Steve and Mary were in the middle of an awkward heavy petting session in the back of Steve's Nissan Sentra. Abruptly, Mary stopped.

"What?"
-"Shhh... I thought I heard something."
"There's nothing out there."

But then Steve heard it too. A very faint scratching on the passenger door.

"Let's get out of here, Steve."
-"Aw, come on you f*cking ice queen, you haven't even touched it, yet."
"I'm freaking out here! There's something... something out there."
-"Pfft... FINE. Whatever."

Steve drove the awkward ten miles from the awkward parking lot to Mary's awkward apartment building and dropped her off, awkwardly.

She looked back at the car before it drove away and saw THE UNIVERSE HANGING ONTO THE DOOR HANDLE!

headline = lame

And when they finally chart all the stars and star systems they will realize what our whole universe is. A single molecule of a rose. A perfect rose.


Obscure?
No.

personally i'm more afraid of a zombie universe.

Dredge: headline = lame

If the "Ooh, spooky" was not a reference to Count Floyd then yes, the headline is lame.

If the "Ooh, spooky" was a reference to Count Floyd then no, the headline is most awesome.

jaggspb: personally i'm more afraid of a zombie universe.

but what are the chances that the zombies would end up in some other universe... some ultimate universe, that would only somewhat resemble our own universe...

/marvel

Is this a rorschach blot? I see a red drunken skeleton with a woody. Porn in Space Space Space. DNRTFA.

kungfu jesus with a side of lime: jaggspb: personally i'm more afraid of a zombie universe.

but what are the chances that the zombies would end up in some other universe... some ultimate universe, that would only somewhat resemble our own universe...

/marvel

based upon how soul crushing life is now, i'd say we already live in that universe.

jaggspb: kungfu jesus with a side of lime: jaggspb: personally i'm more afraid of a zombie universe.

but what are the chances that the zombies would end up in some other universe... some ultimate universe, that would only somewhat resemble our own universe...

/marvel

based upon how soul crushing life is now, i'd say we already live in that universe.

We live in a universe that only somewhat resembles our own universe?

/jesus christ slow down
//I'm still rolling my blunt...

Was it in the closet? TELL ME IT WAS IN THE CLOSET!

Did anyone else see the alleged filament in the 3D image? It looked pretty much random to me.

LavenderWolf:

We live in a universe that only somewhat resembles our own universe?

/jesus christ slow down
//I'm still rolling my blunt...

take the red pill

Are these spectroscopic observations covered under the Universal Health Care?

Not connected to the Skeleton.

We live in infinite parallel universes. Consciousness is just the average of your many other existences.

calculator13: We live in infinite parallel universes. Consciousness is just the average of your many other existences.

No we don't, and no it isn't. Consciousness is just the ability to build an abstract model of your own behavior. Pretty much everything with a brain uses at least some of that brain to simulate its environment. Consciousness is the ability to simulate yourself as an object in your environment.

As for infinite parallel universes, while such a thing is possible, there isn't good support for it at this time. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory is an inelegant response to the problem of entropy, and quantum information theory's revamp to the Copenhagen interpretation strikes me as much more intuitively plausible.

And my comment, like your own, is completely off topic. So, moving things back to the topic:

One of the concerns of modern cosmology is the fact that the universe is lumpy. Our models aren't entirely sure how we get from "Big Bang" to "Lumpy gravy". We've started getting more evidence that the universe is built along filaments, which implies a superstructure that may be a manifestation of another dimensional effect on our 4D spacetime.

All of this is terribly fascinating.

t3knomanser
I don't believe what I wrote, I put it out there for grins and giggles, glad to see you read it.

One of the concerns of modern cosmology is the fact that the universe is lumpy. Our models aren't entirely sure how we get from "Big Bang" to "Lumpy gravy". We've started getting more evidence that the universe is built along filaments, which implies a superstructure that may be a manifestation of another dimensional effect on our 4D spacetime.

All of this is terribly fascinating.

What is fascinating to me is unifying a theory of the known forces. I am really excited about CERN and potential discoveries however, with other colliders producing little results in their particle smashing, I'm skeptical of anything coming out of it.

If my hunch holds true then I think it is evidence that relativity, quantum theory, or both are incorrect.

I know slightly off subject but as you said.... fascinating stuff.

calculator13: If my hunch holds true then I think it is evidence that relativity, quantum theory, or both are incorrect.

Well, I sincerely doubt that. They'll be "incorrect" in the same way Newtonian Gravity was "incorrect": to wit, imprecise. For the measurement techniques available to Newton, it was entirely correct. In general, when there's solid experimental evidence in support of a theory, we rarely see the theory overturned as "incorrect".

More likely, relativity and quantum mechanics are subsets of some more encompassing meta-theory that we haven't yet identified.

As for other colliders: they have produced results. But, at the energy levels available, there's a limit to what kinds of results they can produce. The LHC is starting to approach the energies that happen in deep space particle collisions, and that should give us a lot more data.

Well, I sincerely doubt that. They'll be "incorrect" in the same way Newtonian Gravity was "incorrect": to wit, imprecise. For the measurement techniques available to Newton, it was entirely correct. In general, when there's solid experimental evidence in support of a theory, we rarely see the theory overturned as "incorrect".

I disagree. Newton was incorrect. Just because you produce a model that in his case eloquently explained his measurements of gravity does not mean that theory in the big picture was "correct".

Same with relativity and or quantum mechanics.

Newton's gravity demonstrates to me the more likely hood that whatever we think we know for sure could very easily collapse with new discoveries and technology.

Besides the two theories of quantum and relativity conflict with each other anyway.

calculator13: Newton was incorrect.

But he wasn't. If you claim he was, then you have to claim that everything we know is wrong. You can't claim that anything is correct.

t3knomanser

But he wasn't. If you claim he was, then you have to claim that everything we know is wrong. You can't claim that anything is correct.

debatable at best. but yes he was wrong.
in classical mechanics he was correct but we know that classical mechanics is obsolete in the big picture.

Link (new window)

Link (new window)

calculator13: Besides the two theories of quantum and relativity conflict with each other anyway.

Also, this isn't really true anyway. They don't agree with each other, which is subtly different than saying they conflict. Quantum mechanics describes activities at very small scales, and relativity describes them at larger scales. Physicists, however, are looking for the unification of these two theories. At one time, the world was viewed as full of forces that drove interactions between particles- gravity, atomic forces, electrical, magnetic, light, etc. As we learned more about the world, we discovered that these forces could be unified- there wasn't electricity, magnetism and light, but electromagnetic forces which described all of those behaviors.

At this time, quantum mechanics handles one subset of those forces, relativity handles the other, and physicists suspect that there should be some way to unify them and have one theory that describes the behavior of every force that controls the universe, or at least the forces that we know about.

calculator13: but yes he was wrong.

I strongly disagree with your assessment. If I fire a cannon in a vacuum, and use Newton's gravity to predict the trajectory the projectile will follow, the calculation and the experiment will generate the same results, controlling for experimental error.

For the domain in which Newtonian gravity works, it works with a very high degree of accuracy. The fact that it ceases to work when you move into very large masses or very high speeds doesn't mean Newton was wrong. He just didn't anticipate those circumstances, and hence, didn't anticipate them with his theory.

I still say: if you claim Newton's gravity is wrong, then you must claim Newtonian mechanics is wrong. You must claim Ohm's Law is wrong. You must claim that the science of optics is wrong. You must claim that cellular biology is wrong.

Incomplete and wrong are not the same thing.

Lampmonster: And when they finally chart all the stars and star systems they will realize what our whole universe is. A single molecule of a rose. A perfect rose.


Obscure?
No.

There are other worlds than these.

I can't wait for the forthcoming episode of The Universe that details this in layman's terms so that I may feel somewhat enlightened on the matter.


/Seriously, now- love that show

ArtosRC: Seriously, now- love that show

Really?

I find it totally spastic. It doesn't so much put things in layman's terms as much as it glosses over anything interesting about the subject in favor of bouncing onto the next topic. Short attention span theater at its worst.

"Cosmos" remains the model that all documentary programs should aspire to.

Yay for work, which comes up with better cheesy acronyms for instruments than the Europeans.

/"FOCAS" sounds like what you hope the camera will do.
//I don't know what "VIMOS" sounds like. Maybe it means something in Europe.

They should've sent a Poe. So spooky. So spooky... I had no idea.

t3knomanser: ArtosRC: Seriously, now- love that show

Really?

I find it totally spastic. It doesn't so much put things in layman's terms as much as it glosses over anything interesting about the subject in favor of bouncing onto the next topic. Short attention span theater at its worst.

"Cosmos" remains the model that all documentary programs should aspire to.

After about the fourth or fifth public talk by the likes of David Levy, Alex Filippenko, David Jewitt or Steven Beckwith, I decided there wasn't much point in getting science info from a TV, since it's got lag time built in (for production) and doesn't field questions for a half-hour after a 1-hour show.

These filaments are gravity. I don't know how else to word that.

I'm going to tell people I want the orange one just to see if anyone gets it.

LOL I posted in the wrong thread. I'm stupid today. Guess which thread I meant to post in!

t3knomanser: ArtosRC: Seriously, now- love that show

Really?

I find it totally spastic. It doesn't so much put things in layman's terms as much as it glosses over anything interesting about the subject in favor of bouncing onto the next topic. Short attention span theater at its worst.

I think it's okay... a few episodes are pretty good, and I actually learned a few new things. At least half of them are total crap though. The second season had the highest percentage of decent episodes, I think. But mainly I watch it for the ones with Amy Mainzer - yowza.

While clearly no Cosmos, I think anything that exposes regular folks to these ideas is a good thing.

Tranquil Hegemony:

While clearly no Cosmos, I think anything that exposes regular folks to these ideas is a good thing.

That's the idea-- I'm not exactly the brightest bulb to ever cast its light on science, and shows like this do make it easy to understand and be entertained. That said, damn near everything on Discovery (and the Science Channel) is great. It's a pity I have nowhere near enough time to watch.