tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post7685852153707844321..comments2024-03-27T22:28:06.861-06:00Comments on Dispatches From Turtle Island: Intuitions on General Relativity As MONDAndrew Oh-Willekehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-72009428128534505582011-09-09T11:59:03.845-06:002011-09-09T11:59:03.845-06:00The transistor example was just an example of stuf...The transistor example was just an example of stuff that are hard to understand, counter-intuitive or unlike other similar stuff, and yet all-important. We shouldn't keep young people (and by extension people in general) in the dark about transistors, an everyday item, and we should not about general relativity. <br /><br />As for dark matter, we'll see: we live in an age of questions rather than one of answers, so maybe there's no answer just behind the horizon and we'll have to wait.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-25284772224500253412011-09-09T10:27:13.726-06:002011-09-09T10:27:13.726-06:00Actually, you need quantum mechanics to understand...Actually, you need quantum mechanics to understand how a transitor works. They utilize the quantum tunnelling effect, unlike most other electronic components.<br /><br />As far as dark matter candidates go, stay tuned. There is less consensus on the issue as of September 9, 2011 than there has been in any other time in recent memory on almost any issue in the "hard" sciences.Andrew Oh-Willekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-24495668471168027402011-09-08T10:41:35.947-06:002011-09-08T10:41:35.947-06:00Newtonian physics would not get your GPS working, ...Newtonian physics would not get your GPS working, nor your satellite TV. I think it's very important that the young ones, whose mind is more flexible, learn Einsteinian physics and that way Humankind finally evolves a step closer to Truth (with a lot of advantages for faster and better scientific and technological advance, no doubt). <br /><br />... "in addition to insisting on a space-time structure that our brains literally were not designed to understand"...<br /><br />My argument is that our minds can perfectly understand that... unless they are trained in the wrong discipline: Newtonian physics. <br /><br />"... there is no way to understand it other than as a crazy game". <br /><br />Whatever: all in reality is a crazy game. How intuitive do you think that is to understand that Earth is round? That it rotates around the Sun? That we aren't but tiny dots in tiny dots in tiny dots... in a universe where light (never mind anything with mass) takes at least 13 billion years to travel from one end to the other... <br /><br />What about computers? Or even transistors? I had a difficult time to grasp of how a transistor worked... and that's so old that is almost Newtonian! Once I tried to repair a computer with an electronics' expert and he was like a doctor before diffuse symptoms, being unable to pinpoint the cause and eventually giving up. <br /><br />But if you study all that stuff since young, you have much better chances to understand them when you are older... and of transmitting such knowledge to the new generations, etc. <br /><br />Instead if you study Newton or the Bible... you will never get it (unless you are a true freelance genius). <br /><br />"Finding dark matter candidates that can fit the bill for 1/5 to 1/6th of the matter in the universe is a much more workable proposition". <br /><br />Yeah. <br /><br />They say it's not dust/gas, right? Nor black holes either, right? Something about WIMPs, right?Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-38392973357603154342011-09-08T08:52:09.620-06:002011-09-08T08:52:09.620-06:00I certainly don't blame high schools and intro...I certainly don't blame high schools and intro college courses for focusing on Newtonian physics. It is adequate to precisely calculate almost anything one needs to calculate anywhere within the solar system despite its simplicity and elegance. Similarly, you go can a long way and be very scientific were merely Maxwell's laws of electromagnetism rather than full fledged quantum electrodynamics.<br /><br />Modifying it merely for special relativity and quantum electrodynamics, while ignoring the quantum mechanics of the weak force and strong force and using proton-neutron-electron model of the atom, the emergent nuclear binding force (with binding energies determiend from tables instead of direct calculations), and measured alpha and beta and gamma decay rates is pretty much good enough to run a nuclear power plant or handle nuclear materials.<br /><br />General relativity in non-simplified systems, quantum chromodynamics, and weak force calculations in all but the most simplified situations, are profoundly difficult to calculate, even though the equations are deceptively simple for an advanced mathematician or physicist, and are extremely hard even to formulate problems to claculate with since they are so subtle. The usual GR equations, for example describe mass as a fluid rather than a point and use the term pressure in a highly unfamiliar way, in addition to insisting on a space-time structure that our brains literally were not designed to understand - we have built in Newtonian instincts. QCD and weak force calculations are surreal experiences that violate all sorts of intuition about causality and where mass comes from and the nature of reality - there is no way to understand it other than as a crazy game. Even today, nobody is capable of solving the problems analytically. You solve them with iterative numerical approximations that take supercomputers running for days at a time to solve.<br /><br />I certainly agree that it is surprising that astrophysicists have been remiss for so long. In the systems they study, general relativity does matter, but too often it is used only in isolated simplified cases, like black hole dynamics.<br /><br />Also, even with newly discovered mass and GR effects, it seems as if a quarter or so of matter is dark. But, going from 3/4 to 1/4 is a major stride and if that can be nudged into a little with better analysis of GR effects in galactic clusters and a bit better census for dim objects, maybe that can be pushed down to 1/6 to 1/5. Finding dark matter candidates that can fit the bill for 1/5 to 1/6th of the matter in the universe is a much more workable proposition.Andrew Oh-Willekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-48800738652478692992011-09-07T17:43:13.510-06:002011-09-07T17:43:13.510-06:00"Efforts to describe galaxies with full fledg..."Efforts to describe galaxies with full fledged General Relativity have revealed that much of the unexplained dark matter that seems to be there when a Newtonian approximation is used disappears when full fledged General Relativity is used".<br /><br />That is most interesting: I've always found dark matter and dark energy explanations suspicious of intellectual laziness or error. But I could not figure what was wrong with them. This suggests that using Newtonian physics is what was wrong to begin with. It is flippant when you read that scientists still use unqualified Newton. There's something wrong in the education system that favors "ancient" Newtonian science vs. modern Relativity (and the tools for it, like the tensor maths that Einstein had to use and that are not studied at least until well in uni anywhere on Earth). <br /><br />It's like all humankind except the most erudite physicists would have shaken their heads on Einsteinian physics and, while accepting them out of necessity, entrenched their minds and culture into the obsolete Newtonian paradigm. <br /><br />But still I am surprised that even astrophysicists fall for this error.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.com