Particle Physics Discussion by Sean Carroll, Matt Strassler and Alan Boyle

New Science Internet Radio with Virtually Speaking Science on BlogTalkRadio

Alan Boyle, Matt Strassler & Sean Carroll • Why the Higgs Particle Matters

See:

• Wednesday: Sean Carroll & I Interviewed Again by Alan Boyle

• The Guardian’s Level-Headed Article on Fukushima

Fermi's Now Deeper Study of the High-Energy Cosmos

This compilation summarizes the wide range of science from the first five years of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. Launched in 2008, Fermi continues to give astronomers a unique tool for exploring high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works.NASA | Fermi at Five Years

The Crab Nebula, created by a supernova seen nearly a thousand years ago, is one of the sky's most famous "star wrecks." For decades, most astronomers have regarded it as the steadiest beacon at X-ray energies, but data from orbiting observatories show unexpected variations. Since 2008, it has faded by 7 percent, activity likely tied to the environment around its central neutron star. (Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Quantum Computing and Evolution?

The unique capability of quantum mechanics to evolve alternative possibilities in parallel is appealing and over the years a number of quantum algorithms have been developed offering great computational benefits. Systems coupled to the environment lose quantum coherence quickly and realization of schemes based on unitarity might be impossible. Recent discovery of room temperature quantum coherence in light harvesting complexes opens up new possibilities to borrow concepts from biology to use quantum effects for computational purposes. While it has been conjectured that light harvesting complexes such as the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex in the green sulfur bacteria performs an efficient quantum search similar to the quantum Grover's algorithm the analogy has yet to be established. See: Evolutionary Design in Biological Quantum Computing

The Bloch sphere is a representation of a qubit, the fundamental building block of quantum computers.

Quantum Light Harvesting Hints at Entirely New Form of Computing

See:

• Landauer's principle
• Thanksgiving 
• Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process

Swarm

ESA's magnetic field mission Swarm. A European Space Agency mission to investigate the Earth's magnetic field in unprecedented detail is due to be launched later this year. Without our planets protective magnetic field, life on our planet would struggle to survive. The Swarm mission consisting of three identical satellites will be used to study all aspects of the Earth's magnetic field and assess whether it is weakening. This report outlines the science of the mission and includes interviews with a project scientist and project manager. More backgroud information can be found on: http://www.esa.int/esaLP/ESA3QZJE43D_LPswarm_0.html

 

Swarm is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to study the Earth's magnetic field. High-precision and high-resolution measurements of the strength, direction and variations of the Earth's magnetic field, complemented by precise navigation, accelerometer and electric field measurements, will provide data essential for modelling the geomagnetic field and its interaction with other physical aspects of the Earth system. The results will offer a unique view of the inside of the Earth from space, enabling the composition and processes of the interior to be studied in detail and increase our knowledge of atmospheric processes and ocean circulation patterns that affect climate and weather.

The Internet

What is the Future of the Internet

I plug into the electrical plugin and receive all my information stored on the information grid.

There is evolving aspect with which communication is being used, bought and directed as to how this information is contained? How Governments seek to control? How Companies would value our access too?

So this is a another question for others as well to consider this future. Maye you have an opinion. Maybe there are people involved in helping to constraint government with full control?

 Spying, Censorship Threaten Democracy, Web's Inventor Says

If information is to be considered a resource, then how shall we deal with it if it is marginalized toward how much energy we use?

A Universe on the Other Side

 "I think people thought that the universe was smaller, yet discoveries in the last century have found there are black holes everywhere, billions of black holes in our universe and each may produce a universe on the other side, like an infinite tree," he said. - See more at: New Hit Film ‘Gravity’ Speaks to Our Endless Fascination with Deep Space - See more at: http://www.noodls.com/view/6061E5510....3rrRV6eS.dpuf

Just to help here given a platform with which to consider,  the question of," Dr. Poplawski from the University of New Haven, Connecticut, concluded that each time a black hole forms, a new universe could form within it."

One is always looking for evidence of such things. The very contention of black hole itself has to have had a basis with which to consider. So we may say these black holes are real.

While the subject provides many things to consider how does Dr. Poplawski provide evidence for such a statement of universe within universe?

If you look at closely at align perspectives with which to examine this it may help to look at how one is perceiving the idea of the universe? For cosmology they may say that in a coordinated system there is no before or after, just what exists as is? So any notion of what came before this universe or what is to come after is hard pill to swallow.



For some of us it is not a problem. For me then the idea is that in local regions of the universe, information is crunched in order to be dissipated in the larger universe. This supplies the motivation for expansion, and at the same time the evolving nature of the universe has to have more black holes in order to summat the existence of any cosmological constant that is to be considered positive?

The question of entropy,  as it existed in the early universe? How does this figure into the ability for any new universe to form? You are confronted with the notion of a symmetry existing in the early universe for the nature of entropy to follow the path it is today? How could any universe have existed as a fundamental reality of the current universe?

BEFORE THE BIG BANG: AN OUTRAGEOUS NEW PERSPECTIVE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PARTICLE PHYSICS

For example.

In 2010, Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan published a preprint of a paper claiming that observations of the cosmic microwave background made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the BOOMERanG experiment showed concentric anomalies which were consistent with the CCC hypothesis, with a low probability of the null hypothesis that the observations in question were caused by chance.[5] However, the statistical significance of the claimed detection has since been questioned. Three groups have independently attempted to reproduce these results, but found that the detection of the concentric anomalies was not statistically significant, in the sense that such circles would appear in a proper Gaussian simulation of the anisotropy in the CMB data.[6][7][8]

The reason for the disagreement was tracked down to an issue of how to construct the simulations that are used to determine the significance: The three independent attempts to repeat the analysis all used simulations based on the standard Lambda-CDM model, while Penrose and Gurzadyan used an undocumented non-standard approach.[9]Conformal cyclic cosmology

So for some who hold entropy as a subjective examination of the reality with which we live now,  how can one exist as a viewer of the larger universe that contains all these other universe being respective of the arrow of time??
 
Can disorder precede order as a question of what came first as to the existence of the universe? The chicken or egg question. The idea then that the overarching principle here is an arrow of time, such hypothesis to consider needs a factor with which to consider such expansion being supported by some factors given to what can exist as a fundamental reality in those local regions of the universe.

A Jet in the Milky Way

Composite image of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Image Credit: 

X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCLA/Z. Li et al; Radio: NRAO/VLA

Astronomers have long sought strong evidence that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, is producing a jet of high-energy particles. Finally they have found it, in new results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope.

Previous studies, using a variety of telescopes, suggested there was a jet, but these reports -- including the orientation of the suspected jets -- often contradicted each other and were not considered definitive.

"For decades astronomers have looked for a jet associated with the Milky Way's black hole. Our new observations make the strongest case yet for such a jet," said Zhiyuan Li of Nanjing University in China, lead author of a study appearing in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal and available online now. See: NASA's Chandra Helps Confirm Evidence of Jet in Milky Way's Black Hole

See Also: Evidence for A Parsec-scale Jet from The Galactic Center Black Hole: Interaction with Local Gas

Muon Detection

An image of the shadow of the Moon in muons as produced by the 700m subterranean Soudan 2 detector in the Soudan Mine in Minnesota. The shadow is the result of approximately 120 muons missing from a total of 33 million detected in Soudan 2 over its 10 years of operation. The cross denotes the actual location of the Moon. The shadow of the Moon is slightly offset from this location because cosmic rays are electrically charged particles and were slightly deflected by the Earth's magnetic field on their journey to the upper atmosphere. The shadow is produced due to the shielding effect the Moon has on galactic and cosmic rays, which stream in from all directions. The cosmic rays normally strike atoms high in the upper atmosphere, producing showers of muons and other short lived particles.

Just an update here while looking at Sean Carroll's blog post article, entitled," Scientists Confirm Existence of Moon." While we understand the need for confirmation of the existence of things, seeing how our perception is used in order to make such a statement,  is a statement of such a measure then as to what is real.

 We report on the observation of a significant deficit of cosmic rays from the direction of the Moon with the IceCube detector. The study of this "Moon shadow" is used to characterize the angular resolution and absolute pointing capabilities of the detector. The detection is based on data taken in two periods before the completion of the detector: between April 2008 and May 2009, when IceCube operated in a partial configuration with 40 detector strings deployed in the South Pole ice, and between May 2009 and May 2010 when the detector operated with 59 strings. Using two independent analysis methods, the Moon shadow has been observed to high significance (> 6 sigma) in both detector configurations. The observed location of the shadow center is within 0.2 degrees of its expected position when geomagnetic deflection effects are taken into account. This measurement validates the directional reconstruction capabilities of IceCube. See: Observation of the cosmic-ray shadow of the Moon with IceCube,

So I have spent some time here looking at how this measure is used in term sof such clarifications and this to me is an exciting off shoot of what particle research has done for us. The skies the limit then as to our use of such a measure then is seen and understood in the post written by Sean Carroll.

The Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A

There are certain advancements when one sees in a geometrical sense as to understand the Supernova in all it's glory. So there are many materialistic things with which we can identify as to the course and direction with regard to it's evolution.

Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

One of the most famous objects in the sky - the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant - will be on display like never before, thanks to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a new project from the Smithsonian Institution. A new three-dimensional (3D) viewer, being unveiled this week, will allow users to interact with many one-of-a-kind objects from the Smithsonian as part of a large-scale effort to digitize many of the Institutions objects and artifacts.

Scientists have combined data from Chandra, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and ground-based facilities to construct a unique 3D model of the 300-year old remains of a stellar explosion that blew a massive star apart, sending the stellar debris rushing into space at millions of miles per hour. The collaboration with this new Smithsonian 3D project will allow the astronomical data collected on Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, to be featured and highlighted in an open-access program -- a major innovation in digital technologies with public, education, and research-based impacts. See: Exploring the Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A

See Also:

Cassiopeia A: Exploring the Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A

The value of non-Euclidean geometry lies in its ability to liberate us from preconceived ideas in preparation for the time when exploration of physical laws might demand some geometry other than the Euclidean. Bernhard Riemann

The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. High-dimensional spaces occur in mathematics and the sciences for many reasons, frequently as configuration spaces such as in Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics; these are abstract spaces, independent of the physical space we live in.

More on Spherical Cows

Hubble Heritage Project

Of course I am always drawn toward the reason for why the universe does certain things and I greatly appreciate how a scientist might explain this to me in the most simplest form, which leaves no doubts. But I do not think they can do that without explaining the basis of the reasoning but through symbolic representation in the form of an approximate.

Scientists strive to discover simple rules which underlie complex natural phenomena. For example, when making a model of some complex object a scientist may make some pretty extreme assumptions. For example, when asked to find the force of gravity produced by a complicated object like a galaxy, astronomers will usually start by assuming that it acts like a sphere, which in this and many other cases allows one to make approximate first solutions to complicated problems.

This tendancy to simplify gave rise to the joke of a science professor who begins a lecture, "Consider a spherical cow..." Since Wisconsin is well known to have a large population of dairy cows, it is not too surprising that the University of Wisconsin astronomers and astrophyscists selected this picture of a spherical cow made by Ingrid Kallick as their symbol for a recent national meeting of astronomers in Madison. Hubble Heritage Gallery Page

So herein lies the framework with which I had already envisioned so that I may understand the evolution of the Supernova as to ascertain what drove it to become what it is today in the universe.That evolution leaves it's tale in the history of our universe, and together,  with other local regions to me are contributors to what said the universe must expand all together in it's own way.

There’s absolutely no reason why a non-scientist shouldn’t be able to follow why dark energy makes the universe accelerate, given just a bit of willingness to think about it. Dark energy is persistent, which imparts a constant impulse to the expansion of the universe, which makes galaxies accelerate away. See: Why Does Dark Energy Make the Universe Accelerate?

So the issuance of a contributor would make it so much easier to suggest that what we do not see in the form of dark energy, yet, can be explained particle wise as to suggest it operates within a certain parameter of energies? For any continued expansion to exist, the derivative of that evolution spherically approximated too should be described by some correlation? To suggest the fluid nature is calming to me.:)

See Also:

• Spherical Cows
• Spherical Cows and their X-ray Sources