Galaxy without any dark matter baffles astronomers

[Corax]

I'm dying to ask one about why quantum entanglement doesn't violate FTL transfer of information now...

 

[Signal 11]

It’s a brilliant plan, but there’s a problem: entanglement only works if you ask a particle, “what state are you in?” If you force an entangled particle into a particular state, you break the entanglement, and the measurement you make on Earth is completely independent of the measurement at the distant star.
[...]
This is one of the most confusing things about quantum physics: entanglement can be used to gain information about a component of a system when you know the full state and make a measurement of the other component(s), but not to create-and-send information from one part of an entangled system to the other.

Ask Ethan: Can we use quantum entanglement to communicate faster-than-light?

 

[Corax]

Ask Ethan: Can we use quantum entanglement to communicate faster-than-light?

Oh

I had the concept of arrays of quantum entangled particles used together as supercomputers for FTL communication across the universe. I am disappoint.

 

[existentialist]

I'm dying to ask one about why quantum entanglement doesn't violate FTL transfer of information now...

In essence, because even if the states are entangled, there's no way to transmit the state of one to the other, in order to compare them, in a way that is faster than light.

ETA; Oh. Beaten to it. Plus diagrams.

 

[TruXta]

I'm not convinced that there are any pre-existing laws of the universe anyway.

Goes almost without saying that physical laws can't pre-exist the universe. But a non-pedantic answer is that regardless of whether there are eternal laws of the universe, the universe we can observe and interact with has proven itself everywhere and always consistent. It'd be hard to imagine evolution without at least "local" stability.

 

[NoXion]

Okay, that's helpful, except...

...both concepts are stupid

Because... ?

 

[NoXion]

I'm not convinced that there are any pre-existing laws of the universe anyway.

I think that the further/closer we look asking
"Why?"
God just sighs each time and goes
"Well okay, it's like this then"
Much as a weary parent does at the end of a long day with an inquisitive 5 year old.

This is why the explanations seem to get weirder and weirder as time goes on. And we're left saying
"So, Spooky Action At A Distance and Quantum Tunneling, right? Well okay Science, if you say so..."

Things get weirder because the deeper we probe into the universe, whether that be in microscopic direction (quantum mechanics) or the macroscopic direction (general and special relativity), the further we get from the world of everyday experience. We evolved to be familiar with only the tiniest fraction of all environments that can be found in the universe. So it's no wonder things get strange once we start taking a proper look at the rest of the universe.

 

[Corax]

Because... ?

Oh come on! Of course they're stoopid. As is the twin paradox, the double-slit experiment, and a host of other perfectly correct pieces of science.

 

[NoXion]

Oh come on! Of course they're stoopid. As is the twin paradox, the double-slit experiment, and a host of other perfectly correct pieces of science.

If it's stupid but it works... It's not stupid.

 

[Corax]

If it's stupid but it works... It's not stupid.

I corrected myself - it may not be stupid, but it's definitely stoopid.

 

[existentialist]

Oh come on! Of course they're stoopid. As is the twin paradox, the double-slit experiment, and a host of other perfectly correct pieces of science.

It's counter intuitive not stupid.

In "The Elegant Universe", Brian Greene describes a phenomenon where the ice in his drink suddenly floats through the glass and hangs suspended in mid-air Of course, that never happens, and it would be extremely weird if it did.

But it DOES happen. All the time. At the level of single atoms, quantum tunnelling - atoms effectively teleporting themselves over short distances for very short periods of time is perfectly feasible. In theory it's feasible at the macro level, too, except that the odds of it happening to several billion atoms all at once is so slim that it would take several lives of the universe for it to be likely to happen anywhere, ever

 

[Corax]

It's counter intuitive not stupid.

In "The Elegant Universe", Brian Greene describes a phenomenon where the ice in his drink suddenly floats through the glass and hangs suspended in mid-air Of course, that never happens, and it would be extremely weird if it did.

But it DOES happen. All the time. At the level of single atoms, quantum tunnelling - atoms effectively teleporting themselves over short distances for very short periods of time is perfectly feasible. In theory it's feasible at the macro level, too, except that the odds of it happening to several billion atoms all at once is so slim that it would take several lives of the universe for it to be likely to happen anywhere, ever

STOOPID

Jeez, scientists. Amirite?

 

[existentialist]

STOOPID

Jeez, scientists. Amirite?

There must be something I'm missing here...

 

[Corax]

Yes.

 

[existentialist]

Yes.

Oh well.

It it something to do with the two 'o's looking like the electron shells of two hydrogen atoms?

 

[stuff_it]

Dark matter and the however-many dimensions rolled up small theory are both prime examples of fudges made up by physicists to make the maths work. Now dark matter has been pretty much disproved. I'm waiting on the dimensions thingy, though I'm pretty sure you can make the maths work with any random number of 'hidden' dimensions if you're determined enough.

 

[Signal 11]

Now dark matter has been pretty much disproved.

That's just bullshit. There's a very strong consensus among experts that dark matter is real.

 

[existentialist]

Dark matter and the however-many dimensions rolled up small theory are both prime examples of fudges made up by physicists to make the maths work. Now dark matter has been pretty much disproved. I'm waiting on the dimensions thingy, though I'm pretty sure you can make the maths work with any random number of 'hidden' dimensions if you're determined enough.

Nah. String theory isn't a fudge to make the maths work. It's a - fairly bold, I admit - attempt to resolve some of the incompatibilities between quantum theory and cosmology. It doesn't help that the only chance of proving it experimentally is by using the kind of particle accelerators that we're never going to be able to build on an average-sized planet, but science is littered with examples of people rubbishing ideas on the basis that they were unprovable, so I think we have to be careful about discounting string theory on that basis, too. After all, Niels Bohr wouldn't have need to make his famous quotation about quantum mechanics if it hadn't looked the same to the scientists of his generation, and we now pretty much accept much of what it has to tell us as acceptable, now, if not the implications.

The problem is that the far edge of physics has always pushed up against the near end of philosophy, and philosophy smells nasty to physicists - even Newton struggled with that. A lot of the important quantum mechanical stuff - observer effect, sum-over-histories, etc - still smells very philosophical to the positivist scientific tradition, so it's no surprise that the tension at that interface is as strong as it's ever been. But we make a mistake by writing things off just because they don't fit the prevailing truths. Shit, I just sounded like a conspiraloon

 

[Corax]

That's just bullshit. There's a very strong consensus among experts that dark matter is real.

Scientists have admitted that man made climate change is a myth

 

[Signal 11]

Scientists have admitted that man made climate change is a myth

Fuck off. That's a petition in which the signers agreed that climate change would not be "catastrophic" "within the forseeable future" and it was signed by 0.3% of those eligible.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm not convinced that there are any pre-existing laws of the universe anyway.

I think that the further/closer we look asking
"Why?"
God just sighs each time and goes
"Well okay, it's like this then"
Much as a weary parent does at the end of a long day with an inquisitive 5 year old.

This is why the explanations seem to get weirder and weirder as time goes on. And we're left saying
"So, Spooky Action At A Distance and Quantum Tunneling, right? Well okay Science, if you say so..."

This brings us on to the simulation hypothesis. in quantum physics there are actually particles that don't bother to decide what they're doing until somebody checks, almost as if we were living in a computer program running in a situation where computing power was limited or whose creators saw no point in accurately modelling the behaviour of an electron which nobody was paying any attention to.

If you look at the maths behing the uncertainty principle you see a law of the universe so elegant that it almost has to have been designed; but designed not by a benevolent supernatural being so much as a bunch of geeks who didn't want their pet bacteria to find the walls of the petri dish.

e2a: Of course what actually happens is that the more things we learn, the more we are able to understand processes we have already observed. The movements of the planets through the sky have made a lot more sense since we figured out that we're orbiting the sun and not vice versa. Before that the best explanation for retrograde motion was probably 'Mercury is drunk right now'.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Scientists have admitted that man made climate change is a myth

You can tell that's legit because of the multi-coloured fonts and mid-90s web design. Scientists are notorious for being shit with computers.

 

[existentialist]

I'm not convinced that there are any pre-existing laws of the universe anyway.

I think that the further/closer we look asking
"Why?"
God just sighs each time and goes
"Well okay, it's like this then"
Much as a weary parent does at the end of a long day with an inquisitive 5 year old.

This is why the explanations seem to get weirder and weirder as time goes on. And we're left saying
"So, Spooky Action At A Distance and Quantum Tunneling, right? Well okay Science, if you say so..."

Oh. God.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Things get weirder because the deeper we probe into the universe, whether that be in microscopic direction (quantum mechanics) or the macroscopic direction (general and special relativity), the further we get from the world of everyday experience. We evolved to be familiar with only the tiniest fraction of all environments that can be found in the universe. So it's no wonder things get strange once we start taking a proper look at the rest of the universe.

I get confused enough when I go to London and find that a sandwich and a cup of coffee costs more than an hour's pay for a person on minimum wage. By all the laws of economics as I understand them such a city should be a deserted ruin by now.

 

[Corax]

Fuck off. That's a petition in which the signers agreed that climate change would not be "catastrophic" "within the forseeable future" and it was signed by 0.3% of those eligible.

You can tell that's legit because of the multi-coloured fonts and mid-90s web design. Scientists are notorious for being shit with computers.

Oh. God.

Bloody hell, is subtext entirely non-existent on this sub forum or something?

 

[Corax]

Oh well.

It it something to do with the two 'o's looking like the electron shells of two hydrogen atoms?

Nothing clever at all. You're just reading the word in entirely the wrong tone. Don't worry about it; it really doesn't matter.

 

[NoXion]

I corrected myself - it may not be stupid, but it's definitely stoopid.

What's the difference? Apart from one sounding like it should be read in a silly voice?

 

[Corax]

Don't worry about it. Seriously. It really doesn't matter.