Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thedoc on 27/07/2016 12:53:01
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Garth Greiner asked the Naked Scientists:
Baring in mind the comparability issues between quantum physics and general relativity, quantum physics being the study of the very tiny things like neo atomic particles etc and general relativity being the study of all the gigantic things like stars and solar systems would it not be an idea to view these two studies as an attempt to understanding two different systems that are active systems in the universe that work together to play a part in functionality ?. In my opinion the universe is a live infrastructure of systems that all intricately work together in the goal to create intelligent life the studies of quantum physics and general relativity are about understanding two systems that are active within this universe.
What do you think?
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Baring in mind the comparability issues between quantum physics and general relativity, quantum physics being the study of the very tiny things like neo atomic particles etc and general relativity being the study of all the gigantic things like stars and solar systems ...
That's not what general relativity (GR) is for. GR is the relativistic theory for general manifolds and coordinate systems meaning that its a relativistic theory for both flat and curved spacetime in both inertial and non-inertial frames of reference, the later of which is equivalent to gravitational fields. Its simply that at this point in time the only applications in which its widely used is in astrophysics and cosmology. However that doesn't mean that's what its defined for by any means whatsoever.
...would it not be an idea to view these two studies as an attempt to understanding two different systems that are active systems in the universe that work together to play a part in functionality ?.
I'm not sure what you're asking here but the goal of physicists nowadays is to find a quantum theory of gravity. Such a theory would fuse general relativity and quantum mechanics into one theory just as electricity and magnetism was fused into one theory by Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetism and relativity fused the electric field and magnetic field into an electromagnetic field, meaning that the electric/magnet field in one frame is a magnetic/electric field in another. However that doesn't mean that the electric and magnetic fields don't exist independently. There's such a thing called an electric field 4-vector and a magnetic field 4-vector.
In my opinion the universe is a live infrastructure of systems that all intricately work together in the goal to create intelligent life the studies of quantum physics and general relativity are about understanding two systems that are active within this universe.
A "goal" implies an intelligence. There is no intelligence in any theory in physics nor can there be. It would be non-falsifiable and thus wouldn't properly belong to any scientific theory. You're thinking of religion, not physics.
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Nothing to do with different active systems, and no evidence that intelligent life (whatever that may be) is an objective rather than an occasional excresence of the universe.
QM and GR are human attempts to describe and predict what actually happens. It would be intellectually satisfying if we had a unified model that predicted everything but I can't see any cosmic significance in the fact that we haven't, nor would there be any cosmic significance if we had.
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GR and Quantum physics are two ways to describe the same things. The first comes from human and astronomical scale observations (macroscopic scale). Quantum physics comes from microscopic scale observations.
They seem irreconcilable because they are based on two totally different interpretations of nature. The problem of unification is probably more a question of interpretation than anything else.
GR interpretation of nature is more realistic, with determinism in mind, but extremely relativistic, made of unquantified elements and with nothing moving faster than light.
Quantum mechanics general and main interpretation says that nature is nondeterministic (probabilities are intrinsic but still quantified somehow), all elements have quantized properties and there are some clear connections between these elements that are faster than light.
(in fact there are many interpretations of Quantum mechanics)
Today, the standard interpretation is far on the quantum side, indeterminism reign over the mind of most physicists. How is it possible to 'determine' the laws of physics with such a foolish paradigm? :)
Belief in indeterminism causes a vision loss and it is a deterministic causal effect...
How about singularities? Does the universe need a beginning? Chasing chimeras? :o)
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Trump as a leader; is it a sign that something is deeply wrong? Chasing chimeras who are chasing chimeras?
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Identification of chimeras is a prerequisit.
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Trump as a leader; is it a sign that something is deeply wrong?
On the contrary, it is the victory of democracy. With very few exceptions, recent US presidents have been crooks or idiots. This time, the electorate has a choice.
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That's were I started to wonder about scaling, as something having a importance in itself.
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it would be intellectually satisfying if we had a unified model that predicted everything but I can't see any cosmic significance in the fact that we haven't, nor would there be any cosmic significance if we had
In our Solar System, the effects of General Relativity are pretty subtle - it took centuries of observations to spot the deviations of Mercury's orbit from Newton's predictions (deviations due to the mass of the Sun).
- And then another century to develop atomic clocks so we can spot deviations due to the mass of the Earth.
- Relativistic effects get more subtle as things get smaller
- With present technology, we could probably detect Relativity effects due to something as small as the Moon.
The last century has also seen development of Quantum Theory, mostly applied to objects smaller than an atom
- it has been spotted in objects as large as a molecule of C60.
- Quantum effects become more subtle as things get larger.
- With present technology, we can detect Quantum effects in something as big as a Chlorophyll protein.
This basically confirms the big/small dichotomy in the Original Post... and shows why the lack of a unified theory isn't such a big deal within our Solar System.
To find a Cosmic benefit for a Unified Theory, we must find a case where both Relativity and Quantum theory apply to the same object and affect the behavior.
- I think one case is with Black Holes
- not the merging of two black holes, which can be explained with General Relativity
- But the emission of subatomic particles from within a nanometer of the event horizon of a Black Hole - the topic addressed in Hawking Radiation.
- This effect could affect the long-term future of the universe (really long-term, like a googol years).
Fortunately for us, we haven't seen any black holes approaching in our direction. But if someone does one day manage to travel to a "black hole on a diet", testing the theory behind Hawking Radiation would be a valuable experiment to try.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation