Physics anyone?

[kay]

[long, slow, deliberate beardstrokage]


Is Our Galaxy's Monster Black Hole Actually a Wormhole?

Interesting. Not having read the actual paper, does it also describe the signature of the other end of the wormhole? I'd assume that both ends would generate a different spew of particles depending on where matter enters or exits.

Also they offer the postulation for primordial, early universe structures that seem to behave like SMBs. The Milky Way's SMB might not be primordial so it might not necessarily confirm or refute this prediction. This theory seems to fall into the sort where you could never disprove even if you failed to detect the particular signature after surveying a million SMBs.

Finally, it seems like an extension of sorts of the old theories about black holes having white hole extremities elsewhere in the universe?

[bonk]

i love physics. do u ever look at the stars and think how butiful they are?

[scspkr99]

So Quantum Mechanics, is it all bollocks after all?

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality

Interesting read this

[kay]

So Quantum Mechanics, is it all bollocks after all?

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality

Interesting read this

Good one, it's a much more in-depth article than the one that MIT released last year. Have o say though that it doesn't say that Quantum Mechanics could be bollocks, just the current accepted version of it. Which I would really like to be true to be honest.

[scspkr99]

Yeah I was being kinda facetious given I'm not qualified to take a side. Though I am interested in the discussion, I recommended a book in the book thread I think, Quantum by Manjit Kumar and de Broglie was an interesting character around the periphery of the book but central to this challenge.

I often wish I had the aptitude and ambition to get physics properly.

[Phigure]

yeah i mean obviously there is something to qm since it makes reliable predictions about a lot of stuff, but i also think there definitely has to be something more to the universe

nima arkani-hamed has a lot of interesting talks and in them he often goes on about how he thinks the next "big step" in physics is going to come from a reformulation of quantum field theory without locality and unitarity (ie, the spacetime that we're used to), similarly to how we ended up with quantum mechanics by reformulating classical physics from replacing determinism with the principle of least action (non deterministic). seems like a good way forward to me

[_ronzlo_]

But what about the white holes?

[kay]

But what about the white holes?

The ultimate whitey?

Good take on the old white hole idea from the 80s - black holes being tubes that eventually spewed out somewhere as white holes.

[_ronzlo_]

The death knell of the multiverse theory?

Though galaxies look larger than atoms and elephants appear to outweigh ants, some physicists have begun to suspect that size differences are illusory. Perhaps the fundamental description of the universe does not include the concepts of “mass” and “length,” implying that at its core, nature lacks a sense of scale.

This little-explored idea, known as scale symmetry, constitutes a radical departure from long-standing assumptions about how elementary particles acquire their properties. But it has recently emerged as a common theme of numerous talks and papers by respected particle physicists. With their field stuck at a nasty impasse, the researchers have returned to the master equations that describe the known particles and their interactions, and are asking: What happens when you erase the terms in the equations having to do with mass and length?

[LACE]

The death knell of the multiverse theory?

Though galaxies look larger than atoms and elephants appear to outweigh ants, some physicists have begun to suspect that size differences are illusory. Perhaps the fundamental description of the universe does not include the concepts of “mass” and “length,” implying that at its core, nature lacks a sense of scale.

This little-explored idea, known as scale symmetry, constitutes a radical departure from long-standing assumptions about how elementary particles acquire their properties. But it has recently emerged as a common theme of numerous talks and papers by respected particle physicists. With their field stuck at a nasty impasse, the researchers have returned to the master equations that describe the known particles and their interactions, and are asking: What happens when you erase the terms in the equations having to do with mass and length?

physics definitely isnt based on empirical reality so the theories are endless. def needs more experimental backing..though..i don't know how you WOULD even experiment on this if you eliminate scale values like mass and length..

this is turning into theoretical mathematics...

[kay]

The death knell of the multiverse theory?

Though galaxies look larger than atoms and elephants appear to outweigh ants, some physicists have begun to suspect that size differences are illusory. Perhaps the fundamental description of the universe does not include the concepts of “mass” and “length,” implying that at its core, nature lacks a sense of scale.

This little-explored idea, known as scale symmetry, constitutes a radical departure from long-standing assumptions about how elementary particles acquire their properties. But it has recently emerged as a common theme of numerous talks and papers by respected particle physicists. With their field stuck at a nasty impasse, the researchers have returned to the master equations that describe the known particles and their interactions, and are asking: What happens when you erase the terms in the equations having to do with mass and length?

Definitely but also

More interesting, mathematically-sound ways of describing the state of the universe can only be a good thing.

[kay]

This is pretty neat, a remapping of superclusters based on galactic movements. Turns out that the Local Group of superclusters that the MIlky Way is in is actually just part of a much more extensive supercluster moving towards the Great Attractor.

http://phys.org/news/2014-09-laniakea-n ... -home.html

[kay]

Been reading this blog recently - One Universe At A Time by Brian Koberlein (https://briankoberlein.com/). The articles are pretty short but they're also pretty good as primers for cosmology.

One from last week was on light echoes (https://briankoberlein.com/2014/10/02/echoes-light/), and there's a gif showing how light expands away from a star which flared up a decade ago: https://briankoberlein.com/2014/10/02/echoes-2/

[magma]

There goes the afternoon.

[wilson]

Do you guys give any credence to the '432 Hz tuning' theory? The idea being that our tuning system - with middle A tuned to 440 Hz - is out of sync with the natural harmonics of the universe.

http://www.collective-evolution.com/201 ... -to-432hz/

432 Hz is said to be mathematically consistent with the patterns of the universe. It is said that 432 Hz vibrates with the universe’s golden mean PHI and unifies the properties of light, time, space, matter, gravity and magnetism with biology, the DNA code and consciousness. When our atoms and DNA start to resonate in harmony with the spiraling pattern of nature, our sense of connection to nature is said to be magnified. The number 432 is also reflected in ratios of the Sun, Earth, and the moon as well as the precession of the equinoxes, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, Stonehenge, the Sri Yantra among many other sacred sites.

Let’s explore the experiential difference between A=440 Hz and A=432 Hz. The noticeable difference music lovers and musicians have noticed with music tuned in A=432 Hz is that it is not only more beautiful and harmonious to the ears, but it also induces a more inward experience that is felt inside the body at the spine and heart. Music tuned in A=440 Hz was felt as a more outward and mental experience, and was felt at the side of the head which projected outwards. Audiophiles have also stated that A=432hz music seems to be non-local and can fill an entire room, whereas A=440hz can be perceived as directional or linear in sound propagation.

Some of the things touched on in the article are straying into the fanciful realm I know, but it's interesting. I've listened to a couple of things on youtube that are retuned to 432 Hz and I think i see what they're saying, but obviously it's not exactly a blind study.. Be interesting to hear your take on it anyway.

Edit: reading more into this, general concensus seems to be that it's bollocks. Oh well

[OGLemon]

[Muncey]

Not sure if this comparison has been made before, it probably has, but I recently heard (not for the first time) Feynmans quote about QM: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

On hearing it this time, it reminded me of Wittgenstein's lion.. he said if a lion could speak English we couldn't understand him because we have hugely different points of reference, inputs and processing those inputs. We essentially experience the world entirely differently and therefore could never understand a lion speaking English. As we live in the sort of middle ground between the extremely big and the extremely small, possibly quantum mechanics could never fully be an understandable concept for the exact same reason why we couldn't understand a lion. We use computers to test theories and draw conclusions but our interpretations and understandings of these aren't adequate, maybe because of the same reason?

Maybe we're doomed to never understand quantum mechanics fully? Or the extremely small/large?

Does this go some way to support the Copenhagen interpretation?

I'm sure someone with better knowledge of physics could shed some light on this.

[nowaysj]

Really too bad about that 70-90% kill rate airborne virus with a long contagious incubation period sweeping the world though...

[Phigure]

^ watch less youtube channels with names like "storm clouds gathering". cant wait until i can get a mr. fusion though

Not sure if this comparison has been made before, it probably has, but I recently heard (not for the first time) Feynmans quote about QM: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

On hearing it this time, it reminded me of Wittgenstein's lion.. he said if a lion could speak English we couldn't understand him because we have hugely different points of reference, inputs and processing those inputs. We essentially experience the world entirely differently and therefore could never understand a lion speaking English. As we live in the sort of middle ground between the extremely big and the extremely small, possibly quantum mechanics could never fully be an understandable concept for the exact same reason why we couldn't understand a lion. We use computers to test theories and draw conclusions but our interpretations and understandings of these aren't adequate, maybe because of the same reason?

Maybe we're doomed to never understand quantum mechanics fully? Or the extremely small/large?

Does this go some way to support the Copenhagen interpretation?

I'm sure someone with better knowledge of physics could shed some light on this.

not sure if this is the answer you're looking for but here's my thoughts (probably overdid it lol):

i'm optimistic, but it is a very real possibility that we'll never manage to progress beyond our current understanding of quantum mechanics. for all we know, maybe there just isnt a way to mathematically describe it.

i would say that does fit with the copenhagen interpretation. the copenhagen interpretation essentially takes what we don't know about it, and shoves it into a mysterious black box that it labels "wave function collapse". we have a quantum system at the beginning, then wave function collapse mysteriously does its work on the system, and then we end up with classical qualities. what gives? like you say, scale might play a role. right now at the LHC we're probing around 10^-18m, while the smallest possible scale is 10^-35 (around which quantum gravity becomes strong). obviously we've still got a long way to go. maybe we'll get more hints to go off of as we start to approach the smallest scales and highest energies.

my optimism comes from the belief that we're facing a similar dilemma to the one that physics was facing at the late 19th / early 20th century, before the classical to quantum revolution. classical mechanics obviously worked, but it couldn't account for a lot of things. quantum mechanics is also relatively successful in its own right, and in the form of quantum field theory (where it's combined with special relativity), it's given us the standard model. but there's obvious gaps, just like with classical mechanics. there's the unexplained mysteries of quantum mechanics, and when it comes to QFT, there's a whole other set of issues (hierarchy problem, neutrino masses, quantum gravity, the fact that we have to experimentally determine particle masses and plug them in rather than being able to derive them from the model itself, etc).

i think i've probably mentioned this before in the thread, but there's a physicist called Nima Arkani-Hamed who has a lot of interesting talks where he covers this. he mentions how, looking back now, a big hint towards the existence of quantum mechanics, way before it was actually discovered, was that you could reformulate classical mechanics using the principle of least action, which is non-deterministic (unlike the strictly deterministic classical mechanics).

right now he's spearheading work where they've been able to calculate scattering amplitudes (which when squared give you probabilities) of particle interactions using an entirely new method, one that isn't based off of quantum field theory. and similarly to the way that quantum mechanics abandoned determinism, his method abandons what are called locality and unitary (which means that the particle interactions are point-like and sum of the probabilities in scattering experiments must be equal to one). in my opinion it's by far the most interesting thing going on in theoretical physics today, and is one of the few areas that really shows a lot of promise (unlike string theory which seems hopeless )

[Muncey]

Knew I could rely on the Physics thread to provide a great reply, big up Phig

Recall you mentioning Nima Arkani-Hamed before, I watched one of his lectures.. will have to watch a couple more.