Large Hardon Collider

[Mizango]

But still, the last half of November can't come soon enough Glad we have a time frame to look forward to at least. I wonder if we'll hear more crazy chlorine drinking stories before it starts up again, or if the general public has completely forgotten about it.

Nope, the nut jobs will be out if full force once Yahoo! news tells them the LHC is starting back up. I truthfully hope they all kill themselves, not only to rid us of their endless bitching, but for the fact that Monday morning particle physicist have no place on this planet.

If you mooch off Medicaid yet get up in arms at the thought of the LHC then yes, by all means drink draino and end your existence. Like the girl in India that drank pesticide because God told her in her sleep that the LHC would kill everyone on Earth later that week.

Darwi...

[Kryssan]

I'm sad most people don't know what the SSC was.

I learned it was canceled in science class at school, I was probably the only kid in there who was seriously upset and confused by it.

How could anyone let anything stand in the way of science?

Ah, youthful naivete.

That's ok, I had people confused about my excitement over JET's developments in school because they were trying to figure out how nuclear power related to airplanes.

And as for standing in the way of science, I'm not immortal yet. They need to get on that. Screw the people that want to die. That's the easy way out. Too much suffering left to endure here to let go after only a hundred years or so.

Nope, the nut jobs will be out if full force once Yahoo! news tells them the LHC is starting back up. I truthfully hope they all kill themselves, not only to rid us of their endless bitching, but for the fact that Monday morning particle physicist have no place on this planet.

If you mooch off Medicaid yet get up in arms at the thought of the LHC then yes, by all means drink draino and end your existence. Like the girl in India that drank pesticide because God told her in her sleep that the LHC would kill everyone on Earth later that week.

Darwi...

I'm surprised BG doesn't just start handing Darwin awards out. The Darwin awards website is too slow to be honest. Maybe they'd let us be an official partner? lol

[Mizango]

I'm surprised BG doesn't just start handing Darwin awards out. The Darwin awards website is too slow to be honest. Maybe they'd let us be an official partner? lol

I'd be there so fast.... rofl

[Max™]

Yeah, I'm just trying to stay healthy enough to last until anti-aging treatment shows up.

That will last til I can transfer out of this fleshy prison, and then I need to work on a time machine, as it occurs to me that while the end of time will be dismal, if I could skip around through time, there is an effectively endless amount of history to explore.

[Woozie]

Now this is the part where and why I think it is trying to be forced; because it neatly and comfortably removes the need for us to answer that pesky little problem of "Dark matter" or "Dark energy". To me it's trying too hard to fill in the blanks, think of it as skipping questions on the SAT or any other aptitude test and claim that you are a genius because you got the ones you chose to answer correct. But with that said and what I see as the Achillies heel is that neither of those theories are able to suitably (at least to me) explain or take into consideration the cosmological constant

There is still A LOT of work to be done for us to be able to completely understand and to grasp the full concepts and implications of what CG means for and on modern Cosmology. I mean, disagreeing with GR and accepted ideas on gravity are one thing, but trying to systematically replace what Einstein, Hubble, Newton and other great scientist have done before you seems a bit..... retarded.

Now, I'm not very familiar with the specific theory being referenced here, but I have heard of theories that remove the need for "pesky" problem of dark matter. But they do so by showing that there's no need to introduce dark matter in the first places. It's not like we actually have evidence of dark matter. Normally, when we observe something and compare it to theory, we'll take any discrepency to mean the theory needs to be modified. But in GR, we take descrepencies and say "the has to be right so let's just make up some stuff to account for the discrepency". A lot of great ideas were born because of this type of thinking. For example, the Neutrino was hypothesized because of a discrepency in energy, so instead of saying the theory is wrong, someone just made some stuff up to make the theory right.

But more often than not, discrepency in observation means bad theory. And GR is already incompatible with QM and will need to be modified anyways, so it's not like we're taking a completely 100% sound theory and saying we need to modify it. We're taking a theory that needs to be modified and saying we need to modify it...

Whether or not dark matter is real or not is highly debatable despite what many GR theorist would have you believe. I'm not taking sides on the issue. I don't know if dark matter is there or if GR is wrong on some other theory's domain in the same manner that Newton's theory is wrong on GR's domain. Both sides have some really compelling arguments. According to an astrophysicist I met at the American Physical Society Conference in march, NASA is supposedly sending up three machines into space that will do some sort of measurement to determine whether the indescrepencies in our observations are caused by dark matter, or if GR is just wrong on the large scale, or if <there was a third possibility but I don't remember it, but in this case, there's no dark matter but GR is still correct>. Until then (or until one side has an argument that is much more compelling than the other), my official opinion on the matter will be "I dunno".

It bothers me so much when people point to the sucess of GR and try to use that as proof that GR can't be wrong on a larger scale. By that logic we wouldn't have modern physics at all, since classical physics was so incredibly successful that it's still the most useful form of physics in today's world. Newton's reign was longer and stronger than Einstein's, and even he was usurped.

Like I said, I don't know the specific theory you're referring to, so I'm just talking about modifications to GR in general and not that specific theory that you're talking about. The theory might be wrong for certain reasons, but I don't disagree with systematically undoing what any great scientist has done so long as what you do is more consistent with observation than theirs. I mean, that wouldn't be an easy task after all Newton/Einstein/Hubble has done though. My main reason for this post was to express my frustration with people who insist on holding on to dark matter. I mean, certain people wont even admit to the possibility that GR is wrong (though you don't seem like you're one of them, so I'm not referring specifically to you, Miz).

[Max™]

This is why I like Woozie, I respect his mathematical skills, mad props there, yet he provides such completely different perspectives on physics that I feel like calling him batshit insane at times.

QM only disagrees with GR if you preserve causality and sacrifice locality.

It does not disagree if you sacrifice causality and preserve locality, and in fact GR implies QM as a small scale limit in this scenario.

If GR is wrong and QM is right, then we're in BIG trouble, because pursuing that line of thought has gotten us nowhere for 40+ years now.


Incidentally: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006...rk_Matter.html

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/arc.../2009/11/full/

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/200...PA_468x468.jpg

http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astr...ter/index.html

http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content...1e0657_med.jpg

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/200...dia/bullet.mpg

It isn't a guess about if there is dark matter, it is just a question of what it is.

[Woozie]

I'm sad most people don't know what the SSC was.

I learned it was canceled in science class at school, I was probably the only kid in there who was seriously upset and confused by it.

How could anyone let anything stand in the way of science?

Ah, youthful naivete.

What bothers me most about the SSC cancellation is that a few years ago, I realized that the amount we were spending on the Iraq war per week was about the cost of a SSC
(or something like that). I mean, seriously....

[Woozie]

I don't think the two of us are ever going to agree on the QM and GR point, lol. We've litterally been arguing this for like a year and a half now.

[Kryssan]

If only the public fear/outcry over doom dooom doooooom science had a shred of truth to it.


We could end all war by building just one walking stick.


http://www.aethernavale.net/Media/im...lkingstick.PNG

[Max™]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co...ds/1e0657o.jpg
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co...s/1e0657od.jpg
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co...s/1e0657ox.jpg
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co.../1e0657odx.jpg

Dark Matter Exists | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

[Eliseos]

Kryssan, I have been getting more and more interested in Nuclear Engineering as of late, mostly due to your posts and my class this semester. How much schooling is generally required to get into the field?

[Woozie]

This is why I like Woozie, I respect his mathematical skills, mad props there, yet he provides such completely different perspectives on physics that I feel like calling him batshit insane at times.

QM only disagrees with GR if you preserve causality and sacrifice locality.

It does not disagree if you sacrifice causality and preserve locality, and in fact GR implies QM as a small scale limit in this scenario.

If GR is wrong and QM is right, then we're in BIG trouble, because pursuing that line of thought has gotten us nowhere for 40+ years now.


Incidentally: NASA - NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter

HubbleSite - NewsCenter - Hubble Provides New Evidence for Dark Matter Around Small Galaxies (03/12/2009) - The Full Story

The astrophysicist I talked to mentioned something similar to this, and he mentioned some sort of problem he has with it, but it's not like I could understand what the heck he was saying. Some physicist love to use big words and equations even when talking to people who aren't even in their field (and thus wont know what the heck they're talking about. This is the same reason I can't reproduce or hardly remember his third argument, where there is dark matter, GR is still correct, but something else was different about our universe).

Edit: And like I said, I'm not against dark matter. I just want to see this new project this guy mentioned. Apparently, despite the data you produced from NASA, they themselves still feel that much more investigation is necissary before drawing a final conclusion, so yeah...

[Kryssan]

Kryssan, I have been getting more and more interested in Nuclear Engineering as of late, mostly due to your posts and my class this semester. How much schooling is generally required to get into the field?

Depends on what you want to do, really. The fields are split into five primes, Fission/Fusion/Plasma/Radiation Application/Radiation Health. From there, the vast quantity of choices really makes it hard to speak about any one particular field. I started in the Fusion & Plasma Sciences arena, but for the military the only thing I've done is Fission field, reactor operation. To give you an example, the Fission Field alone would include things like reactor theory (which is completely different depending on what type of theory, ie fast or thermal fuels, or say boiling water reactors vs test/research cores vs pressurized water reactors (which can be split up further into light and heavy moderators)), reactor design basis, reactor safety analysis, reactor operation, reactor plant support systems operations, material design and construction, etc.


Its a pretty wide field, to be honest.

[Max™]

But you do agree that the Bell Inequalities state any model can not be both local AND causal, and that you can not understand why anyone would prefer an extended causality model over a non-local model.

This is a given, known since the EPR and Bell experiments in the 90's and afterwards.


All I am saying is, without any hidden variables, without any additional particles or forces, you can not reconcile non-local behavior with GR.


You agree with that as well, and state that GR must be modified to allow non-locality.


I am very well versed with GR and know that the entire concept of non-local behavior goes completely against everything GR describes and is based on. There is no modification that will ever allow non-local behavior in GR and correspond to the Universe we observe.


Adjusting a single arbitrarily placed value in GR, without altering the principles GR is based on, and allowing an adjusted form of causality at smaller scales, makes something which looks just like quantum mechanics to "fall out" of GR.

GR + limited retrocausal behavior at sub-classical mass scales = QM.

[Woozie]

You're saying there's NO way non-local GR can be reconcilled with QM? Because you seem so confident in that fact, and if this fact were so obvious, it would make me wonder why so many practicing theorist in the field choose non-locality. I mean, if either side of the argument had such an obvious advantage of such importance, you'd think it would be nearly unanimous(sp?).

I'm not denying what you're saying, Max, because I don't know nearly enough about GR. I'm just saying...seems odd to me. I'll have to look into this further.

[Kryssan]

I'll have to look into this further.

http://www.aethernavale.net/Media/images/telescope.PNG

[Max™]

You're saying there's NO way non-local GR can be reconcilled with QM? Because you seem so confident in that fact, and if this fact were so obvious, it would make me wonder why so many practicing theorist in the field choose non-locality. I mean, if either side of the argument had such an obvious advantage of such importance, you'd think it would be nearly unanimous(sp?).

I'm not denying what you're saying, Max, because I don't know nearly enough about GR. I'm just saying...seems odd to me. I'll have to look into this further.

It's been tried for 90 years now.

Einstein did not want to allow non-locality or any causal violation into physics.

As I said, the relationship between time dilation and mass is such that if there were not a coincidence between the point of zero dilation and zero mass, there would be an implied increase in the interaction with time.

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...ationgraph.jpg

Incidentally I have since revised that idea to set the Rate = 1 point at the Planck Mass, for various reasons which now seem obvious, but didn't at the time I first noticed this.

Einstein set the value for the rate of time in his equations so the curve would continue across the graph and reach zero at the far right.

Sliding that point over like I did, you can continue the curve the other way, giving the opposite of time dilation: increased interaction with time.


I'm certain he realized this, and that is why he set that value to cut this option off, as he knew people would not vigorously pursue models which violated something as "obviously" inviolate as causality.


He also knew that the very nature of GR is such that any sort of non-local behavior would then declare itself as a preferred frame of reference, against which you can then orient everything else, and the entire framework the theory is built upon grinds to a halt.

If an event affects another event instantaneously, then that slice of time can be said by all observers to be simultaneous, yet events which are not tied by this non-local behavior will be observed to occur at different times by observers in different states of motion.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...multaneity.svghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...multaneity.svghttp://kl3160.k12.sd.us/Event/Pictur...ultaneity2.png

In the ct frame, A and B are simultaneous.

In the ct' frame, A precedes B.

In the ct'' frame, B precedes A.

All are true within the frame of reference they are observed from, and no frame of reference can claim validity.

If A and B were non-locally tied together, then they must occur simultaneously in all three frames, while events alongside them would be at different times in all three frames.

Goodbye GR, we hardly knew ye.

http://kl3160.k12.sd.us/Event/Relativity.htm

^ Excellent reading on the subject.

[Effluo]

DOOM! DOOOOM! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/16...-the-larg.html

"Sabotage...from the future?

That's the theory being put forward by two top physicists. Even they admit it's a little weird. The idea could be groundbreaking. Or, it could be a valuable lesson that even scientists can fall prey to the very human tendency to see patterns in actually random events.

Some people have this experience and come away believing in astrology. Instead, Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, have ended up with the theory that the Future is trying to stop us from creating a Higgs boson particle."

'This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an "anti-miracle."
...While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus. In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus. Although just why the Higgs would be a catastrophe is not clear. If we knew, presumably, we wouldn't be trying to make one.'

[Kryssan]

Already posted, etc etc.

TG Daily - God sabotaged the LHC, say scientists

[Evensong]

DOOM! DOOOOM! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!

Sabotage on the Large Hadron Collider? - Boing Boing

"Sabotage...from the future?"

Now there's another "accident" that could happen! The Future stepping in! Does that mean no marshmallows? ; ;