re gamma ray bursters where are they prb access digex com pat writes we know it s not real close like slightly extra solar because we have no parallax measurements on the bursts we can only say that they are beyond about au due to the low accuracy of position determination by single detectors what i am wondering is this in people s opinion a new physics problem einstein got well known for solvingthe photoelectric effect copernicus started looking at irregularities in planetary motion is this a big enough problem to create a new area of physics just a little speculative thinking folks it may be a new physics problem i e a problem involving new physics however the data is not good enough to rule out the models which use old physics new physics is a big step and is only tolerated when there is no alternative for example the dark matter problem there s more to the universe than meets the eye is a question of comparable mystery to grbs but we have much better data regarding it theoreticians postulate new particles all the time to explain it but no one will actually believe that these particles are real until an experimentalist or several detects them in the lab david m palmer palmer alumni caltech edu palmer tgrs gsfc nasa gov
