Science News Thread (for articles that don't relate to ongoing discussions)

[kerbiloid]

10 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Tetrahedron is the Greek platonic name for it given by Plato.  Triangular prism is correct also, but is stripped of history and is more common in places where a political attempt to strip away history has occurred.   

I mean, we live in a big random kaleidoscope, and the sky pattern is like the astronomers' telescopes are in fact kaleidoscopes (they are usually the triangular prisms inside).

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

This article is torture - but I gather there is a SA company harvesting methane from the atmosphere and Porsche is using it as an alternative fuel? 

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/porsche-replacing-gasoline-air-water

 

[kerbiloid]

So, they produce electricity by the windmill, to split a water molecule to get hydrogen, to break the carbon dioxide molecule bounds and turn it into methane, then heat the methane to turn it into more complex alkanes, extract petrol fractions, to burn them in air oxygen to restore the previously splitted water and carbon dioxide bounds?

Sounds like a plan.

[AckSed]

It's what was predicted way back when: once nuclear fusion happened and the price of energy plummeted, no need to drill for hydrocarbons when you can take it out of the air and the sea. It's just that this is happening with wind power.

Another small company, Terraform Industries, is proposing to use cheap solar power to make methane to be sold as a further chemical feedstock.

When I look at how many processes a crude oil refinery employs to clean the salt and sulphur out of crude & make lighter compounds, this backwards, inefficient pathway that produces light hydrocarbons from the start seems elegant in comparison. The heavier hydrocarbons used in asphalt and diesel may be a problem, but polymerisation and desaturation are already an established business.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, AckSed said:

It's what was predicted way back when: once nuclear fusion happened and the price of energy plummeted, no need to drill for hydrocarbons when you can take it out of the air and the sea.

So, exactly zero balance of C + O2 <=> CO2, plus additional waste input of nuclear industry providing that nothing?
Sounds like a plan.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

This is pretty good - if you have the time and are interested in DM

She talks about the findings that support the DM hypothesis and then goes into some of the issues where DM doesn't quite line up (places where DM hypothesis does not reflect observations). 

There is some discussion of MOND ("we know its wrong") - and seeing as I'm still watching... probably more good stuff.

Edited December 22, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[DDE]

Glassfrogs conceal blood in their liver to maintain transparency

[kerbiloid]

21 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

She talks about the findings that support the DM hypothesis and then goes into some of the issues where DM doesn't quite line up (places where DM hypothesis does not reflect observations). 

Once the Dark Matter ^(tm) gets collected in a small area, it - oops! - makes a black hole in the middle of nothing.

So, an astronomer is looking-looking at a 0.1 M_O red dwarf, then it - oops! - collapses into a 10 M_O massive black hole.

But Sgr A* is even more horrible. We are watching-watching the S2 orbit, corresponding to a normal 4 mln M_O... and even can't see that its orbit is chaotic due to the whirl of invisible dark matter around the Sgr A*.

Very dark is that dark matter ^(tm). Dark and grim like brothers Grimm.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 12/22/2022 at 3:23 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

This is pretty good - if you have the time and are interested in DM

She talks about the findings that support the DM hypothesis and then goes into some of the issues where DM doesn't quite line up (places where DM hypothesis does not reflect observations). 

There is some discussion of MOND ("we know its wrong") - and seeing as I'm still watching... probably more good stuff.

In the video she admits the title was suggested by the editor of SciAm.  So I went hunting for it.

 

Here's the link (I've just started to read it):

Is Dark Matter Real? - Scientific American

The editorial blurb:

"

• Scientists have long assumed that some invisible “dark matter” particles must accompany the normal matter in the universe to explain how stars orbit in galaxies and how galaxies orbit in clusters. An alternative idea that there is no extra matter and that our equations of gravity need updating has received much less attention.
• But numerous experiments have failed to find evidence for dark matter particles, and the possibility remains that gravity must be modified.
• Lately, in fact, some astrophysical evidence, such as recent observations of gravitation in galaxies, favors modified gravity theories over dark matter. It is time that physicists let go of their prejudices and reexamined this underdog idea."

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

The key argument:

"Right now a few dozens of scientists are studying modified gravity, whereas several thousand are looking for particle dark matter. Perhaps modified gravity is wrong, but perhaps the scientific community is not putting in a good faith effort to know for sure. The universe has had a habit of surprising us; we should be prepared to greet what future data reveal with open minds. "

Overall - she points out that while DM is good at predicting some things... so too are variants on Modified Gravity (not exactly MOND, but other theories; MG predicts galaxy actions very well but lags or is silent on some of the larger structures -whereas DM has to be tweaked (if not bent out of proportion) to match the observations of galaxies, but does well at the cluster and supergroup scale.  An interesting bit from the video; she quips 'MG Predicts, DM accommodates."  The math for MG is simple - but to do the DM calculations takes a very highly 'optimized' run on a supercomputer simulation that may take weeks to give the same result.

I'll leave the reader with this:

Scientists often claim the Bullet Cluster is evidence for particle dark matter. Because such particles would interact less than normal matter, the collision would have allowed the clusters’ dark matter clouds to pass one another while the visible mass interacted with itself and lagged behind. This story matches what we observe, but it is crudely oversimplified.

In modified gravity, too, the point where gravitational attraction focuses can be displaced from the normal mass. This can occur because all forces, including gravity, are thought to be transmitted by a special type of particle. These particles have their own dynamical laws to fulfill. When modified gravity takes into account potential repercussions from these carrier particles, it can also predict what we see in the Bullet Cluster.

More important, this cluster is an extreme event and a statistical outlier. Its mere existence is difficult to explain both with particle dark matter and with modified gravity. Using it as evidence for or against either approach is an exercise in confirming our own biases.

Is Dark Matter Real? - Scientific American

Edited December 24, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[steve9728]

Read and watch those about the Dark Matter and suddenly remain me something: There's a nuclear power station called 'Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant' about half hour drive east from my home. Then, 360m away from this, under a granite mountain, there have (or had) a neutrino experiment facility. When I was in secondary school, the school even organised a visit to this nuclear power station. And this neutrino laboratory made the headlines of our local newspaper that day about ten years ago when my parents still subscribed to the newspaper.

Then I wanted to see if there were any new developments or founding from here, only to find that it had been decommissioned in end of 2020 because the accuracy of the measurement of the amplitude of neutrino oscillations couldn't be improved. "In fact, when the experimental setup was first designed, it was designed to the highest precision possible at the time. 'The Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment has gone 17 years from its design to now. Today, if we were to redesign it again, we still wouldn't be able to improve the accuracy because we've reached the limit.', said by the leader of this experiment, Wang Yifang"

The successor of it is Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory

Edited December 24, 2022 by steve9728

[darthgently]

On 12/22/2022 at 3:23 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

This is pretty good - if you have the time and are interested in DM

She talks about the findings that support the DM hypothesis and then goes into some of the issues where DM doesn't quite line up (places where DM hypothesis does not reflect observations). 

There is some discussion of MOND ("we know its wrong") - and seeing as I'm still watching... probably more good stuff.

Sabine has become a must watch for me.  Her skepticism and sarcasm is wonderful and I get another POV on big topics

https://youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by darthgently

[Beamer]

15 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

In modified gravity, too, the point where gravitational attraction focuses can be displaced from the normal mass. This can occur because all forces, including gravity, are thought to be transmitted by a special type of particle. These particles have their own dynamical laws to fulfill. When modified gravity takes into account potential repercussions from these carrier particles, it can also predict what we see in the Bullet Cluster.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but aren't they basically saying "Let's do away with this particle we cannot directly observe but have strong indirect observational data for, and replace it with this particle we just made up"? Have they even managed to discount DM, or are they still stuck at the "We still need it but we managed to reduce it to only 20% of the total mass of the universe" stage?

I've seen a lot of Madame Hossenfelder's videos posted here lately and I'll come right out and say it: I don't like them much. Every single in-depth video I've seen of her (not counting the "this month's news" style ones) have a strong undertone of "They are getting all the grants and I am not, it's not FAIR!" When I see her smack-talk the likes of Michio Kaku for popularizing string theory I think to myself: Hang on, this guy has been researching and promoting this idea since before you were born, it's not like he's "jumping on the bandwagon", you're basically blaming him for being too good at his job.

I don't buy the whole "Scientists are looking at the wrong thing" argument. Scientists are looking at the most promising theories, and they don't get to decide where the public's money goes. If you want more money going to your pet projects, do a better job at promoting them. Perhaps read a few pages from Mr Kaku's book, he knows how that stuff works.

 

[darthgently]

15 minutes ago, Beamer said:

don't buy the whole "Scientists are looking at the wrong thing" argument. Scientists are looking at the most promising theories, and they don't get to decide where the public's money goes. If you want more money going to your pet projects, do a better job at promoting them. Perhaps read a few pages from Mr Kaku's book, he knows how that stuff works.

That is a lot of angst.  If a theory can't handle push back then the theorist doesn't understand how science works.  Good science welcomes poking. 

With the replication crisis in science research where peer review and publication has become more about who you know than reason in too many cases, and actual replication takes a back seat, voices like Hossenfelder's are important

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Beamer said:

I don't buy the whole "Scientists are looking at the wrong thing" argument. Scientists are looking at the most promising theories, and they don't get to decide where the public's money goes. If you want more money going to your pet projects, do a better job at promoting them. Perhaps read a few pages from Mr Kaku's book, he knows how that stuff works.

I've been a sideline observer of the DM or NOTHING (what about MG) DM=SETTLED SCIENCE!! debate since around 2004. 

Back then the best 'pro and lay-interest' board was Bad Astronomy.  It was generally a fantastic place for people interested in Astronomy, Cosmology and Physics.  You could ask about anything; galaxy distribution, String Theory, M-Theory, Black Holes, hell, how ballistics worked or how the Shuttle and ISS maintained orientation.  Lively discussions, detailed explanations, and respectful discourse.  There were interested Neanderthals like me and actual working physicists and cosmologists all exchanging information and talking about recent discoveries.  It was great.

But...  Bring up MOND, which had been kicked about since the 80's, and any questioning about the basis of DM/DE, those folks were regularly, routinely and harshly shouted down in virtually every thread where anyone even asked a question.  Some few die-hards kept at it; MOND and its successor questions refused to completely go away - and the harsh responses inevitably followed.  The Bullet Cluster (imaged by Chandra in 2004) was the predominant 'support example' for the supremacy of DM as the basis of the Standard Model of Cosmology.  If a poster did not assume DM existed and DE was behind the absolutely proven expansion of the universe as settled science, guaranteed later because Perlmutter, Schmidt and Reiss won the Nobel for it in 2011 (work published in 1998???) - if you did not presume this, 15 people would come on to the board to explain in no uncertain terms why you were an idiot for even asking the question.  Beyond the board, careers were sidelined for anyone not toeing the line - and again the DM crowd would crow about this researcher or that researcher who published a paper questioning DM and then got zero funding and had to leave their post at _______ (prestigious university).

That always struck me as contra-science.

Over the years, DM has been searched for and never found.  Lack of direct evidence does not equal 'doesn't exist' - but it's literally taken 20 years for serious and respectable people to even be able to ask the question 'are we sure it's actually settled science?'  Hell, when Freedman and others started showing TRGB data did not match up with the standard candle expansion numbers - they were met with hostility... but if you read the 'Crisis in Cosmology' stuff today; they're 'not wrong.'  The Bullet Cluster has also been shown to be predicted by some of the MG work.

The point of all of this is that DM isn't settled science.  It's not 100% guaranteed to be correct.  It might still be - but it is worth (and solid scientists are) looking into alternative explanations for the observations out there.  20 years of people having to either toe the line and get in line for funding into DM (thousands of researchers) or risk their careers (dozens) looking at possible alternatives.

Is that what Professional Science is supposed to look like?

Edited December 24, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Beamer]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

That is a lot of angst.  If a theory can't handle push back then the theorist doesn't understand how science works.  Good science welcomes poking. 

With the replication crisis in science research where peer review and publication has become more about who you know than reason in too many cases, and actual replication takes a back seat, voices like Hossenfelder's are important

First a small disclaimer, I haven't gotten around to watching the above video yet, I base my commentary on a couple dozen videos I've seen of her over the years - they tend to pop up in my YT suggestions.

I welcome poking. I'm not a participant, I'm just an outside observer, I have nothing to gain or lose whichever side turns out to be right. But I have yet to see any of her videos that even try to convince me of the merits of what she thinks is right. All I see is her trying to convince me that other people's ideas are wrong. It's not me she needs to convince, it's the majority of physicists in the relevant fields she needs to convince, and so far they don't seem to be. I don't find that surprising if your main message seems to be "You're all wrong". To take MOND as an example, I found the wiki page did a better job of convincing me the idea has merit than any of the mentions I've seen in Hossenfelder's videos.

Don't get me wrong, I do think the idea is worth exploring, I just don't think the tone of her kind of science communication is helping that cause.

Trying to convince people your ideas are better because theirs suck is not a good way to go about anything, and not a constructive voice in my book. In my own work, if you can show me how it works, and why that makes it better than what we have, I'll welcome it with open arms. But if you come along and say "We need to switch all our efforts to this unproven system because the one we have isn't 100% perfect", and manage to sound slightly indignified at the mere notion that others might not agree with that, the best you're going to get from me is an amused smile and a hard no. I would imagine it goes that way in any situation where you are trying to convince others that you are right, because that's just how people are wired.

 

[steve9728]

4 hours ago, steve9728 said:

had been decommissioned in end of 2020

Found a video from The Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences about that day and opening the cover on it: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kX4y1T7W2/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.-1&vd_source=6fef304b8d0c4737896e6b702ddfbfb3 (relax there's no human language in the video)

This should be the purest water you've ever seen

[Beamer]

29 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Is that what Professional Science is supposed to look like?

That's what politics looks like, and that's what you are really talking about there I think. The science is what happens after the shouting matches have been done and the funding has been established. Perhaps Hossenfelder is just too much of a politician for my taste. Give me a video that explains what <idea X> is and where it works better than <idea Y> and I'll gobble it up, I'm just not very interested in watching the shouting matches.

That would probably be different if I had an actual bone in the fight

 

What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell”, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?

(Robert A. Heinlein, from "Time Enough for Love")

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

24 minutes ago, Beamer said:

Trying to convince people your ideas are better because theirs suck is not a good way to go about anything, and not a constructive voice

Excellent point 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, Beamer said:

Hossenfelder

I've only discovered her in the last year.  She's among the several female researchers who have gained a following and do a good job of science communicating that I will click on when the title is interesting.  I do find her sense of humor to be both droll and very German.  It appeals to me. 

I haven't seen her in the 'grousing' mode you describe - but I can imagine that those videos exist.  Especially if she is one of the ones willing to ask questions about MG.  There was a 'flavor' of that in the video I linked - but it wasn't obnoxious.  A lot of the articles I've read over the years (whether nibbling at the edges of the DM dominance or outright questioning it) have shown a bit of 'having their back up' as they know a firestorm of criticism is inbound.  They clearly know their environment. 

This is contrasted by a lot of smugness in the latter years by DM proponents.  (The open hostility of the Aughts gave way to smug assurance in the Teens). 

Things really did not start to change until the TRGB data and other standard candle questions started coming out and not being proven immediately wrong.  It's kind of a new development (last 5 years or so) that even the phrase 'Crisis in Cosmology' has gained traction. 

But I'm like you - don't really have a dog in the fight - yet I am quite interested in what comes of this dustup. 

[darthgently]

48 minutes ago, Beamer said:

All I see is her trying to convince me that other people's ideas are wrong.

But this is exactly my point.  She is willing to say, perhaps in a long winded way at times, "we don't really know".  This seems so hard for many to do.  They seem to cling to the consensus as if it is somehow a known.  But there are a lot of social dynamics that lead to consensus that have nothing to do with science.

In short, there is *nothing* wrong with saying "I don't know what the answer is, but here are valid reasons why these proposed answers are weak".  That is part of the truth seeking path.  That said, I know she has her favorite "answer", but I've never heard her claim it must be correct or anything.  I just like the contrarian POV as a thought provoker.

I tend to see this ongoing pattern of the latest "hidden" or "dark" whatever as not much different than epicycles in astronomy many centuries back.  A consensus placeholder that vaguely fits a gap in our knowledge, but certainly worth questioning even if it does have some rough explanatory power

Take string theory (and I'm no expert) for example.  I gather it is so powerful and flexible it could explain almost any experimental result by adjusting parameters.  Which is next to useless.  It becomes more of another form of math notation or parameterized axioms than a model (my blunt take).  Again, I'm no expert, but I recall a very prominent person having made a similar case.  It may be correct, but well above my grade

[darthgently]

Merry Christmas!

Here is a humble info-passing gift that may lead to less suffering in your family eventually

https://youtu.be/BL48wdAFZfY

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I read these two articles... And they leave me with an odd sense. 

 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-james-webb-space-telescope-is-changing-our-understanding-of-the-universe/

Spoiler

Researchers expected the telescope’s data would support the Big Bang theory. But it has captured images so far back in time, revealing the existence of galaxies so old, that the very origins of the universe have instead been called into question.

 

‘I find myself lying awake at three in the morning wondering if everything I’ve ever done is wrong,’ said Allison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas, after seeing the first images from the James Webb telescope. She isn’t alone...

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scientificamerican.com/article/astronomers-grapple-with-jwsts-discovery-of-early-galaxies1/%3famp=true

Spoiler

Simply put, candidate galaxies in the early universe are popping up in numbers that defy predictions, with dozens found so far. Explaining this excess may require substantial revisions to prevailing cosmological models, 

... 

Astronomers have meanwhile since found several other early galaxy candidates, some seemingly as far back as 200 million years post–big bang. Prior to the launch of JWST, no one knew if galaxies could even form so early in the universe’s 13.8-billion-year history, at a time when matter was thought to still be sedately coalescing into the gravitationally bound clumps required to give birth to large groups of stars. “And so we’re wondering, ‘Do we really understand the early phases of the formation of these galaxies?’” said Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz

Webb is providing data that don't fit expectations. 

I think that's clear. 

What's odd/interesting is how human nature interacts with new information.  There is a tension that happens when presented with something new or unexpected.  Typically, the reactions humans have to new information is the tendency to either find a way to make the new information fit into their existing model or having to change their preconceptions (model) to fit the new information.  There isn't a universal or 'better' way to do this - we all do it, sometimes without recognizing it.  But there is a bit more comfort when you can make the new information fit into your existing model ("I wasn't wrong") than having to adjust your model to the newly revealed reality ("I wish I knew then, what I know now").  The terms in psychology for this are assimilation and accommodation. 

• The process of accommodation is in tension with that of assimilation. While accomodation seeks to create new schemas, assimilation seeks to relate new information to old cognitive structures (schemas). In order to develop intelligence, organisms must balance accommodation with assimilation.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/what-is-accommodation-and-assimilation.html

Anyway, as I read the articles above, (both relate to the fact that Webb is seeing mature galaxies at redshifts (presumed ages) where there should be (under the existing models) nothing more than proto galaxies and stars) I began to see that Cosmologists and astronomers are struggling right now with both assimilation and accommodation wrt the data. 

Some will feel like they've staked their careers on established models and seek to assimilate the new info to those predictions... Others will take the new information and question the very foundation of presumptions that led to faulty predictions - to accommodate the new observations into new predictive models that may or may not resemble the current 'understanding'.  

I think the next few years will be a very interesting time for those of us who are interested in cosmology.  We should see plenty of 'Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' articles along side a few 'Man, we need to rethink EVERYTHING' papers.  The really interesting thing will be to see in five or ten years which direction the 'mainstream' of cosmology has moved. 

 

 

Addendum - I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who reads the articles to comment on whether you are getting the same sense as I do. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

The astronomaz are having realized the real nature of the Universe they were observing for centuries:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

I always had a strong feeling that it's something very wrong with:

1) Hubble constant, so toyishly taken and used.

2) Endless expansion without source of power like an eternal engine.

3) That simple 1/r² of physical gravitation and electromagnetism, when other two interactions are described in much more complicated terms, while the standard model of physical interactions, standing on its four, tells us that the four are the same one.

Edited December 26, 2022 by kerbiloid