Hadron Collider back online

So it was Wheeler then.

I recall the phrase in the middle of a discussion about the topology of some kinds of fields, where another memory phrase came up: "You cannot comb the hair on a sphere." What this meant was that there would always be a singularity, where the vector field (the vectors being the hair) either converged or diverged. By contrast, the hair on a torus can be combed.

Joe Gwinn

Why aren't you chiding TMT for changing the topic?

Because I'm human and sometimes get caught up in the nonsense. And I consider a Palin book an exercise in nonsense.

It does.

What was there before the big bang?

Logically and intuitively, please.

-- Jeff R. (many thanks)

the remnants of previous big bangs, the burned out cinders of previous big bangs, what we call "dark matter". when they describe the results of the big bang they try to explain why it didn't expand homogeneously, they try to explain why it became lumpy. it became lumpy because there was some stuff already there in the way. and that stuff had gravity, therefore the "inflation" (was being drawn out instead of exploding out).

b.w.

Physics hasn't been stalled - there is a lot of things to look into. A modern book is "String Theory and M-Theory" The mathematicians have been hard at work in physics as well as pure Physics types.

Mart>>> OK, we're back in business. Now, who's holding the bets on the Higgs

Mart> >

It's one of those neat answers, right? Too neat. Nothing is that neat in particle physics, at least since the 1970s.

Now, I should point out that I am absolutely clueless about the real likelihoods here, but I figure what the hell, nobody else knows the answer, either.

Yeah, they've been busy as little bees. But they're no closer to any significant answer than they were 30 years ago, says Smolin and his supporters.

I've always wondered if that wasn't the case. And if we couldn't some day determine the number of prior cycles based on the amount of dark matter. It all depends on there being enough gravitational attraction to have all matter return to the source. Enough matter to matter?

Richard

VBG - You got that one right - on a technicality.

Ed Huntress wrote:

mOm.15$ snipped-for-privacy@en-nntp-01.dc.easynews.com...

Well Ed, you were right in the replies to my query re Hawking being interested - I had no idea there were so many nuclear physicists and Maths PHD's who inhabit this group and do metalworking in between working on how the universe works. does it balance out the wingers and nutters?

I my country of OZ, the ability to bullshit in a convincing manner is highly esteemed, we dont do it to Americans much these days because...well...its no challenge. Why, a whole nation that falls for the "War on Terror" scam is just too easy to set up, and its weird given the demonstrated number of people here who can explain complex nuclear theory...

Someone once said "If you cant explain a proposition on one side of a sheet of A4 paper, then your talking crap.."

Andrew VK3BFA.

(school tomorrow, left and right hand screw cutting exercise to complete before the end of term, which is next Tuesday.)

Me too, at least in respect to many claims about it. I'll stick with conservation laws.

Bound systems of photons have mass it seems. So bound momentum does too, at least per Einstein as I read it. So to have mass one just needs bound systems of momentum, which also relate to "energy".

Thus mass may not be an independant varable to account for in any way.

Violate the conservation & inverse square laws & we probably get a universe-wide Ultraviolet Catastrophe as quantum physics evaporates.

No, thru the presumed ether.

You need to review the Michelson-Morley experiment again I fear.

To our limited perceptions & minds the universe is just a rather strange place. Plus our "long" history of superstitions & ignorance which impact all perceptions.

"Not only does God play dice with the Universe; he sometimes casts them where they can't be seen." - S. Hawking

But it could be that we are are a bit blind too.

The Big Chicken.