I posted yesterday about the news out of CERN regarding what is now 16,000 observations that appear to show neutrinos traveling at about 106% of the speed of light. The reaction here, and elsewhere was that there must be an error in the calibration of the equipment. The news conference formally announcing the results was held this morning and the paper describing them published. Ars Technica points out that the paper clear about the objections […]
Whoa. Special Relativity works very well. Very, very well. And it is based on an axiomatic statement based on a mountain of observational, experimental evidence that the speed of light is a universal constant. And that because of that, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. So, if these results reported by the BBC this morning are true, it’s just whoa. Whoa, man, whoa. “Dr Ereditato and his colleagues prepare a beam of […]
One of the basic tenets of Science is expressed in Occam’s Razor; the simplest complete explanation for a phenomenon is the best one. (Doctors have a version of this in diagnosis: “If you see hoof prints in Central Park, think horses, not zebras”.) It was the application of Occam’s Razor that led philosophers at the beginning of the Renaisance (there weren’t really scientists as we know them now back then) to agree that Copernicus’ idea […]
The fundamental postulate of relativistic physics is that there is no possible way to claim that one inertial observer’s observations are more correct than another’s. All the wonderful paradoxical thinking of relativity really grows out of that condition. And that idea was the key to Einstein’s ability to explain the failure of the Michaelson-Morley experiment to detect the ether. The most elegant way to express the idea is to posit as axiomatic that there is […]
It’s hard to get a sense that we’re standing on a sphere hurtling through space and spinning rapidly around a central axis. I know it’s true but looking up at the sky, I mostly imagine a bowl slowly rotating over my head. But on a summer night, particularly out here in the West, and back east on one of the many back bays along the shore, looking out at the summer sky and seeing the […]
Here’s an interesting idea. Apparently there’s a company in the US that is about to release a small power generating device capable of providing up to 250 megawatts of power in a 500 pound unit small enough to fit in the engine compartment of a car. The device uses Thorium, a relatively common rare-earth element. The US leads the world in thorium reserves. “The key to the system developed by inventor Charles Stevens, CEO and […]
Why is the Earth so different than Venus? Both planets are roughly the same size, and both exist within what is known as the “Life Zone” in the solar system. (The Life Zone is the region of solar space where it’s possible for liquid water to be found on the surface of a planet.) I used to ask that question every semester when I got to the section on planetology in an Astronomy course, and […]
I’ve talked before about the fundamental issue of the behavior of a system near the quantum/classical regime boundary. Simple systems on a small scale are dominated by quantum mechanical characteristics. Large numbers of particles considered on a larger length scale act classically. It’s not at all clear how to think about the boundary or transition from quantum behavior to classical behavior. Back when I was in grad school studying out of Merzbacker’s text, the suggestion […]
One of the basic tenents of Special Relativity is that the speed of light (a self-propagating electro-magnetic wave) is a universal constant for all observers. That’s what makes all the neat reference frame trickery work. It’s why it’s a fundamental property of relativity that there is no absolute reference frame and simultaneity is relative. The thing about this idea though is that it didn’t come from a theoretical background. It came by observation. No matter […]
According to physics lore, it was Albert Einstein who coined the term “spooky action at a distance” as perjoritive description to be applied to systems which seemed to exhibit behaviors that were not explainable by direct causal means. Direct causal means? For example. Imagine you’re standing up holding a bright red rubber ball at arm’s length in front of you. What would happen if you let go of the ball? It would fall down, right? […]
