It's not your average confession show: a panel of leading physicists spilling the beans about what keeps them tossing and turning in the wee hours.
That was the scene a few days ago in front of a packed auditorium at the Perimeter Institute, in Waterloo, Canada, when a panel of physicists was asked to respond to a single question: "What keeps you awake at night?"
The discussion was part of "Quantum to Cosmos", a 10-day physics extravaganza, which ends on Sunday.
While most panelists professed to sleep very soundly, here are seven key conundrums that emerged during the session, which can be viewed here.
Why this universe?
In their pursuit of nature's fundamental laws, physicists have essentially been working under a long standing paradigm: demonstrating why the universe must be as we see it. But if other laws can be thought of, why can't the universes they describe exist in some other place? "Maybe we'll find there's no other alternative to the universe we know," says Sean Carroll of Caltech. "But I suspect that's not right." Carroll finds it easy to imagine that nature allows for different kinds of universes with different laws. "So in our universe, the question becomes why these laws and not some other laws?"
What is everything made of?
It's now clear that ordinary matter – atoms, stars and galaxies – accounts for a paltry 4 per cent of the universe's total energy budget. It's the other 96 per cent that keeps University of Michigan physicist Katherine Freese engaged. Freese is excited that one part of the problem, the nature of
How does complexity happen?
From the unpredictable behaviour of financial markets to the rise of life from inert matter, Leo Kadananoff, physicist and applied mathematician at the University of Chicago, finds the most engaging questions deal with the rise of complex systems. Kadanoff worries that particle physicists and cosmologists are missing an important trick if they only focus on the very small and the very large. "We still don't know how ordinary window glass works and keeps it shape," says Kadanoff. "The investigation of familiar things is just as important in the search for understanding." Life itself, he says, will only be truly understood by decoding how simple constituents with simple interactions can lead to complex phenomena.
Will string theory ever be proved correct?
Cambridge physicist David Tong is passionate about the mathematical beauty of
What is the singularity?
For cosmologist and Perimeter Institute director Neil Turok, the biggest mystery is the one that started it all, the big bang. Conventional theory points back to an infinitely hot and dense state at the beginning of the universe, where the known laws of physics break down. "We don't know how to describe it," says Turok. "How can anyone claim to have a theory of everything without that?" Turok is hopeful that string theory and a related development known as the "holographic principle", which shows that a singularity in three dimensions can be translated into a mathematically more manageable entity in two dimensions (which may imply that the third dimension and gravity itself are illusory). "These tools are giving us new ways of thinking about the problem, which are deeply satisfying in a mathematical sense," he says.
What is reality really?
The material world may, at some level, lie beyond comprehension, but Anton Zeilinger, professor of physics at the University of Vienna, is profoundly hopeful that physicists have merely scratched the surface of something much bigger. Zeilinger specialises in quantum experiments that demonstrate the apparent influence of observers in the shaping of reality. "Maybe the real breakthrough will come when we start to realise the connections between reality, knowledge and our actions," he says. The concept is mind-bending, but it is well established in practice. Zeilinger and others have shown that particles that are widely separated can somehow have quantum states that are linked, so that observing one affects the outcome of the other. No one has yet fathomed how the universe seems to know when it is being watched.
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Have your say
The Anthropic Principal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Well that was hard...
Answer To Question 1:
Sat Oct 24 01:30:21 BST 2009 by Dennis
http://freetubetv.net
What is matter made up of? Matter.
Black holes do not suck in matter, matter does not exist. Matter only exists when energy spins in the way to make it appear. Energy is sucked into a black hole and as a result the energy as it infinitely encircles the black hole creates what appears to us to be matter. What we see is what our brains interpert out of our surroundings and unfortunately we do not see in real time, infact time is not even real it is relative. Matter is spinning energy. Kind of like taking a ball on a string, if you spin it real fast (faster than what our brains can read) that ball seems to dissapear and appears not as a ball but as a closed circle. This is the reason the world appears solid. Because of our brains processing speeds the world which is made of energy can appear as material. When energy becomes trapped by an inescapable force matter appears, it(matter) does not appear forever as eventually the energy will pass the event horizon seemingly dissapearing forever. Energy lasts forever this energy will pass the event horizon(the boundary of our universe) it will continue on its way until an inescapable force traps it again.
yes.......but........what IS Energy??....
Glib suppositions probably not right either:
Why this universe?
1. Possibly because its just one of many others. By chance.
2. The skew in probability that created the universe (whatever that was), will yeild similar physical laws as patterns and complexity takes over to give rise to matter.
What is everything made of?
1. possibly patterns of original substance which does not have any characteristics including that of being a substance. A thing which can take on any characteristic - which is skewed or lobsided probability.
How does complexity happen?
1. Perhaps underlying simple laws if applied to many parts that can interact, they then tend to indirectly reflect those simple laws through their myriad interactions as emergent qualities over an apparently complex system. This should be easily testable through a computer simulation such as one similar game of life - does changing the basic rules somehow reflect these in the equilibriums that the game forms?
What is reality really?
An emergent phenomenon of simple skews in probability of potential of the original substance.
How far can physics take us?
Definitely further than we are now.
If we made a program to simulate the physics of the universe, including relativity, quantum physics and everything else - that may be really cool!
I mean, we don't even need coherent theories, or full explanations! Just incrementally create a program to simulate the behavior of particles. For example, we could have event listeners for entangled bunches of particles, etc...
That should create a really interesting set of insights.
Amen Bro
There's no such thing as "suck".
Time, while not classified as a force is the ultimate force. A gradient in time, about a point, will capture and confine "radient energy".
You are correct, it's t/n not t/1.
The "strong force" has been postulated but never demonstrated because it isn't a force per se it,s just a discontinuity in time, AKA "dark energy". Keep the ball rollin' dude.
Answer To Question 1:
Sun Oct 25 01:52:29 GMT 2009 by Zephir
http://aetherwavetheory.blogspot.com
To create something of something else we need to asume some time step for such creation.
IMO such question is ill-defined, because it implies the existence of time arrow at the very fundamental level of reality, where such reality APPEARS like extremelly dense and chaotic stuff like fog at distance with no observable time arrow at all - at least in thermodynamic sense.
Of course, we can still ask for origin of infinity - but I don't think, it's a subject of causual logic.
I've always thought the question "why this universe?!" is a very ego-centric way to observe the Universe.
It's like getting into a conundrum about why the coin came up heads rather than tails or "Why these lottery numbers?! Why did *I* win the lottery? What's so special about me? What did I do to deserve this? Why did I get cancer and not someone else? Why am I me and not that guy over there? Why is am I in a Universe that can support my existence?"
I really can't understand how people can get stuck on a problem like this. I graduated from this when I was about 8... about the same time I realised there is no god.
I think maybe religion has a tendency to place the observer squarely at the centre of everything. God made the world, and everything in it FOR you, and everything has a PURPOSE, cats are FOR cuddles and trees are FOR shade, and if YOU do X, Y will happen to YOU. Even if you're not raised religiously I'm sure this kind of thinking has become fairly ingrained in society.
The Universe is not FOR you.
"is am I in" - best. typo. ever.
Answer To Question 1:
Sat Oct 24 07:48:25 BST 2009 by Rob
http://yea
Bravo, someguy! If i can teach my children one lasting lesson, I hope it is this - the Universe is not FOR you! Love it!
"The Universe is not FOR you." --- This would be an awesome statement for physicists and philosophers save for one tiny problem, which is this;
IF it turns out to be absolutely true that; "Zeilinger and others have shown that particles that are widely separated can somehow have quantum states that are linked, so that observing one affects the outcome of the other. "...
Then there can be NO doubt that the Universe IS FOR you...and me, and every other "mind" that exists, did exist, and will exist. If a mind can change the outcome of anything all bets are off. It will mean that our "reality" is not a natural outcome of natural events happening naturally.
I can understand the urge to put all "this" down to chance and accident, but I'm afraid it will wind up being much more complex than that. Unfortunately I tend to believe that the essence of it all is exactingly designed (not in that religious ID way) and that even the most intelligent among us cannot begin to fathom.
My area of study, the thing that keeps me up at night is to find a single incident of the metaphysical. When the day comes when even once metaphysical event is proven true physics will experience a moment of breathtaking possibilities. And, just to confuse it all even more I tend to think that it is possible that affecting the outcome of a quantum event just might be "metaphysical" in nature despite all the match that makes it beautiful. I "tend" to think that way, but I'm not there yet.
I also wish more of my colleagues would be more open to treal truths. I mean, honestly, what happened to the edict that being proven wrong is more exciting (in science) than being proved right? More is learned when a theory is proven wrong than when it is proven right, so why not start looking into the areas where modern day scientists dare not go, at least publicly. Some of us are pondering things that would force some to shun us, so we keep it behind closed doors. How sad is that? Why would *some* modern scientists fear an actual metaphysical occurrence?
Calm down, I swear I'd never be so bold as to think your Universe was for me. Actually, I was just kind of hoping if there happens to some crappy universe somewhere that no one wants, you know, sort of a Gary, IN of universes, if it wouldn't bother anyone could that universe be FOR me? Of course, if you or anyone else decides later you want that one too, that's not a problem, I mean I wouldn't try to keep it or anything.
Quite the religious fellow you are, aren't you? You do realize religion is faith, to believe without proof. You appear to be religious on par with say an Oral Roberts or a Pat Robertson. They have no more proof a God exists than you have proof a "god" does not. Yet you both have great faith in your beliefs.
Now, I would never be so bold as to tell you what to do in your Universe. Nonetheless, it is a little difficult to remain objective when one invests to much of themselves in such matters. Lose the neutral point of reference, and well, let's just say when people have decided something is so before they know that's the case, they have a tendency to find what it is they are looking for, to see things to be what they believe they are.
Now that doesn't really answer any sincere questions honestly, now does it?
It does make for exciting moments for everyone from people who swear Jews run the world and the Pope is a lizard from outer space to Y2K and Global Warming...er, Climate Change (too many years, no warming) will end the world in the year 2012.
But, then who am I to say, while the rest of you have left me in your dust, I've been stuck for half a century trying to reason how the Universe could be infinite, and whether it is or is not, how can it be something ...without being in something, even if that something is nothing, well would that not make nothing something, be it finite or infinite...
It may be difficult to comprehend how we get "stuck on a problem like this" given your perspective. Take a step back, lose some of that emotional involvement, and you'll understand we are not "stuck" on anything. We are fortunate to be able to contemplate this Universe, we do this because, well, for myself at least, I can't not do it. No matter what else life brings or where it takes me, somehow the need to understand just that little bit more trumps. And you know what, it's not that bad, I feel lucky to have been here despite all the crap I like any other human have had to endure by being here. Just for the chance to experience this, to investigate it's mysteries, a fair exchange? You better believe it.
-to be continued
How interesting. You view the universe and dispense with the idea of a god. I view the universe and realize that we have only looked at objects and interractions between objects. Have you never considered that there might be living( our way of interpreting something that has a self) entities with powers so great that we can not even imagine them? Thou shall have no other gods before me. What does that tell you? It tell me a great deal. Such as there may be many gods out there and maybe some of them are greater than others. Until we know ALL things we can never discount the existence of a god or god beings. In fact, I believe that there are many sentient life forms that exist or have existed that might well be gods as we would explain them. Gods are not a new concept. Every society on the earth has had its own god(s). And they may all be real!
So hard translating my concept into actual works, hrmmm.
Is there even a WE? Is there a YOU?
WE instantly delude ourselves into believing that there truly is a SELF yet the illusion of other perceived individuality's is easily questioned and even doubted.
Is all sentience just a mishap of some truly insignificant interference in a literal nowhere?
Did a grand (bene/mole)volent mind spawn all there is to be in a flick of the proverbial finger?
Is the combination of WE in truth one great I?
Is everything there actually just a grand Self where by some circumstance a single entity is tortured with feeling separation from parts of itself when even said emotion is really just another intangible insignificant grain of transparent nothing in an endless void of nil.
What a wild tandem we have.
In conclusion, upon consideration of this truly inconceivable topic. BADGERS!
The Anthropic PrincipLE,my man...
Why THIS universe?
Why not? It's as good as any other, I guess.
yep... Agreed, Kade, and Dennis to bring in the philosophical approach, whis was necessary .. this reading just added up to the pile of things that keeps me up at nights ....ffffff :D
Why Do I Exist? What Is My Purpose?
Sat Oct 24 01:59:55 BST 2009 by Mike
http://setma.wordpress.com
Those are some of the questions I ponder from time to time.
It's not too difficult, as for all animal and plant species, the basic purpose of our existence is to reproduce and maximise our population numbers.
"Nature" ("God" if you prefer) made this the purpose of evolution, i.e. to provide maximum possible success for every species and to ensure survival of the species wherever possible.
Man has discovered ways of avoiding the factors that normally would act to limit runaway population growth and we are now realizing the consequences of being too successful
Experience = contributing to the sum total of expression of energy?
I, too, sometimes wonder about this. Fortunately, my wife can answer this question for me. At great length. As she can with so many other questions...
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