Seemingly crazy scientific ideas

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-03-14 09:03am

As far as actually mind-blowing results, I find it absolutely incredible that we know enough about planetary mechanics that we can throw an object across the solar system and have it arrive to the second.

Clarke had a very amusing story about that one. "Jupiter Five". Try to get it in case you didn't read it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-03-14 09:49am

Probably the most mind-blowing revelation in the development of any young aspiring scientist or engineer's mind is the revelation that the world really can be turned into a bunch of numbers and equations in your mind, and that this actually works better than the subjective comprehension you've used all your life up to that point.

It's kind of like that moment in The Matrix when Neo looks up and realizes that he can see the world as data.

Aquatain · Post by **Aquatain** » 2008-03-14 09:56am

I still find it hard to fathom just how much gravity means to our universe.

Spin Echo · Post by **Spin Echo** » 2008-03-14 10:20am

Darth Wong wrote:Preface: I honestly swear that I am not making this up. Some guy actually came to me once with this idea:
Suppose you put a bunch of wind turbines on the front of an electric car. Couldn't they recharge the batteries of the car from the wind as it moves, so that it can go forever?
After half an hour of arguing with the guy, he ended up saying "Well, we'll have to agree to disagree" and walked away

Had a discussion with one of our neighbours who wanted to put turbines in toilets so that the flushing would generate electricity. It took a while to convince him all the reasons why that wouldn't work.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2008-03-14 10:48am

Spin Echo wrote:Had a discussion with one of our neighbours who wanted to put turbines in toilets so that the flushing would generate electricity. It took a while to convince him all the reasons why that wouldn't work.

Talk about having the shit hitting the fan...

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2008-03-14 11:09am

Quantum physics in general.

Seriously. You get into issues that are teleological, where photons literally have to know where they are going before they leave, like with Fermat's Least Time Principle for light. For example, with the dual slit experiment, where you get an interference pattern or a pair of spots depending on if you measure where the photons are going. However, as my physics teacher pointed out, what really should bake your noodle is that if you send photons through the double slits one at a time, you'll record a scatter... but it will be in the interference pattern, as though the photons are interfering with themselves.

Freaky ass shit.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-03-14 12:09pm

Bubble Boy wrote:
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Making a wikia to categorize wikipedia-bullshit would be ingenious.

Um...I am an idiot. Why wouldn't an electric fan-sail movement machine not work?
For the same reason you and your buddies can't push a car into motion while sitting in it, even though you easily have the potential energy to move it.

Um. I may be misremembering one of the thought experiments from my high school physics book, but it seems to go along the same lines.

There is a powerful cannon mounted inside of a long train car, which is resting on a flat surface. You fire the cannon into the opposite wall of the car; the force exerted by the cannon on the ball is significantly greater than the force of friction on the underside (figure that it's a really powerful cannon, and an insanely light car with very strong walls). If the opposite wall is sufficiently strong to stop the cannonball without deforming, does the train car move?

Aquatain · Post by **Aquatain** » 2008-03-14 12:20pm

Molyneux wrote:
Bubble Boy wrote:
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Making a wikia to categorize wikipedia-bullshit would be ingenious.

Um...I am an idiot. Why wouldn't an electric fan-sail movement machine not work?
For the same reason you and your buddies can't push a car into motion while sitting in it, even though you easily have the potential energy to move it.
Um. I may be misremembering one of the thought experiments from my high school physics book, but it seems to go along the same lines.

There is a powerful cannon mounted inside of a long train car, which is resting on a flat surface. You fire the cannon into the opposite wall of the car; the force exerted by the cannon on the ball is significantly greater than the force of friction on the underside (figure that it's a really powerful cannon, and an insanely light car with very strong walls). If the opposite wall is sufficiently strong to stop the cannonball without deforming, does the train car move?

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-03-14 12:32pm

Aquatain wrote:
Molyneux wrote:Um. I may be misremembering one of the thought experiments from my high school physics book, but it seems to go along the same lines.

There is a powerful cannon mounted inside of a long train car, which is resting on a flat surface. You fire the cannon into the opposite wall of the car; the force exerted by the cannon on the ball is significantly greater than the force of friction on the underside (figure that it's a really powerful cannon, and an insanely light car with very strong walls). If the opposite wall is sufficiently strong to stop the cannonball without deforming, does the train car move?
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Yes, so...
If the car is resting on a frictionless surface, the cannon firing imparts a force on it opposite to the direction the cannon's shot travels in. The train car moves in that direction until the cannonball impacts the far wall of the car, importing an equal and opposite force and stopping the train car's movement...doesn't it?

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-03-14 12:51pm

You get into issues that are teleological, where photons literally have to know where they are going before they leave, like with Fermat's Least Time Principle for light.

I don't want to question your knowledge on the subject, but isn't there a rule or law that says that when you are seeing theological issues in scientific ones, you don't truly understand the science?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-03-14 01:34pm

Zixinus wrote:
You get into issues that are teleological, where photons literally have to know where they are going before they leave, like with Fermat's Least Time Principle for light.
I don't want to question your knowledge on the subject, but isn't there a rule or law that says that when you are seeing theological issues in scientific ones, you don't truly understand the science?

No. Telology doesn't have to be theological in nature. I would think there's nothing wrong with a naturalistic teleology to the universe, but I would tie it more into fate than intention.

Grog · Post by **Grog** » 2008-03-14 04:19pm

Certain things about the big bang seems crazy.
A question about the "creation" of the universe:
Creationists sometimes claim that our universe is very unlikely, if the universe would expand slover or if the speed of light would be different nothing would work. But is there any truth to this? Is there any way to compute the probability of the universes constants being as they are? I always thought this argument (not always from creationists) seems like bullshit, we can not assume that all constants are equally probable (or even that probability have anything to do with the creation of the universe).

Terralthra · Post by **Terralthra** » 2008-03-14 04:49pm

Grog wrote:Certain things about the big bang seems crazy.
A question about the "creation" of the universe:
Creationists sometimes claim that our universe is very unlikely, if the universe would expand slover or if the speed of light would be different nothing would work. But is there any truth to this? Is there any way to compute the probability of the universes constants being as they are? I always thought this argument (not always from creationists) seems like bullshit, we can not assume that all constants are equally probable (or even that probability have anything to do with the creation of the universe).

This boils down to the (tautological) "If things were different, things would be different." Well, yes, but so what?

Grog · Post by **Grog** » 2008-03-14 04:55pm

Terralthra wrote:This boils down to the (tautological) "If things were different, things would be different." Well, yes, but so what?

What I find it hard to accept is their claim that our universe would be unlikely. What theory do they use to come to this conclusion?

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2008-03-14 04:56pm

Grog wrote:What I find it hard to accept is their claim that our universe would be unlikely. What theory do they use to come to this conclusion?

The same assumption that they use to generate obscenely low probabilities for evolution to produce humans--the assumption that everything else simply won't work.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-03-14 05:01pm

Grog wrote:
Terralthra wrote:This boils down to the (tautological) "If things were different, things would be different." Well, yes, but so what?
What I find it hard to accept is their claim that our universe would be unlikely. What theory do they use to come to this conclusion?

Probability calculations are simple. Conceptually, it works like this:

Step 1: Determine if process is deterministic or random.

Step 2: If process is random, divide 1 by the number of possible outcomes in order to calculate the probability of any particular outcome.

Step 3: If process is not random, analyze process to determine what weight to assign to different outcomes, then perform step 2 with these weightings.

Since creationists have no way of knowing how many possible different universal sets of parameters there are, it is absurd to calculate any particular probability. Moreover, it does not justify their assumption that the universe was "fine tuned" for us, any more than my nose was "fine tuned" to hold up my eyeglasses.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2008-03-14 05:59pm

Darth Wong wrote:Probably the most mind-blowing revelation in the development of any young aspiring scientist or engineer's mind is the revelation that the world really can be turned into a bunch of numbers and equations in your mind, and that this actually works better than the subjective comprehension you've used all your life up to that point.

Awesome! I was hoping that might be the case. I have such trouble wrapping my head around a few physical concepts, relativity chief among them. I decided to just stop trying for the time being, and try again once I have a better grasp of calculus.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2008-03-14 06:58pm

Xeriar wrote:I've taken ordinary differential equations, linear algebra and introductory analysis, but that was nearly a decade ago. The notation in your code segment there a bit unfamiliar, though. : /

I had hoped to draw parallels to how physicists do quantization, since more people are familiar with those methods (the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian are very firmly established formulations of classical mechanics, and manipulating the latter to get a quantum system is a time-honored physicist technique).

Xeriar wrote:As for topology, I know what it is. Several of my courses touched briefly on it but nothing I could really apply (at least that I remember). If that's not too much of a limitation I'm willing to learn, of course (though this probably belongs in a new thread).

The limitation is a bit much, but the end result is probably explainable. I'll PM you about it later tonight so as to not hijack this thread.

Superboy · Post by **Superboy** » 2008-03-15 12:00am

Do you think it would be possible to explain any of these concepts to a layperson in a way that they could easily understand the mind-blowing factor?

I'm trying to think of a way to word some of these so that it could be brought up in a normal conversation as "hey, you know what's cool? There's this scientific concept that says ... " and have the person actually understand the cool part.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2008-03-15 12:21am

Are you looking for a description or an explanation of why they are/might be true? For the latter, not so much.
"Do you remember from geometry, the notion of a point as a pure location with no other parts? Well, scientists just might be able to prove that the universe is pointless."
What it lacks in clarity, it makes up for in bad puns.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-03-15 12:25am

Adrian Laguna wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Probably the most mind-blowing revelation in the development of any young aspiring scientist or engineer's mind is the revelation that the world really can be turned into a bunch of numbers and equations in your mind, and that this actually works better than the subjective comprehension you've used all your life up to that point.
Awesome! I was hoping that might be the case. I have such trouble wrapping my head around a few physical concepts, relativity chief among them. I decided to just stop trying for the time being, and try again once I have a better grasp of calculus.

It doesn't even have to be all at once. Having little experience with more complex thermodynamics or materials science, I find it difficult to look at everyday objects or processes and see the numbers behind them, but you can be damn sure that every time I see the night sky, I hear the music of the spheres in the form of Newton's law of gravity and the resulting celestial mechanics.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2008-03-15 01:08am

Zixinus wrote:I don't want to question your knowledge on the subject, but isn't there a rule or law that says that when you are seeing theological issues in scientific ones, you don't truly understand the science?

Given that I said "teleological" and not "theological" (which mean two entirely separate things), I don't see what your criticism is.

"Teleological" means, in essence, purpose driven, which Fermat's Least Time Principle is (that is, a ray of light will take either a minimum time between two points... though in fact it is an extrema, which is something that Fermat didn't know about). The light ray in essence will follow a path that will minimize or maximize its path. The teleological part is that this seems purpose driven by design, like light knows where its going, which was at the start the biggest criticism of Fermat's principle. However, light does appear to work exactly that way. In fact, Snell's Law for refraction and reflection fall right out of it when you go to derive them.

The problem is that in quantum physics you start getting smacked in the nose with issues, such as with light, where it very much appears that the bit of light you are talking about behaves like it has information that hasn't happened yet, like the aformentioned bizarre behavior with the photons generating an interference pattern when there is nothing to interfere with them.

Ariphaos · Post by **Ariphaos** » 2008-03-15 01:38am

Kuroneko wrote:The limitation is a bit much, but the end result is probably explainable. I'll PM you about it later tonight so as to not hijack this thread.

Thanks.

"Do you remember from geometry, the notion of a point as a pure location with no other parts? Well, scientists just might be able to prove that the universe is pointless."

One mind-blowing epiphany I had was that, logically, if God was begotten and not made, then God has no purpose. This follows naturally as a counter to people who say that God 'is the reason'. You cannot have an ultimate entity that is not, ultimately, pointless.

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2008-03-15 10:18am

Darth Wong wrote:Probably the most mind-blowing revelation in the development of any young aspiring scientist or engineer's mind is the revelation that the world really can be turned into a bunch of numbers and equations in your mind, and that this actually works better than the subjective comprehension you've used all your life up to that point.

It's kind of like that moment in The Matrix when Neo looks up and realizes that he can see the world as data.

This was the theme behind the movie "Pi", although the mathematician who discovered "the thoughts of God" as Einstein put it eventually trepanned himself in order to erase the knowledge from his mind and enjoy some blissful ignorance.

Also, while I probably have grossly misunderstood what it actually means, doesn't Godel's Incompleteness Theorem completely deep-six the notion of the universe being as Neo saw it?

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-03-15 10:42am

Superboy wrote:Do you think it would be possible to explain any of these concepts to a layperson in a way that they could easily understand the mind-blowing factor?

I'm trying to think of a way to word some of these so that it could be brought up in a normal conversation as "hey, you know what's cool? There's this scientific concept that says ... " and have the person actually understand the cool part.

Okay, you've completely lost me. Please explain what you mean by the universe being "pointless" in the mathematical sense?