I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Upon the relativity of losing pico-seconds in the bottom of a gravity well, we must at least understand that reality is in the perspective of the observer.
The universe is not only simpler than we imagine, it is simpler than we can imagine.
There is but one particle moving back and forth through time, its travels leaving a a luminescent lattice-work of coincidence resulting in the clustering of random events.
I have a pet black hole.
It never tells me anything.
Well ... sure a black hole releases information if you strip it naked and threaten it with dogs, or give it the waterboard treatment, or make it wear women's panties on its head.
Duh!
Far out. As I've said once or twice previously, I have a pet interest in quantum mechanics (though I by no means have the intellectual know-how to fully understand it), and Stephen Hawkings is something of an inspiration of mine (on a multitude of levels).
But this is what I love about science. Fully accepted theory and assumptions can change with knew data and insight, and it's seen as a challenge to learn more, not an insult or throwing down of the glove. Best of all, no one gets their heads chopped off.
Hawking isn't much of a physicist. This is coming from a physicist who had lunch with him last year.
He's entertaining, but as a scientist he's extremely overrated. I doubt he'd be in the top 50 physicists of the past century.
-
Why does he hate America? Why does he support the terrorists? Why is he a liberal flippity-flooper?
Sad.
-
Why does he hate America? Why does he support the terrorists? Why is he a liberal flippity-flooper?
Sad.
Women's panties you say?
HHmmmmm..... Might be worth a try.
Does that mean there's hope to find al those single lost socks of mine?
I have a pet interest in quantum mechanics (though I by no means have the intellectual know-how to fully understand it)...
Who does?
My introduction to Quantum physics was Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters.
What a totally delicious mindfuck.
Jesse,
Wow. That's a heavy accusation. I'm curious as to why you say so. I'm not saying you're blowing smoke, mind you; you might be correct, but Cambridge doesn't give the Lucasian chair to a guy just because he's entertaining. So, in layman's term for this poor neophyte, why is Hawkings a sub-par physicist?
Troll at first 9:16...
how about stock-market losses?
which black hole do i find them in?
That man obviously has no integrity, no strength of character.
Central Scrutinizer,
I guess mine was A Brief History Of Time. I'd long been interested in Einstein's theories of relativity - granted, I had only the bare-bones info and most of that was the "dumbed-down" science they teach in schools - but the whole concept of quantum physics completely blew me out of the water. It's almost science fiction come to life (and has given me a renewed appreciation of Doctor Who and Douglas Adams).
And I still say the best way to kill a tedious afternoon is read a little on string theory then smoke some good pot. A marvelous way to relax.
This stuff is so fascinating.
Slightly OT: Reccommended reading - The Making of the Atom Bomb by Richard Rhodes, and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, both by Richard Rhodes. These books make it easy for a layman (such as myself) to understand how we went from Victorian-Era chemistry to the inevitablity of Nuclear Physics.
f Preskill correctly bet against their idea, he wins an encyclopedia.
Source of all knowledge, that.
Hee hee.
Richard Feynman: "What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does."
And one of my favorite sites is The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
richard,
I was trying to remember that quote. Thanks.
Source of all knowledge, that.
Hee hee.
pie
Which also gives up information on demand.
Backslider -
It's not really a heavy accusation. Most physicists I know agree. The Lucasian chair was the same chair that Isaac Newton "sat" in. Look at all the things Newton did. Look at all the things Einstein did (1905!). Look at Heisenburg, Schroedinger, P.A.M. Dirac, Feynman, Borne, etc. Now look at what Hawking has done. There's just no comparison. If Hawking is so great, where's his Nobel Prize? It's because he hasn't discovered anything earth-shattering. He has a few theories on black holes, but they're nothing special. But the media acts like Hawking is The Voice Of Science. The obvious answer is because he's in a wheelchair. He's an inspirational person, to be sure, but not as great as a scientist as most people think.
If you ask any physicist to name the top 10 physicists who ever lived, you're going to have either Newton or Einstein at the top of the list (Newton blows away Einstein, in my opinion). But you'll never ever see Hawking on that list. You'll only see Hawking on that list if you ask a non-physicist.
richard - great fineman quote. and proof positive that physics and zen buddhism are the same thing.
Some people may consider this flip-flopping. I consider it a person who is big enough to admit they were wrong. We'd all be better off if more politicians and people in all walks of life were mature enough to do it.
TW - Yes, I'm a troll because I don't think Hawking is the greatest scientist ever. What could I possibly base my opinion on? That I read his books? Or that I am a physicist? Or that I had lunch with him?
You have to admit though, "A Brief History of Time" is a way-cool title for a book though.
jsg--It is a great title, and also a very engaging book.
I have to say, I had a laugh-out-loud moment today (I posted on the Hawking story last night sometime) when I check the Sydney Morning Herals and saw the headline/link to the story. It said, and I am not making this up:
"Black holes dribble after they swallow."
I was very much taken aback.
Stephen Hawking, after arguing for 30 years that black holes never release information, now believes they do.
That means there's hope for Scottie McClellan and the Bush administration...
My introduction to Quantum physics was Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters.
Absolutely wonderful book. I rank it up there with A Brief History...
Jesse,
I might be kinda sideways here, but are you familiar with Stanislav Grof's work? (I'd almost bet Backslider is.)
Any opinions?
Do they have a top 50 scientist list?
Do you get anything for that?
Is Shaq on it?
I mean he must be quite a hack if he's not on the top 50 scientist of the last century list, really, how dare he motor around in his "super wheelchair o' justice" all high and mighty and stuff.
Did he manage to too s-l-o-w-l-y t-y-p-e o-u-t for you on his voice synthasizer or something?
Criminy, when you are snooty about Stephen Hawking you really are an elitist.
Jesse,
Hmmm. I see your point, particularly about the "Voice of Science" thing, which is an unfortunate habit of the media. However, not knowing many physicists these days, I really can't comment on how they view Hawkings. The ones I palled around with in college (I was a journalism major, by the way, so I think they just tolerated me), they thought Hawkings was a solid theorist and an important modern thinker, but not neccessarily the bee's knees.
Still, I think Hawkings has done a wonderful service in making the very complicated field of quantum mechanics accessible to the layman. Much like Bryan Greene with string theory - and another guy I've heard physicists say is "overrated" - he's made the concepts, theories and journies to reach those things if not easy to understand, than at least easy to get close to.
As for the Nobel Prize, well...where's Hunter Thompson's Pulitzer, ya know? It's an important achievement and still a fine qualifier for scientific endevor, I just wonder how much politics plays a role in its choosing.
I'm with you in that Einstein and Newton are the main vatos when it comes to physics, and Newton especially is one of the few people who comes close to being a "hero" in my book. Ironically enough, though, Newton spent a great deal of his later life studying alchemy. Granted, this was a time when alchemy and science were still a bit muddled up, and there's some who say that without a belief in the occult, Newton would have never developed his theory of gravity.
As John Maynard Keynes said, "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." All in all, it's very interesting.
MisterX:
Excellent recommendation, I note a fascinating article on the other Mrs. Bush.
Thanks!
jsg,
There's also a very groovy Doctor Who website called "A Brief History of Time (Travel)". It concentrates on the production aspects of the show rather than any science, but it's still a neat moniker.
Central Scrutinizer,
Har-dee-har-har. And, yes, I'm familiar with his stuff. Dammit.
Since it's friday and I going out for a while, I thought I leave a little "funny" to make ya smile to set the mood. Please join me in a "Literary power house"
Little Dykes on the Prairie
hehe...
o, and I guess Hawkings changing his mind is not against the law yet...lol
If you ask any physicist to name the top 10 physicists who ever lived, you're going to have either Newton or Einstein at the top of the list (Newton blows away Einstein, in my opinion). But you'll never ever see Hawking on that list. You'll only see Hawking on that list if you ask a non-physicist.
According to "100 leading physicists" in 1999:
1. Albert Einstein
2. Isaac Newton
3. James Clerk Maxwell
4. Niels Bohr
5. Werner Heisenberg
6. Galileo Galilei
7. Richard Feynman
8= Paul Dirac
8= Erwin Schrödinger
10. Ernest Rutherford
But what's wrong with non-physicists selecting Hawking as the greatest? He makes physics approachable for people who don't have their minds lost in equations and quanta. I'd say that's an appropriate measure of greatness. As Ellington would say, "if it sounds good, it is good."
Backslider - very well said.
attaturk - No, not elitist. Scientist.
I don't think any explanation I give will satisfy everyone. And anything I say will make me look like an elitist snob. Which is the common stereotype most scientists are given. ("Oh those college educated scientists think they know more about nature than working-class Americans cause they studied it for years and years"). Very Bill O'Riellyish.
All I can say is, as a scientist (not as a human being) he's really overrated. This is my opinion. Disagree if you want. But at least back up what you're saying with some evidence.
From Nova:
There is a parlor game physics students play: Who was the greater genius? Galileo or Kepler? (Galileo) Maxwell or Bohr? (Maxwell, but it's closer than you might think). Hawking or Heisenberg? (A no-brainer, whatever the best-seller lists might say. It's Heisenberg).
And "A Brief History of Time" is a cool title.
If Hawking is so great, where's his Nobel Prize?
Well, if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?
This concludes today's episdode of 'Dueling Logical Fallacies'.
Stephen Hawking, after arguing for 30 years that black holes never release information, now believes they do.
That means there's hope for Scottie McClellan and the Bush administration...
NTodd, in 30 years, it won't matter.
The damage has been done.
Thanks MisterX for the cites.
We need many more people like Hawking to explain the universe to us puny humans. Who cares what they are ranked? The Universe In A Nutshell is a must read too.
A physicist who is a reliable communicator of ideas to non-physicists is almost as invaluable to both groups as the physicists who do great work. This is true of any interesting but difficult field of endeavor.
Hey, nobody replied to my crzy-making diatribe.
Wj#hazzup- w/date?!
> hic <
> hic <
> hic
So the thinking now is that a black hole will ultimately release information? Would that Scott McClellan could be as forthcoming.
There's an even juicier Feynman quote on quantum mechanics, from "The Character of Physical Law":
"...Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."
(Interesting resonance between his mixed metaphor and black holes!)
Hawking makes science interesting and accessible, so he can do things TONS of other better scientists can't do for the life of them.
NTodd - I pretty much agree with that list (with the exception of Einstein on top).
I pulled this from that article:
Paul Guinnessy, editor of PhysicsWeb, said: "My two biggest surprises were the inclusion of Stephen Hawking, as I think more time is needed to see whether his scientific contributions will last, and the low number of votes for Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford.
(Emphasis Mine)
Jesse,
I'm a smartass, not a physisist, but your initial statement about Hawking was:
"Hawking isn't much of a physicist."
Seems a tad harsh.
Now, I refer to the President as "Chimpy McFlightsuit"; "the Codpieced Crusader"; "Pretzel Illogic" and many other names...so naturally I am claim to be only authority on being overly harsh, and that seemed so.
Backslider,
Have you tried holotropic breathing?
I've had some pretty interesting experiences with it myself.
I like the control factor inherit in the method, though I believe that it has a limiting effect on results.
Aw, shucks. Beaten to the obvious point by a quarter of an hour.
Attaturk - I take it back. He's a good physicist. I should've said "He isn't as much of a physicist as most people believe".
Didn't Heisenberg work for the Nazis? His relationship with Bohr's a pretty interesting one, especially given the to-and-fro in recent years on how much Heisenberg may or may not have "purposely" derailed the Germans' own atomic bomb project. One of my favorite quotes about science comes from Heisenberg, thought it may be apocryphal. When asked what he'd ask God given the opportunity, he supposedly said, "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first."
As for Schrödinger and his infamous feline, another favorite witticism comes from Hawking: "When I hear of Schrödinger's Cat, I reach for my gun." Man, I get so cross-eyed trying to explain that one to the sweet young thangs at work.
He isn't a flip-flopper, he's a scientist.
When the facts change, I change my mind -- what do you do, sir?
---John Maynard Keynes
Obviously we're all joking when we ask why Hawking hates America. Interesting point, though, is how conservative some physicists (Americans, anyway) have been historically. Guys like Vannevar Bush (no relation, I assume) were the great physics gods of the 1950s,lauded by the media and the public for making atoms dance to their tune. They were unapologetic intellectual elitists who chafed at the idea of "democracy" interfering with their work, and were Cold Warriors to the core -- which coincided nicely with their (rather unconservative) desire for government funding and their need to rationalize it. Bush in particular was, from what I know of him, a persnicketty little mutha, hard-core conservative.
Of course, others like Robert Goddard had a great deal of conscience. Looks like a few on this site do too!
Galloping gluons, it's time for a comics plug!
You want to have fun with physics, you oughtta read the nifty little 8-page "Jack B. Quick" comics by Moore and Nowlan --
Particularly good was "A Brief Geography of Time", where Jack makes a pair of time shoes with two alarm clocks, some uranium and a big pair of shoes, allowing him to do both his history and geography homework at once.
"Hawking implies space and time are inextricably linked, while geography and history are are both equally boring. The quantum field in these shoes should entangle time and geography into one substance! Let's just tie these laces..."
Unfortunately, Jack gets into trouble when he breaks through the panel border and ends up in the pre-creational void before his first appearance. Darn the luck!
Jesse,
What field of science? Theoretical or applied? Teaching? Research? Just curious.
Jesse,
I think Guinnessy's probably right. Given the fullness of time, we'll know more about how on the ball Hawkings is/was. Reckon why the low ranking of Rutherford? Curie I can figure out (like everything else, it seems, science is a boys' club). You got a particular take on Bryan Greene or string theory in general?
Central Scrutinizer,
Nah, never tried it. I don't do much monkeying around with my drug intake. I just take 'em and hang on. Course, I quit LSD like I was quittin' work after spending one evening talking to Hank Williams...who's been dead since 1951.
Tena, perfect post.
George Bush, former coked-up frat boy turned winngut Christian who stole the presidency and lied the country into an unprecedented invasion of a sovereign country that posed no threat to the U.S.
But you have to understand, he's *really* a man of his word, a steady leader who believes what he says.
John Maynard Keynes as a young man once tried to help put down a fire at the dormitory building by pissing on it. I heard this from someone who was his college friend at a fancy dinner conversations many years ago.
This is my contribution to the scientific discussion tonight. I've done it all day for living and I want to see mindless ranting and raving, please.
Stephen Hawking, after arguing for 30 years that black holes never release information, now believes they do.
Damn scientists. Always willing to let the evidence change their minds...
You gotta love the interplay between scientists. It can be deathly fierce, and at the same time delightfully playful. Hawking, having conceded is now going to give Preskill the encyclopedia of his choice "...from which information can be retrieved at will."
Love it!
Backslider - I don't know enough about String Theory. There's a lot of assumptions in it that (so far) seem impossible to prove. Greene (and Hawking) are generally trying to unify all the forces in physics, which I don't think is that great. It sure sounds great though.
Jimmiraybob - I'm choosing between going into High-energy nuclear physics or quantum computing. Probably applied, since theoretical should be left to the big boys. As for teaching or research, I really don't know. Sometimes teaching sounds fun, but research has freedom.
...I still say the best way to kill a tedious afternoon is read a little on string theory then smoke some good pot.
Quote file!
Far out. As I've said once or twice previously, I have a pet interest in quantum mechanics
Backsider, the only pet interest you have is hamsters.
Clearly, Hawking has never met Dick Cheney.
And welcome back on Tena.
MisterX
There is a minor 'problem' with the Dark Sun book by Rhodes.
It does not properly identify the individual who came up with the actual design of the first working Hydrogen Bomb.
The guy is mentioned in one sentence in the book. His name is Richard Garwin.
For one reason or another he didn't bother to fight for recognition vs. Dr Strangelove Teller.
Teller fessed up last year.
Garwin has been a behind the scenes science/military advisor for decades. He seems to have had more influence in Democratic administrations for some strange reason...
In any case I'd say that Rhodes owes us an updated edition of the book...
Well, I was about to make a comment on how trolls were obviously bored with a thread that involved any kind of philosophical or intellectual observations, but.....
Matt Drudge is a flip flopper
Matt Drudge, a Gay Who Backs the Gay Bashers
So how can Drudge, an outed gay, post a totally slimy gay exploitative piece that doesn't even make any sense, in the context of run-of-the-mill male political body contact? Because, he's just another GOP slimeball hypocrite, that's why.
Matt Drudge is a cyber hypocrite without equal. And if he is gay, he has done irreparable harm to people who prefer their own gender.
SteveNS,
And to prove I'm as big a nerd, if not bigger, than you, D.C. comics had a character a few years back called Jack B. Quick. He was part of a team called "The Justifiers" or "The Assemblers"; he was their version of Marvel's fleet-footed mutant Quicksilver of The Avengers. It was sort of a homage to Marvel's Squadron Supreme, which was the late, great Mark Gruenwald's homage to the Justice League. In fact, both groups came from alternate Earths that suffered apocalyptic catastrophes. Yes, I have way, WAY too much time on my hands, why do you ask?
Jesse,
Again, my knowledge is limited and I'm only a fan, but I think at the very least the research on string theory will lead to a lot of new discoveries...but maybe not the Grand Unification of Everything. Still, it's the journey, not arrival, no?
Central Scrutinizer,
Hell, maybe I should feel honored as the first target. Well, I might if it weren't just a gutless name-stealing troll.
I still say the easiest, most entertaining way to introduce oneself to quantum theory is to read Robert Anton Wilson, great stuff.
I'm not being snarky but are you still a grad student (PhD candidate maybe) getting ready to enter research? Or are you currently in or heading an established research program. Just off hand I have to agree with Backslider that "Cambridge [probably] doesn't give the Lucasian chair to a guy just because he's entertaining."
Again, I'm not being snarky but I just haven't heard many scientists make such bold proclamations about one their peers (at least not generally outside of the peer group) unless there's some kinda rivalry/ego thing brewing. On the face of it though, I'm not sure that being in the top 50 of all time scienctists is all that shabby. But wouldn't he probably rank higher if only his specialty & peers were considered?
Attempting another link below in the URL space.
BlakNo1,
Dig that. After reading The Illuminatus Trilogy, I spent a year at my job as a typesetter for a local newspaper monkeying with font size and ledeing to put fnords in the paper. "Skip work." "Sleep Late." and the like. Fun times. Confused the shit out of my girlfriend at the time.
Nope, didn't work. I'll try again in a bit. It's an article by Wayne Madsen, predicting no election postponement/cancellation, rather a strategic red alert on the West Coast. Pretty interesting and well presented.
Would you want credit for creating the H Bomb?
MisterX
There is a minor 'problem' with the Dark Sun book by Rhodes.
It does not properly identify the individual who came up with the actual design of the first working Hydrogen Bomb.
OK, why don't you fill us in on the latest conspiracy theory...you fucking people have your heads so far up your asses it defies belief. Not every episode in the planet's history is an elaborate plot sinisterly hatched with the express purpose of persecuting you guys. For pete's sake, put down the bong and go to the detox center. Sheesh.
I've also recently seen Maybe Logic which is a biopic of sorts. It's out in a very limited release in theaters, on DVD too.
The movie "Mindwalk" (Capra/Zukav) is a good primer for anyone curious about the whole subject and not willing to invest a lot of time.
You probably won't find it in your hometown video store, but your local library might have it, or will surely be able to find it for you.
(Loves me some libraries.)
put down the bong
Thou art surely mad!! You'll be telling us to watch TV next.
Jesse is right, it has been a good century for physics. I was trying to list 50 physicists better that Hawking, or at least 50 physicists whose slide rules I am unfit to carry (I defend my own physics Ph.D. August 5!)
I have 33 so far. Perhaps Jesse can finish the list. I'd like to see what you would change or add, Jesse.
Einstein (photoelectrons, and that E=mc^2 thing)
Dirac (quantum mechanics)
Heisenberg (uncertainty principle)
Oppenheimer ("I have become Death, destroyer of worlds")
Fermi (nuclear chain reactions)
Bohr (hydrogen atomic radius)
Bardeen (transistors and superconductors)
Feynman (Feynman diagrams for QED calcs.)
Schwinger (QED)
Bose (Bosons)
Neel (magnetism)
Rabi (nuclear mag. resonance [MRI's])
deBroglie (deBroglie wavelength)
Wigner (weak and strong forces)
Gamow (big bang, popular writings)
Hubble (expanding universe)
Compton (Compton wavelength)
Onnes (superconductivity)
Siegbahn (x-ray spectroscopy)
Rutherford (predicdts the neutron)
Chandrasekhar (sizes of stars)
Townes (the laser)
Millikan (quantized charge of electrons)
Cherenkov (faster-than light velocities in solids)
Mössbauer (nuclear resonances)
Raman (light scattering)
Lawrence (Cyclotron)
Josephson (superconducting junctions)
Yukawa (mesons)
Bragg (x-ray diffraction)
Bethe (nuclear reactions)
Gell-Mann (elementary particles)
Landau (condensed matter theory)
Trying again..
Backslider -
Feel no shame about being a Nerd Savant - I doff my beanie to you.
Yeah, you gotta love the alternate Earths that superhero comics are built on. And looking at how string theory (to the limited extent that I understand it) also postulates an infinity of parallel universes, I'm hereby demanding that Gardner Fox be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize for "Flash of Two Worlds!"
...of the last 100 years. Sorry, Roentegen (x-rays), Maxwell (electrodynamics), etc...
He is clearly engaging in scientific class warfare and is rated the 8th most liberal physicist at Caimbridge!
/puts away gop talking points
Okay, I'm truly no damn good. If anyone is interested (echoing sound), I suppose you could go to Citizens for Legitimate Goverment and find the essay yourself, since I obviously can't do it. I do think it is of interest to West Coasters.
I'm hereby demanding that Gardner Fox be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize for "Flash of Two Worlds!"
SteveNS | Email | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 10:39 pm | #
Dude, count me in on that. The late '50s and '60s were a great time for funnybooks. I'm lucky in that I had a second cousin who had a shit-ton of stuff in fairly good condition from that time. Bunch of old Spider-Man (even the death of Gwen Stacy) and the complete "Hard-Traveling Heros" featuring Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Great stuff. When the turn for "grittier, more realistic" fare came in the late '80s/early '90s - meaning more blood, more guns and impossibly big boobs on the women - I got turned off. I still keep up from time to time via a co-worker, and I've long held comic books - like rock & roll, jazz and movies - are among America's greatest contribution to the world of art.
Bryan,
Cherenkov (faster-than light velocities in solids)
This is an unfamiliar one to me. Does it have anything to do with the Bose-Einstein Consendate (which is really fucking neat, in my opinion).
Unfortunately, Jack gets into trouble when he breaks through the panel border and ends up in the pre-creational void before his first appearance. Darn the luck!
SteveNS | Email | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 10:03 pm | #
Ahhhh... comic books. The source of my inspirations lo these 43 years... and the source of my income (low) these last sixteen years.
Favorite Jack B Quick story: Jack notices that cats always land on their feet, and that a slice of buttered bread always lands butter side down when you drop it, right?
What does Jack do? That's right... HE BUTTERS THE BACKS OF CATS AND DROPS THEM AND THEY GO FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE due to the conflicting truisms!
Wotta laff riot!
As just another Brief History of Time buff and not a physicist, I'll leave the judging of Hawking's importance as a scientist up to the experts (though Jesse is hardly the first physicist I've heard say Hawking is overrated).
But I would argue that Hawking will prove to be among the century's most important people to science. That is, by making theoretical physics seem cool, he's gotten thousands of people interested, at least a few of whom will surely go on to be important in the field. That's something very few people could have done. And if his influence is greater because his is an amazing human story as well, more power to him.
(Of course, really we know that history will judge Hawking well. Star Trek foresaw it when Data played poker on the holodeck with history's greatest scientists: Newton, Einstein, and, playing himself, Hawking)
Didn't Heisenberg work for the Nazis? His relationship with Bohr's a pretty interesting one
Backslider 07.16.04 - 10:01 pm | #
The last play I went to was a three person number about just that. I wish I could remember the name of it, cause it was really good.
I don't have much of a back ground in physics, but I find Hawkings basic idea that the formation of the universe acted like a black hole in reverse kinda silly. Seems like apples and oranges to me.
I think there is a reason why relativity and quantum mechanics can't get along: basic constants of reality change according to fluctuations in size. The speed of light between two atoms is different then the speed of light between two stars. A weird theory, but makes about as much sense as string theory and is easier to prove or disprove.
If you like this kind of stuff check out the holographic paradigm. I had to stop doing certain substances because I started to think I could accidentally will the universe out of existence.
"This type of hologram has another very curious property. If you cut the film in half and then expose just one piece to the laser light, you’ll still see the entire image. In fact, you can keep making smaller and smaller pieces, and each one will still display the whole image rather than just part of the image—though the clarity degrades as the pieces get smaller. This “whole-in-each-of-the-parts” quality of holograms provided the crucial insight for Karl Pribram, a neurophysicist at Stanford University, and David Bohm, a physicist at the University of London."
mena, I found your article, I think:
Terrorism and the Election
Interesting. I've been thinking that, one way or another, the West Coast is long overdue for a serious scare of some nature or another.
It does not properly identify the individual who came up with the actual design of the first working Hydrogen Bomb. The guy is mentioned in one sentence in the book. His name is Richard Garwin. Teller fessed up last year. In any case I'd say that Rhodes owes us an updated edition of the book...
Bram
Yeah, Teller is a scary fella. He apparently insisted on his theoretical design over all others, then slowly adapted his design to the ones that worked. (I'm working from memory here, so my facts could be askew.) From what I remember, he even assisted the Red hunters in purging some probably innocent scientists from government programs.
Hmmm. I think I'll dig my copy out for a re-read...
I'm hereby demanding that Gardner Fox be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize for "Flash of Two Worlds!"
SteveNS
*choke* I recently sold my copy of Flash #123 ("Flash of Two Worlds")...
Oooh! A thread on Science!
Didn't Hawking prove that small black holes spontaneously destroy themselves if they don't go past a certain mass?
Yes MoniCa, That's it. Thanks. I believe Madsen is credible, and it's a plausible theory. Pretty scary stuff.
John G,
Holographic Universe (Talbot) is some interesting stuff. I've heard it's been dissed by some physicists, but it's an incredibly enjoyable read. I would recommend it, (for what that's worth, not being a scientist myself.)
John Gillnitz,
You're thinking of Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen", which is, oddly enough, the last play I saw. The play I saw before that one was a musical based on the stabbing of Monica Selles. I shit you. I had to write a story on it and its author. I think my editor at the time was testing me.
The speed of light between two atoms is different then the speed of light between two stars.
I don't think this is quite accurate. I think that the standard line is that the speed of light is constant (in a vaccuum, anyway). Size doesn't matter, thus it's called "relativity". But you're right in that general relativity and quantum mechanics don't synch up in measurements, which string theory (among many others) is trying to address. Something I read recently lends credence to Hawkings' "reverse black hole" theory, in that there's evidence of inversions matching up despite enormous differences in size. Or something like that.
And hell...I feel like a sissy, now. I quit doing LSD after I saw Hank Williams. Never occurred to me I could blink out the whole universe.
I'm not sure if it was the same book, but I'd read something similar in the mid 90s which theorized that brains store information in the same way that holographs do, same principle anyway.
Bryan,
Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979
Leon Lederman, shared the Nobel prize in Physics in 1988
Bryan - I think to complete the list, you should simply look down the list of the past 50 Nobel Prize winners in Physics. The Nobel Prize in the humanities are highly disputable, but when it comes to science they are usually on point. The scientists who get them truly deserve them. Sometimes several! (Like Einstein).
And now, I must go eat some Mexican food.
I don't know Jesse, all of the astronomers and physicists I've known have been pretty impressed with Hawking. Yes, the last century was a good one for physicists and there were many before him who made some great discoveries... but I don't think you can dismiss Hawking as being "not all that." I don't know if it's even useful to try to rank them.
Anyhoo, I think the whole thing is cool. I think there's so many amazing things we don't know.
Perhaps superstrings are going to burst in and rapturize all the rethugs! or perhaps a wormhole will open and swallow them all up. That's the best thing about physics, so many possibilities.
David Bohm, by the way, wrote the highly recomended "Wholeness and the Implicate Order."
Amazon Review:
"Bohm treats the totality of existence as an unbroken whole. His implicate order conncept: that any independent element in our universe contains within it the sum of all elements, i.e the sum of all existence itself. He describes an enfolding-unfolding universe with consciousness playing a central role. He was a great thinker ahead of his time. This classic work captures a good cross section of his ideas. "
When the turn for "grittier, more realistic" fare came in the late '80s/early '90s - meaning more blood, more guns and impossibly big boobs on the women - I got turned off. I still keep up from time to time via a co-worker, and I've long held comic books - like rock & roll, jazz and movies - are among America's greatest contribution to the world of art. Backslider
Well, I think everything conforms to Sturgeon's Law, personally. There are still great comic books being produced out there, you just have to find 'em. Like music, books, movies and everything else, I would imagine.
Hey, Backslider, that was Johnny Quick--originally a golden-age character whose name Gardner appropriated for his Earth-3 story.
Having written well over a dozen alternative worlds stories, it's a theme near and dear to my heart.
(And you might even guess who I am, with that and my screen name as a clue.)
mena--
It's a credible enough idea. I don't think Americans in general would buy a full-scale terror alert across all 50 states on Nov. 2nd, but they might be schnookered by a regional one. And wasn't there some pep talk given to Merkin voters by some official loudmouth recently about voting regardless of what's going on in other states or some crazy thing?
I think I'll probably sit out election day at home since I'll be voting absentee anyway (my county uses Diebold machines). I can't imagine the commute nightmare that an Elmo terror alert would wreak on the SF Bay Area.
Cherenkov radiation blew my mind the fiorst time I encounted it in textbooks. When we say "nothing can go faster than the speed of light" what we really should say is "nothing can go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum."
The glasses I am wearing on my face have an index of refraction of about n=2, and the air around me (and the vacuum of space) have an index of refraction of n=1. Not that I would notice, but light is actually going slower through the n=2 glass than through the n=1 material. If beta = velocity/speed of light, beta = 1 for the vacuum and beta = 0.5 for the glass, IIRC.
Now, let's bring a particle accelerated to beta = 0.9999999. It doesn't care that n=2. When it hits the material it will begin to slow down but for a while it will have beta > 0.5. The momentum lost in slowing down is coverted to photons - fast photons with beta > 0.5 also! The "speed of light" is capped at beta = 0.5 but the Cherenkov radiation is traveling faster.
This makes a great detector for relativistic particles. Put a material (other than eyeglasses, for safety's sake) in front and watch the flashes of light.
But no photons ever travel faster than beta = 1, or v=c.
and for anyone interested, this should have been in my first post:
During the 1970's Weinberg’s work was mainly concerned with the implications of the unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions, with the development of the related theory of strong interactions known as quantum chromodynamics, and with steps toward the unification of all interactions.
Lederman’s award was for work on the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino.
Backslider - I can relate to your distaste with the books that were published in the early 90's, but there's a shitload of great stuff out there now - not so much that's analogous to the 60's & 70's-era books, perhaps - but there are some surprisingly sophisticated and thoughtful reads to be found, if you are inclined to look for them.
MisterX - clearly you're a fan after my own heart - true, the story with the cats was inspired, but "The Unbearableness of Being Light" was good too - when at Jack's urging, the police in Queerwater Creek arrested all those speed limit-exceeding photons and blacked out the whole town.
And the running joke about how Jack's parents were constantly being driven by his experiments to attempt suicide (and Jack's total ignorance of that fact) never failed to get a laugh out of me.
pbg,
No, no, no. I know who you're thinking of, and this is a different dude. I don't have the time to do the google work (gotta go see some rock), but trust me. The Earth-3 Johnny Quick (part of the Crime Syndicate of America along with Ultraman, Super Woman, Owl Man and Power Ring) were a different bunch. They got wiped out in the Crisis On Infinite Earths, but another similarly named outfit popped up in (I believe) Kieth Geffen's late '90s JLA stories. I think they're from the anti-matter universe where Qward is found.
And it's gonna bother me until I find out, but I'm drawing a blank even with your clue. Oh, well...a little mystery in life is a good thing.
Bryan,
Far out. Seriously. Far fucking out, man.
Sure he's flip-flopped, we all have.
The question, is, which of us has sent young Americans to die by the hundreds for a lie?
Lemme see, LBJ is dead, so....
Raise your hand, Georgie.
Bryan, excellent list. You left out Max Planck.
StevenNS,
Yeah, my co-worker keeps me up to snuff on the good stuff. The League Of Extrodinary Gentlemen, for example. Very tasty.
And I'm out to see some rock. Therefore, anything after this is the gutless name-stealing troll...for a while, anyway.
(And you might even guess who I am, with that and my screen name as a clue.)
pbg
Man oh man, this is going to baffle my little brain till I come up with a name....
Jesse - The Nobel Prize list is constrained by the following qualifications
1) you must be alive to win
2) no more than three persons/yr.
Just like any human endeavor, there is politicing, discrimination, and bias in the selections. Less so than an election in Florida but there all the same. Just ask the deserving woman no one can remember because unjustly she didn't get credit with Watson and Crick for the discovery of DNA. (She performed the x-ray studies to prove the double helical structure.)
Enjoy your Mexican food!
SteveNS - HA! I just remembered one story (that actually is thread-related) where Jack produces a miniature solar system in the cow pasture... it rapidly goes from birth to death and eventually becomes a... wait for it... black hole!
pbg - Hey, you wrote some GREAT "What If--?"s, by the way. And "Shatter" was very groundbreaking in it's day... imagine the possibilities of Computer-Generated Art! Reminds me of when I used to get on the local BBS with my 1440 modem on my C-64! Man, the future sure looked bright!
If Bush was Schrödinger's cat would you bother to open the box to see if he was alive or dead?
I'm not sure if it was the same book, but I'd read something similar in the mid 90s which theorized that brains store information in the same way that holographs do, same principle anyway.
BlakNo1,
That's the one, with several chapters on Bohm and the Implicate and Explicate order. Again, an excellent read that leaves one with more questions than answers.
Hey, Steve,
What if you did?
Ah, too late--my secret identity exposed!
Of course, no one besides the comics fanatics even cares....
I was never a DC person. Late 70s, early 80s Marvel was my thing. However, DC had Watchmen...
Planck got the boot form me becaus ethough he lived in the 20th century and won the 1918 Nobel, be presented his radiation formula in 1900, and Jesse specifically said something to the effect of "the last century" or "100 years."
Did you know that 2005 is the World Year of Physics, commemorating Einstein and the accomplishments last century? Check it out.
MisterX -
That was the most appropriate use of the Mort Weisenger-esque "*choke*" that I've ever seen.
I hope you got a pretty penny when you sold it!
Bryan, wasn't there another important physicist by the name of Alpha who worked with Bethe and Gamow on some of their papers? He deserves a mention too.
Same here as far as voting absentee. I've never done it before, and I'm not thrilled with the idea, but we are also Diebolded up, and I'll just be damned. The thing that caught me about Madsen's argument was that it sounds like how these guys think. Although he never mentions an actual attack, just the red alert, This plan would work if there were an accompanying chaotic, violent incident. I can just see these depraved, diabolical monsters doing the math..
"The glasses I am wearing on my face have an index of refraction of about n=2, and the air around me (and the vacuum of space) have an index of refraction of n=1."
I was told there would be no math.
There is an article in the June (I think) Vanity Fair discussing Hawking's personal life (his wife is apparently somewhat widely believed to be an abuser of him), but also about the contribution that he's made to the common man in understanding physics. I've only recently discovered I find science fascinating, and have written down some of the books you all are recommending. Thanks from the peanut gallery. Oh, and btw Tena? More science posts. It makes Eschaton more flea-free.
Mr. Gillis, you clever lad!
Several months ago I went to a talk by an Ohio State string theorist - Samir Mathur - who presented similar results (i.e. a mathematical proof that black holes don't destroy information). So I was a bit surprised by this Hawking announcement, and worried that Hawking might overshadow Mathur (in the public eye, at least) simply because of his fame.
'course I don't really understand either of their theories, so maybe they're totally different...
Didn't he once say that time ran backwards, and then, er, reversed himself on that, too?
Some physics humor:
Planck's constant is neither!
Watt is the unit of power?
Q: Why won't Heisenbergs' operators live in the suburbs?
A: They don't commute.
A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says.
The bartender promptly serves up a beer.
"How much will that be?" asks the neutron.
"For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge."
Two atoms were walking down the street. One turns to the other and says,
"Oh, no! I think I'm an ion!"
The other responds, "Are you sure?!?"
"Yes, I'm positive!"
Ohm's law is meeting resistance!
Got mole problems? Call Avogadro at 602-1023.
Q: What do you call the sum of the diagonal elements of the tensor of
inertia?
A:The spur of the moment.
Q. Why is Epsilon afraid of Zeta?
A. Because Zeta Eta Theta!
Q. What do you get when you mix a charmed blue quark, a red top quark, and a green one that's gone a little strange?
A. I don't know but I'm getting a hadron just thinking about it.
Of course, no one besides the comics fanatics even cares....
pbg
No, very cool. Comic books are an original American artform. Your stories may have touched people deeper than you think. Our collective mythology is very powerful and is at it's purest when in comic book form.
Er... at least that's how I see it.
Jesse,
Your 10:00 pm post made me laugh. Not at you, heaven knows, 'cause people with Ph.D's the hard sciences impress the bejesus out of me, and it's obvious that you're smarter than smart in physics. But, Jesse, most people hardly know what physics is so how can they judge Hawking? The only reason the general public ever thought about Einstein was that he was involved with the atom bomb and relentlessly and correctly hyped as a genius.
I should think that Hawking, imprisoned as he is, must have lots of time to think. It is, after all, one of the few things he can do all alone. It may give him a varying perspective. His writing make me think that he has an antic sense of the universe. That, combined with ability in the hard sciences, is a gift.
Is it your opinion that Hawking's time is past? I have read that by the end of his career Einstein could no longer fathom the work being done on the cutting edge of physics.
"When we say "nothing can go faster than the speed of light" what we really should say is "nothing can go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.""
What we REALLY should say is that no information or matter propagates faster than light.
For example, if you were to take a huge laser, point it millions of miles away, and then draw a circle with it in the sky, the point of light at the end of the laser would be moving faster then light. If your ontology includes such things as among those that exist, then some things that exist move faster then light.
However, no matter or information travels faster then light.
Great thread here, so I'm going to contribute worthless celebrity nonsense. I read a Vanity Fair story--I know, consider the source and all--that claims that Hawking's 2nd wife physically abuses him something fierce. Broken bones, black eyes. Pretty convincing case, actually. Hawking doesn't come off so well in the piece either: an ego the size of the Large Magellanic Cloud etc. One anecdote has him at a conference and one of his rivals was speaking. He kept reving the engine on his wheelchair while The Rival spoke; loud enough to be annoying, but not loud enough that anyone could pinpoint it.
Also, John Adams has a new opera due in October 2005 at San Francisco Opera about Oppenheimer and the bomb called Dr. Atomic, for those that like their arias mixed with physics.
First he says information can't leave the hole. Then he says it can- he's changed his story. Well, which is it, Stephen? This is the height of arrogance. I've never trusted Stephen Hawking and I certainly don't now.
For black holes to start releasing information about the objects that have fallen in them in the middle of an election year is simply unconscionable. I'm told by senior administration officials that Stephen Hawking's wife is actually a CIA operative, and might have had something to do with him investigating these holes.
Let me ask you this: do you think Hawking might have some sort of problem with these holes because they're black?
Also, John Adams has a new opera due in October 2005 at San Francisco Opera about Oppenheimer and the bomb called Dr. Atomic, for those that like their arias mixed with physics.
Jim
HAH! Another physics/comics reference: Dr. Atomic was a great underground comic book!
Um, I'll shut up now.
>You're thinking of Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen"
Backslider | Email | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 10:57 pm | #
Yes! Thank you.
>I think my editor at the time was testing me.
Or just doesn't like you. 
The speed of light between two atoms is different then the speed of light between two stars.
>I don't think this is quite accurate. I think that the standard line is that the speed of light is constant (in a vaccuum, anyway).
I just think that when two things seem so right and provable yet contritictory the contriticion itself should be examined. The idea that established constants could change under some circumstances is down right horrifying to logical people. In the most frightening questions are the most interesting answers; somewhere between inspiration and madness.
As I said, its a weird idea, but one that could be verified or shown to be false as our ability to measure near and far extremes improves. It is no more ridiculous then an argument that goes to great lengths to be unprovable (ie string theory).
>And hell...I feel like a sissy, now. I quit doing LSD after I saw Hank Williams.
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
Don't forget john whatits.....Bells Theorem.
Kobe Bryant it like a black hole - give him the rock, it never comes back out.
If. I. Knew. It. Was. Going. To. Be. This. Kind. Of. Party. I. Would. Have. Put. My. Dick. In. The. Mashed. Potatoes.
Watson & Crik
Grrrr.
Her name is rosalind Franklin
Hmm.. If he were Schroedinger's cat, one would probably want to increase the amount of decaying material.
Do not be dissing the Hawkman!
I can totally imagine a physicist saying Hawking isn't so great. But the term physicist is really ambigous... there are so many uber-specialized sub-fields now. Most don't even begin to understand stuff from even realted disciplines. Hawking is great, at his particular speciality, no question.
As for the result: way cool. It is really significant in the completely closed vs open universe debate. (ie, is there anything outside our universe we can ever interact with... probably not.)
Additionally, it seem Hawking thinks it implies that deterministic mechanisms may suffice to explain everything. Of course, we can never know enough details (even in theory) to solve the equations, but there may be deterministic equations to expalin everything.
Side note: There has been a bit of a new rebel movement in physics which believes that information is the fundamental stuff of the universe, not matter and energy. It seem this result comes from using some of their theoretical tools. In fact, since the entropy of the universe is constant, this result is required if Hawking's theories are going to be consistant with our best knowledge.
It would be major news if Hawking joined this group. I personally think they are onto something, but I'm not a quantum physicist. (But I did use to work for one and have literally bumped into Hawking a few times... It is terible to admit, but I sometimes don't look down enough to notice people in wheel chairs in croweded places.)
I coming rather late to this thread, but doesn't this idea about which Hawking is saying he's changing his mind have to do with almost a paradox between the first law of thermodynamics, which says that mass-energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only change form, and special relativity, which says that mass-energy cannot go faster than the speed of light. Information is a form of mass-energy, thus the encyclopedia which is the prize of the bet. The question, to me, seems to be, if you throw a set of encyclopedias into a black hole, will you ever get any of that information out again? If you don't, then you seem to have violated the first law of thermodynamics by destroying some mass-energy. If you do, then you seem to have violated special relativity by having some mass-energy going faster than the speed of light in order to escape from the black hole's gravity well. Seem that Hawking may have reason to believe that the first law of thermodynamics is more fundamental. I'll look forward to hearing what the smart people think and say.
When Hawkings says "information", he fails to mention that information to him means anything from planets to light from nearby stars.
PBG:
Mister X is right. I'm going to hunt for some of your comics now. Wish me luck finding them.
Hawking...
Fascinating topic. I'm not as smart as most of the people here, and my science IQ is even lower than that. Guess I'd better knuckle down and check out some of these science books.
>And hell...I feel like a sissy, now. I quit doing LSD after I saw Hank Williams.
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
John Gillnitz | Email | Homepage | 07.17.04 - 12:08 am | #
Seeing long-dead country icons, much less having involved convorsations with them as I apparently did, is NOT a good thing. Hell, I had to be convinced I was still alive.
And no, my editor didn't like me. I'm a better writer than him.
It has become quite clear that what our politicians both repubs and dems are doing is methodical and in some cases systematic, emotion manipulation i.e. a nicer form of mind control ( don't laugh to hard because it works)
Much like in the f911 the part where the guy says "you can make people do anything if they are afraid" is dead on. This Ad-men-nish-stray-tion are masters at mind control on a mass scale, they are drunk with power and plan to not only keep it, but expand it. Just look at black ops technologies like this weapon and think of the recent lost trillion dollars missing from the pentagon's budget and the secrecy that pervades our (other black hole). Anyway, before you guys start screaming "tin foil" think about the use of these technologies and the like..(so called non-leathals and all that These should come in handy after the election is rigged. Here is one soul-ution .
Note: the spellings are in ten tion nal think James Joyce...
LOL! Yep, it's all a big conspiracy to get control over your precious bodily fluids. And you can't stop us.
Muuaaaahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!
Oh, btw here is some more fear for ya:
Classified data disks lost at Sandia and Los Alamos .
Los Alamos halts operations;
Two breaking news items today that relate to security -- or a frightening lack thereof -- at US government-run nuclear labs Sandia and Los Alamos. First, an item from my Wired News colleague Noah Shachtman, on Defensetech blog:
Backslider, I thought the fucking rapture had happened. It wasn't the last time for hallucinogens, but it sure as hell was the beginning of the end. And that was fucking mushrooms (alright, a whole bunch of fucking mushrooms). A screwed up night.
I fucking LOVE this thread. You guys are great. I just think about the nature of the universe and what (very fragmentary) knowledge I have of quantum theory as my way of messing with my mind...
I find myself leaning towards the all-is-information group, mostly just out of wanting it to be that way.
The Dancing Wu Li Masters is a wonderful book, went right down a road I'd been looking at anyway... some lovely terminology, and just good stuff.
Random note: anyone else notice the guy in the Leaky Cauldron in the new Harry Potter movie who was reading A Brief History of Time while stirring a hot cup of tea? I was trying not to laugh too loudly in the theater. I'm such a geek.
It says something, I think, that reading all of what I have about quantum theories and the nature of time serious altered my spiritual and religious beliefs. Which are... unusual anyway, and take too long to explain, but got a lot better grounded after that. You could call me an information worshipper, and not be far off...
I have to confess that nothing gives me quite the kind of pleasure as finding out that the orthodoxy of physics or especially cosmology are overturned. Both physicists and cosmologists, especially cosmologists, can be really annoying what with their snooty certainty about the completness of their knowlege. I especially love how cosmologists and the other Lords of Creation can careen between imploding and dispersing, evaprorating universes so quickly.
Something tells me that they'll not get to the middle of the onion any time soon.
Still, you've got to love 'em.
THIS LADY IS A TRUE AMERICAN HERO !
Sibel Edmonds video w/ Daniel Ellsberg
richard - great fineman quote. and proof positive that physics and zen buddhism are the same thing.
Tena | Email | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 9:35 pm | #
the tao of physics, of course it is also true, in my experience, very little is understood about anything, and by the time you have grasped the concept it will have changed. despite what the fundies proclaim, truth is not absolute, but dynamic, a basis for the flow of the universe. that is a hard thing to grasp indeed. just my opinion.
all of western philosophy could have, and in my opinion, should have ended with the socratic observation "all that i know, is i do not know" at the very least, a caveat that should not be ignored. did no one tell the administration as they observerd the "intelligence". dip wads.
uncle scam, i agree, she's also kind of hot.
there are those things you know about, and those things you don't know about, and in between are the DOORS. j. morrison, ah i mean william blake, or possibly ronald dumbsfeld?
at any rate i'd like to find a wurm hole to throw bush into.
Hell...I could have told him that.
the wurm hole
Putting Wurmser in charge of the unit meant that it was being run by a pro-Iraq-war ideologue who'd spent years calling for a pre-emptive invasion of Baghdad and who was clearly predisposed to find what he wanted to see. Adding another layer of dubious quality to the endeavor was the man partnered with Wurmser, F. Michael Maloof."
the CIA may indeed be a broken intelligence agency, since that is not the intelligence the admin. used i don't see that that is of much consequence. i do hope at some point, they pull this feith based bullshit out of the black hole.
Shorter version of Hawking complaint:
"God I hate the head cheerleader! She's not the best on the squad, she's just popular with the boys!"
More seriously, why do so many supposedly adult actions and tirades, sound more like junior HS cliches and popularity related complaints?
The most brillant mind in the world that cannot communicate adequately is less effective than a minor mind that can communicate well. It applies in science, politics and life in general.
What does Jack do? That's right... HE BUTTERS THE BACKS OF CATS AND DROPS THEM AND THEY GO FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE due to the conflicting truisms!
Buttered Callico nightmares for Johnny Frist-co
"Boson flux rising Captain!"
Thes known unknowns of Hawkings' are interesting...
David Harris' salon blog has some great physics and potter links.
As for black holes- they can tell something. They're a giant echo chamber but transform the matter so it's echo is redefined. We do not know how to measure the reformed matter.
The things around black holes can tell us things. By the time we can have mars, the moon Earth to compare information of the same areas from different perspectives we can perhaps begin to grasp the quantifications of black holes.
See behind them literally.
They're wormholes like whirlpools upon water. Closest model of comparison in physical terms.
Water to light as the fourth element.
Solid,liquid, gas, light.
All objects have light value, only measurable in terms of its reflection minus light itself.
Darkness and light can only be defined in terms as wel know them.
Does relativity of such contradict thermodynamics first law?
Finally the encyclopedia only should be in a language he does not know with a new math in it. To shoe how the knowldeg is intact in the balance of transfer but is in a new form. That is probably the trick to getting the book and an inside joke.
As for objects outside the universe, technically that is what black holes are. So we can find measurements of outside interactions.
As for the Bush memory hole , its fuzzy math is yet understood...It is an unknown unknown.
Rumsfeld went into the meory hole as well. nice press conferences Rummy. That's his boy shooting heads point blank in Iraq. Which this thread has blown up many troll heads as well.
It's been real (relatively speaking...)
To show*
typos, lost in the continuum...
make it wear women's panties on its head.
Odd. My wife is always making me wear her panties on my head, but she never asks me for any information. She must hate America.
Yes, Tena, a refreshing change of pace-- though folks will drag the usual topic into it.
However, although Hawking may have come around to his opinion recently, the question of whether or not matter/energy (aka "information") takes a one-way trip into a singularity is not new. As a casual admirer of quantum physics, in a drug-induced "physics without the boring math parts" way, like many on this thread, ("The Dancing Wu Li Masters" occupies a warm spot on my heart's bookshelf), the assertion that no radiation/information emerges from a singularity is stated in the precept "Black Holes Have No Hair".
I used to be mildly astonished that the august and arid domain of scientific discourse would solemnly and straight-facedly kick around such an unequivocally lewd double-entendre. Today, it very much evokes the comedy of Whoopi Goldberg. But there it is; do a Google search, and you will come upon any number of permutations on hairy holes, with scarcely a wink or nudge to suggest that it's anything other than pure adult science marching on.
But what's wrong with non-physicists selecting Hawking as the greatest? He makes physics approachable for people who don't have their minds lost in equations and quanta. I'd say that's an appropriate measure of greatness. As Ellington would say, "if it sounds good, it is good."
By that criterion, the greatest physicist of all time is Isaac Asimov, and Herbert Zim is somewhere in the top ten.
Yeah, but what's up with the robotic exoskeleton?
Great thread.
Science and spirituality are the same thing. The more we learn scientifically, the more spiritual we become. Creationism and and the big bang have the same reasonableness problems. Believing that matter/energy always existed and arranged itself as we see it now is no more reasonable than believing that there was almighty God who always existed and created everything we see now.
Which is more likely: A black hole gives up information, or the Bush administration gives up the name of who outed Valerie Plame?
--Kynn
top ten list
i guess this thread is dead, but i was curious about posters claim that hawkins would not make the top 10 list. indeed of the three lists i looked up, he is not posted on any. this one puts him at #16.
I might be seen somewhat as a spoiler, but I'm wary of "top scientist" lists, because when making them, people sometimes have a tendency to remove the scientist from his (or her) social and intellectual context and make comparisons on that basis.
Newton worked in a very different age than Einstein. We consider Newton's ideas to be unassailable (at least his work on physics; his vast work in alchemy has only recently begun to be understood as a important part of his body of scholarship), but in his own time, his work was often disputed. That's not to deny his impact, but rather to say that our hindsight shapes our perspective.
As for Heisenberg's work during World War II, he did "work for the Nazis" in the sense that he did work for the German government while the Nazis ruled (including doing lecture tours at German Cultural Institutes that were built in places Germany had occupied). Many notable German physics did actually stay; not being Jewish certainly helped that. If anyone's interested in this topic, I can recommend Mark Walker's German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, which is a rather thorough treatment of this issue. It's written in an academic style, which nonspecialists might find dry, but it's the best historical work on the Germany nuclear program I've seen.
Walker also has a book, Nazi Science, written more for the nonspecialist, in which he discusses the historiography surrounding Heisenberg's war work (among other things).
Oops. sorry.
Creationism and and the big bang have the same reasonableness problems.
No they do not. "Creationism" has the additional problem of not being disprovable ("falsifiable"), thus it is not amenable to scentific proof or disproof. Any data that contradicts it can be written off as part OF it that God put in there to test our faith; fossils: God put them there when He created the world about 5500 years ago. You say that radioactive dating proves them older than that? Well, God readjusted the clock when we weren't looking.
Thus, creationism is a matter of faith and faith alone. The Big Bang may or may not be the correct explanation of the universe, and it is certainly a LOT more complicated that just a big explosion, but it is testable. Astronomers are working at testing it all the time. THAT makes it SCIENCE.
I'm way late to this, but I agree with Jesse.
I have the same problem with Hawking's work that I do with string theory. It's interesting, it's certainly elegant, and some aspects of it might even be sort of accurate. But...
Anyway, Hawking certainly deserves credit for increasing public interest in science, and even for some of his work, but I don't think that time will be kind to his actual scientific legacy. And in a way it's not fair to blame Hawking for his inflated reputation; I think that when non-scientists read books like his, they tend to "overinvest" in them psychologically...I think they're more likely to say, on completing the book, "This is the direction in which Truth lies," rather than "This is one theory among many, and certain aspects of it couldn't even be tested by any means known to man." I mean, there was one book that came out which purported to explain the Schrodinger's Cat argument...and almost no one I talked to came away from it understanding that Schrodinger's argument was intended to demonstrate a PROBLEM with a certain INTERPRETATION of quantum mechanics; instead, they got it into their heads that the "Many Worlds" interpretation was the most likely solution to the "paradox" in question, and I had a hell of a time trying to get it out.
Backslider: For a different take (possibly) on the classic debates in quantum mechanics, check out Arthur Fine's "The Shaky Game."
You mean the Many Worlds Theorem isn't a literal description of reality? I and a quasi-infinite number of me(s) in parallel universes are shocked and disappointed to hear this news!
On the other hand, there are an equally almost infinite amount of us who suspected this all along.
Creationism and and the big bang have the same reasonableness problems.
No they do not. "Creationism" has the additional problem of not being disprovable ("falsifiable"), thus it is not amenable to scentific proof or disproof. Any data that contradicts it can be written off as part OF it that God put in there to test our faith; fossils: God put them there when He created the world about 5500 years ago. You say that radioactive dating proves them older than that? Well, God readjusted the clock when we weren't looking.
Thus, creationism is a matter of faith and faith alone. The Big Bang may or may not be the correct explanation of the universe, and it is certainly a LOT more complicated that just a big explosion, but it is testable. Astronomers are working at testing it all the time. THAT makes it SCIENCE.
cory
Cory - no need to get all huffy, I was just using both Creationism and Big Bang theories as examples - they both have the problem of not being able to explain the pre-existence of something. I would also say that both religious and scientific explanations are revised in order to explain new discoveries.
Janet, Janet, Janet...I am so far from huffy that I can't see huffy from here. Why is it "huffy" to state an opinion. Is it only a huff when the opinions expressed differ from the superstitious world view of God and creation and spirit?
Look at the Falwells and Swaggerts ad Asscrofts of the world; now THERE'S huffy!
Well - all of that capitalized shouting seemed overly emotional to me.
By the way - I am not defending any of those phony individuals - in fact personalities and politics had nothing to do with what I was talking about. I was just observing that from my point of view science, religion and philosophy would become one - if we could ever figure it all out.
Well - all of that capitalized shouting seemed overly emotional to me.
Point taken; I forgot my Netiquette there. Didn't mean to SHOUT. I try to stick to italic and bold for emphasis, but I am so lazy that sometimes typing the HTML tags is beyond me....
Quantum physics allows two things to be "true" at the same time.
Flip = flop.
Now we need a post on supercomputers and the "War on Tera-flops" (floating operations per second).
The Big Bang theory does not include asking for 10% of my income and giving it to a ripoff artist or else I get eternal damnation.
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