Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
BBC Horizon, Tue March 9th, 9PM
Options
-
09-03-2010 12:16am#1
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,152 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 59081
Personally I think dark matter and energy are nonsense values showhorned in because the observable facts simply dont match the basic theory.
I say the basic theory is up in smoke or at least a major part of it is. I mean the very notion that something like 95% of the universe is "dark" would suggest someone has their sums wrong, or....
My take to make the maths work* is that the bit that's missing from the sums is evidence of a "second" universe laying alongside our one. Like an iceberg. We observe and are part of the top bit above the water line, but the vast bulk lies beneath. To understand the whole we have to think about, or try to extrapolate the underwater part. Evidence for this? Well the "missing" energy/matter required to make the sums work. Its not missing, its "under the water". We may only ever be able to see its influence, rather than observe it directly. Movement there will effect the top bit. Gravity. Its actually a weak enough force. It should be stronger, so why isnt it? Cos its again under the water.
Maybe to really stretch the analogy
OK The ice is all matter and all energy and dimensions. Ice above and ice below the waterline. The waterline is an ultimate event horizon. The entire universe may "bob" up and down in cycles. So "in between" time, reality is a flat ocean. The universe, at least the universe we see came about by pushing up through that during the big bang. Its still pushing up(expansion) and will reach a point where it will equal out, stop and then start to bob back down and at some point go back under the waterline again. Rinse and repeat. As an side maybe black holes are holes in the ice where we can peak at what lies beneath?
Then of course the question is raised, where did that universe come from. I would say that the notion themselves of where and when are concepts that form within this universe and actually dont make sense to the whole. In any case unless we become penguins
and swim down we can never know. I'll call this the Uniberg (tm) Theory 
* To be clear, I run outa maths ability when I run outa finger so....
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
0 -
Advertisement
-
-
Gravity. Its actually a weak enough force. It should be stronger, so why isnt it? Cos its again under the water.
Not the craziest idea, and it has in fact been put forward as a reason for gravity being a weaker force. More precisely it is thought that gravity can "leak" into other dimensions. This is particularly evident in string theory actually where there is a necessity for higher dimensions. Gravity arises from closed strings which can "float away" from our 4 dimensions and into the other 6.
I will say this - There is absolutely no reason why all matter should interact with electromagnetic forces.* To be clear, I run outa maths ability when I run outa finger so....
This is, unfortunately, where things start to get tricky. At a certain point it becomes a necessity to have a proper mathematical understanding in order to formulate a theory.0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,152 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59081
I get that a lotI had originally given your post 'thanks', Wibbs, until I started reading your penultimate paragraph (where you 'stretch' your theory). Once I began reading that, I instantly decided to remove my thanks because what you said in that paragraph is simply not new. All you do is explain the expansion/contraction theory of the Universe in a different way. That's nothing new. You honestly sounded like every other whack-job out there. TBH I dont buy the expansion/contraction model at all. Whether its described as a balloon blowing up or a dodgy looking iceberg. I think we're missing a huge piece of the puzzle and all the current models are outa whack. String theory expansion/contraction, the lot. They do appear to explain certain aspects of the whole but when the theory deviates from the observable to that degree, somethings got to give. Now you could argue teh observing bit is the problem and then you get dark matter, but its too pat an answer. Its like filling in the blanks on a map with "here be dragons" and then giving them names.
To find the huge piece missing will need a whole new theory. Maybe dropping some sacred cows. The speed of light as a constant, extra dimensions, expansion, confidence in measuring cosmological distances, maybe even the notion of the big bang itself. Delete as applicable.
Question actually to the physics bods. Why do we need the universe to start at a singularity? Could it start at the point of what we call expansion? That the expansion part is the start and there was no before? Now if we see its expanding it makes sense that if we go all the way back it went to a point, but is it possible that it didnt? I know, even the word "start" has issues, but Im just wonderingRejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
0 -
-
-
I get that a lot TBH I dont buy the expansion/contraction model at all. Whether its described as a balloon blowing up or a dodgy looking iceberg. I think we're missing a huge piece of the puzzle and all the current models are outa whack. String theory expansion/contraction, the lot. They do appear to explain certain aspects of the whole but when the theory deviates from the observable to that degree, somethings got to give. Now you could argue teh observing bit is the problem and then you get dark matter, but its too pat an answer. Its like filling in the blanks on a map with "here be dragons" and then giving them names.
To find the huge piece missing will need a whole new theory. Maybe dropping some sacred cows. The speed of light as a constant, extra dimensions, expansion, confidence in measuring cosmological distances, maybe even the notion of the big bang itself. Delete as applicable.
Question actually to the physics bods. Why do we need the universe to start at a singularity? Could it start at the point of what we call expansion? That the expansion part is the start and there was no before? Now if we see its expanding it makes sense that if we go all the way back it went to a point, but is it possible that it didnt? I know, even the word "start" has issues, but Im just wondering
Wibbs,
The iceberg of which you speak is a pretty good analogy of the human mind both collective or the individual. Part of which is the conscious mind that is above awareness level; above sea level as you put it, the other part is the unconscious mind that is below awareness level, to which we have do direct access so we tend to ignore its presence. Furthermore this ‘polarisation’ of minds; the conscious and the unconscious, distorts our current understanding which is the root cause of the problem we have in attempting to grasp the ‘big’ picture.
However, what we can do is to allow the two minds to merge into one integrated mind that will inevitability be below awareness level and it will then contain the whole ‘picture.’ This means that we can never have a integrated conscious understanding of the ‘truth’ of what we perceive as the universe but we can live in that ‘truth’ by living in, what I refer to as our Real self because this is what we become when we allow our polarised mind to become one mind, it is actually a healing process.
It is too easy to get carried away with that awesome conscious collective mind around us that is in the form of the of the so-called scientific consensus.
The implications of this way of thinking are stunning!
There is a web site that talks about this in considerable detail. If you haven’t already done so please take a peep.
Posting this link again will result in a ban0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,152 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59081
Gotcha.I'm not a cosmologist so someone else will likely have a better answer, but it's merely the best guess we have from our observations and current theories. Knowing precisely what happened at "the start" and whether it was a singularity or something else it likely beyond us until we develop a proper theory of quantum gravity as general relativity completely breaks down in any scenario we can currently envision for the beginning of the universe.
Oh I agree. It would be a tad troublesome if it wasnt a constant.The constancy of the speed of light is almost beyond reproach. It has been tested and verified umpteen times and dropping it would have an enormous impact on all physics as we know it (and would make it all wrong actually!). I mean over time though. We're 99.999999 % sure the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant here and now at this moment of observation*, but could it have been faster in the distant past? I say faster as I would assume if there was a speed diff over time it would slow not speed up. Would this help with the inflation issue if it was faster at that point? Balance the books as it were. Would it help with other observable issues? A slowing down of the speed of light over time would mean a load of headaches though. Distances would have to be rejigged for one.
Gotcha. I suppose I dont mean "put them in" as an arbitrary thing. I mean in the sense of here's the theory, it requires x to work. Kinda like dark matter/energy. In the case of the evolution of the universe the X is so outa whack with what we can observe now at any rate, that its seems like a shoehorn.Extra dimensions are actually an interesting one. There's no "need" for them currently, but if string theory is correct (and it may well not be, it looks good but no one will claim its verified) then they are a complete and utter necessity for a whole host of reasons. Physicists didn't "put them in" to try and explain something, they're just inherent in the theory. Without them the causal nature of the universe would break down as just one example.
I suppose to the amateur looking in it does look a bit like that. Cosmologist "We have this great theory". Amateur "Oh right, yea sounds good". CM "But 99% is missing". A "Wut?" CM "Yea but its grand its there, but its invisible, you see" A *scratches head. Ponders* "here can you do my tax returns?"Dark matter/energy don't particularly bother me but there are a huge number of physicists for whom it is quite unpalatable. There is great effort going into understanding what they are and if they actually exist. It's not as if we just threw a crazy name out there for something we couldn't quite fit into the theory and then decided everything was done and dusted.
Yea from my small understanding of it its very elegant.I might point out that many, many people had similar problems with quantum mechanics when it was first postulated, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't believe it now.
* OK strange and probably dopey question and I can take the :rolleyes: and flames... When we look out on the universe its like looking at a huge time machine into the past. From the moon a second ago to quasars and the like billions of years ago. Could there be hypothetical observers in this universe that are looking at our sun today relative to us, but say a million years in their future? I suppose Im trying to ask is time uniform througout the universe, but appears "in the now" only relative to us the observer? Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
0 -
Oh I agree. It would be a tad troublesome if it wasnt a constant. I mean over time though. We're 99.999999 % sure the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant here and now at this moment of observation*, but could it have been faster in the distant past? I say faster as I would assume if there was a speed diff over time it would slow not speed up. Would this help with the inflation issue if it was faster at that point? Balance the books as it were. Would it help with other observable issues? A slowing down of the speed of light over time would mean a load of headaches though. Distances would have to be rejigged for one.
It's an interesting question. It kind of boils down to the same thing that people worry about with regards to why should the outer reaches of the universe have the same physics as here. It's possible they don't, but it would essentially make understanding anything impossible! The problem with the idea of the speed of light slowing over the years, and this causing the massive expansion, is that it doesn't explain the largely homogeneous nature of the sky. It appears the universe looks the same in all directions - if things expanded normally, albeit at a quicker pace, then this simply wouldn't happen. It would be akin to exploding some dynamite and finding a perfect circle of debris.Gotcha. I suppose I dont mean "put them in" as an arbitrary thing. I mean in the sense of here's the theory, it requires x to work. Kinda like dark matter/energy. In the case of the evolution of the universe the X is so outa whack with what we can observe now at any rate, that its seems like a shoehorn.
It's a valid query, but it comes down to which is more probable. Dark matter can actually be inferred from Newtonian gravity. The galaxies spin too quickly given the "visible" matter in them. So the question becomes which is more likely - dark matter that only has a gravitational influence, or the very basic concept of gravity we have being wrong? The latter is certainly possible, but it would take both a smarter and braver man than I to think of a better idea.
But I will readily admit that these things are not fully understood. They do arise from experimental observation and are things that need to be explained. However, currently all we can say is that we have enormously successful theories that seem to break down on this scale. Whether something is missing or we're just taking the entire wrong approach is an important question, but the evidence currently swings towards us having to come up with an explanation of dark energy rather than binning GR.I suppose to the amateur looking in it does look a bit like that. Cosmologist "We have this great theory". Amateur "Oh right, yea sounds good". CM "But 99% is missing". A "Wut?" CM "Yea but its grand its there, but its invisible, you see" A *scratches head. Ponders* "here can you do my tax returns?"
Tis the problem of "popular science". I think it's great that people take an interest in these things, and there will undoubtedly be people who approach it from the same angle as yourselves who end up having a greater impact on the field than myself, but they will be in a minority. There is a reason that mathematics has become the language in which we describe physics. It provides a perfect framework, as far as we know, for the universe and it isn't possible to throw away merely mathematical ideas. They are the very basis for physics as we know it today. There is an issue that theoretical physics has powered ahead of experimental physics, which is a new phenomenon, but a mathematical framework is essential to any physical theory. Essentially, mathematical physics provides more options than exist in the real world, but nothing happens in the real world that can't be explained through mathematical physics. White holes are equally as plausible as black holes mathematically, but as far as we know only black holes exist. We simply wouldn't have gotten anywhere over the last 100 years without theoretical physics though.
To summarise, no one is thrilled about dark matter/energy, it's merely the best guess we have at the moment. Something has to be there though. It's probably reported as being more definitive than any of us take it to be.Could there be hypothetical observers in this universe that are looking at our sun today relative to us, but say a million years in their future? I suppose Im trying to ask is time uniform througout the universe, but appears "in the now" only relative to us the observer?
Well, people a million light years away will see us in "the present" a million years from now. Time is not uniform throughout the universe - the important factor is causality. Causality states that I can't see something happening before it's happened (essentially), and what someone does 20 years from now won't affect what I'm doing now. "Time" is a rather more fluid concept though. Two people in different reference frames won't even agree on whether two events happened at the same time or not.0 -
-
Advertisement
-
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,152 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59081
Yea pretty much. I suppose if you looked at very distant objects and they were behaving in ways outside the current constant that would be a smoking gun, but I never heard anything along those lines. The very distant objects and structures are as the theories would expect AFAIK?It's an interesting question. It kind of boils down to the same thing that people worry about with regards to why should the outer reaches of the universe have the same physics as here. It's possible they don't, but it would essentially make understanding anything impossible!
Gotcha. The background radiation/echo from the big bang is uniform with some lumpy bits(again AFAIK) The inflation part and why it happened is the bit I mean with a diff in the speed of light. If light was faster in the initial crazy time just after the big bang and then it for want of a better word ran out of puff universe wide and set to its current speed. That what looks like an inflation period to us, was light settling down kinda thing.The problem with the idea of the speed of light slowing over the years, and this causing the massive expansion, is that it doesn't explain the largely homogeneous nature of the sky. It appears the universe looks the same in all directions - if things expanded normally, albeit at a quicker pace, then this simply wouldn't happen. It would be akin to exploding some dynamite and finding a perfect circle of debris.
Or maybe there is so much ordinary "stuff" that we simply cant see. Even looking closer to home in our own solar system, there are a gansie load of asteroids, comets etc, the bigger ones we see but there are more we cant and there could be a helluva lot more out there. Ditto with the oort cloud. Loads of matter some planetoid sized that we cant see and that's just in our back yard. I recall reading about voyager slowing down unexpectedly as it makes its way out of our solar system and people saying this was a bit of a head scratcher gravity wise. Not so much if theres a lot of ordinary matter, even dust out there, in what we think as empty space. So do we even need exotic matter at all? Or are the values so big that even all the hypothetical ordinary matter doesnt make up the shortfall?It's a valid query, but it comes down to which is more probable. Dark matter can actually be inferred from Newtonian gravity. The galaxies spin too quickly given the "visible" matter in them. So the question becomes which is more likely - dark matter that only has a gravitational influence, or the very basic concept of gravity we have being wrong? The latter is certainly possible, but it would take both a smarter and braver man than I to think of a better idea.
The bloke in a shed principle
Tis the problem of "popular science". I think it's great that people take an interest in these things, and there will undoubtedly be people who approach it from the same angle as yourselves who end up having a greater impact on the field than myself, but they will be in a minority. The outsider with the fresh approach. But yes defo in the minority. Problem with the fact that most of the leaps forward were those outsiders, every outsider reckons they're one of them.. The internet will increase the chances of the real deal coming through, but because of the signal to noise ratio it may be ignored.
+1There is an issue that theoretical physics has powered ahead of experimental physics, which is a new phenomenon, but a mathematical framework is essential to any physical theory.
White holes? Just googled that. Cool. I see the Hawking chap positing that black and white holes could be the same observable thing. I love the idea of big bangs within black holes calving new universes. Fascinating stuff. Note to self, buy a few books on this.Essentially, mathematical physics provides more options than exist in the real world, but nothing happens in the real world that can't be explained through mathematical physics. White holes are equally as plausible as black holes mathematically, but as far as we know only black holes exist. We simply wouldn't have gotten anywhere over the last 100 years without theoretical physics though.
Gotcha. I'm thinking if you could stand "outside" the universe would you percieve all energy and matter and information as "frozen". A solid as it where, birth growth death of all in one point. Just that within the universe, causality is locked to he observers reference frame.Well, people a million light years away will see us in "the present" a million years from now. Time is not uniform throughout the universe - the important factor is causality. Causality states that I can't see something happening before it's happened (essentially), and what someone does 20 years from now won't affect what I'm doing now. "Time" is a rather more fluid concept though. Two people in different reference frames won't even agree on whether two events happened at the same time or not.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
0
Advertisement