Here's the actual paper summarized as a microprocessor analogy (thought I'm sure someone will be happy to correct me where I get it wrong):
If E8 was a microprocessor, it would have 248 I/O pins. Lisi has discovered that if you put values for gravity into pins 1-12, you get electromagnitism results on pins 128-130. And if you put Strong Nuclear Force values into pints 64-76, then you get weak nuclear Force results from pins 192-204. If you put an electron into pin 36, you get a neutrino out of pin 189. Etc.
Because E8 seems to produce relationships between all of the fudamental forces (including gravity), Lisi is proposing that E8 must therefor be the key to describing and explaining all of the fundamental components of the universe.
If his ideas hold true (and thanks to the fact that they have testable predictions there's a way to know), E8 would be the starting point of describing anything in physics.
Very well said. Just remember though, as my Astrophysics professor said:
"We don't know what Dark Matter is, but we know its not baseballs" - Professor David Roberts
The reasoning of this is that we can calculate how much carbon and other similarly complex materials can exist in the universe (based on its size, age, and the life cycle of the stars which would be able to convert through fusion the base hydrogen into more complicated elements).
So, the point is that we couldn't even have that many jupiter sized planets because the universe isn't old enough (based on current astrophysics conclusions) to generate that much non-hydrogen material.
Alright, for the moment I'm going to give this article a little benefit of the the doubt, and see what comes out of it:
Standard physics says cold fusion shouldn't work because photon exchanges result in nuclei repelling each other.
However, they think it works here because they think that the palladium atoms are aborbing all the photons which would normally result in the nuclei repelling each other. As a result the nuclei don't exchange photons, so arn't repelled by each other, so they can collide and combine into He.
So, they've somehow developed a lattice who's quantum structure results in creating a barrier between the two nuclei which repels photons, but allows the nuclei to pass through. The nuclei effectivly can't "see" each other until they've already collided.
I found it really interesting that they said they got better results with the impure samples. I did a quick search and discovered that Palladium Ore contains Platinum Certain isotopes of which are radioactive and produce alpha particles (alpha particles = helium).
So, if their impure samples are the ones that are producing the most helium and heat, its possible that it is simply the platinum in the palladium ore which is providing alpha decays, and that is skewing their results.
Its hard to guess if this is really the case though without knowing what kinds of numbers they are getting. How many helium atoms from how much palladium and how much deuterium.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the actual paper summarized as a microprocessor analogy (thought I'm sure someone will be happy to correct me where I get it wrong):
If E8 was a microprocessor, it would have 248 I/O pins. Lisi has discovered that if you put values for gravity into pins 1-12, you get electromagnitism results on pins 128-130. And if you put Strong Nuclear Force values into pints 64-76, then you get weak nuclear Force results from pins 192-204. If you put an electron into pin 36, you get a neutrino out of pin 189. Etc.
Because E8 seems to produce relationships between all of the fudamental forces (including gravity), Lisi is proposing that E8 must therefor be the key to describing and explaining all of the fundamental components of the universe.
If his ideas hold true (and thanks to the fact that they have testable predictions there's a way to know), E8 would be the starting point of describing anything in physics.
Very well said. Just remember though, as my Astrophysics professor said:
"We don't know what Dark Matter is, but we know its not baseballs" - Professor David Roberts
The reasoning of this is that we can calculate how much carbon and other similarly complex materials can exist in the universe (based on its size, age, and the life cycle of the stars which would be able to convert through fusion the base hydrogen into more complicated elements).
So, the point is that we couldn't even have that many jupiter sized planets because the universe isn't old enough (based on current astrophysics conclusions) to generate that much non-hydrogen material.
Standard physics says cold fusion shouldn't work because photon exchanges result in nuclei repelling each other.
However, they think it works here because they think that the palladium atoms are aborbing all the photons which would normally result in the nuclei repelling each other. As a result the nuclei don't exchange photons, so arn't repelled by each other, so they can collide and combine into He.
So, they've somehow developed a lattice who's quantum structure results in creating a barrier between the two nuclei which repels photons, but allows the nuclei to pass through. The nuclei effectivly can't "see" each other until they've already collided.
I found it really interesting that they said they got better results with the impure samples. I did a quick search and discovered that Palladium Ore contains Platinum Certain isotopes of which are radioactive and produce alpha particles (alpha particles = helium).
So, if their impure samples are the ones that are producing the most helium and heat, its possible that it is simply the platinum in the palladium ore which is providing alpha decays, and that is skewing their results.
Its hard to guess if this is really the case though without knowing what kinds of numbers they are getting. How many helium atoms from how much palladium and how much deuterium.
Ok, Lets make some connections here people:
This article places the google search engine as the medium for this activity.
This article is from MSNBC.
MSNBC is owned by Micro$oft
Wasn't Micro$oft trying to compete with Google for search engine market?
Someone please tell me I'm just being paranoid
I suppose I should specify where I am: Topsfield, MA
Its $60 here for a cable modem. Probably has something to do with DSL not being available? :-P