Physics

[LiamOS]

A lesser purpose of this thread is to allow members to ask questions about physics which they need clarification on or want an explanation on.

In my time spent here, I've been told many a time how conventional science fails and falls short in areas. As such, I decided to make this thread. However, as there are many on the subject of Biology and its many branches, I felt one to address the issues in physics would be appropriate.
For the purposes of this thread, physics covers Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics, Astronomy, Cosmology, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics(QCD, QED...), Electromagnetism, Optics and Thermodynamics.
The conventional theories in each field will be taken, in the context of this thread, as the best explanation currently available:
The Big Bang, the Standard Model(Particle physics), etc.

Questions for debate:
-Other than that which we do not yet know(Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?
-Some theories are based on underlying assumptions. Are any of these assumptions flawed or not necessarily true?

With our current knowledge of the universe from a physicists point of view, is it logical to infer than a deity is a necessity? Why or why not?

On a final note, this is a physics thread, so don't hold back on using mathematics as support for your hypotheses.

[The Mad Haranguer]

Questions for debate:
-Other than that which we do not yet know(Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?
-Some theories are based on underlying assumptions. Are any of these assumptions flawed or not necessarily true?

With our current knowledge of the universe from a physicists point of view, is it logical to infer than a deity is a necessity? Why or why not?

On a final note, this is a physics thread, so don't hold back on using mathematics as support for your hypotheses.

Depends on the physicist, I suppose. For the theist, it does not really matter.

[David 2.0]

Hopefully I am not taking liberties with this thread but it "feels" like the right place to ask a few questions. If not I apologize.
Plus I am no scientist so my "phrasing" may be inaccurate.
(Please move if necessary. )

Two test "seem" to indicate that neutrino's may travel faster than the speed of light. It is my feeling that it is probably to soon to tell, more review is necessary.

Hypothetically if this result is confirmed what are the implications for physics?
Can I travel back in time? How dependant is our current model on the C constant?

If the result is confirmed does it indirectly effect the debate on God? If so how.

[100%atheist]

Hopefully I am not taking liberties with this thread but it "feels" like the right place to ask a few questions. If not I apologize.
Plus I am no scientist so my "phrasing" may be inaccurate.
(Please move if necessary. )

Two test "seem" to indicate that neutrino's may travel faster than the speed of light. It is my feeling that it is probably to soon to tell, more review is necessary.

Hypothetically if this result is confirmed what are the implications for physics?
Can I travel back in time? How dependant is our current model on the C constant?

If the result is confirmed does it indirectly effect the debate on God? If so how.

1) Neutrino speed test has to be confirmed at other places before we start panic.
2) If it is confirmed, it's time to panic. This would mean that relativity theories, astrophysical theories, probably particle physics and quantum mechanics require new corrections (if not completely new theories) in order to account for the speed of light not being a universal reference point.
3) It is unlikely you personally will travel back in time.
4) I don't see how this can convince me in the existence of God, but I see how God-lovers will use it as (a) the evidence for the existence of God and (b) the evidence that science can't make its mind and so science can't be trusted. Nevermind that (a) and (b) are opposing views.

[ThatGirlAgain]

-Other than that which we do not yet know (Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?

Advanced Waves

Maxwells Theory of Electromagnetism turned up the surprising inference that the speed of light would be a constant regardless of the frame of reference of the observer. This led in time to Special Relativity. That in turn led to General Relativity, which resolved the long standing annoyance of unmediated action at a distance inherent in Newtonian gravity.

But there is still an unresolved mystery in Maxwells equations. In addition to the familiar idea of waves propagating forward in time from the generating point, (retarded waves) a second solution also appears. Advanced waves, waves that propagate backward in time, should also exist. These advanced solutions are simply ignored at this time. But why do ignorable solutions fall naturally out of the math? Why is it necessary to make a perfectly symmetric theory asymmetric to match observable reality? Symmetry has been a very fruitful tool in modern physics.

Wheeler and Feynman attempted to solve this with their Absorber theory. But this requires a closed universe, where advanced waves will always encounter a reflector. In an open universe " and current thinking is that ours is wide open " that is not the case.

There has been speculation that advanced waves are somehow responsible for the maybe action at a distance results observed in the Bells Theorem experiments. But if so why are the advanced waves qualitatively different from retarded waves?

Renormalization

Quantum electrodynamic theory as first formulated was a disaster. Infinities popped up all over the place when trying solve equations. Feynman et al. made the equations solvable by mathematical trickery. They were able to algebraically isolate the various infinites so that those in numerators were always matched by those in denominators and otherwise unmatched positive ones were matched by negative ones. The resulting equations (QED) were enormously successful. But the mathematical techniques are categorically forbidden. Infinity simply cannot be used as an ordinary number.

The infinity problem arises in quantum theory because quanta, e.g. electrons, are considered point particles. A (false) analogy in classical physics would be like this: the repulsive force between two electrons is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them. But if they are dimensionless points, there is no limit to how great this repulsion can get. Where is this energy coming from? The quantum theory explanation is more involved but I do not want to get into virtual particles. Yet.

String theory and its M-theory descendents avoid the problem by making quanta dimensioned entities, having one (strings) or more (branes) dimensions. But as of this time there is not even a single coherent theory that can make quantitative testable predictions despite some thirty years of effort by many physicists.

Quantum Gravity

General Relativity has provided very good solutions for a wide variety of circumstances but also suffers from the appearance of infinities in some cases, e.g., black holes. Unlike quantum electrodynamics, GR is not renormalizable. It is not possible to isolate and cancel the infinites that can appear in the equations. Plus GR is a classical theory, not incorporating quantum effects.

Quantum theory deals very well with three of the four known forces (electromagnetism*, weak nuclear force*, strong nuclear force**) but does not attempt to deal with gravity at all. M-theory, if it ever settle down in one well-formed theory and is supported by experiment, might unify all four forces. But that seems to get more complicated and further from predicting observable results every time you turn around.

* Yes, I know it is really the combined electroweak force. But even professional physicists rarely discuss it that way.

** Really the color forces. Lets not go there today.

Vacuum Energy

According to quantum theory all of space is filled with virtual particle pairs that are allowed to exist briefly by virtue of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. These virtual particles have real observable effects. According to HUP, the smaller the region of space examined, the greater the number of virtual particles should be present. (Since the lifetime of a virtual particle is inversely proportional to its mass-energy and it cannot exceed the speed of light, it will never leave a certain region of space. The smaller the region examined, the more mass-energy present.)

Using the Planck length as a cutoff, the inherent energy of these particles can be calculated. But the calculated value is a whopping120 orders of magnitude greater than the observed upper limit on what the actual energy can be. Huh???

One potential solution I got from a physics guy I used to know: virtual particle pairs are opposite in all quantum values, including mass-energy. The net mass-energy of a pair is zero. This also explains why the gravity of all these virtual particles does not overwhelm the universe. It also makes the idea of virtual particles spontaneously appearing a little less mysterious.

[David 2.0]

Thank you both for your time and response!
Informative.

Unfortunately it seems like the results of the first two tests are now suspect after review? We shall see. (Fresh off the presses.)

[100%atheist]

-Other than that which we do not yet know (Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?

Advanced Waves

Renormalization

Quantum Gravity

Vacuum Energy

Well, in addition to your good description of physics fields what we can learn from all these is that it is unlikely that your real age is 19. It takes two-three lectures to completely feed a freshman with the derivation of Maxwell's equations and still I don't expect more than 10% of them to understand and remember that the speed of light is a necessary condition for the propagation of EM waves.

[mich]

A lesser purpose of this thread is to allow members to ask questions about physics which they need clarification on or want an explanation on.

In my time spent here, I've been told many a time how conventional science fails and falls short in areas. As such, I decided to make this thread. However, as there are many on the subject of Biology and its many branches, I felt one to address the issues in physics would be appropriate.
For the purposes of this thread, physics covers Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics, Astronomy, Cosmology, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics(QCD, QED...), Electromagnetism, Optics and Thermodynamics.
The conventional theories in each field will be taken, in the context of this thread, as the best explanation currently available:
The Big Bang, the Standard Model(Particle physics), etc.

Questions for debate:
-Other than that which we do not yet know(Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?
-Some theories are based on underlying assumptions. Are any of these assumptions flawed or not necessarily true?

With our current knowledge of the universe from a physicists point of view, is it logical to infer than a deity is a necessity? Why or why not?

On a final note, this is a physics thread, so don't hold back on using mathematics as support for your hypotheses.

Thanks for opening this thread, I am not advanced in physics, but something was bothering me; I hope you can help. This is only a physics question and doesn't involve any theology.



Could Planck's equation for blackbody radiation be simply Einstein's energy equation in disguise?

E=mc^2 and E=hf

First, if we take the equation for light speed/ wavelength /frequency; c =w * f (w=wavelength and f = frequency).
It seems that there is a problem concerning the dimentions. On the one side, we have distance / time and on the other, we have distance^2 / time.
In my opinion, the equation ought to be c = f * w, but where the w factor would be dimentionless, and therefore would only represent the magnetude of wavelength, but not it's dimention "s" ( length).It would be a simple transform.
For example; the velocity of 1 m/sec = 100 * 1 cm/sec. Notice that we do not write 100 cm, 100 being the transform factor, while nevertheless, still representing 100 cm. And so, we say that v1 ( 1 m/sec) = v2 ( 100 cm/sec), the 100 factor is not mentioned.

Let us therefore claim that c = f * w (dimentionless factor)
Then, Planks equation could be derived from E=mc^2.

If we take h (plank's constant) and imply that such constant has within the factors w ^ 2 * f ( remember that w is dimentiomless as the wavelength is already shown within the frequency) ,multiplied by another factor k, the equation would look like E = k * w ^ 2 * f ^ 2, or k * c ^ 2 .This would identifie k as representing the mass of light it seems , since the equation E=hf is the energy of light.. This would lead to k being equal to
h / (w * c) = 2 * 10 ^ -42/ w . The mass of light would therefore be equal to ( 2 * 10^-42) / wavelength factor.


This would identify the particle of light as increasing in mass by a factor of 1/ w when the energy is increased.

Andre

[ThatGirlAgain]

-Other than that which we do not yet know (Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?

Advanced Waves

Renormalization

Quantum Gravity

Vacuum Energy

Well, in addition to your good description of physics fields what we can learn from all these is that it is unlikely that your real age is 19. It takes two-three lectures to completely feed a freshman with the derivation of Maxwell's equations and still I don't expect more than 10% of them to understand and remember that the speed of light is a necessary condition for the propagation of EM waves.

I really am 19, but I have no objection to the flattery implied by disbelief. It is just that I have been reading the more serious of the popular science books ever since I could reach them on my Dad's bookshelves. I am pretty good at the concepts, much less so at the math.

[Crazee]

Now, where, in all of the time since the Big Bang, do we see matter, energy, space and time all descending into the Quantum realm?

Black Holes.

Grumpy

I've hypothesized that black holes are gateways to other dimensions due to very similar reasons. That doesn't mean that we would be able to physically survive a trip through one. I think that if more research was done on Out-of-Body experiences and Astral Projection, than we could plausibly send someone's consciousness through a black hole in the future.

[100%atheist]

-Other than that which we do not yet know (Higgs Boson, etc.), are there any significant shortcomings in the conventional physics of the day? If so, where and why?

Advanced Waves

Renormalization

Quantum Gravity

Vacuum Energy

Well, in addition to your good description of physics fields what we can learn from all these is that it is unlikely that your real age is 19. It takes two-three lectures to completely feed a freshman with the derivation of Maxwell's equations and still I don't expect more than 10% of them to understand and remember that the speed of light is a necessary condition for the propagation of EM waves.

I really am 19, but I have no objection to the flattery implied by disbelief. It is just that I have been reading the more serious of the popular science books ever since I could reach them on my Dad's bookshelves. I am pretty good at the concepts, much less so at the math.

Hmm. I hope you are in a good college by now on full tuition support or something. It's nice in our times we have good popular science books, I wish I had them 20 years ago.