EILITDC Questions....

[MYstIC G]

Still not happy. What is the universe expanding into ? What is there outside of the universe? Something must exist for the universe to expand into, so what is it?

Vaseline, next question.

 

[Lamp]

A lot of stuff theoretical physicists work on may be impossible to answer.

What happened before the Big Bang? Eternal Inflation?

What caused the Big Bang? Given that virtual particles can pop into existence without there being any cause, (and are almost instantaneously annihilated by its corresponding antimatter particle), does there have to be a cause? Cause and effect are Einstein and Newton based dynamics operating in Euclidean spacetime. The real answer may be forever beyond our comprehension being wrapped up in ten dimensional hyperspace at the Plank scale.

We don't know what dark matter or dark energy really are. We don't know how gravity behaves at a quantum level. We don't know why electrons can spin in two different directions simultaneously or why we can know how much energy a particle has and at the same time not know it's precise location.

We don't know what happens at black hole singularities. We don't know why photons change from waves to particles when observed, but when left unobserved they behave as waves (think that's the right way round...)

The universe is mind boggling

 

[Zarjazz]

... We don't know why electrons can spin in two different directions simultaneously

Don't think of quantum spin as actual spinning. It's essentially just a quantum variable that describes a particles magnetic properties. In the case of electrons it can have two values but you don't know which one it has until you observe (measure) it.

... or why we can know how much energy a particle has and at the same time not know it's precise location.

Actually in the operator based mathematics of Quantum Mechanics which basically describes how you make measurements at the quantum scale Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is simply a naturally result of the formalism.

... We don't know why photons change from waves to particles when observed, but when left unobserved they behave as waves (think that's the right way round...)

The best way it was described to me is that "Don't think of waves or particles as separate, but think instead of them as a combined entity. In some situations it behaves wave-like, in others particle-like."

Physicists would call it the Schrodinger Wave Function.

...The universe is mind boggling

Tru Dat.

 

[SilverHood]

A lot of stuff theoretical physicists work on may be impossible to answer.

What happened before the Big Bang? Eternal Inflation?

An advanced alien race was trying to answer the question "What happened before eternal inflation?". Their experiment succeeded beyond their imagination.

 

[Lamp]

Quantum Entanglement.

A pair of particles, separated by distances of billions of light years, have quantum states that cannot be described independently of each other.

A change in, say, of spin in one particle is instantaneously mirrored in the other particle. And you thought the speed of light was pretty fast...

 

[TdC]

Indeed. It's going to be amazeballs when we gain more insight into that. Orson Scott Card writes about using QE to talk to people 100s of light years distant, and an NL University has already managed to send a "packet" of data via QE in an experiment.

 

[Scouse]

I've an ansible in my pants! - I can show my willy to girls across the universe instantly.




What? Porn drives technological development, right?

 

[DaGaffer]

Orson Scott Card writes about using QE to talk to people 100s of light years distant, .

But just to be clear, only straight people. It doesn't work for the gays.

 

[TdC]

Well Card is a hard core Mormon of impeccable credentials (if you're also a Mormon). That said, bashing the gays isn't really a Mormon thing. Polygamy and hating the blacks though, fuck yeah!

 

[Lamp]

I thought polygamy was owning more than one parrot...

 

[sayward]

I've only been away a few days and look what happens....

 

[DaGaffer]

Well Card is a hard core Mormon of impeccable credentials (if you're also a Mormon). That said, bashing the gays isn't really a Mormon thing. Polygamy and hating the blacks though, fuck yeah!

Obviously the whole anti-gay thing is an independent thing of his.

 

[Zarjazz]

Orson Scott Card writes about using QE to talk to people 100s of light years distant, and an NL University has already managed to send a "packet" of data via QE in an experiment.

That's a common misconception about QE, it doesn't actually allow FTL communication. The reason being that forcing one of the pair to be in a particular state (e.g 0 or 1 for binary transmission) breaks the entanglement so you can't send information. All you can do is ask "what state are you in" and once you know that you instantly know the state of the other.

 

[Job]

The best thing about quantum entaglement is anyone can do it.

 

[TdC]

That's a common misconception about QE, it doesn't actually allow FTL communication. The reason being that forcing one of the pair to be in a particular state (e.g 0 or 1 for binary transmission) breaks the entanglement so you can't send information. All you can do is ask "what state are you in" and once you know that you instantly know the state of the other.

I don't know how they did it, but they did it. Data was moved via QE at an NL university.
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/news/dutch-scientists-achieve-teleportation

 

[TdC]

Obviously the whole anti-gay thing is an independent thing of his.

tbh I didn't even know OSC was such a gay-hater until you pointed it out to me. only thing I did a quick fact check on was if Mormons were anti-gay. afaict they aren't.

 

[Zarjazz]

I don't know how they did it, but they did it. Data was moved via QE at an NL university.

You can do some clever shit with QE using ensembles to create non-binary entanglements to "measure" the state without breaking the entanglement. That can then be used to teleport (copy) information but the physical apparatus required, like in that experiment, means nothing about it is FTL.

 

[Job]

The slight issue with ftl communication is we still have to get the reciever to the far end..so only good for communicating with aliens who understand the tech and lightspeed travellers once they get there.

 

[Zarjazz]

The slight issue with ftl communication is we still have to get the reciever to the far end..so only good for communicating with aliens who understand the tech and lightspeed travellers once they get there.

The slight issue with ftl communication is that it doesn't exist.

 

[Job]

I always used to say the quickest way to communicate woukd be with a very long stick.
It seems though that pushing something only sends a wave of movement down it at a certain speed...so a mile long pencil, if you pushed one end it would take seconds for the other end to move, even if it was hanging in zero g.

 

[Scouse]

tbh I didn't even know OSC was such a gay-hater until you pointed it out to me. only thing I did a quick fact check on was if Mormons were anti-gay. afaict they aren't.

All christians are anti-gay. The fact that Joseph Smith tagged on a few chapters of his own doesn't stop the common denominators...

 

[TdC]

You can do some clever shit with QE using ensembles to create non-binary entanglements to "measure" the state without breaking the entanglement. That can then be used to teleport (copy) information but the physical apparatus required, like in that experiment, means nothing about it is FTL.

I'm not saying it's faster than anything, although I'll grant you that the apparatus required to create and measure position implies delay in information transfer.

Back to my point. Saying something is faster implies some kind of velocity. There isn't any. There's no time component in the velocity equation because the transfer of position in QE is instant*. There is only distance, aka displacement. So it follows that you can't compute v because T is 0 and you can't divide d by 0.

*I'm actually of a mind that this is something of an assumption.

 

[Job]

By amazing coincidence

First ever Earth-orbit teleportation completed

 

[Lamp]

I have an old school friend who has a doctorate in physics and now teaches in America. He told me the only thing that has a velocity faster than light is space itself as it "falls" beyond the event horizon toward the singularity.

It's possible I may have misunderstood his explanation of black hole mechanics. I don't think he would have made a glaringly bad school boy error about the absolute limit of c. Black holes are his life work.

 

[Lamp]

 

[Zarjazz]

I have an old school friend who has a doctorate in physics and now teaches in America. He told me the only thing that has a velocity faster than light is space itself as it "falls" beyond the event horizon toward the singularity.

It's possible I may have misunderstood his explanation of black hole mechanics. I don't think he would have made a glaringly bad school boy error about the absolute limit of c. Black holes are his life work.

I think you must have misunderstood as nothing breaks the speed of light limit, even when falling into a black hole. Though weird shit does happen as things pass over the event horizon.