Aug 11 2022
Moving Through Curved Space
I have to be honest, I don’t believe it. Whenever research seems to show a phenomenon that defies the known laws of physics, that is my initial reaction. It’s a good default approach, and so far it has proven correct. I didn’t believe it when researchers claimed they found neutrinos traveling faster than light. It turns out, it was a flaw in the equipment. In fact, I have not believed the many claims over the years of faster than light phenomena, all of which have fallen away. I did not believe the countless claims of free energy or perpetual motion, all of which have failed. I did not believe claims of cold fusion, and still don’t. I did not believe it when engineers claimed to have produced propellantless acceleration (the EM drive). That one crashed and burned as well.
These claims typically have two features in common. They are based on an observed anomaly, and that anomaly is very tiny. It’s just more likely that a tiny anomaly that appears to break the laws of physics is the result of a tiny error, not that the laws of physics as we currently know them are wrong. This is especially true when talking about conservation laws, which are so well established that we can treat them as – laws.
I always acknowledge that our understanding of the laws of physics is incomplete, and there could be some phenomenon hiding in the parts we have not figured out yet (quantum gravity is a good example) that could allow for these apparent anomalies. I’m just not holding my breath. Also, the bar we set for the threshold of evidence before accepting the anomaly as real should be incredibly high. Again, history has proven countless times that this is a good approach.