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Okay, so Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was confirmed by observing the stars that surround the sun's corona from our perspective here on Earth.
Einstein theorized that Gravity is strong enough to bend time and space and this was evident by how the light of the stars in question bent around the Sun, as is passed behind the sun into our lenses here on the planet.
Here is where I am getting a bit of a mind f*ck. I thought space was a vacuum. How can a vacuum bend or change shape? We are not rolling around on a flat table top. Space is all encompassing and 3 dimensional. Does the space bend around objects in all 3 dimensions? Wouldn't that mean that we are "swimming" or "held" in place by some sort of "matter"? Once again, how can there be any matter holding us in place in a place in a vacuum??
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10-28-2014, 04:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-28-2014, 04:32 PM by JoWie.)
IANAP but, let me confuse you some more:
A vacuum is not the same as absolute nothingness. A vacuum just means the average energy is minimal (vacuum energy). In a vacuum particles suddenly exist out of nowhere and are usually annihilated shortly after. Google the Casimir effect. It is even possible that a stable particle forms, although very unlikely. Some go as far to theorize there is even a tiny chance something like a car suddenly forms out of nowhere (and even that this is how the big bang started).
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10-28-2014, 07:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-28-2014, 08:48 PM by mindriot.)
Quote:<div>
IANAP but, let me confuse you some more:
A vacuum is not the same as absolute nothingness. A vacuum just means the average energy is minimal (vacuum energy). In a vacuum particles suddenly exist out of nowhere and are usually annihilated shortly after. Google the Casimir effect. It is even possible that a stable particle forms, although very unlikely. Some go as far to theorize there is even a tiny chance something like a car suddenly forms out of nowhere (and even that this is how the big bang started).
</div>
You are basically touching on Quantum Mechanics here if I am not mistaken, so.... do particles suddenly appear and vanish inside our bodies or does that only happen in the vacuum of space and why? I learned that the ratio of unstable particles to stable particles is 1 to 100 million... so all the matter that we see is literally 1 millionth of the particles that are possible...
However, that still leaves me a bit dumbfounded. Particles appearing and vanishing from space sounds pretty unstable to me... and yet we can stand on solid ground as we hurdle through space.... how can space, being so volatile and unpredictable hold our solar system in place?
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10-29-2014, 10:41 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-29-2014, 10:42 AM by JoWie.)
It happens everywhere, yes. Do note these "virtual particles" do not behave completely the same as real particles. They are more conceptual descriptions (they are not directly observable, except for the effects they can cause). If you treat them the same as particles it will appear as if they violate some fundamental laws.
But the basic idea is that each fundamental particle has a field that it belongs to (e.g. photon field aka electromagnetic field, electron field). These fields stretch out in all dimension, with a total energy of 0 (except the higgs field). An excited state in such a field is a particle.Virtual particles are the fluctuations in these fields. The energy of these fields are quantized (quantum!), similar to integers in math, e.g. there's 1 2 and 3, but not 1.2 1.3 1.5 etc.
As for the unpredictability thing, I like to think of it like this: Suppose you have a dice that you roll an infinite number of times. There is no pattern to it, nor does it appear to have one most of the time. But at some point you might roll the same number thousands of times in a row. It might appear as if the dice is flawed somehow, but this is just something that might happen in such a random process. As for the universe, we are not seeing all of the permutations that did not lead to the state we are currently in. The chance that you exist is incredibly small, but if this randomness goes on for long enough (infinitively), it will happen again and again. This is similar to the evolution of species, you only see the "winners".
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Quote:<div>
IANAP but, let me confuse you some more:
A vacuum is not the same as absolute nothingness. A vacuum just means the average energy is minimal (vacuum energy). In a vacuum particles suddenly exist out of nowhere and are usually annihilated shortly after. Google the Casimir effect. It is even possible that a stable particle forms, although very unlikely. Some go as far to theorize there is even a tiny chance something like a car suddenly forms out of nowhere (and even that this is how the big bang started).
</div>
as hawking theorized***
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10-30-2014, 03:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-30-2014, 03:47 PM by mindriot.)
Quote:<div>
It happens everywhere, yes. Do note these "virtual particles" do not behave completely the same as real particles. They are more conceptual descriptions (they are not directly observable, except for the effects they can cause). If you treat them the same as particles it will appear as if they violate some fundamental laws.
But the basic idea is that each fundamental particle has a field that it belongs to (e.g. photon field aka electromagnetic field, electron field). These fields stretch out in all dimension, with a total energy of 0 (except the higgs field). An excited state in such a field is a particle.Virtual particles are the fluctuations in these fields. The energy of these fields are quantized (quantum!), similar to integers in math, e.g. there's 1 2 and 3, but not 1.2 1.3 1.5 etc.
As for the unpredictability thing, I like to think of it like this: Suppose you have a dice that you roll an infinite number of times. There is no pattern to it, nor does it appear to have one most of the time. But at some point you might roll the same number thousands of times in a row. It might appear as if the dice is flawed somehow, but this is just something that might happen in such a random process. As for the universe, we are not seeing all of the permutations that did not lead to the state we are currently in. The chance that you exist is incredibly small, but if this randomness goes on for long enough (infinitively), it will happen again and again. This is similar to the evolution of species, you only see the "winners".
</div>
Cool, thanks for that. I understand the thought experiment behind the rolling dice. Everything else you touched on I am still learning, especially quantum fields. Correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that space, although seeming like a vacuum is actually full of virtual particles which give space a "substance". Therefore, if an object is large enough to have a gravitational field, it bends the space by influencing the quantum particles in space. Is that correct?
However, please take a look at this image. I have seen this many times but where it baffles me is that space and time is portrayed as a plane. That curvature would be evident around all sides of the objects correct? So kind of like a bubble underneath water?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WvqOZtV1DrQ/UYZwBWTwuAI/AAAAAAAAAu0/Ra5pUWfJP9Y/s1600/spacetime.bmp
I was an art/philosophy student in High School and in University so I definitely missed out. I am learning physics now because it has become the coolest thing in the universe in recent weeks.
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Quote:<div>
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="JoWie" data-cid="292345" data-time="1414579285">
<div>
It happens everywhere, yes. Do note these "virtual particles" do not behave completely the same as real particles. They are more conceptual descriptions (they are not directly observable, except for the effects they can cause). If you treat them the same as particles it will appear as if they violate some fundamental laws.
But the basic idea is that each fundamental particle has a field that it belongs to (e.g. photon field aka electromagnetic field, electron field). These fields stretch out in all dimension, with a total energy of 0 (except the higgs field). An excited state in such a field is a particle.Virtual particles are the fluctuations in these fields. The energy of these fields are quantized (quantum!), similar to integers in math, e.g. there's 1 2 and 3, but not 1.2 1.3 1.5 etc.
As for the unpredictability thing, I like to think of it like this: Suppose you have a dice that you roll an infinite number of times. There is no pattern to it, nor does it appear to have one most of the time. But at some point you might roll the same number thousands of times in a row. It might appear as if the dice is flawed somehow, but this is just something that might happen in such a random process. As for the universe, we are not seeing all of the permutations that did not lead to the state we are currently in. The chance that you exist is incredibly small, but if this randomness goes on for long enough (infinitively), it will happen again and again. This is similar to the evolution of species, you only see the "winners".
</div>
Cool, thanks for that. I understand the thought experiment behind the rolling dice. Everything else you touched on I am still learning, especially quantum fields. Correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that space, although seeming like a vacuum is actually full of virtual particles which give space a "substance". Therefore, if an object is large enough to have a gravitational field, it bends the space by influencing the quantum particles in space. Is that correct?
However, please take a look at this image. I have seen this many times but where it baffles me is that space and time is portrayed as a plane. That curvature would be evident around all sides of the objects correct? So kind of like a bubble underneath water?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WvqOZtV1DrQ/UYZwBWTwuAI/AAAAAAAAAu0/Ra5pUWfJP9Y/s1600/spacetime.bmp
I was an art/philosophy student in High School and in University so I definitely missed out. I am learning physics now because it has become the coolest thing in the universe in recent weeks.
</div>
</blockquote>
Can someone please answer this ?!!! It's driving me nuts.
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Why are you posting on this forum? There are much more relevant forums out there to get these answers.
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(10-31-2014, 06:48 PM)treachen Wrote: Why are you posting on this forum? There are much more relevant forums out there to get these answers.
To be honest, I thought we had a lot of Physics geniuses on here.
I GUESS I WAS WRONG!
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