文档介绍：南京大学小百合站-- 文章阅读[讨论区: D_Astronomy]
发信人: Shea(Shea), 信区: D_Astronomy. 本篇人气: 40
标题: Evicting Einstein
发信站: 南京大学小百合站(Sat Mar 27 09:15:57 2004)
Evicting Einstein
******@NASA
A physics experiment on the drawing board for the International Space Station could help find the grand unifying "Theory of Everything."
March 26, 2004: Sooner or later, the reign of Einstein, like the reign of Newton before him, e to an end. An upheaval in the world of physics that will overthrow our notions of basic reality is inevitable, most scientists believe, and currently a horse race is underway between a handful of peting to be the essor to the throne.
In the running are such mind-bending ideas as an 11-dimensional universe, universal "constants" (such as the strength of gravity) that vary over space and time and only remain truly fixed in an unseen 5th dimension, infinitesimal vibrating strings as the fundamental constituents of reality, and a fabric of space and time that's not smooth and continuous, as Einstein believed, but divided into discrete, indivisible chunks of vanishingly small size. Experiment will ultimately determine which triumphs.
Above: According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, the sun's gravity causes starlight to bend, shifting the apparent position of stars in the sky.
A new concept for an experiment to test the predictions of Einstein's relativity more preci