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Does the Higgs Boson Reveal Our Universe's Doomsday?
astroengine writes "If calculations of the newly discovered Higgs boson particle are correct, one day, tens of billions of years from now, the universe will disappear at the speed of light, replaced by a strange, alternative dimension one theoretical physicist calls boring. 'It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable and at some point billions of years from now it's all going to get wiped out. This has to do with the Higgs energy field itself,' Joseph Lykken, with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., said. 'This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there'll be a catastrophe.'"
Nothing of value will be lost.
News and science channels never waste a second when it comes to predicting doomsday.
No worries, folks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
What's congress going to do about it?!
Jesus rapturing us up, meteors wiping us out, the sun expanding into a red giant, the heat death of the universe--take your goddamn pick.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I like physics and I like some quantum theory but calculating that in 10 billion years the universe will disappear hardly seems important. At least if the math did show this odd ball fact then why not just disregard it. At some point the "hunt" for these special quantum particles is going to go to far and lead us into an area we as of now don't know we don't want to enter. Can't we just stop this discovery period and go about fixing the current issues in the world.
Betteridge
Think of our children's children's children's children's children's children's...
If you get reincarnated, it is likely not in this universe anyways (there are more people alive at the moment that have died, ever, so they have had their last lives likely not here, as this will hold for any other planets as well at some time). So no worries.
If you do not get reincarnated, even less of a problem.
Still, fascinating physics!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"Does the Higgs Boson Reveal Our Universe's Doomsday?"
Yeah, probably.
So Douglas Adams nailed it when he wrote that the universe would be replaced with something bizzare, whereas others believe that it alreaty happened.
something catastrophic could happen! yeah, crazy. catastrophic. what is it? well, it's bad. in the future. wow, what a problem! but it's boring. it's totally boring.
seriously, could it be more generic? at least the nbc article mentions a false vacuum event. christ.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Under the Big Bang theory, the universe will eventually collapse in on itself, likely at the speed of light. The tell-tale sign will be redshift instead of blueshift being observed from Earth to various astronomical bodies. What I'd like to ask is how does this change our understanding of the ultimate fate of our universe?
I don't wanna know.
I'm not in favor of ignorance, but sometimes, it's better to live for what time we have and not depress ourselves with the toxic inevitable far-off doom that awaits us.
Let us enjoy our lives free from meta-mortality.
Sounds like Scientology to me.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-anchor-asks-bill-nye-if-global-warming-had-anything-to-do-with-a-near-earth-asteroid/
IIRC, some law of physics or other says everything will still be there no matter what.
Only a bit jumbled. Anyways I doubt I'll be around so idgaf.
It has been theorized before and this will just be more evidence of a cycle of big crunches and big bangs.
I'm sort of suprised by this... I always thought that the universe, at 13.8 billion years, probably had several trillion to go. Now I find out that it's really just middle aged?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This particle has already been banned in Kansas.
For all those that have thought the people of Earth should seek balance and be in tune with the universe, congratulations, it seems that we truly are!
Call the 911, pronto.
I'm curious now, but if there's an inherent instability, would the properties of physics slowly change over time, as its constituents begin to alter or decay?
we just need to construct a form of life that can live in the new universe's rules, decayed protons, whatever, then transfer our thoughts into it. Simple.
It would appear that you don't know what the word "theory" means. You used it where you more properly should have used "ridiculous, evidence free, superstitious presumption."
You're welcome. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Will we have enough time to build the machine to figure out the Last Question? That seems like the obvious solution to the problem. Why wait for some random alternative universe to appear, we'll just make one ourselves...like William Bell in one of the alternative timeline.
The big bang theory does not require a collapse. It allows that as a possibility, but does not require it as an outcome.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
At least, from your point of view.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Stay sub-atomically stable, my friends.
I thought the Big Bang Theory was going to end with Penny and Leonard's Wedding. Or possibly the birth of Sheldon and Amy's alien love-child.
Is this the same guy that scrawled-out the Mayan calendar?
It does sound pretty similar to all the models I have heard of.
1) collapse in on it self.
2) keeping moving apart faster and faster until the universe is just one 0 energy, minimal density nothing.
3) keep moving apart faster and faster until you hit the speed of light, and than the fabric of space-time rips itself apart as dark energy pushes past boundaries that cannot be breached.
The only really interesting one with much hope is the Big Crunch (#1) as it could possibly lead into another big bang. And explosions are always interesting.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Seriously, we are all going to die. Not that we have to wait that long, though.
All tattoos and skinny jeans with nothing to say. Decreasing red shift.
You've got the shift backwards. Redshift is what we already see. It's how we know the universe is expanding.
science is full of shit
The the "true vacuum" spreads at the speed of light. It could be moving towards us and we would never know. Any signal revealing the edge would arrive simultaneously with the event. Shades of the Jame Blish "Cities in Flight" series.
The universe only collapses in on itself if it has sufficient gravitational attraction compared to the kinetic energy of its components. It is the difference between throwing a rock in the air and having it come back down (collapse) versus sending a rocket ship to another galaxy (obviously not going to fall back into the earth). The question of whether we would have a Big Crunch, keep expanding, or hit right smack in between the two (run out of energy on an infinite timescale) is an older question. Now that we know that the universe's components are actually *accelerating* away from each other, the Big Crunch does not appear to be a possibility.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
At some point in the past the Universe inhabitable for life. At some point in the future the Universe will again return to a state that is uninhabitable for life.
The meaning of life is to learn the secret of this box and escape it before the Universe ends.
Huh, interesting. Well if the universe is going to turn into a larger version of my bedroom, I hope I at least get to keep the Interwebs.
What do you expect from a type 13 planet?
The AC is right and I stand corrected on that mix up!
I've been to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Been there, done that.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I think you swapped blueshift and redshift...
Now the surprise is ruined...
This is just more chicken feather voodoo physics from a bunch of crackpots and con artists within the physics community who are facing the prospect of seeing their funding reduced. This is complete BS in the not even wrong category. Physicists are completely clueless as to the nature of the universe. Under the assumption that everybody else is just as clueless as they are, they feel they can safely conjure BS as of thin air and sell it to a credulous public as bona fide science. But not everybody is stupid.
Here is a simple test that will prove that physicists like Joseph Lykken are clueless. Ask any physicist, what causes a body in relative inertial motion to remain in motion? I guarantee you will come face to face with either ignorance or outright superstition. If physicists don't even know what causes motion (their denials notwithstanding), how valid are their pronouncements about the birth and demise of the universe? Not very much, in my opinion.
I am so tired of the 'Mankind's existence is valueless' bravado. We are a billion to one galactic coincidence that has risen to sentient thought and self-awareness. This astronomical concurrence alone is worthy of continuance. If we finally evolve beyond primal tribal and religious bickering, we can get on with off planet settlements... and we have still a cushion of ten billion years to settle other galaxies.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Under the Big Bang theory, the universe will eventually collapse in on itself, likely at the speed of light. The tell-tale sign will be redshift instead of blueshift being observed from Earth to various astronomical bodies.
Is this what you get when you learn your astrophysics from a mass-market broadcast TV show that uses the name of a physics theory as a double entendre and focuses more on sex than science? Or rather, the alleged inability of scientists to understand sex or even behave like normal humans?
As has already been pointed out, the big bang theory does not require a subsequent collapse.
And we're already seeing redshift as the universe expands. It's blueshift we'll be seeing when it contracts. The Doppler effect lowers the apparent frequency of waves as the source moves away from us, and red is lower than blue in frequency.
The question is when should scientist speak to reporters. This is far to silly to report. And irresponsible for scientist. It used to be that economics was called the dismal science. Then we have astronomy. And now physics.
Does it matter ?
sheroobi ... shattered shattered ...
If the theory of our universe being in the shape of a torus is correct we are near the end of this universe!
So far all the theoretical data holds up, explaining the rapid expansion during the beginning of our universe using gravity and not "dark energy". As well as the reason we aren't swimming in equal parts anti-matter, the big bang ejected matter and anti-matter from it's two opposing poles (hmm this sounds familiar). Using the observed period of early rapid expansion the resulting estimated time we meet up with our anti-matter twin is only 1.8 billion years! The portion of this theory I find comforting is that when we collide with anti-matter on the outside of the torus shape the resulting collision ends up being the birth of a new universe.
I like to picture it as the universe using a wave pattern that's mirrored by it's anti-matter twin, the vital wave pattern that we see repeated in different mediums that were born billions of years apart (light and water). It's an exciting theory and much more comforting than the big freeze. For those of your out there that got a little wet or hard reading this check out Howard Bloom and his book "The God Problem", the book presents a fascinating take on our history that I wasn't aware of and paints a beautiful picture of reality using patterns.
Fricking tens of billions of years to go, and some mortal speck of dust dares call it unstable.
At those timescales, *anything* could be deemed unstable.
Look at nano-timescales and any old soap bubble is frickin' stable. It's just a matter of prespective.
Figures the week I make an offer on a house this has to come out. They could have let me live in blissful ignorance for a few days, but NOOOOOO!
Damn Realtors and their lies about owning my own little part of the universe, forever if I want she said. LIES! FALSE WITNESS!
And screw the HOA if they think I'm going to waste the short time I'm here on lawn maintenance.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
The article says the bubble moves at the speed of light. But I've seen claims that space is expanding or will eventually be expanding so that objects far apart will be moving away from each other faster than the speed of light. Does that mean this 'bubble' wouldn't reach everything?
(Somehow, this is making me think of a Greg Egan novel).
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
OMFG! Our universe is going to puff out like a fart in a car in tens of billions of years!
What is the president and Congress going to do about this looming catastrophe?
I need to feel safe from this NOW!
HALP!
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
--
Brought to you by Terminally Helpless Excessively Dependent Imbeciles Persons Surrendering Heaps of Independence To Strangers (THEDIPSHITS) of America
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
if the collapse itself is at the speed of light, won't we see the shift just as we collapse?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Recent observations show the expansion of the universe accelerating, not slowing. The force responsible for this is not well understood, but is (mis)named "dark energy". We expect an accelerating expansion, not a collapse.
In the vacuum is unstable, that is a completely different kind of catastrophe which will spread through empty space at the speed of light.
This is just more chicken feather voodoo physics from a bunch of crackpots and con artists within the physics community who are facing the prospect of seeing their funding reduced. This is complete BS in the not even wrong category. Physicists are completely clueless as to the nature of the universe. Under the assumption that everybody else is just as clueless as they are, they feel they can safely conjure BS as of thin air and sell it to a credulous public as bona fide science. But not everybody is stupid.
Here is a simple test that will prove that physicists like Joseph Lykken are clueless. Ask any physicist, what causes a body in relative inertial motion to remain in motion? I guarantee you will come face to face with either ignorance or outright superstition. If physicists don't even know what causes motion (their denials notwithstanding), how valid are their pronouncements about the birth and demise of the universe? Not very much, in my opinion.
Obvious troll is obvious. Also, speaking of "voodoo physics from a bunch of crackpots", anyone reading his troll post should also have a look one of his prior troll posts:
But do not let the preceding get you down because a new and fabulous era of space travel is about to be born. Soon, physicists will wake up from their stupor and realize that their understanding of motion is fundamentally flawed. We are on the verge of a breakthrough in physics that will make almost every current approach to energy production and transportation obsolete. It is based on a new analysis of the causality of motion. Essentially, Aristotle was right to insist that motion is caused. As a result, we are swimming in an immense lattice of energetic particles, an ocean of clean energy, lots and lots of free energy. Soon, we will understand enough about the lattice to exploit it for energy production and propulsion. Our future vehicles will move at tremendous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring damages due to inertial effects. Floating sky cities impervious to earthquakes, tsunamis and bad weather, unlimited clean energy, earth to Mars in hours, New York to Beijing in minutes... That's the future of energy and travel. It will happen in your lifetime.
TROLL DETECTED! Please, sir or madam, do remind us who the crackpot is? You've no ground to stand on. "What have you done for yourself today?" Aside from post nonsense on /. of course... :)
But depending on the shape and certain cosmological constants it is also possible that the expansion will end and the universe will contract. It is open to debate wether this scenario also requires the reversal of time which means that we will be required to live life in reverse. Red Dwarf is clearly on the side that this will happen. I don't know how we would tell.
In any case this finding is interesting because it implies that neither scenario will have the opportunity to come to pass. A quantum fluctuation will end the universe first. The only question is, under the expansion model, if there are parts of the universe that one day might expand at the speed of light, so the fluctuation might never arrive at the edge. Given current values, that might happen when the universe is 100 billion years old. So if the universe only has 10 or 20 billion years left, that will not happen. The universe will just end faster if it is in contraction.
Maybe we can look at it this way. Life on Earth can end by orbital decay, the sun exploding, a meteor hitting it, or man made climate change. Unless we are launching huge number of gravity assist space craft, or figure out how to keep the sun from exploding, the most likely scenario is still that a meteor wipes us out because we are not likely to survive enough to see anything else. Which is what this is saying. We no longer have to worry about whether the universe it to end in heat of cold death. It is simply going to be annihilated.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Big Governments are going to Bust this earth before the Boson Bust's us.
That's a relief. For a minute there I thought he said "Millions".
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
While whimsically silly, there is also the notion that a perfectly featureless, flat spacetime of perfect homogeneity is already a singularity, with no need of collapse. The ripping of spacetime from dark energy could therefor be seen as seeing the big bang from the inside of the singularity. (The next big bang would occur in more spacial dimensions than our universe currently occupies.)
This is a very different doomsday scenario caused by an anomaly in the energy state of the background quantum field, such a rupture or lower energy state bubble would then expand at the speed of light eating the existing universe and transforming it to a new one, transitioning to a lower field state, bad news is that the 'new universe' would be very different. Some scientist believe that more powerful LHC could even trigger such an anomaly.
Oops, I got the units wrong again. Looks like it happens ten billion nanoseconds from now....
Actually, it's a case for the many-world interpretation. According to it, the Universe is constantly being destroyed - we just perceive the event branches in which it's not destroyed. Since 'true vacuum' bubble nucleation is probably a quantum event there should always be a branch that avoids its nucleation.
It's not really the same (layman's perspective, not a physicist). A good rundown is the Wiki page on false vacuum. Basically, the universe in a metastable state means that the base level of energy we see, our vision of a vacuum, is actually still higher-energy than what it could be if something got tweaked slightly. We're in a valley, but not the lowest valley in the area. On the off chance that one tiny part of the universe spontaneously tweaks itself, jumps the ridge between the valleys, and settles at the "true vacuum" low-energy state, it would catalyze the adjacent tiny bits of the universe to do the same thing, which would then catalyze the ones next to them, and so on in an expanding bubble.
It's not the same as the "Big Crunch", because it's not the universe collapsing in on itself. It's the universe suddenly "shifting" to a more stable arrangement. A poster above mentioned watching a supercooled coke bottle freeze after you tap it - that's a great analogy. The coke is cold enough to freeze, but since it's sitting undisturbed, the liquid is stable and happy and just sits there. Tap the glass, and suddenly it's no longer so happy - a wave of ice spreads outward from where you tapped it, as the coke all shifts to the lower-energy ice instead of liquid.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Physicist here. Motion is induced by gradients in potential energy fields, and the transfer of potential energy to kinetic energy is associated with acceleration and deceleration, not with motion itself. See this image (where H is the total energy of the system, and x_i and p_i are the position and momentum, respectively, of the ith particle in the system).
It's not really the same (layman's perspective, not a physicist). A good rundown is the Wiki page on false vacuum. Basically, the universe in a metastable state means that the base level of energy we see, our vision of a vacuum, is actually still higher-energy than what it could be if something got tweaked slightly. We're in a valley, but not the lowest valley in the area. On the off chance that one tiny part of the universe spontaneously tweaks itself, jumps the ridge between the valleys, and settles at the "true vacuum" low-energy state, it would catalyze the adjacent tiny bits of the universe to do the same thing, which would then catalyze the ones next to them, and so on in an expanding bubble.
It's not the same as the "Big Crunch", because it's not the universe collapsing in on itself. It's the universe suddenly "shifting" to a more stable arrangement. A poster above mentioned watching a supercooled coke bottle freeze after you tap it - that's a great analogy. The coke is cold enough to freeze, but since it's sitting undisturbed, the liquid is stable and happy and just sits there. Tap the glass, and suddenly it's no longer so happy - a wave of ice spreads outward from where you tapped it, as the coke all shifts to the lower-energy ice instead of liquid.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
In his book Cycles of Time, Roger Penrose attempts to look before the Big Bang, and after the end of our Universe.
The general idea is that in the far future the universe is so uniform and cold that it becomes completely uniform, with no sense of scale. All the block holes have evaporated, all the sub atomic particles have decayed away into photons. At this point the universe undergoes spontaneous rescaling, into a very compact, bounded, hot uniform object, busting with all the energy that existed in the original universe.
If I read it correctly, this could be interpreted as the cold death of our universe is the inflationary period of the following one, and the rescaling event is the big bang.
The interesting thing is that he makes testable predictions. The ghosts of energy ripples of cosmic events the old universe should be imprinted on the structure of the following genesis.
I don't think Doppler applies to light. It's more of a Theory of Relativity thing. Although, you are right about the colors.
Oh God, not this Aristotlean nonsense again. Nothing keeps or is needed to keep an object in motion. Something (as in a transfer of momentum and energy) is what you need to make an object stop.
It is certainly true that you are not equally clueless as physicists.
The enemies of Democracy are
You're a physicist, I presume.
The idea here is that the background state of our universe is a so-called "false vacuum" that will at some future point decay into the true ground state, destroying our universe in the process. That's boring.
By far more interesting is the possibility that the Higgs mass has been driven to just above the line of instability by some new physics. This is the first genuinely "that's odd..." moment to come along in high energy physics for quite some time.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
If the descendants of Homo sapiens don't figure out how to manipulate the HIggs field within 10 billion years, they will deserve extinction.
So a Higgs Bosun walks into a church. The priest says "we don't allow Higgs Bosuns in here."
To which the Higgs Boson replies, "but without me, how can you have mass?"
In his book "Cycles of time", Roger Penrose tries to look before and beyond the Big Bang.
The general idea is that when the universe will suffer a cold death - all the atoms have decayed away, all the black holes evaporated and all the photons have redshifted, The universe looses then loses all dimension, and becomes an very small, uniform, very hot thing, containing all the energy of the prior universe. A new big bang.
We may be the inflationary period of the next Universe!
The interesting thing is that cosmic events in the old universe should have left traces on the distribution of energy in the new one.
So the idea is testable.
I believe this covers the important aspects of this story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjNBzyLqDPM
The LHC, even when increased in power, cannot cause such an event because we have already observed stronger events in space, and our continued existence is proof that those energies do not cause such a catastrophe. Thus, the lower energies of both configurations of LHC cannot cause the same catastrophe.
In a sense, the energies we observe from space put a lower bound on the 'unsafe' area of particle accelerator energies.
who is to say this isnt the loop repeating itself?
Archie Pu, is that you?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
What if: They discovered exactly what they created ? They stating that they are creating situation close to big bang ... - breaking material in unnatural way.
Why unnatural ? - just because of big bang happened just once ( at least for us ). Now they are simulating those conditions, increasing the chance to get out those conditions something.. - that already did not happened before.
Another thing to think of: Something highly unstable can be only in unstable conditions for it. How they can know all conditions of universe ? They does not know even for sure conditions in another galaxy. All they know for sure is just best guess. They does not know for sure results of interaction between galaxies. How can they be sure, that those conditions they created in unnatural way - really are not compensated somehow in the nature - at the time they would happen in natural way, if could happen at all ? Nature does not have artificial particle colliders on every tenth planet for any tenth star of any tenth galaxy to call those conditions they created as exact replica of something "natural"...
If a bubble that propogates at C does form it does not destroy the entire universe only that portion inside of its hubble volume.
If the chance for us is on order of tens of billions of years given the current age of the universe we should statistically be able to detect these sorts of bombs going off by observing changes upon objects within our hubble sphere made by false vaccume explosions outside of it.
Ugh. I don't know why they're making that particular claim, because vacuum decay should be a property of spacetime (and therefore shouldn't be dependent upon the speed of light).
But yes, if vacuum decay is limited such that it travels more slowly than the expansion of the universe, you would have a "hole" with the decayed state in it which occupied a progressively smaller and smaller fraction of the universe.
Under the Big Bang theory, the universe will eventually collapse in on itself, likely at the speed of light. The tell-tale sign will be redshift instead of blueshift being observed from Earth to various astronomical bodies. What I'd like to ask is how does this change our understanding of the ultimate fate of our universe?
Based on what we currently know this is incorrect. We clearly observe a dark energy dominated universe. There is currently no substantive evidence a "big crunch" will ever occur.
Ruling out:
The ice caps melting,
A meteor being crushed into us,
The ozone layer leaving,
And the sun exploding;
We're definitely going to blow ourselves up.
Egan explained that ten years ago http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schild's_Ladder#section_1
Wouldn't it be more like all matter would exist in the same space, so it would present the big crunch theory where all matter and energy converge? I don't any of it's true, I think there'll be a fundamental shift in matter states similar to just after the big bang.
In addition to the fact that precise numbers needed by the calculation are not available yet we do not know A LOT about the physical reality of the universe. A huge part of it we attribute to dark energy that is basically stuff we have no idea about. Not to mention the possibility of all of this be a simulation which would bring the possibility of changing the parameters of it.
"Think globally, act locally".
If it was millions you'd have to get to work on your Bucket list. Billions? Sure you can afford to sit down and watch braindead TV for another few years.
I don't think Doppler applies to light.
Although first noticed and generally illustrated using sound waves, Doppler applies to waves from moving objects (in your reference frame) in general, including electromagnetic. E.g., Doppler radar for weather observations. Radar is an em wave, similar to light.
Will this affect my reservation at Milliway's?
Don't worry, it won't be boring. Think of it as a physical anti-singularity which shatters time.
I also haven't owned a television or received any TV broadcasts since 2001, so I'm not sure if you are referencing a real or imagined television show.
That said, while the big bang theory does not necessarily require a collapse, hasn't a collapse or movement together towards forming a massive singualrity (as it was during the big bang), one of the mainstream theories they teach in these astrophysics classes?
I wonder how certain they are of the time. I mean, if the universe wants to be a lower-energy universe, could it already have happened? After all, if the universe is popping at the speed of light, it would still take billions of years before it's all gone, and we wouldn't really notice, mmm, ever (we'd be destroyed before we realized what happened.) How certain are they that all of existence as we know it won't end... now!? Ok, well, obviously not then, but you see my point?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Meh? MEH!
Slashdot seems to be broken, I got like 20 email notifications for this post.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'm almost certain I've read this story before.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It was doing really strange stuff for the monsanto topic too.
Positing Probabilities by series end:
Penny and Leonard's Wedding ~ 67%
Sheldon and Amy's alien love-child ~ 33%
Raj talking to women sober ~ 80%
Sheldon giving Walowitz respect 0.1%
"Under the Big Bang theory, the universe will eventually collapse in on itself, likely at the speed of light."
No. Seriously, look it up.
"The tell-tale sign will be redshift instead of blueshift being observed from Earth to various astronomical bodies."
Pardon? Various astronomical bodies (specifically: billions upon billions of galaxies) are currently not observed as having blueshift, but redshift.
But tell me, why for this quantity called "the action", the difference between kinetic and potential energy, is the integrated value of which between fixed starting points in space in time minimized?
And why is it this "principle of least action" can only be formulated for an energy conservative system, which means that you have to formulate the solution to that variational problem as a differential equation and add the energy loss terms as fudge factors on that differential equation?
I asked this question of one colleague with an ongoing DOE grant in Controlled Nuclear Fusion and another colleague whose degree is in Physics and gotten only shrugs. I asked this of a Mechanical Engineering grad student who is from Russia and he started saying about a "Legendre transformation" followed by a discussion of Feynman Diagrams where he lost me.
Does anyone outside of Russia understand any of this?
Theoretical physicist calls alternate dimension "boring". Alternate dimension claims it was "boring" theoretical physicist's mother the night before. Discussion went downhill from there.
No, he's just not a total moron like you.
I read that and the first thought that popped into my head was: Somewhere out there is a universe where Sheldon said, "You know what, you're right. The only reason an engineer needs a doctorate is to teach engineering. You decided, 'Screw that, I don't want to teach a bunch of idiots. I want to make some really cool stuff.' Good for you!"
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
I know, right?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
interesting thought..
If the rip occurs OUTSIDE of our light cone, then we will *never* encounter the rip, because it is outside of our lightcone.
This means that this could already have happened in reference frames we have no possibility of experiencing, elsewhere in the universe, and that it will not have any impact on our frame at all.
(We already have galaxies with redshift values indicating superluminal rates of cosmic expansion between them and us. We see a freezeframe moment of extreme redshift of the exact instant that hubble expansion exceeded C. Such a galaxy could experience the quantum fluctuation, and we would never know, because its shock front would never reach us.)
On a positive side, this means that if WE create the fluctuation through science, we won't have doomed the whole universe, only the portions within our lightcone.
This makes me wonder though... since this is a decay to a more stable state for the vacuum, what possible candidate states are there, and what probabilities of creation? Our universe's spacetime could become little explosions of new physics, all different and strange, but still obeying the rules of hubble expansion from our current set of rules, and thus never touching or interacting with each other except under special circumstances.
Extrapolating out all the possible consequences of this would be entertaining. What WOULD happen if region A reconforms one way, and region B within A's light cone reconforms a different way, and they intersect? Etc.
While that notion may exist on the internet and in some people's heads... it doesn't exist in the heads of researchers who work with general relativity, including the colleagues I've worked with...
In order to trigger such an event by creating situations not already existing in nature, the "more powerful LHC" would either have to be the LHC scaled up to the size of the galaxy, or based on a technology currently unknown to us (... even wakefield accelerators would have a long, long ways to go).
Hey, high-energy physicists, try to not pop the balloon before the billions of years are up.
Ask any physicist, what causes a body in relative inertial motion to remain in motion?
Do you know why it remains in motion? Do you know why your answer to that question is true? Do you know why your answer to the second question is true? Do you know why your answer to the third question is true? Do you...
Any theory under such questioning* is going to at some point end up with some form of the answer, "because that is the way the universe." To say that alone makes someone ignorant or superstitious would only paint yourself with the same brush. If on the other hand, you have a theory that explains observations more completely or simply, that is a different story. But your approach here appears to be more of the former than the latter, whether through intent or bad communications.
*(If by chance your theory breaks this cycle, people won't care it solves physics and all of philosophy, but instead will value it more as a way to stop kids from asking "Why?" repeatedly.)
XAOS. I was playing around with XAOS once and it dawned on me that that is the nature of the physical universe, the fractal universe.
Sure does. It's Schild's Ladder.
Correct, with a 100 billion stars in the galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies billion to one odds will have occurred 100 times in our galaxy alone. However I dispute that we have any clue how likely intelligent life is. For all we know every habitable zone planet we have found, and perhaps some of the non-habitable zone ones too, have life. Or the odds of life may be so overwhelmingly unlikely we are alone. We simply have no clue and can only make mildly educated guesses based on assumptions that could be wrong.
Essentially what you are asking is why are energy and momentum conserved since the laws of motion can all be derived from that. Emily Noether showed that for any conserved quantity there is a symmetry (note this is a purely mathematical proof). For energy this symmetry is translation in time I.e. the laws of physics today are the same as they were yesterday and the same as they will be tomorrow. The symmetry of translation in space gives conservation of momentum I.e. the laws of physics here are the same as the laws of physics where you are.
So effectively the laws of motion we observe are a direct consequence of the symmetries of the space time in which we live. When you add in relativity you get Lorentz transformations (which is undoubtedly what your Russian friend was talking about). Indeed we think of the fundamental laws of physics in terms of the symmetries they obey Since Noether's theorem and Lagrangian mechanics is taught in first or second year mechanics (depending on where you are) anyone with a physics degree should know this...
you fail.
Even in a fairytale singularity, matter does not get to attain the speed of light due to entropy.
Which only goes to prove that everything you think you know is bullshit.
He'll just have to yell. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I was under the impression that some were just more equal than others.
I'm sort of curious which axe gp is grinding... Because I can't quite put my finger on it. Creationism? Or just general feelings of superiority and/or rejection from university?
"There are Things man was not meant to know..."
"and Songs man was not meant to sing... "
"and THIS is one of them!"
-sung to theme from "Exodus"
(heard years ago at a Filksing)
I don't know, exactly. I'm assuming it's the same Aristotlean Physics Kook from quite some time ago with a new nick. They had a pretty extensive blog about how Newtonian mechanics was wrong and Aristotlean motion was obviously correct. Seemed like a bit much for just a troll. So, instead, I think it's your run of the mill Internet Crackpot who never studied any physics, came across one puzzling question, decided ignorance + a question + their genius = proving everyone else wrong. The rest is history and irrational slashdot posts.
The enemies of Democracy are
You are correct. Even though in infinite time the bubble would expand to infinite volume, this would only affect a volume that was initially finite, if very large. The "edges" (cosmological horizon) of the affected volume would always outpace the bubble's expansion. (This is assuming the expansion of the universe continues. Its apparent acceleration might be just an artifact) However, there doesn't have to be just one bubble, nor does it have to arise in "billions of years". Nowhere and nowhen is safe... unless the Many-Worlds Interpretation is true. (to see why the MWI helps, see quantum suicide and quantum immortality)
And I had dinner plans a day after that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
From our vantage point in the universe we can only see so far. Speed is limited by the constant of light but space itself is expanding. So two objects can be moving further apart faster than light.
Any effect that propagates at the speed of light can never catch up with the entire universe.
Of course, if we can, we should back-up our species to at least a few more planets. But we should not, IMO, aim to occupy ALL the living space denying it to other civilizations, present and future. Based on science and common sense I propose "Pax Galactica" - live and let live, golden rule and Prime Directive.....you get the idea.
It is likely that other civilizations have reached the same conclusion if they know their biology well and are enlighten enough to see further from their noses and realize that a conqueror style civilization even if it manages to crush all opponents (very unlikely) eventually fills all space and turns against itself.
Or possibly the birth of Sheldon and Amy's alien love-child.
That would be Sheldon's genetically engineered clone of Leonard Nimoy.
I am anarch of all I survey.
If the rip occurs OUTSIDE of our light cone, then we will *never* encounter the rip, because it is outside of our lightcone.
A lot of stuff happens outside your current light cone that you later interact with... in fact just about everything. Being outside the light cone doesn't mean you will never see or encounter it, it just means it can't be causally linked to you at the particular moment from any frame of references.
Every once in a while I come across a really good .sig here on slashdot. Yours made me smile.
<posted anonymously for reason of being hopelessly off-topic>
ah... those are replies from the next universe along...
So, who do we need to tax and what do we need to restrict/ration/regulate to keep this from happening?
It's for the Children, after all.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"Looks like I, uh, forgot to carry the one."
-Professor Frink
between this and the Big Rip?
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The universe is infinite, how can a tiny particle called Higgs boson generate enough energy to wipe it out?
Ever wanted a 'Big Black Hole'?. It is on the internet http://www.thebigblackhole.co.uk/
"the universe will disappear at the speed of light"
At the speed of light this process would take forever.
Not "a long time", forever.
It's a basic fact of there being a limited speed, and acceleration. Look up Unruh Effect.
Seriously, a slurp? A friggin' slurp??
I am so tired of the 'Mankind's existence is valueless' bravado. We are a billion to one galactic coincidence that has risen to sentient thought and self-awareness. This astronomical concurrence alone is worthy of continuance. If we finally evolve beyond primal tribal and religious bickering, we can get on with off planet settlements... and we have still a cushion of ten billion years to settle other galaxies.
...and I'm so tired of theistic arguments from otherwise apparently rational people. Self-awareness certainly makes it possible to assign some specific destination or goal for the system. But self-awareness doesn't confer any magical status to the system, selecting out a specific goal or destination for it simply because it is self-aware.
Seriously -- self-awareness is within reach of any species capable of modeling its environment and then inserting a representation of itself into the model. Is a cat self-aware? Certainly. A horse? Absolutely. There is nothing noteworthy or astonishing about the existence of self-aware systems, so there is nothing astonishing or special about our species. A recursive function call is self-aware, for crying out loud. Well, it's self-aware 'til the stack overflows, anyway. :)
By assigning some kind of magical status to self-awareness, your otherwise reasonable plea for a species-level sanity becomes a religious argument, indistinguishable from the "religious bickering" you are directing yourself to "evolve beyond." I think you are capable of appreciating just how ironic this is. What if your self-aware goal results in the extinction of your species? So much for the magical status you assigned to self-awareness, eh?
So, I guess this means don't make any plans past 20 billion years or so?
This is BS.
The sad part is, we'll never see it coming.
I'm really a low 5-digit Slashdotter, but this ID is where I am now.
I suppose you could treat friction as a conservative system with a gadzillion particles for each of the molecules. But generally speaking, there are mechanisms that transfer energy out of the system into "something else" (mainly heat). And I think I came across one old paper trying for a "variational" method on such systems, but mostly folks turn the Lagrangian variational problem into the Euler-Lagrange dif eq, interpret the terms as "generalized forces", and add friction forces. But then you incur the problems of numerical solution of differential equations whereas if you could keep things at the variational level, you can get better solutions because you can enforce the conservation of energy, momentum.
You truly are an anonymous coward. An incomprehensibly babbling one. I have no idea how any of the words you wrote relate to my posts. I challenge you to spew your nonsense under your real identity. And take your meds please.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Nature is funny, very funny. Arrogant little humans.
No My Problem.
In this case though, if the conversion os spacetime happens at the speed of light, and hubble expansion of spacetime between 2 points has an effective inflation that makes the two objects appear to be moving away from each other at faster than light speed, then if the rip occurs at point A, it will never overtake expansion, and thus never reach B, unless the expansion slows down.
This means that the entirety of the universe cannot be consumed. (Imagine: fuse burns at the speed of light, but new fuse is added faster than that. The lit part of the fuse will never reach the dynamite.)
Yes, that is true, but has nothing to do with light cones, hence the previous comment complaining that being outside of a light cone does not imply that.