Sure. As Richard Feynman put it: " I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics " Vin
And my favourite quantum physics joke. Prof. Schrodinger is driving home one evening. He's pulled over by a policeman who wants to look around the car. He has a look, comes back to the driver's door and says, "Professor, do you know that there's a dead cat in your boot?" Prof Schrodinger reples, "Well, there is now". Vin
The only thing I know (well, read) is something to do with particles acting differently whilst being observed. Something like that.
https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blog...ked-doctor-to-cut-off-his-legs-121855688.html Batistuta was once in so much pain that he asked a doctor to cut off his legs. Says he is walking on bones as his cartilages have gone...poor man. Sadly, even removing limbs doesn't always work...phantom pain continues.
Yes, indeed I meant scientists. But I also meant the whole authority of science. I suppose I could have said Scientific Community. Historically, the scientific community has explained things that they haven't known the answer to. It's why the Sun went round the Earth until Copernicus suggested that it didn't, and Galileo revealed 200 years later, for example. The Big Bang is a good 'un though. 50 years ago the scientific community were practically as dead certain as one could be about something that can't be seen or touched, and if anyone questioned it they were obviously on the fringe. Nowadays it isn't anythng like as certain. In fact, the question is quite up in the air again.
Theories are working ideas...attempting to prove or disprove them allows you to progress. It's a long time since scientists were dogmatic and that dated from a time when science, magic and religion were interrelated.
What you're describing is the scientific process, not a fault in it. You have a hypothesis ("the universe is in a steady state") that fits the known facts. Then, new information comes in ("Everything in the universe appears to be moving away form everything else") and you revise the hypotheses. It's the wilingness to take in new facts that separates it from dogma. And it means that almost everything we know is just the best explanation we have at the moment. And that's good because it implies a willingness to look at evidence that disproves what is currently accepted to be an accurate description. What you describe I see as a strength, not a weakness. Vin
Look, I know physics well and on an experience level I still don't understand why electricity doesn't leak out of sockets. I know intellectually but I still don't feel that it doesn't happen. Vin
Agreed, but sometimes the scientific community hangs onto theories long after their sell-by date. Scientists are often cautious people, which is a good thing and a bad thing. The scientific process is both a strength and a weakness. And you wrote a very good sentence there. Everything we know is often just the best explanation... Science can be guilty of passing off the best explanation we have at the moment as certainty.
It's the media who do that...they simplify scientific ideas and present as facts. Almost every scientist would finish an explanation with the word 'but'. There isn't the slightest doubt that we know far more than we did last year, last decade and last century, so progress is being made. The scientific method is to postulate a theory and test it...this has been shown to work throughout human development. Metallurgy: Find metal in bottom of fire. Might come from those rocks/soil we built oven with. Let's heat rocks/soil in oven. Now have more metal...so rock/soil must contain metal. Wonder if different ones contain different metals. Some will, some won't. Theory based on observation, then theory tested...science.
What about "man-made" climate change? To disagree, or even question, is met with the stigma of "denial." This labels the offender with something akin to the opprobrium usually associated with "holocaust denial" Not saying I don't believe in the premise, but we do see climate change scientists (and their media chums) behaving in a very unscientific manner on the subject.
There's a political element to climate change. I'm not saying it isn't true, but all angles have to be considered. The problem is that it is very hard to get research money for anything other than the accepted view. Scientists can't work without money, so they tend to work in fashionable fields.
My goodness! I've walked into the brainiacs library. ****! Sorry for being noisy but anyone tell me if Joe shagged that bird in his office
No idea, but I can tell you I'm very happy that *finally* the bigger blogs have noticed that young Ms Fable is doing something a bit special - http://kickkicksnare.com/2014/08/30/fable-stranger-head/
One area where scientists have set themselves back, and progress incidentally, is in cold nuclear fusion. It almost ended the career of Southampton University's Dr Martin Fleischmann, and he died with a tarnished reputation. The scientific community and asociated media tore him apart yet it appears he may have been right all along. At this moment NASA have a prototype working product and several companies are between 6-18 months away from reliable working prototypes for domestic use. Plus Toyota, Shell, Volvo, and several other major companies are in research. It's called LENR these days and if it works, as it is said to, it will be the answer to energy consumption and will end mankind's dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear fission. No pollution. No radioactivity. Super cheap energy.
