Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: yor_on on 21/02/2011 14:43:58
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Read this first.. 103 years later, Einstein's proven right. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iYftcP0kR2mf032kK3WFVR9k_O2A) " PARIS (AFP) — It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms." I felt quite surprised. If you belong to those wanting everything reduced to 'light' this should be welcome news, right? but I must have missed it..?
As I felt a little suspicious I tried too look up the sources.
Doing so I found this statement, from one of the coauthors.
"Christian Hoelbling, on November 24, 2008 at 4:21 am said:
It’s actually worse than that. This news story is horribly misleading. I’m one of the authors of the original paper (although I am neither French nor German nor Hungarian, but Austrian, which is telling of the quality of that story) and I can assure you, that we did *NOT* set out to prove E=mc^2 and we did not corroborate it any further than it already is. what we did was calculating the mass of the proton and other elementary particles from the underlying theory with controlled systematic errors, no more, no less."
The lesson is, always try for at least two sources for what you want to believe, then check them both. Publish the one you think can take the most flack. Too many try to prove something by uncritically posting what they find the most sensational story, supporting their 'pet theory'.
(And if you like your 'math'. Please build it up so we can see what you mean. Myself I avoid it, only if I find it very clear will I put math into a statement, that means when I fully understand what it says myself, and that also means explaining it so that you too can understand it. What's the use of it otherwise?
I will not be impressed by someone using math they can't verify, or even understand. If I find I don't understand it you failed. And those guys & gals trying to 'shine' may not know, as most of us here are naturally polite :)
But ..