Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Plasma screams

I've got a lot of time for weird science, or science that isn't so popular, and a pretty good example of that is plasma cosmology. This is an approach to the nature of the universe which says electromagnetism is more important in large-scale phenomena than gravity.

The chief criticism I see come up is there's not been enough work on it, not surprising given that if it is accepted we could well be backtracking to the drawing board of 1916 and General Relativity. Don't forget Einstein himself wasn't happy with black holes, and a layman might even regard some of the work since as fudge, plugging leak after leak.

Could we be that wrong? In theory, yes. Challenging a majority view is hard, and we've likely all felt peer pressure or seen someone dig a hole deeper, especially when there's time, money or reputation involved. I wouldn't say that's what we have here, but it does seem within the bounds of human behaviour. And there is a clear historical precedent.

I recommend watching the vid and doing something we're usually pretty good at - saying 'What if..?' And if the possibility of physically verifying it is far off, and we personally have little chance to do it, maybe it's better to have more fuel for the mind, and new incentive?


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5 comments:

Game Master Rob Adams said...

I find these types of intellectual and spiritual quests fun. Plasma theory interesting but so is MOA and string theory.

Now then for our uses we could make a world created of the plasma theory. That would be interesting. If mean if they can come up with modrons because they didn't have cool minis at a convention and needed a neat monster for the adventure then they can use anything for fantasy!

Joshua said...

Actually, this would explain why wireless electricity works!

Timeshadows said...

I'm glad to see you post on this subject. :)

The Happy Whisk said...

Excuse my interruption but it's your Blogger Birthday and I come to sing to you.

Happy Blogger Birthday to you. Happy Blogger Birthday to you. Happy Blogger Birthday, Dear Porky.

Happy Blogger Birthday to you.

And many many many more.

Porky said...

@ ArmChairGeneral - I find it hard to read up on anything theoretical or cutting-edge practical without getting an urge to use it, maybe play it out or see how it works beside this or that other idea. Loading up on knowledge certainly makes improvisation easier, and the less conventional that knowledge is the better as far as I'm concerned.

@ Joshua - Hot subject that one. I do wonder about the detail, what unexpected revelations the theory might hold - to whatever extent it was shown to be right - if the funding was forthcoming, and how that detail might feed in to our everyday lives.

@ Timeshadows - Then I'm glad too, and happy to see you here with it. I can't imagine it'll be the last post of its kind - over the months we've seen some weird thinking in these parts and I'm hoping to step it up.

@ The Happy Whisk - Wonderful. It feels more like something now..! Here's to us all going on and on, and getting ever better with it.