As long as there's no faster-than-light travel, "X happens before Y" is an invariant - it's true in all reference frames.
No. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/... and for the longer version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... In these examples, the doors either close at the same time for the observer stationary with respect to the barn, or at different times for the observer running with the pole.
OK, sorry, should have said ""X doesn't happen after Y" is an invariant" (there don't exist reference frames such that X happens before Y in one frame and X happens after Y in another frame).
Again no. A running coming from the other direction would see the doors close in the other order. I think the AC parallel to this post explains it pretty well.
As long as there's no faster-than-light travel, "X happens before Y" is an invariant - it's true in all reference frames.
No. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/... and for the longer version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... In these examples, the doors either close at the same time for the observer stationary with respect to the barn, or at different times for the observer running with the pole.
Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.
But I don't have a Large Hadron Collider! How am I supposed to reproduce this?
The fact is that many experiments are expensive to reproduce and will not be; and there are scientists who do poor work either intentionally or due to institutional reasons. The desire to do great science is only part of the motivation of a scientist; the desire to feed one's family can influence anyone thinking, as can the desire for fame, or other desires.
Addressing the LHC argument - The LHC requires thousands of scientists, the results will be examined to see if they match previous results at the appropriate energies, and it is worth noting that the LHC has detectors ATLAS and CMS which effectively check each others results regarding detection of the Higgs. And there are other detectors looking for new physics, that are not presently worth the cost of double coverage.
I suspect that there are backwaters of science, where someone may find gain in having published many papers, and have low risk of being caught because the value of the results is such that they will not be replicated; but when you cheat like Jan Hendrik Schön with results that would be quite valuable then you can expect work attempting to extend the experiment to be done, and when it fails the original work will be re-checked.
There's this "Sun" bombarding the planet with energy, constantly.
Then take the two-body system given by the Earth and the Sun as the closed system.
If it was a closed system the Earth would have cooked by now coming to equilibrium with the Sun - fortunately we have the cold bath of the rest of the universe to which most of the Sun's energy flows, as well as some heat from the night side of the Earth - so it is not a closed system.
"I've seen it. It's rubbish." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android