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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Just starting a new generic topic for (more or less) alarming things of broad interest (though not politically: we have this topic for that).

    I was just reading this news item, and hoping our Greek friends are OK?
    D. should be alright: he works in Athens, but is obviously in Italy now, but I gather Stavi's family lives there?
    Not sure if they're back from holidays yet, but this looks as bad as those fires two years ago.

    I do hope it wasn't arson again. sad
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Excellent idea. (Though I fear this may become a very depressing thread to visit. sad)
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Steven wrote
    I fear this may become a very depressing thread to visit. sad


    Hmmm. Good point.
    Well, we could of course also use it for announcements and discussions of things like meteor showers (though I think we've now missed the yearly August one? ) or the CERN Particle Accelerator or things like that, or even developments on copyrights and trademarks.
    Anything, really.
    Just as long as it has a broader than sheer national appeal.
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    OK, in one of those psychic WTF moments the very moment I made my initial post, Stavroula came online again.

    She bad me to inform you that she's OK, but her brother's domicile is indeed in jeopardy, and things are excruciatingly hectic right now (as is quite understandable).
    She'll try and update us herself, but doesn't know when she can be back on a regular basis.

    I have assured her that the best thoughts and prayers (whatever is applicable) of the whole forum go out to her and hers.
    I felt pretty confident that in this I could speak for all of us. smile
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009 edited
    Martijn wrote
    Well, we could of course also use it for announcements and discussions of things like meteor showers (though I think we've now missed the yearly August one? ) or the CERN Particle Accelerator or things like that


    Yes! The recent article in New Scientist describes LIGOs and VIRGOs* lack of data on gravitational waves emitted from the moments of inflation during the big bang. Not amazing on the face of it, but as the article quite rightly describes, it does mark a point of further 'honing in' on useful data from gravitational detection.

    'Listening' to the cosmos will provide deeper insight into origin than simply 'looking', and that's why I think it's quite an interesting development (though, in all honesty, it's a subtle state of affairs where one article like this doesn't quite do it justice, and I'm sure many will attest to this!).

    Sorry, I may have just swapped 'depressing' for 'boring' for the vast majority of us! biggrin

    *Very long, L-shaped reflective tubes which bounce lasers to and fro that can detect these space-time 'ripples' to quite an astonishing accuracy through accumulative data of the displacement of the photons (though, as yet, not accurate enough).
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    See, the problem I have with that is the use of lingo like "space-time" being thrown around like it wasn't coined by Asimov or Roddenberry or whomever. What the hell does that even mean? Seriously?
    Gravitational waves I understand, and in fact this sin t much news at all: laser reflection has been used for yonks to measure and visualize deep space objects and events.

    But space-time?
    What IS that?
    Some sort of new dimension?
    Space measured in time? Or a dimension of time that actually has physical attributes?
    ARGH!
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    You just melted me. dizzy

    And as Martijn said further back, my thoughts and best wishes go to Stavi and her family and friends.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009 edited
    Martijn wrote
    See, the problem I have with that is the use of lingo like "space-time" being thrown around like it wasn't coined by Asimov or Roddenberry or whomever. What the hell does that even mean? Seriously?
    Gravitational waves I understand, and in fact this sin t much news at all: laser reflection has been used for yonks to measure and visualize deep space objects and events.

    But space-time?
    What IS that?
    Some sort of new dimension?
    Space measured in time? Or a dimension of time that actually has physical attributes?
    ARGH!


    A very tricky one to explain, and a lot of this I'm sure you know already, but I like the space-time as a loaf of bread description: imagine that each now -which is dependent on either relative motion or gravitational effects from mass or acceleration- is a slice of bread inside a larger, whole loaf. The 'now' you experience is pretty much what you perceive as 'space' (that is, three dimensions), and each 'now' -each slice- can be cut at various angles, meaning we each carry our own personal clock. So think of spacetime as a loaf of bread. The arrow of 'time' is generally believed to be dictated by an increase in entropy: the second law of thermodynamics (though this topic deserves an entire forum of its own, let alone thread).

    This means that at the beginning, the universe must have had extremely LOW entropy, and it's experiments like this that tread the path to explaining how and why. Also, space-time are large, macro dimensions that may be bathed in smaller, microscopic higher dimensions. (Space-time is also widely believed to be divisible through quantum jitters and particular geometrical features of string theory.)

    Space and time are one of the same thing, it's one of the most important unifications in the history of science and is of course accredited to the great Albert Einstein through general relativity (the theory of gravity).
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    So it's the second?
    Time as a physical dimension?

    I dunno. What you're describing seems more apt to the Multiverse theory than a proper space-time, and I can't for the life of me get behind that "now=3D space" idea.
    That seems like a simple backdoctoring to redefine time into a three-dimensional aspect (i.e. a sheer linguistic trick)....and why would you want to do that?
    What is gained by redefining time that way?

    Entropy per se is not dependent on space, but on the linear passage of time.
    That it also has an effect on space doesn't equate the two!

    Obviously I'm not a quantum mechanic, and probably miss a lot of detail to make a proper analysis, but at first glance it all seems rather far-fetched. slant
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorDemonStar
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    The Special Theory of Relativity envisions time as a fourth dimension indeed, and there are several experiments with reference to inertial frames that produce very interesting hypotheses (eg: the twin paradox). Unfortunately we were given just a brief overview of the topic, didn't go into much detail. I'll look it up more when I get the time.
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009 edited
    Just found something I can far more easily get behind:
    "The concept of spacetime combines space and time within a single coordinate system, typically with three spatial dimensions: length, width, height, and one temporal dimension: time. "

    That makes a heck of a lot more sense, and also explains why usually the term "continuum" is used in conjunction with the phrase, as you would need to integrate a coordinate system that not only is understandable in Euclidian (i.e. classic 3D "navigation") terms, but also integrates relative time (which allows for time measurement that isn't universal and absolute.)
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Incidentally: that makes the use of the phrase in Steven's originally referenced article even more puzzling to me. dizzy
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Timmer wrote
    You just melted me. dizzy


    Nar. That's just really high entropy.
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorNautilus
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Joviews.

    Comming soon
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    It's comming...Joviews is comming.....

    It can't comme soon enough for me biggrin
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Nautilus wrote
    Joviews.

    Comming soon


    For mmyself, I would cast serious doubts on the advent of Joviews (which sounds like an obscure commpany selling too expensive ringtones) being of global immportance.
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorBregt
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Nuts.
    Kazoo
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009 edited
    Martijn wrote
    Just found something I can far more easily get behind:
    "The concept of spacetime combines space and time within a single coordinate system, typically with three spatial dimensions: length, width, height, and one temporal dimension: time. "

    That makes a heck of a lot more sense, and also explains why usually the term "continuum" is used in conjunction with the phrase, as you would need to integrate a coordinate system that not only is understandable in Euclidian (i.e. classic 3D "navigation") terms, but also integrates relative time (which allows for time measurement that isn't universal and absolute.)


    Spacetime is a tricky one, but a photon is a good place to start with understanding it.

    I'll use Brian Greene's analogy: Imagine that you are driving north - all of your speed would be taken up going north. Now imagine that you veered off at a slight angle, say 1 degree east. This would mean that some of your north velocity would be lost to the easterly direction (proportional to that 1 degree).

    To equate this into terms of 'spacetime', whenever an object is stationary in relation to a stationary observer, it is effectively traveling through time at lightspeed; that is, all of its speed is taken up traveling "north". If that object moves relevant to you, it uses some of its inherent lightspeed to travel in space as well as time. (The object, say if it were another observer, could in fact say that it was you who was moving and thus borrowing some of your inherent lightspeed to travel through space, and she would be right were it not for the fact that she began her journey with accelerated motion and thus it is you who are at a standstill to begin with in relation to her.) So if we go back to the photon, which is able to travel at lightspeed since it has no mass, it is in effect using all of its energy to travel through space, and none through time; light doesn't age! (Light is of course a constant. Its speed is the same regardless of your motion: meaning, you can't run away from a beam of light so that it hits you later than it would have if you had you stayed still, it will always reach you at 300,000 km/s regardless of how you move... which I'm guessing I'm preaching to the converted here. shame )

    In the more refined general theory of relativity, it accounts for gravity (either from mass or acceleration; one and the same). Gravity is not really a force in the sense that it 'pulls' on objects, but rather it creates warps in the spacetime fabric that objects glide or 'fall' through. Not only does it bend space, it bends time. If you were to somehow hover just above a blackhole's event horizon, beyond which where gravity is so strong nothing can escape it (and the highest entropy possible) a few minutes that had passed for you would mean years (thousands perhaps) would have passed on, say, Earth. So when gravity matters, you have to think of space in terms of spacetime.
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    And I apologise for completely hijacking your thread. shame Feel free to put all this in the science thread (if you can be bothered).
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Well, you've certainly made the title 'World Events' seem very quibbling. wink
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Yeah, so anyway. Those fires. That's some bad juju man.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Once, I didn't see Sylvester Stallone.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Me too! I also didn't get his autograph and I never shook his hand. I'll remember that day for the rest of my life.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    WOW!
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    I KNOW! shocked

    We should hang out.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    Too right. Just imagine who we won't see.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    The possibilities are endless! biggrin And then afterward we could not go to a pub and not get smashed and then not go to a strip club! We're gonna have so much fun you and me.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    ...and we'll not go shopping and not buy soundtracks, just imagine the fun of not listening to new CD's. I think I'm not going to cry with the endless joyfulness.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2009
    There's far too much negativity in this thread for my liking.
  1. lol

    Martijn, thanks for the update about Stavi and next time send her my best regards as well!
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website