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From WIRED, again. Sometimes they have good stuff.
In the early 1970s, people studying general relativity, our modern theory of gravity, noticed rough similarities between the properties of black holes and the laws of thermodynamics. Stephen Hawking proved that the area of a black hole's event horizon—the surface that marks its boundary—cannot decrease. That sounded suspiciously like the second law of thermodynamics, which says entropy—a measure of disorder—cannot decrease.
Yet at the time, Hawking and others emphasized that the laws of black holes only looked like thermodynamics on paper; they did not actually relate to thermodynamic concepts like temperature or entropy.
Then in quick succession, a pair of brilliant results—one by Hawking himself—suggested that the equations governing black holes were in fact actual expressions of the thermodynamic laws applied to black holes. In 1972, Jacob Bekenstein argued that a black hole's surface area was proportional to its entropy, and thus the second law similarity was a true identity. And in 1974, Hawking found that black holes appear to emit radiation—what we now call Hawking radiation—and this radiation would have exactly the same "temperature" in the thermodynamic analogy.
[...] But what if the connection between the two really is little more than a rough analogy, with little physical reality? What would that mean for the past decades of work in string theory, loop quantum gravity, and beyond? Craig Callender, a philosopher of science at the University of California, San Diego, argues that the notorious laws of black hole thermodynamics may be nothing more than a useful analogy stretched too far.
After what Hawking said about philosophy, I think that astrophysicists need a bit more perspective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @11:28PM (6 children)
I already explained this to you last time. The "alternative" is to test your hypothesis instead of a strawman hypothesis. Literally just go read the scientific literature before 1940 or so and do what they did: science.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 13 2019, @12:47AM (1 child)
Yes, you did. As I recall, the explanation was that you are an obsessional layman who does not understand science. Is that about right? Something about the null hypothesis being that you are a 14 year-old in a basement somewhere, but since our theory provides a better explanation, more congruent with observed phenomena, it is to be taken, provisionally, as proven. WE HAVE the P VALUE!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @02:43AM
Keep your hands inside your cloak when speaking publically!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 14 2019, @12:29AM (3 children)
Enlighten me. Spell the methodology out step by step. Do you even Bayes, bro?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday September 14 2019, @08:06AM (1 child)
Bayesian Hazuki! Oh, my god, don't even get him started (has to be a "him", right?), because the probability of the theory in advance is the theory is always less than the probablity of the theory after the theory is understood, but not as great as the theory deduced into a experimental matrix. He has "one thing", the p-value. Do not make his head explode by bringing in Bayes, or Popper. or Quine, or god-forbid Lakatos. He will understand none of this, and this should be a lesson to him, in case the Azumi Hazuki's lesson was not clear? Idiot? Do you now understand how and why you are an idiot? We can explain it again, in smaller words, if you need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 14 2019, @10:25PM
Lakatos agreed with me. He called NHST "intellectual pollution that will destroy our cultural environment before we get a chance to destroy the physical environment".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 14 2019, @03:09PM
I don't know how you can be so dense. DO THE EXACT SAME THING EXCEPT TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS INSTEAD OF A STRAWMAN HYPOTHESIS.