E Equals MC Squared Proven

[HuskyCaucasian]

e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right

 

It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

 

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

 

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.

 

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

 

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

 

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

 

The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.

 

By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.

 

But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.

 

"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.

 

"It has now been corroborated for the first time."

 

For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."

[The Gooch]

E actually equals MC Vagina

 

[Soxy]

It wasn't proven. Corroborating support was simply given to that theory. You can't prove anything in science--and if you think you have you don't understand the scientific process.

[FlaSoxxJim]

It wasn't proven. Corroborating support was simply given to that theory. You can't prove anything in science--and if you think you have you don't understand the scientific process.

 

Oh yea. . . ? Prove It!

 

 

B)

[StrangeSox]

It wasn't proven. Corroborating support was simply given to that theory. You can't prove anything in science--and if you think you have you don't understand the scientific process.

 

Science is based on induction, and inductions don't lead to universal truths/ proofs.

 

Still, cool research. Somewhat related:

Supercomputers Break Petaflop Barrier, Transforming Science

 

A new crop of supercomputers is breaking down the petaflop speed barrier, pushing high-performance computing into a new realm that could revolutionize science more profoundly than at any time since Galileo, leading researchers say.

 

When the Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was announced at the international supercomputing conference in Austin, Texas, on Monday, IBM had barely managed to cling to the top spot, fending off a challenge from Cray. But both competitors broke petaflop speeds, performing 1.105 and 1.059 quadrillion floating-point calculations per second, the first two computers to do so.

 

These computers aren't just faster than those they pushed further down the list, they will enable a new class of science that wasn't possible before. As recently described in Wired magazine, these massive number crunchers will push simulation to the forefront of science.

 

Scientists will be able to run new and vastly more accurate models of complex phenomena: Climate models will have dramatically higher resolution and accuracy, new materials for efficient energy transmission will be developed and simulations of scramjet engines will reach a new level of complexity.

 

"The scientific method has changed for the first time since Galileo invented the telescope (in 1509)," said computer scientist Mark Seager of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

 

Supercomputing has made huge advances over the last decade or so, gradually packing on the ability to handle more and more data points in increasingly complex ways. It has enabled scientists to test theories, design experiments and predict outcomes as never before. But now, the new class of petaflop-scale machines is poised to bring about major qualitative changes in the way science is done.

 

"The new capability allows you to do fundamentally new physics and tackle new problems," said Thomas Zacharia, who heads up computer science at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, home of the second place Cray XT5 Jaguar supercomputer. "And it will accelerate the transition from basic research to applied technology."

 

Breaking the petaflop barrier, a feat that seemed astronomical just two years ago, won't just allow faster computations. It allows computers to enable entirely new types of science that couldn't have been done before. This new generation of petascale machines will move scientific simulation beyond just supporting the two main branches of science, theory and experimentation, and into the foreground. More accurate prediction and extrapolation will become central to many scientific endeavors.

 

"It's getting to the point where simulation is actually the third branch of science," Seager said. "We say that nature is always the arbiter of truth, but it turns out our ability to observe nature is fundamentally limited."

Edited November 22, 2008 by StrangeSox

[Buehrle>Wood]

ME=MC Hammered