toastywombel

I can understand why it is hard to take the ideas behind string theory seriously. Stephen H. once said, no single man can completely understand string theory. So I will attempt to describe string theory the best I can to you, so maybe you can understand it is a scientific theory and it is not metaphysical trash. String theory is a developing theory based off of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and off of Quantum Theory. It is the attempt to unify gravity with the other forces of nature into one theory. This is another short description from wikipedia and can be found here: "String theory is a developing branch of quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum theory of gravity.[1] The strings of string theory are one-dimensional oscillating lines, but they are no longer considered fundamental to the theory, which can be formulated in terms of points or surfaces too." These strings, are all particles, and the different there vibrations the different kind of particles they are. They move through 10,11, and sometimes even more dimensions. This depends on what string theory we are talking about. These dimensions are different in their physical limitations. 1st dimension is a point in space, 2nd is a line in space, 3rd is a line with depth in space, 4th is a specific point in space-time, 5th is a line across space-time, 6th is a depth along space-time (imagine 3d as moving through planes of 2 dimensional worlds, then apply that thought process to the idea of time). The dimensions go on and on and become rather difficult to explain is a link to a video that helped explain it to me. It is a two part video, and the second part is linked in the side panel next to this video. I really recommend watching it! Furthermore, to be critical of string theory as a whole is a rather broad criticism. String theory comes in a variety of flavours. String Theory, Super String Theory, M-Theory, F-Theory, and many other interpretations that aren't quite as popular. Although String Theory has been critisized by many scientists including, Peter Woit and Lee Smolin, it is usually not critisized for being "metaphysical trash". The problem most of these scientists have with string theory is that it is so difficult to test whether it is a viable theory. String Theory is just a theory though, that is attempting to unify the known forces of nature into one theory, and as of right now it is the only set of theories that can offer a viable, theoretically sound explanation as to why gravity is so much weaker than the other natural forces. I have heard of some ways to test for multiple dimensions (something postulated by string theories). One being to create a graviton and attempt to observe it escaping into another dimension. There is a lot of cool information on string theory but to be close minded when it has not been proven or dis-proven is a rather ignorant ideology. I hope this helped! Here are some links to some information on F-Theory and Quantum Gravity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-theory http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=697 http://videolectures.net/cern_vafa_fgws/ http://www.physorg.com/news88786651.html <--These are other proposed string-theory experiments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11TcbcW0Dw0

I don't think you have the many world interpretation quite right. It stems from the sum over histories that was postulated by Richard Feynman. It is also known as the Path integral formulation. Check here. It essentially says that a system from point A reaches point B by every possible path or history. It really has more of a mathematical meaning than literal meaning, and is used to determine probabilities. 1. The probability for an event is given by the squared length of a complex number called the "amplitude". 2. The amplitude is given by adding together the contributions of all the histories in configuration space. 3. The contribution of a history to the amplitude is proportional to e^{i S/\hbar}, where hbar is reduced Planck's constant, and can be set equal to 1 by choice of units, while S is the action of that history, given by the time integral of the Lagrangian along the corresponding path. Now that you understand that, the Copenhagen interpretation (the most widely accepted quantum mechanics interpretation) believes that the wave functions of less probable events collapse and the most probable unfolds, creating the existence that we know. Originally proposed by Hugh Everett, the many worlds interpretation is actually the idea that there is no wave-function collapse that leads to a single history. Its not that someone is watching us or that a TV show is an alternate reality. It is the idea that all possible histories are expressed regardless if there are observers or not. This is from wikipedia, "MWI's main conclusion is that the universe (or multiverse in this context) is composed of a quantum superposition of very many, possibly even a non-denumerablely infinitely[9] many, increasingly divergent, non-communicating parallel universes or quantum worlds." The name "Many-Worlds Interpretation" in fact was not even coined by Everett, it was initially called Correlation Interpretation (correlation is referring to quantum entanglement). However, Bryce Dewitt, a theoretical physicist began referring to it as the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" nearly a decade after Everett's work. This lead to a somewhat misinformed, popularisation of the theory. Even in the wiki article, it states that the most of the different varieties of the many-worlds interpretation, "either regard the extra quantum worlds as metaphorical in some sense, or are agnostic about their reality." It is essentially the belief that there is universal wave-function and no such thing as wave-function collapse. And that this wave function stretches across a multi-verse of existences. The theory does not really refer to anything about our existence is a TV show being watched by aliens on another planet or anything hokey like that. If you notice from above MWI conclusion, it refers to the parallel universes/ quantum worlds as non-communication. So the idea that some alien is watching our lives play it is a very incorrect conclusion of many-worlds. Finally, many-worlds has nothing to do with our ability to control our own destiny or the in-ability to control our own destiny. It is good to try and understand the theory fully, the discovery channel amps up things so it is more attractive to viewers. Hope I helped to clear this up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAnother thing, you said if you try to plan an event exactly your chances are one in infinite. That is not necessarily true, even according to the MWI. The idea would be that all possible outcomes of the event take place in parallel quantum worlds. The outcome of the event, that you experience however, would be determined by you. Plus if the chances for planning out an event are one in infinity, no one persons plans would ever work. I planned to respond to your post, if what you said was true, I would have a 0% chance of being able to carry out that plan.

This is very interesting, if it is true and that a batch of super-heavy elements is on the brink of being found this could dramatically change chemistry. What will be even more awesome is if and when we get to explore the properties of this newly discovered super-heavy element. Maybe it will turn out to be the philosopher's stone!!!

Anarchy would never work, history shows us that anarchy is short lived. Most likely because we are social creatures. My perfect society? One where I am in charge.

I do not know if it adds energy, but I know that observing a particles will change some pairs of the physical properties of those particles. This is the Uncertainty Principle, this is how it is described on wikipedia: "In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. This statement has been interpreted in two different ways. According to Heisenberg its meaning is that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty. According to others (for instance Ballentine[1]) this is not a statement about the limitations of a researcher's ability to measure particular quantities of a system, but it is a statement about the nature of the system itself as described by the equations of quantum mechanics." As far as adding energy, I would guess observing something calls for light, and most of the time when light hits something it heats it up, even if it is just minute.

You could get some luminal, put it in a beaker and pour in some hydrogen peroxide. It will glow a bright blue for several hours. This is from here: http://www.ehow.com/how_4859147_make-glowinthedark-liquid.html Pour 1 liter of distilled water in a bowl with one bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Pour another liter of distilled water into a second large bowl. Add 4 grams of sodium carbonate to it as well as .4 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate. Add .2 grams of luminol to your second mixing bowl. Combine the two bowls and you will immediately see your glow in the dark liquid. I have not tested this personally so do it at your own risk.

The human brain has around 10 billion neurons, each neuron is connected to other neurons through around 10,000 synapses. So I would guess the human brain has about 100 trillion synapses. There is no real relation between IQ and synapses they would not really be comparable. A person's IQ is determined by a paper pen/question answer/problem solving test. A test like that does not necessarily discern the amount of synapses in the brain. IE) A person with autism or severe cerebral palsy might have just as many synapses as the average person, but the average person would most likely out-perform them on an IQ test. Furthermore thoughts/ideas/understanding is caused by the firing off of neuro-transmitters between neurons through synapses. Its not like synapses are created when you figure something out. Check out these links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/neurons_intro/neurons_intro.php

Technitium has no stable isotope, because of this it will decay over time. During this decay it will release subatomic particles in the form of radiation. The atomic mass of Potassium is not greater than Argon, Nickel's atomic mass is also not greater than that of Cobalt: Potassium AM: 39.098 Argon AM: 39.948 Nickel AM: 58.70 Cobalt: 58.9332 I think you may have had it backwards and the reason Nickel's atomic mass is less than Cobalt's, and Potassium's is less than Argon's is because the atomic weight is determined by measuring the atomic mass of each isotope. Then weighing each of the isotopes masses by that isotopes abundance in nature. Therefore, the drop in atomic weight is due to the distribution of isotopes for those elements being different This is from Wiki-Answers: "Cobalt just has one isotope with any significant abundance: cobalt-59. Nickel on the other hand has several isotopes with significant abundances: nickel-58 (68%), nickel-60 (26%), nickel-61 (1%), nickel-62 (4%), nickel-64 (1%). Because the largest contributor to the atomic weight of nickel is the nickel-58 isotope, which is lighter than cobalt-59, the overall atomic weight comes out light despite nickel having an extra proton."

Yes the do, look at above post!

Correction it makes you two of a kind, I as well have blonde hair and hazel eyes.

Dang I guess I jumped on the wagon a little late. Well from what I read most of them do not actually believe the earth is flat so that is good.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm Check out this website I found while cruising the interwebs. The ignorance of some astounds me so much that I am not sure if this is a joke.

Maybe that is why he is a substitute and not a teacher.

Electromagnetic Fields are composite fields made up of electric fields and magnetic fields. This is from the WHO website http://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/ "Electric fields are created by differences in voltage: the higher the voltage, the stronger will be the resultant field. Magnetic fields are created when electric current flows: the greater the current, the stronger the magnetic field. An electric field will exist even when there is no current flowing. If current does flow, the strength of the magnetic field will vary with power consumption but the electric field strength will be constant." Hope this helps!

Yeah I really was taking a random guess, I had to look up what a stopcock was haha. And thats why you will find me in the physics section most of the time ! I hope you guys get this problem rocked though! Good Luck!

Well when the stopcock is opened I would imagine that gas would escape and the pressure would be 0, assuming that the gas has somewhere to escape to and that its not sucked out. Then the pressure would be negative.

I read a book called Quantum World by Kenneth Ford it helped explain a lot of this to me, you might want to check it out. It is a heavy read though. When we collide certain sub-atomic particles such as an electron into a proton at extremely high velocities, the electron does not act as if it is bouncing off of a single object. The results from repeating this experiment vary, suggesting that the proton is made up of multiple objects. Furthermore the fundamental particles that we have attempted to discover originate from the periodic table of particle physics (if thats what you want to call it). It was designed by GellMann and Neemann. Since predicting that these particles (such as quarks) would exist scientists have devised experiments to find out if they do. Also we cannot individually observe quarks because the force that holds them together gets stronger and stronger as they are further apart. Despite that, however, the six flavours of quarks have all been observed though through testable methods. This is from http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae134.cfm?CFID=23513914&CFTOKEN=5b6ea376c0d760ee-7B3A6DB4-15C5-EE01-B9552391B841B929 "When protons and neutrons are struck with particles that truly are fundamental (like electrons, neutrinos, photons, etc.) the protons and neutrons reveal their structure in the way the colliding particle rebounds. This is analogous to the way Rutherford discovered the nucleus within the atom by bombarding gold with radiation. The results of these experiments show that the proton, for example, is composed of three fundamental objects with just the right properties to be the postulated 'quarks' of Gell-Mann. Furthermore, the theory that describes the interactions of quarks with each other also predicts the properties of the composite objects they form. These predictions have been proven to be correct, allowing us to develop a 'periodic table' of the known baryons and mesons -- another spectacular success of the quark theory." I would suspect we measure the poles and electric charges of quarks by measuring the results from particle collisions with protons or neutrons and seeing what changes when we change the charge of the particles we are colliding with the protons or neutrons. Other than that I do not know exactly how all the properties of the quarks are recorded. Hope this helps.

I got this from http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/kids_space/atom.html "There is no simple answer to your questions. There is no "atomic microscope" which would allow one to look inside an atom and say, "Aha! There's 7 blue protons, 6 green neutrons, and 7 red electrons." The way the structure of the atom was devised was through a long series of experiments." http://cnx.org/content/m12433/latest/ This is a link to some experiments that are and were used to discover the structure of the atom. It explains how we know that the positive and mass particles are in the nucleus and why the electrons are on the outside, it seems to have something to do with how atoms bond together to make molecules. I am guessing we cannot be totally certain it is the correct structure and that is why it is still a theory. But, I would imagine our assumptions about how the atom is structured are derived from how the atom behaves under different conditions and with other elements. From what I know we can predict how elements will react to other elements pretty accurately, so I would imagine that the theorised structure of an atom is correct. I did some more reading on the structure of the nucleus and it seems we know that tracking particles that are shot through a piece of gold foil. This can be used to determine that the nucleus of the atom is heavy, positively charged, and very small in comparison to the size of the atom. This is from the above listed website. "The result of the experiment is initially counter-intuitive. Most of the α particles pass through the gold foil undeflected, as if there had been nothing in their path! A smaller number of the particles are deflected sharply as they pass through the foil, and a very small fraction of the α particles are reflected backwards off of the gold foil. How can we simultaneously account for the lack of any deflection for most of the α particles and for the deflection through large angles of a very small number of particles? First, since the majority of the positively charged α particles pass through the gold foil undeflected, we can conclude that most of the volume of each gold atom is empty space, containing nothing which might deflect an α particle. Second, since a few of the positively charged α particles are deflected very sharply, then they must encounter a positively charged massive particle inside the atom. We therefore conclude that all of the positive charge and most of the mass of an atom is contained in a nucleus. The nucleus must be very small, very massive, and positively charged if it is to account for the sharp deflections. A detailed calculation based assuming this model reveals that the nucleus must be about 100,000 times smaller than the size of the atom itself. The electrons, already known to be contained in the atom, must be outside of the nucleus, since the nucleus is positively charged. They must move in the remaining space of the much larger volume of the atom. Moreover, in total, the electrons comprise less than 0.05% of the total mass of an atom." Further observations that are used to determine the structure of atoms are X-Ray Emissions and Ionisation Energies

No I think you op was fine, now that I look back on it I think everything got a little out of hand hopefully I clarified things though.

Yes but from what I read the human jaw bone has not changed at all in the last 3000 years. I thought you were citing something, but you were saying if there was a study of jaw bones and data points taken from those jaw bones, I understand that. There are human remains that have been found though that go back much further than 3000 years ago, I hope you know.

maybe a super strong magnetic field might work. Like the kind use to contain nuclear fusion reactions. You could wear a metal suit as well. That way the electrons would travel along the metal suit around you. The metal would have to be grounded though, and not you or you would be electrocuted, It is much like if you were in a car that got struck by lightening.

Okay more reasearch: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3tS2MULo5rYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=when+did+human+jaw+bone+evolve&ots=QjwCI42XYN&sig=wjYGkt_8ZlG208FasLhF86TzoPw#v=onepage&q=&f=false It is a book called uniquely human. The author cites studies of the human jaw bone and the changes it has gone under that allowed for human speech. In his book he states that the human jaw evolved to the way it is today around 200,000 years ago. So, from everything I have looked at the human jaw has not evolved at all within the last 3,000 years (as you said earlier). There have been minor changes within the last 10,000 years, but not evolution. Although there has been a general trend towards smaller jaws in the last 10,000 years certain some people today still have large jaws (hence they still can carry wisdom teeth) and particularly indigenous peoples from Australia. Most of what I have been reading cites that the human jaw evolved to the way it is today around 100,000-200,000 years ago. And was still very similar to how it is today all the way back to 1.8 million years ago. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged True I was reading some more and according to a BBC article the oldest discovery of human fire controlling/starting techniques were found near Israel and they date back to about 780,000 years ago. Why would the human jaw just start adapting 3000 years ago to processed food, when we have been processing food for over 3/4 of a million years. And the changes I have cited that have happened within the last 100,000 years are only shrinking of the human jaw, which is attributed to natural selection, not evolution (There is a difference). The human jaw, although it is smaller on average has remained exactly the same for 100,000-200,000 years Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAnother thing ZolarV, the problem I have with the statements you have been making is that you keep talking about the data points charted over the last 3000 years but you have not cited anything to prove that. Not any scientific data or writings. We like to see facts back up statements here.

I think he was referring to me, but go ahead and report me for trolling too. Did you site this scientific article showing human jaw-bone evolution over the last 3000 years? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedHmmm so I was doing some research on this. http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=887 In this article it states that humans lost their chewing power about 2.4 million years ago. This is because they stopped producing a protein that primates have in their jaws. This lack of protein was first believed to be present in homo-erectus. Even though homo-erectus had a small brain in comparison to homo-sapien, it is believed that this is what allowed for the development of a larger brain. What is interesting though is that this happened 2.4 million years ago, not 3000 years ago. The scientists in this article claims that this is when the human jaw changed from what it was like in our earliest ancestors such as gorillas and chimps. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedThis is from: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html "Even within the last 100,000 years, the long-term trends towards smaller molars and decreased robustness can be discerned. The face, jaw and teeth of Mesolithic humans (about 10,000 years ago) are about 10% more robust than ours. Upper Paleolithic humans (about 30,000 years ago) are about 20 to 30% more robust than the modern condition in Europe and Asia. These are considered modern humans, although they are sometimes termed "primitive". Interestingly, some modern humans (aboriginal Australians) have tooth sizes more typical of archaic sapiens. The smallest tooth sizes are found in those areas where food-processing techniques have been used for the longest time. This is a probable example of natural selection which has occurred within the last 10,000 years (Brace 1983)." Here the author is stating small changes noticed in the human jaw, in the fact that it is getting less robust. So ZolarV you are right that the jaw bone has changed because of processed foods, according to this source, but you would have to go back 10,000 years ago to find a 10% difference. However, for the last 100,000-1.1 million years humans have had the same amount of teeth, so as far as drastic changes there are little.