Perimeter Institute Launches Modern Physics Resource 30
An anonymous reader writes "You can find six new online sources of info about hot topics in modern physics at the 'What We Research' outreach page of Perimeter Institute. The info includes text, graphics and online presentations dealing with Cosmology, Superstring Theory, Quantum Gravity, Quantum Foundations, Quantum Information and Particle Physics. The resource section at the bottom of each page recommends a wealth of interesting online lectures by some famous scientists. PI is an independent, nonprofit scientific research and outreach organization."
Wrong site? (Score:5, Funny)
Cosmology, Superstring Theory, Quantum Gravity,...
For a minute there my subconscious thought that I had browsed to a women's magazine by accident...
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They cluster in Waterloo, Ontario, to forge new, mind-bending ideas about the ultimate nature of our universe, from space and time to matter and forces. Driven by curiosity, their mission is to unlock nature's most profound secrets hidden deep inside the atom and far across the universe.
As Big Lebowski would say: "far out... far fucking out!"
All AC? (Score:1, Funny)
This whole thread will be populated by AC's?
Web page is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The Einstein portrait caption [perimeterinstitute.ca] reads "1870-1955". Einstein was born in 1879, the same year when Maxwell died.
Let's hope their theoretical physicists are more careful than their webdesigners.
what's old is new again (Score:4, Informative)
From one of the resources on superstring theory [perimeterinstitute.ca]
Sounds like Epicurus all over again - small, indivisible, and invisible particles whose motion explain everything. Only he called them atoms.
I know superstring theory has better explanatory power than Epicurus' atomism, but I am intrigued by the invisibility of the strings, which the resourse above seems to make elementary, just like Epicurus.
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Technically you can "see" the strings, since in string theory every elementary particle is a string. In string theory, any time you detect an electron or a photon, you're looking at a string. It's just that they're so small, we may never be able to tell that they're actually strings and not point particles.
Re:what's old is new again (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically you can "see" the strings, since in string theory every elementary particle is a string. In string theory, any time you detect an electron or a photon, you're looking at a string. It's just that they're so small, we may never be able to tell that they're actually strings and not point particles.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understood it the particles are strings in x dimensions, and in the superplane of our 3d existence they appear as points. Just as a line passing through a plane appears as a point on the plane.
mod parent up! (Score:1)
Exactly!
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AFAIK that isn't a requirement, though it does lead to some neat things to think about.
For example, imagine one string with both of its ends stuck on our 3D "plane", but with the bulk of it floating "above" the plane. The point at one end is an electron and the other end a positron. When they meet, the loop closes, forming a photon, which is a closed loop type of string.
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An electron and a positron usually react to produce two photons (never just one). Sometimes other particles such as neutrinos are produced.
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An electron and a positron usually react to produce two photons (never just one). Sometimes other particles such as neutrinos are produced.
If my scanty topology is correct, a loop intersecting a plane will (normally) do so at two points.
But realistically, it's probably not a good idea to try to reason about superstrings by analogy with normal 3D entities. After all, it's pretty tricky to just go from 2D to 3D, and strings have rather a lot more dimensions than that...
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that's corresponds with what little I know of string theory, and i must admit i find the concept esoteric, if not mystical.
but then surely it is incorrect to say that they are too small to see? that's a serious question (IANAPP) and i will be happily corrected.
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Strictly and classically speaking, that's correct. However, since the string is always vibrating, you're going to see more or less its full extent in our 3D space as different parts of it pass through our 3D hyperplane at nearby instants of time. If you could take an instantaneous (or Planck time) snapshot of a string, you'd only see a few points of it at once (wherever it intersects at that moment). In reality, if we could detect spatial structure on such small scales at all, we'd see it smeared out spa
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High in his Transylvanian castle (Score:5, Funny)
At this point, Lubos Motl, high in his Transylvanian crag-side castle, let out a shout of anger, causing even his henchmen to scatter. "SMOOOOO-LINNNNN!"
Re:They seem to be missing one important field of (Score:3, Funny)
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Imagine the argument the Elite Roman Numeral Accountants had against the concept that nothing can have value in the much easier to use Hindu Arabic decimal system with it zero place holder. It took 300 years for the Decimal system to over come the roman numeral system of mathematics.
Is it really any supprise the initial post was modded a troll?
videos don't work (Score:1)
Anybody the same problem?
Someone needs to go back to school. (Score:1)
Last post? Anybody? (Score:1)