Rock-it science: Queen star conquering the universe (Brian May coauthors physics book)

AFP via Yahoo! ^ | Mon Oct 23, 1:22 PM ET | Robin Millard

[mylife]

I was wondering about the mathematical proof of that hair ;-)

[catfish1957]

A member of Queen writes a book called Bang? I figured it alluded to the treatment of groupies in the '70's.

[Rebel_Ace]

This is not surprising to me. I had read back in the late 70's that May had a degree in physics.

In fact, on the album A Night At The Opera there is a track he wrote called '39, which is a folk song about time dilation during extended space travel. Listen to the lyrics carefully, there is no question that the song tells the tale of space travellers returning to meet their great grandchildren, and to mourn the loss of everyone else that they knew. Cool song.

[Physicist]

And no, I wouldn't face the same conceptual crisis.

Then you must be making some sort of mistake, you see? The two are equivalent, so they must be equally ridiculous or reasonable.

[ArmstedFragg]

One of the most amazing solos ever on Brighton Rock during their 1986 Magic Tour Wembley appearance, now out in a remastered version on a two DVD set.

He got a delay going, laid down a series of whole notes, came back and played halfs against it, then quarters, etc. Five minutes plus of pure magic.

[eyespysomething]

Brian may ping - is this the way to Amarillo?

[Jaysun]

Then you must be making some sort of mistake, you see? The two are equivalent, so they must be equally ridiculous or reasonable.

But they aren't equivalent. For something to shrink into itself isn't the same as something expanding into nothingness. Indeed, the former is observable in nature.

[Jaysun]

Then you must be making some sort of mistake, you see? The two are equivalent, so they must be equally ridiculous or reasonable.

Wait - it doesn't make a rat's ass. The assertion is that the universe is expanding into nothing. Impossible.

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[Physicist]

You're making two very simple errors.

First, you seem to be measuring the size of the universe AND the things within it by some sort of external gauge. But there is no such gauge: when we say that the universe is expanding, we mean that it is growing in size compared to our rulers, i.e. the things within the universe.

Alternatively, we can define a length scale by fixing it to the size of the universe, measuring the distance from horizon to horizon. In that case, we would say that our local rulers are shrinking. The two are equivalent because, first, all motion is relative (there's no absolute way to fix two points in space), and second, there is no other distance scale to which these measurements can be compared.

The second error you are making is that the universe has to expand "into" something, like a cake expanding into an oven. Taken to an extreme, the cake will run out of room and fill the oven, at which point it can expand no more. The expansion of the universe isn't like that. It won't "run out of room" to expand. The universe doesn't need room, it is room. As it expands, there is more room, not less. There is no philosophical or mathematical need for the universe to be "contained within" anything else (although it may be, but that's not a problem, either).

But really, it is against mathematics that you inveigh. When you say it's "impossible" that the "universe expands into nothing", you aren't merely saying that the physical universe doesn't conform to this or that geometrical model. You're saying that it isn't mathematically possible to work out consistent geometries that are infinite, self-contained, and ever-expanding. But such simple geometries have in fact been conceived, and they don't require anything to contain them, and into which they might expand. Yet expand they do.

[CarrotAndStick]

I thought the universe expanding into empty space was also simultaneously followed by increasing inter-galactic distances. How could this happen if the universe were shrinking?

[ZX12R]

Then you must be making some sort of mistake, you see? The two are equivalent, so they must be equally ridiculous or reasonable.

Maybe it is both. Depending on how you set up an experiment to look for ridiculous behavior or reasonable behavior. A duality, like a photon or electron being both particle and wave.