Quantum physics

[chilli]

You're probably misunderstanding me, but that's probably because I'm not making any sense!!! Well I am but I'm not making scientific sense, just wierd Trev-sense!

I have a crazy dimensional theory all of my own that doesn't tie in with the standard theories (at least I don't think it does, haven't really looked into it), but it nicely covers things like creation and ghosts and stuff. Anyway, in my theory it could fit that when matter and what we know as anti-matter colide, they change in a way we don't properly understand and phase into another dimension, so we think they've gone, but they haven't, they still exist in the same location just in a dimension we can't measure. Some extreme force in our dimension can bring them back into existence again.

That doesn't really say much about the energy available inside, but I've obviously misunderstood ZPE, I'm sure someone was on TV talking about it like it's some magical thing to do with absolute zero!

 

I see what you mean. It's a little like string theory I guess but the key idea behind string theory is to provide a unified theory uniting quantum and relativistic effects - by removing the impossible infinities that occur when points in space and point particles are used, when the two great theories are united within a traditional framework.

 

It's sounding a little metaphysical to me, I can't really comment on that specifically (in terms of ghosts and all that stuff).

 

With string theory points in space maybe one one facet of multidimensional object, the other dimensions are curled up. The dimensions we experience (the extended dimensions) are meant to be the ones that unfolded when the universe was created, according to some theory anyway.

 

I don't think string theory would attempt to account for anything like ghosts or anything metaphysical. If real, it means the fabric of the universe is made up of something we only see in a small number of dimensions - I can buy into that with no problems.

 

However that's not to say you could walk into the other dimensions using a device - even if you could it wouldn't be a reality as we know it and we certainly couldn't exist there in any form lol

 

the things that really get me are - non-locality and 'sum over paths' type experiments - which are really weird, that tells me there's something very strange in our universes that we don't really get yet. When people talk about being on the verge of a GUT and solving everything, I can't help but wonder if we are on the brink of discovering a whole load more unknown unknowns - like Victorian scientists were when they started to believe they'd just about cracked everything.

 

One of the most interesting things the LHC can do is possibly discover evidence for the existence of the Higgs - if so that will be a monuments occasion, the sort of thing that goes down in history very occasionally and will be remembered and effect the course of science from that day on.

 

Of course, chances are they won't find evidence, but then plans are laid to build bigger and better accelerators until they do

[tbourner]

However that's not to say you could walk into the other dimensions using a device - even if you could it wouldn't be a reality as we know it and we certainly couldn't exist there in any form lol

 

That's what I don't like about the TV programmes that try to show this kind of thing, they have loads of wavy sheets all moving near each other, and it gives a bit of an odd idea to what is actually being described!

 

How do people come up with numbers of how many dimensions there are? I think I see 'dimensions' in a different way to physicists, so I have a different idea in my head.

[AJI]

i have always had an interest in these subjects, .... but they quickly go over the top of my head .... i guess this is why some people can spend a life time researching them.

 

I still can not visualise a hyper-cube..... and this is supposed to be simple thing for quantum physicists hahaha

So for me to understand any more than 3 dimensions is very difficult..... (or 4 if you include time).... but how does one measure the 5th, 6th, 7th etc. dimension... what are the units etc. ?? (if they are in metres.... then surely they have an x,y,z component which then uses the existing 3 dimension we already know about.... very confusing for me).

 

I think we need another landmark discovery .... similar to E=MC2 to get to the next level of understanding. I hear that most of the time some people spen their entire life trying to prove something that is wrong.... (either by using non-proven equations or by irrational assumptions).

 

Even some of the basic things like the anit-matter theory.... how a anti-matter element can appear from the future to be in the same place at the same time as a positive matter element to be able to cancel it out..... it is totally beyond me.

[Al Massey]

However that's not to say you could walk into the other dimensions using a device - even if you could it wouldn't be a reality as we know it and we certainly couldn't exist there in any form lol

 

 

thats because people are still stuck on the laws of physics,

they are only the laws of physics because we say they are, we know no different

 

That's what I don't like about the TV programmes that try to show this kind of thing, they have loads of wavy sheets all moving near each other, and it gives a bit of an odd idea to what is actually being described!

 

How do people come up with numbers of how many dimensions there are? I think I see 'dimensions' in a different way to physicists, so I have a different idea in my head.

 

as far as we can theorise there are infinate dimensions

the things we see on tv arent far from the truth, yes its all theory but you never know one day we might come up with the ides to make it all reality

[chilli]

it depends what theory you look at. Theories such as string and M are exact mathematical frameworks/models that are worked out to solve particular problems in physics when a certain number of additional dimensions are invoked. i don't think any credible theory says, lets just add in more dimensions or even "infinite" dimensions, that helps us solve something - it's more the other way around, in trying to unify and generalise observations mathematicians and physicists have deduced that things like String theory can explain things more cohesively when the right number of additional dimensions are introduced into the math. these typically being 10, 11 or 26 (but other variants exist). The multidimensional spaces are types of Kaluza-Klein and manifolds.

 

So the underlying reason is concrete, in maths and mathematical models - nothing as vague as to say - there might be "infinite" dimensions (not saying there isn't, it's just there is no evidence of that, that would be a bit of a cop out, basically admitting we haven't got the faintest idea but in fact the (theoretical) extra dimensions are finite and come from real theories rooted in heavy math!).

 

I'll get back on some more points in a bit, busy working at the moment, interesting stuff though

[stevie_b]

This is good stuff. I did physics at uni and was going to chip in, but you guys clearly know a lot more about it than I do.

[tbourner]

I doubt I know more than you!! I'm making it up as I go along!

[AndyT]

Right found out what that is Lol.

Higgs.

The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics.

Why will the discovery be so big then Chilli?

 

Great thread subject too btw.

[spartan]

Anyone know anything about the LHC?

I've only read that most well known of scientific journals; wikipedia! So I don't know a lot, except that it's pretty interesting stuff.

 

Is it anything to do with zero point energy? Again, my research is limited, and I haven't seen the recent stuff. Are there still 2 theories saying it could have near infinite energy or it could have next to useless energy levels?

 

So, here's what's in my head: In the vaccuum of space, there is nothing as far as we can see, but there is actually some stuff, some matter and anti-matter that has come together to form this new kind of matter that we can't see. The LHC shoves some atomic bits together at high speed creating massive energy enough to pull the matter and anti-matter apart so we can see it. This is similar to what happened atto-seconds after the big bang except then the power was so immense that the bits didn't have time to regroup and so the universe was born.

 

So if that's right, isn't this a dangerous experiment? What if the invisible bits of matter and what we call anti-matter are in some other dimension when they come together, and that's where zero point energy comes from, and setting it loose opens the gate to a flood of energy or something!!!

 

 

OK, I guess I'm very wrong, so let's hear your thoughts.

 

I think what you are referring to is "Vacuum energy".

 

There was a nice description of this and the Casimir effect (one that I could nearly understand) in the BBC's recent series on the nature of the atom. In particular, the bit that blew my mind was the justification for the spontaneous appearance/disappearance of these virtual particle pairs: the idea being that the energy required to appear was 'borrowed' from the future, only to be 'paid back' very shortly afterwards when they annihilate each other.

[chilli]

vacuum energy, yeah again related to the creation and annihilation of the particle pairs - evidence such as evaporating black holes and other effects, has a relationship with symmetry breaking. In simple terms everything is quantised, and what we consider to be zero energy can actually be a energy plateau as I understand it - this is again related to higgs and the creation of the universe. The idea being that matter has mass - why? because it's within a higgs field which is stuck in a state that it came to rest in from the creation of the universe - this state contains energy that is realised by giving mass to mass particles - I suppose an analogy is giving charge yielding energy to charged particles when in an electric field.

 

there is quite an old theory of quantum mechanics that uses a transactional model, symmetric in time where particles are exchanged from the past to the future and from the future to the past - symmetrically giving rise to phenomenon in the present such as intertia and the forces, IIRC - which is a really interesting subject in it's own right.

 

I could recommend some books if anyone is interested.

 

anyway, discovery of the higgs would be a monumental discovery and insight into the creation and physics behind the universe and would validate a whole branch of physics - it's hard to compare just how important it would be, at least equal to relativity and quantum mechanics I'd have thought

 

I'll get back later with more on the Higgs etc, my explanation is a bit poor but I'm in a hurry - busy debugging some server code here lol

[Thorin]

we can't even master fusion yet.

 

Coming soon... hopefully.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7407963.stm

[tbourner]

That's pretty cool.

[RiceRocket]

Coming soon... hopefully.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7407963.stm

 

Some good stuff in there I didn't know (petawatts, picoseconds and seawater containing deuterium etc)

[chilli]

Some good stuff in there I didn't know (petawatts, picoseconds and seawater containing deuterium etc)

 

makes my 50mW green semiconductor and 10W IR CO2 lasers seem a bit feeble