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They proved too strong for their Polish, Dutch and Italian opponents to win in a time of 6min and 51.640sec.
Poland's Monika Ciaciuch, Joanna Dittmann, Anna Wierzbowska and Maria Wierzbowska took silver in 6:55.320.
The Dutch squad of Willeke Vossen, Marleen Verburgh, Annemarie Bernhard and Lisanne Brandsma completed the podium in a time of 6:59.230.
Rio 2016 gold medallists Jeremie Azou and Pierre Houin of France made it through to the final of the lightweight men's double sculls event.
The duo took an early lead in the first semi-final with Germany’s Lucas Schaefer and Jason Osborne in second and Panagiotis Magdanis and Spyridon Giannaros from Greece in third.
Ireland's Rio 2016 silver medallists, O’Donovan brothers Gary and Paul, were at the back of the field.
At the half-way mark the top three positions remained unchanged while the O'Donovans began to move up the field and into fourth.
With 500 metres left to row, the Greek pair had fallen back while their Irish rivals moved past them and in front of the Germans.
At the line, the Olympic gold and silver medallists crossed the line in first and second respectively, followed by Schaefer and Osborne in third.
They will be joined in the final by Italy's Steffano Oppo and Pietra Ruta, Peter Chambers and Will Fletcher of Great Britain and Jerzy Kowalski and Milosz Jankowski of Poland, who all qualified from the second semi-final.
Patricia Merz of Switzerland secured her place in the final of the lightweight women's single sculls.
Merz, who won this event in the first World Cup event of the season in Belgrade earlier this month, started well and by the 500m mark had a length’s lead over the rest of the field.
The Czech Republic's Monika Novakova was in second position and Ireland's Denise Walsh, who finished second to Merz in Belgrade, in third.
In the second quarter, Walsh gradually moved up on and took over the Czech sculler, while Merz increased her lead, securing more than two boat lengths over the field by the half-way mark.
Italy’s Clara Guerra, the junior world champion, had managed to move into the third spot with Novakova falling behind.
In the final quarter of the race Ireland’s Walsh closed in on the Swiss athlete but failed to catch Merz, who crossed the line first.
Walsh took second while Guerra held onto third place to advance to the final.
In the second semi-final Sweden’s Emma Fredh, the current world silver medallist in this event, had qualified for the semi-finals with the fastest qualifying time.
The field was tighter than the first semi-final with only two seconds separating the top five boats at the 500m mark.
Just a few hundredths of a second separated Fredh and Germany’s Leonie Pieper, in second.
At the half-way mark, Fredh had increased her lead very slightly to half a boat length’s lead over Germany with Russia’s Anastasia Lebedeva, racing in lane one, slightly behind in third.
The 24-year-old began to increase her speed to surpass Pieper and take second behind Fredh.
Peiper managed to hold onto third place to qualify for tomorrow's final.
Rio 2016 bronze medallists in the men's four, Italy, eased into the final of that competition.
Domenico Montrone and Matteo Castaldo were both in the boat in Rio de Janeiro and have been joined by Giovanni Abagnale and Marco Di Costanzo.
Throughout the race the Italians continued to increased their lead with The Netherlands following behind in second.
The Dutch crew is the same that won silver at the World Cup in Belgrade, with three of their four members having finished fifth in this boat class in Rio.
France secured the third qualifying spot.
The Russian squad made a quick start in the second semi-final but very little separated the top five boats at the half-way mark.
Germany, in outer lane one, held on to second with Romania in a steady third throughout.
In the final strokes, however, three crews were racing dead level after Great Britain upped their stroke rate and moved into contention.
At the line, it was a photo finish between the second and third qualifying spots, with Great Britain having moved into second ahead of Romania.
Germany were unable to respond to Great Britain’s late challenge and fell back into fourth, missing out on the A-final.
Action is due to conclude tomorrow with a busy day of finals.
Ashington 2nds got back on track with victory away to new-boys Ryton on Saturday.
On a cloudy afternoon, the visitors won the toss and elected to bat, and were 46-3 at one point before Prudhoe and Robinson held it together and added a partnership of 77, both players falling just short of fifties.
Thewlis added 21 and Sparrow 16 before Ashington were eventually bowled out for 194. Coxon took five wickets for the hosts.
In reply Ryton struggled for early runs with Sharkey and Storey kept scores tight, but after Sharkey accounted for both openers, Ryton batters A Wood and B Perry arrived and made things tough for the title holders.
Ryton were on course for 20 points at 90-2, but George Collins got rid of Wood caught on the boundary for 56, and soon after Sparrow got Perry for 58.
From then on, Ashington were on top, and after Thewlis ripped through the middle order, Ryton could only finish on 169-8.
Michael Thewlis finished with figures of 3-32.
Next week Ashington seconds are at home to Newcastle City.
Physicists typically think they “need philosophers and historians of science like birds need ornithologists,” the Nobel laureate David Gross told a roomful of philosophers, historians, and physicists in Munich, Germany, paraphrasing Richard Feynman.
Fundamental physics faces a problem, Gross explained—one dire enough to call for outsiders’ perspectives. “I’m not sure that we don’t need each other at this point in time,” he said.
The crisis, as Ellis and Silk tell it, is the wildly speculative nature of modern physics theories, which they say reflects a dangerous departure from the scientific method. Many of today’s theorists—chief among them the proponents of string theory and the multiverse hypothesis—appear convinced of their ideas on the grounds that they are beautiful or logically compelling, despite the impossibility of testing them.
They were reacting, in part, to the controversial ideas of Richard Dawid, an Austrian philosopher whose 2013 book String Theory and the Scientific Method identified three kinds of “non-empirical” evidence that Dawid says can help build trust in scientific theories without empirical data. Dawid, a researcher at LMU Munich, answered Ellis and Silk’s battle cry and assembled far-flung scholars anchoring all sides of the argument for the high-profile event.
Gross, a supporter of string theory who won the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the force that glues atoms together, kicked off the workshop by asserting that the problem lies not with physicists but with a “fact of nature”—one that we have been approaching inevitably for four centuries.
As we approach the practical limits of our ability to probe nature’s underlying principles, the minds of theorists have wandered far beyond the tiniest observable distances and highest possible energies. Strong clues indicate that the truly fundamental constituents of the universe lie at a distance scale 10 million billion times smaller than the resolving power of the LHC. This is the domain of nature that string theory, a candidate “theory of everything,” attempts to describe. But it’s a domain that no one has the faintest idea how to access.
The problem also hampers physicists’ quest to understand the universe on a cosmic scale: No telescope will ever manage to peer past our universe’s cosmic horizon and glimpse the other universes posited by the multiverse hypothesis. Yet modern theories of cosmology lead logically to the possibility that our universe is just one of many.
Over three mild winter days, scholars grappled with the meaning of theory, confirmation, and truth; how science works; and whether, in this day and age, philosophy should guide research in physics or the other way around. Over the course of these pressing yet timeless discussions, a degree of consensus took shape.
Throughout history, the rules of science have been written on the fly, only to be revised to fit evolving circumstances. The ancients believed they could reason their way toward scientific truth. Then, in the 17th century, Isaac Newton ignited modern science by breaking with this “rationalist” philosophy, adopting instead the “empiricist” view that scientific knowledge derives only from empirical observation. In other words, a theory must be proved experimentally to enter the book of knowledge.
But what requirements must an untested theory meet to be considered scientific? Theorists guide the scientific enterprise by dreaming up the ideas to be put to the test and then interpreting the experimental results; what keeps theorists within the bounds of science?
Today, most physicists judge the soundness of a theory by using the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper’s rule of thumb. In the 1930s, Popper drew a line between science and non-science in comparing the work of Albert Einstein with that of Sigmund Freud. Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which cast the force of gravity as curves in space and time, made risky predictions—ones that, if they hadn’t succeeded so brilliantly, would have failed miserably, falsifying the theory. But Freudian psychoanalysis was slippery: Any fault of your mother’s could be worked into your diagnosis. The theory wasn’t falsifiable, and so, Popper decided, it wasn’t science.
String theory says that elementary particles have dimensionality when viewed close-up, appearing as wiggling loops (or “strings”) and membranes at nature’s highest zoom level. According to the theory, extra dimensions also materialize in the fabric of space itself. The different vibrational modes of the strings in this higher-dimensional space give rise to the spectrum of particles that make up the observable world. In particular, one of the vibrational modes fits the profile of the “graviton”—the hypothetical particle associated with the force of gravity. Thus, string theory unifies gravity, now described by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, with the rest of particle physics.
However string theory, which has its roots in ideas developed in the late 1960s, has made no testable predictions about the observable universe. To understand why so many researchers trust it anyway, Dawid signed up for some classes in philosophy of science, and upon discovering how little study had been devoted to the phenomenon, he switched fields.
In the early 2000s, he identified three non-empirical arguments that generate trust in string theory among its proponents. First, there appears to be only one version of string theory capable of achieving unification in a consistent way (though it has many different mathematical representations); furthermore, no other “theory of everything” capable of unifying all the fundamental forces has been found, despite immense effort. (A rival approach called loop quantum gravity describes gravity at the quantum scale, but makes no attempt to unify it with the other forces.) This “no-alternatives” argument, colloquially known as “string theory is the only game in town,” boosts theorists’ confidence that few or no other possible unifications of the four fundamental forces exist, making it more likely that string theory is the right approach.
Second, string theory grew out of the Standard Model—the accepted, empirically validated theory incorporating all known fundamental particles and forces (apart from gravity) in a single mathematical structure—and the Standard Model also had no alternatives during its formative years. This “meta-inductive” argument, as Dawid calls it, buttresses the no-alternatives argument by showing that it has worked before in similar contexts, countering the possibility that physicists simply aren’t clever enough to find the alternatives that exist.
The third non-empirical argument is that string theory has unexpectedly delivered explanations for several other theoretical problems aside from the unification problem it was intended to address. The staunch string theorist Joe Polchinski of the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented several examples of these “unexpected explanatory interconnections,” as Dawid has termed them, in a paper read in Munich in his absence. String theory explains the entropy of black holes, for example, and, in a surprising discovery that has caused a surge of research in the past 15 years, is mathematically translatable into a theory of particles, such as the theory describing the nuclei of atoms.
The trash heap of history is littered with beautiful theories. The Danish historian of cosmology Helge Kragh, who detailed a number of these failures in his 2011 book, Higher Speculations, spoke in Munich about the 19th-century vortex theory of atoms. This “Victorian theory of everything,” developed by the Scots Peter Tait and Lord Kelvin, postulated that atoms are microscopic vortexes in the ether, the fluid medium that was believed at the time to fill space. Hydrogen, oxygen, and all other atoms were, deep down, just different types of vortical knots. At first, the theory “seemed to be highly promising,” Kragh said. “People were fascinated by the richness of the mathematics, which could keep mathematicians busy for centuries, as was said at the time.” Alas, atoms are not vortexes, the ether does not exist, and theoretical beauty is not always truth.
Except sometimes it is. Rationalism guided Einstein toward his theory of relativity, which he believed in wholeheartedly on rational grounds before it was ever tested. “I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed,” Einstein said in 1933, years after his theory had been confirmed by observations of starlight bending around the sun.
The question for the philosophers is: Without experiments, is there any way to distinguish between the non-empirical virtues of vortex theory and those of Einstein’s theory? Can we ever really trust a theory on non-empirical grounds?
In discussions on the third afternoon of the workshop, the LMU philosopher Radin Dardashti asserted that Dawid’s philosophy specifically aims to pinpoint which non-empirical arguments should carry weight, allowing scientists to “make an assessment that is not based on simplicity, which is not based on beauty.” Dawidian assessment is meant to be more objective than these measures, Dardashti explained—and more revealing of a theory’s true promise.
“Let’s give an operational definition of confidence: I will continue to work on it,” Gross said.
“That’s pretty low,” Achinstein said.
But several workshop participants raised qualms about Bayesian confirmation theory, and about Dawid’s non-empirical arguments in particular.
More and more women are peddling their way around town. Be it for work or recreational purpose, the women in the City are leading the way.
Not only does cycling provide them their daily dose of exercise, it helps them reach their destination faster too. Even though they face many challenges along the way, they ensure that they don’t stop. Metrolife spoke to some passionate women cyclists about their experiences.
Geeta Bisht, who lives and works in Electronic City, cycles to work. “I come cycling even to the central part of the City. I find it a really convenient option. Whether it’s peak hour or not, I like to cycle,” she says. “We do face problems which is why it’s important to take precautions. For instance, while many roads are full of potholes, some have no streetlights. The worst part is when bikers see a girl alone on a cycle, they tend to speed up. But we are not here to challenge them. Our main focus is to stay safe,” she says.
Entrepreneur TimTim Sharma, who purchased a cycle with her first paycheck, says that she has been an inspiration to her family. “My brother has taken to cycling after seeing me and now, even my mom cycles to the grocery store,” she says. According to TimTim, those between 22 and 26 years of age, are taking cycling seriously.
“They are realising that cycling has many advantages. It’s a great form of workout and ensures efficient use of time and money. But what saddens me is that cyclists are treated like roadblocks. Many a time, the BMTC bus drivers swerve past cyclists just to throw them off balance. I have witnessed these incidents myself. But I am positive that with the growing interest of people towards cycling, there will be a change in everyone’s mindset,” she says.
Terming cycling for women as a ‘fight for space’, Aishhwariya S, a corporate communication professional who cycles to her workplace, says that it’s important for cyclists to follow traffic rules. “There is an accident waiting to happen if cyclists don’t follow basic rules like keeping to the left. Besides, wearing the right gear is important. Those cycling at night must wear clothes with reflectors,” she suggests.
Although Payal Kini, who works for the cycling company ‘BumsOnTheSaddle’, was apprehensive when she started cycling to work in August, it is her main mode of transport now.
“Cycling used to be a recreational activity for me. I got inspired by many of my colleagues who used to cycle. And now that I have started, many women have shown an interest and are asking on how they could start too,” beams Payal.
OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. -- Reality set in Friday, the day after the magical history tour. Tears of joy stopped filling the eyes of Tom Watson and his stricken caddie, Bruce Edwards. Eagles stopped landing from the middle of the fairway. Putts stopped falling. Jaws stopped dropping in disbelief.
Watson took a tumble down the leader board, from tied for first to tied for 10th. A 2-over-par 72 in the second round of the 103rd U.S. Open left Watson four shots behind co-leaders Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk.
At least theoretically, Watson is in contention. He's also 53 and hasn't won a PGA Tour event in five years. Can he really win now, 21 years after his only Open victory?
"Yes, I can," Watson said. "A lot of things have to go right for me to win it. To beat the kids, I have an outside chance."
Watson wowed the kids and geezers alike in the first round, shooting a seemingly divinely guided 65. Long plagued by frayed nerves on the greens, Watson navigated the first 18 holes at Olympia Fields Country Club in only 23 putts. For good measure, Watson holed a 6-iron from 170 yards for an eagle.
"I'm almost wanting him to win it instead of me," said Masters champion Mike Weir, who is three shots behind Watson. "It would be an incredible story."
Remember, Watson is seven years older than Jack Nicklaus was when he wowed the golf world by winning the 1986 Masters. Remember, too, that Edwards likely is carrying the bag in a U.S. Open for the last time. Edwards, 48, was diagnosed this winter with Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable and fatal affliction that systematically shuts down the neuromuscular system. Defending champion Tiger Woods found himself captivated watching Watson play the final two holes on television Thursday.
"It's pretty neat, because all the players love Bruce," Woods said. "To see them together like this and see Bruce, how he's just battling it, just fighting it, it has to give you motivation. I don't care if you're Tom or any other player in the field. Look at what he's going through, and he's still doing his job -- you have to get pumped up for that."
Watson couldn't tap into that same emotion Friday. Though Watson hit more greens in regulation (14) than he did in the first round (10), he had a lot less to show for it.
"The Open requires such precise shot-making, hole after hole after hole, that you're going to have a stretch in 72 holes that you can't let get to you," said Watson, who took 34 putts in the second round. "That stretch, I hope, has seen me today and passed me by."
The lowlight of the day came at No. 12 -- the same hole that yielded an eagle from the fairway in the first round. An errant approach put Watson in a greenside bunker. He compounded his problems with a poor bunker shot that led to a three-putt. Triple-bogey.
"I'm even-par on that hole," Watson said. "I guess that's the way I look at it. It's a tough hole and I'm even-par for two days, so I can't complain too much."
He is, after all, four shots further below par after 36 holes than he was when he won at Pebble Beach in 1982. He has a long Open weekend in front of him. Does Tom Watson have one last run up the leader board left in him?
"I hope my last run is in the next 36 holes," Watson said. That's when I'd like to have my last big run. Then I might just say, `See you, boys and girls.' "
With Divergent‘s release date still weeks away, its sequel Insurgent is taking another big stride forward. Red director Robert Schwentke is set to direct the dystopian YA adventure, which will once again star Shailene Woodley and Theo James.
Schwentke replaces original Divergent director Neil Burger, who we learned in December would not return for the follow-up. More details after the jump.
Perhaps there’s a minor demographic out there that was desperate to see Jeff Bridges parody his True Grit role in a Men in Black knockoff. That would be one easy way to explain R.I.P.D., in which Bridges plays a dead lawman who, with the help of another dead lawman (Ryan Reynolds) fights evil from the afterlife.
The battle for control of Congress was front and center on Tuesday night, with races taking shape in several intensely contested House seats in California and New Jersey. But there were revealing elections in the Midwest and the South, too, underscoring President Trump’s power in the Republican Party and the different ways Democrats hope to loosen his hold on red-state America.
National Democrats spent over $7 million in an effort to ensure they had a candidate reach the general election in three House districts in California held by Republicans. Their decision to not take their chances in the state’s “top two” system — in which the top finishers in nonpartisan, open primaries face each other in November — appears to have been a wise investment.
The party’s intervention in the districts held by Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce and Darrell Issa, all Republicans, paid off: they angered some of their own activists but were virtually certain to advance candidates in each of the three districts, including their preferred picks against Mr. Rohrabacher and in Mr. Royce’s seat.
And the Democrats also got a bit of a lesson about the risks of not intervening, in the race for the seat held by Representative Jeff Denham. The Democrat Josh Harder got little outside help and appeared poised to barely edge out a little-known Republican challenger because the other five Democrats split more than 30 percent of the vote.
It did not come cheap, but if Democrats secure a narrow House majority in November they will have done so in part because they decided to aggressively compete in June.
Representative Martha Roby, Republican of Alabama, talked about building the wall. She voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. She backed the president’s tax bill.
Less than two years after saying she could not support Mr. Trump in the presidential campaign, Ms. Roby appeared to pay a political price on Tuesday, failing to clear the threshold — half of the vote — necessary to avoid a runoff for her seat.
A key question now: Will Mr. Trump — who can be slow to forgive those who have opposed him — come forward to bolster Ms. Roby before her runoff in July, as many party officials hope? The answer will say a lot about whether the president can be persuaded to rally behind candidates, even those he might not adore, if congressional leaders nudge him.
And while some voters on Tuesday plainly intended to punish Ms. Roby for her past position — articulated in 2016 after the publication of the “Access Hollywood” video on which Mr. Trump made vulgar comments about women — her opponent in the Republican runoff, Bobby Bright, has his own baggage: He used to be a Democratic congressman, until Ms. Roby defeated him in 2010.
Within 24 hours after his federal corruption trial ended in a hopelessly deadlocked jury, Senator Robert Menendez quickly secured the endorsement of every major Democrat in New Jersey, essentially clearing the field of potential primary challengers before any could even begin to test the waters.