Posted on 07/24/2012 3:42:38 AM PDT by neverdem
It’s been a bad year to bet against Albert Einstein.
In the spring physicists had to withdraw a sensational report that the subatomic particles known as neutrinos were going faster than light, Einstein’s cosmic speed limit; they discovered they had plugged in a cable wrong.
Now scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have reported that they have explained one of the great mysteries of the space age, one that loomed for 30 years as a threat to the credibility of Einsteinian gravity.
The story starts with the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes, which went past Jupiter and Saturn in the late 1970s and now are on their way out of the solar system. In the 1980s it became apparent that a mysterious force was slowing them down a little more than should have been expected from gravity of the Sun and planets..
Was there an unknown planet or asteroid out there tugging on the spacecraft? Was it drag from interplanetary gas or dust? Something weird about the spacecraft? Or was something wrong in our calculation of gravity out there in the dark?
That last explanation would have been big news indeed. Much of what we know about the universe — for example, the existence of dark matter, which seems to swaddle and shape the galaxies, and of dark energy, which seems to be speeding up the expansion of the universe — comes from presuming that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which describes gravity as the warping of space-time geometry — is correct over cosmic distances.
General relativity has passed every test on Earth. Without correcting for it, GPS systems would not work. But some theorists have suggested that if gravity behaved differently over large distances from what Einstein thought, it would relieve astronomers of the embarrassing need to posit...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Higgs bosons are getting tired.
Turns out to be the pressure of infrared light emitted from the forward facing heat sinks of the equipment on board.
Frickin tribbles. They’re like squirrels in a power station.
bflr
This simply confirms that education does not trump absolute genius. In this day and age, it is surprising how the know it alls... do not. Science gets less credible every day.
This is REALLY your take on this story? So what besides "science" would have figured this out?
No, my take is this... REALLY! It would be logical to conclude that after billions of taxpayer dollars and untold years of cumulative education and extremely advanced equipment, we would have been able to go beyond simply disproving Einstein. In fact, it would be logical to assume science would have evolved dramatically, in this area. In fact, it has simply proven otherwise. Education does not trump genius. REALLY.
1) The purpose of the Pioneer mission wasn’t to disprove Einstein, it was to explore Jupiter and Saturn, which it did spectacularly well.
2) The effort of this scientist to go over the old Pioneer data didn’t cost “billions.”
3) If you had the slightest comprehension of science, you’d understand a big part of it is doing experiments to continuously confirm previous observations and theories. Newton turned out to be slightly wrong after hundreds and hundreds of years.
4) Here’s the EDUCATION of the guy that solved this puzzle:
Slava G. Turyshev
Education
Doctor Habilitatus, Astronomy, Astrophysics & Gravitational Physics, Moscow State University, Russia (2008)
MBA, The Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA (2003)
Ph.D., Astrophysics & Theoretical Gravity Physics, Moscow State University, Russia (1990)
M.S. Quantum Field Theory & High Energy Physics (with honors), Moscow State University, Russia (1987)
I think he may want to reword that sentence a bit.
All Dr. Turyshev had to do was talk to the guy that was driving a Porshe, IIRC, at high speeds without headlights on the NJ Parkway at night on his trips to and from Atlantic City.
A couple of other observations:
1) Einstein had an undergraduate degree from ETH Zurich, and a PhD from the University of Zurich.
2) If this analysis HAD proven Einstein wrong, I have little doubt you would have posted “Science worshipped Einstein like a God for a century and he was wrong! Science gets less credible by the day.”
So, what’s your reason for an irrational hatred of science and scientists? Think infrared radiation back-pressure is adequately covered in Genesis or something?
Why the personal attack?
The entire physical universe is an illusion. Don’t worry about it.
I could be wrong but I think that was the gist of the comments.
All observable realities depend on the arbitrary emotions of Haruhi Suzumiya...
...jeez.
Thanks for the clarification. I am saying roughly that, yes. A personal attack is a weapon of last resort. I am a big- time science freak.. the complexity of the various branches leave me awed. However, my point really is this.. What is the point of investing so much money and time into discrediting Einstein? I could understand the attempt to decode the universe to improve daily lives and the defense thereof. The simple desire to disprove the existence of God is getting a little old. I tell my own children to remember the story of the Garden of Eden, two trees were there. Trust in God or Trust in man’s pursuit of knowledge. Your choice.
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