Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Before, general relativity was something accepted as a theory, with some holdouts from the consensus, now it is demonstrably true. Now, physics and math that follow it are building upon the base of something 'true' rather than 'potentially true'.
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GR has always been "demonstrably true", otherwise it wouldn't have been a theory at all. Every time you use a GPS unit it confirms GR as a theory.
All this does is do some more measurements to further confirm that the theory is an accurate representation of space, time, and gravity with certain parameters, confirm that the frame dragging predicted by GR does in fact occur.
Gravitational waves on the other hand are another prediction of GR that has yet to be confirmed.
True and potentially true are misleading, because we know that GR isn't true for all things. We know of areas where GR is
not representative of reality.
Better to say that this experiment further confirms the accuracy of GR.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Again, I am not a physicist, so this may be an inaccurate analogy, but it's the difference between building your house on what you BELIEVE to be a reasonable foundation compared to KNOWING it is a reasonable foundation. When you know, you can more accurately plan the things that go on top of the foundation.
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In science there's no such thing as absolute knowledge, all knowledge is provisional and relative.
And an established theory is far closer to absolute knowledge than it is to belief, because an established theory has already been tested to be a reasonable foundation by being explaining observed phenomenon and having predictions confirmed.
Frame dragging is another prediction by GR that was confirmed.
Hope that helps.
As to the original question of what the implications of the discovery are, practically not a lot since it just further confirms what was already known to be the best description of spacetime and gravity.