SSS 2011-10-19

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"How do you know the moon is not made of green cheese?"

 

Theoretical physicist¹ Sean Carroll at the ScienceWriters2011 conference in Flagstaff on October 17th.

 

"Well, we know the mass of the moon, the density² and so forth³, but don't think that you fully⁴ understand the properties of lunar green cheese, this is very dense⁵ cheese. How do you know it's not made of green cheese?

 

"The answer is that it's absurd to think the moon is made of green cheese.

 

"And the formalization of that absurdity⁶ is that we are allowed to use other things we know about the universe when judging the plausibility⁷ of a hypothesis...we have a theoretical understanding of how the solar system works and how planets are formed that precludes⁸ the possibility that the moon is made of green cheese....

 

"This is not a proof, there is no metaphysical proof, like you can proof a statement in logic⁹ or math that the moon is not made of green cheese. But science nevertheless passes judgments¹⁰ on claims based on how well they fit in with the rest of our theoretical understanding."

 

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky.

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