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Quark Stars
BigGar' writes "Astronomers seem to have discovered a new type of star. It would lie between a neutron star and and a black hole in the hierarchy of stars and consist of quark matter. Further observations with the Chandra X-ray telescope will be needed to confirm the results."
How doesn't this throw the entire concept of Quantum Physics out the window?
I had read once that black holes could be regarded as super-large elementary particles (described by very few parameters: spin, charge, mass). Would "quarks stars" be something like that, or more like a huge Bose-Einstein condensate?
Jes curious....
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
"Neutron stars are the vestiges of immense supernova explosions, collapsed stars with extremely compact cores, denser than all known objects except black holes. A teaspoonful of a neutron star would weigh one billion tons, as much as all the cars and trucks on Earth."
That would be one impressive teaspoon.
Tall, Blonde and Weaponized
tcd004
Does anyone know if all up quarks are the same as all other up quarks and if all down quarks are the same as all other down quarks? There might be a billion different slight variations of the two kinds. We don't have the equipment to define a quark past a certain level.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I guess Armin Shimmerman was pretty cool, but I don't think he's really a star... Or was that a different kind of Quark, that doesn't try selling self-sealing stembolts...
This stuff looks dense enough to be a black hole (black hole in the sense of "light can't get out", not necessarily "singularity"). So, what kind of densities do you need to get a blackhole, or does the total mass also enters the equation?
I'm sorry, that just seems like wishful thinking to tie your star to a known event, therefor creating a strong case for you. The chances are less than one in a billion that it was the very same star.
So why does Quark get a star type named after him.. Who'd he swindle that Deal from? :)
> The quarks that make up conventional matter are > called "up" and "down" quarks. Physicists > theorize that even more elusive "strange" > quarks, possible remnants from the birth of the > universe, still lurk in the cosmos.
... something a little more practical. something that the whole globe can engage in ..
..
*yawn*
I wish that we would spend billions of dollars on getting some 'manned' craft to Mars
I mean trying to determine if a star 7 miles in diameter 8 billion light years away is made of sub-nuclear particles seems like an effort in futility
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
If most matter is made of quarks, then aren't most stars technically quark stars?
An All-Linux Think Tank
-----
Quark Sing-a-long Written by Lynda Williams
For Jefferson National Lab
Bring Our Daughters to Work Day.
(refrain)
Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top and Bottom!
The World is made up of Quarks and Leptons!
Up, Down, Charm, Strange,Top and Bottom!
Yum! Yum!
Quarks come in six flavors
They live in families of two.
Up Down, Charm Strange, Top and Bottom!
They come in anti-flavors too!
Each family makes a generation
between which is a mass gap.
The up quark is the lightest and the top quark
is the most fat!
The second and third generations
do not live for very long.
That's why everything in the Universe
is made up of Ups and Downs!
(refrain)
Quarks carry a color charge.
They come in red, green and blue.
You'll never see a quark all by itself
cuz they stick together with a strong force glue.
Quarks carry electric charge.
A fraction of electricity.
Quarks combine together so the total charge
is a multiple of unity!
An up, up down makes a proton for a total charge of plus one.
A down, up, down makes a DUD neutron!
Physics is so much YUM YUM PHUN!
(refrain)
copyright 1999 Lynda Williams
http://www.entersci.com/cosmic/quarkl.htm
It's density, not mass, that stops light. A star may have more mass than a black hole, but the gravitational field is at no point strong enough to "stop light", as you put it. (Think Gauss's law---inside a sphere, the gravitational field is influenced only by the matter "under" you.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Quarks tend to be "bound" into either mesons (a quark and an antiquark) or hadrons (three quarks or three antiquarks---protons and neutrons).
I suppose the interesting part here is the enormous energy required to overcome the forces that bind mesons/hadrons together.
Err... that is, if the article is talking about what I think it's talking about. It's 2 AM here, I should be thinking about de Broglie, Schrodinger and Bohr.
Bah. Time for a porn break.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I was just getting used to that, after the story on slashdot...
Quark stars are a new and interesting idea, but quark matter in general is not a new idea. "Quark matter", more usually "quark plasma" or "quark-gluon plasma", is believed to be the dominant form of matter in the universe just following the big bang. There is also early evidence that it's been witnessed in some of the largest particle accelerators.
In normal matter quarks group together in sets of 3 to form protons and nuetrons. Rare particles, like pions, can be formed from pairs of quarks, but quarks never appear in isolation, for them it's always in groups of 2 or 3. In quark plasmas though there aren't any distinct groups of twos and threes. All the quarks are smushed into a single substance with arbitrarily large numbers of quarks.
One analogy is if atoms are built out of "solid" quarks (in the from of protons and nuetrons), then the quark plasma is like melting them so they all run together. Prior to this announcement the only time that quark plasmas were expected to appear was in the presence of extraordinarily high energies and temperatures.
We could predict that nuetrons stars should exist because the "nuetron degeneracy pressure" which makes them possible was well understood theoretically. The theory that governs quark interaction is known as quantum chromodynamics and is far more complicated. I'm not sure whether anyone knows how to apply it to massive collapsing stars, and it doesn't surprise me if no one ever tried. It will be interesting to see if the existing theory can be made to justify quark stars. If not, well that's when things really start to get exciting.
ok, so people get PAIED to look into telescopes, think of wierd names for stars and theororize about things that can't even get close to?? why do i suddenly want to take a bat to congress...
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
Back off, sucka fool! Nobody touches my "Tang" budget!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Same with physics itself and science as well. Oh my god, reality is pealing away! Its a miracle...
Or as Mr D. Vader would put it:
If you only new the power of the quark side...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Ok, seriously, I'm not a physicist, but I did pay attention in High School/College, and I have to ask: Do we KNOW any of this stuff. Or is everything just one (educated) guess on top of another.
Yes, we've made some discoveries, and for the most part things can be explained with the current line of thinking in Physics (Newton, Einstein, etc), but that's the problem, things are only MOSTLY explained, and certain keys are missing.
Take Newton, we've got all sorts of formulas, rules, and experiements built upon the concept of gravity. Something which we cannot define, do not know how it is "made" nor where it comes from. Or perhaps think of the stars, do we KNOW that this star is 8 billion light-year away? Or are we just guessing based on some color-shifting theory that seems to work here on Earth, based on guesses about the total mass of the universe (that we can't find some large percentage of...)
What if we humans are all WAY WAY wrong? What if like the "flat-earthers" of centuries ago, we've justified our THEORY of the planets, stars, solar systems, and the universe based on a completely incorrect model just becuase researchers (or humans in general) don't like to admit they are wrong, or that they don't know something? Are there any radical thinkers left? someone perhaps not starting from Newton or Einstein's work and trying to move it forward, but someone with NO preconsceptions, NO ingrained ideas, and NO outside influences?
Actually, nevermind, even if a person like that did exist, he'd be labeled as a quack in the media, shunned and laughed at by acedemia and problably killed by a nervous government.
Just some random thoughts on a quiet night...
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
I'll go to bed now..
I know the following isn't exactly about the article, but I've wondered about this for a long time:
What would happen if you start dumping an huge amount of electrons in a black hole? As I understand it, the electrical force is far more powerful than the gravitational force. Therefor I wonder: what would happen if you create this huge negative pole? Would the black hole become unstable, would it eventually become impossible to add more electrons or something else (maybe the question is wrong altogether)? I anyone knows, I'd like to hear.
As you say, this is stuff that we thought existed only right after the big bang billions of years ago, or in accelerators for brief nanoseconds. That makes free quarks a legendary, almost intangible state of matter. Now we see a starful of free quarks, and you're not amazed?
I'm no professional physicist - but I thought I remembered hearing that a neutron star was held stable by the neutron degeneracy pressure counteracting the gravitational forces. Once there's enough mass so that gravity overcomes the degeneracy pressure, there are no more forces pushing particles apart so the whole thing collapses to a mathematical point (black hole.) I'm not really sure how this works either; from what I remember of quantum, degeneracy is more a law than a force - two fermions simply can't occupy the same space, so there's a limit to how dense they can become. In any case, does anyone have any further knowledge of what force might be keeping these denser-than-neutron stars from collapsing into black holes?
Here is a more in depth report from NPR's Wednesday broadcast of All Things Considered (in Real Audio format).
It wasn't mentioned in the Chandra release or the CNN spot, but RX J1856.5-3754 is apparently the closest known neutron star. The Chandra site states it's distance at ~400 lyr and the APOD site cites 180 lyr, practically in our back yard!(in cosmological distances anyway)
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
I did pay attention in High School/College, and I have to ask: Do we KNOW any of this stuff.
... moreso given our propensity to ask and answer the Why? question even in circumstances where it should neither bn asked nor answered.
... knowledge that now gives me a pretty good idea when leading cosmologists might be typing with one hand.
Sure prevailing theories influence what we look for, the way we look for it (instrument design) and the questions we ask of our observations. But that does not mean that there might be no substance to the scientific concensus.
One thing that is blindingly obvious from any perusal of the last couple of centuries of human history is that the rise of the scientific method has provided a potent tool to tamper with the world with.
While I certainly don't claim any ability to turn off my knowledge of such theories when looking at the world, I do see them rendering many things sensible which without them would demand special explanation
The example I like best is the theory of plate tectonics which renders sensible a host of observations and phenomena, such as volcanos and earthquakes, and ultimately has been shown by increasingly accurate measurement to account for the observed relative movement of adjacent tectonic plates.
When it comes to data from distant galaxies or from the subatomic realm, my confidence relies on little more than simple extrapolation from what I can observe directly with my own senses through the clear breadth gained by using even simple telescopes and microscopes to there being no sign of discontinuity as the power of such instruments is scaled up.
Are there any radical thinkers left? someone perhaps not starting from Newton or Einstein's work and trying to move it forward, but someone with NO preconsceptions, NO ingrained ideas, and NO outside influences?
Without language, it is going to be worse than hard for anybody to think too deeply in these areas, so it doesn't make any more sense to try to set up such a straw man than to try to ascertain the cosmology of an elephant.
Yet it remains important to remind ourselves just how much evil has been perpetarated by those who believed they knew the authoritative truth.
So how far can we go in discarding preconceptions and looking again with an open mind? And might anybody actually do it if they could?
Here I can only go from personal experience, although an experience I suspect at least a few have shared. As an already mature adult, I reached a point where things clearly were not working the way I had long assumed they would, so I consciously put aside my preconceptions and tried to start from scratch to find out how the world really works.
Now I'm first to admit it is nigh on impossible to put every detail behind you, most especially not deep personal values, likes and dislikes, but at least for me it was possible to have a sincerely fresh look at how the world works.
And while I certainly didn't find something which would overturn the bulk of mainstream science, I did identify useful patterns that extend way beyond the then traditional scope of science
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
If they are the same, or even just similarly grouped, does that mean that physical existence is basically a binary system? I wouldn't be suprised, it's kinda everywhere: chinese philosophy (yin/yang, thing/no-thing), sex (male/female), life/death; I don't think it's any accident that binary worked out so well for computers.
c-hack.com |
Does anyone know enough about this topic to know if these stars aren't just transitionary critters, on their way to being black holes? Or do astronomers have good reason to believe this a distinctly different way for a star to end its life?
"I like to wear big boy pants."
I am curious: How much LSD do you consume per month? Annually? Would you like to trip with me sometime and discuss the implications over this "Project Faustus" outside of the pretext of your ATM character.
You know that the blood and the brains would all be smooth.
The difference, of course, is the mass and possibly density of a neutron star compared to that of an actual neuron.
Its difficult to call a neutron star a collection of neutrons because in a normal neutron is composed of a (theoretically) fixed collection of quarks which "belong" to that neuron in some way; we have no such guarantee within a neuron star - in fact, its quite likely that all of the quarks composing a neutron star interact with each other in a way that is characteristic of the interactions of quarks within a single neutron.
We think of neutrons as little "balls" of quantum probability which exhibit matter properties, but what if we "melted" those balls so that the surface of an object composed of such balls looked more like the (macroscale) ocean than a McDonald's playground ballpit?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I was wondering - neutron stars often manifest as pulsars, spinning at high speeds and being highly magnetized, sending two beams of energy out like a light house.
From the article there's no mention of this. But wouldn't the collapsing remnant conserve it's angular momentum, spinning faster and faster as it's diameter decreases (like an ice skater bringing in their arms while spinning) and also conserving the remnant's magnetic field, which would be compressed with the collapse of the star core. Assuming it passes through the neutron star phase and then, since neutron degeneracy cannot prevent further collapse, it goes to quark star. My initial guess would be a spinning quark 'globule' with an equatorial velocity approaching the velocity of light... This would then make an ideal testing ground for the theory that extremely fast, extremely dense objects can 'drag' space time... Interesting times my friend! Interesting times!
Physicians say they can't account for all the enrgy and mass that are beeing sucked into a black hole. As one of the elementary laws of physics is that the mass/energy of the universe is constant, this is a rather interesting remark.
It would mean that the remained of this energy goes off to somewhere else. Where? Noby knows.
But if this string theory implies that a black hole can memorize the structures of what is beeing drawn into it, that would make all that sci-fi black-hole/worm-hole multidimensional-travel things alot more real. At least in theory.
Because if mass and energy disappears it has to appear somewhere else. And the only way it can go somewhere else, is by using dimensions unkown to us.
I know this sounds spaced out beyond belief, but I like to keep my mind open for new things. If they're scientific enough :)
Could anyone actually knowing anything about string-theory comment this?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Spooooooooooooooooooon!!!!!!
[c'mon, somebody *had* to say it.]
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Heh... when I glanced through your post I interpreted the line "If we assume that ST is accurate" with Star Trek... :)
Sorry...
/t.
I did a PhD on pulars, which everyone thinks are neutron stars. At one point I found a paper which suggested that instead they might be "strange matter" stars - and it's always intrigued me how difficult it is to distinguish between the two.
The cool thing about finding strange matter stars is that it suggests there's a lower-energy state of matter than our normal up/down quark pairings. No one's really sure because QCD is so hard to get numbers out of.
Every time they build a new accelerator someone harps on this, worrying about whether we'll ram particles together hard enough to create a meta-stable bubble of strange matter. If there is a net saving in energy due to expanding that bubble (drop in energy due to increasing volume of lower-energy-state matter, increase in energy due to increased surface tension on the surface), the bubble will tend to expand and gobble up everything in its path - like the Earth, for example.
That's the common worry, though it's easily allayed by noting that particles with much higher energy than anything we could create in an accelerator are hitting our atmosphere all the time, and none of them have turned our planet into a jiggling mass of strange matter.
Anyway, interesting idea.
All opinions expressed herein are not my own; I haven't had free will since last year when aliens ate my brain.
Told you so! Woohoo!
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
All known matter is made up of atoms in one of their four stages (solid, liquid, gas, and plasme). Each atom contains 3 known subparticles, neutrons, protons, and electrons. In turn neutrons and protons are each belevied to be made up of 3 quarks. There are no subparticles of electrons yet known.
It is safe to say that all known stars contain quarks, though they are part of stable atoms. But, what would happen if there were no electrons and whatever ethreal particles they're made of? There is reason to beleive that without electrons quarks would have no reason to form into the protons and nuetrons (though its quite controversial). Now, imagine you had entire stars that had no, or more likely, not enough electrons. It is possible that the rest of the matter, quarks not formed into protons/neutrons, may comprise the vast majority of such stars.
What impacts and/or uses this discovery have are not yet known, but it gives an insight into subatomic structure and how our universe may have formed. It also has some antimatter implications I won't get into. The most likely use comes from the fact that the bonds between quarks may be much stronger than the bonds between their big brothers.
Oh, and I'm a high school student with way too much spare time. I don't claim to be an expert on this, but I do know a bit. Their may be some misleading things in what I've stated above, and some of it may just be wrong or unlikely. Just a little disclaimer, for I'm no resource on the subject. If you're that interested, go learn more about it.
And you could build a lot of little robots that talked to each other. If one buys the farm doing something stupid, the others could learn. Bandwidth wouldn't be a problem if we improved comms infrastructure in the solar system (laser satellite repeaters?). Latency isn't much of an issue, really. We aren't in a rush to scoop dirt, are we? Take it easy mon, kick back at the console and wait for you dumb robot to get nervous and ask your advice...
If *I* was mission control, I'd MUCH rather have to deal with dead hardware than dead astronauts. Think Apollo 13. Think Challenger. Think every Mars mission that dissappeared without a trace.
Anyhow, the point is likely moot. There is simply NO way that remote exploration technology won't catch up with the vague and poorly-supported "plans" for a manned mission to Mars.
I say, if we want to start colonizing space, let's start closer to home.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I'll just chime in here on the subject of stellar distances, based on my understanding as a (very) amateur astronomer (so if you know more than me, feel free to correct me wherever I make errors).
Stellar distances as calculated by astronomers are based on less "exotic" ideas than the doppler effect. For nearby stars (less than 500 light years away or so), we can use parallax. As the Earth goes from one side of its orbit to the other, we can measure how far one of these nearby stars moves relative to the background stars. Closer stars will appear to move more than more distant ones (the same way roadside objects appear to move much more quickly than a tree or mountain in the background). So unless there is some bizzare undiscovered property of physics that causes parallax to not work in space, we can be pretty sure we have accurate distances for these nearby stars.
Using that information, we can check our other measuring sticks used over longer distances. Main-sequence stars (normal stars such as our Sun and 90% of the stars in the sky) have a color which corresponds directly to their intrinsic brightness. The apparent brightness of a star (how bright it appears to us) is inversely proportional to its distance. So, knowing it's intrinsic brightness (based on color) and its apparent brightness (by looking at it), we can calculate its distance. We can calibrate this color->brightness function by examining nearby stars whose distance can be measured with parallax.
Also, there is a special class of stars called Chepheid variable stars who vary in brightness on a regular period. The length of that period is a function of the intrinsic brightness of the star. Knowing that, and the apparent brightness, we can calculate the distance. Again, we can calibrate our function of period->brightness based on parallax. These stars are all over the place, and we can use them to calculate the distance to galaxies out to a few hundred million light-years (to my understanding). Beyond that, it's not currently possible to pick out individual stars.
That does get far enough out so that doppler shifting becomes measureable, and we can check our doppler->distance function against Chepeid distances.
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
Isn't Quark that sour milk stuff similar to lumpy yoghurt? :)
I guess if you believe the moon is made out of cheese, it only follows that stars can be made out of quark
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
what a quandry, huh.
First, I disagree because a fundamental understanding of the cosmos is needed not only for future explorative efforts, but in physics itself. Cosmology and the study of such topics as that encompasses is a tad over-rated maybe, but by understanding the process that make the universe work we can further our own technology here at home... imagine a quark smashing power generator for instance, it could only be built if we understand the basic principals and science surrounding it.
As to space exploration, this country and indeed the world just do not do enough. We are slowly trashing our own planet, and at the population growth rate of today, we will overpopulate the world soon (given the political problems of food distribution and the lack of premier technologies in food production in a significant portion of the world). Getting off this rock and out into space on a permanent basis ensures our survival as a species, opens doors for creative and political energy that don't involve blowing our selves up over ideological or minor genetic differences, and will push us closer to an answer to the great question of 'are we alone?'.
We are dead as a species if we can't unify around some common thread and forget our petty religious, political, and genetic differences... getting into space is the next great explorative effort, and with space being so infinite, it offers endless opportunity for mankind and way to channel all of our energies into more productive and benifical arenas.
For those of you with the stomach for it, here's the preprint.
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
"Neutron stars are the vestiges of immense supernova explosions, collapsed stars with extremely compact cores, denser than all known objects except black holes. A teaspoonful of a neutron star would weigh one billion tons, as much as all the cars and trucks on Earth." Does that include the weight of the teaspoon or not?
I am one of the authors of a competing paper on RX J1856 that was published yesterday, as well as a co-discoverer of the pulsar in 3C58. In my opinion these results, while definitely a possibility are certainly very preliminary. And in fact, there are other possibilities that make quite a bit more sense.
In the case of RX J1856, there is a ~15% chance that the lack of pulsations (one of the biggest reasons for suspecting a quark star) is simply the result of an unfortunate emitting geometry or viewing alignment. Given that there are ~7 objects known that are similar to RX J1856, having at least one of them in this 15% seems quite likely to me -- and avoids having to invoke a new form of "star stuff".
As for 3C58, the neutron star cooling problem can be mitigated (but not completely removed) by assuming a larger age for the supernova remnant (and therefore the neutron star) -- which expansion measurements and pulsar timing measurements also suggest.
In other words, there are simpler explanations for the facts. Although those explanations certainly wouldn't get as much press...
But he was right, it seems!!
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
ein Sandwich mit Quark und Schnittlauch oben drauf bitte.*
Quark is the german word for a diary product somewhere between cottage cheese and yoghurt.
Why does this myth keep coming up?
Educated people have known that the earth was round since antiquity. They weren't dumb and there was plenty of evidence - lunar eclipses, ships disappearing over the horizon, etc. They even had a relatively good estimate of the size of the earth.
In fact, that's why Columbus had a hard time finding a backer for his journey. Everyone knew the approximate size of the earth. Columbus, the bozo, had the numbers wrong. He avoided disaster only because of incredible luck in hitting an unanticipated continent. Think of how different history would be North America were further west, if the Atlantic was the large ocean.
The guy with no formal education and who never traveled more than a dozen miles from the place of his birth might have thought the earth was flat, but more likely he never thought about the shape of the earth at all. But he was no more the final word on "what people believed" than the trailer trash watching Jerry Springer is of our society.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
check out this link in the NY times as well:h tml
www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/science/11QUAR.
Sigh. My id isn't prime. 2 2 2 2 2 3 5 313
Oh I know the answer to this: Armin Shimmerman!
*Happy he finally got to use DS9 trivia on Slashdot*
"Derp de derp."
....yoghurt planets of course.
scnr.
Trying to understand why we have some neturon stars and some quark stars. You'd have sufficient density/gravity/heat to overcome the nuclear force binding the neutrons together then they'd decay into quark stars, then as they take on more matter, they'd form black holes?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
then the fact must be wrong.
The byline says it all: "Two rogue stars have failed to live up to scientific expectations, compelling puzzled astronomers to consider the likelihood that they possess a new and exotic form of matter."
Doesn't this sound a bit too much like like the epicycles of medievil times? Then they thought everything revolved around Earth in perfect circles. When evidence contradicted the theory, then they assumed the old theory just needed a little tweaking. In fact, the entire notion--everything they assumed; was wrong.
What if the underlying theory is fundamentally flawed? Rather than just chalk it up to scientific cluelessness they shrug it off and try to shave the facts to fit the mould--like Cinderella's sisters trying to fill her shoes (I mean the gory version where one cuts her own foot off).
The byline should have more likely read: "Two rogue stars have failed to live up to scientific expectations, compelling puzzled astronomers to consider that the theory they bound their expectations to was completely wrong."
You and I know that what we learned in college (the theory) does not mesh with what we experience (reality). I think the same goes for Big Bang theorists. Perhaps the Plasma theorists have it right.
From the article in the paper, they were saying that neutron stars are made up of neutrons and collections of quarks in groups of 3 (they call them bags of quarks I believe).
The new star they found has these quarks but they are not in groups of 3, they are just single quarks.
They were also mentioning that it may help to understand dark matter and such, im pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff but i find it very interesting to read about.. so sorry if my info above is not accurate =).
Even if this theory does not turn out to be true, I'm sure there are speculative fiction writers out there who are using "Quark Stars" and "Quark Matter" as a plot device in their next story.
Anyone want to take bets to see if this term shows up in next year's season of Enterprise or Farscape?
How does being smaller make you think you're so much "cooler" than the rest of us?
if I recall what I read of hawking correctly.
No two elementary particles can exist in the same space at the same time. Now should two elementary particles actually be forced under gravity to break that law and furthermore all the matter in a star is pushed into that one point and then that point shrunk down infinitely small it just falls off the face of the universe. thus a singularity. although this comes into the conservation of mass and energy law and while there is an explaination it's not part of this partucular discussion.
anyway under this concept the black hole has infinite density.
now a neutron star hasn't collapsed and is still there. its density is finite. no matter how dense it is. it's still finite.
now given this an even more dense star is theoreticly possible. after all anyone can tell you twice or even a thousand times as much as a finite number still doesn't equal infinity.
now on the other end of the ball you have to consider you can only compact something so far. if you broke an organized atom down into subatomic particles you could cram those right one against another. thus much more dense than the same amount of matter with all that empty space atoms have. now supose you could break down these subatomic particles into their basic qarks. possibly the empty space between the quarks could be even further condensed. then you get into elementary particles. a hypothetical state always reserved for when we find the next degree smaller. supose breaking down a quark reveals a smaller particle and we cram those up even tighter. of course eventually you have to reach the most basic particle and trying to cram any further and kiss it goodbye cuz you just flushed it down a big black hole.
In related news, a group of scientists working at the University of Whoople have discovered a collapsed star composed entirely of magnetic monopoles.
Their data is soon to be published in the Journal of Irreproducable Results.
For the record, I have a mental retardation to where I can not understand spoken language well. This also affects my ability to compose speech and prose in a manor to which it appears to be above the US average for adults. I could give you a more detailed reason why, but I doubt it interests you. No, I was not dropped on my head, trolls. No, I was not fed poison.
I can temporarily circumvent this problem by concentrating harder on the task. However, this causes my mental capabilities to tire faster than normal. Because of this, I do not dedicate such resources to the matter unless I feel it necessary to do so.
I usually do not bother as I find the english language extremely inadiquate and inacurate anyway. The best one can expect after conveying an idea to another is that they at least have an aproximation of it. I do not see the point of wasting my time in this endevor in informal communication because it reaks of arrogance, blind social conformity, and a crippling of the entire point of the existance of the language to begin with, communication. One favors security, rules, and regulations over freedom of expression.
Have a double-good day.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I don't do drugs, because I AM drugs.
I could give you a more detailed reason why, but I doubt it interests you
I'd be interested. You don't sound mentally retarded at all. Do you have some form of autism or dyslexia?
Second, I can not recall a specific name for this condition. I shall try and explain what happens the best I can. The right side of my brain, usually associated with artistic thought, dominantly handles my sences. Basically, I sence things like I am left handed. I am not left handed however, the left side of my brain is the dominant controler of my moter skills making me right handed. This causes problems because I do not sence things the same way most people do, I may find some obsure meaning from a situation where just about everyone else picks up on the logical meaning right away. On the other side of the coin, when I try to express myself, I have trouble expressing the parts of my ideas that "paint the picture." For the record now, up until this point I have been writing for about 25 minutes. As stated in the previous post, I can overcome some of this by concentrating harder. But, it has a tendancy to burn me out quicker mentally.
In addition, although not disabilities, I have Dysthymic Disorder [basically long term (~10 years) mild depression] and Avoidant Personality Disorder (I do not like being with groups of people, but am not hostile towards them.) These are my souvenirs from America's wonderful public educational system.
Thanks for taking an interest.
40 minutes
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
You're not drugs! You're PEOPLE! Anonymous coward is PEOPLE! ANONYMOUS COWARD IS PEOPLE!!!!