OT: Carbon Dioxide races -> known vs unknown -> terraforming mars -> is or is not

TerranC · #1 July 18th, 2003, 02:07 AM

Just to point this discussion into another topic;
What about Europa?

Lord Chane · #2 July 18th, 2003, 02:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
There are only so many sub-atomic particles, and we know what they are.

I am certainly not an expert on physics in any of its forms (e.g. high-energy, particle, etc.) nor do I understand the complicated mathmatics that physicists use to explain our universe. That aside, I'm not quite so certain that we know what all the sub-atomic particles are. I suspect if we did, then the grand unification theory would be complete and we'd have a far better understanding of the universe than we do. Various pundits down through time have proclaimed such things as "man will never fly", "man will never travel faster than a certain speed", "it's impossible to travel to another celestial body", and so forth. All of these have since been proven wrong. But at the time the statements were made they seemed true because sience hadn't yet delved deep enough to prove them false. Yes, it's possible we have seen all the particles and sub-particles. It seems equally likely that we have not and that when we discover a few more of them we'll be positioned to explain such things as gravity, to use one example.

Taera · #3 July 18th, 2003, 02:16 AM

thanks lord chane

Fyron · #4 July 18th, 2003, 02:17 AM

From the context of my post, it was clear that I was talking about the first level of sub-atomic particles, those things like protons, neutrons, electrons, positrons, etc. Not the smaller things, such as quarks, neutrinos, photons, etc.

narf poit chez BOOM · #5 July 18th, 2003, 02:44 AM

small correction - Last i heard, photon's where 2000 times the size of an electron.

i saw quarks and basically started blabering. or should that be 'firmly speaking my mind without taking a good look around first?'. but, since i don't seemed to have annoyed anyone and was at least partly on topic, i'll leave it there.

Fyron · #6 July 18th, 2003, 02:54 AM

Then you heard wrong. Photons are much much smaller than electrons. In fact, they are what electrons use for gaining and losing energy.

Suicide Junkie · #7 July 18th, 2003, 03:20 AM

The effective "size" of a photon is proportional to its wavelength.

Microwaves, for example, have wavelengths of from 10th of a millimeter to 10 centimeters... hence the size of the view holes in your microwave door.