Large Hardon Collider

[Woozie]

I read an article about that in SciAm. I'm not advanced enough to understand the mathematics and all that behind it, but from what I understand:

They believe that the universe is in a metastable state? And it is believed that the phase transition to the more stable state could be caused by us observing something about the state? If that's true, is there any way to "unobserve" what we observed? Or is it like the water thing, where once it's seeded, the transition to a metastable state is inevitable? Or is it actually going to have to tunnel through a potential to reach the minimum state? I mean, if it had the energy to get out of the metastable state, I'd assumed we would have all been instantly destroyed once we observed whatever it was that put is in this mess in the first place, right?

Can someone explain that whole situation to me?

[Kaylia]

I read an article about that in SciAm. I'm not advanced enough to understand the mathematics and all that behind it, but from what I understand:

They believe that the universe is in a metastable state? And it is believed that the phase transition to the more stable state could be caused by us observing something about the state? If that's true, is there any way to "unobserve" what we observed? Or is it like the water thing, where once it's seeded, the transition to a metastable state is inevitable? Or is it actually going to have to tunnel through a potential to reach the minimum state? I mean, if it had the energy to get out of the metastable state, I'd assumed we would have all been instantly destroyed once we observed whatever it was that put is in this mess in the first place, right?

Can someone explain that whole situation to me?

Well, we are observing it from the inside, our behavior is probably predicted and limited by the universe. We are a part of the "stable universe", and our action probably can't break this state.

The way I understand it, we would need to interact with an outside force to break this metastable state, similarly to how the guy had to hit the bottle, or drop a spoon to activate the system.

I'm not saying we can't break the metastable state from the inside, but the idea that a simple observation could break the metastable state more than what's going on in stars is weird.

I'm sure someone's already found that one.

I'm not sure why, but I always do that...its pissing me off.

[Woozie]

The argument I heard where they said measurement could break the metastable state relied on how in QM, measuring something affects whatever you're measuring. Like I said, I didn't really understand it all that well though.

[Max™]

You've have to observe the finest of fine-scale structures in spacetime... speaking huge energies, several orders of magnitude higher than any natural process could produce.


Give us a thousand years and I'll let you know if it's possible at that point, assuming the vacuum is truly metastable.

[Kaylia]

You've have to observe the finest of fine-scale structures in spacetime... speaking huge energies, several orders of magnitude higher than any natural process could produce.


Give us a thousand years and I'll let you know if it's possible at that point, assuming the vacuum is truly metastable.

Good luck topping the stuff that in the middle of galaxies, I don't want to be around when it happens (well, I do, but from a certain distance).

[Mizango]

Good luck topping the stuff that in the middle of galaxies, I don't want to be around when it happens (well, I do, but from a certain distance).

Absolutely.

[Max™]

It's also the focusing of the energy, the most intense release of energy at a single location you could reasonably expect to find in the Universe would be two cosmic rays colliding, which is unbelievably improbable, and would be similar to two baseballs colliding... only all of the energy focused on a point smaller than an atom... instead of spread out over billions of them.

Odds are that has happened a few times since the big bang, but it hasn't destabilized the vacuum, so we can assume it would take more energy than that.

Some calculations suggest it would be several orders of magnitude more energy to probe the scales where spacetime could be induced to tunnel to a lower energy level.

[Kaylia]

It's also the focusing of the energy, the most intense release of energy at a single location you could reasonably expect to find in the Universe would be two cosmic rays colliding, which is unbelievably improbable, and would be similar to two baseballs colliding... only all of the energy focused on a point smaller than an atom... instead of spread out over billions of them.

Odds are that has happened a few times since the big bang, but it hasn't destabilized the vacuum, so we can assume it would take more energy than that.

Some calculations suggest it would be several orders of magnitude more energy to probe the scales where spacetime could be induced to tunnel to a lower energy level.

It's an interesting topic, but right now, the real question is why am I browsing BG, when the deadline on this homeworks is in 7 hours, and the best I can get at the moment is 40%?

Brb coffee.



On topic, how much energy is contained in cosmic ray? I'm confused and curious to see how you get to that result (I seriously don't know about this one)

[Max™]

pwned!

gtfo and do your work

[Kaylia]

Failled, meant to edit the last post but double posted.

[Mizango]

lol Kaylia. Crunch time is go time!

[Deftscythe]

On topic, how much energy is contained in cosmic ray? I'm confused and curious to see how you get to that result (I seriously don't know about this one)

Enough to light a person on fire... forever.

[Kaylia]

lol Kaylia. Crunch time is go time!

I wish I could go back to my young and innocent self who thought sleep was necessary. Since I realized sleep was optional, crunch time doesn't start till very late (or early depending of perspective).

[Mizango]

I wish I could go back to my young and innocent self who thought sleep was necessary. Since I realized sleep was optional, crunch time doesn't start till very late (or early depending of perspective).

lol I know that feeling all too well.

[Max™]

10^20 eV~

Here's more info on these ridiculously energetic things: Cosmic ray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also of interest is the "OH MY GOD particle", 3 x 10^20 eV's, roughly 50 Joules of "oomph", possibly produced in the collision of neutron stars/resulting hypernovae from said collisions.

Two of those colliding head on would then be the most energetic event that would be likely to observed naturally, for sheer intensity that is.


It is theorized that these events are Protons traveling very near the speed of light, so close that if you measured one alongside a beam of light for a year, it would be mere nanometers behind the light beam.

[Woozie]

It's also the focusing of the energy, the most intense release of energy at a single location you could reasonably expect to find in the Universe would be two cosmic rays colliding, which is unbelievably improbable, and would be similar to two baseballs colliding... only all of the energy focused on a point smaller than an atom... instead of spread out over billions of them.

Odds are that has happened a few times since the big bang, but it hasn't destabilized the vacuum, so we can assume it would take more energy than that.

Some calculations suggest it would be several orders of magnitude more energy to probe the scales where spacetime could be induced to tunnel to a lower energy level.

So is there a specific process we must do in order to cause the universe to make this transition, or is any process (with a high enough focused energy) sufficient to cause such a transition?

I wish I could go back to my young and innocent self who thought sleep was necessary. Since I realized sleep was optional, crunch time doesn't start till very late (or early depending of perspective).

This. I really miss not being in college. You know, the good ol days when you could go to sleep, wake up 8 hours later instead of 2 hours later, and then actually have time to eat breakfast before you leave (assuming you had to go anywhere that day. In college, you pretty much have to go there every day because even if you don't have class that day you need to go to the library to do homework or study. There's no such thing as weekends anymore).

[foopy]

TG Daily - God sabotaged the LHC, say scientists

[Diamicles]

TG Daily - God sabotaged the LHC, say scientists

flawless scientific reasoning

[foopy]

flawless scientific reasoning

Science damn you god!

[Mizango]

To be fair he admitted that he was a jealous god.