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New Theories / Re: If there was one Big Bang event, why not multiple big bangs?

« on: 17/05/2022 17:37:39 »

Mention a different alternative to "always existed".

This would require one to drop one or more naive bias.

"Always existed" is a phrase only meaningful to objects (a house, galaxy, the weather, etc.) contained by time. So if the universe is not reduced to an object contained by time, but is rather a structure that contains time, then it just exists. This is standard realism, a view held by Einstein and by probably the majority of physics that understand Einstein. If the universe is not a structure that contains time, then all of relativity theory is wrong, and there's not really an alternative thoery that has done its own generalization. So for instance, there's the neo-Lorentian interpretation, which says absurdly that all the equations that Einstein derived in relativity theory can be used to make any prediction, despite the fact that they're all based on premises that are wrong (such as the frame independent constant speed of light). But that's a view (used by nobody that actually has to work with physics) that posits the universe as an object contained by time, and thus is in need of being 'started'.

Dropping the bias of 'universe as an object in time' is not difficult, but if it is for you, then dropping the others will be out of reach, so I'll not go into other alternatives that require more out-of-the-box thinking. This is a science forum. Science is concerned with making empirical predictions, and none of the explanations of the existence of the universe make any empirical predictions, so they're not science.

It's like the question you asked about life elsewhere: If it's beyond the event horizon (which is currently just outside the Hubble radius and well inside the radius of the visible universe), then it cannot be measured by us and by any definition of existence that involves measurability, doesn't exist. That's a very different answer than the mathematical "any nonzero probability multiplied arbitrarily high results in a certainty".

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New Theories / Re: If there was one Big Bang event, why not multiple big bangs?

« on: 14/05/2022 06:52:40 »

Would you mind posting a few words from your thoughts

For the most part, you seem to have gotten completely off track. None of your recent posts have been about multiple bangs or related theory. To be honest, I have little idea what you're currently proposing. You're just blogging random and mostly unrelated thoughts.

about how unique life is in the universe, given an infinity of time and space.

If life is of any probability greater than zero for any given star system, then given unlimited star systems, there must be life on an unlimited number of stars. Any other possibility is mathematically inconsistent.
This assumes infinite space (and thus infinite star systems), but not infinite time, since any given type of life is only good for a finite region of time: Too soon and there's too much violence and not time to develop stable life. Too late and entropy takes over and there's no energy left to support life. As it is, life has been on Earth about 4-5 billion years and all but the simplest life will be gone here in another billion. The planet will not support eukaryotic life soon, and that includes anything multicellular.

[Spoiler:]

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Just Chat! / Re: A Short puzzle with dogs.

« on: 12/05/2022 15:01:04 »

Another physical solution:

Spoiler: show

Replace the river 'rod' with a mirror and shine a laser (a surveyors laser that leaves a line on the ground) from the dog to the reflection of the house

[Spoiler:]

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Just Chat! / Re: A Short puzzle with dogs.

« on: 12/05/2022 14:52:34 »

I'm still working on the circle problem, but have had almost no time to do so. It's coming.

Maybe the dog can shorten the effort by jumping on a board floating on the river, saving steps. I presume such complications are not part of the problem.
This problem has a physical solution:

Spoiler: show

Just put pegs in a board where the house and dog are, and a rod representing the river. Tie a string to the dog and the house looped around the rod and pull it tight. It will move to the shortest path, which momentarily touches the river 4/7th of the way, or ~43 m west of the house.

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New Theories / Re: If there was one Big Bang event, why not multiple big bangs?

« on: 19/04/2022 02:13:51 »

Does the extreme of gravity during a crunch leave the protons intact?

No. A crunch is very much like the bang in reverse. The big bang (what is meaningfully known at least) starts with the Planck epoch at some 10^-45+ seconds or so. There is no distinct gravity or any other forces at this time since they're merged as one unified field.
Gravity separates out at about 10^-43 seconds
7 orders of magnitude later, the electroweak force separates out.
3-4 orders of magnitude later, inflation occurs, ending at 10^-32 seconds
At 10^-12 seconds (20 orders of magnitude after inflation), the quark epoch starts.  Things like protons form about 10^-6 seconds up to about 1 second old. That's a long time after the big bang, more than twice the orders of magnitude that have occurred between the first second and now.
Atoms didn't form until 370,000 years later. It was simply too hot before that.

Do the protons give up their individual particle nature when and if the crunch collapses under the extreme of gravity, and then reform in the cooling and expansion phase?

The cyclic model works something like that, yes. Even gravity is destroyed in the process, so it isn't best described as a gravitational compression.

Does a Big Bang pulverize all matter into wave energy, or does matter survive the crunch bang?

None of the stuff you know survives. Physics as we know it doesn't apply at the singularity, but some of it gets pretty close to it.

Would nuclear fusion occur during a big crunch. If so, fusion energy would certainly make for a Big Bang, wouldn't it?

No. Atomic nuclei are destroyed, not created. The new matter formed would be mostly hydrogen again despite it being a lower entropy state. The cyclic model doesn't explain the violation of thermodynamic law. Entropy, which always increases, cannot during a crunch/bang, so the law must be altered or something.

Energy is conserved in a closed system, so it wouldn't be a violation for the bang to have the same energy as the last one. It doesn't leak away anywhere. Your idea of fusion isn't necessary since the crunch isn't lacking for energy.

One of the big falsifications of the cyclic model is the acceleration of expansion. The universe shows no sign of ever turning around into a crunch. Instead, it will expand ever faster until the sky is completely dark, with all the light sources too far away to ever see again. Any model where the expansion slows and turns around predicts a different recession curve than the one observed.

It is unclear if you are visualizing a cyclic model, or a very naive one of static space with bangs happening occasionally here and there, which just result in spontaneous black holes and no stars at all, nor any CMB. The CMB shows that the bang in fact occurred everywhere, not at some location in space.

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New Theories / Re: If there was one Big Bang event, why not multiple big bangs?

« on: 18/04/2022 20:11:54 »

Many of us recognize the graphic of the birth of the universe, with the pinpoint beginning from a single "primordial atom" (per Georges Lamaitre), that is expanding outward into any imaginable future we want to entertain.

While I've seen may graphics, I can find none that were authored by Lemaitre himself. He certainly didn't posit the universe beginning from a small state. The visible universe perhaps, but that never grew to infinite size in any finite time. So I think you're misrepresenting the general big bang concept.
I don't see how a graphic can depict an infinite thing and a finite thing in the same picture.

The graphic depicting the universe growing from a single primordial atom to an infinite expanding universe doesn't seem to be right to me, but it seems to be the current consensus.

That's a common naive misconception. It is certainly not any kind of consensus. You said you don't want to learn any actual physics, so I can not really help you. Your blog is already 800 posts and still asking the most basic questions.

I prefer an "always existing" universe, where Big Bangs naturally occur; they occur in any patch of space containing enough matter and energy to allow gravity to form a Big Crunch/Bang

Well that's the problem with this model. Any collection of matter/energy (let alone what we see in our visible universe) squeezed into a small existing space like that would constitute a black hole (and a violation of energy conservation), and it would be in a crunched state before it could ever bang. It couldn't happen once, let alone multiple times.  The Milne model works something like that, but only because it is a zero energy solution, so no black holes form.

I think you agree that the universe is infinite. Correct me if not.

I think this question was directed to me, despite lack of mention of me in the post.
The size of the universe is unknown, and also coordinate system dependent and also dependent on the direction the measurement is taken. So for instance, in the approximate inertial frame of Earth, the universe is physically bounded and under 28 BLY across. The visible universe is often quoted as being larger than that, so the often quoted figure doesn't use inertial coordinates for the measurement.

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New Theories / Re: If there was one Big Bang event, why not multiple big bangs?

« on: 17/04/2022 18:16:17 »

We are talking "Bogie Logic" here, lol.

Yea, I noticed.

Go in a straight line into space forever and tell me when you run into the wall, crash wham!!!

First of all, spatially, you can go in a straight line forever and not even reach stuff that you can see in front of you, regardless of speed. That part is known.That's hardly any kind of evidence of the universe being spatially infinite or not.
Secondly, finite space does not imply it has an edge. Space on the surface of Earth is finite, yet there's nowhere where you can go in a straight line and wham into the end of it. So much for "Bogie Logic".

Thirdly, you can draw a straight line in the temporal direction and you will very much 'bang into a wall'. There may or may not be meaningful 'universe' on the other side of that wall, but the wall is very much there, which seems to be how you define a boundary according to your logic.

Just a brief example:
Let's assume that you are a jet eng. designer.
You had been asked to design a jet engine for an airplane.
However, you have no clue about the size and the total requested load of this airplane.
Can you do it successfully?
Don't you agree that a get engine for 100Kg should be different from a jet for 1,000,000,000 Tons?
Maybe for that kind of load a jet engine is not good enough.
So how could it be that we have any sort of theory for a universe without any knowledge about its total size?

Example is inapplicable unless you can name one engineering project (or any empirical observation for that matter) that depends on whether or not the universe has finite spatial extent or not.

[Spoiler:]

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Just Chat! / Re: A Short puzzle with dogs.

« on: 15/04/2022 14:34:32 »

To get this straight, the nasty dog is restricted to the circular path and always moves at 4x your speed in the direction that takes it closer to the point on the circle to which you are nearest.

Seems pretty simple.

Spoiler: show

Run away from the dog. As it picks a direction, you change course and follow a circular path as well. This works fine as long as you're within a quarter of the distance from the center to the edge. So you are capable of keeping the dog at max distance until this point.  Starting at that point, you break for the edge, and angle your path in a 1-4 ratio from the dog's motion, just to buy a little more space.

Is this enough?  Circle of radius 1 and the dog needs to travel 3.14.  I am at 0.25 and need to travel 0.75.  No problem. I don't even need to do the angle bit.

I think a curved path might be optimal and it would seem an interesting problem to determine the max speed that the dog could run before you could not escape the circle. I suspect it's over 5x, but didn't work it out.

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Just Chat! / Re: There's a section with "similar topics" appearing.

« on: 13/04/2022 18:24:36 »

It's been there forever, and it seems to be a simple best-match on what it sees as keywords.

    The Similar topics suggested included:
a)   "Can I Use Washing Up Liquid To Wash Hands And Hand Soap To Wash Plates?"
b)   "How long must a prism-shaped corridor be to render a light-source invisible?"

The first one obviously matched 'plates', but no clue why it thought b) should be on the list.

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Just Chat! / Re: A Short puzzle with dogs.

« on: 12/04/2022 19:23:44 »

The calculus appears pretty complicated, but the picture shows some trivial facts.
First, to answer a prior question, I assume everything is a point, the problem otherwise not really being fully defined.

You've approximately shown nearly half the distance traveled. At the actual point (har!) the distances between them have been halved, the answer is simply twice the distance already traveled.

The remaining distance is a square still, but rotated something like 30 degrees or so. Each time the distance is halved, the square gets rotated by that amount, so the dogs are going to circle each other an infinite number of times before the collision after a total path length.

My attempt: The problem can be broke into tiny pieces, so let's say a dog moves a trivial distance x, almost a straight line. It will curve just a little bit, but for sufficiently small x, a straight line, bringing it exactly x closer to the next dog. This leaves the same initial condition, but rotated and a little closer. Therefore the path length of each dog is exactly 1 by symmetry since each movement of x reduces the distance between them by x.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How does a red-shift affect a black body spectrum?

« on: 05/04/2022 03:49:43 »

I think I agree with Origin's statement about the shape, but is the T2 shape of a stationary object just a shifted version of an object with a different temperature?  If not, then a shifted (as seen by a moving observer) object at T2 would not be the same shape as a stationary object with a 'proper temperature' (if there is such a term) of T2. I don't know my black body radiation enough to say one way or the other.

In the rest frame of the observer, is the radiation they receive from the black body still going to have the right distribution to be consistent with a Black body spectrum but just with a different temperature T2?

As for the statement above, the temp T2 is dependent not just on the frame, but the position of the observer in that frame.  So if the black body is moving at v in the +x direction, the observer (stationary in that frame) might see a red or blue shift depending on his position in that frame.
You know this, but the OP didn't make that clear. Maybe he's off to the side and the thing is going by him without any Doppler shift, at least for a moment, just like an ambulance going by momentarily has an unshifted pitch to its siren.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Can A Cuttlefish Act As A Video display ?

« on: 02/04/2022 16:03:26 »

I think he already is one. Like his squiddity relatives, he can put on a video of his background for camouflage, put on a scary show for what's considering him for lunch, or maybe a sexy vid to get the ladies (like he needs that... already cute enough to want anybody to cuddle a cuttlefish). Only trick left is to pick up the wifi so he can stream netflix or something.

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Just Chat! / Re: What is your main area of interest or expertise?

« on: 31/03/2022 17:25:53 »

I'm going to give the award of the "best answer" in a couple of days.  If you want a chance to win this greatly coveted award then get your replies in soon.

This topic is more of a survey and not a question where there are answers more correct than others, so I'm not sure of the meaning of one of them being the best. Is one person's interest/expertise better than another?

Secondly, I suspect you overestimate the level at which that 'best answer' status is coveted. Saying thanks to all replyers is often more appropriate, and something where the 'score' is kept as well.

Best regards

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Just Chat! / Re: What is your main area of interest or expertise?

« on: 30/03/2022 13:25:25 »

My main interests are identification of irrational biases, things people take for granted without ever really justifying them. I tend to discuss such things elsewhere as this is a science site.

My limited expertise seems to be in relativity, quantum interpretations, and logical reasoning, as such expertise is required in the pursuit of the above, but I'm by no means an actual expert in any of it. My knowledge is weak in electromagnetism, and I avoid answering questions there. I am here mostly to answer questions coming from the rare poster that actually seems interested in learning.

You (ES) have probably already figured out most of that, except probably the bit about the biases.

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Question of the Week / Re: QOTW 22.03.21 Does relativity make rocks on the moon older than Earth rocks?

« on: 27/03/2022 13:32:53 »

If I recall correctly, proximity to the sun is sufficient to put the planets in the right order of time dilation that would apply on their surface from Mercury to Pluto - their own individual mass, radius, rotation and orbit speed makes just a small contribution.

Rotation speed is completely insignificant compared to orbital speed, and even that makes terribly little difference compared to the varying potentials.

Sorted by slowest to fastest clocks on the surface of each planet, the list is:
Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Earth, Saturn, Mars, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto

The standard reference for this data, including many of the moons, is Randall Munroe who yes, did all the mathematics for xkcd

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New Theories / Re: Could the Hubble constant be related to the proton radius?

« on: 19/03/2022 15:53:00 »

Now, if you read the preprint, you will notice that all physical values are referred to as constants, including the proton radius.

Despite its name as 'the Hubble constant', it isn't a constant. For a zero energy solution of the universe, H would be exactly 1/t where t is time. The value has the same units as 1/t.

So, your conclusion about my idea is unjustified.

What conclusion exactly was that? I don't remember making one about your idea.

I looked at the paper a bit.
The first 'constant' is this M_min which lacks a reference. The H value (references given in introduction) is given to far more precision than is justified by the range of values in the references.  Looking at really distant galaxies doesn't count since they're way in the past when the value of H was considerably different.

I'm just saying that you're not justifying the sort of precision that the paper claims.

Origin is right, you're substituting variables of different units into equations, rendering them meaningless. You're using the energy formula for a photon and applying it to something that isn't a photon.

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New Theories / Re: Could the Hubble constant be related to the proton radius?

« on: 18/03/2022 20:15:54 »

The value of M_min corresponds to the Wesson’s mass (m_E ≈ 2 × 10 ⁶⁸ kg), i.e., the quantum of mass calculated by Pr. Wesson [10] in 2003 using the constants c, h and Λ (the cosmological constant).

Yes, it seems Wesson attempted to determine a quanta of mass.

In the last century, Paul Dirac popularized this β ratio in a cosmological context [8] [9]. It still gets attention because of its high value (β ≈ 2.268 66 × 1039). The gravitational force is tiny compared to other forces.

You're giving refereces 8 & 9 which don't correspond to any bibliography.

You are obviously copying directly from the works of others without giving credit. This plagiarism violates site rules.
Please edit your posts with credits properly given.

The decreasing value of the Hubble constant is indeed suggested by the conformal model ΛCDM.

That very model suggests that H will actually settle down to a constant value of around 57 km/sec/mpc, which is straight exponential expansion.

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General Science / Re: evolution

« on: 23/02/2022 12:16:27 »

I can come as beards being a hangover from an indication of testerone etc levels in attracting a mate.

Agree, so long as you remember that the testosterone level is not there to attract a mate, but rather it is the female that is bred to be attracted to the testosterone level.

As food gathering, and rearing young there are numerous spieces where gender cooperate in this.

Yes there are, but you wouldn't know it to read the paragraph I quoted Morgan who says "I don't know of any other species where males obtain food to share with females and young". You name several of the examples that also came immediately to mind to me.

The aquatic ape theory I heard 40 years ago and seems no closer to verification.

Well, the aquatic part is certainly obvious. One has to be blind not to see that. But all the details about hair distribution, social roles, the loss of estrus, etc. remain speculation.

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General Science / Re: evolution

« on: 23/02/2022 04:34:53 »

An alternative hypothesis might be that the beard offered some degree of protection in fights between men. I honestly have no idea how plausible that would be, though.

You might have some agreement out there:

Within the context of the AAT, losing facial hair is advantageous for swimming. One of the little talked about huge holes in traditional PAs non-AAT theories is the belief that males played a major role in procuring food. I don't know of any other species where males obtain food to share with females and young. However, there are many species where females obtain food to share and many others where females choose where to graze or otherwise get food. Clearly, males contributing to food gathering appeared late in our evolution and is related to attracting mates and pair bonding. My point is, females spent more time in the water gathering food and their success was critical to the survival of their young, so the loss of facial hair among females is more valuable to the species. On the other hand, males are much more violent than females. Consider that today the number one cause of death among US African-American males age 15 to 30 is other African American males aged 15 to 30. However, homicide is not a significant cause of death for US African-American females. When males fight the target is usually the face. Having a beard protects the face in two ways. It provides a small amount of direct cushioning and (because hair is somewhat slippery) tends to turn many blows into glancing blows. Many of the cuts that occur when shaven man fight are due to the shear forces created when the adversaries hand briefly sticks to the facial skin while the hand is still advancing. The best example of this today is among rugby players. Rugby is a very violent sport in which the participants do not wear helmets or padding. However, beards are very common among rugby players to cut down on their facial injuries. Again, with females doing most of the food gathering and males even having the option of stealing a portion from the females, the advantage of facial armor outweighs the disadvantage of slightly more drag when swimming.

http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/hair.html where AAT=Aquatic Ape Theory

Still, this might argue for fixed length hair (fur) which has the same advantages. Hair that grows to unchecked lengths (as it does on both human male and female heads) must have more advantage than simple deflection of blows.

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Just Chat! / Re: Is there a maximum frequency for a gamma ray?

« on: 21/02/2022 17:54:12 »

Most assessments I’ve seen on this suggest that the amount of energy needed to probe something at the plank length is around that needed to create a black hole.

   Another good point.

But you seem to be conflating wavelength of a photon with its size. A photon doesn't have a size, and one would presumably not have any trouble measuring this super energetic photon with even the most trivial apparatus.

if the energy of a photon is  E = hf    and  f can go arbitrarily high then UNLESS the photon spreads out in spatial extent with increasing frequency, then surely you do have enough energy density to form a micro black hole.    I  don't know.

I do know at least this much: That same photon is a low energy microwave in another frame. A simple change in choice of abstract frame cannot make a difference in objective reality. No particle lacking in proper mass can form a black hole. A black hole is formed under conditions as defined by the stress energy tensor, and I don't think there can be a normalized tensor for a system consisting of a single massless particle.

Anyway, a black hole has sufficient characteristics to describe a photon

A black hole has (among other properties) proper mass. A photon cannot.

I'm not certain if [ ... ] space is actually discrete and not continuous etc.

My argument had nothing to do with the discreetness of space, but I suppose if it was, Galilean relativity could be falsified. Planck lengths have to do with the limits of measurability (an empirical limit) and not some kind of actual metaphysical limit of reality.

Best Regards