Would it be possible for us to observe neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light due to neutrinos interacting (or not interacting) with spacetime or extra dimensions in ways that we couldn't previously conceive of? Could this discovery simply have more of a cosmological significance rather than a relativistic significance?
This is more or less string theory as far as I knew.
Neutrinos blip in and out of 3d space, and to our observations, they move faster than light, when in their dimension they move at the speed of light along a different set of paths. Thus it appears as though they're moving faster.
Think of 3d spacetime as shining light into a pool of water. It slows down and gets refracted. Now imagine these neutrinos in their raw form exist in 8d spacetime. Suddenly them moving along their path makes them move in and out, seemingly instantaneously into and out of 3d spacetime at a much faster rate, but moving along a "straight" path in 8d spacetime much like if I were to drive a car straight.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
My understanding of string theory is that the extra dimensions aren't as large as our dimensions which is how string theorists account for the relative weakness of gravity. So I would assume that a neutrino traversing extra dimensions present at every point in space would only make its apparent velocity much slower than light.
Edit: In my quoted post I was speculating that neutrinos may somehow ignore the curvature of spacetime produced by our planet/sun which might lead to a reconception of spacetime and/or gravity.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
My understanding of string theory is that the extra dimensions aren't as large as our dimensions which is how string theorists account for the relative weakness of gravity. So I would assume that a neutrino traversing extra dimensions present at every point in space would only make its apparent velocity much slower than light.
Edit: In my quoted post I was speculating that neutrinos may somehow ignore the curvature of spacetime produced by our planet/sun which might lead to a reconception of spacetime and/or gravity.
I always figured that the relative weakness of gravity was because it was just a side effect of mass bending spacetime, rather than being a direct force, as it were.
Just to be clear, I know next to nothing about physics.
Alternately, scientists may have to increase the speed of light if these findings are eventually accepted. Of course, people are stubborn, so that could take 197 years.
Yeah, but then all of our relativistic physics would make absolutely no sense. All those photons we've been smashing into each other would have had radically different energies. C being something other than what we've calculated would be way huger than some particles being exempt for it. It would mean our understanding of how reality works would be completely wrong, and all our science and technology based on it(like GPS) have been functioning as we expect for completely unknown reasons.
That doesn't sound too different from what happened when relativity supplanted newtonian physics. Newtonian physics still works in most cases, but is wrong at its core and relativistic physics provide a better explanation of how gravity works. If leads to theories which overturn our current theories which have been supported by experimental evidence, then surely they will still have to make similar predictions to our current theories in most cases.
There isn't really any experimental data that shows our understanding of relative with respect to photons and bosons, or our measurement of the speed of light is incorrect.
We've been doing experiments with this stuff for damned near 100 years. We've collected more data about this than exists in the library of congress. Technology we use every day is based on it. It is as consistent as we can measure.
There is experimental data that shows neutrinos propagate at something more than what we measure C to be.
There are less than 100 data points. They deal exclusively with neutrinos.
While if this is true, it may well lead to fundamental shift in our understanding of physics, I don't really see much of a reason to believe that change would take the form of a different measurement of the speed of light, as Taramoor was suggesting.
While if this is true, it may well lead to fundamental shift in our understanding of physics, I don't really see much of a reason to believe that change would take the form of a different measurement of the speed of light, as Taramoor was suggesting.
That was also (at least partially) a Futurama joke.
My understanding of string theory is that the extra dimensions aren't as large as our dimensions which is how string theorists account for the relative weakness of gravity. So I would assume that a neutrino traversing extra dimensions present at every point in space would only make its apparent velocity much slower than light.
Edit: In my quoted post I was speculating that neutrinos may somehow ignore the curvature of spacetime produced by our planet/sun which might lead to a reconception of spacetime and/or gravity.
Assuming, of course, that the traveling of n-D space is a longer distance than 3d, and not, a more complex thing that when traveling through it, appreciates an observable distance faster than that of light.
So traveling 3 meters in n-D space, pardon my lack of terminology here, the object moves 3.8 meters as observable from 3d space. However from n-D space observation, it appears to still only be moving 3.8.
But this is just what I remember from some string theory websites back in the day. And one of those "crazy physics be wacky" websites too.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
While if this is true, it may well lead to fundamental shift in our understanding of physics, I don't really see much of a reason to believe that change would take the form of a different measurement of the speed of light, as Taramoor was suggesting.
That was also (at least partially) a Futurama joke.
There's a joke in this somewhere about how fast that flew over my head.
Icarus isn't the first to claim that the energy of the neutrinos means they weren't going faster than light (I assume this is refering to the same phenomena - Warning, I'm no physicist.)
The most interesting response that I've seen to this is that, even assuming you can validly apply conventional (for certain values of the word conventional) physics to a possibly very unconventional phenomena, the math only works out if the neutrinos were travelling the same speed throughout the trip. If they started fast and then slowed down, or popped into a higher dimension for 20 meters before falling out, or if CERN unknowingly sent them 60ns back in time, then the math can still work out. This would also explain why we've never detected neutrinos from a supernova years ahead of time (they do arrive faster than light, but by a small enough margin to be conventionally explainable).
This also means that it will be harder to get confirmation, as any attempts to clock the speed of neutrinos that have already been created (as the Fermilab attempt next year will be, as I understand it) would show them moving at the correct speed.
Disclaimer: This is all just based on other discussions I've been following around the net, and I may have misunderstood something at this point.
While if this is true, it may well lead to fundamental shift in our understanding of physics, I don't really see much of a reason to believe that change would take the form of a different measurement of the speed of light, as Taramoor was suggesting.
That was also (at least partially) a Futurama joke.
There's a joke in this somewhere about how fast that flew over my head.
197 years did strike me as rather specific.
I was shooting entirely for the "increased the speed of light in 2208" joke. I know enough basic physics to know that something traversing distance faster than C is huge. But can't really speak with authority on its implications, though the possibility of confirming or at least supporting string theory is certainly an interesting one.
Since all I know is that it's fascinating and that I can't do anything about it, I'm going for humor here.
Yeah, OPERA is doing science and ICARUS is doing dogma at this point.
OPERA all the way, baby.
Basically, ICARUS's statement and the fact that they weren't immediately laughed out of existence support my contention that physics is almost never science. My other piece of recent evidence is that my university doesn't require stats for the physics major.
Alternately, scientists may have to increase the speed of light if these findings are eventually accepted. Of course, people are stubborn, so that could take 197 years.
Yeah, but then all of our relativistic physics would make absolutely no sense. All those photons we've been smashing into each other would have had radically different energies. C being something other than what we've calculated would be way huger than some particles being exempt for it. It would mean our understanding of how reality works would be completely wrong, and all our science and technology based on it(like GPS) have been functioning as we expect for completely unknown reasons.
That doesn't sound too different from what happened when relativity supplanted newtonian physics. Newtonian physics still works in most cases, but is wrong at its core and relativistic physics provide a better explanation of how gravity works. If leads to theories which overturn our current theories which have been supported by experimental evidence, then surely they will still have to make similar predictions to our current theories in most cases.
There isn't really any experimental data that shows our understanding of relative with respect to photons and bosons, or our measurement of the speed of light is incorrect.
We've been doing experiments with this stuff for damned near 100 years. We've collected more data about this than exists in the library of congress. Technology we use every day is based on it. It is as consistent as we can measure.
There is experimental data that shows neutrinos propagate at something more than what we measure C to be.
There are less than 100 data points. They deal exclusively with neutrinos.
While if this is true, it may well lead to fundamental shift in our understanding of physics, I don't really see much of a reason to believe that change would take the form of a different measurement of the speed of light, as Taramoor was suggesting.
You misunderstand. Special relativity is only a valid theory because it's applicable to everything moving through spacetime correct? So if it's incorrect in just one instance then it has to be inherently flawed. The speed of light itself would still be correct, because as you stated we have an enormous amount of experimental data supporting it, but we don't derive that from relativity alone but also from Maxwell's equations. I see no reason that the speed of light would change, only special relativity which sets C as the maximum/constant cumulative speed of everything moving through spacetime. Any new theory would have to make predictions consistent with all of our previously gathered data on the speed of light, but allow for superluminal particles.
Edit: I know I'm jumping the gun here, but I wonder how fast a superluminal particle would move through time.
Yeah, OPERA is doing science and ICARUS is doing dogma at this point.
OPERA all the way, baby.
Basically, ICARUS's statement and the fact that they weren't immediately laughed out of existence support my contention that physics is almost never science. My other piece of recent evidence is that my university doesn't require stats for the physics major.
Physics is "almost never science"? Are you serious, here? You have two pieces of anecdotal evidence to refute the entire discipline of "physics"?
That's... well that's something.
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
Yeah, OPERA is doing science and ICARUS is doing dogma at this point.
OPERA all the way, baby.
Basically, ICARUS's statement and the fact that they weren't immediately laughed out of existence support my contention that physics is almost never science. My other piece of recent evidence is that my university doesn't require stats for the physics major.
Physics is "almost never science"? Are you serious, here? You have two pieces of anecdotal evidence to refute the entire discipline of "physics"?
That's... well that's something.
People are reluctant to accept ideas which conflict with the status quo, this holds true for pretty much everything. I don't know why anyone should expect physicists to be any different. No one fully understands how/why they've made these anomalous observations, so any amount of skepticism is understandable at this point.
Yeah, OPERA is doing science and ICARUS is doing dogma at this point.
OPERA all the way, baby.
Basically, ICARUS's statement and the fact that they weren't immediately laughed out of existence support my contention that physics is almost never science. My other piece of recent evidence is that my university doesn't require stats for the physics major.
Physics is "almost never science"? Are you serious, here? You have two pieces of anecdotal evidence to refute the entire discipline of "physics"?
That's... well that's something.
People are reluctant to accept ideas which conflict with the status quo, this holds true for pretty much everything. I don't know why anyone should expect physicists to be any different. No one fully understands how/why they've made these anomalous observations, so any amount of skepticism is understandable at this point.
Also, more importantly - arVix is not peer reviewed, and at the moment theorists are pretty much just shitting out papers containing every conceivable explanation they can think of. Which is good - its what we want, since that points the way to new tests of what the christ is happening.
Although I do have to say, a somewhat generic "the other experiment must be wrong" paper is pretty boring although getting that specific data into the public domain is important.
Yeah, OPERA is doing science and ICARUS is doing dogma at this point.
OPERA all the way, baby.
Basically, ICARUS's statement and the fact that they weren't immediately laughed out of existence support my contention that physics is almost never science. My other piece of recent evidence is that my university doesn't require stats for the physics major.
Sounds more like your university sucks. You can't do experimental physics without stats.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Wait, so theoretical physics is not a science? o_O
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
So, because this post is Applied Goosery, you aren't actually doing Goose Science.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Theory is required to provide a framework for extending experimental results to future predictions. Experiment can tell us the acceleration due to gravity on Earth's surface and the surface of the moon, but can't tell us why they are different or how to determine the acceleration due to gravity on Mars, in the depths of interplanetary space, or at the top of a tall building versus at the bottom without going to those places with an accelerometer.
You don't particularly need statistics to do theoretical physics, unless you're doing anything that operates at the level of statistical mechanics or below, but you won't come out of a graduate degree in physics at any university without knowing statistics. I'm honestly not sure how you could even get through an undergraduate degree in physics without it. Statistical mechanics requires a thorough understanding of statistical distributions and combinatorics. Quantum mechanics does, too.
"Experimental biology" is called "anatomy" or "molecular biology". Evolutionary biology, bio-physics, bio-chemistry, almost anything to do with neuroscience, epidemiology, and other parts of the biology spectrum have varying concentrations of pure-theoretician biologists, the same way that different branches of physics have varying ratios of theoretical to experimental researchers. If you go too far off down the experimental road in physics you end up being called an engineer; if you do that in biology you're probably a veterinarian, pharmacologist, or one variety of medical doctor or another.
If you want to make a case for a physical science not having a theoretical arm, next time go with chemistry. Theoretical chemists all end up being called bio-chemists or physicists.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
I keep trying to reply to this in a way that's not "you silly goose" but I think I just need to ask this; do you have any scientific background?
You don't seem to understand what a theoretician actually is, nor do you realise that they are in pretty much every scientific discipline, even if not by that name.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Theory is required to provide a framework for extending experimental results to future predictions. Experiment can tell us the acceleration due to gravity on Earth's surface and the surface of the moon, but can't tell us why they are different or how to determine the acceleration due to gravity on Mars, in the depths of interplanetary space, or at the top of a tall building versus at the bottom without going to those places with an accelerometer.
You don't particularly need statistics to do theoretical physics, unless you're doing anything that operates at the level of statistical mechanics or below, but you won't come out of a graduate degree in physics at any university without knowing statistics. I'm honestly not sure how you could even get through an undergraduate degree in physics without it. Statistical mechanics requires a thorough understanding of statistical distributions and combinatorics. Quantum mechanics does, too.
"Experimental biology" is called "anatomy" or "molecular biology". Evolutionary biology, bio-physics, bio-chemistry, almost anything to do with neuroscience, epidemiology, and other parts of the biology spectrum have varying concentrations of pure-theoretician biologists, the same way that different branches of physics have varying ratios of theoretical to experimental researchers. If you go too far off down the experimental road in physics you end up being called an engineer; if you do that in biology you're probably a veterinarian, pharmacologist, or one variety of medical doctor or another.
If you want to make a case for a physical science not having a theoretical arm, next time go with chemistry. Theoretical chemists all end up being called bio-chemists or physicists.
I'm not sure you actually know what an experiment is.
Science is defined by the scientific method. If you aren't doing this:
you aren't doing science.
I'm not sure you actually know what an experiment is.
Science is defined by the scientific method. If you aren't doing this:
you aren't doing science.
Being as we aren't all doing science fair projects, no, not every scientist is going to be running through the entire flowchart. It takes years and years of study and training to reach the point that you understand how a modern piece of experimental apparatus like any of the many wire chambers in a particle accelerator detector assembly works down to the individual wires and the software recording the data. It takes years beyond that to come up with, prototype, test, validate, and field an improved component. Physicists dedicate their entire careers to things like that, and they're still doing science. They're not devising any new hypotheses about particle interaction and they may not even be doing anything themselves with the data coming out of the experiment that uses their detector component, which is why they start to look more like engineers.
A less extreme example would be the average grad student in physics. He probably didn't come up with the theory he's attempting to test and he probably didn't come up with the experimental method he's using. He's collecting data (and getting everything to hang together just right so that he Can collect data, and culling the noise out of the data, and so on and so forth) and analyzing it to see if it fits the theory's predictions. Is that not science, since he's confined to one or two boxes on your science fair flowchart?
How about the astophysicist who doesn't do any collection himself, but instead takes data sets from a team running a telescope in Hawaii or somewhere and then analyzes it, looking for pulsars or gravitational lensing or something? Is he not doing science?
What about the guy who takes the gravitational lensing guy's results and formulates a theory explaining their divergence from accepted theory, leading to the team in Hawaii setting up a new observational experiment, leading the first guy to another analysis pass? Which one of them isn't doing science?
Oh, right, you don't think any of them are doing science.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited November 2011
Guys, theoretical physicists aren't doing science. Forget that fact that you are even posting this on the internet right now because of the work of theoretical physicists...they just aren't doing science. It's voodoo magic.
e: Also, please never use GPS again, because that too is voodoo magic propagated by the non-scientists that call themselves theoretical physicists.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Theory is required to provide a framework for extending experimental results to future predictions. Experiment can tell us the acceleration due to gravity on Earth's surface and the surface of the moon, but can't tell us why they are different or how to determine the acceleration due to gravity on Mars, in the depths of interplanetary space, or at the top of a tall building versus at the bottom without going to those places with an accelerometer.
You don't particularly need statistics to do theoretical physics, unless you're doing anything that operates at the level of statistical mechanics or below, but you won't come out of a graduate degree in physics at any university without knowing statistics. I'm honestly not sure how you could even get through an undergraduate degree in physics without it. Statistical mechanics requires a thorough understanding of statistical distributions and combinatorics. Quantum mechanics does, too.
"Experimental biology" is called "anatomy" or "molecular biology". Evolutionary biology, bio-physics, bio-chemistry, almost anything to do with neuroscience, epidemiology, and other parts of the biology spectrum have varying concentrations of pure-theoretician biologists, the same way that different branches of physics have varying ratios of theoretical to experimental researchers. If you go too far off down the experimental road in physics you end up being called an engineer; if you do that in biology you're probably a veterinarian, pharmacologist, or one variety of medical doctor or another.
If you want to make a case for a physical science not having a theoretical arm, next time go with chemistry. Theoretical chemists all end up being called bio-chemists or physicists.
I'm not sure you actually know what an experiment is.
Science is defined by the scientific method. If you aren't doing this:
you aren't doing science.
I'm not sure you understand what experimental or theoretical physics is, or what their differences are.
Experimental Physics is the observation of a physical phenomena that produces data on the universe, which is then tested and observed. Example: Large Hadron Collider.
Theoretical Physics uses mathematical models to rationalize, explain and predict those physical phenomena occurring in the universe. Example: Relativity, Conservation of Energy, Classical and Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Theory is required to provide a framework for extending experimental results to future predictions. Experiment can tell us the acceleration due to gravity on Earth's surface and the surface of the moon, but can't tell us why they are different or how to determine the acceleration due to gravity on Mars, in the depths of interplanetary space, or at the top of a tall building versus at the bottom without going to those places with an accelerometer.
You don't particularly need statistics to do theoretical physics, unless you're doing anything that operates at the level of statistical mechanics or below, but you won't come out of a graduate degree in physics at any university without knowing statistics. I'm honestly not sure how you could even get through an undergraduate degree in physics without it. Statistical mechanics requires a thorough understanding of statistical distributions and combinatorics. Quantum mechanics does, too.
"Experimental biology" is called "anatomy" or "molecular biology". Evolutionary biology, bio-physics, bio-chemistry, almost anything to do with neuroscience, epidemiology, and other parts of the biology spectrum have varying concentrations of pure-theoretician biologists, the same way that different branches of physics have varying ratios of theoretical to experimental researchers. If you go too far off down the experimental road in physics you end up being called an engineer; if you do that in biology you're probably a veterinarian, pharmacologist, or one variety of medical doctor or another.
If you want to make a case for a physical science not having a theoretical arm, next time go with chemistry. Theoretical chemists all end up being called bio-chemists or physicists.
I'm not sure you actually know what an experiment is.
Science is defined by the scientific method. If you aren't doing this:
you aren't doing science.
I'm not sure you understand what experimental or theoretical physics is, or what their differences are.
Experimental Physics is the observation of a physical phenomena that produces data on the universe, which is then tested and observed. Example: Large Hadron Collider.
Theoretical Physics uses mathematical models to rationalize, explain and predict those physical phenomena occurring in the universe. Example: Relativity, Conservation of Energy, Classical and Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics.
That isn't entirely accurate. There are both experimental and theoretical physicists working in the fields of QM, statistical mechanics, and relativistic astrophysics, and people doing both experimental and theoretical work related to violation of conservation laws. I'm not sure that there's really anyone who could be properly said to have a career in theoretical classical mechanics, given that it hasn't changed appreciably in a very long time.
The problem with Bagginses' viewpoint is that there are a very tiny handful of modern scientists who work through that entire flowchart. The amount that you have to know to formulate a new physical theory, or to build a genuinely new experimental apparatus, or to properly analyze data that is produced at a rate of terabytes per second is sufficient to fill a lifetime. A nobel prize was awarded for figuring out how to build an apparatus to carry out an experiment on a theory that was, by then, some 60 years old. The scientists who made the first Bose-Einstein Condensate in a lab didn't come up with it. Bose and Einstein weren't present. But the scientific community thought their contributions to science were sufficient to earn a Nobel.
Everyone nowadays is doing the yellow, blue, or green bubbles on his chart with only relatively infrequent overlap within the same researcher. These aren't the days of scientists revolutionizing their fields by toiling away in isolation in a lab, producing and testing theories to change the face of science.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Actually that's an interesting sub-topic. How close are we to reaching a level of scientific knowledge where it takes generations upon generations to discover new things, because the amount of changing variables because exponential. Your example of the Bose-Einstein Condensate I think is a great one. That took almost two generations of scientists to go from theory to observable experiment.
Actually that's an interesting sub-topic. How close are we to reaching a level of scientific knowledge where it takes generations upon generations to discover new things, because the amount of changing variables because exponential. Your example of the Bose-Einstein Condensate I think is a great one. That took almost two generations of scientists to go from theory to observable experiment.
That kinda depends on what technologies develop as theories advancements. There's feedback so you are looking at the expansion of the problem space(for ignorance of a better term), compared with the expansion of out ability to generate, collect and process data.
We've developed a huge amount of processing capability, and expanded our ability for scientist to collaborate with each other. We are kinda in a phase where we are proving a fair amount right now.
I kinda hope when singularity gets here, the asymptote is pointing in the opposite direction of what is implied by your gloomy post.
Actually that's an interesting sub-topic. How close are we to reaching a level of scientific knowledge where it takes generations upon generations to discover new things, because the amount of changing variables because exponential. Your example of the Bose-Einstein Condensate I think is a great one. That took almost two generations of scientists to go from theory to observable experiment.
That was more to do with precision engineering than anything else. Physics is full of theories that are currently un-testable due to apparatus limitations, and equally full of theories that are suddenly becoming testable because we built a <new accelerator | smaller lithographic technique | better telescope | more sensitive interferometer | smoother ball | etc>. The recent Gravity Probe experiment that verified some predictions from Einstein's relativity was only possible because engineers were able to make optical gyroscopes using spheres of unprecedented regularity - perfectly round down to a matter of atoms. Sometimes a new theory is testable right out of the gate, sometimes it takes years or decades of work to set up a method for experimentation, and sometimes it takes generations for technology to catch up with theoreticians' ideas. Einstein didn't actually think that the condensate predicted by Bose's equations was physically relevant because he didn't imagine that there would ever exist - in or outside a laboratory - a setting so close to absolute zero. Sixty years later, with the advent of laser cooling and magnetic traps, here we are.
I don't think we'll ever get to a point were every new idea takes generations to test. I think, given the exponential curve of technological development, it's more likely that we reach a point where almost every idea we have is immediately verifiable. Maybe even a point where our technology begins to outstrip our ability to understand it using established theories. I have no idea what that would look like, in practice, but it's already possible to build a neural network using evolutionary programming methods that produces results according to a process that isn't mappable to any logical sequence that a human could possibly understand.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Actually that's an interesting sub-topic. How close are we to reaching a level of scientific knowledge where it takes generations upon generations to discover new things, because the amount of changing variables because exponential. Your example of the Bose-Einstein Condensate I think is a great one. That took almost two generations of scientists to go from theory to observable experiment.
That kinda depends on what technologies develop as theories advancements. There's feedback so you are looking at the expansion of the problem space(for ignorance of a better term), compared with the expansion of out ability to generate, collect and process data.
We've developed a huge amount of processing capability, and expanded our ability for scientist to collaborate with each other. We are kinda in a phase where we are proving a fair amount right now.
Agreed, but the problem spaces we are now solving are becoming exponentially more complex. Take the Higgs Boson search. We are now looking for a particle, that doesn't directly interact with our visible dimensions of space, and as far as we know, can only be detected by extremely tiny traces of energy residue in extremely energetic particle splits. That's a problem space that is exponentially more complex than say, discovering the atom.
Now, don't misinterpret me, I'm not saying the Higgs is a problem space that we are generations away from solving...just using that as an example of how complex the problem spaces are becoming. Computational advancement helps, but what happens when the very act of advancing computation starts to take on an exponential problem space of it's own?
Interesting stuff.
e: @CptHamilton: Interesting points to be sure, especially about the precision engineering.
Agreed, but the problem spaces we are now solving are becoming exponentially more complex. Take the Higgs Boson search. We are now looking for a particle, that doesn't directly interact with our visible dimensions of space, and as far as we know, can only be detected by extremely tiny traces of energy residue in extremely energetic particle splits. That's a problem space that is exponentially more complex than say, discovering the atom.
I won't pretend to understand high energy physics data analysis. I worked on a fast monte carlo simulator for educational mock-ups of accelerator detector apparatus as an undergrad and that's as close it as I ever wanted to go. It's black magic how they're able to wring meaning out of all that data. I mean, it's almost inconceivable how much raw data there is to sift through.
But I wouldn't discount advances in information theory and automated analysis. If we're capable of formulating a theory and devising an experiment then I think we can find a way to wring out the data from it into a useful result.
I never went beyond an undergrad degree and a couple of grad classes in mathematics, but it's my understanding that modern mathematical proofs often involve automated proof-generation (to fill in the largely crank-turning gaps between creative steps) and proof-validation (to analyze proofs that are hundreds upon hundreds of pages long). I imagine that something similar will eventually be brought to bear on the physical sciences as the volume of data and analysis complexity out-strip the capabilities of our meat.
Actually that's an interesting sub-topic. How close are we to reaching a level of scientific knowledge where it takes generations upon generations to discover new things, because the amount of changing variables because exponential. Your example of the Bose-Einstein Condensate I think is a great one. That took almost two generations of scientists to go from theory to observable experiment.
That kinda depends on what technologies develop as theories advancements. There's feedback so you are looking at the expansion of the problem space(for ignorance of a better term), compared with the expansion of out ability to generate, collect and process data.
We've developed a huge amount of processing capability, and expanded our ability for scientist to collaborate with each other. We are kinda in a phase where we are proving a fair amount right now.
Agreed, but the problem spaces we are now solving are becoming exponentially more complex. Take the Higgs Boson search. We are now looking for a particle, that doesn't directly interact with our visible dimensions of space, and as far as we know, can only be detected by extremely tiny traces of energy residue in extremely energetic particle splits. That's a problem space that is exponentially more complex than say, discovering the atom.
Now, don't misinterpret me, I'm not saying the Higgs is a problem space that we are generations away from solving...just using that as an example of how complex the problem spaces are becoming. Computational advancement helps, but what happens when the very act of advancing computation starts to take on an exponential problem space of it's own?
Interesting stuff.
e: @CptHamilton: Interesting points to be sure, especially about the precision engineering.
Agreed, but the problem spaces we are now solving are becoming exponentially more complex. Take the Higgs Boson search. We are now looking for a particle, that doesn't directly interact with our visible dimensions of space, and as far as we know, can only be detected by extremely tiny traces of energy residue in extremely energetic particle splits. That's a problem space that is exponentially more complex than say, discovering the atom.
I won't pretend to understand high energy physics data analysis. I worked on a fast monte carlo simulator for educational mock-ups of accelerator detector apparatus as an undergrad and that's as close it as I ever wanted to go. It's black magic how they're able to wring meaning out of all that data. I mean, it's almost inconceivable how much raw data there is to sift through.
But I wouldn't discount advances in information theory and automated analysis. If we're capable of formulating a theory and devising an experiment then I think we can find a way to wring out the data from it into a useful result.
I never went beyond an undergrad degree and a couple of grad classes in mathematics, but it's my understanding that modern mathematical proofs often involve automated proof-generation (to fill in the largely crank-turning gaps between creative steps) and proof-validation (to analyze proofs that are hundreds upon hundreds of pages long). I imagine that something similar will eventually be brought to bear on the physical sciences as the volume of data and analysis complexity out-strip the capabilities of our meat.
A lot of automated data sifting apparently has to be running on the LHC at the moment since the number of particle events is so high that it's just not possible to store every single one. I would imagine that it's probably fairly conservative in it's rejections, but apparently they accept only 1 in every 6000 events. Which is amazing considering this still tallies to petabytes of data per year.
Just checking and apparently CERN is collected about 5 Inverse femtobarns or ~350,000,000,000 collisions
I have a hard time picking between 1/fb or attoParsec as my favorite unit of all time.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
The amount of data CERN is collecting is astounding. If we don't find the Higgs in all that, it's pretty much not there (or interacts with our visible dimensions in such an odd way we can't observe it beyond it's effects as the gravity carrier).
The amount of data CERN is collecting is astounding. If we don't find the Higgs in all that, it's pretty much not there (or interacts with our visible dimensions in such an odd way we can't observe it beyond it's effects as the gravity carrier).
Is the Higgs Boson actually the messenger particle for gravity? I thought the Higgs only determined the amount of mass in certain particles, but wasn't the actual particle responsible for gravity.
Guys, theoretical physicists aren't doing science. Forget that fact that you are even posting this on the internet right now because of the work of theoretical physicists...they just aren't doing science. It's voodoo magic.
e: Also, please never use GPS again, because that too is voodoo magic propagated by the non-scientists that call themselves theoretical physicists.
So every invention and structure is science? You can do all the theorizing and postulating you want, but the guy who goes out and tries to see if the postulations have any basis in reality is doing the science. The people who use the finding don't have to be, and rarely are, scientists. That's also why I think volcanoes should be banned from science fairs. If you can't show findings, even if the findings are "a replication of a previous experiment reaches the same result," then it isn't science.
The problem with Bagginses' viewpoint is that there are a very tiny handful of modern scientists who work through that entire flowchart.
Only in physics. I've worked on the design and follow through of a large wildlife behavior study (wildlife/livestock interactions, to be specific), and the head investigator and his colleagues are constantly taking data to produce findings. Hell, open up any issue of Animal Behavior and you sure as hell aren't going to see some jackass showing his calculations of bird speed without any actual bird observations. Similarly, going on TV giving theories about what troop movements in Iraq mean doesn't make you a member of the military, and Chris Matthews sure as hell isn't a government official no matter how many times he theorizes about politics. Hell, if talking about science were science, we could publish this thread.
A less extreme example would be the average grad student in physics. He probably didn't come up with the theory he's attempting to test and he probably didn't come up with the experimental method he's using. He's collecting data (and getting everything to hang together just right so that he Can collect data, and culling the noise out of the data, and so on and so forth) and analyzing it to see if it fits the theory's predictions. Is that not science, since he's confined to one or two boxes on your science fair flowchart?
This sounds like a technician. While he alone isn't doing science, his team is.
How about the astophysicist who doesn't do any collection himself, but instead takes data sets from a team running a telescope in Hawaii or somewhere and then analyzes it, looking for pulsars or gravitational lensing or something? Is he not doing science?
You can run an experiment on preexisting data. A lot of people trying to build models of behaviors test their models by finding the most recent detailed study and running their models against it. It generally doesn't work out well for the model, thereby precluding the need to collect original data, but there's science for you. Hell, a post-hoc test could be considered an experiment of preexisting data.
What about the guy who takes the gravitational lensing guy's results and formulates a theory explaining their divergence from accepted theory
That's just some dude on a message board. It's the guy who asks if that actually pans out and tries to figure it out who is doing science.
I think a better question is if the "scientists" who go out and start observing a species with no idea what they're actually looking for are actually conducting science. I tend to think they're doing prep work or providing background for later science rather than doing science at that point.
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This is more or less string theory as far as I knew.
Neutrinos blip in and out of 3d space, and to our observations, they move faster than light, when in their dimension they move at the speed of light along a different set of paths. Thus it appears as though they're moving faster.
Think of 3d spacetime as shining light into a pool of water. It slows down and gets refracted. Now imagine these neutrinos in their raw form exist in 8d spacetime. Suddenly them moving along their path makes them move in and out, seemingly instantaneously into and out of 3d spacetime at a much faster rate, but moving along a "straight" path in 8d spacetime much like if I were to drive a car straight.
Edit: In my quoted post I was speculating that neutrinos may somehow ignore the curvature of spacetime produced by our planet/sun which might lead to a reconception of spacetime and/or gravity.
I always figured that the relative weakness of gravity was because it was just a side effect of mass bending spacetime, rather than being a direct force, as it were.
Just to be clear, I know next to nothing about physics.
There isn't really any experimental data that shows our understanding of relative with respect to photons and bosons, or our measurement of the speed of light is incorrect.
We've been doing experiments with this stuff for damned near 100 years. We've collected more data about this than exists in the library of congress. Technology we use every day is based on it. It is as consistent as we can measure.
There is experimental data that shows neutrinos propagate at something more than what we measure C to be.
There are less than 100 data points. They deal exclusively with neutrinos.
While if this is true, it may well lead to fundamental shift in our understanding of physics, I don't really see much of a reason to believe that change would take the form of a different measurement of the speed of light, as Taramoor was suggesting.
That was also (at least partially) a Futurama joke.
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Assuming, of course, that the traveling of n-D space is a longer distance than 3d, and not, a more complex thing that when traveling through it, appreciates an observable distance faster than that of light.
So traveling 3 meters in n-D space, pardon my lack of terminology here, the object moves 3.8 meters as observable from 3d space. However from n-D space observation, it appears to still only be moving 3.8.
But this is just what I remember from some string theory websites back in the day. And one of those "crazy physics be wacky" websites too.
There's a joke in this somewhere about how fast that flew over my head.
197 years did strike me as rather specific.
The most interesting response that I've seen to this is that, even assuming you can validly apply conventional (for certain values of the word conventional) physics to a possibly very unconventional phenomena, the math only works out if the neutrinos were travelling the same speed throughout the trip. If they started fast and then slowed down, or popped into a higher dimension for 20 meters before falling out, or if CERN unknowingly sent them 60ns back in time, then the math can still work out. This would also explain why we've never detected neutrinos from a supernova years ahead of time (they do arrive faster than light, but by a small enough margin to be conventionally explainable).
This also means that it will be harder to get confirmation, as any attempts to clock the speed of neutrinos that have already been created (as the Fermilab attempt next year will be, as I understand it) would show them moving at the correct speed.
Disclaimer: This is all just based on other discussions I've been following around the net, and I may have misunderstood something at this point.
I was shooting entirely for the "increased the speed of light in 2208" joke. I know enough basic physics to know that something traversing distance faster than C is huge. But can't really speak with authority on its implications, though the possibility of confirming or at least supporting string theory is certainly an interesting one.
Since all I know is that it's fascinating and that I can't do anything about it, I'm going for humor here.
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Basically, ICARUS's statement and the fact that they weren't immediately laughed out of existence support my contention that physics is almost never science. My other piece of recent evidence is that my university doesn't require stats for the physics major.
You misunderstand. Special relativity is only a valid theory because it's applicable to everything moving through spacetime correct? So if it's incorrect in just one instance then it has to be inherently flawed. The speed of light itself would still be correct, because as you stated we have an enormous amount of experimental data supporting it, but we don't derive that from relativity alone but also from Maxwell's equations. I see no reason that the speed of light would change, only special relativity which sets C as the maximum/constant cumulative speed of everything moving through spacetime. Any new theory would have to make predictions consistent with all of our previously gathered data on the speed of light, but allow for superluminal particles.
Edit: I know I'm jumping the gun here, but I wonder how fast a superluminal particle would move through time.
That's... well that's something.
Be careful what you wish for.
That some kind of new Blu Ray?
:P
People are reluctant to accept ideas which conflict with the status quo, this holds true for pretty much everything. I don't know why anyone should expect physicists to be any different. No one fully understands how/why they've made these anomalous observations, so any amount of skepticism is understandable at this point.
Also, more importantly - arVix is not peer reviewed, and at the moment theorists are pretty much just shitting out papers containing every conceivable explanation they can think of. Which is good - its what we want, since that points the way to new tests of what the christ is happening.
Although I do have to say, a somewhat generic "the other experiment must be wrong" paper is pretty boring although getting that specific data into the public domain is important.
Sounds more like your university sucks. You can't do experimental physics without stats.
Conclusion a: Physics is dumb.
Conclusion b: My university is dumb.
The fact that he went with a is just more evidence that b is the correct answer.
It's a fairly prestigious scientific university, and the fact that "physics" needs to be preceded by "experimental" just goes to my point. If it's not experimental, it's not science. When's the last time you heard of "experimental biology?" Hell, even anthropology isn't dominated by theorists and it's not even officially a science anymore.
Wait, so theoretical physics is not a science? o_O
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So, because this post is Applied Goosery, you aren't actually doing Goose Science.
Theory is required to provide a framework for extending experimental results to future predictions. Experiment can tell us the acceleration due to gravity on Earth's surface and the surface of the moon, but can't tell us why they are different or how to determine the acceleration due to gravity on Mars, in the depths of interplanetary space, or at the top of a tall building versus at the bottom without going to those places with an accelerometer.
You don't particularly need statistics to do theoretical physics, unless you're doing anything that operates at the level of statistical mechanics or below, but you won't come out of a graduate degree in physics at any university without knowing statistics. I'm honestly not sure how you could even get through an undergraduate degree in physics without it. Statistical mechanics requires a thorough understanding of statistical distributions and combinatorics. Quantum mechanics does, too.
"Experimental biology" is called "anatomy" or "molecular biology". Evolutionary biology, bio-physics, bio-chemistry, almost anything to do with neuroscience, epidemiology, and other parts of the biology spectrum have varying concentrations of pure-theoretician biologists, the same way that different branches of physics have varying ratios of theoretical to experimental researchers. If you go too far off down the experimental road in physics you end up being called an engineer; if you do that in biology you're probably a veterinarian, pharmacologist, or one variety of medical doctor or another.
If you want to make a case for a physical science not having a theoretical arm, next time go with chemistry. Theoretical chemists all end up being called bio-chemists or physicists.
I keep trying to reply to this in a way that's not "you silly goose" but I think I just need to ask this; do you have any scientific background?
You don't seem to understand what a theoretician actually is, nor do you realise that they are in pretty much every scientific discipline, even if not by that name.
I'm not sure you actually know what an experiment is.
Science is defined by the scientific method. If you aren't doing this:
you aren't doing science.
Being as we aren't all doing science fair projects, no, not every scientist is going to be running through the entire flowchart. It takes years and years of study and training to reach the point that you understand how a modern piece of experimental apparatus like any of the many wire chambers in a particle accelerator detector assembly works down to the individual wires and the software recording the data. It takes years beyond that to come up with, prototype, test, validate, and field an improved component. Physicists dedicate their entire careers to things like that, and they're still doing science. They're not devising any new hypotheses about particle interaction and they may not even be doing anything themselves with the data coming out of the experiment that uses their detector component, which is why they start to look more like engineers.
A less extreme example would be the average grad student in physics. He probably didn't come up with the theory he's attempting to test and he probably didn't come up with the experimental method he's using. He's collecting data (and getting everything to hang together just right so that he Can collect data, and culling the noise out of the data, and so on and so forth) and analyzing it to see if it fits the theory's predictions. Is that not science, since he's confined to one or two boxes on your science fair flowchart?
How about the astophysicist who doesn't do any collection himself, but instead takes data sets from a team running a telescope in Hawaii or somewhere and then analyzes it, looking for pulsars or gravitational lensing or something? Is he not doing science?
What about the guy who takes the gravitational lensing guy's results and formulates a theory explaining their divergence from accepted theory, leading to the team in Hawaii setting up a new observational experiment, leading the first guy to another analysis pass? Which one of them isn't doing science?
Oh, right, you don't think any of them are doing science.
e: Also, please never use GPS again, because that too is voodoo magic propagated by the non-scientists that call themselves theoretical physicists.
I'm not sure you understand what experimental or theoretical physics is, or what their differences are.
Experimental Physics is the observation of a physical phenomena that produces data on the universe, which is then tested and observed. Example: Large Hadron Collider.
Theoretical Physics uses mathematical models to rationalize, explain and predict those physical phenomena occurring in the universe. Example: Relativity, Conservation of Energy, Classical and Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics.
That isn't entirely accurate. There are both experimental and theoretical physicists working in the fields of QM, statistical mechanics, and relativistic astrophysics, and people doing both experimental and theoretical work related to violation of conservation laws. I'm not sure that there's really anyone who could be properly said to have a career in theoretical classical mechanics, given that it hasn't changed appreciably in a very long time.
The problem with Bagginses' viewpoint is that there are a very tiny handful of modern scientists who work through that entire flowchart. The amount that you have to know to formulate a new physical theory, or to build a genuinely new experimental apparatus, or to properly analyze data that is produced at a rate of terabytes per second is sufficient to fill a lifetime. A nobel prize was awarded for figuring out how to build an apparatus to carry out an experiment on a theory that was, by then, some 60 years old. The scientists who made the first Bose-Einstein Condensate in a lab didn't come up with it. Bose and Einstein weren't present. But the scientific community thought their contributions to science were sufficient to earn a Nobel.
Everyone nowadays is doing the yellow, blue, or green bubbles on his chart with only relatively infrequent overlap within the same researcher. These aren't the days of scientists revolutionizing their fields by toiling away in isolation in a lab, producing and testing theories to change the face of science.
That kinda depends on what technologies develop as theories advancements. There's feedback so you are looking at the expansion of the problem space(for ignorance of a better term), compared with the expansion of out ability to generate, collect and process data.
We've developed a huge amount of processing capability, and expanded our ability for scientist to collaborate with each other. We are kinda in a phase where we are proving a fair amount right now.
I kinda hope when singularity gets here, the asymptote is pointing in the opposite direction of what is implied by your gloomy post.
That was more to do with precision engineering than anything else. Physics is full of theories that are currently un-testable due to apparatus limitations, and equally full of theories that are suddenly becoming testable because we built a <new accelerator | smaller lithographic technique | better telescope | more sensitive interferometer | smoother ball | etc>. The recent Gravity Probe experiment that verified some predictions from Einstein's relativity was only possible because engineers were able to make optical gyroscopes using spheres of unprecedented regularity - perfectly round down to a matter of atoms. Sometimes a new theory is testable right out of the gate, sometimes it takes years or decades of work to set up a method for experimentation, and sometimes it takes generations for technology to catch up with theoreticians' ideas. Einstein didn't actually think that the condensate predicted by Bose's equations was physically relevant because he didn't imagine that there would ever exist - in or outside a laboratory - a setting so close to absolute zero. Sixty years later, with the advent of laser cooling and magnetic traps, here we are.
I don't think we'll ever get to a point were every new idea takes generations to test. I think, given the exponential curve of technological development, it's more likely that we reach a point where almost every idea we have is immediately verifiable. Maybe even a point where our technology begins to outstrip our ability to understand it using established theories. I have no idea what that would look like, in practice, but it's already possible to build a neural network using evolutionary programming methods that produces results according to a process that isn't mappable to any logical sequence that a human could possibly understand.
Agreed, but the problem spaces we are now solving are becoming exponentially more complex. Take the Higgs Boson search. We are now looking for a particle, that doesn't directly interact with our visible dimensions of space, and as far as we know, can only be detected by extremely tiny traces of energy residue in extremely energetic particle splits. That's a problem space that is exponentially more complex than say, discovering the atom.
Now, don't misinterpret me, I'm not saying the Higgs is a problem space that we are generations away from solving...just using that as an example of how complex the problem spaces are becoming. Computational advancement helps, but what happens when the very act of advancing computation starts to take on an exponential problem space of it's own?
Interesting stuff.
e: @CptHamilton: Interesting points to be sure, especially about the precision engineering.
I won't pretend to understand high energy physics data analysis. I worked on a fast monte carlo simulator for educational mock-ups of accelerator detector apparatus as an undergrad and that's as close it as I ever wanted to go. It's black magic how they're able to wring meaning out of all that data. I mean, it's almost inconceivable how much raw data there is to sift through.
But I wouldn't discount advances in information theory and automated analysis. If we're capable of formulating a theory and devising an experiment then I think we can find a way to wring out the data from it into a useful result.
I never went beyond an undergrad degree and a couple of grad classes in mathematics, but it's my understanding that modern mathematical proofs often involve automated proof-generation (to fill in the largely crank-turning gaps between creative steps) and proof-validation (to analyze proofs that are hundreds upon hundreds of pages long). I imagine that something similar will eventually be brought to bear on the physical sciences as the volume of data and analysis complexity out-strip the capabilities of our meat.
SINGULARITY!
A lot of automated data sifting apparently has to be running on the LHC at the moment since the number of particle events is so high that it's just not possible to store every single one. I would imagine that it's probably fairly conservative in it's rejections, but apparently they accept only 1 in every 6000 events. Which is amazing considering this still tallies to petabytes of data per year.
I have a hard time picking between 1/fb or attoParsec as my favorite unit of all time.
Is the Higgs Boson actually the messenger particle for gravity? I thought the Higgs only determined the amount of mass in certain particles, but wasn't the actual particle responsible for gravity.
So every invention and structure is science? You can do all the theorizing and postulating you want, but the guy who goes out and tries to see if the postulations have any basis in reality is doing the science. The people who use the finding don't have to be, and rarely are, scientists. That's also why I think volcanoes should be banned from science fairs. If you can't show findings, even if the findings are "a replication of a previous experiment reaches the same result," then it isn't science.
Only in physics. I've worked on the design and follow through of a large wildlife behavior study (wildlife/livestock interactions, to be specific), and the head investigator and his colleagues are constantly taking data to produce findings. Hell, open up any issue of Animal Behavior and you sure as hell aren't going to see some jackass showing his calculations of bird speed without any actual bird observations. Similarly, going on TV giving theories about what troop movements in Iraq mean doesn't make you a member of the military, and Chris Matthews sure as hell isn't a government official no matter how many times he theorizes about politics. Hell, if talking about science were science, we could publish this thread.
This sounds like a technician. While he alone isn't doing science, his team is. You can run an experiment on preexisting data. A lot of people trying to build models of behaviors test their models by finding the most recent detailed study and running their models against it. It generally doesn't work out well for the model, thereby precluding the need to collect original data, but there's science for you. Hell, a post-hoc test could be considered an experiment of preexisting data.
That's just some dude on a message board. It's the guy who asks if that actually pans out and tries to figure it out who is doing science.
I think a better question is if the "scientists" who go out and start observing a species with no idea what they're actually looking for are actually conducting science. I tend to think they're doing prep work or providing background for later science rather than doing science at that point.
Theoretical physicists make predictions based on observations.
Experimental physicists then try to make observations that support these predictions. Both are important, and both are doing science.