Ignorance Hypotheses & Numpty Speculations For Fun

[Harpo]

Just for fun, let’s consider OTT weirdscience, wrongheaded futurology, speculative silliness and the like.

Starting with: if there is a fifth situation where the laws of physics break down, what might that be?

Here are the known four, but what could be a fifth?

 

[CupofJoe]

Edge of the universe. What is beyond the [you won't believe how incredibly huge but still] finite universe?

 

[Harpo]

So here’s an idea about time travel:
Firstly, my old idea - we build a huge particle accelerator around the sun, whatever size will be required (eg: Mercury orbit sized, or inner edge of the Asteroid Belt, or whatever it’ll be), and then we send particles whizzing around faster by far than ever before, achieving speeds above half lightspeed. And then when they collide, the impact exceeds lightspeed, and we create/discover tachyons.
And then we using the tachyons to create Tachyon power, tachyons drive, etc etc, and thus time travel is possible.

But there’s a catch - the tachyons going faster than light speed and backwards through time will end up very very far away, and at the far end they’ll need *another* space going civilisation to have done exactly the same thing, so our time travellers have somewhen to arrive at. So they’ll be in the distant past of an alien civilisation very far away, and the only way to get back is if that civilisation also has wormholes for Jumps to our location.
Thus, our time travellers arrive back here in our past. But they’re limited to whatever the distances are between alien civilisations that have also done this, and backwards time travel is limited to whenever the other civilisation built their machines.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

....and then we send particles whizzing around faster by far than ever before, achieving speeds above half lightspeed. And then when they collide, the impact exceeds lightspeed....

Unfortunately this is not correct. The speed of each particle relative to the other will be less than light speed, even if they appear to be moving towards each other and each is moving at more than half the speed of light relative to an observer. You need to apply the Lorentz equations to work out their relative speed, and it is always less than c.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Edge of the universe. What is beyond the [you won't believe how incredibly huge but still] finite universe?

Unfortunately this is not valid. Space and time are properties of the Universe and only have meaning within the Universe. The concept of 'beyond' the boundary of the Universe is therefore meaningless. While the Universe may be expanding, there is no meaningful argument that it is expanding into something else or that there is such a thing as 'beyond' the edge of the Universe.

 

[Harpo]

Unfortunately this is not correct. The speed of each particle relative to the other will be less than light speed, even if they appear to be moving towards each other and each is moving at more than half the speed of light relative to an observer. You need to apply the Lorentz equations to work out their relative speed, and it is always less than c.

Ah. Thankyou. Exactly what this thread is for, really. Daft wrongheaded ideas and their numptyuppance

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Just for fun, let’s consider OTT weirdscience, wrongheaded futurology, speculative silliness and the like.

Starting with: if there is a fifth situation where the laws of physics break down, what might that be?

Here are the known four, but what could be a fifth?
View attachment 122758

"Before the Big Bang" is not valid. Time is a property of the Universe. No Universe, no time. No time, no before.

This is also an interesting argument against the concept of a 'creator'. In fact the word 'creation' is only meaningful if time is an accepted pre-condition. I did something and it then caused something else. If time does not exist without our Universe then there was no 'before' and there was no 'creation'.

 

[CupofJoe]

Unfortunately this is not valid. Space and time are properties of the Universe and only have meaning within the Universe. The concept of 'beyond' the boundary of the Universe is therefore meaningless. While the Universe may be expanding, there is no meaningful argument that it is expanding into something else or that there is such a thing as 'beyond' the edge of the Universe.

Yes I agree this is the concept as we know it. But has anyone gone and looked?
I think it's a flaw in my Philosophic circuits.
I can't quite get my head around that something is expanding but there is nothing for it to expand into...

"Before the Big Bang" is not valid. Time is a property of the Universe. No Universe, no time. No time, no before.

This is also an interesting argument against the concept of a 'creator'. In fact the word 'creation' is only meaningful if time is an accepted pre-condition. I did something and it then caused something else. If time does not exist without our Universe then there was no 'before' and there was no 'creation'.

But doesn't that also work so say there can't have been a Big Bang [and even a Creator]?
If there is no before. just a moment when everything started... Then how did it start. If there is nothing, how did it become anything?
Again I can hear my Philosophic circuits shorting out...

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

But doesn't that also work so say there can't have been a Big Bang [and even a Creator]?
If there is no before. just a moment when everything started... Then how did it start. If there is nothing, how did it become anything?
Again I can hear my Philosophic circuits shorting out...

'How did it start' may be another question with no meaning. Because the concept of 'starting' relies on the supposition that 'time' is a thing. And time - being a property of our Universe - only exists in our Universe.

Interesting though that matter and energy have an equivalence (given by Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2). If the surplus of matter exactly matches the deficit of energy then the Universe could actually be.....nothing (or have come from nothing). Unfortunately physicists are having trouble demonstrating this zero sum (which is perhaps partly why the concept of dark matter has arisen).

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

Yes I agree this is the concept as we know it. But has anyone gone and looked?
I think it's a flaw in my Philosophic circuits.
I can't quite get my head around that something is expanding but there is nothing for it to expand into...

But doesn't that also work so say there can't have been a Big Bang [and even a Creator]?
If there is no before. just a moment when everything started... Then how did it start. If there is nothing, how did it become anything?
Again I can hear my Philosophic circuits shorting

These are questions that everyone asks and the response "this is not a valid question" presumes that we know everything about the world in which we find ourselves, imo

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

Here's something. Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of morphological fields has been rubbished by the scientific community. His popular writings show that he ignores the results of his own experiments. And yet Lee Smolin, respected cosmologist/theoretical physicist and former orthodox string theorist, proposes something very similar to morphological fields in his book "Time Regained". Should Smolin be held in the same estimation as Sheldrake, or vice-versa? Or something else?
BTW I find Smolin convincing, and think of Sheldrake as the posh uncle I never had

 

[BAYLOR]

Edge of the universe. What is beyond the [you won't believe how incredibly huge but still] finite universe?

Bilboards ?

 

[BAYLOR]

Here's something. Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of morphological fields has been rubbished by the scientific community. His popular writings show that he ignores the results of his own experiments. And yet Lee Smolin, respected cosmologist/theoretical physicist and former orthodox string theorist, proposes something very similar to morphological fields in his book "Time Regained". Should Smolin be held in the same estimation as Sheldrake, or vice-versa? Or something else?
BTW I find Smolin convincing, and think of Sheldrake as the posh uncle I never had

Morphic Resonance would be a great name for rock and roll band .