Conspiracy Theory: Planet X/Niburu

[Kaylia]

Regarding the question about cutting an object up into a trillion billion pieces or whatever, there is an actual minimum size to which you can subdivide matter apparently, this becomes clear when you consider entropy.

An object has entropy equal to the sum of the entropy of it's component parts.

If you could subdivide an object infinitely, it would have infinite entropy.

... but yes, if you divide something up, the mass of all it's parts is roughly equal to the mass of the whole object. Humans and most other objects are mostly empty space. Electron clouds are HUGE relative to atomic nuclei, and chemical compounds/reactions/molecules are based on electron cloud interactions.

The mass is largely contained within the nuclei though.

I can't remember the exact reference, but I remember reading that if you took all of the quarks composing a human being, and had some way to squeeze all the space out of them, along with collapsing the electron clouds, a human being wouldn't take up as space as the period at the end of this sentence.

If the atom was 1cm big, the electron would rotate 10 kilometer away...or something like this. So yeah, lot of space between matter. Same thing happen with other particule.

The question about dividing matter in trillions is tricky. Can you really find the "smallest particles", or matter is always organized into a bunch of smaller thing? None can answer this. Looking at enthropy from an infinity stand point is stupid, but same could be said about many thing in physics. As long you have a finited number, the total should still add up to the same.

[Shuemue]

Before reading the rest of the thread, I clicked a link on that website, 'The Big Picture'

The visitors who crashed at Roswell were future humans

[Max™]

Oh man, I've actually toyed with ideas about implications of time travel.

Among the funnier ones, UFO's are future humans on safari's, Grey's are evolved human descendants, and Jesus was a time traveler.

If you think about it, a guy appearing out of nowhere with an entire moral revolution in his pocket, mysterious origins/abilities, mysterious death/disappearance, and the knowledge to alter the path that human history took thereafter could easily be explained as time travel, if you put the plot in a Sci Fi book noone would think twice.

[Tokitoki]

I am a Norwegian politician. I would like to say that difficult things will happen from the year 2008 till the year 2012.

The Norwegian government is building more and more underground bases and bunkers. When asked, they simply say that it is for the protection of the people of Norway. When I enquire

I stopped reading this thing here.

[guartz]

wow and I thought Michael Tsarion was out there.

whoever made this up should have put more work into it, made it at least a bit more entertaining.

[Woozie]

@Khamsim: I believe the top picture would be correct.

Hey Woozie, how exactly does one calculate the mass of a black hole anyway?

Usually by measuring it's gravitational effects on the object around it. If an object is in orbit or is at least heavily influenced by the gravitational pull of a black hole, simple laws of gravity can be used to estimate its mass.

Is this something that can only be applied to phenomena with powerfull gravitational pulls? Also, within this question, i'd just like to confirm, it is true that all objects possess gravity of their own, correct?

The gravitational pull doesn't necessarily have to be powerful. We could estimate the mass of Pluto and Charon by looking at their orbits although their gravity isn't too powerful (compared to other large celestial bodies).

Also, all objects with mass will have their own gravity.

Gravity is the effect of one mass on another based on their distance apart I think so while theoretically all masses may experience some sort of minute gravity, you need at least two masses within a distance that gravity can be observed in, I think?

You don't have to have two objects with mass to observe gravity. For example: light falling into a black hole. The black hole has mass, but the photons don't. Yet, we still observe gravity in gravitational redshifting/light bending/etc.

/random ass hyper theoretical derail off

You should have kept going D: that was pretty interesting

Pretty sure that's spot on. But don't they think gravity is caused by "gravitons" which we can't really see? I thought there was a particle accelerator somewhere devoted to smashing particles together, for the possibility of seeing said graviton come out of the collision.

Gravity is "caused" by gravitons. Gravitons are the messenger particle for gravity. Basically, a messenger particle is a particle that "mediates" a force. For example, when two charges come together, virtual photons are the messenger particle. Virtual photons are sent back and forth between the two charges and they "tell" the particles how to react. Gravity works the same way. Gravitons are exchanged between particles and they "tell" the particles how to react.

This is the quantum description of gravity, which is noticeably different than the relativistic model I described earlier, where gravity is nothing more than the bending of space-time in the presence of mass.

If you break down a mass into it's smallest possible particles (whatever they may be), could the gravity of the whole mass be represented by the effect of gravity of each individual particle acting on each other? i.e. could you quantize the mass into a trillion billion units each with a fixed amount of gravititational pull, do some calculations on the entire system and come up with the same overall effect as the simplified overall mass/distance calculation?

In Newtons gravity, yes. It's known as the superposition principle. I'm not so sure if it works in General Relativity, to be honest. I haven't studied GR very deeply D:

And what do they think these gravitons are physically doing? Leaving the object, finding another object, and giving it a tug? If gravitons are proven to exist, could a method be developed to block them like you can with everything else?

The answer to this question is kind of weird. I'm going to answer this in two parts, both of which seemingly contradict each other.

What a virtual graviton physical does is travel from one gravitational-interacting particle to another and "instructs" the particle on how to behave.

Now here's the contradiction: Gravitons (and other virtual particles) do nothing at all because they don't exist! Virtual particles are nothing more than an invention of the human mind. They're a mathematical tool that we invented to make sense of our equations.

If you ask different scientist as to whether or not they're real, you'll probably get different answers. It's something that's up for debate. When they debate about being real, they don't mean it in the same sense as someone debating whether or not bigfoot is real. It's more of a debate on the definition of "existence" or the definition of something being "real".

It's kind of like the debate that used to go on about the existence of electromagnetic or gravitational fields (in fact, virtual particles are nothing more than the quantum version of classical fields). There's nothing in existence in nature that can be called an electric field. It's a tool mathematicians came up with to aid the description and calculation of electromagnetic phenomenon. It's nothing more than a clever invention of the human mind.

Yet, it's effects are real. If something has real effects on the universe, does that mean it exists? If so, then you could say virtual particles exist and point to electric interactions as proof. If I just imagine something in my head and I know that what I just imagined doesn't exist in nature, could I claim that my invention is real? If not, then virtual particles don't exist. When classical fields were up for debate, most scientist went along with the notion that if it affects reality, then it's real regardless of whether or not it's real (sounds funny when I say it like that). Then there's also the fact that particles that are considered to be definitely real can be modeled as "virtual" in certain ways in quantum electrodynamics.

Sorry, I kind of got sidetracked here. To answer the second part of your question, there's nothing we can do to block the virtual particles.

The question about dividing matter in trillions is tricky. Can you really find the "smallest particles", or matter is always organized into a bunch of smaller thing? None can answer this. Looking at enthropy from an infinity stand point is stupid, but same could be said about many thing in physics. As long you have a finited number, the total should still add up to the same.

The common view is that certain particles like quarks and electrons are pointlike particles with no internal structure and cannot be subdivided into smaller units. They are thus truly fundamental and would then be the "smallest" particle. If you look at string theory, the fundamental particles are pointlike, but instead are about plank length, but they aren't composite entities. So yeah, from this point of view, there would be a limit to how much you can continue to subdivide matter.

[Max™]

Going beyond String theory into a Brane formulation, a Brane can be thought of as the smallest "bit" of information, in a computer a bit can be 1 or 0 (barring qubits atm), in Holographic/Info/Brane Theory, a Brane can be there, or not there, but there's no such thing as half a Brane, or a third of a Brane.

This is tied into how any formulation of physics we've made seems to degenerate into meaninglessness if you try to push below the planck boundaries of time, distance, or mass.

Point Particles are a little absurd, and can lead to assumptions like infinities when treated improperly.

The way I look at it, if you found some way to count every tiny little aspect of the Universe, to encode data onto every bit of spacetime, every brane or whatever you choose to call them, you would still have a finite, though huge, sum.

Since you cannot count to an infinite, or even just arbitrarily large number using the entire sum of the universe, you can assume that infinite answers are natures way of saying "hey, you fucked up bad."

The way our science suggests that black holes contain infinite singularities can be attributed to just such a mistake, in how Quantum Theory, and Relativistic Theory don't get along well.

It's simple enough to work out the source of the conflict, Quantum theories weren't written with the very large and very fast in mind, and Relativity was written without a Quantum substrate underneath it. Relativity can produce infinities, Quantum theories suggest infinites cannot exist, Black Holes are one of the more obvious spots where they disagree.


I think of Gravity in a weird way, basically I view the universe as an enormous quantum calculator, quantum level interactions on a minute scale add up, like a crowd of people shaking hands with the people around them.

If you look at any snapshot of the crowd, you'll see a bunch of different steps in the handshake process, if you add all the snapshots together and watch them over time, patterns can emerge, information, sequences of events.

Replace the people with fundamental particles, and handshakes with something like feynman diagrams, and you get snapshots of an almost unimagineable number of events going on, as the events of the past add up with the events in the future, produce a now in the moment of calculation, and then add it to the pile of observable events.

Time is simply observing the process of said handshakes, relativistic distortions are produced as you "miss out" on more and more handshakes due to your velocity, and the difficulty the rest of the universe has incorporating you into the overall tapestry of events.

Gravity is a tendency of bodies with lots of potential to be at a specific predictable location, to influence the likelihood of other bodies to be found in the same predictable location.

The Earth is a very stable quantum object, there is a lot of it, the likelihood of it being somewhere along it's worldline at any given point in the future is... large.

I am a stable quantum object as well, there is a lot of me, and I will definitely be somewhere along my worldline at any given point in the future.

The Earth just has a... what's the term... bigger, more influential state.

It increases the likelihood that I will be where it is, it is hard to change this outcome, and requires quite a bit of energy to do so.

All objects in the Universe are attempting to influence all the rest of the Universe to be at their present/future location, more influential (massive) objects win out, and affect the probability of finding nearby objects closer and closer more efficiently.

The "gravitons" in this case, are just quantum ties, left over from when the Universe and all of it's matter was compressed and in contact with the rest of the mass.


I suspect this behavior is a sign of the Universe attempting to unmake itself, resisting it's expansion, and trying to come back together, for some reason my brain tells me that happening to find a Universe is a very unlikely event.

Sorry if that's a little out there, as I've said, quantum philosophy is a strange thing.

[MisterBob]

graviolis

[Metah]

graviolis

DR. HOUSE YOU'VE SOLVED THE CASE AGAIN

[arus2001]

While I'm not gonna say I buy the doomsday theory, I am contemplating the feasibility of an orbiting star one day nearing us. We surmised that the dinosaurs died about 65m years ago due to meteors and shit causing an ice age, so could this at all be related if said star's time of revolution is literally that huge? It may have not come close enough to us at the time to melt us, but who knows if we had a myriad of other planets in our solar system at the time that fell prey to it and possibly contributed to the asteroid belt we have.

Now, someone also mentioned we'd probably see this thing by now, which I'd agree if it was moving relatively slowly. Yet, if I'm not mistaken, we're rather limited in our consecutive surveillance of the stars, and thus have things like SETI@home helping power continued research. How fast would a star actually be able to move while maintaining its state as a star? Moreover, assuming it is in some kind of orbit and not just freely roaming, how tight of an ellipse could it maintain before boomeranging back to its opposite point or simply breaking free? More importantly, what could possibly influence its rotation within the center much like our own sun does our solar system?

Assuming space is infinite, I can't rule out something like this never happening. If it is finite, it stands to reason we'll one day, in the far, far future, get it all mapped out. Then probably find out some weird shit like black holes are a passage to another form of galaxy+1, etc.. Enter sci-fi crackpot from here.

[Max™]

The observable Universe is not infinite. It is about 43 Billion Light Years across.

FREAKING GINORMOUS, but not infinite.

Could there be more beyond the observational boundary? Yes, I would go so far as to say there is almost definitely something beyond it, I like to think of it as God, but anyway.

Whatever may be out there, is not a part of the Universe that we are imbedded in..


As for a binary partner for the sun, again, you would be able to look up, and by making simple star maps on a piece of paper, be able to plot out that the path the earth follows around the sun has a very strange wobble too it, and that the sun has weird motions.

In the centuries of observing the heavens, there hasn't been anything reported which would suggest the sort of movements the sun would follow as part of a binary pair, even a huge period one.

There are no stars closer than 4 light years from the Sun.

None, not one single neighbor less than 24 trillionish miles away.

If it is less than that far away, this Nemesis (as it is named in several sci fi stories) would not be active, either a brown dwarf, or a burned out cinder of an old dead star.

Neglecting that the suns movement doesn't support a twin being there, the worst thing that could possibly happen from a massive non-luminous body moving through the solar system (besides a collision with the Earth, one in some huge number odds against that) would be disturbing the oort cloud, asteroid belts, and other planets, flinging them around, possibly into each other... possibly away from the sun.

Yes, the Earth could be slingshotted out of the solar system, and it would suck somethin' awful.

No, it isn't going to happen any time in the next geological epoch, barring a strangely yet undetected supermassive dark body barreling in on us out of nowhere.

[Khamsin]

for some reason my brain tells me that happening to find a Universe is a very unlikely event.

I disagree. It's a very likely event. If the universe wasn't there, nothing would be around to find it. So, I would think that the chances of finding a universe is 100%.

Unless you meant us finding another universe or something.

[Max™]

I mean that the nature of the Universe doesn't suggest it to be a stable thing, clearly we wouldn't be observing it if it wasn't here, as we wouldn't be either...

Just that the whole thing seems a little fishy to me, it's age, it's state, the trends it's following, the possible methods it may have come into being... nothing really suggests that there should have to be a Universe here, instead of nothing.

Happy coincidence, or Divine gift, either way existence is a pretty sweet deal, with the whole metaphysical navel gazing and all...

[Woozie]

Point Particles are a little absurd, and can lead to assumptions like infinities when treated improperly.

Yeah, you're right about that. The idea that particles are pointlike is part of the reason our laws of physics break down in so many areas (e.g. below the plank scale) and it leads to many other complications. But nevertheless, the standard model treats particles as pointlike, and to date, no other theory agrees closer to experiment than the Standard Model x.x Despite all of the flaws of the standard model, we can't really deny how well it works.

The "gravitons" in this case, are just quantum ties, left over from when the Universe and all of it's matter was compressed and in contact with the rest of the mass.

I don't understand what you mean by that. Gravitons aren't something that are around just because they were left over from an earlier era. Gravitons are "created" and "destroyed" all the time.

I suspect this behavior is a sign of the Universe attempting to unmake itself, resisting it's expansion, and trying to come back together, for some reason my brain tells me that happening to find a Universe is a very unlikely event.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that x.x can you explain it further?

Also, do you have MSN or AIM?

[Delta_9]

Is "The God Particle" (Higgs boson) the equivalent to the search for the graviton?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/20 ... icle_N.htm

[Woozie]

The search for the Higgs boson and the graviton are two completely different things. An experiment to directly confirm the presense of a graviton would be rediculously hard because it interacts so increadibly weakly. Instead, we try to find things such as gravitational waves from supernovae, and infer the existance of gravtons from there.

Finding the Higgs boson is just a matter of smashing particles together at high enough energies and confirming from the recorded events whether or not the higgs boson was there. Then when the evidence is inconclusive, the researches will start playing with the machines and giving helicopters cancer like on that xkcd comic.

[Khamsin]

Also, if there really is some Star X orbiting around somewhere that'll eventually cause Earth's demise, then all that means is we gotta get cracking on developing a method to collapse a star, then fire it at the offender.

[Woozie]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/large_hadron_collider.png

[Mizango]

The search for the Higgs boson and the graviton are two completely different things. An experiment to directly confirm the presense of a graviton would be rediculously hard because it interacts so increadibly weakly. Instead, we try to find things such as gravitational waves from supernovae, and infer the existance of gravtons from there.

Finding the Higgs boson is just a matter of smashing particles together at high enough energies and confirming from the recorded events whether or not the higgs boson was there. Then when the evidence is inconclusive, the researches will start playing with the machines and giving helicopters cancer like on that xkcd comic.

LOL that comic is awesome. I saw they were talking about the Higgs boson theory on Discovery science, the title was called the "God particle" for anyone interested. I will post more when I leave work, PBX in a flash sucks ass.

[Woozie]

There's a famous book by the same name. I read half of it like a year ago (I can't finish books non-mathematical books matter how interesting they are I finished the elegant universe a few years ago, but other than that, the last book I finished was an animorphs book back in elementary school).

I'm going to check Youtube and see if they have the video you're talking about.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I don't know if I even finished The Elegant Universe, but I know I at least read most of it. I tend to stop reading once I get to the last few chapters, then read the last few chapters like a year later. I think i finished it at some point. To me, it's easier to read the technical (mathematical) versions of physics than the non-technical literature lol