Article

2007-11-23 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'

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Posted by Frank G 2007-11-23 08:25|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 ..who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end

But, but, but that was Clinton the First's watch. Oh, never mind. Of course, severe BDS also has associated symptoms of time-space distortions as well.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-11-23 09:08|| 2007-11-23 09:08|| Front Page Top

#2 So, does this mean I have the power to change things just by looking at them? There are some things that need energy added in order for one to be able to observe them. This means the state after observation is different than the state before observation. In that sense observation has changed things. Mearly looking at something doesn't change the state. Bugwits.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2007-11-23 09:23|| 2007-11-23 09:23|| Front Page Top

#3 It's all my fault, I'm sorry, I'll just crawl into foetal position, laying naked in the snow, and wait for death, or having to go to the bathroom, whichever comes first.

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-23 09:28|| 2007-11-23 09:28|| Front Page Top

#4 Deacon,

Well said. I was just explaining that to my wife when before I read your post.

The truly frightening thing is that bugwits (gotta steal that one) like these are professors.

This is the old "If a tree falls in a forest..." question.

Bugwits.

Posted by AlanC 2007-11-23 09:32|| 2007-11-23 09:32|| Front Page Top

#5 There are many varieties of the 'multiverse' hypothesis. It's mostly just a fun subject for conjecture since no objective test of any of these versions of the hypothesis is doable for many years.

Posted by mhw">mhw 2007-11-23 09:32|| http://hypocrisy-incorporated.blogspot.com/]">[http://hypocrisy-incorporated.blogspot.com/] 2007-11-23 09:32|| Front Page Top

#6 Gah! As if the perturbations of a single atom could foredoom the structure of an entire solar system. That's pretty much the scale of mankind to the universe, only much more infintesimal. Tripe like this should result in instant budget cuts and pink slips.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-11-23 09:58|| 2007-11-23 09:58|| Front Page Top

#7 Let me guess. He (or his organization) wants money to research ways to prevent it. And of course progress cannot be measured.

Oh and Schrodinger's cat isn't alive or dead. It simply doesn't exist (until you look).

Posted by CrazyFool 2007-11-23 10:05|| 2007-11-23 10:05|| Front Page Top

#8 It's all our fault for ~~selecting not electing George W. Bush~~ ~~using fossil fuels~~ ~~inventing fire~~ climbing down out of the trees.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-11-23 10:57|| 2007-11-23 10:57|| Front Page Top

#9 Schrodinger's cat is an observer.

Posted by James">James 2007-11-23 11:27|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2007-11-23 11:27|| Front Page Top

#10 cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

Utter rubbish on many levels.
Fancy that, they call it "dark nergy" because they can't observe it.

It is just a mathematical construct to explain some behavior (presumed expansion, based on red shift which BTW is not an indication of speeding away--there is enough evidence that we got this completely wrong).

They have also "dark energy" that is a glue for galaxies because calcs based on gravity alone would have them flying apart.

Posted by twobyfour 2007-11-23 11:35|| 2007-11-23 11:35|| Front Page Top

#11 Observing dark energy changes/shortens the life span? Quick...everybody stare at Hillary. I know it hurts but it's for the children ;)

Posted by Warthog 2007-11-23 11:42|| 2007-11-23 11:42|| Front Page Top

#12 And I bet these cosmologists laugh at people who check their horoscopes in the morning....

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2007-11-23 11:57|| 2007-11-23 11:57|| Front Page Top

#13 Cosmologists or cosmetologists? You be the judge.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2007-11-23 12:29|| 2007-11-23 12:29|| Front Page Top

#14 And they make fun of those who beleive in a Creator who set up rules, versus utter fancy and arbitrary?

Posted by OldSpook 2007-11-23 13:05|| 2007-11-23 13:05|| Front Page Top

#15 Universe to end, women and minorities hit hardest!

These dudes just proved the existence of God and that He is a jelous God. In a universe without a creator, there would be no unknowable mysteries and certainly no unknowables which would cause the soap bubble to burst when approached too closely (on an intellectual basis). QED God exists.

Take that, Chris Hitchens! And you, Dawkins!- quit mucking about or you will make Him take his ball and go home.

Posted by Gerthudion Omeating5897 2007-11-23 13:19|| 2007-11-23 13:19|| Front Page Top

#16 1) You have liberal colleges turning out all liberals who have one goal. To ignore facts and put out garbage to support the leftist agenda.

2) In a round about way it supports the humans are responsible for "global warming" scam. Another guilt trip thing against people into saying, "OK, my bad. You are now in charge, wackos." Just what the scam artists want you to say.

Posted by Skunky Crenter1414 2007-11-23 13:21|| 2007-11-23 13:21|| Front Page Top

#17 Its the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.

G. K. Chesterton

Posted by mrp 2007-11-23 13:22|| 2007-11-23 13:22|| Front Page Top

#18 The nations the media and these snake doctors target are those countries who refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement.

Posted by Skunky Crenter1414 2007-11-23 13:25|| 2007-11-23 13:25|| Front Page Top

#19 That's just stupid...

Posted by Crusoter B. Hayes8857 2007-11-23 13:26|| 2007-11-23 13:26|| Front Page Top

#20 Quantum Cat is thinking....

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Posted by Thomas Woof 2007-11-23 13:33|| 2007-11-23 13:33|| Front Page Top

#21 pls don't look at me

Posted by Schrodingers Kitteh 2007-11-23 13:34|| 2007-11-23 13:34|| Front Page Top

#22 But the bad is that quantum theory says that whenever we observe or measure something, we could stop it decaying due what is what is called the "quantum Zeno effect," which suggests that if an "observer" makes repeated, quick observations of a microscopic object undergoing change, the object can stop changing - just as a watched kettle never boils.

~~all that micro-layout Zeno guilt and billions double tape sizing/measures of dimensional lumber...~~
OhMyGawd, ~~Ima dooomed... No you are doomed~~... we're all doomed!
/and dat poor poor tape worm!

Posted by Red Dawg">Red Dawg 2007-11-23 14:16|| 2007-11-23 14:16|| Front Page Top

#23 This is the old "If a tree falls in a forest..." question.

Of course there's a sound, saying that unless a human hears it, it didn't happen. Is trying to place humans in an all-important role THAT DOESN"T EXIST, it's simply a ploy to imply false human superiority.

Bullshit then, bullshit now.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2007-11-23 14:20|| 2007-11-23 14:20|| Front Page Top

#24 George Bush don't care about dark matter!

Posted by Kanye West 2007-11-23 14:24|| 2007-11-23 14:24|| Front Page Top

#25 hey.. that cat looks mighty suspecious like..

like he might know where all the stuff is..

..the dark stuff that is...

Posted by Red Dawg">Red Dawg 2007-11-23 14:32|| 2007-11-23 14:32|| Front Page Top

#26 hey.. that cat looks mighty suspecious like..

like he might know where all the stuff is..

..the dark stuff that is...

I don't know for that one, but THIS one certainly does...

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-23 14:41|| 2007-11-23 14:41|| Front Page Top

#27 Either Cat named "Oscar"?

Posted by Redneck Jim 2007-11-23 15:04|| 2007-11-23 15:04|| Front Page Top

#28 These "cosmologists" should have their degrees nullified. They sound more like 'troofers' than scientists.

Posted by PBMcL 2007-11-23 15:06|| 2007-11-23 15:06|| Front Page Top

#29 I will point out that you're reading an interpretation of an interpretation of a science paper, made by a person whose math scores were such that he was forced to become a journalist. As long as we're generalizing wildly.

Actual paper (PDF) is here. Download options on the right. It's only four pages. It's been a long time since I looked at this stuff, but basically it's talking about excited vacuum energy states. You'd think the vacuum (i.e., space), being nothing, would have zero energy. This turns out not to be true: the vacuum has an energy level, sort of analogous to the energy level of electrons in an atom. This leads to the question of whether the vacuum energy can change, what would make it do that. (Note: that would presumably lead to Very Bad But Very Brief Day for Earth.)

When I was in grad school one of my friends was working on a paper which investigated whether the then-proposed Superconducting Supercollider would reach energies capable of inducing the vacuum to decay to a lower energy state, thereby destroying the universe (answer:no).

Krauss and Dent's paper is on the snooze-inducing subject of whether vacuum decay is exponential or a power law, and how you would tell the difference. The quantum-y destruction of the Universe part is this, at the very end:

If observations of quantum mechanical systems reset their clocks, which has been observed for laboratory systems, then by measuring the existence dark energy in our own universe have we reset the quantum mechanical configuration of our own universe so that late time will never be relevant? Put another way, can internal observations of the state of a metastable universe affect its longevity?

In other words, it's just something they thought of and want to check out. I myself will not be losing much sleep over the question. I'm more intrigued by the thought of who the hell trolls through dry and arcane scientific articles, looking for something juicy and sensational?

(Apparently the answer is Marcus Chown, who evidently missed his true calling as a *nix system administrator. Full article is subscription only.)

Krauss, by the way, is the author of The Physics of Star Trek and other books.

Posted by Angie Schultz 2007-11-23 17:21|| 2007-11-23 17:21|| Front Page Top

#30 Marcus Chown, who evidently missed his true calling as a *nix system administrator.

Ouch Angie! LOL

Posted by lotp 2007-11-23 17:37|| 2007-11-23 17:37|| Front Page Top

#31 All the 'dark matter' talk [ain't that a opening line to play with] strikes me as just a modernized version of aether.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-11-23 18:00|| 2007-11-23 18:00|| Front Page Top

#32 Procopius2k, not the dark matter (a figment of someone runaway imagination) but aether is now called vacuum. Yea, they thought of vacuum as medium devoid of anything, but no such a thing. Aether is so 1890s, so they say vacuum and mean aether.

Posted by twobyfour 2007-11-23 18:31|| 2007-11-23 18:31|| Front Page Top

#33 Thank goodness for Angie. I feel safer now.

Posted by Thomas Woof 2007-11-23 18:57|| 2007-11-23 18:57|| Front Page Top

#34 OK, folks, with thanks to Angie, here is the ~~poop~~ scoop on Creation:

The world was made in six days
And finished on the seventh
According to the contract
It should have been the eleventh
But the painters wouldn't paint
And the workers wouldn't work
So the quickest thing to do
Was to fill it up with dirt

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2007-11-23 19:20|| 2007-11-23 19:20|| Front Page Top

#35 Fun link, and grist for the mill.

http://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=1570

And of course, for those who didn't know, this argument was settled more than 250 years ago.

http://www.samueljohnson.com/refutati.html

Posted by OregonGuy">OregonGuy 2007-11-23 19:46|| http://oregonguythinks.blogspot.com/]">[http://oregonguythinks.blogspot.com/] 2007-11-23 19:46|| Front Page Top

#36 "Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'"

Oh, ferchrissakes....

These clowns are in-farking-sane. >:-(

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2007-11-23 21:13|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2007-11-23 21:13|| Front Page Top

#37 Due to the Robertson-Schrodinger relation, the authors can not accurately measure the degree to which observation of the universal state affects same. Therefore, this argument can not proceed beyond the hypothetical. It lies in the realm of philosophy, not physics.

Posted by Ulomoque Protector of the Hatfields2940 2007-11-23 23:00|| 2007-11-23 23:00|| Front Page Top

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