Astrophysical Signals for Quantum Gravity Signals

Logo for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet

NASA's newest observatory, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors.

NASA announced August 26 that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics.

See:NASA Renames Observatory for Fermi, Reveals Entire Gamma-Ray Sky

 
See Also:

• ESQG 2012 - Conference Summary - http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2012/10/esqg-2012-conference-summary.html

• The Holey Grail and its Dual: From String Theory to Strange Metals - http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2012/11/the-holey-grail-and-its-dual-from.html

Olfactory Experience

 

If you sprinkle fine sand uniformly over a drumhead and then make it vibrate, the grains of sand will collect in characteristic spots and figures, called Chladni patterns. These patterns reveal much information about the size and the shape of the drum and the elasticity of its membrane. In particular, the distribution of spots depends not only on the way the drum vibrated initially but also on the global shape of the drum, because the waves will be reflected differently according to whether the edge of the drumhead is a circle, an ellipse, a square, or some other shape.

In cosmology, the early Universe was crossed by real acoustic waves generated soon after Big Bang. Such vibrations left their imprints 300 000 years later as tiny density fluctuations in the primordial plasma. Hot and cold spots in the present-day 2.7 K CMB radiation reveal those density fluctuations. Thus the CMB temperature fluctuations look like Chaldni patterns resulting from a complicated three-dimensional drumhead that

How we make use of our senses? Does one not wonder about the effect of our memory retention how on how well we can call up memories?

The Vibration theory of smell proposes that a molecule's smell character is due to its vibrational frequency in the infrared range. The theory is opposed to the more widely accepted shape theory of olfaction, which proposes that a molecule's smell character is due to its shape.

I expose myself to a bias in my thinking that seems natural to me with regard to the subject of vibratory reductionism. So the idea of Vibration theory of olfaction is interesting in the sense that we may use a ancient part of our physiological makeup to access memories, that are correlated with this sense as a marker.

 The Shape theory of smell states that a molecule's particular smell is due to a 'lock and key' mechanism by which a scent molecule fits into olfactory receptors in the nasal epithelium.

Would we say that this is a more potent way of remembrance that we may have underestimated the nature and the way that memory induction employed,  not just in terms of this neurological connection of the time there in association, but as a feature of the biological presences that we muster as matter beings.

That the spectrum of sight is much finer then the matter states of consideration in terms of a waffling of a breeze that carries the scent of let's say mom's apple pie? So we see this impression is made not only in the retention of the memory, but is further compacted, with this "emotional significant association."

This "emotional impact"  is significant? Not just in the smell, but of the vibratory experience we correlate with let's say music here, so as to retain and impress upon our youth and vigor,  the choices made then.

So memory is vital in the sense that olfactory experience is important in the retention of these memories. Thus to an understanding and constructive creative schematic of defining our experiences in terms of how well such "other sense are used" to impress upon and recount experience.

Big Ideas presents Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology on Quantum Life, how organisms have evolved to make use of quantum effects.

See:

• A Correlation in Perception

Spaun brain activity

The full set of movies is at: http://nengo.ca/build-a-brain/spaunvideos/

See: The Nengo Neural Simulator

Chris Eliasmith

Quantum Foam and Discrete Measures

Physicists would dearly love to study this foam but there's a problem. Spacetime only becomes foam-like on the tiniest scale, at so-called Planck lengths of 10^-35 metres or so. See: How to Measure Quantum Foam With a Tabletop Experiment

An ongoing question was raised by Bee of Backreaction and thoughts I have had as to the applicability of it's experimental design.

 It's difficult to see that while seeing the larger view of a Lagrangian of the universe is to see such an experiment located "as part and parcel of the variance in determination of the strength and weaknesses of that Lagrangian."

So you drive the focus down to the microscopic, and then to ask, in what case has the photon's journey been of value in the ascertaining the distance and time, of that photon's journey?

Just trying to orientate perspective in the case of Lagrange, yet we see on the macroscopically that it works.

It is to orientate the thought experiment in the direction of a determination of value when assigned to Lagrangian and its limits at minimal length.

A phenomenological question then about that environment with this application.

On another note then being respective of the drive toward understanding using Higg's,"The solution is to make the equations more complicated and introduce a Higgs field, which, once it is non-zero on average, can give the electron its mass without messing up the workings of the weak nuclear force.<sup>1

1</sup>.Why the Higgs Field is Necessary

 It is difficult then to ascertain Higgs field at zero, yet I want to count?

See Also: 

• Why the Higgs Field is Necessary

Abell 399 and Abell 401, connected by a bridge of hot gas

This image shows galaxy clusters Abell 399, lower center, and Abell 401 connected by a bridge of hot gas (ESA Planck Collaboration / STScI Digitized Sky Survey)

 Planck’s primary task is to capture the most ancient light of the cosmos. If this faint light interacts with the hot gas permeating different types of space structures including galaxies and galaxy clusters, its energy distribution is modified in a characteristic way, a phenomenon known as the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect. See: Planck Discovers Huge Gas Filament Connecting Two Galaxy Clusters

 Astronomy & Astrophysics; arXiv: 1208.5911

See Also:

• Thoughts on Dark Matter Search

•  It Starts with a Bang

•  Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520 

Observational Gravitational-Wave Astronomy.

Figure 1: Gravitational wave strain and strain sensitivity for a 5 year observation with PTAs.
The red dashed line is the approximate strain sensitivity for current PTAs (11), and the green
dashed line shows the previous estimate for the stochastic signal strength that is currently in
standard use for PTA analyses (13, 14). The dark blue solid line corresponds to our mean
estimate for the stochastic signal strength, with the blue shaded region bound by thin solid
blue lines showing our 95% confidence interval for this estimate, based on the observational
uncertainties of our model parameters. The light blue (△ACD) and cyan (△ABE) shaded
regions show the area corresponding to the square root of the 2 integrand, to be integrated over
logarithmic frequency intervals as in Eq. (3), for our expected SNR of 8, and the SNR of 2
expected from previous estimates (13, 14), respectively. See: The Imminent Detection Of Gravitational Waves From Massive Black-Hole Binaries With Pulsar Timing Arrays

As mentioned in article by Technology Review the idea of previous information as to supplying data would have to be identified in future experiments as confirmations. In this instance information gained from Taylor and Hulse  in terms of binary star rotations closeness.

TEDxCambridge - Jeff Lieberman on science and spirituality

 Jeff Lieberman, an MIT-trained artist, scientist and engineer, makes a scientific argument for mystical experience. He asks us to challenge our perception of what we are, our relationship to the universe, and our relationship to one another. Our minds are "thought-generating machines." What we would happen if we could turn off the machine? If we could transcend our individual experience of the world?

This talk was transcribed by Brad Miele. Transcript here: http://bea.st/inevolution/?p=264

Three years ago was a turning point in my life, because I finally had everything I thought I needed to be fulfilled, and I still had this voice in my head saying “I’ve got to do more to be happy”. The more that I looked at my own suffering deeply, the more I saw it in every single person around us. We have trouble standing in lines, we’re impatient with our own children. It’s as if we all think the future holds the promise for our fulfillment. I come from a scientific background, and so I wanted to use that background to understand the real root and source of why there is so much suffering. Where it’s led me has totally changed my views of the current scientific paradigm. More importantly than that, it’s changed my views on what it means to be a human being, and to be alive. I want to share this theory with you, and it is way out there, so I ask you to have a critical but open mind for the next 14 minutes, because you might not actually be what you think you are.Transcript from TEDx talk

Do We Create the Reality by Observing

Anton Zeilinger heads up the IQOQI lab in Vienna. Photograph by Mark Mahaney.

Zeilinger and his group have only just begun to consider the grand implications of all their work for reality and our world. Like others in their field, they had focused on entanglement and decoherence to construct our future information technology, such as quantum computers, and not for understanding reality. But the group’s work on these kinds of applications pushed up against quantum mechanics’ foundations. To repeat a famous dictum, “All information is physical.” How we get information from our world depends on how it is encoded. Quantum mechanics encodes information, and how we obtain this through measurement is how we study and construct our world.Do we create the world just by looking at it?

Interesting question and article by Seed Magazine.

Noam Chomsky - "The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding"

Professor Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding: Newton's contributions to the study of mind" at the University of Oslo, September 2011. Q&A at 45:33

I push back on the limitations inferred by others so as to direct my mode of operation, "in a question form," so as to move forward and not be stalled in my efforts. I believe I have made clear the difficulties as a logical directed outcome in presentation.

Internet development today asks how evolutionary consequence may be to influence forehead development( ahem......frontal cortex) when thought with regard to full brain used and direction is revealed in the keyboard displayed in the comment box. So while not being a cabby.....your a writer, a journalist. What MRI imaging would actually represent your correlative use of brain research information collection and pathway construction?

Chomsky refers back to this evolutionary inherent trait of human being identification in uteri manifestation. While referencing innate points of discussion it is interesting that such innateness may be limited to block of time or a  frame of reference in the evolutionary development of that consciousness.

Chomsky discusses the euclidean direction of development toward the evoking apparent correlation in of historical development. While there is some difficulty as to pointing out this feature in the Amazon tribe child toward such comprehension. A triangle is used and it's comprehension as to the lines  of expression is explicit toward the imperfection of that triangle perceived.

See: A Priori Intuition of Space?

Link above brought forward contradictory data in  relation to the subject of innateness discussed by Chomsky.

There are a lot of things discussed that are included in the overall discussions I have had with others about how we perceive consciousness and perspectives shared by others that questions how it is that consciousness can be perceived apart from the body. How difficult it would be to make this measure if possible at all?

The empirical methodis generally taken to mean the approach of using a collection of data to base a theory or derive a conclusion in science. It is part of the scientific method, but is often mistakenly assumed to be synonymous with the experimental method. The empirical method is not sharply defined and is often contrasted with the precision of the experimental method, where data are derived from the systematic manipulation of variables in an experiment. Some of the difficulty in discussing the empirical method is from the ambiguity of the meaning of its linguist root: empiric.

The mind body problem is dismissed in this talk below as to demonstrate that the pathway to empirical methods had been established by Newton. For sake of clarity one would have to refer back to Chomsky video to clarify this issue and how we move forward in today's world having arrive at a settled perspective about the mind body problem.

Further to this discussion in terms of the evolutionary the status quo of consciousness has not changed for 50000 years and example to help direct that perspective were raised in the contrast of a baby born in a tribe in the Amazon being raised in our modern day society and function quite well and a baby born in this modern society doing equally as well in the tribe.

Bold emphasized in order to provide a move toward this explanation outside of the NDE consideration... to see the theoretical position adopted and the attempts at an empirical method toward the development of that theory.

In the Q&A part of the lecture there is some correspondence in which a question is asked about this correlation of bits. Chomsky's reference to Wheeler in that context.

UpDate:

Eben Alexander had some response to the idea of neural oscillation as to explaining away his reason for the NDE and what happened to his brain when attacked by the E coli. It was his son who suggested to him that he write of his experience without doing any research on the NDE until he had finished detailing the experience all in written form. Then he went out and did his research.

From his new perspective as he looked at the information he found many things as fluffy and questionable in terms of what happens with the brain. He had a critical analyses of this. Death by heart attack was brought up and how the shift to brain wave activity was the decisive factor as he went through his research.

Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness and proceeds in cycles of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. The normal order of sleep stages is N1 → N2 → N3 → N2 → REM. Sleep stages are characterized by spectral content of EEG, for instance stage N1 refers to the transition of the brain from alpha waves (common in the awake state) to theta waves, whereas stage N3 (deep or slow-wave sleep) is characterized by the presence of delta waves.

My question of consciousness based on this neural oscillation was a method in determination and function of brain waves in individual and youths. How one may see the relation of the Near death as a function of the brain in neural oscillation mode, but as mentioned Eben dismissed this because his brain was basically dead.

Other Brain Waves
Theta wave – (4–7 Hz)
Alpha wave – (8–12 Hz)
Mu wave – (8–13 Hz)
Beta wave – (12–30 Hz)
Gamma wave – (25–100 Hz)

Now as to focus levels and the idea of these gradation of consciousness induced into synchronization established by resonance,  is of interest to me as to how the brain/consciousness may be characterize by such rhythms. Hence,  featured and attributes expressed in the idea of those Brain Waves.

The idea of Biofeedback is a useful subject in terms of a measured response to teach the mind to relax, while recording body temperature, heart rate and skin conductance.

Supersymmetry

Image: Event display of candidate event for this ultra-rare decay observed in the LHCb experiment

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, have spotted one of the rarest particle decays ever seen in nature. The result is very damaging to new theories like the extremely popular Supersymmetry (or SUSY for short).

Current knowledge about the most fundamental matter particles (quarks and leptons, such as an electron) and the forces between them is embedded in the so-called Standard Model. The particle masses are a consequence of their interactions with the Higgs field. Exciting the Higgs field in particle collisions at the LHC recently resulted in the discovery of the Higgs boson.

However, the Standard Model is not the ultimate theory; it does not include gravity nor explain 95% of the Universe, which is in the form of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.  See:
SUPERSYMMETRY SQUEEZED AS  LHC SPOTS ULTRA RARE PARTICLE DECAY