I think it's actually, "near-uniform". Apparently people think that the large-scale structure of the distribution of galaxies, etc., can be seen as evidence that the matter at (or very near) the beginning of the universe was non-uniform. Perhaps on the scale of Heisenberg Uncertainty. At least, according to Anthony Lasenby, who I heard speak at SIGGRAPH 2003.
Okay, so I'll pose my question another way, why did "space" itself expand?
And why did that expansion, in essence, make the universe so that it WASN'T curved into a singularity?
In other words, my question really is the big unanswerable one, "Where did all of the energy and mass in the universe come from?":)
Thanks for your explanation, though... I recently saw Anthony Lasenby talk about the shape of the universe in a fascinating talk, and it was fun to think about. As with all great persuits, his talk left me with more questions than answers.
Yeah, thanks - I pretty much knew all about that, but I kind of rushed to post my question.
Still, in Hawking Radiation, the black hole does loose mass over time, eventually ending entirely - which is where I got to in the end of my argument/question.
It's kind of fun as a layperson to knock these ideas around, but I know I'm just dabbling in dangerous waters filled with equations I'll never understand. =)
I really do appreciate your attention to my questions, and I really do wish I knew enough about Friedmann-LeMaitre-Robertwon-Walker cosmological models to understand why you think that they're a mathematical truth that I'm fighting. I don't know anything about them though. You're addressing a layman who's asking a question.
To lend the tiniest bit of weight to my side of the question, first I'll quote you, and then I'll quote the end of the FAQ you keep refering me to, as though I'm illiterate:
You: "And no, our universe isn't really analogous to a black hole."
FAQ: "This idea is controversial, but if true it would mean that the universe could be both a white hole and a black hole at the same time."
So, that FAQ seems to say that what I'm saying is controversial, but it doesn't say that I'm WRONG, like you're saying.
Yeah, well, frankly, what makes you think you know enough about general relativity to judge?
Nothing, frankly.
I suppose the real problem with my thinking is that the universe did not need to support its "initial" size with something like electrons providing degeneracy pressure - which would have failed, because there was so much mass (not to mention no freaking electrons). The real question in my question, I guess, is, what provided the pressure (ie expansion) to prevent the universe from collapsing into a black hole?
The layman's understanding that I have says that, if there's enough gravity, there's nothing that can get away from it - the speed of light isn't "fast" enough - space is too curved, time falls in. You'd think (with layman's understanding) that all of the matter and energy in the entire universe would provide enough space-time curvature to make sure that nothing could escape. If there are good, solid, mathematical and cosmoligcal explanations for explaining why that's not true, than I acknowledge that I don't know enough to disagree with the experts. But all I was doing was asking a question.
Again, what provided the pressure (ie expansion) to prevent the universe from collapsing into a black hole?
Which is kind of like asking, "where did all of the mass and energy in the universe come from?"
I suppose I'm just giving myself an execuse to not have to try to defend my ignorance, but after all, I was asking a question to which there really is no answer. I don't really need you to call me illiterate to tell me that there's no good answer to my question, do I?
Thanks for the link, but I think it was horrible. This single line in particular, "The Schwarzschild limit does not apply to rapidly expanding matter" strikes me as utter tripe. I don't see any apologies in the Schwarzschild formulation for "rapidly expanding matter."
And the entire point of a "black hole" is that there's too much gravity for anything to escape. The "law of physics" that is used in the "popular belief" is gravity. What am I missing here?
Also, Hawking Radiation predicts an end to black holes (specifically, their black-body radiation, and their duration), contrary to that FAQ's statement that "black holes cannot be destroyed". I don't buy it. I guess you'd have to point me at refutations of Hawking Radiation...
Well, what in the hell stopped all of the matter from forming a black hole and falling in? It was certainly dense enough! WELL beyond the Chandrasekhar limit. (By about, oh, 10^122, right?)
I've read that you can think of the entire universe as existing inside of a black hole - that kind of explains the "shape" of the universe, and why we can't see "outside" - but black holes leak radiation! (Hawking Radiation.) Where the heck would the UNIVERSE leak radiation to?
If the universe is leaking radiation, wouldn't that mean that there's less and less matter INSIDE of the universe, and therefore, less gravitational pull, and therefore, wouldn't that explain why the rate of expansion is increasing?
I know I've built a lot on a few assumptions; the point wasn't so much that the conclusions confuse me, but that I can't figure out where I got derailed from being correct! Start from the beginning, why didn't all of the matter in the universe fall into a black hole, right after the Big Bang?
For me, though, all of this is like saying, "Look - there are two types of people in the world: those who are wearing black shirts today, and those who aren't." It's all moods.
My desk is covered with crud, but the code I write is clean to the point of being anal. Does that make me a slob or a neat freak? I'll watch E! true hollywood story one night, and three hours of Nova, Scientific American Frontiers, and the Charlie Rose show the next night. Does that make me one type of person or the other?
The only utility of these categories is their predictive power. The predictive power of astrology is absolutely 0. I think the predictive power of most of these categories of personality types approaches 0 pretty quickly, too.
I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get it to launch, but no matter what I do, "Sorry, EV Nova must run in 256 or thousands of colors. 0 0" After switching to 640x480x256 (and several others), after installing the latest Quicktime, after following their Quicktime instructions, after all of that - same thing. Grrrr...
Someone obviously doesn't understand ANYTHING about graphics, if they can't even switch the video mode for you! AAAAAAAAAARG!
The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they pull the plug; Skynet retaliates.
If you want to learn chess, Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games by Laszlo Polgar is an interesting choice. It starts off with very simple puzzles, and works you up to much more complicated ones. All without any language - just diagrams of chess boards. Really interesting book.
I like to think of the most recent presidential election as proving that there's no discernable difference between the two parties anymore.
Think about it, if they were identical parties in everything but name, then the vote would statistically come out 50/50. Well, that's almost exactly what happened.
Re:I really want to understand...
on
ClusterKnoppix
·
· Score: 1
folding proteins in realtime may be cool to some
Well, actually, you've hit it on the head. Some people do massive amounts of computation that cannot be done in a Microsoft environment without a LOT of work. Open Mosix is one way to simplify the parallelization. This new thing is an easier way to set up the Open Mosix grid. Ta da.
I mean, read up on Render Farms, or nuclear simulations. The really big number crunchers...
The Godfather: Comedy far less than 17%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Shawshank Redemption: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Lord of the Rings: Comedy far less than 17%
Schindler's List: Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
Casablanca: Action far less than 30%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Citizen Kane: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Gone With The Wind: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Action far less than 30%
E.T.: Action far less than 30%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
Bambi: Action far less than 30%
Jaws: Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
The Sound of Music: Action far less than 30%
The Ten Commandments: Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
And those are samples from the Top 10 User-Rated films on the IMDB, and the Top 10 Money-Making films of all time (adjusted for inflation.)
I think these guys think that "Star Wars" and "Titanic" are the best movies of all time, and that all others are pathetic immitations.
They didn't leave much room for romantic comedies or period dramas, which traditionally do quite well in the box office and critical review, respectively. By their count, a romantic comedy only has about 47% of the "good" of a movie, and a period drama only has 43%.
In short - these guys are nuts.
Their numbers remind me very much of the diagram at the beginning of Dead Poets Society that rates the importance of a poem. It's CRAP. Rip the pages out, everyone. Go ahead, rip them out.
I thought that the obsurdity and political preachiness was the best way to explore the mind of a bizarre, insane guy who could have been any one of us.
Fundamentally, the guy is messed up. They had to stand him on a pulpit and have him preach crazy. You might have thought his exact views were out of place, but then, that was kind of the point, wasn't it?
Goldeneye Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers X-Men True Lies Terminator 2 Goodfellas The Abyss Aliens E.T. The Fifth Element Back to the Future Austin Powers Wayne's World Rain Man Good Will Hunting Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Fight Club L.A. Confidential The Sixth Sense Braveheart Forrest Gump Leathal Weapon 2 Pulp Fiction A Few Good Men...and Shawshank Redemption Oh, and Schindler's List
You got hosed. By Lucas. He made the assenine decision to remormat Episode 2 by doing the old Pan and Scan. For MOST of it. Did you notice some of it was actually still letterboxed?
And then he had to cut out segments of the movie to fit it into IMAX format projectors. *sigh*
It's amazing to me that movie folks haven't figured out how to make Pan and Scan actually look like a real camera move. It's completely different - and blatantly obvious, once you know what to look for.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's actually, "near-uniform". Apparently people think that the large-scale structure of the distribution of galaxies, etc., can be seen as evidence that the matter at (or very near) the beginning of the universe was non-uniform. Perhaps on the scale of Heisenberg Uncertainty. At least, according to Anthony Lasenby, who I heard speak at SIGGRAPH 2003.
Okay, so I'll pose my question another way, why did "space" itself expand?
:)
And why did that expansion, in essence, make the universe so that it WASN'T curved into a singularity?
In other words, my question really is the big unanswerable one, "Where did all of the energy and mass in the universe come from?"
Thanks for your explanation, though... I recently saw Anthony Lasenby talk about the shape of the universe in a fascinating talk, and it was fun to think about. As with all great persuits, his talk left me with more questions than answers.
Yeah, thanks - I pretty much knew all about that, but I kind of rushed to post my question.
Still, in Hawking Radiation, the black hole does loose mass over time, eventually ending entirely - which is where I got to in the end of my argument/question.
It's kind of fun as a layperson to knock these ideas around, but I know I'm just dabbling in dangerous waters filled with equations I'll never understand. =)
I really do appreciate your attention to my questions, and I really do wish I knew enough about Friedmann-LeMaitre-Robertwon-Walker cosmological models to understand why you think that they're a mathematical truth that I'm fighting. I don't know anything about them though. You're addressing a layman who's asking a question.
To lend the tiniest bit of weight to my side of the question, first I'll quote you, and then I'll quote the end of the FAQ you keep refering me to, as though I'm illiterate:
You: "And no, our universe isn't really analogous to a black hole."
FAQ: "This idea is controversial, but if true it would mean that the universe could be both a white hole and a black hole at the same time."
So, that FAQ seems to say that what I'm saying is controversial, but it doesn't say that I'm WRONG, like you're saying.
Yeah, well, frankly, what makes you think you know enough about general relativity to judge?
Nothing, frankly.
I suppose the real problem with my thinking is that the universe did not need to support its "initial" size with something like electrons providing degeneracy pressure - which would have failed, because there was so much mass (not to mention no freaking electrons). The real question in my question, I guess, is, what provided the pressure (ie expansion) to prevent the universe from collapsing into a black hole?
The layman's understanding that I have says that, if there's enough gravity, there's nothing that can get away from it - the speed of light isn't "fast" enough - space is too curved, time falls in. You'd think (with layman's understanding) that all of the matter and energy in the entire universe would provide enough space-time curvature to make sure that nothing could escape. If there are good, solid, mathematical and cosmoligcal explanations for explaining why that's not true, than I acknowledge that I don't know enough to disagree with the experts. But all I was doing was asking a question.
Again, what provided the pressure (ie expansion) to prevent the universe from collapsing into a black hole?
Which is kind of like asking, "where did all of the mass and energy in the universe come from?"
I suppose I'm just giving myself an execuse to not have to try to defend my ignorance, but after all, I was asking a question to which there really is no answer. I don't really need you to call me illiterate to tell me that there's no good answer to my question, do I?
Thanks for the link, but I think it was horrible. This single line in particular, "The Schwarzschild limit does not apply to rapidly expanding matter" strikes me as utter tripe. I don't see any apologies in the Schwarzschild formulation for "rapidly expanding matter."
And the entire point of a "black hole" is that there's too much gravity for anything to escape. The "law of physics" that is used in the "popular belief" is gravity. What am I missing here?
Also, Hawking Radiation predicts an end to black holes (specifically, their black-body radiation, and their duration), contrary to that FAQ's statement that "black holes cannot be destroyed". I don't buy it. I guess you'd have to point me at refutations of Hawking Radiation...
Okay, so there's this Big Bang, right?
Well, what in the hell stopped all of the matter from forming a black hole and falling in? It was certainly dense enough! WELL beyond the Chandrasekhar limit. (By about, oh, 10^122, right?)
I've read that you can think of the entire universe as existing inside of a black hole - that kind of explains the "shape" of the universe, and why we can't see "outside" - but black holes leak radiation! (Hawking Radiation.) Where the heck would the UNIVERSE leak radiation to?
If the universe is leaking radiation, wouldn't that mean that there's less and less matter INSIDE of the universe, and therefore, less gravitational pull, and therefore, wouldn't that explain why the rate of expansion is increasing?
I know I've built a lot on a few assumptions; the point wasn't so much that the conclusions confuse me, but that I can't figure out where I got derailed from being correct! Start from the beginning, why didn't all of the matter in the universe fall into a black hole, right after the Big Bang?
HELP!
Editors, please correct the missing quote in the URL right after the first occurance of the phrase "MACHO".
For me, though, all of this is like saying, "Look - there are two types of people in the world: those who are wearing black shirts today, and those who aren't." It's all moods.
My desk is covered with crud, but the code I write is clean to the point of being anal. Does that make me a slob or a neat freak? I'll watch E! true hollywood story one night, and three hours of Nova, Scientific American Frontiers, and the Charlie Rose show the next night. Does that make me one type of person or the other?
The only utility of these categories is their predictive power. The predictive power of astrology is absolutely 0. I think the predictive power of most of these categories of personality types approaches 0 pretty quickly, too.
I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get it to launch, but no matter what I do, "Sorry, EV Nova must run in 256 or thousands of colors. 0 0" After switching to 640x480x256 (and several others), after installing the latest Quicktime, after following their Quicktime instructions, after all of that - same thing. Grrrr...
Someone obviously doesn't understand ANYTHING about graphics, if they can't even switch the video mode for you! AAAAAAAAAARG!
1) Two birds on green tomatos, with two mice running into holes, all on top of an upside-down egg plant.
2) A fat man doing leg-stretching exercises
3) A woman's arms lowering a tomato into a lake.
4) A man in shackles behind his body. (Attached at the elbows.)
5) Two guys in the U.S. Army Special Forces arguing.
6) A crying redhead with purple mits on.
7) A winged toad wearing a grey apron.
8) Teletubbies breathing teal fire at each other.
9) A man's hands lifting a black bird up to a cloudy sky, in front of his face.
10) A winged demon farting purple fire.
The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they pull the plug; Skynet retaliates.
If you want to learn chess, Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games by Laszlo Polgar is an interesting choice. It starts off with very simple puzzles, and works you up to much more complicated ones. All without any language - just diagrams of chess boards. Really interesting book.
Here is that version of Wilkin's Lord's Prayer.
I like to think of the most recent presidential election as proving that there's no discernable difference between the two parties anymore.
Think about it, if they were identical parties in everything but name, then the vote would statistically come out 50/50. Well, that's almost exactly what happened.
folding proteins in realtime may be cool to some
Well, actually, you've hit it on the head. Some people do massive amounts of computation that cannot be done in a Microsoft environment without a LOT of work. Open Mosix is one way to simplify the parallelization. This new thing is an easier way to set up the Open Mosix grid. Ta da.
I mean, read up on Render Farms, or nuclear simulations. The really big number crunchers...
I'll take quality over quantity.
The danger is that a lot of schools will stop offering CS courses, because the enrollment cannot sustain the salaries of the teachers.
Hopefully, the major schools will continue to expand their programs in meaningful ways.
The Godfather: Comedy far less than 17%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Shawshank Redemption: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Lord of the Rings: Comedy far less than 17%
Schindler's List: Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
Casablanca: Action far less than 30%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Citizen Kane: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Gone With The Wind: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Action far less than 30%
E.T.: Action far less than 30%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
Bambi: Action far less than 30%
Jaws: Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
The Sound of Music: Action far less than 30%
The Ten Commandments: Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
And those are samples from the Top 10 User-Rated films on the IMDB, and the Top 10 Money-Making films of all time (adjusted for inflation.)
I think these guys think that "Star Wars" and "Titanic" are the best movies of all time, and that all others are pathetic immitations.
They didn't leave much room for romantic comedies or period dramas, which traditionally do quite well in the box office and critical review, respectively. By their count, a romantic comedy only has about 47% of the "good" of a movie, and a period drama only has 43%.
In short - these guys are nuts.
Their numbers remind me very much of the diagram at the beginning of Dead Poets Society that rates the importance of a poem. It's CRAP. Rip the pages out, everyone. Go ahead, rip them out.
I don't seem to remember any webcams in Ted Kaczynski's cabin...?
I thought that the obsurdity and political preachiness was the best way to explore the mind of a bizarre, insane guy who could have been any one of us.
Fundamentally, the guy is messed up. They had to stand him on a pulpit and have him preach crazy. You might have thought his exact views were out of place, but then, that was kind of the point, wasn't it?
I do not think it lived up to the hype.
I think X-Men was far, far better.
I'm still absolutely furious that "When She Loved Me" didn't win Best Song at the Academy Awards. One of the most moving songs ever in a movie.
Goldeneye ...and Shawshank Redemption
Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers
X-Men
True Lies
Terminator 2
Goodfellas
The Abyss
Aliens
E.T.
The Fifth Element
Back to the Future
Austin Powers
Wayne's World
Rain Man
Good Will Hunting
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Fight Club
L.A. Confidential
The Sixth Sense
Braveheart
Forrest Gump
Leathal Weapon 2
Pulp Fiction
A Few Good Men
Oh, and Schindler's List
You got hosed. By Lucas. He made the assenine decision to remormat Episode 2 by doing the old Pan and Scan. For MOST of it. Did you notice some of it was actually still letterboxed?
And then he had to cut out segments of the movie to fit it into IMAX format projectors. *sigh*
It's amazing to me that movie folks haven't figured out how to make Pan and Scan actually look like a real camera move. It's completely different - and blatantly obvious, once you know what to look for.
"imperceptible to the viewer in the theater"
Just like flourescent lights have an imperceptible flicker?
Just like security cameras have an imperceptible high-frequency audio hum?
Just like mp3's have imperceptible audio distortion?
Just like city water has an imperceptible aftertaste?
Just like Microsoft has imperceptible security flaws?
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does."
Doesn't this also blast anonymous IRC services?
Psycho.
That's like saying it's a felony to not put your return address on a postcard.