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Physics - Putting the P H in PHUN!
Heffling
No PicEverRegistered User regular
No PicEverRegistered User regular
So, rather than take the Aethist thread off onto a tangent, I thought I'd start a new topic here.
Spontaneous generation violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics:
In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.
Specifically, for spontaneous generation to occur, you have to have energy convert to matter and then convert again into without an increase in entropy. If entropy were to increase, then you would have a loss in the background energy that could be measured.
The 2nd law is what causes things like heat energy to flow from a higher temperature source to a lower temperature source. Simply by conservation of energy, you could have flow in the opposite direction. And yet, it doesn't occur in nature.
How is the HUP fundamental to the process? It's certainly fundamental to our scientific theories, because theories need to make a prediction that can be tested and demonstrated to be in agreement with observations. However, in the case of the HUP, we have a limit on our observations. Thus, we can build mathematical models that make predictions and test them, but these predictions will be limited by our ability to observer the natural outcome.
This doesn't make theory true in terms of the absolute truth, it simply means it is accurate within the framework of our limited ability to measure the universe.
See, I've always argued that there has gotta be something supernatural. I follow science and all, but I know that you can't have infinite sources of something, something created the big bang, if it was dust particles, something created those, and whatever created those were created by something. To me, it eventually has to stop at something, infinite sources is illogical. But then again, something cannot scientificly speaking (or what we know of science) create itself into existnece. So, until we prove otherwise, I'm going to say the universe was created by supernatural means.
Um, no. As we understand things now, particles and anti-particles are constantly being created out of nothing. And there are a number of solid theories on why during the Big Bang far more matter than anti-matter was created.
*twitch*
*twitchtwitch*
Particles and Anti-Particles are NOT created out of nothing. Spontaneous generation of particles and anti-particles is hypothesized to be from the decay of higher spin quarks that represent the background energy of the universe (for example, the background temperature of 2.7 Kelvin) and are thought to nearly instantaneously recombine.
As far as I am aware, this hypothesis has not been tested. It has been proposed based on man's understanding of quantum mechanics.
As far as I'm aware, that's not at all what I've been tought and agree with. Spontanious generation happens because it doesn't violate the conservation laws and thus can happen and thus does.
Spontaneous generation violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics:
In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.
Specifically, for spontaneous generation to occur, you have to have energy convert to matter and then convert again into without an increase in entropy. If entropy were to increase, then you would have a loss in the background energy that could be measured.
The 2nd law is what causes things like heat energy to flow from a higher temperature source to a lower temperature source. Simply by conservation of energy, you could have flow in the opposite direction. And yet, it doesn't occur in nature.
Personally, I think that some of the hypothesis and conclusions being generated by quantum mechanics are incorrect. This is due to the strong dependancy that QM has on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. To me, the HUP represents a human limitation on our ability to measure the universe. It doesn't prevent the universe from having a specifically defined position and velocity at the same time, it simply prevents us from knowing these items inclusively. This means that any models we generate will have to include the uncertainty principal, as we need to be able to take measurements in order to demonstrate that our theories are "correct". However, it doesn't mean that the universe actually functions in the way proposed by the model, it simply shows that we can build a mathematical approximation of the universe.
For example, from QM, you can have a hot particle take thermal energy from a cold particle and heat itself. This is, however, a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Personally, I think it's because we have a grey area where the error bars created by the HUP would indicate that something is possible, when in fact it is not. This would be a flaw with the model. However, many scientists (and admittedly, a large number of them are better at advanced mathematics and astrophysics than I) accept that this is possible. It's simply improbable. When you look at the heat transfer of a larger object that is made of millions, billions, trillions or more atoms, then the summation of the probabilities makes the likelyhood that the average entropy will decrease by having the hotter particles absorb energy from the cooler particles all but impossible. It would take such an extremely long time cycle to see this occur (longer than the age of the universe), that it can effectively be treated as possible.
However, I don't believe that this type of transfer can even happen at the atomic or sub-atomic scales.
Well you would be wrong. HUE is fundamental within the process, not just a limitation of observation. The best way to understand this is via the many worlds model.
How is the HUP fundamental to the process? It's certainly fundamental to our scientific theories, because theories need to make a prediction that can be tested and demonstrated to be in agreement with observations. However, in the case of the HUP, we have a limit on our observations. Thus, we can build mathematical models that make predictions and test them, but these predictions will be limited by our ability to observer the natural outcome.
This doesn't make theory true in terms of the absolute truth, it simply means it is accurate within the framework of our limited ability to measure the universe.
Heffling on
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There charge q
capacitance C
Potential Difference V okay not too hard because it's from high school....
Then you throw in Field Magnitude E and that's when the rape begins OH GAWD I SUCK.
Basically, what was already said high in the quote tree above is correct, to our best understanding, except for the weird "but I don't believe it" clause.
And while Hawking radiation has not been observed directly, it certainly seems a very valid hypothesis. For one it explains why micro black holes can't exist. Which is nice, because otherwise the universe would sure have a lot of those, growing forever. There's also a lot of quantum mechanical support for it.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is a statistical law. The more particles you put into it, the more valid it is. For 0-2 particles.... it doesn't really say much at all.
The argument goes that The Source (God) existed "before time" and is itself the instigator of causality. You don't need to know where God comes from because before God created existence there was no such thing as "something" or "nothing." Or "before," for that matter.
It's definitely a chunky argument, though, and doesn't lend itself to a scientific explanation. Aquinas was pretty clear on this, that you can't "prove" God. It's simply beyond our ability to reason since we're not omniscient. Hence the need for "faith."
How can entropy spontaneously decrease? I can accept theoretically that at an atomic level, heat could flow from a cold object to a hot object. But that's just keeping consistant with the Conservation of Energy, in which the net entropy change is zero. For entropy to actually decrease, I would think that you would have to have some form of energy generation. For example, this would mean that the hot object heated more than the cool object cooled.
Personally, I've never liked the idea of entropy. Looking at things as a decrease in order smacks of using a man-made definition (order). Unfortunately, I don't know how to argue with the results, so my likes or dislikes don't really matter.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1251
Isn't it funny how all modern definitions of God miraculously defy all convention and very neatly tie up any loose ends, while at the same time are up to date with current scientific theories and are sure to invent new ways to circumvent those theories? It's sort of hilarious.
But isn't using the Schrodinger Equation just a mathematical way to quantify the uncertainty by use of wave functions?
Stolen from Wikipedia: In science a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a limitation on our ability to measure both the position and velocity of a particle. This can also be viewed as a limitation on our ability to measure the position and time, or a limitation on our ability to specify the particle's location within space-time, accurately.
Based on the definition of a scientific theory above, then any theory we proposed will be limited in it's predictive ability because our ability to measure the universe is limited by the HUP. That is, any observation we make is limited by the HUP, so our model cannot be tested more accurately than this limitation. Thus, any model will have to include the limitation.
This doesn't mean that the Scientific Theory is a true representation of the universe. It is certainly an accurate representation of such. However, the universe could indeed consist of particles with a true position and velocity. Nothing in Quantum Mechanics prevents this. The prevention is in our limit to measure the position and velocity, which means that we cannot come up with a more accurate model.
Entropy is nothing more than the log of the number of possible states of a system of particles. Doing nothing more than counting up this number of possible states doesn't seem too artificial.
The only reason these "laws" of thermodynamics are valid is because we can statistically show that with a large enough sampling size, and the system at equilibrium, the chance of anything else happening is very slim. Nothing in this branch of physics otherwise prohibits things from happening in other ways; especially in systems of non-equilibrium. That is, as far as my knowledge goes.
edit: Although I don't have much knowledge of them, I do know that there are arguments, which have led to experiments, showing that there can be no hidden variables within quantum mechanics. That the HUP is a fundamental part of reality and not due to our experimental appratus. I think the main one I've heard of was the EPR paradox which was resolved decades later to show that there are no hidden variables in QM.
This particular "modern definition of God" originated in the 13th century.
Ok, still, and I may be just massively wrong here, but doesn't the whole spontaneous particles in a vacuum thing tie in with vacuum energy. Not to sound like a hippy or anything, but there is pretty much just this energy that is pretty much everywhere. Is it a closed system if vacuum energy needs to be accounted for in terms of entropy?
I'm not even sure what that math would look like.(edit: log of possible states of non-existent particles... I still have no idea what the math looks like).
Which is... bad? I don't see your point. Mainstream religion adjusts itself to account for scientific discovery all the time, just not as fast as most of us would like.
Sorry, not sure what you mean by 'vacuum energy' here. Are you talking about the spontaneous creation of particle-antiparticle pairs in short time-frames?
Err... apparently not, looking more into it, they seem to be two unrelated weird ass phenomena.
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kinda what you are talking about, right? There is more to the picture than just the particles that are appearing, so the 2nd law is not applicable. It's not a truely closed system.
No, it isn't. The wavefunctions are the particles. Even in a pure thought evperiment, where a single electron exists in a 1-d square potential well with infinite sides the wavefunction is not a dirac delta function. There is a probability distribution, but the electron itself isn't a little billiard ball that definately exists at some point in the potential well, the electron *is* the wavefunction. You want to think of electrons as little points that have a specific location, but this is absolutely not how things are viewed in quantum mechanics.
No, it isn't. The uncertainty principle not exist separate from quantum mechanics, it is based on the axioms of quantum mechanics. The uncertainty principle is about wavefunction operators, not so much actually measuring velocities and positions in the real world.
1) the HUP is one of many uncertainty relations in QM. It has nothing to do with how you measure momentum and position, it's a simple consequence of how you define them. In QM they are most simply defined as x and i(d/dx), respectively, so they are sorta related.
2) Entropy is not defined as order. It is defined as Boltzman's constant times the log of the number of possible states in the system. This equation is carved on his tombstone, because it's so important. Entropy tends to increase because, all things being equal, systems move towards what is most likely (largest number of states). EX: flipping coins will make about half of them heads and half tales, because there's a lot of ways to get half and half, and only 1 way to get all tails. It's not impossible for entropy to decrease over short times, but for large systems it's so unlikely that you'll never notice it.
3)Don't try to use basic physics to try to understand the big bang. It's waaaaay more complicated than that.
Another large problem in physics is that while your everyday common sense is usually pretty useful in high school physics, it becomes downright counter-productive past freshman general physics and is something you largely have to purge yourself of if you want to have any chance of grasping relativity and quantum mechanics and such.