Posted on 12/26/2007 9:45:58 PM PST by camerakid400
Trying to understand this is making my brane hurt...
Our universe could be in some cosmic test tube
Reminds me of the ending to “Men in Black”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPll-TKaEE&feature=related
You gotta watch this video on String theory:
it may make your ‘brane’ hurt more but its worth it
Not really, time-space becomes non-local below the Planck length, ie... the microcosm is finite.
Actually ... If there are large extra dimensions, the measured strength of gravity may be much smaller than its true (small-scale) value; in that case the Planck length would have no physical significance, and quantum gravitational effects would appear at much larger scales.
OK.
Taking a tube of liquid matter and freezing it to almost absolute zero slows down the energy vibrations to almost zero. Were they to slow to absolute zero, they would cease to exist.
But, at that slow speed, the makeup,flow, density of the particles,atoms, molecules, etc. resemble our best estimates of the makeup,flow,density of the stars,galaxies, planets, etc.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just order an envelope of Sea-People?
“the microcosm is finite.”
Nope. One can approach, but can never actually reach 0.
Something I have always known to be true, but was afraid to say it.
Oh, swell.
This is on the wrong track. Most of the electrons in most of the matter around us, for example, are in effect frozen to absolute zero. That is, they are in the "ground state" where they cannot give up energy, and in fact it takes a considerable amount of energy to "excite" them, so that this happens rarely. The commonplace inhabitance of the ground state suffices to refute your notion of existential cessation, I think.
The mass of atoms is largely contained in the nuclei, and the rules of QM show that it takes relatively little energy to excite them into motion. It is only at sub 1 Kelvin temperatures that collections of atoms coalesce into a macroscopic "ground state" and it is in this state that the weird and wild laws of QM introduce their cosmic analogies.
Thank you for responding in such an informative manner.
I respect your admirable knowledge of the subject, so I will do my best to keep up with you. Unfortunately I don’t have the obvious background in QM that you seem to.
“The commonplace inhabitance of the ground state suffices to refute your notion of existential cessation, I think.”
Well, since achieving absolute zero is impossible, then we will never know if matter ceases to exist. Since I can’t prove a negative with a negative, I iz refuted.
But I get points for the pun.
So, I guess you agree with me? Cause I thought I said that.
Well, regression towards absolute zero is on a logarithmic scale, as reflected in the homily, “There is as much physics between 1/1000 K and 1/100 K as there is between 100 K and 1000 K”. As you get colder and colder, smaller and smaller excitations get “frozen out” and more and more subtle interactions come into play. It’s like “The man who shrank”.
In this logarithmic way of thinking, there’s no question of “reaching” absolute zero, so you could say that “ceasing to exist” at absolute zero is just a melodramatic formulation of the Third Law.
I was pointing out that this is not really a compelling idea since we can see the effects of being “frozen out” in the electronic states of atoms, and they do not involve “winking out” of existence.
hum, need to quit my day job and take up brane theory
That would be the poor joker who married my first wife. At least she'll have less of him snack on!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.