So I was watching Eureka (the TV show) and a question occurred to me derived from episode 1's plot.
In the Show, they were implying that Tachyons were going to cause the laws of physics to unravel <insert end of the world dramatics here>. (because a particle that moves faster than L would violate causality/special relativity etc.)
My question is...
If Tachyons did/do actually exist, then wouldn't they have always existed, and therefore the laws of physics are already operating under the inclusion of any effects tachyons might have?
So if we found Tachyons, they wouldn't violate the laws of physics, they are part of the laws?
Or am I wrong here?
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Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Tachyon's violate more know laws of physics than I can count: Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.[2][3]
While I don't know much about the theories on Tachyons (they didn't really come up in my graduate studies) I can say I'm in that boat.
My question is...
If Tachyons did/do actually exist, then wouldn't they have always existed, and therefore the laws of physics are already operating under the inclusion of any effects tachyons might have?
So if we found Tachyons, they wouldn't violate the laws of physics, they are part of the laws?
Or am I wrong here?
I agree with this wholeheartedly. If the laws of physics (that we have formulated) cannot explain tachyons, then the laws are incorrect somehow. If tachyons are found, they must be incorporated into the laws somehow, as they are indeed a part of the world.
But it makes me wonder, if we do find tachyons or some other hard to find particle, wouldn't we be looking for them because of the assumptions we draw from the laws of physics? I don't know much about methodology in physics (either macro or micro), but don't we (scientists) infer the existence of certain things because the theories we have formulated tell us that x, y, and z should happen? Basically, how far back do you have to go if something turned out to be wrong? To things that are directly observable? Again, I don't know much about this but, how deep are we with evidence that has not been directly observed or evidence that has been inferred from something that can observed, but that this inference is based solely upon what a theory predicts?
I don't know much about methodology in physics (either macro or micro), but don't we (scientists) infer the existence of certain things because the theories we have formulated tell us that x, y, and z should happen?
Not really -- or rather, I should say that this goes both ways. Physics (at least in the 20th century) has oscillated back and forth between both sides of this dichotomy several times. For instance, in the 60s and 70s, the experimenters were way ahead of the theoreticians: the post-atomic-era particle smashers were churning out gobs of new stuff and the theoreticians literally couldn't make hypotheses fast enough to keep up. Thanks largely to Feynman plus the computer revolution, not only did the theoreticians catch up but they surged way ahead of the experimenters; certain predictions of string theory would require a particle accelerator whose diameter equalled that of the Milky Way galaxy in order to test them.
But neither side of this dichotomy systematically blinds itself from the input of the other side. If tachyonic events start happening, theoreticians will have to swallow their pride and start over, just as they (essentially) had to do during the quantum revolution.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
But neither side of this dichotomy systematically blinds itself from the input of the other side. If tachyonic events start happening, theoreticians will have to swallow their pride and start over, just as they (essentially) had to do during the quantum revolution.
That's what I'm thinking too.
If we were to find Tachyons somehow, then we'd have to change what we know.
It's not that Tachyons violate the laws, it's that the laws as we understand them are insufficient to explain the phenomenon, so we rewrite them after I would assume mountains of research experiments and data crunching.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
But neither side of this dichotomy systematically blinds itself from the input of the other side. If tachyonic events start happening, theoreticians will have to swallow their pride and start over, just as they (essentially) had to do during the quantum revolution.
That's what I'm thinking too.
If we were to find Tachyons somehow, then we'd have to change what we know.
It's not that Tachyons violate the laws, it's that the laws as we understand them are insufficient to explain the phenomenon, so we rewrite them after I would assume mountains of research experiments and data crunching.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This point is really, really under-appreciated among laypeople. I mean, it's pretty common for a new piece of evidence to challenge some assumption of Darwinism or another... and it's pretty common for some creationist group to pick up on the controversy and tout it as a victory. But the result is never the total overthrow of Darwinism (it could, in principle, happen - mammalian fossils of indisputably Precambrian age - but it never does happen in practice), it's just the subtle refinement of some small piece of the puzzle or other.
I mean, even rabbits in the precambrian wouldn't result in anything like, "Evolution is bunk, creationism wins". I can't even imagine what the theory that ended up accounting for that piece of evidence would look like, and certainly it would look quite different from modern biological theory, but as a theory it would still be responsible for accounting for the fact that organisms do change over time.
My PhD work was as an experimentalist and I am married to a theoretician post doc, but in the field of Astrophysics.
So, I can say that it does go both ways. The theories give justification for the experiments. If you want to conduct an experiment you better have some well defined and accepted theories that back what you are looking for (as well as you own simulations of how it will work). Then, the data from the experiment feeds back to the theoreticians who can refine their theory (or start on a different one if enough data disproves it). They then use these new theories to help justify new experiments.
So, the real data has to agree with the theoretical data that has to agree with the real data, on and on.
If we found some Tachyons lots of people would get very excited trying to explain them with theories and thinking of new experiments to perform with them and/or to learn more about them. That being said, I don't know how we could 'stumble' on something like a Tachyons since they travel backwards in time, but stranger things have been proposed.
If we did find them it probably would be by accident because I don't know of anyone who would fund experiments to look for them based on what we currently know. (Of course, there is quite a lot I don't know about which projects get funded, so don't take that at face value either.)
In the Show, they were implying that Tachyons were going to cause the laws of physics to unravel <insert end of the world dramatics here>. (because a particle that moves faster than L would violate causality/special relativity etc.)
http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/mirrors/physicsfaq/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16796-fasterthanlight-tachyons-might-be-impossible-after-all.html
Now, physicists as far as I know share this sentiment. Or at the very least, they remain hypothetical particles.
My question is...
If Tachyons did/do actually exist, then wouldn't they have always existed, and therefore the laws of physics are already operating under the inclusion of any effects tachyons might have?
So if we found Tachyons, they wouldn't violate the laws of physics, they are part of the laws?
Or am I wrong here?
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.[2][3]
While I don't know much about the theories on Tachyons (they didn't really come up in my graduate studies) I can say I'm in that boat.
But--hey--anything's possible, sure.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. If the laws of physics (that we have formulated) cannot explain tachyons, then the laws are incorrect somehow. If tachyons are found, they must be incorporated into the laws somehow, as they are indeed a part of the world.
But it makes me wonder, if we do find tachyons or some other hard to find particle, wouldn't we be looking for them because of the assumptions we draw from the laws of physics? I don't know much about methodology in physics (either macro or micro), but don't we (scientists) infer the existence of certain things because the theories we have formulated tell us that x, y, and z should happen? Basically, how far back do you have to go if something turned out to be wrong? To things that are directly observable? Again, I don't know much about this but, how deep are we with evidence that has not been directly observed or evidence that has been inferred from something that can observed, but that this inference is based solely upon what a theory predicts?
Not really -- or rather, I should say that this goes both ways. Physics (at least in the 20th century) has oscillated back and forth between both sides of this dichotomy several times. For instance, in the 60s and 70s, the experimenters were way ahead of the theoreticians: the post-atomic-era particle smashers were churning out gobs of new stuff and the theoreticians literally couldn't make hypotheses fast enough to keep up. Thanks largely to Feynman plus the computer revolution, not only did the theoreticians catch up but they surged way ahead of the experimenters; certain predictions of string theory would require a particle accelerator whose diameter equalled that of the Milky Way galaxy in order to test them.
But neither side of this dichotomy systematically blinds itself from the input of the other side. If tachyonic events start happening, theoreticians will have to swallow their pride and start over, just as they (essentially) had to do during the quantum revolution.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
That's what I'm thinking too.
If we were to find Tachyons somehow, then we'd have to change what we know.
It's not that Tachyons violate the laws, it's that the laws as we understand them are insufficient to explain the phenomenon, so we rewrite them after I would assume mountains of research experiments and data crunching.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This point is really, really under-appreciated among laypeople. I mean, it's pretty common for a new piece of evidence to challenge some assumption of Darwinism or another... and it's pretty common for some creationist group to pick up on the controversy and tout it as a victory. But the result is never the total overthrow of Darwinism (it could, in principle, happen - mammalian fossils of indisputably Precambrian age - but it never does happen in practice), it's just the subtle refinement of some small piece of the puzzle or other.
I mean, even rabbits in the precambrian wouldn't result in anything like, "Evolution is bunk, creationism wins". I can't even imagine what the theory that ended up accounting for that piece of evidence would look like, and certainly it would look quite different from modern biological theory, but as a theory it would still be responsible for accounting for the fact that organisms do change over time.
So, I can say that it does go both ways. The theories give justification for the experiments. If you want to conduct an experiment you better have some well defined and accepted theories that back what you are looking for (as well as you own simulations of how it will work). Then, the data from the experiment feeds back to the theoreticians who can refine their theory (or start on a different one if enough data disproves it). They then use these new theories to help justify new experiments.
So, the real data has to agree with the theoretical data that has to agree with the real data, on and on.
If we found some Tachyons lots of people would get very excited trying to explain them with theories and thinking of new experiments to perform with them and/or to learn more about them. That being said, I don't know how we could 'stumble' on something like a Tachyons since they travel backwards in time, but stranger things have been proposed.
If we did find them it probably would be by accident because I don't know of anyone who would fund experiments to look for them based on what we currently know.
(Of course, there is quite a lot I don't know about which projects get funded, so don't take that at face value either.)