No human has seen a black hole or a neutron star at any time, though even most well educated people may well not have noticed this before reading it here. No one his seen these things, but we hadnt noticed because scientists are confident they are there. Why Because theory demands they exist. Therefore we (and I would include scientists here) dont see evidence of it, they see it. [Its like the eyes of faith - Jesus would be fairly impressed]. But as has happened time and again in recent years with major tech advances our ability to ACTUALLY see, and thus REALLY comfirm, advances. And often - surprisingly often what we see doesnt align with theory. No problem, you say - thats science! The scientific method has got it covered: well just adjust the theory! Ahhh, theres the rub: adjust the theory works right up to the edge of the paradigm. Paradigms arent adjusted. Its not an adjustment to medieval geocentrism to say the Earth isnt the center. You cant just adjust the sun to the center of an Earth-Centered universe. You can only realize the universe is fundamentally different than you thought and that all observations will have to be re-confirmed and likely reinterpreted in this light. Planets - which you can see - will still exist (though changed - reinterpreted), other things, such as the mathematically demonstrable planetary orbits and epicycles are gone - a phantom of the theory (epicycles are the little extra circles which only exist if you scientifically map the motion of the planets while holding the assumption that they are going round the earth, as scientists did for 15 or so centuries) . The day before Coperinus, the epicycle was as real as a planet for virtually every educated person; the day after it was an ossified product of a older scientific worldview. Today we would not be half so generous to call it even that, though thats it was. It was science. And it was wrong. Just so here: objects like neutron stars and black holes are inferences from things like x-ray signals. There is no thing observed. like some object. They are anamolies that have been FIT into a gravity-explained cosmos. Gravity explains them because it must (Why? A: Because it explains all of the large scale features of the universe. Why? A: Because: Einstein, now hush). But once again we look to the stars and ask: why?
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 21:20:57 +0000
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