New Scientist has an article on thirteen things that do not make sense in science. Historically, such paradoxes have provided the impetus for new discoveries. The most notable examples are the Michelson-Morley null experiment (leading to special relativity), the unexpected blackbody radiation spectrum (leading to the quantum hypothesis), and the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury (leading to general relativity).
1. The placebo effect
2. The cosmological horizon problem
3. Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
4. Belfast homeopathy results
5. Dark matter
6. Viking's discovery methane on Mars
7. Tetraneutrons
8. The Pioneer anomaly
9. Dark energy
10. The Kuiper cliff
11. The "Wow" signal
12. Not-so-constant constants
13. Cold fusion
[Thanks to DVD for the link]
Monday, March 21, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Superstrings <> Cosmic Strings
I have seen this article twice today, so I thought I'd make a quick post about it.
Could two lookalike galaxies, barely a whisker apart in the night sky, herald a revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics? Some physicists believe that the two galaxies are the same - its image has been split into two, they maintain, by a "cosmic string." If this interpretation is correct, then CSL-1 - the name of the curious double galaxy - is the first concrete evidence for "superstring theory": the best candidate for a "theory of everything", which attempts to encapsulate all the phenomena of nature in one neat set of equations.
Not sure why the author of this article switched from "cosmic strings" to "superstrings" without a word of explanation, but these two concepts are completely unrelated. Superstrings are the extension of Quantum Field Theory of point particles to one-dimensional "strings," a theory which leads to highly speculative predictions about a 10 dimensional universe and may succeed in unifying quantum field theory with classical General Relativity. Cosmic strings are astronomical objects described by the rules of classical general relativity. The two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/ask/a11828.html
Could two lookalike galaxies, barely a whisker apart in the night sky, herald a revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics? Some physicists believe that the two galaxies are the same - its image has been split into two, they maintain, by a "cosmic string." If this interpretation is correct, then CSL-1 - the name of the curious double galaxy - is the first concrete evidence for "superstring theory": the best candidate for a "theory of everything", which attempts to encapsulate all the phenomena of nature in one neat set of equations.
Not sure why the author of this article switched from "cosmic strings" to "superstrings" without a word of explanation, but these two concepts are completely unrelated. Superstrings are the extension of Quantum Field Theory of point particles to one-dimensional "strings," a theory which leads to highly speculative predictions about a 10 dimensional universe and may succeed in unifying quantum field theory with classical General Relativity. Cosmic strings are astronomical objects described by the rules of classical general relativity. The two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/ask/a11828.html
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