Higgs Boson and the Large Hadron Supercollider
Preface: I am totally talking out my ass. I barely passed Trig and had a difficult time with Stats in college so I barely have a clue as to the what the F#$% the LHC even does or will attempt to prove. This is a response to theProf.'s post re. Higgs Boson:
http://ifbrevityiswitthenwhydoikeep.blogspot.com/
Prof, yes you could have killed and eaten your cousins but then again, that's a near improbability...bear with me...I'm an idiot. I need some help with the concepts. So, I'm assuming you're in your library in your home right now. Make sure the cats are out of the room, close the sliding door, sit on your swivel chair, grab the half empty Diet Coke (TM) next to your mouse, raise it above the floor, and release. In this event, there are infinite probabilities of what might occur, but there is a near 100% probability of its outcome...that the can will fall onto your hardwood flooring. Of course, with infinite probabilities, a 727 could, a millisecond before the can strikes the surface of your hardwood, crash into your house disintegrating the can, you, and your hardwood flooring. Or the Sun could go Nova, or a tunneling black hole can swallow up Pacifica, or a lightning bolt can fall out of the sky, obliterating the can and your library. Or my favorite, extra-terrestrial invaders from System 3578 could target your Diet Coke Can as their first initial strike in their plans for World Domination...hey, why not?...there are infinite probabilities. ANYTHING could happen, however improbable.
I sorta understand that however improbable, however remote the outlier out 1 Trillion standard deviations, that THAT outcome is represented infinitely along a ray. But here is my question. There are certain events that are assured, where there are no other possible outcomes...ex. 2+2=4. Is then the Universe's ultimate equation Zero=Infinity? If the strong force and the weak force, gravity, and electromagnetic force a certainty with ZERO deviations in probability, then does the LHC replicate conditions within the Big-Bang? Are they attempting to simulate that 1 trillionth standard deviation as it relates to sub-atomic particles? Is then the Big-Bang an event with only ONE possible outcome from a particle physics perspective?
I'm confusing myself as I'm writing. I can't conceive of infinite Universes representing infinite outcomes to infinite events. But the question I have is regarding the word "Probable"...infinite "Probable" events. All outcomes must at least be probable according to the laws of physics. The can can't simply turn into an elephant...its a can, no more, no less. Now how does that relationship apply to sub-atomic particles? What exactily are they trying to do with the LHC?
Why I need to know this?...I don't know.
http://ifbrevityiswitthenwhydoikeep.blogspot.com/
Prof, yes you could have killed and eaten your cousins but then again, that's a near improbability...bear with me...I'm an idiot. I need some help with the concepts. So, I'm assuming you're in your library in your home right now. Make sure the cats are out of the room, close the sliding door, sit on your swivel chair, grab the half empty Diet Coke (TM) next to your mouse, raise it above the floor, and release. In this event, there are infinite probabilities of what might occur, but there is a near 100% probability of its outcome...that the can will fall onto your hardwood flooring. Of course, with infinite probabilities, a 727 could, a millisecond before the can strikes the surface of your hardwood, crash into your house disintegrating the can, you, and your hardwood flooring. Or the Sun could go Nova, or a tunneling black hole can swallow up Pacifica, or a lightning bolt can fall out of the sky, obliterating the can and your library. Or my favorite, extra-terrestrial invaders from System 3578 could target your Diet Coke Can as their first initial strike in their plans for World Domination...hey, why not?...there are infinite probabilities. ANYTHING could happen, however improbable.
I sorta understand that however improbable, however remote the outlier out 1 Trillion standard deviations, that THAT outcome is represented infinitely along a ray. But here is my question. There are certain events that are assured, where there are no other possible outcomes...ex. 2+2=4. Is then the Universe's ultimate equation Zero=Infinity? If the strong force and the weak force, gravity, and electromagnetic force a certainty with ZERO deviations in probability, then does the LHC replicate conditions within the Big-Bang? Are they attempting to simulate that 1 trillionth standard deviation as it relates to sub-atomic particles? Is then the Big-Bang an event with only ONE possible outcome from a particle physics perspective?
I'm confusing myself as I'm writing. I can't conceive of infinite Universes representing infinite outcomes to infinite events. But the question I have is regarding the word "Probable"...infinite "Probable" events. All outcomes must at least be probable according to the laws of physics. The can can't simply turn into an elephant...its a can, no more, no less. Now how does that relationship apply to sub-atomic particles? What exactily are they trying to do with the LHC?
Why I need to know this?...I don't know.
posted by supergoober at
12:30 PM
1 Comments:
Okay, let me just address one piece for now, because it shows a crucial misunderstanding (no offense, but this stuff doesn't really come up often enough for anyone to bother trying to explain it):
"There are certain events that are assured, where there are no other possible outcomes...ex. 2+2=4. Is then the Universe's ultimate equation Zero=Infinity? If the strong force and the weak force, gravity, and electromagnetic force a certainty with ZERO deviations in probability, then does the LHC replicate conditions within the Big-Bang? Are they attempting to simulate that 1 trillionth standard deviation as it relates to sub-atomic particles? Is then the Big-Bang an event with only ONE possible outcome from a particle physics perspective?"
First, 2+2 is not inevitably 4 -those are just constructs designed to represent what we think are physical realities - they are merely names for ideas, and, while some people believe math represents an external reality, others say it is a purely human invention imposed upon the universe in an effort to quantify and categorize it.
In the observable universe, the fact is that we exist, so,yes the relative probability that the big bang works out a certain way is 1 (but that is analgous to saying that I flip a coin, it comes up head - there is a relative probabilty of 1 that the event occured - it happened, so it happened). The four fundamental forces at there current values are not the only way we could still have a universe structured very similarly - certain very small deviations at the time of the big bang could result in hugely different constants that would result in universes that could never interact with each other because of the inherent differences in physical laws and physical realities.
For example, current theory says that there were probably 10 dimensions at the time of the big bang (or 22, both of these are the only ones we've found that unite the four fundamental forces at the right time, and people have selected to work with 10 because of Occam's Razor). The way stuff worked out, 4 of the dimensions expanded into the universe we know, and the other six wrapped around themselves and effectively shrunk out of existence (that is the way that they theorize why we don't experience these other dimensions) but it is more likely that any number of other outcomes could have happened from the big bang - we could never observe those "bubble universes" because their realities would be so fundamentally different that we could not even exist in them, nor would our senses, attuned as they are to our 4 dimensions, ever hope to perceive something there. Add to that fact that these other universes exist beyond the border of our universe (past the 14 billion year mark that we have observed) and you have an unimaginably wide temporal and dimensional gap that could never ever be observed. Since it is unobservable and would not follow the known laws of physics there is no reason for most theoretical physicists to even bother - at best they are intellectual endeavors that are closer to philosophy than science.
So the big bang has only one outcome - the one it had, because that is the only one we will ever be able to observe. The LHC, like most colliders, is primarily concerned with using intense magnetic fields (yep, a superhero with that -1/4 limitation would not work near one of these) to contain beams of particlse that can be accelerated to close to the speed of light so that particles will collide and break into smaller particles. Basically, it is like taking a big-ass hammer to a rock, smashing the rock to bits (and possibly the hammer as well) to get a better look inside the rock so that you can see what makes up the rock.
Unfortunately, we cannot even observe the particles, we can only observe what they've done (more on this in my own blog, that's particle physics 101), so it's more like taking a hammer to a rock on a piece of paper in complete darkness, bashing the rock to bits, then, when you turn on the lights, all the rock bits are gone, but the scuff marks are still on the paper - so figure out what the rock components were like by looking at the scuff marks. Not an easy task. Wait til I start vetting my thoughts on whether we are actually observing particles that were created with the universe, or whether we are creating them ourselves (that is just an amusing musing I came up with a while ago, and I'll write on it soon).
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