dstebbins

Fredrik, You're speaking in pig latin. Can you at least TRY to speak so I can understand you?

It is generally accepted among astronomers that the heart of a black hole, the singularity, is an infinitely small geometric point, of infinit gravity and infinite density. It is derived through theoretical physics that at this singularity, space and time come to a screetching hault, and everything that reaches it is crushed out of existence. Or is it? Aproximately a century ago, Albert Einstein suggested in the theory of relativity that the force of gravity acted, not on objects, but on spacetime, curving it, and objects and energy just follow the curved path. So, by that logic, if the singularity is of infinite gravity, then spacetime must be infinitely distorted. Therefore, as an object were to fall into a black hole, it should freefall indefinately because spacetime is curved indefinately, and therefore never reaches the singularity. It falls and falls and falls until the black hole eventually evaporates. That's why we would never see an object pass through a black hole, because it doesn't pass through. It just falls indefinately, and it appears to come to a stop near the center because the dimension of time is distorted so severely that it goes by at a negligible rate. If we were to sit there and watch for years and years, it would slowly move according to our vision, getting closer and closer to the heart of the black hole, but never reaches it, much like how the graph of xy = 1 gets closer and closer to the axes, but never touch. Gentlemen, I'll take your questions now!

Okay, let me try and put this in my own words. When the information paradox talks about "information," what it's really talking about is the physical characteristics of a particle or energy. Since information is needed to describe the characteristics, and information is nothing without characteristics for it to describe, then they go hand-in-hand and are one in the same, much like space and time in Einstein's relativity. Since there theoretically could be millions of subatomic black holes in this room right now, or even in my head, sucking up, not the information directly, but indirectly by sucking up the characteristics that the information needs to have meaning, then our brains could not function the way they do, because the chracteristics disappear, and thus the information becomes worthless. Enter hawking radiation, the waste product of black holes. This "stuff" for lack of a better word is said to have no information, but what it really lacks is characteristics. It has no charge, no mass, no spatial dimensions, no energy, nothing. If it were to approach or pass through an object or energy, nothing would happen because, in fredrik's words, nothing is informing the second object or energy of the hawking radiation's presence. But since the information paradox has been solved, I guess we can rule out the possibility of hawking radiation existing, eh? Is that in the ball park?

Fredrik, are you suggesting that the information that Stephen Hawking was talking about when he invented the information paradox was the physical characteristics about a particle or energy, such as the proton-electron charge, the amount of energy, the gravitational field, the spatial dimensions, etc.? That doesn't sound like "information" to me. That sounds like characteristics. But in any case, if it's lost, what does it have to do with out memories? Removing an electron's negative charge by removing the electron is like getting rid of a computer file by throwing the computer in a black hole. Sure, it's gone, and maybe the "information" is as well, but it's still preserved in our memories.

What I'm inferring is that you're suggesting that matter and energy are like a computer; you give the "computer" instructions (i.e. weighing it) and it spits out the results (i.e. telling you the weight). But that's not what I'm talking about. Information is dependant entirely on the human element. Information is as we see it. To paraphrase a lecture given by Einstein, the laws of physics would exist without humans, just without a language. An object would still accelerate when a force is applied, it just wouldn't be called "force" and "accleration." Stars would still perform nuclear fusion; it just wouldn't be called "fusion." Information is the understanding of things, not the actual things themselves, and without the proverbial human element, nothing can be truly understood. What I'm trying to say is that in order for something to be lost, it must first exist, but information only exists in our minds, due to the human element. I don't know how much more clearly I can put that.

Don't let the title mislead you. Yes, I know the information paradox is a dead controversy, but what I'm about to ask relates to how it could have been such a big deal in the first place. For those who don't know, the information paradox was a theory that was proposed in the 1970's by Stephen Hawking where he hypothesised that during the life of a black hole, the black hole wold suck up matter and energy, and then, at its death, said matter and energy would unexplicably disappear. It's called the INFORMATION paradox instead of the matter-energy paradox or something to that affect because these particles and energy contain information, so if this paradox were true, information was disappearing, so nothing science knows, not even our own memories, could be trusted. Predictability becomes impossible; cause and effect become unrelated, blah blah blah. But where in the blue world did we get the scientific law that particles had information IN THEM in the FIRST PLACE? I thought information was entirely a human invention. Software, if I may, and it couldn't be manipulated because it doesn't physically exist. Things arranged in a certain pattern, such as ink showing certain symbols on a piece of paper, represent this information, but in order for this paradox to have a legitamate claim in the first place, information has to take on a physical form, and I never heard that information was any more than a thought. So can someone give me the information (pun intended) I need?

Well, I graduate from high school this Friday, and I'll have until August to read up on it. Thanks. REALLY?! I thought those words took you to porn sites! :eek: Sorry. I'm just used to understanding stuff right off the bat.

It has to be understandable, otherwise it wouldn't be science, because the very definition of science is the understanding of the universe. The foundation of science is understanding.

Btw, I tried to look it up on wikipedia, but that does nothing except confuse me. What does all this gobbledegook mean? What's a stress-energy tensor? Wtf is a ricci tensor (it sounds like a guy's name)? A nice place to start is telling me what a tensor is in the first place, then tell me what all those weird names are. EDIT: As frustrated as I may sound, I actually would have it no other way. I just figured I should throw that in so you don't become frustrated as well.

Well, you say it's mostly math. Do you know the equation(s)?

........Okay, could you put that link in laymen's terms?

Okay, so if the demensions were like a power line, with the electricity going through it representing the matter, then if you suddenly bend and twist the power line, the electricity will go in the new direction that the power line is headed, but we see it as changing direction. Is that a closer paraphrase?

Okay, let me try and put these into my own words. A massive object pulls on spacetime around it, causing a ripple in spacetime. The spacetime around it that hasn't been affected yet then swarm around this "nothingness" to fill it up, just like gas molecules do in a vacuum, and when spacetime shifts to fill up the nothingness, so does that mass and energy in said spacetime. Is that in the ball park?

That can be solved fairly easily (at least on paper). Every day we expell tons of greenhouse gases into the earth's atmosphere, causing global warming. This is a bad thing on Earth, because the earth is already a comfortable temperature, but it might actually be useful on a planet as cold as mars. By increasing the greenhouse gases in the Martian atmosphere, Mars will retain the heat it gets from the Sun that would otherwise escape into space. With this new greenhouse effect going on, the polar ice caps would melt, causing liquid water to flow. It would also mean that the forzen carbon dioxide would evaporate, speeding up the warming of the planet. With water on the ground and CO2 in the air, producing organisms can be introduced into the environment, providing Oxygen. In the meantime, until oxygen can be made naturally, we can get oxygen from the iron oxyde in the soil, and then have more iron that we could use to build with. Mars has all the natural necessities to support us; water, carbon, oxygen, CO2, a 24-hour day, a gravity similar to Earth. It's just a matter of us asking "Are we willing to pursue it?" And for that question, I say "I do hope that's a rhetorical question." Sure it will be difficult, but at the same time, John Kennedy once said we should walk on the Moon, "Not because it is easy, but because it is hard," and viola, we walked on the moon that very same decade.

I was just watching a documentary on the Science Channel about how the benifits of colonizing Mars were arguable. Some say it's too far, dangerous, and expensive to walk on Mars as we did on the Moon in 69. I swear, I'd like to meet these people, so I can kick their ass. It makes all the sense in the world to walk on Mars! It could be the answer to our natural resources problem. It could answer once and for all if there is life out there. It could give us an entire planet's worth of land to colonize, greatly reducing our population density crisis. There's a million trillion reasons to walk on and colonize Mars. Seriously, how can the benifits of human exploration of Mars be arguable? Sure it's dangerous, but think of what it can mean if we pull it off.

Umm..., Sorry for my rudeness, but could you try not typing with your chin? I seriously can't understand a word you're saying.

Thanks for the article, but I'm not good at understanding things with just words alone. I usually need an illustration, sometimes even a moving illustration, to understand science. I'm a visual kind of person. Right down to scientific formulas. I need to see the formula in writing on the blackboard, because if my teacher were to orally say it, I'd be lost. Do you know any webpages that offer illustrations to help explain the lessons?

OOOOOH, something about science I don't know yet! Sounds sexy! *pops a boner!* Tell me about it, cuz in case you haven't gathered it yet, science is better than porn!

I read somewhere that when an object accelerates to a source of gravity, it is actually following a constant velocity due to no net force, but only appears to be accelerating because the gravity is stretching the space and time around it so that a cubic meter of space labeled X would be smaller than a cubic meter of space labeled Y directly in between it and a gravity source (I'm sorry if that just confuses you, but that's the best I can do). Call me stupid, but that doesn't make a bit of sense. If only space and time are affected by gravity, and not matter, then why do objects have weight? Weight is a force resulting from gravity, but if freefalling objects are traveling at a constant velocity, then no forces are acting on it, yet an object has the force of weight acting on it, so if gravity has no affect on matter, then that can only mean that weight is coming from some other force. What the hell is going on, here? Am I the only one who sees this paradox?

So let's say in the future, I've got my Ph.D in theoretical physics, and I make a discovery that could be groundbreaking. How would I get this discovery known to the scientific community? I've heard about papers being written, but who publishes these papers, and how do scientists get access to them? How are they advertised?

You know how the World Series is the grandest stage of them all for baseball, like the Super Bowl for football, or E3 for video games? What would be that equivilant for science? I'm assuming it would be something some non-profit committee puts together where scientists from all over the world showcase their studies and discoveries, but what's it called? Where's it located? When does it take place? Curiosity like this drives me crazy, so please respond ASAP.

Very well. The source that I am citing is a Science Channel documentary called "Parallel Universe." It was explained near the end of the show, so you may have missed it, but some scientists believe it while others don't. What you read must have been written by one who doesn't believe this.

Okay, NOW you're speaking way over the top of my head. Eigenstate? Gluon? Wtf?

*gasp* NOOOOOOOOO! Leik oh imm eff jee eye d!D /\/0+ /\/0 |!gh+ wuzza doo-all-itt-ee! I was asking if it was off the same principle as light.

Does it cost money? I'm kind of broke right now. and what exactly do you mean by "mathematical background?"