Everything may be different TPT

When your fundamental assumptions are wrong, there will be a lot of rethinking to do.

Interesting article in the Stanford University News


...a scientific detective investigation that could end up protecting the lives of space-walking astronauts and maybe rewriting some of the assumptions of physics....


...The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts and when doctors determine the proper dose of radioactivity to treat a cancer patient.

...

But that assumption was challenged in an unexpected way by a group of researchers from Purdue University...

...It's an effect that no one yet understands," agreed Sturrock. "Theorists are starting to say, 'What's going on?' But that's what the evidence points to. It's a challenge for the physicists and a challenge for the solar people too."

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From an area of physics where one really would expect that the 'science is settled'.

Solar System Older TPT

Solar system may be 2 million years older than thought.

FTA: Researchers studying bits of a meteorite discovered that the space rock was 4.5682 billion years old, predating previous estimates of the solar system's age by up to 1.9 million years.
***

Actually, I doubt many people think about millions of years when the subject is in the billions.


*** Here is a link to a new article which connects to the finally published scientific report.

San Andreas Fault more overdue TPT

A new study suggests the San Andreas Fault may be more overdue for a big earthquake than scientists previously thought.

[I live within a mile or two of the SAF, but this study is about a segment far away in southern California]