Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Hellstryker on March 28, 2008, 02:38:20 pm
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Your thoughts?
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It honestly scares me since I don't know what it will do - maybe nothing and we could discover the "Grand Unified Theory" but it also sounds like a sci-fi gone wrong scene too.
So maybe?
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Black holes, you say? 'xcuse me, brb...
/me heads off for a little trip to Geneva
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Activate it, who gives a **** what happens.
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Other: Only an idiot would actually believe that the LHC might destroy the earth, as the particles that make up cosmic rays are constantly impacting the atmosphere at far greater energies than the LHC is capable of... and we're still here. So by all means, turn it on :)
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Other: Only an idiot would actually believe that the LHC might destroy the earth, as the particles that make up cosmic rays are constantly impacting the atmosphere at far greater energies than the LHC is capable of... and we're still here. So by all means, turn it on :)
It's hardly idiocy to be skeptical of something you don't understand. I daresay that the people who admit that they're concerned because they don't understand the dangers and demand that they be investigated are more praiseworthy than the people who just take the scientists word for it and call the former group idiots. I don't know how much information you, personally, have reviewed, Shade; but I've seen this quite a few times where the overwhelming reason that people seem to be so unconcerned about the LHC is because everybody else in their group is saying that there's nothing to be afraid about and the people who are afraid are just ignorant. Or they're just attaching themselves to the status and prestige of a famous scientist who said so. The proof of the thing is more proof to me than a conclusion with no supporting data. But of course I'd probably need to know just as much about quantum physics as the person working on the supercollider in order to truly understand the explanation, so...
Other than that, I'm pretty indifferent to the LHC (in fact overall it's pretty much been a source of annoyance due to the above). It's a cool science and engineering feat, but it's very hard to say what it's going to accomplish, and it's going to cost quite a bit in order to accomplish.
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The risk of cataclysmic event is fairly small considering the continuous cosmic ray bombardment. I'd say the risk is a lot smaller than the risk of nuclear experiments starting a self-sustaining nitrogen fire in the atmosphere... which is deemed unlikely enough to be considered impossible.
At any rate, if worst comes to worst, we would hardly even notice before being gone anyway. Runaway black hole would drop to the bubble chamber floor, suck it's way to the center of the Earth feeding itself and growing and in seconds the Earth would be pretty much consumed. But like said, the black holes with energies the LHC is able to produce are very small and short-lived. The other often flaunted threats - strangelet particles changing the whole world into strangelets, and magnetic monoples - are even more far-fetched; the former because there's hardly any theoretical base and no experimental data for it, the latter because there's really strong theoretical evidence suggesting that magnetic monoples just don't happen, on the same level of fundamentality that thermal energy does not converge from colder to hotter by itself. :rolleyes:
But who knows, perhaps they are going to bore a hole to the Dark One's prison and end this age of legend... or perhaps unlock the humanity's connection to the One Power once again. ;7
That'd be seriously cool. I wonder if late Mr. Rigney's family would sue CERN or the universe over intellectual property theft.
If you didn't understand the last two paragraphs, think nothing of it. Only a select group can make any sense in it. :p
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There wasn't an option for:
"Will the people who aren't physicists who are fearmongering and have no clue what's going on please shut up?"
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There wasn't an option for:
"Will the people who aren't physicists who are fearmongering and have no clue what's going on please shut up?"
Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing, why the **** should anyone care about what they think? There's this little thing called 'social responsibility' that enables groups of diverse peoples to work together. But I guess all that goes out the window when you get the excitement of building a great big toy, right? ;)
If a group of farmers decided they were going to put into place some kind of genetic modification that had the incidental effect of possibly putting the food supply of the western world into jeopardy, I'm sure that people would be concerned about it too, and I'm sure that all the farmers and biologists would get headaches over explaining just how unlikely it is to all the people who are too stupid to understand anything about their own food supply.
Really, it's not all that unreasonable or un-understandable. You can either have specialization of skills and knowledge and have to put up with people that don't understand anything about what you're talking about, or your civilization can stagnate and die because everybody's spending their time mastering skills that they'll never need to use.
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Edited :p
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If a group of farmers decided they were going to put into place some kind of genetic modification that had the incidental effect of possibly putting the food supply of the western world into jeopardy, I'm sure that people would be concerned about it too, and I'm sure that all the farmers and biologists would get headaches over explaining just how unlikely it is to all the people who are too stupid to understand anything about their own food supply.
I had no idea that all farmers have a complete understanding of genetics. :rolleyes:
Link (http://www.thefutureoffood.com/)
Link (http://www.ewg.org/node/26201)
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Other: Only an idiot would actually believe that the LHC might destroy the earth, as the particles that make up cosmic rays are constantly impacting the atmosphere at far greater energies than the LHC is capable of... and we're still here. So by all means, turn it on :)
Only an idiot would believe it, I agree.. But not because of that. Simple law of action and reaction. Energy.
To destroy Earth you need a f***loads more energy than you put into the HLC.
So, if something goes wrong with the HLC at worst you're get something analogous to a nuke.
Despite what many a sci-fi tells you, you can't pull infinite energy out of thin air, and you can go over 100% matter-energy conversion..so no deathstars, white-hole missiles, planet-ships or black hole generators....
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Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing,
Never mind that CERN did many reviews of such scenarios to address the alledged "danger", but in the hysteria no one paid attention to them.
I guess the message "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111ONEONEONEONE" has a much stronger effect than "it's safe". :blah:
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How many joules of energy do you need to destroy the earth, Trashman?
EDIT:
Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing,
Never mind that CERN did many reviews of such scenarios to address the alledged "danger", but in the hysteria no one paid attention to them.
I guess the message "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111ONEONEONEONE" has a much stronger effect than "it's safe". :blah:
Never really heard of 'em, to be honest. If that's the case, then why are people getting so fussy about it? Just link to the old reports.
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Here's something slightly related to this topic. Did you know that they already have antimatter in storage? (Not very much, there are some very big numbers sealing with the probability of getting antimatter out of collisions.) Ah what you learn from the Discovery Channel.
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Never really heard of 'em, to be honest. If that's the case, then why are people getting so fussy about it? Just link to the old reports.
http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html
That's the summary, at the bottom you can download the specialist reports. People are getting fussy about it because "D00M!!!!!!" is more sensationalist (and has more emotional shock value) than "it's ok". The fuss (IMO) is caused partly by people looking for attention (like the Wagner fellow filing the suit), partly because people in general don't understand the science involved, and also because some people don't see any value in project like this and are looking for any excuse to shut it down. I admit I'm tempted to blame it partly on America's bias against science, but maybe that's just me. :p
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Here's something slightly related to this topic. Did you know that they already have antimatter in storage? (Not very much, there are some very big numbers sealing with the probability of getting antimatter out of collisions.) Ah what you learn from the Discovery Channel.
I saw that program. Did you know that right after they said that, they talked about how it would be easier to get more from aliens, rather than make their own?
I despise the Discovery Channel. :no:
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http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html
That's a very informative page, and what they're saying makes perfect sense. But while I was reading that, my mind couldn't help but think about how small children were sprayed with DDT because it was thought to be safe.
I'm not saying that life as we know it will end if they push that button. In fact, I'm sure it won't.
But it's the principle of the matter.
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Only an idiot would believe it, I agree.. But not because of that. Simple law of action and reaction. Energy.
To destroy Earth you need a f***loads more energy than you put into the HLC.
So, if something goes wrong with the HLC at worst you're get something analogous to a nuke.
Despite what many a sci-fi tells you, you can't pull infinite energy out of thin air, and you can go over 100% matter-energy conversion..so no deathstars, white-hole missiles, planet-ships or black hole generators....
Not true, I'm afraid -- most of the theoretically dangerous things that might come out of the LHC aren't explosions, they're chain reactions of one type or another that could easily destroy the Earth even with a fairly small seed energy.
In this case, you might -- might -- be able to destroy the Earth with just the energy levels present in the LHC. It's all about what you make with that energy.
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It's hardly idiocy to be skeptical of something you don't understand.
There wasn't an option for:
"Will the people who aren't physicists who are fearmongering and have no clue what's going on please shut up?"
Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing, why the **** should anyone care about what they think? There's this little thing called 'social responsibility' that enables groups of diverse peoples to work together. But I guess all that goes out the window when you get the excitement of building a great big toy, right? ;)
If a group of farmers decided they were going to put into place some kind of genetic modification that had the incidental effect of possibly putting the food supply of the western world into jeopardy, I'm sure that people would be concerned about it too, and I'm sure that all the farmers and biologists would get headaches over explaining just how unlikely it is to all the people who are too stupid to understand anything about their own food supply.
Really, it's not all that unreasonable or un-understandable. You can either have specialization of skills and knowledge and have to put up with people that don't understand anything about what you're talking about, or your civilization can stagnate and die because everybody's spending their time mastering skills that they'll never need to use.
Quoted for truth. I think WMC's right on the money here. :yes:
As Kazan would say, this position is the "argument from authority" logical fallacy. Personally I don't have a problem with the LHC, but I can sympathize with those who do, even if I think their concerns are groundless.
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I don't understand people who are afraid of this thing. I am skeptical of them and am afraid they may halt the advance of science.
(An attempt at a quasi-humorous rebuttal to "People have a right to be skeptical of things they don't understand" mentality presented earlier)
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That's a very informative page, and what they're saying makes perfect sense. But while I was reading that, my mind couldn't help but think about how small children were sprayed with DDT because it was thought to be safe
I don't think they are quite the same thing. Here's a question for you: If a strangelet chain reaction were possible why haven't we seen any strangelet stars or planets?
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't physics much more grounded in math than the development of DDT?
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If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing, why the **** should anyone care about what they think? There's this little thing called 'social responsibility' that enables groups of diverse peoples to work together. But I guess all that goes out the window when you get the excitement of building a great big toy, right?
If the dangers hadn't been addressed, I'd agree. But they have been addressed, plus there's the fact of the continual high-energy particle collisions taking place in our atmosphere since the formation of the earth not having killed us yet - 4.5 billion years of experimental evidence to the non-danger of the experiements the LHC will run is fairly compelling. The thing to remember is that the LHC will really just let us observe what already happens in nature, but under controlled circumstances. It's not 'new' in the sense that what's going to take place has never happened before, because it happens all the time pretty much everywhere that space and atmosphere meet... it has just never happened under the eyes of massive detectors with legions of scientists watching other them.
I will admit though that 'idiot' was a rather poor choice of words. It definitely doesn't apply to those who might be worried but have no way to know better, so I apologize for that, though I maintain that those who have access to all the information and continue fearmongering in spite of it might deserve the term.
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I don't think they are quite the same thing. Here's a question for you: If a strangelet chain reaction were possible why haven't we seen any strangelet stars or planets?
I believe it's been hypothesized that some neutron stars may in fact be strange-matter stars, but there haven't been any clear observations as of yet. It seems a bit unlikely to me.
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Only an idiot would believe it, I agree.. But not because of that. Simple law of action and reaction. Energy.
To destroy Earth you need a f***loads more energy than you put into the HLC.
So, if something goes wrong with the HLC at worst you're get something analogous to a nuke.
Despite what many a sci-fi tells you, you can't pull infinite energy out of thin air, and you can go over 100% matter-energy conversion..so no deathstars, white-hole missiles, planet-ships or black hole generators....
Not true, I'm afraid -- most of the theoretically dangerous things that might come out of the LHC aren't explosions, they're chain reactions of one type or another that could easily destroy the Earth even with a fairly small seed energy.
In this case, you might -- might -- be able to destroy the Earth with just the energy levels present in the LHC. It's all about what you make with that energy.
I don't buy those theories. They go against common sense.
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They go against common sense
Much in physics does :p
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I don't buy those theories. They go against common sense.
:wakka:
Sorry, but that's just... oh, wow.
First of all, common sense is highly overrated in physics, particularly particle physics and quantum phenomena (and, to lesser extent in relativity theory). That's because common sense applies to macroscopic world which our brains have adapted to work in, which means pretty much just electromagnetic interaction and gravity. The common sense applies to quantum scale pretty much as much as Kant's categoric imperative applies to a bunch of plankton. Things don't work along common sense just because we'd like that, welcome to the universe. ;)
Secondly, how much energy do you need to explode a bunch of trinitrotoluene, or hexotol?
The question of energy required for "destruction" depends of the definition of destruction. I'd say causing a fundamental matter phase/consistency change and causing things to fall apart to form a lump of particles classifies as destruction, but more of that further on the Strangelet section... it's not the absolute amount of energy that troubles some people, but the "uncertainty" about how that condenced energy will act and react with it's surroundings. "Uncertainty" in quote marks because it's rather certain that the energies produced in LHC won't cause things to fall apart - but aside from that the knowledge is hazy.
So, like said, it's not the question of energy required for complete obliteration that worries some people - all the possible apocalypse hypotheses in this case don't require much energy per ce - except for the black hole argument, in which case it's proposed (AFAIK) that the generated black hole could by chance hit a suitable mass concentration, eat it up, strengthen, eat more and end up groving faster than evaporating as Hawking radiation. But, as pointed out, this chance is unlikely because the LHC pretty much just mimics the already existing high energy particles in controlled environment. It doesn't do anything that the universe isn't doing to us all the time.
Hell, there have been observations about protons that have had kinetic energy equivalence of a brick falling to your feet from about one metre height. LHC can't go anywhere near that kind of energy yield, and there are that kind of particles coming down on us all the time... well, energies that high are rare, but the point is that high energy particles hit each other all the time with higher energies than will happen in LHC experiments, so it's very likely we don't end up destroying the universe.
The other hypothesis of generating strangelet particles doesn't rely on energy either, but rather a transmutative hypothesized nature of these particles. The idea is that these strangelet particles could perhaps be able to change normal matter to strangelet matter, changing the way it behaves, which would pretty much stop or at least change all the chemical reactions and probably cause life as we know it to end. However, there's really no experimental or much of a theoretical basis for this hypothesis - and, again, there's the fact that we're under constant cosmic ray bombardment similar by particles of similar or higher energies that will occur in LHC, and we haven't changed into strangelet particles so far.
I kinda agree on the part that people who don't know how stuff works in particle physics have all right to be a bit worried when some guys flail their hands around with a death note on other and a PhD on other, spouting apocalypse predictions from their mouths (exaggerated for the lulz but you get the picture). It's okay to worry about safety, but on the other hand there's the consensus of the scientific world that "All that will happen in LHC has happened before, and will happen again", and thus far it hasn't caused the destruction of the world.
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Perhaps it would be good to explain a bit on how LHC works and what it will be doing. Basically it's a circle shaped tunnel with magnets around and vacuum inside. The magnetic and electric field(s) can be used to accelerate and direct charged particles (usually large hadrons like protons) and then they are directed into a bubble chamber* - or other experimental devices such as wire chamber, spark chamber or silicon detectors, depending on the experiment at hand, doesn't really matter in this context though - where they hit other particles, and the actual research will look at what happens when the particles break into other particles, and how they interact with each other.
Now consider that this is, in basics, normal occurrence in universe. The only difference is the scientific equipment around the collision area set up to record events. There is very little probability that the scientists could trigger something that hasn't happened in about 4+ billion years of Earth's existence and cause a fundamental change in matter consistence. Exotic particles are formed and colliding with each other all the time somewhere, the only difference LHC makes is that it can repeat the experiments with constant energy particles and thus the analysis gets more accurate.
It would be possible to just build bubble chambers all over the place and wait for cosmic rays to hit them, but it would be difficult to repeat the experiments to calibrate results because the cosmic ray particles tend to have a lot of variation in energies. Fundamentally there would be nothing different in it, though, and LHC offers the benefit of controlled circumstances and thus a lot more accurate research results.
Cosmic rays will still be researched as well, precisely because even LHC can't build up energies that high.
*Bubble chamber is basically a chamber filled with superheated, transparent liquid - usually hydrogen. When a charged particle traverses through this matter, it creates an ionized path in it's track. This can be photographed by high speed cameras and/or the light flashes registered with other type of sensors with less resolution but more sensitivity. The tracks of particles form pretty lines, curves, spirals and flashes. From the projection of trajectories, it's possible to analyze a lot of properties of the particles - such as mass, spin, electric charge and other stuff.
Wire chamber (or drift chamber) is basically a three-dimensional geiger counter on steroids - it can track higher energy particles better than a bubble chamber, and no photographs are made like in bubble chamber. The research data is pretty much digital.
Spark chamber is a detector based on observing flashes caused by particle interactions.
Silicon detectors are basically diodes or arrays of diodes set to detect varieties of radiation, either particle or electromagnetic.
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I don't buy those theories. They go against common sense.
Heheh, so does a round Earth. You should study some physics, a lot of it is very counterintuitive.
Since I am afraid you won't read Herra Tohtori's excellent post, consider this: how much energy do you need to actually set off a nuclear bomb? Not much -- just an electrical spark to detonate explosives. The bomb's mass then serves as fuel for the blast.
Think of a potentially dangerous event in the accelerator as the 'spark', and the Earth as the fuel.
Get it?
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Think of a potentially dangerous event in the accelerator as the 'spark', and the Earth as the fuel.
Another good example would be supercooled liquid. It stays liquid when it's kept static, but knock the bottle on the table - or open it - and it frozes. The strangelet hypothesis is quite a lot like that at least in superficial level. In layman's term, LHC would work as a spark or fuse, the stuff generated would work as a catalyst for further reactions that would cause the world to end.
Another sometimes used threat scenario is a phase change of space, which could affect the natural constants and throw the chemical interactions all haywire and effectively kill us (*LHC casts Disintegration on Universe). Or change the three observable space dimensions into four and we could end up turning ourselves inside out. :p Of course, the space-time phase change would propagate at the speed of light so we wouldn't even notice it beforehand, and afterwards we would hardly be in a condition to observe the changes... :lol:
But, again, I have yet to see any arguments on why LHC would be fundamentally different from cosmic radiation and thus be able to cause this feared cycle of destruction, when the universe hasn't been able to finish Earth off, and not because of lack of trying... :drevil:
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I don't buy those theories. They go against common sense.
:wakka:
Sorry, but that's just... oh, wow.
What I'm trying to say is that destruction or chain reaction don't just "happen" out of thin air. Special conditions must be met.
A barrel of gasoline will explode if I light it and cause a chain reaction blowing all the other barrels of gasoline I stacked in a neat row. But for that to happen, the barrels must be set in a neat row to begin with. and they don't do that for themselves.
Basicely, nature doesn't usually set things up for a neat catastrophic chain reactions.
Even if you look at the current global warming chain reaction (increased heat - melting water - more steam - even more heat - even more melting) it took 100 years of pollution to get that started.
so no, I don't believe we can effortesly blow up the earth with minimum energy imput.
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What I'm trying to say is that destruction or chain reaction don't just "happen" out of thin air. Special conditions must be met.
And it is proposed (with minimal theoretical basis, but whatever) that the LHC could be what meets those as of yet unknown special conditions.
A barrel of gasoline will explode if I light it and cause a chain reaction blowing all the other barrels of gasoline I stacked in a neat row. But for that to happen, the barrels must be set in a neat row to begin with. and they don't do that for themselves.
Analogy does not compute, because the hypothesized Strangelet chain reaction phase shift only requires strangelet to interact with matter to convert matter into strangelets, and because the matter of Earth pretty much interacts with itself, then the chain reaction could happen - if it had
Basicely, nature doesn't usually set things up for a neat catastrophic chain reactions.
Yes it does... it's all just about what you constitute as catastrophic. Critical mass of uranium forming by itself? Plausible. Stars exploding by themselves? All the time... well, seeing the number of stars anyway. Other cataclysms like runaway greenhouse effect on Venus? You bet.
Or even as mundane thing as thin dust spreading evenly on air causing an explosively burning - or flagrating - mix? Oh yes, explosive fires on saws and mills have occurred... Not to mention gases with wide explosive mixture range, like hydrogen. It's almost too easy to have an explosion
However, this analogy doesn't compute either because these all are macroscopic scale phenomena. On micro world it's much more difficult to say with certainty that a chain reaction would be impossible, plausible or possible. We just don't know enough about that stuff to know with certainty, and without experiments like LHC will never do...
Even if you look at the current global warming chain reaction (increased heat - melting water - more steam - even more heat - even more melting) it took 100 years of pollution to get that started.
There's a lot of discussion on whether the climate warming is powering itself, to what extent it's powered by natural change and to what extent by human actions. It doesn't belong to this conversation though, so I'll pass it with saying that the analogy does not apply here either, because of macroscopic chaotic effects versus quantum scale unknown hypothesized phenomena.
so no, I don't believe we can effortesly blow up the earth with minimum energy imput.
I agree with your opinion but fundamentally disagree with your reasoning... weird, huh.
Basically, I think it'd take some bloody bad luck to be able to cause any harm by high energy particles from LHC, not because of some specific effort-taking requirements for a destruction to be possible to happen, but because the energized particles will be pretty much identical to low/mid -energy cosmic radiation, and that hasn't caused any of the described scenes of destruction for the time being.
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What I'm trying to say is that destruction or chain reaction don't just "happen" out of thin air. Special conditions must be met.
Yeah, to echo something Herra said -- you're missing the point, which is that, in the case of strangelet matter, the ordinary matter Earth is made of is set up for just such a chain reaction.
The right kind of strange matter, contacting normal matter, converts it into more strange matter. See? The chain reaction conditions have already been met; we're just waiting for a trigger.
Again, as Herra said, it seems pretty unlikely that the trigger conditions will come out of the LHC, since high-energy cosmic rays are in the same energy range.
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What I'm trying to say is that destruction or chain reaction don't just "happen" out of thin air. Special conditions must be met.
And it is proposed (with minimal theoretical basis, but whatever) that the LHC could be what meets those as of yet unknown special conditions.
I'll believe it when I see it.. F'course it won't matter much then, won't it? :lol:
Just FYI - I'm very sceptical of all the new theories regarding the microscopic, subatomic phenomena, because it's all so much guesswork and theories, and very little or no actual proof.
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No real way to know what'll do unless you turn it on. And realistically speaking some kind of accident is more likely to result in a very impressive explosion than the end of the world (accidental matter-antimatter reaction ftw?) but the odds are low even for that. We can go cower in our basements or we can make progress.
So, in summary: Start the reactor, Quaid!
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I don't think they are quite the same thing. Here's a question for you: If a strangelet chain reaction were possible why haven't we seen any strangelet stars or planets?
Dark matter? Atmospheric radiation? The fact that we can only see a small portion of our galaxy? Time dilation combined with the fact that we can only see a small portion of the known universe? :nervous:
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't physics much more grounded in math than the development of DDT?
Er.... Wouldn't it be the other way around? :confused:
Either way....
I'm not saying that life as we know it will end if they push that button. In fact, I'm sure it won't.
But it's the principle of the matter.
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Just FYI - I'm very sceptical of all the new theories regarding the microscopic, subatomic phenomena, because it's all so much guesswork and theories, and very little or no actual proof.
Theories like Hawking Radiation?
I'm not trying to say that Hawking Radiation doesn't exist, but I haven't heard of any experiment where it has been proven to exist. And isn't Hawking Radiation the only thing that would keep a blackhole from forming?
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Random question: What are the odds of a microscopic blackhole actually forming from collided particles?
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What I'm trying to say is that destruction or chain reaction don't just "happen" out of thin air. Special conditions must be met.
And it is proposed (with minimal theoretical basis, but whatever) that the LHC could be what meets those as of yet unknown special conditions.
I'll believe it when I see it.. F'course it won't matter much then, won't it? :lol:
Just FYI - I'm very sceptical of all the new theories regarding the microscopic, subatomic phenomena, because it's all so much guesswork and theories, and very little or no actual proof.
Are you referring to the Standard Model? That's been rigorously tested and there's a lot of proof.
If you're referring to string theory, then yes, there hasn't been much tested.
Could you please specify which theories you're skeptical of?
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Just FYI - I'm very sceptical of all the new theories regarding the microscopic, subatomic phenomena, because it's all so much guesswork and theories, and very little or no actual proof.
There's so much wrong in this statement that I don't even know where to begin with.
It's pretty much like this: How in the name of Invisible Pink Unicorn's and Flying Spaghetti Monster's offspring is guesswork going to result in predictions corresponding with experimental results to tenth decimal accuracy? Because that's what Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) can do in the case of electroweak interaction, and Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in case of strong interaction. Contrary to popular belief, these theories have a lot of empirical data to support them. There are tools to observe sub-atomic events with relatively high accuracy. The increased energy provided by LHC will mainly allow the experiments to break particles to smaller and weirder [further from normal matter] building blocks of matter.
And what comes to "proving" things such as string theory[ies] and other, more recent theories (that are mostly necessary to incorporate gravity model into quantum theory) I recommend taking a look at currently dominant philosophy of science. It's called positivism and it was deviced by Karl Popper (et al) to formulate the fundamental thought processes that make science science. Basically, positivism in physics means that if a theory describes the physical reality in the most accurate manner available it can be considered best available theory and, thus, the most true theory available. If there are two theories that predict events with the same degree of accuracy but other is notably simpler than the other, the simpler one beats the more complex - usually.
However, we will never ever have actual proof (beyond test results) whether the abstractions behind any mathematic model are fundamentally correct further than we can see that the results corresponding with reality. For all we know, the Flying Spaghetti Monster moves all particles with His Noodly Appendages and/or affects all sensors and experimental devices so that we get the image of a complex reality with some deep underlying set of rules. We can't know if that's the case. The only thing we can know is the reality and how well a theory corresponds to it.
There is no truth in physics, and physics really can't anwer the questions "how" and "why" on the very fundamental level of certainty. It can answer the question "what" with very high accuracy, but there will always be some degree of uncertainty to whether the explanations behind the mathematics of any theory are actually "correct". Physics just ignores that uncertainty and leaves it to be handled by metaphysics. ;7
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What I'm trying to say is that destruction or chain reaction don't just "happen" out of thin air. Special conditions must be met.
And it is proposed (with minimal theoretical basis, but whatever) that the LHC could be what meets those as of yet unknown special conditions.
I'll believe it when I see it.. F'course it won't matter much then, won't it? :lol:
Just FYI - I'm very sceptical of all the new theories regarding the microscopic, subatomic phenomena, because it's all so much guesswork and theories, and very little or no actual proof.
You really have no idea what a theory is, do you?
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I have... FYI, I had studied quantum mechanics and similar level physics, alltough I haven't exactly specified what theories I was reffering to.
Meh, doesn't matter anyway.
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I have... FYI, I had studied quantum mechanics and similar level physics, alltough I haven't exactly specified what theories I was reffering to.
Meh, doesn't matter anyway.
You're right. Your post was ridiculously stupid regardless.
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Herra:
Its been a really long time since I saw anyone put it that succinctly. I plan on quoting you for the indefinite future.
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I have... FYI, I had studied quantum mechanics and similar level physics, alltough I haven't exactly specified what theories I was reffering to.
Meh, doesn't matter anyway.
Do you have a response to Herra's post?
I would be eager to hear it, since it seems to address some of the more salient points you've brought up.
I find it hard to believe you've studied these topics if you're not aware of the topics Herra discussed there.
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To be honest, there are a lot of hypothesized portions in a lot of the most recent theories - mainly because of previous lack of research equipment to increase the collision energies and actually confirm the existence - or nonexistence - of some hypothetical particles and actually empirically measure how they behave and what they do. The most famous of these is, of course, the Higgs' boson, which should either be found or not with the LHC, and that will pretty much spell the direction for quantum physics as far as gravity goes. If it's found, the Standard Model of particle physics is one step closer to be the grand unified theory. If it's not found, some people are going to start calculating their asses off to find new models to describe gravitation in quantum terms... and to define what went wrong, mainly the string theoristas.
Ironically, I can't say which would be bigger deal, proving the Higgs' boson's existence or it's non-existence. For it not to be found, something would be seriously wrong in the string theory[ies] that predict it... in fact it might even point to gravity being somewhat of a continuous phenomenon instead of being as readily quanticizeable as other interactions. Fields vs. quanta, the eternal battle in modern physics... :D
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Ironically, I can't say which would be bigger deal, proving the Higgs' boson's existence or it's non-existence. For it not to be found, something would be seriously wrong in the string theory[ies] that predict it... in fact it might even point to gravity being somewhat of a continuous phenomenon instead of being as readily quanticizeable as other interactions. Fields vs. quanta, the eternal battle in modern physics...
Again I cannot keep my mouth shut about modern physics. Part of my guts says that the unification trouble is partly because the spacetime is not too well understood. For some reason I always get the feeling that the quantum physics implies quantized space, but of course I have never seen Quantum Physics integrals related to the space-dimensions reduced to summations. Or, maybe it is actually time itself which we don't understand too well.
Many worlds theories turn out to be the most difficult to swallow. I mean, a single photon interferes with the copies of itself located in other universums, and the resulting interference pattern is the summation result of all those photon paths. For me this causes a huge philosophical problem, i.e. why is the result repeatable, but since I have never read about the maths of many worlds stuff, I suspect I don't understand it too well. But let's not go too far into this.
Mika
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Well, my intuition keeps yelling at me that the curvature of space-time is continuous, not quanticized, even though the matter and energy that causes the curvature does come in quantifiable state. Not unlike the fact that the spectrum of EM radiation is continuous even though the radiation itself is quanticized. Meaning that photons come at every wavelengths, not just in certain increments...
...unless you want to consider Planck's length as an increment. It is possibly that against all my raging intuitive deductive powers the universe still dares to be digital [=quanticized] in all regards, but it may as well not be. Who the hell knows. :rolleyes:
It also keeps telling me that the idea of singularities is fundamentally flawed. Considering singularities to exist as physical objects instead of non-computable situations in a theory does not really convince me. The biggest problem I have with them is related to event horizons and the nature of space inside them. According to my understanding, the distance from the event horizon's edge to the hypothetic center point (where the singularity should form to) is infinite due to the extreme curvature [=local volume increase and time stretching] of space-time. This can be interpreted in a way that the center point doesn't actually exist, which leads to the assumption that all the points inside space limited by the event horizon are equal in terms of distance to center point... and, confusingly, the event horizon.
I personally assume that when an event horizon forms, it forms a stable space-time structure and seals the outside apart from inside with a one-way connection, the inside becoming some sort of a warp bubble of space, and the energy of the black hole is approximately evenly spread into that space. The volume of the space is defined by the absolute energy of the hole, but much like the observable universe, it would be an edgeless but finite space.
Conversely, I don't know if the quantum range errors in general relativity have been compensated with how the energies of particles increase the volume of space-time around them, which basically causes the distance between two particles to actually be slightly longer than when measured looking from the side. This discrepancy between the apparent distance and real distance between particles would increase when the distances got smaller and smaller. And my intuition keeps telling me that this could very well be some kind of way to get rid of infinite forces [=singularities] in gravitation theories. Sadly, I don't really know the mathematics for either general relativity or quantum gravitation theories, so all I have is a bunch of handwavium...
Besides, my intuition is known to have been wrong before. It's the simian macroscopic brain getting messed up with nonsensical events of microcosmos... ;7
Interestingly, there's been some speculation (http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html) that the universe would be a simulation. If that were the case, the digital nature of... nature would make a whole lot more sense but open a whole another can of worms in the form of the question "by where does the situation run"?
Review - RealLife(TM) MMORPG
Gameplay 6 - The learning curve is way too steep. The options for character creation are nonexistant and almost everything is randomized at the beginning of the game. The game is pretty boring in the beginning, but if you play it right, you can get some choice over a few interesting main Quest lines for the midgame... there's also an annoying and unavoidable minigame before you get there though, starting about 11-14 cycles after the start of game that makes it really challenging to get a good main Quest line for the mid-game. Most Quest lines are rather uninteresting and dull, the truly interesting ones take a lot of studying, practice and concentration from you to even be accepted to do them in the first place. Perhaps the most annoying thing is that due to inefficient AI, the computer characters have made the randomized spawning places very uneven, which results in some games having incredible difficulty level and you'll take a lot of time to roll the dice to get favourable starting conditions. Sometimes the game only lasts a few hours. In fact, most of the time the game never catches up to what it was supposed to be.
As an interesting twist, the game normally doesn't allow you to retain normal memory during the game, but there is a cheat code for that too... but in the name of all that's good and holy DON'T EVER reveal your status to the NPC's in dialogue. They will either kill you straight or make you their God and then kill you anyway. Then they will kill each other in your name and wreak general havoc.
Graphics 9 - a bit unrealistic but most of the time pretty cool
Story 2 - No storyline, just dynamic continuous campaign. If it wasn't autogenerated, it would be so unbelievable that it would simply be laughable. The interactions between game characters are mostly awkward and completely stupid, but at least this provides the players with endless amount of lulz when the countries invade others based on what their leaders say (!).
Sounds 7 - pretty nice for most of time, but there are a lot of annoyances and degradation as the game proceeds.
Physics 5 - accurate for the most parts, but some of the most interesting quests offer interesting chances to find the glitches on small scale simulation. Also, the natural constants are a bit unbalanced seeing how the traveling speed is limited to ridiculously small velocity under normal conditions (see the cheat codes to bypass this issue) and the fact that the CG characters have actually learned how to take advantage of them and build ridiculously unbalanced weapons that no one really wants to even use. The limited amount of dimensions makes normal gameplay simplified but not overly dumbed down touch.
AI 7 - pretty smart for the most parts, but social interaction has no rational behaviour model whatsoever. Points for unpredictability, though.
Pros: Unpredictable. A lot of replayable content at the cost of unfair gameplay dynamics. NPC interactions are amusing, if not wholly realistic.
Cons: Unrealistic, boring and tedious MMORPG simulator. Doesn't live up to the hype. Buy for knowing what everyone's talking about, but aside from that, avoid it.
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According to my understanding, the distance from the event horizon's edge to the hypothetic center point (where the singularity should form to) is infinite due to the extreme curvature [=local volume increase and time stretching] of space-time. This can be interpreted in a way that the center point doesn't actually exist, which leads to the assumption that all the points inside space limited by the event horizon are equal in terms of distance to center point... and, confusingly, the event horizon.
Why would it behave this way? Consider the situation with a massive object, which would be extremely close to form a black hole. Does the spacetime behave that way in this case?
Conversely, I don't know if the quantum range errors in general relativity have been compensated with how the energies of particles increase the volume of space-time around them, which basically causes the distance between two particles to actually be slightly longer than when measured looking from the side. This discrepancy between the apparent distance and real distance between particles would increase when the distances got smaller and smaller. And my intuition keeps telling me that this could very well be some kind of way to get rid of infinite forces [=singularities] in gravitation theories. Sadly, I don't really know the mathematics for either general relativity or quantum gravitation theories, so all I have is a bunch of handwavium...
Here, I recall discussing the lines like these with people from a theoretical Physics department. I was left with an impression that the smaller the particle(not the atom scale, but quark scale) you look, the more it should form a black hole all by itself.
Mika
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Herra makes my brain hurt... :( In a good way, but still.
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The problem with modern science is this:
Take a look at the computer you are typing at. The chances are there is not one single person who truly understands how every part on that computer works or connects. There is probably not one single programmer who could understand Windows as a complete entity, even if they understand certain parts of it perfectly. Science has got to the point where it is too big for one brain to hold, and that makes people nervous, because nobody ever really has a complete picture of what is going on.
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According to my understanding, the distance from the event horizon's edge to the hypothetic center point (where the singularity should form to) is infinite due to the extreme curvature [=local volume increase and time stretching] of space-time. This can be interpreted in a way that the center point doesn't actually exist, which leads to the assumption that all the points inside space limited by the event horizon are equal in terms of distance to center point... and, confusingly, the event horizon.
Why would it behave this way? Consider the situation with a massive object, which would be extremely close to form a black hole. Does the spacetime behave that way in this case?
Okay, as a disclaimer I have to say that the following is pretty much pure handwavium with no mathematical build up, so you don't want to consider this as accurate representation of reality. But this is in a nutshell how I visualize to particles close to each other...
(http://i32.tinypic.com/28mh7wi.gif)
The particles form their own small dents into the space-time continuum. On the "rubber plane" analogy, the flat plane corresponds to euclidian, flat space which has the smallest possible volume since all it's dimensions are perpendicular to each other. When the rubber plane is bent under tension, it curves and it's area grows via stretching. In space-time, the tension caused by mass/energy causes similar phenomenon - the space-time curves but since instead of two space dimensions measurable on a plane it has three space dimensions, the volume of space grows instead of area (since all dimensions, width, height and length are subject to same tension and stretching). Time undergoes similar stretching, but when looking at still frames it can be largely ignored (at least usually)... Anyhow, the reason why it's difficult to visualize curving space time is because we still see the dimensions perpendicular to each other, and observe the curving as changed volume of the space around and inside a concentration of mass.
This causes for example the distance to Earth's center point to be slightly more than Earth's apparent diameter divided by two, because the curved space-time increases the volume and distance slightly. The difference is of magnitude of couple centimetres if I recall correctly. When the curvature grows, the discrepancy between observed lengths and true lengths along the space-time grows.
Following this visualization of curving and stretching of space-time, the event horizon is a weird thing because it's apparently a sphere shaped "crust" with a diameter, but as a result of rather intensive stretching of space-time due to dense mass concentration, the actual distance to the center of the event horizon's spherical form is, according to my understanding (which could obviously be as wrong as can be, but whatever), infinite. This little feature of the inner space of event horizons makes them rather interesting IMHO since infinite distance to the center point means that every point inside event horizon has the same (infinite) distance to the center point, which pretty much means they are equal in this sense and all of them are the center point. And if there's no measurable direction to the center point, why would there be any direction where stuff would fall to?
Again, I personally think that there are no singularities inside black holes' horizons, but instead the horizon is some kind of stable space-time formation which forms an amount of space inside itself with the following properties:
1. the distance to center and event horizon is the same from each point inside event horizon
2. the volume of the space inside a horizon is defined by the total energy of the black hole
As to what happens to the matter that falls into the hole, I suspect that the energy of the black hole is divided approximately homogenously to the space inside and can be transferred outside the horizon via Hawking radiation. In other words, the insides of a black hole would be approximately isotropic and homogenous.
Further more, since the amount of volume inside the horizon is defined by the total mass/energy of the system, it would mean that increasing mass would cause the space inside the horizon to expand. The expansion rate would be exponential at the moments after the birth of the black hole and it's event horizon, afterwards it would be defined by the accumulation of matter around the event horizon - since it won't really penetrate it, it will form kinda accretion crust which will by gravitational effect increase the diameter of the event horizon AND the space inside it, but won't really ever fall through the horizon... and some of you might know that the gravitational effect of a symmetric sphere crust to the outside is identical to the mass concentrated to a point at the center.
Some of you might have noticed that there are some remarkable similarities between this model of black holes intestines and our observable universe. This is not a coincidence... :drevil:
I really have to stress though that you should by no means take this for granted. I don't *know* if this corresponds to reality in any sense. It feels like it makes sense, but we all know how reliable that measure is with physics.
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Following this visualization of curving and stretching of space-time, the event horizon is a weird thing because it's apparently a sphere shaped "crust" with a diameter, but as a result of rather intensive stretching of space-time due to dense mass concentration, the actual distance to the center of the event horizon's spherical form is, according to my understanding (which could obviously be as wrong as can be, but whatever), infinite.
And here it is where it goes wrong. Why would it become infinite? Compare it to a massive object just above the Schwarzschild radius. You can theoretically get out of there (neglecting some real limitations of course), and you can calculate the fall time to the center. Why would the black hole be any different from it?
I'll write some more about this when I get the inspiration.
Mika
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[Neo]Whoaaah.....[/Neo]
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Following this visualization of curving and stretching of space-time, the event horizon is a weird thing because it's apparently a sphere shaped "crust" with a diameter, but as a result of rather intensive stretching of space-time due to dense mass concentration, the actual distance to the center of the event horizon's spherical form is, according to my understanding (which could obviously be as wrong as can be, but whatever), infinite.
And here it is where it goes wrong. Why would it become infinite? Compare it to a massive object just above the Schwarzschild radius. You can theoretically get out of there (neglecting some real limitations of course), and you can calculate the fall time to the center. Why would the black hole be any different from it?
I'll write some more about this when I get the inspiration.
Mika
I believe that the answer lies in what happens to spacetime when the escape velocity exceeds lightspeed. You'd need to get into the math of general relativity to get a solid answer, I'd guess.
I know that black holes are often taught in introductory GR courses, so it can't be that complex.
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Yeah next thing you know people will be afraid of nuclear reactors and genetically modified organisms. :rolleyes:
Seriously, if they want to build a particle accelerator they need to at least TRY to alliviate some fears from ordinary people.
As with any scientific endeavor people need to ask if it's really advancing humanity, or just their own carriers . What good does it do us, really, at this stage in our development?
It might do us a lot of good, it might not
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*quoted stuff*
I believe that the answer lies in what happens to spacetime when the escape velocity exceeds lightspeed. You'd need to get into the math of general relativity to get a solid answer, I'd guess.
I know that black holes are often taught in introductory GR courses, so it can't be that complex.
You have to look at the situation differently depending on whether you’re observing from a great distance or actually falling into the black hole. The event horizon isn’t a physical object or wall that you cross – if you were falling in, you wouldn’t necessarily notice any difference as you crossed the event horizon. You wouldn’t turn into light or anything like that at all – you might be killed by tidal forces or something, depending on what kind of black hole it is, and in fact (I believe) could theoretically get all the way to the center intact depending on the conditions. (and yes, you would eventually reach it.)
People often use a river analogy to describe this: if you’re being carried along by the current, and it’s gradually accelerating, you don’t necessarily notice the point where you can no longer swim against it. At one point you could turn around and go back upstream if you wanted, and at the next you might just find yourself swimming in place without actually going anywhere. But if you just go with the flow you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
A distant observer would see the fall as infinite, because the coordinate system that describes the curvature of space near massive objects no longer applies at the event horizon (you end up with a whole lot of divide-by-zeros). To the person falling into the black hole, nothing appears to change once this boundary is crossed, but the distant observer would see the faller "frozen" on the event horizon until the he’s redshifted out of the visible spectrum and vanishes.
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You have to look at the situation differently depending on whether you’re observing from a great distance or actually falling into the black hole. The event horizon isn’t a physical object or wall that you cross – if you were falling in, you wouldn’t necessarily notice any difference as you crossed the event horizon. You wouldn’t turn into light or anything like that at all – you might be killed by tidal forces or something, depending on what kind of black hole it is, and in fact (I believe) could theoretically get all the way to the center intact depending on the conditions. (and yes, you would eventually reach it.)
Who fell into black hole and sent back the information that yes, you will eventually reach the center/surface of whatever it is behind the event horizon? :p
I'll admit again that I don't really know the mathematics of general relativity space-time, but conceptually I [think I] have a pretty strong grasp on what is happening to the space and time when they are affected by gravity.
The discrepancy between the observations of static and falling observers is pretty much the only thing in relativity that doesn't add up to me. It's the classic question between whether physical reality or our observations and interpretations of them are affected by the relativistic effects.
There is a difference between the relatively [pun absolutely intended] simple differences of time and length based on relative speed in special relativity, but the effets of mass/energy as described in general relativity are, in fact, not very relative at all when you look at things like the clocks in GPS satellites going faster than the same clocks on Earth, and the gravitational lens effects caused by massive objects in space. Mass really does affect the passage of time at different locations, and it really affects the relative volume of the space close to itself.
I know that event horizon isn't any kind of physical object, but it is a boundary of sorts - when you approach it, you wouldn't reach it because the local volume of space around the horizon increases a lot... the most notable change would be that the amount of space would increase... there would also be other effects such as straight arks of papers bending into curved shapes, and if you had a straight piece of paper and drew a triangle on it, it's angles would sum up to something more than 180 degrees. And pi being smaller than 3.14159265.... As a more alarming side-effect, the volume of space limited by your normal shape would increase, which would cause your internal pressure to decrease (same amount of tissue in increased volume equals less pressure), and eventually you would resemble a deformed and crumpled scarecrow... or if you somehow forced your body to stay in same shape, you would suffer from extreme decompression sickness.
Conversely, the passage of time would result in the clock of the falling observer going slower and slower as the event horizon approached. That too would be just as real as the gravitational time dilatation that causes global positioning satellites' clocks to go slower than clocks lower on the gravitational potential (closer to mass concentration).
This would actually cause the universe to end in a slow thermal death before the falling observer had enough time (literally) to reach the event horizon.
Obviously, considering the observations made by the falling observer, he or she wouldn't notice anything out of ordinary as far as passage of time were concerned - as the observer's velocity increases, he or she would just reach the pulses from a clock at static "altitude" reach the faller with more and more gap in them. However, I suspect that as the gravitational time dilatation caught up to doppler effect, the beacon would start to send the pulses faster and faster, so the situation would appear as nominal [all f***ed up of course] to the observer. Until being splatted by the changed geometry of space-time around and inside him or her...
People often use a river analogy to describe this: if you’re being carried along by the current, and it’s gradually accelerating, you don’t necessarily notice the point where you can no longer swim against it. At one point you could turn around and go back upstream if you wanted, and at the next you might just find yourself swimming in place without actually going anywhere. But if you just go with the flow you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Doesn't really apply here, because it's more like you're floating in a river that looks like it has constant width, but instead as you float along, you would notice the river is wider and wider as you approached the event horizon (dare I say waterfall? :p), and you would end up floating in an ocean, going towards a waterfall at the end of the world but you would still never reach it...
A distant observer would see the fall as infinite, because the coordinate system that describes the curvature of space near massive objects no longer applies at the event horizon (you end up with a whole lot of divide-by-zeros). To the person falling into the black hole, nothing appears to change once this boundary is crossed, but the distant observer would see the faller "frozen" on the event horizon until the he’s redshifted out of the visible spectrum and vanishes.
That business with div by zero error is partially what makes me thing that the event horizon isn't just an arbitrary line drawn in the space-time continuum as the escape velocity c -mark, but rather when that kind of escape velocity appears, the space-time forms a V amount of space inside the event horizon, separate from the outside apart from gravitational effects and Hawking radiation. I don't know how it actually makes it - though possibly if you think along the rubber plane analogy, the plane would curve into a toroidal form after the event horizon, coiling into itself and forming a continuous, boundless but finite space.
As to whether anything would change for an observer falling through the event horizon, it's kinda hard to swallow that nothing would change when the General Relativity pretty much states that you end up with a lot of div by zeroes when you try to as much as describe the space beyond the red line (happens sometimes with the other one (http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/) too... :D), and then people try to say you wouldn't notice anything different in space itself...
...let's just say I am not convinced with that line of reasoning and be done with it. :blah: ;)
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Following this visualization of curving and stretching of space-time, the event horizon is a weird thing because it's apparently a sphere shaped "crust" with a diameter, but as a result of rather intensive stretching of space-time due to dense mass concentration, the actual distance to the center of the event horizon's spherical form is, according to my understanding (which could obviously be as wrong as can be, but whatever), infinite.
And here it is where it goes wrong. Why would it become infinite? Compare it to a massive object just above the Schwarzschild radius. You can theoretically get out of there (neglecting some real limitations of course), and you can calculate the fall time to the center. Why would the black hole be any different from it?
Well, I can try.... :shaking: :nervous:
We have an object of mass M at static state, with enough internal pressure to have stopped it's collapse into small enough volume to create sufficiently violent energy tensor to result in an event horizon. The distance to the center of a mssive object is measurable and finite r, but it is a lot more than the apparent diameter divided by two (or circumference divided by 2*pi), due to the increase in space-time curvature-induced volume (or whatever the balls you want to call it). As you slowly increase the mass (or density) of the object right to the limit, the distance to centerpoint will approact infinite and at the moment when the event horizon forms, it will become infinite. Or rather, the space inside the event horizon marker will form it's own entity of boundless but finite space, whose volume is defined by the amount of energy of the hole.
Normally you wouldn't see this kind of stop-motion situations when a black hole forms up - I suspect that most of the time an event horizon forms around the core of a collapsing star when critical energy tensor values are reached, then whatever is inside the horizon remains there and the rest of the star will fall towards the horizon - but never quite get under it's skin - and quite possibly this crunch immediately after the formation of the horizon would send out quite a lot of high energy gamma rays... oh wait a second. ;7
I'm starting to detect a low degree All-Potential-Explanatorism in my hypotheses here. Basically it means that I'm becoming so convinced in my hypothesis that I'm starting to see a lot of stuff be caused by it, whether they actually are or not. In the extreme cases, the afflicted person will end up saying that everything is explained in his or her groundbreaking new theory and basically just applies moar handwavium to "explain" each argument that questions the theory's integrity.
When it happens to other people, I'm annoyed to endless depths by it... :blah: :sigh: If you're Finnish and want to see some extreme cases, go to www.tiede.fi/keskustelut and look up some stuff by Jukris/JouluPukkiSavosta/Savor (they are all the nicks of same person, banned save for the last incarnation).
Sooo... I'm gonna try and take a bit more detached position in this thread for now, let my head cool down from the self-assured heights of the ivory tower of my mind and do something civilizing, like playing IL-2 Sturmovik.
Actually, you know what? Why don't we talk about LHC instead of whether my hypothesis has any correspondence to reality? We can continue the debate at a dedicated thread or via PM's.
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Herra, if you aren't familiar with the math of general relativity, then Rian's got you pretty seriously outclassed. I'd be inclined to go with her explanation -- especially considering where the 'current' metaphor comes from.
I don't buy your personal theories, and she's definitely got reliable sources.
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Herra, if you aren't familiar with the math of general relativity, then Rian's got you pretty seriously outclassed. I'd be inclined to go with her explanation -- especially considering where the 'current' metaphor comes from.
I'm becoming so convinced in my hypothesis that I'm starting to see a lot of stuff be caused by it, whether they actually are or not.
There you have it. Rationally, I know that I shouldn't be making any kinds of statements about a branch of physics in which I don't know the mathematic formulation of the theory, based only on intuition and deduction which more than likely feed each other off once they get into wrong direction, but I can't help myself. I'm kinda stupid that way.
I'll have to wait and see what I can make of this when I get into GR maths and the interactions between space-time and mass... although AFAIK in GR the interaction is pretty much one-way and space-time acts more like just reference frame for stuff to happen in than a semi-actively partaking entity. Basically, with my current knowledge level I can't determine the faults in my hypotheses any better than their alleged correctness, but my mind convinces me that they are correct. That's why I added the handwavium disclaimer before getting into it.
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I think that when a thread in general discussion starts talking about the mathematics of General Relativity, its probably off-topic, and a BRAIN-ASPLODE! hazard.
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From what I know of GR, spacetime is an active participant -- as the mantra goes, 'matter tells space how to bend, space tells matter how to move'. Local curvature is very important.
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From what I know of GR, spacetime is an active participant -- as the mantra goes, 'matter tells space how to bend, space tells matter how to move'. Local curvature is very important.
Yeah, but that's kinda self-explanatory behaviour for a reference frame. Defines what is a straight line for a photon to travel etcetera. By active behaviour I meant something along the lines of space's own qualities causing, say, inertia.
Einstein didn't think space caused inertia. He was an advocate of Mach's principle, which I personally disagree with. I think it would make a whole lot more sense if inertia was the reason of space's qualities... or, in quantum terms, interaction with Higgs' field. Whichever approach works a lot better than Mach's principle. Although the Higgs' field could possibly be regarded as the gravitational effect of all mass in the universe, but in my opinion it would still be more credible as space-time's own quality...
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Who fell into black hole and sent back the information that yes, you will eventually reach the center/surface of whatever it is behind the event horizon? :p
*and rest of argument*
The text my relativity class used for the GR segment was Exploring Black Holes: An Introduction to General Relativity, by Taylor and Wheeler. According to that text, a mass falling into a black hole from just outside the event horizon will reach the central "crunch point" in a span of time that can vary from considerably less than a second (for a black hole of roughly the mass of the sun) to decades (for black holes massing "thousands of galaxies".) The river analogy I cited is also there.
What you’re doing is confusing the bookkeeper and free-fall coordinate systems. They can’t be treated in the same way – in the bookkeeper frame, which views the black hole from a distance, you observe the curved space-time and the Schwartszchild metric applies. This metric (which mathematically describes the space surrounding a massive object) actually makes no distinction between space inside and outside the event horizon. (meaning that I was slightly incorrect on that point in my first post. I took the class last semester; apparently I’m already forgetting things.) In the free-fall frame, space is presumed to be locally flat, and normal (inertial) physics applies in the immediate vicinity of the faller.
You have to be very careful to specify which frame you’re talking about when doing relativity, especially when considering effects like length contraction and time dilation. To make sense of why the different frames are important, bear in mind that our tool for conducting these observations is light. It makes a difference where you’re measuring something because light takes a finite amount of time to reach the observer, and is itself affected by the curvature of space and so forth. It does make a great deal of sense when the math is there to back it up.
I will note that I am no kind of expert. This was an introductory class, though at a well-regarded university, and we dealt solely with the applications of GR, not its derivation.
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The text my relativity class used for the GR segment was Exploring Black Holes: An Introduction to General Relativity, by Taylor and Wheeler. According to that text, a mass falling into a black hole from just outside the event horizon will reach the central "crunch point" in a span of time that can vary from considerably less than a second (for a black hole of roughly the mass of the sun) to decades (for black holes massing "thousands of galaxies".) The river analogy I cited is also there.
What you’re doing is confusing the bookkeeper and free-fall coordinate systems. They can’t be treated in the same way – in the bookkeeper frame, which views the black hole from a distance, you observe the curved space-time and the Schwartszchild metric applies. This metric (which mathematically describes the space surrounding a massive object) actually makes no distinction between space inside and outside the event horizon. (meaning that I was slightly incorrect on that point in my first post. I took the class last semester; apparently I’m already forgetting things.) In the free-fall frame, space is presumed to be locally flat, and normal (inertial) physics applies in the immediate vicinity of the faller.
Okay, how about two book-keepers - one at orbit hundred kilometres from event horizon of relatively big black hole, and another orbiting the horizon significantly higher?
Both are free-falling; the only difference to freely falling observer would be that they would remain at static distance from the event horizon and thus offer more reliable observation platforms for comparing the effects to space and time relative to each position/altitude close to a horizon.
The way I see it, the observer further from the horizon would experience very close to eucleidean flat space-time. The observer lower on the gravity potential field would notice that the higher observers' clocks seem to run a lot faster, and that would be a very real effect directly analogous to the way the GPS satellite clocks need to be compensated for gravitational time dilatation. And if time dilatation is a real effect rather than based on observations getting clouded by limited signal speed (one thing I've always been annoyed of in special relativity was how the interpretations change a lot depending on how the signal delays are handled...), why would it be different with space dimensions?
The assumption that free-falling reference frames are locally flat is interesting, but not knowing the maths I can't see what leads to this assumption. Then again, the dilatation of time in itself obviously changes the metrics of space as well because the definition of a metre (length) is how far a photon travels at 1/299something seconds... which means that when time slows down and events are looked at from higher altitude, and a photon's distance per second is measured, thehigher observers' second would mean something less on lower observers' clocks, and that would mean that the distance travelled by the photon in that time would be less than a metre - but due to assumption of light's speed being constant for all observers, it would mean that the distance traveled by the photon in one measured second would be one metre... hmm, I'll have to think through this one rather carefully. :)
At any rate, I have let myself be told that time dimension is not the only one affected and that the space dimensions are stretched as well, but seeing how the time stretching in itself would change the length of a metre relative to space on different gravitation potential, I just don't know what to think of it. Like you said:
You have to be very careful to specify which frame you’re talking about when doing relativity, especially when considering effects like length contraction and time dilation. To make sense of why the different frames are important, bear in mind that our tool for conducting these observations is light. It makes a difference where you’re measuring something because light takes a finite amount of time to reach the observer, and is itself affected by the curvature of space and so forth. It does make a great deal of sense when the math is there to back it up.
The question to me is, what makes the situation fundamentally different from the situation between observers at Earth's surface vicinity and satellites at orbit having different time propagation speed? Is the time actually the only thing affected by mass and energy, and the rest of the stuff comes from the metric changes caused by that? Or is the "stretching" of space and time evenly spread to all dimensions?
Or is it the time stretching-induced metric changes actually what constitutes as stretching of space axes? :confused:
Bah, I'll have to take soem time to look into it in the future... :rolleyes:
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I promise you that, no matter how good you think your conceptual grasp of the situation may be, exploration of the actual math will prove enlightening. You've probably already had this experience with the math of special relativity.
And I'll echo Rian's comment about the importance of reference frames. Most apparent paradoxes can be resolved by recognizing reference frame errors.
Lastly, it seems a bit odd to think that all the hundreds of physicists who've tried to overthrow relativity have failed to spot something that we might recognize with mere intuition.
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Okay, how about two book-keepers - one at orbit hundred kilometres from event horizon of relatively big black hole, and another orbiting the horizon significantly higher?
Both are free-falling; the only difference to freely falling observer would be that they would remain at static distance from the event horizon and thus offer more reliable observation platforms for comparing the effects to space and time relative to each position/altitude close to a horizon.
The way I see it, the observer further from the horizon would experience very close to eucleidean flat space-time. The observer lower on the gravity potential field would notice that the higher observers' clocks seem to run a lot faster, and that would be a very real effect directly analogous to the way the GPS satellite clocks need to be compensated for gravitational time dilatation. And if time dilatation is a real effect rather than based on observations getting clouded by limited signal speed (one thing I've always been annoyed of in special relativity was how the interpretations change a lot depending on how the signal delays are handled...), why would it be different with space dimensions?
What you're talking about here is actually a third set of coordinates that’s often used in these calculations. The "bookkeeper" observer is actually assumed to be at infinity – that is, some appropriately large distance away, where space can be taken to be flat. If you’re talking about a stationary observer located somewhere closer to the black hole, that’s what’s called "shell" coordinates. (As if this observer were standing on some solid shell of fixed radius.)
A free-falling observer has to be actually falling in order for that system to apply. In fact, it’s sometimes useful to talk about a free-faller relative to a stationary shell observer – in this case, they’d be considered to be at the same radial position, and special relativistic relationships according to the momentary speed of the faller would be used to determine, for example, the time difference between them.
There is actually a very specific way that physicists resolve the way the light travel delay affects observation, and I believe it was used in deriving the special relativistic relationships when we did it in class. Time dilation and length contraction are both real effects: you can fit a long stick into a shorter box if they’re moving relative to each other at relativistic speeds, and time dilation must be factored into GPS calculations, as you’ve mentioned. (we did this calculation at one point – the difference in speed between clocks on a GPS satellite and on the earth’s surface adds up to about 40,000 nanoseconds every day.)
Space and time both interact to produce relativistic effects. The easiest way to describe the way they relate to each other in special relativity is with manipulation of Lorentz matrices and four-dimensional vectors, (time is usually multiplied by the speed of light to give it units of distance) and it's very difficult to describe in intuitive terms. As I recall, most of the calculations we did in GR worked directly with the Schwartzchild metric – the Lorentz transform only applies to inertial frames.
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I promise you that, no matter how good you think your conceptual grasp of the situation may be, exploration of the actual math will prove enlightening. You've probably already had this experience with the math of special relativity.
I'm in an odd situation in that I would probably be comfortable with the math behind the EFEs, but hardly know anything about the physical concepts involved. :p
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Just one note, Schwarzschild metric is applicable just outside of the event horizon. The Eddington-Finkelstein metric will show that the singularity at Schwarzschild's radius caused by Schwarzschild metric is only apparent and depends on how the metric was derived. Schwarzschild's solution is a trial solution, with the simple justification that it fulfils the Einstein field equations. Note that he figured out the solution in the trenches of WWI!
So, if one wants to study properties of space time beyond the event horizon, one should use some other metric, Eddington-Finkelstein being the most common one to describe it.
More of Eddington-Finkelstein metric here:
http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington-Finkelstein_coordinates
http: //casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/phys5770_08/bh.pdf
http: //www.sron.nl/~jheise/lectures/kruskal.pdf
The proper falling time for an observer inside the event horizon can be calculated using this metric.
Let's see if I was smarter than the system with the links
Mika
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington-Finkelstein_coordinates
http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/phys5770_08/bh.pdf
http://www.sron.nl/~jheise/lectures/kruskal.pdf
The proper falling time for an observer inside the event horizon can be calculated using this metric.
Let's see if I was smarter than the system with the links
Typing the links directly to the post actually works. That way it is possible to just select and copy-paste them. The url tags are the ones that cause pain and misery Rick Astley.
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Typing the links directly to the post actually works. That way it is possible to just select and copy-paste them. The url tags are the ones that cause pain and misery Rick Astley.
For some reason I don't believe that. Firefox is a handy tool. But I clicked the link anyways to keep up the April Fools spirit. You can listen that song once/year, but actually watching it causes my eyes to melt.
Mika
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Typing the links directly to the post actually works. That way it is possible to just select and copy-paste them. The url tags are the ones that cause pain and misery Rick Astley.
For some reason I don't believe that. Firefox is a handy tool. But I clicked the link anyways to keep up the April Fools spirit. You can listen that song once/year, but actually watching it causes my eyes to melt.
Mika
Lähinnä meinasin siis, että jos klikkaa linkkiä, niin tulee Rick Astleyä. Mutta jos maalaa tuommoisen asianmukaisesti typotetun linkin ja copypastettaa osoitekenttään ja lyö entteriä, niin tulee asianmukaista settiä. Trust me.
In Engrish, for great justice: I was merely saying, that if you just click a link, Rick Astley happens. But if you "paint" the link and copypaste it to the address bar and hit Enter, you'll get what you're supposed to get.
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Jeps, olispahan pitäny tajuta, että tuosta siinä oli kyse. Hyvä idea muuten kirjotella tänne kerrankin suomeksi, kun on sentään aprillipäivä. Rädyn kuolemattomia sanoja lainatakseni ****uillakseni kirjotin. Saas nährä millanen kaaos tästä vie'ä saadaan aikaseks.
EDIT: What the hell? What did it do now??!!
EDIT^2: This is hilarious if you are shown as Mobius!
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What the ****?
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A forumwide identity crisis.
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I was thinking to write something of LHC, but since I'm drunken I think I drop it. Too bad, the only justification to stay on topic.
Anyways, I have not too much trouble to figure out General Relativity, but the quantum stuff really starts to make me think if the given explanations are the correct ones. Obviously, the maths seems to model the phenomenom quite well, but the explanations simply make you wonder what the hell is really going on. Many worlds, photons scanning every possible path, etc. etc. This would make one think that a photon has to spend infinite amount of energy in finding out the shortest possible route from A to B. But again, I never read too much of quantum mechanics in the university. If someone could provide an explanation what actually happens when a photon passes a double slit, I would appreciate it. Especially because I'm quite fond of photons in any case.
Mika
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I don't believe that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is the prevalent or accepted one.
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Somewhat relevant - smallest black hole to date found (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080401-smallest-blackhole.html)