The 2 Most Dangerous Numbers in the Universe are Threatening the End of Physics

originally posted by: GreenGunther
So things in nature like to be in equilibrium.

Perhaps the Higgs Boson and dark matter establish an equilibrium based on the environment surrounding them?
I'm no physicist.

Do not have to be; in solid information to be in the understanding of a system that profligates a notion of the perpetuation of (forever). One has to trust in the Absolute (all that is) you will combine with eventually. This system is perfect.

a reply to: FamCore
This seems to be an ongoing problem with a lot of dcience today. Ecological models are bad for this too. I've noticed whenever there's a problem with a theory or idea based on a complex model simulating natural factors a lot of scientists, rather than reevaluate their models, will actually assume the real world should change to match their model.

I remember this ecologist I knew who was studying the effects of different wind speeds on canopy eco systems. His model just wasn't giving him the results his theory called for but rather than alter his theory or his model he just kept throwing different numbers into his equations until he got what he wanted.

It seems like a lot of theoretical physics suffers from this problem. Over and over again the universe doesn't match up with what we expect and it always seem like scientists expect the universe to change to match our models and simulations rather than the other way around.

a reply to: dug88

that is a really good analysis - in reality it should be "back to the drawing board - perhaps our theory is missing additional factors that need to be considered"

but that's not what is happening

Modern science is a joke. Held together by the thin strands of intellectual dogma.

We are no closer to understanding the true nature of reality today than we were 100 years ago.

a reply to: Gh0stwalker

I feel that you are totally right... we may have reached the pinnacle already?

a reply to: dug88

Modern physicists are afraid they have come into a zenith/end with the discovery of the Higgs Boson (that which simply is not understood anymore by calculus). Prove the assumption (theory) use the experiments as "applied physics" beware of the answer because it my be a career killer.

If Dark energy is causing the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, would it be possible to use it for interstellar travel? Dark energy alters space and time? Imagine if dark energy was in someway used in your "engine".

originally posted by: Gh0stwalker
Modern science is a joke. Held together by the thin strands of intellectual dogma.We are no closer to understanding the true nature of reality today than we were 100 years ago.

Yes; something is messing with man's mind.

a reply to: Gh0stwalker

We are no closer to understanding the true nature of reality today than we were 100 years ago.

He said, to thousands of people at once, on every corner of the planet, while using a device which depends upon the principles of quantum mechanics to operate.

I'd say we're a bit closer.

When I read that there is a potential limit to how much scientists can physically learn about our universe - that at some point, they will hit a wall - it makes me consider the fact that this is all some kind of virtual reality.

Think of a computer game. It can be Zelda on a 1990s Nintendo, or it can be the most advanced AI-based game you've never heard of running on a quantum computer. Irregardless of the platform it's on, the characters in that game go about their business, doing what they're programmed to do. There's a certain amount of movement and freedom allowed, but at some point, they will reach a point they can't surpass, a point controlled by the rules of their software. For Link in Zelda, that may simple be the edge of a level. For an AI, that may be the magical question of "I think ..... therefore I am?"

To surpass that point would be like breaking the 4th wall; they would know the nature of what they are. To a character in a Zelda game, that would be meaningless. To an AI simulation, it could have a cataclysmic effect.

We are closer to AI concepts than the simple characters in Zelda. Take the notion of a virtual reality, scale it up to the size of our universe, and consider the fact that once we burrow down into science, delving down into the atoms and molecules and structures so miniscule that we struggle to even describe them - we are getting closer to understanding how all this came to be. And if it's a virtual reality, those controlling it may not want us to know we're in it. Hence our scientists are hitting a wall.

This has long been something my primitive layman's mind has struggled to comprehend.

If indeed as some theorize all matter and their constituent particles in this universe are merely pertubations ("ripples/waves") in a hypothesized membrane, and the ultimate structure of reality is that of a multiverse with other membranes parallel to this one, and as some cosmologists put it, we are "stuck as in fly paper" to this membrane because we essentially are said membrane... then how can we ever perceive, measure, prove, experiment upon, or truly understand the other membranes relative to ours?

I try to imagine scenarios where that might be possible. Construct some sort of device? Nope, said devices would be made of this membrane, and would still be bound to it. Use photons? Nope. Photons too are pertubations of this membrane and cannot leave it. So any attempt to perceive or measure anything about anything beyond this membrane would be futile since the very particles we use to measure or perceive anything with scientific instruments are bound to this universe and cannot escape it - much less return to it afterward - to convey information.

Then there's gravity. Some have theorized that the reason the gravitational force is so relatively weak compared to others is that some of it is "leaking" into other dimensions. Ah! So here might be a way to at least infer the existence and nature of these other membranes, right? Perhaps? But that still seems to suggest an extremely narrow crack in the door of universes for us to glean any understanding of this larger potential nature of reality at all.

A passing familiarity and layman-only, un-scholarly take on Gödel's incompleteness theorems on my part comes to mind. Is it possible no self-consistent grand unified theory that can fully, comprehensibly express the nature of reality in total can ever be created because there are hard limits on what can be computed, proved, and comprehended?

What if it really is a consequence of the laws of physics and mathematics - including those we may have yet to discover - that we simply can't ever get answers to all the questions we as a species have always been compelled to answer? Sure, some will simply appeal to spirituality, as humanity has always done to fill in the gaps. (And I'm not asserting that's wrong - I'm agnostic.) But that still leaves us eternally without any objective comprehension of the totality of reality, whatever it may be ultimately.

I find that possibility both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Peace.

Either we are are stuck or we have taken a wrong turn somewhere and we need to backtrack.

In the 19th century, physicists were saying the exact same thing, that Physics is over and there is nothing more to discover.

Personally I think the mistake was the introduction of dark matter/energy. We added something we can't measure and see in order to make our theory fit the observations.

originally posted by: masterp
In the 19th century, physicists were saying the exact same thing, that Physics is over and there is nothing more to discover.

By "physicists" you Lord Kelvin, who's biographer described him as "half his career being right, and the other half being wrong".

And, of course, shortly after QM was discovered, which turned physics on its head.

So no, no wrong track, no dead end, science moves forwards in baby steps (not the great leaps that cranks claim).

originally posted by: masterp

Personally I think the mistake was the introduction of dark matter/energy. We added something we can't measure and see in order to make our theory fit the observations.

This has always been my thoughts about dark energy/matter. It reminds me of the 'ether' they used to believe everything travelled in or the way it was believed the human body was filled with different biles that caused diseases and maladies.

As in its just something we made up because it makes all our other theories work. Throughout a lot of human history many things we just assumed must exist have ended up just being dead ends.

If the way we've worked our data says it must exist so our theories work but new more accurate data say differently then the goal should be changing our understanding of the universe to conform to the data not saying that's the end of being able to understand the universe..

It's not the end of physics it just means we got something wrong along the way and we need to go back and figure out what

a reply to: FamCore

As far as the Higgs Boson is concerned it's been known that it only accounts for a small make up of the mass. This has been known before it was discovered. I don't remember the exact search terms I used, but a scientist at CERN stated that even if the Higgs was found they still need to figure out where the rest of the mass comes from.

The Higgs Boson existing is more about solidifying the standard physics model than it being the last and final particle. It just means they are on the right track.

Of course just as you mentioned in your OP this would most likely mean that we live in a multiverse or some other theory applies. I'd say your op is more about the demise of the "popular" theory that is disseminated through the media, not the death of physics.

originally posted by: Canamla
I laugh at any notion that a field of science can come to an end. It becomes something new at that point. Sure the apparent reality does suggest these things, but about the things we know of - we are still in such darkness! Anyone remember the posts/articles about controlling gravity with magnets? That's still got a lot of room for discovery. I doubt we'll ever get to a point where we simply cannot go forward.
IMO, those phenomenon in physics which are utilized daily, i.e. electricity and magnetism, are not even close to being understood in such a way as to claim "there is no more beyond this".
If it's really come to this point then maybe we should start doing comparative research (FINALLY) on possibly scientific philosophies of ancient cultures such as the Vedas of India and Qabbalah. Many might be opposed to the very notion of mingling science with theses, but if there is really no way to push forward then it's at least worth a consideration.

I'd put forth that an exploration of Consciousness is the next frontier for physics. That is, the relationships between entities and their world. The interaction of mind and matter.

Silliness to give up now!

I would tend to agree, as all mathematics are a bit wonky, when your dealing with a Universe that most probably is infinite. If this is the case then their are infinite probabilities out there, with infinite outcomes. Infinite yous and at the moment you are just experiencing one because that's what consciousness does, concentrates.
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"But the best idea is that it's the energy of empty space itself — the energy of the vacuum." If this is true, you should be able to sum up all the energy of empty space to get a value representing the strength of dark energy. And although theoretical physicists have done so, there's one gigantic problem with their answer: "Dark energy should be 10120 times stronger than the value we observe from astronomy," Cliff said.

"This is a number so mind-bogglingly huge that it's impossible to get your head around ... this number is bigger than any number in astronomy — it's a thousand-trillion-trillion-trillion times bigger than the number of atoms in the universe. That's a pretty bad prediction."



Concluding thoughts from the Article (there is much more in the article, I didn't include everything:


Source:
Yahoo News - UK Finance (Interesting Section Choice?)

The TED Talk by Harry Cliff can be found here (and in the link to the article):

www.ted.com...



Not to brag, but this is what, I had said some 4 month's or so back, in saying dark energy was the effect of the void, I also so said that I wonder if dark matter was not some how caused by the void.

A interesting fact is that, if you look in any direction, the distance you can see the observable universe is 13.5 +- Billion light years. So if you go to one of the furthest point you were looking at, it is now 13.5 billion light years further remove from the earth, but now looking not towards the earth, but 180 degrees away from it you see another 13.5 billion light year away.

They say the earth is not the center of the universe, we can not see past the observable universe, if we could, we could see that it had also Banged 13.5 billion light years, the other side of the Observable Universe.
If we were at one of the points we see 13.5 Billion light years away, and we looked back at earth we would only see the Universe in it's early stages after the bang.
They say the universe is 46 billion light years across now, I would say it is far larger.

You speak of large numbers, a googolplex, is a large number from our understanding of numbers, would be very had to get your head around, but really this a very small number, on the grand cosmic scale of things. A googolplex would handle about anything in this universe, 2 googolplexs is said to equal infinity for all practical purposes.
Really though once you start dealing in infinite number sets, a googolplex becomes quite small, these number set are outside of parameters of this reality, this universe, but they do exist as infinite number sets. Rap your head around that one.

Speaking of the multiverse, some time back, I had mentioned that, once you had gotten below the quantum level, things were more like a liquid, I then mentioned the micro and macro cosmic. A few month later a couple of scientist, came out and said the same thing I had said on ATS almost word for word.
But anyhow the multiverse, some are very close, kind of almost overlay-ed one on top of another, others are more distant. That is all I will say on that.