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Author Topic:   How is the Universe here?
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 4 of 131 (486973)
10-26-2008 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by cavediver
10-26-2008 10:38 AM


Is the universe really here? Or is it here only in superpositions that decohere and in which we appear to happen to be(obviously we are in the same decohered state of the universe)? Is there any chance that i might one day see me in my house in Varna and be in Paris at the same time? Could a scientific experiment be made that would prove me being in a superposition of states in different parts of the Earth before i decohere with the environment? If there is no movement in the quantum world, but a transition from one state of superpositions to the other, then what exactly is space and the universe before they decohere?
Why did the universe decohere in a state that would produce consciousness? Do you believe it happened by chance that we got such a coarse apparatus that is letting us experience reality as a continuous process? Would you really say the universe exists outside of our minds?
What happens to the other branches? Do they still exist?
More to the point - Why is the universe here? I'd say the superposition of states of the universe are here because a higher intelligence wants it so.
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind" - A.Einstein
"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - This is a somewhat new kind of religion" - Albert Einstein
"Matter is nothing but the harmonies created by this vibrating string..The laws of physics can be compared to the laws of harmony allowed on the string. The universe itself, composed of countless vibrating strings, would then be comparable to a symphony." - Michio Kaku

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by cavediver, posted 10-26-2008 10:38 AM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by cavediver, posted 10-26-2008 12:20 PM Agobot has not replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 9 of 131 (486983)
10-26-2008 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by cavediver
10-26-2008 11:44 AM


cavediver writes:
SR showed this to be incorrect. There is no universal cross-section of the Universe, no universal now. Each of us has our own path through space-time, and we each define our own "now", which will not necessarily agree with someone else's "now". My "now" is no longer the piece of paper I'm sat on, but rather a a slice through the stack of paper at an angle, and your "now" might be a different slice, so that some things I regard as happening in my past, you may regard as yet to occur.
I am not sure most folks would understand this quoted paragraph, but then most them wouldn't care, as long as they have a holy book or as long as they believe there is no god because the bible is wrong.
Yep, time is not a straight line but a river that can have whirpools, fork in two rivers and perhaps even be bent. I once heard that time travel was possible, but would take the energy of a star like our sun... Talk about scales, HAHA...
BTW, sorry for attempting to decohere your thread into QM interpretations. I am looking forward to your next post.
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind" - A.Einstein
"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - This is a somewhat new kind of religion" - Albert Einstein
"Matter is nothing but the harmonies created by this vibrating string..The laws of physics can be compared to the laws of harmony allowed on the string. The universe itself, composed of countless vibrating strings, would then be comparable to a symphony." - Michio Kaku

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by cavediver, posted 10-26-2008 11:44 AM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by cavediver, posted 10-27-2008 4:48 PM Agobot has not replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 10 of 131 (486984)
10-26-2008 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by cavediver
10-26-2008 1:22 PM


Speaking of time i would consider the existence of wormholes in space that arise out of GR, that could allow us to travel immense distances in short time(and even time travel), a kind of a gift from the creator/s/. That would be just too many coincidences that facilitate our development and our conquest of space, but let's hope we don't get into another world war and go the way of the dinosaurs.
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind" - A.Einstein
"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - This is a somewhat new kind of religion" - Albert Einstein
"Matter is nothing but the harmonies created by this vibrating string..The laws of physics can be compared to the laws of harmony allowed on the string. The universe itself, composed of countless vibrating strings, would then be comparable to a symphony." - Michio Kaku

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by cavediver, posted 10-26-2008 1:22 PM cavediver has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by AdminNosy, posted 10-26-2008 5:08 PM Agobot has not replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 100 of 131 (491152)
12-12-2008 7:11 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by cavediver
11-09-2008 6:51 AM


Re: Back again, and let's first dispense with this nonsense...
cavediver writes:
Suddenly we're back to our question of what is 'touch'? If 'things' are 99.99999999% empty space, why do they seem solid? Why do our hands not pass through each other when we clap? Clearly it isn't the 'things' - electrons and nucleus - that are giving rise to the solidity. It is actually the electromagnetic forces generated by those charged electrons. The reason you cannot pass your hands through each other is because of ELECTROSTATIC REPLUSION; not because of any sense of there being 'things' in the way or the common sense view of 'clearly things cannot pass through other things'. When you 'touch' something, all that is happening is that you are being pushed away from some area of space by electromagnetism. Switch off that electromagnetism, and your hands will happily pass straight through each other, just as with colliding galaxies, where the chances of any single pair of stars actually hitting each other is very remote.
Just wanted to add something cavediver didn't mention - matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual. This is very important IMO for the direction of the discussions here as it kind of shifts the topic from Christianty vs the Theory of Evolution.
Here is the whole story:
It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations | New Scientist
Read the comments after the article, some of them are pretty witty.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by cavediver, posted 11-09-2008 6:51 AM cavediver has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 10:36 AM Agobot has replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 103 of 131 (491184)
12-12-2008 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 102 by Percy
12-12-2008 10:36 AM


Re: Back again, and let's first dispense with this nonsense...
Agobot writes:
Just wanted to add something cavediver didn't mention - matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual.
Percy writes:
That's not what the article you cited says.
--Percy
What does it say?
And how is it different to what we already knew from QM about matter(except for the source of mass), as in:
I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.
Werner Heisenberg
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 10:36 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by cavediver, posted 12-12-2008 12:59 PM Agobot has not replied
 Message 105 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 1:30 PM Agobot has replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 106 of 131 (491203)
12-12-2008 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Percy
12-12-2008 1:30 PM


Re: Back again, and let's first dispense with this nonsense...
Percy writes:
It says you need to read more carefully. Or, if you actually realize it didn't say anything to the effect that "matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual," then it says you have to stop making stuff up.
But it did say that almost the entire mass of those 0.0001% comes from virtual particles that pop into "existence" for a very brief period of time from the vacuum of space. You seem to have a classical picture of the quantum world which is wrong. Mass in this context is energy and energy in this same context is what forms your idea of physical objects through mediating particles(photons). When almost everything about this mass/energy comes from virtual particles, the article concludes in:
The Higgs field is also thought to make a small contribution, giving mass to individual quarks as well as to electrons and some other particles. The Higgs field creates mass out of the quantum vacuum too, in the form of virtual Higgs bosons. So if the LHC confirms that the Higgs exists, it will mean all reality is virtual.
If you think hard enough about E=m.c^2, you'll see what they meant with the above quote.
Percy writes:
As Cavediver said, it says nothing new. It is a more accurate validation of already accepted theory. That's not to say it isn't a stunning analytical accomplishment, because it most certain is.
--Percy
I'll leave it up to cavediver to say if the whole scientific community was aware that 99% of the mass of the nucleus came from virtual particles, or that it was his conviction/conclusion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 1:30 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 2:40 PM Agobot has replied
 Message 110 by cavediver, posted 12-12-2008 3:13 PM Agobot has not replied
 Message 130 by kofh2u, posted 11-09-2012 9:02 AM Agobot has not replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 108 of 131 (491211)
12-12-2008 2:51 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by Percy
12-12-2008 2:40 PM


Re: Back again, and let's first dispense with this nonsense...
Well when i posted this article, i was commenting it by figures from my memory(the way i interpreted it at the time of reading), so slight inconcistencies are possible. Here's what i found:
"Each proton is made of three quarks, but the individual masses of these quarks only add up to about 1% of the proton's mass."
"For now, Drr's calculation shows that QCD describes quark-based particles accurately, and tells us that most of our mass comes from virtual quarks and gluons fizzing away in the quantum vacuum."
BTW, just to make sure we are talking of the same thing, that 0.0001% of the size of the atom is what constitutes the nucleus and that is generally not considered by physicists "empty space".
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 2:40 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 3:17 PM Agobot has replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 109 of 131 (491214)
12-12-2008 2:59 PM


The really good question is - if most of the mass comes from virtual particles, can we use e=m.c^2 to extract incredible amounts of power from the vacuum.
I read a book by Michio Kaku where he said the energy of the vacuum in a coffee cup is more than the energy of 1000 nuclear bombs(have to double check the number of bombs).

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 112 of 131 (491220)
12-12-2008 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Percy
12-12-2008 3:17 PM


Re: Back again, and let's first dispense with this nonsense...
Percy writes:
Do you get it now? The article did not say that 0.0001% of the atom is virtual. It said that the entire nucleus (the majority of the mass of an atom) is virtual.
No it's your fault. The 0.001% is the nucleus of the atom. The size of the nucleus is 1/100 000 of the size of the atom, hence the 0.001% which is nucleus .

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Percy, posted 12-12-2008 3:17 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by Percy, posted 12-13-2008 10:40 AM Agobot has replied

  
Agobot
Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 786
Joined: 12-16-2007


Message 114 of 131 (491273)
12-13-2008 10:52 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Percy
12-13-2008 10:40 AM


Re: Back again, and let's first dispense with this nonsense...
Percy writes:
Ah, okay, I see connection now. But this point is something you were arguing in the Uncovering a Simulation thread. I don't think your "matter is mostly empty space" argument makes sense here, or at least the tie-in isn't apparent to me.
--Percy
I was replying to message 82 of cavediver in this thread:
cavediver writes:
Suddenly we're back to our question of what is 'touch'? If 'things' are 99.99999999% empty space, why do they seem solid? Why do our hands not pass through each other when we clap? Clearly it isn't the 'things' - electrons and nucleus - that are giving rise to the solidity. It is actually the electromagnetic forces generated by those charged electrons. The reason you cannot pass your hands through each other is because of ELECTROSTATIC REPLUSION; not because of any sense of there being 'things' in the way or the common sense view of 'clearly things cannot pass through other things'. When you 'touch' something, all that is happening is that you are being pushed away from some area of space by electromagnetism. Switch off that electromagnetism, and your hands will happily pass straight through each other, just as with colliding galaxies, where the chances of any single pair of stars actually hitting each other is very remote.
Thus i said the other 0.001% were virtual which was based on these new findings in newscientist magazine. There is no new point i am trying to make, well at least not based on this property of matter and not in this thread. I was simply adding information that wasn't available in the quoted paragraph and that i thought useful for the point he was making.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Percy, posted 12-13-2008 10:40 AM Percy has not replied

Replies to this message:
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