steevey

That's what he says in the video

But can't I just put the atoms in a higher energy state just by moving them or accelerating the substance?

All systems would rather be in the lowest energy configuration than an excited one.

Why would they care what energy state they are in? Or whats making them drop back down?

That's not the source of blackbody radiation

http://www.sciencefo...atomic-spectra/

If black body radiation for some weird reason can't have electrons simply go from higher to lower energy levels only in black bodies for some weird reason, why is it that we can use the information of spectra to calculate what elements are in which stars? The only way we could do that is if electrons were going from higher to lower energy orbitals in specific ways, because if electrons were more freely traveling like an electric current, there wouldn't necessary be a pattern distinct to a metal at varying temperatures.

By "hot" you mean have a well-defined temperature?

 

If so then the temperature of a single particle is not defined. Temperature is really the measure of the average kinetic energy of a large collection of particles.

 

 

 

Again, the temperature is not defined for a single particle. Maybe you are asking about the energy needed to create free quarks or the temperature of a quark-gluon plasma?

 

 

 

Quarks are considered to be elementary particles within the standard model. There is, to my knowledge no tangible evidence that quarks have any internal structure.

 

 

 

What would subquantum mean?

 

 

 

All warm objects emit electromagnetic radiation, this is known as thermal radiation. For objects around room temperature the electromagnetic radiation is in the infrared (IR) range. Thermal radiation is one of the ways heat is exchanged.

Substances emit radiation because the electrons drop back down an energy level, but why do they drop back down? Why don't they keep staying at a new energy level if already they don't just fall into the nucleus?

Oy! The reason we do not see a center is because there is no center. This may violate your intuition, your assumptions, and your common sense; but this is what general relativity tells us about the universe.

No I completely understand why it would "look" that way, I'm just not entirely sure that it is actually that way since I can see the same principal with a static object. If I look at the certain comb completely parallel to the ground, then I see that the brussels close to the center aren't that separated by distance, and then the further I get away from the center, the further the brussels seem to be from each other, even though they are all equidistant from each other form region to region and there's a concrete center of the comb part (like lets say 6 form a hexagon with 1 in the center. The distance from the center ones for all the ones that make vertices are equidistant from the center one, only theres multiple hexagons and overlapping). There's also the fact that the universe is really big, and if we are near the center, it might be leading us to see that matter is equally scattered everywhere around us or in every direction, which it would be.

I'll try. An example: A photon can and does spontaniously transform into an electron and anti-electron (positron). But only if the photon has enough energy. How much? We have to use E=mc^2 to figure it out.

 

Add up the masses of the electron and positron. Multiply this number by the speed of light squared.

I get how it would work mathematically, but aren't there photons that have like 10^27 electron volts generated by supernova and jets from black holes?

And just to clear up: Both matter and energy have mass (well I mean light can bed the fabric of space), and in the case of something like matter and anti-matter annihilating, the matter would be gone, but the energy and mass would be left over? Like if there were still Higgs Bosons left over?

When the student goes to a class without having taken the prerequisites and gets confused, it's not the professor's fault. Understanding isn't an entitlement.

 

Tp paraphrase Feynman: I can't explain it in a way that you understand, because you don't have enough of a physics background. Why does the professor get the blame for a student's lack of a physics background?

I understand what physicists in real life say, just not anyone who is a staff member here and its probably because they haven't had as much experience explaining it to people well.

That is the reason why I dislike animations with balloon analogies like the one posted by stringjunky above (no offense intended): it shows a center.

Well thats also weird that the observations happen to be that way, because studies by NASA claims to see the entire universe when it was some 300,000 years old using the microwave background, so I don't see why they don't just say that the reason we can't see a center is because the universe is a REALLY big place now, there'a matter everywhere and there's bun millions of interactions with galaxies changing their courses.

I just said that that doesn't happen. The original matter is still there. It hasn't changed.

Your question is ill-formed. The antimatter is not normal matter that has been somehow changed

Now I'm getting even more confused. Ok, they just give normal matter enough energy and instead of forming a plasma state it forms anti matter which isn't from that matter just a result?

Can someone who's like, not a staff member answer these questions? Because they seem to only give answers that I don't understand.

Your question is ill-formed. The antimatter is not normal matter that has been somehow changed, so it's not possible to explain how that happens. The matter and antimatter are both created, as long as there is enough energy present to account for the mass of the particles.

 

 

Matter and antimatter involve not only opposite charge but opposite parity

 

http://blogs.uslhc.u...-and-antimatter

Scientists create antimatter in a lab by colliding particles right? Well what does colliding particles do to create it that causes the opposite spin and the opposite charge? Why does that change it?

As I described earlier, smash a high-velocity proton into another proton and it will create two new particles: a proton and an antiproton. No special tricks required.

That doesn't answer my question in any way shape or form...

Also, it doesn't make sense to say photons "collide," because they're bosons. They can occupy the same space at the same time if they want to.

Well they don't collide, but by occupying the same space at the same time, they interact in a way so that they become entangled.

Also, would you have any other idea on what makes an anti particle become the opposite of matter? When they create anti-matter in a lab, what are they doing that causes normal matter to all of a sudden have opposite charges and opposite other things?

Then you're talking about something which does not exist in physics. Wavefunctions are the representation of the wavelike properties of particles.

Ok, I want you to image something. You have a piece of paper and you take a finger and periodically poke up at it from underneath it. It should form a protrusion like a paraboloid. Now, push down on it from the upper part, you should see the same thing, but on the opposite surface. Now, push in both directions at once, and what happens? No protrusion, and all thats happening is the energy your putting into the process is escaping. That seems to perfectly fit whats happening with matter and antimatter, and I could have swore you can describe wave properties with things other than "Oh look, its most likely to exist there when its localized". After all,

e+e- mass is converted to photon energy. Energy is not created.

So if it wasn't created, it was there all along, and it got released because the matter disappeared which fits perfectly with my analogy.

Energy doesn't have mass. It can, however, be transformed into something that does. Generally we call things that have mass "matter."

But I thought energy couldn't actually be transformed into matter?

and one can interpret mass as being equivalent to energy through [imath]E=mc^2[/imath] and other well-known equations.

Thus, saying "matter is converted to energy" is nonsensical.

 

 

 

 

Seems pretty confusing.

Just in class today we were discussing an experiment in which two protons with a large kinetic energy were smashed together. Their kinetic energies were converted into a proton-antiproton pair, which has significant mass.

http://en.wikipedia....rvable_universe

There's a limit to what we have observed, but that does not mean there isn't any more nor does that mean we can confirm an actual boundary which you cannot go past.

I've said this before in other threads, but I challenge anyone here to come up with an "end of space." So, what kind of boundary can anyone imagine such a limit to be? (Hint: It's all in your head.)

But say you have a firm idea of a limit to space... so what lies beyond that limit/wall/boundary that someone might have imagined? More space? Of course. There can be no limit to space.

 

I just read the thread and copied a bunch of quotes. I'll make it simple and just reply in bold within the quote box of selected quotes:

 

Look at the meaning of the words. To "de-fine" is to make finite, at least in the collective mind, and in the dictionary. Srpace and all that it contains (visible and not) is infinite, by the above argument using logic alone. I welcome any argument with this post. Just be clear on you premise as to what space (and "the universe') is, please.

Actually in Einsteinian physics, a boundary could exist where the fabric of space folds in on itself, and that point is just so far away we can't see it in any way. So basically, you travel to one end of the universe and because of the folding, you end up at the other end, an inescapable box.

No, they don't.

 

Wavefunctions don't behave that way. A better way of thinking of wavefunctions is that they represent the probability that a particle exists in a certain place. They do not represent the particle itself. Destructive interference can occur with wavefunctions, as in the double-slit experiment, but it does not annihilate the particle or release energy; interference just alters the probability of finding the particle at that location.

I'm not talking about the wave function probability, I'm talking about the particle itself actually waving and the actual 3 dimensions that it waves in.

Photons do not have mass. They have energy.

What about E=mc^2? Isn't energy just another form of mass? Or was that matter? Wait, I thought energy couldn't be converted into matter...Guess it has to be mass.

Yes, I know. I have calculated wavefunctions. My point still stands.

But it does make complete sense though. Waves of normal matter oscillate with a specific pattern, and waves of antimatter oscillate with an opposite manner which would be why when they combine, they cease to exist. I really don't see how else two different materials could combine to not exist anymore.

On that note, is there anything proven to exist that is an opposite of mass? Because when matter and anti-matter combine, there's still mass left over in the form of photons, so matter and anti-matter don't have opposite whatever that causes mass.

Saying "the wave oscillation is opposite" does not make sense. A particle's wavefunction depends on the surroundings and boundary conditions, and can change as a result of interactions with other particles.

 

Also, every wavefunction calculation I've done so far has nothing to do with whether the particle in question is a particle or antiparticle. The math doesn't care. Perhaps I haven't learned enough QM yet, though.

 

Perhaps you should consider holding off on the speculation until you understand the subject more. I don't know why annihilation works and I'm midway through a course that covers basic quantum physics, and I'm not going to speculate.

But the way particles act are do to actual oscillations, like this http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/D_orbital. Look in the middle.

The universe has no observable boundary.

Antiparticles have opposite charges. Protons are positive, antiprotons are negative. That's it, though.

So how does simply having opposite EM charges of the same locations cause the matter/antimatter to cease to exist when combined? Unless that opposite charge is caused by something else which is opposite, like maybe the wave oscillation or something...

Antimatter don't have some type of opposite wave oscillation. You'll have to show me these graphs if you want me to know what you're talking about, because it makes no sense.

I don't remember it specifically, but I think it was something like this http://quantumartand...light-form.html

http://www.quantumar...y.blogspot.com/

I don't know if the site itself is credible, but I do remember specifically hearing at some lectures about anti matter having some kind of opposite space-time or opposite wave property.

http://press.web.cer...ern/antimatter/

I can't quite figure it out because all these sites seem inaccurate in some way, but I know I'm stating some specific scientific properties of antimatter.

Mass is a property of matter. When you convert that mass into energy, I suppose you can't call it "matter" any more, because it has no mass.

 

 

Because you need energy to make mass. You need mass to create energy. And so on. One way or another, something has to be created.

 

 

No. Wavefunctions don't behave that way. A better way of thinking of wavefunctions is that they merely represent the probability that a particle exists in a certain place. They do not represent the particle itself. Destructive interference can occur with wavefunctions, as in the double-slit experiment, but it does not annihilate the particle or release energy; destructive interference just makes it less likely to find the particle in that location.

Well I was looking at some graphs of the wave-functions or probability fields of matter and anti matter, and they were reversed in antimatter. Also, since antimatter do have some type of opposite wave oscillation, how do you know its not that, which gives antimatter its properties that are different from normal matter? It would make complete sense, but otherwise, why else would a positive particle running into a negative particle cause such raucous? The matter disappears, so there's nothing holding the energy it contained within it, so that gets released as gamma rays?

What about my questions?

No, it doesn't. The conservation law that does exist is energy, and one can interpret mass as being equivalent to energy through [imath]E=mc^2[/imath] and other well-known equations. Mass can be converted into energy and energy into mass just fine, and relativity gives you the tools to calculate how much mass gives how much energy.

 

Physics does not say that matter cannot be created or destroyed, because that is a false statement. Mass can be turned into energy. That's what atomic bombs do.

So your saying mass can be turned into energy, but not that matter can be turned into energy? So if mass can be turned into energy, then both energy and matter must share something that gives mass, like a higgs boson or something which changes into something else in energy, only I don't know why light beams don't distort the fabric of space severely then.

Also, if matter can be created and destroyed just like that, whats wrong with thinking all matter in the universe just spontaneously came into existence of out shear improbability? And if matter can literally be destroyed and made not to exist, why hasn't anyone actually weaponized that?

Also when matter and antimatter combine, do they both cease to exist because the waves combined and equal 0?

ANTI = the opposite of. Antimatter is not matter. Bookkeeping-wise, because science is all about the math, a positron is -1 unit of (leptonic) matter, while an electron is +1 unit.

 

Mass isn't conserved

Anit-matter is just the same as matter, but has particles of opposite charge and spin. They both distort the fabric of space the same, I'm guessing they have the same orbital patterns, so its still matter or anti-matter ceasing to exist, or in other words, being destroyed, since all thats left over is energy, and mass is not conserved as you said. So I'm not seeing how this doesn't defy physics. Physics/chemistry states matter (or energy) cannot be created nor destroyed, yet there's matter-antimatter collisions and then virtual particles appearing our of the nothingness of space. Unless you can show me how matter and antimatter DON"T destroy each other as to cease to exist or this is actually whats happening, which case you could theoretically cause all matter in the universe to cease to exist by making anti matter equivalent to the mass of the normal matter.

What about galaxies colliding? How is that potential energy? When our galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy, the Earth will be flung in a direction at incredible speeds which would take unimaginable amounts of force to resist, but how is that momentum being transferred through gravity? What "potential" energy was in Earth to all of a sudden cause it to sped up to that?