The difference between opinion, fact, and theory

JubalJubal
edited June 2024 in General

This is how my mimd works, so bear with me. Ran across an intense video from the Veritasium channel, which I'll post later. He poses a truly amazing question: how fast is the ONE-WAY speed of light?

We know for a fact that the ROUND TRIP speed of light is c because we can bounce a laser off a reflector on the moon and measure it. But we have no way at present to observe and measure the one way speed of light. It could be that light travels faster in one direction than in another after all, but we can't prove it one way or the other.

So the round trip speed of light is a fact, whereas the one way speed of light is a theory. Granted, its probably a good solid theory, but remains unproven. Eh, will do opinion later. Its bedtime.

Comments

  • TxTomTxTom

    Veritasium is a great channel.

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    @Jubal - your question about measuring the speed of light reminds me of a physics joke…

    Dr. Heisenberg was pulled over for speeding and the cop asked him, “Do you know how fast you were going”?

    Heisenberg replied, “No, but I know exactly where I am”

  • JubalJubal

    🤣🤣🤣

  • JasonCuddlesJasonCuddles
    edited June 2024

    I used to watch that channel but I stopped for reasons that will take too long to explain before I go to bed. It's still a great channel though and I am glad it exists.

    Anyways I don't think facts exist. There is only best available evidence. Some things get to the point where it's so likely that you can use the word fact, like the idea that something will fall to the ground if you let go of it or counting how many people are in a room.

    An opinion is something that is either not applicable to facts such as thinking blue is the best colour(it's clearly purple), or it is something that doesn't have any real evidence.

    A really good subject here is general relativity. GR works super well, this is our best available model. However at the scale of the universe things aren't working so well and we lack a lot of knowledge about what's really out there because it's really hard to know.

    There are various ideas on how to explain it, dark matter being the most widely accepted as having the best evidence as far as I know, but there are other ideas like modified gravity.

    Now if you see a line that looks like:

    Opinion with zero evidence |-----------------------------------------------| pretty much fact

    opinion on colour would be at the very left here. The thought that something will fall if you let go of it would be at the very right of this line. Dark matter would be closer to the right than modified gravity but to the left of things falling when you drop them.

    Anyways that's just my late night ramblings before bed. I reserve the right to disagree with what I wrote in the morning.

  • TxTomTxTom

    We don't know what we don't know. But you don't have to know everything to know something.

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    There are some indisputable facts such as 6’ social distancing is required to keep us safe. Questioning “facts” like this got people banned from this site a couple of years ago.

    However, even Dr. Science himself could not defend these facts while testifying under oath.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/covid-6-feet-social-distancing-sort-of-just-appeared-likely-lacked-scientific-basis-fauci-admits/ar-AA1mLfv2

  • starrynitecudsstarrynitecuds

    @TxTom 💯 and just because something is known, doesn't mean everything is known.

  • WestsideMarcWestsideMarc

    I’ve never heard of this channel is it on DIRECTV?

  • JasonCuddlesJasonCuddles

    Veritasium is on places like odysee

  • TxTomTxTom

    @JohnR1972 That entire episode of manufactured hysteria was designed to defy common sense, insult one's intelligence, and test the population's resistance to totalitarianism.

  • TxTomTxTom

    @Jubal I will go out on quite a laughable, flimsy limb, sans any scientific evidence or developed theory of my own, with only my gut feeling and say, I don't think lightspeed is the fastest speed.

  • JubalJubal

    @TxTom you'll have to work harder than that to get an argument from me.

    In my opinion, this is simply the fastest natural speed that we currently know how to measure. I wouldnt be surprised if we did one day discover 'warp speeds'

  • starrynitecudsstarrynitecuds

    @TxTom my inner Trekkie concurs. Warp speed is barely out of reach. ⭐️

  • dave31415dave31415

    Physics is local. That means that you can’t know what is happening somewhere else unless you go there or receive a signal from there. So when you send light out, you will have no knowledge about what happens to it unless it comes back to you along with information that was either collected by you from being there or from someone else whose information you trust. Either you know the distance it has traveled because you remember it (reliability of memory) or because you trust another person’s information (reliability of communication). There is no way to measure the one way speed of light because it makes no sense from an information perspective for a sentient being that is also subject to the laws of physics which are local.

  • [Deleted User]FriendlyFemale (deleted user)

    @starrynitecuds 🖖😁 Good to know there is another here. I am also a big fan.

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    @Jubal @TxTom @starrynitecuds
    I read a book several years ago about quantum entanglement which stated “information” (I.e. the quantum state of an entangled particle) can travel faster than the speed of light. In fact, it appears to travel instantaneously using our current best measurement techniques.

  • dave31415dave31415
    edited June 2024

    It’s not really information in the sense that a human can decide on what is to be sent. You can’t send messages to another person faster than the speed of light with quantum entanglement. A better way to think of it is that quantum entangled particles are not actually separate to begin with.

  • ATemporaryUser0ATemporaryUser0

    Wouldn't it kinda make sense to actually link to the video you're discussing? I think it's this one.

    Granted, its probably a good solid theory, but remains unproven

    Note that this is absolutely, 100% not the way scientists use the word "theory." (And as far as I can tell from a quick skim of the video, they also don't use it that way.) The word "theory" is in no way meant to convey that the idea is tentative or not well supported by evidence. This misunderstanding about the meaning of the word "theory" has been exploited incessantly online to mislead people into thinking that many scientific ideas are not strongly supported by evidence.

  • JubalJubal
    edited June 2024

    @ATemporaryUser0 Oh no, please don't misunderstand me. All my life, I've been a scientist, a mathematician, etc. regardless of what degrees I have or what jobs/careers I've done. One of the cool things about physics and math is that you don't need a string of degrees and credentials to engage meaningfully in it (granted, it helps if you want to get published).

    When I use the word "theory", I mean the word in it's mathematical sense. It's an idea or concept that has been tested, is supported by evidence, and has NOT been proven false. But conversely, it has not been PROVEN true either, and often, all it takes is one counterexample to disprove a theory.

  • JubalJubal
    edited June 2024

  • ATemporaryUser0ATemporaryUser0

    @Jubal That is absolutely not what the word theory means in mathematics. Firstly, in mathematics, theories are about mathematical concepts, not claims about the natural world, so the ideas of "testing" and "evidence" are not really relevant.

    But even more importantly, in mathematics a theory is a body of knowledge that has been mathematically proven. For instance, an example of a mathematical theory is Galois Theory. The statements in Galois Theory are absolutely 100% true; they've been proven using mathematical logic, and there is no chance whatsoever that someone will find a counterexample to them.

  • JubalJubal

    @ATemporaryUser0 well then we learned from different mentors. You're describing what I've always known as a "theorem" (a proven theory).

  • FixerOfPewsFixerOfPews

    Opinion: Cheddar jack cheese is the best
    Fact: One cheese plus one cheese is two cheese
    Theory: Gruyere cheese might taste bad alone

  • MorpheusMorpheus

    one cheese plus one cheese is no cheese 🤷🏻‍♂️

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    My cheese. Nacho cheese.

  • pmvinespmvines

    All roads lead to cheese

  • starrynitecudsstarrynitecuds

    "It's not ez being chezy."

  • pmvinespmvines
    edited June 2024

    @starrynitecuds
    Easy for me ...

  • JubalJubal

    Someone shared this with me and it was too good not to add to the thread. B)

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