• Question: If there was an theory that you could disprove, which would it be and why?

    Asked by Matthew S to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Julian on 19 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 19 Nov 2014:


      Oh, thats a good question.
      There are lots of things I’d like to change, particularly in astronomy. We are stuck with a lot of historical things that don’t make much sense now.
      Types of star, are categorised as O,B,A,F,G,K,M
      which would be much easier as A,B,C,D,E,F,G…
      and magnitudes are a silly way of classifying how bright a star is!

      Anyway, I think the biggest thing to dispove might be the standard model of particle physics. We sort of know it must be wrong, as there are some things it doesn’t explain. So that would be one.

      The big bang would be great to disprove, but not sure what would replace it!

    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 19 Nov 2014:


      I think if I could disprove a theory it would be standard boring cosmology. With the mysterious dark matter being a constant, called the cosmological constant denoted by the greek symbol lambda. It is the simpliest model that can explain all the exidenc we have today about cosmolgy from:
      – Supernovae (explosions of stars used to meausre distances in the universe),
      – The comoic microwave background
      – The distribution of galaxies on large scales, called large-scale structure

      Something much more interesting would be great!

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 19 Nov 2014:


      I agree with Julian, it’d be awesome to come up with a new theory that fits both the really large and really small things. The standard model of Particle Physics has something crazy like 17 free parameters, and has had bits and pieces just stuck on the end when they found something didn’t fit quite right! I think there’s probably a much neater, simpler theory that can be found and one that would give us a better explanation of gravity on very small (quantum) scales 😉

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