>> ^alien_concept:

I have a question. What does the flashing colours actually mean??

I don't know either, so I did some googling. http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/types-of-brain-imaging-techniques/ Thats as close as I came to answering the question. If the CAT scan tag is accurate then I've no idea how they image brain activity, so I'd guess it was of the other methods or a combination. Basically blood flow/oxygenation, electrical or magnetic fields from brain activity or positrons produced from radioactive decay from active parts of the brain.

What any of that means in terms of what is actually going on in the brain I've no idea. Ask a neurologist

>> ^offsetSammy:

Here's something I have never understood about Feynman diagrams, and I hope someone can explain it to me.
A Feynman diagram represents one possible way that two particles can interact, and from a single diagram you can work out the probability of that event occuring. But wouldn't there be an infinite number of ways an interaction could play out, and therefore an infinite number of diagrams? How do you know which one to draw?


It depends exactly what you mean. For an electron-positron annihilation/scatter, there are a couple of basic diagrams as he showed in the film. These are called "second order diagrams", indicating that there are two vertices. You can add in extra loops and vertices in the middle of the diagram to create third, fourth etc. orders, but each one contributes a very quickly decreasing amount towards the whole picture. I'm no physicist, but I think after the fourth or fifth order they're pretty much just ignored.

If you mean there are an infinite number of "things that can happen" for each input, then no; it's very limited by the rules of the diagram (mostly based around conservation rules - charge, momentum etc.). Drawing out the diagram, twisting it around and swapping the joins and vertices is a very good way of determining what the possible outcomes are.

Good'ol Cherenkov radiation, it's such a nice hue of blue isn't it. Neutrinos are definitely odd little sub-atomic particles with "flavors" that may move faster than the speed-of-light according to the recent experiment(s) done by the OPERA team. Of course it's already been partially re-tested, basically looking for "extra"--you could say Cherenkov radiation, caused by the release of energy by these extra fast neutrinos. Specifically, they're looking for extra electrons (matter/anti-matter pairs, as I say below) being released which should eventually release a few anti-matter electrons in the process, called positrons--which when it happens the electron and positron would appear as a couple.

But, the Gran Sasso physicists involved in the re-testing of the OPERA team's experiment have yet to see even one event which is theorized to occur. This puts a very large noose on the OPERA teams finding, and makes it look more likely that what happened is a measurement error of some kind.

This has little to do with the video, but I thought I'd add it it in for the hell of it.

It's strange to think that something as minute as a storm on Earth might have some sort of consequence within or outside our own galaxy.

If NASA were able to harness the positrons they'd make a killing in profit: per wikipedia 10 milligrams of it costs $250,000,000.

Whoah.. That last bit is interesting. Taking the square root of the E⁴ equation allows for negative energy, purely by simple mathematics. And then it turns out that there IS such a thing as negative energy by way of positrons.

One question they didn't really answer in this bit: why is the factor the speed of light squared? Besides it being a result of the maths, what does that relationship actually mean?

Energy has mass too, though it's probably more correct to say that mass and energy are equivalent.

>> ^dag:
Yes, my mistake- I think my high school science is insufficient. And as they have mass, albeit a very tiny amount- I guess they are "matter" and not energy? >> ^rychan:
>> ^dag:
From the video "he had discovered particles of anti-matter"
Wouldn't positrons be "anti-energy" as they don't have any mass? - and if they follow the same rules as an electron - not quite a "particle".

Electrons (and positrons) have mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Yes, my mistake- I think my high school science is insufficient. And as they have mass, albeit a very tiny amount- I guess they are "matter" and not energy? >> ^rychan:
>> ^dag:
From the video "he had discovered particles of anti-matter"
Wouldn't positrons be "anti-energy" as they don't have any mass? - and if they follow the same rules as an electron - not quite a "particle".

Electrons (and positrons) have mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron

>> ^dag:
From the video "he had discovered particles of anti-matter"
Wouldn't positrons be "anti-energy" as they don't have any mass? - and if they follow the same rules as an electron - not quite a "particle".


Electrons (and positrons) have mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

From the video "he had discovered particles of anti-matter"

Wouldn't positrons be "anti-energy" as they don't have any mass? - and if they follow the same rules as an electron - not quite a "particle".

>> ^Memorare:
maybe siftbot is operating in some parallel universe where time is sped up.
In these physics videos one thing they never offer an explaination for is why the quantum level events don't scale up and occur on our macro level since everything is made up of sub-atomic particles organized as atoms. As with the Schroedinger's Cat paradox it would be kind of disappointing to finally discover a unified theory of everything, only to learn that it really doesn't matter since it doesn't scale up to mundane reality and therefore only "exists" as a theoretical concept. (personally i think the notion that the cat is both dead AND alive simultaneaously and observation determines which, is a lot of mathematical bs, ie it's not Really true except on paper but then i'm not a cosmologist or metaphysicist so what do i know)
Also, a simpler question that has an answer but i just don't know what it is...
with all the anti-matter positrons bombarding the planet via cosmic rays, don't they ever bang into some electrons and create a tiny but big enough to be measured matter/anti-matter explosion? Sure matter is mostly empty (or not so empty apparently) space and possible collisions are few, but cloud chambers indicate tons of these thigns zipping around so Howcome there's not bazillions of these tiny explosions going off all around us constantly?


Yes, the quantum world really destroyed the normal stance of science. It is when math stole the show and ruined the normal claims that science was used to making about the world. In the now, we are talking about things that exist outside of our ability to experience them. The only things that can experience them are our machines we create to measure them; and they do so in a diminished and programed method (they interpolate data). So we are left to interpret an interpretation of an event. When you start getting that convoluted then you have to make the realization that you are no longer talking about what "is", but what your machine is interpolating (The forms of the universe aren't necessarily discrete or concrete, but it will be changed by the machine so that a result can be given). We have gotten to the point where we are no longer talking about the way things "are" about the universe anymore, just about how our machines experience the different elements of phenomena in the universe (your eyes are just as much a part of this machine analogy as well, but that is a tale for another day).

I think one of the largest criticisms of the relativist camp that really sticks is there is not sufficient reason to accept the quantum model over any other model that explains things. The grounds for saying the things that exist in quantum mathematics don't lie in understanding of those elements but the claim that since the math works, then it must be true. This is putting the cart before the horse and it begs the question "why". Why not any other way that also works? We could refine Newton to incorporate some of the quantum findings and use that as the explanation of everything. There is not sufficient reason to suppose that forces are the real things in the universe, or space time warps, quantum probability matrices.

Most "old" ways of thinking just get abandon for not being popular among the new generation of scientist trying to make a name for themselves. Quine talked about this extensively. Things move in and out of popularity in this realm like any other and scientists are just like MTV peoples and everyone else of jumping on the new trend. Truly, there is not sufficient reason to believe that Aristotelian motion isn't the real method of locomotion in the universe.

Simply put, new science don't care about whys anymore. New science is about making models of massive amounts of data. It won't ever be able to give a reason if something violates that model, it just has to re-engineer the model to incorporate the new data set. It lacks any truth to it because it is always in need of more data to continue to refine its model. It will never know when the model is complete or 100% accurate. It is actually the end road of the epistemology of empirical materialism. A constantly evolving model of data is the best "truth" you can hope from science. It will never have a why, that simply isn't a role of science. It is because "it is" and that is all they will ever be able to say; now more than ever.


edit (several times for grammar, man I sux at expressing myself)

FAKE!

I know a positron when I see one.

According to the Many Worlds theory- an interpretation of quantum mechanics that is undergoing a kind of renaissance of examination- the quantum level events DO scale to the macro level, we in our universe only perceive one possible quantum outcome but all other possibilities are simultaneously occurring in other parallel universes. Therefore Schrodinger's cat may be dead in our universe, but is wholly alive in another. The waveform function of our Macro universe does not collapse at all- all possibilities exist.

In reply to this comment by Memorare:
maybe siftbot is operating in some parallel universe where time is sped up.

In these physics videos one thing they never offer an explaination for is why the quantum level events don't scale up and occur on our macro level since everything is made up of sub-atomic particles organized as atoms. As with the Schroedinger's Cat paradox it would be kind of disappointing to finally discover a unified theory of everything, only to learn that it really doesn't matter since it doesn't scale up to mundane reality and therefore only "exists" as a theoretical concept. (personally i think the notion that the cat is both dead AND alive simultaneaously and observation determines which, is a lot of mathematical bs, ie it's not Really true except on paper but then i'm not a cosmologist or metaphysicist so what do i know)

Also, a simpler question that has an answer but i just don't know what it is...
with all the anti-matter positrons bombarding the planet via cosmic rays, don't they ever bang into some electrons and create a tiny but big enough to be measured matter/anti-matter explosion? Sure matter is mostly empty (or not so empty apparently) space and possible collisions are few, but cloud chambers indicate tons of these thigns zipping around so Howcome there's not bazillions of these tiny explosions going off all around us constantly?

maybe siftbot is operating in some parallel universe where time is sped up.

In these physics videos one thing they never offer an explaination for is why the quantum level events don't scale up and occur on our macro level since everything is made up of sub-atomic particles organized as atoms. As with the Schroedinger's Cat paradox it would be kind of disappointing to finally discover a unified theory of everything, only to learn that it really doesn't matter since it doesn't scale up to mundane reality and therefore only "exists" as a theoretical concept. (personally i think the notion that the cat is both dead AND alive simultaneaously and observation determines which, is a lot of mathematical bs, ie it's not Really true except on paper but then i'm not a cosmologist or metaphysicist so what do i know)

Also, a simpler question that has an answer but i just don't know what it is...
with all the anti-matter positrons bombarding the planet via cosmic rays, don't they ever bang into some electrons and create a tiny but big enough to be measured matter/anti-matter explosion? Sure matter is mostly empty (or not so empty apparently) space and possible collisions are few, but cloud chambers indicate tons of these thigns zipping around so Howcome there's not bazillions of these tiny explosions going off all around us constantly?