Ask a physicist anything. (6)

[Wiccan_Child]

When is the Higgs boson either going to reveal itself or be ruled out?

When we've exhaustively searched the range of energies where it is predicted to reveal itself.

I've been waiting since I first learned of its possible existence a whole, like, ten years ago.

Sometimes theory exceeds our capabilities.

When are we getting our quantum computers?

I want to hack RSA.

Depends what you mean by 'quantum computer'. The infinitely-powerful multiverse-computer isn't coming any time soon. The trinary 'qubit' computer isn't likely to be commercialised for a long while yet, either.

Why do stupid scientists have to work so slowly that they won't be able to answer all my questions before I die?

I want my answers now.

You can have flaky, uncertain answers now, or accurate, confident answers later. I believe this is a test 3-month-old babies pass

Why is science so cool? Why can I spend 5 hours straight doing nothing but reading research papers and call it fun?

Because you have a thirst for knowledge for its own sake. It's a pity more people don't share your enthusiasm

 

[Wiccan_Child]

WOW!!! I mean WOW!!!!!: Some People Talk About Space-Time Invisibility Cloaks. At Cornell, They Built One | Popular Science

I think my head just melted. So... they alter the flow of photons to allow an event to occur that leaves no purturbation or evidence that a distant observer could trace? So... if people walked through a flowing river, they'd create ripples and eddies that a distant observer could see. But if you parted the water quickly, someone could dart to the other side, then accelerate/decelerate the water back to how it was, there'd be no evidence that anything happened. Pretty nifty

Though when they say someone's built an actual 'hole in time', I wanted a TARDIS!

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Yup, exactly! It's a pressure wave, also known as a sound wave

But a sound wave travels at so many meters per second, so it would traverse an atom in a billisecond. What I mean is something bumps into an electon, which then bumps into a quark, which bumps into a superstring, which bumps into a turtle, and then turtles all the way down taking a time approaching infinity for the shockwave to get close to the heart of things in the centre of the atom. Zenos paradox under a microscope.
.

 

[mzungu]

I think my head just melted. So... they alter the flow of photons to allow an event to occur that leaves no purturbation or evidence that a distant observer could trace? So... if people walked through a flowing river, they'd create ripples and eddies that a distant observer could see. But if you parted the water quickly, someone could dart to the other side, then accelerate/decelerate the water back to how it was, there'd be no evidence that anything happened. Pretty nifty

Though when they say someone's built an actual 'hole in time', I wanted a TARDIS!

Klingons eat your hearts out!

 

[Wiccan_Child]

But a sound wave travels at so many meters per second, so it would traverse an atom in a billisecond. What I mean is something bumps into an electon, which then bumps into a quark, which bumps into a superstring, which bumps into a turtle, and then turtles all the way down taking a time approaching infinity for the shockwave to get close to the heart of things in the centre of the atom. Zenos paradox under a microscope.
.

This problem is solved by the same logic that solves Zeno's paradoxes: you can have instantaneous velocity, and an infinity of infinitesimal slivers can sum to a finite number. When the electron moves, its entire EM field moves too. This is what pushes other, neighbouring electrons. The electron moves as a whole, regardless of what its internal structure is doing (it's not even clear that an electron has any internal structure).

 

[mzungu]

This problem is solved by the same logic that solves Zeno's paradoxes: you can have instantaneous velocity, and an infinity of infinitesimal slivers can sum to a finite number. When the electron moves, its entire EM field moves too. This is what pushes other, neighbouring electrons. The electron moves as a whole, regardless of what its internal structure is doing (it's not even clear that an electron has any internal structure).

One mistake people do when visualising the quantum causes and effects is to compare them to the relative world. Electrons are not billiard balls and the quantum world puts to shame even the most outrageous Sci Fi movie. If one could actually live at the quantum level then I suspect it would not be long before one was shipped off to bedlam!

"Nothing exists but atoms and the void" (Democritus 460 – 370 BC)

 

[Eudaimonist]

If one could actually live at the quantum level then I suspect it would not be long before one was shipped off to bedlam!

[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.


Iä! Iä!

Mark

 

[mzungu]

[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.


Iä! Iä!

Mark

Silly cats; Don't they know that "I am God" Woof! Woof!

 

[mzungu]

So this is where Noah's flood waters went: Universe's Largest Water Reservoir Discovered in Black Hole | Popular Science

 

[Wiccan_Child]

So this is where Noah's flood waters went: Universe's Largest Water Reservoir Discovered in Black Hole | Popular Science

I wonder how reliable their finding is... maybe this is just another false alarm that you get, like all those 'observations' of the Higgs

 

[AV1611VET]

Is ice an amorphous solid?

 

[British Bulldog]

When is the Higgs boson either going to reveal itself or be ruled out?

I've been waiting since I first learned of its possible existence a whole, like, ten years ago.

There have been rumours circulating in the media lately, but experts urge patience:

We may not have found God particle after all, admits Hadron chief - Science, News - The Independent

 

[Chalnoth]

Is ice an amorphous solid?

Not usually, no. Ice forms 16 different crystalline structures, which typically form under different conditions. Amorphous ice can form in a few ways, such as extremely rapid freezing which does not allow enough time for crystals to form.

But the vast majority of ice on Earth is Ih (hexagonal crystalline structure).

 

[hasone]

There have been rumours circulating in the media lately, but experts urge patience:

We may not have found God particle after all, admits Hadron chief - Science, News - The Independent

they're getting my hopes up again. what if a perfectly reasonable delay happens and I don't know by the end of next year?

I know how slow science can be, I've worked in it. I'm going to give a prediction -

By 2015 we will know whether or not the Higgs exists. By then I'll be preoccupied by another mystery that seems on the verge of being experimentally resloved.

I hope it doesn't exist.I like mysteries, and where and how the standard modeled failed (this is a hypothetical) would be a big one.

 

[Chalnoth]

I hope it doesn't exist.I like mysteries,

Why? We know the standard model is wrong at high energies, because it simply doesn't make sense at high energies (beyond around 1TeV). This stance doesn't make any sense to me, because there will be more to learn whether or not the Higgs is found.

 

[hasone]

Why? We know the standard model is wrong at high energies, because it simply doesn't make sense at high energies (beyond around 1TeV). This stance doesn't make any sense to me, because there will be more to learn whether or not the Higgs is found.

It seemed (seems) to me that higgs boson !existing = bigger mysteries than otherwise. If that's false, then I'll abandon the stance. I don't really remember much of what I based it on, so I can't say it's strongly held.

 

[Chalnoth]

It seemed (seems) to me that higgs boson !existing = bigger mysteries than otherwise. If that's false, then I'll abandon the stance. I don't really remember much of what I based it on, so I can't say it's strongly held.

Meh. Either way, the standard model must be extended. I see no reason to believe why one way of extending the standard model necessarily leads to "bigger mysteries" than another.

One thing that is certain, however, is that there will be no shortage of unknown stuff moving forward whether we find the Higgs or rule it out entirely.

 

[mzungu]

Is ice an amorphous solid?

AV, I am curious as to why you ask such a question. Personally I suspect that you are putting 2 and 2 together but I may be mistaken. Why do you ask?

By the way good to see you still going strong

 

[mzungu]

When it comes to dark matter; Has the mass of the super-massive black holes residing at the core of every galaxy been taken into consideration? Could the total mass of all black holes account for the missing mass in the universe? After all; Black holes are the binding force that allows for galaxies to form!

 

[Chalnoth]

When it comes to dark matter; Has the mass of the super-massive black holes residing at the core of every galaxy been taken into consideration? Could the total mass of all black holes account for the missing mass in the universe? After all; Black holes are the binding force that allows for galaxies to form!

Hehe, well, they don't really matter The super-massive black holes make up typically less than 2% of the mass of the stars in the galaxy, and the stars alone are already a pretty small percentage of the total mass of any given galaxy.

I'm also not so sure that they are the binding force that allows galaxies to form. I'm pretty sure that galaxies tend to form wherever you have a sufficiently large clump of dark matter, and supermassive black holes are a natural consequence of the way that gas clouds fall into the potential well provided by said dark matter.

Finally, our strongest evidence for dark matter, in my opinion, stems from the cosmic microwave background, which was emitted before any galaxies ever formed. Basically, before the CMB was emitted, normal matter, which interacts with photons, experienced pressure. So when it fell into a potential well, it would bounce due to that pressure. Dark matter simply fell in, with no pressure to bounce it back out. This leads to very different-looking sound waves for the two sorts of matter in the early universe, and we see the imprint of those sound waves on the CMB. This gives us our most sensitive way of measuring the ratio between dark matter and normal matter, and pretty conclusively rules out nearly all alternative theories for dark matter.