Space and time aren't fundamental properties of the universe

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

So says Brian Cox on the telly whilst talking about black holes the other day, before laugthing and saying "don't worry if you don't understand it, I don't understand it either!"  The end.

Yeah, cheers for that Brian.  I mean wtf does that even mean?  From what i've tried to piece together, this has something to do with quantum entanglement.  In that two particles that have interacted can share state, even if they are at opersite ends of the galaxy, which goes against the idea that interactions are always local with entities separated in space not able to interact.

Secondly continuity is fucked as wormholes can connect two points, Brain babbles on about the fact that when a blackhole dies it can create a wormhole which links to stuff it's spat out in the past as hawkings radiation.  Again WTF.

FAO Buzby, or someone who at least understands what Brain was on about.

 

[Alberon]

I've read books on string theory and I still don't get it. The argument is something along the lines that space and time emerge from the fundamental properties of the universe, but they aren't fundamental themselves.

As far as Quantum Mechanics is concerned time doesn't seem to exist. How does that work?

For all that we know about how the universe works and how it grew we still don't know really anything about the basic fundamental workings of the universe.

We don't even know how everything started. We've an idea how the universe started, but not how the conditions that allowed the universe to form came about.

Why is there anything at all?

[Twit 2]

I blame Trevor Brooking.

[Cloud]

This is why I don't rule anything out any more like afterlife or being part of a simulation. 

Basic physics (and biology) says things like, well you're conscious as part of a brain function and when you die that's it, it's all very simple

Quantum is all "we know fuck all and some VERY WEIRD SHIT goes on". Just observing something can affect it? It's almost like a message from the simulation that everything you think you know is bollocks. 

[Captain Z]

[Twit 2]

Time doesn't exist but that doesn't help me if I'm late for work. Space isn't a fundamental property of the universe but I'd like a bigger house. I don't really exist but it hurts when I stub my toe. This could be a simulation...but it's so realistic it doesn't matter.

Speculation doesn't help. We're all trapped. Consciousness is nature's nightmare. Trevor Brooking.

[Twit 2]

WHAT IF WE'RE DUCKS

[touchingcloth]

We don't even know how everything started. We've an idea how the universe started, but not how the conditions that allowed the universe to form came about.

There's a school of thought that says we can't know what things were like before the start of the universe for the same reason that we can't know what happens inside a black hole, that reason being that things break down too much in singularities for us to say anything useful about them.

Ehhhhhh int infinitesimal points with infinite mass causing the collapse of meaningful definitions of spehce n tahm brilliaaaaaaaant

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

Time doesn't exist but that doesn't help me if I'm late for work. Space isn't a fundamental property of the universe but I'd like a bigger house. I don't really exist but it hurts when I stub my toe. This could be a simulation...but it's so realistic it doesn't matter.

Speculation doesn't help. We're all trapped. Consciousness is nature's nightmare. Trevor Brooking.

This Trevor Brooking fella seems smart.  Oxford or Cambridge?

[JesusAndYourBush]

A few weeks ago I watched episode 1 of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'.  A few days later Brian Cox's 'Universe' started and I watched episode 1. It was full of speculation (which to be fair Cox didn't try and hide, several times using phrases like "we don't actually know if this is true".)

Sagan was the Mack Daddy, Cox in comparison a mere shadow.  I saw ep.2 and that wasn't much better. I was at a gig when ep.3 was on and couldn't be arsed watching it on iplayer, and a few weeks ago I read an interview with Cox where he pinpointed the black hole episode as being the one with a lot of way out speculation so I decided to give that a miss as well.

[Alberon]

In many ways physics is a bit stuck at the moment. String theory and M theory (that's the one where our universe could be drifting in a much larger multi-dimensional space) explain our reality very elegantly, but there's no way yet of telling if any of it is true or it's just pretty maths.

We might be reaching the limits to what we can truly know about the universe and beyond without learning any fundamental truths.

[Bum Flaps]

This Trevor Brooking fella seems smart.  Oxford or Cambridge?

Oxford Brookings Poly, obviously

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

A few weeks ago I watched episode 1 of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'.  A few days later Brian Cox's 'Universe' started and I watched episode 1. It was full of speculation (which to be fair Cox didn't try and hide, several times using phrases like "we don't actually know if this is true".)

Sagan was the Mack Daddy, Cox in comparison a mere shadow.  I saw ep.2 and that wasn't much better. I was at a gig when ep.3 was on and couldn't be arsed watching it on iplayer, and a few weeks ago I read an interview with Cox where he pinpointed the black hole episode as being the one with a lot of way out speculation so I decided to give that a miss as well.

Yeah I dont usually watch Brian Cox stuff but just happend to catch the black hole episode.  I cant really come to terms with what he says about space time worm holes and the fact that matter in them can be in two places at the same time, one at the other end of the universe which was expelled as hawkins radiation, and the other what was left inside a black hole before it blows up.  I guess these are today with the weirdness of quantum mechanics, which im not smart enough to comprehend. 

[Glebe]

"Now... if we consider each grain of sand is a particle..."

*finishes spiel and smiles thoughtfully across a desert*

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

"Now... if we consider each grain of sand is a particle..."

*finishes spiel and smiles thoughtfully across a desert

*brian eno music plays in the backgroud*

[Johnny Foreigner]

Surely, the word is spacetime. Space and time cannot be separated in any meaningful way; everything exists somewhere sometime. Throughout the universe, there is always spacetime. You cannot escape it.

[mothman]

Gave up on Universe after one episode. Just a rehash of his previous stuff with a bigger CGI budget and less foreign travel.

[Butchers Blind]

None of this really matters as you'll all be dead by the time it's figured out.... possibly.

[touchingcloth]

Yeah I dont usually watch Brian Cox stuff but just happend to catch the black hole episode.  I cant really come to terms with what he says about space time worm holes and the fact that matter in them can be in two places at the same time, one at the other end of the universe which was expelled as hawkins radiation

Hmm. Well I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing that's a white hole.

[bgmnts]

This is why I think heaven can technically be real because what if just the last little spark of brain activity lasts for an eternity in your mind's perception, and what influences what you visualise is how you acted on earth or some shit.

Did have a good an idea for a shit science fiction story with that concept, some corporation can tweak that last spark and guarantee you a vanilla sky perfect world but a terrorist organisation threatens to damn everyone to an eternity in hell for whatever reason (fuck it, money, Die Hard style).

Hmm. Well I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing that's a white hole.

A white hole?

[touchingcloth]

A white hole?

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the Universe; a white hole returns it.

[bgmnts]

So it's spewing time back into the universe?

[Sherringford Hovis]

Once we've got an explanation for red, green and brown holes - we got this physics thing all sewn up.

Pink is a shade of red at the quantum level, before any clever clogs pipes up.

[touchingcloth]

So it's spewing time back into the universe?

Precisely. That's why we're experiencing these curious time phenomena on the board.

[bgmnts]

So what is it?

[touchingcloth]

I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing that's a white hole.

[bgmnts]

A white hole?

[touchingcloth]

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the Universe; a white hole returns it.

[bgmnts]

So that thing's spewing time back into the universe?

[The Dog]

Space and time aren't fundamental properties of the universe because different observers will disagree on the separation between events in space and time and nothing in the laws of physics will help them decide who is right. In particular events that are simultaneous to one person might not be to another one.

However they will agree on their combined separation in spacetime. 

Its obvious that what is directly left of you might be to my right, and it might be behind and to the left of someone else. There are three dimensions of space but no way of saying which dimension is which. We can only really agree on the distance between things.

It turns out that something in my past might be in your future, provided we are far enough apart to preserve causality. So actually there are 4 dimensions of spacetime and no way of saying which of those dimensions is which. And what we can really all agree on is the spacetime interval.

Put another way, we're all moving through spacetime at the speed of light. But how much of that progress occurs in the space direction and how much in the time direction depends on the observer. Things that depend on the observer aren't fundamental.

Inside a black hole - and I do not really understand the details of this - time and space get really mixed up. So that's probably what he was talking about.

He might also have been talking about something else, related to string theory or quantum gravity. If so, it would be pretty much pure speculation, those things aren't even proper theories yet.