csmyth3025

I understand that Hermann Bondi proposed the concept of negative mass in 1957. I've read about this and I think I have a general idea of the properties he proposed for negative mass. I don't know what "negative energy" would be, altough I've seen the term used before. Can you explain or provide a link for it? NOTE: The Wikipedia link you provided ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle ) does provide some explanation of "negative energy": This explanation doesn't help me understand the concept very well, though. Chris Edited to correct spelling errors and to add NOTE

I'm not sure if you're just playing or if you're serious. If you're serious then you can expect some serious questions. You can expect this thread to be moved to "Speculations" either way. Chris

I think the jury is still out on the question of whether or not the universe extends infinitely. As far as I know there isn't any conclusive evidence either way. It's my understanding that the Lambda-CDM standard cosomological model allows for the universe to be finite and unbounded or infinite. I believe the generally accepted notion is that the '...single point that all visible matter in the universe originated..." was the entire universe at that time. If every point in the universe was at the same point when expansion began, then one could say that every point in the universe is the center of the universe. This is one of the reasons why the question "Does the universe have a center?" has no meaningful answer. To use the old balloon analogy - Suppose you have a very small, but very elactic balloon the size of a pea and it's completely covered with shoulder-to-shoulder dots. You then blow it up to the size of the Earth. No matter which dot you point to and say "That's the center of all this expansion!", you would be right. Chris

I think you would have to get a bit more than "...a few hundred feet away from..." 1 gram of matter/antimatter annihilating if you expect to survive. Chris

The invariant mass of the neutron star stays the same no matter how fast it's going relative to an observer. The relativistic mass that you observe doesn't turn it into a black hole. See http://en.wikipedia..../Invariant_mass and... http://en.wikipedia....rgy_equivalence Chris

We are saying the same thing: There is no "center" of the universe. This stems from the assumption (supported by many observations) that the universe is homogenous and isotropic: (ref. http://en.wikipedia....gical_Principle ) Basically, no matter where you go the universe looks the same. The large scale structure of the universe looks the same to someone in a galaxy that's 40 billion light years away as it does to us. It also looks the same to someone that's ten, twenty, or thirty billion light years away. The large scale structure of the universe looks the same to everyone - no matter where they are (it's homogeneous). Likewise, all these widely separated observers would see that the large scale structure of the universe looks about the same no matter which direction they look (it's isotropic). When you think of the well-worn (some say worn out) analogy of a balloon, you can't point to one spot on the balloon and say "That's the center of the surface." Someone else can pick another spot and say with equal confidence "That's the center of the surface." The universe is a sort of 3-D version of the 2-D surface of the baloon. You can't point to any one spot and say "That's the center." The problem that most people have is making the mental leap from a 2-D surface of a sphere, for example, that has no "center" and the 3-D space in which we live - that we think must have a center because that's our everyday experience. As DrR pointed out, the universe might have positive curvature (like a sphere) or it might not. Either way, it doesn't need to have a center and, in fact, it can't have a center according to the cosmological principle. Chris Edited to correct spelling errors

(ref. http://en.wikipedia....rvable_universe ) Please note that we can't tell how far the universe extends beyond our own observable universe. The main point is that even in our own observable universe we can go a couple of hundred galaxies away in any direction and, from that vantage point, everything would appear to be moving away just as we see it here. From that distant galaxy they would see part of our own observable universe and part of the universe that is not observable by us. If every place you go it appears that you are in the center of your observable universe, how do you tell where the center of the universe is? (I know that this is a pretty unscientific explanation) Chris

(ref. http://en.wikipedia....iki/Higgs_boson ) Please note the use of the words "hypothetical" and "postulated" in the above quoted article. Theoretically, the Higgs mechanism is the means by which "massive" particles aquire the property we call "mass". As far as I know it doesn't have anything to do with time. (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#Origin_of_the_theory ) Chris Edited to add second quote from Wkipedia

You might want to check out the Wikipedia article on "Supernova" to see how your ideas differ from the models currently accepted by the mainstream scientific community: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova Chris

The Little Boy bomb was detonated about 1900 ft above Hiroshima with a yield af about 13 kilotons of TNT. (ref. http://en.wikipedia....aki#The_bombing ) In that explosion (ref. http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Little_Boy ) It's important to note that the above quote refers to "...heat and radiation..." An explanation of how this might relate to an anti-matter bomb (producing a burst of pure gamma radiation) is also found in another Wikipedia article: (ref. http://en.wikipedia...._fission#Output ) (Bold added by me) Suppose you had a mass equivalent of one half of a paper clip piece of antimatter in the container shown in the movie (about 0.5 gram). This is a quantity that we have so far not been able to even come close to isolating - a point that Janus makes. This would react with 1/2 gram of matter (1 gram total) to produce a Hiroshima size bomb. If it was detonated 1900 ft above Vatican City I believe everyone outside in the coutyard would definitely be fried unless they were standing under a stone arch or some other substantial covering. I don't know what the blast effects would be of the sudden heating of the air by this intense burst of gamma rays, but I'm thinking that it would be considerable. Chris Edited to change reactants from 1 gram to 1/2 gram.

I extended the quoted text before I noticed your reply. Whether a meteor blows up in the atmosphere or hits the ground (thus becoming a meteorite) depends on both how big it is and also what it's made of. Chris

(ref. http://en.wikipedia....and_frequencies ) Chris Edited to extend quoted text.

Is this the possibility that you're talking about: (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant#Is_the_fine_structure_constant_actually_constant.3F ) If so, I have no idea what effect a fine structure constant larger by one part in 100,000 would have. If I understand the article correctly, this represents an increase in the fine structure constant of 0.137% (0.0073073525/0.0072973525). (ref. http://en.wikipedia....pic_explanation ) The increase that the Australians are asserting doesn't seem to come close to creating the "no life" scenario. As you said, though, "...considerable more observations are needed before any level of confirmation is obtained..." Perhaps someone else in the forum has some idea of what effects a small change like they describe might have. Chris

These statements don't make any sense to me. Are you just making this stuff up as you go along or do you have a reference that might explain what you mean by them? The reference you do provide regarding the hypothetical Einstein-Rosen bridge is, I'm guessing, your "observation" related to the "hourglass" (6th geometrical dimension?). As far as I know, the Einstein-Rosen bridge concept doesn't invoke any extra dimensions. Chris

Now I'm somewhat perplexed. Are gravitational waves ("...waves of spacetime curvature - 'disturbances of the grid' - rather than something that propagates through the grid...") red-shifted and blue-shifted as electromagnetic radiation would be in Special and General Relativity or are they immune from this effect? Is there a theory about how gravitational waves propagate or, alternately, are the details of gravitational wave propagation contained in other existing theories? Chris

The above passage is in regard to your previous post (to which I claimed insufficient knowledge about quantum mechanics to provide an informed answer). I take it that you're making a point about the nature of a scalar quantity: (ref. http://en.wikipedia....Scalar_(physics) ) I still can't make the connection between scalar quantities and what it is you're trying to say about space and time being the same thing, the Higgs boson, a "time field", etc. Chris

Thanks DrR. If Fozae's post turned out to be some discernable physics to the folks in this forum, I was ready to abandon all hope of getting past v=d/t. Chris

Let me see if I understand your question correctly: Essentially you're asking if you are moving at a very high velocity relative to, for example, two closely orbiting neutron stars that are producing measurable gravitational waves, would those gravitational waves be "blue shifted" (higher frequency) if you're going towards the neutron star binary or "red shifted" if you're going away from them. This is actually a Special Relativity question. If this is your question then on the basis that gravitational waves are thought to travel at the speed of light, my thought would be that yes, this is the effect you would observe. On the General Relativity side of things, if you were standing on a distant neutron star observing the gravitational waves generated by this binary system, my thought would be that you also would "see" these gravitational waves blue shifted in the same way that light from ordinary stars would be. I'm not very knowledgeable about these things so I could be completely wrong. Perhaps others in this forum will have a better understanding. Also, if I've misunderstood your question, please let me know. Chris

I have to stick with DrRocket's May 18,12:22 AM reply which reads, in part: Until such time as the compactness (or non-compactness) of the universe can be deduced "...from some aspect of a theory that is testable..." I consider this an open (and unanswerable) question. For your question: "...How does it end...if it is not infinite?..." there have been many replies that have attempted to explain the theoretical and mathematical concept of manifolds in general. I doubt that I have any deeper understanding of these concepts than do you. My own lack of understanding is only compounded by explanations such as: (ref. http://en.wikipedia....ompact_manifold ) Nevertheless, if the universe is shown to be a compact manifold as a consequence of a testable theory, I'm inclined to work harder at trying to understand what, exactly, this means rather than insist that the scientific community must be wrong because I can't imagine what it means. Chris

Thanks for that explanation. I still have no hope of understanding the paper you linked to, but at least now I have some understanding of the point you were getting at. Chris

As far as I know, an asteroid can rotate (tumble) around all three axes. (I looked it up -that really is the plural of axis) Chris

I understand that this is, indeed, your inclination. At the same time, I wonder how you reconcile it with observational evidence that seems to point rather strongly to the existence of black holes. Perhaps the most notable observations have been carried out over the past 15 years in regard to Sagittarius A*: (ref. http://en.wikipedia....tral_black_hole ) Chris

Thanks for the reply DrRocket. Topology and the subject of manifolds remains a real head-scratcher for me. I'll try Brian Greene's "Hidden Reality" and hope that I don't get lost after page three. Chris ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm happy to report that I've not only gotten past page 3 without getting lost, I'm all the way to chapter 3 and I haven't gotten lost - nor have I found any part of "The Hidden Reality" boring or "slow-going" (yet). I was all set to go to the bookstore to get a copy of this book and I figured I'd check Amazon.com to see what sort of price range I could expect (about $15, as it turns out). Then I disovered that they have this nifty thing called Kindle - a sort of electronic book. More importantly, I found that they also have a Kindle app. for computers. I do most of my reading hunched over my computer late at night on my "off days" (I work nights). My wife, bless her heart, has tolerated my odd habits for 40 years with just a little bit of complaining. So, I thought I'd give this new (to me) technology a try. The next thing I know, there I am with the whole book on my computer and I didn't even have to get out of my chair! Isn't the internet an amazing thing! Chris Edit: The first part of this reply was actually written about 2AM. I forgot to hit the "add reply" button.

My question is mainly directed to whether the hypothesis that the universe is infinite (or not) is testable in any way - now or in the forseeable future. As I understand it the current estimates are that that the universe is "very nearly" spatially flat: (ref. http://en.wikipedia....verse#Detection ) Also, as I understand it, the topology of the universe doesn't necessarily dictate whether the universe is finite or infinite: (ref. http://en.wikipedia....#Open_or_closed ) From this I take it that it might be possible to determine at some future point in time whether the topology of the universe is flat, open, or closed. If this measurement is obtained, will any of these three possibilities require (or rule out) an infinite universe? Chris

(Bold added for emphasis by me) This statement is not logical. If nothing can pass through the event horizon either way, the black hole cannot gain or lose mass (or, equivalently, energy) - even over an infinite length of time. I'm guessing that your argument is that neither mass nor so-called "negative mass" (from one of the virtual particle pairs) can pass through the event horizon in a finite time. Lets suppose - for the sake of argument - that an event horizon manages to spring up around a very concentrated point-like mass of 6 x 10^11 kg (600,000,000,000 kg or, alternately, 600 billion kg). (ref. http://www.wolframal...---.*--&x=8&y=9 ) The Schwarzschild radius for this mass is 8.911 x 10-16 meters. The diameter of this event horizon would be 1.782 x 10^15 meters. This is about the diameter of a proton. (ref. http://en.wikipedia..../Atomic_nucleus ) By your reasoning, this point-like black hole can never get any larger, nor can it "evaporate". Is this your claim - or are you proposing that it's impossible for black holes to exist at all? Chris Edited to correct spelling errors