/sci/ - Science & Math

>>6945594 (cont)
One of the reasons Einstein's axiomatic approach was preferred over the physical one is that the constancy of the measured two-way speed of light is one assumption, while the existence of an underlying medium and of length contraction and time dilation occuring during motion relative to that medium are two assumptions (or three if we take length contraction and time dilation as separate ones), but one then should wonder if our quest to understand the universe should limit itself to describing and predicting observations and measurements, rather than actually trying to find the physical causes behind what we observe. That it is possible to arrive at the same experimental predictions using only one assumption, which is a consequence of the other two or three, should not make the one assumption the preferred choice when it does not provide a physical mechanism explaining its truth.

The axiomatic approach asks us to stop our questioning and reasoning there, while the physical approach asks us to keep our questioning going further. Why are bodies length contracted and time dilated when in motion relative to the underlying medium in which light propagates? Looking for an answer to this question could lead us to a much, much deeper understanding of the universe. Is everything, light, matter, excitations of this medium? Is there some cyclical process in these excitations that slows down when the excitations are moving relative to the medium, explaining the slow down and time and the origin of time itself? The possible existence of an underlying medium and of everything being excitations of this medium is more than a philosophical question. If it exists, there may be experiments that could be devised to detect it. What is certain is that if we stop asking further questions we will never find further answers, unless we stumble on them by accident when future experimental results turn out to be inconsistent with current theories.

>>6945597 (cont)
If scientists hadn't postulated the existence of atoms that they could not see to explain observations and measurements, they would not have devised experiments to probe their structure, and then I wonder where we would be today technologically and scientifically wise. In the same way, if 20th century scientists had postulated the existence of an underlying medium that they could not see to explain observations and measurements (the constancy of the measured two-way speed of light), they would have devised experiments to probe its nature, and I wonder where we would be today.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that this state of affairs is about to change anytime soon. The practice of science has become almost a religion, in which we must accept what we are taught as absolute truth. When we are able to regurgitate what we are taught correctly, when we can recite theories, theorems, axioms and formulas, then we are deemed talented, good students, even if we don't know anything about the experiments that led to the theories being devised in the first place, even if we don't understand anything about how the universe works. Then these successful students go on to become scientists or teachers. And in a way that is bound to never self-correct, the scientists are not judged by their peers by their ability to understand but by their adhering to what they were taught, while the teachers keep perpetuating what they were taught as absolute truth. People are no more concerned about understanding things deep down. It's all about having a career and religiously accepting what we are told.

I wonder if some of you feel the same about all this

>>6945594
I feel you OP. Here at university all the students care about are the grades. Only way to achieve that is to memorize all the formulas, but disregard the origin since all that matters is the recitation of the formulas on the test. Critical thinking is absent here, people ingest information thrown at them without the slightest bit of inquiry.

It's good if you come up with good question which can be answered.
But at the same time you bring forward an non-positivistic picture of the world and for me I don't see the merit - there are enough things to learn for me, even when taking the concise approach. For now I don't want to make things more complicated than they already are.

>The practice of science has become almost a religion, in which we must accept what we are taught as absolute truth.
No, why? You can do what you want. But what sure happened is that the fields drift more apart as they specialize and you don't get to talk other peoples languages more easily.

I also would not so easily paint a black picture of the current situation - you don't really know how it was before, much of history is deleted, mostly that which worked survived.

Cool fucking story.

>>6946146
Don't shitpost with my name

>>6946193
I won't and that objectively wasn't shitposting and I don't cultivate this shitty behavior. You just went tsundere on me, didn't you

>>6945594
Science often explains why, you must be some failure in STEM. I agree when you say that scientists are fucking weaklings and that the Scientific Collective has become a blind cult. Yeah, I feel you.

>>6946012
>I also would not so easily paint a black picture of the current situation - you don't really know how it was before, much of history is deleted, mostly that which worked survived.

In the past scientists did postulate the existence of atoms that they could not detect, and if they had never made that assumption we wouldn't have the understanding of the universe we have today. Yet in the current situation, especially since the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics, I don't think that can happen again. Scientists see these theories as those unshakable things that shall not be touched, they don't even want to think about trying to find physical mechanisms to explain the axioms at their basis, even though it could very well lead us to a much deeper understanding of the universe. We're just supposed to "shut up and calculate", that's what modern physics has become. The theories work, so shut up and calculate. Learn those formulas, apply them that way, don't try to find what physical processes could be responsible for making them work.

Most scientists today probably don't even know about the experiments that led the theories they are using to be devised in the first place. You can be a successful, recognized scientist, and just know how to apply the theory. It is not about understanding anymore, it is about applying. It isn't about finding causes, it's about describing observations and making accurate predictions. I guess most people don't care about understanding and finding causes, they just want to apply what they learnt by heart, have a successful career, make some good money and their life is fulfilled. I'm just not like that.

>>6946228
>Science often explains why, you must be some failure in STEM
Don't see the logical link between the two, also no I'm not a failure in STEM, I got my diploma and all (equivalent to MSc in the US) which is worthless in my eyes because you can get it without understanding jack shit about the subject.

As to science often explaining why, I would be interested to hear the examples you have in mind.

Usually the 'why' explanations are 'how' explanations thinly disguised, or even plain reifications that do not explain anything. "Why does the object accelerate? Because a force is applied on it" does not explain anything because force is a goddamn concept not a physical entity. "Why does a ball thrown upwards decelerate? Because its kinetic energy is converted into potential energy" is not an explanation either, energy is a goddamn concept as well, the ball decelerates because it just does near a massive body and we don't have any deeper explanation, we're just reiterating the observation that it does just like other objects. Despite a popular belief spacetime in relativity is a concept as well, a tool of thought as Einstein himself put it, not a fucking physical substance or entity actually getting curved, it's a mathematical tool, so there again saying stuff is attracted towards the Sun or the Earth because spacetime is curved is not an explanation, it is a reformulation inside the theoretical framework of general relativity of the observations that stuff is attracted towards them.

>>6946367 (cont)
And same goes pretty much everywhere in physics. Actual explanations are harder to come by. A real explanation would be "Why does a heated gas expand? Because a gas is made of tiny things, molecules, what we sense as heat is a measure of the agitation of these molecules, and so the gas being heated means that the molecules it is made of push harder on each other, which makes them occupy a greater volume". If scientists of the 18th and 19th century were like those we have today they wouldn't have accepted the existence of molecules, they would have considered it a superfluous assumption, and so we would have been left with the law that a heated gas expand and no one would be looking for a further physical explanation as to why this is the case.

>>6945594
>Fundamental theories in physics start from axioms

Nope. Stopped reading. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about kid.

>>6945594

>>6945594
>>6945594

>>6945597
>In fact the constancy of the measured two-way speed of light can be deduced from the idea that light propagates at velocity c relative to a physical medium, and that observers moving at velocity v relative to this medium are length contracted and time dilated by the factor sqrt(1-v^2/c^2).
But there is no physical medium. You are essentially arguing for the "aether" hypothesis which was long ago abandoned because experiments to try to find evidence of this medium failed. The assumption that there is a preferred frame is more baseless and "unphysical" than the assumption that light travels at constant speed. Neither is "axiomatic".

>In the same way, if 20th century scientists had postulated the existence of an underlying medium that they could not see to explain observations and measurements (the constancy of the measured two-way speed of light), they would have devised experiments to probe its nature, and I wonder where we would be today.
But they did, and we are where we are today because they did and found nothing.

>The practice of science has become almost a religion, in which we must accept what we are taught as absolute truth.
This is projection. Those who cling to the "aether" hypothesis despite the evidence are following a religion.

>>6945594
>I don't know enough physics to derive shit
>So I think everything must be axiomatic

>>6945594
>Veiled aether faggotry thread
Are you going to start telling us about how Tesla was the greatest scientist ever?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment

That was one long uneducated shitpost.

>>6945594
You literally have shit for brains.

>>6945594
>axiom ... special relativity...

You are confusing an axiom with an inductive proof Anon. We didn't assume this shit, we observed this shit repeatedly ad infinium.

The same way we obversed that you are a fucking faggot repeatedly, so we conclude with high probably that you are just a faggot. It is basic inductive logic you fucking moron.

>>6946382
>You are essentially arguing for the "aether" hypothesis which was long ago abandoned because experiments to try to find evidence of this medium failed.
You are reiterating the popular account that is simply wrong. Scientists expected light to be measured to travel at different velocities depending on our motion relative to that medium. Experiments found that light's velocity (more precisely it's two-way velocity) was always measured to be the same, which means the motion relative to this medium could not be detected, this does not imply that the medium does not exist.

>The assumption that there is a preferred frame is more baseless and "unphysical" than the assumption that light travels at constant speed. Neither is "axiomatic".
I would be interested to hear your definition of "unphysical". The assumption that there is an absolute frame is the natural, intuitive assumption. If something moves towards us at some velocity V, we intuitively know that if we start moving towards it at the velocity v then it will only be moving towards us at the velocity V-v. And it might just be the case with light, the point is we cannot measure the one-way speed of light, in all experiments all we ever measure is its two-way speed, and that two-way speed can be measured to be constant even if it is not the same on the way out and on the way back. It is axiomatic to postulate that the speed of light is always constant (remember, we do not measure its one-way velocity). It is not axiomatic to show that the constancy of the measured two-way speed of light is a logical consequence of objects being length contracted and time dilated by the factor sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) when moving at velocity v relative to some medium. The existence of such a medium is an hypothesis until it is proven, but its existence allows to provide a plausible physical mechanism explaining why we always measure the two-way speed of light to be constant. The actual postulate-based approach does not.

>>6946375
>>6946377
>>6946380
>>6946384
>>6946385
>>6946388
>>6946389
>>6946391
>>6946409
Here comes the sheeps who don't have a clue.

>>6946437
>You are reiterating the popular account that is simply wrong. Scientists expected light to be measured to travel at different velocities depending on our motion relative to that medium. Experiments found that light's velocity (more precisely it's two-way velocity) was always measured to be the same, which means the motion relative to this medium could not be detected, this does not imply that the medium does not exist.
Of course it implies the medium does not exist. The theory is that light speed is constant relative to the "preferred frame" of stationary either. Therefore light should be measured differently, allowing us to measure the motion of the Earth relative to the aether. However this difference can't be found.

>>6945594

>>6945594
>But what kind of law of nature is this that depends on observers

Holy Shit! you're a goddam idiot.

lrn2Refrenceframe moron. The laws of physics are observer independent. The speed of light is observer independent.

>>6945594
Lay off the philosophy books kid. It is turning your brain to shit.

>>6946293
I must say I don't really understand you two-way speed emphasis, but I guess it's related to how the mirroring in the experiments measure light.
Regardless, I personally have no problem (maybe educated away) with constant speed of light of QM non-intuiveness, so I don't actually feel the need to explain any why here - just correct the faults in that are there and understand the models better. I'm not into phenomenology - shut up and calculate - either, but you want to replace something just because you have a hunch it could be better.
But to that, your claim that people don't think at all about the behinds of theories is just not true. People try to expand some theories in the obvious ways (this are the "uncreative accounts", if you will), see e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_general_relativity
The notion of time in loop quantum gravity is very beautiful, to me, and I also don't blame the people who work out strings since 40 years, the geometry is pretty fine too.
But then there are also more radical approaches like Cellular Automaton approaches to the workings behind the behaviour of the universe etc. I'd say people like Christopher Isham are also creative physicists, who try to apply cool tools to shake some of the foundations.
And
>>6946375
is right, the axioms don't come first for physicists - they use the tools they need (and know of) on the fly, or the good people introduce some.

Related to the thread, but of course not in your spirit, there is a logical treatment of special relativity out there, pretty syntetic, see
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.0973v1.pdf

>>6946471
>Of course it implies the medium does not exist.
It does not, repeating what you've read on some shit website doesn't make it true, all it implies is there is something weird going on because whatever velocity we are moving at towards light we are always measuring its two-way velocity to be the same. Einstein took this as a postulate of his theory and used it to deduce the length contraction and time dilation formulas, but then we wonder why the two-way velocity is always measured to be the same, and that can be deduced in the first place from the length contraction and time dilation formulas. Once again, if objects moving at velocity v relative to the medium are length contracted and time dilated by the factor sqrt(1-v^2/c^2), then we will always measure the two-way speed of light to be constant. This is a proven mathematical fact. The Michelson-Morley experiment does not disprove the existence of the medium, it only shows that there is some unintuitive shit going on with or without a medium. Yet the medium explanation is still far more intuitive.

>>6946488
>The laws of physics are observer independent. The speed of light is observer independent.
Which are postulates of special relativity, nice circular reasoning there. Then ask yourself why the laws of physics are observer independent (in inertial frames), and why the two-way speed of light is observer independent. And don't give me that "science explains how not why" drivel, read the rest of the thread for that.

>>6946526
>MUUH intuitive

Fuck off. You literally have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

>Which are postulates of special reality

No. It is observation dumb-ass. We observed the laws of physics are observer independent.

>>6945594
>crazy rant about a subject he clearly knows nothing about

You are the reason people hate philosophers.

>>6945594
THIS THREAD

Is this one person posting all the reaction images? If you find OP stupid then we participate in this thread - it's obvious he won't change his mind anyway. And on the other hand, it's not like the topic is completely trivial. What you (or you guys) do is sit on the (working) theory of special relativity and from there argue -with one-liners- that everything else is bs. BRAVO

Is this one person posting all the reaction images? If you find OP stupid then why participate in this thread - it's obvious he won't change his mind anyway.
And on the other hand, it's not like the topic is completely trivial.
What you (or you guys) do is sit on the (working) theory of special relativity and from there argue -with one-liners- that everything else is bs. BRAVO

>>6946536
>Fuck off. You literally have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
Nice compelling argument there, please enlighten us more with your intelligence.

>No. It is observation dumb-ass. We observed the laws of physics are observer independent.
Induction is not proof, but indeed that's what scientists observed regarding Newton's mechanics before the advent of relativity. Then Einstein went the extra step and postulated that all physical processes are the same. Whether you like it or not it is a postulate of special relativity. Of course Einstein picked it as a postulate in the first place because observations showed that this seemed to be the case. One of the main points of the thread is, why are all physical processes the same in frames in uniform rectilinear motion relative to each other. Einstein didn't try to find an explanation, in this sense his approach his postulate-based. There is most likely a physical reason why physical processes are the same in frames that are in uniform rectilinear motion, finding the answer could give us deep insights about how the universe works, but the scientific community doesn't care, just like most people do not care about understanding.

>>6946585
>Induction is not proof

Oh look, someone failed babby's first math class.

tl;dr

>>6946590
You are confusing mathematical induction and inductive reasoning, please try again.

>>6945594

>>6945594
>People no longer wonder about or try to find physical mechanisms

[citation needed]

>>6945594
>Baseless assertions
>misconceptions of physics
>MY IDEA IS BETTER than relativity

So much faggotry

>>6946375
This.

STOP. TALKING. ABOUT. AXIOMS.

It's called "models", which them become "theories".

I guess OP has no real relationship with Science, right? You have read some books, seen some documentaries and you have created a mind picture on how Science and scientists Works, Physics in this case.

Well, I am doing my Ph.D. in High Energy Physics Phenomenology and I can say that OP is completely wrong. Thousands of researchers around the world are working trying to understand how the foundations of our current knowledge of Particle Physics could change.

Look for papers in www.arvix.org about "Lorentz violation". You will find thousands of theoretical papers about how Special Relativity could be broken and how we could observe this in experiments.

I am glad that you like Physics and that you think about it, but seriously, the world doesn't work just like you think it does. People have been thinking "outside the box" a long time.

Natural Science *does not work like mathematics*. You make an observation, then you present a model, make predictions, and then check again your model (nowadays most likely ruling it out).

>>6946518
Thank you for the well thought-out reply, one of the few in the whole thread. You're right some people do try to expand theories or come up with alternative explanations, but most of the time these aren't professional scientists, because professional scientists need to publish papers and not have a bad reputation to keep their job, and it just so happens that pretty much all peer-reviewed journals will not publish papers that are contrary to the establishment, no matter how logically sound they are, and that coming up with alternative theories tend to give you the reputation of a crackpot, not always because the alternative theory is less justified, but sometimes only because it is contrary to the held beliefs of the time. Just like that guy who was ridiculed for coming up with the theory of continental drift, "surely the ground can't be moving!" thought the scientific community at the time. Point is there are probably many interesting alternative theories, or theories that aim to explain the physical basis behind the postulates of current mainstream theories, but we don't hear about them because they don't get published in peer-reviewed journals and because they aren't taught anywhere.

I'll check out the paper, it seems worth reading.

>>6946526

Do you even know how Physics works???? Seriously, STOP SPREADING YOUR BULLSHIT AROUND THE INTERNET.

Einstein proposed a model (Special Relativity) and made very clear predictions that have been checked over and over. When one says "laws of Physics are obsverer independent" one really means: "all our observations so far agree with the fact that laws of Physics are observer independent".

Hey, maybe tomorrow an experiment proves that wrong, and that would be pretty fucking exciting!

But stop talking about "circular reasoning" just because you DON'T understand how Science Works.

>>6946643
>You're right some people do try to expand theories or come up with alternative explanations, but most of the time these aren't professional scientists

You are either trolling or retarded at this point.

>>6946643

"Alternative theories" are proposed every fucking day in the research world. But it's easy to understand that they will only be listened to if the person proposing them is a Physicists that know something.

Why the fuck would anybody care about that stuff said by people that don't know the most basic Math and Physics?

>>6946655

You're right. Fuck, maybe I'm just biting.

>>6946643
>MUUU science mafia doesn't allow alternative theories to be published

Nope. It is extremely obvious you have never read a scientific journal. You should pick one up, instead of talking crazy bullshit.

>>6946585
Are you a physical realist or what? I'd say it makes for a simpler and prettier theory. When it works and people like it, people stick with it.
I mean I've also put some thought in having a theory not invariant under all of the diffeomorphism group --- my argument being (or was) that there are an uncountable cardinality of possible transformations and nobody will ever try even countably infinite of them - i.e. "nobody will try to describe the pendulum from some particular spot on the second moon of jupiter, so why does my theory framework demand that I should be able to" --- but while I've trolled some people on StackExchange with that, I'm not serious because that's not some feature which would help anyone.
If there is a problem in high energy and large scale physics, it's that the theories work too good.
And yes, I admit that I'm a theoretist but don't have a clue about the cosmological observations - the experiments - going on that measure what's explained via dark matter. People like to play around with their models if they are pretty - but hey, we only live once and that other shit is not nice to work with.

I also agree with (>>6946655), there are a bizillion papers on different theories published all the time.
Here are 25 papers put up on the arxiv in the physics theory section yesterday
http://arxiv.org/list/hep-th/pastweek?skip=0&show=25
And
>Euclidean Time Formulation for the Superstring Ensembles: Perturbative Canonical Ensemble with Neveu-Schwarz B Field Backgrounds
is not just calculating the 4th order in some standard model cross section expansion.

>>6946652
>Hey, maybe tomorrow an experiment proves that wrong, and that would be pretty fucking exciting!
Sadly that's a little to idealistic. There have been many claims of measurements contrary to the "c is constant" predictions but they usually are attempted to be explained away harshly. On the other hand, if an experiment agrees with the prediction, hardly any work is done to critique it.

>>6946641
>STOP. TALKING. ABOUT. AXIOMS.
That's what they are called, postulates if you like. Anyway the main point is scientists do not work on finding out plausible physical mechanics that makes these postulates true, they only work on building up from them.

>I guess OP has no real relationship with Science, right? You have read some books, seen some documentaries and you have created a mind picture on how Science and scientists Works, Physics in this case.
>Well, I am doing my Ph.D. in High Energy Physics Phenomenology and I can say that OP is completely wrong.
Great I have a MSc, could have gone for a PhD but by then I was already too disgusted by the whole state of affairs. I know well enough about the research environment, the publish or perish pressure, the censoring of ideas that do not fit the establishment, PhD students and postdocs doing the inane shit that the main researcher in the group doesn't want to do, ...

Admittedly I do not know much about the standard model, but like the others it is postulate-based and I see no reason why scientists working on it would act any different than those working on general relativity or quantum mechanics. Of course special relativity can be broken, it wouldn't be a scientific theory if it weren't falsifiable by modern thinking. Then once they find an experiment that falsifies it, they'll come up with a modified theory with slightly different postulates at its basis, and no lesson will have been learnt, they still won't be looking for any plausible physical mechanism responsible for making these postulates true, while had they done it in the first place they would have probably been able to falsify it a long time ago.

What are you working on? Do you know to what physical reality refer the mathematical constructs you are manipulating every day, or have you given up on that long ago? The theory works so who cares right, shut and up and calculate.

>>6946691
>There have been many claims of measurements contrary to the "c is constant" predictions, but they usually are attempted to be explained away harshly

[citation needed]

Do you not remember that Neutrino claim a few years back? There was no "harsh" explanation, there was a legit scientific debate, until the answer was found and agreed upon. That is how science is done.

>>6946700
>I have a MSc
>I don't know basic shit about science

>>6946700
> I have a MSc

>>6946700
>provided with actually evidence of people looking for alternative theories and physical mechanism for shit

>continues to pretend it they don't exists and insist no one is looking for this shit

>>6946700

I'm working in Composite Higgs models.

I'm sorry, I really think whatever I will not be able to change your mind - nor you to change mind - so I'll spare myself the suffering of trying to know what you mean by "physical reality making the postulates true".

Model. Predictions. Check model.

It's not true that changes are small. Quantum Mechanics was a huge breaking with Classical Mechanics. Wtf, Bohr even proposed abadoning conservation of Energy because of the beta decay spectrum problem.

>>6946744
>responded seriously to /x/ thread
You deserved it.

>>6946700
>provided with a ton of actually evidence of people looking for alternative theories and physical mechanism for shit

>continues to pretend this isn't happening

>>6946747
Whatever I say*.

>>6945594
>people no longer wonder about or try to find physical mechanisms

>>6946652
You clearly have understood nothing about my post, but you can read it again.

>>6946657
You don't have a clue

>>6946657
Read my post again. Most physicists don't think about alternative theories because all they know is to apply what they were taught, and for those who think outside the box, well it doesn't always end well.

>>6946666
Sure have, keep on with your bullshit by all means. I have actually spoken with a physicist who had to heavily edit a paper before the referees agreed to publish it, because it contained perfectly reasonable speculation that went against the dogma of the field, and I have heard of many similar accounts. Unfortunately you cannot hope to understand if you are yourself prisoner of these dogma, when you religiously believe in something it is evident to you that any claim that goes against that belief is wrong. You do not even realize that it is a belief, it is something that you were taught to accept by teachers who didn't know better during your scientific education.

Anyway I'm not there to fight you all, I remembered /sci/ was shit but I didn't remember it was that full of narrow-minded fucks, who will believe anything they read on a Wikipedia article or in a popsci article while not being able to value logical arguments that go against their beliefs. You are part of the reason why the situation I described will not change, but can't ask too much of you, especially not on /sci/.

>>6946761
>gibberish

>>6946747
>I'm sorry, I really think whatever I will not be able to change your mind
This mere statement shows that you are not even able to see what I am talking about.

>I'll spare myself the suffering of trying to know what you mean by "physical reality making the postulates true"
Read my original posts, that will give you clue. Or don't what do I care.

>Model. Predictions. Check model.
Model: two-way velocity of light constant in all inertial frames. Predictions: this and this and that. Check model: model agrees with predictions. Everyone's happy, so apparently the model is correct. Why is the two-way velocity of light constant in all inertial frames? Who cares right! Then you're gonna tell me that bullshit about how "science explains how not why", repeating it like some sort of prayer, and you will still not get it.

>>6946761
>most physicist don't think about alternative theories

Nope. The majority of physicists majority get their Phds in areas related to alternative models. And the majority of physicists publish papers related to alternative models.

>>6946781
>>6946761
Try harder kid

>>6946761
>Most physicists don't think about alternative theories
That's not even true.
Special relativity is just not considered something to be in need of any alternatives. It has been tested and verified to an incredible degree. Your problem is much rather just your understanding of the theory/scientific method as used by physicists in general. If some flaw is found in SR, then I can assure you, there are already a bunch of alternatives ready to be compared with whatever new result came up.

>>6946796

>>6946783
>The majority of physicists majority get their Phds in areas related to alternative models
source needed

>the majority of physicists publish papers related to alternative models.
source needed

Anyway you probably have a different interpretation of 'alternative', I'm not talking about tiny variations around what's already in the mainstream. Examples of assumptions in cosmology are that the redshift of galaxies is due to the expansion of the universe, and that the cosmic microwave background radiation comes from the Big Bang. These assumptions are not at all proven, but I doubt you'll find much if any physicists working on alternative assumptions.

>>6946800
>>6946793
>>6946790
>>6946768
>>6946751
>>6946726
>>6946719
>>6946655
samefag

>>6946711
>[citation needed]
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#Experiments_not_consistent_with_SR

>Do you not remember that Neutrino claim a few years back?
Made a presentation on it when I applied for my current position
kek

>>6946796
>That's not even true.
Prove it. Pick 10 random journals. Pick 10 random papers in each. How many are about alternative theories, surely not "most".

>Special relativity is just not considered something to be in need of any alternatives.
Did I say it was?

>It has been tested and verified to an incredible degree.
Did I say it wasn't?

>Your problem is much rather just your understanding of the theory/scientific method as used by physicists in general.
I know perfectly well about the scientific method as practiced in the scientific community.

>If some flaw is found in SR, then I can assure you, there are already a bunch of alternatives ready to be compared with whatever new result came up.
Sure there are test theories of SR to check its experimental predictions. But ffs did you even read the thread?

>>6946691
>Here are 25 papers put up on the arxiv in the physics theory section yesterday
>http://arxiv.org/list/hep-th/pastweek?skip=0&show=25
And many of the arxiv papers do not get published in peer-reviewed journals.

>>6946841
You know what, fuck you. I don't even know what your fucking problem is. You sound like some bitch standing in a traffic jam asking why we can't go on. Fuck you, if you can't do anything about it yourself or even formulate any constructive, concrete criticism, then shut the fuck up. We're really trying here, you know.

>>6946849
Your being trolled

>>6946834
>>6946820
>>6945594

>>6946834
>Pick 10 random journals. Pick 10 random papers in each

Just did, 87/100 were about alternative theories.

>>6946834
>I know perfectly well about the scientific method as practiced in the scientific community.

No you really really don't. It is laughable. Your trolling is obvious kid.

>>6946881
So what is it, disinformedness or trolling?

>>6946888
Those aren't mutually exclusive things.

>>6946849
Trying what, to call me a troll and insult me? You sure succeeded in that. It all started from a good intention on my part, I think a lot about a lot of things, I thought I would share one of my reflections with /sci/, obviously this was not a good idea. The aether model is one of those things that is ridiculed by many inside the scientific community, because it is seen as that thing from the past before Einstein came over and supposedly ruled it out, yet in a modified way it is consistent with all experimental tests of special and general relativity while making slightly different predictions. But apparently it is kind of taboo, you cannot mention it in a paper that is to be published in a peer-reviewed journal unless you make it abundantly clear that you absolutely do not think the medium might be physical, that it is only a conceptual tool. And yet it works, and yet it can explain some of the postulates of special and general relativity (which are called postulates whatever anyone around here says).

I think we could get a deeper understanding of the universe by coming up with plausible physical processes that can explain why the postulates at the basis of theories such as special and general relativity are true, for instance why do we measure the two-way speed of light to be constant in inertial frames. I gave an historical precedent supporting this idea, that in the 18th and 19th century scientists did assume matter was made of atoms and molecules they could not detect, and that this helped progress our understanding of the natural world.

I thought we could discuss all that, but no that's not what this board is about. You all went apeshit on me for having an opinion that doesn't agree with the shit you've read on Wikipedia. Well fuck yourself.

>>6945594
>But what kind of law of nature is this that depends on observers, what if we want to know why all inertial observers measure the two-way speed of light to be the same, what is the physical explanation behind it?
It is called symmetry. Pick up a book on manifolds (or a pre-algebra book and work your way up), and then you wont stop asking stupid questions. You have go to do the work OP, or you will just keep sounding like a faggot.

>>6946931
Sure tell me about symmetry, tell me about Noether's theorem and so on. A symmetry is not a physical explanation, it is only a reformulation of what we observe. We observe (and assume) that some law of physics is the same everywhere in space, and then a fancy way of reformulating it is to say that a physical system governed by this law is invariant with respect to spatial translation. By reformulating it in this way you haven't explained anything more, it only serves to make you feel smart and to prove my point further.

>>6946971
>>6946928

>symmetry is not a physical explanation

>>6946971
>>6946928

>>6946971

>>6946971
>A symmetry is not a physical explanation

>>6945594
kek'ed

>>6946985
>>6946992
>>6946995
>>6946997
>>6947001
obvious samefag is obvious

>>6947017
>>6947017
>>6947001
samefag is philfag

>>6947017
>>6946995
>>6945594

>>6946971
Why would I try to tell you about Noether's thm? You were a faggot when you started this thread and you will remain a faggot throughout your life. Your faggotry does not vary in relation to space or time. How is that for a physical example of symmetry?

>>6947033
Lel @ you confirming his point by using symmetry merely as a linguistic tool to describe observations but without any explanatory value.

Go back to your pop sci youtube videos, kid, and leave science to those who fully understand what they're doing.

>>6947038
>>6945594
Nice same troll!

>>6947038
>symmetry
>linguistic tool
Go back to your philosophy class. Leave the science to those who have actually done real math.

>>6947038
>implying OP understands science

>>6945594

>>6947038
Kek Le epic trolling!112!1

>>6947033
You made me chuckle. Enjoy your inferiority complex, bye mate. Hope life's not too hard on you

>>6945594
>>6945597
>>6945598
>>6946971
>>6946928

A+ Trolling OP

8/10

>>6947055
>physicist
>thinks he's doing "real math"

My lels are in orbit. Tell me more about your handwaving.

>>6947066
I'm not your mate guy.

>>6947067
Your welcome

>>6947069
I'm not you guy mate

>>6947068
If it was not for advances in physics math would have remained stagnant. You are welcome.

>>6947038
Lel @ you thinking you know what you are talking about

>>6947078
>>6947068
>>6945594

>>6947078
I'm sure that's the reason why all the math was developed BEFORE physics plebs started applying it.

>>6947084
It was those physics plebs that asked questions and created new math to answer them. Poincare much.

>>6947090
Poincare was a mathematician.

>>6947094
And a physicist.

>>6947094
>>6947100
Both are wrong, for it was and has always been the astronomer that has always moved science forward.

>>6945594

>>6947107
It was an ART fellow Oldfag.

>>6947107
I'm so old I taught the dinosaurs to stay away from humans.

What exactly is your point? That there could be deeper fundamental laws of physics that conspire to produce what we see now? If that were so, they would produce observable artifacts at higher and higher energy scales and our current theories would break down. We would then come up with a better theory to explain the new observations, which with a low energy and big distance limit would recover the old models as effective field theories. That's called 'experimental physics'. Are you mentally retarded?

>>6946820
>http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#Experiments_not_consistent_with_SR

"None of these experiments come anywhere close to making a convincing case that they are valid and refute SR. "

Try harder kid. At least read what you try to source next time.

>>6947124
Aether please go

>>6947124
Did you teach OP how to be a fucking failure?

>>6947132
A hundred ways to explain but only one Lucifer to know.

>>6947134
I taught OP for I am OP. I believe and am interpreted as I wish to be. You know Troll Yoda when you see him now.

>>6945594
Well. I enjoyed reading. Thx.

I am kinda shocked at all the vitriol directed at OP. At no time did he actually say aether was a legit focus for scientific funding, he used it as an example of a possibilty underlying our reality.

Meanwhile elsewhere on /sci/ there is a thread on large anal dildos that to now was 13 replies.

I actually find these types of debates (in THIS thread :) enjoyable and a mass of 'troll' 'retard' 'gtfo ' one liners is in itself retarded, and really detracts from the flow of the debate.

I am sure you are all far more intelligent than I am, however, the one liners do kinda disrespect yourselves, 0/10 for etiquette.

>>6946820
>>6947128
You're just mindlessly quoting me linking it, nevermind that it's coming from a conversation where I argue pro-relativity. It's a source pointing out experiments against the Einstein theory - I didn't judge them one way or the other.

This is the worst thread on 4chan right now, and that's with the current state of /pol/.
Sorry OP, you'll have to try this in an imageboard not infested by /b/.

>>6946370
Except that's the thing, we're trying to explain things down to their most base components, hence the LHC.

As we are now, we're pretty sure that we need evidence to go any further.