Theoretically Speaking

September 23, 2011

OK, here's another post that I "aged", because I couldn't get the wording right. I started it on September 13, and just read the epilogue today.


September 13, 2011

OK, as you know, I don’t think that primitive man has gotten enough credit over the years. Here are a couple more recent discoveries that indicate that earlier versions of humans had more on the ball than modern humans suspected:

Another human-type fossil has been discovered, this one in South Africa. Its discoverers say it’s the most plausible known ancestor of modern humans. People who didn’t discover it disagree, but generously admit that it’s important.

In related news, to the surprise of no one but anthropologists, it appears that ancient humanoid species
interbred with more human-types than just Neanderthals.

Finally: New evidence suggests that tool use by humans has been pushed back by a hundred-thousand years or more. Homo erectus actually shaped tools, they didn’t just bang rocks together.

I’ve often wondered if the reason that physicists can’t find the “universal theory of everything” is that they’re working on at least one false assumption. Like the anthropologists, physicists are taught that things work a certain way and go forward with that mindset. Therefore they find “inexplicable” findings—and like bad detectives in an Agatha Christie mystery, they throw out what doesn’t fit the theory.

In July I read an article saying that scientists had proved conclusively that time travel is impossible, because a single photon can’t travel faster than the speed of light. I immediately sat down to wait for the contradictory finding.

September 23, 2011

Between September 13, when I started this post, and today I've read articles claiming that String Theory and Dark Matter may be a bunch of hooey. (OK, so not everybody is just accepting the false assumptions—some people are working on proving them.)

Epilogue:

Today, we have a winner—although it’s shaky, at best. Scientist working at a reactor in Italy clocked neutrinos moving faster than light. They’re not ready to scrap relativity—they’re reasonably sure that the findings are merely timing errors. However, it’s interesting to see the reactions—people are actually scratching their head, thinking, “Maybe—just maybe…”

Fun.

February 23, 2012

It was a measuring error. Dang! So close...