What is Digg?132 Comments
- blitzer, on 12/27/2007, -5/+60Science has reached a level where only 0.00001% of people have a clue what any of these theories mean.
- vic42482, on 12/27/2007, -2/+53"One idea is that a collision between a brane and an antibrane could have triggered the Big Bang itself. This can now be simulated in superfluid helium within the little test tube."
Great idea! Let's create a big bang in a test tube. - gmiley, on 12/27/2007, -4/+36I thought it was common knowledge that universes were kept in boxes made by Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth.
On a more serious note, I absolutely love reading articles like this. I wish we had more of these submitted each day rather than the latest news of Britney Spears and her underage whore of a sister. - vikingboy, on 12/27/2007, -1/+21Where's the surfer dude when you need him
- geezas, on 12/27/2007, -2/+21I'll take one
- Mike137, on 12/27/2007, -0/+19I feel compeled to point out a couple of things about the article. First, this experiments are NOT carried out in a simple test tube. Just think about what would happen to a test tube if you take it down to a tempreature of just a few thousands of a deegre above absolute zero.
In the classical understanding of phase transitions, a system that undergoes a phase transition is said to break one or several symmetries. Take water for example as it turns into ice. When it is a liquid the particles are free to move and in principle occupy any position inside the containder, but if it is cooled down to ice these particles arrange in a crystalline network and now the cannot occupy any position, therefore, translational symmetry is broken. Now, the thing with 3He ( not the regular isotope 4He) is that when it turns superfluid it breaks several symmetries (translational not included in this case) which resemble to the phases that the universe is believed to have undergone during it's infancy. This has been know for a long time, it's not news, but to probe these theories is highly non-trivial, so these experiments are always very complicated. These people for example have been worked in these things for many years.
Now, what this particular experiment is searching for is to use superfluid helium to simmulate brane annihilation and this can be done by using the boudaries between two phases in superfluid helium. If they can detect topological defects after brane collision, then is possible that the current model of cosmic inlfation is doing ok. But of course this is not a direct test of string theory, but merely the best we can do until now to test if some of the objects predicted by the theory make sense in other scenarios.
Direct link to Nature Physics AOP (subscription required):
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/ ...
Group Website:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/spc/research/condmatt ... - esei15, on 12/27/2007, -0/+18maybe we're just somebody's test tube universe...
- endlessoul, on 12/27/2007, -0/+13Or, in your case, 9 months before your birthday.
- merper, on 12/27/2007, -0/+13Animaniacs had it right all along
- DopeWeasel, on 12/27/2007, -0/+11You know they exploded the atom bomb even though many scientists thought it would set off a chain reaction and burn our own atmosphere. Why wouldn't they create a mini-big bang even though it could destroy the universe?
- yayster, on 12/27/2007, -1/+12maybe there was an 'accident' in someone's lab some 15 billion years ago.
- gmiley, on 12/27/2007, -0/+11Nonsense, how could anything ever go wrong? ;p
- evilregis, on 12/27/2007, -1/+11That's the beauty of science, isn't it? That they WILL try to prove you wrong. And if it's BS, then they'll move on. If it's legit, then we've another tool in our belt to better understand the universe.
- judgesuds, on 12/27/2007, -1/+10the cutting edge of science has always been like this
- johnnick, on 12/27/2007, -0/+9String theory, brane theory and M theory are all theoretical models, but the string theory math is a subset of the brane theory math, making the theoretical strings part of the larger theoretical objects called branes.
- Hoov, on 12/27/2007, -2/+11If we're a test tube universe we're definitely in the reject pile.
- b-dizzle, on 12/27/2007, -0/+8Yeah, can we get an uber-nerd in here to explain this to us lesser nerds?
- RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -0/+8If you want to know more, pick up a book by Dr. Michio Kaku or my favorite physicist Richard Feynman. Get both. Even if you know nothing now, you will have a pretty good idea of whats going on after your first book.
"I think it is safe to say that no one understands Quantum Mechanics." - Richard Feynman - Pritchard, on 12/27/2007, -1/+9NO!!!! I had a dream recently about a universe contained in a bottle. I opened it up and it EXPANDED, completely collapsing OUR universe!
- Jugalator, on 12/27/2007, -1/+8Too complicated? My problem with it was basically that the article can be summarized to:
"form structures that, according to the team at Lancaster University, are similar those seen in the cosmos."
Uh, OK...? So does that make an entire baby universe? WHAT theories are to be tested? Can we get to superstring theories and in that case how? Etc... It just doesn't explain much. - KingGorilla, on 12/27/2007, -0/+7are you insane in the membrane???
- STKD, on 12/27/2007, -2/+9So... because by your own admission you personally don't understand enough about it, it "sucks".
Right. Okay... - gmiley, on 12/27/2007, -2/+8I guess a "big bang" in a test tube is better than one "out in the wild", so to say.
- Beatmiser, on 12/27/2007, -2/+8When I read this article it was like the sound of a million creationist voices crying out...and then suddenly silenced.
- PDAIsAOk, on 12/27/2007, -0/+6There are plenty of great books out there that discuss these things in laymen's terms. Two that come to mind are The Elegant Universe by Briane Greene and Death By Black Hole by Neil Tyson Degrasse. Both very interesting and very readable for anyone who doesn't have a PhD in physics.
- duke, on 12/27/2007, -0/+6Duped! The one on the right is obviously Stephen Colbert's Formula 457 . . .
- haruchai, on 12/27/2007, -3/+9If the first half of the article on helium superfluid properties is as inaccurate as the second half on modern theories in physics, then the entire article is rubbish. There are lots of current theories that could unify all forces and particles that do not require extra dimensions. "M" theory is not even a theory. There is just speculation that it might exist. Even the "string" theories are not really theories since most of them have not actually been formulated and it has never been proven that they do not result in infinite values which is the reason that most unifying theories are discarded. Also, the current reasoning is that there is actually a very large number of string "theories" (10^500), some of which will never be disproven, so no matter what the LHC turns up there is still a very large number of string "theories" which could account for the observation. I would recommend that the author of this article and anyone else who is interested read "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin.
- Corrosionx, on 12/27/2007, -0/+6Unless it breaks the test tube?
- RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -0/+5Who says scientists aren't funny.
- gmiley, on 12/27/2007, -0/+5I don't think any of the information is inaccurate, but I did find that sentence a bit odd for them to say "it has been *known*" as it really is dealing with theory.
- jrf295, on 12/27/2007, -0/+5"...from strings of one dimension, to membranes of two dimensions, to those of p dimensions, dubbed p-branes"
I definitely feel like a pea brain after reading these types of articles. - cesclaveria, on 12/27/2007, -0/+5yeah, because someone creating a Universe goes against everything they believe.
- jgzman, on 12/27/2007, -0/+5Note that he claims that the explanation sucks, not the theory.
Explanation = something that explains. If he still doesn't understand, then the explanation was bad. Else he's stupid, but as a professed engineer, I consider that a low probability. - peaceninja, on 12/27/2007, -0/+4that song popped in my head too but i had to look up the lyrics to know what you're talking about. Yakko is brilliant:
"And still the universe extends to a place that never ends
Which is maybe just inside a little jar!" - crapmatic, on 12/27/2007, -2/+6I would read the article, but knowing what usually occurs in newspaper science features, it's probably chock full of oversimplifications and erroneous analogies that leave me more confused than when I started.
- thetechkid, on 12/27/2007, -0/+4Because Brittany Spear's momma gotta pay child support!
- RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -0/+4You, sir, are correct. But it is hard to extrapolate from here, who can predict? That is exactly the point, the starting point for new physics. I find it interesting, but the assertion that a superfluid can be used and controlled, set up to simulate events near the planck boundaries ( max and min energies sizes and distances attainable in THIS universe ) is ballsy enough.
- Slimer, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3Liquid 3He becomes superfluid only when it is cooled to 1-2 mK. We are studying the properties of the superfluid well below the transition temperature Tc, in a regime in which the normal fluid fraction is only about 10-5. The mean free path in the fluid becomes very long, and the quasi-particles behave ballistically. These experiments require the coldest possible temperatures, and we are using nuclear demagnetisation of copper spins to reach around 100 µK in the liquid. The properties of the fluid are probed using the mechanical resonance of a vibrating wire. Four major experiments are in progress: (i) properties of pure liquid 3He-B in the ballistic limit, thermal boundary resistance, Landau critical velocities in 3He-B, non-linear quasiparticle damping and long-lived spin precession; (ii) behaviour of 3He in dilute solutions in 4He, (iii) the static and dynamic properties of the A-B boundary in superfluid 3He and properties of the A phase at temperatures much lower than Tc; (iv) sudden local heating due to neutron absorption, to investigate phase transitions such as those that may have created cosmic strings in the early universe. Experiments are also in progress searching for superfluidity in 3He-4He solutions, cooling metal samples (achieving 7 µK - a probable world record), and using superfluid 3He as a dark-matter detector.
from http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/physics/research/cond ... - RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -2/+5We are pretty sure that a big crunch isn't going to happen, but check again tomorrow.
- RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3It's hard to be understandable to the layman and still get real points across in this, of all, sciences. I understood it perfectly, I understand the implications of what it could be. But there have been many ideas to come along that looked promising in this same effort to peer into the tiniest of tiny that were good ideas but only gave us more questions. Unless you have a perfect simulation, this kind of thing can hold up science for years.
- archimago42, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3Hooray for actually knowing what you are talking about. I'm going to guess (hope) that English isn't your first language but you provided a clearer explanation than most can offer anyways.
- krisscofield, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3Llama llama llama llama...
Hope you guys get that one. - RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -1/+4Wow, someone who actually knows some of this stuff hanging out on Digg. I think that the point of the LHC is to break the string theories. Like you, I am afraid that there are going to be shadows we will never be able to illuminate.
It looks like we are in a sandbox to me. Interesting how many Physicists believe in God. - RedHerringHack, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3Oversimplifications? Check.
Vague Analogies? Roger that. - archimago42, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3When done on a scale that is incomprehensibly smaller than the real thing, no. It'd be like using two atoms of gasoline to understand how fuel ignites in a tanker truck but not at all like that because that example only makes sense on the surface. I think you get the point though.
- tyywebb, on 12/27/2007, -0/+3That sucks a Big Crunch would be so much more fun. ; )
- redfox2600, on 12/27/2007, -0/+2http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=f_J5rBxeTIk
At around 1:32 - archimago42, on 12/27/2007, -0/+2I don't think they meant there is a universe in the tube, just that it is a basic, understandable model of the universe they can play with.
- inactive, on 12/27/2007, -0/+2Neil deGrasse Tyson*
- thetimewarp, on 12/27/2007, -0/+2First, there were pet rocks. Now, there are pet universes.
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