About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unreadPage 0Page 1Forward one pageLast Page


Post 0

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 12:36pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
1.)Metaphysically, there is only one Universe.

2.)Existence is ultimately finite.
To ask for an infinite existent is to ask for a contradiction in reality. The Law of Identity makes it so, for anything that exists, is a specific entity, including the totality of existence itself and the sum of all its parts.

My [hypothetical] question is, if the Universe - which is the metaphysical sum of existence, is ultimately finite, then what happens if one reaches the limits of the Universe's finitude?
Is there some "wall" with a painted background, that one abruptly bumps into, a la' Jim Carrey in the movie "The Truman Show"? All sarcasm aside, this really is an interesting thing to think about.
 Sci-fi nerds would probably conclude that going beyond the limits of the universe causes one to enter a "wormhole" that leads one back to the Universe, albeit..in the other side! This can be paralleled to certain classical arcade space-fighter games, where manuevering your space-ship beyond the "screen" [or Universe, if you will] leads you back into the Universe, except in a position diametric to where you exited.

The way in which the "wormhole" theory is illustrated in various Star Trek series - e.g., being able to travel to other areas of the Universe by entering wormholes, would be supported by the discovery that the limits of the Universe may be "organically shaped" as opposed to being shaped in a perfect circle or geometrical shape. For example, this is an organic shape:


Imagine if the Universe were similarly shaped. This is the kind of "model" that supports such Sci-fi notions of "inter-galactic" travel. Galactic, gotta love that word.

Then there are other theories regarding possibilities of what occurs when one "crosses" the borders of Existence. Instant-death? Wouldn't that be amusing. Well what if I just stuck my finger in first? Then I lose my finger, as if I stuck it in a metaphysical woodchipper?
Or, perhaps space itself expands as I attempt to place my finger "beyond" it's borders? Well, that's an odd and rather interesting theory - and one that I only have rather incoherent defenses for. This would call into question the very nature of "space" itself, and I think I'll leave the rest of the fun to you fellow Galactic-Thinkers. ;)

(Edited by Warren Chase Anspaugh on 3/09, 12:48pm)


Post 1

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 2:37pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
According to the best of my knowledge and some others, the universe is a closed surface, like a globe. It doesn't have an "edge". Particles and photons would just circulate around, scattering off things, and getting sucked into black holes.

If you could produce a worm-hole or an edge, you could perhaps fire particles like electrons at it, and have their wave-functions bounce-off, perhaps inverted as their anti-particle (cpt inversion?). A neat way of breading nuclear fuel.

If the universe had an edge, particles might bounce off, and we'd notice a flux of anti-matter anhiliating stuff.

Therefore, it looks like the fate of the universal tapestry, space-time real-estate, is to be un-tangled in coalescing black-holes.

Scott

Post 2

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 4:08pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Except now there is even the question of black holes -----



Three cosmic enigmas, one audacious answer

  • 09 March 2006
  • Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
  • Zeeya Merali
Printable version Email to a friend RSS Feed
 
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript><SCRIPT src="http://adserver.adtech.de/?addyn|2.0|289|113628|1|170|target=nsad;loc=100;misc=1141949345710;grp=000633321;"><SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript>google_ad_client = 'ca-rbi-science_html';google_ad_channel = 'newscientist_300x250';google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;google_ad_format = '300x250_pas_abgnc';google_ad_type = 'text';google_safe = 'high';google_kw_type = 'broad';//populate this with your own keyword//google_kw = 'physics';//remove google_adtest parameter for live implementation//google_adtest = 'on';//fill in the url of the page:google_page_url = '';//specify the colors in RGB hex numbers:google_color_bg = 'e9f3f5';google_color_text = '000000';google_color_link = '016798';google_color_url = '6ca4bd';google_color_border = '016798';<SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type=text/javascript>
DARK energy and dark matter, two of the greatest mysteries confronting physicists, may be two sides of the same coin. A new and as yet undiscovered kind of star could explain both phenomena and, in turn, remove black holes from the lexicon of cosmology.
The audacious idea comes from George Chapline, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin of Stanford University and their colleagues. Last week at the 22nd Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting in Santa Barbara, California, Chapline suggested that the objects that till now have been thought of as black holes could in fact be dead stars that form as a result of an obscure quantum phenomenon. These stars could explain both dark energy and dark matter.
This radical suggestion would get round some fundamental problems posed by the existence of black holes. One such problem arises from the idea that once matter crosses a black hole's event horizon - the point beyond which not even light can escape - it will be destroyed by the space-time "singularity" at the centre of the black hole. Because information about the matter is lost forever, this conflicts with the laws of quantum mechanics, which state that information can never disappear from the universe.
Another problem is that light from an object falling into a black hole is stretched so dramatically by the immense gravity there that observers outside will see time freeze: the object will appear to sit at the event horizon for ever. This freezing of time also violates quantum mechanics. "People have been vaguely uncomfortable about these problems for a while, but they figured they'd get solved someday," says Chapline. "But that hasn't happened and I'm sure when historians look back, they'll wonder why people didn't question these contradictions."
“People have been uneasy about these problems with black holes, but figured they'd get solved. That hasn't happened”
While looking for ways to avoid these physical paradoxes, Chapline and Laughlin found some answers in an unrelated phenomenon: the bizarre behaviour of superconducting crystals as they go through something called "quantum critical phase transition" (New Scientist, 28 January, p 40). During this transition, the spin of the electrons in the crystals is predicted to fluctuate wildly, but this prediction is not borne out by observation. Instead, the fluctuations appear to slow down, and even become still, as if time itself has slowed down.
"That was when we had our epiphany," Chapline says. He and Laughlin realised that if a quantum critical phase transition happened on the surface of a star, it would slow down time and the surface would behave just like a black hole's event horizon. Quantum mechanics would not be violated because in this scenario time would never freeze entirely. "We start with effects actually seen in the lab, which I think gives it more credibility than black holes," says Chapline.
With this idea in mind, they - along with Emil Mottola at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Pawel Mazur of the University of South Carolina in Columbia and colleagues - analysed the collapse of massive stars in a way that did not allow any violation of quantum mechanics. Sure enough, in place of black holes their analysis predicts a phase transition that creates a thin quantum critical shell. The size of this shell is determined by the star's mass and, crucially, does not contain a space-time singularity. Instead, the shell contains a vacuum, just like the energy-containing vacuum of free space. As the star's mass collapses through the shell, it is converted to energy that contributes to the energy of the vacuum.
The team's calculations show that the vacuum energy inside the shell has a powerful anti-gravity effect, just like the dark energy that appears to be causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Chapline has dubbed the objects produced this way "dark energy stars".
Though this anti-gravity effect might be expected to blow the star's shell apart, calculations by Francisco Lobo of the University of Lisbon in Portugal have shown that stable dark energy stars can exist for a number of different models of vacuum energy. What's more, these stable stars would have shells that lie near the region where a black hole's event horizon would form (Classical Quantum Gravity, vol 23, p 1525).
"Dark energy stars and black holes would have identical external geometries, so it will be very difficult to tell them apart," Lobo says. "All observations used as evidence for black holes - their gravitational pull on objects and the formation of accretion discs of matter around them - could also work as evidence for dark energy stars."
That does not mean they are completely indistinguishable. While black holes supposedly swallow anything that gets past the event horizon, quantum critical shells are a two-way street, Chapline says. Matter crossing the shell decays, and the anti-gravity should spit some of the remnants back out again. Also, quark particles crossing the shell should decay by releasing positrons and gamma rays, which would pop out of the surface. This could explain the excess positrons that are seen at the centre of our galaxy, around the region that was hitherto thought to harbour a massive black hole. Conventional models cannot adequately explain these positrons, Chapline says.
He and his colleagues have also calculated the energy spectrum of the released gamma rays. "It is very similar to the spectrum observed in gamma-ray bursts," says Chapline. The team also predicts that matter falling into a dark energy star will heat up the star, causing it to emit infrared radiation. "As telescopes improve over the next decade, we'll be able to search for this light," says Chapline. "This is a theory that should be proved one way or the other in five to ten years."
Black hole expert Marek Abramowicz at Gothenburg University in Sweden agrees that the idea of dark energy stars is worth pursuing. "We really don't have proof that black holes exist," he says. "This is a very interesting alternative."
The most intriguing fallout from this idea has to do with the strength of the vacuum energy inside the dark energy star. This energy is related to the star's size, and for a star as big as our universe the calculated vacuum energy inside its shell matches the value of dark energy seen in the universe today. "It's like we are living inside a giant dark energy star," Chapline says. There is, of course, no explanation yet for how a universe-sized star could come into being.
“The vacuum inside the star has a powerful anti-gravity effect, just like the dark energy that is pulling the universe apart”
At the other end of the size scale, small versions of these stars could explain dark matter. "The big bang would have created zillions of tiny dark energy stars out of the vacuum," says Chapline, who worked on this idea with Mazur. "Our universe is pervaded by dark energy, with tiny dark energy stars peppered across it." These small dark energy stars would behave just like dark matter particles: their gravity would tug on the matter around them, but they would otherwise be invisible.
Abramowicz says we know too little about dark energy and dark matter to judge Chapline and Laughlin's idea, but he is not dismissing it out of hand. "At the very least we can say the idea isn't impossible."
From issue 2542 of New Scientist magazine, 09 March 2006, page 8


Post 3

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 6:26pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
The universe is reality, it is everything that currently exists. It is infinitely large, but as you go further away, the local universe approaches nothing in mass. There are lots of deviations to this pattern (such as stars, planets, rocks, dust, light, etc), but this is true in general, no?

Post 4

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 7:30pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Robert, what an interesting article. I thought one problem mentioned -
information about the matter is lost forever, this conflicts with the laws of quantum mechanics, which state that information can never disappear from the universe.
was suppose to be answered by "Hawking Radiation" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

I read an interesting paper a while back;
"Polarizable-Vacuum (PV) representation of general relativity"
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9909037
Standard pedagogy treats topics in general relativity (GR) in terms of tensor formulations in curved space-time. Although mathematically straightforward, the curved space-time approach can seem abstruse to beginning students due to the degree of mathematical sophistication required. As a heuristic tool to provide insight into what is meant by a curved metric, we present a polarizable-vacuum (PV) representation of GR derived from a model by Dicke and related to the "TH-epsilon-mu" formalism used in comparative studies of gravitational theories.


In other words, nonlinear space can be attributed to variations in the electromagnetic permittivity and permiability of space caused by electromagnetic energy flowing in it. The "vacuum" is really *something* that exists, a medium with properties that conducts particle-like soliton (or dark soliton) waves.

Since I'm somewhat familiar with matter that behaves in this way, and have seen other papers describing particle-like "solitons", this gives me a good aesthetic feeling.

Of course aesthetic feelings can be misleading, and Puthoff has believes some incredible stuff.

Anyways, wouldn't a "dark energy" star, with its anti-gravity, be expected to conduct light faster? Clocks near it run faster? And if you could create a torus of "dark energy", violate causality by exceeding the speed of light?

A while back, there was some arguement over whether the fine-structure constant was changing. So I don't think I'll take the idea too seriously.

Dean,

The universe is...infinitely large


Uh, I don't think so. Infinity is a concept - add one to the largest number you know of. So how can anything be more than what it is? You'll never even (definitely) know what infinity is, because if you try, you'll run out of particles (or would well after time) to do your mathematical accounting with. Infinity is an abstraction, and the universe can't be an abstract notion, but a real thing that exists.

Scott

Post 5

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 7:56pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Here, you can think about what I'm saying like this: lets say that from an external observer's point of view, the radius of the universe is a 1000 meters. But if you are inside the universe, then as you get further from the center, it takes longer and longer to travel further out. You could travel at the speed of light toward the edge, but you would never actually reach it: kind of like if you want to reach the door that is 1 meter away, but you keep on hopping to a position 1/2 between your current position and the door, so you never actually reach the door.

So from the viewpoint of someone on the inside of the universe, the universe appears to be infinite in size.

Post 6

Friday, March 10, 2006 - 9:54amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Right now there is zero physical evidence that dark matter or dark energy exist, they are simply added in to fit theoretical equations.  I think they will in future be viewed in the same way as "Einstein's Constant" that he tried once is viewed now.  Something is missing and there are no workable answers yet.

Post 7

Friday, March 10, 2006 - 10:00amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Nature can be infinite, but the Universe itself will always be finite with one proviso attached: The Universe will always be approaching infinity per the constant of omega.

That's if you think the Universe is accelerating in its expansion. ;)

-- Bridget

Post 8

Friday, March 10, 2006 - 11:38amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Only in this area or sector....  

The universe always has been and always will be - it is the one and only perpetual motion machine, so to speak, and since it is dymanic in its nature, there will always be motion somewhere within it, even if to gathering in what has been 'outward' bound...

(Edited by robert malcom on 3/10, 11:44am)


Post 9

Sunday, March 19, 2006 - 1:04amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Just replying to your initial post Warren.

I don't think that the current physics models have a great deal to reccomend them. My view is that they ought to be considered provisional predictive models and that we ought to be trying to work on other models in parallel.

The idea that you could have more then the three dimensions of space. Or that time can be thought of as another dimension. Or that there are singularities. Or that the Universe started about 13.5 billion years ago. Or that there is some sort of prohibition on travelling faster then the speed of light.

None of these theories have a great deal backing them. They were put together to mathematically explain the data. But we can cobble together a model from any data set yet if we do this we ought not be surprised if they then predict most of the new data as well nor should we mistake our mathematical models for revealed truth.



Post 10

Monday, March 20, 2006 - 9:47pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I want to throw a spanner in the works here or at least put a cat amongst the pigeons. I want all good objectivists who want to argue against what I'm arguing here to stick with their normal methodology.

I will reprint something I've written on another blog. Now I know your first reaction will be to consider this the output of a crank. But I'm only asking you to use the normal methodology an objectivist would use and for the moment or at least for the intellectual exercise put all else aside. Here is the reprint:


JUST TO SHOW YOU HOW STUPID PHYSICISTS ARE.

Wanting to follow up on these mathematicians and computer modellers posing as natural philosophers.

Now you do a best fit model for the data at hand. And that is good. That’s the right thing to do. That’s science.

But two things must be noted right there.

1. You don’t get to excited when your model that was built on past data predicts most of the new data rolling in.

2. You don’t assume that your model is revealed truth.
…………………………………………………………………………..

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/astro/planck.html#c2

“Inflationary Period

Triggered by the symmetry breaking that separates off the strong force, models suggest an extraordinary inflationary phase in the era 10-36 seconds to 10-32 seconds. More expansion is presumed to have occurred in this instant than in the entire period ( 14 billion years?) since.

The inflationary epoch may have expanded the universe by 1020 or 1030 in this incredibly brief time. The inflationary hypothesis offers a way to deal with the horizon problem and the flatness problem of cosmological models.”

…………………………………………………………………………………..

So you think about that. THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO SAY THERE IS A MAXIMUM SPEED THAT NOTHING CAN EXCEED. That is to say the speed of light.

According to this thinking at ten to the negative thirty six seconds the universe is microscopic. At ten to the negative thirty-TWO seconds the Universe is already more then half its current size. Or depending on what they are claiming more then one eighth its current volume.

Just to complete this reduction to absurdity and to show how completely mindless the current physics establishment is I want to put some context to the size of the numbers here.

How many years do you think ten to the power of 17 seconds is?

300 years? 3 million years? The answer is 3 billion years. More then 3 billion years.

And then ten to the power of 18 seconds is of course more then 30 billion years.

They are talking about a time period of between 10 to the power of negative 36 seconds and ten to the power of negative 32 seconds.

In view of the context of what I’ve brought to you can you IMAGINE JUST HOW SMALL THE PERIOD OF TIME THESE CLOWNS ARE SAYING IT TOOK FOR THE UNIVERSE TO GET TO HALF ITS CURRENT KNOWN SIZE.

Never be unkind to creationists again. Because if these clowns are so stupid they don’t think they’ve found themselves a dead-end to their models then a creationist is a genius in comparison.

And yet these guys will not forsake their light-speed limit.

Post 11

Monday, April 3, 2006 - 10:14pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
"Metaphysically, there is only one Universe."

That depends on what "Universe" is defined as. If you go with "all that there is" then yes, there can be only one. But that's an analytic proposition, rather than a metaphysical one.

If, instead, you mean by "Universe" "the space-time cosmos", as many people use the word, then no, it's not at all certain that there is only one of those. And whether there are or are not more than one of those is a Physical question, not a Metaphysical one.


"Existence is ultimately finite."

The Law of Identity doen't begin to imply this. The universe is what it is, but that doesn't mean it isn't infinite in size or duration or divisibility or causal depth or any of several other ways to be infinite.

Also, your musing about what happens at the "edge" of the universe (and here you are using "universe" in the sense of "space-time") betray a misunderstanding of current physical understanding. Since Einstein, space-time is generally understood to be _finite_ but _unbounded_. It has no edges, but is instead (metaphorically) similar to the surface of the Earth. There's only finite surface, but there isn't an edge to fall off of. If you go straight in any direction, you eventually reach your starting point.

Post 12

Monday, April 3, 2006 - 10:24pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Graeme wrote:
"None of these theories have a great deal backing them. They were put together to mathematically explain the data. But we can cobble together a model from any data set yet if we do this we ought not be surprised if they then predict most of the new data as well nor should we mistake our mathematical models for revealed truth."

This is a strange line of thought. "mathematically explain the data" is exactly what physics theories _do_. And making a model that accounts for current data as well as future data is far from an easy task. And no one (so far as I know) confuses phsical models with "revealed truth". Not even the people who believe in a revealed truth.

Post 13

Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 3:50pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
But I think it IS easy. I think its basically a doddle. Though it doesn't seem that way to many people since we left maths behind at high school. And to keep developing it you'd want to wake up and work through your Schaums outline series every morning.....


Look at this:

"...Relativity, they conclude, is indispensable to our understanding of the way the world works. But that does not follow. Alternative derivations of the famous equation dispense with relativity. One such was provided by Einstein himself in 1946. And it is simpler than the relativistic rigmarole. But few Einstein books or biographies mention the alternative. They admire complexity, and cling to it."

If you have another model that can predict what your consensus model can then to predjudice one model over the other is arbitrary. If we want to do this right we'd hold a number of models in parallel and change the assumed ranking of them even as we develop and shore up each.

But we have to get away from this idea that coming up with models is hard work. Or that Science PHD's are all that smart.

I talk to them a lot and I am constantly underwhelmed.

Post 14

Friday, April 7, 2006 - 1:03pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
"Also, your musing about what happens at the "edge" of the universe (and here you are using "universe" in the sense of "space-time")"

Some of these concepts we've built up are virtually entirely arbitrary. "Space-Time". A completely made up concept. What on earth is space-time? Space I'm fine with. Time well ok. But spacetime? What would be similiar. "Skyground or Green-Volume. Is it one or the other or is it more like one or the other. No its mathemanticians posing as natural philosophers.

And this was supposed to explain gravity. But gravity is a force. I know this since its pullng my ass down into the chair. So to say also that space-time is curved is double dipping. But why not just say space is curved since that is what it is you needed to explain the movement of heavenly bodies.....

If you want space to compress so that explains the movement of planets then what the hell do you need "space-time" for.

Another arbitrary assumption is to say that we have three dimensions of space and one of time?

But in what sense is TIME a DIMENSION????

Only in the sense that it all worked to cobble together a mathematical model.

Post 15

Friday, April 7, 2006 - 6:02pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

But in what sense is TIME a DIMENSION????


Only in the sense it is a contextual measurement of duration - no duration: no time, AND NO EXISTENCE.


Post 16

Friday, April 7, 2006 - 8:08pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Graeme,

You need to say space-time is curved because gravity affects your clock (relative to your GPS satelite) as well as your ass. If I had some kind of teleporter, and could zap the fermions of your matter-ass into energy-bosons and beam you up, your watch would stop while in transit.

Time is a dimension in the sense that things can't be at the same place - at the same time. Past, present and future are a continuum separating *events*, changes, relationships between field parameters, identities.

You perhaps might have told Newton his laws of motion are merely math. You've never experienced anything to stay in perpetual motion, and his "gravity" could in no way be sensed. Its just natural for things to fall down, and the Sun to rise and set.

Scott

Post 17

Saturday, April 8, 2006 - 8:30amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Its double dipping. There is no space between my butt and this chair to warp. And in any case there is nothing warped about the space up there. And there is no need to say that space itself is curved in order to explain the movement since as you can feel from your own sports-trained equipment that chicks find irresistible the fact is that there is a force acting on it.

Space-time sounds like a typical hedge. If they say space people will say hey wait a minute. Is space really pulled in like that. Do we mean to say the volume is lessened. There would be likely all sorts of testable implications then.

Space-times a way out. What is it. Space or Time? Neither. Just an obscuring mechanism.

Look at the history. Einstein deep-sixed the concept of an ether. But without an ether how could you have attraction at a distance? Pure Voodoo. Its bad enough with an ether and hard enough to explain. But without an ether how can you expain all this attraction.

So the warping time is partly tying that together. I'm not saying its wrong but at this stage it looks incredibly arbitrary.

Post 18

Saturday, April 8, 2006 - 8:42amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Without time, no *material* existence.


Post 19

Saturday, April 8, 2006 - 9:08amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Yes, warped space is warped volume. Boggles the mind, but certainly appears intuitive to me after considering that matter is really energy, field-states trapped in soliton-like wave-packets.

My understanding is matter doesn't "move" through space-time, it "waves" through it. When you see a wave move (ocean waves notwithstanding), such as in a solid crystal, you are usualy observing a perturbance move.

Space-time (I understand) to be space imbedded and through time. The ether was dismissed because ether-drift wasn't observed.

Do you have some better idea of what's going on?

Scott

Post to this threadPage 0Page 1Forward one pageLast Page


User ID Password or create a free account.