Has science reached a plateau? Who wrote tonight's episode of 'The

L

Lloyd G

New member
Universe' on History channel? After only 3 of 10 scenarios on how the Earth might be destroyed, I am shocked at the pure 'what if' and the arbitrary numbers pulled out of someones a**. There are real 'going to happens' and much better possibilities than this. I hope it gets better...
I apologize for the rhetorical nature of the question...
 
I am not sure if science has reached a plateau, but apparently the entertainment industry has.

Remember the days when entertainment was , well, entertaining? Not so nowadays, endurance is the buzzword in entertainment, as we are expected to tolerate endless crime shows and cheap reality, perpetually interrupted by ugly heads breathlessly reading their formulated "news" at us.

Then to add insult to endurance we are expected to sit there entranced as some twerp informs us with a straight face that the world is in imminent danger from some peril that last happened 100 million years ago!

Truly these days the first step in rediscovering entertainment is learning to use the "off" button on the remote.

Cheers!
 
Well, you have to remember that as small a possibility those scenarios are, and how cheesy they made the program and however thorough their explanations, they still have to make it entertaining enough to get some ratings. I watched it earlier, I don't think it was bad, though I definitely think it could have been better.
 
TV science is not science at all, less a plateau, more like a rut.

The best book I have read about the current state of affairs is Lee Smolin's book, "The Trouble with Physics". Most of it can be understood by mere mortals...lol

Smolin is a theoretical physicist and expresses his dismay with the lack of discovery in science for the past 30 or so years. Many problems that were on the front burner when he graduated are still just sitting there with no progress. Former noble prize winning scientists are not even being listened to. It is like we are back in the dark ages but rather than the church adhering to dogma, it is now the science community itself. He paints a very detailed picture of how this and how we came to this state of affairs.

Another thought provoking book is James Hogan's, "Kicking the Sacred Cow".


Also in your spare time you should google <LIGO null result> which reports NO gravitational waves have been detected with this experiment. Gravitational waves were predicted by General Relativity and they have found NONE. The current equipment is sensitive enough to detect these down to the width of a proton. So they are going to make it 100x as senstive and try again.

The string theorists want to do no experiments, nor does string theory even suggest any experiments that could be done. This is opposite to science as we know it. Rather the "proof" will simply be in the elegance of more math.

It is a sad situation. Even my physics professor at the University of New Hampshire reports a lack of new students in these areas.

There are some developements that seem interesting like MOND or modified Newtonian dynamics. Smolin made one comment that I thought iced the cake. He said the phsicists today will invent almost anything before they give up Einstein and Newton. This is opposite of what science should be. Science should be looking for and embracing richer theories and they aren't.

It is a lengthy and complex situation, too extensive to answer here. Read Smolin's book for a couple hundred pages of the detail. Or at least read the reviews on Amazon. and....good luck.
 
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