Down in a hole

I haven't read SciAm in a few years, are they still doing good or have they gone sour as far as their content?

Definitely agree with you on that. Sometimes, I'm torn between astro, theoretical, quantum, and philosophy. I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn't pursue research into the quantum areas, as I'm only just smart enough to handle general physics, let alone a topic that no one quite understands. At the moment though I'm drawn towards astro, with a particular interest in gravitational wave dynamics. A couple years ago I was working on a theory which would combine gravitational wave dynamics with a VSL cosmology to prove that gravitational waves effectively could not be detected, but I just recently realized my error with a paper my astro prof gave to me; I had forgotten to incoporate some of the finer details of interferometry... But the great thing about my prof's is that they take the time to thoroughly answer the vast majority of the questions I have, and that they'll give me papers relevant to the question. That and I suppose my astrophysics professor has more time to answer questions considering there is only four people in my class, the rest are seniors, I'm a freshman, and I pulled a 98% on my midterm. Some questions they don't have the answers to though, one in particular is I couldn't get any help on orbital resonance, because I was doing some research into Bode's law, a simple numerical sequence that approximately cranks out the semi-major axis of the planets (including ceres) all the way out to uranus. Bode's law is

a=(4+3x2^n)/10

I've heard it's a result of orbital resonance yet I havent been able to find any good papers on what orbital resonance is, at least any that are satisfactory.

Anyways I have considered teaching, at the moment my plan is to finish my undergrad in physics, which between a year of AP credit and starting at 17 means I should be able to graduate when I'm 20, try to get into the grad school at UofM with a focus in astrophysics, take a year off to be a buddhist monk, then work on my thesis, which at the moment I'm guessing is going to be something on gravitational waves. Work at a university or institute for a couple years, crank out a couple papers. If I could do research anywhere, I'd definitely have to say the Perimeter Institute outside Toronto. From what I hear the atmosphere there sounds real nice, plus there's some good work coming out of there. I think Lee Smolin is working there right now, he had a book out a while back, The Trouble With Physics, which was about string theory. One part I liked especially with his most recent book was that he spent a portion of the book on the philosophy of science, especially Popper/Feyerabend, and its relation to string theory. Anyways after doing research for a few years I'd like to go into teaching, either undergrads or an AP class.

Alas, while SD&RNR sounds good, I guess I try to be an enlightened hedonist. Try to get the balance between physics, philosophy, and the other ways of enjoying my life. Plus I must admit that I've had several relevations of quantum mechanics while tripping on acid. And astrophysics always seems better with a joint before class. But as always, in moderation.

It seems that you're pretty well versed in physics, so that brings me to ask, between that and the sex drugs and rock n roll, what's your story, Occam?


And I uploaded some equations on black holes, and though you read papers and are more into the conceptual aspect, I thought you might enjoy it...

 

Hearts
A quick reply.. back tomorrow.. [party time]

"approaches the singularity indefinitely"

'And that. is what you are asking of my poor head.. lol'
[im an old man. my eyes are weak and my knees are feeble...hehe]

1. My math is horrible... but. i'll continue on back of camel called
concept. Which is not math.. but more than just words.
2. You are speaking of 'observer' COMPARISON ..GPE-mc^2 ?
3. Subjetive Between infalling and observer is 'indefinite period'
Depends on relation to s.o.l
4. Tau of ?
5. Subjective to infalling.. 'all is well captain. we will pass the horizon soon'
[we are of course ignoring destruction of Mr Scott infalling via tidal force]
6. Subjective to observer. It all passes in the time it takes using newton.
7. Objective subjective relation between infalling and observer.
THIS is the fun one...
Duration...mmmm love it... is not the same between them.
1sec per sec is not the same on infalling as it is to observer.
Duration[time] IS malleable. [~vel]

And this makes reality a MILLION times more interesting.

Occam

PS..I am slightly suprised by your 'approaches the singularity indefinitely'
And pleased.
Many of science say there is no 'subjective' to knowledge.
apriori what IS , IS. Only the objective is what they seek,, alchemists all.
ALL, is subjective.
No human will EVER have an objective POV.
The sooner humans learn this the better.

PPS.. The 'indefinite falling' is a weed cutter. It is the THE thing that hooked me.
Most will flee.. i embraced.

 

quick reply, I'll finish off the finer points tomorrow during my lunch hour, I have plenty of jobs to do in the print shop I work at but....

t is proper time
tau is local time

or maybe I have them switched around, but the difference is the time observed for an outside observer and that observed by the unfortunate soul who ends up falling in (except for Neil Degrasse-Tyson, I get the feeling he would love to die a la tidal force)

 

Special Relativity

When people ask.. what proved time dilation.


Tau

In the frame of reference where the tau particle is at rest, its lifetime is known to be approximately 3.05 x 10-13 s. To calculate how far it travels before decaying, we could try to use the familiar equation distance equals speed times time. It travels so close to the speed of light that we can use c = 3x108 m/sec for the speed of the particle. (As we will see below, the speed of light in a vacuum is the highest speed attainable.) If you do the calculation you find the distance traveled should be 9.15 x 10-5 meters

d = v t
d = (3 x 108 m/sec)( 3.05 x 10-13 s) = 9.15 x 10-5 m

Here comes the weird part - we measure the tau particle to travel further than this!

Pause to think about that for a moment. This result is totally contradictory to everyday[subjective] experience. If you are not puzzled by it, either you already know all about relativity or you have spent your time watching football... LOL.

 

Chances are I'm not reading it carefully enough.

But my guess it that the reason there is a disconnect between the theoretical lifetime of the tau particle and it's observed lifetime is that one must incorporate the effects, in this case, special relativity, when considering the elapsed local time. Like all good equations in special relativity, the equation for elapsed proper time includes the lorentz factor. So, the equation is tau=t*sqrt(1-v^2/c^2), or something of that form, I forget at the moment, three joints in me and I'm not in the mood for checking that equation, all I know is that theres a lorentz factor, which is in almost every elementary special relativity equation. Main point is that since the tau particle is travelling a significant velocity, there is a disconnect between the time that it experiences and the time that the observers experience.

 

Hearts

Luv u, bong on my man.

Ocam

 

Sorry Occam I posted that before your edit... but yeah a combination of time dilation and the ladder paradox (length transformations), throw in a couple gammas, the symbol for the lorentz factor.

 

Hearts
Which demolishes the 'common accepted concept of 'time'
that is held by 99% of humanity.

Does that not give you a sense of the 'power of knowledge'

Hang on,, Need a toke.. ahhhhh

ALL those 'real people' that say potheads are no hopers.. LOL
'Nice weather ayhuh... hows the family ayhah. Looks like storm commin
ayhuh. Did youy see the dragons/panthers/tiger/ lions/ exct exct win the grand final..
ayhah

LOL

Occam

 

DOH we are cross cutting with edits... back when the dust settles..
im playing BG2 so
Minsc and you and Boo .. all Heroes.

Occam

 

In due time all folk theories are superseded by the rigors of modern science. Epicycles preceded the geostationary model, the concept of phlogiston preceded oxidation, the aether preceded relativity, and now the popular notions concerning the nature of reality repeatedly proceed new findings in science. If this progress, the progress in which man not only proposes the wrong ideas, but has the reason to search out newer and more accurate concepts, if this is not beauty then I know not what is.

Heh I made some people in high school mad though because the overacheivers didnt like when a stoner gets higher marks on tests with far less effort.

And besides, I've always thought that with all the drum circles that Feynman got in, that he definitely tried acid once or twice. I mean, the whole notion of Feynman diagrams is right out of a trip.

I would be taking some more hits right now but
a) I'm saving what grass I have left for Friday so that me and some cats in my philosophy class can end the course in style.
b) My bong broke last weekend at the Ann Arbor Hash Bash
c) I've got to leave for work in five hours so I should probably call it a night pretty soon.

 

Hearts.. you see , you have 'politic'.
You say, on said level. That has levels. You let natural selection answer.

quote
"In due time the ignorant, those with pretentions to mind
and a bag of worthless opinions are rendered as fools
before the method they are too stupid or lazy to try and understand.
And are shown by men flying in the air that men can fly.
For they cannot grasp an idea as truth even if it poked out
their left eye.
Such are of little worth to the species but as biomass to produce
future potential thinking beings..for even a cretin can sometimes
produce a genius. This, is the beauty of nature.
Otherwise they serve one purpose.. to fertilse the ground i walk on.
And that ,is my morality.
Stalin and Hitler killed 10's of millions.
The fools.. Those dead cannot make one Einstein"

The quote come from a friend who was in phil2 with me...
And he truely spoke like that in lectures..he was madcap
a big fan of nietzsche.
[adult ed at 32 lol, something to it tho . old guys PULL certain girls.]
Cool rant , Yosh always had the last word tho.. a bit tedious...
Wonder if any actually think that way. beside him.
Techno Eugenicists surely do.
[Me, i lean heavily to zeno. You might say i strive for ataraxy]
He left after a Huge arguement with teacher.brilliant. the 19 yo and the 39 yo red faced and screeming.

Occam

Ps this was an aside.. i'll be back about relativity tomorrow...
[woot that says it all]

 

Eh, we all have our own ways of getting out the thoughts while trying to avoid the jargon. Sometimes I find myself getting confused by your brand of speech, but hey, I'm glad that we speak in different tongues over the same concept, as it maintains diversity. It's like in terms of breeding, that it is good to maintain genetic diversity for the fitness of a population, the same goes for physics, that diversity of opinions and expression maintains the fitness of a science.

1. My math is horrible... but. i'll continue on back of camel called
concept. Which is not math.. but more than just words.

Good thing that you're keeping up on the concepts. 'Twas the way I was a few years back, but then I had to sacrifice some of the concepts to keep up with the math. Oh well, I guess I try to get a balance.

2. You are speaking of 'observer' COMPARISON ..GPE-mc^2 ?

The equation that I used calculated the gravitational potential energy of an object approaching a singularity. Given the GPE at point A and point B, it is calculated using newtonian mechanics that the change in GPE, ergo the amount of energy released, is -(1/2)mc^2. Using a relativistic calculation, the amount of energy released is exactly mc^2. Therefore, the complete annihilation of matter falling into a black hole is the most efficient energy process in nature, and it has to be, according to the law of conservation of energy, because the conversion of mass to energy released is 100%, compared to atomic fusion, the second contender, which is only 0.7%. The gravitational gradient of a singularity causes the complete conversion of mass into energy. Think about it, what if an extremely technologically advanced civilization could build a geodesic structure around a black hole and harness it's energy, it would be the most efficient system that nature would allow.

3. Subjetive Between infalling and observer is 'indefinite period'
Depends on relation to s.o.l

Lorentz transformation/factor

4. Tau of ?

Schwarschild metric

5. Subjective to infalling.. 'all is well captain. we will pass the horizon soon'
[we are of course ignoring destruction of Mr Scott infalling via tidal force]

Neil Degrasse-Tyson loves it.

6. Subjective to observer. It all passes in the time it takes using newton.
7. Objective subjective relation between infalling and observer.
THIS is the fun one...
Duration...mmmm love it... is not the same between them.
1sec per sec is not the same on infalling as it is to observer.
Duration[time] IS malleable. [~vel]

Time dilation is one of the things that got me hooked.

And this makes reality a MILLION times more interesting.

Occam

PS..I am slightly suprised by your 'approaches the singularity indefinitely'
And pleased.
Many of science say there is no 'subjective' to knowledge.
apriori what IS , IS. Only the objective is what they seek,, alchemists all.
ALL, is subjective.
No human will EVER have an objective POV.
The sooner humans learn this the better.

Many people regard science as concerning the "how" and religion concerning the "why". I feel this is inadequate. Sure, one may go through one's science education only concerning themselves with "how" things come to be, but such an approach does not bring a full appreciation or understanding of science. What needs to be grasped is "why" things happen, the very fundamental pillars of reality upon which the rest of science follows. Instead of how does gravity exert force, what magnitudes, WHY does it act that way. The fundamentals, that are what I like to find.

PPS.. The 'indefinite falling' is a weed cutter. It is the THE thing that hooked me.
Most will flee.. i embraced.

 

Nice, 'sounds like you're onto the real deal, along with the balance of enlightened hedonism, ha, ha. I was also one of those stoners who aced AP Physics in high school, while hardly ever studying, but I dropped the ball my senior year in the pursuit of wasted time. 'Course I picked it back up and ran with it later in life, long enough to get a master's, but I couldn't justify the PhD, not in my field. Astrophysics might be a different story though, that could be a worthwhile endeaver.

Imagine that, a solution to the energy crisis, very cool! I'm sure a lot of politicians with ties to big oil wouldn't go for that one.

I know you were gonna stay out of this one, but I'm glad you didn't, good stuff, keep it coming.

...And I'm sure y'all were expecting some profound words of wisdom from my father's relationship to Wittgenstein, sorry for the disappointment, but he never brought it up...

Take it easy.

 

Good atheist god, that quote positively reeks of nietzche...

That damned zeno and his arrow and turtle. The trouble with the tortoise is that he treated the limit of the time correspondant of the intersection of the tortoise and Achilles as the limit at infinity. Hell, make a graph with different slopes and intersects, make the wrong limit problem, and it WOULD seem that Achilles never catches up with the tortoise. And about that arrow, sure, if you make a biased infinitesimal division with respect to either space or time, it WOULD appear as if motion is a paradox, but if one divides both space and time simultaneously ad infinitum, then one arrives at a continuous, rather than discreet, set of values that agree with motion, or at least in the newtonian sense, but hell. Down to the Planck length and time that is. Or am I thinking of the wrong Zeno?

How do you feel about Parmenides?

 

I try, I try. I guess that I kind of live somewhat according to Plato's tripartite soul (even though I am strict in my beliefs of eliminative materialism), and though I satisfy my earthly desires with sex, drugs, and rock n roll, I normally do so in a somewhat transcendental manner. When I smoke pot or trip on acid, for instance, I do so in a manner that not only satisfies my earthly desires, but also strengthens my spirit, all the while using the effects of mind enhancing drugs to improve my reason. In that respect, I balance the Platonic tripartite soul, with desire, spirit, and reason in equilibrium. Look out, demiurge.

What field is it that you are in? I know that in some areas, like programming, its worthwhile to get a masters but theres no benefit from a doctorate.

There's no way beating a damn near 100% efficiency, and I dont care what some of the kids in the perpetual-motion-esque threads on here have to say. I mean, think of all the power coming out of Sagitarrius A*. Granted, it would be milennia before we had the capabilities to do such an endeavor. But my bit on scifi is that a future civilization could prefab a geodesic sphere into hemispheres or whatnot, put them on a careful trajectory towards a black hole, such that the constituent parts can join together to create a support lattice far, far, far away from the schwarzchild radius, and then from that lattice strap on some photovoltaics that could harness the x-rays eminating from the accretion disk. Even if the photovoltaics had a shitty efficiency, as long as you keep pumping in matter, that's the most effective and closest to free energy that I've heard of. Eat that, Gaussian currents.

Eh, I'm got a condition that can be closest described as cyclothymia, it's like bipolar but with a regular and defined cycle, which in my case is about two weeks. Guess last week I just wasnt in the mood for the singularity stuff.

 

Well stated. The barrier to understanding is usually manifested in the definitions we impose upon our reality, the axioms that govern our logic.

My next question was going to be how to harness the energy, but you beat me to it. My assumption had been that one would somehow harness the energy within the schwarzchild radius, which would be impossible. So if I've got it right, the x-rays are generated as a result of the mass within the accretion disk rotating around the black hole at vast speeds, and the photovoltaics are there to extract energy from the radiation. My question then is what would be the advantage of this over, say, photovoltaics we now use to extract the sun's energy? I'm guessing the radiation from the accretion disk is much more intense, but then you might be limited by the photovoltaics to convert the energy, since the chain of energy conversion is limited by the weakest link. There's also the question of where to place arrays relative to the source of radiation. And when you speak of pumping in matter, I take it you mean into the black hole? How does that feed the radiation of the accretion disk?

Sorry, that's the engineer in me talking. As for the engineering field, an engineer with a phd isn't really even an engineer anymore, and while there's work out there, it's few and far between, and it's a long road for what it is. You can teach at a university, but good luck getting a job, you can plan on being a post-doc for a while. Besides, I can do research with what I've got. I get paid less, but who cares? I work in a lab with phd's, and I drive the train for them We're currently working with photovoltaics and lasers in an instrument to characterize biological phenomena, primarily protein binding and immunities. I worked for a company once that wanted to transfer me to a new R&D facility in Ann Arbor. Nice place, I understand that's the only place in the US that legallized pot--for a whole day, LOL. I turned down the gig, which was good 'cause they dis-banded and canned everyone a year later. That didn't surprise me, they had some big egos clashing, a common problem among the over educated who are un-enlighted in the ways of buddhism.

I'm still wrapping my mind around the singularity concept. That there's this infinitessimally small dot of matter and energy within an event horizon, the radius of which is determined by the aggragate mass within the black hole, and yet somehow all this stuff is in there in the form of mass? energy? or both? And if that's the case, there may be another universe in there, as I've mentioned before. Maybe the big bang happened when the black hole that created our universe was formed.

 

The radiation from a black hole comes from a number of sources such as thermal radiation and synchrotron radiation. This energy comes from the gravitational interaction with the black hole. As for capturing the energy if making a dome around the black hole is possible then I would have thought that capturing would be trivial. Though right now its very hard to use radiation much deeper than UV because it wont interact with semiconductors efficiently so you need a new kind of transducer.

The physical basis for a singularity is one of balancing forces. If you take a mass, like a star, its graviational attraction is balanced by the radiation pressure from the nuclear reactions at its core. The Earth for example has very little radiation, only a little from radioisotopes in the ground, so its collapeses. The Earth is held against gravity by the pauli exclusion principle, no two fermions, in this case electrons can occupy the same quantum state. If the material is very hot and dense then this can collapse and atoms fall apart leaving a giant blob nucleons, specifically neutrons, if a star does this its called a neutron star (neutrons are also fermions, so the exclusion principle provides a force against gravity also). If the star is dense enough to collpase, there is another source of fermions at the quark level although no 'quark star' has so far been confirmed to exist, there is no good reason why they can't. If the star is too dense to be held at this level then there is no more know source for force to prevent the collapse. The star just becomes denser and denser with nothing to arrest the collapse, this is a black hole. The particle physics within the black hole is pure speculation at this point as no quantum theory of gravity has been confirmed then its impossible to say.

Also with regards to dividing space ad infinitum. General relativity sees space-time as a smooth manifold within which particles move with some trajectory through this manifold. Quantum filed theory sees space as consisting as an infinite number of discrete harmonic oscillators. The oscillations of these fields give rise to the particles around us. This is the current state of modern physics, both these theories have been immensely successful in the domains where they apply. The challenge now is to some how unite chalk and cheese (or as Einstein put it marble and wood) and find out what greater explanation manifests itself in these ways.

 

Hearts

Rememeber. Im 50 and an autodidact.. ALL i know is self taught.
I assembled a world view from bits and pieces, over 2 decades. Using a system of 'hold or scrap', and a 'bar' that was very low'
For i have no patience with.....
Consisder yourself lucky to have tertiary . It has saved you 10 years at least.

A modified dyson sphere?

Exacly

Occam

Ps.. You are me that i wish i was..
Accute, quick and intuituve. I probably have it over on you in history.. But thats juat reading..
Well met my brother.
Where are the girls...LOL

 

Harts

His influemce on Plato and Herodetus.
I think he may have heavily influenced socrates in their meetings bit how can we know..
Wish i had a time machine.

Loved zeno and his reductionist timelines. [the arrow]
Think i was drunk tho..
I mixed fledgling zeno and Epictetus/Antisthenes.
Bloody greeks, why cant they be 'bill and ted' LOL

Such.. I practice and try to live 'ataraxy'
Existing in observation of reality. Without emotive 'hamstringing'
Calm...

Occam

 

Yellow..
Then lets think as engineers.
Cap the poles with the best technology available.
No. That tech is not available yet.. Yet IT WILL BE.
[a century?]

All heads to the axial poles. and out.
Strong.

occam