Concept of time

Craterloads · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:05

sjt269 said:
Atoms are HUGE on the kind of scales we're talking about!

Besides, as I said, atoms are almost entirely empty space. Hugely so - look up neutron stars to see what happens in nature when atoms are themselves compressed into smaller things. You can get tiny stars containing the mass of a star in a space the size of a city, and that's not the end of the story. Compress further, and you start getting into black holes and the real unknown.

Even if its 99.99999* empty space theres still 0.0000*1 of something.

Non of this is even close to being proven, black holes, tiny stars etc.

And again, there's nowhere for the atoms to exist! All of space shrinks to a point - nothing can exist outside of it, because 'outside' has no meaning. Re-read my post about the 2D balloon surface again; all the atoms live on the surface of that balloon, and when the balloon shrinks to a point, there's nowhere else for the atoms to be, they can be on surface of the balloon and absolutely nowhere else.

If a balloon pops youve just got a deflated ballon.

DAnDan · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:06

lemonkettaz said:
Yeh, I thought that was a way of calculating time.

Maybe I was thinking of atomic clocks.

Do electrons slow as temperature decreases?

They don't slow as temperature decreases, but they can take on different levels of orbits dependant on their temperature and a few other external inputs.

At absolute zero it's another story though, as you'll have removed all energy from the system, so the electrons could potentially collapse out of their orbits and fall into the nucleus. However absolute zero is defined as an impossibly by the laws of physics.

sjt269 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:06

lemonkettaz said:
Do electrons slow as temperature decreases?

To a point, then they hit a point where they can't move any slower. They have what's called zero-point energy (the concept existed before HL2, and no, it can't be used to hurl objects around the room). ZP energy is the lowest energy a quantum system can have, and it can't go any lower. It's a bit of a leap to get from ZP energy to understanding how the electrons move and then using that as the basis for out concept of time though. I don't think we know enough to be able to draw any meaningful conclusions from that yet.

That said, I have a few pet ideas on that score myself...

:edit:

DAnDan and I are talking about slightly different things, I think, but the basic idea is the same.

lemonkettaz · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:07

Would absolute zero cease time?

DAnDan · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:07

Craterloads said:
If a balloon pops youve just got a deflated ballon.

When did he say anything about the balloon popping? The balloon doesn't pop, it simply shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks into nothingness.

DAnDan · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:09

lemonkettaz said:
Would absolute zero cease time?

Not directly, it would just stop the movement at every level (physical, atomic, quantum, etc) of anything at that temperature. Then a whole load of weird stuff can happen!

Although again, absolute zero is defined as impossible to achieve.

Craterloads · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:09

sjt269 said:
When people say "It's just not something that is easily to visualise", they tend to mean that the mathematics tells them that, they haven't just pulled it out of thin air. Maths is a powerful tool for extending our reach into realms where our intuition fails us.

As to what makes it expand, that is certainly something that no one knows yet, and that's where we start hitting quantum mavity and string theory, which is a little too mystical for my tastes. Let's just say quantum weirdness and leave it at that.

Make what expand? since there is nothing to expand unless of coarse there is.

How can one entertain such ideas if the most important part of the hole process is "your guess is as good as mine"

sjt269 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:09

Craterloads said:
If a balloon pops youve just got a deflated ballon.

It doesn't pop, it shrinks down to nothing. Say it starts the size of the Earth, then drops to the size of a football, then a pea, then an atom, than an electron, then it gets smaller and smaller and smaller...

DAnDan · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:11

Craterloads said:
Make what expand? since there is nothing to expand unless of coarse there is.

Makes the universe (or in the balloon analogy, the balloon itself) expand.

Craterloads said:
How can one entertain such ideas if the most important part of the hole process is "your guess is as good as mine"

Nobody is stating it as "your guess is as good as mine", far from it. There are plenty of models with working maths to back them up, just none that are perfect for every scenario. A long, long way from "guessing".

sjt269 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:14

Craterloads said:
Make what expand? since there is nothing to expand unless of coarse there is.

If you really want the gory details, then you'll want to know about quantum vacuum fluctuations, where particle-antiparticle pairs pop literally out of nothingness all the time all around you, and only last for a few brief instants before they vanish again. Something from nothing is not only possible, it's experimentally confirmed - I want to link to the Casimir effect, but I can't honestly remember if vacuum fluctuations cause that. Hawking radiation is the only other one, but that's never been observed in real black holes, only in optical analogues (produced here at St Andrews, if I remember correctly!).

Open your mind, my friend. All reality is really just forces and force fields, actual solid matter doesn't really exist in any meaningful way. For example, what keeps your body (being 99.999...% empty space) from falling straight through your chair, which is also 99.999...% empty? Why do things look solid when they're actually so empty?

I love my subject.

sjt269 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:15

DAnDan said:
Makes the universe (or in the balloon analogy, the balloon itself) expand.

Right on the money!

Craterloads · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:16

DAnDan said:
Makes the universe (or in the balloon analogy, the balloon itself) expand.

What balloon, i thought there was no balloon since in contracted into nonthiness. Same again what universe?

Nobody is stating it as "your guess is as good as mine", far from it. There are plenty of models with working maths to back them up, just none that are perfect for every scenario. A long, long way from "guessing".

Its just seems like they are contradicting one another, one moment something contract in to nothingness, then something expands from the nothingness to create rocks, dust etc etc Thats just not possible.

Isnt mavity something?

DAnDan · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:18

Craterloads said:
What balloon, i thought there was no balloon since in contracted into nonthiness. Same again what universe?

Its just seems like they are contradicting one another, one moment something contract in to nothingness, then something expands from the nothingness to create rocks, dust etc etc Thats just not possible.

Isnt mavity something?

Read SJT269's post a few above this one. Producing something from nothing (in the typical sense of nothing) is entirely possible, and the basis of a lot of research! Just because it sounds barmy, doesn't mean it's not true,

timmy85 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:19

MBennett said:
Watch this:

Stop at 5 mins unless you want more questions than answers

Mind blown

Morbius · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:21

Craterloads said:
Isnt mavity something?

mavity is the warping of spacetime due to the presence of mass.

sjt269 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:22

Rocks and dust didn't just spring into existence - elementary particles were created at the big bang, and over billions of years, nuclear fusion in the heart of stars produced the elements all around us. Every atom you can see, every atom in the room around you, and every atom in your own body was once inside a star. Probably two or three times, actually. And now those bits of star stuff make up you, and me, and everyone and everything else. Mindblowing.

mavity is something, it's an attractive force, but there are other forces which are repulsive, and how the universe evolves depends on the balance of various forces. At tiny scales, mavity is pretty weak, and stronger repulsive forces tend to kick in.

Also, yes, the balloon contracted into nothingness. But if you can buy the fact that the balloon (the universe) can contract down into nothingness, you'll see that the same argument played in reverse gives you creation from nothingness. We can't give you details, no one really knows how it happened, or why, just like no one knows precisely how life itself started on Earth. But all the evidence points to this being what happened - creation from nothing.

:edit:

mavity as a warping of spacetime, as in the post above, is also entirely accurate and just a slightly different way of phrasing the phenomenon.

Castiel · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:29

sjt269 said:
If you really want the gory details, then you'll want to know about quantum vacuum fluctuations, where particle-antiparticle pairs pop literally out of nothingness all the time all around you, and only last for a few brief instants before they vanish again. Something from nothing is not only possible, it's experimentally confirmed - I want to link to the Casimir effect, but I can't honestly remember if vacuum fluctuations cause that. Hawking radiation is the only other one, but that's never been observed in real black holes, only in optical analogues (produced here at St Andrews, if I remember correctly!).

Open your mind, my friend. All reality is really just forces and force fields, actual solid matter doesn't really exist in any meaningful way. For example, what keeps your body (being 99.999...% empty space) from falling straight through your chair, which is also 99.999...% empty? Why do things look solid when they're actually so empty?

I love my subject.

Is that not a slight redefinition of 'something from nothing' however, as Quantum Fluctuations are changes in the energy of any given point which happen within a vacuum (or empty space) which technically is not nothing, at least not totally.

I think given that any observation of 'something from nothing' is made within the Universe itself and given our ever increasing understanding that the Universe is not nearly as empty as we might assume, therefore objectively is it not difficult to make a definitive claim as to the creation of 'something from nothing'? (unless you first define particular parameters regarding what is something (virtual particles) and what is nothing (quantum vacuum). Is it not thought that the laws of conservation may appear to be being broken, however we do not fully understand the principles involved to truely understand the process?

To be honest it all blows my mind, but my brother explained to me once that a quantum physicist doesn't see 'nothing' (as I would define it, i.e Empty Space) as nothing, but as 'something', and so the average joe just gets all discombobulated over something created from nothing, when really that is not quite what is (conceptually) being defined, like the creation of particles in an accelerator or the quantum fluctuations you mentioned.

Craterloads · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:32

sjt269 said:
Rocks and dust didn't just spring into existence - elementary particles were created at the big bang, and over billions of years, nuclear fusion in the heart of stars produced the elements all around us. Every atom you can see, every atom in the room around you, and every atom in your own body was once inside a star. Probably two or three times, actually. And now those bits of star stuff make up you, and me, and everyone and everything else. Mindblowing.

mavity is something, it's an attractive force, but there are other forces which are repulsive, and how the universe evolves depends on the balance of various forces. At tiny scales, mavity is pretty weak, and stronger repulsive forces tend to kick in.

Also, yes, the balloon contracted into nothingness. But if you can buy the fact that the balloon (the universe) can contract down into nothingness, you'll see that the same argument played in reverse gives you creation from nothingness. We can't give you details, no one really knows how it happened, or why, just like no one knows precisely how life itself started on Earth. But all the evidence points to this being what happened - creation from nothing.

:edit:

mavity as a warping of spacetime, as in the post above, is also entirely accurate and just a slightly different way of phrasing the phenomenon.

So you have to "buy" the "fact" the balloon contracted into nothingness. Yet you say

We can't give you details, no one really knows

Only to then you get creation from nothing

Have you got any links regarding "quantum vacuum fluctuations" because from what i can see, its not actually creating something from nothing?

sjt269 · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:33

Quite true, but more of a subtle technical distinction than a devastating flaw, it's a similar principle.

Although there's always the more fanciful end of string theory, or M-theory, which says that higher-dimensional constructs known as 'branes' exist and that a collision between branes, or some kind of fluctuation on then, could have caused the universe as we know it to start. If you're willing to believe in branes, then you could at least shift the question to 'But where did the branes come from?' and give yourself a universe-from-something.

:edit:

That was all aimed at Castiel, but there's another post inbetween ours now. :eek:

DAnDan · 6 Sep 2012 at 23:36

Craterloads said:
So you have to "buy" the "fact" the balloon contracted into nothingness. Yet you say

Only to then you get creation from nothing

Have you got any links regarding "quantum vacuum fluctuations" because from what i can see, its not actually creating something from nothing?

I'm not sure if you're genuinely interested or just trolling now, as you seem to refuse most of the points being made at you? I've already told you that to explain the actual details would be way, way beyond what we can do in a forum post. You're talking degree/PhD level at the minimum to truly understand most of the things you're asking about, so to have it explained to you via an internet forum based on computer hardware, you're going to have to make do with severely dumbed-down analogies.

But here's a paper on quantum vacuum fluctuations, read it if you want. If not then I'm sure there's enough on wiki you can read, or anywhere else around the web.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296214701012707