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Astronomy Thread I: Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Dark Flow

Which do you think is more strange?

  • Total voters
    48
wolfdeac said:
Is there any possibility of actually harnessing energy for our purposes from dark matter/dark energy? This probably isn't a very well worded question, but it seems to be reasonable that if there is so much of it all around us and influencing all the normal particles/matter/whatever it could be tapped into...?
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I understand what you mean and I don't think it is possible with our current understanding of physics.

We have no idea what it is so there really isn't any way we can harness it and I could be wrong, but I don't think advances in the future will let us harness it either.

I think the next thing we try to harness is the energy from the Sun. Pretty obvious, but if we could develop some large scale method of energy collection, it would solve the world's issues with energy x1000. Not talking solar panels here, or at least earth based ones, those are bush league and largely inefficient.
 
On my phone so I'll read that when I get home but if this is anywhere near true (unlikely) it would be the biggest scientific discovery of the past 50 years

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk
 
Ok. Upon further review, this is some interesting stuff. The neutrinos were created at CERN and they were detected in Italy at a detector called OPERA. They say that they were traveling at about 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light and that they are sure of their results to within 10 nanoseconds.

A few thoughts:

1. How are they sure at what point the neutrinos were created? This is integral to the calculation and even a small error would cause the calculation to be drastically off.

2. If neutrinos did indeed travel faster than light, the neutrinos that we detect from supernova would arrive several years before the light reaches us. We would have a supernova precursor, if you will.

3. We will hear more about this as there is a press conference tomorrow. I'm not a scientist and it would almost be presumptuous of me to say that there are errors in this information, but my gut feeling tells me that this is the case. We have too much observational evidence of the speed of light.

Wait and see, we will. Exciting stuff!!
 
"Einstein's theory of relativity is built on the idea that there is an absolute cosmic speed limit — that light is the thing traveling at this speed is beside the point. Among other things, the existence of that speed limit sets the structure of causality in the Universe."

Can you explain this a bit more?
 
Causality is integral to relativity. The cause must always happen before the effect. In other words, we cannot see farther than the cone of light.

Think of it like this. The big bang, the beginning of the universe as we know it, is presumably where light was first created and distributed. That light has been traveling at 186,000 miles per second for 14 billion years. We can't see past that barrier because light has not traveled that far yet. Causality(causal influences?) cannot move faster than the speed of light.

Wikipedia

In classical physics a cause should always precede its effect. In relativity theory this requirement is strengthened so as to limit causes to the back (past) light cone of the event to be explained (the "effect"); nor can an event be a cause of any event outside the former event's front (future) light cone. These restrictions are consistent with the grounded belief (or assumption) that causal influences cannot travel faster than the speed of light and/or backwards in time.
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This is lke the fourth or fifth poll that I've been told I voted in and haven't.
 
"Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 26. You have already voted on this poll"

I may not be able to type, but i can read. :)
 
I don't know what to tell you. You had to have voted for your name to be up there.
 
neutrinos.png
 
if i'm traveling at 50 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light, should I use an iphone or a rooted droid?
 
and yes, I just wanted to add "rooted" to a thread about flow.
 
TWDeac said:
Causality is integral to relativity. The cause must always happen before the effect. In other words, we cannot see farther than the cone of light.

Think of it like this. The big bang, the beginning of the universe as we know it, is presumably where light was first created and distributed. That light has been traveling at 186,000 miles per second for 14 billion years. We can't see past that barrier because light has not traveled that far yet. Causality(causal influences?) cannot move faster than the speed of light.

Wikipedia
Click to expand...

That explains how RJ is able to vote in polls before voting in them. Cause then effect, only RJ and neutrino's can do it!
 
pourdeac said:
"Spooky action at a distance" might not agree.
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Quantum mechanics is very, very strange and we just don't understand it.

Relativity deals with large objects and for the most part, our observations indicate that causality stands.
 
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