Large Hardon Collider

**Lhyet** · 2011-02-16 07:38

Originally Posted by ZarakiKujata

haha I came to this thread just to post that story.

Grats on your new fame Tyche.

Wouldn't something that big be a bit more... noticeable?

I mean, we're already looking at planets in other systems, so how do we miss the biggest one in our own?
I understand the Oort cloud is a giant clusterfuck of crap, but... still.

**Kaylia** · 2011-02-16 09:54

Originally Posted by Lhyet

Wouldn't something that big be a bit more... noticeable?

I mean, we're already looking at planets in other systems, so how do we miss the biggest one in our own?
I understand the Oort cloud is a giant clusterfuck of crap, but... still.

Go outside when it's dark and look at a distant object sitting under a lamp. Chance is, you will see it better than anything else around you. Distance obviously matter up to a certain point, but how bright an object is depend of the light reflected and the light produced. If both are low, it will be hard to see no matter what.

It might be more "noticeable", but only if you know where to look. The reason why it is possible to find extrasolar planets is because we know exactly where to point our telescope (ie: on that star). Without this, there would be no way to find them.

Tyche on the other hand could have been anywhere. You basically have to find it accidently while looking for something else (point a very powerful telescope in that direction, and notice that something is wrong). Of course, you could also scout for large object in our solar system but you will never be able to get the same kind of resolution if you cover a larger surface.

**Mizango** · 2011-02-16 12:57

Originally Posted by Lhyet

Wouldn't something that big be a bit more... noticeable?

I mean, we're already looking at planets in other systems, so how do we miss the biggest one in our own?
I understand the Oort cloud is a giant clusterfuck of crap, but... still.

Ok, let me put how far away this is into perspective for you. 1 AU (which is the distance from Earth to the Sun) is 93 Million miles right? This body dubbed Tyche, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 20,000 AU away from us. Pluto, when it was a planet was our most distant body and was around 41 AU iirc. Not in-front of a pc so I may be slightly off, but im close. So how exactly would you propose we look at it or find it? It is so far out that if it does exist it would radiate no heat, but if it did radiate heat it would be so low that it couldn't even be detected. Second, outside of noticing that its just slinging comets you have no way of viewing it like we do exoplanets, which eliminates viewable transiting, gravitational lensing and Rvel. Basically, one does not simply "Look" and find a planet, especially one so far out.

Trust me, if you know and can prove a simpler technique like merely "looking", then boundless riches and fame await you today. Shit, let me hear it.

**Mizango** · 2011-02-16 13:12

According to NASA's JPL one of our Voyager crafts that launched in 1977, are currently 94 AU away from our Sun. Granted, they aren't headed towards to Oort cloud or this "Tyche" beast, but the distance is something that should give this some perspective on how far that thing is.

**Lhyet** · 2011-02-16 14:26

Originally Posted by Kaylia

It might be more "noticeable", but only if you know where to look. The reason why it is possible to find extrasolar planets is because we know exactly where to point our telescope (ie: on that star). Without this, there would be no way to find them.

Aye, that makes alot of sense and I guess I didn't give that point very much thought.

Miz, I didn't mean what I said in a disrespectful 'lol you missed one' manner, but more out of honest curiosity. So much is heard about exoplanets these days and all the work that's going into that, so when someone like me, who doesn't keep up to date with as much as is going on in the field, reads this story it's very surprising to hear that what would be the biggest planet in our system has gone undetected for so long. Makes you think 'well how did everyone miss that?'.

The article didn't put anywhere near as much emphasis on the distance as you did, so thanks for that. It is a bit more eye opening when the distance is better explained.
I also had a nose on the wiki and it claims that's about 1/4 of a lightyear away... so bloody hell yeah, very far.

**Max™** · 2011-02-16 14:31

Ok, this is the Earth and the Moon, to scale, at scale distances.
http://users.ameritech.net/equalizer...th_to_Moon.gif

That is the SPEED OF LIGHT from here to the moon, just over a second.

Watch The sun is 8 minutes at that speed, and this object is 3 months away at that speed.

**Mizango** · 2011-02-16 15:43

No, I didnt mean for it to come off as such haha, it was probably me posting from my phone that made it seem like that.

Wasnt intentional <3

**Woozie** · 2011-02-16 17:44

I was trying to make this post earlier but I couldn't because the computers at school are mentally retarded:

Going along the lines of what Kaylia and Miz said, Tyche is not really "big" in the sense that you're probably thinking. I mean, it's freakin' huge, but most of the extrasolar planets we've found were just as big but were literally right in front of the sun. Their orbits are probably as close to their stars as Mercury is to the sun. So those planets have a MUCH larger effect on the overall solar system just by being so close. We can see the stars wobble or even see the change in light intensity when the planet passes the star when the planets are so close. Once you get 20,000AU from a star, your mass probably needs to be comparable to that of a small star to have a noticeable effect on the solar system. "Big" is relative to what you're talking about, and when it comes to astronomy, "big" often depends on distance as well as size. Tyche is a huge planet by planetary standards, but its effects on the solar system would be pretty tiny.

Which brings up another point. Miz can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the outer planets (Neptune and Pluto, and maybe Uranus?) were discovered due to their effects on the solar system. Basically, astronomers looked at the planets and realized that Uranus wasn't moving the way Newton's laws predict, and this discrepancy was explained by introducing another planet. This planet was then discovered (Neptune), but then astronomers realized that its orbit was also weird and needed another planet to explain it (Pluto). Since Pluto's orbit is pretty much just as we predict without introducing new planets, we really had no way to find any new planets and had no reason to believe any others existed. Deviations in data is pretty much the only way to discover a far planet in our solar system, so when there are no deviations in data that can't be explained in any way but by introducing a planet, it becomes difficult to find anything. There are only two ways we discover things in astronomy: light and gravity. Due to its distance, this planet doesn't give us much of either.

**Mizango** · 2011-02-16 22:29

Woozie, you are never wrong in my books <3 lol

**Mizango** · 2011-02-16 22:29

But no, youre not wrong.

**Kaylia** · 2011-02-18 01:18

I'm not sure if anyone can help me, but I'm looking for a book that introduce me to tensor in a rigorous way (mostly for QM). Everything I see skip the rigorous mathematical stuff I would like to see.

**Kaylia** · 2011-02-20 06:58

Fucking Lie algebra...none of it make sense to me. Maybe it's just because we are cramming everything in a single chapter without proper mathematical background, but I havent been at loss like this for a long time.

Most of it is completed already, no more help is needed.

Spoiler: show

**shepardG** · 2011-02-20 08:50

This might be somewhat off topic of the thread currently, but i was curious what has been going on with CERN and the LHC?

I have been interested in it, and I usually check the thread but it's been alot of physics and theory stuff. I will not lie, you guys are working on things well above my brain thinking (well high enough to know that i'd have to devote alot of time and practice/study/commitment) to understand.

Correct me if i'm wrong but they did discover the Higgs-Boson?

**Kaylia** · 2011-02-20 09:03

I'm the one who hijacked the thread to ask boring homeworks questions, you're not offtopic

Concerning the LHC, I don't think we will have any sudden confirmations (if it even exists). The confirmation process would probably takes a few years, and require more than one experiments.
So far, I havent seen anything really interesting for the average people (basically, everyone but the 5000 brains working there). There has been some weird symmetric particles that has been observed, and a few more oddities, but we are still waiting for the next revolution.

**shepardG** · 2011-02-20 09:26

Suppose they do discover it, would the next step be learning to manipulate them?
If so, what sort of ways would they go about it?

Basically, what i've gathered in my simplistic ways of looking at things, and also in somewhat half theories i have, discovery would be the first step? Supposedly they give matter it's "mass"? and if that's the case, theoretically wouldn't we be able "alter" them in a way that we could reduce the mass of a given object?

in my sci-fi ladden mind, i'm picturing something akin to a field of reduced mass that could be acted upon by an outside force? If this is some bullshit theory please let me know.
Something like a space shuttle, inside of this field it's mass is reduced to near nothing, then propelling it using forces we currently have (solid state fuels and what not) would be millions of times more efficent?

Sorry if this sort of thing is off base from the experiments they're doing at the LHC, what little i've read got my mind to thinking in those terms, and i'm wondering if there's anything to it honestly.

**Kaylia** · 2011-02-20 09:49

Forget about it

. What we might observe is only a consequence of their existence. We are still very far from being able to interact with that Bosons directly (if the theory is even correct). By far, it means that we are orders of magnitude under the energy level required to even poke it...let alone "use it".

At this point, there is no interesting applications that are foreseeable. Obviously, it's not a reason to stop the researches because a better understanding of the nature is never harmful. It could allow us to develop new mathematical tool that would carry to nuclears physics, quantum chemistry, quantum computation and stuff like this. For the rest, it's just not going to happens.

**Max™** · 2011-02-20 17:54

http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/News.htm

http://lpcc.web.cern.ch/LPCC/

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/...ing-theory.ars

No news on the Higgs, but the stringy black hole test is a result worth noting.

**Woozie** · 2011-02-21 23:01

"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." Richard P. Feynman

One of my facebook friends just posted that.

**Max™** · 2011-02-22 15:18

I love this comic:
http://amultiverse.com/files/comics/...Get-Fluffy.png

http://amultiverse.com/

**BerenTebogo** · 2011-02-23 14:45

Schrodinger was a dick. Didn't he realize that uppercase Psi is really annoying to drag through a problem and that slanged, look suspiciously like x's? Total dick.

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