meh

not knocking it but it didn't strike the scare in me like it did so many of you

12/18/2009 8:57:53 PM

Quote :

"Why is what we can "see" kind of hourglass shaped with two huge wedges of blackness?"

We simply haven't aimed our telescopes at those black portions yet. They'll likely end up looking pretty much like the rest of the "hourglass" when we finally get around to mapping it out.

12/18/2009 9:29:13 PM

Quote :

"i do know what they mean. maybe not to the extent of physicists but i do know. pretentious prick. thank you God for actually addressing my post and not flexing your internet cock like some assholes."

No, agentlion is 100% correct in this thread.

It's not a matter of advancing technology or manipulating space-time or anything. That kind of shit is flat out impossible. Ain't gonna happen. Ever.

12/18/2009 10:06:12 PM

Quote :

"Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction: 1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

12/18/2009 10:10:20 PM

Quote :

" "Why is what we can "see" kind of hourglass shaped with two huge wedges of blackness?" We simply haven't aimed our telescopes at those black portions yet. They'll likely end up looking pretty much like the rest of the "hourglass" when we finally get around to mapping it out. "

The problem is actually that to do extragalactic astronomy (such as making 3-d maps of galaxy positions), we have to look well out of the plane of our own galaxy. When we look anywhere in the plane of our galaxy, which takes up a pretty big region of sky, the dust and gas in our galaxy makes it pretty much impossible to see anything other than what's in the galaxy. So the hourglass figure is likely here to stay...

See http://www.sdss.org/ (stands for Sloan Digital Sky Survey) for more info on how these "3-D" maps of the universe are made.

[Edited on December 19, 2009 at 12:13 AM. Reason : quote]

12/19/2009 12:12:59 AM

^ exactly

it’s like if you were in a big cylinder, you can only really see what’s out the ends, but not what’s around the center.

We can guess fairly reliably though that’s what’s in the blanks is more or less like what’s on the ends.

12/19/2009 3:01:44 AM

Quote :

"No, agentlion is 100% correct in this thread. It's not a matter of advancing technology or manipulating space-time or anything. That kind of shit is flat out impossible. Ain't gonna happen. Ever."

i don't care if he's right or wrong.
he probably is right.
he didnt have to be a douchebag about it.

hell, youre nice about it.


he was a prick.

end of story.

12/19/2009 10:22:53 AM

OH JESUS

GO FUCKING CRY ABOUT IT

HE WAS MEAN TO ME!!!

ON TWW! THAT'S UNHEARD OF!

12/19/2009 2:49:24 PM

I derived an immense amount of pleasure from those Sagan videos.

12/21/2009 6:06:44 AM

^^you are completely right. if he can be a bitch, i can too

^i was introduced to those recently.

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 7:23 AM. Reason : dfdfd]

12/21/2009 7:09:48 AM

boy i bet some of you folks are a blast at parties

12/21/2009 8:15:08 AM

^

12/21/2009 8:34:15 AM

^^ not all of us bring a grab bag of pharmaceutical goodies where ever we go

Quote :

"Well I'm no physicist but what if eventually technology advances to the point where instantaneous teleportation is possible? That would allow us to travel anywhere instantly."

agentlion is right, he didn't bother explaining simply why you're wrong here though. it's something very simple, you have to have something to receive any sort of information/energy transmitted at the location of which you want to go, at least with the way that we understand things now. and you will never be able to get that receiving station anywhere near the edge of the universe.

expansion alone prevents us from ever being able to "go everywhere" even if some future quirks and exploits of the foundations of the universe allow us to go FTL it still won't happen.

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 12:59 PM. Reason : s]

12/21/2009 12:54:32 PM

speaking of known universe, here's a Hubble advent calendar
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/hubble_space_telescope_advent_1.html

center of Milky Way


globular cluster Omega Centauri


Sombrero Galaxy


ring of dark matter bending the light from distant galaxies into crazy shapes


Stephan's quintet


cluster Abell S0740

12/21/2009 2:19:56 PM

The best one is the Carina Nebula. If I get some extra money I'm having this made into a huge mural for my wall:



Click for HUGE:
http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2007-16-a-hires_jpg.jpg

12/21/2009 2:26:36 PM

i can tell by the pixels

12/21/2009 2:27:01 PM

i'm waiting for wallscreens

12/21/2009 2:37:28 PM

Some parts of the universe sure are tacky.

12/21/2009 3:08:54 PM

i bet some alien civilization is saying the same thing about the boondocks of the milky way.

12/21/2009 3:16:45 PM

From a space thread I made a few months ago:

http://astrosurf.com/sguisard/Pagim/GC.html

12/21/2009 3:24:04 PM

how old is that video? cuz i think they ripped off XKCD

12/21/2009 5:57:10 PM

12/21/2009 6:05:52 PM

^^ if you're gonna play that game, then XKCD ripped off "power of ten", the original earth-to-space zoom-out video, as far as I know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm0bIuAVmOA

nonetheless, it's laughable that the American Museum of Natural History would rip off a webcomic....

12/21/2009 6:29:00 PM

why do they call it a "uni"verse when there are many of them? I thought "uni" meant one like "uni"cycle.

like, we are in the milkey way, and then there are others like andromeda and stuff right?

12/21/2009 7:25:16 PM

milkey way is a galaxy. the universe is made up of billions of galaxies.

12/21/2009 7:30:12 PM

uhhh........
are you serious?

I think you need to look up the definition of "The Universe" and "a galaxy"

12/21/2009 7:30:38 PM

i know galaxies and stuff. but universe is bigger than galaxy... we live in our galaxy with mars and jupiter and all of those turkeys, and then we are all in the milkey way


except for the other ones outside of it which is why since there are others how is it called a "uni"verse?
shouldn't it becalled a "octo"verse (or whatever it would be... i don't know how many more there are)

12/21/2009 7:33:30 PM

lol

A is an alias for those who don't know

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 7:43 PM. Reason : apparently \/ doesn't know]

12/21/2009 7:42:06 PM

i don't know what you're talking about, or if you're being serious...... ^ or a troll. I guess I should have figured as much

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 7:43 PM. Reason : troll]

ha, gg A http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=584315

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 7:46 PM. Reason : .]

12/21/2009 7:42:55 PM

^i think that multiverse thing threw me off. i've seen a show with some half asian dude and some cocky younger guy talking about multiverse.



ok sorry if i sound stupid but i'm not crazy... ^you even said "multiverse" which is what i was trying to get at but couldn't remember the name

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 7:48 PM. Reason : ]

12/21/2009 7:47:08 PM

Quote :

"half asian dude and some cocky younger guy talking about multiverse."

sounds like Michio Kaku and Brian Cox, maybe.
the two guys on the right, here


The multiverse is basically an untestable, unprovable theory. may be true, maybe not. Doesn't much matter to us, practically speaking.

but anyway, for all intents and purposes, The Universe is everything we can or will ever be able to observe. If there are any other universes making up a multiverse, then any observers in any of those universes will not be able to see into our universe either.

[Edited on December 21, 2009 at 7:57 PM. Reason : .]

12/21/2009 7:55:42 PM

Unless we can master FTL communication, FTL travel won't matter much for scientific advancement of a home world.

12/21/2009 8:09:23 PM

i <3 this thread

the pictures sealed the deal

12/21/2009 8:18:52 PM

FTL -> FTW LOL

12/21/2009 8:41:17 PM

agentlion, yes those are the guys i saw in the video.

12/21/2009 9:13:20 PM

Kaku is up there with Hawking as some of the smartest people alive

12/21/2009 9:26:24 PM

Quote :

"It's not a matter of advancing technology or manipulating space-time or anything. That kind of shit is flat out impossible. Ain't gonna happen. Ever."

If you told people 5,000 years ago we would go to the moon they would probably have the same response as your negative nancy self. Hell if you said the sun was a big mass of matter and not a god they would probably kill you. IN your opinion should we stop making new inventions because a couple of people/scientists believe it isn't possible to do?

12/22/2009 12:10:21 AM

12/22/2009 12:37:04 AM

Quote :

"IN your opinion should we stop making new inventions because a couple of people/scientists believe it isn't possible to do?"

i'm not sure anyone has ever suggested that, least of all those who propose that faster than light travel is impossible (i.e. the entire scientific community). In fact, those probably the most curious, adventurous and inventive people alive.

12/22/2009 12:52:48 AM

So can that large hardon collider thing create a black whole that will suck are entire universe into a vacuum or something on the reals?

12/22/2009 1:54:02 AM

^yes, and it has already happened, and will happen again, and again, and again.

that's why future scientists keep using the higgs bison to charge back through time and sabotage the infernal machine.

12/22/2009 9:30:04 AM

Two plus two will never equal five, I will never fart sunshine and unicorns, and we will never travel faster than light.
It's not being close-minded. It's not being pessimistic. It's a goddamn fact.


^^ No, the LHC will not destroy the earth. All the collisions that take place in the LHC take place billions and billions and billions of times every minute up in our upper atmosphere. Cosmic rays from the sun colliding with the atoms in our atmosphere produce the same types of effects as the collisions in the LHC. If none of these collisions have ever destroyed the world, then the handful we create in the LHC probably won't either.

[Edited on December 22, 2009 at 9:33 AM. Reason : ]

12/22/2009 9:32:35 AM

^if that's true, why not just study those collisions instead of spending trillions of dollars building this machine?


2.3 + 2.4 = 4.7

round it and you get:

2 + 2 = 5


[Edited on December 22, 2009 at 9:38 AM. Reason : ]

12/22/2009 9:35:48 AM

Quote :

"^if that's true, why not just study those collisions instead of spending trillions of dollars building this machine? "

controlled environment. to study the collisions, you have to know exactly where they will happen and have gigantic detectors set up to record them.

12/22/2009 10:06:52 AM

Quote :

"Unless we can master FTL communication, FTL travel won't matter much for scientific advancement of a home world."

I'd think that if we mastered FTL travel we could just apply the same concept to communication.

12/22/2009 10:22:34 AM

It would be much harder to build these detectors/sensors way up in the upper atmosphere:








And then you have to get power to them. And get a collision to take place precisely in the middle of them. And figure out exactly what type of particles were colliding.

12/22/2009 10:24:24 AM

Quote :

"why not just study those collisions instead of spending trillions of dollars building this machine?"

I realize it's an alias, but just in case other people think this same thing: The LHC cost about $6 billion to build. That's a lot of money, but billions != trillions. It was also split by a lot of different nations. That's all, carry on...

12/22/2009 10:42:23 AM

Quote :

"The multiverse is basically an untestable, unprovable theory. may be true, maybe not. Doesn't much matter to us, practically speaking."

This is a misleading statement.

When entering the realm of theoretical physics, it is very important to disregard all naysayers, as these individuals seldom bring anything ingenious to the proverbial table. These skeptics are the same types of people that, in their day, considered Newton and even Einstein, to be borderline lunatics. The truth is, even the simplest of minds can reject and discredit a theory for lack of evidence, but only great minds can take on the monumental task of persevering and arriving at a superior answer for the theory of everything. Through the sheer force of his own will, and an effort to rule out the basic assumptions that his theory rested upon, Einstein succeeded in failing to rule out curved space time.

Before Einstein captured the data from his first real test of his theory of general relativity, outside of several complex and incomplete mathematical equations, his theory had the equivalent validity of string theory; in that, no clear test had been performed to propose that the basic assumptions of his theory were not evident in the natural world. The actual test involved measuring the distance of the stars that surrounded the sun during a total eclipse. Without a total eclipse of the sun, the stars would not be visible because of the Sun’s brightness, making the measurements nearly impossible to collect. Based on Einstein’s theory, the stars should appear to be farther away from the sun, due to the gravity of the Sun, which will curve space time and alter the stars appearance.

He was right.

Isaac Newton’s widely accepted theory that space was an inflexible backdrop was turned on its head overnight, figuratively and literally. When the stars were farther away in relation to the sun than expected, the curvature of space time could not be ruled out, and once again the world marveled at the magnificence and extent of human imagination. As Albert Einstein once said, "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly."

String theory suggests that everything at the most basic level consists of strands of energy that vibrate at various rates and in numerous undiscovered dimensions. In theory, these strings produce all known forces and particles in the universe, and this resolves the gaping problem within quantum physics, which Einstein did not have time to address. According to the theory, particles like electrons and photons are in fact tiny vibrating strings. The theory accounts for all of the known forces in our universe, including gravity, which the standard model of physics does not, (i.e. The Theory of Everything). In addition, given that most string theory models are based upon certain mathematical assumptions, those assumptions can be tested to strengthen or weaken the overall theory itself.

The LHC has the potential to rule out string theory, in that, if we can observe the short-lived mini black holes within the LHC, we can perhaps detect the existence of other dimensions via the mini black holes interactions. However, since the chances of mini black holes appearing are extremely low, physicists are instead focusing on the particle collisions within the LHC, which could reveal whether certain fundamental assumptions underlying string theory are wrong. Physicists have shown that the energies needed to reveal such effects are absolutely achievable within the LHC. The three cornerstone mathematical assumptions that String theory adheres to are below (which attempt to explain the four fundamental forces - gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak forces):

Lorentz Invariance - The laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers.
Analyticity - A smoothness criteria for the scattering of high-energy particles after a collision.
Unitarity - All probabilities always add up to one.

If these mathematical assumptions remain valid after thorough testing within the LHC, technically, we would still not know that string theory is correct. However, if the assumptions are invalid, string theory in its current form, would be incorrect, which may discredit all variations of string theory, including M-theory. This is a practical and feasible test of the foundations of String Theory.

M-theory, a multiverse of a somewhat different kind, is an integration of string theories which suggests the existence of extra extended dimensions that resemble our perceivable universe. The extra dimensions are not observable, as they are compactified to small dimensions, essentially warped into infinitesimal space. These strings vibrate with different frequencies, and as a result of the vibration, create diverse particles. The validity of M-Theory will depend on the accuracies of the predictions of String theory, whether String theory is internally consistent, and whether or not it is a reflection of physical processes in our natural world. In short, it is possible to test this theory, and the findings would definitely matter. If we cannot rule out String Theory by attacking the mathematical assumptions, then logically we cannot rule out M-Theory either.

Also, the LHC is not the only means of testing the Theory of Everything, meet LISA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyXVCggV6EU

[Edited on December 22, 2009 at 11:39 AM. Reason : tl;dr]

12/22/2009 11:27:15 AM

WORDS

12/22/2009 11:37:44 AM

Quote :

"Kaku is up there with Hawking as some of the smartest people alive"

yeah I'd have to agree with this

he's a pretty sharp cookie

12/22/2009 12:57:02 PM