Dear Mr. Setterfield, We so very sorry. Signed, CF TEs.

[busterdog]

Weighty mission for scientists: redefine the kilo | Raw Story

Things are no so embarrassingly out of hand that we have evidence of mass variance in national standards! I hate it when that happens! Actually, I like it. You hate it.

Apparently they are looking at redefining the kilogram in terms of planck's constant.

One of the fundamental components of Barry Setterfield's theories was that the relationship between constants is what is constant, not the constants themselves.

For example, Planck's constant and light speed had an inverse relationship. The former had been acknowledged as varying in measurable ways, which caused many here to go First Class on their cruise up De Nile.

So, with mass variance gaining popular acceptance, sooner or later, C variance must also be released from its confined little compartment as a strange artifact in the official history of Big Bang. Then evolution and Big Bang can be put back on the shelf of history with other entertaining episodes of pseudoscience. And then those of us who insulted Barry Setterfield can apologize -- not for saying he was wrong, but for saying he was crazy and unscientific.

 

[Dark_Lite]

I like how "possible variance in mass" immediately leads to "YEC is correct." What happens when the variance isn't enough to matter? What happens if this mass variance fits in perfectly with other scientific theories and nothing even changes? What happens when this article is distorting what's actually going on? My guess is that the article is distorting things, but I'll wait and see on that front.

 

[metherion]

So, question, how does redefining it so it doesn't rely on a hunk of metal going to CHANGE it?

Planck's constant is 6.626 * 10 ^ -34 joules * seconds. A joule is a kilogram * meter^2 * second^-2. So a joule second would be a kilogram * meter squared divided by a second.

Mr. Louis de Broglie has postulated that Planck's constant represents the relationship between energy and quantum wavelength of any particle.

So, say, instead of the hunk of metal in France, or the mass of 1000mL of water at exactly 4 celsius, the kilogram gets defined as the mass needed for a particle to have X energy at a certain wavelength or while traveling a certain speed, and that mass is the same as the currently kilogram- about 2.2 pounds. It won't have changed, just the definition. Kind of like Pluto. Nothing about Pluto changed but its classification, naught about the kg would change save the definition. So how does that lead to the changing of the speed of light and the shelving of the Big Bang and all that?

*headscratch*

Metherion

 

[gluadys]

Weighty mission for scientists: redefine the kilo | Raw Story

Things are no so embarrassingly out of hand that we have evidence of mass variance in national standards! I hate it when that happens! Actually, I like it. You hate it.

Apparently they are looking at redefining the kilogram in terms of planck's constant.

One of the fundamental components of Barry Setterfield's theories was that the relationship between constants is what is constant, not the constants themselves.

For example, Planck's constant and light speed had an inverse relationship. The former had been acknowledged as varying in measurable ways, which caused many here to go First Class on their cruise up De Nile.

So, with mass variance gaining popular acceptance, sooner or later, C variance must also be released from its confined little compartment as a strange artifact in the official history of Big Bang. Then evolution and Big Bang can be put back on the shelf of history with other entertaining episodes of pseudoscience. And then those of us who insulted Barry Setterfield can apologize -- not for saying he was wrong, but for saying he was crazy and unscientific.

I saw an article about a block of metal losing a smidgeon of mass. I didn't see anything about theoretical physics changing. In fact, the point seems to be that they are looking for a way to define a kilo without reference to a block of metal. The block of metal is less reliable than non-Setterfieldian physics.

 

[busterdog]

No one said that YEC is a foregone conclusion. The point is the tenets by which setterfield was rejected are bad science.

Planck's constant has elsewhere been demonstrated to be variable. Now that mass must vary in some respect with the constant means the rest of the constants are on the table as possibly varying.

Y'all tried to lecture YEC about what was fair to be on the table for discussion and what was off the table for discussion. C decay is necessarily on the table for reasonable discussion. You were wrong about that. That is the point.

 

[metherion]

Planck's constant has elsewhere been demonstrated to be variable. Now that mass must vary in some respect with the constant means the rest of the constants are on the table as possibly varying.

Source?

Y'all tried to lecture YEC about what was fair to be on the table for discussion and what was off the table for discussion. C decay is necessarily on the table for reasonable discussion. You were wrong about that. That is the point.

And the idea of C decay relates to this how? *headscratch* This seems to be one huge non sequitor.

Metherion

 

[sfs]

No one said that YEC is a foregone conclusion. The point is the tenets by which setterfield was rejected are bad science.

Setterfield was rejected because he cherry-picked data, fabricated data, ignored experimental uncertainties and displayed complete statistical incompetence in analyzing his data -- basically because his work was complete rubbish. Even if tomorrow c, Planck's constant and the fine structure constant are all shown conclusively to be variable, Setterfield's work will still be rubbish.

Planck's constant has elsewhere been demonstrated to be variable.

When, and by whom?

Y'all tried to lecture YEC about what was fair to be on the table for discussion and what was off the table for discussion. C decay is necessarily on the table for reasonable discussion. You were wrong about that. That is the point.

Variation in physical constants has always been on the table for physicists, and there is a long history of experimental and observational efforts to look for changes. Physicists don't avoid the subject out of fear that it will help creationists, for the simple reason that physicists don't think about creationists at all (to a very good approximation) when they're doing their work. Demonstrating variability in the constants (I mean actually demonstrating it, not just finding the kind of small anomaly reported in the OP) would lead to major publications, lecture invitations, prizes and job offers. Those aren't the sort of things that scientists avoid.

 

[shernren]

Gahhh, stupid science reporters. Nobody cares about the weight of the international prototype kilogram (IPK). 50 micrograms is a measurement of mass. Also, what on earth is a "non-physical way of defining a kilo"? Divine sanction of unbiased scales, I suppose? What they mean is a definition of the kilo that is not tied to a physical artefact. It will still be measured using entirely physical processes.

Complaints about the general lack of science in Mr. Setterfield's work aside (and I think the other posts here have argued for the legitimacy of that accusation, so I won't say anything more), this isn't even the kind of variation in mass that he was spuriously proposing. Wonder how the researchers know that the IPK is losing mass? Because they measured it against its copies. Now if mass is somehow changing on a universal scale (i.e. at the scale required to explain cosmological data), then all the copies of the IPK would gain or lose mass simultaneously. Comparing one against another would then reveal no change.

So whatever this is (and I'll freely admit, because Wikipedia says so, that scientists aren't quite sure yet what's happening), it isn't the kind of mass variation that Setterfield is hoping for in his strange models. It could even be nothing more than literally a load of hot air. (Air adsorbed onto the IPK can increase its mass by as much as 60 micrograms.)

 

[busterdog]

Ha ha. You never disappoint.

 

[lucaspa]

Ha ha. You never disappoint.

I'd still like your source for the claim that Planck's constant is variable. Thanks.

 

[pgp_protector]

..snip...

Planck's constant has elsewhere been demonstrated to be variable. Now that mass must vary in some respect with the constant means the rest of the constants are on the table as possibly varying.
..snip...

As others have asked (and been ignored)
Source ?

 

[chilehed]

As others have asked (and been ignored)
Source ?

From the Astrophysical Journal, vol. 209, Oct. 15, 1976, pt. 1, p. 330-334: an article entitled "Observational evidence against a time variation in Planck's constant":

"An attempt has been made to observe whether old photons have the same relation between wavelength and energy as young photons. No detectable difference was found, using quasars with redshift up to z = 1.6 as sources. Assuming that the speed of light is cosmologically constant, the observations give an upper limit for a hypothetical variation of Planck's constant of less than 1 part in 1 trillion per year in a reasonable cosmological model."​

1976ApJ...209..330S Page 330

As for the source of busterdog's claim, I'm betting that someone made it up.

 

[busterdog]

Maybe someone did. Happy googling.

"Tell me how a man is searching, and I will tell you what he is searching for."

L. Wittgenstein

 

[busterdog]

I'd still like your source for the claim that Planck's constant is variable. Thanks.

Sanders, J.H., The Fundamental Atomic Constants, p.13, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1965.

I think that is the basic reference. There is lots of other stuff in Google.

Scoffing by some here makes me lose ambition.

 

[shernren]

Ohh, I'm sure you know just what Sanders wrote on page 13 of The Fundamental Atomic Constants, don't you? Come on, tell us.

Or are you blindly following a citation on a website you barely understand?

 

[theFijian]

Ohh, I'm sure you know just what Sanders wrote on page 13 of The Fundamental Atomic Constants, don't you? Come on, tell us.

Or are you blindly following a citation on a website you barely understand?

Oh go on somebody put us put of our misery!

 

[shernren]

Setterfield says:

In 1965, Sanders noted that the increasing value of h could only partly be accounted for by improvements in instrumental resolution and changes in listed values of other constants.
​

Sanders actually says:

Improvements in instrumental resolution and in the understanding of the form of the [lower wavelength] limit [of the brehmstrahlung X-ray spectrum] resulted in a steady decrease of the deduced value of h/e .... Part of the discrepancy of these figures is due to change in the accepted values of c and Lambda between 1921 and 1951.
​

Huzzah for quotemining hacks!

 

[metherion]

So, just to make sure I'm clear:

The actual speed of light did not change.
The actual Planck's constant did not change.

The accepted value for h/e changed, because the accepted value for c changed, but the actual speed of light in a vacuum did not change, nor did h.

And since, in this case, a hunk of metal that has generally represented the unit mass of one kilogram has changed, but the actual value of a kilogram hasn't changed, merely the mass of one hunk of metal.

So no constants or constant values are actually changing.

Just making sure.

Metherion

 

[shernren]

And since, in this case, a hunk of metal that has generally represented the unit mass of one kilogram has changed, but the actual value of a kilogram hasn't changed, merely the mass of one hunk of metal.

And, just to reiterate, the mass of that hunk of metal has changed with reference to other hunks of metal. Not what you'd expect if universal constants were actually changing appreciably.

=========

The whole business of "changing constants" is really quite ill-defined from a physical point of view. It's actually really easy to change the speed of light. All you need to do is to get the metrologists to redefine the meter to, say, the average length of an adult naked mole rat. Huzzah! The speed of light will instantly double or triple. And yet it's quite clear that a meeting of metrologists will do nothing to actually change the way the universe works.

As such, it's not really clear what it means for a physicist to claim that a dimensionful constant, such as the speed of light or the charge of an electron, to change. (Believe it or not, physics has unanswered questions!) What we do know is that there are quite important dimensionless constants that in principle could change, such as the fine structure constant, the proton-electron mass ratio and charge ratio, the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron, etc.

Indeed, one of the big questions is where these parameters come from. In the (spectacularly successful) Standard Model, they are inserted by hand - there's no theory to predict how much more massive the proton should be than the electron, for example. If there is a more fundamental theory that predicts these parameters, and that theory has time-varying processes, then those time-varying processes would also produce time-varying quantities for those parameters. (For example, the Higgs field is speculated to produce the mass of the elementary particles - thus, if the Higgs field could somehow change in time, the mass ratios of the elementary particles could also change.)

So there's actually nothing particularly wrong with varying fundamental constants. We just don't have any evidence that this has actually happened, and lots of evidence that it hasn't. In addition, as I've explained, change in dimensionful quantities is messy and controversial, quite apart from the fact that Barry Setterfield mangles basic physics to get from his variations in dimensionful quantities to his purported physical results.

 

[gluadys]

And, just to reiterate, the mass of that hunk of metal has changed with reference to other hunks of metal. Not what you'd expect if universal constants were actually changing appreciably.

=========

The whole business of "changing constants" is really quite ill-defined from a physical point of view. It's actually really easy to change the speed of light. All you need to do is to get the metrologists to redefine the meter to, say, the average length of an adult naked mole rat. Huzzah! The speed of light will instantly double or triple. And yet it's quite clear that a meeting of metrologists will do nothing to actually change the way the universe works.

Yes,that is what I took from the article too. It is more a matter of changing the definition of the unit of measurement (and not using a hunk of metal to define it) not about any actual change in physical constants like the speed of light.

It is no different from redefining "planet" in such as way that it excludes Pluto. Naturally this doesn't change Pluto itself one whit.