OT - Physics Question on Anti-Matter - Page 5

Phoenix-D · #41 February 21st, 2007, 03:39 AM

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shinigami said:
I often find it funny how some scientists deride religion because it fails to meet scientific standards but will stand firm on accepted theories that truly can not be proven right or wrong. Hmmm, sounds like faith to me.

Oh, you can do a lot of proving. Contriving large-scale experiments with astronomy is a *****, but in that respect its not that different from geology or any of the other sciences that involve large-scale processes.

So instead you make models, poke with them, use them to make predictions, and (important step religion leaves out) use them to make predictions. You can test THOSE against reality to see if they match. We can't really test if its possible to exceed C yet, but we can -and have- tested time dilation. Etc.

Randallw · #42 February 21st, 2007, 04:21 AM

I consider the idea of dark matter on par with the Aether. I'm not saying it isn't true but on the one hand they couldn't find how light propogated through space so they invented some invisible substance that filled space, the Aether, and on the other hand they can't figure out where most of the universes weight is so likewise they guess it must be some invisible substance filling space, dark matter.

Fyron · #43 February 21st, 2007, 04:28 AM

shinigami said:
"I often find it funny how some scientists deride religion because it fails to meet scientific standards but will stand firm on accepted theories that truly can not be proven right or wrong. Hmmm, sounds like faith to me."

Let's not derail this discussion...

narf poit chez BOOM · #44 February 21st, 2007, 05:01 AM

I havn't read all of this, but all of you are silly, silly people for trying to figure out how to destroy the Earth.

All the information you need is right here: How to destroy the Earth

Silly people. You can find anything on the internet.

capnq · #45 February 21st, 2007, 04:59 PM

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Randallw said: capnq, just if you're interested, I am one of the writers for his new comic project.

I'll be interested when the first comic appears. I don't really want to watch the creation process, though, so I've ignored that section of the forums.

capnq · #46 February 21st, 2007, 05:11 PM

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Renegade 13 said: An interesting side point about antimatter is that "normal" (baryonic) matter and antimatter should have been created in equal quantity at the big-bang. However, we take a look around and we can't detect any antimatter out there, but there's lots of normal matter. They still haven't figured that one out

They do have a theory about that, though. For example, see this lecture; scroll down to the section labeled "Matter versus Anti-Matter".

Renegade 13 · #47 February 21st, 2007, 07:59 PM

Hmmm, that's an interesting link, thanks Capnq!

So there is a theory for the asymmetry between antimatter and matter, though unproven.

Suicide Junkie · #48 February 21st, 2007, 08:12 PM

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Renegade 13 said:

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Suicide Junkie said:
Just because there is a lot of mass there dosen't mean it is infinite in any way. Where "a lot" is only a handful of stellar masses in many cases.

A handful of solar masses? The central blackhole of the central galaxy of a galactic cluster is estimated to have up to several hundred billion solar masses. It'd take a while to use up that amount of mass/energy.

Those are pretty rare. And nowhere near infinite.
Lots of holes get formed from stellar deaths, with only 3-tens of stellar masses.

Quote:

If the Big Bang Theory is correct then everything in the universe was created in that instant, albeit in different forms of energy and matter. Therefor, infinite energy is an impossibility because we live in a finite universe.

How so? Infinite density does not mean infinite energy.

Now, if the universe is infinite in extent and as homogenous as it looks from here, then indeed there would be infinite energy in it.
However you only have access to the observable universe, which is a finite volume of space, with a finite amount of stuff in it.

Randallw · #49 February 21st, 2007, 09:44 PM

Quote:

capnq said:
I'll be interested when the first comic appears. I don't really want to watch the creation process, though, so I've ignored that section of the forums.

There's an idea. If I'm getting involved perhaps I should actually join the forums.

shinigami · #50 February 22nd, 2007, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Suicide Junkie said:

Quote:

If the Big Bang Theory is correct then everything in the universe was created in that instant, albeit in different forms of energy and matter. Therefor, infinite energy is an impossibility because we live in a finite universe.

How so? Infinite density does not mean infinite energy.

Now, if the universe is infinite in extent and as homogenous as it looks from here, then indeed there would be infinite energy in it.
However you only have access to the observable universe, which is a finite volume of space, with a finite amount of stuff in it.

I think that was what I was saying, finite universe means finite energy.

For the universe to be infinite wouldn't that mean that somewhere in it energy and matter are being created or added to it? Seeing as physics, as we understand them, can only go back as far as a few milliseconds after the big bang and that time did not exist beforehand then it is possible that the BB is still happening and creating the additional energy for an infinite universe. Very esoteric theory that's hell to wrap my head around!

I think that in man's quest for infinite energy we'll find that it truly doesn't exist (barring extra-dimensional sources) in the strictest sense. However, from our limited point of view (ie, short lifespan compared to the universe,) we'll find plenty of sources that seem to be infinite.
What would you call that, practical infiniteness?

Anybody remember the space shuttle tether experiment? Compare that with some of Tesla's work and we might have an outstanding source of renewable energy. As for harnessing it....