Hubble Finds Evidence for Dark Energy in the Young Universe

I had to go back to the article for some further reading.


These snapshots, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveal five supernovae, or exploding stars, and their host galaxies.

The arrows in the top row of images point to the supernovae. The bottom row shows the host galaxies before or after the stars exploded. The supernovae exploded between 3.5 and 10 billion years ago.

Astronomers used the supernovae to measure the expansion rate of the universe and determine how the expansion rate is affected by the repulsive push of dark energy, a mysterious energy force that pervades space. Supernovae provide reliable measurements because their intrinsic brightness is well understood. They are therefore reliable distance markers, allowing astronomers to determine how far away they are from Earth.

Pinpointing supernovae in the faraway universe is similar to watching fireflies in your back yard. All fireflies glow with about the same brightness. So, you can judge how the fireflies are distributed in your back yard by noting their comparative faintness or brightness, depending on their distance from you.

Only Hubble can measure these supernovae because they are too distant, and therefore too faint, to be studied by the largest ground-based telescopes.

These Hubble observations show for the first time that dark energy has been a present force for most of the universe's history. A spectral analysis also shows that the supernovae used to measure the universe's expansion rate today look remarkably similar to those that exploded nine billion years ago and are just now seen by Hubble.

These latest results are based on an analysis of the 24 most distant known supernovae, most of them discovered within the last three years by the Higher-z SN Search Team. The images were taken between 2003 and 2005 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.


Illustration of Cosmic Forces-Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that dark energy is not a new constituent of space, but rather has been present for most of the universe's history. Dark energy is a mysterious repulsive force that causes the universe to expand at an increasing rate.

Investigators used Hubble to find that dark energy was already boosting the expansion rate of the universe as long as nine billion years ago. This picture of dark energy is consistent with Albert Einstein's prediction of nearly a century ago that a repulsive form of gravity emanates from empty space.

Data from Hubble provides supporting evidence that help astrophysicists to understand the nature of dark energy. This will allow scientists to begin ruling out some competing explanations that predict that the strength of dark energy changes over time.

Researchers also have found that the class of ancient exploding stars, or supernovae, used to measure the expansion of space today look remarkably similar to those that exploded nine billion years ago and are just now being seen by Hubble. This important finding gives additional credibility to the use of these supernovae for tracking the cosmic expansion over most of the universe's lifetime.

"Although dark energy accounts for more than 70 percent of the energy of the universe, we know very little about it, so each clue is precious," said Adam Riess, of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Riess led one of the first studies to reveal the presence of dark energy in 1998 and is the leader of the current Hubble study. "Our latest clue is that the stuff we call dark energy was relatively weak, but starting to make its presence felt nine billion years ago."

To study the behavior of dark energy of long ago, Hubble had to peer far across the universe and back into time to detect supernovae. Supernovae can be used to trace the universe's expansion. This is analogous to seeing fireflies on a summer night. Fireflies glow with about the same brightness, so you can judge how they are distributed in the backyard by their comparative faintness or brightness, depending on their distance from you. Only Hubble can measure these ancient supernovae because they are too distant, and therefore too faint, to be studied by the largest ground-based telescopes.

Einstein first conceived of the notion of a repulsive force in space in his attempt to balance the universe against the inward pull of its own gravity, which he thought would ultimately cause the universe to implode.

His "cosmological constant" remained a curious hypothesis until 1998, when Riess and the members of the High-z Supernova Team and the Supernova Cosmology Project used ground-based telescopes and Hubble to detect the acceleration of the expansion of space from observations of distant supernovae. Astrophysicists came to the realization that Einstein may have been right after all: there really was a repulsive form of gravity in space that was soon after dubbed "dark energy."

Over the past eight years astrophysicists have been trying to uncover two of dark energy's most fundamental properties: its strength and its permanence. These new observations reveal that dark energy was present and obstructing the gravitational pull of the matter in the universe even before it began to win this cosmic "tug of war."

Previous Hubble observations of the most distant supernovae known revealed that the early universe was dominated by matter whose gravity was slowing down the universe's expansion rate, like a ball rolling up a slight incline. The observations also confirmed that the expansion rate of the cosmos began speeding up about five to six billion years ago. That is when astronomers believe that dark energy's repulsive force overtook gravity's attractive grip.

The latest results are based on an analysis of the 24 most distant supernovae known, most found within the last two years.

By measuring the universe's relative size over time, astrophysicists have tracked the universe's growth spurts, much as a parent may witness the growth spurts of a child by tracking changes in height on a doorframe. Distant supernovae provide the doorframe markings read by Hubble. "After we subtract the gravity from the known matter in the universe, we can see the dark energy pushing to get out," said Lou Strolger, astronomer and Hubble science team member at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. Further observations are presently underway with Hubble by Riess and his team which should continue to offer new clues to the nature of dark energy.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

Cosmic ray spallation

As this NASA chart indicates, 70 percent or more of the universe consists of dark energy, about which we know next to nothing

Other explanations of dark energy, called "quintessence," originate from theoretical high-energy physics. In addition to baryons, photons, neutrinos, and cold dark matter, quintessence posits a fifth kind of matter (hence the name), a sort of universe-filling fluid that acts like it has negative gravitational mass. The new constraints on cosmological parameters imposed by the HST supernova data, however, strongly discourage at least the simplest models of quintessence.

Of course my mind is thinking about the cosmic triangle of an event in the cosmos. So I am wondering what is causing the "negative pressure" as "dark energy," and why this has caused the universe to speed up.


SNAP-Supernova / Acceleration Probe-Studying the Dark Energy of the Universe

The discovery by the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) and the High-Z Supernova team that the expansion of the universe is accelerating poses an exciting mystery — for if the universe were governed by gravitational attraction, its rate of expansion would be slowing. Acceleration requires a strange “dark energy’ opposing this gravity. Is this Einstein’s cosmological constant, or more exotic new physics? Whatever the explanation, it will lead to new discoveries in astrophysics, particle physics, and gravitation.

By defining the context of particle collisions it was evident that such a place where such a fluid could have dominated by such energy in stars, are always interesting as to what is ejected from those same stars. What do those stars provide for the expression of this universe while we are cognoscente of the "arrow of time" explanation.


This diagram reveals changes in the rate of expansion since the universe's birth 15 billion years ago. The more shallow the curve, the faster the rate of expansion.

So of course these thoughts are shared by the perspective of educators to help us along. But if one did not understand the nature of the physical attributes of superfluids, how would one know to think of the relativistic conditions that high energy provides for us?


NASA/WMAP Scientific Team: Expanding Universe



So recognizing where these conditions are evident would be one way in which we might think about what is causing a negative pressure in the cosmos.

Given the assumption that the matter in the universe is homogeneous and isotropic (The Cosmological Principle) it can be shown that the corresponding distortion of space-time (due to the gravitational effects of this matter) can only have one of three forms, as shown schematically in the picture at left. It can be "positively" curved like the surface of a ball and finite in extent; it can be "negatively" curved like a saddle and infinite in extent; or it can be "flat" and infinite in extent - our "ordinary" conception of space. A key limitation of the picture shown here is that we can only portray the curvature of a 2-dimensional plane of an actual 3-dimensional space! Note that in a closed universe you could start a journey off in one direction and, if allowed enough time, ultimately return to your starting point; in an infinite universe, you would never return.

Of course it is difficult for me to understand this process, but I am certainly trying. If one had found that in the relativistic conditions of high energy scenarios a "similarity to a flattening out" associated with an accelerating universe what would this say about information travelling from the "origins of our universe" quite freely. How would this effect dark energy?

In physics, a perfect fluid is a fluid that can be completely characterized by its rest frame energy density ρ and isotropic pressure p.

Real fluids are "sticky" and contain (and conduct) heat. Perfect fluids are idealized models in which these possibilities are neglected. Specifically, perfect fluids have no shear stresses, viscosity, or heat conduction.

In tensor notation, the energy-momentum tensor of a perfect fluid can be written in the form

[tex] T^{\mu\nu}=(\rho+p)\, U^\mu U^\nu + P\, \eta^{\mu\nu}\,[/tex]



where U is the velocity vector field of the fluid and where ημν is the metric tensor of Minkowski spacetime.

Perfect fluids admit a Lagrangian formulation, which allows the techniques used in field theory to be applied to fluids. In particular, this enables us to quantize perfect fluid models. This Lagrangian formulation can be generalized, but unfortunately, heat conduction and anisotropic stresses cannot be treated in these generalized formulations.

Perfect fluids are often used in general relativity to model idealized distributions of matter, such as in the interior of a star.

So events in the cosmos ejected the particles, what geometrical natures embued such actions, to have these particle out in space interacting with other forms of matter to create conditions that would seem conducive to me, for that negative pressure?

Cosmic ray spallation is a form of naturally occurring nuclear fission and nucleosynthesis. It refers to the formation of elements from the impact of cosmic rays on an object. Cosmic rays are energetic particles outside of Earth ranging from a stray electron to gamma rays. These cause spallation when a fast moving particle, usually a proton, part of a cosmic ray impacts matter, including other cosmic rays. The result of the collision is the expulsion of large members of nucleons (protons and neutrons) from the object hit. This process goes on not only in deep space, but in our upper atmosphere due to the impact of cosmic rays.

Cosmic ray spallation produces some light elements such as lithium and boron. This process was discovered somewhat by accident during the 1970s. Models of big bang nucleosynthesis suggested that the amount of deuterium was too large to be consistent with the expansion rate of the universe and there was therefore great interest in processes that could generate deuterium after the big bang.

Cosmic ray spallation was investigated as a possible process to generate deuterium. As it turned out, spallation could not generate much deuterium, and the excess deuterium in the universe could be explained by assuming the existence of non-baryonic dark matter. However, studies of spallation showed that it could generate lithium and boron. Isotopes of aluminum, beryllium, carbon(carbon-14), chlorine, iodine and neon, are also formed through cosmic ray spallation.

Talk about getting tongue tied, can you imagine, "these fluctuations can generate their own big bangs in tiny areas of the universe." Read on.


Photo credit: Lloyd DeGrane/University of Chicago News Office

Carroll and Chen’s scenario of infinite entropy is inspired by the finding in 1998 that the universe will expand forever because of a mysterious force called “dark energy.” Under these conditions, the natural configuration of the universe is one that is almost empty. “In our current universe, the entropy is growing and the universe is expanding and becoming emptier,” Carroll said.

But even empty space has faint traces of energy that fluctuate on the subatomic scale. As suggested previously by Jaume Garriga of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University, these fluctuations can generate their own big bangs in tiny areas of the universe, widely separated in time and space. Carroll and Chen extend this idea in dramatic fashion, suggesting that inflation could start “in reverse” in the distant past of our universe, so that time could appear to run backwards (from our perspective) to observers far in our past.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

This is a historical reference as well as leading to a conclusion I won't say it for you just that I present the idea, "written word," and then you decide what that message is. You might have thought it disjointed, but it's really not, as you move through it.


Internet Philosphy-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) Metaphysics

There are reasons why this article is being put up, and again, developing a little history to the "line up Lee Smolin prepared" is an important step in discerning why he may have gone down a certain route for comparative relations in terms of "against symmetry."


Click on link Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

I have no one telling me this, just that any argument had to have it's "foundational logic of approach" and learning to interpret why someone did something, is sometimes just as important as the science they currently pursued, or adopted, in light of other models and methods. It does not necessarily make them right. Just that they are delving in model apprehension and devising the reasons why the model they choose to use, "is" the desired one, from their current philosophical development and understanding.

So they have to present their logic.

The Identity of Indiscernibles

The Identity of Indiscernibles (hereafter called the Principle) is usually formulated as follows: if, for every property F, object x has F if and only if object y has F, then x is identical to y. Or in the notation of symbolic logic:

F(Fx ↔ Fy) → x=y

This formulation of the Principle is equivalent to the Dissimilarity of the Diverse as McTaggart called it, namely: if x and y are distinct then there is at least one property that x has and y does not, or vice versa.

The converse of the Principle, x=y → ∀F(Fx ↔ Fy), is called the Indiscernibility of Identicals. Sometimes the conjunction of both principles, rather than the Principle by itself, is known as Leibniz's Law.

It is almost if the computerize world is to be developed further, "this logic" had to be based on some philosophical approach? Had to be derived from some developmental model beyond the scope of "the approach to quantum gravity" that it had it's basis designed in the area of research, a university could be exploiting itself?


In 1671 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) invented a calculating machine which was a major advance in mechanical calculating. The Leibniz calculator incorporated a new mechanical feature, the stepped drum — a cylinder bearing nine teeth of different lengths which increase in equal amounts around the drum. Although the Leibniz calculator was not developed for commercial production, the stepped drum principle survived for 300 years and was used in many later calculating systems.

This is not to say the developmental program disavows current research in all areas to be considered. Just that it's approach is based on "some method" that is not easily discernible even to the vast array of scientists current working in so many research fields.

Why Quantum Computers?

On the atomic scale matter obeys the rules of quantum mechanics, which are quite different from the classical rules that determine the properties of conventional logic gates. So if computers are to become smaller in the future, new, quantum technology must replace or supplement what we have now. The point is, however, that quantum technology can offer much more than cramming more and more bits to silicon and multiplying the clock--speed of microprocessors. It can support entirely new kind of computation with qualitatively new algorithms based on quantum principles!

Increasing complexity makes it very hard to describe complex systems and imagine if your were going from the top down, what constituent descriptors of reality we would have to manufacture, if we wanted to speak about all those forms and the complexity that makes up these forms?

Moore's Law

Moore's law is the empirical observation that the complexity of integrated circuits, with respect to minimum component cost, doubles every 24 months[1].

Against Symmetry

The term “symmetry” derives from the Greek words sun (meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’) and metron (‘measure’), yielding summetria, and originally indicated a relation of commensurability (such is the meaning codified in Euclid's Elements for example). It quickly acquired a further, more general, meaning: that of a proportion relation, grounded on (integer) numbers, and with the function of harmonizing the different elements into a unitary whole. From the outset, then, symmetry was closely related to harmony, beauty, and unity, and this was to prove decisive for its role in theories of nature. In Plato's Timaeus, for example, the regular polyhedra are afforded a central place in the doctrine of natural elements for the proportions they contain and the beauty of their forms: fire has the form of the regular tetrahedron, earth the form of the cube, air the form of the regular octahedron, water the form of the regular icosahedron, while the regular dodecahedron is used for the form of the entire universe. The history of science provides another paradigmatic example of the use of these figures as basic ingredients in physical description: Kepler's 1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum presents a planetary architecture grounded on the five regular solids.

The basic difference that I see is the way in which Lee Smolin adopts his views of what science is in relation too, "Two traditions in the search for fundamental Physics."

It is strange indeed to see perfection of Lee Smolin's comparison and having a look further down we understand the opening basis of his philosophical thoughts in regards to the title "against symmetry?"

Some reviews on the "Trouble With Physics," by Lee Smolin

Seed Magazine, August 2006

Time magazine August 21, 2006

Discover Magazine, September 2006 &

Scientific American, September 2006

Wired September 2006:15 :

The Economist, Sept 14, 2006

The New York Times Book review, Sep 17, 2006 by Tom Siegfried

The Boston Globe, Sept 17, 2006

USA Today, Sept 19, 2006

The New York Sun, by Michael Shermer, Sept 27, 2006

The New Yorker,  by Jim Holt Sept 25,2006

The LA Times, by K C Cole, Oct 8, 2006

Nature,

by George Ellis (Nature 44, 482, 5 Oct. 2006)

San Fransisco Chronicle , by Keay Davidson, Oct 13, 2006

Dallas Morning News, by FRED BORTZ, Oct 15, 2006

Toronto Star, by PETER CALAMAI, Oct 15, 2006

But before I begin in that direction I wanted people to understand something that is held in the mind of the "condense matter theorist." In terms of the building blocks of nature. This is important basis of understanding, that any building block could emergent from anything, we had to identify where this symmetry existed, before it manifested in the "matter states of reality."

Everyone knows that human societies organize themselves. But it is also true that nature organizes itself, and that the principles by which it does this is what modern science, and especially modern physics, is all about. The purpose of my talk today is to explain this idea.

So it is important to understand what is emergent and what exists in the "theory of everything" if it did not consider the context of symmetry? AS a layman trying to get underneath the thinking process of any book development, it is important to me.

Symmetry considerations dominate modern fundamental physics, both in quantum theory and in relativity. Philosophers are now beginning to devote increasing attention to such issues as the significance of gauge symmetry, quantum particle identity in the light of permutation symmetry, how to make sense of parity violation, the role of symmetry breaking, the empirical status of symmetry principles, and so forth. These issues relate directly to traditional problems in the philosophy of science, including the status of the laws of nature, the relationships between mathematics, physical theory, and the world, and the extent to which mathematics dictates physics.

The idea here then is to find super strings place within context of the evolving universe, in terms of, "the microseconds" and not the "first three minutes" of Steven Weinberg.

So it is important to see the context with which this discussion is taking place, in terms of the high energy and from that state of existence to what entropically manifests into the universe now.

Confronting A Position Adopted By Lee Smolin


A sphere with three handles (and three holes), i.e., a genus-3 torus.

This is only "one point of contention" that was being addressed at Clifford Johnson's Asymptotia.

Jacques Distler :

This is false. The proof of finiteness, to all orders, is in quite solid shape. Explicit formulæ are currently known only up to 3-loop order, and the methods used to write down those formulæ clearly don’t generalize beyond 3 loops.

What’s certainly not clear (since you asked a very technical question, you will forgive me if my response is rather technical) is that, beyond 3 loops, the superstring measure over supermoduli space can be “pushed forward” to a measure over the moduli space of ordinary Riemann surfaces. It was a nontrivial (and, to many of us, somewhat surprising) result of d’Hoker and Phong that this does hold true at genus-2 and -3.

There is no doubt that the "timeliness of statements" can further define, support or not, problems that are being discussed. I don't mind being deleted on the point of the post above, because our good scientist's are getting into the heat of things. I am glad Arun stepped up to the plate.

Part of finally coming to some head on debate, was seeing how Peter Woit along with Lee Smolin were being challlenged for their views, while there had been this ground swell created against a model that was developed, like Loop quantum gravity was developed. One of the two traditions in search for the fundamental physics. Loop qunatum Gravity and String theory(must make sure there is the modification to M theory?) Shall this be included?


Click on link Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

But as they are having this conversation, it is this openness that they have given of themselves that we learn of the intricacies of the basis of arguments, so the public is better informed as to what follows and what has to take place.


Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

So while this issue is much more complex then just the exchange there, I have not forgotten what it is all about. Or why one may move from a certain position after they have summarize the views they had accumulated with regards to the subject of String/M theory as a model that has out lived it's usefulness, in terms of not providing a experimental frame work around it.

Ring World

Impact armor, a flexible form of clothing that hardens instantly into a rigid form stronger than steel when rapidly deformed (for example, by the impact of a projectile such as a bullet) - a technology which is quickly approaching reality; in fact being tested during the 2006 Winter Olympics as a product called d3o

Lest you forget "the concept" above is written in a story form of our past?

How is it possible for the human mind to see itself in some future?

We must ask ourselves about the value of the conscience "in moving backwards in time?" An "image" constructed(memory), while not having this ability to "move forward?"

Imagine that you give weight to the idea of human experience, limiting it, to the shades of darkness in our emotive responses. Yet, there is a time when happiness seems so effortless, that as we check how fast "time" has past, we wonder in amazement?

No need here to draw up Einstein's conclusions about a "pretty girl and the hot stove" again and again, as it should have sunk in by now? You are the observer and you color your world.



It's a brief image that I saw myself deploring the satellites in space. Yet, with it the fear of holding on to all that is the firm resolve of one's own focus. Of what is known. Of what we feel is safe? A satellite lost in space. My own fear, as I gazed into the black unknown, possibly lost forever.

It is part of "my" conscious mind that I would produce such imagery? No, my anxieties were manipuated into a picture form. I sent the insecurites of my own awareness of mind deep into the "creativity" of the subconscious mind.

You did not know you had such ability did you?:)

Imagine that I stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon "which I did," and that space spread out before me, is the space of the universe? Imagine indeed, how tight my grip as I look.

Science Fiction

Who is it that could not be touched by the fiction of science to have speculated about how we shall live in another time and place? It comes out when you create the circumstances for the mind to wonder, "creatively."


(Larry Niven's Ringworld, seen from space. Artwork by Harry Frank

Ringworld is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. The work is widely considered one of the classics of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and it ties in to numerous other books in the Known Space universe.

.

What gives the mind it capabilities to venture forward and we find technologies in the "sports world being demonstrated" to harness the "memories of the geometrics" which will save us?



If you understood the "lighthouse analogy" then why had you failed to realized the most "intense point" of impact/ highest energy particles delivered, arose from such geometrics involved? Hulse and Taylor? How was the binary stars revealed while the revolutions got closer?



Lest some forget too, it is well that the mind see's the value of the "gravity probe b" in such "geometric form" that it has placed a picture(nit it's schematics?) before us, which saids and acknowledges the nature and move to the non-euclidean geometries. Understandng the "lagrangian perspective" is then is a short step away?

Now what has transpired from the fiction of Ring World?


d3o Mesh is a perforated textured sheet which has been specifically designed for comfort and breathability for applications requiring good flexure and medium levels of impact protection and is suitable for all applications.

(dee-three-oh) is a specially engineered material made with intelligent molecules. They flow with you as you move but on shock lock together to absorb the impact energy.

It is okay to thnk about "the theoretical" and push forward the circumstances that allow one to speculate and drawn the new imagery of mind to new horizons. New lives. We do this all the time when we re-assess our lives in face of the directions we would like to go?


Plato:

Now you must remember, as a student and a older one at that, there will always be mistakes. Being granted this reprieve for a time(writing our fiction?), while we look at the question asked, what do I think? Hmmmm.... interesting question.

What is your story of creation? What hides underneath the story, what is it 's nature, that we may have "created the myth" and let one believe it is just a story?

Finiteness of String Theory and Mandelstam

It might be that the laws change absolutely with time; that gravity for instance varies with time and that this inverse square law has a strength which depends on how long it is since the beginning of time. In other words, it's possible that in the future we'll have more understanding of everything and physics may be completed by some kind of statement of how things started which are external to the laws of physics. Richard Feynman

I was lead into this subject of Quantum Gravity, by Lee Smolin's book called, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity." As a lay person reading what our scientist's have to say, I have a vested interest in what can start one off and find, that changes are being made to the synopsis first written. Did I understand his position correctly from the very beginning? I'll have to go back over my notes.

But with this format now I have the opportunity to...ahem... get it..directly from the horses mouth(no disrespect intended and written based on knowing how to read horses). As I said, I tried early on to see how the situation of string theory could be refuted. I "instigated" as a comparative front for Lubos Motl and Peter Woit to speak from each of their positions. I had to disregard "the tones" set by either, as to the nature of whose what and how ignorant one might be, and comparatively, one might be to intelligent design? To get "some evidence" of why string theory might not be such a good idea?

Now I believe this is a more "civil situation" that such a format has been proposed and that Lee Smolin can speak directly. As well as, "further information" supplied to counter arguments to Lee's position.


A sphere with three handles (and three holes), i.e., a genus-3 torus.

Jacques Distler :

This is false. The proof of finiteness, to all orders, is in quite solid shape. Explicit formulæ are currently known only up to 3-loop order, and the methods used to write down those formulæ clearly don’t generalize beyond 3 loops.

What’s certainly not clear (since you asked a very technical question, you will forgive me if my response is rather technical) is that, beyond 3 loops, the superstring measure over supermoduli space can be “pushed forward” to a measure over the moduli space of ordinary Riemann surfaces. It was a nontrivial (and, to many of us, somewhat surprising) result of d’Hoker and Phong that this does hold true at genus-2 and -3.

Just a reminder about my skills. While I do things like carpetry, plumbing, electrical, I do not call myself a Carpenter, a Plumber or a Electrician. Nor shall I ah-spire to be more then I'm not, as I am to old this time around.

Greg Kuperberg:

The string theorists are physicists and this is their intuition. Do you want physical intuition or not?

Okay, Smolin is also a physicist and his intuition is radically different from that of the strings theorists. So who is right?

Yet, least I not read these things, can I not decipher "the jest" while it not being to technical? Shall I call it a Physicists intuition or I will only call my intuition what it is?

Jacques Distler:

When most people (at least, most quantum field theorists) use the term “finiteness,” they are referring to UV finiteness.

While the things above talked about from Jacques are served by hindsight, "the jest" follows what comes after this point.

The Jest of the Problem?

My present research concerns the problem of topology changing in string theory. It is currently believed that one has to sum over all string backgrounds and all topologies in doing the functional integral. I suspect that certain singular string backgrounds may be equivalent to topology changes, and that it is consequently only necessary to sum over string backgrounds. As a start I am investigating topology changes in two-dimensional target spaces. I am also interested in Seiberg-Witten invariants. Although much has been learned, some basic questions remain, and I hope to be able at least to understand the simpler of these questionsStanley Mandelstam-Professor Emeritus Particle Theory

Gina has asked questions in context of "academic excellence" in relation to what is being seen in relation to string theory. Of course we thank Clifford for providing the format for that discussion.

“The Trouble With Physics,” by Lee Smolin, Index page 382, Mandelstam, Stanley, and string theory finiteness, pages 117,187, 278-79, 280, 281, 367n14,15

For reference above.

Gina:

I raised 16 points that I felt Lee’s arguments were not correct or problematic. This is an academic discussion and not a public criticism, and I truly think that such critique can be useful, even if I am wrong on all the 16 points.

Three of my 16 points were on more technical issues, but I feel that I can understand Lee’s logical argument even without understanding the precise technical nature of “finiteness of string theory” (I do have a vague impression of what it is.) I think that my interpretation of this issue is reasonable and my critique stands.

I find this interesting based on what information has been selected to counter the arguments that Lee Smolin used to support his contentions about what is being defined in string theory.


Stanley Mandelstam Professor Emeritus Research: Particle Physics

My research concerns string theory. At present I am interested in finding an explicit expression for the n-loop superstring amplitude and proving that it is finite. My field of research is particle theory, more specifically string theory. I am also interested in the recent results of Seiberg and Witten in supersymmetric field theories.

So of course, here, I am drawn to the content of his book and what is the basis of his argument from those four pages. I hope my explanation so far summarizes adequately. For the lay person, this information is leading perspective as to the basis of the argument.

Lee Smolin:

Perturbative finiteness is a major element of the claim of string theory as a potential theory of nature. If it is not true then the case for string theory being a theory of nature would not be very strong.

-Perturbative finiteness has not been proven. There is evidence for it, but that evidence is partial. There is a complete proof only to genus two, which is the second non-trivial term in an infinite power series, each term of which has to be finite. The obstacles to a complete proof are technical and formidable; otherwise we would certainly have either a proof or a counterexample by now. There is some progress in an alternative formulation, which has not yet been shown to be equivalent to the standard definition of string theory.

-This is not an issue of theoretical physicists rigor vrs mathematical rigor. There is no proof at either level. There is an intuitive argument, but that is far from persuasive as the issue is what happens at the boundaries of super-moduli space where the assumption of that argument breaks down. In the formulation in which there is a genus two result it is not clear if there is an unambiguous definition of the higher order terms.

Is string theory in fact perturbatively finite? Many experts think so. I worry that if there were a clear way to a proof it would have been found and published, so I find it difficult to have a strong expectation, either way, on this issue.

It should be known here and here that all along I have been reacting to Lee Smolin's new book. The title itself should have given this away?

The explanation of scientific development in terms of paradigms was not only novel but radical too, insofar as it gives a naturalistic explanation of belief-change. Thomas Kuhn

So of course knowing the basis of my thought development is a "good idea" as the links show what spending our dollars can do, having bought what our good scientist Lee Smolin has written.

There is a little "tit for tat" going on right now, but I think the point has been made sufficiently clear as to where Gina's thoughts in regards to the points on Finiteness is being made beyond 2?

In these lectures, recent progress on multiloop superstring perturbation theory is reviewed. A construction from first principles is given for an unambiguous and slice-independent two-loop superstring measure on moduli space for even spin structure. A consistent choice of moduli, invariant under local worldsheet supersymmetry is made in terms of the super-period matrix. A variety of subtle new contributions arising from a careful gauge fixing procedure are taken into account.

Yes I think I have to wait now to see if the discussion can now move beyond the first three points raised? Hopefully Lee will respond soon?

How do you fight sociology

Because this by any of the leaders of string theory. it was left to someone like me, as a quasi "insider" who had the technical knowledge but not the sociological commitment, to take on that responsibility. And I had done so because of my own interest in string theory, which I was working on almost exclusively at the time. Nevertheless, some string theorists regarded the review as a hostile act.

The trouble with Physics, by Lee Smolin, Page 281

I have discovered one of Lee Smolin's objection to a string theorist. They are only craftsman, and not seers.

Theoretical Challenges

Stephen Hawking from the University of Cambridge, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, addresses the audience during a ceremony in Beijing, June 19, 2006. Hawking, author of the best-selling 'A Brief History of Time,' said on Thursday humans must colonise other planets in different solar systems or face extinction. (Jason Lee/Reuters)

However, by using "matter/antimatter annihilation", velocities just below the speed of light could be reached, making it possible to reach the next star in about six years.

It's just one of those things that attracts our attention as we ponder the nature of the universe and how our modelling may change the way we see now. What proof for such things and we look at the basis of what we had been doing and we make changes accordingly.

More modern variations of tomography involve gathering projection data from multiple directions and feeding the data into a tomographic reconstruction software algorithm processed by a computer. Different types of signal acquisition can be used in similar calculation algorithms in order to create a tomographic image. With current 2005 technology, tomograms are derived using several different physical phenomena including X-rays, gamma rays, positron electron annihilation reaction, nuclear magnetic resonance, ultrasound, electrons, and ions. These yield CT, SPECT, PET, MRI, ultrasonography, 3d-TEM, and atom probe tomograms, respectively.

It never made much sense to me as time progressed, yet, I found myself challenging the very notions of what physics and experiment leads us, and what thoughts generated, could help propel our thinking forward. Why sound? If we thought such analogies are going to serve us then why would scientists be so misleading as to say "sound is the way we think about the universe?"

Now it is something much different that I think about these things. What caused this?

A way in which one can think and see and not have noticed the universe looks much differently from adopting these views. So of course I speak about lagrangian views and gravitational influences as a much different picture of the cosmos then the one we see as we look up. Or, as how we might look at the sun. The sun's eye?

So as usual today as I move through the "bloggeries of scientists," I look at what they are displaying. The post previous to this one of my article was instigated by reading John Baez's site and what he had there of course sparked what had written previous on the topic of, "Megalithic carved stone balls from Scotland." Yes that was in December of 2004 I wrote my article.

Artifacts of our thinking?

Now this morning of course I went over to Clifford's Blog, "Asymptotia" to have a look there to come to see what he had posted today. The Antikythera Mechanism



Now considering the information about our beliefs of what transpired in our history about gears and such, how is it we could have lost sight of mechanisms like this to have to re-invent the gear?

While occasional discoveries, such as the Antikythera mechanism, have forced scientists to reassess the technology of ancient civilization, critics regard most cases of OOPArt as the result of mistaken interpretation or wishful thinking. Supporters regard them as evidence that mainstream science is overlooking huge areas of knowledge, either willfully or through ignorance.

For me it has been an interesting journey having the freedom's to explore. Try and make sense of the world. Now I am experiencing the frustrations I have about the trends towards capitalism and sociological deconstruction of those things I would think should be the basis of our social fabric "as signs" of our sisterly and brotherly of caring for each other.

Plato:

So should we let the resistance of fear insight distrust of the media, and have good science minds disrupt by instigating false reports like the one did by Alan Sokal in regards to quantum gravity? Nice way to treat those who move up to face the challenge of a theoretical world that expects the same validation as any process?

AS if the Sokal affair wasn't enough, that one could use a computerized program to write a paper on quantum gravity? That those of us being ignorant of the process could be so easily fooled, has some how taken on a new thought here. About what String theory has done? What Peter Woit has placed in his information?

Hopefully this was not the nefarious intent of such information being divulged to the public as a speculation on "science's part" to do battle with the "evil forces of disinformation?"


Alone in the Universe?

So left alone to ponder the nature of the universe how can we not be affected by what has been put out there by scientists for us lay people to ponder about the directions we are going. That in our own thinking now biased, we move forward?

What will become of the understanding of our nature as we explore those things with which we are not accustomed to seeing? Do we "shake the resolve to do the things we have done in a logical and developmental thinking?" To destroy what has been the leading theories toward what goal? Of course not.

But it is such things that ask us to consider the "anomalistic nature" that we delved ever further into the wonders of science and what will become of us? What may be revealed by discovering more of our history, and what is yet to be "reawakened" in our continuance forward.

We must look deeper into the "fabric of reality" that we can see the world in much different way. At first, some might have only recognized the "beauty of the cosmos" and it's natural designs. Then, some wondered what are these things that they become what they are?

So we were forced to consider a much greater dimension to the reality then what was just there on appearance. Of course we might have wondered what made these move the way they do, and again we ask ourselves, "what is the motivator behind these things." How is it we might see what drives this process?


This is a computer-rendered model of a partially telescoped nanotube with a Leonardo DaVinci manuscript as the background. In the manuscript, DaVinci considers the construction of bearings, and also the frictional forces that might be encountered in bearings and sliding surfaces. He also has a drawing of a constant force spring (a mass hanging from a cord over a pulley). A nanotube bearing may be the ultimate realization of some of DaVinci's dreams.

Testing Einstein's Universe

See larger picture of below here

Computer art showing the warping of space-time and the GP-B satellite. Artist: James Overduin and Pancho Eekels.

Our aim is to make "spacetime" a relevant concept in your understanding of the universe, to make "gyroscopes" a recognizable tool in the technology of your world, and to illustrate how even the most advanced science missions rest on basic physics concepts understandable by all of us.

Learn more about Gravity Probe B:

Breakthrough Propulsion Physics?

Shuttle Main Engine Test Firing-1981-A remote camera captures a close-up view of a Space Shuttle Main Engine during a test firing at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi.

Spacecraft propulsion is used to change the velocity of spacecraft and artificial satellites, or in short, to provide delta-v. There are many different methods. Each method has drawbacks and advantages, and spacecraft propulsion is an active area of research. Most spacecraft today are propelled by heating the reaction mass and allowing it to flow out the back of the vehicle. This sort of engine is called a rocket engine.

While the topic here is about how travel is possible, it is the idea that "new physics" can some how propelled forward the mass in space to do the things of travel necessary.

In addition, a variety of hypothetical propulsion techniques have been considered that would require entirely new principles of physics to realize. To date, such methods are highly speculative and include

Within the definitions of the literature it is then possible to deduce what is required? So this saves me the time while speaking to the new physics, of having to explain the rudimentary understandings of how I can leaped forward. No less, the idea of the "thought experiment" that is put in front of us that we create the dialogue necessary, with or without impute, to advance one's thinking.


Credit: NASA CD-98-76634 by Les Bossinas. Artist's depiction of a hypothetical Wormhole Induction Propelled Spacecraft, based loosely on the 1994 "warp drive" paper of Miguel Alcubierre.

Introduction

The term breakthrough propulsion refers to concepts like space drives and faster-than-light travel, the kind of breakthroughs that would make interstellar travel practical.

For a general explanation of the challenges and approaches of interstellar flight, please visit the companion website: Warp Drive: When? The Warp-When site is written for the general public and uses icons of science fiction to help convey such notions. This website, on the other hand, is intended for scientists and engineers.

How is a Blackhole Determined?

PLato:Remember the "closed loop process?"

From the "blackhole horizon" what value would, "to e or not to e" speak too, if "one" was falling into the blackhole and "one" was out? Are they separated? What is our "state of the universe" then?

A black hole is an object so massive that even light cannot escape from it. This requires the idea of a gravitational mass for a photon, which then allows the calculation of an escape energy for an object of that mass. When the escape energy is equal to the photon energy, the implication is that the object is a "black hole".

IN the process of discovering the gravitational variances in space of "gravitational effects" how is it that a spaceship could become sensitive to the variations of that travel and slow down, if it did not have a way in which to calculate these fluctuations?

There’s a place from which nothing escapes, not even light, where time and space literally come to end. It’s at this point, inside this fantastic riddle, that black holes exert their sway over the cosmos … and our imaginations.

There’s a place from which nothing escapes, not even light? So I have to re-educate some people so that they understand the limtiations that have been applied to current thinking, by what is currently out there in terms of what we know about blackholes. So breaking from of those limitation on perspective is very important with what we know now. How we can determine a blackhole.

So here to then is a wider perspective about lagrangain perspective of space that is needed in the understanding of travel in space. Implications of ways and means to determine the needed velocities of the space craft to move forward within context of determinations of gravitational influences.

Special Lagrangian geometry in particular was seen to be related to another String Theory inspired phenomenon, "Mirror Symmetry". Strominger, Yau and Zaslow conjectured that mirror symmetry could be explained by studying moduli spaces arising from special Lagrangian geometry.

Dr. Mark Haskins

So while our imagination is being captured by this "gravitational concentration" in the cosmos what use to discern the nature of the "closed loop process" if we did not consider the "thought experiment" of Susskind as I have spoken to it in the last couple of posts?

Hawking radiation owes its existence to the weirdness of the quantum world, in which pairs of virtual particles pop up out of empty space, annihilate each other and disappear. Around a black hole, virtual particles and anti-particles can be separated by the event horizon. Unable to annihilate, they become real. The properties of each pair are linked, or entangled. What happens to one affects the other, even if one is inside the black hole.

The first order of business here is that we use methods based on the understanding of the "link of entanglement" around what is inside the blackhole as a measure? What that photon is telling us in relation to the gravitational considerations influencing the space craft? IN this way, "calibration technique" allows for variances in the determination of what we see in the perspective of the cosmos as a vital differential understanding of that pathways through space.

IN "weak field understanding" we know the loop process is symmetric? Also, if gravity is combined to electromagnetism, what value the photon for determination if we had not understood this relation to gravitation effects in the cosmos? So this process then is understood in terms of developing the means to travel in space that was before not so easily determined(escape velocities for mass in space), but has now been shattered by moving beyond the paradigms of previous thought processes?

This is the benefit of thinking "thought experiments" to progress any idea. Now what has been written here, is it right or wrong?

The Propulsion System?


AIRES Cosmic Ray Showers


Also no where have I revealed the propulsion system need in order for the space craft to exceed the gravitational variances within the cosmos

Gamma Ray production in particle creation?

The Pierre Auger Observatory in Malargue, Argentina, is a multinational collaboration of physicists trying to detect powerful cosmic rays from outer space. The energy of the particles here is above 10¹⁹eV, or over a million times more powerful than the most energetic particles in any human-made accelerator. No-one knows where these rays come from.

Such cosmic rays are very rare, hitting an area the size of a football field once every 10 000 years. This means you need an enormous 'net' to catch these mysterious ultra high energy particles. The Auger project will have, when completed, about 1600 detectors.

Understanding the collision process within context of our own planet, and what information is received from other events within the cosmos allows us "to rebuild" what happens no less then what "LIGO operations" and it's gathering techniques, allows us from the complexity of the information to a thing of beauty?


The H.E.S.S. telescope array represent a multi-year construction effort by an international team of more than 100 scientists and engineers

So how shall we identify such sources if we had not considered the "light house effect?"


Black Hole-Powered Jet of Electrons and Sub-Atomic Particles Streams From Center of Galaxy M87

Tunnelling in Faster then Light

Underneath this speculation of mine is the geometrical inclination of the universe in expression. If it's "dynamical nature is revealed" what allows us to think of why this universe at this time and junction, should be flat(?) according to the time of this universe in expression?

Omega=the actual density to the critical density

If we triangulate Omega, the universe in which we are in, Omegam(mass)+ Omega(a vacuum), what position geometrically, would our universe hold from the coordinates given?

Positive energy density gives spacetime of the universe a positive curvature. A sphere? Negative curvature a region of spacetime that is negative and curved like a saddle? For time travel, and travel into the past, you need a universe that has a negative energy density.

Thus the initial idea here to follow is that the process had to have a physics relation. This is based on the understanding of anti-particle/particle, and what becomes evident in the cosmos as a closed loop process. Any variation within this context, is the idea of "blackhole anti-particle expression" based on what can be seen at the horizon?



A anti-particle can be considered as a particle moving back in time? Only massless particle can travel faster then light. Only faster then light massless particles can travel back in time? So of course, I am again thinking of the elephant process of Susskind and the closed loop process of the virtual particle/anti-particle. What comes out of it?

That's not all. The fact that space-time itself is accelerating - that is, the expansion of the universe is speeding up - also creates a horizon. Just as we could learn that an elephant lurked inside a black hole by decoding the Hawking radiation, perhaps we might learn what's beyond our cosmic horizon by decoding its emissions. How? According to Susskind, the cosmic microwave background that surrounds us might be even more important than we think. Cosmologists study this radiation because its variations tell us about the infant moments of time, but Susskind speculates that it could be a kind of Hawking radiation coming from our universe's edge. If that's the case, it might tell us something about the elephants on the other side of the universe.

So the anti-particle falls into the blackhole? How is it that I resolve this?? You can consider the anti-particle as traveling back in time. The micro perspective of the blackhole allows time travel backwards.


Getty Images

Although a 1916 paper by Ludwig Flamm from the University of Vienna [4] is sometimes cited as giving the first hint of a wormhole, "you definitely need hindsight to detect it," says Matt Visser of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. Einstein and Rosen were the first to take the idea seriously and to try to accomplish some physics with it, he adds. The original goal may have faded, but the Einstein-Rosen bridge still pops up occasionally as a handy solution to the pesky problem of intergalactic travel.

There are two cases in which the thoughts about faster then light particles are created and this is the part where one tries to get it right so as not to confuse themselves and others.

Wormholes?

Plato:

So "open doorways" and ideas of "tunneling" are always interesting in terms of how we might look at an area like GR in cosmology? Look for way in which such instances make them self known.

Are they applicable to the very nature of quantum perceptions that such probabilities could have emerged through them? Held to "time travel scenarios" and grabbed the history of what had already preceded us in past tense, could have been brought again forward for inspection?

Sure I am quoting myself here, just to show one of the options I am showing by example. The second of course is where I was leading too in previous posts.

So I was thinking here in context of one example in terms of the containment of the "graviton in a can" is really letting loose of the information in the collision process, as much as we like this "boundary condition" it really is not so.

Another deep quantum mystery for which physicists have no answer has to do with "tunneling" -- the bizarre ability of particles to sometimes penetrate impenetrable barriers. This effect is not only well demonstrated; it is the basis of tunnel diodes and similar devices vital to modern electronic systems.

Tunneling is based on the fact that quantum theory is statistical in nature and deals with probabilities rather than specific predictions; there is no way to know in advance when a single radioactive atom will decay, for example.

The probabilistic nature of quantum events means that if a stream of particles encounters an obstacle, most of the particles will be stopped in their tracks but a few, conveyed by probability alone, will magically appear on the other side of the barrier. The process is called "tunneling," although the word in itself explains nothing.

Chiao's group at Berkeley, Dr. Aephraim M. Steinberg at the University of Toronto and others are investigating the strange properties of tunneling, which was one of the subjects explored last month by scientists attending the Nobel Symposium on quantum physics in Sweden.

"We find," Chiao said, "that a barrier placed in the path of a tunneling particle does not slow it down. In fact, we detect particles on the other side of the barrier that have made the trip in less time than it would take the particle to traverse an equal distance without a barrier -- in other words, the tunneling speed apparently greatly exceeds the speed of light. Moreover, if you increase the thickness of the barrier the tunneling speed increases, as high as you please.

"This is another great mystery of quantum mechanics."

Of course I am looking for processes in physics that would actually demonstrate this principal of energy calculated at the very beginning of the collision process, now explained in the detector, minus the extra energy that had gone where?



This is the basis for the "Graviton in a can" example of what happens in the one scenario.

Plato:

A Bose-Einstein condensate (such as superfluid liquid helium) forms for reasons that only can be explained by quantum mechanics. Bose condensates form at low temperature

Plasmas and Bose condensates

So in essence the physics process that I am identifying is shown by understanding that the "graviton production" allows that energy to be transmitted outside the process of the LHC?

This is the energy that can be calculated and left over from all the energy assumed in the very beginning of this collision process. Secondly, all energy used in this process would be in association with bulk perspective.

This now takes me to the second process of "time travel" in the LHC process. The more I tried to figure this out the basis of thought here is that Cerenkov radiation in a vacuum still is slower then speed of light, yet within the medium of ice, this is a different story. So yes there are many corrections and insight here to consider again.

The muon will travel faster than light in the ice (but of course still slower than the speed of light in vacuum), thereby producing a shock wave of light, called Cerenkov radiation. This light is detected by the photomultipliers, and the trace of the neutrinos can be reconstructed with an accuracy of a couple of degrees. Thus the direction of the incoming neutrino and hence the location of the neutrino source can be pinpointed. A simulation of a muon travelling through AMANDA is shown here (1.5 MB).

So while sleeping last night the question arose in my mind as to the location of where the "higgs field" will be produced in the LHC experiment? Here also the the thoughts about the "cross over point" that would speak to the idea here of what reveals faster then light capabilities arising from the collision process?

What are the main goals of the LHC?-

The LHC will also help us to solve the mystery of antimatter. Matter and antimatter must have been produced in the same amounts at the time of the Big Bang. From what we have observed so far, our Universe is made of only matter. Why? The LHC could provide an answer.

It was once thought that antimatter was a perfect 'reflection' of matter - that if you replaced matter with antimatter and looked at the result in a mirror, you would not be able to tell the difference. We now know that the reflection is imperfect, and this could have led to the matter-antimatter imbalance in our Universe.

The strongest limits on the amount of antimatter in our Universe come from the analysis of the diffuse cosmic gamma-rays arriving on Earth and the density fluctuations of the cosmic background radiation. If one asumes that after the Big Bang, the Universe separated somehow into different domains where either matter or antimatter was dominant, then at the boundaries there should be annihilations, producing cosmic gamma rays. In both cases the limit proposed by current theories is practically equivalent to saying that there is no antimatter in our Universe.

So we get the idea here in the collision process and from it the crossover point leaves a energy dissertation on what transpired from this condition and left the idea in my mind about the circumstances of what may have changed the the speed of the cosmos at varying times in the expansion process within our universe. So, this is where I was headed as I laid out the statement below.

Of course this information is based on 2003 data but the jest of the idea here is that in order to go to a "fast forward" the conditions had to exist previously that did not included "sterile neutrinos" and were a result of this "cross over."

So what is the jest of my thought here that I would go to great lengths here to speak about the ideas of what happens within the cosmos to change those varying times of expansion? It has to do with the Suns and the process within those suns that give the dark energy some value, in it's anti- gravity nature to align our selves and our thinking to the cosmological constant of Einstein. If we juggle the three ring circus we find that the curvature parameters can and do hold thoughts govern by the cosmological constant?

It is thus equally important to identify this "physics process" that would allow such changes in the cosmos. So that we can understand the dynamical nature that the cosmos reveals to us can and does allow aspect of its galaxies within context of the universe to increase this expansive process while we question what drives such conditions.