PerpetuallyConfused

wait wait wait... isnt space the absence of stuff? why would you need energy for an absence of anything?

Ok that makes some sense, so we still enter into a chicken and egg scenario but now with not knowing how 'unknown theoretical possible particles' would interact - if it isnt through charge, which i presume could be detected through electromagnetic fields and such, would mass be a detection method? are there others? Since this is a chicken and egg scenario with a high level of speculation, I wonder how we'd be able to move past that barrier. The first thought will be, "why bother to try and detect something you dont know exists?" but I only have to point to the higgs and the LHC to speculate how useful finding as yet unproven particles are. The biggest difference is that, through theoretical models we know that the higgs might exist, and so we know to look for it. Could a theory ever be designed to include such particles I wonder...

Im not saying that I do, or that I know the answer, that's why im asking the question. If we wanted to push the boundary of detection possibilities beyond the speed of light, how would it be done? does the technology already exist, and how many orders of magnitude can the systems take?

I guess im using broad strokes terminology, I'll try to be precise: Current physics states that any particle or or photon or wavicle or quantum of light has to move, at maximum, at the speed of light. What detection methods do we have to detect particles which are faster than this? how about by orders of magnitude? Its like the chicken and the egg thing. Physics says that these particles, FTL particles, cant exist, but thats current physics. How can we prove the speed of light as a universal speed limit without detection methods that can exceed that speed? Imagine, your holding a speed detection gun that goes up to 10 metres a second, and you measure a car that goes at 11 metres a second. The detector can still only display 10 metres a second, because thats all it can do. Since all detectors are based on light, subatomic particles like electron microscopes, etc, what ways do we have to truly test if something is actually going faster?

I know what you mean; if it doesn't matter then why bother? its that 96%. The rest of the universe that hasn't been accounted for... and dark matter has been too evasive. Another good reason to detect such things is to further the progress of science - if we only cared about what we could realistically expect we'd never have broken the sound barrier...

Assuming that the planet or space ship receiving the light at the other end is not travelling at relativistic speed, i.e. fast enough that time dilation becomes a major issue, then the observer would see everything that a rocket on mars would, except that the light, radio waves and other emitted spectra might be modified on its journey through interstellar space between point A and B, where B is the observer. Such modifications to light are frequent and we use this principle to detect the 'wobble' of a distant star when a planet within its local star system crosses between the star and our telescopes. Using this 'wobble' we are able to detect planets. Also, light 'curves' along gravitationally large objects. If the observer at point B was travelling either towards or away from earth at relativistic speed, then the doppler effect comes into play, stretching or compressing the electromagnetic waves (perceptually) before they are detected by the observer.

As far as I understand it, entropy is a measurement of the order of a structure; of the regularness of things. A planet, having low entropy, because it is ordered, would go through a process of becoming high entropy compared to before entering the black hole because the planet would be destroyed in the process of being sucked into the event horizon. so therefore, I vote that entropy is dependent of time, because the rate at which something is disordered is directly related to how long it takes.

I'll begin by making an opinion statement: I don't believe in the speed of light © as a universal speed limit. I say that with some caveats; I appreciate that the matter we can detect (which makes up about 4% of the known universe according to current understanding) has to obey relativistic speeds, and I appreciate that no light has yet been detected which exceeds the speed of light. My belief derrives from a seemingly obvious oversight: Our current detection methods are based on both light and physical particles (electron microscopes). So how would it be possible to detect something which travels at a much greater speed anyway? The theoretical 'tachyon' has a lower speed limit of the speed of light. If such a particle existed, how would we ever be able to detect it? The first obvious exception to my postulation is a bubble chamber, but this still relies on physical particles as an exposure medium for you to be able to detect particles travelling at various speeds within it. Are there any experiments which are not constrained by the speed of light or by physical particles? If so, what kind of theoretical maximum speed (beyond that of light) would they be able to detect? Anyone?

Even if we actually get to a point where the Higgs boson is conclusively discovered, will that conclusively and finally answer the question? I understand why a lot of the members here try to seperate the metaphysical from the pure, hard physics this forum has a legitimate claim to. I mean, we can all postulate our own metaphysical theories and ideas without fear of reprehence (because opinions are never wrong) but scientific 'facts' are binary, yes or no, 1 or 0. They either are or aren't. So, if we find the Higgs, if we detect the Higgs field in an alternate dimension or it is all linked through some other intangible force or force carrier - will that still satisfy the question? I'm focusing purely on 'what is gravity?' here, because that is the question that has been asked for hundreds of years and as far as I know - we still don't have a concrete answer to.

I think its a great idea to get involved in projects like this - given how many people seem to think this is not going anywhere, I'd urge you instead to shift the focus of your project slightly. Instead of doing what this guy did to do exactly the same, why don't use scientific method, documentation and records to chart the process of building an atom smasher. Document everything you need to know, everything you need to purchase, everything that has to be done. Then, as a summary conclusion you can give a judgement on how realistic it is for the average guy to build such a thing given current prices, availability of materials, the kinds of accuracy that is possible with self built equipment and what new physics could be revealed (or corroborated) using your equipment. As a good scientific process, or just as a checklist, if you can do that FIRST you'll probably garner a lot more support from the people here. Thats what I would do anyway!

Now thats an interesting idea, but as far as capturing that energy and holding it on the outside edge of the single atom edge, and ONLY on the outside edge to ensure that that edge doesn't dull with use, now that's going to be tricky. Imagine a situation where you are swiping the sword in front of you - light, with no especial container being on the OUTSIDE of the atomic structure - thereby negating any physical structure that could possibly be made - would therefore be subject to normal light behaviours. This means that, if the lased light was emitted towards the hilt, and was propogated along one side to the tip, any time you changed its position, orientation or anything, the wavicles propogating to their initial vector would have no rule set up to guide them to the new vector caused by the change in the sword's position. As far as I am aware, beyond focusing mirrors, there is no way of trapping photon wavicles in a magnetic field or similar construct. If it was possible to do that, and create and impossibly small thin tube along the edge of the sword, then yes - this could propogate a certain amount of energy to break the covalent and ionic bonds, but thats too close to a lightsaber not to just do it that way, IMHO.

Consider the milky way galaxy as a kind of model for early space dust. You have the centre of the galaxy/the sun rotating the fastest, with the largest mass, pulling the rest of the accretion disk around at a non-constant angular velocity compared to distance. So, the closer you are, the faster you will spin around the centre, approaching the speed of the central object (supermassive black hole / the sun). Now this may explain the discrepancy between some of the materials discovered within our solar system. As well as raw temperature, which the hat explained in the last post, we also have angular velocity and momentum to account for. I also often see Jupiter described as a 'failed star' with simply not enough mass to start its nuclear fusion. This makes complete sense as, there are more solar systems in our galaxy that have more than one star, than singular systems. Conceptually, this could be caused by an unbalanced distribution of mass and particles within the stellar cloud. Imagine, for example, that a star explodes. this creates a roughly spherical shape to the matter distribution resulting from the explosion. Now imagine a rogue planet wandering through the field, aeons before it had begun to reform into a star, and creating a massive distortion in the shape of the field. This could lead to the unbalanced distribution as described, which could in turn lead to pockets of higher mass, which could lead to more than 1 star forming from the same stellar dust field. Or, as in this case, could create a relatively large planet.

That sounds fine in theory, but the 'free neutrons' would have to have some kind of speed in order to properly instigate the reactions. I'm not talking speed of light speeds, but fast enough to escape the heavy water entrapment around the outer edges and destabilise further materials, unless you could construct the activated volume in a linear fashion with the neutron gun pointing down the middle of a cylinder of heavy water or something. As it is, the current proposed fusion systems already use neutrons in their process - one of the technological obstacles to overcome at the ITER is the shielding used for the interior of the torus. It has to cope with high energy neutrons, and this equates to the interior surface becoming 'radioactive' (although its not quite the same, as with Radioactivity you are dealing with the weak nuclear force, not an abundance of high energy neutrons). Edit: I just realised that I had mused on something similar to your suggestion a while back when considering what could replace the materials on the inner skin of the ITER. What if some form of liquid could be used to moderate the spare neutrons from the reaction on the entire inner surface of the torus? There are some amazingly obvious problems with that. You have shielding hanging upside down, for one. Water can't do that... Even putting the liquid behind a glass or some other material is still going to heat up the glass tremendously from the actual fusion process, let alone the neutron bombardment. I think this is why they are still attempting to develop materials to withstand the reaction properly

I don't see why not, but then you'd have to consider where the intake would be to 'rebalance' that pressure decrease. If for example, you had a fan pushing air out into the sunward side of a house, and you had an intake from the opposite direction, the air immediately outside that wall should be cooler (by a few degrees). Computers work on the same principle, closed system, pull air in from cooler area, make it hotter with internal components, expel it again.

Hullo one and all, I'm a 26 year old Architectural Degree person type human, with a large interest in physics, ethics, philosophy and humour. I studied Maths and Physics to A level and I've always been fascinated with the quest to better understand the world we live in. I make no pretences, I do not consider myself a scientist nor am I looking to publish any white papers but I do have a keen interest, so I consider myself a scientist in spirit, if not in learning.