“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.” -Eckhart Tolle
It's been an amazing week here at Starts With A Bang, and you've been given plenty to think about. In particular, here's what the past seven days have seen:
How Gravitational Lensing Shows Us Dark Matter! scienceblogs.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scienceblogs.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
What are Gravitational Waves?
Not only do gravitational waves represent the ultimate confirmation of the theory of General Relativity, they will provide us with a new way to see the cosmos. But what are these ripples in spacetime and where do they come from?
Whilst it may not have the snappiest name, the event
GW150914 is pretty significant in terms of our understanding of the Universe. This event, with a name that includes ‘GW’ as a prefix which is an abbreviation of ‘Gravitational Wave’ and the date of observation–15/09/14– marked humanity’s first direct detection of gravitational waves.
This was groundbreaking on two fronts; firstly it successfully confirmed a prediction made by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity almost a century before. A prediction that stated events occurring in the Universe do not just warp spacetime, but in certain cases, can actually send ripples through this cosmic fabric.
By CFT (not verified) on 14 Sep 2017 #permalink
@Ethan wrote:
when a theoretical model makes failed predictions, that doesn’t necessarily mean the theory is a failure
By your thinking, can anything ever be proven wrong?
As a whole, I think historical observation is far more useful than scientific theory at predicting the future. When cavemen didn t know what the sun was or that the Earth wasn t flat, they still knew the sun would come up in the morning. Video game players don t have to do any sort of scientific analysis to get better at playing a game. With regards to phenomena I think experience is vastly more important then explanation. When scientists are testing new theories they invariably compare them to historical observation to evaluate the robustness of their new theory. In virtually all science, theories are constructed to fit observations. It is only really the Screechy Social Sciences and Global Warming True Believers that see scientists operate backwards