In light of the recent thread about Quantum Mechanics that derailed into idiocy and was subsequently locked I'd like to open the board up to a general physics discussion topic. So what does that mean? Well, seen anything significant in the development of the field? Post it here. Having issues with a particular physics related problem and need help? We can discuss it here. Find something particularly interesting regarding theoretical physics? Boggle our minds. Found some witty physics that doesn't exist on trollscience? Not the place for it. srs fiziks here. Allow me to open with something that helps us realize that we are indeed heading in the right direction in this field regarding the recent discovery of Higgs boson. If you don't know, there are articles within that article that explain why this is a significant discovery for Quantum Mechanics. Anyway, carry on.
...you can observe a particle that has no mass. Photons are such a particle. Also their effect on their surroundings.
Well that's interesting. I suppose when things are that small you can't just look into a microscope and just 'discover' things.
I still don't understand how traveling faster than the speed of light [in theory] reverses time? But on a question I actually care about, what is the Higgs particle? I've heard it is a near incredible scientific breakthrough, but want to know more about it. Thanks
The way I understand it is: The Higgs Boson provides a field, conveniently called "The Higgs field", when particles exist within this field, they are given mass. It's still uncertain (to my knowledge) why some elementary particles have more or less mass than others if they all exist within this field, though I'm sure if the reason is known somebody will correct me. Another way to explain it (assuming that you understand photons and electromagnetic fields) is that the Higgs Boson is to the Higgs field as the photon is to the electromagnetic field. It's a scientific breakthrough because if the Higgs were non-existant than, as Sharp put it, "All of physics would be broken, because the standard model would be completely false, and thus almost every theory on modern physics would be thrown out the window."
The foundation of physics, eh? Well that does sound big! lol I only wonder why a discovery this big hasn't exactly received much attention in the media. And I was never taught about photons, and seldom of the electromagnetic field, but it seems like a weekend project for me to learn.
It's not too hard to learn about on your own, we covered both in 2 weeks at school (10 hours), but it was fairly slow paced. You could easily do it in a night if you're manic.
Right. I may try tomorrow after reading my daily news articles...but the day has drained me so [it is 3:13am where I am].
From what I understand about Relativity, approaching the speed of light doesn't reverse time but instead slows time down. However, Relativity also says that it is impossible to reach the speed of light.
But theoretically, by going that 'fast' you're actually slowing yourself down? As much as I would hate to say this, I hope Relativity is wrong on this...I think hyperspace would be the most incredible human discovery. Now, if reaching the speed of light slows your speed...then could that mean that going slow enough will actually increase your speed? 0.o lol
Sharp here to clear things up! All fields in physics are made up of some type of boson. The four fundamental forces of physics, all cast a field of influence, that don't exist as we think of them in classical physics. The field is actually a bunch of these different types of bosons that apply a force. The strength of that force is determined by the density of these particles. Stronger the force, more dense the bosons. A group of scientists, including Peter Higgs, theorized that there was a similar principle that governed how object got their mass. The Higgs boson, that interacts with the different building blocks of matter, exist in an ether that permeates the entire universe, uniformly. The objects that are more massive, interact more with the Higgs field. The reason it has taken us so long to observe these particles is because they have no mass. We have observes all the other force carriers, besides gravitons, by the same method as we observed the Higgs. Matter and energy are interchangeable and can be converted into each other, we have bombarded the Higgs field with immense amounts of energy, in an attempt to increase our probobability of coaxing the Higgs boson to convert this energy into mass so it can be observed. This invovles quite a large amount of quantum mechanics, so I don't know the specifics of how this conversion happens. The graviton will most likely never be seen. To answer someone else's question, objects moving around the speed of light don't reverse time, but slow it down. Space and time are one iand the same, therefore as you move closer to the speed of light, or your gravitational field increases, space-time is warped. --------- Later edit: a little side note, they wrote their presentation on the Higgs, in comic sans....-_- . Hence the PPC's title.
I'd already answered it Also, lol at the Comic Sans thing. I didn't know about that. Also, Pulpapple, the only particle that has been postulated to travel back in time is a Tachyon, and that is because it is said to travel faster than the speed of light. But not only has no feasible evidence for its existence been found but its existence would easily violate causality, which also explains why backwards time travel is impossible.
A couple things in what sharp said. If the higgs boson (force carrier for mass), W and Z bosons (force carrier of the weak force), gluons (the force carrier of the strong force), and photons (the force carrier for electromagnetic force) can be observed then it is only a matter of time before the graviton is observed. As you said, all it takes is energy to coerce these particles into a state of observation. Once we start getting satellites close to black holes (the largest source of influence of gravitational radiation) I'd bet we could start actually finding real evidence toward gravitons. Regarding the backwards in time thing, it all comes down to frame of reference. The tachyon, neutrino, etc. If I'm in a plane and travel across the world, I am technically moving forward and backward in time. However, relative to me the same time has expired. I am now, let's say, 10 hours older than when I started this trip. With fundamental particles, if they travel faster than light, we would observe them dying before they are born. This causes a paradox correct? Well no, in the frame of reference of the particle itself it did not move faster than light and it lived it's short life for however long a time that was. Let's just say this, quantum theory is truly amazing because it changes based on who's observing. Organite's "double slit" video he posted in the locked thread is a good example of this phenomenon. We say something travels faster than light and moves backward in time, but that's because we're observing its effects from our frame of reference, an Earth moving at several thousand miles per hour.
Hey, I posted that! Although that's not exactly what it addresses. Our frame of reference is one thing, but what the double slit experiment talks about is how when electrons are unobserved, they exist in every possible reality. They are in this sort of superposition where the same electron can be in more than one place at once, and no places, and in one place, and in the other, and they it interferes with itself to create a wave pattern. Only when observed do the electrons construct a single reality and a sensible explanation.
I was gonna say, even though I know the double-slit experiment I didn't recall posting it, lol. Being a Hard Determinist I don't exactly believe in randomness. I think the ideas behind the 'random' activities of sub-atomic particles is mainly due to our lack of understanding to how they work. But that's a philosophy discussion.
No....quantum physics is a proven field and the uncertainty principle and all the other crazy stuff about tiny particles , are actually the properties of waves due to the wave particle duality. Also, to continue what I was saying about the graviton, the graviton is also massless, but the thing that makes them unique is that they can warp space-time and light! For them to interact with light, the graviton must be so very tiny. We have never seen,or even detected the existence of these particles and many scientists have theorized that they are unobservable.
I remember thinking Schroedinger's Cat was purely theoretical until I heard about the Double-Slit Experiment. Then my mind went to places it has never gone before.