It's amazing how each discovery pushes the envelope and makes us realise how little we know.

I was listening to an interview with the Yale professor who discovered Dragonfly 44 galaxy. It's unique in that it's composed of 99.99 dark matter. It has some stars, but nowhere near the amount of an average galaxy.

What intrigues me though, and they don't have an answer as yet. Is that there is a correlation between supermassive blackholes at the centre of galaxies and the size of the galaxy. The black holes are somehow fundamental in star formation process of a galaxy (no one understands how). If Dragonfly 44 is 99.99 dark matter and has no black hole at the centre, then how did it become a galaxy and how did it give birth to its stars?

The James Webb telescope can't launch soon enough.

I don't have a problem with the EM drive defying newtons third law. In the end it's myopic human understanding of the world around us that the 'laws' cant be defied or broken. We are learning new things all the time, if that means newtons 3rd law need a revision or general relativity needs a revision so what? Correct me if I'm wrong but general relativity now requires the addition of inflation, dark energy and dark matter for its explanation of the birth and current state of universe to work.

It's a very human centric viewpoint that from our tiny little insignificant planet. one of 200 odd billion in our galaxy, which is one of billions of billions of galaxies. That we can presume to define laws that govern the entire universe. Paradigm shifts happen all the time, you mentioned that yourself, CP to GR and so on. All I'm trying to say is it shouldn't come as a surprise that discoveries are being made that defy human created laws.

The whole point of the conversation is that, technically, you can't talk in absolutes like that.

Except that disclaimer is an absolute and reads as an obvious joke.

Wait, you're not teasing, are you?

Then I think you missed the whole point. Also, I seem to remember that that two plus two doesn't always equal four.

Philosophical, obviously. But that doesn't change the fact that you can't say the third law of thermodynamics can't be wrong or incomplete.

Or, maybe, both; it gets confusing what's what when things are all theoretical.

I think it's closed on Sundays?

AJ wrote:

Philosophical, obviously. But that doesn't change the fact that you can't say the third law of thermodynamics can't be wrong or incomplete.

Or, maybe, both; it gets confusing what's what when things are all theoretical.

Who was talking about entropy? I'm presuming you're talking about the first?

AJ wrote:

Yeah, had just woken up, kinda surprised I managed to type thermodynamics correctly.

So you're saying it might be wrong or need amendment? What would the Universe be like if it was a little bit wrong? Well numbers would be the first thing to go. One day 2 equals 2 and the next day it's 5. Equations would be meaningless. Laws couldn't exist. The Universe would lose all stability, so that's gone. So apart from saying it could be wrong innit could you explain how it's possible it could be wrong without sounding like a philosophy student? 

Most laws are probably a bit wrong, and GR is at best half right, and QM doesn't even offer an explanation, but the conservation laws sort of have to be right. Nobody knows what energy is, the question probably has no meaning. It's enough to say it can be described by numbers. The Universe seems to be built out of maths. Possibly literally. That's me getting philosophical. 

Anyhow, the maths must add up, and in order for that to be true you have to have conservation.

It's really not semantics, conservation of energy must apply. The other rules are subject to change.

Our understanding of what is correct? If it appears I'm jaded it's because it's true. There isn't a definition of what energy is. I thought I'd mentioned that. What is it you don't understand?

So no, there is no proof that conservation of energy is true.

Let love be your energy.  
- Robbie Williams 

It's all getting a bit 4chan in here.