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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."
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?
So why does Quark get a star type named after him.. Who'd he swindle that Deal from? :)
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 is possible to tie a particular supernova remnant (and this is the only way ultra-dense stellar remnants are created) to an event witnessed in the past; indeed this is often done. Supernovae occur so infrequently in our galaxy (one every 100 to 500 years or so) that it is often possible to do so. For instance, it is very well known that the Crab Nebula is the remnant of the supernova witnessed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 AD.
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I didn't want to leave this space blank.
Well by that definition all stars would be quark stars. The difference is that the quarks in quark stars are not bound together to form neutrons or protons.
Quite an unusual state of matter indeed.
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I didn't want to leave this space blank.
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.
Anyways, they are just guessing at this point.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
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..
And are you suggesting that the work being done in Astronomy/Cosmology in the U.S. is costing BILLIONS of dollars? C'mon, man, get a grip! And I firmly reject the idea that only "humans in space" can effectively explore and exploit worlds outside ours.
If we have learned anything from the last few decades, I think it's that technology is an extension of our senses into the universe outside of our bodies... so why do we have drag our frail monkey-bodies to Mars if we can get the raw data cheaper and more safely with instrumentation? So we can play golf there too?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
density is basically irrelevant as gravity is a point source
That simplification only applies to the mass within a sphere with a radius equal to your distance from the center. For example, if you dig a hole 1 mile into the Earth, and go down this hole, you are no longer subject to the gravitational effects of the outer 1 mile worth of Earth's crust.
This is why density is important in black holes. As a simple way of thinking about it, you need the mass to be in a small enough space such that when you use the simplified center field model, enough mass will be inside the radius for that mass in order to pull light in. If the mass is too spread out, light at the radius for that mass would have some mass closer to the center pulling it down and some mass above it pulling it back up, and there would be no black hole.
Ok, so *you* can't see an *immediate* application of this science. Wow, that makes it worthless!
I bet research into silicon's semiconductor properties seemed an effort in futility in the early days. "It's not a conductor and it's not an insulator. What good is it?!"
Also, while I want to see a person on Mars, don't confuse it with real science. Sure, we'll find out a few more interesting things about Mars but it's exploration not cutting-edge science. Science isn't here for your entertainment.
The protons and electrons go through a reverse beta decay to form neutrons and neutrinos. Not all protons and electrons are consumed in this fashion which lets the following ideas progress, the outter shell of a neutron star is covered with a bunch of high energy electrons and protons exisiting in the crust of the neutron star can be in a super fluidic state making the neutron star a gigantic super conductor. Electrons being annhihilated on the surface release X-Rays which get funneled by the intend magnetic field of the super conducting protons into beams which create the effect we dub a pulsar.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
From said story:
It seems that there's a growing movement that doubts the existence of black holes
Oh... black holes exist... it's the growing movement, that's the myth.
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!"
Well, actually, I think it's.... fermionic degeneracy pressure. The quarks are spin 1/2, too, and "smaller" than the neutrons. So they can cram closer before their degeneracy pressure kicks in.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Why? One way of looking at the vacuum is that it is filled with virtual particles. A group of virtual particles can "borrow" energy to spring into existence, and then annihilate after a short period of time, returning the borrowed energy to the vacuum. The time scale they are allowed to exist is governed by Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. (E*t>=h-bar.) For massive particles like electrons, it's a short period of time.
If, during their short existence, the electric field can do more work on the particles than their borrowed energy, the "debt" to the vacuum can be "repaid", and the particles can become real.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Also, you've fallen prey to a terrible, terrible fallacy that afflicts even good astronomer: the dreaded Selection Effect. How do you think they "happened" to come across this odd object? Almost certainly, because they were already studying the nebula and remnant. In other words, it's not out of the many billions of stars that they chose. It was out of the much much smaller pool of SNRs.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
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 |
If you lived 150 years ago, what would your idea of "communication technology" be like?
Without Planck trying to understand blackbodies, Quantum Mechanics might never have had the kick it needed, to get Bohr's ponderings into the structure of atoms. In 1900, most problems seemed nearly solved, except for two little "clouds on physics' sky" as noted by Kelvin. It turned out that these two clouds would lead to QM and relativity. And they had quite a lot to do with observations done in astronomy.
Without these ideas, there would be no semiconductors, there would be no computers. You wouldn't be posting to /. if it hadn't been for those looking into the most fundamental questions of their time.
Quarks, quark-gluon plasma are among the most fundamental questions of our time.
What would a manned mission to Mars give us? Well, some kewl tech, quite a lot of resources into research, and probably also a positive long-term effect following from the increased attention given to science.
But it is not likely to be of fundamental importance to our world-view. It is not likely to do anything to give us understanding that is going to be used in that kind of technology you can't even imagine today.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Bandwidth, latency, and computing power. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the best decision-making algorithms reside in the human brain. We respond to unexpected contingencies much better than any robot. We recognize (new) patterns and intuit new consequence faster and more accurately. (See, there is something we do well.)
Mars is around 8 light minutes away. If your probe happens into a dangerous situation, or even an unexpected one, it will take 16 minutes for a teleoperator to respond. That cannot be helped and cannot be controlled. Also, teleoperation requires a lot of data, but the data bit rate from deep space is generally pretty small. So you'd be waiting a long time, 16 minutes out of the loop, for a trickle of information. It's really no wnder we lose so many spacecraft.
As things stand today, a human presence is the most efficient way to conduct wide-ranging exploration.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Much could have -- and was! -- said about the original accelerators. Why spend all this money whipping protons around a ring? Why not do something "practical"? Say, like medical research. Cure diseases instead of peering at tiny particles.
Interestingly enough, much of what we know about microbiology can be traced back to synchrotron radiation labs. At Stanford, the "waste" photons generated by the synchrotron ring turned out to be useful in X-ray crystolography (I assume the same at other facilities). Now SSRL is so important it can compete with the physics experiments in control of beamtime on the accelerator. All from some "impractical" studies.
The nature of research -- frsutrating as you might find it -- is that you never know, ahead of time, what will be a dead end and what will be "practical". The history of the past few centuries indicates that basic research nearly always ends up enhancing "normal" life.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
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?
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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
And if this were the world imagined in 1950s science fiction, that would actually mean something. But actual researchers in the field of artificial intelligence long ago conceded that "number of neurons" is not a good figure of merit for intelligence. We have, at best, the barest beginnings of software that emulates the human capacity for pattern recognition; and nothing really even hints of human judgment. I think a field should at least exist before we pronounce it about to surpass human capabilities...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Under current understanding, a pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star. Conservation of angular momentum, combined with the stately rotation of main sequence stars, imply that nuetron stars start off spinning really fast. Conservation of magnetic flux, combined with the noticeable magnetic field around main sequence stars, implies that neutron stars are born with extremely high magnetic fields.
Charged particles -- no one exactly knows the source, either from the surface or raining down from debris in orbit -- are accelerated to very high speeds by the magnetic field. When charges accelerate, they radiate. Since they are tied tightly to the strong field, they move along the field lines, and the radiation is strongly beamed along the flight path. We see that radiation primarily as radio waves, although pulsars have been found at all wavelengths.
Pulsars emit their radiation continually. However, because the star is spinning and the beam is narrow, it "sweeps" across the Earth once per revolution. So we see blips, not a continuous signal. The usual analogy is a lighthouse sweepings its light across the sea.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Well, i have to tell you, at 7AM, i'm a little groggy, and at first glance, i thought the headline for this article said Quick Star.
I thought, Now what? Advertisement for a pyramid scheme? Yesterday we had one for that zap station.
sig?
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.
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
From a philosophical perspective, sending people to Mars probably would change our long-term philosophies, if not so much our every day philosophies of life. Sending people to Mars is part of acclimating the human race to the idea that Earth may not be here forever and we have to make preparations for expanding our eggs to the next basket. No, not everyone has the luxury to consider, plan, and fund these matters that will never change. However, it is still something that needs to be done if we want to be around longer than another millennium or so.
$0.02USD
-l
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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...
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
Oh I know the answer to this: Armin Shimmerman!
*Happy he finally got to use DS9 trivia on Slashdot*
"Derp de derp."
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)
In other news, degenercy isn't a LAW. If it was, then black holes couldn't exist. It's more of an aproximation of other forces, kind of like how we define Normal forces.
Degeneracy is a fundamental feature of the quantum theory of fermions. It isn't an "approximation of other forces". The concept of a force is only applicable at a higher level. Quantum theory is concerned with interactions.
Black holes exist because as a neutron star gets bigger, additional neutrons require more and more energy. All the low energy states are occupied. Soon the neutrons have more energy than you see in an accelerator, and they can react to form other particles. Particles that aren't neutrons won't compete with neutrons for the higher energy states.
Uhh, I'm a geophysicist, so I haven't studied much that was smaller than a crystal, but if I recall my quantum mechanics (9 years ago) and what little I know of general relativity (I only formally studied special relativity) it seems like gravity/black holes would not be quantum effects. I'd kind of been of the belief that nobody'd managed to make a good theoretical connection between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
:)
So if the black hole is an outgrowth of curvature of space going to infinity (or zero, depending on how its measured) then how does that have any bearing on the energy states of the neutrons? Or is it just that there's no way to pack that many neutrons together to get enough gravity to curve space back on itself and create a black hole without taking into acount the quantum interactions. When they go to those wierd other particles, do they then drop back into the gravity well and start really compacting the matter til they produce a singularity?
I guess I need to read up on modern black hole theory some, and come back
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
That's about to get solved.
Dunno about that one. Perhaps you would. There are some resources we might run out of, yes.
"Can you imagine something like tuberculosis, only worse?" You would understand very well what it was about.
You know, there are things that may be done with this planet, so that we won't have to leave in the nearest future.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid