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CERN Scientists Conclude that the Universe Should Not Exist (ign.com)

Scientists at CERN are bemused as to why the universe exists, according to a new study. From a report, shared by a reader: Recent discoveries suggest that there's a perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter - meaning it's not clear why they didn't annihilate each other upon the birth of the universe. CERN's latest study sought to find out whether different magnetic properties accounted for matter's seeming victory after the Big Bang, but found another point of symmetry. Essentially, going by our findings so far, there simply shouldn't be a universe. Further reading: Universe shouldn't exist, CERN physicists conclude - Cosmos Magazine.

456 comments

  1. News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...it doesnâ(TM)t.

    1. Re: News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are u sure? Maybe we live in a computer simulated universe after all

    2. Re:News flash: by thegreatbob · · Score: 4, Funny

      Neither does your apostrophe; it has been replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
    3. Re: News flash: by mSparks43 · · Score: 2

      The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light.

    4. Re: News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then the scientists would only conclude that the big computer shouldn't exist.

    5. Re:News flash: by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Therefore the English language shouldn't exist.

    6. Re: News flash: by fisted · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I guess that means that at the moment there's insufficient data for meaningful answer.

    7. Re:News flash: by Myria · · Score: 1

      Neither does your apostrophe; it has been replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

      Namely, Slashdot's stubbornness against Unicode.

      --
      "Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
    8. Re:News flash: by r1348 · · Score: 1

      Now that's something we can all agree on.

    9. Re:News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you should quit being a communist and start using ASCII. Problem solved.

    10. Re:News flash: by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      et tu r1348 ( MMDLXVMMCCXCV ) ???

      nullum!!!!!!!

    11. Re:News flash: by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      *note there should be a line above the MMDLXV in MMDLXVMMCCXCV

    12. Re: News flash: by Hylandr · · Score: 1

      42

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    13. Re: News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We clearly all exist only in elon musks mind.

    14. Re:News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you can't say it in ascii it isn't worth saying!

    15. Re: News flash: by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      wrong author.

    16. Re: News flash: by Hylandr · · Score: 1

      True. Still the correct answer. :)

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    17. Re: News flash: by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 1

      Someone who didn't get the joke modded it insightful instead of funny...

      --
      My first program:

      Hell Segmentation fault

    18. Re: News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      666

    19. Re: News flash: by fisted · · Score: 1

      What joke?

    20. Re: News flash: by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2

      The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. He said it was his favorite story he had ever written.

    21. Re: News flash: by fisted · · Score: 1

      Well what part of

      insufficient data for meaningful answer.

      makes you believe I wasn't aware of what my own reference referred to?

      It just doesn't mean it's a joke. Because it's not.

    22. Re: News flash: by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      didnâ(TM)t know it was his favorite, mine would be foundations edge, although its a lot of fun watching people who claim science and god arenâ(TM)t compatible try and rationalise multivax.

    23. Re: News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      42 is the answer. But what's the question? (How many roads must a man walk down?)

    24. Re:News flash: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.

    25. Re: News flash: by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      considering the empirical nature of our great leaders i'd say the universe is deep learning ... after all if it fails all it has to do is breahe in and re-bang, right ?
      or at the very end when all is swallowed by the cosmic zipfiles containing all information ever attained over billions of years compressed the ancients come back to collect and that will be the dataset ?

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  2. "In the beginning..." by Black.Shuck · · Score: 5, Funny

    "...the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

    - Douglas Adams

    1. Re:"In the beginning..." by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      "You are not reading this" - Baghdad Bob AKA Chemical Ali

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    2. Re:"In the beginning..." by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      Baghdad Bob and Chemical Ali are two different people. Chemical Ali was Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, Baghdad Bob was Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.

    3. Re:"In the beginning..." by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 2

      Chemical Ali was what us Brits called Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf you guys across the pond later used the same monica for Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti.

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    4. Re:"In the beginning..." by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      Why? His name was not Ali, and he had nothing to do with Iraq's chemical weapons production.

    5. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely hilarious. Only a non-rhotic English speaker could use "monica" that way.

    6. Re:"In the beginning..." by cs96and · · Score: 1

      Chemical Ali was what us Brits called Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf

      No, we called him Comical Ali. A play on the already monikered "Chemical Ali"

    7. Re:"In the beginning..." by rajafarian · · Score: 1

      I get conniptions when I see people intimate that there are two and only two possible theories to existence and the nature of reality: Big Bang or Creator God. Why not the Tao?

    8. Re:"In the beginning..." by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      I looked it up on the BBC. He was referred to as "Comical Ali" as a play on "Chemical Ali". Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti earned the name Chemical Ali during the Iran-Iraq war in the 80's. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf only became well know during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

    9. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get conniptions when I see people intimate that there are two and only two possible theories to existence and the nature of reality: Big Bang or Creator God. Why not the Tao?

      Because communists.

    10. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Tao did it" is an explanation?

    11. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chemical Ali was what us Brits called Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf you guys across the pond later used the same monica for Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti.

      You from Boston?

      Do you also pahk your cah?

    12. Re:"In the beginning..." by war4peace · · Score: 1

      monica was only one and her last name was Lewinsky.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    13. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh... people around here still think cryptocurrency is a "fake interwebz money scam." You will find very few who question the narrative they're fed around here these days, sadly.

    14. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you meant to say 'Why not the Taco?"

    15. Re:"In the beginning..." by geggam · · Score: 1

      What created the gasses and other things just laying around for the Tao ? .. and egg ?

      Why does it have to have a beginning or an end... if we can conceive it the probability it exists is certain. At least in thought.

      What if this period of time we are experiencing is a nanosecond in some other multiverse ?

      What amazes me is we hang on to old silly superstitions like they will protect us. Might as well ask Zeus for protection.

    16. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is a logical explanation, the universe was "created" rather than "big bang"'d

      I'm not advocating for a "god created the heavens" approach here, rather this goes back to the more silly idea of the universe being a simulation. We might just be a side-effect of a very good simulation, much in the same way a video game "universe" is coarse representation of a real world with math.

      What we assume was the big bang might simply have been nothing but matter. No anti-matter. The vaccum of space is simply the non-existance of matter, and everything in it, from stars to planets is matter that just happened to glom together, and when they got big enough, generated their own gravity.

      Take a very close look at how the universe, galaxies, solar systems are arranged. Now what else looks like this?, Molocules look like galaxies, Atoms look like solar systems, protons/neutrons/electrons resemble stars/gas giants/ rocky planets, etc. Protons and neutrons themselves are assembled from quarks just like a gas giant may really be a rocky planet with a thick atmosphere.

      Thus, anti-matter, must have an anti-universe. Where as we exist in the universe, with matter, there is very likely a parallel anti-matter universe that we will never see or visit, and perhaps black holes meet the anti-universe on the other side and that is where matter goes to be annihilated.

      But a more reasonable answer is simply the universe goes in a big-bang, big-crunch cycle, and every "multiverse" is simply another bang-crunch cycle. Thus every parallel multiverse likely differs by almost nothing, and should one visit from another, you'll find everything exactly the same, until you meet your doppelganger and cause some kind of hiccup in the mechanisim of the multiverse big-bang/big-crunch cycle since it's supposed to be impossible.

    17. Re:"In the beginning..." by rajafarian · · Score: 1

      You are creating duality where none exists, the "gases and other things" are not different than the Tao. I'm not Taoist but I think studying its non-dualist views is good for trying to understand what the ultimate nature of reality might be. I certainly think it's an infinitely better paradigm than the Abrahamic systems.

    18. Re:"In the beginning..." by Zumbs · · Score: 1

      When CERN scientists discovered that the Universe could indeed not exist, the Universe got so embarrased that it blinked out of existence, only to be replaced by something even more inexplicable, but probably more likely to actually exist.

      --
      The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
    19. Re: "In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, we don't think it's fake money.
      We know it's drug money.

    20. Re:"In the beginning..." by werepants · · Score: 1

      The Big Bang is not an alternative to God anymore than evolution or plate tectonics would be. It's the current leading theory about how one particular cosmological age played out. God's existence is neither implied by or refuted by the big bang - the two issues are completely orthogonal.

      Now, if you want to discuss WHY there was a universe in existence in which a Big Bang could happen, that's where you can invoke deities or philosophies or theology or whatever you want - you've left the realm of fact and experiment, and entered the land of handwaving and magic.

    21. Re:"In the beginning..." by werepants · · Score: 1

      I don't know anything about the Tao, but I will wager that it doesn't make any falsifiable claims. Which means that it isn't an explanation for anything, and has no bearing on the big bang. It might still have meaning in the sense that any art or philosophy or religion can be meaningful to a person, but it doesn't have anything to do with astrophysics.

    22. Re:"In the beginning..." by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The Tao is a religious concept, and not falsifiable. That doesn't mean it can't exist, or even be the basis for the Universe.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    23. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get conniptions when I see people intimate that there are two and only two possible theories to existence and the nature of reality: Big Bang or Creator God. Why not the Tao?

      Because communists.

      and morons, like you.

    24. Re:"In the beginning..." by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      I get conniptions when I see people intimate that there are two and only two possible theories to existence and the nature of reality: Big Bang or Creator God. Why not the Tao?

      Because they are all the same thing.

      Our species is a lot older than we are led to believe. The more you look at all religious works the more you see that they are incredibly complex pieces of literature that describe the human experience, with many similarities to find. As more evidence is uncovered about what happened during the Younger Dryas, we are seeing more evidence of an older human civilization and perhaps our religious systems are fragmented descendants of that. Without a doubt, the oldest of these are the Australian and American Aboriginals, which appear related somehow, and an investigation of their belief system marries Darwinism and Christianity so elegantly it is breathtaking.

      The laughable thing is how needy people are, expecting science will provide proof of a God that doesn't want you to know for sure if he exists, can change the laws of the universe (and probably others) at will whilst being able to manipulate time and parallel realities. Faith is supposed to be hard because life is suffering that tests the mettle of an individual until they break. It's a completely separate body of knowledge from science where one explores the soul and the other explores the universe.

      Ultimately though science has a materialistic view of our universe, that things arose from matter, that consciousness arose from matter. Whereas a deterministic view turns that on it's head and suggests that matter arose from consciousness, that the universe was created from consciousness.

      As science doesn't have an explanation for consciousness, that is the aspect of reality we are forced to consider.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    25. Re: "In the beginning..." by Evtim · · Score: 1

      Of course they were angry! Some fat ass dean of UU sticks his dirty fingers in and now we have to deal with matter-antimatter imbalance. His name was Henry, BTW.

      'Things tend to form balls. Balls tend to move in circles. Once you figured that out everything fell into place. In curved motion, of course!'
      Professor Stibbons observing our Universe.

      The real problem is that our Universe is sitting on a shelf in office at UU where the porters deliver 1 bucket of coal per day per title inscribed on the office's door. Since prof. Rinswind holds 8 positions including prof. of Fretwork, Cruel and Unusual Geography and so on and since the porters would deliver either 8 buckets or none we get all the global warming!

    26. Re:"In the beginning..." by darth.hunterix · · Score: 1

      Might as well ask Zeus for protection.

      Jesus promised to get rid of sin. Odin promised to get rid of frost giants. Have you seen any frost giants lately?

      Praise Odin!

      Meanwhile, Zeus is busy having career on PornHub.

      --
      What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
    27. Re:"In the beginning..." by werepants · · Score: 1

      Sure, but if it isn't falsifiable or testable, how would we know that it's the basis for the universe, instead of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

      I'm not ruling out that an individual could find personal meaning in Taoism (or any other religion). But I am disputing that it has any bearing on a discussion of the factual beginnings of the universe.

    28. Re:"In the beginning..." by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The Universe just is. We make up ways to describe it. If the Tao works to describe it, it's at least a useful concept.

      Similarly, mathematics is not falsifiable*, but we find that it's exceedingly useful in understanding the Universe.

      *There is no conceivable experiment that would falsify any mathematics. It's conceivable that we'd find that the standard axiom systems are inconsistent, but we could revise the axiom systems. We do know that math is either incomplete or inconsistent or both.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    29. Re:"In the beginning..." by werepants · · Score: 1

      There is no conceivable experiment that would falsify any mathematics.

      Only for very narrow definitions of "experiment", "falsify", and "mathematics". The utility, accuracy, and predictive power of mathematics is empirically confirmed on a continual basis. Every test in physics is a simultaneous test of the mathematical principles upon which physics is based.

    30. Re:"In the beginning..." by mcswell · · Score: 1

      The inventor of what was later called the Big Bang theory was himself (and remained) a believer in the other theory.

    31. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The inventor of what was later called the Big Bang theory was himself (and remained) a believer in the other theory.

      Are you talking about Georges Lemaître? That's because he didn't find the theories contradictory.

      "By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory provided a scientific validation for Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope's proclamation, stating that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory. When Lemaître and Daniel O'Connell, the Pope's science advisor, tried to persuade the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly anymore, the Pope agreed. He persuaded the Pope to stop making proclamations about cosmology. While a devout Roman Catholic, he was against mixing science with religion, though he also was of the opinion that these two fields of human experience were not in conflict."

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

    32. Re:"In the beginning..." by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Nope. Mathematics is a language to describe what we've observed of the universe. It's been a very, very good description with lots of predictive power. .It doesn't rely on physics. Physics isn't based on mathematical principles. It's based on a set of mathematical axioms and their consequences. When we find a problem with mathematical predictions in physics, the fault isn't the mathematics. The fault is that we're using the wrong axioms, and we've corrected those many, many times. There could be a part of physics that isn't explainable mathematically, for some reason I can't conceive of right now, but even that would not be a failure of mathematics.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    33. Re:"In the beginning..." by werepants · · Score: 1

      Mathematics is a language to describe what we've observed of the universe.

      I disagree there. There are lots of mathematical concepts that have no physical analogues, or that precede their application to physical models by decades or centuries. Mathematics is a symbolic language to express logical relationships. It got a start in trying to describe the physical world, but pieces got abstracted away into a non-physical realm of thought pretty early on.

      Physics isn't based on mathematical principles

      Yes and no. Physics could not exist without mathematics. At its most fundamental level, it is the practice of observing the world and asking "what math describes this behavior?" Although Galileo and and others made initial forays into the area, physics as a cohesive discipline didn't really exist until Newton, who conclusively showed that mathematics could be used better than any other system to express relationships between physical quantities. He was the first to produce a unifying theoretical framework with widely applicable explanatory power, and that development in physical modeling was dependent on and critical to his invention of the calculus. So, by a simple reading in English, physics is "based on mathematical principles". If you are trying to use a strict, formal definition, then you might be correct, but you need to provide those definitions up front, otherwise you are just fiddling with semantics rather than making an actual point.

      That said, the methods of accumulating discrete units of progress are generally different in math and physics. I'm not sure if that's what you are getting at.

      To clarify things, share your definition of "falsify". There's no way that humans could have developed basic arithmetic without manipulating physical objects and deriving the relationships and addition/subtraction operations empirically, which would have counted as falsification. And a useful model cannot be built on a symbolic language unless it is at least equally useful. What's more, the classic distinction between formal proof in mathematics and prediction/failure to falsify in physics is shrinking in recent years - look at the 3 color map "proof", which recently used exhaustive computation to test as many maps as possible. A single existence of a map that could NOT be handled by 3 colors would have "falsified" the claim just as conclusively as any physics model has ever been falsified.

      That might not fit your definition of "falsify", but it would absolutely fit the definition as understood by an average English speaker. Which makes me suspect you're playing word games, although maybe I misunderstand the point you're trying to make.

    34. Re:"In the beginning..." by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Something is falsifiable if there are possible observations that would show it to be false. It's a basic principle of doing science: Anything scientific is falsifiable by definition (if it isn't, we've erred in think it scientific). Mathematics is not falsifiable. Math is a very large system of tautologies. Mathematicians are fallible, so sometimes an error will be found in a previously accepted proof, but this isn't the same thing.

      I'm using a strict and formal definition of mathematics, of course, because that's the definition of mathematics. Ask any mathematician. Mathematics started out based on practical arithmetic and planar drawings, but that's not what it is. The idea that math has any special application to the real world was around for quite a few centuries, and it's only comparatively recently that this was realized to be false. Arithmetic is now normally based on the Peano axioms, and any real-world arithmetic that differs will be found to not obey these axioms.

      A physical map that appears to be planar and not colorable with four colors would be an expression of a mathematical concept called a graph that is a counterexample to the theorem. The physical form of the map or whatever would be completely unimportant as long as it could be turned into a planar graph. It isn't a matter of physics or the physical world, except in that mathematical abstractions have to be represented by physical things to be communicated or used.

      Physics is not based on mathematical principles. It turns out that certain areas of mathematics (derivable with certain definitions from the Peano axioms and basic logic) model physics extremely well. These are mathematical models. If physical reality differs from the mathematical model, it doesn't mean the math is wrong, but that the model in use is inaccurate. That's a well-known situation in the history of physics and other sciences.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    35. Re:"In the beginning..." by werepants · · Score: 1

      Going back to the start of the topic, it seems that you are trying to make the claim that mathematics is not "falsifiable", and the Tao is not "falsifiable", therefore the Tao is somehow similar, or our means of evaluating it would be similar to the way we evaluate mathematics. Is this what you are suggesting?

    36. Re:"In the beginning..." by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      No. Mathematics isn't falsifiable because it is logic, and not part of the real world. The Tao, assuming it exists, is part of the real world, but makes no verifiable predictions that can be objectively measured. We have found that mathematics is extremely useful in describing much of the world. The Tao could conceivably also be useful, although I haven't seen much to support that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    37. Re:"In the beginning..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Tao, assuming it exists, is part of the real world, but makes no verifiable predictions that can be objectively measured.

      The Tao is an abstraction, whereas the real world is concrete.

      If you have to "assume it exists," it's probably safe to say it only exists in the mind. Which is not to say it's not "real," since we don't fully understand what the mind is but we're fairly sure it exists. The Tao is almost certainly not part of the real world apart from individual mental representations of it.

  3. Propaganda by qe2e! · · Score: 3, Informative

    The phrasing here is just terrible. They confirmed the universe is harder to explain. Phrasing like this is for pushing intelligent design arguments.

    1. Re: Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The next day communicate was "We agreed to not drink anymore before & during our research work time".

    2. Re: Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The next day after the 1st communicate a 2nd one was released "We also decided that besides booze, we shall ban snorting crack and smoking weed before and during research work"

    3. Re:Propaganda by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

      The phrasing here is just terrible. They confirmed the universe is harder to explain. Phrasing like this is for pushing intelligent design arguments.

      Intelligent Design tends to get awkward when you combine questions like "Is God irreducibly complex?" with the same reasoning accepted as applicable to theories about evolution (or anything else for that matter).

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    4. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      The phrasing here is just terrible. They confirmed the universe is harder to explain. Phrasing like this is for pushing intelligent design arguments.

      We have yet another data point that is difficult to explain unless there is some sort of intelligence behind the design of the universe. How many of these do you need before you start wondering if there is something worth considering in the Intelligent Design theory?

    5. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No need to invoke intelligent design when all you need is an infinite improbability drive.

    6. Re: Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The next day after the 1st communicate a 2nd one was released "We also decided that besides booze, we shall ban snorting crack and smoking weed before and during research work"

      Silence fell across the land for a brief moment. And then came the sound of 1,000 scientists quitting at the same time...

    7. Re:Propaganda by mysidia · · Score: 1

      How about if we lower the bar from to Sentient Influence ?
      Meaning a self-aware or thinking entity's influence caused the universe to come into existence.
      That allows for the possibility that some or many aspects of it were intelligently designed, and other
      aspects were emergent characteristics or occured due to probability (Which might or might not have
      been the primary goal of the Sentient Influencer).

    8. Re: Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hope the now empty CERN wouldn't be turned into a Mosque and muslim refugee asylum complex.

    9. Re: Propaganda by qe2e! · · Score: 1

      Regarding sentient influence... That's just "the best of all possible worlds" in disguise

    10. Re: Propaganda by qe2e! · · Score: 2

      Because survivorship bias? Because "impossible to explain" is indistinguishable from appeal to ignorance. I have more faith in what we do understand about cognitive bias and memetic selection than what we don't understand about physics.

    11. Re:Propaganda by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      How many of these do you need before you start wondering if there is something worth considering in the Intelligent Design theory

      Unless you can quantify the "intelligent designer" and use its properties to make further predictions, it is inherently unscientific and therefore irrelevant.

      Science is about establishing explanations for the world around us that are increasingly well-tested, accurate, and precise. Intelligent Design is intellectual masturbation that accomplishes neither of those goals.

      You're free to believe whatever you want, but your pseudo-philosophical meanderings add nothing to discussions of science.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    12. Re: Propaganda by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Just sit here. We're going to accelerate your plans.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    13. Re:Propaganda by lgw · · Score: 1

      It's not clear to me how that's any different that the argument that we're living in a simulation. Interesting idea, but what novel, testable predictions does it make?

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    14. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The phrasing here is just terrible. They confirmed the universe is harder to explain. Phrasing like this is for pushing intelligent design arguments.

      We have yet another data point that is difficult to explain unless there is some sort of intelligence behind the design of the universe...

      Oh, fuck no we don't.

      An inability to figure out how something happened isn't a requirement that some intelligence be the reason.

      The only thing that "I dunno, therefore GOD!!!" demonstrates is an utter inability to think.

    15. Re:Propaganda by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Why not just say "God" and be done with it. And then you can tell us all your verifiable, falsifiable theory of God with some predictions on what we should be able to see if the claim "God did it" is true, and how we could go about falsifying the claim (ie. evidence incompatible with "God did it").

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    16. Re:Propaganda by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Why not just say "God" and be done with it.

      Because a quarter to half the population already has their own preconceived idea about what "God" is.

      So we can let them have their idea that the influencer is "God", and others could attribute different characteristics
      to the apparently-sentient influencer; like the concept that our universe is someone's petri dish, and a mad scientist
      from a different universe made some minor adjustments causing our big bang and physics to work out.

    17. Re:Propaganda by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      No. The phrasing is great. You shouldn't be too full of yourself.

      The WTF moments that scientific hubris leads to are far more likely to drive people to "intelligent design" then being honest with our limitations.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    18. Re:Propaganda by mysticgoat · · Score: 1

      Well, while there are many mothers who are very intelligent, there are also a number that are... um... not so much so. There are also a goodly number of mothers who start out kind of dumb about the whole thing, but over time get increasingly intelligent and sophisticated in their child rearing practice.

      So for the devout neopagan the question is what kind of mother is the Mother Of All?

      Assuming that She is of at least average intelligence, I think that we should expect that She has been becoming increasingly sophisticated over time. And that somewhere along the way She has begun incorporating her kids' refrigerator art (Euclidean geometry, classical physics, quantum mechanics, etc) into Her daily activities, because, well, every mother takes a bit of pride in their kids' artwork.

      It seems to me that every physicist who chooses to be on the theoretical cutting edge should keep in mind that if they come up with something pleasing to Her, She may go beyond just sticking it on the refrigerator door; She might take that design and use it in creating Something New. Or even shifting Old Stuff around in some new and interesting way. And so if certain theoretical physicists are in fact acting as Momma's Little Helpers in the never-ending ongoing creation, then perhaps they should think about how the work they produce might be changing things.

      I am the author of record of this message, but it is possible, even maybe likely, that I am channelling some powerful Discordian.

    19. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The phrasing of this is pushing for clicking on the link.

    20. Re:Propaganda by M.D.Smith · · Score: 1

      Had everyone who pushed the boundaries of progress before us decided that every "difficult to explain" data point was merely the work of Intelligent Design, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now... On the internet... Using electricity.. On a keyboard most likely derived from oil polymers. History shows time and again that "higher power" excuses are the crutch of the intellectually lazy or the ignorant.

    21. Re:Propaganda by mysticgoat · · Score: 1

      While I do not disagree with your assessment that the post you authored should be modded Vorpal Flamebait +5, I rather hope that the moderators do not go snicker-snack upon it. Since it is a good jumping off point into one of my favorite rants.

      The thing is, the universe is inherently unscientific. I don't believe that makes it irrelevant. Instead to a certain degree it makes the scientific method irrelevant.

      The most powerful forces affecting any human's life are labelled "love", "hate", "ugly", "beautiful", "awesome", etc. None of which are quantifiable. Further, imagination is definitely within the Universe since it is through imagination that we get experiences like Star Trek, Gladiator, the Allelujah Chorus, Hymn To Her. Trace it backward: the music you will hear today is an arrangement of distinct aerial vibrations whose pattern was described sometime back by someone who imagined what the sound would be like. Imagination has a powerful affect on the world around us, and throughout the history of human experience, imagination has done more for us than atomic theory, electricity, classical physics and chemistry, or any of the applications of science.

      Further, science without imagination cannot exist; imagination is at the root of hypothesis formation, as Isaac Asimov once pointed out. And yet imagination cannot be quantified or in any way studied using the scientific method.

      A person who dismisses all forms of "intelligent design" as inherently unscientific says more about that person's limited imagination than it says about anything else. That person might become a passable technologist ---someone who can apply science to particular problems--- but without imagination that person will never be a scientist ---someone capable of developing new hypotheses.

    22. Re: Propaganda by qe2e! · · Score: 1

      So hubris leads to intelligent design? Intelligent argument, my friend. And great phrasing!

    23. Re:Propaganda by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      The thing is, the universe is inherently unscientific. I don't believe that makes it irrelevant. Instead to a certain degree it makes the scientific method irrelevant.

      The most powerful forces affecting any human's life are labelled "love", "hate", "ugly", "beautiful", "awesome", etc. None of which are quantifiable.

      I think you're muddling things a little. The universe is a thing. Science is the study of that thing.

      Human experience mostly occurs at an unscientific level, which is part of what makes science so hard to develop, and for people to understand, but that's unrelated to either of the above. In most ways, the universe is oblivious to our experience, and can be treated scientifically just fine. From the inside, our unscientific experience tints our whole lives, which may (again, only from the inside) seem to shift the universe, but that's mostly just an illusion of perspective.

    24. Re: Propaganda by qe2e! · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I can't think of anyone who absolutely refused to believe "creepy action at a distance" at face value who made any significant contribution...

    25. Re:Propaganda by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      That still doesn't answer the question as to why one would insert God, no matter how much of you've watered down the concept, into a scientific theory. This is nothing more than another iteration of Intelligent Design. The concept isn't scientific, at best it's just another iteration of the "god of the gaps" argument, at worst it's a deliberate attempt to try to whitewash theism by saying "it could have been an alien mad scientist!"

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    26. Re:Propaganda by mysticgoat · · Score: 1

      Is the universe a "thing"?

      What is the meaning of "thing" in this context? The way I parse it, "thing" is being used here to describe everything that can be understood by the scientific method, and to exclude everything which is not quantifiable. Which makes a tight, circular argument of "science is the study of things that can be studied by science." Which, while definitely true, does not advance anyone's understanding, and in fact is an impediment to thinking outside the box.

      Part of the difficulty here is that a strong implication of relativity is that there is no position of "objective observer" that can be reached within human experience; it is all illusion. The concept of an objective observer is illusionary. It is not that we have yet to reach the place where we can observe the universe as an outsider; it is that we can never, ever be an objective observer. And yet, so many persons involved in science or technology have this strong faith that there is something Out There that is independent of their own projections.

      I regret that my response is phrased like troll bait. I do not mean it that way. As our studies in the realms of quantum mechanics and celestial mechanics progress, we are moving closer and closer to the edge of what science can handle. It would be useful, I think, to recognize that science is butting up against its own limitations.

    27. Re:Propaganda by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      What does sentient even mean and why it necessary for the construction of complex systems? Ants and termites are individually pretty dumb, but collectively can build some impressive structures. Does that mean termite colonies are sentient?

    28. Re:Propaganda by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      I would guess that someone has actually set some definitions on science, and I also suspect they're not as circular as your off-the-cuff interpretation. "Thing" is a dangerous word, because it's got way too many definitions in English, so I'd probably drop that on further reflection. I would say if it takes up space or time, or consists of matter or energy, it is in the domain of science. The universe is the sum of space, time, matter, and energy, so it's an excellent candidate of study.

      I get that people are subjective. I've even studied enough zen I'll begrudgingly admit a lot of stuff might be illusion (although I'm very wary of how that word can mean a lot of different things, too). Honestly, though, I think the point of science is that if it's done right, then most people are going to come to the same objective conclusion, despite their varying subjective experiences. That's really the whole point of science, and thus far it's worked incredibly well.

      Per your final point, I would suggest that the experience of science is *always* that we are moving closer to the very edge of what it's able to tell us. Then we have a breakthrough, and the edge moves, and we have to spend a while approaching that, before we move the edge again. I suspect our experience of science will stay that way for a very long time, even as we continue to progress.

      I definitely don't think you're a troll. But I do think you're being overly mystical and handwavy, which is okay if you're talking about the unknowable, but you're extrapolating back from the world of the unknowable and starting to wave your hand at things that are actually, in fact, solid and knowable.

        (In other words, just because there are some things we can't know, it's still wrong to conclude we can't know anything. Unless you're a philosopher, in which case you may be able to formulate a believable argument using a oddly limited definition of "knowable," while ignoring other aspects of the world where, in a practical sense, we do effectively know things.)

    29. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am the author of record of this message, but it is possible, even maybe likely, that I am channelling some powerful Discordian.

      Thanks mate. You said it much more clearly than I'd have been able to. You can have the credit on this one.

    30. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because God had nothing to do with it. The Markovian's did it with their damn well of souls.

    31. Re:Propaganda by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      One way or the other, it comes back to the Aristotelian Prime Mover. Give it whatever name you want, but it's all about "How come God isn't in Big Bang cosmology, you filthy atheist whores?"

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    32. Re:Propaganda by werepants · · Score: 1

      I think that you've essentially articulated Deism, which was en vogue around the time of the American Revolution. It's got a lot more going for it than the personal god, santa clause theology that's dominant in Christianity today, IMO. And it's an interesting concept to play around with - what if an enormously powerful but still limited being defined the laws of the universe and then set it loose? It would explain some of the impressive elegance of the physical laws we know about, and perhaps some of the statistical surprises that underlie certain cosmological constants, etc - although of course, plenty of perfectly mundane explanations are available for everything we've observed in the universe thus far.

    33. Re:Propaganda by mysticgoat · · Score: 1

      Our different approaches may be converging.

      I hope to get back to this later today, or maybe tomorrow. But it is a difficult subject to write about, partly because it challenges models of the world that we rarely if ever give critical thought to. But I've got a life to live outside of slashdot and I must do something else right now.

    34. Re:Propaganda by werepants · · Score: 1

      The way I parse it, "thing" is being used here to describe everything that can be understood by the scientific method, and to exclude everything which is not quantifiable. Which makes a tight, circular argument of "science is the study of things that can be studied by science."

      Science is the practice of studying nature with narrowly defined tests of its behavior and properties. Things that cannot be tested (or at least, proven wrong) are not science. That said, things that cannot be tested are still a meaningful part of human experience - but that just goes to say that science isn't the only thing that humans can experience, and that there are realms of human experience that science can't address directly.

    35. Re: Propaganda by mapkinase · · Score: 1

      First, they should prove that universe exists.

      --
      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    36. Re:Propaganda by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      If it doesn't matter whether your hypothesis is true or not for the outcome of any experiment you care to design, you might as well not have the theory in the first place. A variation on Occam's razor.

      Unless you can come up with a way to prove or disprove your hypothesis, there is no science in it. Feel free to call it religion though.

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
    37. Re:Propaganda by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Conceivable. I knew a scientist who believed that evolution had been guided by God (can't argue with that, it's not falsifiable). However, where did the sentient you;'re talking about come from? Sentient influence really doesn't explain more things than it requires explanation for.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    38. Re: Propaganda by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The optimist claims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist is terrified that it might be true.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    39. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing that "I dunno, therefore GOD!!!" demonstrates is an utter inability to think.

      Which is exactly what you have done.

    40. Re:Propaganda by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      what if an enormously powerful but still limited being defined the laws of the universe and then set it loose?.

      It's an attempt to get round some of the more obvious problems with an omnipotent God, such as why He would choose to make a world where children die of cancer at two.

      Anything bad can be explained as a minor programming error.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    41. Re:Propaganda by werepants · · Score: 1

      Anything bad can be explained as a minor programming error.

      I wouldn't even go that far - I would say that in this model, the deity/creator/whatever designed some laws and then hit "start". Death isn't a programming error, it's just part of the game. Let's assume that the point of this iteration of the universe was to create the most interesting possible universe from the most concise set of physical laws possible. God's Code Golf. In that case, it's a dramatic success. The problem of evil doesn't really pertain here, and isn't even an error necessarily, because we don't necessarily assume that God is all-powerful, and we don't necessarily assume that he/she/it gives any special regard to the specific circumstances of an individual's existence.

    42. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or is an individual termite sentient enough to be considered sentient?

      I have a theory that God is a complete moron. Why would it have to be a superior being? It could be an inferior, very inferior being. It's either completely oblivious to what it's doing, a sort of termite with a magic wand, or it can sort of know everything it wants to but hallucinates bribes of an incommensurable reality and can't articulate a coherent thought.

  4. We're linking to IGN now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Did they also acquire the slashbundle?

  5. gotta love science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    billions dollars spent to answer the question and the answer is "I don't know"

    1. Re: gotta love science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Billions* of dollars spent and the answer was, "We now have one less possible explanation."

      *Millions. This isn't the only experiment they've run on the thing.

    2. Re:gotta love science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want truth, you better be prepared to hear "I don't know" a lot. Science has a ridiculous (possibly indefensibly impractical) bias in that regard.

      If you prefer better answers to happen a lot more often, you might want to be flexible about truth. Have you considered mysticism? Pulling answers out of asses is a method that has an excellent track record of minimizing (though not eliminating) "I don't know"s.

      But if you're going to spend billions of dollars, yeah, I can see how you really need to totally eliminate "I don't know"s. That requires completely abandoning truth; weigh it as zero in any evaluations of a system's effectiveness. And any time a billion dollar question points to "I don't know" then the government should be in charge of making up a more taxpayer-friendly answer. I think that within the budgetary constraints of literally a billion dollars, we could easily afford some basic market research and a few focus groups, to make sure the resulting bullshit is of the utmost highest certainty.

  6. We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exist by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since the law of conservation of mass and energy states that matter and energy can not be created then how did it ever come into existence in the first place?

  7. Umm... no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They *concluded* no such thing. They just constrained one possible asymmetry.

    1. Re:Umm... no by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

      That doesn't sounds like a headline that would drive ad traffic though...

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
    2. Re:Umm... no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, disaster of reportage... as usual not edited by msmash, the actual "Article" ends with this whopper;
      "The next hotly anticipated experiment is over at ALPHA, where CERN scientists are studying the effect of gravity of antimatter – trying to answer the question of whether antimatter might fall ‘up’."
      That is just pure Bullshit. It's been known since the Sixties that Matter and Antimatter respond equally; they both fall down. Proton, Antiproton, Bowling Ball, they all fall at the same rate over the same period of time. Storage Rings with their mild corrections for Gravity wouldn't even work if this wasn't the case. This was first tested at the Bevalac, and with increasing sensitivity at CERN many times since. What is of interest is if there is a floor where some difference may be found, but there has been no hint of evidence that this floor is even measurable.
      Please Slashdot, let BeauHD stick to PR Fluff, and msmash to how awful Indian Code Monkeys have it, and get somebody who knows some actual Science to Edit these articles.

  8. terrible headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've often wondered why there is something rather than nothing. Nothing just seems so much more... natural, and easier. However the matter/anti-matter imbalance is an entirely different subject. Even if there were a perfect balance in the beginning, they would have annihilated and we'd still have a universe, it just would be full of energy.

    1. Re:terrible headline by barbariccow · · Score: 1

      Nah, that's a common misunderstanding between how matter and antimatter interact. They're very cautious and only engage in a fight they know they can win, but their technology is very limited in terms of detection, so only when there's a REALLY REALLY APPRECIABLE difference in the sizes of the two armies does the larger one accept casualties and attack.

    2. Re:terrible headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So space is infinite. And so are planets & solar systems. And there is a exact duplicate of Earth there, except where these f&ckers have figured this question out. And also slashdot isn't crap.

    3. Re:terrible headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      does their slashdot have blackjack and hookers?

  9. I know why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Matter called dibs.

  10. And Scientists also once said: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bumblebees cannot fly.

  11. The Universe DOESN"T EXIST?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My GOD, I hope they can't prove it!!!

  12. And the universe goes.... by Rande · · Score: 5, Funny

    poof in a flash of logic?

    (Yes, from the joke {Rene Descartes walks into a bar and orders a drink. When he finishes his drink, the bartender asks him if he would like another. Descartes replies, “No, I think not,” and disappears in a puff of logic.})

    1. Re:And the universe goes.... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

      The bartender says "we don’t serve time travellers in here." A time traveller walks into a bar.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:And the universe goes.... by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

      That's what I was thinking.
      Like when Wiley E. Coyote realizes he's run off the edge of a cliff, but gravity doesn't take effect until he realizes it.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    3. Re:And the universe goes.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The bartender says "we don’t serve time travellers in here." A time traveller walks into a bar.

      Clap, clap, clap.

    4. Re:And the universe goes.... by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
      - Douglas Adams

    5. Re:And the universe goes.... by jandrese · · Score: 2

      This is like when you are looking at a piece of code and think to yourself: This never should have worked, how was it working before now? And then it suddenly stops working in just the way you expect. If we all suddenly cease to exist tomorrow I blame CERN. Or Donald Trump, but for a different reason.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    6. Re:And the universe goes.... by Convector · · Score: 3, Funny

      And this is the time to follow up with the one about the horse that walks into the bar and the bartender asks "Why the long face?"

      The reason to do it in this order is to put Descartes before the horse. I'll show myself out.

    7. Re:And the universe goes.... by ShamblerBishop · · Score: 1

      That bartender knew the time traveller was coming before he walked in - that bartender's a time traveller! Bloody hypocrite!

    8. Re:And the universe goes.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We should have grabbed him when we had the chance.

      I think it was our only chance of grabbing a time traveller with perfect timing. "'Descartes before the horse' -- priceless"

  13. And then.. by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    ...they vanished in a puff of logic.

  14. Separate but equal by mi · · Score: 1

    Phrasing like this is for pushing intelligent design arguments.

    Or for the "separate but equal" ones. Khm...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  15. "CERN Scientists confirm God" by RedK · · Score: 1

    -- Some Religious newsletter probably

    --
    "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
    Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
    1. Re:"CERN Scientists confirm God" by rajafarian · · Score: 1

      Oh, it's coming I'm sure.

    2. Re:"CERN Scientists confirm God" by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      Probably. I personally have stopped trying to use science to justify my faith or lack of.
      Faith in a supernatural entity is outside the realm of science. Because Supernatural is something that cannot be measured or directly observed. It doesn't mean that it cannot be true, but it doesn't prove that it is.

      But saying because of God, is a wonderful way of cutting off the exploration of the topic. This Dichotomy of facts that we exist, however mathematically we shouldn't is an interesting aspect that needs to be studied objectively, there could be observations and measurements that we haven't figured out yet. Perhaps there is Matter+Antimatter isn't 100% cancellation but a number so small we are unable to measure it. We could just throw our hands in the air and say a conscious entity had to do this little hack to make the universe possible, or a glitch in the simulation. But that just stops us from digging further.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:"CERN Scientists confirm God" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably not. Proof of God would mean way too few atheists ending up getting eaten, or having equivalent things done to them.

      Just respecting evolution, really,

  16. You should stick to the bible then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if you are uncomfortable with uncertainty.

    1. Re:You should stick to the bible then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and you should shove this advice of yours up to your smart ass

    2. Re:You should stick to the bible then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sodomy is clearly a bible thing

    3. Re:You should stick to the bible then by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      He's probably more concerned about money.

      You can say "I dunno" and it won't cost you a dime.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  17. Persistent illusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A slight misquote of Einstein: Reality is merely an illusion. It seems the misquote is more accurate than the true quote.

    https://www.quora.com/Reality-is-merely-an-illusion-albeit-a-very-persistent-one-What-did-Albert-Einstein-mean-here

    1. Re:Persistent illusion by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Douglas Adams

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  18. It does not. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    It is just a figment of your imagination. There is no universe, no earth, no galaxies, no people. There is just Brahman and Atman. What the Atman perceives as the Universe, is "maya" or illusion. Only when we realize that it is an illusion, we will be able to realize the Truth. Then Atman attains liberation, or "moksha" or "mukti". Truth is Truth. Truth is Brahman.

    [The Truth provided above is released under MIT GPL. Please make sure you provide a copy of original Truth, if you redistribute. Any enhancement to Truth you make, however, is yours.]

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:It does not. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:It does not. by Pfhorrest · · Score: 1

      Atman is Brahman. Advaita ftw.

      --
      -Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
      "I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
    3. Re:It does not. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      Atman is Brahman. Advaita ftw.

      What! Sacrilege! Blashpghemy! All Davitees of the world unite! Fight the Advaitees!

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  19. Re:And Ashton Kusher also once said: by barbariccow · · Score: 0

    I saw this movie once and this butterfly got killed and then they never invented doritos so like we never went to the moon because a little boy went to school with a sandwich and cheetos, and the bully didn't beat him up because he already had cheetos, but had he had doritos he would have beat up that kid and that kid would have growed up to be tougher because he has a woman's name. Ashton Kutcher was in it. Sponsored by Neil's Degrassi Tyson Chicken.

  20. Oh, dear, I hadn't thought of that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Next thing you know, those scientists will be killed in the next zebra crossing.

  21. speaking of things which should not exist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux on the desktop does not exist, AND YET THERE IT IS.

  22. Re:Today's silly joke by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sure it is, and that's the point they're making.

    "The Universe should not exist" is the press simplification of "the observable physics shows no reason why matter and anti-matter should be in an imbalance, however, clearly they are in an imbalance, so... WTF!"

  23. We can conclude the big bang theory is a crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can conclude the big bang theory is a crap.

    1. Re:We can conclude the big bang theory is a crap by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Admit it, you watched it only for Penny Hofstadter.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  24. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one.

    What if the universe always existed, and always will? Why can't it be infinitely long on the time axis as well as the spatial ones? You ask how it came into existence in the first place, and I say what if it DIDN'T and it's simply always been there?

    Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.

  25. Baryon Asymmetry = Old News by sjbe · · Score: 1

    This is an old and well understood mystery in physics. We've known about baryon asymmetry since shortly after we understood E=mc^2 (more properly E^2 = m^2*c^4 + p^2*c^2). We just don't have a model or data that fully explains why we see lots of matter but not much anti-matter. We have some ideas about how it might have happened but nothing that really answers the question adequately.

  26. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like the conservation law is an incomplete theory.

    Maybe it is possible to create something from nothing, but only at the scale of a very, very big bang.

  27. Timing? by GoTeam · · Score: 1

    Maybe they got the rate of annihilation wrong. Maybe the mutual destruction process is ongoing.

    1. Re:Timing? by Bill+Hayden · · Score: 1

      Maybe they got the rate of annihilation wrong. Maybe the mutual destruction process is ongoing.

      If that were the case, there would be a very easily recognizable signature from the annihilation. We do not see large-scale annihilation like this anywhere.

      --
      Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
    2. Re:Timing? by GoTeam · · Score: 1

      Solid point. I tried to think of it from a perspective of "maybe the mutual destruction is happening outside the limits of our view and we just can't see it yet", but it would make more sense for the mutual destruction to happen everywhere at a relatively even dispersion.

    3. Re:Timing? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Maybe they got the rate of annihilation wrong. Maybe the mutual destruction process is ongoing.

      Must ... resist ... Trump ... joke

    4. Re:Timing? by EndlessNameless · · Score: 2

      Maybe they got the rate of annihilation wrong. Maybe the mutual destruction process is ongoing.

      We can make antimatter in a lab, and it does not annihilate slowly when released. If there were significant antimatter around, there needs to be some explanation of how it behaves differently. Because there is a lot of energy, and it would have to be so much slower than what we've observed.

      When a very small amount of matter annihilates, it releases a tremendous amount of energy. Even the most powerful nuclear weapons annihilate only a tiny fraction of its material.

      E.g., a back of the envelope calculation for a 10-lb nuclear payload:
      10 lb = 4.535 kg = 4.07 E22 joules if converted 100% into energy
      cribbing from google, 1 Megaton TNT = 4.18 E15 joules

      Simple division yields an energy release of ~97,000,000 MT from 10 lbs of matter. Compare that to a modern nuclear weapon in the range of 5-50 MT.

      If you weighed 200 lbs, that would be 1,940,000,000 MT of energy. We're talking asteroid-extinction levels of energy. And there are billions of people on earth who weigh about this much. There is a lot of energy. The annihilation would have to be impossibly slow compared to what we've seen in the lab.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    5. Re:Timing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you weighed 200 lbs, (...)

      Wow! Is that your idea of a normal person?

  28. whew! so all that dumb crap I did... wasn't. by swschrad · · Score: 2, Funny

    that's a relief.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
    1. Re:whew! so all that dumb crap I did... wasn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes upon realizing the unreasonableness of its existence, it promptly disappeared in a puff of logic.

  29. It's just one problem by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 1

    Among a long list of unresolved questions in physics and that's why the creation of AGI is of paramount importance for human kind. Considering the amount of knowledge that we've accumulated so far our biological brains might not be enough to crack the universe. And if it were too simple too understand, it would hardly be able to produce sufficiently intelligent life forms to grok it. But then again we might not be intelligent enough to ever figure it out or create AGI to do the same thing.

  30. Looking for a large stone by pr0t0 · · Score: 1

    and I will be able to refute this claim by kicking it

    --
    I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
  31. This magnifient universe is bigger than Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Our death should exist as everybody.

  32. Obligatory Douglas Adams by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    The Universe

    Some information to help you live in it.

    1. Area: infinite.

    2. Imports: none.

    It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things from.

    3. Exports: none.

    See Imports.

    4. Population: none.

    It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

    5. Monetary Units: none.

    In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination.

    6. Art: none.

    The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn’t a mirror big enough – see point one.

    7. Sex: none.

    Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, art, or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people of the Universe occupied.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1 is conjecture, 2 is wrong, 3 is wrong, 4 is wrong, ...

    2. Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AC is wrong...

    3. Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All Cretans are liars.

    4. Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds.

      Umm, no. Any fraction (other than 0) of infinity is, well, infinity. If there were an infinite number of worlds, and one in a million had intelligent life, then there would be an infinite number of worlds with intelligent life....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    5. Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's probably time for me to reread the series

    6. Re:Obligatory Douglas Adams by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I prefer the radio version.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  33. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Matter and energy came into being, supposedly, as a creation of both positive and negative mass-energy. The net matter/energy created was zero (-1 +1 = 0), so there was no violation of the conservation law.

    We still don't know what caused the mass creation event, and as the article says we still don't know where all the antimatter and negative energy went that left us with a universe apparently filled with positive mass-energy.

    My personal amusement speculation is the negative energy and matter went backwards in time. Before the Big Bang the universe was negative, and now it's positive. But of course this isn't a scientific theory and I'm not sure how one would go about proving this or collecting evidence to strengthen it into an actual scientific theory.

  34. Always by JBMcB · · Score: 1

    There has just always been a universe. Problem solved :)

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your "explanation" fails to explain. What about the cosmic microwave background?
      The universe is observably expanding. You have to give some reason why we can't extrapolate back to the start of the expansion.

    2. Re:Always by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

      There has just always been a universe. Problem solved :)

      Problem not solved, but replaced by a different problem: where are the infinite number of infinitely old burned-out stars?

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    3. Re:Always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CMB == The edge of the observable universe or where the anti-matter universe interacts with the regular matter universe.

    4. Re:Always by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      They all dropped into black holes :D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:Always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read up on star lifespan.
      Seriously, you'll look at your question and laugh if you do.

    6. Re:Always by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Except that the blackbody radiation is everywhere. It doesn't come from any specific direction, it's literally everywhere in the universe.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:Always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are infinitely far away, so we can't see them.

    8. Re:Always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do we know there aren't infinitely old dead stars?

      Other thing is that because time 'started' with the universe then 'always' also started with the universe. Therefore it is accurate to say "There has just always been a universe."

  35. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one.

    What if the universe always existed, and always will? Why can't it be infinitely long on the time axis as well as the spatial ones? You ask how it came into existence in the first place, and I say what if it DIDN'T and it's simply always been there?

    Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.

    If Einstein was right, and space and time are the same thing, it seems reasonable that if the Universe has infinite space it should have infinite time.

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  36. Pack It Up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nothing to see here, move along...

  37. The difference between matter and antimatter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... is obvious. Apart from different charge, antimatter is no less than four letter longer (57%!) and therefore experiences more drag against the ether.

    Hence, all the antimatter is located around center of the universe (point zero!), and the matter is scattered around the outskirts.

    These CERN guys really should study this Newton guy! It's not like this is hard or anything.

  38. Re:Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here is a simple answer; because we are wrong with something. We have known that we are wrong for a while with the X number of unsolved physical problems.

    Another study confirms that the Standard Model is incomplete when it was already known. News at 10.

  39. LHC by Stavr0 · · Score: 1

    So the true purpose of the Large Hadron Collider is to rectify the situation.

  40. Any universe that has a creimer in it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    should not exist, that's true. But we're stuck with the fucker, so what can we do? Toss him into a quasar and hope some other universe gets stuck with him?

  41. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by NEDHead · · Score: 1

    Because the negative energy balances out the equation.

  42. Did the CERN scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cite the results of the last US Presidential election as further evidence?

  43. SNL! by RichardAFairchild · · Score: 1

    It could be Satan.... ~The Church Lady

    1. Re:SNL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SMH...

      Could it be... SATAN!?!? -Church Lady

  44. This just proves the scientists failure to underst by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you study something deeply to comprehend the rules that has the thing working, and you conclude based on these rules that the thing should not exist, then the rules are wrong, or you're missing deeper insights about that object.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  45. obDeteriorata by Zephyn · · Score: 1

    So after all this time and study, it turns out we really are a fluke of the universe and we really do have no right to be here.

    I suppose it's just a matter of time that we discover that the Cosmic Microwave Background is really just the sound of the universe laughing behind our backs.

  46. News Flash: Quantum Theory Confirmed. Again. by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    The phrasing here is very much hyperbole.

    Standard quantum mechanics (well, relativistic quantum mechanics) states that particles and antiparticles must have exactly the same magnetic properties. Exactly.

    If CERN tests didn't verify this, there would be a big, big problem with parts of physics that we thought we knew pretty well. That's a pretty exciting experiment to try, since if there was a big big problem with quantum mechanics, it would be groundbreaking to find this out. But it's not particularly headline news to say "quantum mechanics is confirmed, yet again."

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:News Flash: Quantum Theory Confirmed. Again. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It's hyperbole, but we happen to know that the observable universe is made of matter, not anti-matter. (I suppose we could say it is made of anti-matter instead of matter, taking a somewhat different point of view.) Any explanation of the origin of the Universe has to account for this somehow. If there was a difference between the properties of matter and anti-matter, we'd have the beginnings of an explanation.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    2. Re:News Flash: Quantum Theory Confirmed. Again. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Or better yet: "We don't know everything and there is still much science to be done."

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  47. Rounding Error by alzoron · · Score: 1

    I like to think that there was originally a whole shitload more matter/antimatter and what we're seeing now is just a rounding error.

  48. Re:Today's silly joke by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but 'That's funny ...'"
    - Isaac Asimov

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  49. Re:Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sure it is, and that's the point they're making.

    "The Universe should not exist" is the press simplification of "the observable physics shows no reason why matter and anti-matter should be in an imbalance, however, clearly they are in an imbalance, so... WTF!"

    With oddities like dark matter and black holes floating around out there, fucking kills me that some of the smartest minds on the planet are all "WTF!" about finding an imbalance.

  50. "Offset spatial divergence"... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're also trying to figure out if space "gravimetrically curved" (for lack of a better expression) per Einstein or flat & unlimited too.

    I'm MORE for curved space (see subject - & that's why really mostly) for a few reasons:

    The SpaceTime continuum (as it's often called) would be "endless" that way too vs. flatspace.

    They even theorize (due to gravitational lensing they've SEEN when 1 galaxy passes in front of another, the light bends & causes an arc proving it) that IF you travelled long & 'far' enough, you'd eventually come back to your starting point (THIS would be 'timetravel' in a real sense, time CHANGES space & we already KNOW light takes tremendous amounts of time to pass to us, seeing the past in essence that way, from even our nearest stellar neighbor). I believe that is what the original "Planet of the Apes" film's fictional "Dr. Haslein" meant via his "haslein curve" (since they came back to their 'origin' centuries later). IF you see where I got that quote from? You'll understand WHY I used that in my subject...

    Secondly & lastly - SUNS due to gravitation (& even magnetism does this, I've seen it in "Star In a Jar" free power implementations & yes, @ CERN on the exterior stack they have @ their installation) form a PATTERN both form (magnetic stress swirls). Eventually, suns go "toroid" donut in blackholes.

    I don't see God/Nature using 2 methods - it'd be dumb/inefficient above all else - & "God don't make no junk" & yes, I believe (& yes worship) the almighty creative spirit.

    APK

    P.S.=> Interesting stuff - but as far as their only being 2/3rd's of the matter necessary to keep the universe from "collapsiin in" on itself like a TOROID blackhole does? Maybe it's NOT "dark matter" @ all but ANTI-MATTER keeping the balance in check... apk

  51. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by doug141 · · Score: 1

    Gravity wells are negative energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  52. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your question implies you have reason to believe that the matter and energy in the universe weren't always here in one form or another. The big bang theory doesn't really say that everything came into existence 13.7 billion years ago, it just says that 13.7 billion years ago, the observable universe was far smaller than it is now. People talk about it like that's when "the universe began", but it's really just "when the universe AS WE KNOW IT began". It says nothing about what was happening before that time because the answer is that we have no idea. Maybe it was always here. It's possible new universes are formed inside of black holes and that our universe was formed in just such a manner.

  53. Re:Today's silly joke by winse · · Score: 1

    WARNING SPOILER ALERT!

    It is only because Ruin has made a deal with Preservation and the universe in the end does not exist, but miniscule fraction of a second before collapse has been expanded indefinitely. Ruin doesn't mind because time is inconsequential in the face of immortality. Eventually the forces will cancel each other and the universe will end unless the Hero of Ages intervenes claiming both powers simultaneously.

    --
    this sig is deprecated
  54. We all know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... begin anti is bad. Therefore the antimatter must be in the black holes. So don't fall into one, it could hurt you!

  55. This Universe is as the movie Matrix. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Universe = Supercomputer for our lives & deaths.

    If this Supercomputer fails at any moment then our lives & deaths will fail.

    I hope that there is no errata in this Supercomputer, else our souls will suffer.

  56. Does antimatter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...matter? No more than matter anti-matters. Or it just doesn't matter, no matter what.

  57. Re:"In the beginning..." no sex with that woman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    > you guys across the pond later used the same monica for

    Pres. Bill Clinton

    (Anyhow you probably wanted to write "moniker" which actually refers to the monica used by Ike a previous US president.)

  58. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The same scientists found out that the current flowing through the wires when a light-bulb is connected to a battery is equal, both in opposite directions for the positive and negative terminal therefore canceling each other out.
    They still can't figure out why the battery is drained though...

  59. Space is fake. Earth is flat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, of course, the 'universe' shouldn't exist. Because it doesn't! Dark matter, Dark energy, it doesn't work.

  60. Bit more elaboration... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Per the gravitational lense effect & curved space (+ the microvave barrier limit 'end of the universe')? They also theorize due to 'curvature' of space-time that SOME of what we see out there is ONLY REFLECTIONS OF OURSELVES (hence the timetravel part & that IF you went 'straight' (in a curved timespace, straight IS relative & not straight really, gravitational lensing proves it - you WOULD, eventually, return to your origin point albeit @ a different timeframe, ACCOUNTING FOR "OFFSETTING SPATIAL DIVERGENCE" which is caused by universal expansion (what they THINK 'dark matter' drives & defeats gravity vs. collapse of the universe like a blackhole toroid).

    APK

    P.S.=> I should've noted that in my original post parent to this one... apk

    1. Re:Bit more elaboration... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What matter are hosts files made from?

    2. Re:Bit more elaboration... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We know that we have Matter, and Antimatter, and we have a fairly good grasp on the nature of Dark Matter. Hosts files are another kind entirely, called "Doesn't Matter".

  61. Slight Correction by spaceman375 · · Score: 0

    There is no such thing as the Objective Universe. Everything that exists is in Subjective Universes. What we call the Objective Universe is the intersection of Subjective Universes that correlate well enough for us to communicate or otherwise share experiences.
          Go ahead, try to provide proof that an Objective Universe exists. Any proof you present must be in a Subjective Universe. Or you can skip all that and conclude that the Objective Universe is just God's Subjective Universe.
          There: I've run rings around you logically!

    --
    On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
    1. Re:Slight Correction by jandrese · · Score: 1

      You never defined Objective Universe or Subjective Universe, your argument makes no sense.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:Slight Correction by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      Congratulations getting through the first day of intro. to philosophy class. But one of the reasons science has been the most successful branch of philosophy is that we quit giving a crap about theories that are not falsifiable.

    3. Re:Slight Correction by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      Sure, and the space between atoms is mostly void, so when you eat things you're mostly eating nothing, and you shouldn't ever be able to get full.*

      It's all fine and dandy to play with paradoxical thought exercises, but on another practical level it's also obvious when something works pretty darn well, and even if you don't have a philosophical proof, it's still effective.

      * Insert Chinese food joke.

    4. Re:Slight Correction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congratulations?

    5. Re:Slight Correction by spaceman375 · · Score: 1

      Whoosh! And here I was hoping for an "Intercourse the Penguin!" response. Slashdot, you disappoint.

      --
      On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
  62. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is philosophical genius. Somewhere approximately -13.7 billion years from the big bang, some nega-verse scientists are trying to figure out why the universe is mostly negative mass-energy, and what the bloody hell happened to all the positive mass-energy that should have come out at the same moment. Holy guacamole, that sort of thinking makes my head spin.

  63. Here's another possibility. by lkroll4565 · · Score: 1

    Like most star explosions, (including the formation of black holes), you get 2 jets of matter spieling outwards in opposite directions. What if one jet's what we call matter and the other anti-matter. How's that for formulating a theory. Can I prove this? Of course not; thus it's a theory. :)

  64. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

    I just want to know if they wear cowboy hats or if they wear goatees, so I know what kind of universe we're dealing with if we ever decide to visit.

  65. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Lord Savior, Jesus Christ, is the answer to this and so many other questions my child. You seem disturbed, accept him into your life and know peace.

    Unless you're a homo, then fuck off.

  66. Well, clearly. by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


    You sir. You do not exist. My computer says so. -Therefore I shall ignore you from this moment forward.

    My condolences to your non-existent offspring.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  67. Re:Today's silly joke by dbrueck · · Score: 1

    So does Kelsier punching Preservation speed that up or what??

  68. Old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This was discussed at the time of the Higgs-Boson discovery.

    https://www.livescience.com/46478-universe-should-have-collapsed.html

  69. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by skids · · Score: 2

    It's even possible at small scale given enough time. Lots and lots of time. An example being the Loschmidt paradox and the Fluctuation Theorem.

    Sentient life is incredibly improbable, therefore sentient life ends up observing an incredibly improbable universe around it, because in all the other possible outcomes, there's nobody there to observe it. So maybe it's just that we are in the matter corner of a universe that just lucked out, and the corresponding antimatter part is somewhere outside the observable portion of the universe.

  70. It's an example of poor communication. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative

    It seems to me that poor communication discourages people from being interested in Physics. "The Universe should not exist" is clickbait dishonesty by the media.

    Read the scientific article, A parts-per-billion measurement of the antiproton magnetic moment. There is nothing dishonest.

    It would have been far better to explain the conflict being observed and acknowledge that not much is known in that area of interest. It is FAR too early to draw conclusions.

    What the CERN scientists may have discovered is that the "basic assumptions of the standard model of particle physics" are incorrect.

    More clickbait dishonesty:

    CERN Antimatter Experiment Suggest the Universe Shouldn't Exist

    CERN Research Finds "The Universe Should Not Actually Exist"

    The Universe Should Not Actually Exist, CERN Scientists Discover

    CERN Scientists Find Further Evidence That the Universe 'Should Not Exist'

    The universe shouldn't exist, scientists say after finding bizarre behaviour of anti-matter. Quote: "We don't know why the universe isn't destroying itself." That is at least in the direction of being honest; we don't know why.

    I'm guessing that media writers didn't want to try to understand the actual issues, so they all adopted one writer's wild exaggeration.

    I see NO evidence that anyone at CERN is dishonest. The dishonesty seems to be only in media reports.

    1. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, you know what they're reporting in the anti-universe, right?

      "Anti-CERN scientists conclude that the anti-universe should not exist"

    2. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by Luthair · · Score: 1

      No different than tech, journalists covering the topic have no background in it.

    3. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > A parts-per-billion measurement of the antiproton magnetic moment
      Yawn

    4. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by jedidiah · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No. We're simply not as smart as we think we are. We engage in far too much scientific hubris and are full of ourselves.

      We don't understand the universe nearly as well as we think we do.

      Science is an iterative process and ultimately the current best guess.

      Some of us "anti-intellectuals" recognize this for what it is and are less impressed by pronouncements from the scientific clergy.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    5. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by martyros · · Score: 4, Informative
      From TFA:

      “All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist,” says Christian Smorra, a physicist at CERN’s Baryon–Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) collaboration. “An asymmetry must exist here somewhere but we simply do not understand where the difference is.”

      One of the physicists from CERN actually said the words, "the universe should not actually exist", which is why so many of the headlines say exactly the same thing. I don't see anything dishonest about either what CERN or the media said.

      Completely offtopic -- I was actually on-site at CERN last week and took a picture of myself outside the "Antimatter Factory" building, where they do the kind of research described in the article. Cool stuff.

      --

      TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

    6. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by Wraithlyn · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a direct quote from the author of the study, not "dishonest clickbait media".

      From one of your own links (that you clearly didn't actually read in your rush to denounce this):

      "All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist," explained Christian Smorra, the author of a new study conducted at CERN.

      http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

      --
      "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
    7. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by Pro-feet · · Score: 2

      A very unfortunate thing to say by that scientist. As a particle physicist, he should know we already have CP violation in the Standard Model that explains the matter-antimatter asymmetry partly; we just don't observe enough of it.

    8. Re:It's an example of poor communication. by WrongMonkey · · Score: 2

      Every working scientist understands that our knowledge of the universe is incomplete. Perfect understanding of the universe may be impossible, but we think it is worth continuing to try. You seem content to simply give up.

  71. Perhaps nothing exists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I propose that nothing exists. Hear me out.

    You would agree that the default state of things is that they do not exist before they exist, right? Then how is it that things have come from nothing?

    That is because nothing exists, except the abstract: math has always existed, logic has always existed, anything conceptual like love, feelings, physical laws, descriptions of how subatomic particles work... all of that has always existed.

    Then any idea that you could possibly conceive of has always existed: a universe with an all-powerful and loving God with you in it; and a universe without an all-powerful and loving God with you in it; parallel universes.... any situation that could be conceived of has always existed as an idea.

    Thus, nothing actually exists in the concrete; except the "idea" that things can exist in the concrete. So, here we "are."

  72. Wonderful Conclusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please increase their salaries. What a joke.

  73. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.

    Our universe is merely a zit.

  74. The universe is not infinitely old by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one. What if the universe always existed, and always will? Why can't it be infinitely long on the time axis as well as the spatial ones?

    Because if it had always existed, there would be dead stars that are infinitely (or nearly infinitely) old. But there aren't.

    What we do know absolutely for sure is that the universe has not existed infinitely in its current form. Stars don't last forever. Entropy tends toward maximum. If the universe was infinitely old, it would have slid down the curve of entropy to be a featureless mess.

    The nature of that event at the beginning (of the universe as we know it), however, is still somewhat unclear. We do see the universe expanding, and that's a clue. We can track it backwards to very small and very dense. But we can't track it backwards to the "beginning," because it gets to realms of energy and density for which we don't know the laws of physics.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      >Because if it had always existed, there would be dead stars that are infinitely (or nearly infinitely) old. But there aren't.

      You have mistakenly interpreted my comment on the existence of the universe being infinite as a claim that the universe is steady-state.

      You probably should have paid more attention to my final statement in that post which would have disabused you of that notion.

    2. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by ichthus · · Score: 1

      No, he's recognized that "a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence" is simple hand waving nonsense, and doesn't say or answer anything.

      --
      sig: sauer
    3. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The nature of that event at the beginning (of the universe as we know it), however, is still somewhat unclear. We do see the universe expanding, and that's a clue. We can track it backwards to very small and very dense. But we can't track it backwards to the "beginning," because it gets to realms of energy and density for which we don't know the laws of physics.

      There are people trying to prove that antimatter has negative mass. That would explain the 'missing' part as well as the accelerated expansion of the universe [antimatter has somehow become Dark Energy].

    4. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Ogive17 · · Score: 1

      The current iteration of the universe is not infinite, which you state. So it's completely plausible the universe has always existed but it goes through "rebirth" every few trillion "years". Maybe the big bang that started our universe was the infinity + 1 big bang that happened.

      I'm far from an expert and I'll go so far to say that I'm not even very knowledgeable on the subject.. but my simple brain seems to think that at some point expansion halts and contraction begins. Could the universe contract into a singularity and cause another big bang?

      --
      "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
    5. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by fisted · · Score: 1

      If you find a way to reverse entropy, yes. Unfortunately, we won't.

      But I guess there is a very slim chance for a Big Crunch (that's what they call it) to happen, much like there's a (comparably huge) chance that the shartds of the coffee mug you shattered today will, by chance due to quantum fluctuations, jump out of the trash can, put themselves together mid air and land on a table like new. Possibly filled with coffee.

    6. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by fisted · · Score: 1

      BTW (I'm not an expert either), but my favorite idea of an infinite/cyclic universe is that when entropy is literally at 0, something weird happens that starts a new cycle.
      It's probably crackpot talk, but suppose the universe is completely devoid of any objects (subatomic particles distributed uniformly), so it looks the same in every direction (provided it weren't pitch black). You could almost argue there is no space anymore. You can certainly argue there is no time anymore, because with no objects there are no velocities and nothing to even apply the concept "time" to.
      I'd like to believe that in such a state, time and space actually cease to exist, and this event by whatever means, initiates a new big bang -- or maybe time does continue to exist, and it only takes 9001 zillion years until the right fluctuation comes by (after all, if a probability of something is > 0, no matter how small, given infinite time it will happen)

      </crackpot>

    7. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a common misconception that we have a good grasp of all things in the Universe.
      A couple stated 'Laws' and we know all?

      Newsflash! We don't know jack shit when it comes to understanding the Universe.

      We're pre-schoolers, attending a doctoral thesis presentation in a different language, time-space, and dimension.

    8. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by JThundley · · Score: 1

      Who says there aren't lots of dead stars outside of our observable universe? I've also heard theories that universes (or pockets of matter in a much bigger mostly empty universe) can spontaneously appear seemingly out of nothing. There's a lot we don't know about time yet as well.

    9. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Because if it had always existed, there would be dead stars that are infinitely (or nearly infinitely) old. But there aren't.

      You have mistakenly interpreted my comment on the existence of the universe being infinite as a claim that the universe is steady-state.

      You probably should have paid more attention to my final statement in that post which would have disabused you of that notion.

      Also the claim that there aren't infinitely (or nearly infinitely) old dead stars is a bit bold since [major conspiracies being ignored] humans have not even stepped out the front door yet.

    10. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

      Who sweeps the dead stars away and out of the observable universe?

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    11. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, he's recognized that "a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence" is simple hand waving nonsense, and doesn't say or answer anything.

      Yes it does, you are just too dense to understand it's implications.

    12. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by ichthus · · Score: 1

      And you're too dense to understand proper use, or lack of an apostrophe in the word "its".

      --
      sig: sauer
    13. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      No, he's recognized that "a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence" is simple hand waving nonsense, and doesn't say or answer anything.

      That's what I was thinking. There is the fact that we cannot see beyond the currently observable universe because there hasn't been enough time for information to reach to us..

      If the observable universe is just a a finite perturbation of an infinitely eternal universe, then the universe as a whole is infinitely void beyond the observable universe (and nothing will reach to us from the beyond.)

      Either that, or we have to assume that some sort of cosmic event snuff out the shit out light and matter creating a big void wherein the observable universe (a minuscule volume of this void) resides, and which is why we cannot discern crap from beyond the observable.

      It is an exotic idea that is not falsifiable, me thinks.

    14. Re:The universe is not infinitely old by JThundley · · Score: 1

      God does of course, you heathen! Just kidding, you make a good point.

  75. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This hypothesis seems to support the "one electron" hypothesis.

  76. Dont worry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the universe does not really exist.

  77. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by EndlessNameless · · Score: 2

    what kind of universe we're dealing with if we ever decide to visit.

    It will be a universe with a you-shaped hole in it. Because you will annihilate everything you touch. Kind of like Symantec.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  78. Re:Today's silly joke by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dark matter is one of the few remaining possibilities for the imbalance - if dark matter somehow interacts with anti-matter somewhat less weakly, for some reason. Black holes don't work, since there don't seem to have been any in the early universe, and there's no reason to think they'd prefer anti-matter.

    This news is exiting to me, since one way or another it suggests new physics is needed to understand the imbalance.
     

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  79. reminds me of flightless waterfowl not existing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is Oliver Wendell Jones working for CERN? Eliminating flightless waterfowl wasn't enough for him?

  80. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Quirkz · · Score: 1

    Among other things, if the universe always existed, where is the fresh matter coming from that's fueling all our stars? Everything should have burned out already in an infinitely old universe. You'd have to invent some source of matter generation or non-energy-conservation, and that's far more problematic than the current big bang theory..

  81. God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guess God is real then. Crap...better start praying.

  82. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

    > Everything should have burned out already in an infinitely old universe.

    You have mistakenly interpreted my comment on the existence of the universe being infinite as a claim that the universe is steady-state.

    You probably should have paid more attention to my final statement in that post which would have disabused you of that notion.

  83. Statistical variation by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's probably due to statistical variation in the early expansion of the universe.

    Here's an analogy:

    Suppose you throw 1 million coins and tally the results. You might expect to get 500,000 heads and 500,000 tails, but it's *more* probable that you would get a different ratio. The probability of being 1-off in either direction is higher: even though both individual probabilities are smaller there's two possible outcomes (one more head, or one more tail).

    (In 8 tosses of the coin, there's 70 ways to make 4H/4T, 56 ways to make 3H/5T, and 56 ways to make 5H/3T. Even split has 70 ways, while 1-off has 112 ways.)

    What you actually get is a bell curve of probability. Take a single sample and you expect to get "somewhere near" the mean value, but it's highly unlikely that you'll get exactly the mean.

    So in the early universe, suppose position is quantized and there is exactly 1 place to be. Lots and lots of energy sitting on that one spot, some of it splitting into matter and antimatter and then annihilating back to energy.

    The universe expands and there are now 2 positions. The energy and matter/antimatter distributes randomly.

    Even though you'd expect equal amounts of matter and antimatter to go to both positions, it's statistically unlikely. Referring to the coin analogy, you might get 210,000 matter and 290,000 antimatter on one position, and 290,000 antimatter and 210,000 matter in the other. Both sides have 500,000 "coins", but with slightly different proportions, according to statistical chance.

    Now suppose the universe continues to grow at a rate faster than the matter can keep up. There are suddenly 4 positions instead of 2, then 8, 16, and so on. The matter/anti-matter ratio in each side is now 210,000/290.000, which annihilates, leaving 80,000 matter particles and 420,000*MC^2 of energy. On each side.

    This would only happen if the universe expands faster than the particles can travel across the available positions to annihilate.

    As it happens, there's evidence that the early universe *did* expand faster than the speed of light, which is why the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, but looks to be at least 93 billion years in diameter. This is the early inflation model.

    So even if all known processes generate equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, it makes statistical sense that there might be an excess of one or another in different parts of the universe.

    1. Re:Statistical variation by Sarten-X · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem with that theory is that it assumes we're in a "special" region of the universe, and some other area is different.So far, that hasn't shown to be the case.

      To use your example, let's say that the first distribution was wildly uneven, with about 75% of the antimatter in one half of the newly-developing space. For simplicity's sake, we'll say that our observable universe is perfectly equal to the matter-dominant side of that split. Now, we should be able to observe every particle, and find that it's matter-to-antimatter ratio is 3:1. That's fine. We should also be able to look at old (distant) regions, and see back to when the universe was still undergoing those distributions, and we should see the results of other uneven distributions. We should see some antimatter-heavy regions and some matter-heavy regions, though we'd still expect to see that general 3:1 ratio.

      We don't see that, though. Instead, we've seen no sign of any antimatter-heavy regions anywhere in observable space, regardless of age. This would imply that if such an uneven distribution happened, it happened only before any of our observable universe formed, and all expansion afterward has been perfectly homogenous matter. That's where the probability becomes very unlikely. It's not unlikely to have randomly-bad distributions. It's unlikely that there would be no further sign of such events, if they were prevalent enough to cause our whole observable universe to be so biased.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    2. Re:Statistical variation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We only see a sphere of about 93B light years. The pockets of matter and antimatter could be trillions or more light years across. At the current rate of expansion, we will only see less than 100B light years. We will never see another part of the universe that could be antimatter.

    3. Re: Statistical variation by twotonfist · · Score: 1

      Based on your thesis it would seem that symmetry has a statistical base separate from literal symmetry. Are we observing statistical symmetry or the lack of literal symmetry?

    4. Re:Statistical variation by fisted · · Score: 1

      Even though you'd expect equal amounts of matter and antimatter to go to both positions, it's statistically unlikely. Referring to the coin analogy, you might get 210,000 matter and 290,000 antimatter on one position, and 290,000 antimatter and 210,000 matter in the other. Both sides have 500,000 "coins", but with slightly different proportions, according to statistical chance.

      So in total you'd have 580000 antimatter and 420000 matter. Where does this imbalance come from?

    5. Re:Statistical variation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As it happens, there's evidence that the early universe *did* expand faster than the speed of light, which is why the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, but looks to be at least 93 billion years in diameter. This is the early inflation model.

      Inflation is not the main cause of the current size of the universe. Rather, later, faster than light expansion is the reason.
      Remember the universe was only about the size of a grain of sand at the end of inflation so this does not account for 33 billion light years of extra universe in all directions.

    6. Re:Statistical variation by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      That's the point, though...

      If we assume that there is a pocket of antimatter a few trillion light years away, there are more questions raised:

      • Why is our matter-favoring pocket so big?

      • Why don't we see smaller antimatter pockets?
      • Why don't we see evidence in the cosmic microwave background?
      • And still, why is there any bias in some parts of the universe over others?

      There are lots of examples of region discrepancies discovered throughout history. Land meets ocean, atmosphere meets fades into vacuum, and the solar system meets interstellar space. There are even fairly clear boundaries between galaxies, but all of those regions are explainable within our laws of physics, using testable models. We can make an experimental coast by testing the material properties of rock. We can compute the strength of gravity, and thus determine the size of celestial regions in which a given body will dominate.

      We do not have any theory (at least, that corresponds with observations) describing how such pockets could exist, even outside our observable universe. Thus far, all such theories require the assumption that the laws of physics simply do not apply outside of a completely arbitrary boundary within which we happen to exist.

      That's the realm of faith, not science.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    7. Re:Statistical variation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's unlikely ... is still a LOT more probable than "should not exist", so I'll take a punt on "unlikely" and offer that it's the more reasonable response, given as the universe obviously fucking does exist.
      There's just some OTHER reason why we can't "see" the things you think we "should" see, and we don't know what it is yet.

    8. Re:Statistical variation by erapert · · Score: 1

      We only see a sphere of about 93B light years.

      Radius? Diameter? Volume?
      (something something kessel run something something parsecs)

    9. Re:Statistical variation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simplifying the coin-flipping analogy, it's probable that matter and antimatter just weren't created in exact 50/50 ratio even if the probability for each was 50% just like flipping coins... Maybe it ended up 51/49 and after most everything was annihilated, what was left over was 2% matter and 98% radiation and heat.

    10. Re:Statistical variation by G00F · · Score: 1

      Further to back you up, we haven't discovered a single atom of antimatter in the wild. We discover things like positron, but not a single atom.

      --
      The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
    11. Re:Statistical variation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The universe is 14 billion years old, therefore, one might assume that the furthest we can see 14 billion light years in any direction. In reality we can see further than this due to expansion.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

    12. Re:Statistical variation by erapert · · Score: 1

      So 93B light years in diameter, gotcha.

  84. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    I hold a similar viewpoint; if the universe is truly infinite, then anything we can conceivably observe is infinitesimally minuscule.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  85. Nihilists 1 CERN 0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They've known for awhile what you've spent your whole lives trying to figure out.

  86. Very Unlikely =/= Impossible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's important to remember that the slightest imbalance, a single quantuam event flopping rather than flipping, is all the universe needed to avoid symmetry. Even if the current configuration is very unlikely, unlikely things can happen. Ours might even be the least likely configuration, but its the one where we exist, so we're here to talk about it.

  87. Here's another stupid hypothesis by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The big bang was symmetrical, expanding in both positive and negative time. Matter is weakly coupled to time, anti-matter is weakly coupled to negative time. We live in positive time, and thus see mostly matter.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    1. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about, about half the galaxies in the universe are antimatter. They're just not near us because almost all the local matter/anti-matter reactions occurred billions of years ago.

    2. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope.
      We can see far enough in the past that we would see the initial annihilation if that was the case.

    3. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by johannesg · · Score: 1

      Oh! Oh! Can I? ;-) Actually the universe is a giant three-dimensional Mobius strip, and all the anti-matter is on the other side of the strip. However, moving along the strip slowly changes the fundamental properties of particles so that by the time they reach the 'other' side, they have morphed into their own opposites.

      And here's another. The universe is not expanding at all; instead we are falling to the gravity well of a black hole. The phenomenon known as 'time' is actually our motion into the gravity well. At least it explains why time has a direction... ;-)

    4. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, the Big Bang created two universes: One of matter and one of anti-matter. We're in the matter one. Whether or not Spock has a goatee in the other one, I do not know.

    5. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by jandrese · · Score: 1

      The problem with this theory is that we have created anti-matter. If this were the case, we would expect to see the energy from its decay before it is created, but we do not. It appears to be bound by causality just like regular matter.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    6. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man. Alexander Abian was professor emeritus way back in 1997 when he was trolling on sci.physics. You must be really old now. How do you do it?

    7. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by Pro-feet · · Score: 1

      How does this get modded insightful!? It's meaningless junk, just some science words linked together grammatically in a sentence, but without utter meaning. Are you like the SCIgen of Slashdot comments?

    8. Re:Here's another stupid hypothesis by technosaurus · · Score: 1

      My 9 year old had the same hypothesis.

  88. Re:Today's silly joke by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    But "WTF" is where the best science comes from. Hmmm, the precession of Mercury isn't explained by Newtonian mechanics. WTF? Why here comes Mr. Einstein with an explanation...

    As others have pointed out, we know there are issues with the Standard Model, we even have some possible expansions on the Standard Model like supersymmetry, and CERN is doing its darndest to crank up to energy to try to catch a glimpse of the superpartners to the known elementary particles.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  89. Fluctuations in a random universe by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    What we know for sure is that the universe hasn't existed forever in its current form. If it has existed forever, it has been in a different form.

    If you are arguing for the possibillity that the universe is a temporary fluctuation in a thermal equilibrium state, you do realize that large fluctuations are exponentially unlikely, and the probability of any fluctuation being long-lasting is even more exponentially unlikely. So, if what we see as the universe is a fluctuation, it is almost certainly very very small, and very very short lasting-- what you call the "universe" must consists of nothing more than your brain and some random signals propagating to it, and its duration is no more than a few fractions of a second.

    Your previous post is not something you did (your memory of it is a random fluctuation), I don't exist, the internet doesn't exist, and this post doesn't exist (what exists are the random fluctuations in thermal equilibrium that, coincidentally, your brain happens to interpret as memories, and as an "internet" post.).

    Also, everything we know about the universe doesn't exist-- your memories of what you think we know about physics are just random fluctuations, not real: nobody has ever actually done any physics experiments because nobody else actually exists.

    And neither will you, in a second or two from now.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Fluctuations in a random universe by fisted · · Score: 1

      I award you one boltzmann brain for this post.

    2. Re:Fluctuations in a random universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't matter how unlikely it is in infinite time it's gonna happen a lot.

    3. Re:Fluctuations in a random universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It appears that you are defining "small" based on your own local experiences. This goes right back to Chief_Potato's original point: "The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one."

      It is possible that you are just an insignificant part of an insignificant perturbation.

    4. Re:Fluctuations in a random universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So where I can get some of that weed you've been smoking? Sounds like good stuff.

    5. Re:Fluctuations in a random universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like the short-story "Flux"
      https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/107417/what-time-travel-story-required-the-traveller-to-mentally-reconstruct-his-worl

  90. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Quirkz · · Score: 1

    Yeah, it didn't look like you were going in that direction, and I glossed over the last sentence. I'm still not really sure that the idea of being a pocket in an infinitely old universe really changes things much compared to the idea that the Big Bang created the entirety of the universe. Either option is in the realm of unknown and probably unknowable.

  91. Flash! Science unable to understand the divine. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I'm shocked... shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment."

  92. Re:Today's silly joke by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

    It's not a press simplification. It's a direct quote from the author of the study.

    "All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist," explained Christian Smorra, the author of a new study conducted at CERN.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  93. And the good news is... by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    "Whew! Thank goodness we're not living in that universe!"

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  94. BECAUSE ANTIMATTER GOES *BACKWARDS* IN TIME! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anti-matter is just regular matter, going backwards in time.
    There is no such thing as “annihilation” of matter and anti-matter!
    It’s just a particle, changing its direction in time!
    This is why we see so little anti-matter! At the big bang, it went *in the other direction* of time.
    The only anti-matter we see now, is from the future! So obviously it’s very little!
    I thought this was common knowledge in the scientific community nowadays!

    So obviously it couldn’t annihilate!
    That’s like seeing two cars drive away in opposite directions, and being surprised they didn’t crash into eacho ther... --.--

  95. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean, the press fails to understand science.
    You see, the scientists already know there are other symmetry breaking mechanisms that make matter and antimatter behave differently (see CP violation), this experiment might have found a new one, but didn't.

  96. Re:Today's silly joke by beelsebob · · Score: 1

    By "press simplification" I meant "the author simplified things for the press"

  97. On positing the Creatrix by mysticgoat · · Score: 1

    How about replacing "In the beginning God said 'Let there be light'"

    With "In the beginning She said, 'I just had a thought...'"

    This aligns contemporary neopagan mythology with information theory, which is a useful early step in building a new bridge from Here to Somewhere Else that avoids reliance on any of the shopworn and unsafe postulates of the old way of thinking about things.

    (There. I think that's vague enough to seem plausibly metaphysical.)

  98. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by sconeu · · Score: 1

    Mod AC parent up. This is known, I believe Kaon decay is one of the proprosed mechanisms to explain the imbalance.

    DISCLAIMER: I am not a particle physicist, nor am I an astrophysicist. I am just a dilettante.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  99. But the good news is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    C'mere Martha

    Thank goodness we're not living in that universe!
     
    Provocateur

  100. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it so hard to consider that when you remove all that is impossible, whatever is left, no matter how implausible, must be the truth?

    Captcha: Musing

  101. You’re being clueless... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure it can! Have you never heard of the quantum foam of the vacuum? Or virtual particles?
    In certain situation, basically “anything can happen”. Including particles and their anti-particles popping out from nothing because together they are still nothing! It turns out zero and negative numbers are not unnatural concepts at all! :)
    And if the black hole eats one of them, and never the other, then the other is doomed to exist forever. (Technically, if the anti-particle gets eaten, that is the same as taking one such particle out of the black hole. And vice versa.)

    Add to that the relativity of time. Or that the “outside” universe, if it exists, does not have to adhere to our inside laws at all!

    And together, this makes it at least plausible, that we're just one of those cases. Like on the outside, our universe is just "virtual". And on the inside time runs at a completely different rate. And there’s a anti-universe on “the other side” (time-wise) of the big bang. So together we do actually not exist! :D
    And maybe something stopped us from from collapsing into nothing again.

    The problem is: As far as we know nowadays, we can never ever know that, making it pointless to think about it.
    But as far as we know *nowadays*. So it still makes sense, to think about ways how we *could* know, one day.

  102. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    Yes, scientists know that. Quantum Mechanics does not take gravity into account, and General Relativity doesn't take quantum mechanics into account. So, we know our "rules" aren't right. That's the reason for performing these studies. By determining how the universe differs from the model predictions it can give us insight into where our models are wrong.

  103. Re:Today's silly joke by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    Just thinking about what if the universe actually holds equal amounts of matter and antimatter can lead to some interesting ideas. Are all galaxies of matter or are some of anti-matter?

    Or what if Big Bang actually created two mirror universes, one with matter, the other with anti-matter?

    But then we must realize that a "perfect" explosion don't exist.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  104. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MAGIC.

  105. So? by mark-t · · Score: 1

    Lots of things happen all the time that "shouldn't" happen. Lots of things that "should" happen don't. The universe isn't fair, it never has been and never will be. Why should the fact that it happens to exist at all be any different?

  106. Hiding in plain sight by physicsphairy · · Score: 1

    Evidence that anti-matter would not preferentially annihilate is also evidence that it is still lurking about somewhere. It's worth noting that we have never performed an experiment outside our solar system, and our reasons for inferring what other regions of the universe are made out of are indirect and largely spectroscopic. What if, e.g., anti-matter has repulsive gravitational effect? Would it wind up as a diffused gas of ostensibly normal hydrogen in interstellar space, helping to compact the normal matter galaxies (perhaps its initial confinement could have contributed to a rapidly inflationary universe?). And/or is there another method/place it could be hiding in the void?

    1. Re:Hiding in plain sight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "anti-matter has repulsive gravitational effect"

      No, we have created anti-matter and it does not exhibit anything of the sort.

  107. We don't know a damned thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Us, humans, trying to explain the universe by just sitting on our insignificant little world is the true definition of arrogance.

  108. More complicated than that by mbkennel · · Score: 1

    In full general relativity the question of conservation of energy is more complex than commonly imagined, and sometimes seems like 'nonconservation'.

    Remember that the conservation laws are reflections of the presence of operations which leave physical laws unchanged (symmetries & transformations), which results in the usual conservation of energy in flat-spacetime.

    And next---if there were some state prior to BIg Bang---what makes you think it had to be 'zero'?

  109. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > What if the universe always existed, and always will?

    Considering that the 1st Law of Thermodynamics says that:

    Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

    I would tend to agree with you.

    Either

    a) The universe has always existed, or
    b) God has always existed.

    Either way you end up with the atheist's F word: Faith.

  110. Antiparticles have positive mass-energy by mbkennel · · Score: 1

    Not negative. Like (-x)^2 = x^2. Which is why annihilation can result in two or more photons with net positive energy. (no such thing as anti-photon).

    And gravitation of anti-particles appears to be identical to their normal counterparts.

  111. The Universe Doesn't Exist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is like running off a cliff in a cartoon. Now we're trying to look down.

  112. Re:Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trump being President IS exciting!

  113. They leave out GOD by WCMI92 · · Score: 0, Troll

    God is why the Universe exists. God is why we all exist. Thanks to God, his Son, and the Holy Spirit.

    --
    Corporatism != Free Market
    1. Re:They leave out GOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know about the first two, there was always something fishy about those Birth Papers. Too many discrepancies; it's either Bethlehem or Nazareth. Possibly even Honolulu.
      But I'm down with Holy Spirits. In Moldova, it's called Divin.

    2. Re:They leave out GOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go on, tell me another joke.

    3. Re:They leave out GOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To which everyone with a brain replies: "so where did god come from then?"
      And you reply "God is infinite and eternal"
      To which everyone with a brain replies "so just like the universe appears to be, but without needing to assume that the most incredibly complex sentience that could ever exist just happened to be there beforehand and yet does not offer any direct proof of its existence that doesn't require invocations of post-hoc silliness like making deliberate ignorance ('faith') a virtue, William of Ockham having a thing or two to say about unnecessarily multiplying the required assumptions required, and the anthropic principle providing a quite complete explanation for our existence without the need for any god."

  114. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think you have a universe inside of a universe somewhere there.

  115. Can't 'conclude' anything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We exist, there is no 'conclusion' otherwise. The correct reference is 'the Universe shouldn't exist based on our current understanding meaning there must be exciting information we don't know about'...I'm tired of such sloppy use of English.

  116. As we all know ... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    This universe amoung the multitude of multiverses is just a single instance in a single dream amoung the gazillions of parallel dreams in the mind of Brahma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  117. What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scientific clergy? Get over yourself, just because you reject something doesn't mean you are smart or that it's wrong. So, what exactly are your theories on the origins of the universe? What proof/ evidence do you set forth to support your claims?

    1. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      God created everything. Case closed.

    2. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by DigiShaman · · Score: 0

      Yahweh, translated as "I am"; God is both the Alpha and Omaga, being both the beginning and eternal. That sir, is the origen of the universe.

      Holy Bible. Genesis:

      "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

        3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness."

      The Universe was born, and thus our solar system was being formed as our star, Sol, ignited, bathing the Earth in light. The rest as they say, is history.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool, so what god created god?

    4. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I dont think he was sayinh he was smart. Hes just stating that there will always be things we dont understand.

      Its like the man that ate the fish. He ate the meat and left the bone. Understand amd learm what you can. Accept that what you cant understand and not boast since you couldnt eat the whole thing.

    5. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      He's both the beginning, and the forever and everlasting. There is no "before"; as in a god that created a god. I should preface that with being from the faith of Christianity.

      If science is about the "how", as in how things work and inter-operate in the Universe, then faith (and the supposition therein depending on your POV) is there to address and answer the "why"; as in why it all started to begin with.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    6. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How convenient.

    7. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thatâ(TM)s basically like answering a childâ(TM)s question of âoewhyâ with âoebecauseâ.

      It may get some children to stop asking but it doesnâ(TM)t actually answer the question.

    8. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's turtles all the way down, son.

    9. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lemma 1: The creator of this Universe is our God.
      Lemma 2: The creator of our God is this Universe.
      I need the confirmation of both lemmas.

      Apart, a man was born at this world of this Universe before than God's birth, it is in my theory & practice of the almighty spirit.

    10. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it does.

    11. Re: What is YOUR HYPOTHESIS then? by guruevi · · Score: 1

      What is the difference between how and why? The only answer to why is by explaining how. God is a cop out for those that find explaining too difficult.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  118. Atheist's head explodes by DalM · · Score: 1

    In other news: Millions of headless atheists type tirelessly on social media today explaining why this doesn't mean what creationists think it means.

    1. Re:Atheist's head explodes by abies · · Score: 1

      Yes, because world was created 6500 years ago, so who cares about imbalance on fake timeline before that.

    2. Re:Atheist's head explodes by DalM · · Score: 1

      6500? Oh, you are a old earth guy. Yeah, I believe that the earth was created 7 minutes ago, and all my memories and past experiences were pre-programmed into my head.

    3. Re:Atheist's head explodes by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      Creationists are like flat-earthers. I suspect they're just trolling.

  119. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    First of all: there are no such laws. You are perhaps mixing this up with the law of conversation of energy.
    Energy equals mass, both can be converted freely into each other.

    Then again: who knows what laws existed before the big bang? Our laws of physics describe how the universe works right now, we can not even describe the first 'insert scaling' seconds of the universe after the big bang with our physical laws.

    From our point of view every pair of virtual particles, one anti matter one posi matter could be a big bang and from the inside view could be a whole universe lasting for billions of years.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  120. Re:Today's silly joke by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

    Fair enough. A lot of people are taking it the other way though.

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  121. The Onion by TheStickBoy · · Score: 1

    For a moment...just a brief second.... I thought I was reading an article on 'The Onion'

  122. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    That is not the first law. It is a sidenote, added by the author of the relevant wikipedia article.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The first law is simply: The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  123. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by penandpaper · · Score: 1

    Is the universe an isolated system?

  124. Registered /.ers disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  125. Re:Today's silly joke by jandrese · · Score: 1

    There are apparently ways to detect which kind of matter you are looking at, and regular matter utterly dominates the universe. There is no antimatter half as far as we know.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  126. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He is an armchair physicist and doesn't know jack. People have spent ages thinking about this stuff and the general recent conclusion is that some of our "common definitions" of words like "Universe" are confusing. Scientists are aware and agree that the "Entire Universe" could be much larger than what we call the "Universe". The fact still remains, we don't understand a lot about why our "Universe" is the way it is, regardless of if there is a larger "Entire Universe".

    His entire argument just dismisses the question away as unknowable but in a fashion that appears to explain something (and make him look smart in the process).

    "Its just random" is not an answer. I don't know the answers and am not a physicist either but to claim an infinite universe answers the question is stupid at best and need to be down modded. These things have been thoroughly vetted by people much smarter than us and while I don't understand the talks, I don't think Joe Slashdot has refuted these people's life work with his one paragraph Slashdot post.

  127. They have no clue? by fferreres · · Score: 1

    Just like I had always believed it was extremely more obvious that "dark matter" was just regular matter in places we aren't looking for and can't see yet (and not the all misterious things that have waste huge resources of so many brilliant people) the same regarding this asymmetry. Of course, they are so embedded in the mathematics that they lose sight of the elegance of all there is. 20 years from now they will find the "asymmetry" isn't needed, and that it doesn't anihilate because it emanates directly from an obvious overlooked reason such as "They annihilate but so irregularly that there's always a net balance that doesn't "fizzle". Or that the expansion caused asymmetry in the distribution (not in the amount of matter/anti-matter), etc.

    --
    unfinished: (adj.)
    1. Re:They have no clue? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Dark matter has properties that regular matter doesn't, such as clumping differently. I really don't understand why people have so many problems with the idea of dark matter. There's something we call matter from its gravitational effects. We can't detect it with electromagnetic means. Therefore, we call it dark. People seem to believe in neutrinos, and neutrinos are dark in the same sense.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  128. Security pros disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aryeh Goretsky/ESET/NOD32: hosts = good security http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7442373&cid=49747129/

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    Want more? Ask.

    APK

  129. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Learn to spot when journalists spin a headline. The scientists did not literally conclude the universe should not exist. A better, less sensational headline would be that scientists recognize a potential problem with the symmetries in the laws of physics based on their prediction that matter should cancel. Being condescending to scientists while missing such an obvious explanation for the ludicrous title is pretty self-damning on your part. Maybe you aren't as clever as you think you are.

  130. This is gonna blow their minds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    When they figure out that there is a God and that He created the Universe. It exists and we exist because He exists. That one's gonna really rock their world.

    1. Re:This is gonna blow their minds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A flat world.

  131. CERN should talk to Rygel by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    I've been around long enough to know how ignorant I am. I don't assume the universe obeys my preconceptions. Huh! But I know a frelling fact when it hits me in the face!

    - Dominar Rygel XVI, "Farscape: I Shrink Therefore I Am (#4.8)" (2002)

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  132. I am conCERNed about this revelation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The universe shouldn't exist? Does this mean we all exist in a simulation or some kind of artificial construct?

    I need to find out before I make a big business decision.

  133. sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a sensationalized title, actually read the study please

  134. Speculative Solutions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Antimatter could have opposite gravity "charge" vs matter
    http://news.berkeley.edu/2013/04/30/is-antimatter-anti-gravity/

    Antimatter would attract other anti-matter gravitationally as matter-matter does, but matter and antimatter would repel gravitationally.

    Hence, all antimatter would over time migrate to the "opposite" side of the Universe.
    If our Universe were a sphere (probably not), the Northern hemisphere could be all matter, and Southern hemisphere all antimatter.
    Same idea for whatever geometry or hyper-geometry our Universe actually is.

    Second solution-

    At the Big Bang or equivalent, twin matter and antimatter Universes were created, occupying the same "space"

    For example, our twin Universe exists with properties:

    1) Composed of antimatter

    2) Our Universe and its antimatter twin created at the same time could never be in physical "contact", and to believe that they can be superimposed in our 3-space does not make sense, for they are not separated by dimensional relations, (i.e. to affirm that they are separated by X light-years or that their existence is simultaneous does not make sense).

    3) Our Universe and its antimatter twin have the same mass and the same radius corresponding to a Hypersphere of negative curvature.

    4) The twin universes have different singularities (in other words: in our twin cosmos there is not the same number of galaxies, and those which are there do not have the same structure/distribution.) There is not another exact twin EARTH.

    5) The two Universes "were created" simultaneously but their arrows of time are not directed in the same direction. That is, it is illogical to say that this cosmos coexists with ours in time, or that it existed before or will exist afterwards. One can only say that it exists: but not now, before or later. On the other hand an interval of evolution can be parallel or equal to ours.

  135. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    I guess no one knows.
    Does not change the fact that the parent (and the wiki article about the first law of thermodynamics) is wrong.
    Inside of a closed system you still can freely convert energy into mass and vice versa.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  136. The One by QuadEddie · · Score: 0

    The equations all balance except for a remainder. The One. They just don't have the universal precision to find this singular imbalance.

  137. They haven't concluded anything! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scientists haven't concluded anything. The summary itself states, "going by our findings so far," which clearly indicates that they're continuing their research. The only thing that they have 'concluded' is that they haven't found the cause of asymmetry which permits our existence. Yet.

  138. Replacing one problem with another... by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    ...thus replacing the problem with yet another problem.

    ...and it's turtles all the way down.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  139. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People talk about it like that's when "the universe began", but it's really just "when the universe AS WE KNOW IT began". It says nothing about what was happening before that time because the answer is that we have no idea. Maybe it was always here. It's possible new universes are formed inside of black holes and that our universe was formed in just such a manner.

    I rather like Penrose's ideas about this. When the energy density is high enough, effectively everything becomes massless and moves at the speed of light. In such a case, the universe ceases to have time and distance scales - when nothing in the universe experiences time or distance, the concepts become meaningless. General relativity still works just fine in such conditions, as it's fundamentally scale-invariant, so this doesn't break established physics.

    Under that interpretation, the big bang isn't when the universe began, but when time (and space) began. What was there "before" was all the same stuff, just in a state where time and distance don't happen.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  140. The Universe Should Not Exist... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Therefore it does not exist!

    QED.

  141. Okay, you got me by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    Even though you'd expect equal amounts of matter and antimatter to go to both positions, it's statistically unlikely. Referring to the coin analogy, you might get 210,000 matter and 290,000 antimatter on one position, and 290,000 antimatter and 210,000 matter in the other. Both sides have 500,000 "coins", but with slightly different proportions, according to statistical chance.

    So in total you'd have 580000 antimatter and 420000 matter. Where does this imbalance come from?

    Okay, you got me.

    Swap "antimatter" and "matter" in the 2nd half of that sentence to correct my senior moment.

    Full sentence should read:

    Referring to the coin analogy, you might get 210,000 matter and 290,000 antimatter on one position, and 290,000 matter and 210,000 antimatter in the other.

    1. Re:Okay, you got me by fisted · · Score: 1

      Okay; I was suspecting you had done this intentionally to create a false premise that would evade a careless reader to build your next argument upon, which reads:

      The matter/anti-matter ratio in each side is now 210,000/290.000, which annihilates, leaving 80,000 matter particles and 420,000*MC^2 of energy. On each side.

      Emphasis mine. Clearly you would have 80000 antimatter and some energy on one side.

  142. Antimatter has positive mass by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    There are people trying to prove that antimatter has negative mass. That would explain the 'missing' part as well as the accelerated expansion of the universe [antimatter has somehow become Dark Energy].

    There may be people trying to prove this, but if antimatter has negative mass, you have even worse problems. But it doesn't: if it did, then it would take zero energy to create particle/antiparticle pairs (mc^2 + (-m)c^2 = 0). And positronium (which has been made) would have net zero mass, and thus would accelerate to arbitrary velocity under the pressure of photons of trivial energy, and we'd never see it.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Antimatter has positive mass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here here. Antimatter is real and has been observed. It does not have negative mass, and while it can be modelled perfectly as regular particles moving backwards in time (see Fyneman diagrams) that does not mean they are actually doing that.

  143. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because the laws of physics didn't exist until after the universe was created.

  144. Oscillating universe? [Re:The universe is not ...] by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    The current iteration of the universe is not infinite, which you state. So it's completely plausible the universe has always existed but it goes through "rebirth" every few trillion "years". Maybe the big bang that started our universe was the infinity + 1 big bang that happened.

    Yep. That's one reason I put in that particular wording: "the universe has not existed infinitely in its current form.

    I'm far from an expert and I'll go so far to say that I'm not even very knowledgeable on the subject.. but my simple brain seems to think that at some point expansion halts and contraction begins. Could the universe contract into a singularity and cause another big bang?

    That is plausible in terms of the physics: it's sometimes called the "big crunch", and the idea that the universe expands to a maximum extent, contracts, and then recycles into a new big bang is called the "cyclic" or "oscillating" universe: https://www.universetoday.com/...

    The best data we have at the moment, however, says that there is not enough mass in the universe for the expansion to be reversed by gravity (in fact, it suggests the opposite: rather than expansion slowing down and eventually stopping, expansion is actually speeding up.)

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  145. Ten-to-the-googleplex to one by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    Doesn't matter how unlikely it is in infinite time it's gonna happen a lot.

    Yep. But the chances are ten-to-the-googleplex to one that all that gets temporarily created in the fluctuation is your brain, and that fluctuation only lasts long enough to read this message, after which you (or, what you temporarily believed was you) dissipate.

    And, if it's true, then everything we know about physics is fantasy, since physics (like the existence of other people) never actually ever existed.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Ten-to-the-googleplex to one by werepants · · Score: 1

      Doesn't matter how unlikely it is in infinite time it's gonna happen a lot.

      Yep. But the chances are ten-to-the-googleplex to one that all that gets temporarily created in the fluctuation is your brain

      Sure, but in given infinite time and space, anything that can happen WILL happen. Up to and including the spontaneous creation of a massive, persistent universe. In fact, that tremendously unlikely universe will occur not just once, but an infinite number of times.

      Which is why I, personally, don't believe in the existence of infinity.

  146. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You have to think of the Universe as a balloon or bubble that is constantly expanding, and multiverses are all the neighboring bubbles in a 4th dimensional tessaract type of thing.

    We can not see a 4th dimension, and just like infinite, we may simply ask questions that only make logical sense in 3 dimensions. Like nothing in the universe says we have 3 dimensions, and in fact things like gravity pretty much mandate that space and time to be connected since the more massive something gets, the slower "time" runs. If the speed of light is a constant, then it can't be changed by gravity, but we know for a fact this is false, and light can be slowed, stopped and bent with gravity.

  147. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 1

    The energy of gravitational binding is necessarily negative. That is you say, if you have two objects near one another, you would have to inject positive work in order to separate them to infinity.

    The most likely answer to the question about the 1st law of thermodynamics is that the entire universe is net zero energy, with the positive contributions from mass balanced out by the negative gravitational binding energy. Current cosmological calculations are consistent with this hypothesis, although it remains to be proven conclusively.

    Or, as more commonly stated, the entire universe is a free lunch.

  148. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Universe alway's existed? That's very 19th century science thinking.

  149. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Quirkz · · Score: 1

    Curiously enough, I have a degree in physics. But I'm wrong about things often enough I'm not about to make that appeal to authority.

  150. Re:Oscillating universe? [Re:The universe is not . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The "Big Crunch" theory has been proven incorrect ever since they discovered that not only is the universe expanding, but it is increasing it's rate of expansion. In a few billion or tens of billions years, the expansion will have completely eradicated the possibility of gravity having any measurable effect between galaxies / clusters. Some time after that, expansion and the death of stars will cause galaxy's to fall apart so the night sky will go dark.

    The universe won't go out in a crunch, but in a slow trillions of year long cooling down to absolute 0. Now that is a far cooler idea (pun intended) then any religious after-life.

  151. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Pro-feet · · Score: 1

    What happened before the big bang is irrelevant. It's philosophy, not science. We can only ever study what happened after the big bang (though we have a damn good understanding already from a tiny fraction of a second after onwards).
    Also, the Heat Death is not going to happen, that scenario is scientifically ruled out since many years.

  152. Re:Today's silly joke by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    Yep. This is still an "observation", not a "conclusion".

    That won't stop the press running with the story though, and lo, a whole load more stupidity will be created from nothing.

    Stupidity is the only thing that that doesn't obey the laws of thermodynamics. It's an infinite resource and can be called into existence at any time with negligible energy loss to the otherwise closed system.

    --
    No sig today...
  153. Duality, not singularity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Our Universe is the synthesis of two older Universes that collided and/or converged. Imagine two soap bubbles that collide with each other, one red and one blue. The location where they are merging is purple. Red and Blue are the older Universes. The Purple is our Universe. If you wind back the clock in our Universe, you would see everything approaching a singularity and a lot of energy. As the two older bubbles continued to merge, those in the synthesized bubble would notice the rate of expansion increasing. When the older bubbles finish merging, expansion will come to a halt.

    Or it could be dark stuff or a simulation or turtles or Jeebus.

  154. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Quantum Mechanics does not take gravity into account"

    That's not true. The gravitational attraction between the components of an atom is required to model the energy levels correctly.

    What is meant is that QM and GR are mutually exclusive theories: when GR is scaled down it does not lead to QM, and when QM is scaled up it does not lead to GR.

  155. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The universe has always existed, just not in its current form where the proton rules. It takes infrared energy for protons to exist. There was a universe before protons. More than likely had electrons before this current universe of proton domination.

    It would be like a piano that didn't have middle C as a note, and you couldn't play any song that contained middle C. But once middle C was added to the universe, protons popped into existence and the universe as we know it exists.

    So somewhere back in time infrared energy was created as an harmonic between ultraviolet and radio waves and that infrared energy turned to the mass of a proton.

    What created that ultraviolet and radio wave energy I have no answer. But, the F word has nothing to do with it.

  156. CP violation by FeelGood314 · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia explains it better than I ever could https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  157. This kind of CERN scientists should not exist at a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I watched the show where they gather after every little thing, to celebrate with a cake, althoug NO PROGRESS was actually made at all.
    I watched their presentations where they just state that the measurements that made DID NOT gave the expected results.
    I watched interviews with their stupid "scientist" who laugh all the time during the interview
    A bunch of idiots.
    Dear Einstein, come back and see who calls himself a scientist.

  158. Re:Today's silly joke by e_pluribus_funk · · Score: 1

    >Dark matter is one of the few remaining possibilities for the imbalance

    No it isn't.

    Dark matter accounts for the hidden mass of the universe, it doesn't account for why there is matter in the first place. If dark matter interacted with anti-matter more strongly than regular matter, you would get more annihilation reactions, not fewer, because dark matter has mass and therefore gravity and attracts matter and anti-matter alike.

  159. Shouldn't Exist Naturally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They forgot the qualifier "naturally." It shouldn't exist "naturally." But, if someone created it, then it can exist.

  160. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not really. It’s very easy to come up with variants that are finite in some dimensions and infinite in others. Or finite in all. Or infinite in all. Or cyclic (donut shaped for example). Or really weird stuff like non-Hausdorff. It’s called topology, and a-priori there is no reason to preference one over another, so it’s down to observation and inference to pick the right one. Best to avoid the trap of saying a particular variant is “simpler” and hence more likely - that’s just intuition, and intuition varies wildly from one person to the next and tells you zip.

    Penrose has published some interesting speculations about infinite universes where big bangs happen over and over in sequence. They might be true, or not, and awaits observational evidence one way or another.

  161. But it doesn't exist ... by Attila · · Score: 1

    The universe is just a really big quantum vacuum fluctuation. It came from nothing and will eventually collapse back into nothing and as long as it doesn't interact with other universes it will be exactly like it never existed at all. Which it doesn't.

    --
    Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
  162. Re:Oscillating universe? [Re:The universe is not . by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    That is extremely unsatisfying as an answer. The universe is just one huge mystery.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  163. Re:Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, this "news" "exited" for me too, as soon as I saw the clickbait headline....

  164. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What if the universe always existed, and always will?

    Because entropy and thermodynamics, idiot.

    Why can't it be infinitely long on the time axis as well as the spatial ones?

    Because entropy and thermodynamics, idiot.

    You ask how it came into existence in the first place, and I say what if it DIDN'T and it's simply always been there?

    Because causality, idiot.

    Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.

    Like, whoa, man! That's, like, so, like, totally gnarly man! Totally far out! Like, that's so deep and stuff, man!

  165. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by werepants · · Score: 1

    If the universe is infinite, and generally isotropic (as all observations indicate it to be), then there are some interesting consequences - given infinite time to deal with, all things that can happen, no matter how improbable, will happen. What's more, they will happen an infinite number of times. Since your existence can happen (given that you are writing on the internet), then it must have happened before and it must happen again. Which means that right now, this discussion is just one iteration of an infinite string of slashdot arguments about stoner physics.

    The absurdity of all that is one reason that I don't think anybody really believes in infinity. Unless you are willing to accept all the ludicrous statistical implications, you probably shouldn't suggest that the universe is actually infinite.

  166. Re:Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would it make any sense to hypothesize on what if dark matter can/could be a remnant or decaying byproduct of anti-matter or its reaction with matter in insufficient equal quantity to nullify/annihilate each other?

  167. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No fucking shit, Sherlock. Nobody was confused about that.
    Irony, metaphor, allegory and other figures of speech are used to convey nuance and subtlety of meaning. Are you autistic? Are you just stupid? Or did you think to yourself "Ha, I'll just go on the internet and pretend to be smart because I'm all, like, fucking science and stuff, man. People will read my post and consider it insightful even though nobody was misled by the clickbait title."

  168. Expansion of the universe by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    Based on your thesis it would seem that symmetry has a statistical base separate from literal symmetry. Are we observing statistical symmetry or the lack of literal symmetry?

    Here's my thesis:

    1) We know that space itself is expanding, and we expect that the expansion is evenly distributed.

    2) Visualize position as quantized. It may or may not be quantized, that's just the mental model that I'm using to better show the process.

    3) Suppose a bit of matter is sitting on a position right when the universe splits that position. What happens?

    My thesis is that the matter ends up randomly in one or the other new positions that came from the original position.

    My post derives from that thesis. There could be other results from that thought problem, but the random choice seems reasonable, based on what we know about QM.

    1. Re: Expansion of the universe by twotonfist · · Score: 1

      Is it your opinion that these positions in space, quantum or otherwise, are in isolation from each others frame of reference thereby preventing total matter-antimatter annihilation? There are no pigeon holes in open space unless you are referencing dimensional space.

    2. Re: Expansion of the universe by twotonfist · · Score: 1

      Sorry for responding to my own post but Im referring to a possability that we live in 3d +1t with asymmetrical matter and antimatter is asymmetrical in other dimensions than ours, making the sum of all dimensions symmetrical. Or something like this. (It is highly likely I dont know what Im talking about but Im not smart enough to realize it.)

  169. Re:Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their weakened interaction could also at some point originally been much stronger, and perhaps anti-matter had acted as a sort of catalyst that just wasn't in enough quantity (guess that was a good thing or we wouldn't exist) to nullify all matter, but not enough either to prevent the brief faster than light expansion of the universe.

  170. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by werepants · · Score: 1

    Either way you end up with the atheist's F word: Faith.

    It doesn't take faith to believe the universe has always existed. And nobody is required to believe that the universe has always existed. What we can deduce from observation is that, going back in time, all parts of the universe get closer and closer together, which suggests that at one point they would have all been in the same place. Hence the big bang.

    This says nothing at all about whether the universe has always existed. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. It's just a philosophical question, and one that nobody really has an answer to. And invoking a deity or some kind of supernatural narrative doesn't help at all - either the universe exists for some unknowable reason, or there's a deity that exists for some unknowable reason, and that deity created the universe. Can you really argue for one versus the other?

  171. Re: Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stupidity causes me considerable energy loss.

  172. I have a different discovery by Subm · · Score: 1

    > Recent discoveries suggest that there's a perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter ... going by our findings so far, there simply shouldn't be a universe

    I have a different discovery that it does exist, so I suggest you theorist go back to the drawing board.

    Your existence proves me right. Or you don't exist and can't prove me wrong. Either way, the universe exists.

  173. Re:Today's silly joke by lgw · · Score: 1

    We have no idea how dark matter interacts with anything, but annihilation is one possibility (a bit remote though - it would mean particularly odd physics). All of the anti-matter annihilating with dark matter would leave all of the matter and most of the dark matter, so that could work, far-fetched though that reaction would be. Interacting in some other way, where they react to form some other kind of dark matter, is also possible, and perhaps less fanciful.

    It's all a reach though, since we know so little about dark matter you can invent all sorts of crazy theories about it, and that doesn't mean much.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  174. Re:Oscillating universe? [Re:The universe is not . by G00F · · Score: 1

    The way I think of it, I donâ(TM)t see a single big bang, or even a single crunch that happens over and over. But multiple crunches happening spread out across infinity. Where our perception of the universe is just one tiny bit from a single crunch event. We are speeding up as the gravity of the other crunch events matter starts over coming the gravity from the matter from our crunch event.

    Rinse and repeat forever across infinity.

    --
    The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
  175. Something is wrong here by werepants · · Score: 1

    This is a non-political topic. Yet it has somehow attracted a large amount of commenters. The discussion is at times insightful, funny, or just good-natured. People are debating science, math, technology, and philosophy.

    So my question is: what the hell has happened to slashdot? Have I somehow transported myself into the anti-universe?

  176. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.

    Are you thinking of some form of multi-verse where every perturbation is a birth of another universe?

  177. Re:Today's silly joke by reboot246 · · Score: 1

    Their problem is that they know of only four fundamental forces. When they finally discover the fifth, they'll smack themselves on the forehead and wonder why it took them so long.

  178. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by painandgreed · · Score: 1

    If Einstein was right, and space and time are the same thing, it seems reasonable that if the Universe has infinite space it should have infinite time.

    There was a theory that it is and that the big bang was at 0 on the time line. Antimatter was just matter than was travelling backwards in time. Thus for the same issue we are talking about here, there is no real antimatter as it all went down the negative time while positive matter went down positive time for two separate universes going away from each other in time. Feynman diagrams work this way but I think they did some studies on irreversible process and came to the conclusion that anti-matter is travelling in the same direction as normal matter after all.

  179. Crunches by JBMcB · · Score: 1

    Either continual universe-scale big bang / big crunch cycles, or localized mini-crunches cleaning everything up every now and again.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  180. Maybe intelligent design isn't so crazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just a thought

  181. You already know (it matters) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  182. Re: Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And Hillary is the antipresident, therefore the universe should not exist. Oh wait... she's not the antipresident, she's just a has-been who lost.

  183. Re: Today's silly joke by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Matter is antimatter and everything is everything else, and paradoxes must resolve themselves and we are a giant state machine and we are all the same person meeting in the wrong order.

  184. Re: Today's silly joke by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    The universe is a mathematically open system.

  185. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is only one real moment in existence, and that is the creation itself. The '"big bang" if you will is all there is, and its still "banging", and it always will.
    Take enough psychedelics and you can experience it too ;)

  186. popup by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Why does every web site have a goddamn popup? Does anybody ever click on them?

  187. Terrible synopsis by kiminator · · Score: 1

    The research itself is testing what is known as "CPT invariance" (you can see this stated clearly in the article link in the OP). A super short explanation is that CPT is charge-parity-time invariance. CPT invariance means if you flip the sign of the electric charge, swap parity (meaning exchange left with right), and reverse time, then the physical system will behave exactly as it did before. If CPT invariance were indeed violated, then that is one thing that could explain the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter.

    But CPT invariance has never been the primary avenue of research for understanding the matter/anti-matter asymmetry. The general assumption that most theorists working in high-energy physics work with is that CPT invariance is absolute, and the matter/anti-matter asymmetry is explained by breaking CP invariance instaed. CP invariance means that if you flip the charge and reverse swap left with right, but don't reverse time, then the system will behave the same. Break that, and flipping charge and swapping left/right will change the behavior of the system.

    So what this research really means is that the general assumption most theorists were working on was probably a solid foundation, and they can continue looking for the CP invariance they expected was there all along. But I guess that's not a very sensational headline.

    1. Re:Terrible synopsis by kiminator · · Score: 1

      Slight clarification: if you invert the system using CPT invariance, the system may still look different. But all of the physical laws that describe its behavior will be unchanged. Obviously a person jumping into a pool and creating a splash looks very, very different from a bunch of water falling into a pool and pushing somebody out of it onto the side of the pool. But both situations follow the exact same laws of physics.

      This brings up the whole question of the arrow of time: why do we experience a definite, fixed, unchangeable arrow of time if the fundamental laws don't have any such thing? That's really complicated and big subject, but if anybody reading this is curious, they may want to look up some of the stuff written by Sean Carroll, who has done a lot of work on the subject. He also has a number of YouTube videos.

  188. Re: Today's silly joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not going to disagree with you regarding Hillary, but I do have a question. Why do die-hard trump supporters blame everyone but Trump for his failings?

    I mean its like Its Obamas fault he fake tans and is orange. Its Hillaries fault he's a sexual predator! Its Sanders fault that he wears a bad wig$

  189. Classic Sydney Harris cartoon by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 1

    This comes to mind...

    http://cafehayek.com/2014/03/t...

    (Don't go off on the web page; it's just a place google found the cartoon that didn't require a login)

  190. It's almost like it was acted upon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ðY"
    Creationists aren't bemused... Those of who are scientifically minded and skeptical of anything claiming to be true have long seen the same thing in different areas. Why does Earth have a clear atmosphere, there's nothing to say it had to be clear to sustain life (just not opaque). It could be less clear and still function fine for life.

    It's like maybe someone wants us to see the universe.

    Also the universe is not a being. Such a stupid statement to say "well it must be the universe telling you something"

  191. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    No, it isn't. I've done the calculations and gravity is not taken into account.

  192. Oh, well by vlueboy · · Score: 1

    Sorry, CERN. We thought nobody would notice... Alright then. Computer: END PROGRAM!
    ***CARRIER LOST***

  193. Matter-Antimatter sine wave oscillation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Matter-Antimatter sine wave oscillate after each big-bang. We are in matter cycle with increasing matter and expansion. When all antimatter is converted to matter, collapse starts and bigbang. Then Antimatter cycle starts, we will see antimatter world. Cycle repeates...yeah I made it up

  194. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here you go.

    The relativistic hydrogen atom.

    Better pay more attention in class kid.

  195. Re:This just proves the scientists failure to unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  196. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Togden · · Score: 1

    Gravity means that a physical system can both exist and have net zero energy at the same time. The energy consumed by generating mass follows a linear trend, but reduces the overall energy of the system by higher order. Consequentially you can either have nothing or a minimum viable amount, but not something in the middle. Additionally, a system which exists has less entropy for each additional particle, so it is also entropically feasible for it to spontaneously occur.

  197. Stupid headline by prefec2 · · Score: 1

    They did not conclude the universe should not exist. They rather just said they did not understand why there is an imbalance between matter and anti-matter. This by the way not new and is discussed in physics for quite some time.

  198. The true breakthrough is the anti-mater confinment by strutzz · · Score: 1

    On a cursory analysis of the article I came across the following line: "Usually the antimatter lifetime is limited by imperfections in the traps – little instabilities allow the antimatter to leak through.But by using a combination of two traps, the BASE team made the most perfect antimatter chamber ever – holding the antiprotons for 405 days. " This is why this type of work is useful to society right now: in order to answer the fundamental questions of the Universe, with precision, it develops new technologies that can be applied to a number of other fields.

  199. WRONG CONCLUSION by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The reason the 1:1 proportion matter/antimatter didn't annihilate each other upon the birth of the universe, is most likely because the universe wasn't born.
    I do not believe the universe was created symmetrically. The hypothesis of a symmetric genesis contradicts everything we know about nature.

    It is quite obvious that the universe exists, therefore these scientists must be wrong. Any scientist should understand this...

  200. Credibility Lost by hardihoot · · Score: 1

    Just one of the many things that confound scientists. It "just so" happens matter and antimatter coexist. It "just so" happened that a single cell reproducing asexually "just so" developed the ability for sexual reproduction and it "jiust so" happened both male and female came about at the same time. It "just so " happens hydrogen formed itself into a sun, "just so" happened water formed on the planet, "just so" happened an atmosphere appeared to protect the planet from being blasted by radiation, and life "just so" happened to arise on the planet.

    How many "just so" incidents does it take before one becomes overwhelmed by the evidence and therefore must logically conclude that indeed, "In the beginning, God created..."?

    The scientists in this article came very close to admitting the truth: the evidence points away from happenstance and random events and towards purposeful design.

    It is like these scientists found a vehicle made of Lego (tm) bricks and conclude "these blocks just assemnbled themselves over trillions of years by some unknown force stacking them together! This ought not to even be here!" It never enters their minds that for Legos to be assemnbled into anything there must have been an assembler to do so, just as for a spider to have been programmed to spin a web there must have been a programmer to do so.

    And so these scientists take another hit on the bong or pour another drink snatching away the brief moment of clarity they had.

    I do not think it is a coincidence that Darwin's voyage on the Beagle, and his theory, arose at the same time an opium epidemic was going on. Yes, I believe Darwin was an opium or codeine addict, fow how else could he come to such addled conclusions that he did?
    Darwin, bless his little heart, made his journey on the Beagle so as to smoke his opium without being bothered by the police, or nagged by relatives for being stoned all the time. And what do you, all the other university drug addicts, in their impaired state of mind, believed Darwin's tale of species origins to be true. It takes a mind altered by drugs to be able to look at the evidence of purposeful design and come to some other conclusion.

    In 1939,
    https://aviaryrecoverycenter.com/timeline-heroin-epidemic

    1830 &ndash; British dependence on opium reaches an all time high, with 22,000 pounds of opium imported from Turkey and India.
    1832 &ndash; Codeine is extracted from opium.
    1839 &ndash; Opium accounts for more deaths than any other substance.

    --
    A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
  201. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Either way you end up with the atheist's F word: Faith.

    It's only faith in this case since all the information available, or lack of information, implies that both are unlikely. If you believe your sports team will win the cup this year despite having never won a single game - that's faith (or hope? or desperation?). If you believe your sports team will win the cup this year because they win all their matches - that's confidence, both figuratively and statistically.

  202. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by itchybrain · · Score: 1

    Since the law of conservation of mass and energy states that matter and energy can not be created then how did it ever come into existence in the first place?

    Conservation of energy can only happen in a closed system. Therefore, if the universe appears out of 'nowhere', it is possible the universe itself is not a complete system

  203. Re:Today's silly joke by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    MobyDisk referred to a Scientific American article which said, basically, that if there was both matter and antimatter in the observable universe, there would have to be a boundary with matter on one side and anti-matter on the other. No matter how sparse the matter was at the boundary, it would create a lot more gamma rays than we detect.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  204. Re:Today's silly joke by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Really this is in a long line of things that have been discovered that changed science. For example, in the 1930s and 40s, there was a debate about whether the universe was steady-state or expanding. Hubble's observations along with discovery of the CBR by Penzias and Wilson showed that the universe was expanding and steady-state was dropped in favor of the Big Bang. Raymond Davis and Masatoshi Koshiba both detected that solar neutrinos created by solar fusion were 1/3 of what they should have been if the Standard Model of physics was correct. It turns out that the Standard Model was correct in regards to nuclear fusion; it was incorrect in regards to the nature of neutrinos.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  205. Why do you think it does? by whitroth · · Score: 1

    I mean, who would believe in the existence of universe with a world in it that had the name "Donald Trump" and "President" in the same sentence?

    1. Re:Why do you think it does? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Anyone who in 2014 had written "Donald Trump would be an international laughing stock as US President".

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  206. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now you're starting to sound like a creationist! So it's not turtles all the way down. It does stop at an "always been here...always will" creator.

  207. Deeper insights! by RonTheHurler · · Score: 1

    Perfect logic requires perfect knowledge, which we can never have, which is why empirical evidence is so critical.

    Here's a lesson I did with my kids t demonstrate the flaw in trusting logic without experiment--

      Take an ice cube. To raise its temperature to room temperature (and melt it) you need to raise it by about 40 degrees F.

      Take a similar amount of room temperature water. To make it boil, you need to raise it about 140 degrees F.

    Now, put both in the same microwave. What will happen first? Will the ice cube melt or will the water boil?

    Since ice and water are the same substance, logically, most people think the ice will melt first.

    -- Except that ice is perfectly transparent to microwaves. If you can keep the ice dry, it will not melt, while the water will boil furiously. (Any water on the surface of the ice will get hot and make the ice melt a little bit, so use a plastic rack or something like that.)

    Question-- When Richard Feynman created Feynman diagrams, *why* did he have anti-particles moving backwards through time? Maybe we're just at a point in the universe where matter is more common that anti-matter. Wait a few billion years and measure again...

  208. Total thought by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    Is it your opinion that these positions in space, quantum or otherwise, are in isolation from each others frame of reference thereby preventing total matter-antimatter annihilation? There are no pigeon holes in open space unless you are referencing dimensional space.

    I do a lot of work with information theory, so I keep coming back to the question of whether the universe is computable.

    If it's computable, then the information needed to calculate the outcome of any interaction is finite, which means that everything about that interaction has to be quantized at some level. (Otherwise the amount of information needed is infinite, and that leads to other problems with entropy and energy and such.)

    Others have looked into this and have not found a way to make quantized position compatible with relativity, so the prevailing opinion is that space is continuous at all scales.

    I'm not ready to agree with this conclusion just yet - I'm still working on it - because a smooth space is incompatible with computability, and that's a *really big* incompatibility.

    That being said, just consider our own expanding space with a bit of matter on it. An electron is supposed to be a point particle (in the mathematical sense of "point", having no volume), so suppose an electron is sitting somewhere in space when that section expands: what happens?

    If you want to consider frames of reference, you can think of the electron as moving or fixed, and time it such that the world-line puts the electron on that position at the time it expands.

    If the electron is moving and the expansion has a component in the direction of motion, it has to lose energy because of the expansion, which we see as red shift from far away galaxies.

    But the question stands: what happens to the electron when the universe expands under it?

    I think moving the electron to one of the resultant positions randomly makes sense as an answer, and in that case when the universe was very small it might explain the matter inequality we now see.

  209. The miracle of life by ale2011 · · Score: 1

    So we don't have to wait for life to talk about miracles...

  210. It's obvious: Segregation rules the Big Bang by PlaynBass · · Score: 1

    It's obvious to me that the matter segregated itself from the antimatter as it formed during the Big Bang, and thus never had the chance to annihilate each other. There must be a mirrored anti-matter universe out there somewhere but we can not see it. All of our experiments are being conducted simultaneously in the anti-universe, so the perfect balance is always maintained.

    --
    PlaynBass
  211. They focussed on magnetism not gravity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My theory is that antimatter is subject to gravity (like photons) but doesn't possess it. Also it decays into photons but in lab conditions hasn't got time to because of matter-antimatter collisions.
    David Sedaka

  212. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

    The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one.

    like 'infinity' for one.

    like 'infinity,' for one.

    Yep and yep.

    --
    No sig for you! Come back one year!
  213. So, if a distant (very distant) galaxy by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 1

    So, if a distant cluster of galaxies was composed of antimatter rather than matter, could we tell? A photon is its own anti-particle, so the light wouldn't let us know.

    We'd sure know it if we visited, but it were distant enough, no physical part of it would ever get to us, right? Or get to anything that we'd notice light up very intensely.

    --
    There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
  214. Maybe it all makes sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This could explain a lot. A universe that was SUPPOSED to exist would definitely be put together better. ;)

  215. Re:Today's silly joke by thePig · · Score: 1

    Hi lgw,

    I wanted to contact you personally.
    My gmail email id is rajmohan.harindranath.
    Can you send me a mail, so that we can connect?

    Regards
    Rajmohan H

    --
    rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
  216. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since the law of conservation of mass and energy states that matter and energy can not be created then how did it ever come into existence in the first place?

    This argument doesn't require any appeal to a conservation of mass or energy. You're seem to be simply asserting that not existing is somehow more proper than existing.

    If you moved the argument to some frame where conservation of mass and energy would have meaning then you'd be talking about a time in the past when there was no mass or energy. But why should we expect the universe to have been energyless at some past point. Do you expect the universe to eventually become energyless? Is there a difference between the past and the future in this argument?

  217. Re:We Already Knew That the Universe Shouldn't Exi by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    I counter with the observation that relatively few things actually wind up being proven to be truly impossible. Many things are proven to be extremely unlikely, however. I think I get it now! AC = ... A.C. Doyle? Who knew.

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