Please explain the physics to me. - The Theory of Everything (2014) Discussion

[–] golfguy-12398 9 years ago

Do you even physics bro?

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[–] Chromwagner 9 years ago

Bahhaha! :D

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[–] Massivemuscles85 9 years ago

That's not exactly true about Einstein's relativity. What he showed about time dilation, that time flows differently for those in a gravity "well", or closer to a source of gravity such as earth than something or someone that is farther away from the gravity source, is actually put to practical use in satellites that are used every day. In particular, GPS satellites would not work correctly if their very accurate clocks did not compensate for difference in the passage of time that they experience relative to the surface of earth. The difference is measured in microseconds each day, but would result in an error of several miles per day that your position would be reported incorrectly.

As for Hawking's discovery, you can look it up in detail by searching "hawking radiation". But the short version is that he discovered that even black holes eventually "evaporate" because of a seemingly crazy theory called quantum entanglement. In rare events, particles actually inside the event horizon of the black hole can influence particles outside the event horizon instantaneously. Normally, nothing can escape from the inside but quantum entanglements are actually capable of influencing distant particles instantaneously(not even bound by the speed of light) and give off a slight amount of mass and energy when they do. This is how he proved that even black holes do not last forever. So his discovery did influence our understanding of the eventual fate of the universe, which will be a cold, dark and empty place. but bear in mind that we are talking many TRILLIONS of years in the future! At present the universe is 13.7 billion years old, so we're safe for now!

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[–] shadrack 9 years ago

^ This 

Building on this answer, it's probably also worth emphasizing that the benefits of many scientific discoveries aren't immediately realized. Electricity, for instance, was discovered some time before 600 BC, but it didn't start to affect the life of the "average joe" until about the 19th century. For thousands of years, it was little more than a curiosity, devoid (or so it was thought) of any practical value.

That we aren't aware of any practical benefit to Hawking's theories does not prove there is no benefit. The benefits may not be realized for many years. Or perhaps, the benefits may not come from Hawking's theories directly, but from other theories that build on them.

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[–] thecure-1 9 years ago

Ok. So we dont see "direct" benefits ...
Could anyone try to "imagine" what the benefits of his findings MAY be???
Even if you may be wrong, what are we talking about here? What MAY be possible as a result of his studies???

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[–] Massivemuscles85 9 years ago

Well one possible benefit I can imagine, in the very distant future(if ever) some scientists have suggested that it might be possible to use black holes or to create worm holes to traverse vast distances of space in a short period of time or that a black hole might even be a passageway into an entirely different universe. Some have suggested that there may be "white holes" in the universe where the matter that goes into a black hole is then ejected. This is all entirely hypothetical but black holes are the only things that are currently known to actually break through the fabric of space and time because the gravity of the stars that give birth to them are so extreme that they create these self-imposed cracks in the entire universal space-time continuum. Even the nearest stars are so far away that if we ever hope to visit them, it would probably require some exploitation of the fabric of spacetime. The nearest star called Alpha Centauri would take 50,000 years to reach using the fastest space probe that humans have ever launched so far.

The reason I emphasize this is very hypothetical is because the environments inside the black holes "surface" known as the event horizon are so extreme that the current laws of nature simply break down and do not apply. It is a huge longshot that human civilization may ever be able to manipulate them. But if future humans ever do do, navigating them would require a thorough understanding of both Einstein and Hawking's principles. Hawking once coined the phrase "spaghettification" which may sound innocent, but it is actually the name given to the simultaneous stretching AND compressing that would be exerted on any person who travels into most black holes. Someone who experiences this would invariable be killed by both crushing and ripping apart. They got around this in the movie Interstellar by calling their black hole "gargantua" implying it is immense enough that traveling through it MIGHT not "spaghettify" you. Ironically, the smaller a black hole is, the more certain it is that you would be spaghetiffied by entering into it. Any future humans who want to avoid meeting their deaths this way will be referencing a fate that was initially discovered by Stephen Hawking.

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[–] thecure-1 9 years ago

FANTASTIC reply. I started to appreciate the implications of what you were saying and what Hawking/Einstein's work may lead to ... It is funny that I was thinking of Interstellar and then you mentioned it!

This is somewhat scary to me. Scary because it obviously will not happen in my lifetime or many more ... but also scary because perhaps we humans need to "go there" because our planet may no longer be "enough" ?

In your words, what do you feel was the MAIN breakthrough that Hawking achieve???

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[–] xystophoros 9 years ago

It's really not a fantastic reply, it's a rehash of bad science fiction.

Interstellar travel via black holes will never happen. Ever. It's not possible to survive the event horizon of a black hole, and there is nothing at all that indicates black holes lead anywhere other than a warped pocket of space-time where everything is crushed and nothing escapes.

If humanity ever leaves this planet, it will be via sub-light drives, like ramscoops or something very similar to ramscoops, and it will take decades and centuries to get to other star systems. The science cannot get us from Point A to Point B any faster than .99c (slower than light), but what it CAN do is make the long journeys survivable by a combination of time dilation at relativistic speeds (going so fast that time on the moving ship almost stops) and longevity technology.

The distances between the stars are so great that none of us are wired to comprehend things on that scale, and we literally have no context through which to understand the enormity of those distances. There's just nothing in our human experience that even comes close in comparison.

The earlier replies in this thread are correct, Hawking and Einstein are responsible for making things like GPS, cell phones, and quantum computing possible. They also paved the way for things like the Large Hadron Collider, which will help us reveal the "source code" of the universe, and fusion technology, which we're on the cusp of right now.

At some point, someone is going to unify relativity and quantum theory, big and small, and when that happens an entirely new realm of possibilities will be unlocked.

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[–] Massivemuscles85 9 years ago

There was nothing fictitious about the prior info; you are not nearly as knowledgeable on this topic as you are trying to portray yourself as. I said clearly it was hypothetical but all of that information provided came from accomplished scientists which you are not. Nothing that was stated earlier has been disproven by science.

Your statement that the "pocket" at the center of a black hole is "nothing but crushed space-time" proves you have no understanding of what a gravitational singularity is. Spacetime is bent into what appears to be a bottomless pit in our 3-dimensional coordinate space and nobody outside the event horizon can access or communicate with what goes in or see where if anywhere it goes. We have no idea what happens to the mass that goes in except that it disappears from the accessible universe completely. Many scientists have postulated that an advanced civilization capable of manipulating the warping of space and time from a black hole could bend space in such a way that it would form a wormhole. There is nothing science-"fiction" about it.

"It's not possible to survive the event horizon of a black hole" - completely wrong. Someone can pass well through the event horizon of a large black hole like a supermassive one without being killed because tidal forces at the even horizon are not nearly as strong in large black holes as they are in small ones.

"If humanity ever leaves this planet, it will be via sub-light drives, like ramscoops or something very similar to ramscoops" - First off, sub-light is not even a real term. You are referring to "subluminal speeds". Second you couldn't think of anything to say besides "something similar to ramscoops"? Try googling the Alcubierre drive. If the energies required to power something like it could ever be fabricated, it would propel a ship at superluminal speeds(faster than light) in such a way that Einstein's laws would not be violated. But guess what, it would require manipulating of the curvature of space-time. Sound familar?

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[–] captlupin 9 years ago

Just about every major advancement has been criticised as a waste of time or certain fields have been laughed at as stupid.

Airplanes will have no value as people will never be stupid enough to go up in one.
Computer networks are not worth bothering about.
Satalite technology will go no where.

These three things alone were seen as useless but transformed our world.

Remember humans as a species haven't even left our house in terms of how vast the universe is never just laugh something off as just fiction. We do tend to make things work.

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[–] jdcl95 9 years ago

And to add even more, many times when striving for goals that have "no practical benefit" pays off dividends for humanity many times over. For example, the space race that lead to the moon landing (which by itself had no practical purpose) lead to so many innovations that we tend to take for granted today.

Yet people still think that scientists waste time and money for no practical purpose. That's insane thinking.

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[–] Massivemuscles85 9 years ago

Bill Nye once said something similar while making the observation that "NASA is the best brand that America has to offer to the world "

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] Redart27 9 years ago

Thanks to everyone ^ who explained Hawking's theories. It reminds me of how privileged we all are to be humans living now with this level of understanding unlocked for us by brilliant people like Hawking, Einstein, Galileo... Sure these are just tiny steps toward understanding everything that is going on out there in that vast, mysterious universe, but it is leaps ahead of looking up in the sky and thinking the sun is a chariot. Sometimes I get bummed that I will not be around to find out more as future humans delve deeper into this mystery. I just hope we, collectively as a species, will exist long enough to find out everything. I hope one day a person can look up at the stars and know exactly where it all came from, and where it is all evolving towards.

---
toh devres tseb hsid a si msacras

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[–] wyldeone2 9 years ago

Sometimes I get bummed that I will not be around to find out more as future humans delve deeper into this mystery.

Maybe you will get lucky and have an accident like the beginning of the movie The Age of Adaline and get to find out? Just kidding, I don't wish an accident on anyone.
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Just try to stay alive and see what the next minute brings.

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[–] Rogo-9 8 years ago

Einstein came up with E=mC2 which showed the fantastic amount of energy tied up in the atom.
This famous equation was added in the appendix of one of his 1905 papers.
It lead to directly to the research into atomic energy and the Manhattan project and the sudden devastating end to WWII, I can't think of a more pertinent "real world application" of theoretical high end science than that.

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[–] Rogo-9 8 years ago

If I remember correctly it was also the only Equation Hawking included in his book as "every bit of mathematics" would reduce book sales by 50%

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[–] wyldeone2 8 years ago

Actually, I was trying to give a glimmer of hope to Redart27 when I replied to his post concerning him living long enough to see something practical happen because of Hawking's theories.

The movie I referenced Age Of Adeline is about a young person of age 27 living close to 100 years without getting older. They used scientific and medical info that included telomeres to help explain her phenomenon.

https://www.tasciences.com/what-is-a-telomere/

While telomeres is not directly related to Hawking, it is related to anti aging. That is what Einstein and Hawking are trying to get at in order to travel vast distances into outer space and still be alive to see and return. Except they are trying to find out if there is a travel/distance/time short cut of some kind. As of 2016 there is nothing in real life except space travel that deals with the formation or implosion of black holes.

In a different movie Interstellar they attempt to explain these shortcuts along with aging. In my opinion, they did not succeed with their larger planets, longer days, heavier gravity theories on aging because they were still humans. The worm hole shortcut may be something valid, but not for everyday life at this point.

Seems like anti aging in humans would be the better choice for long distance space travel as opposed to trying to find certain shortcut spots. I say that because human aging would occur while traveling to the shortcut, going through it and travel time there after. Film makers currently get around aging by using suspended animation which does not exist to my knowledge. Since humans age during normal sleep and comas, how would suspended animation prevent it?

A couple of years ago I heard about someone in Norway making a challenge to Einsteins theory of relativity. I can't say if this link is the same story.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5544/20140106/three-star-system-challenge-einsteins-theory-relativity.htm

Since I am not a physicist, the better person to have a discussion with would be Neal DeGrasse Tyson.

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Books and movies are usually better than real life.

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] rascal67 8 years ago

In what way has his science benefited humanity?...I mean how has Joe Average's life been directly impacted in a positive and meaningful way by the scientific endeavors of Professor Hawking? Thanks in advance for all serious answers.
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I don't think it has? It is more for scientific minds and physic's academia to go all goo and ga over the fabric and matter of the universe and time and space. It might accumulate to something at some stage; but at this stage it is all pretty much abstract, unless one is interested in the physics of Hawking. Hawking was a genius mind who had a serious affliction\debilitation and was able to overcome his disability by still attempting to bring something to light about what it is all about. It is still fuzzy and even if they do know more, they are not letting on due to culture shock.

Someone told me not long ago that instant teleportation travel has been made possible several decades ago. It is just being kept secret. So go figure!

Don't eat the whole ones! Those are for the guests. 🍪

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