The Universe

[Sergeant Wilson]

53 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

The Uncertainty Principle is an emergent property of Quantum Field Theory. 

I was just away to say that.

[coprolite]

2 hours ago, oaksoft said:

Not sure what you mean by your second paragraph. The uncertainty principle is about the inability to precisely measure things like position and momentum simultaneously. Measuring is interaction and changes the particle's properties which is why there is uncertainty . Energy and time form another such pair. 

That bit I've underlined caused problems between Bohr and Einstein. They fought like cat and dog over that interpretation. It's a viewpoint, rather than a hard fact and not a viewpoint which can be proven as far as I'm aware. It's one of many viewpoints. Nobody knows for certain what is actually happening at the quantum level. Ok, fair enough it's not fact. Iirc the alternative conception was  that electrons and photons are both waves and particles at the same time. 

Most people's brain can't cope with that either. 

My original point was that i doubt that discovering additional dimensions will aid our understanding of anything. It might be an addition to our knowledge bank and maybe we could do tech, but our dumb meat brains are already maxed out and i just don't think we could meaningfully conceptualise or understanding dimension 6 outside an equation. 

This is also not a fact. Only a view. 

 

 

 

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

2 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I was just away to say that.

Not with your teeth.

[tamthebam]

3 hours ago, Newbornbairn said:

Aye but, Airdrie, 

I came in here to see if there was any mention of the massive black hole they've photographed and you've mentioned Airdrie. 

 

 

So, yes, there was a mention. 

[BigDoddyKane]

 

My First thoughts on seeing that supermassive black hole was it looks like some massive power source/engine

 

my second thought was

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by BigDoddyKane

[Newbornbairn]

 

Wid.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, BigDoddyKane said:

 

My First thoughts on seeing that supermassive black hole was it looks like some massive power source/engine

 

my second thought was

 

 

 

 

It reminded me of getting my eyes tested.

[SweeperDee]

Impressive as it is, it's not a new telescope, it's a collaboration between 8 radio telescopes on Earth. I don't know for sure but I don't think the new James Webb telescope would be much good at this, it mainly operates in the infrared which is great for looking back really far back in time, but maybe not so good at getting data from around a black hole a mere 25 thousand light years away.

My mistake. Yeah, the JWT looks for different ranges of light which I think aren’t all that suited for scoping out black holes. It’s more designed for early stars.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Yes. That's the impression it left on me too, not just from quantum mechanics but across the board. [emoji38]
For example, take any circle of any size from a snooker ball to Jupiter and take the ratio of the circumference to the diameter and you get exactly the same number.
Then there's things like the number of petals on a flower being one of only a set number of possibilities (Fibonacci), the emergence of the number e everywhere in nature. All of these mathematical things are entirely fictionally constructed in the brains of humans and yet they match everything around us in real life. That is beyond weird. I can see how this could induce paranoia. [emoji3]

Although if we’re going to go full Platonic on this then you have to consider that neither the snooker ball or the planet Jupiter are actually circular, or rather not perfectly circular. The perfect circle only exists as a conceptual form that we only see shadows of

Plato’s suggestion that there’s a deeper reality beyond the one we experience resonates down the millennia and@coprolite’s idea that the human brain simply isn’t equipped to deal with additional dimensions is part of a long tradition

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Agreed. No idea why I said circle though as they are both spherical. [emoji38] 

If you’re forgetting to recognise a 3rd dimension then maybe today isn’t a good day to consider theoretical additional ones

[coprolite]

I thought i understood higher dimensions when i was on acid one time. I did also pick up a dog shit though, so i'm not convinced it's an all purpose IQ enhancer. 

[RandomGuy.]

3 hours ago, oaksoft said:

For example, take any circle of any size from a snooker ball to Jupiter and take the ratio of the circumference to the diameter and you get exactly the same number.

Surely that's just common sense though? It wouldn't be a sphere otherwise.

It's like being amazed a tree has branches.

Maths works so well to explain the Universe because that's what it was designed to do, maths isn't some natural thing we discovered on a slab, it's been fine tuned throughout humanity's existence to help explain things.

[dorlomin]

3 hours ago, SweeperDee said:

My mistake. Yeah, the JWT looks for different ranges of light which I think aren’t all that suited for scoping out black holes. It’s more designed for early stars.

JWT observes in the infrared and its very likely the black hole at the galactic centre will emit in the infrared and there are already plans to use it to study it. It will also be used to study exoplanets, planets around other stars. While it will be amazing for deep time astronomy, look back billions of years, it will also be used for studying stars and planets in our own galaxy. 

[welshbairn]

32 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

its very likely the black hole at the galactic centre will emit in the infrared

Do you mean the stuff swirling around it?

[topcat(The most tip top)]

38 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Surely that's just common sense though? It wouldn't be a sphere otherwise.

It's like being amazed a tree has branches.

Maths works so well to explain the Universe because that's what it was designed to do, maths isn't some natural thing we discovered on a slab, it's been fine tuned throughout humanity's existence to help explain things.

Which points to another philosophical can of worms. Was maths "designed" or discovered? 

It's more common to think of it as "discovered". "Mathematical facts" were true before humanity and will remain true after us.  Numbers still exist even if there's nobody to do the counting. 

Which seems a reasonable enough hypothesis but it turns out to be fiendishly difficult to prove mathematically
 

[Newbornbairn]

Dunno what a space tepescope is right enough.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Newbornbairn

[welshbairn]

Boeing hoping for 3rd time lucky for their space station shuttle project. Failed to reach orbit the first time because of a clock/software issue, second time launch was cancelled due to faulty valves. They're now more than 3 years behind Space X. Take off is about 5 to midnight. This attempt is unmanned.

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by welshbairn

[dorlomin]

 

Currently 5 different vehicle types parked as ISS including 3 human capable  Soyuz, Crew Dragon and Starliner. (Starliner has flown uncrewed)

Cygnus and Progress making the two automated cargo vehicles. 

Edited May 21, 2022 by dorlomin

[BigDoddyKane]

On 13/05/2022 at 17:04, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Which points to another philosophical can of worms. Was maths "designed" or discovered? 

It's more common to think of it as "discovered". "Mathematical facts" were true before humanity and will remain true after us.  Numbers still exist even if there's nobody to do the counting. 

Which seems a reasonable enough hypothesis but it turns out to be fiendishly difficult to prove mathematically
 

I read a book by Michio Kaku where he mentioned it, that was first time I had heard the idea, was Maths the building block of universe or is it just invented and the way we try and understand the universe. Its a good one.  

Edited May 21, 2022 by BigDoddyKane

[welshbairn]

Boeing attempting to land their Starliner spacecraft, on land rather than on water, at 11.49 tonight It's undocked and heading for White Sands, New Mexico, where they have some experience of things going bang if it goes wrong. They're hoping to fly it with humans onboard later this year.