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Is there a finite size of matter?

Forum Old Man/Woman's Club : Polls - Is there a finite size of matter?

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HolyShiznit   12-11-2002 at 07:02:13 AM

The FAQ says I can't put a poll in my thread, but here's the question, inspired by the talk in the other thread of infinite 9's following a decimal.......

<b><font color=red>Do you think there is a limit, both large and small, to matter?</b></font color=red>

Is there a smallest block of matter (sub-sub-sub...atomic particle) or a largest block (i.e. all the billions of theorized galaxies expanding outward)? Or is there no limit? I guess religious views will necessarily come into this too. Feel free to flame me if someone like Stephen Hawking has already come up with a brilliant solution to this and I don't know about it. :evil:

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silverpig   12-11-2002 at 07:23:28 AM
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Heisenberg's uncertainty principle probably has some input on this.

It's probably on the order of the planck length (10^-46 m IIRC).

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

Reply to silverpig
svol   12-11-2002 at 01:14:56 PM
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For the smallest no-one knows because we just don't know what is beyond quarks.

But for a largest size I would say yes if it gets so big that it creates enough gravity to pull the entire universe back together to get the Big Implosion.

My CPU runs so hot the arctic silver undergoes nuclear fusion :eek: .

Reply to svol
HolyShiznit   12-11-2002 at 10:39:31 PM
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But what if the universe is an expanding blob, but just one of many said blobs. If they were adequately distanced, couldn't they all exist, despite the large amount of matter?

I guess I'm far too ignorant to really discuss this. I just can't see what would be beyond "this" universe....how can it just stop? What would be beyond that? Nothingness?

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Flamethrower205   12-12-2002 at 02:46:28 AM
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Of course there's something smaller than quarks, just look at the thing in your pants! :tongue:

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

Reply to Flamethrower205
eden   12-12-2002 at 03:17:24 AM
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Oh please not THESE questions!
No offense, it's just they cause my mind to loop infinitly, wondering so many things that I just crash!

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HolyShiznit   12-12-2002 at 03:18:01 AM
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Ouch, that one hurt. :eek:

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Reply to HolyShiznit
Flamethrower205   12-12-2002 at 03:22:54 AM
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Hehe, it came to me so I had to post it:)

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

Reply to Flamethrower205
AMD_Man   12-12-2002 at 04:15:31 AM
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Quote :


I guess I'm far too ignorant to really discuss this. I just can't see what would be beyond "this" universe....how can it just stop? What would be beyond that? Nothingness?


Hmm, just emptiness? Hmm, one wonders how space without matter would look like. Would it just be completely black? If we travel 5 billion light years away from earth, what would "space" look like? I believe the farthest telescopes have been able to view is 5 billion light years distance. What's beyond that?

Intelligence is not merely the wealth of knowledge but the sum of perception, wisdom, and knowledge.

Reply to AMD_Man
dhlucke   12-12-2002 at 05:15:03 AM
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We're way beyond 5 billion. I'm not sure how far they've gotten exactly, but if memory serves me correctly, you can see to within 300 million years of the Big Bang.

Space without matter is dark. If there is no photons emitted, you get no light.

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Reply to dhlucke
HolyShiznit   12-12-2002 at 05:55:23 AM
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Take this with a pinch of salt, but <A HREF="http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/04/13/big.bang.collision/index.html" target="_new">check out this article</A>.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
dhlucke   12-12-2002 at 06:47:01 AM
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Sites like CNN report just about anything. All to often they report something of this nature only to add at the bottom of the article that the "astronomer" with the theory or idea is an amateur.

Nonetheless, I like these kind of theories.

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Reply to dhlucke
HolyShiznit   12-12-2002 at 06:58:09 AM
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CNN.com is hardly a really informed source on such a subject, but it covers interesting ideas. I wish I actually understood high-level physics.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
silverpig   12-12-2002 at 07:56:21 AM
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And that's where probes like MAP and the next gen microwave probes come in. 300 million years after the big bang is when the gas cooled enough to become transparent. It's kinda neat really. Looking at that CMB is like looking at the outer shell of the big bang 300 million years later. They've got some crazy stuff going on now with fourier transforms trying to build models of the wave patterns going through the primordial gas which would produce the anisotropy in the CMB. Hella cool.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

Reply to silverpig
dhlucke   12-13-2002 at 06:55:17 AM
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we have no upper or lower limits of mass btw. For all we know there are sub-quark particles and more than one universe.

The smallest mass we "think" we've found, is the neutrino.

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Reply to dhlucke
silverpig   12-13-2002 at 07:35:39 AM
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And that's a whole grey area there too... Some neutrinos seem to have mass while others do not.

As for an upper limit to mass, I think that there probably is. You know that black holes "evaporate" right? Well, they evaporate at a rate that depends on their size. The more massive they are, the quicker they evaporate. There may be some limit way way up there (couple billion solar masses maybe?).

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

Reply to silverpig
dhlucke   12-13-2002 at 08:43:22 AM
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Pretty theoretical. To see a black whole evaporate away would require more time than the universe might actually end up existing.

Cool stuff though.

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Reply to dhlucke
HolyShiznit   12-13-2002 at 08:58:05 AM
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Yeah black holes "evaporate" by spewing off radiation, don't they? They have so much mass that I can only wonder, as dhlucke wrote, if there's enough time for them to evaporate before something else happens. And the supposed black holes at the cores of galaxies should spew even more radiation if it increased in that manner, right?

When I wrote upper limit, I meant in terms of the conglomerate. So not like "how much mass can really accumulate to a singular point (black hole)" but more like in terms of the universe, multiple universes, etc.

Ah hell, odds are the reality is beyond human comprehension.
Still, speculation is good. I need to read some dumbed-down texts on astrophysics next time I have a break.


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Reply to HolyShiznit
dhlucke   12-13-2002 at 09:38:14 AM
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You're asking a question that CAN'T be answered. We just don't understand enough.

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Reply to dhlucke
HolyShiznit   12-13-2002 at 07:56:30 PM
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Yeah I guess so. It all just speculation. :mad: Rigor mortis is setting in on this thread anyway.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
svol   12-14-2002 at 02:53:28 PM
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Well other theories say that the radiation a black hole transmits is caused by the enormous amount of dust which is surculating very fast around the hole. At those speeds they generating röntgen and y radiation that is just far enough from the hole to escape.

Maybe after another 20 biljon year we only have huge black holes left in the universe making it a swiss cheese.

And yes there are enough theories that there are completely different universes beyond our created of completely diffirent matter and having other laws of physics.

My CPU runs so hot the arctic silver undergoes nuclear fusion :eek: .

Reply to svol
dhlucke   12-14-2002 at 06:12:38 PM
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The matter around a black hole is not within the boundaries of the event horizon. Generally it's a blackhole that's sucking matter away from another star that's creating the accretion disk.

We thus detect a black hole from it's accretion disk and the x-ray radiation that it emits.

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HolyShiznit   12-14-2002 at 11:24:48 PM
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I saw a cool show a while ago on these cataclysmic stellar events called "hypernova" (I think). Basically like a super-supernova. Hopefully none will occur near us, or we're up $h*t creek without a paddle.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
silverpig   12-15-2002 at 03:08:04 AM
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Actual black hole evaporation is different radiation though. Well, it's all EM radiation, but it's from a different source. Hawking proposed that the small fluctuations in the energy level in space that produce and then immediately destroy virtual particles may occur right on the boundary of an event horizon. The particles may form in such a way that one is just inside the horizon, while the other is just outside. The black hole pulls the closer one in, and the outer one escapes just before they two particles annihilate one another.

Bah, it's too much for me to fully explain, but I'm sure a google search on Hawking radiation can tell you more.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

Reply to silverpig
dhlucke   12-15-2002 at 03:30:07 AM
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I'd never heard about hypernovae, but here's a link <A HREF="http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/news/20may99.html" target="_new">http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/news/20may99.html</A>

Nonetheless, it's interesting to note that a supernova type I will have the luminosity of an entire galaxy when it explodes.

We can be killed if we're within, say, 100 light years. A really big supernova could probably be even further away to kill all life on Earth.

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ksoth   12-15-2002 at 04:53:02 AM
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Have you ever been up sh!ts creek with a paddle? It's not so bad... :)

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Reply to ksoth
HolyShiznit   12-15-2002 at 05:00:38 AM
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It would not be a pretty picture. Fortunately those are rare events.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
svol   12-15-2002 at 08:16:57 PM
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I heard of them... those explosions are really powerfull and will leave a very heavy black hole... if I remember correctly they are generated by enormous starts. But even a supernova in our local neighbourhood can destroy all live on Earth. Lucky enough there aren't many big stars at the end of their lives near us.

My CPU runs so hot the arctic silver undergoes nuclear fusion :eek: .

Reply to svol
Lonemagi   12-18-2002 at 11:52:15 PM
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Poof!
There goes another panet..

I should stop reading post like this, gives me too much to think about...

But a Supernova would be pretty interesting to see if it was the last thing you saw...

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If the Scatman can do it so can you...

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Reply to Lonemagi
dhlucke   12-18-2002 at 11:57:59 PM
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You wouldn't see it. You'd be killed by invisible particles or the shockwave before any visible radiation reached you.

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Lonemagi   12-19-2002 at 12:00:01 AM
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Just kill all my fun....lol

I know that, but this is all in wishful thinking/ theory

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If the Scatman can do it so can you...

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Reply to Lonemagi
HolyShiznit   12-19-2002 at 12:13:26 AM
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Yeah it's pretty morbid stuff.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
dhlucke   12-19-2002 at 12:14:10 AM
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I agree. It's much the same way with nebulas. We could never see them like you do in the movies.

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silverpig   12-19-2002 at 12:17:05 AM
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The visible radiation would arrive at the same time as the non-visible (life killing) radiation though... And the shockwave would be later (I'm assuming you're talking about ejected stellar debris).

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

Reply to silverpig
HolyShiznit   12-19-2002 at 12:30:16 AM
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You'd see the buildup to the explosion, at least.

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Reply to HolyShiznit
svol   12-20-2002 at 05:42:18 PM
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Yeah that is what I was thinking to... unless those particles traffel faster then light.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.

Reply to svol
svol   12-20-2002 at 05:43:46 PM
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Don't worry:
A. The chance that it happens near us is very very small (if I'm right the only candidate is the star Betelgeuze).
B. There wouldn't be anything able to stop it... so just relax.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.

Reply to svol
Lonemagi   12-20-2002 at 06:05:44 PM
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Yeah, we proably wont even know it happened till after we are already on fire....

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If the Scatman can do it so can you...

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Reply to Lonemagi
svol   12-20-2002 at 06:21:41 PM
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Exactly.

I can tell you many other doom scenarios BTW... but I don't think you want to hear.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.

Reply to svol
HolyShiznit   12-20-2002 at 09:59:38 PM
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Quote :

I can tell you many other doom scenarios BTW... but I don't think you want to hear.


I have one: Hillary Clinton wins in '04 as the Democratic candidate for the US presidency.

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dhlucke   12-20-2002 at 10:24:10 PM
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That'll never happen

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HolyShiznit   12-21-2002 at 09:25:09 AM
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I sure hope it doesn't happen. "Hitlery" is what I like to call her.

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