[balsysr]

asymmertic_implosion wrote:

Gravity waves, the Higgs Boson and other less proven points demand a change of thinking but I look at the experiments and money as a way to find the right answers. Proving something doesn’t exist can be as important as proving it does exist.

I agree proving something is wrong is as important as proving it does exist. My problem is that theories like gravity waves have been proven wrong, but this is not accepted! Spending more money on this is then a waste of resources that can be spent on other things. I would also argue that the big bang theory, if not been proven wrong, has so many problems that have been addressed by proposing ad hoc fixes (inflation, dark energy, dark matter). This is reminescent of the clockwork universe where more gears are added to “fix” the theory when it did not work. It became ever more complex. Eventually Galilao and others came up with a better theory (Sun centred system with elliptical orbits) that better explained the facts. It took more than a lifetime for the new theories to be accepted!

I think the same kind of problem exists today, all the money is spent of research that backs the existing paradigmns, and only ridicule is spent on other ideas. A case in point is the work on focus fusion. The big money is all on gravitational fusion based sun models that have consumed billions of research dollars for little results. Approaches like focus fusion are relegated to “fringe” science and not funded as the money is all being spent elsewhere. A better approach in funding research would be to allocate a reasonable pool to non-mainstream ideas that have a reasonable scientific basis (like focus fusion).

Cheers,

[balsysr]

There are no facts in science, only hypotheses that have stood the test of time. What this means to me is that we can never be sure that what we believe is truth. We must always test our assumptions and replicate our data measures, looking for the errors, and the new ways that we can interpret the data. It is only by doing this that real progress in Science can be achieved.

As an example the Michelson-Morley experiment is assumed to have shown no anisotropy in the speed of light, when in fact the error band included the possibility of a small positive effect. Work by Miller and others (a recent ref. “A new light-speed anisotropy experiment: absolute motion and gravity waves detected, R.T. Cahill). Such work is ignored as it is outside the mainstream worldview.

The whole big band hypothesis is based on the red shift of light, alternate mechanisms have been proposed, but these are not accepted and a theory that proposes the Universe is made of of “invisible, undetectable” matter is needed to “fix”t the bugs in the theory. And do not get me started on the use of “point masses of almost infinite magnitude” to make a gravity universe work. I was taught dividing by zero was not allowed but astrophysicists seem to be able to do this with impunity. And why do astrophysicists never use the word electricity, after all a (sic) wind of ionised electrons and protons constitutes a charge flow and thus a flow of electricity in space. Apparently not.

In my old age (well not so old) I have come to the conclusion that science has been corrupted by money and reputations. Untold wealth is being thrown at experiments based on trying to keep alive failed hypotheses. eg. Gravity wave detectors have been built at great expense, with the theoretical sensitivity to measure the signal that exists if the theory is correct (gravity waves and the existence of space time). Popular stuff, with no less a person than an Einstein having proposed it. Unfortunately in the 40 years these experiments have run not a single gravity wave has been confirmed in a universe supposedly awash with black holes (sic). So what do we do – build even bigger, more sensitive, much more expensive tools and keep looking. This is not science, when the predicted outcome is not there the hypothesis is invalid, no matter how much theory has been built based on it and no matter how great a scientist proposed the idea.

So yes, I definately think that we need to take a fresh look at Science.

Cheers,

[Author]

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