Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427314.400-rethinking-relativity-is-time-out-of-joint.html

by dimas • 17 years ago

14 6 17 years ago

fnid2• 17 years ago

Science is just what we can't yet prove to be wrong through observation. In other words, what we believe about the universe is only true because it works within the limits of our observation. If we could observe better, we would find that what we believe is not true -- not perfectly true -- it's merely true enough.

This happens over and over again, yet people still believe science and theories are facts. They aren't really facts in the sense that they are perfect, they are facts in that there isn't something more perfect -- yet.

We thought the world was flat, then we observed orbits. We thought orbits were round, then we found ellipses. We thought gravity was constant.

You know, when I think about constants, I think they are really just a number we put in there to compensate for the range of realities that we can't measure. The gravitational constant isn't really a constant, it's part of the fluid and movable function that comprises the portion of the numbers we can't observe yet. There is a lot of change going on in there that we can't detect or believe to be wrong. That 9.8 meters per second squared actually changes while the objects are moving, yet 9.8 is good enough.

That's what science is: good enough.

ktf• 17 years ago

Well said.

Still though, it's always exciting to know we're approaching that next level of good-enough-ness.

nollidge• 17 years ago

I think you leave off an important point about science though: that there isn't anything better.

It's perpetually incomplete, but it's more complete than any other "way of knowing", and there's always more being added. It doesn't have perfect facts, but it's got the best ones, and they're always improving. It is indeed merely good enough, but it's the best of what we have, and always getting better.

randallsquared• 17 years ago

Would you assert that there is no final truth, or only that we can never know if we've found it?

fnid2• 17 years ago

There is a final truth, I believe. Doesn't mean the truth won't change. There's nothing in science that says something can't come from nothing, so something could just ... come to exist that would change everything.

I'm agnostic about human knowledge of truth.

TrevorJ• 17 years ago

"Science is just what we can't yet prove to be wrong through observation."

There is a lot that falls into that category that most people don't consider to be science.

Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?

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