Not really. Aspects of it conflict with the standard model and the standard model has hundreds of high energy experiments that are consistent with the theory and back it up. f(R) doesn't.
"The new work also helps rule out a competing theory of gravity that seeks to do away with the need for bizarre concepts like dark matter and dark energy that have irked some scientists. This research indicates those pesky ideas may be here to stay."
I need dark energy to exist, otherwise a story I wrote goes down the ol' tube-aroo.
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
instead of posing "dark" energy and matter to account for the differences between our theories and our observations (mass of the universe, acceleration, etc) f(R) proposes that other systems are at work at macro-levels that are not relevant to the observation of gravity on earth, from my extremely limited understanding, like quantum effects and Newtonian gravity.
I don't really understand the "non-flat variants" stuff, other than to say I think it means that something other than the curvature of space time is responsible for gravity, and that this thing, or things, are also curved in their interactions with space-time. Suffice to say, one of these "non-flat variants" probably mathmatically explains expansion and another (or a variant in the curve of one) that explains the mass differences.
It strikes me a lot as string theory, its got a good story that I think people could love, but its not really testable. Observational stuff is cool, and good, but astrophysics, and most theoretical physics imho, has eyes way bigger than its tummy.
Are they implying other fields? Are they implying extradimensional influences? Offhand, it doesn't sound any simpler than dark matter/energy. And the thing is, "dark energy" is just a phrase; it's not like some new form of energy has actually been discovered. What's to "refute"?
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
I honestly couldn't operationally define the term 'field'
I would assume no, as the fields are supposed to only affect macro (relative to us) level phenomenon, whereas I have only seen reference to extra-dimensional interactions at micro levels (string theory)
They may be proposing new dimensions in macro space in the same way that string theory proposes them in micro space, but I don't know
I agree entirely, though I must admit, I don't understand the theories in the first place, so there may be valid experimental tests and observations being done that I wouldn't be able to comprehend.
Like, in perception research, to support that the "redness" of an object caught someone's attention, you have to prove that the brightness, curvature and a number of possibly counter-intuitive (to the lay person) issues aren't capturing attention. So, there probably are observations that are better explained by the one rather than the other, but they do remain untestable by my imagination (as I am totally a lay person here).
KMC Community Forums
Mar 10th, 2010 07:54 PM
FER TEA!!
Yeah, they did, didn't they.
