neutrinosalad

I doubt that this the idea behind it. There are a few things that appear to be more likely to me (all speculative, of course). The first is to use it as propaganda/recruiting tool. A second but related aspect is incite internal conflicts in the targeted countries with the Muslim minorities. A third, but probably not expected goal is to leverage these conflicts to limit the offensive capabilities of these countries against ISIS. Just to be clear, there is not a single aspect that makes a territorial grab likely (i.e. man power, military supremacy, support from separatist movement or, heck, even just geography).

I guess I was a bit vague.

What I was trying to point to was the larger demographic changes that are occurring. It is not a territorial grab right now, and it will most likely not happen soon.

But think about this, the traditional European population generally has a below replacement rate of births. The traditional middle eastern/Arab population is exploding. They neighbor each other geographically. Groups of middle eastern/Arab people are already immigrating into Europe as there is a growing hole in the population due to the low birth rates of the European people.

In fact all signs point to this immigration accelerating beyond the rate of being able to properly integrate the population into the existing culture and values of the European people.

What I am trying to say, is that under these conditions, territorial grabs are a highly likely outcome. I cannot say it will happen for certain, but territorial grabs have happened under the exact same conditions multiple times throughout history. I do not see how this demographic change will have a different outcome.

I just brought up ISIS because some news reports were saying they were a part of the attack, but the large scale demographic changes are what I am focused on.

Still a lot of talk about Islamic attacks in France.

Not so much about French Separatist attacks in France

 

Given the data

http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/terrorism-in-europe/

this seems odd.

That is comparing apples to oranges.

Separatist attacks are a part of internal power struggles. Also, I scrolled down to the article and read some of the comments and it is clear that the article is constructed to create a pro-muslim worldview by piecing together information in a specific way to put them in a better light.

These terrorist attacks are part of an external group making moves to grab European territory.

Separatist attacks in France would end with the restructuring of the power dynamic in France.

Terrorist attacks would end with ISIS/Arab people making significant land grabs from the indigenous French people.

You cannot compare the two.

 

I have never heard anything like that.

As a forward, this is not directly on topic.

Here is the article I was remembering: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050829/full/news050829-18.htmlthat was in the back of my head when making the statement.

Re-reading it, I guess there is speculations that there may be extra "tiny" dimensions that could resolve the gravitational behavior of dark matter believed to exist throughout the universe.

Then there is this part of the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Mass_in_extra_dimensions

 

In some multidimensional theories, the force of gravity is the unique force able to have an effect across all the various extra dimensions,^[17] which would explain the relative weakness of the force of gravity compared to the other known forces of nature that would not be able to cross into extra dimensions: electromagnetism, strong interaction, and weak interaction.

In that case, dark matter would be a perfect candidate for matter that would exist in other dimensions and that could only interact with the matter on our dimensions through gravity. That dark matter located on different dimensions could potentially aggregate in the same way as the matter in our visible universe does, forming exotic galaxies.^[16]

I guess the extra dimension thing could be shelved into "speculations" and I don't mean to drag the thread more off topic, just elaborating here.

 

Most of this is very complex and requires a lot of expertise to understand and probably won't be mentioned, except in passing, in the sort of sources you have mentioned so far.

Even beyond the complexity. I am finding that a lot of what is being talked about in terms of the construction and operation of the universe is quite literally at the edge of human comprehension.

Dark matter for example is believed to be a type of matter that operates on more than 3 spatial dimensions (based on the articles that I have been reading). How can we as mere humans truly understand matter that operates on 3+ spatial dimensions, when our own minds are programmed to only understand and perceive 3 of them?

Or even the idea of there being infinite size or length of time. The concept of infinite is at ends with our evolutionary programming since our bodies work based upon a variety of constraints.

The inconsistencies are the reason why I find all of this so fascinating. The inconsistencies means that there are groups of scientists working on the bleeding edge of society's understanding of the universe. If these inconsistencies are cleared up and clear models of the universe arise that will mean that entire body of science will have moved forward and humanity will have further unlocked the secrets of the universe.

 

There is a convention that t=0 at the "start" of the big bang. However, there are several models where there is no start (see the current thread about "no big bang", for example).

Yes, I read the article in the OP of the other thread after reading your post. I like the idea of time extending in both directions perpetually. Not sure if I am a fan of the idea that there will never be a big crunch and there never was a singularity.

 

As I understand it, the matter expanded when the conditions for its extreme density were released with the expansion of spacetime. It would reach a point where it was no longer dense enough to be required to remain together. Matter was then homogeneously distributed until it cooled enough to begin separating and forming the bodies made of elements we're familiar with.

Does the expansion of spacetime mean that at the start of the big bang, t = 0? This is for time itself.

But it is not a stretch, it is more like turning it inside-out.

In your analogy you say: an ocean with no boundaries, and more water (space) is constantly being added. Here water acts as the aether (dangerously).

It is NOT a situation where the amount of water remains the same and is stretched (like a condom) "until it is a thin film of water".

In my analogy, water is the matter and space is expanding between the molecules of water until it is a thin film.

Edit: Re-reading everything and I guess my analogy is not the same as Phi's analogy. Still, I am pretty sure what I am saying is conceptually similar to what Phi is saying.

Also, the "thin film of water" part is coming from this article that I read: http://www.space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-today.html

Here is where that additional part is coming from:

 

The shape of the universe and whether or not it is finite or infinite in extent depends on the struggle between the rate of its expansion and the pull of gravity. The strength of the pull in question depends in part on the density of the matter in the universe.

 

If the density of the universe exceeds a specific critical value, then the universe is "closed" and "positive curved" like the surface of a sphere. This means light beams that are initially parallel will converge slowly, eventually cross and return back to their starting point, if the universe lasts long enough. If so, according to NASA, the universe is not infinite but has no end, just as the area on the surface of a sphere is not infinite but has no beginning or end to speak of. The universe will eventually stop expanding and start collapsing in on itself, the so-called "Big Crunch."

If the density of the universe is less than this critical density, then the geometry of space is "open" and "negatively curved" like the surface of a saddle. If so, the universe has no bounds, and will expand forever.

If the density of the universe exactly equals the critical density, then the geometry of the universe is "flat" with zero curvature like a sheet of paper, according to NASA. If so, the universe has no bounds and will expand forever, but the rate of expansion will gradually approach zero after an infinite amount of time. Recent measurements suggest that the universe is flat with only a 2 percent margin of error.

I was getting the idea of the geometry of the universe being flat mixed up with the expansion of space.

Which is also another thing I am wondering about. Will the universe expand forever or will it reach a critical point where it starts collapsing on itself?

 

When we use various techniques to backtrack the BB expansion, we can go back to just a fraction of a second after it began. Before that, the universe was so small, so hot, so dense, our current maths just resolve to infinity. We don't understand what happens to physics at such incredible energies. The four forces seem to be unified at t=0, but at 10^-43 seconds after expansion starts, the forces separate. This is where our math starts giving us meaningful numbers.

 

It's an expansion OF space because that's all there was, there was nothing else to expand into. It's hard to visualize, since we want anything that expands to do so INTO another area. When the thing that's expanding is... well, EVERYTHING THERE IS, our perceptions still visualize that as displacing one thing for another.

 

It helps me to think of the universe as an ocean with no boundaries, and more water (space) is constantly being added, making the matter in the ocean grow farther apart from each other. I don't think about edges or boundaries at all, and that helps.

This makes sense to me.

Rather than the universe being like the earth expanding until it is particles of dust and metals. The universe is like the ocean, expanding until it is a thin film of water.

As has already been explained several times ( what, didn't you read all the posts, Capayan ? ), the surface of the balloon is the only relevant analogy.

It is a reduced dimensional analogy where, for ease of visualization, our normal three dimensions ( length, width and height ) are reduced to two dimensions ( length and width ) on the SURFACE of the balloon.

The air inside has as much meaning in this analogy as the air outside the balloon.

NONE !

The universe, i.e. all that there is, is represented by the surface of the balloon, and surface only.

I am starting to understand this conceptually.

Do you have any links to articles that describe this in three dimensional terms? I will try to find some articles on my own too.

I think your problem is you keep thinking space expanded into something. TheBB was an expansion OF space, not an expansion INTO space.

Have scientists figured out why the BB was an expansion of space rather than an expansion into space?

 

Remember that the balloon analogy is a 2D representation of what's happening in 3D. We're only using the surface of the balloon for expansion, not the air inside. Draw the stars and matter on the surface, then blow up the balloon. The drawings of the stars and matter get farther apart from each other during expansion because the space in between them is expanding.

If the universe can be equated to the surface of a balloon, would that mean that space can be equated to the air inside of the balloon relative to the universe?

 

Why are we "extremely inefficient", though? Is it because we aren't very good at it? Is it because good practices are being overshadowed by bad ones, creating a negative net effect? Is it because for the last decade, the Republicans have tried to put so much distance between themselves and the Obama administration, to try to limit him to a single term and crush his influence, that they've practiced obstructionism and sabotaged good legislation just because it had bi-partisan support?

The Koch brothers come to mind. Special interest groups were always going to be a problem, but now I think they have such great influence that the general public is not getting the help it needs.

The Post Office, when it was a government agency, and the VA, Social Security, and Medicare setups when they are not actively prevented by targeted interference, are more efficient than their counterparts in the private sector. Sometimes by factors of two or three.

Hmm, I should clarify. When talking about large scale government, I was talking about the heads of our 3 branches.

The judicial branch by design has been shielded from the changing technological landscape, but the supreme court seems to be affected by the change in culture in terms of the decisions they have made recently.

I was talking about the president, congress and senate when talking about large scale government. More specifically, their inability to work as a cohesive group to implement legislation that this country needs. Their decisions at the head of the country trickle down and affect the government at every scale.

Also, I would like to see articles that break down how the VA, social security, etc. is more efficient than private counterparts.

How do Americans rate their government, it's internal and foreign policy?

On the smaller local scale, the government does its job outside of being warped in some ways by special interests groups.

On the large scale, the American government is extremely inefficient. What I see in a lot of people is frustration due to the fact that the government is either inefficient or ineffective at tackling problems that affect most American people.

I think there are two things you should think about. The first is that we believe that black holes can lose mass via hawking radiation. The other is that a larger black hole will not necessarily grow at a faster rate. It depends on the local environment. If a black hole the same mass of the sun replace the sun we would continue to orbit it, the gravitational effect would remain the same.

Ok, Hawking radiation was not something I knew about. I am looking it up right now.

And the environmental factors make sense. This has cleared up some of my doubts.

"Exotic matter" means you have entered purely speculative and hypothetical territory - so sure there will be some ideas but none of them will be accepted by a long stretch. Physical situations - none (I think); within the laws/theory at present the barrier is insuperable. Dark Matter interacts gravitationally (that's about all we know about it) so no it will not be able to escape across the EH in the outward direction - because as Strange pointed out above there is NO outward direction. All paths within the EH lead to the singularity (or whatever it is) at the centre - even those which seem diametrically opposed to the direction of the singularity

Thank you for explaining this. I understand what you are saying and agree with it.

This explanation makes sense based on our current understanding of the universe.

Still, when you think about it. If the event horizon is an absolute, this would mean that black holes are growing on a logarithmic scale.

Since black holes can only absorb mass and never release it due to the event horizon that means that they can only grow in mass. As they grow in mass, the extent of their gravitational pull can only increase and they would absorb more mass at an ever increasing rate.

When you think about it, the question that comes to mind is why do we exist? On a long enough timeline, all mass would have to inevitably exist within a black hole. Something like an event horizon is at ends with the current model of the universe and in someway would nullify something like the big bang theory.

There may be a missing element in this explanation, but I am not sure what it is.

I do not mean to take this thread too far off topic, just putting forth a stream of thought.

The popular explanation that light cannot escape because the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light is wrong and leads to exactly this sort of misunderstanding. The reason light (and everything else) cannot escape is because the curvature of space-time becomes so great that there are no paths that lead out of the event horizon. All paths are curved back towards the centre of the black hole.

Is this an absolute or is there any combination of exotic matter, dark matter, physical situations that would be capable of warping space time and making it possible to escape the event horizon?

The map has everything a scientist needs to make measurements, but the engineer argues that he wouldn't have it with him if it didn't fold up so compactly. Two perspectives I thought marked a difference between scientists and engineers.

I like this comparison. Very interesting way to think about it.

I like a few things that Christianity teaches, but the subject here is that Christianity is evil and I do agree.

Saying Christianity is evil is missing the forest for the trees. To go even further, saying any form of religion is evil is off point.

For one, let us break down evil. Evil is based in morality and if you dive into morality it is something that is most likely derived from tribalism. Morality is something that unites a group of people into an us versus them mentality. Anyone or anything that hurts the tribe is labeled as evil and the tribe has something to unite against.

If people did not operate as group based social creatures, evil as a concept would not even exist.

Then if you look into religion, religion is just a complex abstraction that has been recorded in books. It just exists in our minds.

It is people who have the capacity to do "evil" things, not religion. So let's cast aside the relation of evil to religion.

Religion at its core is a tool that has a level of interplay with large scale society.

I have more to say on the subject, but I will say this for now. Just as a forward, these are my observations and not heavily scientifically based.

I received a BS for mechanical engineering.

As a self-aware person, I know that my brain is wired for systemizing things and problem solving. I like to thing about things abstractly and talk about ideas, but that is more of a hobby rather than the main show.

I know from personal experience and from the people I have met in college and work, I know what the engineering mindset is like.

What is the scientific mindset like?

In what ways do scientists think differently from engineers?

 

I also think "TRUE LOVE" is a subjective notion, something you can't throw a blanket over and claim it's the same for everyone.

True love is a conceptually flat notion in my mind. Even if the idea of what it is varies from person to person, when you take into account the definition that is disseminated to society en masse through the movies, it is just that fuzzy feeling people get for each in the budding stage of a relationship.

This is one of the things that I find interesting how people can get lost in this notion that the emotions they feel during the stages of love somehow extend beyond their own being. These emotions are really just chemicals that our brains release in order to people to temporarily bond to their mates for the sake of reproduction.

I have a question that is inspired by this thread topic and is tangentially similar to the original question.

If an object with a mass of m is approaching a velocity c from a velocity of 0, would its mass change as it approached c?

There seems to be three basic solutions here;

 

i) The 'Back to the future' solution in which you simply can change history and all the complications with causality that follow.

ii) The 'Novikov consistent history' solution in which you were always part of history and cannot change anything. Then we lose free will, but at least in terms of physics this seems okay.

iii) The 'parallel universe' solution which is what you say above. By travelling you end up in another universe and so do not mess up your history.

 

Or maybe something else...

Thank you for this response. Time and perception of reality have been topics of interest for me lately.

Is there a reason why the three arrows of time [ biological / thermodynamic / cosmological ] move in only the one direction?

Good question and nobody knows the answer.

Here's an interesting question to think about.

What if the three arrows of time move in more than one direction and that we as human beings only have capacity to perceive one of them?

The problem with such strange scenarios is that they require exotic matter to support them and there are questions about the quantum stability of these configurations. However, in general there seems to be no deep reason why time travel is not allowed in general relativity, but case by case proposed time machines run into problems.

This is something I am curious about. If the exotic situations aligned to make time travel possible, what would happen if you traveled back in time and altered historical events?

What I am getting at is, is there the possibility of parallel universes existing where pathways in time splintered off into two by an event happening in two different ways?

I've posted this before; the conservation of mass/energy is not applicable at t=0 ( the beginning ).

Conservation of mass/energy is a direct result of time translational symmetry ( Noether's theorem ), and at time t=0, time is asymmetric as there is only the forward direction. Mass/energy conservation does not apply and so, cannot be used as an excuse for disallowing the universe to 'spring' from nothing.

 

You'll have to look elsewhere.

Yes, but the definition of time is relative.

t=0 would have to be applied in an absolute way to all of existence. Because at t=0, our universe and all other universes (if there are any others) would have had to have sprung forth simultaneously. Also, the underlying assumption in your statement is that time has a start rather than existing without beginning or end.

How can we know that there is an absolute t=0?