Over-complication of science

[Efbe]

So I was watching something about the expansion of the universe, and it was supposedly discovered that by looking at a certain type of dying star the universe is expanding at an increasing rate rather than decreasing as would have been expected using our current laws of gravity. Which apparently means there must be Dark Matter and Dark Energy throughout our universe and everything we know about that has never before been detected or known about or observed in any way shape or form…*.

…Whoah hold on there cowboy. Just because one measurement wasn’t quite what you expected you have now come up with a completely over the top and (IMO) ridiculous explanation. Isn’t it far more likely that you have just done it wrong, missed something out, or you are basing your hypothesis on something a little wrong?

Now it’s not just this example, multiple universes, anti-matter, time travel, particles being in several locations at one time, black holes, quantum entanglement, and I’m sure there are plenty more all seem a bit far-fetched. They all seem over-dramatic and complicated ways of explaining an unexpected result.

Many of them also seem to point towards the fact that star-trek is the inevitable future of humanity and we will all be flying around in USS Enterprises in tight spandex suits. I am not suggesting there is a correlation between the science community and the kids of school that spent too much time watching star-trek… but I’m just saying.

Could it be self-justifying scientists trying to earn money? Could it be scientists being self-centred, thinking they have the definitive answer? Or could it just be I am talking a load of balls?


*Facts may well be exaggerated or not even correct, don’t let that take away from what I am trying to convey

[Gene Vincent]

You've been watching TV again haven't you!

TV needs 'WOO' in Science, if you want to learn nothing of consequence that could be encapsulated in 10 minutes then TV is your medium.

Or you could stick around the Science! area and spend hours having you brain fried, sliced, diced and served back to you cold... but you'd know a damned sight more.

The Chrystal Bucket that is filled with vomit chundered forth from fame seekers is no substitute for real knowledge.

[AlfaFoxtrot]

Hubble first found (almost 100 years ago now) that EVERY distant star was receding from us, and that their velocity was proportional to distance, i.e. the expansion of the universe is accelerating. There is shed loads of data for this, not just one observation! And dark energy is by definition a fuzzy concept, no-one knows what it actually is. That's fine, as science will eventually take its course by physical evidence discounting or reinforcing the various hypotheses. Gravity is the only force known to hold stuff together over large distances, so if the expansion is accelerating then I don't think it's a great leap to suggest that there must be something powering this.

"Now it’s not just this example, multiple universes, anti-matter, time travel, particles being in several locations at one time, black holes, quantum entanglement, and I’m sure there are plenty more all seem a bit far-fetched. They all seem over-dramatic and complicated ways of explaining an unexpected result."

Quantum entanglement and anti matter have been proven in the lab To be fair, almost everything 'quantum' sounds far too weird and outlandish to be real...Black holes are also definitely there, there is 'something' with a huge gravitational field, and also spewing out an awful lot of radiation. What you read on Wikipedia is what has been determined from empirical evidence, although there is still a lot of conjecture about some of their properties. Peoples' imagination and sci-fi probably lead to an over exaggerated view of them as galactic whirlpools though!

New Scientist, Horizon etc. do like to make a fuss of a big 'new theory', and these can seem overly complicated/not based on much. I think that's as much trying to sell copies/get viewers - real world presentations on string theory etc. are rather less dramatic Although I do agree that it can seem theoreticians like to invent new dimensions to make calculations more convenient and you end up with these crazy concepts, but that's theoreticians for you! Although I don't know how if you could come up with a theory stranger than quantum...

[PeanutHead]

Is a black hole like a tardis?
Small on the outside yet vast on the inside, i remembeer watch MIB and the cat had a whole universe in a little ball on it's collar.
I remember this a bit back,
http://htwins.net/scale/
What if the whole of space is like the smallest of that scale an it goes much much much bigger, what if size was looked at a different way (as in time decay) would that make a difference on scaleing everything?

[Eric Mc]

Science can be complicated anyway. The more we look into things, the more odd and complex matters appear to be.

At its heart, science is the observation of nature. If nature is complicated, then the science that explains that nature will also be complicated.

[Hugo a Gogo]

seems to me the 'every thing moving away from us' explanation should be pretty simple

imagine that the big bang created billions and billions of 'balls of space' (or space/time, I suppose)
imagine a big kids' ball pool, jammed together, but with infinite room to expand

now imagine that each of those balls is expanding, pushing its neighbours away

from the point of view of any single ball, they are all moving away, the furthest away ones are moving the fastest

simple, give me my TV show

[Eric Mc]

Only if you can explain all that using a teapot, pastry plate and a sugar bowl.

[Hugo a Gogo]

replace ball pools with a scullery (or whatever that room they are stored in is called) of infinite size

imagine all those pots, bowls and plates are expanding...

[Simpo Two]

Or, unless you are talking to 5-year olds, you could just tell them that the stars are moving away from each other, and leave pool tables, sculleries and plates out of it. Much simpler I think.

In fact even in the case of a 5-year old I would rather try to tell them what a star was, then fill their head with bunkum about plates and cups.

[anonymous-user]

My ignorance of science is what makes me pick up books I find almost impossible to understand. Then those books lead me to read other books to help me understand the first books.

It's all about the desire to learn and understand. TV is great for a general overview but it's nothing like reading The Elegant Universe - my latest reading struggle

[Terminator X]

Efbe said:

Many of them also seem to point towards the fact that star-trek is the inevitable future of humanity and we will all be flying around in USS Enterprises in tight spandex suits. I am not suggesting there is a correlation between the science community and the kids of school that spent too much time watching star-trek… but I’m just saying.

Un-likely any time soon though I read Judge Dredd as a kid and there should have been mutants everywhere by 2000 AD ...

TX.

[Simpo Two]

garyhun said:

My ignorance of science is what makes me pick up books I find almost impossible to understand. Then those books lead me to read other books to help me understand the first books.

It's all about the desire to learn and understand. TV is great for a general overview but it's nothing like reading The Elegant Universe - my latest reading struggle

I certainly can't compete with some people here but I can wipe the floor with most 'normal' people. My science started with a cross section of a bunsen burner, the periodic table of the elements, a drawing of an amoeba and some copper sulphate solution. And up you go from there (though I was never good at maths).

The problem many people have, it seems, is that they want to go from (a) nothing at all to (b) theoretical physics in one go. A ladder is required and it takes years to climb it.

[Hugo a Gogo]

Simpo Two said:

Or, unless you are talking to 5-year olds, you could just tell them that the stars are moving away from each other, and leave pool tables, sculleries and plates out of it. Much simpler I think.

In fact even in the case of a 5-year old I would rather try to tell them what a star was, then fill their head with bunkum about plates and cups.

it isn't just stars moving away from each other though, it's space itself expanding in all directions at once

[Efbe]

Well I got about the response I expected. My knowledge of the areas I listed are not fantastic, some much better than others, and some (such as quantum entanglement) almost nil.

What I am more talking about is human nature I suppose. When someone see's a dust particle through a camera the first reaction is not, oh there's a dust particle reflecting light from the flash, it's "oh my god there is a ghost from another dimension come to drain my soul" or some other such nonsense.
In a similar vein, when the CERN results first came back, instead of just saying, hang on this is quite new science, maybe we measured it wrong, the response was the particles are jumping between dimensions to get there quicker.

Now I'm not saying all of these theories are wrong, but what I am saying is if to validate a measurement you have taken you have to create a new type of energy. Given that this measurement was of something we know very little about, would it not be more plausible that we just don't know why yet, or more likely that it's been done wrong.

[Eric Mc]

If you don't speculate, you don't come up with possible explanations. You have to start somewhere.

[The Black Flash]

Efbe said:

Well I got about the response I expected. My knowledge of the areas I listed are not fantastic, some much better than others, and some (such as quantum entanglement) almost nil.

What I am more talking about is human nature I suppose. When someone see's a dust particle through a camera the first reaction is not, oh there's a dust particle reflecting light from the flash, it's "oh my god there is a ghost from another dimension come to drain my soul" or some other such nonsense.
In a similar vein, when the CERN results first came back, instead of just saying, hang on this is quite new science, maybe we measured it wrong, the response was the particles are jumping between dimensions to get there quicker.

Now I'm not saying all of these theories are wrong, but what I am saying is if to validate a measurement you have taken you have to create a new type of energy. Given that this measurement was of something we know very little about, would it not be more plausible that we just don't know why yet, or more likely that it's been done wrong.

Have you heard of Occam's Razor?
Basically, it's what you are saying, and should be a central test of new theories.
That's not to say that people shouldn't speculate in terms of hypotheses of course, as long as they're testable

I'll confess to still not being sold on Dark Matter, yet. But it does fit the observations, so far.

[Efbe]

The Black Flash said:

Have you heard of Occam's Razor?
Basically, it's what you are saying, and should be a central test of new theories.
That's not to say that people shouldn't speculate in terms of hypotheses of course, as long as they're testable

I'll confess to still not being sold on Dark Matter, yet. But it does fit the observations, so far.

I hadn't heard of it, but have now

I also agree that coming with any possible hypothesis and eliminating those you can is a good plan, and it is tougher if you are unable to corroborate the hypothesis. However there are also other hypothesis that are equally as wild that would fit the observations, or the much simpler explanation that the measured it incorrectly, or have based their assumptions on something wrong.

Anyhow, that is to say I am unsold on dark matter, multi dimensional theory, and am only half sold on some of the theories coming from time-dilation; I think there is something being missed there.

[hairykrishna]

Efbe said:

In a similar vein, when the CERN results first came back, instead of just saying, hang on this is quite new science, maybe we measured it wrong, the response was the particles are jumping between dimensions to get there quicker.

Assuming you're talking about the faster than light neutrinos, every physicist I spoke to assumed it was a subtle measurement error. The team involved published the minute details of everything in order to let outside people work out where the error was. There may have been disproportionate media coverage of some over excited theorists but that wasn't most peoples reaction by any stretch of the imagination.

[TheHeretic]

Krause used a very good diagram to explain why no matter where you sphere in the universe, stuff would look like it was expanding away from you. It also explains how things that are 2 times as far from you are going twice as fast, and so on.

Edited by TheHeretic on Tuesday 28th August 16:07

[Gene Vincent]

But there is a 'ghost'... it's called Lights Alpha or the Fine Structure Constant.

For that little conundrum we desperately need another Einstein...