Radical Plan to Manipulate Gravity

[vt]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...echnology.html

[astonas]

Re: Radical Plan to Manipulate Gravity

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...echnology.html

Not even remotely radical. The author of the paper (the original can be found here) is very clear that his proposal contains no new physics at all:

This effect does not invoke any new physics, as it is aconsequence of the equivalence principle.

This is simply an attempt to imagine yet another way in which Einstein's General Relativity could be observed. There's no lack of support for that theory in present astrophysical observations, and not even a hint of claim (indeed, a strident denial of such!) that further observation might change this theory in any way.

The magnitude of relativistic effects also remains as tiny as it always has been. That's why it would require the energy input of many supercolliders (think of the energy used by a largish city) to produce a signal that can barely be detected by the most sensitive instruments man has produced. And this to observe what we already know, and can readily observe using existing astrophysical measurements.

This is just a case of the reporter at the daily mail entirely misunderstanding the original scientist and his article, and getting very excited about his own (incorrect) understanding of its possible consequences and implications.

The claims in the Mail's article simply do not connect back to the claims in the original scientific article at all, except where it grossly misunderstands them by applying colloquial meanings to technical terms.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Radical Plan to Manipulate Gravity

...This is just a case of the reporter ...entirely misunderstanding the original scientist and his article, and getting very excited about his own (false) understanding of its possible consequences. ...

Best summary ever of this journalism phenomenon, astonas.
I will be repeating it often in the future, reporters do this frequently.

[astonas]

Re: Radical Plan to Manipulate Gravity

Best summary ever of this journalism phenomenon, astonas.
I will be repeating it often in the future, reporters do this frequently.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I suspect that you won't have any shortage of opportunity to do so. The quality of science journalism has become pretty abysmal.

I used to subscribe to "Scientific American" a long time ago, when they actually did a passable job of trying to get the science right, while still making it accessible to a general audience. Somewhere along the way they really lost track of the first objective. Now even publications that are supposed to do nothing but science reporting don't even really try for accuracy any more.

I've gotten in the habit of looking up the original article whenever I see a popular description like this one. Far more often than not, the journalist has misunderstood at least one key element of the original, and it's usually the part they're most excited about in their own writing.

[santafe2]

Re: Radical Plan to Manipulate Gravity

I've gotten in the habit of looking up the original article whenever I see a popular description like this one. Far more often than not, the journalist has misunderstood at least one key element of the original, and it's usually the part they're most excited about in their own writing.

I think unfortunately a lot of what passes for science reporting starts with ideological bias and little requirement for evidence. Of course, if one gets their science reporting from television, it can get much worse.