wtf?

[Souper man]

If you live near a book store or a library, pick up Steven Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell"

This stuff makes me want to pee myself and cry in a corner.

Heres a direct quote from his book:
"A black hole in our world on the brane would extend into the dimensions. If the black hole is small, it would be almost round, but a large black hole on the brane would extned to a pancake shaped black hole in the extra dimension"

How am I even supposed to comprehend that? He also goes to talk about that Information lost can be recorded by a black hole and would be stored like a reccord. wtf?

And another:
He says that if you went back in time and killed your mom before you were born, you would open a new Universe/Dimension. huh? what?

Also:
He states that Space and Time cannot co-exist without eachother. They form a plane of existance/gravity where we can bend it to form other dimensions, but we need a infinate gravitational force, aka a black hole.

We live in a strange world indeed...

 

[j.p.bill]

It may or may not be the case. Remember that Dr. Hawking has a bit more time to sit & ponder than you or I. Gravity has been shown to warp the local spacetime, though. That was the basis for Einstein's theory of relativity. The warp was demonstrated about 100 years ago.

 

[Sceadwian]

A lot of those concepts seem alien to most people but then again you have to realize how pitifully limited our ability to perceive the universe around us really is. Even the cheapest digital camera on the market has a wider ability to perceive the EM spectrum than the human eye, and that's our primary information gathering device.

 

[Souper man]

I can barely grasp the concept of infinite, let alone space time...

Branes: An object, which appears to be a fundamental ingredient of M-theory, that can have a variety of spatial diemensions. in general, a p-brane has a length in p dierections, a 1- brane is a string, a 2-brane is a surface or a membrane, etc.

A good example of Space-time is the bending of light. Imagine a peice of grid paper, held loosely with a marble in the middle. The paper will slope down, and that is a good example of a Massive star bending gravity, which in term effects space and time. When light goes near it, it is bent by the curveature of space-time, which is effected by the massive star. A black hole is basically a hole in space-time, or a hole in the grid paper, which leads to a different peice of grid paper. the 2nd peice of grid paper is a different dimension. a good example is like 2 funnels, with the small ends connected together. When a black hole forms, it has 2 dimensions, but which one was created first? is our universe created by a black hole or is it a line of infinitely created black holes forming infinate universes?

Still, I do the best I can with it, and still get confused and set it down before I go insane...

LOL go to www.mikesamazingcakes.com
CRAZY CAKES WOWOWOWOOWOOW

 

[Sceadwian]

The problem is as near as we've been able to figure out so far, in order for the universe we observe to function there are more dimensions than we can conciously observe directly interacting with one another. Of course you're going to have a hard time understanding something that can only exist in mathmatics, any way we learn to deal with the concepts is just distorting the fact that we are not capable of directly experiancing the way the universe functions, only small parts of it.

 

[Optikon]

Steven Hawking is the MAN. I read every one of his books.

 

[Papabravo]

If you cannot get your arms around this stuff, then you should probably avoid furthur contact with it. There is no sense worrying about things you cannot comprehend. Just know that you are not alone in this.

 

[Sceadwian]

Even the best and brightest of the human race are just makeing educated guesses.

 

[Souper man]

One of the major problems with the human mind, is not able to comprehend infinite, and a infinite number of dimensions

 

[j.p.bill]

Don't think you need that many. I believe the string theory types postulated 11 dimensions. But they found an inconsistency, and it may be out of favor.

Black holes keep getting redescribed every few years, so don't take any information as absolute. We can't even explain gravity yet (more properly, why masses attract each other).

Do keep in mind that mathematics can consistently describe things that are not possible. Look into Euler & non-Euclidan geometries.

 

[3iMaJ]

Do keep in mind that mathematics can consistently describe things that are not possible. Look into Euler & non-Euclidan geometries.

Math has a nasty habit of doing that, consider all kinds of singularities that arise in EM theory, for example the electric field of a point charge at r=0.

 

[Hero999]

Also aren't energy and matter the same thing?

Even though the number of particles left from a neuclear fission reaction is the same their mass is reduced by E = mc² where E is the binding energy.

Light might not be composed of particles but if energy is mass then it's not surprising that it's bent by gravitational fields.

 

[j.p.bill]

Energy and matter are related by the equation E = MC^2, but imagine the difference betwen holding a gram of lead and holding the "equivalent" amount of energy in the form of gamma rays.

Light is composed of particles - photons. They carry energy as momentum. Remember photoelectric effect demonstrates that light energy is carried in discreet quanta - by individual photons. The wierdness is that an experiment designed to exhibit the wavelike nature of light will do so, while another designed to show the photonic nature will also do so.

A mass warps spacetime around it. If you impose an imaginary grid around a large mass like the sun, the grid will be distorted in a sort of bubble shape. A photon passing along a grid line will follow the distortion, and be seen to be displaced by an observer on earth. The photon will see no distortion, but will observe that it is following an absolutely straight path by the sun. This is relativity - the observer sees events differently depending on the speed the observer is travelling.

 

[Hero999]

Photons aren't particles though because they don't have any mass.

How can they be certain that mass is bending space time? We've seen the effects on electromagnetic radiation but what about gravitational waves?

If gravitational waves aren't bent by large masses then the theory will have to be re-thought, there again gravitational waves are energy so they'll be bent too.


Aren't mass and energy are the same thing and that a mass is not bending space time but having an affect on matter and therefore all energy in its feild.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this or I might even be looking at it in a different way that's also correct.

 

[bloody-orc]

hero: EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD HAS MASS!
even photons do. this is 11th grade physics man! (just calculated the energy of a green "colored" light particle (photon). what do you think black holes are made? and why does light slurp into it like anything else... because it has mass!
Hey! Even so small things as neutrinos have mass. (and neutrinos are NOT misspelled neutrons).

 

[HarveyH42]

Well, I'll admit first, that my formal education is strongly lacking in these areas (couple of years college). I do understand the difference between facts and therories. In math and physic, there are many interesting and amazing that work out on paper, but could never be real. Most of these therories are an intelectual exercise, and could be nothing more than fiction or fantasy, by people with way too much time on their hands. You can prove it on paper, but is there any chance of proving these other dimensions? Where are all the black holes hiding in space?

Something I've always kind of wondered about... The universe has many galaxies, many have names, ours is the milkyway... What is our little planetary system called? The planets, moons, sun, even asteroids have names, but what about this solar system?

 

[j.p.bill]

Let me try to clear some things up. The following is a quote from University Physics, seventh edition, from page 970 - "In fact, massless particles do exist. The most familiar examples are photons, the quanta of electromagnetic radiation. The existence of these particles is well established...".

So. Photons are particles, and have no mass.

Gravitational waves are not yet demonstrated. Without a better idea of their nature, it's hard to accurately predict their behavior. The nature of gravity is not understood, so it's an interesting area for research.

 

[Papabravo]

On a sufficiently small scale particles exhibit wave behavior and waves exhibit particle behavior. Photons certainly have momentum or they would be unable to boost bound electrons into higher orbits. When those electrons give up their energy and drop to a lower orbit they give up -- what else -- a photon.
Doncha just luv it!

 

[j.p.bill]

My favorite is the double slit experiment wherein it can be demonstrated that a particle has passed through both slits. Doesn't get much wierder than that.

 

[Sceadwian]

I ran across this link googling the subject. Very informative.

**broken link removed**