An hypothesis about the nature of dark energy

[MarkE]

Here’s an idea I’m currently thinking about. Perhaps it could help us in understanding what a photon is. To understand one thing, you have to understand other things that are affecting it, so by studying a single photon, you’ll never be able to understand it, just like if you intend to understand the behaviour of a single ant, you need to understand the colony.

A photon is definitely a particle, and something causes it to have a wave nature. No photon is going in a straight line, neither on Earth nor in space, because there is always a massive celestial body or black hole that is exerting a gravitational attraction on it, which makes it bend/curve. A photon is electromagnetic radiation, yet it isn’t electrically charged or has a magnetic north or south pole.

But what causes its constant speed? Think about dark energy. Nearly all galaxies are receding, they are moving away from us). Something is actively propelling the expansion rate of the universe. Dark energy is seen as an “addition” of some sort, as if something from the outside is coming inside into our Universe, a 'constant density' which can be described as a cosmological constant. Where does it come from, does it violate conservation laws, and how is it being generated?

What if it’s the other way around. What if there is no dark energy that is being added from outside to the inside, but almost all particles and celestial bodies in our Universe are in fact flowing outwards, from the inside of the Universe towards the outside. Why would they do that? Simply because the Big Bang could be seen as an implosion, rather than an explosion, meaning that the Universe is in fact very small, instead of very big. This would imply that the Universe is surrounded by something that has the same basic properties as a black hole, we could call this a “black edge”. That explains the attraction towards it. This would explain why the speed of a photon is always a constant, whatever its direction, just like gravity is a constant in the vacuum (a hammer or a feather that is being dropped on the moon falls at the same constant rate towards it).

I'm hypothesising this idea, because I'm supporting the notion that once there was nothing at all, no energy and no gravity. The first form of energy that came into existence must have experienced the same force that a star experiences right now. As you all know, gravity continually bares down on a star, trying to crush it down to non-existence, and it is only by generating sufficient pressure through heat in its interior that a star can push back on gravity to hold itself up. That's what I'm trying to describe for the Universe as a whole. Any particle/force, anything different from absolutely nothing, would experience a counter-force automatically, because it's not the natural state of the Universe (assuming that the natural state of the Universe is that there is nothing at all without any input).

This would explain why life on Earth exists, because we have to stay active, think, use energy constructively, and we can’t sit around and enjoy the free energy of the Sun every day, because we have to counter-act this natural entropic flow outwards. We have to stay alive, and therefore have to reproduce, just like photons are not only able pair produce, but they have to (which is why I support the zero-energy Universe, and the notion that the Big Bang was a large-scale quantum fluctuation). Remember that all living organisms, all of biology, is made of electromagnetism.

I’d like to hear your ideas about this hypothesis! 

Edited June 1, 2018 by MarkE

[Strange]

25 minutes ago, MarkE said:

Something is actively propelling the expansion rate of the universe.

Nothing is propelling the expansion. In the same way that after you throw a ball, or launch a satellite, nothing propels its continued movement.

26 minutes ago, MarkE said:

but almost all particles and celestial bodies in our Universe are in fact flowing outwards, from the inside of the Universe towards the outside.

Apart from the fact that there is no centre and no outside, all particles are flowing "outwards" (away from one another) on large enough scales.

28 minutes ago, MarkE said:

Simply because the Big Bang could be seen as an implosion, rather than an explosion,

The Big Bang is not seen as an explosion. And if it were an implosion, then wouldn't everything be getting closer together (isn't that what "implosion" means)?

29 minutes ago, MarkE said:

meaning that the Universe is in fact very small, instead of very big.

I don't see how that follows. Can you expand on that?

30 minutes ago, MarkE said:

This would imply that the Universe is surrounded by something that has the same basic properties as a black hole, we could call this a “black edge”. That explains the attraction towards it.

What sort of attraction is this? And how does it not cancel out like gravity would in this context?

31 minutes ago, MarkE said:

This would explain why the speed of a photon is always a constant

I'm afraid I can't see how this follows, either. Can you explain why some external attractive force would cause a constant speed of light?

32 minutes ago, MarkE said:

As you all know, gravity continually bares down on a star, trying to crush it down to non-existence, and it is only by generating sufficient pressure through heat in its interior that a star can push back on gravity to hold itself up. That's what I'm trying to describe for the Universe as a whole. Any particle/force, anything different from absolutely nothing, would experience a counter-force automatically, because it's not the natural state of the Universe (assuming that the natural state of the Universe is that there is nothing at all without any input).

But the universe would have to be much smaller and denser (comparable to a star?) before it had enough pressure to prevent gravitational collapse.

So there isn't any pressure countering gravity as in a star. (Although gravity can slow expansion, depending on the density of the universe.)

34 minutes ago, MarkE said:

This would explain why life on Earth exists, ...

I don't follow the logic of that either, I'm afraid ...

34 minutes ago, MarkE said:

I’d like to hear your ideas about this hypothesis! 

What evidence would support or disprove this idea?

[swansont]

42 minutes ago, MarkE said:

 I'm hypothesising this idea, because I'm supporting the notion that once there was nothing at all, no energy and no gravity. The first form of energy that came into existence must have experienced the same force that a star experiences right now. As you all know, gravity continually bares down on a star, trying to crush it down to non-existence, and it is only by generating sufficient pressure through heat in its interior that a star can push back on gravity to hold itself up. That's what I'm trying to describe for the Universe as a whole. Any particle/force, anything different from absolutely nothing, would experience a counter-force automatically, because it's not the natural state of the Universe (assuming that the natural state of the Universe is that there is nothing at all without any input).

This would explain why life on Earth exists, because we have to stay active, think, use energy constructively, and we can’t sit around and enjoy the free energy of the Sun every day, because we have to counter-act this natural entropic flow outwards.

There was a time when no life existed on earth. So far as we know, there is no life on many other celestial bodies.

42 minutes ago, MarkE said:

 We have to stay alive, and therefore have to reproduce, just like photons are not only able pair produce, but they have to (which is why I support the zero-energy Universe, and the notion that the Big Bang was a large-scale quantum fluctuation). Remember that all living organisms, all of biology, is made of electromagnetism.

Only photons with sufficient energy can pair produce. The majority of them do not have sufficient energy.

[MarkE]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Nothing is propelling the expansion. In the same way that after you throw a ball, or launch a satellite, nothing propels its continued movement.

Dark energy is said to cause the expansion of the Universe. Massive bodies that are closer to the (hypothetical) edge of the Universe seem to be attracted stronger than massive bodies further away from it (since they are moving away from us faster). Massless bodies are attracted at a constant rate. This is also a property of gravity, since objects with different mass on the moon are both attracted equally strong, but on Earth mass does make a difference. See my next answer where I elaborate a bit more about these "different gravities".

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Apart from the fact that there is no centre and no outside, all particles are flowing "outwards" (away from one another) on large enough scales.

Perhaps there is a center, that's the hypothesis, even though there are many centers, that doesn't mean that there can't be an outside edge. If you consider the possibility that there is an outside, you might be able to explain dark energy, which is my intention. And yes, all particles are flowing outwards, but for instance the Milky Way is gravitationally bound to Andromeda. On Earth we see the same thing, on smaller scales, particles are attracted more strongly to each other. But if you zoom out to larger scales, gravity seems to always take over as the strongest force. So perhaps these smaller forces are also gravity, but just smaller gravities. I'm hypothesising that every particle "has" at least a little bit of the gravity bound to it. Think about every force of nature as a different gravitational intensity: the strong force is stronger than any electromagnetic force between atoms, but if we zoom out, all atoms are bound to the center of the Earth, and the Earth is bound to a BH. Do you see the same trend occurring there? Why would you describe gravity and particle attraction as different phenomena, rather than different intensities of the same thing?

1 hour ago, Strange said:

The Big Bang is not seen as an explosion. And if it were an implosion, then wouldn't everything be getting closer together (isn't that what "implosion" means)?

I know that "explosion" is not the right word here, just like Big "Bang" was not a bang, it even didn't make a sound, but I couldn't find a better word to describe the expansion, which followed the inflation, from a point in space. And to answer the last part of your question, about the idea of an implosion, it doesn't have to be getting closer together if the rate of getting smaller/inward is higher than that the edge is attracted towards the center. Like a reverse event horizon. We are getting closer together, life is getting closer together, but that's us, those who have input. Aristotle once said "Nothing is more present than the past", so just like we see history all around us (in the form of animals that show our evolutionary past), the same way we're looking into the past of the Universe when we're looking at other galaxies that are surrounding us.

1 hour ago, Strange said:

What sort of attraction is this? And how does it not cancel out like gravity would in this context?

 The same attraction as all other attractions, the only difference is that one attraction is more intense than the other (just like SMBH is more massive than a normal BH, which is more massive than a star, which is more massive than a planet etc.).

1 hour ago, Strange said:

I'm afraid I can't see how this follows, either. Can you explain why some external attractive force would cause a constant speed of light?

A photon is therefore not bound to matter anymore, matter has "lost" part of its energy, it has lost some of its chemical attraction, so now part of its gravitational attracted is lost, and therefore it’s attracted back to the edge naturally, because that is the strongest gravitational field of them all (let's call it "dark edge"). So every photon can be seen as falling back to the edge of the Universe, naturally. That's why a photon is constant in every direction, because the edge is everywhere. Or are you perhaps supposing that there can't be an edge, and that there must be infinite galaxies, always and everywhere? Literally infinite particles? 

1 hour ago, Strange said:

But the universe would have to be much smaller and denser (comparable to a star?) before it had enough pressure to prevent gravitational collapse.

So there isn't any pressure countering gravity as in a star. (Although gravity can slow expansion, depending on the density of the universe.)

There is no pressure countering gravity in a star? A star is in hydrostatic equilibrium, which is what it does to counter the force of gravity. So by generating energy outwards, a star of course is not creating any new energy, but can be seen as a fight against an inward force, it’s like a thermal tie, just as the Red Queen hypothesis states "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place". 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

There was a time when no life existed on earth. So far as we know, there is no life on many other celestial bodies.

That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion. Maybe a different consciousness did, but not life itself. All living organisms are made of only matter, and there not some kind of consciousness-particle. The fact that we don’t believe in animism anymore, like our ancestors did in the Paleolithic era (the idea that everything, even a brick, is alive) doesn’t mean that it doesn't have the potential. Every time when a superior species goes extinct, and thereby loses its rule over other species, a lower animal will fill up that new niche (just like our ancestors did when the dinosaurs went extinct). When a dominant male disappears, a different consciousness is generated, and thus a female will sometimes even change itself to a male. If you look at this in a larger scale, every particle has a place in the hierarchy, and how it behaves is completely relative to how others are behaving.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Only photons with sufficient energy can pair produce. The majority of them do not have sufficient energy.

True, but we seem to have sufficient energy, since humans are the cause of input. Is that ever taken into consideration by any scientist to describe the movement of any particle?

Edited June 1, 2018 by MarkE

[Strange]

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

Dark energy is said to cause the expansion of the Universe.

No, expansion was quite well explained without dark energy.

Dark energy is hypothesised to explain the (unexpected) acceleration of expansion.

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

A photon is therefore not bound to matter anymore, matter has "lost" part of its energy, it has lost some of its chemical attraction, so now part of its gravitational attracted is lost, and therefore it’s attracted back to the edge naturally, because that is the strongest gravitational field of them all (let's call it "dark edge"). So every photon can be seen as falling back to the edge of the Universe, naturally. That's why a photon is constant in every direction, because the edge is everywhere.

I don't see why the existence of an edge of the universe would have an effect on the speed of light.

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

Or are you perhaps supposing that there can't be an edge, and that there must be infinite galaxies, always and everywhere? Literally infinite particles? 

We don't know if the universe is finite or infinite. But in current models, there is no edge or boundary, either way.

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

There is no pressure countering gravity in a star?

That's not what I said. There is pressure countering gravity in a star. There is no such pressure in the universe as a whole (which you appeared to be suggesting).

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter.

Yep.

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

All living organisms are made of only matter, and there not some kind of consciousness-particle. 

Exactly. It is just matter. At she point in time, the matter organised itself in such a way as to form what we call "life". Life was not always there.

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

True, but we seem to have sufficient energy, since humans are the cause of input.

We are not photons.

[MarkE]

10 hours ago, Strange said:

I don't see why the existence of an edge of the universe would have an effect on the speed of light.

It’s just reverse gravity, a Universe in which massive objects are falling inwards, and massless objects falling outwards. It doesn’t have an effect on the speed of light, there’s only one speed of light, it has effect on the particle. A mass “particle” can become a photon particle and vice versa. So it’s just an unbound mass particle, that is being emitted, which becomes “un-massed”, and its falling back speed makes it look like it is going somewhere really fast, and “has” energy, but that is just because it’s falling back at a constant speed.

10 hours ago, Strange said:

We don't know if the universe is finite or infinite. But in current models, there is no edge or boundary, either way

I’m trying to find out whether the forces in our Universe would still behave the same way if we had this edge. If something is not in accordance with this, then the hypothesis must be wrong.

10 hours ago, Strange said:

That's not what I said. There is pressure countering gravity in a star. There is no such pressure in the universe as a whole (which you appeared to be suggesting).

I wasn’t referring to the Universe right now having the same pressure as a star, I said “The first form of energy that came into existence must have experienced the same force that a star experiences right now”. So I meant that this first energy particle must have felt gravity, and resisted to it, which is what’s essentially still happening in every star in our Universe right now.

10 hours ago, Strange said:

Exactly. It is just matter. At she point in time, the matter organised itself in such a way as to form what we call "life". Life was not always there.

Are you sharing your own personal thoughts, or are you merely citing knowledge that you’ve borrowed from scientific books? Not that there’s something wrong with that, but scientists are not gods, they are humans, and humans sometimes make mistakes. Scientists look at our world in a very mechanical way. Do you believe that physical energy could exist before life existed, meaning that no conscious or mental input has to be responsible for physical energy? Just like some kind of machine, it just happened? Not by some kind of consciousness with mental input, which must have come later? I think you might be looking at the Universe in a mechanical way too. I don’t believe that we are energy + something else. Life is only energy and attraction. Think about your own human existence, you feel that you want certain things, and you think about certain things. That’s it. Those are just attractions of certain chemicals, gradient shifts and voltage switches. You’re only experience something good, and the absence of good (we call ‘bad’) in complex ways, which is why we have multiple forms of good, and multiple forms of bads, which we are able to hear, see, taste etc., but there’s only good and bad. I don’t see why we would need anything else than energy and gravity to understand the dualistic natural world and our own human experience of it.

10 hours ago, Strange said:

We are not photons.

Taken literally, no, we're not photons, but what about in essence? How can you be so sure that this can't be the case? The Milky Way is a galaxy amidst a complex Local Group cluster in the Universe, where life exists on a planet that is made up of complex layers and structures, where humans are walking around that are members of complex governed civilisation structures along with complex laws and rules, but we’re also individuals that are made up of a complex organisation of organs, tissues and an extremely complex brain, and these structures consist of their own complex arrangements of molecules that are working together in a complex way, which in turn are made up of even smaller complex structures called atoms, which themselves are complex structures of subatomic forces. Well, in one of my other post (about 2 days ago, in another thread) I have given a few reasons why all three forces of nature, in one way or another, could be seen as derivatives of electromagnetism, or has at least have something to do with electromagnetism, since they share a history, and still have the same (two) charges, and the same massless force carriers. Different, yes, it’s another kind of force, sure, but it’s not another kind of energy. No, we’re not photons, of course not, but it’s electromagnetism that is responsible for everything we call life, and it’s electromagnetism that makes up all of biology, so even though more complex life forms seem to behave differently compared to us, all organisms are made up of the same energy and the same forces. Animals follow their so-called instinct, but this is nothing more than a certain attraction. Humans have the same attraction, but we're able to control it. So, taking also in account that the two charges/dipoles of nature that we see everywhere can be annihilated back into one simple photon, could meant that it originated from it, and we could be closer to photons (pure energy?) than you perhaps might think.

Edited June 2, 2018 by MarkE

[Strange]

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

It’s just reverse gravity, a Universe in which massive objects are falling inwards, and massless objects falling outwards.

That doesn't correspond to anything we see.

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

It doesn’t have an effect on the speed of light

So why did you say:

20 hours ago, MarkE said:

This would explain why the speed of a photon is always a constant

How does it explain this?

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

A mass “particle” can become a photon particle and vice versa.

So you are just going to ignore all the conservation laws?

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

are you merely citing knowledge that you’ve borrowed from scientific books?

What is it with anti-science crackpots and their dislike of any sort of education?

I suppose it is too much like hard work to actually study science from a book? I guess it is easier to just make up stories, even if they bear no relation to reality.

Do you think that studying science just mans memorising facts from books that must be true because "Einstein [or whoever] said so"? 

The whole process of studying science is learning how to test ideas to see if they work. This is, perhaps, the biggest problem with people proposing personal theories. It is not that they are ignorant of basic science (although that doesn't help) but they have no ability to question and check that an idea works before presenting it.

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

Scientists look at our world in a very mechanical way.

Some may do. Many don't. It may surprise you to know, that scientists are a very varied bunch of human beings. Not that this is the least bit relevant to science or your personal theory.

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

Do you believe that physical energy could exist before life existed

Well, obviously.Duh.

The universe existed for billions of years before life arose.

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

meaning that no conscious or mental input has to be responsible for physical energy?

Why on Earth would anyone believe that? I guess some religious people might. But that has nothing to do with science.

7 hours ago, MarkE said:

I’m trying to find out whether the forces in our Universe would still behave the same way if we had this edge. If something is not in accordance with this, then the hypothesis must be wrong.

If the universe had an edge and a centre, then it would not be homogeneous and isotropic. And what would be beyond that edge? More space? Why wouldn't that be part of the universe? Having an edge makes no sense.

Apart from that, we don't see the universe "imploding" (and your warped logic to "explain" how imploding means that things are getting further apart makes no sense, either).

With that, I'll leave you to it. Maybe someone else will have something more constructive to say.

[MarkE]

On 6/2/2018 at 9:57 AM, Strange said:

On 6/2/2018 at 2:24 AM, MarkE said:

A mass “particle” can become a photon particle and vice versa.

So you are just going to ignore all the conservation laws?

Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws? Well, not if you assume that a black hole is an object/body, which I don't, because that doesn't necessarily have to be the case (but we've already had that discussion in another topic, so I won't get into that here again).

On 6/2/2018 at 9:57 AM, Strange said:

The whole process of studying science is learning how to test ideas to see if they work.

The Big Bang isn’t testable in a lab, yet science is making statements about it, because we're able to logically deduct knowledge about rules and laws of nature without testing everything. By applying only science and scientific reasoning to explain the natural world around us, you're ignoring all human-ness and other aspects of life that could be attached to it. Take subjectivity for instance, by describing how human emotions and feelings work, you could argue that certain chemicals are responsible for it. But is that the entire answer? Really? You're not able to detect the feeling and meaning that goes along with that chemical. Does this mean it isn't there? 

On 6/2/2018 at 9:57 AM, Strange said:

On 6/2/2018 at 2:24 AM, MarkE said:

Do you believe that physical energy could exist before life existed

Well, obviously.Duh.

The universe existed for billions of years before life arose.

So what’s responsible for this energy then, and for the change of the state of ‘nothing’ into something, if you insist on the notion that it can't be caused by a certain form of life? Does "life" have to be Earth-like anyway? We tend to think that life has to be carbon based, and all life forms need water, but that's knowledge regarding life on Earth. Is that really fair to do? Who are we to make statements about life in general? If all life needs water, then why does water itself has nothing to do with it? Or a hydrogen atom, if atoms are lifeless, and you consist only of atoms, what does that make you? That doesn't mean you're not allow to disagree with this, but what's the alternative you find more plausible? I mean, you have to be able to explain it in another way. If you don't agree that every change, the movement of anything, is due to some kind of input by a living creature (which is what we see around us), then why would you all of a sudden suggest that this couldn't have been the case if you go further back in history? On what grounds are you making that suggestion? 

On 6/2/2018 at 9:57 AM, Strange said:

On 6/2/2018 at 2:24 AM, MarkE said:

meaning that no conscious or mental input has to be responsible for physical energy?

Why on Earth would anyone believe that? I guess some religious people might. But that has nothing to do with science.

Again, the only evidence that we have to make any change around us can be achieved by applying a certain mental input, by thinking, and as a result doing things, moving things, from one place to another. This means that we're not living in a pure mechanical world where gravity is attracting matter, and thus makes it change its position. We're also here, humans, with human input, you can't ignore that force of nature. It's not just gravity that is responsible for movement of massive objects, so why are you suggesting that that anything is able to move by itself, without any input that caused it? That doesn't make sense. All physical change you make is preceded by mental input. 

On 6/2/2018 at 9:57 AM, Strange said:

If the universe had an edge and a centre, then it would not be homogeneous and isotropic.

Not all scientists agree about that. There has been much publicity about analysis of results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Planck mission that show both expected and unexpected anisotropies in the CMB. If we would look at the Universe far from our location, we would not see the same concentric cell structure, or a non-homogeneous Universe. (There's about 250 million light years space between every shell in the picture below). There's still much debate regarding this subject (which is much debated in the movie "The Principle"), but the CMB map does indeed correlate with plane of the Earth orbiting the Sun. If the Universe can be seen as an implosion (which is why I started this topic), it would agree with these observations as well. How would you explain these anomalies without us being the centre? 

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

By applying only science and scientific reasoning to explain the natural world around us, you're ignoring all human-ness and other aspects of life that could be attached to it.

Hopefully.

[MarkE]

49 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

By applying only science and scientific reasoning to explain the natural world around us, you're ignoring all human-ness and other aspects of life that could be attached to it.

Hopefully.

Life forms only consist of atoms. Consciousness, feelings, and giving meaning to the world around us in general, is not some kind of external addition to these atoms. Attraction, caused by energy and gravity, is all we need to understand any movement (which in my opinion includes all good/bad human thoughts and feelings).

Edited June 4, 2018 by MarkE

[YaDinghus]

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws? Well, not if you assume that a black hole is an object/body, which I don't, because that doesn't necessarily have to be the case (but we've already had that discussion in another topic, so I won't get into that here again).

Why not bring it up again? Short version: hawking radiation evaporates black holes. Energy is conserved because HR is the exact amount of energy that the BH loses.

 

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

The Big Bang isn’t testable in a lab

Of course you can't reproduce the Big Gang in a lab, but you can test many of its predictions. 

 

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

Take subjectivity for instance, by describing how human emotions and feelings work, you could argue that certain chemicals are responsible for it. But is that the entire answer? Really? You're not able to detect the feeling and meaning that goes along with that chemical. Does this mean it isn't there?

Absolute strawman of a strawman. Also, a burning strawman. Meaning beyond science is the only subjective thing here. Emotions are electrochemical processes in the brain. 

 

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

So what’s responsible for this energy then, and for the change of the state of ‘nothing’ into something, if you insist on the notion that it can't be caused by a certain form of life? Does "life" have to be Earth-like anyway?

I, and I surmise everyone else here, is open to the idea that life on other planets looks a lot different from what it does here on earth, as long as it metabolizes, reproduces, reacts to stimuli and evolves. But a life form creating our universe just isn't a very good theory - in fact, it is a very bad one, because it has 0 predictive power, it is not falsifiable, and probably a lot of other reasons. Also, I don't recognize the pertinence regarding your own opening post.

 

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

Not all scientists agree about that

Disagreeing is one of the things scientists do best. But the vast majority of scientists do

 

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

unexpected anisotropies in the CMB.

It would be really nice if you could provide a quote to what you're getting at from the paper you linked to. I don't have the time or patience to look for what you may want to say exactly while I'm at work, and even less once I get home. 

 

3 hours ago, MarkE said:

non-homogeneous Universe

Same as before. Also, it would be nice if you mentioned what the source is if it isn't obvious from the link text.

[swansont]

On 6/1/2018 at 9:05 AM, MarkE said:

 That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion.

So life existed on earth when it was a hot chunk of molten rock?

On 6/1/2018 at 9:05 AM, MarkE said:

Maybe a different consciousness did, but not life itself. All living organisms are made of only matter, and there not some kind of consciousness-particle. The fact that we don’t believe in animism anymore, like our ancestors did in the Paleolithic era (the idea that everything, even a brick, is alive) doesn’t mean that it doesn't have the potential. Every time when a superior species goes extinct, and thereby loses its rule over other species, a lower animal will fill up that new niche (just like our ancestors did when the dinosaurs went extinct). When a dominant male disappears, a different consciousness is generated, and thus a female will sometimes even change itself to a male. If you look at this in a larger scale, every particle has a place in the hierarchy, and how it behaves is completely relative to how others are behaving.

I see your tenuous grasp on science isn't limited to physics.

On 6/1/2018 at 9:05 AM, MarkE said:

True, but we seem to have sufficient energy, since humans are the cause of input. Is that ever taken into consideration by any scientist to describe the movement of any particle?

Humans are the cause of the input for pair production?  Really?

[Strange]

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

Life forms only consist of atoms. Consciousness, feelings, and giving meaning to the world around us in general, is not some kind of external addition to these atoms.

Then why did you say: "That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion."

If life is "just atoms", why don't you think it could just arise as those atoms rearrange themselves into more complex forms?

Quote

Attraction, caused by energy and gravity, is all we need to understand any movement (which in my opinion includes all good/bad human thoughts and feelings).

Energy doesn't cause attraction.

The significant forces when it comes to atoms (and therefore human thought) are the strong and weak nuclear forces, and the electromagnetic force. Obviously gravity plays a role as without it we wouldn't have a planet for life to evolve on.

[Strange]

11 hours ago, MarkE said:

Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws?

No, because the black hole loses mass. 

11 hours ago, MarkE said:

The Big Bang isn’t testable in a lab,

Er, yes it is (for suitable definition of “lab” of course). Why do you think there is so much evidence for it?

11 hours ago, MarkE said:

By applying only science and scientific reasoning to explain the natural world around us, you're ignoring all human-ness and other aspects of life that could be attached to it.

Because we are talking about science. If we were talking about art or history it might be different. 

11 hours ago, MarkE said:

So what’s responsible for this energy then,

We don’t know. As far as we know it has always been there. 

[MarkE]

On 6/4/2018 at 5:12 PM, YaDinghus said:

On 6/4/2018 at 1:46 PM, MarkE said:

Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws? Well, not if you assume that a black hole is an object/body, which I don't, because that doesn't necessarily have to be the case (but we've already had that discussion in another topic, so I won't get into that here again).

Why not bring it up again? Short version: hawking radiation evaporates black holes. Energy is conserved because HR is the exact amount of energy that the BH loses.

I’ve mentioned it briefly here because it has already been discussed in another thread. But to bring a short version of it up again: there was a disagreement about the nature of a black hole, and whether it’s necessary for a black hole to be an object, since ‘degeneracy pressure’ forbids matter to be clumped together into objects that exceeds three Solar masses (such as neutron stars), and SMBHs are multiple times more massive than that.

That being said, you’re arguing that energy is conserved because a black hole releases the same amount of energy as it evaporates, but the only thing we know for sure is that it loses mass, not energy. Mass can be transformed into energy, yes, but that’s something different. We still don’t fully understand what mass is, since we don’t fully understand how the (5 sigma) Higgs boson gets its own mass, whether the graviton exists, or how to explain the rotation of the celestial bodies without a new exotic form of matter we have coined the term ‘dark matter’. We seem to need (new) particles to explain mass over and over again, but I’m not convinced yet that it's only matter to be able to have mass in the first place, because mass and attraction might be the same thing. What causes the attraction? The curvature of space-time. What is mass? The curvature of space-time. Every particle has mass or attraction, but that doesn't have to be a property of the particle itself, on the contrary.

I’ll give you an example: if you want to move your arm, you’re exerting a mental force onto your body, which initially has started somewhere in your brain as an intention, which causes your arm to move. Where is this force coming from? Not from particles such as electrons themselves, because they are well described in models that describe how atoms and subatomic particles behave. An electron or a photon can’t change its trajectory by itself, their wave functions are described by Maxwell/Schrödinger, and are bound to a field, and can’t just deviate from that… unless acted upon by an external force. The conclusion therefore should be that the Standard Model of particles can’t describe everything we observe in the Universe, as well as our own human behaviour here on Earth. 

On 6/4/2018 at 5:12 PM, YaDinghus said:

On 6/4/2018 at 1:46 PM, MarkE said:

unexpected anisotropies in the CMB.

It would be really nice if you could provide a quote to what you're getting at from the paper you linked to. I don't have the time or patience to look for what you may want to say exactly while I'm at work, and even less once I get home. 

On 6/4/2018 at 1:46 PM, MarkE said:

non-homogeneous Universe

Same as before. Also, it would be nice if you mentioned what the source is if it isn't obvious from the link text.

An interesting quote from the first link: "Most of the ingredients of the standard cosmological model are poorly understood in terms of fundamental physics".

An interesting quote from the second link: "But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe."

This paper has an interesting statement as well: "If these anomalies are in fact primordial, then understanding their origin is fundamental to either validate the standard model of cosmology or to explore new physics".

On 6/4/2018 at 5:27 PM, swansont said:

On 6/1/2018 at 3:05 PM, MarkE said:

 That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion.

So life existed on earth when it was a hot chunk of molten rock?

Let me answer your question with another question: how would you qualify the moment at which a sperm fertilizes the ovum, and when it becomes a zygote, well before it is developed into an embryo? Do you consider this stage to be a living human individual already, or is this a pre-life stage, and real actual "life" will be manifested into it at a later developmental stage?

On 6/4/2018 at 5:27 PM, swansont said:

Quote

True, but we seem to have sufficient energy, since humans are the cause of input. Is that ever taken into consideration by any scientist to describe the movement of any particle?

Humans are the cause of the input for pair production?  Really?

Where did I say that humans are the cause of input for pair production? 

On 6/4/2018 at 6:37 PM, Strange said:

On 6/4/2018 at 3:56 PM, MarkE said:

Life forms only consist of atoms. Consciousness, feelings, and giving meaning to the world around us in general, is not some kind of external addition to these atoms.

Then why did you say: "That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion."

If life is "just atoms", why don't you think it could just arise as those atoms rearrange themselves into more complex forms?

Because I have no reason to argue against the idea that life is inherently related to energy itself. I simply have no need for something else to add to this energy to achieve "life", because life is energy, and energy is life. That doesn’t mean that all atoms have consciousness, far from it, but it’s a matter of hierarchy, just like the hierarchy between humans and lower animals, and how atoms are related to other atoms. Even though all carbon atoms are exactly the same, some of them are part of neurons inside your brain, some of them are part of your liver tissue, and others are part of a chair. Nothing has changed to the carbon atom, only how it is used and what force is acted upon. Human being are made of atoms only, and nothing more than that.

It’s an interesting idea you’re making by noting what would arise from rearrangements into complexer molecular (life) forms. A different arrangement may “have” more energy stored than others. If glucose for instance is broken down, the same atoms are there, yet some of the stored energy has been released. A star is continuously rearranging itself by generating helium atoms (4 nucleons) from 4 free nucleons. This is a reaction to an external force, gravity, a star is forced to this to keep its hydrostatic equilibrium. It doesn’t have a choice, but a star is not alive of course. Still, it seems to look a lot like evolution on Earth, which has shown to make new arrangements continuously by evolving into new species who are able to conserve energy longer, live to a longer age, and develop ways to control certain attractions (think about your prefrontal cortex). Living organisms are behaving as a reaction to a changing environment, a changing climate, of which our Sun is greatly responsible. So that means we are connected to the ever changing composition of the Sun. Are living organisms, by evolving, changing and rearranging, balancing something out here? Because there is another force (gravity) that is doing the exact opposite, and we have to react to that? Do we even have a choice to evolve, or is it inevitable? I believe that evolution is indeed inevitable, because of the Red Queen hypothesis ("It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place"), and we have to do mental work, which leads to physical work, because we have to stay balanced, in order to stay alive.

On 6/4/2018 at 6:37 PM, Strange said:

Quote

Attraction, caused by energy and gravity, is all we need to understand any movement (which in my opinion includes all good/bad human thoughts and feelings).

Energy doesn't cause attraction.

Where did I say that energy causes attraction?

On 6/5/2018 at 1:23 AM, Strange said:

On 6/4/2018 at 1:46 PM, MarkE said:

Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws?

No, because the black hole loses mass. 

We can talk about the scientific understandable part of the Universe, sure, but that’s like talking about a human emotion such as for instance ‘jealousy’, by referring only to the neurotransmitters, blood flow, the limbic system and others that are involved in generating this emotion. But it’s caused by some external event. By describing these biological effects of that event, you’re making the correct observations, and you're not making any mistake, but you’re still missing the point, since you’re only focussing on half of what’s actually going on.

On 6/5/2018 at 1:23 AM, Strange said:

On 6/4/2018 at 1:46 PM, MarkE said:

So what’s responsible for this energy then,

We don’t know. As far as we know it has always been there. 

Let’s consider this to be true for a moment, let’s consider that you are right by arguing that energy has always been there. A part from the fact that you seem to break a conservation law (because the only logical thing to exist without any input should be… nothing, zero should remain zero), and the fact that you can’t explain how it got there in the first place, the definition of energy by itself is ‘movement’, right? There is no form of energy that is sedentary. Movement is energy and vice versa, every movement is a change from one location to another location. You are suggesting that something that has energy could have been present from the start without any input that causes it? That doesn’t sound scientific at all. If you are going to exclude any input that must have preceded it, in order for it to be present, you’re not only ignoring scientific laws, but you’re also ignoring a very importing aspect of the Universe, which is us. Humans. Living organisms in general. Why are you ignoring yourself as living proof of input, by making such a statement?

So, to get back to the beginning of this topic, and what the nature of dark energy is. The first form of energy (what goes up) must have experienced gravity as a reaction for its presence (must go down), and the Red Queen arms race had begun. To stay alive, to stay balanced, energy had to be kept actively in circulation, which is what we’re indirectly doing everyday by working, staying active, adapt to ever changing environments, and thereby rearranging ourselves. Nature isn’t doing anything by itself, it’s inert, lazy, only us, living organisms, are something beyond this inertia, and thus are living proof of thoughts that precede any change which allow us to physically change the world around us. Attraction back to the (hypothetical) edge of the Universe, representing the (hypothetical) cosmological constant, can’t ever stop as long as we’re here. And we're nothing more than energy, continuously changing into different arrangements, due to an external counter force. That’s why the Universe could be seen as the centre of something that is surrounded by an edge of primitive gravity as our origin where this event happened, even though we have centres of gravity within that Universe as well. Just like entropy, hot, high density is attracted by cold low density, and since we are energy, we’re flowing back automatically to where we came from before the Big Bang, in all directions. Living organisms feel the same force as celestial bodies, but only on another level, because chemical attraction on Earth is stronger than gravitational attraction, but it's not absent. So to keep in the same place, to stay balanced between those two forces (energy and gravity) we have to use, maintain and change our energy, keep it in circulation, and fight against the gravitational force outwards that “wants” to rip us a part.

Edited June 6, 2018 by MarkE

[YaDinghus]

55 minutes ago, MarkE said:

but the only thing we know for sure is that it loses mass, not energy.

You might have heard of the mass-energy equivalent from SR? E = mc^2? Ring a bell? 

 

57 minutes ago, MarkE said:

That being said, you’re arguing that energy is conserved because a black hole releases the same amount of energy as it evaporates

And that's exactly what it means

 

58 minutes ago, MarkE said:

Mass can be transformed into energy, yes, but that’s something different

No, it's not

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

We still don’t fully understand what mass is, since we don’t fully understand how the (5 sigma) Higgs boson gets its own mass, whether the graviton exists,

We've got a pretty good idea. Most of the mass in our atoms is due to energy bound between quarks by gluons, not by the Higgs mechanism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson:

Quote

The presence of the field, now confirmed by experimental investigation, explains why some fundamental particles have mass, despite the symmetries controlling their interactions implying that they should be massless. It also resolves several other long-standing puzzles, such as the reason for the extremely short range of the weak force.

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

whether the graviton exists, or how to explain the rotation of the celestial bodies without a new exotic form of matter we have coined the term ‘dark matter

Gravitons, if they exist, don't give anything mass; they would only govern the attraction between masses, or accumulations of energy. Also, we may not know what Dark Matter is, but we do have some pretty good observations of its behavior that track with what we know about mass

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

We seem to need (new) particles to explain mass over and over again, but I’m not convinced yet that it's only matter to be able to have mass in the first place, because mass and attraction might be the same thing. What causes the attraction? The curvature of space-time

You seem to be confusing general (physical) attraction with gravity. Gravity is the attraction of masses to other masses. There are other attractions, like the electromagnetic attraction between reverse charges. Or quark-quark attraction via gluon. We need more partjcles to explain matter, but that's just the process of refining theory. No serious scientist fooled themselves into believing the Standard Model was the end of discovery in physics.

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

I’ll give you an example: if you want to move your arm, you’re exerting a mental force onto your body, which initially has started somewhere in your brain as an intention, which causes your arm to move. Where is this force coming from? Not from particles such as electrons themselves, because they are well described in models that describe how atoms and subatomic particles behave. An electron or a photon can’t change its trajectory by itself, their wave functions are described by Maxwell/Schrödinger, and are bound to a field, and can’t just deviate from that… unless acted upon by an external force. The conclusion therefore should be that the Standard Model of particles can’t describe everything we observe in the Universe, as well as our own human behaviour here on Earth

A mental force? What's that supposed to be? Are we going to talk about free will(y) now?

When you lift your arm, your motor complex sends out a complex and coordinated series of electrical pulses through your neurons to your shoulder, which then excite your muscles and cause them to contract in a manner that raises your arm. This has absolutely nothing to do with quantum physics.

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

"Most of the ingredients of the standard cosmological model are poorly understood in terms of fundamental physics".

In terms of even more fundamental physics. We'll always poorly understand the more fubdamental physics of the most fundamental physics that we understand

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

"But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe."

We already know that the CMB has a blueshifted band in the direction that the earth is travelling and an redshifted band in the opposite direction. That doesn't indicate anything about the 'center' of the universe. The earth is not an inertial system, it is constantly being accelerated toward the sun. Because of Orbital Mechanics, we have a stable orbit and are not falling INTO the sun. Btw just shooting nuclear waste would be a lot more complicated than just shooting it at the sun. You actually have to shoot it retrograde (and it's even more complicated than that) or else it will just take a stable orbit and possibly even collide with earth in the near future.

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

Let me answer your question with another question: how would you qualify the moment at which a sperm fertilizes the ovum, and when it becomes a zygote, well before it is developed into an embryo? Do you consider this stage to be a living human individual already, or is this a pre-life stage, and real actual "life" will be manifested into it at a later developmental stage?

Even if we got into this debate here and now, it would not settle anything about whether there was anything alive to cause the big bang or whatever else you want to say.

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

Because I have no reason to argue against the idea that life is inherently related to energy itself. I simply have no need for something else to add to this energy to achieve "life", because life is energy, and energy is life. That doesn’t mean that all atoms have consciousness, far from it, but it’s a matter of hierarchy, just like the hierarchy between humans and lower animals, and how atoms are related to other atoms. Even though all carbon atoms are exactly the same, some of them are part of neurons inside your brain, some of them are part of your liver tissue, and others are part of a chair. Nothing has changed to the carbon atom, only how it is used and what force is acted upon. Human being are made of atoms only, and nothing more than that.

THEN WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY????????

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

On 6/4/2018 at 6:37 PM, Strange said:

Quote

Attraction, caused by energy and gravity, is all we need to understand any movement (which in my opinion includes all good/bad human thoughts and feelings).

Energy doesn't cause attraction.

Where did I say that energy causes attraction

You literally included the part where you claim that energy causes attraction in your own quote

 

1 hour ago, MarkE said:

On 6/5/2018 at 1:23 AM, Strange said:

On 6/4/2018 at 1:46 PM, MarkE said:

Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws?

No, because the black hole loses mass. 

We can talk about the scientific understandable part of the Universe, sure, but that’s like talking about a human emotion such as for instance ‘jealousy’, by referring only to the neurotransmitters, blood flow, the limbic system and others that are involved in generating this emotion. But it’s caused by some external event. By describing these biological effects of that event, you’re making the correct observations, and you're not making any mistake, but you’re still missing the point, since you’re only focussing on half of what’s actually going on

This IS the kind of furom where we talk about what is known about nature and the universe and argue over new ideas with our knowledge of nature. Deal with it.

[Strange]

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

I’ve mentioned it briefly here because it has already been discussed in another thread. But to bring a short version of it up again: there was a disagreement about the nature of a black hole, and whether it’s necessary for a black hole to be an object

It is not clear how an "object" is defined and why it is relevant. We know how black holes behave (according to current theory).

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

That being said, you’re arguing that energy is conserved because a black hole releases the same amount of energy as it evaporates, but the only thing we know for sure is that it loses mass, not energy

It's the same thing.

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

we don’t fully understand how the (5 sigma) Higgs boson gets its own mass

Er, yes we do: by interacting with the Higgs field.

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

We seem to need (new) particles to explain mass over and over again, but I’m not convinced yet that it's only matter to be able to have mass in the first place,

Having mass is part of the definition of matter. 

2 hours ago, MarkE said:

What causes the attraction? The curvature of space-time. What is mass? The curvature of space-time.

Exactly.

[MarkE]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

It is not clear how an "object" is defined and why it is relevant. We know how black holes behave (according to current theory).

Then why do all BHs shape different types of galaxies? They all seem to have different structures, such as spiral galaxies like our own, the sombrero galaxy and the pinwheel galaxy. Compare that to galaxies with no structure at all, such as irregular/peculiar galaxies, and thus aren't behaving all in the same way.

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Er, yes we do: by interacting with the Higgs field.

That’s not an explanation, what is giving it its mass? A particle that gives other particles mass has mass by itself? In maths you can create a cosmological constant, or a field, or numbers in general to describe certain phenomena, but does it therefore really exists? In string theory models it is shown that several dimensions may exist. What does that prove about reality?

1 hour ago, Strange said:

It's the same thing.

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Having mass is part of the definition of matter. 

If mass can be converted into energy, then they have to be two distinct phenomena, because otherwise there wouldn’t be any conversion involved. Not all energy has mass (such as photons and gluons), so why are we allowed to make the conclusion that all mass has to be energy already, and thus has to be moving (since no energy is sedentary). It can be converted, yes, but that’s the conversion of potential energy, not energy by itself. The space in between a particle, and the point it came from, has a natural attraction back, hence the space in between can be coined with the term 'potential energy', but you're not describing an actual particle, only the space in between (therefore the term 'potential energy' can be a bit misplaced and misleading).

Mass is not the same thing as energy, in fact, it's the exact opposite. The difference between and mass and energy is that mass is inert, it’s “sedentary”, not doing anything, which would logically be the starting point of any Big Bang particle. You can't create particles with energy you already possess, because where does this initial energy coming from? You have to conclude that the first form of energy couldn't have come from another energy source, you can only overcome this paradox by acknowledging that something that is sedentary, inert (mass) can be converted into movement, energy, a photon, but it's not a particle itself. This is, in my view, the only comprehensible explanation how particles in our Universe could have been converted to something from nothing at all to start out with. There's nothing that "gives" mass to anything, we don't even know whether there is mass at all, the only thing we know for sure is that there are degrees of attraction.

2 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

THEN WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY????????

There's no need to raise your voice. If you would like discuss a certain subject which I didn't explain clearly, please ask me a specific question, and I'll to try to explain it in another way.

2 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

You literally included the part where you claim that energy causes attraction in your own quote

I said that attraction is caused by energy and gravity. There have to be at least two things around in order for gravity to exist between them. One particle can't cause attraction by itself, it needs something to be attracted to.

2 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

A mental force? What's that supposed to be? Are we going to talk about free will(y) now?

When you lift your arm, your motor complex sends out a complex and coordinated series of electrical pulses through your neurons to your shoulder, which then excite your muscles and cause them to contract in a manner that raises your arm. This has absolutely nothing to do with quantum physics.

Where does that initial force come from? Does the desire to lift your arm start inside of a neuron? If so, where in the neuron exactly, could you be specific?

Edited June 6, 2018 by MarkE

[Strange]

4 hours ago, MarkE said:

Let me answer your question with another question: how would you qualify the moment at which a sperm fertilizes the ovum, and when it becomes a zygote, well before it is developed into an embryo? Do you consider this stage to be a living human individual already, or is this a pre-life stage, and real actual "life" will be manifested into it at a later developmental stage?

Irrelevant. All the components are already living.

4 hours ago, MarkE said:

Because I have no reason to argue against the idea that life is inherently related to energy itself. I simply have no need for something else to add to this energy to achieve "life", because life is energy, and energy is life.

Although it is hard to define what separates living from non-living (eg. viruses and prions are somewhere in the grey area) defining life as being energy, dilutes the meaning to such an extent that the word becomes useless.

4 hours ago, MarkE said:

Where did I say that energy causes attraction?

Here: "Attraction, caused by energy and gravity ..."

4 hours ago, MarkE said:

A part from the fact that you seem to break a conservation law

If the total mass-energy of the universe has always existed then it is conserved (ignoring the fact that energy conservation is not easy to define on cosmological scales).

4 hours ago, MarkE said:

because the only logical thing to exist without any input should be… nothing, zero should remain zero

You are misusing the word "logical" there.

4 hours ago, MarkE said:

the definition of energy by itself is ‘movement’, right?

Wrong. There seems little point in this discussion if you are just going to make up new meanings for words.

 

[Mordred]

Marke its funny how particle physics were able to calculate the expected range of values for the mass term of a Higgs boson long before its discovery at an LHC.

You might not understand how mass is generated but any particle physicist does understand it. I keep telling you that mass is resistance to inertia change. In particle physics this involves the coupling constants which relates the amount of force between a particle and a field. Simply because you refuse to understand how mass is described by physics doesn't mean physicists do not understand mass. That is your lack of knowledge

 

 

[MarkE]

5 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Marke its funny how particle physics were able to calculate the expected range of values for the mass term of a Higgs boson long before its discovery at an LHC.

You might not understand how mass is generated but any particle physicist does understand it. I keep telling you that mass is resistance to inertia change. In particle physics this involves the coupling constants which relates the amount of force between a particle and a field. Simply because you refuse to understand how mass is described by physics doesn't mean physicists do not understand mass. That is your lack of knowledge

I'm not a particle physicist, but I really would like to understand what mass is as a non particle physicist. I'd like to understand it as intuitively as possible. Could you recommend a book/youtube video/anything to take a first step in order to understand what mass really is? (Hopefully without too much maths).

[Strange]

32 minutes ago, MarkE said:

Then why do all BHs shape different types of galaxies? They all seem to have different structures, such as spiral galaxies like our own, the sombrero galaxy and the pinwheel galaxy. Compare that to galaxies with no structure at all, such as irregular/peculiar galaxies, and thus aren't behaving all in the same way.

The shape of galaxies is determined by their history (how old they are, how many collisions and mergers they have experienced, etc). The central black hole is such a tiny component I doubt it has much significant impact on the overall structure. Simulations of the formation of galaxy structures have to include dark matter (because it dominates the mass) but don't need to include black holes.

34 minutes ago, MarkE said:

That’s not an explanation, what is giving it its mass?

The same Higgs mechanism that gives all the other particles mass. I haven't seen a good description of the Higgs mechanism that isn't deeply mathematical. The analogies are generally so crude as to be useless and misleading. There is some discussion here, which might be of interest: 

 

41 minutes ago, MarkE said:

In maths you can create a cosmological constant, or a field, or numbers in general to describe certain phenomena, but does it therefore really exists? In string theory models it is shown that several dimensions may exist. What does that prove about reality?

Science isn't about what "really exists". We currently have two, very different, models of gravity. They both work (in most circumstances). Which one represents reality? Maybe neither. It doesn't matter.

42 minutes ago, MarkE said:

Not all energy has mass (such as photons and gluons), so why are we allowed to make the conclusion that all mass has to be energy already, and thus has to be moving (since no energy is sedentary).

I wouldn't make any such conclusion. Mass and energy, as you say, are different things. 

What about potential energy; is that moving?

44 minutes ago, MarkE said:

It can be converted, yes, but that’s the conversion of potential energy, not energy by itself.

It is not just potential energy. When converting between mass and energy (whether conceptually, or literally as in annihilation or creation of particle pairs) then all forms of energy, including kinetic energy for example, need to be accounted for.

 

[YaDinghus]

10 minutes ago, MarkE said:

I'm not a particle physicist, but I really would like to understand what mass is as a non particle physicist. I'd like to understand it as intuitively as possible. Could you recommend a book/youtube video/anything to take a first step in order to understand what mass really is? (Hopefully without too much maths).

Quantum Field Theory: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsPUh22kYmNBpDZPejCHGzxyfgitj26w9

[Strange]

Good non-technical intro the the Higgs mechanism here (with links to more technical material): https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/the-higgs-particle/the-higgs-faq-2-0/

There might be of interest as well:

• Why the Higgs and Gravity are Unrelated: https://profmattstrassler.com/2012/10/15/why-the-higgs-and-gravity-are-unrelated/
• Matter and Energy: A False Dichotomy: https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/mass-energy-matter-etc/matter-and-energy-a-false-dichotomy/

[Mordred]

43 minutes ago, MarkE said:

I'm not a particle physicist, but I really would like to understand what mass is as a non particle physicist. I'd like to understand it as intuitively as possible. Could you recommend a book/youtube video/anything to take a first step in order to understand what mass really is? (Hopefully without too much maths).

 

OK lets start with the basics inertia of a body determines its momentum [latex]P=mv[/latex] where v is the velocity. Mass is resistance to inertia change via f=ma it is a bodies resistance to acceleration.

here is a starter prep

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=inertial+mass+youtube&view=detail&mid=3E35A75B97B03E6F2C073E35A75B97B03E6F2C07&FORM=VIRE

pay close attention to how f=ma applies.... lets get the basic definitions down pat first. This may seem too basic but all mass is determined by the physics definition of mass as per this video. This includes the resistance due to the force of the coupling constants between a field and a particle.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Mordred