Ok, so lets say we take our brain, simply speaking how has evolved to not only survive in our world but how it has evolved to bring about language and much more advanced ideas such as curiosity, self awareness, etc..
But lets imagine that our brains exist int he matrix, for a lack of a better example. The matrix is our planet, we see plants, we see other people, tides go in, tides go out, no interruptions....
Our brains have evolved within this construct, we see for example a clear start and beginning to life, we see clear definitions of solid and not solid, we can explain things in relation to experience.
However, now we have reached some rather difficult points of our understanding, which is where quantum mechanics comes in. Ideas like, a universe from nothing, no beginning or end, time is a construct not a constant, etc.. These are very difficult ideas for our brains which have developed within a frame work of our very isolated and very small home on earth, which is a speck within a speck amongst a beach of sand more massive than we can imagine, and then x1000000000 to that which you can imagine.
Sorry just babbling, physics is the most fascinating field of research and I get all giddy considering its ideas and more importantly its consequences.
Yeah, quantum physics is definitely interesting (though I'm not sure what you mean by an idea trying to "prove" quantum physics -- 100 years of experiments has proven our framework to work, we just don't fully understand the causes behind portions of it) I was just asking what the context of your post was. It seemed sort of random. I wasn't sure if you left out a link or something, or if you were referring to a different post.
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Yeah, quantum physics is definitely interesting (though I'm not sure what you mean by an idea trying to "prove" quantum physics -- 100 years of experiments has proven our framework to work, we just don't fully understand the causes behind portions of it) I was just asking what the context of your post was. It seemed sort of random. I wasn't sure if you left out a link or something, or if you were referring to a different post.
It was a bit random yes, just overlooking the last 3-4 posts, when I saw the word super-string it got my interest.
I'm sorry if my ramble suggested anything. I would disagree about 100yrs of experiments have proven anything, its why we keep calling it theoretical physics, and we are at a serious point of when the mathematics and ideas are not just beyond the reach of technology, but they are well beyond what our technology could record.
Of course 100 years of experiments have proven something. The experiments have given physicists extremely accurate and amazingly predictive results (within 10 decimal places). Quantum field theory (Standard Model!) provides the most precise predictive power in all of physics. Heck, we wouldn't even have lasers if we didn't understand something of quantum physics to be true.
Of course, physicists don't know everything about how it all works behind the scenes, no argument there. The measurement problem, entanglement and non-locality (which has been demonstrated through experiment many times) . . . there are also lots of inconsistencies between it and general relativity and all that, but that still doesn't diminish how much they know about quantum theory's mathematical underpinnings and can show through experiment, even while not fully knowing why it always does what it does.
I'll agree that we may never be able to see directly or even comprehend fully some aspects of theoretical physics just because we evolved in an environment and at a level where our brains just didn't need to be able to process that sort of information. Why wavefunctions collapse and the curled up dimensions of string-theory, for example. We might only be able to ever experience them through mathematics, but who knows. Maybe we'll one day discover gravitons and be able to send them through and find actual experimental evidence of extra-dimensional existence!
All considered, though, while quantum mechanics is still theoretical physics, it sits on some pretty solid ground, mathematically and experimentally. Why it behaves the way it does, is, of course, a mystery in large part still, and the model is most definitely not complete, and we might not be able to ever fully understand it experimentally (hm, that doesn't sound so positive, haha). . . .
So, I still can't really say I agree with you on having to prove quantum physics. Now, trying to prove a specific interpretation of an aspect of quantum physics, yeah, I might agree with you on that, that many of those have a way to go, such as wavefunction collapse, or if wavefunctions even exist at all.
Whoa, that was a bigger post than I intended. I'll agree with you also that quantum physics, and theoretical physics in general, is really interesting, even for a layman.
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Just 20 years ago, astronomers had no direct evidence that planets orbited other stars. Now, researchers estimate the Milky Way galaxy contains a huge number of planets, with Earth-sized worlds vastly outnumbering the rest.
“We find that, on average, every star has a planet, and since there are at least 100 billion stars, there are at least 100 billion planets,” said astronomer Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, who co-authored the new study, appearing Jan. 11 in Nature.
“We think about one-sixth of stars should have a Jupiter-like planet, half have a Neptune-sized planet, and two-thirds should have an Earth,” said Sahu.
I would guess on average every star has more than one planet, but the smaller planets are too difficult to detect.
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I would guess on average every star has more than one planet, but the smaller planets are too difficult to detect.
I would assume this is built into the estimation calculations, i.e. you make an estimate of those earth-like planets you can detect and extrapolate using a larger multiplier than Jupiter-size planets.
It's the same way astronomers estimate the numbers of different types of stars in the galaxy (in this analogy, earth-size planets would be the red dwarfs and Jupiters would be white and blue stars).
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So I finally got around to watching Nova's Fabric of the Cosmos with Brian Greene. Talk about amazing stuff, I've got his book up after Ben Goldacre's Bad science, just finished The Grand Design which was a fun read.
Lawrence Krauss just released his book, A Universe from Nothing, which I'm going to wait on for a bit, have to find something non physics to read after Brian Greene's book, crap I still have to read Feynmans book!
Just 20 years ago, astronomers had no direct evidence that planets orbited other stars. Now, researchers estimate the Milky Way galaxy contains a huge number of planets, with Earth-sized worlds vastly outnumbering the rest.
“We find that, on average, every star has a planet, and since there are at least 100 billion stars, there are at least 100 billion planets,” said astronomer Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, who co-authored the new study, appearing Jan. 11 in Nature.
“We think about one-sixth of stars should have a Jupiter-like planet, half have a Neptune-sized planet, and two-thirds should have an Earth,” said Sahu.
I would guess on average every star has more than one planet, but the smaller planets are too difficult to detect.
So I finally got around to watching Nova's Fabric of the Cosmos with Brian Greene. Talk about amazing stuff, I've got his book up after Ben Goldacre's Bad science, just finished The Grand Design which was a fun read.
Lawrence Krauss just released his book, A Universe from Nothing, which I'm going to wait on for a bit, have to find something non physics to read after Brian Greene's book, crap I still have to read Feynmans book!
He needs no introduction. He's Brian Greene—celebrity physicist, bestselling author, television star and all around science communication maestro.
Officially: Greene is co-founder and director of Columbia University's Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, author of the bestselling books The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, and co-founder of the World Science Festival.
We caught up with Greene to discuss the recently aired four part NOVA special based on The Fabric of the Cosmos, as well as, well, sciency things in general.
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Lawrence Krauss just released his book, A Universe from Nothing, which I'm going to wait on for a bit, have to find something non physics to read after Brian Greene's book, crap I still have to read Feynmans book!
Lawrence will be here in Calgary speaking about his book at an event hosted by CFI-Calgary on February 23rd.
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Energy experts believe that seaweed holds enormous potential as a biofuel alternative to coal and oil, and US-based scientists say they have unlocked the secret of turning its sugar into energy.
Despite an arthritic joint in Opportunity's robotic arm, the rover is in good health overall, Callas said. Still, the mission team isn't taking the aging robot's continued performance for granted. "Every day is like a gift," Callas said. "We just keep charging ahead as if every day is our last day, and we want to maximize the science we can do with this vehicle."
