Why physics is fucking awesome - Page 2

On January 26 2013 01:02 pebble444 wrote:
I have a Question for you:
How can the universe be Finite? What is there at the "end" ?

So, we know that the most remote objects we can see are Quartz some 15 bilion light years aqay from us. But how is it possible that space is limited? like quantified i mean. So i heard talk about the Theory of infinite parallel universes, but i don' t believe in that. Infinite does not exist. Nothing material can be infinite. One day, (if the nature persues its course) the Sun will implode and all life as we know it on earth will come to an end.

An example of why i do not believe in this theory. If i stand on my street, i see up to a certain point. Lets assume i never moved from where i stand, and therefore i do not know what is beyond from where i can see. Now, thanks to technology, i can access google maps and see what is beyond my street, and i see another street. However, many years ago (say 2000) i could not do this. The only way i could this was by actually travelling to that other street i could not see. Or i could just stand where i was and assume, try to imagine what was there. And maybe someone would come and tell me that beyond my road there where infinite roads, when in fact they are many roads in the world but they are Finite definable number.

The same with our universe. We were able to map it because we developed the technology to do it. But we still don' t have the technology to see beyond a certain point. Thats my opinion. Like we don' t have the technology to truly see what is at the center of our earth.

So, the question that has always bugged me, was what is there beyond what we can see and how is it possible that "space" is limited?
I' d like to hear your opinion on the subject

On January 26 2013 06:12 Overpowered wrote:

I am no physicist (not yet, at least) but I am very interested in physics as a layman and I remember one helpful simple analogy of this. May not be 100% accurate but I like it, maybe you have heard it, but still.

Imagine a plastic balloon. Its surface doesn't have end, border, center, beginning, its just continuous - but finite. Then, imagine all spacetime is on its surface. Yeah, spacetime has 3 space dimensions, but for example in this picture spacetime is illustrated as 2D (well, its curved, but having no depth) - so imagine something similar. And what happens when universe is expanding, is like filling the plastic balloon with more and more gas. All points on the surface became more distant from each other and all expand in constant velocity. But there are no borders, no ends and no beginnings on the surface. Its just becoming bigger.

Hopefully someone found it helpful. I am no physicist as I said, but I think it helps to understand the matter.

On January 26 2013 06:54 Jerubaal wrote:
I have to say I really don't like when people say "physics/ science is awesome/great". Physics is not the universe. Physics is the human study of the universe, the human perception of the universe. These two aspects are invariably conflated in these sorts of statements. I don't think that's a mistake though. If you call physics merely the human perception of the universe, then you make it less grand all encompassing. You admit that your understanding is but a narrow slit. If you are speaking instead of the wonder and majesty of the universe, again, you make the subject bigger than you. This is important because the subtext of these proclamations are that humans will ultimately understand and control the universe. Thus, you must make physics and the universe the same thing. So ask yourself: Are you marveling at the magnitude of something of which you ultimately will only ever understand a tiny fraction of, or are you patting yourself on the back as part of a cult of human domination of nature?

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

On January 26 2013 06:54 Jerubaal wrote:
I have to say I really don't like when people say "physics/ science is awesome/great". Physics is not the universe. Physics is the human study of the universe, the human perception of the universe. These two aspects are invariably conflated in these sorts of statements. I don't think that's a mistake though. If you call physics merely the human perception of the universe, then you make it less grand all encompassing. You admit that your understanding is but a narrow slit. If you are speaking instead of the wonder and majesty of the universe, again, you make the subject bigger than you. This is important because the subtext of these proclamations are that humans will ultimately understand and control the universe. Thus, you must make physics and the universe the same thing. So ask yourself: Are you marveling at the magnitude of something of which you ultimately will only ever understand a tiny fraction of, or are you patting yourself on the back as part of a cult of human domination of nature?

On January 26 2013 08:13 Grumbels wrote:

Did you ever read this article?

On January 26 2013 08:43 Jerubaal wrote:
Oh I think it's clear that you've conflated the two in your post. You start off by saying that "everything relies on physics." Well no it doesn't. Everything in the natural world depends on nature (both statements somewhat tautological). The rest of your paragraph focuses exclusively on human science. Propositions and attitudes are two different but related things, even though you claim to deny the proposition I am attributing to you, the attitude surely remains.

It's one thing to blandly say you know science doesn't know or will ever know everything. Once you delve into the nitty gritty of what that means and understand the true limitations of natural science it still looks fascinating and clever and useful and a worthy occupation for a great mind, but it no longer looks like the sole arbiter of every decision on earth, which is what it's made out to be.

I find such discussions tiresome, honestly. One of my favorite quotations is from Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach and goes something like "there is nothing wrong with the system, the fault was in your expectations of the system'". "Science" deserves no criticism, only those who would misappropriate it.



I might have seen that some time back. I guess I kinda agree, but those are more sociological observations while I'm making philosophical ones.

On January 26 2013 09:00 imallinson wrote:

The everything relies on physics I was more meant as our understanding of the world and all of science can be boiled down to physics. A statement about how fields like biology, chemistry or geology can be attributed to processes described by physics. It wasn't really intended to be a statement about how nature follows the laws of physics because, as you have pointed out, this is backwards. I'm of the opinion that science becomes much more interesting when you view it as a limited lens through which we perceive the universe rather than an arbiter of the universe.

On January 26 2013 09:07 Grumbels wrote:

You could be a comic book villain: Professor Notwen: "the laws of physics heed only my call, I can bend the universe to my will! mhaha" etc.

On January 26 2013 13:34 iamke55 wrote:
Are you sure what you like is physics? Or is it the "popular science" bastardization of physics described entirely with flowery words meant to impress and confuse the reader, with not an equation or proof in sight?