http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

There's a good documentary from the PBS series NOVA about String Theory on YouTube - makes it understandable for the layman.

A theory but some of the greatest minds in the world think it's the right path - and if you go back in history, the greatest minds of the day usually were onto something even when they were wrong their 'wrong thinking' usually ended up opening a door to a new discovery made by others later.

Holy shit, there's some lackluster understanding of physics in this thread. The WMAP along strongly suggests other universes. The graviton experiments probe the edges of what may be other universes, and white holes are gaining a lot of credence.

It's a very romantic idea to believe that there's something - anything - more than this... but there isn't. Why are a collection of chemicals and cells and electrical impulses and when we're gone, thats it. Enjoy your stay while you can.

“As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to the other meshes.” - Shakyamuni

And you're so eminently qualified to make that assertion. :1orglaugh

?I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.?

Socrates via his student Plato

At this point in time we know practically nothing - that we know something, that we know more than our ancestors deludes us.

Physicists are currently searching for disk-like patterns in cosmic microwave background radiation which could provide evidence of collisions between other universes and ours. So far, analysis of data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has not revealed any evidence of a bubble universe collision.
Future data from the Planck satellite, which has a resolution 3 times higher than WMAP and an order of magnitude greater sensitivity, can be used to more definitively test the bubble collision hypothesis.

In recent years there have been many claims made for ?evidence? of a multiverse, supposedly found in the CMB data (see for example here). Such claims often came with the remark that the Planck CMB data would convincingly decide the matter. When the Planck data was released two months ago, I looked through the press coverage and through the Planck papers for any sign of news about what the new data said about these multiverse evidence claims. There was very little there; possibly the Planck scientists found these claims to be so outlandish that it wasn?t worth the time to look into what the new data had to say about them. One exception was this paper, where Planck looked for evidence of ?dark flow?. They found nothing, and a New Scientist article summarized the situation:

?The Planck team?s paper appears to rule out the claims of Kashlinsky and collaborators,? says David Spergel of Princeton University, who was not involved in the work. If there is no dark flow, there is no need for exotic explanations for it, such as other universes, says Planck team member Elena Pierpaoli at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. ?You don?t have to think of alternatives.?

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5907

You can look smaller as well as bigger.

There could be things inside an atom that are too minute for us to comprehend as well as the universe being the next step up to something bigger.

Funny you mention this, ive actually thought of the same thing myself.

Once you get to that point, you can keep going on and on; it never ends.

i'm covered with an infinite # of universes all over my body!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The most recent discoveries by physicists are causing the scientific community to move towards the one universe theory.

Fuck yes. You're right. We can always break it down even further. :mad:

link an article and tell me something... what the fuck is outside of that "universe"? Nothing? Last time I checked, nothing is something. :(

You're in my head - I'm starting to feel the same way

Yeah, you're right - there isn't an answer. Just wow. It doesn't matter if we know the answer because we all die and that's it (I think). However it would be fun to know the answer, ultimately.

I think you are wrong. Everything you just described, even on a miniscule level on this planet serves it's on purpose. Why don't we serve a larger purpose?

I am enjoying my stay, although short. I'm a new man today. I love you all. :thumbsup

Could be? Not only is that image NOT a representation of an atom, there ARE "things" inside of an atom, things inside of THOSE things, and things inside of THOSE things. This, we already know with today's science.


That's not true. The recent WMAP discoveries point toward a FLAT and INFINITE universe (infinite meaning no necessary boundaries, not infinite meaning infinitely large). The most recent discoveries point toward our universe being created from a collision between two other universes. Graviton probing has detected other universal membranes outside of our own, and energy dissipation models have found areas of high heat areas when compared to background radiation standard models (again, WMAP). All of this implies (and, taken together, nearly proves) other universes.

That's not even including simulation theory, which has a lot more credence due to the discovery of the universal lattice -- that kind of freaked scientists in the field out to discover that the universe has a "grid" system much like a computer program would.

the interesting part of the multi-u hypothesis for me is the hypothesis is based on bruising. one uni bumps ours and there's a bruise. there's 4 bruises they point to.

one of the logical arguments supporting the notion is it's easier to explain an event that happens more than once than it is to explain an event that happens just once. conclusion: it's easier to understand our universe if it's a part of a bunch of universes.

but the theory also opens up huge questions- one of the biggest is what is the space between these universes then? if they are floating around and only bump 4x in 14.8 billion years, that's a lot A LOT of open space eh.

not saying it's not feasible at all or that i would not embrace it, i'm not smart enough to negate something like that. but i think while the simplicity of understanding a set makes sense, it does open up other big issues.

The universe we live in is huge, why can't the space between universes also be huge? You also have to realize that it may be multi-dimensional or even single-dimensional on the "outside" of the universe. It could be a type of space we don't even comprehend, with spacetime being a construct only of our universe.

I'm shocked - given the large number of rocket scientists on GFY! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Yeah, exactly ... but it's like some of these people have literally no idea what's out there.

Indeed. It is impossible to know. Although edgeprod says there is evidence of something like that? How could that be evidence of something existing out of our universe? Its all we know - this universe.

Firstly - how do you know there are multiple universes? Its just a hypothesis.

You'd have to read and understand the post I replied to in order to understand my post. The evidence is very convincing to me, but physics was my field long before webmastering, so ...

http://i871.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/trippy3K.gif

http://31.media.tumblr.com/c4f761ae0...swyto1_400.gif

i wouldn't disagree with any of this and actually tend to think why not. nevertheless, right now, my layperson brain wants to agree with the side of physics community that thinks 1 universe makes sense, based on their interpretations of the accumulated data.

the thread is actually timely on the multi uni aspect with the planck data being compiled and released this year, many do feel it is hard evidence, many need a lot more convincing via testing.

but tbh, i'm looking forward to the hard evidence being scientifically proven- it would blow minds to have enough understanding of science to discover & proof that!

That's MOST of the community. These theories are emerging from the bleeding-edge data, and aren't widely adopted. They're just starting to pass peer-review now. Just remember, even though the math "works" doesn't mean it's a valid model for the physical universe. String theory's math "works", but (while elegant in may ways) it's unlikely to be the correct model. Tiny curled-up dimensions resolve the mathematical issues with gravity's observed strength in relation to the other forces, but so does leakage due to the interaction with other universes. So, it's best not to get too hyped up on either one until more empirical data emerges.


Do you mean the Higgs data? Planck data has long been established; i.e., the Planck length, Planck time, etc. New research has USED Planck lengths to probe the lattice of our universe, and has found pre-predicted evidence that we're actually living in a simulation. Kind of freaked out the people who understood what they were looking at, which means it should pique our interest at the very least.


The sad part is that willful ignorance keeps most people from even scratching the surface on the latest discoveries. Look at this thread for examples. There are people people out there who can't name all of the planets in the solar system (they would probably name the dwarf planet Pluto, but would likely miss Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris). Some people even consider Earth's moon (Luna) to be a moon, and not what it really is (or will be in time): a binary planet, locked with Earth.

And that's just BASIC science, nevermind the more esoteric stuff. Do you know that people are largely unaware that labs have demonstrated TELEPORTATION and TIME TRAVEL? It got almost zero coverage in the mainstream news, despite the huge implications for humanity. Some people still think that anti-matter is something from Star Trek, and are completely unaware that we've actually MADE the stuff. It drives me bananas how people bury their heads sometimes.

i had read some articles a while back on the planck data, i had thought it was fresh data, perhaps it was a fresh peer review, here's more on that

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.Umg6tfm1FqA

re: string theory, that's kinda the beef right? the math is elegant but to make it work irl, well.

imo, we need a breakthrough discovery elsewhere, along the lines of breaking free from current limits in physics, such as the speed of light etc. einstein era is coming to an end.

whOaKemosabe : what carppy gifs :( As a psyhead i ask for your pardon dear rocket scientist gfyers! :pimp

The Answer Is Fourty-Two

No, this is TOTALLY different. Planck data from the SPACECRAFT has nothing to do with the Planck constants of physics. I didn't know what you were referring to, as this type of data is usually referenced by CMB (cosmic microwave background, which doesn't differentiate it from NASA's WMAP survey), or by COBRA (its original name, before it was renamed to Planck to honor the deceased physicist) to avoid confusion. Sorry about that!

Yes, this data STRONGLY suggests that there are other universes.


Yes. In physical practice, string theory has performed well thus far, especially in regards to the predicted energy levels for the Higgs boson. If you look at my Facebook feed, I guessed it'd be around ~125 GeV, based on the mathematical models for string theory, and it was discovered at 125-126. That's an incredible correlation with predictive models. I just don't personally believe ALL of its predictions will hold water in the same way.


So, this is an area of confusion for some, also. The speed of light IS a physical constant in this universe. I'm going to break this down VERY simply (and use some classical physics, which has since been refined/disproven), but the basic reason is simple:

When you travel THROUGH space-time, the closer you get the the speed of light in a vacuum (C), the more massive you get. Thus, the more energy it takes to propel you faster. At significant fractions of C, this mass approaches infinity. At C, it reaches infinity. It's nonsensical to say that you can expend an infinite amount of energy (which is what it'd take to move an infinitely massive object), so nothing can break that speed limit.

Another way to look at it is through the lens (couldn't resist the gravitational lensing pun) of time dilation. As you approach fractional levels of C, time progressively slows down relative to a reference frame. As you reach C, your movement through time would be 0, and thus if you're unable to move, you're unable to accelerate (acceleration at this point would produce a negative movement through time with a positive movement through space, which is not only nonsensical, but would effectively be time travel, violating causality, thermodynamics, and other issues).

Incidentally, photos are massless (and probably stateless), and don't have a traditional reference frame. This means that at C, they have not only reached maximum velocity, but also don't "age". For a photon (which doesn't have a perspective, but for a thought-exercise, let's say it could), everything would happen at the same time, and no time at all.

People often ask me how galaxies could be moving away from each other at speeds greater than the speed of light. This is actually a tricky concept, although it's simple once you've wrapped your head around it. The galaxies are moving due to the expansion of the universe, so they are moving because more space is being created in between them, not because they are moving THROUGH space. Picture a balloon with pennies glued to its surface. As you blow it up, the pennies will move away from each other; this is similar to what is happening with red-shifted galaxies in the observable universe.

Interestingly, the way "around" going faster than the speed of light (FTL travel) is to actually manipulate the fabric of space-time, flexing it in front of and behind the target object. This is called an Alcubierre drive, and is a CURRENT research project for NASA. It's not some "pie in the sky" project, either; scientists at NASA believe they'll have proven the concept soon, and will have a functional prototype in our lifetimes.

In short, yes :pimp

Paging Dyna Mo ;)

from what i've read, including that link i provided, the planck observatory gathered data that scientists evaluated in terms of multi-universe hypothesis and concluded the data suggests the hypothesis is not valid.

i do have a general understanding of the planck constant, i understand limits extremely well.

my comment re: the speed of light and new science was re: the fact we still live in the einstein era of physics. the planck observatory has also proven a new understanding is needed, that understanding would have to be based on something beyond current science.

here's a bit of an article on where i was coming from with my comment.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...-a-new-physics

:)

This isn't my understanding of the current research. The opposite is apparently true for cosmology right now, in that it looks MORE like multiple universes, and from data coming from multiple disciplines.

Did you understand my explanation on why C couldn't be exceeded by something with mass based on our current models, and the ways we plan to (currently) get around that?