The universe is a strange place

[Kalmah]

It's not really that crazy. Yes, the mathematics is beyond what the casual enthusiast will grasp without a great teacher and several years of study, but the general concepts are quite elegant and simple once you've practiced how to think beyond three spatial dimensions.

Check out some of Susskind's work. I particularly enjoyed the Black Hole Wars which contains a good overview of some of the concepts involved in understanding relativity and quantum physics. But brace yourself towards the end when he begins laying out the case for the holographic theory of the universe and stuff like anti desitter space. You have to work your way there, but Susskind handles it with some keen diagrams and hand-holding through the thought experiments.

I may have to take a stab at it.

 

[nerp]

What is most frightening (to me) is staticness of the laws of physics. What if it's slightly dynamic and/or changes randomly? I know most of the physical constants we have can be derived from properties of particles and such, but what if something starts exhibiting dynamic behavior? We would need laws of physics that are a function of this change...

The laws of physics don't change. Where large-scale interactions occur, such as at the atomic level, there is never an instance where the laws are broken. Beyond that, at much smaller scales, quantum mechanics is the science of describing the behavior of particles. And in the quantum world, the laws of physics may appear different, but that doesn't mean that the classical laws have been broken. The uncertianty principle is a good example -- you can measure the speed or the location of a particle, but not at the same time. And consider that for a long time, light was believed to be a wave, but now we know that light is made up of particles known as photons. Before this, some of light's properties could not be explained.

Consider that beaming light through a slit on a piece of paper creates a ring effect on a background. This suggests it is a wave, since all other waves exhibit the same effect. But if you slow that beam down so that only one particle at a time goes through the slit, the particles end up at completley different points every single time and you cannot predict where any particle will go. No matter what, there is NO way to determine where the particle will land. BUT, if you let many particles go through, one at a time, the ring pattern will begin to form over time if you record each particle after it goes through the slit. So the ring pattern does form over time. So light is predictable but completley unpredictable simultaneously.

One thing that I marvel at is how measuring things at the quantum level seem to be affected by the measurer. (Bad example forthcoming) Basically, you can rig a test to capture a particle only one of two ways, ignoring one option or the other. It will ALWAYS end up going the way you decide to measure, which means that the result of the experiment is decided by the observer. It means that the result is predetermined by the observer, or, the observer is changing what happened in the past.


This is why the professor in Futurama balks at the "quantum" photo finish result at the horse track and they have to go to the electron microscope to determine the result.

"You idiots! By observing the results, you've changed them!" he yelled.

 

[silverpig]

They use the term 'dark matter' to explain the acceleration. But yet this 'Dark Matter' is never described in detail it seems. It almost seems to me that they decided to just pretend that they know what's going on and call it dark matter.

Also, if you reverse the expansion everybody is pretty convinced that it all started at an infinitely small point. Maybe it wasn't an infinitely small point? Perhaps a huge huge point full of gases and heat and everything else... A point where all of the matter could actually fit into without breaking physics laws.

There is yet so much that we don't understand that it boggles me that so many books/shows are so certain about things.

And by the term 'the universe is expanding' does that refer to actual existence as well? Maybe the universe actually is infinite and it's just the stuff inside that is still moving away? So maybe we don't have to worry about a 'pop' like a balloon at the end or a rip in reality.. Or maybe the universe is also a sphere like everything else tends to be and it's just all going to meet back up at a point eventually? Well, I guess then we'd have to assume that we'd be seeing stuff getting closer to us as well right? Who knows...

I could speculate for hours.. haha

It's dark energy that drives the acceleration, not dark matter.

 

[silverpig]

The laws of physics don't change. Where large-scale interactions occur, such as at the atomic level, there is never an instance where the laws are broken. Beyond that, at much smaller scales, quantum mechanics is the science of describing the behavior of particles. And in the quantum world, the laws of physics may appear different, but that doesn't mean that the classical laws have been broken. The uncertianty principle is a good example -- you can measure the speed or the location of a particle, but not at the same time. And consider that for a long time, light was believed to be a wave, but now we know that light is made up of particles known as photons. Before this, some of light's properties could not be explained.

Consider that beaming light through a slit on a piece of paper creates a ring effect on a background. This suggests it is a wave, since all other waves exhibit the same effect. But if you slow that beam down so that only one particle at a time goes through the slit, the particles end up at completley different points every single time and you cannot predict where any particle will go. No matter what, there is NO way to determine where the particle will land. BUT, if you let many particles go through, one at a time, the ring pattern will begin to form over time if you record each particle after it goes through the slit. So the ring pattern does form over time. So light is predictable but completley unpredictable simultaneously.

One thing that I marvel at is how measuring things at the quantum level seem to be affected by the measurer. (Bad example forthcoming) Basically, you can rig a test to capture a particle only one of two ways, ignoring one option or the other. It will ALWAYS end up going the way you decide to measure, which means that the result of the experiment is decided by the observer. It means that the result is predetermined by the observer, or, the observer is changing what happened in the past.


This is why the professor in Futurama balks at the "quantum" photo finish result at the horse track and they have to go to the electron microscope to determine the result.

"You idiots! By observing the results, you've changed them!" he yelled.

"No fair! You've changed the outcome by measuring it!"

 

[PlasmaBomb]

We are only beginning to understand parts of the universe. And the size and space is simply unrelateable for human beings. The idea if I were to travel at the speed of light and it would still take me 40 years to hit the nearest star is crazy for us to comprehend when we deal with seconds.

Isn't the nearest star about 4 light-years away...?

(Proxima Centauri)

 

[PlasmaBomb]

the size of all black holes is the same, 0. a black hole is a singular point and distance would be measured between 2 points. the size of the event horizon can be measured by gravitational lensing.

Stop trying to divide by zero...

 

[Arcadio]

this short video seems appropriate for this thread.

 

[lyssword]

/mindblown

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Bet you didn't know that there was antimatter inside you right now!

The host of quarks, antiquarks and gluons inside a proton all have intrinsic spin, but their constant movement also creates orbital angular momentum. Understanding how these individual angular momenta together yield the total spin of the proton is still proving to be a challenge.

-Cern

Or that the matter in a proton only accounts for 3% of its weight...

the other 97% is empty space -Prof. Frank Wilczek

 

[daw123]

this short video seems appropriate for this thread.

wow.

 

[silverpig]

Bet you didn't know that there was antimatter inside you right now!

Or that the matter in a proton only accounts for 3% of its weight...

the other 97% is empty space -Prof. Frank Wilczek

Uh, there's no antiquarks inside protons. Protons are made up of up and down quarks with gluons holding them all together.

The rest masses of the up and down quarks only account for about 3% of the proton's rest mass yes, but there is energy in the gluon field and kinetic energy of the quarks themselves which make up the total mass of the proton.

 

[Udgnim]

the double slit experiment still blows my mind

 

[Sea Moose]

the double slit experiment still blows my mind

sounds kinky?