Large Hardon Collider

[Plow]

I was just having a conversation with someone a few days ago about how frustrating it is that people know more about what Paris Hilton did in the last 5 years than what NASA did in the last 10.

If it makes you feel any better, I now get the NASA channel on directv.

[Eliseos]

That makes sense. We just got through RLC circuits and maxwell's derivation of the EM wave, though my teacher just sort of hand-waved through most of the differential equations for those. I've been watching Walter Lewin's MIT lectures on iTunes, and I've been learning way more than my actual teacher (though to be fair to my teacher, it's his first semester teaching this course).

I still can't believe how μo and εo are related exactly to the speed of light. When I tried explaining it to my friends (who don't have much interest in science at all, unfortunately), they just looked at me crazy in my delight about it

[Khamsin]

I mean we are given one planet and just that one

Are we? You said yourself you think we'll be able to colonize other solar systems by the time we need to be clear of this one. Maybe we have the entire universe at our disposal. Not right now, not all at once, but there's no reason we can't go on from solar system to solar system, galaxy to galaxy, over a period of thousands or millions of years to consume and transform every piece of rock along the way as needed to support our species.

Unlike worrying about sharing our ecosystem on Earth with other species, out there there's no indigenous life to worry about. Or if there is, there's plenty of room to stretch without affecting them.

Maybe one day we'll even be able to go universe to universe as well, once we're done with this one... if it's possible to be done with this one. If there is an ultimate fate to the universe, I wonder if we'll have found a means to escape it by the time it collapses/rips/heats/freezes/whatever on us. Unless we are a part of the universe itself in such a way that we could never escape. As in, we are the universe (in an abstract way) and cannot escape ourselves. Or perhaps whatever defines us in this universe would no longer hold meaning in another universe.

I mostly just wonder if it's possible for our species (or derivative of it) to truly be indefinitely sustainable throughout the infinite course and cycle of time and the cosmos, barring major extinction events before we have a chance to spread out to other planets/solar systems/galaxies.

[Max™]

Unless we are a part of the universe itself in such a way that we could never escape. As in, we are the universe (in an abstract way) and cannot escape ourselves. Or perhaps whatever defines us in this universe would no longer hold meaning in another universe.

Pretty much what I figure, though I can't state that it absolutely would or would not hold meaning elsewhere. Just that it may not, and there is no reason that it would.


I'll post more tomorrow, thumb hurts after my epic 11-37 Drk grind over the last couple days.

[Wintermute]

But what I envision would be of the apocalyptic type
- Major Earthquake ripping the US apart
- Giant Meteor hits
- WW3 the nuclear war / Judgement day
- Micro black holes ripping our spacetime and destroying the Universe
- Alien Invasion ( my personal fav as it would straight up 1-shot religious nutjobs and force us into space since we know, publically, we are no longer alone in the universe )

No Zombocalypse?


I need to find out if there's a field of science where I can take shit apart to find out how it ticks then put it all together in as sketchy a way as possible to see if it still works.

I'd have to find something to do with all those spare screws I'd end up with though...

[Woozie]

That makes sense. We just got through RLC circuits and maxwell's derivation of the EM wave, though my teacher just sort of hand-waved through most of the differential equations for those. I've been watching Walter Lewin's MIT lectures on iTunes, and I've been learning way more than my actual teacher (though to be fair to my teacher, it's his first semester teaching this course).

I still can't believe how μo and εo are related exactly to the speed of light. When I tried explaining it to my friends (who don't have much interest in science at all, unfortunately), they just looked at me crazy in my delight about it

I remember how I felt when I read through my physics book and saw that formula. I ended up being so excited about the way Maxwell brought E&M together that I wanted to tattoo maxwell's equations on my shoulder. I don't know why I never did it. To be honest, I still want to do it, but if I do I wont be able to donate plasma for a year.

[Woozie]

Are we? You said yourself you think we'll be able to colonize other solar systems by the time we need to be clear of this one. Maybe we have the entire universe at our disposal. Not right now, not all at once, but there's no reason we can't go on from solar system to solar system, galaxy to galaxy, over a period of thousands or millions of years to consume and transform every piece of rock along the way as needed to support our species.

Unlike worrying about sharing our ecosystem on Earth with other species, out there there's no indigenous life to worry about. Or if there is, there's plenty of room to stretch without affecting them.

Maybe one day we'll even be able to go universe to universe as well, once we're done with this one... if it's possible to be done with this one. If there is an ultimate fate to the universe, I wonder if we'll have found a means to escape it by the time it collapses/rips/heats/freezes/whatever on us. Unless we are a part of the universe itself in such a way that we could never escape. As in, we are the universe (in an abstract way) and cannot escape ourselves. Or perhaps whatever defines us in this universe would no longer hold meaning in another universe (which I don't think we can)

I mostly just wonder if it's possible for our species (or derivative of it) to truly be indefinitely sustainable throughout the infinite course and cycle of time and the cosmos, barring major extinction events before we have a chance to spread out to other planets/solar systems/galaxies.

I think human extinction is inevitable. I don't think we can escape our universe. Some theories propose that other universes can have different laws of physics (well, by different laws, I mean the same laws but with different values for the constants), meaning even if we did somehow go to another universe, it's very likely that the universe couldn't sustain life since life is very sensitive to the value of these constants. A small change in one constant could mean no stars, or stars that wont ever become nuclear, or stars that burn out super fast, or no anything at all because nothing ever clumped together, etc. We'd have to somehow be able to search tons of different universes and hope to find one that could sustain us even if we did find a way to travel to a different universe.

No Zombocalypse?

Since we're talking about human extinction scenarios, there was actually a show on the history channel about the 7 greatest threats to humans a few weeks ago. Number 1 was global climate change caused (or drastically accelerated) by humans, which makes sense since it's the only one on the list that's already happening. Number 2 was global pandemic and 3 was nuclear war.

This show was about a few years old, so you may have seen it on another channel or on the history channel at some point.

Edit: From Wikipedia's article on the show.

These are organized from least likely to most likely:

7a.) Death of a Star: Gamma-Ray Burst

7b.) Death of a Star: Black Hole

Number seven was actually two alternate views of what could happen to a star and how it could destroy life on earth.

6.) Intelligent Machines

5.) Supervolcano

4.) Asteroid

3.) Nuclear War

2.) Plague

1.) Climate Change

By the way, Zombocalypse was number 8 but they couldn't fit it into a 2 hour special.

[Mizango]

Are we? You said yourself you think we'll be able to colonize other solar systems by the time we need to be clear of this one. Maybe we have the entire universe at our disposal. Not right now, not all at once, but there's no reason we can't go on from solar system to solar system, galaxy to galaxy, over a period of thousands or millions of years to consume and transform every piece of rock along the way as needed to support our species.

No you're right, I worded that poorly. First off I dont believe we were "given" anything, rather it was a random set of processes and the right conditions that allowed this ball to get moving.

What I was meaning was the masses see Earth as a divine gift and yet we continue to rape it and strip it to the bone because we are seemingly more concerned about what someone else is doing and how we can top them instead of looking at what we have and possibly preserving it for the long haul.

[Mizango]

I think human extinction is inevitable. I don't think we can escape our universe. Some theories propose that other universes can have different laws of physics (well, by different laws, I mean the same laws but with different values for the constants), meaning even if we did somehow go to another universe, it's very likely that the universe couldn't sustain life since life is very sensitive to the value of these constants. A small change in one constant could mean no stars, or stars that wont ever become nuclear, or stars that burn out super fast, or no anything at all because nothing ever clumped together, etc. We'd have to somehow be able to search tons of different universes and hope to find one that could sustain us even if we did find a way to travel to a different universe.

Agreed on this paragraph.

Since we're talking about human extinction scenarios, there was actually a show on the history channel about the 7 greatest threats to humans a few weeks ago. Number 1 was global climate change caused (or drastically accelerated) by humans, which makes sense since it's the only one on the list that's already happening. Number 2 was global pandemic and 3 was nuclear war.

This show was about a few years old, so you may have seen it on another channel or on the history channel at some point.

Edit: From Wikipedia's article on the show.



By the way, Zombocalypse was number 8 but they couldn't fit it into a 2 hour special.

Yeah I've seen that show a few times lol, NDT does the black hole parts which are hilarious.

[Max™]

They left out Neutron pair collisions, which would produce a burst of gamma rays and a shower of neutrinos, followed by heavy ions, and gravity waves... which would be a pretty effective way to sterilize at least a few hundred light years around the event.

Multiple neutron stars could collide in an even more spectacular fashion which, well... I wouldn't like to be in the same galaxy as a 3 or 4 star collision.


The fine tuning argument is horribly phrased, btw, Woozie.

Life doesn't exist because the constants are just right, and if they weren't right it would be impossible.

Life exists because there is most likely an uncountable number of Universes, of which some subset MUST have unfolded from their seed in a similar manner as our own Universe, and that subset happens to be part of a larger subset which produces self-replicating feedback loops.


Interestingly, Lee Smolin and I both hit upon the same sort of idea, if you take the implications of GR as simply as possible, the formation of a black hole must produce another Universe, as it contains a domain of spacetime which there is no reason to assume stopped existing, yet is no longer connected to the Universe in which it formed..

So, extrapolating that a little bit, and either through some form of quantum tunneling, or as I suggest, the actual decay of the spacetime in the parent Universe... those new spacetime domains become extricated in some sense from their parents.

Now you're left with an extremely stressed, highly symmetrical, tightly folded up body of spacetime... and nothing keeping it in that state.

The manner in which it loses it's symmetries determines the ratios between what we know as forces. There is no surprise that the equations which govern electricity, magnetism, electrons, mass, etc, are all intimately related to the speed of light. The speed of light is rather like a representation of the tension remaining in a body of spacetime after unfolding. Motion through that body naturally alters that stress in a certain way, and the imprint left is that value of c which occurs time and time again.

Like moving your hand through water and getting it wet, if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't... anyway.


If I'm correct about the fine structure of the Universe, the four forces are merely different sorts of topological interactions between knotted up bits of spacetime, such as matter, and the more unfolded regions, "empty" space.

When you wad up a piece of paper in your fist, and then unfold it, you can see creases left behind. When you wad up a bit of a Universe under gravities fist, it turns into a black hole.

When you let go with that fist, the spacetime/material within the black hole is able to unfold, but it has new creases, the particles we identify as the building blocks of everything are those creases... the way they interact are the forces of nature.

[Max™]

If you had a piece of paper that you already wadded up once, and wad it up differently, it will carry some similarity to the first state within the new arrangement.

Smolin and I both think that the formation of a black hole need not be assumed to destroy all information about the matter within it, and if we're right, then the decay of that black hole would lead to a Universe which was similar to it's parent in some ways.


A Universe which produced lots of black holes, would produce lots of daughter Universes with much greater chances of sharing that tendency of producing black holes prolifically.


We find ourselves in a Universe which appears to be rather effective at producing black holes, estimates range from 10's of millions to 100's of millions.


I would argue that the constants are fine tuned to produce complex elements in significant enough numbers, with strong enough interactions among the different arrangements of the elements, to produce massive stars for a significant portion of the early life of the Universe.

Those would then produce many black holes, which would continue the cycle after this Universe unravels.


We're an unintended side effect of prolific star formation, and highly interactive arrangements of stable elements.

The fact that Carbon is long lived, clumps together, and happily chugs along towards heavier elements during a stars life cycle is the important thing.

Carbon that has been blown out of a dying star is wasted material, it's a fascinating thing that it interacts so ferociously with water and other chemicals, but rather obvious given it's chemical structure, and the arrangement of it's valence electrons.

We're not the center of the Universe, we're a bit of litter that woke up one day and started asking questions.

[Khamsin]

No you're right, I worded that poorly. First off I dont believe we were "given" anything, rather it was a random set of processes and the right conditions that allowed this ball to get moving.

What I was meaning was the masses see Earth as a divine gift and yet we continue to rape it and strip it to the bone because we are seemingly more concerned about what someone else is doing and how we can top them instead of looking at what we have and possibly preserving it for the long haul.

But in a way, raping our planet is a good thing. Someone reminded us earlier about necessity being the mother of invention. If we treated each other, and our planet, with respect then we'd never have a need to develop space travel and colonization technology. And we'd all die out when the earth/sun does.

On the other hand, if we're raging assholes, we have better motivation to develop this technology and preserve the species in the distant future, as a result. Also consider how much military research has contributed to technological advancement. Being belligerant and always at war with one another helps us in the long run.

We may be pests to the planet, giant flaming warring assholes, but at least we'll be alive as a species because of it. Consider our disrespect toward our planet and each other as an evolutionary trait. All of human's vices and flaws, everything that makes people think we're a primitive and degrading race, are actually good things; they're qualities of an advanced race. Any other life form in the universe that makes it as far as us will be just as "bad". No benevolent and peaceful race would ever make it to interstellar travel.

[Neosutra]

Smolin and I both think that the formation of a black hole need not be assumed to destroy all information about the matter within it, and if we're right, then the decay of that black hole would lead to a Universe which was similar to it's parent in some ways.
.

I dont think there is any current observations that would back that up. Currently our understanding of blackhole deaths (dissapation of the blackholes after they have nothing more to feed on) shows no residual spatial reconstruction or variances where the singularity once was.

What lead Smolin to that hypothesis?

[zoobernut]

We're not the center of the Universe, we're a bit of litter that woke up one day and started asking questions.

This is a great quote. Must sig it.

[Max™]

Loop Quantum concepts involve building spacetime out of networks of dynamic "foam", there are attempts to have that foam produce descriptions of matter as well.

Considering this, he apparently pondered cutting a section out of the foam, while increasing the gravitational gradient within that section as one would expect from a black hole.

In LQC there is no singularity which everything falls into, as you're left with a non-zero size that you simply can't push anything smaller than, and running the math beyond that gives the weird result of a "bounce".

An extremely compressed region of spacetime "bouncing" without an event horizon around it would appear much like our impressions of the big bang do to us.


I'm not sure how vocal Smolin is about it, but I do not think Hawking is correct about black holes radiating their mass away and decaying, it should happen, but not while it is still hidden within it's parent Universe.

The entire black hole information paradox isn't a paradox, it's just an aesthetic preference that you should not be able to "lose" information into a black hole, thus cheating entropy in a sense.

As I see it, the order in OUR Universe had to come from somewhere, and our big bang actually makes sense in the light of the LQC bounce model. Implying that at some point in the Ur-Past, this Universe was inside of a black hole in another Universe which apparently isn't here any longer.

[Neosutra]

It isnt just Hawking that stated black holes radiate their mass and decay, it is observational astro-physics. We can pretty clearly see the remains of dying black holes. I dont think there is much merit to LQC and "foam" spatial models.

[Woozie]

The fine tuning argument is horribly phrased, btw, Woozie.

Life doesn't exist because the constants are just right, and if they weren't right it would be impossible.

Life exists because there is most likely an uncountable number of Universes, of which some subset MUST have unfolded from their seed in a similar manner as our own Universe, and that subset happens to be part of a larger subset which produces self-replicating feedback loops.

I'm not saying that the right constants are a sufficient condition for life. I'm saying it's necessary (but not sufficient). If there is indeed an uncountable number of universes, it wont be easy for humans to find one that we can exist in, since the ones that doesn't support life are much more probable.

[Woozie]

But in a way, raping our planet is a good thing. Someone reminded us earlier about necessity being the mother of invention. If we treated each other, and our planet, with respect then we'd never have a need to develop space travel and colonization technology. And we'd all die out when the earth/sun does.

Even without man-made global climate change, we'd still have the necessity to colonize due to the inevitability of us losing the earth. The difference is that we'd have more time to create this technology due to not killing ourselves off so soon...

[Max™]

It isnt just Hawking that stated black holes radiate their mass and decay, it is observational astro-physics. We can pretty clearly see the remains of dying black holes. I dont think there is much merit to LQC and "foam" spatial models.

Uh, this is news to me.

Black holes haven't even been directly sighted other than the inference due to trajectories of nearby bodies.

Where have you seen findings of a "dying" black hole?

[Neosutra]

Maybe I shouldnt have used "clearly see" the remains of dying black holes, as no we havent actually seen Hawking radaition yet. I was leaning more towards newer observational astrophysics models that attempted to explain galaxy formation and the development of super black holes and the birth/death of the smaller black holes.

Regardless, I havent seen any models or evidence to back up a countering theory to this (specifically LQC or "foam" models).