Is it true, that particles on their smallest level, seem to pop in and out of existence...?

[Neogaia777]

I just thought I'ld point out, science doesn't work that way.

Laws were never theories and theories never become laws.

They are different things.

Theories explain sets of facts and laws.
Facts and laws support theories.

What a law is, kind of also depends on the discipline involved.
In general, for the most part, I guess you could say that a law is a generalisation / abstraction of a set of facts.

You gotta be kidding me, right...?

Everything that became known as a law or fact started out as a theory, and sometimes things known as laws or facts are brought into question by new evidence or information and become theories again (at best sometimes, if they're not thrown out altogether)... Happens all the time...

You know what, oh, why bother...

I'm going to bed now, night all.

God Bless!

 

[essentialsaltes]

And by this alone we believe in these particles, but not God right...?

I have not seen any gods sign their name in a bubble chamber.

Just little bits of matter doing what they do, in a predictable way that allows us to determine their properties.

 

[DogmaHunter]

You gotta be kidding me, right...?

No.

Another way to put it, is that a law describeds WHAT happens. Not WHY or HOW it happens.
The why/how, is explained in a theory.

Everything that became known as a law or fact started out as a theory

No.

, and sometimes things known as laws or facts are brought into question by new evidence or information and become theories again

No.
That's just mistaken observation.

(at best sometimes, if they're not thrown out altogether)... Happens all the time...

You know what, oh, why bother...

I'm going to bed now, night all.

God Bless!

I suggest you brush up on scientific jargon.

• Fact: Observations about the world around us. Example: “It’s bright outside.”
  
• Hypothesis: A proposed explanation for a phenomenon made as a starting point for further investigation. Example: “It’s bright outside because the sun is probably out.”
  
• Theory: A well-substantiated explanation acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation. Example: “When the sun is out, it tends to make it bright outside.”
  
• Law: A statement based on repeated experimental observations that describes some phenomenon of nature. Proof that something happens and how it happens, but not why it happens. Example: Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation.

 

[Petros2015]

They cancel each other out; like waves at sea, new peaks and troughs are appearing and cancelling out all the time. In particle interactions, they're seen as being emitted and absorbed by the particles involved.

*to the tune of Paul Simon's Kodachrome*

"Quantum FooOOOooOOoOOOoaam..."

 

[Jon Osterman]

I came to this thread a little late, but why does the OP have a problem with particles being created and annihilated?

Creation and annihilation happens quite frequently in every day life. If I have a doughnut and eat it, I no longer have a doughnut. The doughnut has been annihilated.

Some things are conserved, but particle number is not one of them. So a particle can (under the right circumstances) split into two particles, or absorb another particle into itself. In the first example 1 particle becomes 2; in the second, 2 particles become 1.

 

[Ophiolite]

You gotta be kidding me, right...?

Everything that became known as a law or fact started out as a theory, and sometimes things known as laws or facts are brought into question by new evidence or information and become theories again (at best sometimes, if they're not thrown out altogether)... Happens all the time...

You know what, oh, why bother...

I'm going to bed now, night all.

God Bless!

This is important: you have a seriously mistaken understanding of the nature of theories and laws. (It's understandable. When I was young and impressionable I thought the same thing.) Read DogmaHunter's explanation and if any part of it is unclear, then ask. If you retain your current understanding you are going to be confused and led down several blind alleys.

(On a related point, it is my impression that most Laws date from a time when scientists had a tendency towards absolutism. There was, perhaps, a measure of overconfidence that we were on the verge of figuring out everything and a faulty expectation that everything was reasonable simple. i.e. definable by Laws.)

 

[Petros2015]

If I have a doughnut and eat it, I no longer have a doughnut. The doughnut has been annihilated.

What if a doughnut appeared in front of you out of nowhere and you were about to have the doughnut, and then an anti-doughnut appeared and annihilated it before you got to eat it? Then you would have no doughnut, and you would be sad.

 

[Jon Osterman]

What if a doughnut appeared in front of you and you were about to have the doughnut, and then an anti-doughnut appeared and annihilated it before you got to eat it? Then you would have no doughnut, and you would be sad.

That would indeed be a very sad occurrence. This happens to me occasionally, with my daughter playing the role of anti-doughnut.

 

[Ophiolite]

I came to this thread a little late, but why does the OP have a problem with particles being created and annihilated?

Creation and annihilation happens quite frequently in every day life. If I have a doughnut and eat it, I no longer have a doughnut. The doughnut has been annihilated.

Some things are conserved, but particle number is not one of them. So a particle can (under the right circumstances) split into two particles, or absorb another particle into itself. In the first example 1 particle becomes 2; in the second, 2 particles become 1.

It's a good analogy. I resolve it in my own mind by the understanding that the particles are expressions of fluctuations of the energy field. Any difficulty we have in understanding is because our experiences occur in the macro-world where energy and particles are distinct, not in the quantum world where such distinctions are less pertinent.

 

[Jon Osterman]

It's a good analogy. I resolve it in my own mind by the understanding that the particles are expressions of fluctuations of the energy field. Any difficulty we have in understanding is because our experiences occur in the macro-world where energy and particles are distinct, not in the quantum world where such distinctions are less pertinent.

Yes, particle are just quantum fluctuations of fields, so there is no (in principle) reason for them to be conserved in number. There are of course conservation laws that prevent them being created or annihilated in certain ways. For example conservation of spin prevents a boson emitting a single fermion. Also energy has to be conserved, so they can't just vanish into nothing.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Why do those mathematical conveniences have to exist or be...? I mean if their "just math" why are they referred to as "particles"...? If their nothing essentially, then why are they not considered "nothing"...?

People find it helpful to have something they can visualise when thinking about reality. They're not considered 'nothing', because they're useful ways of interpreting or visualising what maths says is going on.

Do we know that "for sure" (yet)...?

Yes, if the theory that describes them in the first place is correct.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

No issues with your explanation but it’s easier to explain using the uncertainty principle equation.

Easier to explain, but, perhaps, harder to understand for someone who seems to have minimal maths & physics.

 

[sjastro]

Thanks for the info man... While I don't claim to fully understand it by any means, I am going to look into it...

Is there such a thing as anti-time, or time moving or flowing backwards...?

God Bless!

Time moving backwards violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Throw an ice cube into warm water and it melts with time.
The reverse process where the ice cube gets larger by reversing time is thermodynamically impossible.

 

[sjastro]

Easier to explain, but, perhaps, harder to understand for someone who seems to have minimal maths & physics.

Quantum Field Theory is more a branch of Applied Mathematics than Physics and also a difficult subject for Physicists to understand.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Quantum Field Theory is more a branch of Applied Mathematics than Physics and also a difficult subject for Physicists to understand.

Interesting... I was sorely tempted by the book, but I don't have the maths of a 'gifted amateur' and don't have the time or inclination to get in that deep.

 

[Jon Osterman]

Quantum Field Theory is more a branch of Applied Mathematics than Physics and also a difficult subject for Physicists to understand.

I don't think that is true. It is most certainly physics. And the basics at least are fairly straightforward - it only gets messy in the details. Quantum Field Theory is routinely taught to undergraduates.

 

[sjastro]

I don't think that is true. It is most certainly physics. And the basics at least are fairly straightforward - it only gets messy in the details. Quantum Field Theory is routinely taught to undergraduates.

During my stay in the tertiary education environment in the 1980s, QFT was taught at undergraduate level as an Applied Maths subject and honours level in Physics.

I found QFT to be analogous to a game of chess, learning the moves might be simple enough but as one progressed, it became obvious how difficult it was to master the game.
The basics of QFT might be simple enough (Klein Gordon equation, second quantization etc) but its specific application in fields such as QED, electroweak theory or QCD reveals how extremely complicated it is.

It's encouraging for a mere mortal like myself that Ed Witten the only Physicist to win the Fields Medal in Pure Mathematics claimed that QFT was the most difficult branch of Physics.

 

[Neogaia777]

Sure, I don't care about that. I'm just sharing a good video that gives an interesting viewpoint from physics and has some pretty fascinating implications.



Well, I'm not a physicist, but here is how I see it. Einstein said as you approached the speed of light, you required more power to go faster, and the amount of power you needed increased exponentially. Why? Because as you approached the speed of light, you became more and more massive. The mass of a starship would increase as it approached lightspeed. Also time would effectively slow for those on the ship as it approached lightspeed.

HUH???

The way I think about it is this. Have you ever been standing in a swimming pool with a friend in about 4 feet of water? You can lift your friend out of the pool even if he is heavier than you. But the more you lift him out of the pool, the heavier and heavier he gets. Why does he get heavier and heavier the more you lift him out? Because while he is in the pool, the buoyancy of the water makes him lighter. His mass is relative to the mass of the water. As you lift him out, less and less of him is in the pool, so he gets heavier and heavier as he forsakes the buoyancy of the pool. He is not really getting more and more massive, but within the pool he is lighter.

So space-time is like the pool. As you approach light-speed you are starting to leave the pool. Getting more and more massive, being subject to less and less time. This is why time slows and you become more massive. You are forsaking the 'buoyancy' of space-time. A ship approaching light-speed would start to hydroplane out of space-time.

And... there's nothing outside of space-time. Within the pool your mass is relative to the rest of the universe. But if I start to forsake the buoyancy of all of space-time, my mass is becoming relative to NOTHING - I'm becoming infinitely massive. This is why Einstein said the mass would approach infinity as the speed approached light-speed.

Things that become infinitely massive tend to collapse in on themselves into black holes. So if you had any mass at all, I think that's what would happen if you really forced it with an infinite amount of power to try and approach and break the light speed barrier, the result would be the ship collapsing into a black hole. If you had ANY MASS AT ALL to start with, that would be the result. You would have to be pure light or pure spirit to approach or exceed light speed and not be destroyed in the black-hole trap.

Pretty interesting setup. To me it seems like God really doesn't like universe-hackers

Anyway, that's the way I think of it.

How can we see 46.5 billion light years away (or old, at least, but only if it has always been moving at the speed of light, and if not, may even be older) If we can see 46.5 billion light years away in either direction, then how can the universe only aprox 14 billion years old...?

And that is only the limit of what we can see, and it (the universe) goes beyond and farther than that even and no one seems to know how far... Yet none of it could have been moving at the speed of light due to infinite mass...?

And why does it not seem to be expanding from a definable center...? I mean if the Big Bang is true, why these things...? And the universe is expanding and moving faster and faster in that expansion, so were just at the very beginning of the explosion, or what...? if that's how it happened that is...?

And since any material moving at the speed of light has infinite mass, and turns into a black hole, why don't we have a universe full of black holes...? Or will have a universe full of black holes in the future, if the universe keeps continuing in speeding up in it's expansion... Did the initial big bang start out slow, or what...?

Needless to say, this doesn't seem to add up, and some of it just doesn't make sense, so some of these theories must be wrong... And need to be rethought out or reexamined...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

Some questions I have about the universe...?

Quote from that post: "So we can observe 46.5 billion light-years in every direction. Everything beyond that horizon is unknown."

For the big bang to be true, or at least for the universe to be as old (or "young" is perhaps a better word) as they say it is, what we can see would have been have to have been traveling at "three times the speed of light", and since there is even more beyond what we can see, it would have to be even faster than that, for the age of the universe to be correct... And that means the universe should be all black holes, due to infinite mass...

It just doesn't make sense...? doesn't add up...?

And the expansion doesn't seem to have a definable center...? It, the strings of galaxies in the universe all seem to be expanding and pushing out from one another pretty equally from the dark areas or centers between or among the strings and clusters of galaxies (and strings of those) in the universe, with no real definable center...

And if it is still in state of acceleration, it must be very young and small still, and won't it end up in all black holes...?

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

How can we see 46.5 billion light years away (or old, at least, but only if it has always been moving at the speed of light, and if not, may even be older) If we can see 46.5 billion light years away in either direction, then how can the universe only aprox 14 billion years old...?

And that is only the limit of what we can see, and it (the universe) goes beyond and farther than that even and no one seems to know how far... Yet none of it could have been moving at the speed of light due to infinite mass...?

And why does it not seem to be expanding from a definable center...? I mean if the Big Bang is true, why these things...? And the universe is expanding and moving faster and faster in that expansion, so were just at the very beginning of the explosion, or what...? if that's how it happened that is...?

And since any material moving at the speed of light has infinite mass, and turns into a black hole, why don't we have a universe full of black holes...? Or will have a universe full of black holes in the future, if the universe keeps continuing in speeding up in it's expansion... Did the initial big bang start out slow, or what...?

Needless to say, this doesn't seem to add up, and some of it just doesn't make sense, so some of these theories must be wrong... And need to be rethought out or reexamined...

God Bless!

Some questions I have about the universe...?

Quote from that post: "So we can observe 46.5 billion light-years in every direction. Everything beyond that horizon is unknown."

For the big bang to be true, or at least for the universe to be as old (or "young" is perhaps a better word) as they say it is, what we can see would have been have to have been traveling at "three times the speed of light", and since there is even more beyond what we can see, it would have to be even faster than that, for the age of the universe to be correct... And that means the universe should be all black holes, due to infinite mass...

It just doesn't make sense...? doesn't add up...?

And the expansion doesn't seem to have a definable center...? It, the strings of galaxies in the universe all seem to be expanding and pushing out from one another pretty equally from the dark areas or centers between or among the strings and clusters of galaxies (and strings of those) in the universe, with no real definable center...

And if it is still in state of acceleration, it must be very young and small still, and won't it end up in all black holes...?

God Bless!

I saw a show where Stephen Hawking proposed an alternate theory... And to describe it, he used and indoor gym or basketball court and it was full of steel ball bearings all squared off and in equal distance and squared off from one another... And it was static and nothing was moving or in motion...

Then he removed just five of the ball bearings from the hundreds of them, (unbalanced it) (disrupted, or interrupted, the static nature of it) then they all started moving and swirling around one another, and gathering up and together, and clustering in groups and strings, and swirling around one another, and it acted like, and all the ball bearings behaved like, much like the universe that we observe does or seems to...

But that would not be a "big bang" but something else, if that is how the universe started out...

It would explain a lot though...

Now in this picture, all the ball bearings would eventually all gravitate to all form up, and cluster up, in the middle or on one center (eventually)... But that's only because this description or picture or illustration lacks to describe or account for how the unfilled, unoccupied (dark areas or centers in a picture of the universe) anyway, it does not account for the dark areas and it's force, or their forces pushing outwards causing expansion... But it, or they, the dark areas, do not seem to have originated from one center, but they seem to all each be centers of their own, or started out as centers of their own...

That the universe did not originate from one single point, but was laid out like a (giant) sheet of paper, or a (giant) three dimensional cube, with "points" of material that began as equal in every way, and was static, and then, it was "disrupted" or messed with somehow, causing it to be what it is, or what we see now...

And a force was included to cause "expansion" of it all, at that time also...

I wonder if the force causing the expansion is in balance and harmony, or is equal somehow, with the force that tends to make it all want to cluster all back together... Or is (the force expanding it)"just enough" to "equally counter" (or balance) the force that makes it all want to cluster back together...? That would have to be a pretty delicate balance... That could or would it keep it all going for a very, very long time...

God Bless!