bluescience

Woah, That is nice to know.

Um...WOW...most explosive topic ihve had so far...Yeah, i learned all the laws in chemistry this year, so i thought i would put it in the chem section. Oh and yes, after a little research i did found out that a physicist named James Clerk Maxwell found Cavendish's paper and found that he had indeed found most of the gas laws before the people they were named after. So i guess that is proof. However i couldn't find anything on why he was such an introvert...so i think it was just something of his childhood or anytime in his past. Also did you know that he was the first to find the mass of the earth and recent scientists have only improved that measurement by less than 1%. And to do so he had to use an instrument that he had to observe the measurements from a separate room, using a telescope.

Wait I do not get why one can't wrap his head around infinity. Isn't it simply the idea or concept of always, continuously increasing our numbers endlessly. I know that is a terrible definition giving the fact that when you take theinfinte set of all real numbers...you know what happens... It is possible with our number system, especially with the study of prime numbers, we can see that our current number system is capable of this concept, it just cannot be used to assign "olafs". As in, we cannot figure out what level of infinity our certain set is. What is their not to believe about infinity...Believe me I am not trying to make a point in an argument...i just want to make sure i am not seeing something that other people see that is essential in the concept of infinity and makes them doubt its existence.

Is it true that Cavendish did indeed discover most of the gas laws before the the people they are named after? And also why was he such an introvert? first topic in the chemistry section.

Well most of your question can be answered if you just think of how evolution works. As an environment puts pressure on the individuals of a species, certain difference in phenotypes allow certain individuals to have a greater probability of surviving and thus allowing them to reproduce more successfully, allowing that positive special phenotype-that allows them to survive better- to reoccur more often in its offspring, thus eventually bringing out a change in the species. But for this process to happen there has to be a pressure on a species to survive, allowing special phenotype to enter a gene pool and become more widespread in a species. The reason why we have so many different living species, is because every different specie has had different pressures from the environment in their evolutionary lines to cause them to become like that...although there are very rare cases of change without environmental pressures. So to you answer your questions, monkeys simply didnt have the same environmental pressure as humans, to evolve the same way as we did.

Yeah, i am reading a couple books and i believe the one called,"a really short history of nearly everything" is the one that confused me. It talks about GR and SR, but then it also talks about how the Big Bang expanded with just the right amount of gravitational force so that the universe wouldn't collapse in a short amount of time or continually expand faster than it does now, making matter so spread apart that interactions would be very rare and limited. Bill Bryson(the author) also states that Maybe our universe expanded with the slightest extra gravitational force above the perfect needed amount, so eventually that grav force will take over and the universe will come collapsing down. What confuses me is: Can gravity still be treated as a 'force' even after Einstein's theory or relativity?

Oh sorry, i kind of said,"space at a given moment in time" because i couldn't figure out how to show the relation between space and time in newtonian physics, so i just quoted from Carroll's SR lecture notes. He was trying to explain the difference of how space and time was integrated in a coordinate system in newtonian physics versus that of SR. Carroll seemed to reason that newton did say there was uniform time, but the only way time was tied in with space 3-d coordinates was that: at this moment of time, this is how a certain space was. do you get what i mean? It is hard to explain so just left it at the quote. Sorry for confusing anyone...I am not a scientist...yet...nor an expert at this topic...so thanks for letting me know any mistakes.

So, in einstein's theory, gravity is simply a geometric distortion between dimension. So if it so not a force, then howcome there are still theories about the force expanding the universe vs the force of gravity pulling it back one day? Do these theories just ignore relativity?

The reason why Einstein deemed time as not absolute is because according to the laws of physics, time is always constant no matter what. This did not make sense with Newtonian physics, since in Newtonian physics considers space as relative and time as a separate phenomena. Also Newtonian physics relates space and time through the phrase,"space at a given moment in time" So in simple words, newtonian physics goes with your dad's line of thought. However what einstein reasoned was that if space is not absolute, yet the speed of light is always constant then time has to be factor that changes. He even made an equation for the difference in time based on velocity called time dilation. This is a link to a good explanation of the time dilation equation: The reason why einstein hypothesized time is variant is because if you imagine an observer at 'rest' and he sees light pass by him and he measures it to be 186000 miles/sec and then if you see a second observer moving very fast in the opposite direction of light or travelling toward the light, than the speed of light for that observer should be faster, however it remains the same, 186000 miles/sec. So if we know that the distance was variant than the only thing to keep the velocity or speed the same, would be to vary time. And when it comes to gravity, It makes perfect logical sense when you think of it this way: A geodesic is the shortest distance between two points. If you draw a geodesic between two points on a sphere and then lay the outermost layer out as a 2-d surface, then that line would be curved right? yes. Say you had a 2-d creature observer living on that outer 2-d surface, for him, the geodesic would be a straight line, but since that 2d layer is part of a 3d sphere, anything traveling on the sphere would seem to take a curved path for the 2-d creature. You probably know where i am taking this now. It is the same for us. In the 4d coorinate system called spacetime, when an object is moving, it is going in straight line, and we, 3d observers, see it as a straight line. But the moment our object comes close to another object, it changes coordinates in the 4th dimension and continues to travel in a straight line in the fourth dimension, however For us 3-d observers, it tends to curve or become stuck in a orbit, pretty much any conic section. Thus gravity according to General Relativity is simply geometric distortion between dimensions.

Oh no, we have gone much past linear algebra, we are doing limits and derivatives, so i am learning the basics of calculus in my pre-calculus class, We have also gone over vectors so that should help. But in Carroll's notes it talks about rotating the axis, and taking their primes, that is some deep calculus i have not learnt yet, those things are going to be the things that trouble me.

Yes, Thank you for the suggestions so far, but if anyone has anymore suggestions, please tell me. I have already started reading Carroll's lecture notes, but the math of course requires a good knowledge of calculus, so far right now i am doing a pre-calculus course at high school. So far I am halfway though the 1st set of lecture notes without any big confusions due to math, but if i do start getting confused because of the calculus ill find a more dumbed down version or just learn the calculus itself. Thanks a lot though.

No it cannot, since if you multiply [latex](y-3)x(1+y)[/latex] it would be: [latex]y^2x-2xy-3x[/latex] If you wanted to factor it would be [latex]y^2-x(2y+3)[/latex] OR [latex]y(y-2x)-3x[/latex] but that would be pretty much the end of it. In my eyes at least, it may be wrong

What you could do is have an extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely dense ball or sphere of matter, as dense as the massive black hole that exist at the center of our galaxy. If we could orbit that sphere, Hawking says that a black hole that massive would be able to "slow" time by half for the people orbiting this dense black hole. So five years for the orbiters would be 10 for people on the earth. So i do not know if that answers your question, However it is possible that we could use something of great mass as a time travel machine, since the people orbiting could come back with earth having gone through twice as much time as the orbiters With the principle of equivalency, we could also use something that is accelerating near the speed of light for time travel. We coulf build a form of transportation, such as a train that would go around the planet at 0.999 the speed of light and the travellers inside would experience time at a much slower place than the people outside of the train. When the people riding the train would stop and come out they would technically have lived longer than possible to see the future. On the matter of travelling back in time, I think i agree with Stephen Hawking that it is impossible, since time paradox's would deem it so.

So hey guys, i am planning on sitting down and understanding all the equations that are of or relating to the theory of relativity. I know of some, but do you guys have an order that is best to study them in, especially if I am partially confident that i understand the theory of relativity, but i just want to know the math behind it. Thank You,

Hey that is a good question, ill give you the jist and reasoning behind wormholes, since i am noob too, i don't mind people pointing out my mistakes. Say you take a living creature that lives in the 2-dimensional world and you place him on any 2-d layer on a sphere. Now, as a side note, know that a sphere is 3-d and it is made of an infinite amount of layers of 2-d surfaces. Say you put the 2-d creature on the the outermost layer of the sphere. Also know that creature is living in that 2 dimensional outer surface of the sphere, not over it since the 2nd dimension does not include height. After you have placed the creature there, you tell him to go to the exact opposite end of this huge entire sphere. For him, he will have to go all the way around until he gets to that other side, however, we as 3rd dimension observers know that you can simply cut through the sphere and reach to the other side. The 2-d observing creature does not know this since he is ignorant of the 3rd dimension, It is the same phenomena with wormholes. We only observe the third dimension, but just like there is a shortcut for the 2-d creature's plane world in the third dimension, there is also way for us to travel to the other side of universe through the fourth dimension, which is time. Since we exist on a coordinate system including the fourth dimension, but we only observe things of the 3rd dimension, we cannot see the particles that would make up a wormhole.

So I am more of a relativity guy, so I never ventured into the realm of quantum mechanics or the theory. I do know that it is an essential part in understanding the universe at the very small sized level. I also do know that it is related to research in time travel, teleportation and computers using a code more complex than the binary code. I also do now that is one of two theories that comes closest to the goal of science(in my eyes): to create a singular theory that describes everything in the universe. But that is all a vague idea and I want to get started on understanding this theory, so I wanted to see if you guys could help me out on getting started. I am only looking for the basics of this theory or whatever it is.

So I know that Newton looked at gravity as a force and thus came up with a big set of calculations that accurately predict the effect of gravity on objects. However Einstein stated gravity as simply a geometric effect in the fourth dimension or space time. And his calclulation give a slightly more accurate representation of gravity. What I want to know is on what scale is Einstein's equation's "more accurate", I have heard that in fact we can use Newtonian formulas and they do not make that much of a difference and are usable enough for basic things, but in what situation would one need to resort to Einstein's formulas? How more accurate are they? GRACIAS, THANKS

Thanks, you guys really cleared out that doubt for me. However I have not treaded into the mathematics of all these theories cause I have school and homework, so I do not have enough time to focus on extracurricular stuff. So for the most part I am trying to expand my knowledge horizontally, not vertically, if ya know what I mean. Thanks tho, even if you tried to help with intense math.

so then an orbit will always have to be a conic section no matter what. And the exact measurements or shapes of these conic sections are determined by what exactly?

My chain of thought is that if a geodesic drawn from one point to another on a sphere is laid out on a 2-d surface, than the line of the geodesic would be a curve. However when you think of it would not the shape of the curve depend on where that geodesic line lies on the sphere, so i think it is the same in the geodesic of the fourth dimension. I think the orbits are elliptical since the geodesic in the 4th dimension is shaped in the third dimension in such a way that it cause a elliptical orbit. But why always an ellipse? also if an object is taking the shortest distance in the fourth dimension, then why does the object keep on circling a more massive object continuously without ever moving forward?

I have understood why and how geodesics are related to gravity. So is gravity still a force? Also since the geodesics taken in the fourth dimension cause us to see planets taking orbits doe to gravity, what causes the elliptical shape of orbits? So far with all the reasoning i seem to only think that the orbits should be circular. Any enlightenment is awesome.

Hey! Now i'm excited! Be aware i am human so i may make mistakes! So about what happened before the big bang. That is a very good question, and a hard one to answer. Of course what i am about to tell you is one of many theories, but it is the one i find most logical and is supported by many great scientists such as Stepehen Hawkings. First of, yes, time and space did come into existence with the big bang. But before the big bang, all the matter, forces, and everything of the universe that is expanding right now was forced into a singularity. Stephen says that this singularity had no dimensions, it was just there. Now as a side note, if you are imagining this, stephen likes to warn us that there is absolutely nothing around this point of singularity, so even imagining a black voidness would be incorrect, but that makes imagining it much harder. Back to the topic, so this singularity suddenly burst. Now there are many details about what was created in how many millionths of a second, but to sum it up, Hydrogen would have been created first and then helium given all the heat of the bigbang. The rest of our matter is speculated to have been made by stars(i totally different topic i will not dive into). Now here is the tripy part. Scientists say that this singularity had certain conditions or certain characteristics that caused it to suddenly explode into a universe with 3-dimensional space. And that too with the perfect amount of gravity, so that the universe could continue to expand. In other words, if the strength of our gravity had been a tiny bit stronger then after a certain while the force that expands our universe would have been over powered by the force of gravity eventually and then all the space and mass of our universe would have come back to the same point of singularity. However we do not know the measurement of the perfect amount of gravity needed and how exact it is. So perhaps lets say that may be our force our gravity is the tiniest amount imaginable greater than the perfect amount needed to sustain an universe in the 3rd dimension, then eventually, when that moment will come, gravity will overcome that force and all our universe will come back to a point of singularity. However, if our gravity is the same amount less than the perfect amount needed to sustain a 3-d universe then our universe will eventually continuously expand making matter increasingly spread apart. Scientists claim that there could likely have been many other big bangs of singularities out there before(sorry it is hard to put it in words, since there is no time in nothingness), but when they exploded they might have had different conditions, causing them to remain as singularities or exist in other dimensions, or come up with a different structure of matter. I think i have already told you about the fate of our universe. So far scientists do not know for 100%. Our universe can continually expand on forever or shrink back to a point of singularity. P.S. I haven't checked out the article on wikipedia yet, so ill do that and reply back.

There is the fact that evolution itself means that there is no perfection. One can always change for the better. So although evolution drives toward perfection, or more exactly the ability to survive and reproduce to keep the species alive, there is always room for perfection. This is because there is always the fact that evolution itself is not perfect either. it has to depend on chance. As in that the only reason wings exist is coz of chance mutations and then the factor of survival of the fittest took over, making birds with better wings better able to survive. SO One cannot say with a hundred percent confidence that humans will evolve longer fingers or lose body hair or grow wings, since the probability of those mutations occurring are not a 100%. in other words there is always a chance that we might have a mutation for wings, but there is also a chance that our genes will never mutate to give us wings. Thus Evolution doesn't have a predetermined direction, because there was a chance that the mutation for wings never would have happened, thus preventing the species of birds to exist. There was a chance that the mutation for higher level thinking would never have occurred. So evolution is not a predetermined path, instead it is almost like a traveler with no destination, just randomly choosing his own path, totally random. He turns left sometimes, sometimes he turns right, sometimes he goes forward, sometimes he even goes backward. P.S. Do not confuse yourself over the "survival of the fittest" or "natural selection". Those "forces" are not random. The organisms with the best genes do survive and thus make the species evolve. All i am saying is that for those differences to occur-the same differences that allow for natural selection-exist because of mutations in the genes. Once these mutations occur by CHANCE, the organism with the new mutations and new physical or mental abilities has to compete with the organisms who do not have the same abilities as he does. If his abilities allow him to better survive and reproduce then his differences are passed down, and if those same difference significantly allow his offspring to survive better then they may appear in more of the species in later generations.

oh. im not sure tho, since my knowledge of this topic comes from the second party books, not from the writings of Einstein himself. therefore you propbably are right if you are sure about your knowledge. also just as a question, what is momentum? like what is it in physics. Isn't it just kinetic energy or just the your motion itself?

thanks for the explanations, i still do not understand how it ties in with newtonian physics and space-time