Is Relatively "Settled Science"?

[CrusaderFrank]

i mean Jeez Louise! It's over 100 fricking years old! Why are we bothering to test the orbit of a star around the Supermassive Black Hole in Sag A? It's a waste of money, time, effort and electrons.

We have Consensus!

Science = Settled

 

[occupied]

Practically nothing about physics is settled until a workable grand unified theory that ties together classical physics and quantum physics is formulated. Maybe in a few hundred more years?

 

[fncceo]

97.5% of all United Nations member scientists think Relativity (General and Special) is cool as balls.

Consensus equals fact.

 

[mamooth]

According to Frank-standards, since nothing is settled science, gravity isn't settled science, and therefore we can't do anything based on our knowledge of gravity. No rockets, no airplanes, not even buildings, not even walking.

Obviously, Frank's standards are _deeply_ stupid.

Non-morons, they understand that "settled" doesn't mean "every last detail is known". You don't have to know exactly how smoking causes every case of cancer to know that "smoking causes cancer" is settled science.

 

[watchingfromafar]

Personally I don't believe science can/could ever be settled. Science is an everlasting search for what's next before the next arrives
just my view
-

 

[watchingfromafar]

You don't have to know exactly how smoking causes every case of cancer to know that "smoking causes cancer" is settled science.

some people who smoke may get some form of cancer.
some people who don't smoke may get some form of cancer.
& that is unsettling
-

 

[Damaged Eagle]

It's about time for a major physics breakthrough even if it only gives us the solar system.

Though giving us the nearby stars out to fifty to a hundred light years would be even better.

*****CHUCKLE*****

 

[percysunshine]

97.5% of all United Nations member scientists think Relativity (General and Special) is cool as balls.

Consensus equals fact.

There was a time when the consensus held the sun orbited the earth.

 

[fncceo]

97.5% of all United Nations member scientists think Relativity (General and Special) is cool as balls.

Consensus equals fact.

There was a time when the consensus held the sun orbited the earth.

It doesn't?!

 

[fncceo]

Personally I don't believe science can/could ever be settled. Science is an everlasting search for what's next before the next arrives
just my view
-

Science is a process and it continues on indefinitely. What we 'know' today will be very different from what we 'know' tomorrow.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

According to Frank-standards, since nothing is settled science, gravity isn't settled science, and therefore we can't do anything based on our knowledge of gravity. No rockets, no airplanes, not even buildings, not even walking.

Obviously, Frank's standards are _deeply_ stupid.

Non-morons, they understand that "settled" doesn't mean "every last detail is known". You don't have to know exactly how smoking causes every case of cancer to know that "smoking causes cancer" is settled science.

Yet we continue to test Relativity which has passed every single test, every time.

Why don't physicists call people Relativity Deniers for wanting to test it?

 

[fncceo]

According to Frank-standards, since nothing is settled science, gravity isn't settled science, and therefore we can't do anything based on our knowledge of gravity. No rockets, no airplanes, not even buildings, not even walking.

Obviously, Frank's standards are _deeply_ stupid.

Non-morons, they understand that "settled" doesn't mean "every last detail is known". You don't have to know exactly how smoking causes every case of cancer to know that "smoking causes cancer" is settled science.

Yet we continue to test Relativity which has passed every single test, every time.

Why don't physicists call people Relativity Deniers for wanting to test it?

Because the existence or absence of Relativity isn't going to get you Billions in tax dollars and unlimited authority to reshape society.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

According to Frank-standards, since nothing is settled science, gravity isn't settled science, and therefore we can't do anything based on our knowledge of gravity. No rockets, no airplanes, not even buildings, not even walking.

Obviously, Frank's standards are _deeply_ stupid.

Non-morons, they understand that "settled" doesn't mean "every last detail is known". You don't have to know exactly how smoking causes every case of cancer to know that "smoking causes cancer" is settled science.

Yet we continue to test Relativity which has passed every single test, every time.

Why don't physicists call people Relativity Deniers for wanting to test it?

Because the existence or absence of Relativity isn't going to get you Billions in tax dollars and unlimited authority to reshape society.

"We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy," -- IPCC

 

[mamooth]

Why don't physicists call people Relativity Deniers for wanting to test it?

The ones who fake all their data _are_ called relativity deniers.

You cult fakes all of its data, so you're called global warming deniers.

Honest people aren't called deniers. Chronic liars are.

 

[Wuwei]

i mean Jeez Louise! It's over 100 fricking years old! Why are we bothering to test the orbit of a star around the Supermassive Black Hole in Sag A? It's a waste of money, time, effort and electrons.

We have Consensus!

Science = Settled

For a long time Newton's theory was accurate enough to predict everything about the orbits of planets .... except for a tiny discrepancy in Mercury's orbit. (The very slight rotation of it's perihelion.) Relativity explained that.

The star around the black hole in Sag A is very similar. With that increasingly accurate test of relativity will there be a small discrepancy in orbit? If the orbit around Sag A does not follow relativity, there will be a profound change in the science of gravity.
.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Science is a process and it continues on indefinitely. What we 'know' today will be very different from what we 'know' tomorrow.

Sometimes. I doubt very much we will, for instance, find out hydrogen has 100 protons instead of 1.

 

[fncceo]

Science is a process and it continues on indefinitely. What we 'know' today will be very different from what we 'know' tomorrow.

Sometimes. I doubt very much we will, for instance, find out hydrogen has 100 protons instead of 1.

Probably not. But, we will someday learn more about how an universe that once consisted almost entirely of nothing but Hydrogen became everything we know exists today and much more we don't know exists.

 

[Picaro]

When one bases all measurements on the premise that the speed of light is constant and therefore the only viable frame of empirical reference, then one will nearly always get results that conform to that frame of reference. Einstein wasn't satisfied with his theory, which is why he kept moving on to trying to apply fifth and sixth degree equations to physical problems. Few mathematicians care any more, and most research is now focused on manifolds and the like, not applied math, the highly abstract, so we're probably stuck with what we have now for a long time to come. That's been the case sine the 1970's, actually, 'string theory' being just a bizarre kluge of weirdness and probably a form of of insanity.

 

[Dick Foster]

i mean Jeez Louise! It's over 100 fricking years old! Why are we bothering to test the orbit of a star around the Supermassive Black Hole in Sag A? It's a waste of money, time, effort and electrons.

We have Consensus!

Science = Settled

I thought it was settled science once the fact that light bends around a mass was proved by observations made during a total solar eclipse.
For this reason we could not run sight lines in close proximity to massive structures or other large masses for precise 1st order geodetic surveys.

 

[mamooth]

I thought it was settled science once the fact that light bends around a mass was proved by observations made during a total solar eclipse. For this reason we could not run sight lines in close proximity to massive structures or other large masses for precise 1st order geodetic surveys.

I'm not disputing that you were told not to do that, but it must have been for some other reason. Gravitational bending is insignificant for a mass smaller than a star. As an example, light skimming past the surface of the earth would be gravitationally bent by a total of 0.0006 arc-seconds. That would correspond to 3 inches deflection over 10,000 miles. Such gravitational bending is insignificant compared to distortion from the atmosphere, which may have been what you were trying to avoid.