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Could We Find a Door To A Parallel Universe?
p1234 writes "Though no direct evidence for wormholes has been observed, this could be because they are disguised as black holes. Now Alexander Shatskiy of the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow, Russia, is suggesting a possible way to tell the two kinds of object apart. His idea assumes the existence of a bizarre substance called "phantom matter", which has been proposed to explain how wormholes might stay open. Phantom matter has negative energy and negative mass, so it creates a repulsive effect that prevents the wormhole closing. 'US expert Dr Lawrence Krauss, from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, points out that the idea rests on untested assumptions. He told New Scientist magazine: "It is an interesting attempt to actually think of what a real signature for a wormhole would be, but it is more hypothetical than observational. Without any idea of what phantom matter is and its possible interactions with light, it is not clear one can provide a general argument."'"
How about publicizing actual discoveries instead of random speculation?
It's like proving something exists buy using something that doesn't exist. I admire the guys imagination though. Just seems like he wants it to exist so he's making it so. IMHO science should be about working with the facts, which isn't what's going on here.
Sounds more like crackpot physics to me. Only physicists can get away with crap like this. In any other field of science, this sort of voodoo bullshit would not be tolerated. I tell it like I see it. Mod me down and see if I care. ahahaha...
Right, and they killed Joan Collins, but she still somehow made it back to be in more TV shows. So I guess things done in the portal stay in the portal, right?
Well hold on, anti-matter is real, as long as you mean in an anti-particles sense. Positrons (anti-electrons) have been observed and I want to say some team in Europe made anti-hydrogen atoms. I wish I had links, but I know I read about it.
As for the rest, I pretty much agree with you.
I had the wonderful opportunity to see a talk by one of the experts of (and I think original proposer of) dark matter. He said he was starting to feel dark matter is not real and that a possible better explanation of it can be made by modifying Newtonian/Relativistic mechanics. That seems more satisfactory to me, if for no other reason than we can use a correction in the equations to make predictions about other things, and see if we observe that effect.
That's much better than assuming something exists, but you don't know any of its properties except that it fixes this one problem in your other theory. That's pretty bogus. Science is all about observation, and seeing if our predictions based on current research are true. If you can't do either, it really doesn't qualify as science.
> For example, if you had a one ton ball of "regular" matter and a -1 ton ball of this
> "negative" matter, and were to hook them together on a fixed rod you basically would've
> constructed a perpetual motion "engine" that would accelerate along the axis of that rod
> without any expenditure of energy.
That would no more produce acceleration than would the same experiment done with positive and negative electric charges. The two gravitational charges will just repel each other, producing tension in the rod.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Are you really that surprised? We worked out how most of the world around us works over three hundred years ago. We put electromagnetism to bed over a hundred years ago. We've known enough about atoms to make them go *boom* real good for over eighty years. Everything left to work on is far, far outside our day to day experience. Our common sense is calibrated for temperatures between about zero and one hundred C in a thick nitrogen/oxygen environment with a 1 g gravitational field. Of course it fails miserably when confronted by absolute zero vacuums or temperatures and pressures extreme enough to fuse matter or places with gravitational fields strong enough to capture light.
Hell, I'd be more surprised if someone announced "Black Holes: Just Like Detroit" or some such.
And as for that eternal life and women throwing themselves at you, we've already given you healthy diets and pheromones. Why not try meeting us half-way?
Antimatter is something real, observed, understood, and which we can actually make, albeit in tiny quantities.
Dark matter is a shim used to make our theory of gravity and the motion of the observed universe match.
"Phantom matter", properly called "exotic matter", is a purely hypothetical construct, not necessary to explain anything in the universe which has been observed; it's just something the laws of physics don't rule out.
There are no imaginary numbers in physics when it comes down to measuring an actual physical quantity. Imaginary numbers are just convenient constructs that make the mathematical treatment of the subject matter simpler, but the same analysis can be done using real numbers.
isn't it part of the same universe?
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
Physics has been running into a wall for decades now. I think the problem is gravity, we still don't know what it is or how it operates. We say it warps space, but does it really or is that just a mathematical abstraction that lets us model its effects? Physicists have gotten something fundemental wrong, and it's leading them to shape ridiculous explanations for things we don't understand.
That's my speculation, do I get an article in New Scientist now?
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
<Speculation>
If not, if the difference is the same as time or length in a dimension that we aren't able to consciously manipulate or see, then it is possible that we all are floating in roughly the same direction, but since the differences are very small it's impossible to recognize if we are in the same sector as when we started our lives.
All this since there are in theory dimensions that we can't see. Why they are invisible is a different question. It may be that we all are mentally and physically unable to "see" the dimensions or that they are "curled up" or "flattened" in a way that makes them immeasurable. This is just about the same question as if you are on a board (like our universe) on a completely friction-less surface where there is no perception of wind and no reference points. You have every perception of everything on the board, but you can't tell if the board is still or if it's actually drifting at the speed of sound with the wind. If you can't even "see" outside the borders of the board (the universe) you can't really tell if there are other universes out there.
And it's not even possible to say if the laws of physics are general or specific for a universe. It may well be that the laws of physics are the same in any given universe, and that we just are inside a bead of glass. (watch the end sequence of Men in Black to catch this idea...). Just "infinity" is hard to catch up, but it's like living on the surface of a globe - where is the end of the world? And if you walk a straight distance on the surface of a globe large enough - will you ever come home again or will you even recognize that as home?
I think that there is no straight answer, and that Keith Laumer in the "WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM" may have one approach, and Robert Anson Heinlein had another in "Number of the Beast" (among others), but I think that Douglas Adams got really to the point in the statement "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.". At least his statement will explain a lot.
But this is still in the area of speculation, and I think that it's hard for the human race to get outside the universe. But I don't say that it's impossible - there may be a discovery around the corner waiting to happen!
</Speculation>
What is most important is that we try to keep our minds open - there may be a grain of truth in every theory that at first sight may appear ridiculous. Notice that the continental drift was considered completely outrageous by many until the end of the 1950's. The continental drift is now a widely accepted fact (but there may still be those that doesn't accept it).
Gandhi once said "Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.", and this still applies. If you do nothing nothing will be accomplished, and you will be sure that you are unimportant, but if you do something you may have the force to provide a stepping stone for something that will prevail for generations to come.
The End.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Where's the violation?
The first law states, "The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings."
Accordingly, since no energy is being added to the system, its internal energy must not increase. That's fine, because in you example, the total energy does not increase.
Energy is usually measured in joules. 1 joule is, reduced to base units, 1 kg * (m^2/s^2). So the total energy of your system is defined as:
Joules = (1000 * [x^2/y^2]) + (-1000 * [x^2/y^2])
Now, if x is 0 and y is 0, (the system is at rest), then the energy of the system, in joules, is
Joules = (1000 * [0^2/0^2]) + (-1000 * [0^2/0^2])
Joules = (1000 * [0/0]) + (-1000 * [0/0])
Joules = (1000 * 0) + (-1000 * 0)
Joules = (0) + (0)
Joules = 0
If x is 10 and y is 1, then the energy of the system, in joules, is
Joules = (1000 * [10^2/1^2]) + (-1000 * [10^2/1^2])
Joules = (1000 * [100/1]) + (-1000 * [100/1])
Joules = (1000 * 100) + (-1000 * 100)
Joules = (100000) + (-100000)
Joules = 0
If x is 500 and y is 2, then the energy of the system, in joules, is
Joules = (1000 * [500^2/2^2]) + (-1000 * [500^2/2^2])
Joules = (1000 * [500/4]) + (-1000 * [500/4])
Joules = (1000 * 125) + (-1000 * 125)
Joules = (125000) + (-125000)
Joules = 0
If x is 1 billion and y is 1, then the energy of the system, in joules, is
Joules = (1000 * [1E9^2/1^2]) + (-1000 * [1E9^2/1^2])
Joules = (1000 * [1E18/1]) + (-1000 * [1E18/1])
Joules = (1000 * 1E18) + (-1000 * 1E18)
Joules = (1E21) + (-1E21)
Joules = 0
Since 0J = 0J = 0J = 0J, no matter how fast the two-ball system accelerates, there is no violation of the first law of thermodynamics.
The set of complex numbers is no less "real" than the set of real numbers. Both are simply definitions arising from some set of mathematical axioms, usually those of an axiomatic set theory like ZFC. In fact, the definition of i as sqrt(-1) that you learn in high school is mathematically unsound: the correct way to define the complex numbers is as the set of ordered pairs of real numbers. When combined with an expected addition (a,b)+(c,d)=(a+c,b+d) and a funky multiplication (a,b)*(c,d) = (ac-bd,bc+ad), this allows you to define a+bi as shorthand for (a,b). (Note that i*i=(0,1)*(0,1)=(0-1,0+0)=(-1,0)=-1, as expected.)
Neither the real and complex numbers are "real" in the sense that they physically exist, but are on equal footing in the sense that they represent real, physical quantities. Complex quantities simply appear when dealing with pairs of real quantities. Take the (complex) wavefunction representing a quantum state, as an example. Sure, you could formulate the Schroedinger equation as a pair of coupled differential equations, but why bother, especially when it's much more elegant to express it as a single, complex equation?
If the "Tim Thompson" material being referred to is "On the "Electric Sun" Hypothesis" http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html, then there's an obvious continuity with my quick look at what's wrong with the T&T PDF document.
Let's start with this, from the Tim's introduction (my emphasis): It is not my intention, at least for now, to address the issues raised, and alleged to be in favor of the electric-sun hypothesis. Rather, it is my intent to show that the arguments of Scott et al. against the standard interpretations of stellar physics are devoid of merit. This is an important point, because it shifts to the champions of the electric-sun hypothesis, the responsibility for showing that their hypothesis is better than the standard. What I have done is go back one step further in the chain, and show that three (of four) working hypotheses about "the Electric Universe framework and method" can be tested and given a tick in the "YES" box, using this PDF document as a representative sample.
It also shifts to the champions of the EU framework and approach the responsibility for showing that their methods are better than the standard.
Here are those four working hypotheses again:
#1: in the EU paradigm, "theory" is indistinguishable from "speculation in prose".
#2: EU theories cannot be falsified, even in principle, by any experimental ("in the lab") or observational results.
#2a: Within the Electric Universe framework and approach, evidence presented does not need to accurately reflect its source, nor be fully attributed; copyrights need not be respected.
#3: EU theories are internally inconsistent.
As is clear from the material presented in the SD comments linked to in my earlier comment here, the first three hypotheses are validated; the last was not tested (but is unlikely to be validated - meaninglessness is perfectly consistent with meaninglessness).
Rather to my surprise, I found that the document may be an intellectual fraud - it purports to be something which it is not (a poster presentation at the 2006 ICOPS, an international scientific conference). More surprising is that pln2bz does not seem to regard this as serious
Now of course there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation
* as far as I know it is not illegal, in the US or Australia, to claim a document is a poster presentation at an international scientific conference when it is not.
^ unless they are perfectly comfortable with such practices and behaviours.