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"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 |
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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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