Posted on 11/12/2009 7:51:26 AM PST by LibWhacker
People who think science is dull are wrong. Here are 10 reasons why.
Physics is weird. There is no denying that. Particles that don’t exist except as probabilities; time that changes according to how fast you’re moving; cats that are both alive and dead until you open a box.
We’ve put together a collection of 10 of the strangest facts we can find, with the kind help of cosmologist and writer Marcus Chown, author of We Need To Talk About Kelvin, and an assortment of Twitter users.
The humanities-graduate writer of this piece would like to stress that this is his work, so any glaring factual errors he has included are his own as well. If you spot any, feel free to point them out in the comment box below.
Equally, if you feel we’ve missed any of your favourite physics weirdnesses off the list, do tell us that as well.
If the Sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot
[*Snip*]
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Spooky action ping.
11. GOP leadership in New York would push a pro-abortion, pro-stimulus, pro-ACORN, pro-card-check candidate as one of their own.
Physics is weird, just weird I tell ‘ya...
This is cool stuff. I own just about every book written by Wolf. A few by Talbot. A few by others. Quantum physics is a HUGE hobby of mine. The material world does not exist until particle/waves pop into quarks.
This stuff is so cool.
btt
I think a lot of these “facts” will sound laughable 100 years from now.
Bookmarking
I don't understand it! But I love it.
Kind of like obammer and the syncophants who get "chills up their legs" at the mere metion of the saviour's name.
He doesn't understand why, but he loves it just the same!
I will be long long gone well before 100 years passes.
However, after my body is dead, "I" will know the truth about these statements.
And...if you'll send me at least $1,000 in unmarked bills, I'll come back and whisper the answers in your ear!!
That's because that type of physics was Newt-tonian.
I'll start to read a new book, and "WT....?" I'll have to start all over and read slower. If I still don't get it, I'll read it until I do.
Eventually, there's a "pop" and I get it. Sort of like waves popping into a particles. Presto! The information finally gets downloaded into my brain.
Then I go and buy another physics book to see what else is new. Why do I do it? I have no idea. I just do. I'm addicted.
Omg. That fits perfectly. LOL.
I dont know if I would come back, but I sure would promise I would for all that cash! :)
Okay, so how hot is Saturn?? Isn't Saturn huge? Shouldn't Saturn be hotter than the Earth just based on it's mass lke this example declares??
The stuff about the “cat both alive and dead until you open a box” is complete madness. It is not a fact.
“Events in the future can affect what happened in the past” complete stupidity. Causality does not work backwards.
“Almost all of the Universe is missing” idiocy. None of the universe is missing. What they meant to say is that that our theories account for only a small part of the universe. (therefore the theories are wrong)
“an infinite number of universes existing side-by-side” foolishness. There is only one universe. Not two. Not millions. Not an “infinite” number.
“The fundamental description of the universe does not account for a past, present or future” then the fundamental description of the universe is wrong.
Other than that, it’s right.
In the Schrodinger Cat problem, the cat is very much alive, until it is dead, and the problem comes from confounding quantum mechanical phenomenoa, where the system is in a mixture of well defined "stationary states" and macroscopic phenomena where the system is in a well defined thermodynamic or macroscopic state.
The temperature of the sun, or any star, is determined by its composition, age, and mass, which establishes the rate of fusion generating heat in the core of the star. A star that is mostly hydrogen and helium burns very differently than a star that has a lot of carbon, which burns very differently from a star that is mostly metal (lawnchairs).
The theory of relativity does not do away with past and future. If an event observed by one observer can be communicated via light signals, (timelike separation) to another observer then the order of events between the two can be established. If the separation is "spacelike" ie. they are so far apart that communications in the requisite time period cannot be established, then the relative ordering is arbitrary.
My two favorite quantum physics facts posed by atheists:
1) “dark matter”, so there can be an accordion-like universe that can be explained w/o reference to a Creator, in contravention of the observation that there is not enough matter in the universe to ever make it stop expanding; and
2) rocks that can turn into people.
The wonderful world of the Brothers Grimm...
Most of the “facts” are interpretations that will probably be discarded as more is learned. The claim that the infinite universes hypothesis is the “standard model” is bogus. (God as a bubble machine). The hypothesis is just an effort to save metaphysical naturalism from John Wheeler’s anthropic principle. Paul Davies rejects the bubble machine in favor of an equally unsupported theory of backward causation. There are probably other theories that try to answer Wheeler’s original challenge. All of them are interesting, but none of them ought to be considered as a part of the standard model of physics in the sense that, say, quanum mechanics and general relativity are part of the standard model.
Physics is fascinating.
So if you change the past by observing it AND there are an infinite you’s and infinite them’s accounting for every possible history then you don’t really change the past by observation you are actually only selecting a new history to go by. How about that brain hemorrhage inducing mind trap?
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