Sunday 22 July 2018

QUANTUM MYSTERIES

Trying to take my mind off my torturous existence, thanks physics and chemistry, I try to look up news articles on Flipboard.

Every now and then I read something that makes me think and sometimes reminds me of things I used to think about.

The article linked below in Forbes did both of those things.

I thought back to watching Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan and when he stated that there was nothing in space to connect us to the planets. He was rubbishing Astrology, which I agreed with, but I wasn't so sure that there was nothing connecting us.

Gravity is still not fully understood today and yet it holds that accolade of being the original or one of the original things thought about in science. Well at things like .. alchemy and such and the stars themselves of course. Oh Good God I hope no flat-earthers ever find this blog?!

From a child when I first wondered how gravity worked I was mystified. Yes I read a lot of books and watched almost every documentary going but I'd never come across a convincing answer.

How do two things have an affect on each other if there is nothing in space?

Oh you can put towards diagrams and drawings and show the fabric of space being warped and acting like a roulette table. But that 'fabric' had to be there.

So for years I hoped they would figure out this answer one day. But it continued for a long time and still kind does.

Then the whole quantum theory thing popped up but remained under my radar for a long, long time. When I did come across it out seemed kinda .. well .. alien. Sorry, lol. Eventually I started to get it but I wanted to understand it completely. Then I discovered that no one gets it completely. Weird. The whole thing is just .. wonderfully weird.

Talk was about the quantum realm being possibly responsible for gravity and this made a lot of sense.
Then they started talking even if the human soul possibly existing and having something to do with the quantum realm? Well in a weird way this kind of made sense to. Only in as far as the meaning of life being the oldest question and have been answered not made sense of thus far. Maybe the answers are here?

I wouldn't be surprised to find that to exist as quantum .. beings, for want of a better world, you would need a black hole.

I digress.

So today I stumble across this article that states that someone .. somewhere did a thought experiment and that it asks why we need quantum mechanics for gravity.

Maybe I might be around long enough to see this age old question finally get answered?

Now I'm thinking of all the things discovered and theories proved that Einstein, Sagan and Patrick Moore never got to see. Added to that list now sadly is Stephen Hawking.

Thought Experiment Shows Why We Need Quantum Gravity http://flip.it/QCFioe

Thursday 12 July 2018

FROM GOD TO GHOST

Well despite the myriad of things trying to bring about my demise .. I may have stuck arrive long enough to see something else unfold?

After years of trying to detect neutrinos they may have just detected one recently? Time will tell.

It's staggering how much we still don't know, like the fact that Earth is got by high energy particles like protons. We do not know for sure where these originate from.

As I read the article linked below it got me thinking ..

Where do photons eventually and up?

I mean they tell us there is a limit to the universe, right? So what happens to light at the edges? I mean if there is no spacetime .. does light speed up? Does it stop? Does it behave erratically? Does it bounce back?

Well I don't think they're is an edge but more of that momentarily.

I then thought of something else .. we were surprised to find that the universe is expanding faster the further away it is, right? But we don't know why.

But we also kind of accept that spacetime is a .. thing. Like there is a fabric to it, so to speak?

Well what if all the stars and ask the galaxies giving off might and other highly energetic particles is why slowly spreads spacetime out?

It would explain while the furthest parts are the fastest moving in relation to our location.

Like flattening out ripples on a satin bed-cover, you slowly move your hands over and the metal moves ever so slowly. Maybe it's a minuscule version of this?

After all even some sub-atomic particles have mass.

And what shape is the universe? How do you know if the path is straight for a photon of light when it travels such large distances? It could be round, for all we know? Measuring things in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and even our local group is one thing, despite the insane distances. But for galaxies on the far sides of the universe .. we are talking of a mind boggling distance and we have barely ventured very far with scientific instruments. I mean the universe is so vast that spacetime would only need the slightest of curves that might remain undetectable to us, even if spacetime was detectable, but over insane distances could be curved.

I used to wonder when a child if you could travel at speeds many hundreds of times faster than the speed of light and set off in one direction would you eventually find yourself back at Earth?

In the meantime it will be interesting to see if this discover at the Ice Cube Laboratory gets confirmed and what we can glean from this?

It is a shame that I did not get into this line of work earlier than I decided to do my degree and wish I had forsaken all else. For the benefit of mankind, of course. Though of late I am not sure eveyone deserves it?

Ghostly particle caught in polar ice ushers in new way to look at the universe http://flip.it/TPqkNj