|
|
|
|
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/2/2009 10:43:00 PM | The "theory" is that the Higgs particle itself is sabotaging the LHC from being able to discover it. I've read most of one of the papers (http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1919), and it's actually pretty much hogwash. The strangest part is that it was written by two respectable theoretical physicists. Well, they WERE respectable until this... In all actuality it's no theory, it's a hypothesis by two physicists, with nothing to back it up. No one is buying into it.
The Standard Model doesn't require all particles to be massless, though. It has, to an extent, predicted neutrinos to be massless, which we now know have non-zero mass. But other than that it doesn't require all particles to lack mass, only some force mediating particles like photons and gluons. It's been said that Fermilab produces energetic enough collisions to observe the Higgs boson, and they've been racing to try to find it before CERN. Were it to be found, CERN's LHC would still be able to probe it deeper and find out more about it. I wish Fermilab would find it first, as that would be some amusing irony between my friend and I. He's a physics grad student working on the CERN experiment, and I'm a physics grad student working on an unrelated Fermilab experiment. But were Fermilab to discover it I'd find that pretty funny... and he'd no doubt find it infuriating.
The most exciting thing about this to me is not the discovery of the Higgs boson. Granted, that would be magnificent. But the really remarkable thing is that if the Higgs boson is NOT found, it implies there is much work to be done on fixing the Standard Model, and that this particular model which has been the most successful in all of physics, is not giving us the complete picture. This means there's a lot of new physics out there to discover, and so many more doors to open. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/2/2009 10:45:13 PM |
This is how I understand the project. Humans are trying to create a "small" blackhole on the planet Earth. Now all my life I've been told how dangerous blackholes are, and they should be avoided at all costs, spaghetti effect and such. And now we're trying to make one. Excuse me but doesn't this strike anyone else as insanity? I've heard about the parallel universes, and getting anti-matter. Another dangerous item I may add. What does this do to aid the human condition? Or am I all wrong on the Super-Collider that I've been hearing about the last few years?
I don't know it seems to me that the scientist are both mad and bored. A dangerous combination.
Eh, you're a bit wrong.
The speculation on these disaster scenarios has all been very cleanly debunked by the physicists involved. There's nothing remotely dangerous about microscopic black holes, or any black holes that any human could create, for that matter. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/2/2009 10:54:27 PM |
If everything came from nothing, as some contend, then there should be something out there that is opposite in every way to a proton for instance. Instead of creating an explosion when fired at each other, (this particle and a proton), they would eliminate each other with a resultant zero mass and zero energy. Is there any theory out there on this? (This is a serious question. The Santa thing was, well........I still believe.)
The antiproton is the anti-particle of the proton. Is this what you're asking? It has opposite charge, caused by its constituent quarks being the anti-quarks of the quarks in the proton. But when a proton and anti-proton collide they don't just eliminate with zero mass and zero energy. They DO explode with a great amount of energy. Matter/Anti-matter collisions are the most efficient forms of energy creation from mass that is experimentally possible. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/2/2009 10:56:14 PM |
not at all. When a major scientist makes a controversial claim, it promotes creative thinking in other physicists in an attempt to disprove the claim. I assume you are speaking of Stephen Hawkings conjecture that information that goes into a black hole is lost. He was very likely wrong about this, it turns out. But by him making the claim, theoretical physics has taken many steps forward that it may not have taken otherwise. Hawkings claim singlehandedly led Leonard Susskind to show that black holes DO retain information, which directly led to the Holographic principle. Healthy disagreement amoung mutually respected colleagues is one of the most stimulating aspects in any field, and helps lead us closer to the truth.
Yes! What a coincidence, I have "The Black Hole War" sitting on my desk right now. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/2/2009 10:57:11 PM |
And might even lead to some interesting wagers such as those between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne.
Haha... we can all only hope. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 1:15:44 AM | | No, with all due respect, I get it up to there. (The antiproton is the anti-particle of the proton. ) I'm asking if there's an equivalent in matter, (and or energy) that could be designated as plus 100 and minus 100. When they meet, the result is zero. (conservation of energy). | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:37:03 AM | Hey lets not give up on String Theory yet. It might be proven correct very soon. Let wait patiently for about a Billion Years. As far as I know String Theory is the only thing taken seriously by most of the Theoretical Physics Community. In fact if you aren't going into String Theory as a Graduate Student then they say go look for another job. We still have Roger Penrose's Twister String Theory. haha As far as we are concerned most physicist insist that it would take a particle accelerator the size of the galaxy(Understatement) to discover down to those dimensions. Oh great, I say we just go for it. String theory is plagued with so many infinities that most Mathematical-String theorist believe we need better-New Mathematics and smarter people. And I don't see people getting much smarter then Edward Witten any time soon. And trust me Papers for String Theory and Mathematics are still flowing in like house flies on a nice sunny day. I mean really who can honestly keep up with the rate of progression that is needed. Take for instance Witten wrote a paper with Michael Green which extended up to a 1000 pages. And this was just one in 1000's written on String Theory. Common this is nuts!
They aren't just looking for the Higgs particles, the list includes to see of extra particles might be found to explain Super Symmetry, Possible other dimensions Lisa Randall has predicted, Branes, Super String, Other Particle that might explain Dark Matter, Black holes evaporation, So there is plenty of research to be done. They say it may take years to sort it all out and begin analyzing the information. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:57:07 AM | [The most exciting thing about this to me is not the discovery of the Higgs boson. Granted, that would be magnificent. But the really remarkable thing is that if the Higgs boson is NOT found, it implies there is much work to be done on fixing the Standard Model, and that this particular model which has been the most successful in all of physics, is not giving us the complete picture. This means there's a lot of new physics out there to discover, and so many more doors to open.]
I think it take many years until we get a complete picture of the Universe and of all Physics. With our current Mathematics, Engineering, Computers(Like Penrose said, "They make up for dumbness by doing ultra fast computations"), and most of all human understand, it is unlikely we will get much further. We must become smarter as a whole and to be smarter as a whole we need better communication and individual understanding. Until we somehow merge the human brain with computers and link that with possible Quantum Computers we are greatly limited. Take for instance the amount of papers being published in string theory and mathematics can not all be studied even if one were to never sleep and rest.
And we don't even know how much string theory can explain even when it's all worked out. I don't think it can tell us why the universe is the way it is or how it got that way. Of coarse there are possible different alternative to this question and it is fruitless to delve into this question as of now.
At some point man will never have to write down an equation or set up ultra complex machines to probe matter and energy. It will all be done by some computer which we can't even speculate on its inner workings. Lets just wait and see! | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 6:43:37 AM |
There's nothing remotely dangerous about microscopic black holes, or any black holes that any human could create,
yes, thats because at that size they would evaporate and disappear in less than .000000000000001 seconds. Its actually likely that this type of black hole forms and disappears all the time naturally. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 1:15:56 PM | RE Msg: 49 by lsdime:
not at all. When a major scientist makes a controversial claim, it promotes creative thinking in other physicists in an attempt to disprove the claim. I assume you are speaking of Stephen Hawkings conjecture that information that goes into a black hole is lost. He was very likely wrong about this, it turns out. But by him making the claim, theoretical physics has taken many steps forward that it may not have taken otherwise. Hawkings claim singlehandedly led Leonard Susskind to show that black holes DO retain information, which directly led to the Holographic principle. Healthy disagreement amoung mutually respected colleagues is one of the most stimulating aspects in any field, and helps lead us closer to the truth. I looked this up, to learn about how this method works. Turns out the Holographic Principle was a solution in string theory that was inspired by a problem in Black Hole Thermodynamics. AFAIK, the problem is that the "No Hair Theorem" tells us that the quantum information would be lost. But, this violates Liouville's theorem, and both are accepted universally. That leaves us with a paradox, a contradiction, between the "No Hair Theorem" and Liouville's theorem. It's THAT conflict, that encouraged much results, because it's a fundamental problem for all physics. It's rather like proving that 1+1=2 and 1+1<>2, using the same laws of mathematics. You can't have that. So people are going to get up and try to resolve it.
But, even if you claimed that 1+1<>2, no-one would care. They'd just say you're wrong.
Perhaps I'm wrong, though. Is it true to say that both "No Hair Theorem" and Liouville's theorem say that in a black hole, no information is lost, or have nothing to bear on black holes? Or are they not mentioned in the paradox? | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 1:28:25 PM | | I wonder if a black hole can arise out of the quantum foam and with it a negative black hole with it. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 1:50:51 PM |
I wonder if a black hole can arise out of the quantum foam and with it a negative black hole with it.
I think some mention of that has been made. However, it would likely only last the tiniest fraction of a second and then cease to exist. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 1:59:42 PM | | I understand microscopic blackholes can arise out of subatomic collisions where huge amounts of energy displaces space-time. But the question I asked was much different... | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 2:53:34 PM |
Perhaps I'm wrong, though. Is it true to say that both "No Hair Theorem" and Liouville's theorem say that in a black hole, no information is lost, or have nothing to bear on black holes? Or are they not mentioned in the paradox?
these are not currently conflicting theories. The "no hair theorem" has fallen out of favor. This theorem was made before it was discovered that black holes had temperature and entropy.
I understand microscopic blackholes can arise out of subatomic collisions where huge amounts of energy displaces space-time. But the question I asked was much different...
that is not the only way black holes can arise. Tiny 3 dimensional blobs of spacetime, when completely surrounded by a "three-brane" have properties identical to black holes. According the math of M-theory, these type of things form spontaneously all the time, even in the absence of high energy subatomic collisions. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:00:54 PM |
that is not the only way black holes can arise. Tiny 3 dimensional blobs of spacetime, when completely surrounded by a "three-brane" have properties identical to black holes. According the math of M-theory, these type of things form spontaneously all the time, even in the absence of high energy subatomic collisions.
Indeed, under the "right" conditions, it's theorized that they can develop "baby universes" and may have been how our universe arose...from the quantum foam of another universe. Theoretically, of course. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:26:34 PM |
No, with all due respect, I get it up to there. (The antiproton is the anti-particle of the proton. ) I'm asking if there's an equivalent in matter, (and or energy) that could be designated as plus 100 and minus 100. When they meet, the result is zero. (conservation of energy).
Do you mean plus 100 and minus 100 in energy or in mass? Energy and mass are both scalar quantities, so negative energy and mass do not actually exist. Since energy and mass are proportional to one another, with the constant of proportionality being in units of velocity squared, it's apparent there can be no negative energy with all mass being positive, because even a negative velocity would result in a positive sign when squared.
When we do have a system where a particle is considered to have negative energy, say, an electron with negative energy, it is equivalent to the antiparticle with positive energy, a positron with positive energy. The same goes for matter. There's no such thing as negative mass. The closest thing I can think of to negative matter is pair-annihilation at black holes, with Hawking radiation. This is the means by which black holes lose mass and emit radiation, by actually absorbing an anti-particle which has mass, but the effect off the anti-particle entering the black hole is equivalent to adding a particle of negative mass and negative energy to the black hole. Mass is, in effect, carried away from the black hole by the non-annihilated particle.
So what you're asking about is still essentially antimatter. But antimatter colliding with matter doesn't just give a zero net result of energy or matter. It gives back energy, which as Einstein showed, is related to matter. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:45:43 PM |
Hey lets not give up on String Theory yet. It might be proven correct very soon. Let wait patiently for about a Billion Years. As far as I know String Theory is the only thing taken seriously by most of the Theoretical Physics Community. In fact if you aren't going into String Theory as a Graduate Student then they say go look for another job. We still have Roger Penrose's Twister String Theory. haha
Haha, I assume you're joking. On the off chance you're actually serious, or someone maybe reads it and thinks this is serious, that's the opposite of the truth.
String theory is just about the least respected field by most theoretical physicists. There's a wide and rich world of theoretical physics outside of string theory, concerning condensed matter, nuclear physics, plasma physics, biophysics, astrophysics, etc... And the thing about those fields is that the theories tend to be testable. The biggest problem with string theory is its inherent un-testability. In face, if you ARE going into string theory as a graduate student you're pretty much screwed. That's a field that is not exactly booming, though to pay attention to pop-science in the media, it might fool most into thinking otherwise.
I'm in my second year of graduate school for physics, and had originally planned to do theoretical particle physics. But string theory is really the only sizable or happening field in theoretical particle physics right now, so I am going the experimental route (plus, I'd love to actually be employed as a physicist one day).
String theory is plagued with so many infinities that most Mathematical-String theorist believe we need better-New Mathematics and smarter people. And I don't see people getting much smarter then Edward Witten any time soon. And trust me Papers for String Theory and Mathematics are still flowing in like house flies on a nice sunny day. I mean really who can honestly keep up with the rate of progression that is needed. Take for instance Witten wrote a paper with Michael Green which extended up to a 1000 pages. And this was just one in 1000's written on String Theory. Common this is nuts!
That's why most string theorists actually create new mathematics to help the theory along. There are brilliant people working in the field, no question about it. But there's a much larger number of brilliant people doing other kinds of physics who see string theory as nothing but an un-testable pipe dream and wouldn't touch it with a 20 foot pole. When it all comes down to it, it's bad science to place much faith in a theory which can't be tested, can't be confirmed or falsified.
There are lots of papers being published on it, of course. When you compare, however, the number of papers published on string theory to the number of papers published in other fields, it's remarkably small. And it's the same people publishing all of the papers... it's not that there are thousands or millions of string theorists out there.
They aren't just looking for the Higgs particles, the list includes to see of extra particles might be found to explain Super Symmetry, Possible other dimensions Lisa Randall has predicted, Branes, Super String, Other Particle that might explain Dark Matter, Black holes evaporation, So there is plenty of research to be done. They say it may take years to sort it all out and begin analyzing the information.
Yeah, there's a lot out there to still uncover. That's why particle physics is really the most exciting field in physics. My research is on neutrino oscillations, another exciting window of opportunity to expand the Standard Model and to uncover new physics previously not seen. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:50:48 PM | [Indeed, under the "right" conditions, it's theorized that they can develop "baby universes" and may have been how our universe arose...from the quantum foam of another universe. Theoretically, of course.]
Yes VERY THEORETICAL of coarse. Was that not proposed by Lee Smolin? Yeah if I am not correct leonard susskind doesn't like the theory and proposed his string theory landscape as a alternative. And there are so many Theories out there that they all rely on an absurd amount of speculation. It can be consider on the same foot stool as religion since no evidence is likely to be found. Most these huge proposals rely on speculation which then relies on mere speculation and the wheel keeps turning. The mathematics prove nothing without the evidence. And much of it can explain other possible theoretical universes that may differ greatly then our own.
[that is not the only way black holes can arise. Tiny 3 dimensional blobs of spacetime, when completely surrounded by a "three-brane" have properties identical to black holes. According the math of M-theory, these type of things form spontaneously all the time, even in the absence of high energy subatomic collisions.]
Okay this is great! How much does this rely on Mathematics. Okay I noticed you stated this as a fact which has already been proven I assume. Yes it may be possible to form these in quantum foam like structures but it isn't fact yet and just good speculation. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 3:51:03 PM |
With our current Mathematics, Engineering, Computers(Like Penrose said, "They make up for dumbness by doing ultra fast computations"), and most of all human understand, it is unlikely we will get much further.
Heh.... false! Completely and utterly.
It's actually very likely we're going to be getting a hell of a lot further in the coming decades. This is one of the most exciting times in all of history for physics. Some of the biggest and most complex, sophisticated, and coordinated experiments ever devised are coming to fruition right now or in the near future. These experiments aim to (hopefully) uncover mysteries of nature never before attempted on such a scale. Computational power is increasing all the time. Mathematics is also an ever expanding field, and engineering will tend to advance at a steady rate as long as the other sciences continue.
With the way we're going, we've got a lot of great things in store for the future. Humanity is about to get some very exciting knowledge, one way or another. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 4:02:46 PM |
t can be consider on the same foot stool as religion since no evidence is likely to be found.
The difference being that the people proposing the theory readily acknowledge the inherent difficulties in "proving" said theories based on the present level of understanding. In short, they are skeptical of their own conclusions, even as they champion it. For the purpose of intellectual honesty, they have to be.
In religion, it would be considered a fait accompli.
How much does this rely on Mathematics. Okay I noticed you stated this as a fact which has already been proven I assume.
Is that assume or presume. As I read it, he was only relating what the theory states. It did not say that it "was" anything beyond that. Clearly, you have an axe to grind against theoretical physics or mathematics.
Me too, actually. I failed Euclidean geometry in high school and never got over it. Dammit! | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/3/2009 4:55:36 PM | Yes of coarse it was a joke! There is a diverse field outside string theory. All those fields contribute greatly to our understanding but none of those will deepen our deepest secrets to the universe. Of coarse there is always the good old cosmology which should now be extend to quantum cosmology. And on my first post what I meant was it was the only sizable thing in theoretical physics. It wasn't meant to be taken literally. Maybe that's how it just came off as. I mean I am not stupid enough to think string theory is the only thing in theoretical physics. Or maybe I am. haha I know nothing...
"For more than a generation, physicists have been chasing a will-o’-the-wisp called string theory. The beginning of this chase marked the end of what had been three-quarters of a century of progress. Dozens of string-theory conferences have been held, hundreds of new Ph.D.s have been minted, and thousands of papers have been written. Yet, for all this activity, not a single new testable prediction has been made, not a single theoretical puzzle has been solved. In fact, there is no theory so far—just a set of hunches and calculations suggesting that a theory might exist. And, even if it does, this theory will come in such a bewildering number of versions that it will be of no practical use: a Theory of Nothing." -- Jim Holt.
Here is a survey done by Carlo Rovelli in 1997- The rough average papers per month were as follows... String Theory: 69 Loop Quantum Gravity: 25 QFT in curved space: 8 Lattice approaches: 7 Euclidean Quantum Gravity: 3 Non-Commutative geometry: 3 Quantum Cosmology: 1 Others: 6
Of coarse this was done in the 90s and is probably much different now.
That is cool that you are going into the field.
 | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/4/2009 12:51:59 PM | String theory is just about the least respected field by most theoretical physicists. There's a wide and rich world of theoretical physics outside of string theory, concerning condensed matter, nuclear physics, plasma physics, biophysics, astrophysics, etc... And the thing about those fields is that the theories tend to be testable.
string theory is not inherently untestable....its just not testable yet. Many proposals have been made for ways to experiment with string theory. The LHC is currently our best bet. This collider may discover extra rolled up dimensions (by looking at gravitons) and may confirm supersymmetry. If the extra dimensions are organized in the way that string theory predicts, this would be a huge boost for string thoery. Its just a matter of how creative we want to be in coming up with experiments.
Also, i think you might be slightly off in saying that string theory is the least respected area of theoretical physics. In fact, way off. The other disciplines that you mention (biophysics, astrophysics, plasma physics, etc) are n0t theories in competition with string theory. They are just tackling different questions than string theory does. As far as attempting to explain our most elementary particles and reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity, string theory is actually our best bet right now...by far. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/4/2009 4:12:32 PM | You know what would be great, at least for a science fiction story?
If they never get it running, and after trying over and over again, they decide that the reason is an amplification of quantum behavior that prevents a seemingly classical result to any experiment designed to determine whether the Higgs boson exists or not. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/4/2009 5:16:21 PM |
This collider may discover extra rolled up dimensions (by looking at gravitons) and may confirm supersymmetry.
LHC is unlikely to confirm extra dimensions - it isn't big enough. | |
|
| CERN/LHC starting up soon Posted: 11/4/2009 7:27:42 PM | http://io9.com/5391989/a-black-hole-engine-that-could-power-spaceships?skyline=true&s=i
Just a tangential, interesting, article I stumbled across... | |
|
|
|