies simply weren't funded.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

And we see people who have training in cosmology denying new breakthroughs in cosmology because they can't get beyond what they learned 20 or 30 years ago.

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

Science is about the methods being used in the pursuit of the best possible answers. Science is about postulating a hypothesis, finding a method to test the hypothesis, and formally describing the hypothesis, the method used to test it, and the results acquired. And then it is about inviting others to test the same hypothesis by the same means or by other means all over again, to see if the hypothesis can still stand its tests.

Click to view full size image

Okay - the picture describes a scene in 16th century Ireland.

That is science. So when people say that religion is better than science because religion always knows the answer and science often doesn't, then they don't understand the concept of science.

Consider life in 16th century England. They had pretty much the same religion back then that Christian people have today, but their way of living was so much more primitive, their health was worse and their lifespans were much shorter. So why do we live better lives today? It's not because we have studied the Bible more carefully than our 16th century forbears, so that we can implement the teachings of the Bible in a better way. No, it's because of the scientific and technological revolution of the Western civilization during the last few centuries.

Ann

finding a method to test the hypothesis, How do you test the Big Bang?

They had pretty much the same religion back then that Christian people have today, Yes .. then as now there were a myriad religions and faiths in England and a myriad more in each of Germany, France, indigenous, Oriental, etc. As far as living better lives, the plague killed when it did because the Muslims, with their high hygeinic standards, were kicked out. But even where the Muslims had not conquered there were always enclaves of healthy people living healthy lives .. and it's to those enclaves that the rich fled to escape the plague of the cities and towns. Now, whether Muslim, Christian, Jew, Indigenous, whoever .. if a person lives a healthy lifestyle they will escape much of the death of those who give in to lusts and live lifestyles which are unhealthy mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc. Soon HALF of normal caucasian populations will be dying of cancer. Is this an improvement? What has science done to stop the slide? How much shorter are expected lifestyles becoming each year in this age of enlightenment?

religion always knows the answer and science often doesn't, Not at all .. as a Christian for 40 years, and an avid cosmologist, I know that the bible does NOT give the mechanics of how God created. That's where science comes in. But, as we know, the smaller we go the smaller it gets .. so it seems impossible to know the mechanics .. though our curiosity keeps us trying .. and in trying, my faith in what is unseen is strengthened.

One example of biblical science which has only become mainstream science is conservation .. "replenish the earth" means simply that, use good natural elements to renew the nature of soil .. a rather dramatic example.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

There are always scientists who have problems with change. But it's not a problem that defines science.

I totally disagree .. Aristarchus was denied for over well over a thousand years .. (and please don't blame religion, it was science doing the denying.) This is science denying itself. Theory held forth as fact is also science denying itself. I am comfortable with disagreeing. I hope you are too.

No, Aristarchus wasn't denied. He was largely unknown. He was unchallenged. He was unchallenged because there was no cultural institution of science, no cultural interest in a systematic understanding of nature. Much of that was because of the religious nature of society, which provided a different kind of "truth".

In my view, there was really no such thing as science (and certainly not at a cultural level) until a few hundred years ago, and truly modern science, in its current, highly productive form, is barely a century old.

Aristarchus was imprisoned for his discoveries BECAUSE he was widely known. If he had been unknown he would have been NO threat to the establishment, which was not religious, but scientific.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

I totally disagree .. Aristarchus was denied for over well over a thousand years .. (and please don't blame religion, it was science doing the denying.) This is science denying itself. Theory held forth as fact is also science denying itself. I am comfortable with disagreeing. I hope you are too.

No, Aristarchus wasn't denied. He was largely unknown. He was unchallenged. He was unchallenged because there was no cultural institution of science, no cultural interest in a systematic understanding of nature. Much of that was because of the religious nature of society, which provided a different kind of "truth".

In my view, there was really no such thing as science (and certainly not at a cultural level) until a few hundred years ago, and truly modern science, in its current, highly productive form, is barely a century old.

Aristarchus was imprisoned for his discoveries BECAUSE he was widely known. If he had been unknown he would have been NO threat to the establishment, which was not religious, but scientific.

For you to say there was no science until a hundred years ago denies the discoveries of Aristarchus 2,000 years ago, Newton, and many, many other well known historical scientists.

[Chris Peterson]

Aristarchus was imprisoned for his discoveries BECAUSE he was widely known. If he had been unknown he would have been NO threat to the establishment, which was not religious, but scientific.

There was no scientific establishment in Aristarchus's time. Nor is there any evidence that he was imprisoned or in any way persecuted for his opinions about the nature of the solar system.