10 bonkers things about the universe
August 20, 2011 6:38 PM Subscribe
Marcus Chown's top 10 bonkers things about the universe.
(for the most part - there are a few quibbles I have, but on the whole, I give it the S.H. seal of approval)
posted by Salvor Hardin at 7:14 PM on August 20, 2011
posted by Salvor Hardin at 7:14 PM on August 20, 2011
I'm enjoying it so far..
I don't want to spoil anything but I'll just say the end involves something about a bang or a whimper, can't remember which.
posted by kmz at 7:39 PM on August 20, 2011
I don't want to spoil anything but I'll just say the end involves something about a bang or a whimper, can't remember which.
posted by kmz at 7:39 PM on August 20, 2011
Does anyone have a transcript of this, for those without Flash?
posted by JHarris at 8:12 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 8:12 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]
I have flash. I'm still not watching a video for 48 and a half minutes if I could read it in five.
posted by joannemullen at 8:43 PM on August 20, 2011 [17 favorites]
posted by joannemullen at 8:43 PM on August 20, 2011 [17 favorites]
Reading a book is the enjoyment of the experience.
The same feeling you will get from watching this entire video.
Slow down, enjoy life and enjoy the moment.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 9:01 PM on August 20, 2011
The same feeling you will get from watching this entire video.
Slow down, enjoy life and enjoy the moment.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 9:01 PM on August 20, 2011
Reading a book is the enjoyment of the experience.
The same feeling you will get from watching this entire video.
Slow down, enjoy life and enjoy the moment.
But what if we don't have Flash, like we're on an iPad? Or in a restaurant where we can't hear what's being said without turning it up so loud that others could find it obtrusive? Or have things to do?
posted by JHarris at 9:11 PM on August 20, 2011
The same feeling you will get from watching this entire video.
Slow down, enjoy life and enjoy the moment.
But what if we don't have Flash, like we're on an iPad? Or in a restaurant where we can't hear what's being said without turning it up so loud that others could find it obtrusive? Or have things to do?
posted by JHarris at 9:11 PM on August 20, 2011
Then don't watch it?
Nobody needs you to come here to say you aren't going to watch the video.
posted by empath at 9:17 PM on August 20, 2011 [5 favorites]
Nobody needs you to come here to say you aren't going to watch the video.
posted by empath at 9:17 PM on August 20, 2011 [5 favorites]
I often wonder how the Amish feel as I pass them on the road. Now I have a general idea.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 9:18 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 9:18 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]
I just started the video and I need a new face because my mind blew right through it.
posted by device55 at 9:43 PM on August 20, 2011
posted by device55 at 9:43 PM on August 20, 2011
Meh, 22 minutes in and it's not all that. Atom are mostly empty space, the sun could be made of bananas and still be hot, time passes slower in higher gravity, time travel would be possible if you find a black hole and a pre-existing worm hole and enough strange matter to keep it open but you can't go back in time before the machine was built. Nothing terribly bonkers.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:46 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by zengargoyle at 9:46 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Yeah I guess you see photographs of the sun, taken through the earth by capturing the radiation from neutrino / matter interactions every day. No big whoop.
posted by device55 at 10:04 PM on August 20, 2011
posted by device55 at 10:04 PM on August 20, 2011
Nobody needs you to come here to say you aren't going to watch the video.
There is a difference between aren't and can't. In any case, people regularly complain every time there's a Windows game linked that doesn't mention that there's no Mac/Linux/whatever version. I don't see how this unheralded Flash video is really any different. I'll watch it when I'm on a platform that's capable of it, but it'd be nice to know a little about it in the hours between now and then.
posted by JHarris at 10:17 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]
There is a difference between aren't and can't. In any case, people regularly complain every time there's a Windows game linked that doesn't mention that there's no Mac/Linux/whatever version. I don't see how this unheralded Flash video is really any different. I'll watch it when I'm on a platform that's capable of it, but it'd be nice to know a little about it in the hours between now and then.
posted by JHarris at 10:17 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]
I was watching this with interest, but Mr. Chown's voice and delivery made me nod off onto the desk even faster than my college physics instructor could.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 10:29 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by halfbuckaroo at 10:29 PM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]
Yeah I guess you see photographs of the core of the sun, taken through the earth by capturing the radiation from neutrino / matter interactions every day. No big whoop.
(That said, there's no transcript. I don't know what to tell you. Are you expecting someone on MeFi to transcribe it? Because it's about 50 minutes long.)
posted by dirigibleman at 10:41 PM on August 20, 2011
(That said, there's no transcript. I don't know what to tell you. Are you expecting someone on MeFi to transcribe it? Because it's about 50 minutes long.)
posted by dirigibleman at 10:41 PM on August 20, 2011
Yeah I guess you see photographs of the sun, taken through the earth by capturing the radiation from neutrino / matter interactions every day. No big whoop.
That wasn't the bonkers thing, though. The bonkers thing was the age of the light that we see, measured from its creation in the core of the sun. Which, ok, it's remarkable, but is it bonkers? I don't see what's bonkers about that. Or the "atoms are mostly empty space" one.
That one in particular is more along the lines of "strange when you first learn it, but not all that strange when you think about it" (which is to say, it's "neat")—in part because of the general strangeness of what happens down among the unclefts anyway. Why would you think that the solidity of wood (say) went all the way down like that, especially if you've had the physics that is now standard in high schools? It also reminds me of the following half-remembered and for all I know apocryphal anecdote about Wittgenstein.
Someone speaking with Wittgenstein was commenting on the belief that presumably people actually once held and still reflected in our language, that the sun rises in the morning, and then goes down again at night, and said something like: it's not all that surprising that people should have thought that, because it does look the way things would look if the sun actually did do that. And Wittgenstein responded: and how would it look if the earth rotated on its axis? (Actually now that I've written that maybe it was a comment about geo- vs. heliocentrism: how would things look if the earth went around the sun, as opposed to the sun's going around the earth?) The answer being of course: exactly the way things do look. Nevertheless you might think it's bonkers (bonkers!) that the earth spins around on an axis while orbiting the sun and that's why we have day and night and seasons and whatnot. But really, why should that be bonkers? It's not the way you'd guess things went if you were just sitting around speculating, but it's really a lot less weird than pet rocks. Which are also part of the universe.
posted by kenko at 11:29 PM on August 20, 2011
That wasn't the bonkers thing, though. The bonkers thing was the age of the light that we see, measured from its creation in the core of the sun. Which, ok, it's remarkable, but is it bonkers? I don't see what's bonkers about that. Or the "atoms are mostly empty space" one.
That one in particular is more along the lines of "strange when you first learn it, but not all that strange when you think about it" (which is to say, it's "neat")—in part because of the general strangeness of what happens down among the unclefts anyway. Why would you think that the solidity of wood (say) went all the way down like that, especially if you've had the physics that is now standard in high schools? It also reminds me of the following half-remembered and for all I know apocryphal anecdote about Wittgenstein.
Someone speaking with Wittgenstein was commenting on the belief that presumably people actually once held and still reflected in our language, that the sun rises in the morning, and then goes down again at night, and said something like: it's not all that surprising that people should have thought that, because it does look the way things would look if the sun actually did do that. And Wittgenstein responded: and how would it look if the earth rotated on its axis? (Actually now that I've written that maybe it was a comment about geo- vs. heliocentrism: how would things look if the earth went around the sun, as opposed to the sun's going around the earth?) The answer being of course: exactly the way things do look. Nevertheless you might think it's bonkers (bonkers!) that the earth spins around on an axis while orbiting the sun and that's why we have day and night and seasons and whatnot. But really, why should that be bonkers? It's not the way you'd guess things went if you were just sitting around speculating, but it's really a lot less weird than pet rocks. Which are also part of the universe.
posted by kenko at 11:29 PM on August 20, 2011
Good grief! Now we're getting into the relativity of Bonkers. Chill. Slow down and see the light.
posted by Vibrissae at 12:03 AM on August 21, 2011
posted by Vibrissae at 12:03 AM on August 21, 2011
Top 10 bonkers things about the universe, number 7: Flash.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 1:29 AM on August 21, 2011
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 1:29 AM on August 21, 2011
If we could go back in time, we could implement an edit window during which we could fix typos in our posts. The first application of this I would make is to go back before the video was completed and change Rod Serling to Rod Steiger in his discription of the movie The Time Machine.
posted by Obscure Reference at 7:48 AM on August 21, 2011
posted by Obscure Reference at 7:48 AM on August 21, 2011
Having finally gotten to watch some of this, I have a couple of problems with it. I am not a physicist, but I have kind of an intuitive grasp of some of these things. I could well be wrong on these issues; please correct if I am.
The time travel thing:
He mentions that time passes more slowly in strong gravitational fields. Yes, this is true. But gravity is relative. Traveling at high speeds has the same effect on time as gravity. Thus, hovering near the horizon of a black hole changes how time passes because you're hovering; you're effectively having to travel at near the speed of light to maintain your position.
Traveling from Earth to near the event horizon of a black hole does not actually seem like it's traveling in time. It might still be Wednesday near the hole, but it's still Friday on Earth. When you make your return trip, it's still Friday on Earth. The direction of time has not changed at all, just how far it has progressed in one place or another.
On the slight reflectivity of glass being a proof of the random nature of quantum physics:
But it doesn't necessarily prove that, since only 5% of the light that strikes a sheet of glass is reflected back and the photons are identical, that this must be because of the random nature of quantum particles. Because the photons are not *entirely* identical, they have different position and strike the surface of the glass in different ways depending on the precise locations of the atoms they approach. That could cause some of the photons to react in different ways, since some will strike atoms head-on, some will pass through various parts of the electron cloud, and some might strike between two atoms. I am not a physicist, but that would seem to be a potential source of this differing behavior. And in fact you can make glass more opaque by roughening its surface, which scatters the light in a more complex manner which causes the reflected photons not to resolve, when it strikes our eyes, into a cohesive image.
I'm not trying to say that this means quantum physics is bunk, but it seems, to me, that this might not be a good explanation of its workings?
posted by JHarris at 2:32 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
The time travel thing:
He mentions that time passes more slowly in strong gravitational fields. Yes, this is true. But gravity is relative. Traveling at high speeds has the same effect on time as gravity. Thus, hovering near the horizon of a black hole changes how time passes because you're hovering; you're effectively having to travel at near the speed of light to maintain your position.
Traveling from Earth to near the event horizon of a black hole does not actually seem like it's traveling in time. It might still be Wednesday near the hole, but it's still Friday on Earth. When you make your return trip, it's still Friday on Earth. The direction of time has not changed at all, just how far it has progressed in one place or another.
On the slight reflectivity of glass being a proof of the random nature of quantum physics:
But it doesn't necessarily prove that, since only 5% of the light that strikes a sheet of glass is reflected back and the photons are identical, that this must be because of the random nature of quantum particles. Because the photons are not *entirely* identical, they have different position and strike the surface of the glass in different ways depending on the precise locations of the atoms they approach. That could cause some of the photons to react in different ways, since some will strike atoms head-on, some will pass through various parts of the electron cloud, and some might strike between two atoms. I am not a physicist, but that would seem to be a potential source of this differing behavior. And in fact you can make glass more opaque by roughening its surface, which scatters the light in a more complex manner which causes the reflected photons not to resolve, when it strikes our eyes, into a cohesive image.
I'm not trying to say that this means quantum physics is bunk, but it seems, to me, that this might not be a good explanation of its workings?
posted by JHarris at 2:32 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
Photons are bosons and can share quantum states -- they can be completely and totally identical in every measurable way. This isn't the case for fermions like electrons.
posted by empath at 2:34 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by empath at 2:34 PM on August 21, 2011
But because they can be identical, the photons of light aren't in that case? The photons approaching the glass are part of a field of them that's traveling through the air.
posted by JHarris at 2:42 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by JHarris at 2:42 PM on August 21, 2011
Er, I messed up that first sentence. Not because, I should have said "even though."
posted by JHarris at 2:42 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by JHarris at 2:42 PM on August 21, 2011
He has a 1 gigabit keyring? That's only 128 megabytes. (Okay, I'll stop being pedantic now.)
I do want to say that the above comments is mostly just me quibbling, there are still very interesting things in this talk. The most mind-blowing thing so far has been the nature of the sun's heat, that most of it in fact comes just from its mass, that the thermonuclear reactions just replace what's lost to emission, which is relatively small compared to the bulk of the thing.
posted by JHarris at 2:57 PM on August 21, 2011
I do want to say that the above comments is mostly just me quibbling, there are still very interesting things in this talk. The most mind-blowing thing so far has been the nature of the sun's heat, that most of it in fact comes just from its mass, that the thermonuclear reactions just replace what's lost to emission, which is relatively small compared to the bulk of the thing.
posted by JHarris at 2:57 PM on August 21, 2011
But because they can be identical, the photons of light aren't in that case? The photons approaching the glass are part of a field of them that's traveling through the air.
Yeah, but if you have a laser then they are in identical states, and when you pass them through a beam splitter, then they are randomly reflected. The same as if you have light polarized at 45 degrees passing through a vertical polarizer -- its a 50-50 chance.
posted by empath at 3:11 PM on August 21, 2011
Yeah, but if you have a laser then they are in identical states, and when you pass them through a beam splitter, then they are randomly reflected. The same as if you have light polarized at 45 degrees passing through a vertical polarizer -- its a 50-50 chance.
posted by empath at 3:11 PM on August 21, 2011
Right. But that's not the example he used. He said that physicists wondered about why only 5% of the light reflected from a transparent pane of glass is reflected. He explained it in terms of quantum physics, which I'm not sure is appropriate.
posted by JHarris at 3:31 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by JHarris at 3:31 PM on August 21, 2011
Hm, I think I see what you're saying. I guess? That regardless of what I might see as being the cause of the reflection, that this IS the cause, and the physicists knew this, or could see it better than I can?
posted by JHarris at 4:11 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by JHarris at 4:11 PM on August 21, 2011
If this was Digg or Reddit there'd have been a courtesy list of the ten things after the jump. If there wasn't, somebody would have posted one in the first few comments. Here, people tell you to go fuck yourself and get favourited for their time.
From what I assume is an equivalent text version (fair warning - HuffPost):
1. The entire human race would fit into the volume of a cube of sugar, because matter isn't compressed very effectively.
2. If the sun were made of bananas, it would be equally hot.
3. 98% of the universe is invisible.
4. Today's sunlight is 30,000 years old.
5. You age more slowly on the ground floor of a building than on the top floor.
6. Time travel is not ruled out by the known laws of physics.
7. 1% of the static on a TV tuned between the stations has come straight from the big bang.
8. An atom can be in two places at once, the equivalent of you being in New York and Los Angeles at the same time.
9. The information for 1 million universes will fit on a single 1 Gigabit flash memory.
10. Every breath you take contains an atom breathed out by Marilyn Monroe.
11. Out there in the universe there are an infinite number of copies of you reading an infinite number of copies my Top 11 Crazy Things About the Universe.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:15 PM on August 21, 2011 [3 favorites]
From what I assume is an equivalent text version (fair warning - HuffPost):
1. The entire human race would fit into the volume of a cube of sugar, because matter isn't compressed very effectively.
2. If the sun were made of bananas, it would be equally hot.
3. 98% of the universe is invisible.
4. Today's sunlight is 30,000 years old.
5. You age more slowly on the ground floor of a building than on the top floor.
6. Time travel is not ruled out by the known laws of physics.
7. 1% of the static on a TV tuned between the stations has come straight from the big bang.
8. An atom can be in two places at once, the equivalent of you being in New York and Los Angeles at the same time.
9. The information for 1 million universes will fit on a single 1 Gigabit flash memory.
10. Every breath you take contains an atom breathed out by Marilyn Monroe.
11. Out there in the universe there are an infinite number of copies of you reading an infinite number of copies my Top 11 Crazy Things About the Universe.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:15 PM on August 21, 2011 [3 favorites]
Speaking as the person who complained obiwanwasabi, I can understand if the video is almost 50 minutes long why a summary isn't forthcoming. Still, would have been nice to have been able to participate in the conversation while the thread was still hot.
posted by JHarris at 5:08 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by JHarris at 5:08 PM on August 21, 2011
I just started the video and I need a new face because my mind blew right through it.
You just got chowned!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:36 PM on August 21, 2011
You just got chowned!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:36 PM on August 21, 2011
1. The entire human race would fit into the volume of a cube of sugar, because matter isn't compressed very effectively.
And the universe run through Winzip would fit on my thumbdrive!
posted by eoden at 10:45 AM on August 22, 2011
And the universe run through Winzip would fit on my thumbdrive!
posted by eoden at 10:45 AM on August 22, 2011
« Older Zero Hour. | There is no majority in America that can be built... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Salvor Hardin at 7:11 PM on August 20, 2011