physicists cannot agree on how the Universe works

Sep 13, 2026 Last reply: 10 hours ago 8 Replies

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Jan Panteltje 15 hours ago

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Physicists can’t agree on how the Universe works Date: September 13, 2026 Source: University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute Summary: A massive worldwide survey of physicists has revealed surprisingly little agreement about some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. No majority backed the standard cosmological model, a leading explanation for dark matter, or any single theory of quantum gravity. One area of stronger agreement stood out: 68% said the Big Bang does not necessarily represent the beginning of time. Researchers say the divisions show just how alive and unsettled the frontiers of physics remain.

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Bill Sloman 15 hours ago

Physics is science - not religion. It's theories fit the facts we know about. We haven't got any theory of quantum gravity yet, nor any evidence that gravity is quantised.

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Lane W 15 hours ago

However, if you are looking for evidence that gravity is special in some way, it is notable because it is instantaneous. Zero time passes before its effects take place.

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Jan Panteltje 15 hours ago

Gravity propages at the speed of light according to 'science':

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I personally go for the Sage theory of gravity:

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It seems likely gravity and EM radiation is a state of the same particle, that explains most of the problems, including internal heating of the planets, gravitational lensing too. And if you start thinking very dense stuff like 'black holes' emitting those Le Sage particles and normal matter, then you have a source for gravity and light and galaxies and dark matter .. Simple! Am I right? I dunno, but it is a simple model that so far works for me to understand stuff.

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Simon Simple 14 hours ago

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That's not true.

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Bill Sloman 12 hours ago

Except that it isn't. Gravitational waves seem to travel at the same speed as light. There's at least one observation that shows them to equal to on part in 10^15.

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Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson 11 hours ago

That seems to indicate it's /already there/ when any given measurement starts. Do you think gravity is prescient?

And some of the nay-sayers claim gravity travels at the speed of light- ish. I don't believe them, either.

And there are some more gaps in the standard theories about gravity, but I'll let the nay-sayers guess those. After all, I don't have to teach them anything.

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Phil Hobbs 11 hours ago

Feynman was once asked how long it would take for the effects to arrive if the sun disappeared.

He is said to have replied, “go ahead and try it!”

(Feynman stories are like Patton or Montgomery stories—you have to remember that they were all furiously building legends around themselves.)

And the reason physicists can’t agree is that we’re disagreeable. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Cóilín Nioclásín Glostéir 10 hours ago

It is fair for beliefs about mysteries to be different.

More than 21 years ago various persons traveled for a physics talk. A senior physicist asked a student in this hosting country about what she was studying. She said that she was taking lectures on quantum gravity, so this senior physicist said to her that there is not a theory of quantum gravity.

(S.

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fuer Kontaktdaten!)

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