Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 36125
Joined: Jun. 2004
Posted on: Sep. 24 2007,20:27
A few years ago I was watching an episode of Nova about.... some sort of quantum stuff. Wormholes and such.
They showed an experiment or something..... a light was projected through some sort of device with 3 holes, but 5 beams of light came out the other side (or something like that). The explanation was... in the parallel universe, their opposites are performing the same demonstration on a device with 5 holes, and the light is being shared between universes (or something like that).
It was about 5 years ago. I may be misremembering specifics, but that's the gist.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 36125
Joined: Jun. 2004
Posted on: Sep. 24 2007,20:59
I heard the same sort of cop-out explanation in Crichton's book, "Time Line." Scientist peeps in our universe knew how to send peeps back in time, but we didn't know how to bring them back. But that's ok because peeps in the parallel universe knew how to do it, so they always showed up when they were supposed to.
Crichton... though he has gone Hollywood... is still a PhD and is supposed to know about these things. But I dunno.
I think we need to find this episode of Nova and watch it as a group.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 22951
Joined: May 2004
Posted on: Sep. 24 2007,21:02
(GORDON @ Sep. 24 2007,23:59)
QUOTE
I heard the same sort of cop-out explanation in Crichton's book, "Time Line." Scientist peeps in our universe knew how to send peeps back in time, but we didn't know how to bring them back. But that's ok because peeps in the parallel universe knew how to do it, so they always showed up when they were supposed to.
Crichton... though he has gone Hollywood... is still a PhD and is supposed to know about these things. But I dunno.
I think we need to find this episode of Nova and watch it as a group.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 36125
Joined: Jun. 2004
Posted on: Sep. 24 2007,21:06
What I meant was he typically writes stuff based on real science. Prehistoric DNA to make dinosaurs, nanotech that runs amuck, killer alien microbes that kill peeps, and quantum time travel.
This might be the episode, but I dn't have time to watch it right now. I'll try to get to it within the next few days.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 22951
Joined: May 2004
Posted on: Sep. 24 2007,21:10
QUOTE
AMANDA PEET (University of Toronto): People who have said that there were extra dimensions of space have been labeled crackpots, or people who are bananas.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 22951
Joined: May 2004
Posted on: Sep. 24 2007,21:14
OK, they only thing I could remember was light, when sent through a small hole in dark paper, created wave-like distribution patterns of shadow on the wall, instead of even gradients.
That experiment demonstrates both the wave and particle properties of light. Something to the effect of, if you assume wave mechanics of light the light will have pattern A. Particle mechanics gives pattern B. Quantum (wave and particle and some other fun stuff) yields a combination of the two. Basically it's confusing as all get out because it looks like it's not following any rules. Then there's the whole, the particle can exist in two places at once because it is not observed but as soon as it is observed it exists in the one place. This is schrodinger's cat.
It is also the principle of quantum computing. Instead of binary (on/off) you have on/off/maybe. How this contributes to speed in some algorithms (like encryption cracking) I don't know.
Man, I wish I had gone further in physics. I forgot how weird it gets.
-------------- Wadda mean? Other people can read this?!
TPRJones I saw The Fault in our Stars opening night.
Group: Privateers
Posts: 12384
Joined: May 2004
Posted on: Sep. 25 2007,07:25
Sounds like bullshit to me.
Not the wave/particle duality, that's a well established phenomenon. The three holes / five holes parallel universe machine, though, that's gotta be crap at this point. If you could project light into a parallel universe you could just as easily (and with the exact same magical inter-dimensional transmission equipment) send pictures and other data and establish communication and share knowledge instead of just lighting up a wall with two extra beams of light. So either there's a big cover-up conspiracy going on about our ongoing communications with the 8th Dimension, or Nova decided to spin some bullshit on their show. Guess which one I'm betting is true.
Yeah, light leaking into a parallel universe is a bunch of crap. In all observed actions, there is neither the creation of energy/matter nor the destruction of the same. If there was some 'bleed off' into a parallel universe we could somehow harness that and our 'energy crisis' would be solved. It would also negate entropy so the universe would not end in heat death assuming the other parallel universe didn't go first.
Of course this is assuming that the transfer of energy is two ways or we could leech off another parallel universe. Shit, I'm theorizing on bull shit.
-------------- Wadda mean? Other people can read this?!
TPRJones I saw The Fault in our Stars opening night.
Group: Privateers
Posts: 12384
Joined: May 2004
Posted on: May 17 2009,20:23
I seem to recall some theory I read somewhere about the universe being made up of one single quark that is oscillating backwards and forwards in time and interacting with itself to make up all the matter in the universe.
Seems unlikely, though, as that would imply that if it were to interact with an anti-quark of the same sort it would obliterate, and take the entire universe with it.
