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"Higgs In Space" or Where's Waldo?



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 3rd 09, 10:09 AM posted to sci.astro.research
Robert L. Oldershaw
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Posts: 617
Default "Higgs In Space" or Where's Waldo?

A new submission to hep-th at arxiv.org presents an interesting
challenge: Sort of a 'Where's Waldo?' except that instead of 'Waldo'
we are hunting for a Definitive Scientific Prediction.

The paper deals with cosmology, dark matter, the putative Higgs boson
and the Fermi satellite.

Here is the paper: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...912.0004v1.pdf

We remember that a Definitive Prediction is:

1. feasible
2. made prior to the tests
3. quantitative [an exact number or very restricted range of numbers]
4. non-adjustable [fudging and excessive hedging not allowed]
5. unique to the theory being tested

We also remember that the mass of the putative Higgs particle is
highly uncertain, except for a reasonable lower limit already set by
previous testing. There is no definitive upper limit that cannot be
circumvented, to my knowledge. Lattice theories can generate very
heavy putative Higgs particles. So it would appear that the predicted
putative Higgs masses might vary by factors of 3 or more.

Given the above, can anybody identify a truly Definitive Scientific
Prediction by which we might define this paper as science, as opposed
to effectively untestable pseudoscience?

Yours in traditional science and its time-honored methods,
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
  #2  
Old December 11th 09, 11:06 AM posted to sci.astro.research,sci.physics.research
Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply][_3_]
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Posts: 137
Default examples of successful "definitive predictions" (was: "Higgs In Space" or Where's Waldo?)

Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
A new submission to hep-th at arxiv.org presents an interesting
challenge: Sort of a 'Where's Waldo?' except that instead of 'Waldo'
we are hunting for a Definitive Scientific Prediction.

The paper deals with cosmology, dark matter, the putative Higgs boson
and the Fermi satellite.

Here is the paper: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...912.0004v1.pdf

We remember that a Definitive Prediction is:

1. feasible
2. made prior to the tests
3. quantitative [an exact number or very restricted range of numbers]
4. non-adjustable [fudging and excessive hedging not allowed]
5. unique to the theory being tested

We also remember that the mass of the putative Higgs particle is
highly uncertain, except for a reasonable lower limit already set by
previous testing. There is no definitive upper limit that cannot be
circumvented, to my knowledge. Lattice theories can generate very
heavy putative Higgs particles. So it would appear that the predicted
putative Higgs masses might vary by factors of 3 or more.

Given the above, can anybody identify a truly Definitive Scientific
Prediction by which we might define this paper as science, as opposed
to effectively untestable pseudoscience?


It's a completely different area of physics, but I think a nice example
of a successful "truly Definitive Scientific Prediction" by the above
criteria was (is) the orbital decay of a binary pulsar due to the
emission of gravitational radiation:

The detailed prediction was published in 1963
Peters & Mathews,
"Gravitational Radiation from Point Masses in a Keplerian Orbit"
Physical Review volume 131 (1 July 1963), page 435-440
free online at
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1963PhRv..131..435P
although various parts of the theoretical puzzle (i.e., the calculation
of what general relativity predicts for a binary system) were assembled
earlier than that, and debates continued into the 1980s on rigorous
mathematical proof of the underlying result (known in the general
relativity community as "the quadrupole formula").

The Peters-Mathews prediction contains NO adjustable parameters apart
from the masses and Keplerian orbit of the binary system. In practice,
these aren't known a priori, so they're treated as adjustable parameters
in a fit to the data, and the observed orbital-decay rate is then
compared to the theoretical prediction.

The first system suitable for these measurements (i.e., the first
system where these effects were likely to be large enough relative to
other "noise" sources so as to be measurable to reasonable accuracy)
was discovered by Hulse and Taylor in 1974
Hulse & Taylor
"Discovery of a pulsar in a binary system"
Astrophysical Journal volume 195 (15 Jan 1975), pages L51-L53
free online at
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975ApJ...195L..51H
and the first observational measurement of the orbital decay was
published in 1979
Taylor, Fowler, and McCulloch
"Measurements of general relativistic effects in the binary pulsar
PSR 1913+16"
Nature volume 277 (8 Feb 1979), pages 437-440
NOT FREE online at
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979Natur.277..437T
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...f/277437a0.pdf
(I *hate* scientific publishers who keep 30-year-old papers behind a
pay wall!! I couldn't even access this paper from a university IP
address.)
That observational measurement agreed with the theoretical prediction
to within the observational error (which was something like +/- 20%
at that time). Today (with 30 years of further data and improved
analysis) the observational result remains consistent with the
theoretical prediction to within the observational error, which is
now around 0.25%.

I think this clearly satisfies #1-#4 of the above list of 5 criteria.

As for #5: In the 1970s there were lots of other relativistic gravity
theories "competing" with general relativity. They fell (fall) into
3 broad classes:
(a) Theories which give predictions for binary-pulsar orbital decay
which are identical to those of general relativity.
(b) Theories which give predictions for binary-pulsar orbital decay
which differ from those of general relativity by a factor
(1+epsilon), where epsilon is a free parameter in the theory;
the binary-pulsar observations can be interpreted as putting
a limit on |epsilon| in such a theory. The Brans-Dicke
scalar-tensor theory is such a theory.
(c) Theories which give predictions for binary-pulsar orbital decay
which are *very* different from those of general relativity.
For example, Rosen's bimetric theory predicts an orbital "decay"
rate of the opposite sign (in this theory the binary-pulsar orbit
*gains* energy) and about 10^4 times larger in magnitude than
the general-relativity prediction. The binary-pulsar observations
clearly refute this theory.


[It's perhaps also worth noting that for the past 30-ish years, the
orbital motion of the binary star system DI Herculis has appeared to
contradict the (quadrupole-formula) general-relativity prediction.
However, a recent paper
Albrecht, Reffert, Snellen, and Winn
"Misaligned spin and orbital axes cause the anomalous precession
of DI Herculis"
Nature volume 461 (17 Sept 2009), pages 373-376
preprint free online at
http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.2861
paper NOT FREE online at
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009Natur.461..373A
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture08408.html
has found a "classic astronomy" explanation for the discrepancy:
Here we report that both stars of DI Herculis rotate with their
spin axes nearly perpendicular to the orbital axis (contrary to
the usual assumption for close binary stars). The rotationally
induced stellar oblateness causes precession in the direction
opposite to that of relativistic precession, thereby reconciling
the theoretical and observed rates.
So the general-relativity prediction's 100%-agreement-with-observations
track record remains intact.]


[Three other examples of successful "definitive predictions" in other
areas of science were the predictions of the behavior of the first
nuclear reactor by Fermi et al prior to its operation on 2 Dec 1941,
and the predictions (by large teams of scientists) of the behavior
of the first atomic and hydrogen bomb prototypes prior to their tests
on 16 July 1945 and 1 Nov 1952 respectively.]

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
Dept of Astronomy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
"Space travel is utter bilge" -- common misquote of UK Astronomer Royal
Richard Woolley's remarks of 1956
"All this writing about space travel is utter bilge. To go to the
moon would cost as much as a major war." -- what he actually said
 




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