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Old 10-19-2009, 01:37 PM   #241
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So... at the risk of looking like a complete fata here.. is a worm hole in a sense just an equation? Could it be comparable to "warp speed" from Star Trek?

WHAT HAVE I BECOME

Did I just ask a question that gets a lot of nya nya smirks from scientists across the world?
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Old 10-19-2009, 02:13 PM   #242
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Going to Mars in 39 days with a new Ion Engine just out of the factory.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/rocket+engine+could+make+trips+Mars+realistic/2119300/story.html#

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Old 10-19-2009, 03:02 PM   #243
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If we live long enough we will learn...we always do!
We do, but we're still limited by the laws of the universe. Hard to say what the solution to the problem of interstellar space travel will look like, if the problem gets solved at all.

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So... at the risk of looking like a complete fata here.. is a worm hole in a sense just an equation?
In a sense yes, but it's a specific way of looking at the equations which seem to accurately define our universe (General Relativity). But not all solutions and manipulations of those equations reflect what is observed in reality, so the fact that the equations allow for such a thing doesn't mean that that thing is in fact physically possible.

The equations also allow for time travel but it requires an infinitely long rod rotating at infinite speed

In the end our equations are an attempt at describing reality.


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Could it be comparable to "warp speed" from Star Trek?
Something like that, more along the lines of T@T's example of drilling through the mountain to create your own shortcut, but the end effect would be the same; being able to go from one place to another faster than light.

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Did I just ask a question that gets a lot of nya nya smirks from scientists across the world?
I don't think so, science is about finding answers to the weird questions.
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Old 10-19-2009, 03:29 PM   #244
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We do, but we're still limited by the laws of the universe. Hard to say what the solution to the problem of interstellar space travel will look like, if the problem gets solved at all.



In a sense yes, but it's a specific way of looking at the equations which seem to accurately define our universe (General Relativity). But not all solutions and manipulations of those equations reflect what is observed in reality, so the fact that the equations allow for such a thing doesn't mean that that thing is in fact physically possible.

The equations also allow for time travel but it requires an infinitely long rod rotating at infinite speed

In the end our equations are an attempt at describing reality.




Something like that, more along the lines of T@T's example of drilling through the mountain to create your own shortcut, but the end effect would be the same; being able to go from one place to another faster than light.



I don't think so, science is about finding answers to the weird questions.
So what you are saying is that there are processes that are already possible whether we discover them or not. And discovering the equation simply provides a means to describe this process in a way we can comprehend. Meaning that you can make up an equation, but if there is no relative process that it describes it is simply just an equation?

As a Hydrologist I will use groundwater flow as an example to help me understand this. GWF has been around forever, its inception did not hinge on the creation of a formula, however, the creation of that formula was in itself a discovery since it allowed us a means to both understand and utilize this natural process. Without the formula the process exists, but our understanding was primitive.

So in essence, creating these formula's leads to the discovery of these processes, but not their creation? So when we do discover wormholes, if theory is correct, they would already exist and we would simply be using this equation as a means to understand them? Same with time travel? Wow.. so if I understand this correctly, I think I just blew my own mind.

Do I got it? Or did I just confuse you and myself?
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Old 10-19-2009, 03:38 PM   #245
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Yup. Even if we do the creation of the wormhole ourselves, and even if it is a result of equations that we made up, it's still just manipulating the reality that's already there right?

Equations are just abstractions, models... GWF is a model which describes and predicts what actually happens, but it's going to be imperfect and have its limitations too.

Sometimes equations are created based on observations.. sometimes they are created by induction and reasoning. Newton's equations about gravity could not have been confirmed fully until long after Newton was dead; the technology just didn't exist to confirm the inverse square relationship between gravity and distance, but Newton reasoned it first.
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Old 10-19-2009, 11:39 PM   #246
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Part II!
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Old 10-20-2009, 12:55 AM   #247
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The first one was better. Sagan was just such a naturally lyrical writer and speaker. But Feynman on bongos!
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Old 10-20-2009, 10:44 AM   #248
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I can't believe I didn't discover Carl Sagan until over a decade after he was gone...
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Old 10-20-2009, 01:22 PM   #249
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I have a question for anyone here who has read some books by Carl Sagan.. I am looking at reading Pale Blue Dot, Cosmos, Demon-Haunted World and Billions and Billions. Any order you would recommend reading them? Or are all independent reads with a central way of thinking?
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Old 10-20-2009, 02:16 PM   #250
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I have a question for anyone here who has read some books by Carl Sagan.. I am looking at reading Pale Blue Dot, Cosmos, Demon-Haunted World and Billions and Billions. Any order you would recommend reading them? Or are all independent reads with a central way of thinking?
All are good. Also, Broca's Brain and Dragons of Eden. He wrote a sci-fi novel that became the movie Contact.

Best though is to order the entire Cosmos series on DVD.
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Old 10-20-2009, 02:50 PM   #251
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I really like Demon Haunted World, and the novel Contact is still one of my favorites.
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Old 10-20-2009, 02:59 PM   #252
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Seems the LHC is now cooled to operational temperature, 1.9°K, colder than outer space! Pretty soon they can make with the smashy smashy.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/...m_campaign=rss

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The LHC is built to accelerate particles to a speed that's so close to that of light that, for most of us, the difference could be considered a rounding error. That's fast enough that particles will run over 11,000 laps around the 27km circumference each second. Obviously, that creates a number of engineering challenges.
For one, you can't afford to have much else in the path of the particle beam, so the entire thing has to be run in a vacuum—the LHC will have an vacuum that's 10 times less dense than the atmosphere of the moon. The other challenge is that these particles will have a very strong tendency to travel in a straight line. To get them to actually run in a curved path, the LHC relies on an enormous collection of exceptionally powerful magnets to curve and focus the beam.
That's where the low temperatures come in, as the magnets require superconductive wiring to generate an appropriately strong magnetic field. That also requires prodigious amounts of electric current, which can only be delivered by wires that are also superconducting. (So much current is involved, in fact, that the LHC's operational schedule is built around the European energy supply.)
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Old 10-20-2009, 03:06 PM   #253
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What's the over under on how long until the LHC need more maintenance? 3 months?
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Old 10-20-2009, 04:16 PM   #254
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I really like Demon Haunted World, and the novel Contact is still one of my favorites.
I'd agree with all trouts and photon's choices, the cosmos DVD set is a must own as its such a wonderful piece of work that inspires and makes science seem so magical and wondrous (which it is).

Demon Haunted World for me was so important as he's really writing a warning about humanity and our slow progress away from our old ways that could be our demise as our technology advancement increases in speed vs our slow human development as thinkers, as rational beings.
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Old 10-20-2009, 04:26 PM   #255
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For those who missed it, an article in the NY Times reporting speculation that the problems with the LHC may be due to the Higgs boson preventing it own creation.

Seriously.

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A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.
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Old 10-20-2009, 04:29 PM   #256
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For those who missed it, an article in the NY Times reporting speculation that the problems with the LHC may be due to the Higgs boson preventing it own creation.

Seriously.
That's pretty freaky Bowie.
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Old 10-20-2009, 05:12 PM   #257
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lol beyond awesome.
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Old 10-20-2009, 05:43 PM   #258
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Speculation is putting it mildly I think.
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Old 10-20-2009, 06:52 PM   #259
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Carl Sagan is also one of the most influential environmentalists of our generation. Although he gets most of his attention for his space-science contributions, before his death he dedicated a lot of attention to the planet we live on.

He was also an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons and the arms race.
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Old 10-20-2009, 11:03 PM   #260
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A nice accessible lecture on cosmology and dark matter and stuff:

http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TV...834130_LKrauss
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