Month: June 2018

Enlarge / For years, people weren't sure if gravitational wave were a necessary product of relativity. (credit: Fermilab)

LIGO's detection of gravitational waves came almost exactly a century after Einstein had formulated his general theory of relativity and an ensuing paper mathematically describing the possibility of gravitational waves. Or at least that's the story as it was presented to the public (including by yours truly). And in some ways, it's even true.

But the reality of how relativity progressed to the point where people accepted that gravitational waves are likely to exist and could possibly be detected is considerably more complicated than the simple narrative described above. In this week's Nature Astronomy, a group of science historians lays out the full details of how we got from the dawn of relativity to the building of LIGO. And, in the process, the historians show that ideas about scientific revolutions bringing about a sudden, radical shift may sometimes miss the point.

Has your paradigm shifted?

The popular conception of scientific revolutions (to the extent that it exists) was shaped by Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn described a process where data gradually pushes an existing theory into crisis, allowing nearly everyone to see it doesn't work. After a period of crisis, a revolution takes place and a new theory emerges. The theory's ability to solve all the problems that precipitated the crisis quickly draws support, and a new period of theory-driven—in Kuhn's language, "paradigm-driven"—science begins.

Enlarge / For years, people weren't sure if gravitational wave were a necessary product of relativity. (credit: Fermilab)

LIGO's detection of gravitational waves came almost exactly a century after Einstein had formulated his general theory of relativity and an ensuing paper mathematically describing the possibility of gravitational waves. Or at least that's the story as it was presented to the public (including by yours truly). And in some ways, it's even true.

But the reality of how relativity progressed to the point where people accepted that gravitational waves are likely to exist and could possibly be detected is considerably more complicated than the simple narrative described above. In this week's Nature Astronomy, a group of science historians lays out the full details of how we got from the dawn of relativity to the building of LIGO. And, in the process, the historians show that ideas about scientific revolutions bringing about a sudden, radical shift may sometimes miss the point.

Has your paradigm shifted?

The popular conception of scientific revolutions (to the extent that it exists) was shaped by Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn described a process where data gradually pushes an existing theory into crisis, allowing nearly everyone to see it doesn't work. After a period of crisis, a revolution takes place and a new theory emerges. The theory's ability to solve all the problems that precipitated the crisis quickly draws support, and a new period of theory-driven—in Kuhn's language, "paradigm-driven"—science begins.

Porsche

There must be something in the air. On Friday, we brought you news about Romain Dumas and Volkswagen breaking records at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Just five days after Dumas' made it to the top of the mountain, his colleagues at Porsche Motorsport—the team with which he won Le Mans in 2016—have gone and shattered another record some thought would never be broken. The track is the 12.9-mile (20.8km) Nürburgring Nordschleife, and Porsche factory driver Timo Bernhard drove a Porsche 919 Evo around it in just 5:19.55.

35 years ago

Until now, the fastest man to ever lap the Nordschleife was the late Stefan Bellof. By the time of his run in 1983, the track was considered too dangerous for Formula 1, but little else had changed since the 1920s. Nordschleife was still workable for Group C though, which held its 1983 1000kms of Nürburgring there. During qualifying for the race, Bellof—driving a works Porsche 956—lapped the place in 6:11.13. (There's no in-car footage of his run, but teammate Derek Bell did carry a camera for a practice lap that isn't that much slower.)

Enlarge / A reporter buys a Capital Gazette newspaper on June 29, 2018, in Annapolis, Maryland. (credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Maryland authorities used their facial recognition capabilities to identity Jarrod Ramos, the suspect in the Capital Gazette shooting, which left four journalists and one newspaper sales associate dead on Thursday.

When he was apprehended at the scene of the horrific crime in Annapolis, Ramos had no identification and seemingly would not speak to police. Investigators then appeared to have taken a mugshot or some other similar type of photo and fed it into the state’s Maryland Image Repository System (MIRS).

That database contains approximately 10 million driver’s license images and mug shots, according to documents released by Georgetown University researchers.

Enlarge / A booth in support of Shiva Ayyadurai, who is running against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), displays an 'Photoshopped' image of Warren wearing a Native American headdress inside the Conservative Political Action Conference Hub at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center February 23, 2018 in National Harbor, Maryland. (credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Lawyers representing the Massachusetts man who for years has made a highly-controversial claim that he invented email have filed their appeal in an ongoing lawsuit filed against the tech news site, Techdirt.

The appeal to the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals comes more than a year after a federal judge dismissed the libel lawsuit brought by Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur who is now also running as a longshot candidate for the United States Senate.

In the lower court ruling, US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor found that because it is impossible to define precisely and specifically what email is, Ayyadurai's "claim is incapable of being proved true or false."