The Proton Just Got Smaller 289
inflame writes "A new paper published in Nature has said that the proton may be smaller than we previously thought. The article states 'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace."' Would this indicate new physics if proven?"
Pluto is not a planet anymore... (Score:4, Funny)
... and now this! These scientists have no shame!
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Re:Pluto is not a planet anymore... (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean we'll have to start referring to the proton as a "dwarf particle"?
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This is, in fact, usually true. As the saying goes, "The more you know, the more you know you don't know." If you picture the sum of all knowledge as a rectangle and the sum of your knowledge as a circle inside that rectangle, the boundary of that circle represents what you know that you don't know. As the circle grows, so does the boundary and your awareness of how little we actually understand. Sorry for the long-winded exposition on your comment; I just find that concept fascinating
My high school physics would quote Fitzhenry: "the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreling of mystery".
Negative (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Negative (Score:5, Funny)
two hydrogen pals are sitting on the curb, sipping from their 40s. One says to the other "I think I've lost an electron". The other says "Are you sure"? To which the first replies, "Yeah, I'm positive".
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A neutron walks in and asks for a drink.
The bartender hands it to him and the neutron asks "How much?"
"For you?" the bartender replies, "No charge."
(Yes, I've played Fallout 3, too :)
Re:Negative (Score:4, Funny)
Only on the surface. When you get down to the core, it's actually positive.
Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
"'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care"
Does this sentence bother any one else? Just me?
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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"...I believe the Star Wars episode doubled that audience."
"Well, yeah, but double ten people is, like, twenty people, so..."
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It is a significant difference, however, this is Nature magazine and does not usually deal with data or presenting it to scientists but rather the common person. This can be seen by their writing out "0.00000000000003 millimetres" rather than the more usually useful "3*10^-16 m". The people reading their article are not actually intended to make sense out of that numb
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Hi Ms. Smith. Your cancer cell growth has increased 4%, but we think the difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that you cared."
"Little Timmy scored an 86.6 (grade B) instead of 90 (grade A), but we think the difference is so infinitesimal small that it might defy belief that he cared."
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Your Mom's so fat that she lost 4% of her weight and nobody cared.
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Lunch at Milliways?
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
If it were grains of sand packed under the foundation of your house, it might be important.
But protons only aggregate in small groups that don't get close to each other very often. In fact, they emit a force-field that prevents it, so the size of the proton rarely if ever comes into play even in interatomic interactions.
Which brings up a rather glaring point: SLAC, Fermilab, CERN, et al have been colliding protons together for decades. You'd think they would have noted something funny in the statistics by now to indicate that their colliding objects were consistenly not colliding with the predicted probabilities. If "size" means anything, it means the most when you try to make objects bash each other head-on.
I'll be rightly surprised if the re-review of past data confirms that the 4% discrepancy was there and they simply ignored it.
And maybe I missed this yesterday when I read the story (linked from Twitter; /. is about as timely as the Wall Street Journal any more), but is the 4% volume, cross-sectional area, or radius? A 4% volume difference would be trivially easy to miss; a 4% radius error would be one hell of an oversight.
My money is on the possibility that the guys doing this new research bollixed the theory that predicts the frequency to use in their experiment. And then on the possibility that the theory they're using has never been confirmed very well. QED seems to be more concerned with photons and electrons and other less-massive particles (in fact, it doesn't say anything about mass, and if this 4% is real maybe it's a way to link gravity and GUT (the Grand Unified Theory of electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force...) to make the GUTE (Grand Unified Theory of Everything).
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when do you measure SIZE in grams?
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Funny)
Excellent point. What this means is that when I go out to buy a liter of protons, I'm getting, like, 4% fewer than it says on the label, right?
(Of course, Google wouldn't convert protons to liters, so I have a feeling I'm doing this wrong.)
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Wouldn't that depend on the method of packing [wolfram.com]??
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks, I got mixed up. That means this [chinatopsupplier.com] is 4% more awesome than I thought! Woohoo!
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
If your lamp is emitting protons, I recommend staying away from it.
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Since we invented boats.
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
And thus, the reason why the % exists. It allows us to determine if a 1kg change is significant (weight of a bowling ball), insignificant (weight of the earth), of wildly significant (weight of a swallow) by giving a single digit which compares the magnitude of change to the initial value.
In other words, 4% of a value is not an 'infinitesimal' change, even if the values of concern are generally considered to be infinitesimally small. As far as relative change, it is significant enough to care (1/25th).
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Funny)
...determine if a 1kg change is significant (weight of a bowling ball), insignificant (weight of the earth), of wildly significant (weight of a swallow)...
It could just be the difference between a laden and an unladen swallow.
African or (Score:2)
European?
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What? I don't know that!
waaaaaaahhrgh...
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"4% of 0.0000000000000000000000000167 grams" is still 4%. On the scale of atoms, it's a huge difference; imposing the scale of day-to-day experience by measuring it in grams is misleading. You then might as well say "the total mass of a proton doesn't matter at all" because it is a very small number of grams; calling it surprising that "even a physicist" wouldn't do that is flatly incorrect.
Once we dismiss the mass of a proton, we might as well dismiss the mass of a neutron (which is similarly a very smal
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
...and that's what I get for indulging the speculation of a poster who didn't RTFA, without first reading TFA myself.
It isn't the mass they say is off. It's the size. I stand by my fundamental point though: 4% of a small number is still 4%, and applying human scale to subatomic particles is nonsense.
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Size is a somewhat ambiguous concept. I *think* what's been discovered to be off by 4% is the radius of the charge distribution. If that's true, then the volume is off by more than 12%.
If the results of this experiment are accurate, it's a Big Deal.
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Are there really solid things out there that exist the way we think of them?
The way I think about solidity, yes, many everyday objects, such as the table I am typing this on, are solid.
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Are there really solid things out there that exist the way we think of them?
The way I think about solidity, yes, many everyday objects, such as the table I am typing this on, are solid.
The guy who can be considered the father of quantum theory disagrees with you. Here is a quote from Max Plank on just this topic:
--
As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume be
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Solidity isn't a measure of molecular or atomic density, of how much of an object's actual volume is 'matter' as opposed to empty space. It's a measure of the arrangement of those molecules and their resistance to change in that arrangement.
Solidity could be thought of as a resistive force being provided as an aggregate of the energy bonds between atoms & the arrangement of and repulsive force between adjacent molecules. In particular therefore, measurement of solidity is dependent on the size and for
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Informative)
Even the heaviest of elements that you might come across here on earth are mostly empty space down on the atomic level. That's why it's possible for a teaspoon's volume worth of neutron star to contain millions of tons of mass. The ridiculous amount of gravity there has overcome some of the forces that give atoms their structure and squeezed out a bunch of that empty space.
The universe is a crazy place.
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Old radius: 0.8768(69) femtometres
New radius: 0.84184(67)femtometres
Our result implies that either the Rydberg constant has to be shifted by 110kHz/c (4.9 standard deviations), or the calculations of the QED effects in atomic hydrogen or muonic hydrogen atoms are insufficient.
source [nature.com]
It's not the absolute magnitude of the change that's so worrisome, it's the relative magnitude.
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Other than the fact that it's sensationalist blather masquerading as insight?
QED's worked pretty well so far. The size of the proton doesn't seem to affect much else. And defining what "size" means for objects made of sub-objects of unknown size and shape is somewhat iffy in itself.
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As physicists, they already suspended disbelief when they studied/accepted the Standard Model.
There is another one... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is another sentence that doesn't make sense either,
"Would this indicate new physics if proven?"
Physics doesn't get "proven", mathematics gets proven. It's akin to proving reality - it doesn't make sense. AFAIK, the cornerstone of physics is the experiment. If the experiment shows something, then that's it. There is no debate except maybe about the procedure employed. There is never argument if something is "real" - it's right there.
If the proton is shown to be smaller than what QM predicts, then the u
Poor Protons (Score:5, Funny)
Just remember, dear protons:
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is Physics, and a powerful ally it is.
Missed opportunity: (Score:5, Funny)
"For my ally is the Strong Nuclear Force, and a powerful ally it is."
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Ah, yeah, yours is indeed better. Was rushing to beat the 'redundant' mods, though.
"There is really something seriously wrong...." (Score:3, Funny)
Have they tried re-doing the math in Base 13?
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Previous measurement error? (Score:5, Interesting)
This paragraph from TFA has the most salient information:
4% sure does seem significant. But more interesting is that the measurement is thought to be much more precise because of the method of measurement. Doesn't it seem more likely that it's just not possible to get an accurate measurement with the electron -- like measuring a grape with a yardstick instead of a micrometer?
And of course, there's that stupid cat-in-a-box thing... you can't measure something without affecting it, so maybe muons interact in some strange (lol) way with protons that doesn't happen (or happens differently) with electrons. But as a non-physicist, even throwing those terms out there puts me far outside my league.
Of course, these more prosaic explanations don't lead to nearly as many cool sci-fi plot threads. FTL drive powered by a process that squeezes protons to black hole density, perhaps? That would be awesome. Or, perhaps the expansion of the universe is actually reducing the size of subatomic particles -- so in a few billion years, all matter will simply wink out of existence. Or, there's a time dilation effect as well, so that time drags longer and longer, especially on Mondays.
Re:Previous measurement error? (Score:5, Insightful)
> 4% sure does seem significant. But more interesting is that the measurement is thought to be much more precise because of the method of measurement.
No. The interesting thing is that the proton size is now shown to be different than expected from theory. Which means that the theory is wrong. Which is the first step in exciting new physics.
Re:Previous measurement error? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, it's a "that's funny..." kind of moment.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'"
-Asimov
Re:Previous measurement error? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which means that the theory is wrong
At best it means either the theory or the experiment is wrong, and the "wrong" can vary from mundane to really interesting, with the vast weight of probability on the side of mundane.
The structure function of the proton is not simple, and calculating it depends on QCD approximations that are even less simple. The notion that it can be characterized by a single parameter is questionable.
Muons probe a very different part of the proton structure function than electrons. Muon orbitals are much smaller than electron orbitals, so protons look even less like a point mass to them. As such it is not surprising that they would result in a significantly different value for a single parameter in a particular model of the proton, even if the experiment is not in error somehow. By far the hardest part of the structure function of nucleons to model in QCD are the tails, and that is exactly what muons will be most sensitive too.
This is how experimentalists react to anomalous results: the most probable explanation, always, is that the people doing the work screwed up. We then set out to prove how they screwed up. If we can't, we start to think about other corrections seriously.
Theorists will of course have no difficulty explaining this result, even if it later turns out to be incorrect. But even if the results are correct, they will almost certainly be accounted for by relatively insignificant tweaking of QCD estimates of the proton structure function, which is good solid science, but not the kind of great big deal that TFA seems to want to make of it.
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Unless the theory is wrong in a way that doesn't affect any other measurable phenomena but adds arcane terms and virgules over virgules to the equations. Then it's the sort of fiddly physics that takes the elegance out of the current theory.
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Re:Previous measurement error? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, but this is still surprising. Measure a grape with a metre rule, you should still be able to say 'it's between a centimetre and a centimetre and a half.' Measure it with a micrometer, and you'd expect to see a result like 'It's 1.2144 centimetres.' If the micrometer instead measured the grape at 0.7218 centimetres, well, you'd be puzzled. First of all, of course, you'd check you were doing it right. You'd examine your micrometer and make sure you were operating it correctly. You'd recheck how you measured it with the metre rule - is it zero from where the number is printed, or from the edge of the ruler, is the ruler maybe worn down at the edge?
But if all that checked out and you still had this discrepancy, you'd start to wonder if your ruler and your micrometer were really measuring the same units.
Hence the suggestion of new physics. Theoretically the muon should act like a heavy electron - interacting with the proton in just the same way, so that it can be used as a more precise probe on the size of the proton. It would be the micrometer to the electron's metre rule. If it doesn't - if the muon interacts with the proton in some unexpected way so as to throw the measure off - then we've discovered something beyond the standard model.
There are quite a few indications that there is physics beyond the standard model - heavy neutrinos, the abundance of matter over antimatter, the dark matter - and so if we can add this to the list then maybe it can help pin down just what sort of a new theory we're looking for. We've got to have something to do once the good people of Geneva finally hammer us out a Higgs, after all :-)
Re:Previous measurement error? (Score:5, Insightful)
But if all that checked out and you still had this discrepancy, you'd start to wonder if your ruler and your micrometer were really measuring the same units.
The grape analogy is not a particularly good one. Consider instead a peach analogy. With an electron you're looking at it from 20 m away. With a muon from 10 cm away.
At 10 cm you're going to be vastly more sensitive to the detailed structure of the peach. What at 20 m looked like it could be characterized adequately by a single radial parameter is now clearly a copmlex shape that doesn't even have a very sharp boundary, being covered with fuzz and all.
By far the most likely explanation of this result is something slightly wrong with our understanding of the tails of the proton's structure function, not anything as deep as physics beyond the standard model.
Massive neutrinos aside--as they require only the most minor tweak in the form of off-diagonal elements in the KM matrix--physics beyond the standard model is a bit like fusion power: we've been a few years away from detecting it for the past thirty years... It's gotta be out there somewhere, granted, but I'll be shocked if this experiment is the smoking gun.
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Thanks for correctly using metre and meter. That's incredibly rare here on Slashdot and sincerely appreciated.
Re:Previous measurement error? (Score:4, Insightful)
And of course, there's that stupid cat-in-a-box thing...
Not relevant in this case. The uncertainty is between two different measurements, say, mass and momentum. You don't care about the momentum in this case, so the uncertainty in the momentum can be as high as you like. (In this case they're measuring radius rather than mass, but the uncertainty principle governs many different pairs of measurements.)
Doesn't it seem more likely that it's just not possible to get an accurate measurement with the electron -- like measuring a grape with a yardstick instead of a micrometer?
It's more like trying to measure an watermelon with a yardstick rather than a grape. The muon is heavier by a factor of 200, so the energy levels are higher, making them easier to detect with precision. The energy levels of the electron are very small and fine, making them hard to measure with precision.
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Why would you want to measure a watermelon with a grape?
Misleading use of absolute numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, the correction is about 2% (from 0.8768(69) fm to 0.84184(67)fm; one femtometer is 10^{-15} metres). Yes, the absolute magnitude of the difference is small compared to everyday things, but that's meaningless. More importantly, this difference is more than 5 standard deviations, so this is unlikely to have happened by chance.
Re:Misleading use of absolute numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
(0.8768-0.84184)/0.8768 = 0.03987
Why didn't you say "about 4%"?
People will be mad (Score:2, Funny)
A hellaphysicist will be pretty mad is the proton is a hellometer smaller.
Stupid marketers (Score:2, Funny)
>> The Proton Just Got Smaller
The price is the same, the box is the same, but now there's less proton.
All My Work is Ruined (Score:3, Funny)
see... (Score:5, Funny)
this is why i never listen to scientist.
they're always lying, and making me pissed.
fucking protons, how do they work?
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fucking protons, how do they work?
Well, first, a daddy proton and a mommy proton get married...
Re:see... (Score:5, Funny)
Homogeneous marriages are not legal in most states. Besides, it's just plain repulsive.
A daddy proton and a mommy electron get married...
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http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/f-cking-magnets-how-do-they-work [knowyourmeme.com]
Honey... (Score:5, Funny)
It's more likely that... (Score:2, Insightful)
You're conclusions are only going to be as accurate as your ability to weigh, or measure.
- Dan.
does a muon have "internal structure"? (Score:2)
Re:does a muon have "internal structure"? (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as our particle accelerators & theory can tell, electrons, muons and quarks are all elementary particles with no internal structure. Internal structure is not necessary for particle decay---particle decay isn't really inside-parts spewing out, it is energy in one form of matter being allowed by laws of physics & quantum mechanics to transform into another state.
It would be extremely unlikely if muons had internal structure and electrons didn't.
The most likely scenario is (unfortunately) that there are some effects which actually are part of Standard Model physics, but they weren't included in the theoretical calculations. The theoretical calculations can get quite hairy and complex; perhaps something was approximated in a way that isn't actually as valid as originally believed or some other interaction which is hard to compute was ignored.
protons smaller... (Score:2)
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Well seeing is believing, calculations can always be wrong ;) Show a real picture of a proton and I am convinced (please no photoshopping on that picture grrr).
Here ya go: [ . ]
Actually, that is not only a "picture" of a proton, that is an actual proton. Simply eliminate everything that is not the proton in question, and you're left with a proton.
See?
Paging Dr. Superbrain (Score:2)
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There's never a theoretical particle physicist when you need one. (Never thought I'd say that phrase)
Theoretical physicist? I'd prefer the question be answered by an ACTUAL physicist. B-)
(And if I weren't on a slow dialup link right now I'd hunt up the issue of "nukees" - a web comic written and drawn by an actual nuclear engineering PhD - where the new berkeley student opens the door to the "Theoretical physics conference room" and finds it opens into thin air about three stories up.)
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Seriously?
You can't swing a dead theory of heat without hitting one.
They even have their own sitcom [cbs.com] now.
Bazinga.
article is poorly written (Score:2)
Size matters (Score:2)
So what does size actually mean for a proton. For macro scale objects we measure with some physical item that has an electrostatic interaction with the item being measured. Previously all the measurements were being made using an electron. The new measurement is using a muon. Seems like they just redefined what "size" means, i.e. muon based vs electron based. What am I missing?
Upgrades (Score:3, Funny)
God here. I just upgraded the universe server to PhysicsOS 1.1. Some users may notice a change in proton size due to the new quantum mechanics engine, but unless your working with the OS directly, this shouldn't be a problem for you.
Re:Ingo Sick (Score:5, Funny)
Hello! (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm sorry, unless you have published at least one paper at the Ph.D level on quantum theory, how about you shut up about what you think is ridiculous on this topic.
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Appeal to Authority is only a logical fallacy when the authority in question is not qualified to speak on the subject. An experimental physicist would certainly be qualified to have this discussion, say his predecessors may have been wrong, etc.
Also, you're an idiot.
Re:Ridiculous notion. (Score:5, Informative)
Physicist here.
What's the diameter of the earth's magnetosphere?
About 10 Earth radii, defined as the point where the Earth's magnetic field is stronger than the solar wind and thus becomes the dominant force on electrical particles.
Similarly, we define the proton's radius in terms of its charge distribution. See how easy that is? It only takes a simple definition to make a word like 'size' meaningful.
And in the case of the proton is *is* meaningful, because you are incorrect about the proton being a singularity. The proton is composed of three quarks, each with their own charges and charge fields.
The quarks inside a proton are held together by strong force interactions. So any change in the measurable size of a proton is a change in what we know about the strong force. This is significant. Either the strong force is 4% stronger than our calculations predict, or there is another mechanism that is squeezing that proton's charge field down. Another force? Another particle? It'll be exciting to find out, now that we know there's something there to find.
The journalists who write about science often use bad, confusing, or just plain nonsensical terms. But it's almost always the journalists, and you can't really fault them for dumbing down their story to appeal to the largest group of readers. Whatever you do, don't blame the scientists. They are doing good work. It's not their fault if journalists relate it improperly, nor is it the scientists' fault if you don't understand the explanations.
Re:Ridiculous notion. (Score:5, Insightful)
The journalists who write about science often use bad, confusing, or just plain nonsensical terms. But it's almost always the journalists, and you can't really fault them for dumbing down their story to appeal to the largest group of readers.
Sure I can. Because it breaks the story, making it false. This confuses the readers further and makes the story have less value than not running the story at all. Yes I know the REAL job of newsies is to attract eyeballs to sell to advertisers. But they pay for the eyeballs by offering information, so "dumbing down" the story until it's worse-than-useless is outright fraud. (And it's a big part of why the old news media are dying.)
English is a very expressive language. It's usually possible to come up with wording that can get the meaning across just as clearly and just about as tersely. For instance, in this case the proton didn't just "get smaller" i.e. suddenly change size. "New measurement technique finds protons unexpectedly smaller." is my first attempt - and I'm NOT an expert in such composition. News writers are SUPPOSED to be experts in this, so there's no excuse for them.
Slashdot had an article and discussion on this - and science popularization - a few days ago.
Re:Ridiculous notion. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, such a size is not defined. But it could be, if it were a useful measurement. It would have to be defined in relation to the gravitational fields in the neighborhood, which would make it around the same radius as the L1 Lagrange point. Voila, we have defined a gravitational 'size', and it can even be represented graphically. [wikipedia.org]
Nothing exists unless someone has defined it; by the same token, anything can be defined in some way.
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So I see you're a theoretical physicist... ;)
How about, instead of "exists", "measured or usefully discussed"?
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Yes! You're catching on. :)
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And the diameter of the sphere of earth's gravitational pull I supposed is defined, too; even though the earth literally attracts every other particle in the universe with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
somebody has been listening to weird al today...
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And the diameter of the sphere of earth's gravitational pull I supposed is defined, too; even though the earth literally attracts every other particle in the universe with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
I believe that only holds true under the assumption that gravity isn't quantized.
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I feel you missed the good chap's point a little.
When the article says "size" it is being fairly vague and more than a little lazy, you are quite right. But what they actually mean (charge distribution inherited from its composite quarks) is an important something, flashy name or otherwise. And it's considerably different from what the standard model predicts it to be. And that is a big deal.
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Ah, I enjoyed that one. Didn't know there were sequels. Will have to check them out.
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I'm still reading through Red Thunder, but the two other books in the trilogy are patiently waiting on my book shelf:-)
If you like John Varley, you should check out Steel Beach. Insane book.
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How exactly are you encoding arithmetic in "physics", as a formal theory? If the universe is finite, Godel's theorem doesn't apply.
Re:Anonymous Coward. (Score:4, Informative)
Godel's theorem applies to mathematical formal systems that are sufficiently complex and powerful. 'Sufficiently' here is reached by formal systems far, far simpler and less powerful than the real number system. The only way Godel's theorem wouldn't apply to our models of the universe is if all the calculations used in all related physics could be encoded in a system much simpler than first year algebra or trig. You might get around it if you could describe all physics using only formulae that cannot under any circumstances what-so-ever generate an irrational number or any undefined value, that never require infinitesimals or infinities, and that can't even imply a potential need for imaginary numbers. Yes, Godel's theorem is that powerful.
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Here are two systems to which Godel's problem does not apply:
1. The system of math of all integers less than Graham's number (a number large even by size-of-the-universe standards).
2. The system of non-computable reals (infinitely long "decimals" without a pattern), as might be correct for time and distance measurements.
Similarly, the halting problem doesn't apply to any computer you can actually build, but only to a computer with infinite memory. As long as you're dealing with finite sets, or purely infin
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And your smart ass tone makes you sound like a twat.
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what? in no way would it shake up the scientific method. Corrections and changes due to new data are part of the scientific method.
Re:No it didn't. (Score:5, Interesting)
> oh well, i'm figuring that he's probably right seeing as science is just a bunch of atheistic dogma anyway...
Considering that Max Plank said:
"Eine neue wissenschaftliche Wahrheit pflegt sich nicht in der Weise durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner überzeugt werden und sich als belehrt erklären, sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß ihre Gegner allmählich aussterben und daß die heranwachsende Generation von vornherein mit der Wahrheit vertraut gemacht ist."
which is translated as
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
or paraphrased as the common English phrase:
"Truth never triumphs -- its opponents just die out."
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
You might be right on the dogma bit.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck [wikiquote.org]