Scientists Waste Our Money - Supercomputers Come Up With Nothing - Again!
03/09/08
What is happening in science today? How many times are we
going to read of the lauded success of finding nothing!!?
The failure of some of the "greatest" simulations
and experiments devised, are being sold to us as successful
with the use of logical fallacies which no-one seems to
question any more. The more I see this the more I suspect
that many in academia are taught to "learn", rather
than taught to "think". And we the sheeple are
told everything's OK in Learningland. Take for example, the
following headline from
ScienceDaily March 3rd:
Supercomputer Confirms Standard Model Theory Of The Universe, Deepens Puzzle
This is so "in your face" that it's downright
insulting. How can a supercomputer "confirm" a
theory, and yet "deepen" the puzzle? This is not
the only piece of oxymoronic writing in this article, in
fact, it's full of it - in every sense...
ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2008) — Scientists have used a
supercomputer to shed new light on one
of the most important theories of physics, the Standard
Model, which encapsulates understanding of all the material
that makes up the universe. This 30-year-old theory explains
all the known elementary particles and three of the four
forces acting upon them - however, it excludes the force of
gravity, which is its shortcoming.
Physicists have been trying to find the missing pieces in
the jigsaw that would extend the Standard Model into a
complete theory of all the forces of nature. However, the
landmark findings by researchers at the
Universities of Edinburgh and Southampton, and their partners
in Japan and the US, confirm the Standard Model
to even greater precision than before, deepening the
puzzle.
[Emphasis added]
So what is this? If something has been confirmed, surely this
should lessen the puzzle, not deepen it. Even if it is a
puzzling idea which has been examined, one would think its
confirmation should make it less puzzling.
The project's enormously complex calculations relate to the
behaviour of tiny particles found in the nuclei of atoms, known
as quarks. In order to carry out these calculations, the
researchers first designed and built a supercomputer that was
among the fastest in the world, capable of tens of trillions
of calculations per second. The computations themselves have
taken a further three years to complete.
So they've designed and built one of the world's fastest
supercomputers, which they've now run for three years, you would
think they'd have to come up with something pretty impressive
after all that money and sweat has been expended. The first two
sentences in the next paragraph seem to suggest something profound
must have been learned. So what have the actual results from all
this computation told them?
Their result shows that the Standard Model's claim to be the best
theory invented holds firm. It raises the stakes for the riddle to
be solved by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN,
which will switch on later this year. Physicists’ efforts
to confront Standard Model predictions using the most powerful
computers available with the most precise experiments offer no
clues about what to expect.
[Emphasis added]
If this didn't cost us all so much, I'd be inclined to think this was
some sort of a joke. " ...no clues about what to expect"
is the last result one should expect, after spending so much time and
effort and money looking for answers. Yet NOBODY seems to question press
releases like this. It seems they can simply say what they want, no
matter how contradictory it is, and get away with it.
Rhetorical question - Where is the truth in modern scientific
journalism? Now I think about it, the term "scientific journalism" is
almost as oxymoronic as "military intelligence"... This article could
just as honestly, in fact more so, be presented like this:
"After building one of the
world's fastest supercomputers and running figures through it for
three years, physicists are no closer to knowing anything for sure
than when this project began. Although we think the Standard Model
is the best available, it has failed to predict anything so now we
have to turn to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, to come up with
some answers."
The whole news release could have been summed up in one paragraph.
Instead, they bang on about "unprecedented precision",
yet still have told us nothing new at all. They even go so far as
to put a graphic on the page, which makes them look all the more
intelligent, after all no-one "on the street" would dare
say they don't understand what it means, yet quite simply they
don't. How could they?
Illustration showing the Standard Model of elementary particles.
(Credit: DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)
The most scientific facet of this illustration is the program
used to make their building blocks look 3-Dimensional... It has
no real legend, just a few labels telling us particles are made
up of "leptons" and "quarks", when these are
simply theoretical constructs which may have no relationship
with the real world whatsoever. They've never been observed,
nor proven to exist, yet there they are promoted to the rank of
elementary particles' main constituents.
But enough digression, let's sum up the remainder of the press
release.
Professor Chris Sachrajda of the University of Southampton’s
School of Physics and Astronomy said: ‘Modern supercomputers
and improved theoretical techniques are allowing us to explore
the limits of the Standard Model to an unprecedented precision.
The next stage will be to combine such computations with new
experimental results expected from the Large Hadron Collider
to unravel the next level of fundamental physics.’
Again, nothing here but the assertion that they've explored the
Standard Model further than ever before. We the reader still
know no more about the Standard Model, even after 5 paragraphs
on it. And here's the real clincher, the last sentence of the
next paragraph, which had me in fits on the floor after I read
it - until I realized they were actually serious about their
having found NOTHING - yet again!
Professor Richard Kenway of the University of Edinburgh's
School of Physics added: ‘Although the Standard Model
has been a fantastic success,
[despite predicting nothing... - DS] there were one
or two dark corners where experimental tests had been
inconclusive, because vital calculations were not accurate
enough. We shone a light on one of these, but to our
enormous frustration, nothing was lurking there.’
[Emphasis added]
So after banging on for six paragraphs now, and adding a nice
picture for us to look at, the bottom line is, they've found
absolutely nothing at all. Again.
I intend to keep on exposing these releases as the fraudulent
garbage they are, posing as "news releases" yet
telling us nothing new at all. Surely this rot is pumped out
from these institutions to help in the securing of future
financing, fund-raising by stealth, as it were.
Most folk who read through something like this quickly,
(and who has the time with so much information on the internet
these days to really take it in fully), think their money is
not being wasted, because "a press release said otherwise".
BUT - if they take the time to read these things properly,
they'll see so many of them are constructed in such a way as to
seem to be giving results, whilst telling us nothing new
again and
again.
The research, published in Physical Review Letters, was
supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Adapted from materials provided by University of
Southampton.
If I were on the money tree limb of the Science and Technology
Facilities Council, I'd seriously consider asking for my money
back. I don't see any results in this release at all.
Dave Smith.
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