1

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is A World where Women Evolved to be both Beautiful and Fit for War Possible?

« on: 14/11/2022 18:57:51 »

The thing to consider is that the standards of "beauty" are subjective.  If we are talking about a world where the females evolved to fight right along men, then what the males of that world generally considered attractive in a female would take that into account and could very likely not coincide with standards of "beauty" in say, the present day US.

That's true. I do wonder though what women like that would look like?

2

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is A World where Women Evolved to be both Beautiful and Fit for War Possible?

« on: 14/11/2022 18:31:02 »

Israel?
And don't forget that being generally smaller, better insulated, mostly having better color discrimination, and consuming less food and oxygen, women are strongly favored as aviators and snipers. Modern warfare isn't about hand-to-hand combat, but the ability to identify a threat and do mental arithmetic, either behind a sandbag in the rain or whilst pulling 4g at 600 mph.

PS my nephew's fighter pilot partner is stunningly beautiful.

I wasn't talking about current-age warfare, I was talking about medieval warfare. Granted, those type of battles were fought with weapons as opposed to fists but that's exactly why I asked this question. I want realistic female knights and soldiers that can actually handle the weight of those kind of weapons (maybe not 200 pound warbows and 8 pound greatswords, but something like a mace, battle axe, war hammer or a pike would satisfy me).

3

Physiology & Medicine / Is A World where Women Evolved to be both Beautiful and Fit for War Possible?

« on: 13/11/2022 11:10:45 »

Warning. The following question, despite being framed as scientific exploration, is primarily for a pseudo-realistic book I'm currently writing that uses very real science supported and backed-up by the words of professionals and certified practitioners of physics, cosmology, biology, etc. Please do not disregard my question's validity SOLEY off of the notion that it is being asked for unconventional reasons.

Ok so, I’m writing a fantasy story at the moment which takes place in a world where there exists a special race of warrior women called Golden Girls (that’s a awful name, I know. Just consider it a placeholder) who evolved into basically near perfect life forms. They’re Strong enough (both physically and mentally) to join men on the battlefield, beautiful enough to attract companions and metabolically fit enough to give birth. They’re also slightly taller in height than the women of our reality and have reactionary, fine-motor, hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness skills on par with men. In simple terms, I basically wanna design a realistic race of women similar to the Mythology Amazons (Zelda’s Gerudo Tribe or Wakanda’s Dora Milaje might be better comparisons. Ignore their blood-red hair and lack of hair though) without invoking magic, biogenetics or similar forms of hand-waving.

This is where the problems start to arise. Not only am I trying to rewrite history and alter evolution itself without relying on the things that could solve the issue near instantly, but I’m also trying to defeat the the exact purpose behind evolution making women less optimised for hunting and fighting than men. Based on the information gathered from scientific Q&A websites, Wikipedia, Quora, Reddit, Biology Stack Exchange and various other online sources, the reason that women are so much more unsuited for the things men are capable of doing is because evolution found that splitting up our species into two sexs (one optimised for fighting, lifting and hunting and another optimised for birthing and nurturing offspring) was the best method of speeding up sexual reproduction. Not only that however, but in order to in order to make a human physically stronger, you have to increase their testosterone levels, which in turn, decreases the things men find conventionally attractive in women (e.g. medium-large-sized breasts, soft skin, minimal muscles, small frames, wide hips, high-pitched voices and a few more I’m probably missing). There are also other factors that contribute to the massive gap in physical strength between the two sexs such as our male ancestors lacking the intelligence to consensually mate with females, thus oppressing them through forced copulation and gender divisions preventing women from doing the same jobs that men do and vice-versa but based on the things I’ve read, the first point seems to be the most important.

Of course, not every species of animal is like this. In fact, in some species like Spiders, Spotted Hyenas and Preying Mantis, certain Birds of Prey and Angler Fish, the females are physically stronger and far more aggressive than the males. Seahorses and Lions are the ones that interest me the most though. Seahorses have borderline no sexual dimorphism at all between each other in regards to size and strength, yet they still have different inner workings that make them unquestionably different from each other and Lions have males that are very visually distinct from females and stronger than them too, yet they choose to use that strength to defend their pride from outsiders. As far as hunting and gathering food is concerned, that duty falls onto the females. This right here is what I’m trying to create using real evolutionary science. A species of human where women are visually distinct from men in regards to appearance, yet are close enough to them in physical and mental strength to justifiable enlist them into an army (a medieval-period-inspired army with swords, shields, bows, spears and bludgeons specifically).

Ok so now that context has been supplied, here are my questions:

Is what I’m trying to create scientifically possible?

If the answer to this question is yes, the next two questions will be:

What changes is history would need to be made in order to make this possible and what things about my fictional society’s culture and the personalities of those a part of said society will be different from how they are in our reality?

If the answer to the first question is no however, the second question now becomes:

Is it possible to maybe create a watered-down version of my described race of female warriors? Like, would removing sexism and gender roles from history potentially make women stronger than they currently are, or is it scientifically and evolutionarily impossible to increase the physical and mental strength of a woman without compromising her ability to safety give birth to children and altering her appearance so much that she no longer looks like a woman?

4

General Science / Re: What is Quantum Tunnelling and how does Quantum Tunnelling work?

« on: 01/02/2022 13:56:56 »

Quote
"Aeris was the only one to say "Energy" but most of us knew that they were talking only about the potential."

No, I was also talking about the potential. I just referenced energy in my reply so I could simplify my response and make sure that I was on the right track. 
       

5

General Science / Re: What is Quantum Tunnelling and how does Quantum Tunnelling work?

« on: 30/01/2022 12:55:01 »

Halc

"Usually an electromagnetic potential greater than the energy of the (typically) electron. Remember that circuits can be modeled with water and pipes and such?  Such a barrier is like the walls of the canal which are higher than the pressure of the water can cross, but nevertheless it gets wet outside the wall. That's tunneling."

So it's kinda like the whole "Heat only moves from hot to cold" thing? The origin point of whatever is about to Quantum Tunnel needs to be in a state of higher energy than the end point? Is this right?

"It's from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The device generated an improbability field which was first used to at parties to simultaneously teleport all the particles of the undergarments of the hostess half a meter to the left, which helped get the party going. It was later pressed into service more practically as a spaceship drive."

Gonna go on a limb here and say that such a device is either straight up impossible in the real world or if it is possible, it will be a lot less impressive than what you're describing. Also, if the device was used in the story to teleport the undergarments of the victim a smidge to the left, would the wearers move as well?

"Terajoules is a paltry 12 zeros of joules. I have no idea. Calculate the probability of the particle moving a distance X, and then the probability of the direction of that distance being exactly Y and at exactly time T. You've already got an awful lot of zeros. Now take the number of particles in your chair and raise it to the power of the big number you got just above."

I'm far to jaded from college homework to do any serious mathematics atm. The point still stands though, right? It's unimaginably unlikely to actually happen in our world, but still not quite impossible.

"If I had a superpower, the limit of the size and consequences of exercising the power would be exactly the amount needed to make the plot interesting. Hence the Enterprise running out of fuel only when the plot demanded it.
As for the egg, yes, that really happened. I was really impressed that the egg could hold that much energy in check."

Yeah, I'll admit, even this hypothetical scenario is just a little bit too unrealistic to take answer seriously, but as someone who love watching, reading and writing hard science-fiction/fantasy stories with physics-abiding magic systems and plausible forms of technology, I am genuinely curious as to how potential dangerous an ability like this would actually be in real-life. Like, could Quantum Tunneling the entirety of Mount Everest create a world-destroying, pressurized blast wave? Could I stand right next to a house undergoing Quantum Tunneling and not worry about accidently killing myself? Again, batsh** insane as all hell, but that's kinda why I love it so much.

"It falls if not sitting on something. If it gained classical potential energy by moving up a few meters, one really has to figure out where that energy came from. I don't know, and if it comes from nowhere, then the scenario is probably more than just insanely improbable."

The improbable in the second sentence implies that not only could something like this actually happen, but that if it did happen, it would in fact be in direct violation of the law of conservation energy and the law of conservation of momentum. At least, that's how I interpreted it. 

"Any process is. If I kick a pile of blocks, there's a chance they all land in a nice neat Parthenon. The kick isn't even necessary. It's all just really improbable. The 2nd law is all about statistics, which can always be locally violated."

The way you describe entropy here makes it seem like the second law of thermodynamics has everything to do with the orderliness of the universe. I always thought it had everything to do with the availability of useful energy in the universe. Or are both of these descriptions ultimately mean more or less the same thing in this regard?

6

General Science / Re: What is Quantum Tunnelling and how does Quantum Tunnelling work?

« on: 29/01/2022 19:57:58 »

Halc

"Nice to see you again. I'm no expert, so forgive my naive and occasionally humorous answers."

Nice to see you again as well. Don't worry about making a little joke or two during your mission to help me. If anything, a little sense of humor helps make learning things easier since it usually shows you really have a passion for what you do.

"The huge distances are improbable, so it is rarely measured when it happens. The short distances happen all the time. All electronics and even your thought processes depend on it."

Wait, is that how radio waves work? I thought it had everything to do with our ability to manipulate the direction of photons from one electronic device to another.

I can't comment much on the bit about thought processes since I don't even know as much about psychology as cosmology, chemistry and physics (hell, I might actually know just a little bit more about Quantum Mechanics than how the brain works and believe me, that is NOT a brag by any means), and I wanna reserve my mind-based questions for the psychology section of this website (or would a question like that fall under Biology?).

"It happens all the time everywhere. Perhaps there is a process in the sun that depends on it, so it gets good press there. But in happens in your pencil as well, which doesn't result in a noticeable difference so nobody writes articles about that."

Aren't pencils made out of billions of molecules and such? If they can undergo Quantum Tunneling, doesn't that mean there's a non-zero chance that they could just someday disappear and reappear right before my very eyes? Yeah, the odds of me winning the lottery 700 times in a row is greater than that happening, but in theory it's possible, right?   

"I don't think it is considered tunneling unless there is some potential barrier that ends up getting crossed. So maybe in the pencil, the same effects are going on (essentially teleporting), but sans barrier, it's just probabilistic brownian motion and not officially considered tunneling. In light of that, it is more likely to take place where such barriers of potential exist to cross. It doesn't seem to go to a place of higher potential, so your chair (below) isn't going to tunnel up onto the table like it does in the poltergeist movie."

Fascinating. I wonder though, what exactly constitutes as a potential barrier in this regard?

"Straight out of Douglas Adams books and his improbability drive. It would look exactly like it was teleported: now it's here, now it's there. The distance is insanely improbable even for a small particle. To have every particle in the chair do it that distance, and all at the exact same time is improbable to more zeroes that I can express."

Haven't read that book so I looked up a gif on Google Images and I gotta say, it looks far flashier than I originally thought it was gonna be.

Just sorta curious. HOW improbable is it that my hypothetical scenario would actually take place. Are we talking like, more zeros than terajoules of energy produced by the Sun in an entire year or something (with like a 1 at the end of it?)?

"If only the chair did it, there would be a pop when air filled the place where the chair used to be. I know, I actually did the experiment once, with an egg. One wonders what happens to the air and dust that was already at the new location for the chair.
As for the egg, I microwaved a boiled and peeled egg, set the plate on the table, went and got some other stuff, sat down, and touched the egg with a fork. It quantum tunneled away with that characteristic pop of the air filling the vacant space. Unfortunately it didn't all go the same direction. I found a good deal of it on the ceiling of the next room, but none at all on my plate."

Interesting. Hey just curious, if you had a superpower that involved causing macroscopic objects to Quantum Tunnel away from the area at will, what would be the largest object you could make disappear and then immediately reappear without worrying about death via void filling air currents? Also, did this story actually happen, cause it honestly sounds hilarious.

"it seems to, yes. The chair moving say a cm to the left seems to violate the conservation of the center of gravity of a system with no force acting on it. This is true of even a single particle, so more is going on than just this simplistic view. Tunneling seems to occur always from a higher potential to a lower one, so there's already an external force of sorts making it want to go that way, held in check only by the barrier. So the chair maybe can teleport to downstairs despite the energy barrier (the floor) being in the way. But it isn't going to just move left a cm."

So... even if a macroscopic object hypothetically did Quantum Tunnel in a way that matches my description, it would never do so in a way that violated gravity or the many established conservation laws. Is that right? Did I say that correctly?

"Not if still stationary up there. You did break conservation of energy by doing that. My chair going downstairs also does. Where did its potential energy go when it did that? At least it didn't create new energy."

Actually, you way you worded this made me realize something kinda strange. An object gains more potential energy the higher up and away from gravity it goes, but who or whatever gets that object up from the ground looses energy in the process, so if a macroscopic object DID Quantum Tunnel above the ground, would it just float there forever until something acts on it again?

"Nope. The entropy of the universe goes up oodles of orders of magnitude faster than tunneling events can undo it."

So... Quantum Tunneling IS theoretically capable of violating the second law of thermodynamics?

"The quantum gearheads have figured it out. It's apparently impossible by normal means since insurmountable barriers (probably put up by the strong force) cannot be classically crossed."

The Strong Force? As in, the Strong Nuclear Force that confines quarks into hadron particles like protons and neutrons and then binds them together to create atomic nuclei? It has the ability to create potential barriers as well? I did not know that.

Thanks so much for answering btw. Really do appreciate it

7

General Science / What is Quantum Tunnelling and how does Quantum Tunnelling work?

« on: 29/01/2022 16:24:19 »

Well how about that? I didn't post anything on this forum for like, 3-4 months, and what was the first thing I did after posting the first new one in months? Take ANOTHER month off! Well thankfully, I have less college work than ever now due to my college's frankly insane way of teaching us so hopefully I'll be just a little bit more active than before. I also got my laptop checked two weeks ago, so hopefully I'll actually be notified about any new answers I may get on my threads.

With the introduction out of the way though, let's begin the thread by talking about Quantum Tunneling. Quantum Tunneling you say? You mean the Quantum mechanical phenomenon in which matter and/or energy pop from one location to another because of a fundamental uncertainty in their position? I mean, that's a somewhat simplified way of putting it, but yes, more or less. I honestly don't know that much about this process and just the description of it alone raises quite a few questions in my head. Specifically...

1. So... according to various online sources, Quantum Tunneling can happen at any random time to any collection of particles across short or even huge distances. But like, if that's really the case, why doesn't happen more frequently in the macroscopic world? Like, Quantum Tunneling apparently happens all the time, hundreds and hundreds of time in the Sun during it's nuclear fusion energy generating process, but what about the Sun is so particularly special that it happens THAT much? Are quantum mechanical effects like Quantum Tunneling more likely to take place in high-energy environments like the Sun's core?
2. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, a macroscopic object like a table or a chair undergoes Quantum Tunneling and essentially teleports from one location to another while I'm still looking at it. What would that look like? would the object just pop right out of and then immediately back into existence in the blink of an eye? Would there be some flashy-looking sparkles or a poof of smoke like in movies and TV shows? Would there be some kind of distortion effect that would hurt my eyes?
3. Is the act of something undergoing Quantum Tunneling considered a Thermodynamic Process? Like, again I've been told that this is something that can happen at any given time to basically any arrangement of particles, but even if we were just dealing with a small number of electrons or protons, doesn't the act of them tunneling from one region of space to another in an instant all on their own kind of break several conservation laws? If a macroscopic object disappeared right in front of my eyes and then repapered 20 feet in the air, wouldn't that break the law of conservation of momentum? Is Quantum Tunneling NOT considered to be a Thermodynamic Process? If so, could it theoretically combat the evilness of entropy and save the Universe from heat death (given enough time of course)?
4. Like I said earlier, Quantum Tunneling apparently takes place all the time in the Sun's core during the conversion of Hydrogen to Helium, but like, HOW do we know this? Did we once send a thermally-insulative drone to the Sun that gathered footage of this happening, or is it like Dark Energy where we actually don't know that much about the specifics of this stuff, but do know that something like Quantum Tunneling needs to exist since without something like it, the Sun couldn't physically produce as much energy as it does?           

8

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What do we know about Dark Energy?

« on: 15/01/2022 10:36:11 »

Hey everyone. It's been awhile since I actually posted anything on this page. y stupid computer didn't actually show me any of the newer posts until like a week after they had appeared and even when I finally saw them, I was too occupied with my college work to get around to properly responding to any of them. I also didn't know enough about Dark Energy to really comment on any of the answers posted so I just wanna take the time to thank everyone for looking over my questions and responding to them and best as they could

9

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What do we know about Dark Energy?

« on: 14/12/2021 10:57:25 »

"Good to see you back Aeris."

Thanks. It's good to be back

"Right. All those things interact with EM. Dark matter doesn't. But that is a description of how dark matter behaves, not a description of what it is."

I thought Black Holes were just regions of Spacetime where Gravity is so strong that neither particles or electromagnetic radiation could escape it. They aren't even technically made of anything remotely tangible, so why would they interact with the electromagnetic force at all (unless you count sucking in electromagnetic radiation via intense gravity as "interacting" with it)?

Also just for the record, I'm not interested in knowing what specifically dark energy is specifically. That's an unrealistic expectation. I was just curious to know if we could say anything at all on what it's most likely not. You're right in saying that dark matter not exhibiting the properties of traditional matter, antimatter or black holes doesn't tell us what dark matter actually is, but unless dark matter is in direct violation of the law of non-contradiction, it does tell us that dark matter isn't any of those things. I was curious if we could apply the same process to dark energy. 
 
"A scalar field (quintessence) and the Aether comment seem quite relatived since both are a function of an absolute time of sorts, and the behavior of dark energy does seem to suggest an absolute ordering of most events in the universe, even if that ordering doesn't correspond to any inertial frame."

What does this even mean? "A function of an absolute time of sorts", that doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

"Careful about calling it a force, a word typically used to denote a vector change in momentum of an object, and to say a typical reasonably stationary (relative to above mentioned absolute coordinate system) object like a galaxy, dark energy isn't accelerating it in any particular direction, and thus there is no 'force' acting on it, at least not in the usual way. Ditto with the reduction of expansion during times of higher energy density. That also didn't accelerate objects in any particular direction."

Makes sense. I just chose the word force since it honestly seems the most fitting term to assign to something like dark energy. Keep in mind of course, I wasn't referring to force in the Newtonian sense.

"The universe is by definition a closed system, so nothing is acting on it from outside, or exiting."

Yeah, that's my bad. I should've been less vague in my description. Let me elaborate a bit more on what I was actually asking

When you typed out your response to my questions yesterday evening, a chemical reaction in your body took place in which energy was spent thinking of multiple responses to my questions and then using your fingers to type them out on the keyboard. This right here is a thermodynamic process, energy was spent preforming work on the area around you and some of it was wasted as heat and/or noise. My question was is the expansion of the universe a thermodynamic process comparable to that of freezing water or igniting a fire?

Also, this is unrelated to my response, but if the universe really is a closed system, what about all the redshifted light that's disappeared in seemingly nothingness due to the expansion of the universe? What about all those trillions and trillions virtual particles popping in and out of existence every second?

"Dark energy not coming from outside doesn’t mean it doesn’t act. It’s a measurable thing.
There are other models, none which fit the evidence as well, but yes, there are models that do not posit dark energy, so in that sense it might not exist."

If you don't mind me asking, how do we measure something that we can't visibly see with our eyes or detect with our technology? Do we measure it based on it's effects on the universe like dark matter?

"Is it? The ratio of DE/DM/matter changes over time?  That’s not impossible, and there’s not even the usual energy conservation law for the above mentioned cosmological coordinate system. It only works for static coordinate systems where space is constant over time."

are you referring to Noether's theorem by any chance? What's so special about dark energy that it's capable of blowing off time translation symmetry and thus the law of conservation of energy?

10

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What do we know about Dark Energy?

« on: 13/12/2021 16:47:29 »

Man, it sure has been awhile since I last asked a question on this website. I suppose I should make some overdramatic speech about how it's great to be back here discussing science-related subjects with everyone here shouldn't I?

"Whispers" Huh? What's that you're saying? "Whispers" Real-life is nothing at all like fiction and absolutely no one here is shocked to see me again, nor are they expecting a reintroduction speech from me?

Well alrighty then, let's just get right into it! Today, I wanna learn more about Dark Energy. Hopefully we know just enough about the stuff that not every single one of my questions will be answered with some variation of "We don't know.", or "We theorize that...".

1. So... no one right now currently knows what Dark Energy actually is, but can we say anything at all about what it's probably not? Like, we don't know what Dark Matter is either, but we do know based on simple observations that it isn't traditional matter, antimatter or made up of Black Holes (I'll post a video at the bottom of the page detailing why this is the case). Can we say for example something like "Dark Energy isn't pure energy or a localized Quantum Field because the idea of a form of energy that exists separately from matter or a spatial field that doesn't exist everywhere at once is beyond ludicrous."? Can we drop any ideas about Dark Energy being even slightly related to that of the supposed Aether and Quintessence? Could Dark Energy quite literally be anything?
2. As you most likely already know by now, Dark Energy is the technical name assigned to the mysterious force that's driving the expansion of the Universe, but is that expansion a Thermodynamic process in the sense that energy is entering a system to preform work on it and then exiting that system as a lower form of energy (usually heat and/or sound)? Has anyone ever considered the possibility that Dark Energy may not exist at all and that the space can just expand without any outside force acting on it?
3. Would someone please be so kind as to explain to me why Dark Energy isn't considered to be a violation of the first Law of Thermodynamics, despite the fact that the amount of it is increasing and casing the expansion of the universe to accelerate?

Huh, not as many questions as I originally thought. It's surprisingly difficult to think of and write questions about something that not even professionals know everything about. This may or may not be revisited in the future...

Here's the video I was talking about in relation to my first question. For context, head to 1:33 to hear more about the statement I made in said question
 

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas everyone  

11

General Science / Re: Matter is Apparently Made of Fields, But How the Heck does that Work?!

« on: 15/11/2021 18:50:56 »

We did reply to this in your other thread. What he is saying is misleading.
Unfortunatly unless you are prepared to put some serious time into understanding what a field is, you are likely to end up very confused.
Did you know there is a field theory of knots?

Fields are descriptions of what we observe. For example, we could describe the temperature in a room as a 3D field (a scalar field)with a specific temperature at each point. We might see a 'hot spot' on one side of the room and could call it a radiator or an excitation of the temperature field. In a similar way a tornado is an excitation of the wind field (a vector field having magnitude and direction).
The benefit of describing things by means of fields is that there are some very useful maths for handling vectors that allow us to describe and predict the behaviour of particles described in this way.

To be honest this really shouldn't shake anything in your perceptions. If you know anything about physics it is that there are many ways of describing the physical world, mass, charge, as wave behaviour, atoms, molecules etc. Field description just adds to the toolkit.

Soooo... fields, as I've described them in my question don't actually exist and are just an easy way to describe how something in the physical world works and behaves?

12

General Science / Matter is Apparently Made of Fields, But How the Heck does that Work?!

« on: 15/11/2021 17:51:08 »

Ok so, around two-ish months ago, I was told by a Cosmologist that what we perceive as matter doesn't actually exist and that the alleged particles that we think it's comprised of are actually "Excitations of fields intrinsic to the universe." At first, I didn't think much of what he said to me. I'd heard far crazier things in science before and considering that the four fundamental forces of the universe already manifest as "fields", it wasn't that hard for me to imagine matter doing the same.

At least, that's how I USED to feel... I've given it some more thought and I'm left with only this to say.

What. The. Actual. HELL?!

Seriously, what in the fabrication of an afterlife that is hell does this actually mean, and more importantly, how does this actually work? Like, particles are just field excitations right? What the heck is exciting them? Where are these fields even located anyway? Are they these physical/metaphysical regions of space that we can travel to? Did these fields always exist, or were they put together by someone/something? Are there fields for antiparticles as well as regular particles? Is there one Electron field for every single Electron in the entire universe, or is every single Electron in the universe a part of a single field? How does particle decay tie into all of this? Does Dark Matter get its own field as well? What about Atoms and Molecules? Where do they fit in all of this? Seriously, I cannot stress how much this single statement destroyed everything I thought I previously knew about matter and the sub-atomic world.       

13

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: The Physics of Neutron Stars

« on: 11/11/2021 19:39:23 »

"Gravity holds them together. They're stable because there's nothing else they can be. It would require energy to say decay them into a proton/electron since there's no room for that pair. So it's stable."

"It's not just a solid ball of neutrons. The inner crust is made of essentially superfluid neutrons. The outer crust has ions and electrons. The outer core has protons of all things, implying a massive charge imbalance between the inside and outside.  See wiki page showing pictures of the how the more current models lay it out."

Oh. So... it's NOT made only out of Neutrons? That's... honestly really lame, ngl.

"Of course they interact with the various forces. Something needs to keep it from collapsing, which is mostly the strong force. Dark matter doesn't interact with the strong force, and would pass right through a neutron star and out the other side. Light does not do this, so a neutron star doesn't behave at all like dark matter. They emit/reflect light just fine, so you can see them."

Does Dark Matter even react with ANY of the four forces?

"This goes on all the time in our sun, creating neutrons at the rate of tons per second, and no violation occurs. It does involve creation of a neutrino which probably exits the star. See proton-proton reaction."

I've been led to believe that all of the Sun's energy came from the nuclear fusion processes happening in its core where Hydrogen atoms are fused together into Helium. Not too long ago I was told that the Sun also produced Antimatter. Now I'm just learning that they also produces neutrons AND neutrinos?! Is there anything ELSE that the Sun does that I don't know about?

"That eliminates pretty much all of what it would be like. It's just a hard rock with all that taken away, despite it being liquid on the surface."

I didn't mean ignore as in get rid of. I meant ignore as in you, the person touching it, weren't affected by the things whatsoever (basically Superman). Yeah, that's not realistic in the slightest, but I'm sure you can imagine such a scenario so long as it helped make the question easier to answer.

"Would think not at all. It isn't stable without the pressure, and there's no EM way to generate that sort of pressure."

Engineer was the wrong word. I meant extracting pieces of a Neutron Star with a giant megastructure of sorts and then building materials and objects from that. Would that be slightly more plausible?

14

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: The Physics of Neutron Stars

« on: 11/11/2021 17:44:12 »

"Neutron stars are mostly neutrons, but not entirely. There are still some protons and electrons left in there, mostly near the surface where there is less pressure."

So... there are Protons and Electrons surrounding the star, but the actual star itself is still made up of mostly Neutrons?

"Conservation laws aren't violated when protons combine with electrons to create neutrons because a neutrino is also created in the process."

I just looked up what kind of particles Neutrons and Neutrinos are and funnily enough they're considered Baryons and Leptons respectively. I never knew that.

15

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / The Physics of Neutron Stars

« on: 11/11/2021 17:26:11 »

Neutron Stars may very well be the single coolest things I've ever heard of in the expansive world of Cosmology. I mean, an unfathomably dense celestial body birthed from the death of a supermassive star made entirely out of electrically-neutral particles? How cool sounding is that?! Neutron Stars are awesome!

With that in mind however...

They're also some of the most confusing and brain-scratching things I've ever heard of in the Universe (and trust me, I've heard of A LOT of things), and since this is a website made entirely for the sole purpose of educating people about strange things they don't fully understand, I was hoping to finally cure my confusion about these spherical little buggers.

Question 1. Are Neutron Stars really made up of ONLY Neutrons and absolutely nothing else whatsoever, or is this a scientific misconception?
Question 2. Assuming Neutron Stars really are made up of only Neutrons, what exactly holds them together and keeps them stable? I mean, it can't be the Electromagnetic force if it's made up of only Neutrons, right?
Question 3. The reason why we're not able to see Dark Matter with our eyes or our various forms of technology is because it doesn't interact with the Electromagnetic force and therefore doesn't emit, reflect or even absorb light. If Neutron Stars had a similar thing going on, it would be logical to assume that they too don't interact with light in any way shape or form and would therefore be invisible as well. Despite this however, we can quite clearly see Neutron Stars with our eyes, and in color no less. How is this possible?
Question 4. What would a Neutron Star feel like to touch? Obviously we would have to ignore the existence of the insane thermal radiation, blinding light, super strong gravitational field and super strong magnetic field, but would the star itself feel like normal, gaseous plasma stars, or something else entirely? If it really is made up of only Neutrons, would you just fall right through it due to the lack of the Electromagnetic force simulating the sensation of touch (this is after all, the force that allows things to touch each other in the first place).
Questions 5. How feasible on a scale of 1 to 10 would it be to engineer everyday objects and materials out of the same stuff Neutron Stars are made of? Would use could these things possibly have if we could feasibly make them?
Question 6. If a Strangelet came into contact with some ordinary matter and converted it into strange matter, would it be impossible to convert it back into what it once was? Where do Strangelets even get the energy needed to do this anyway?
Question 7. Are Strangelets the best candidates for the true identity of the illusive Dark Matter?       

16

General Science / Re: Even More Questions that Antimatter to Me

« on: 06/11/2021 20:21:53 »

Eternal Student

"Around the time of the big bang we expect the temperature, pressure and energy density to be extraordinarily high.  Physicist's often lump all of these descriptions and properties together and just say they are high energy conditions.  There may be other conditions like the inflaton field having only just switched off and/or the Higgs field having only just switched on (i.e. fields that we don't seem to be able to influence at the moment).
    There doesn't seem to be the technology available to recreate and also safely contain these extremes conditions and there are some theoretical limits anyway:  Since energy density and pressure are both sources of gravitation we could easily create a black hole by accident  (which would obviously tend to conceal what had actually happened during the experiment).   We are talking about establishing conditions that are within a hairs breadth of causing a singularity.   After all, baryogenesis and leptogenesis were thought to have occurred only a few moments after a singularity.
    At these sorts of energies it's thought that most of physics would be quite different.   Most of the theories we have are thought to be only low-energy approximations to the underlying principles."

Sooooo... the asymmetry that allowed regular matter to triumph over antimatter was brought about by the early universe being in a state of insanely high energy? It's that simple? Also theoretically speaking, if we COULD find a way to replicate this process, how much matter could we create before we unintentionally spawn a black hole? 

"That's not necessary.   The electromagnetic field exists and permeates all of space,  independently of whether there is matter there or not.   For example, an electric field exists even across a vaccum and any charged particle you had on the one side of that vaccum would still feel a force from a source on the other side of that vaccum.   EM radiation can certainly exist in and travel through a vaccum (infact it only has the speed c when it is doing this).
  (Technically the electromagnetic field is terminology associated with a classical field theory of electromagnetism and at these sorts of energies and relativistic conditions we should probably be using a quantised version but the principle would be the same.  Matter is not required)."

Ah, I see. So even if we found a way to magically remove the virtual particles popping in and out of existence all of the time, we would still have underlying, universal fields in space representing each of the four fundamental forces that hold all of existence together, thus preventing it from ever being truly empty. That also means that photons (and all forms of electromagnetic radiation) can exist independently of matter. Sweet!   

"Great.  You're going to be helping me out in a few years and probably not just with some physics."

Considering that you are the one researching, simplifying and explaining this stuff to me, it seems highly unlikely that, if I ever did take up a career in the world of science and physics, you'd be one of the people I'd teach. But still, thank you for the kind remark

Sorry for the late reply btw. Twas my Dad's birthday today.

17

General Science / Re: Even More Questions that Antimatter to Me

« on: 05/11/2021 15:56:48 »

Eternal Student

"For a system the Baryon number, B, is a quantum number defined by
B =
    Where n₁ = the number of quarks in the system    and  n₂ = the number of anti-quarks in the system.

Similarly Lepton number is   L = N₁  -  N₂   where  N₁   and  N₂ are the numbers of Leptons and anti-Leptons  respectively.

    Along with  statements like this:
In particle physics, lepton number (historically also called lepton charge)[1] is a conserved quantum number representing the difference between the number of leptons and the number of antileptons in an elementary particle reaction.[2] Lepton number is an additive quantum number, so its sum is preserved in interactions     - Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepton_number.

Examples include radioactive decay by  Beta^-  emission.
   n    →     p+  +  e^-   + 

Initially (on the left hand side) we had a neutron,      B = 1  and no leptons   L =0.
After the interaction we have a proton   B =1   and an electron (L=+1) but also an  electron anti-neutrino  (L = -1)  giving a total  L = 1 - 1 = 0  = exactly the same as we started with.
   Yes.  See above.   Technically, the conservation of lepton and baryon number only implies that whatever these numbers were to start with, they never change after any interaction.   So  they would be exactly 0 all the time    if and only if   they were 0 initially.   However if there were some leptons and baryons around just after the big bang then that is the total number that will be conserved from then on.    (We think that there was only radiation around just after the big bang and leptogensis and baryogensis happened shortly afterwards)."

Ah, I get it now. The numbers have been set in stone and they (to our knowledge at least) cannot change.   

"Conservation of these quantum numbers helps to explain why we don't observe some interactions. 

Lepton number was introduced in 1953 to explain the absence of reactions such as
    ν    + n   →    p  +    e−   - Taken from Wiki.

   However, I'm not sure that it actually arises as a necessary condition from some piece of mathematics that describes the quantum mechanics.  It just seems to be an assumption in the standard model of physics and it is is empirically or experimentally supported (but I don't know for certain).
   Certainly there are some theories that suggest Lepton number and Baryon number do not need to be conserved.
   See:    "Violations of Lepton number conservation laws"   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepton_number#Violations_of_the_lepton_number_conservation_laws   
  and also,    "Physics beyond the standard model"      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Model

Will something terrible happen to our universe if they aren't conserved?  Well, the universe will presumably carry on doing what it's been doing regardless of whether we understand it or not.   We (human beings) will drop the assumption that Lepton number and Baryon number is necessarily conserved but I don't think it will shake the usefullness of the standard model of particle physics too much.  Under typical situations the standard model does seem to be a useful approximation or model even if there are some unusual situations (perhaps in the time close to the big bang) where it's not so good.
    As people have already mentioned, we do believe that there is more matter in our observable universe than anti-matter and so we are all expecting that there is at least some mechanism whereby lepton and baryon numbers are not conserved."

Yeah, I'll be honest, the way I worded that question made it sound like I was horrified at the prospect of the universe destroying itself through the violation of a fundamental law (or something pseudoscientific like that). I was primarily interested in knowing though since A) It's quite common for a single scientific discovery to overthrow and revamp entire models, and B) According to this https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-the-law-of-conservation-of-charge-were-violated some conservation laws could cause VERY noticeable changes in our universe if they were ever violated and I was curious to know of the implications of a violation of baryon and lepton number. Actually, almost all of my questions stem from a place of curiosity, although I don't blame you for assuming I was interested in science-fiction (which admittedly I am, but that's not why I'm asking these questions).     

"Many physicists do expect that there is (or was) such a process, or alternatively some process whereby anti-matter decays (presumably back into photons) faster or more preferentially than ordinary matter would undergo the same process.   It may have required conditions that were only around just after the big bang, so it may not be repeatable now."

It's highly possible you'll respond to this with a "We don't know", but... do you think you could tell me what exactly those conditions were by any chance? Could you at least tell me what we think those conditions were?

Also this isn't relevant to your recent posts, but it is something that just crossed my mind earlier today that I didn't realize two days ago when you brought up particle synthesis. You said that "two energetic photons can combine under the right circumstances and create a fundamental particle of matter like a quark or a lepton.". You also said that such a process happened moments after the Big Bang. If matter didn't exist yet at this point in time, that means that electromagnetic fields didn't exist either. Photons are vibrations of electromagnetic fields, so how can photons exist moments after the big bang if electromagnetic fields did not?

Also not relevant to your recent posts, I'm having a fun time talking about this stuff with you guys you're really helping me out.   

18

General Science / Re: Even More Questions that Antimatter to Me

« on: 04/11/2021 20:14:55 »

Eternal Student

"1.   We can make positrons and electrons from gamma rays.  Just fire them toward some dense nuclei (like a lump of gold).   It's random but you get a fair chance for particle and anti-particle pair production if the nuclei have a high atomic number (like Gold) and also the gamma rays are of a frequency corresponding to an energy significantly above 1.022 MeV."

"2.   There are also some reports where particle and anti-particle pairs have been created just by the collision of two photons  (i.e. without the need for a dense nucleus in the vicinity).   (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_creation  but note that there are few credible sources and references on that article and I haven't read any of those myself).  It seems that this should happen and it is what we think must have happened in the early universe (since there wouldn't have been any dense nuclei around to get involved with matter creation until after there were already some nuclei)."

"3.   It is possible to create all fundamental particles in the standard model, including quarks, leptons and bosons using photons of varying energies above some minimum threshold, whether directly (by pair production), or by decay of the intermediate particle (such as a W− boson decaying to form an electron and an electron-antineutrino).  - quote from Wiki.   This is mainly a statement of theoretical possibility and I'm quite certain that we have NOT actually seen a great many heavy particles being created from photons in any experiments:   In no small part this is because the energies of the photons required are huge.  To create baryons like a proton and an anti-proton we should require photons in the hard gamma ray range,  > 1.88 GeV,  or  3 orders of magnitude higher than the experiments we have done to create electrons and positirons." 
    - - - - - -

"It should be noted that in all of these particle synthesis reactions, we do seem to create everything in matter and anti-matter pairs.  This, along with the general theory suggests that quantities like "lepton number" and "baryon number" must be conserved."

Ok neat, so this process is possible, but now I have 2 more questions I need you to take me through.

1. We can already create pairs of particles using this process, but can we potentially go a little further and create full-on atoms and molecules? Maybe some hydrogen gas or some water or something?
2. What are you referring to when you say when you say general theory?
3. When you say lepton number and baryon number must be conserved, what exactly do you mean by that. Are our current models of the universe dependent on those qualities being conserved, or will something terrible happen to the universe if they aren't conserved? Also, how are these numbers conserved? Is it like conservation of charge where the net amount of leptons and baryons in the entire universe is zero? Considering there's practically no antimatter in the entire universe, that seems quite unlikely to be the case, so what exactly is wrong with the idea of a process that results in the formation of only regular matter and no antimatter?   

19

General Science / Re: Even More Questions that Antimatter to Me

« on: 03/11/2021 16:07:51 »

Eternal Student

Hi again. I'm so sorry I haven't been as active as I was last week. I've just returned to college and I've already been showered in homework. I don't have enough time to go through every else everyone has said since my last comment on this topic, so I'm just gonna respond to this one in particular since it's the one that interests me the most.

"We can put some photons into a box, we can have mirrors on the walls of box to keep the photons bouncing around inside.  We can put quite a lot of photons into the box if we want.  None the less, when we open the box and have a look inside there is usually just some photons in the box and not some particles of matter that have formed.  Energy density at some place does not force the formation of matter particles and vice versa  (particles of matter are under no obligation to change into some other form of energy).   E=mc² is just a relationship between two quantities (mass and energy) and not a prescription for actually creating new matter particles."

"There are very few ways of creating new matter particles that we know about.  We believe that there was some particle synthesis shortly after the big bang.   Specifically, that two energetic photons can combine under the right circumstances and create a fundamental particle of matter like a quark or a lepton.   Additionally we believe that the weak nuclear interaction is capable of changing one type of fundamental particle into another.   That's it, that's the only two ways I know of to bring about a new fundamental particle type in a place where there wasn't one before.
    (Well, I suppose there's a third option.... we can distort spacetime sufficiently and see how this might affect the permitted solutions of quantum field theory in the vicinity.  This is the kind of thing that happens with Hawking radiation, where particles do appear just outside the event horizon as far as an observer outside of the black hole would be concerned.  I'm just going to ignore this and I'm hardly competent to talk about it anyway)."

I actually didn't know that's what E = MC² actually meant. I always thought it quite literally meant that energy could be turned into matter (AKA electrons, protons and neutrons). It does raise some interesting questions though. Namely A) When a nuclear bomb or the sun converts matter to energy, is it actually just converting the mass of its matter into energy or are particles like electrons and protons decaying? B) If it turns out that particles like electrons and protons DON'T decay and last forever, does that mean that matter itself is eternal and has always existed? and C) Is there any evidence for particle synthesis and is it a process that we could theoretically recreate on Earth (be it now or in the distant future)?

"Now, let's have a careful look at your (Aeris) original question.    "(...suppose...) I created a wooden, regular matter chair from a huge amount of energy without creating any antimatter whatsoever".    The good news is that this is quite conceivable and doesn't violate any laws of science at all.  Just remember that "energy" isn't any kind of substance anyway.   So your supply of energy could have been some matter that you found lying about the place (matter has energy or some people might say matter is a form of energy).   Given some hand tools, it's possible to create a wooden chair from some wood and you don't usually create any anti-matter while you're doing this.   Even if you didn't have any actual wood but just some other matter available, we can imagine being able to convert the matter you have into some carbon-based wood matter using the weak interaction.
    This is probably not what you (Aeris) meant at all.  When you stated that you were creating a wooden chair from energy you probably had in mind some supply of photons that you were going to use.  Well, that's where it gets a bit tricky.  The synthesis of quarks and leptons (fundamental particles of matter) from photons does seem to involve the creation of  particle and anti-particle pairs.   I think Halc already mentioned that you could just throw all the anti-matter away if you wanted (for example fire it into a black hole).  It's technically still there and would persist on the event horizon for eternity as far as an observer outside the black hole is concerned - but it's not going to get much opportunity to interact with anything."

Since particle synthesis is the closest of those three methods you said to what you assumed I was describing in my question (which you were absolutely right about btw well done), that's the method I will choose to explain this question more thoroughly. Obviously a machine with the ability to do what the Big Bang did, even on a much smaller scale, would most likely be huge in size and require a level of energy akin to... well I actually don't know but I have no doubt in my mind it's probably an insane amount, so to make this slightly easier to answer, let's just pretend for a moment we're dealing with technology belonging to a type 2 or 3 civilization. I was mainly interested interested in knowing about what physical, universal laws would prevent a theoretical process like this from working. A perpetual motion machine of the first kind wouldn't work due to the first law of thermodynamics, and a perpetual motion machine of the second kind wouldn't work due to the second and third law of thermodynamics. Something like generating a wormhole however, is theoretically possible on paper (not everyone agrees with this statement, but many of them do), even though we currently don't know how to do it, so would a process involving the creation of matter from energetic particles like photons without the simultaneous creation of antimatter be impossible, or possible in theory? At least two people have brought up the fact that conversation of charge is safe due to the creation of electrically-neutral molecules, but evan_au brought up the fact that I violated conversation of lepton and baryon number, which left me confused since, like, aren't those number already uneven due to the universe having more matter than antimatter in it? If this really is impossible, how about a way to turn antimatter into regular matter? Would that also be impossible?

20

General Science / Re: Even More Questions that Antimatter to Me

« on: 30/10/2021 13:25:38 »

Eternal Student

"Well, it does seem to be.    However, you shouldn't just believe everything I've said.  The earlier post pulls a collection of different articles and ideas together.   It's an attempt to answer a direct question   "Why does matter annihilate with anti-matter?"   using what information is available.  You should check the sources of information yourself, make your own decisions and carefully note where any caveats or direct menton of a lack of evidence has been mentioned.  For example, I mentioned that although there should be an anti-particle for every fundamental particle in the standard model of physics, we haven't observed all of these and the idea does remain theoretical."
   
"As Alancalverd indicated, many people don't ask why and indeed there aren't any articles I can find that attempt to explain why.  So what you've got is a collection of things we do know about related situations and these have been stitched together to try and answer your question in what is hopefully a logical and consistent way.   It's the best I can offer:  There just aren't any definitive articles or texts written to explain WHY it happens (well, not that I could find) although there are many theories in which it CAN happen.   Presumably you haven't found it yourself with Google and/or you found quite a lot of conflicting information."

Trust me, I have spent hours researching this stuff online and I would not be here asking this question if I didn't already find a satisfying answer anywhere else. My question's unbelievably specific as it is, so the fact that you were even able to give me a solid-enough answer is really quite impressive. No, I shouldn't just believe every word you say, but I honestly have very little reason to NOT believe a lot of what you so considering just how much more reliable you guys have been than other science forums I've visited in the past.

Halc

"But you still got it wrong, and I edited your post, putting my name on the words that were mine.
A good deal of the problem is that Aeris doesn't seem to be using the quote feature and is just putting other people's works in quotation marks which doesn't identify whose words they are."

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm only responding to answers the way I am because A) I'm responding to multiple people at once and this is quicker than creating 2-4 separate posts, and B) I admittedly don't know how to use the Quote option that well.

"My only comment to Aeris that that matter and antimatter are not inherently more attracted to each other. A hydrogen atom and an antihydrogen atom might have immeasurably small gravitational attraction between them, but that's it, same as two regular hydrogen atoms."

Interesting. Thanks for the info.