Einstein's proven right

[harry]

G'day from the land of ozzzzzz

Einstein's proven right

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... WFVR9k_O2A

Is this correct.

Has this been proven before and not documented?

[bystander]

I had seen these articles, but hadn't realized the implication for special relativity.

Standard model gets right answer for proton, neutron masses
Correct calculation strengthens theory of quark-gluon interactions in nuclear particles
ScienceNews - Nov 20, 2008

At Long Last, Physicists Calculate the Proton's Mass
ScienceNOW Daily News - Nov 21, 2008

[neufer]

G'day from the land of ozzzzzz

Einstein's proven right

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... WFVR9k_O2A

Is this correct.

Has this been proven before and not documented?

Nobody was questioning E = mc^2...they were questioning quantum chromodynamics!

There appeared that there might have been an inconsistency between the conventional model of particle physics
and E = mc^2 ... Fortunately, this APPARENT PARADOX has been demonstrated NOT to be the case:

<<According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons. The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent? The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.>>

However, IF the calculations HAD demonstrated that conventional model of particle physics was, in fact, inconsistent with E = mc^2 then the conclusion most certainly would have been that it was the conventional model of particle physics that was wrong (and not Einstein).

Case in point: The 1911 conventional model of particle physics presented a REAL PARADOX
in that the law of conservation of energy was actually observed NOT to be conserved in beta decay!

The conclusion was NOT that Einstein was wrong but rather that the 1911 conventional model of particle physics was wrong.

The 1911 conventional model of particle physics was thereby adjusted by including Pauli's neutrino:
---------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay

<<In 1911 Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn performed an experiment that showed that the energies of electrons emitted by beta decay had a continuous rather than discrete spectrum. This was in apparent contradiction to the law of conservation of energy, as it appeared that energy was lost in the beta decay process. A second problem was that the spin of the Nitrogen-14 atom was 1, in contradiction to the Rutherford prediction of ½. In 1920-1927, Charles Drummond Ellis (along with James Chadwick and colleagues) established clearly that the beta decay spectrum is really continuous, ending all controversies.

In a famous letter written in 1930 Wolfgang Pauli suggested that in addition to electrons and protons atoms also contained an extremely light neutral particle which he called the neutron. He suggested that this "neutron" was also emitted during beta decay and had simply not yet been observed. In 1931 Enrico Fermi renamed Pauli's "neutron" to neutrino, and in 1934 Fermi published a very successful model of beta decay in which neutrinos were produced.>>
---------------------------------

[bystander]

Has this been proven before and not documented?

Nobody was questioning E = mc^2...they were questioning quantum chromodynamics!

I think harry was questioning whether if, in fact, Einstein's equation, in respect to particle physics, had not been confirmed in 103 years.

[makc]

they were questioning quantum chromodynamics

that makes sense, however, news presented it other way around, e.g. linked source, as well as Discovery Channel. I find such misleading postings in media quite disturbing, after 103 years, in fact

[neufer]

Has this been proven before and not documented?

Nobody was questioning E = mc^2...they were questioning quantum chromodynamics!

I think harry was questioning whether if, in fact, Einstein's equation, in respect to particle physics, had not been confirmed in 103 years.

Science isn't in the business of proving things right.

Science is more in the business of proving things WRONG.

E = mc^2 has passed every test to prove it WRONG
(both in experiments & 'thought' experiments) over the last century (see below).

If E = mc^2 WAS to be proved wrong then much of physics over the
entire last century (including quantum chromodynamics) is also wrong.

Quantum Chromodynamics has itself passed a few tests in the few decade or so.
Perhaps there is no more important such test than the most recent computer
demonstration of QC's own self-consistency with E = mc^2.
---------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED

<<Quantum electrodynamics (QED), a relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics, is among the most stringently tested theories in physics. Precision tests of QED consist of measurements of the electromagnetic fine structure constant, α, in different physical systems. Checking the consistency of such measurements tests the theory. Tests of a theory are normally carried out by comparing experimental results to theoretical predictions. In QED, there is some subtlety in this comparison, because theoretical predictions require as input an extremely precise value of α, which can only be obtained from another precision QED experiment. Because of this, the comparisons between theory and experiment are usually quoted as independent determinations of α. QED is then confirmed to the extent that these measurements of α from different physical sources agree with each other. The agreement found this way is to within ten parts in a billion (10−11). This makes QED one of the most accurate physical theories constructed thus far, after special relativity, which currently is tested to 10−21,[1] the Hughes–Drever experiment: 10−16,and the trapped atoms experiments: 3×10−22>>
...............................................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_ ... relativity

<<Special relativity is accurate only when gravitational potential is much less than c2; in a strong gravitational field one must use general relativity (which becomes special relativity at the limit of weak field). At very small scales, such as at the Planck length and below, quantum effects must be taken into consideration resulting in quantum gravity. However, at macroscopic scales and in the absence of strong gravitational fields, special relativity is experimentally tested to extremely high degree of accuracy (10-20) and thus accepted by the physics community. Experimental results which appear to contradict it are not reproducible and are thus widely believed to be due to experimental errors.

Special relativity is mathematically self-consistent, and it is an organic part of all modern physical theories, most notably quantum field theory, string theory, and general relativity (in the limiting case of negligible gravitational fields).>>
----------------------------------

[astrolabe]

Hello All,

I find it somehow interesting that the "invisible" mass at the atomic level (95%) is closely equivalent to the invisible mass at the cosmic level (95%). Kinda that Macro/Micro philosophy of old.

[apodman]

... news presented it other way around ...

I first saw the article harry linked us to as ambiguous. Say one thing while letting your readers think you are saying another. Use words like corroborate, show, resolve, and hypothesis in short phrases to make it sound orderly, scientific, and sewn up, but really make it muddy as far as what "proved" what. And, if I read this correctly, "proof" in this case is by precision of approximation.

But this is a case of Charmin and Mr. Whipple. The poster boy for audience recognition factor. Such a person (in this narrow comparison) is Albert Einstein. If we say we finally proved or disproved something Pascual Jordan said, nobody reads the article. If we say all the quarks and gluons are having a convention in Paris, nobody reads the article. If we say Albert Einstein or e=mc², lots of people read the article. If we imply that Einstein could have been wrong, they read it with enthusiasm and anticipation whether they understand the question and its implications or not. Every journalist is taught how to hook a reader, so this is the way it will be.

[BMAONE23]

I was just about to post the same thing. The proportion of wieghty matter to energy proposed in the findings is 5%:95% and the proportion of regular barionic matter to dark matter/energy is 4+%:95+%. An interesting correlation to say the least

[apodman]

I find it somehow interesting that the "invisible" mass at the atomic level (95%) is closely equivalent to the invisible mass at the cosmic level (95%). Kinda that Macro/Micro philosophy of old.

I was just about to post the same thing. The proportion of wieghty matter to energy proposed in the findings is 5%:95% and the proportion of regular barionic matter to dark matter/energy is 4+%:95+%. An interesting correlation to say the least

I just got back from Monte Carlo (not really). The croupier took 5% of my chips every time I hit on Red, leaving me with 95% of my winnings. Because I was a high roller, they brought me a free dry martini - 95% gin and 5% vermouth. I sense a connection. Kidding, of course. You guys might be right, but I need a little more to go on than numbers. (Of course, if and when numbers start matching to a multitude of digits of precision, they do become more persuasive on their own.)

[astrolabe]

Hello apodman,

Yeah me too, some numbers woul be a bit more enticing but, not being a math guy, someone could say the findings were proven using the 2+2 Theory and I'd probably say, "WOW". So I wait for the experts the field of math to concur.

I was just about to post the same thing. The proportion of wieghty matter to energy proposed in the findings is 5%:95% and the proportion of regular barionic matter to dark matter/energy is 4+%:95+%. An interesting correlation to say the least

WAY TO GO B. !!!!! (Did I sound Like Owen Meaney?)

[harry]

G'day from the land of ozzzzzz

Hello apodman

You read my intentions out of context.

I saw the link as an interesting discussion point.

You saw it as something muddy and negative.

Some mothers do have them.

[apodman]

Hello apodman ... You read my intentions out of context.

Unless someone tells me what they think of a link they provide, I figure a link is just a link. I read no intentions into it.

I saw the link as an interesting discussion point. You saw it as something muddy and negative.

I commented on what are, to me, interesting aspects of the article from a journalistic standpoint. The rest of the contributors seemed to be doing fine with the interesting technical end of it. I don't think my comments were particularly negative, and I don't think I characterized the article as negative. And it was muddy.

---

Added:

Actually, some of the "muddy" is really just "sketchy" which you can't get away from in a short article no matter how well you do. For an example of this, just look at the recurring comments from here and there saying that an APOD description has not provided enough background information.

[harry]

G'day apodman

Thats ok

It must be the flu that I have.

[neufer]

Einstein's proven right
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... WFVR9k_O2A
Is this correct.
Has this been proven before and not documented?

Einstein has yet to be proven wrong:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZtRN-iGdQ

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ozF5Cwbt6RY
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dgrvlWML4
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qn8PNMTSlwo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lytxafTXg6c
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai1 ... re=related

[Sputnick]

"Either we have failed to see ninety nine percent of the universe or we are wrong about how the universe began." Stephen Hawking .. cover of the 'The Fifth Essence' by Lawrence Krauss.

Now I know why the 'consensus' becomes so agitated when someone questions Big Bang ... but if Hawking can easily admit Bang could be wrong without his whole concept of personal identity of self and assurance being threatened, why not everyone?

I thought this fit in with the '95%s' and the '4%s' etc.

[bystander]

Here's another quote from Stephen Hawking:

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

[Chris Peterson]

Now I know why the 'consensus' becomes so agitated when someone questions Big Bang ... but if Hawking can easily admit Bang could be wrong without his whole concept of personal identity of self and assurance being threatened, why not everyone?

I haven't encountered any scientists who don't admit the BB could be wrong, and none of them are suffering any personal crises as a result.

[apodman]

Chris, is this the kind of thing that is allowed to go on in Colorado?

Big Bang

[Chris Peterson]

Chris, is this the kind of thing that is allowed to go on in Colorado?

Big Bang

I like that. Try the Dark Matter Mousse... so filling but no calories at all!

[Sputnick]

Now I know why the 'consensus' becomes so agitated when someone questions Big Bang ... but if Hawking can easily admit Bang could be wrong without his whole concept of personal identity of self and assurance being threatened, why not everyone?

I haven't encountered any scientists who don't admit the BB could be wrong, and none of them are suffering any personal crises as a result.

None but you and the rest of the consensus. Anyway .. that's my last post for another while .. longer this time I hope.

[harry]

G'day from the land of ozzzzzz

Einstein was a true scientist

He proved himself wrong on many occasions.

Similar with Steven Hawkins and many other scientists.

Being wrong is not the propblem, the problem is when you are wrong and refuse to admit to it.

[neufer]

Einstein was a true scientist

He proved himself wrong on many occasions.

Einstein never admitted to being wrong about quantum hidden variables.

Both Bohr & Hubble proved Einstein wrong in other instances
but in Hubble's case Einstein was only half wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

• ---------------------------------------------------------------
  <<Einstein included the cosmological constant as a term in his field equations for general relativity because he was dissatisfied that otherwise his equations did not allow, apparently, for a static universe: gravity would cause a universe which was initially at dynamic equilibrium to contract. To counteract this possibility, Einstein added the cosmological constant. However, soon after Einstein developed his static theory, observations by Edwin Hubble indicated that the universe appears to be expanding; this was consistent with a cosmological solution to the original general-relativity equations that had been found by the mathematician Friedman.
  
  It is now thought that adding the cosmological constant to Einstein's equations does not lead to a static universe at equilibrium because the equilibrium is unstable: if the universe expands slightly, then the expansion releases vacuum energy, which causes yet more expansion. Likewise, a universe which contracts slightly will continue contracting.
  
  Since it no longer seemed to be needed, Einstein abandoned the cosmological constant and called it the "biggest blunder" of his life. However, the cosmological constant remained a subject of theoretical and empirical interest. Empirically, the onslaught of cosmological data in the past decades strongly suggests that our universe has a positive cosmological constant. The explanation of this small but positive value is an outstanding theoretical challenge.
  
  Finally, it should be noted that some early generalizations of Einstein's gravitational theory, known as classical unified field theories, either introduced a cosmological constant on theoretical grounds or found that it arose naturally from the mathematics. For example, Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington claimed that the cosmological constant version of the vacuum field equation expressed the "epistemological" property that the universe is "self-gauging", and Erwin Schrödinger's pure-affine theory using a simple variational principle produced the field equation with a cosmological term.
  ------------------------------------------
  Positive cosmological constant
  
  Observations made in the late 1990s of distance–redshift relations indicate that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. When combined with measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation these implied a value of Omega ~ 0.7, a result which has been supported and refined by more recent measurements. There are other possible causes of an accelerating universe, such as quintessence, but the cosmological constant is in most respects the most economical solution. Thus, the current standard model of cosmology, the Lambda-CDM model, includes the cosmological constant, which is measured to be on the order of 10^−35 s−2, or 10^−47 GeV4, or 10^−29 g/cm3, or about 10^−120 in reduced Planck units.
  ------------------------------------------
  Cosmological constant problem
  
  Unsolved problems in physics: Why doesn't the zero-point energy of vacuum cause a large cosmological constant? What cancels it out?
  
  A major outstanding problem is that most quantum field theories predict a huge cosmological constant from the energy of the quantum vacuum.
  
  This conclusion follows from dimensional analysis and effective field theory. If the universe is described by an effective local quantum field theory till the Planck scale, then we would expect a cosmological constant of the order of M^4. As noted above, the measured cosmological constant is smaller than this by a factor of 10^120.
  
  Some supersymmetric theories require a cosmological constant that is exactly zero, which further complicates things. This is the cosmological constant problem, the worst problem of fine-tuning in physics: there is no known natural way to derive the tiny cosmological constant used in cosmology from particle physics.
  
  As was only recently seen, by works of 't Hooft, Susskind and others, a positive cosmological constant has surprising consequences, such as a finite maximum entropy of the observable universe.>>---------------------------------------------------------------

[Sputnick]

There will be no Grand Unified Theory, as such as theory calls for 100% predictability, while:

Ecclesiastes 9:11
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

[apodman]

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

If you apply that quote to astrophysics or to theories, you can make it say a lot of things it doesn't say and never did. Bible verses apply to science like the ideal gas law to a solid.