Last week, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) issued a press release regarding the faster-than-light neutrinos that the OPERA collaboration had reported detecting last September, saying that they did, after all, respect the cosmic limit put forward by Einstein in his theory of special relativity. The spurious results were in fact due to a faulty element of the experiment's fibre optic timing system.
The original results in September suggested that neutrinos travelling the 730km from CERN to Gran Sasso were arriving too early, 60 nanoseconds earlier than if they were travelling at the speed of light. This made them 'superluminal'. Confirmation of the anomalous results would have led to a scientific revolution, no less. As CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci said, this instantly "captured the public imagination", and news sites worldwide were relating the news that Einstein's theory may be wrong.
The science community, however, reacted which much more moderation. Few physicists believed that the results would stand in light of future experiments, whether internally conducted at OPERA, or at competing collaborations in the US.
Why so much skepticism, amongst a community that might be eager to find a new playing field for fundamental physics? The key reason is that scientists are rarely "surprised" by scientific revolutions (though they may be by discoveries, which is not the same thing). Scientific revolutions often arise after years, if not longer, of mounting evidence of flaws in an underlying theory, acting as signals that a major shift in our understanding of nature is approaching. This is what Thomas Kuhn described in the "Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
As much as scientists would have enjoyed an incredible result regarding the neutrinos, there were no precursor signs to suggest it could be serious. When the news came out that the fault had been found, none were surprised, although a few may have been disappointed.
So Einstein was not wrong, but was he right? Other parts of Einstein's work are currently under intense scrutiny. His theory of general relativity, different from special relativity, explores the laws of gravity on cosmological scales. It explains how the Universe expands and how the largest structures in the Universe, giant filaments of galaxies, form and grow under gravitational collapse.
Yet today, there is much that Einstein's theory of general relativity cannot explain: for example, why is the Universe not only expanding but also accelerating? This was discovered in the 1990s and Perlmutter, Schmidt and Riess were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this last year. This acceleration could be explained by the presence of a mysterious and exotic form of energy dubbed dark energy. But to explain current observations, the dark energy would have to be the dominant form of "stuff" in the Universe today, about 75% of everything in the Universe. Yet there is currently no theory explaining what it could be. Some theorists have postulated that dark energy is not actually required, and that it is the laws of Einstein's general relativity themselves that should be modified. For cosmologists worldwide, a scientific revolution seems close at hand.
In order to reach it, scientists agree that they need to confront their ideas with more observational data. They should be able to construct 3-dimensional maps of galaxies (where galaxies are used merely as points tracing the much larger filamentary structure) and study gravitational lensing over unprecedented large regions of the sky.
There are several competing projects set out to do this. One of them is the European space mission Euclid (of which I am part), the largest existing astronomy collaboration in the world with nearly 1000 scientists from over 100 European laboratories and some US institutes, which has just been adopted today by the European Space Agency (ESA). Launch is planned for 2020 with results from 2025. Many in the field believe that this mission will bring with it a scientific revolution, either through a new understanding of gravity or a new comprehension of the mysterious dark energy.
The best is still to come, because while scientists can predict the arrival of a scientific revolution, they never can predict the advances that will arise from this change of worldview.
--------------
Link to ESA Press Release
The Euclid mission was selected in October 2011 alongside Solar Orbiter as one of the first two medium class missions of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 plan. On 20th June 2012, Euclid received the final approval necessary from ESA's Science Programme Committee to move the project into the full construction phase, leading to its launch in 2020.
Follow Anais Rassat on Twitter: www.twitter.com/anaisrassat
First of all, there is an ether throughout all space made up of rapidly moving balls that act much like a perfect gas. Now, if we imagine an electron as a much bigger ball, these ether particles will randomly bombard it so much that it will feel a constant pressure all around it ... this is the elctrostatic field.
Now, electrostatic repulsion: If we now move a second electron nearby our first one, some of the ether particles will end up between the electrons ... and like the pinball machines of our youth ... will bounce back and forth rapidly between the electrons and produce more pressure between them than outside them. Hence, electrostatic repulsion.
Now, the magnetic field: if we imagine an electron as having a corkscrew shape on one end, as it moves through the ethers it will be spun and it will create a vortex of ether particles. This is the magnetic field.
...the vortex (magnetic field) will also act as a shield of sorts to protect the electron from random bombardments. At the speed of light, the shield will be perfect. Hence, as the magnetic field increases, the electrostatic field decreases and vice versa. Charge is not conserved. I think this is the biggest flaw science currently has.
In University, we do an experiment called e/m (charge over mass) that determined the charge to mass ratio for charge particles that were accelerated. It was found that the ratio went to zero as the particles were accelerated faster and faster. So... either the numerator went to zero or the denominator went infinite. When was the last time we saw something get infinitely big? Never.... okay, so what is really going on? Well, it was the charge that went to zero. That is all. Science has totally missed the boat with their theory that "charge is always conserved." In reality, as a particle starts moving, its charge transforms into a magnetic field. This is also why particle accelerators have shown a supposed increase in mass. As charged particles are acclerated in particle accelerators (by magnetic fields), they start to lose their charge. As this happens, they no longer repel each other and they also start to get pulled together by their own magnetic fields pinch effect ... similarly to two wires carrying electricity in the same direction getting pulled together. As well, since the particles are losing their charge, it requires more magnetic field energy to hold them in their paths which gives the illusion of increase in mass. Good bye Einstein. You were a good man, but your theories have to go...
The universe is not expanding. As light goes through space, it drops down in frequency as it goes through dust and such. Space is not the empty vacuum that we like to think it is. Hence, we can really flush this theory down the drain where it belongs.
Might I kindly point out that relativity rests on the fact that the speed of light is a universal constant and yet a physicists named Georges Sagnac did an experiment later called the "Sagnac effect" that showed that the velocity of light did depend on the speed of the source. The "relativists" of the time merely incorporated his results into their theory thereby burying the evidence. If you care to read about this yourself, check out wikipedia but take note that they always assume that the speed of light is constant at c. It is also interesting to note that Sagnac himself did not agree with the spin put on his research. You can also do a search for "dictionary of scientific biography and sagnac" and you will get a more thorough history of how it all went down.
My point is, relativity is a dead theory but no one has dared tell the emperor that he is not actually wearing any clothes.
P.S. I never actually read Kuhn's book though I do own it. Thanks for pointing out that his final solution was discourse. This gives me more fuel to keep posting.
As a side bar, whenever I mention Sagnac people mention that GPS systems need to be adjusted to account for relativity. In fact, this is really to account for the different velocities of the sources causing a different value for "c." In fact, GPS's needing adjustment are actually the disproof of relativity! How's that for a game changer. Once again, Einstein you were a good man, but your theories have been around long enough and it's time for them to go!
Now, every time I post this, I seem to get alot of negative posts back. So, to head this off, here is a question. If we leave the earth and go past the atmosphere and are out in space, we will feel gravity. Ask yourself this, what could the earth produce that could actually touch us in outer space? The answer is light. All particles in random motion create light -- though not always visible light. In fact, matter that has heat (ie above 0 degrees Kelvin) produces infrared light. It is this infrared light that gets transformed slightly as it passes through more matter on its way to the earth's surface (from underneath) that produces the gravity light.
It's science,
and that's why we love it.
Einstein also once said,
the wrong answer just could be right.