Life’s little victories
Going to study in the physics lounge to find that it’s empty (so i can blast my music) and there are leftover donuts and coffee and soda. Fuck yeah.
Showing posts tagged awesome
Bell’s Theorem and Quantum Entanglement
Bell’s Theorem, introduced in 1964 by John Steward Bell in his paper On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox, deals with the “spooky action at a distance” that is at the heart of so much quantum weirdness. The gist of the theorem is this: if there are local explanations for the results we see due to entanglement then there are a set of inequalities which the outcomes of the measurements must obey.
Lets go through a simple thought experiment. We have a particle source, that emits two entangled particles in opposite directions. We perform one of two measurements on each of the particles. The result of each of these measurements is +1 or -1.
We can set each of the two detectors to either a or a’, b or b’. Thus we have 4 possible setups: ab, ab’, a’b and a’b’. To form the Bell inequalities, we take the +1 and -1 outcomes, multiply them together and add three of them and subtract one of them, like so:
ab +ab’ +a’b’ -a’b
We can think of these +1 and -1 values as local hidden variables. According to Bell’s theorem, no matter what the outcomes of each measurement is (+1 or -1), the equation above should never be greater than +2 or -2. But the weird thing is, in the actual experiments done in labs, we see this equation return values of +/- sqrt(2)*2.
Well ok cool thanks Cyrus but what does that mean?
Well. This means that either quantum mechanics does not have local hidden variables, or our reality does not obey counterfactual definiteness. No local hidden variables means that our reality does not adhere to the laws of locality; that is, things that are very far spatially separated have the possibility of interacting in some way. If our reality does not obey counterfactual definiteness, we loose the ability to say that an object has a certain value before we measure it; our world has no meaning until we look at it.
Bottom line: quantum mechanics is super fucking weird.
Image credit goes to my philosophy professor. Read more here.
Scientist creates lifelike cells out of metal
Researcher says he has created living cells made of metal instead of carbon — and they may be evolving.
o shi-
![The Ultimate Fate of the Universe
There are many proposed ends to the universe. The key factor in determining which fate we will actually experience is the density of the universe: basically, it’s a battle between how much stuff there is and how fast the universe is expanding.
If the universe expands indefinitely, it may experience a Big Freeze or Heat Death:
The Big Freeze is a scenario under which continued expansion results in a universe that asymptotically approaches absolute zero temperature. It could, in the absence of dark energy, occur only under a flat or hyperbolic geometry. With a positive cosmological constant, it could also occur in a closed universe. This scenario is currently the most commonly accepted theory within the scientific community. A related scenario is heat death, which states that the universe goes to a state of maximum entropy in which everything is evenly distributed, and there are no gradients — which are needed to sustain information processing, one form of which is life.
Alternatively, if the universe’s expansion accelerates, our universe may be ripped to shreds in a Big Rip:
In the special case of phantom dark energy, which has even more negative pressure than a simple cosmological constant, the density of dark energy increases with time, causing the rate of acceleration to increase, leading to a steady increase in the Hubble constant. As a result, all material objects in the universe, starting with galaxies and eventually (in a finite time) all forms, no matter how small, will disintegrate into unbound elementary particles and radiation, ripped apart by the phantom energy force and shooting apart from each other. The end state of the universe is a singularity, as the dark energy density and expansion rate becomes infinite.
If the power of attraction overwhelms the expansion of space, the universe may stop expanding and start contracting into a Big Crunch:
The Big Crunch theory is a symmetric view of the ultimate fate of the Universe. Just as the Big Bang started a cosmological expansion, this theory assumes that the average density of the universe is enough to stop its expansion and begin contracting. The end result is unknown; a simple estimation would have all the matter and space-time in the universe collapse into a dimensionless singularity.
Or perhaps the universe will rebound, and a Big Bounce will follow a Big Crunch:
According to one version of the Big Bang theory of cosmology, in the beginning the universe had infinite density. Such a description seems to be at odds with everything else in physics, and especially quantum mechanics and its uncertainty principle.[citation needed] It is not surprising, therefore, that quantum mechanics has given rise to an alternative version of the Big Bang theory. Also, if the universe is closed, this theory would predict that once this universe collapses it will spawn another universe in an event similar to the Big Bang after a universal singularity is reached or a repulsive quantum force causes re-expansion.
Or hey, who knows. It may be true that the universe is in a steady state and it will never end. But don’t bet on it. So go out and have fun because before you know it you might be swimming in a sea of unbound quarks.
Quotes from Wikipedia. Image courtesy of wikipedia commons. Read more Here.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx7mxkyqyR1r5xajzo1_500.png)
The Ultimate Fate of the Universe
There are many proposed ends to the universe. The key factor in determining which fate we will actually experience is the density of the universe: basically, it’s a battle between how much stuff there is and how fast the universe is expanding.
If the universe expands indefinitely, it may experience a Big Freeze or Heat Death:
The Big Freeze is a scenario under which continued expansion results in a universe that asymptotically approaches absolute zero temperature. It could, in the absence of dark energy, occur only under a flat or hyperbolic geometry. With a positive cosmological constant, it could also occur in a closed universe. This scenario is currently the most commonly accepted theory within the scientific community. A related scenario is heat death, which states that the universe goes to a state of maximum entropy in which everything is evenly distributed, and there are no gradients — which are needed to sustain information processing, one form of which is life.
Alternatively, if the universe’s expansion accelerates, our universe may be ripped to shreds in a Big Rip:
In the special case of phantom dark energy, which has even more negative pressure than a simple cosmological constant, the density of dark energy increases with time, causing the rate of acceleration to increase, leading to a steady increase in the Hubble constant. As a result, all material objects in the universe, starting with galaxies and eventually (in a finite time) all forms, no matter how small, will disintegrate into unbound elementary particles and radiation, ripped apart by the phantom energy force and shooting apart from each other. The end state of the universe is a singularity, as the dark energy density and expansion rate becomes infinite.
If the power of attraction overwhelms the expansion of space, the universe may stop expanding and start contracting into a Big Crunch:
The Big Crunch theory is a symmetric view of the ultimate fate of the Universe. Just as the Big Bang started a cosmological expansion, this theory assumes that the average density of the universe is enough to stop its expansion and begin contracting. The end result is unknown; a simple estimation would have all the matter and space-time in the universe collapse into a dimensionless singularity.
Or perhaps the universe will rebound, and a Big Bounce will follow a Big Crunch:
According to one version of the Big Bang theory of cosmology, in the beginning the universe had infinite density. Such a description seems to be at odds with everything else in physics, and especially quantum mechanics and its uncertainty principle.[citation needed] It is not surprising, therefore, that quantum mechanics has given rise to an alternative version of the Big Bang theory. Also, if the universe is closed, this theory would predict that once this universe collapses it will spawn another universe in an event similar to the Big Bang after a universal singularity is reached or a repulsive quantum force causes re-expansion.
Or hey, who knows. It may be true that the universe is in a steady state and it will never end. But don’t bet on it. So go out and have fun because before you know it you might be swimming in a sea of unbound quarks.
Quotes from Wikipedia. Image courtesy of wikipedia commons. Read more Here.
Endysymbiotic Theory
I think this is one of the more beautiful theories in (non-physics) science. Basically: things in cells used to be other independent living things.
From Wikipedia:
The endosymbiotic theory concerns the mitochondria, plastids (e.g. chloroplasts), and possibly other organelles of eukaryotic cells. According to this theory, certain organelles originated as free-living bacteria that were taken inside another cell as endosymbionts. Mitochondria developed from proteobacteria (in particular,Rickettsiales, the SAR11 clade,[1][2] or close relatives) and chloroplasts from cyanobacteria.
The extreme of this theory is a theory known as Symbiogenesis:
Symbiogenesis is the merging of two separate organisms to form a single new organism. The idea originated with Konstantin Mereschkowsky in his 1926 book Symbiogenesis and the Origin of Species, which proposed that chloroplasts originate from cyanobacteria captured by a protozoan…
A fundamental principle of modern evolutionary theory is that mutations arise one at a time and either spread through the population or not, depending on whether they offer an individual fitness advantage. Nevertheless, this general case may not apply to all examples of evolutionary change. Indeed, genome mapping techniques have revealed that family trees of the major taxa appear to be extensively cross-linked—possibly due to lateral gene transfer.
best song by the best band on the best album ever?
probably not but it’s damn good.
Oh Mandelbrot. You dog you.
My mother is awesome for making this for me. It’ll finally replace my sports-stocking, which if you know me, is the most unfitting stocking theme ever. I play organized sports once and was hospitalized on and off for a year enduring seven surgeries. lol GO MATH!
daw i want one of these.
New Particle Found at the LHC
ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2011) — Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Lancaster University, analysing data taken by the ATLAS experiment, have been at the centre of what is believed to be the first clear observation of a new particle at the Large Hadron Collider.
The particle, the chi b(3P), is a new way of combining a beauty quark and its antiquark so that they bind together. Like the more famous Higgs particle, the chi b(3P) is a boson. However, whereas the Higgs is not made up of smaller particles, the chi b(3P) combines two very heavy objects via the same ‘strong force’ which holds the atomic nucleus together.
