What is Digg?55 Comments
- diggduggDOOM, on 10/09/2008, -1/+41Bond. Subatomic Bond.
- Falldog, on 10/08/2008, -4/+35This story seemed a lot more interesting when I thought the title read "Quantum of Solace"
- thcobbs, on 10/09/2008, -1/+10Gives a whole new meaning to Q branch.
- disraeligears54, on 10/09/2008, -2/+9Theres always a fix for this type of problem...just put a paper bag over the universe's head.
- dmbchris, on 10/09/2008, -2/+9Actually it makes perfect sense that nature is built on asymmetry. The whole mathematics of stability is built on the idea that any excessive symmetry is inherently unstable, and the stable configuration is the asymmetrical one. Just think of stepping on a soda can- perfectly symmetrical but unstable until it is crushed into its asymmetrical form.
This is no surprise to anyone that has been in scientific research for a few years. - JohnFlux, on 10/09/2008, -0/+4There are various 'renormalisation' hypothesises for the end of the universe that rely on that if you no longer have any matter (because it decayed) you can no longer make a clock and thus time no longer exists. The renormalisation hypothesises then go on to say that distance doesn't make sense either, and everything 'reset' and creates the next big bang.
(Before someone attacks science for crazy ideas, noone is pushing these as truths, just as ideas) - cloudberries, on 10/09/2008, -1/+5I can't quite wrap my head around the notion of a particle that causes mass, the enigmatic Mr Higgs Boson to be precise.
- invinciblechunk, on 10/09/2008, -0/+4This story would have seemed a lot more interesting if they hadn't decided to ape "Quantum of Solace" in a cynical ploy to lure eyeballs.
- RealmDown, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3Yes, but you have to say three extra Hail Mary's before next Sunday.
- ausfahrt, on 10/09/2008, -1/+4Bond is great and all but let's be honest here. What news story about a movie that we know is coming out and will all go see could be more interesting than learning something about the universe.
- chrissku, on 10/09/2008, -1/+4"Just think of stepping on a soda can- perfectly symmetrical but unstable until it is crushed into its asymmetrical form."
What an awesome way of explaining your point. Kudos to you. - OtterStratton, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3Isn't it "tyger" in that poem?
- FreeTalkLIve, on 10/09/2008, -1/+4If mass slows down time, can time exist without mass?
- Fordi, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3Incorrect. Putting aside for the moment the impossibility of crushing to one atom thick a can which is partially oxidized, partially anodized:
there is no guarantee that a monoplanar aluminum sheet made up of an arbitrary number of atoms would be symmetric - or even regular. - kingmanic, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Another interesting Asymmetry:
Organic molecules can have either a right hand or left hand chiral orientation (L for left, D for right). Think of it as putting a model of a molecule in front a of a mirror, the image you see in the mirror is one chiral orientation and the one you see when you look at the model is the other. Both would be chemicals similar but there is an incredible bias in proteins towards L orientations while sugars tend towards D. There isn't a chemical reason for this, it's probably happenstance. Like a glove, enzymes made for interactions for a L protein won't fit on or in a D protein. The ancestors of all life happened to use L proteins and D sugars. - ASSASSYN360, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4It's the asymmetrical faces of some people that freak me out.
- Fordi, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2As strong as - until the tube wall is bent.
Also, a round tube is stronger than a square tube using the same material and wall thickness. - JohnFlux, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2Everything is a particle - light, matter, electric field, magnetic field, weak force, everything. Every particle acts like a wave.
(Even you act like a wave. It's just that your wavelength is very very very short)
(Gravity may or may not be made up of particles. It will be a long time before we can build an experiment sensitive enough to detect a 'graviton' particle) - bigbangbuddha, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2Mass= Energy
and without either there would be no way to observe time as it requires a change in state for that to happen. The only understood way to observe or cause a change in state is through the transference and influence of energy. So the answer, No, not that we can prove. - sekhui, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2no.
- FreeTalkLIve, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Does mass create time?
- dopplerdog, on 10/09/2008, -1/+3Without mass/energy, how would you measure time? It's a meaningless question.
- sekhui, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2mass might be fundamentally different in a universe with no time dimension. how could anyone say what it would be in strictly 3 dimensions? by extension, what would strictly two dimensional mass look like? or one dimensional mass?
as for massless particles, on a quantum level isn't this just waves acting like particles? in the same way that particles sometimes act like waves.
corrections anticipated and welcomed. :) - junkwheel, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1The other half must be somewhere.
- gn0stik, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1Entropy increases with symmetry.
- JohnFlux, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1And indeed we cannot eat food that has the wrong handiness. So there's a 75% chance that we couldn't digest food on an alien planet. (despite what startrek, stargate etc say)
- erichw1504, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1Quantum of Solace*
- RealmDown, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1I guess entropy is just not what it used to be.
- jwquinlan, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1Sounds like we need a "God" to provide the explanation -- the place is just too well-designed for any other ecplanation.
- RealmDown, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1and the particle cast
- slvrbullet87, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1Football is no where near symmetrical
- marktastic, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1Going with the empty soda can analogy, I thought that a hollow metal tube was structurally stronger than a solid metal bar of the same mass... or something like that.
- sekhui, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1i meant to say, massless particles aren't a huge ontological problem.
also, i am a wave. ;) i agree with you there. :) - sekhui, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1i get this, i mean essentially, ontologically, if all waves are particles aren't all particles waves?
- mianus230, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1i can't wait until we finally get m theory worked out. Remember Hawkins response to how information isn't erased in black holes because the information still exists in the other dimension where their isn't a black hole. I really do think that their is 11 dimension out there, what do you guys think? I bet some people are going to think that god was responsible for the asymmetry...
- billyfalconer, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? - bigbangbuddha, on 10/10/2008, -1/+2Another small point, if there was perfect symmetry in the big bang it would now look like a giant crystalline structure of some sort instead of a random scattering of rocks. Space, matter and energy would have expanded at perfectly equal rates and nothing would be the way it is today, it may still even be some sort of primordial energy field or disc as it would have cooled down at a perfectly equal rates expanding from the incident. All you have to do is open your eyes to see our universe has something influencing it beyond a perfect mathematical expansion. The big question is how and what? If its not perfect, then something is causing or at least has caused that initial imperfection, and that's the real mystery. Sorry Al, god may actually have played dice with the universe, and something other than boxcars were rolled.
- sarahbara, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1nature tends toward disorder
- starmanjones, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1i agree. to me it makes sense. perfectly symetrical is entirely homogenous and has no opportunity to create difference. difference creates the opportunity for ramdom difference to interact. random differences interacting is how we got here.
i never quite understand why its so difficult for some to see that if it was different than it is then it would be different. thats it;. this universe and humans happened because we did. - sekhui, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1i'm not certain that mass could exist in a purely three-dimensional universe. that is to say, our concept of things like mass might be meaningless with, conceptually, a universe that had no time dimension. i.e. not timepace but just space.
i hope you reply to this conversation. questions like these are really fun. :) i'm interested to hear your opinion. - Llan, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1It's the Higgs field that causes mass to particles interacting with it, the Higgs boson is a quantum of this field that also gets is mass from the Higgs field. No, I don't really understand it either.
- gordoncam1, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1Maybe the mirror half of our universe is traveling backwards in time from the moment of the Big Bang. Or maybe it's this half of the Universe that's traveling backwards and it just feels like forwards.
- JohnFlux, on 10/11/2008, -1/+1I'll word this as accurately as I can without using jargon:
Everything is mediated or made up of particles. All particles have a position that acts like a wave. Waves are just particles acting like waves. - koonchu, on 10/09/2008, -1/+1Its called copywriting.
- KeillRandor, on 10/09/2008, -0/+0yes:
hours are to time
what
meters are to distance.
Asking whether or not you can have time without mass is like asking if you can have distance without mass:
Yes you can - you'd just have to find a method of measuring it that didn't rely on mass. (And since there are particles out there that don't seem to have any mass - it should be feasible in theory). - BXRWXR, on 10/09/2008, -3/+3Whenever I start reading articles like these, the Art Bell Show theme music starts playing in my head.
- sarahbara, on 10/09/2008, -1/+1not designed at all
- sanosuke001, on 10/09/2008, -0/+0yeah, and if you crush it infinitely, it'll be a sheet of aluminum 1 atom thick, which is symmetric.
- sekhui, on 10/09/2008, -3/+2***** fail.
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