tar

we have not witnessed the furthest we can see yet

"Galaxies beyond our observational horizon are apparently moving away at FTL." But there are NO galaxies ON our observational horizon, so there is no chance of any moving beyond it.

BeeCee, I understand what he is referring to, and you and he are not thinking it through. We never in our lifetimes will see any area of space further than 100 lyrs away, as a star system as old as our own. That does not put such systems out of our observable universe. If a system should move out of range, as per radiation from it, today not being able to reach us, that means we will never see that system as a 13.8 billion year old system. It does not preclude us from seeing it as a 12 billion year old system or an 8 or a 2 or a 1 billion year old system, or as it was, when we see it tonight in our skies. For instance the GW we saw a couple of years ago was a system that was 12.5 billion years old at the time we saw it. If something we see at 900z was a billion years old when we look at it now, it will be closer to 2 billion years old, when we look at it in a billion years. How old do you figure it will look when we see it in 600 billion years? Your answer has to be less than 613.8billion and greater than 2. Regards, TAR

BeeCee, "Over large scales, expansion will as Professor Krauss has noted, see distant galaxies move beyond our observable universe.​" Well yes, I think that is not the proper way to think about the data. Just because the wavelengths of light coming in from far away (the CMB) are redshifted a 1000 times does not make them unobservable, just moves red to violet light out of the visible spectrum. Actually the same shift would move X-ray emissions closer to visible wavelengths. So the areas of space, currently beyond the CMB, in terms of our ability to receive the electromagnetic radiation they put off, are actually parts of space we will see later at longer wavelengths, not areas of space that have moved outside our observable universe. What I mean is that the areas of space that we currently witness as cosmic background radiation, in the radio wavelengths, are right now today probably developed star systems that maybe have gone through 3 generations of star development and they themselves are so far away that due to the expansion of space, light they put out today will never reach us, ever, we know that we can currently see that area of space when it was very young and that we will be able to see it forever, because as it ages, in terms of our view of it, the wavelengths it is putting out will be increasingly red shifted and thereby we will see the system in slower and slower motion and redshifted to a larger and larger degree, but we know we will NEVER see it as a 13.8 billion year old system, because the one instance of that system that exists has moved out of reach. So we will never see that system as a 13.8 billion year old system, but we have no way to lose sight of it as a younger than 13.8 billion year old system. Regards, TAR What Professor Krauss does not know is when the farthest back we can see will show us areas of space older than "soon after the big bang". If we could see such areas of space, we could see an outside edge of the universe and start to form an idea of the shape and size of the place and our position in it. And the vision of places in space as far as we can see in a certain direction being older than soon after the big bang, would, as time went on, surround us more and more, until no CMB was observable, and ALL directions had areas of space older than slightly after the big bang old. So given the 600billion year timeline, I would say chances are good we will be able to see the outside reaches of our universe, and thereby have more knowledge of the place, not less.

BeeCee, Understood, but probable observations of a scientist 600billion years from now, is not something sensibly forecast. We have very little information about the large scale dynamics of the universe, how one galaxy feels about another, and what information is exchanged between the two, and so on. What are voids about, what is the great attractor about, how big and long lived will scientists in 600 billion years be? He has no information about how big the universe is, and since we are just now seeing areas of space that just became transparent to photons 13.7? billion years ago, the boundaries of our observable universe are not yet reached. The wavelengths of electromagnetic waves coming to those future scientists from the limits of their observable universe may be way too long for us to see, but those future scientists would have evolved in such an environment, where maybe their information gathering facilities will be way different than ours. Evolutionarily they likely fit better than we do to that long wavelength environment, and technology wise they had perhaps 600billion years of advancements in science to work with, and perhaps they even would have record of our observations of the CMB. Dr. Krauss believes the scientists of that era will just see a few gravitationally bound galaxies, and will have no way to figure the big bang occurred. I think the Dr. is being very short sighted. If we learned so much since HST was put in orbit, extrapolate that capability and knowledge gain out 600billion years, and tell me again what scientists will and will not be able to witness. Regards, TAR Perhaps a scientist in 2037 will have the output from 12 LIGO experiments wirelessly transmitted to receptors along her optic nerve, and she will be able to see gravity waves passing through Earth. That is only 20 years away.

Right. Bad overthink on my part. Perhaps you are more ​​on the QED side, involved in quantum measurements as discussed in this paper from Oregon, 2009. https://arxiv.org/pdf/0901.0951.pdf Glossing over the paper's math, and reading some of the introduction and conclusions and internal thought processes, I would say the scientists involved in the work that surrounded the measurements taken during the construction of this paper, were as concerned with the meaning of information and thought experiments as they were with the behavior of the particles themselves.

SwansonT, Well thank you for the answer. Sorry I put you into the QED category, when maybe you are more in the collider field... But that does raise a question I have had since high school chemistry about the "reality" of "seeing" a particle go off in one spiral or another after a collision by noticing a trail of ionization. Is not the ionization happening on a scale much different from the scale in which the particle is to be modeled? That is, you might be able to see the path a mouse is taking through a crowd, by noticing the reaction of the startled people from high above, but you don't actually see the mouse, or know what effect the people had on the mouse's path. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, but implications are important We could half the population of the world in a short amount of time, solving population and hunger issues, by returning population levels to levels half a century ago, if light eaters each killed and pickled one heavy eater, to eat during the upcoming year, if everybody completed their task this afternoon. Math is exact, but what the implications are is the REAL question. What is standing for what? Is the speed of light taken as 1? In which case, you just took reality right out of the equation. Regards, TAR

SwansonT, My answer is immaterial, I was after your answer to the question of whether there is a different philosophy/science content to different branches of science . Regards, TAR I am a lay person, math challenged, I don't count in the discussion.

dimreepr, I will stop. My question was, in regards to the thread, whether different branches of science had different levels of empirical evidence available and applied. I was not putting myself up against SwansonT, I was putting a cosmologist (Dr. Krauss) up against a quantum physicist (SwansonT) for comparison, as to the philosophy/science content of each discipline. But I will stop. I see my question isn't being considered and only my poor ranking as a mathematician is being discussed. Regards, TAR Leaving just this last thought. What is the second derivative of a cow?

I was not actually proposing a theory. I was using an on the spot model to put up against Dr. Krauss' as being of equal standing in terms of correlation to reality. What exact amount of time? What is the mechanism that causes this doubling? What gets doubled? If before an efold there was 16 cubic Planks of Space, and after the efold there were 32, what physically happens to the 16 quarks that resided each in the center of a cubic Plank? Are there still 16 quarks but now they are further apart?

what is an efold? is that a real thing? Or a mathematical device?

So exactly how fast was inflation?

Suppose my model aligns with the Big Crunch followed by the Big Bang bevy of models, which would not require a "from nothing" assumption. The whole deal is more in the realm of philosophy than science. Science being the noticing of how reality actually behaves, actually fits together, actually works. You can notice a different piece of reality from a different angle and have a different point of view than another human, but nobody has a monopoly on being able to do science. And once somebody notices a fact about reality and reports that fact to others, and the others believe the fact to be true, well then you have the explorer/tourist situation, but it does not take the fact away from the tourist.

SwansonT, And how exactly do you propose that Dr. Krauss show his model is valid? He figures that reality popped into existence from nothing out of the false vacuum in pairs of opposite energy, thus maintaining a zero energy situation (although some little tiny bit of energy had to be the seed, which invalidates the theory, theorectically) ? Suppose my model is that there must be conservation of space, and if space bulges out here it has to compress over there, and reality did not come into existence in one set of pairs but instead six sets of pairs (like the 12 sections of the sphere.) How do we decide which of us is correct? Which is the true thing? Which is the real thing? Who is right? The universe has to be right, so we can check with the universe and see which model works...but how? It is a philosophical question, more than a scientific question. Inflation violates the conservation of space law, so obviously no scientist would subscribe to Dr. Krauss' model. The Almadine Garnet Is a real example of how space is arranged in the fashion I describe. Do I have more real proof of the validity of my model than Dr. Krauss? He has to, in his mental thought experiment, violate the speed of light limit to make his model work. And the speed of light is empirically established as the limit the universe has. I do not think he can both do science, and have this "there be the dragons" area of his model. And have the model be empirically valid. I have already proven that we are all, just by being human, point of consciousness entities, already doing science. You have no claim toward being a special breed of human. Regards, TAR Nor, according to my model is any human able to view the entire universe at once, as one model (except in the exact way, we really do when we gaze into the night sky.) It violates the common sense law.

Thread, Do you think there is a different relationship between science and philosophy in terms of the reality of the situation, depending on the branch of science? That is, if you are a material scientist, you are interested in stress and strain of materials and such for purposes of building a bridge that does not fall down. If you design and select your materials correctly the bridge REALLY does not fall down. The reality of your work and knowledge can be easily verified by reality...empirical feedback. "Is the bridge standing?" There is little argument over the reality of the answer. In quantum physics, you get a little more philosophy leaking into the arena, where the way you look at it, will give you different answers, and different scientists in the field can favor different models, but basically the ideas and models can be checked against reality, where an experiment can be designed and the results can either favor keeping, adjusting, or discarding the model. Still a little flakey sometimes, as the mathematical models of probability are not, by their very nature absolute, but usually results yea, nay or undetermined or partially true can find a consensus vote. But take a field like cosmology, where we are so insulated by immense space and incredibly long time periods, that the models can not be fully vetted. Here Professor Krauss can tell us what the universe must look like to a scientist 600 billion years from now...and we have absolutely no way to empirically check on the reality of his claims. Regards, TAR here I would propose that the philosophy to science ratio is directly proportional to the reality you are giving to the model That is, is the empirical checking happening on paper and computer and in the imagination against the model, or is the empirical data coming directly from reality and is it the actual, real behavior of the people, place and things that is the focus of the exploration.

"Science is not interested in reality per se, but to explain the universe around us by the construction of models: If by chance one of those models hits on this "reality"or "truth" then all well and good." "To those who wish to impose their definition of reality abstractly, independent of emerging empirical knowledge and the changing questions that go with it, and call that either philosophy or theology, I would say this: Please go on talking to each other, and let the rest of us get on with the goal of learning more about nature." BeeCee, To me, the person is by definition a scientist. We internalize the entire universe, in an analogous fashion, into a model of the universe constructed with the cells and synapses, connections and signals in our brains. There is not one of us, that knows better how to do this science, than any other or every other human that is so constructed, by nature. Where Lawrence Krauss goes wrong, in my estimation, is when he thinks, or knows, that his model is superior to mine. And that goes for SwansonT as well. One can construct a special club, a regimen of thought, with the same rules and language and analogies and transformations and assumptions as the next guy or girl and call that science, but the science is already done in the noticing and model building that a human does when she walks down the street and experiences reality. That I am not privy to the meeting of professors at Oregon, does not ban me from being a scientist. And the realm of multiverses and string theory and 12 dimensional universes that could have been instead of this one, are not discussions of reality at all, but discussions of the models of reality that exist primarily in the literature and the brains of theorists. So one does not gain ownership of nature, by noticing it, any more than another person gains ownership by noticing it. Where string theory and particle physics models happen to "hit on" reality, fine and good. But it is also fine and good to match your memory of an Oak tree with the Oak tree outside, look at it, go over to it and touch it, and be assured and reassured that your model of reality, your internal model of the entire universe, is actually true. Regards, TAR

SwansonT, Not sure I understand or agree or know who figures out how science should behave. Regards, TAR

Thread, Forgive me for not reading through the thread, but I have a contribution to make, from only a scan through and the reading of a few posts. The human being is, from my own personal experience, and from the stories of others, a being that senses the world through sight and sound and smell and taste and feeling, including a sense of one's body and balance, that all together associates the human being to the world that he/she is in and of. Allows the human being to move through and affect the world to his or her advantage. Given this starting point, I frame the three, Philosophy, Science and Reality in the following way. Philosophy is the study of reality from the point of view of the human being. Science is the study of reality from the point of view of an objective observer, stripped of as many human fallacies, and human subjective considerations as possible. Reality is what both study. It seems to me, that truth is going to be the case, whatever humans know about it, say about it, or think about it. However, truth also seems to be noticeable from all directions. That is a true thing is usually true in more than one way. That is I am real. I am also my sister's brother. I am also the guy that lives on the corner and mows his lawn...and so on. A big thing in science is peer review. This does not eliminate human fallacies and human considerations, as a human can not actually take an other than human point of view, but it assures us that the thing actually exists in the waking world, experiencable by others. Math is interesting because it is analogies and relationships and pattern matching and grain size switching, and one thing standing for another...all very human things to do, but it provides a framework, from which two humans can explore reality together, in an exact way, taking as much subjectivity out of the situation as possible. It looks Red. or It is reflecting electromagnetic radiation of between 630 and 700 nanometer in wavelength...are both ways of talking about the same reality. Regards, TAR The math of philosophy is logic. The math of science is algebra, geometry and calculus. The math of reality is everything fits together flawlessly. Mike Smith Cosmos, Established Dogma ain't such a bad thing. It gives us a common language with which to communicate our thoughts and feelings. Dreams are nice, but they are not, per se, of the waking world. And thusly not empirically sharable, but in an imaginary way. Regards, TAR Dreams are of reality, but they do not have to fit together flawlessly. Reality ALWAYS fits together flawlessly.

OK I really do have to reread a bunch of stuff, I am completely confused. I thought, in the LIGO chart, the amplitude up on the black lines was considered H+ and the amplitude down was considered Hx. I was trying to visualize what that meant, in regards, to the merger and am now completely clueless. What was that about space squishing along one arm of the LIGO while stretching on the other? Are not H+ and Hx inversely related on the 90 degrees? The amplitude of the one high while the other low? better yet, I will bow out...this stuff is obviously way beyond me

imatfaal, "Obviously not that well - because your conclusion was this "The highest amplitude waves are going out, in a equatorial disk," which is the exact opposite of what I was explaining. The highest amplitude are axial - ie at the poles not on the equator." I thought your equations meant the highest amplitude H+ would be at the equator and the highest amplitude Hx would be at the poles, and my question was simply in GW150194 what percentage of the energy went out the top and bottom and what percentage went out on or near the equatorial disk. Regards, TAR

Well thank you Imatfaal. I do comprehend English words better than Greek letters standing for whole bunches of English words. But I still have the percentage question. The highest amplitude waves are going out, in a equatorial disk, the thickness initially of the diameter of the larger BH, whereas the axial power is going out at a max amplitude in exactly polar directions which I suppose is in two directions something like a barbershop pole coming out top and bottom, with two spirals on it, but the diameter of the orbit that put out the wave. Drawing a hypothetical sphere around the event, most of the power would hit the equator, not the poles. I am visualizing a couple degree size moon being the area of half the power going polar and a degree wide band on the horizon going 360 degrees around, putting maybe 100 times more power out on the equator than on the axis. If you were under water, had a stick and you put it straight above your head and turned around in a little circle it seems that would take a lot less energy than holding the stick out making a big circle... but maybe I am thinking about conservation of angular momentum which probably does not apply here.

no doubt I was not able to see it, and was hoping for an English translation. Stange had said one of the GWs we saw was 30 degrees from edge on which is also 60 degrees from axial what percentage of the energy is going axially and what percentage is going edge on, in the case of GW150914? I am trying to think in terms of radiation count, as if gravity was quantized into gravitons. Some distant stars we "see" we piece together photon by photon over time. We have no such luxury in this case, as all the gravitons were released in particular directions within about a second.

​"If we integrate this flux over a sphere around the source, we get the total luminosity, or energy emitted per unit time. The result cannot depend on the TT quadrupole moment, since "tranverse" can only refer to a specific direction of propagation. Instead it depends just on the traceless quadrupole moment IT, whose components are:" SwansonT, So what does that mean? Is the energy of the strain propagated only edge on, only in the direction of the axis or both in some combination where being 45 degrees from either position you would get some lesser but calculable energy? That is the luminosity seems to be figured on a sphere, but the wave propagates in certain directions, not all directions. Regards, TAR

I am sorry for the misdirection. The validity of our gravity wave detection is in NO WAY challenged by an inability to read another GW embedded in the signal. There is very little chance that such a signal is even present (even if two rings cross paths it is not likely they do so at the same time...that is one ring could pass were another was or will be, but in the expanse of space, the chance of meeting is near nil), much less that it would be strong enough to register on the equipment. The use of gravity waves as plumbs of the space they transversed, is likewise lessened in likelihood. "That's a speed, not a distance." but the whole signal, the 20 revolutions prior the merge happened in a second so the path either took to get around each other could not be longer than 118,000 miles divide that by pi and that by 20 and the diameter of the larger mass has to be less than that