77 replies to this topic

[angryhampster]

how are planets formed?

 

when will we leave this earth and colonize another planet?

 

are we being held down in our pursuit of space?!?1

 

are there such thing as aliens? besides us

 

what is beyond the universe, and beyond that?

 

why are all planets round, and only round?

 

how do planets orbit around planets and suns?  are they magnets?   is the sun a magnet too?

[Rainbow_Sheep]

1. Planets are formed by rocks and other substances being pulled together by gravity. The more matter there is, the more gravity that will exert on other objects, pulling them towards them and increasing the size of the object. Eventually you might get a planet, although it is more likely you'll get a comet or similar projectile since they take less matter to form.

 

2 & 3 Depending on who you ask, either within the next 100-150 years or never. If we don't leave this planet soon, it is almost inevitable that humanity will die out mostly or completely either as a result of global warming or overpopulation. We have been able to reach nearby planets like mars (which is the best nearby candidate for a space colony). We almost definitely have the technology or are close to having the technology to form a sustainable space colony. However if people can actually work together for this goal is one of the deciding factors.

 

4. There is a paradox about the existence of aliens. I will have to look it up again, but a scientist calculated the probability of encountering (sentient) aliens based on the size of the universe, the density of planets etc etc. The result he got was quite high, giving us the paradox of "Why haven't we encountered sentient life yet?" However it is more likely that we'll find bacteria or other simple life forms out in the universe. Sentient life is less likely.

 

5. We don't know. It is impossible to say, although I'm sure there are theories.

 

6. Gravity pulls towards the center of mass. Because a circle (Or sphere in this case) has each point an equal distance from the center, a sphere or more commonly an elliptical sphere is the shape of a planet.

 

7. Gravity.

Edited by Rainbow Sheep, 04 February 2016 - 09:28 AM.

[Silverfire]

The answer to life the universe and everything:

 

Spoiler

42.

Spoiler

Just kidding.

Spoiler

 

 

[Hyginos]

Gravity.

 

Hopefully before we nuke ourselves extinct.

 

Yes. Public attitude is not exactly ripe for space travel right now.

 

Fermi paradox.

 

Depends on how many dimensions you allow our universe to exist in, and what you define as "the universe"

 

Gravity again.

 

Gravity again.

[dorobo]

There is a planet far far away that is a one huge diamond

[Aregon]

There is a planet far far away that is a one huge diamond

There is also a planet slowly being devoured by its sun, a planet that got glass fragments raining sideways, a planet with a ring system so massive that Saturn is envy, and a planet with a storm that has been going on for centuries even when in theory it should have stopped ages ago (Jupiter).

[kaiserschmarrn_]

Angry Hampster:

 

[CraftyDus]

when will we leave this earth and colonize another planet?

 

We already have colonized this one, we won't be doing another. Ever

 

are we being held down in our pursuit of space?!?

 

No, we are being held down in our "why are you hitting yourself?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

are there such thing as aliens? besides us

 

yes, dolphins and crows

 

 

 

why are all planets round, and only round?

 

They are not. Some are formed of ham and are vestigially bipedal in various stages of diabetes

 

 

 

  are they magnets?   is the sun a magnet too?

 

 

Nobody understands how magnets work.

 

People make fun of Insane Clown Posse, but those same people are without a good explanation when pressed.

 

 

Richard Feynman explains why the reason for all those weak explanations here;

 

[Amidatelion]

Angry Hampster:

 

 

kaiserschmarngefelsch_ :

 

[Aregon]

kaiserschmarngefelsch_ :

 

[ticklemyiguana]

So, actually there have been some decent explanations on all these, and if you're interested, I could likely expand on most of the above answers, but I would like to take a look at question five, simply because there's a perspective that I find entertaining to think about, that is so rarely brought up.

 

What's outside the universe?

 

It's a common question once you first hear the word "universe", and it's one of the deepest questions in science, religion, philosophy, it's one of the deepest questions that we can really formulate. But I think there's a critical lack of understanding when most people ask that question - see most people don't understand what the universe is. It's easy enough to consider the universe as the thing that everything is in. Now I'll admit that the furthest limits of science don't know what exactly the boundary of this conceptual handbag (have you ever seen what's inside those things?) is like but the notion of it being this, container, is inherently limited.

 

See when the universe first came into existence it expanded to roughly the diameter of our solar system in about one second. If you'll recall your basic scientific facts, it takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun - a distance far shorter than any radian of our solar system. Yet in the universe's expansion, it did not break the speed of light. How is this possible?

 

Well, for starters, velocity is relative. It's relative to other objects - maybe you can see where I'm going with this. If the universe is everything, what exactly is its velocity relative to?

 

If you're quick, you'll say "itself". Ah. Yes. But the reason we consider velocity relative is because that relativity possesses an inherent distance between the two objects - that is to say if you're running fast relative to a rock, it's because the distance between you and the rock are changing.

 

"Fine, the universe is moving faster than the speed of light relative to it's center."

 

Perfect. Except, well. Not. Distance is a quality of the universe itself. And here's where we need to take a closer look.

 

Every physical quality that you can conceive, distance, heat, speed, time, force, mass, etc., each of them is a quality of the universe. Any "aha!" moments yet? Keep on reading.

When you imagine deep deep deep space far from the reaches of any planet or star or galaxy, you imagine blackness. Vacuum. Now throw a rock through that vacuum. Is it still a rock? That's because you're still in this universe. It's not so much the what is in it, as much as how it's in it. The universe is the culmination of all physical properties and the laws the define them that allow for vacuums and rocks to exist. I like the word fabric. You've probably heard it before. It's not any more apt at describing it than anything else, but the fabric of the universe is what mass and energy travel across, and it defines how exactly it travels. Once you go beyond that fabric, you can't predict what happens without knowing what's outside that fabric. The universe is less a place or container than a set of laws that allows for all of physics to exist. When you step outside the universe, everything you have ever observed has no bearing on what might happen. You might very well explode or disappear or violate laws of thermodynamics that are fundamental to this universe - but don't exist outside of it. You might expand to the size of a galaxy or turn into a frog. The laws that make up our universe are actually more than laws in the sense we tend to think of them - they actually are the universe. Learning science is as close as you can get to touching the skeleton of the universe.

 

So what's outside it? We don't know. Something different.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 10:23 AM.

[SparkyJJC]

Poland will find out shortly.
 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh wait

Edited by Sparky, 04 February 2016 - 10:28 AM.

[Hyginos]

Imagine if you will a 2 dimensional person named Jim.

 

Jim lives in a 2 dimensional universe, so he cannot see that his entire universe is, in fact, the surface of an expanding balloon.

 

Jim can see that objects are getting further away from him, so he can guess that his observable space is expanding, but he cannot perceive of anything that is not on the surface of the balloon. He cannot find the edge of his observable space, as it is continuous to him, and he cannot leave the surface of the balloon because he simply does not exist in that dimension. Only mathematical models can describe to Jim how the balloon  works.

 

In a similar manner, our universe may be a 3 dimensional surface on an expanding 4 dimensional object (or a simulation, but that is another train of thought entirely). Go ahead and try to imagine that.

 

So to answer the question "what is outside the universe": Math. Lots of really abstract math.

Edited by Hyginos, 04 February 2016 - 10:49 AM.

[ticklemyiguana]

 

So to answer the question "what is outside the universe": Math. Lots of really abstract math.

 

Uh, hygs, math is a product of the laws that govern our universe, where one plus one will equal two no matter where you are in it. I'm having some difficulty figuring out where you're getting that.

[Hyginos]

Uh, hygs, math is a product of the laws that govern our universe, where one plus one will equal two no matter where you are in it. I'm having some difficulty figuring out where you're getting that.

 

If you define the universe as observable space then by necessity you are confined to comprehending the "outside" of it via mathematical modeling.

Edited by Hyginos, 04 February 2016 - 11:06 AM.

[ticklemyiguana]

If you define the universe as observable space then by necessity you are confined to comprehending the "outside" of it via mathematical modeling.

Er... You're talking about the observable universe - which is merely a product of our position in space and the speed of light compounded by the age of the universe and its rate of expansion. The universe is different from the observable universe.

And in that case what's beyond the observable universe is very likely similar to what's inside the observable universe - much more than math, and not all that abstract either.

 

Mathematical modeling fails in interpreting what's outside the universe altogether, and our best insight into theoretical constructs like the multiverse, come from looking at the universe's fundamental nature and hypothesizing how that might interact with the moment that the universe first came into being, but unlike presently testable theories, it does amount to significant guesswork.

 

Sorry for the edits if you were typing.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 11:29 AM.

[Hyginos]

Er... You're talking about the observable universe - which is merely a product of our position in space and the speed of light compounded by the age of the universe and its rate of expansion. The universe is different from the observable universe.

And in that case what's beyond the observable universe is very likely similar to what's inside the observable universe - much more than math, and not all that abstract either.

 

Mathematical modeling fails in interpreting what's outside the universe altogether, and our best insight into things like the multiverse, come from looking at the universe's fundamental nature and hypothesizing how that might interact with the moment that the universe first came into being.

 

Sorry for the edits if you were typing.

 

Perhaps we should agree on a definition of "the universe".

 

I refer to "Observable space" not as "stuff we can see with telescopy on earth", but as space that could theoretically be observed by a 3 dimensional being or its instrumentation. This is our equivalent of the surface of Jim's balloon.

 

I'm not literally saying that there's just math outside our 3 dimensions. You just need math to comprehend it.

Edited by Hyginos, 04 February 2016 - 11:41 AM.

[ticklemyiguana]

Perhaps we should agree on a definition of "the universe".

I refer to "Observable space" not as "stuff we can see with telescopy on earth", but as space that could theoretically be observed by a 3 dimensional being or its instrumentation. This is our equivalent of the surface of Jim's balloon.

I'm not literally saying that there's just math outside our 3 dimensions. You just need math to comprehend it.

I find this definition to be very loose given our lack of knowledge on theoretical instruments of observation.
A universe is an instance of existence of space - temporal or otherwise. Our universe is defined by the laws with which it operates, which include all instances of what we would define as logic and math. This is where I take issue with the assumption that outside the universe is math - however abstract. It's certainly possible, probable even, at least if we were to interpret our sample without context of our ignorance, that outside the universe is some form of pattern or math, but we simply have no idea.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 11:52 AM.

[Hyginos]

I find this definition to be very loose given our lack of knowledge on theoretical instruments of observation.
A universe is an instance of existence of space - temporal or otherwise. Our universe is defined by the laws with which it operates, which include all instances of what we would define as logic and math. This is where I take issue with the assumption that outside the universe is math - however abstract. It's certainly possible, probable even, at least if we were to interpret our sample without context of our ignorance, that outside the universe is some form of pattern or math, but we simply have no idea.

 

Math is literally a just a method of describing things. It isn't a fixed set of operators. If we find something that can't be described by math then we just make more math until we can.

[SatelliteJack]

This is actually my favorite thread ever. It's beautiful. I would answer the questions, but it seems others have beaten me to it. Carry on.

[ticklemyiguana]

Math is literally a just a method of describing things. It isn't a fixed set of operators. If we find something that can't be described by math then we just make more math until we can.

I agree to an extent but there's a reason we can't find math to describe actual randomness. At best we call it probability, but it predicts nothing.
We also don't have math that describes the concept of nothing. At best we call it zero, but that doesn't describe the properties of a physical quantity of nothing, it just says there isn't something.

That doesn't mean it can't exist - but they are concepts that have existed for quite some time without mathematical explanation. Mathematic presumes a pattern - a system of cause and effect at every level. Cause and effect is a property of our universe.

Of course we're not operating on a strict definition of mathematics either - neither of us. Mathematics is technically a study. If we were to go by that, we could say economics or biology or finances exist outside our inverse, since all it would take is thinking about outside the universe in such a fashion.

I think for our purposes, the definition of math as the process by which we predict cause and effect, be it in numbers or application, fits both our notions. Restricting the definition further makes the whole point moot. By definition then, mathematical models do not account for true randomness or the absence of cause and effect. In this case, outside the universe may or may not contain math.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 12:21 PM.

[Sorroritas]

 

when will we leave this earth and colonize another planet?

When we finally manage to solve our problems on this planet.

[Hyginos]

The idea that math can't describe randomness is silly. There is an entire subset of math dedicated to describing randomness and even quantifying how random something is. True randomness is described by a flat probability density function. ezpz.

 

Zero describes the concept of nothing. Nothing is the lack of a physical quantity (Or maybe not. You wanna do the semantics with this?), and is not hard to describe.

 

 

When we finally manage to solve our problems on this planet.

 

[ticklemyiguana]

The idea that math can't describe randomness is silly. There is an entire subset of math dedicated to describing randomness and even quantifying how random something is. True randomness is described by a flat probability density function. ezpz.

 

Zero describes the concept of nothing. Nothing is the lack of a physical quantity (Or maybe not. You wanna do the semantics with this?), and is not hard to describe.

Describing how random something is describes the state of that thing about as well as describing the number of chromosomes present in a genetic sequence describes the being in question.

 

That's not easy peasy. The "subset of math dedicated to describing randomness" is probability. It only has any value when essentially all other math fails our processing, and even then, only due to complexity of the system in question - not due to a total lack of cause and effect.

Your statements are based on the assumptions that outside the universe is as intelligible as inside the universe, that mathematics will hold value when there are infinite arrangements of laws and probabilities possible, and possible all at once. Perhaps one day we will write mathematics to describe it, but your assumption that we can seems naive, and slightly lacking in imagination.

 

Regarding "nothing". It's actually a physical principle, and zero doesn't describe it.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 12:51 PM.

[Hyginos]

Your statements are based on the assumptions that outside the universe is as intelligible as inside the universe, that mathematics will hold value when there are infinite arrangements of laws and probabilities possible, and possible all at once. Perhaps one day we will write mathematics to describe it, but your assumption that we can seems naive, and slightly lacking in imagination.

 

Perhaps we should agree on a definition of "the universe".

 

 

 

Regarding "nothing". It's actually a physical principle, and zero doesn't describe it.

 

Elaborate.

[ticklemyiguana]

Elaborate.

Well, for starters, let me say that in a previous post I may have mixed up the two items I am about to describe - however regarding 0!=nothing:

 

In order for 0 to describe "nothing" two things must be in place - the notion of numbers and all the laws that follow, and there being a total lack of anything in the space that we are describing. As it turns out, that doesn't actually happen. No, seriously, that's not a real scenario in our universe.

 

Within our universe, where numbers and modern mathematics can be applied, and following that, where the concept of zero makes sense, there is no such thing as nothing in the sense that zero can describe it - and this actually does not call for any regression of thought processes to make some argument about "the existence of physical law already means there's something" - it's actually just the fact that the space between everything contains a very significant amount of energy. It actually contains most of the mass in the universe according to modern theory - in fact, "something" is closer to zero than "nothing" by a factor of about 3.

 

That sounds pretty weird. I know. Super weird. Evidence for the above has been in the process of discovery since Hubble and the notion that there's a distinct curvature to our universe, and it really does get above my level of knowledge on the subject. Lawrence Krauss does a pretty good lecture on it, feel free to look up "Universe From Nothing".

 

The other kind of nothing is the kind of nothing that might be closer to zero, but is also fundamentally not zero. Well fuzzy bunny me, right? That's the nothing of outside the universe, before it, however you want to phrase it, in which behavior is entirely limited to probabilistic functions, in a place where time doesn't even exist and probability kind of falls flat on its face - and that kind of nothing is also something. In fact it's so much of something that it's likely our entire universe was made from it. The reason that this version of nothing is closer to zero than essentially only a part of this definition is that this kind of nothing takes the universe into account as a whole - not as a zero, but as an equation where the entire universe can be equivalent to nothing.

Basically if you insist on referring to nothing as zero, you can visualize it as 0 = -x + x. But even still, 0!=0 in this case, because there's an energy that causes the split in the first place.

 

I know for a fact that all of the above sounds incredibly wishy washy, you have my deepest apologies for that. While I can explain to most people quite effectively how the universe got to its current state from the beginning, what happened before that just is not my area of expertise. But I encourage a little bit of research in the matter, it never hurts.

 

I can say with quite a straight face that zero and "nothing", under multiple definitions outside of the purely mathematical and unapplied and therefore irrelevant to this discussion, are very different items. They might be the same somewhere/when/how though.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 03:00 PM.

[maxajcd]

tldr this entire thread, humans suck, gravity, math

[angryhampster]

1. Planets are formed by rocks and other substances being pulled together by gravity. The more matter there is, the more gravity that will exert on other objects, pulling them towards them and increasing the size of the object. Eventually you might get a planet, although it is more likely you'll get a comet or similar projectile since they take less matter to form.

 

 

how does the condensing every begin, and where can they meet up and find the focal point, and how does it even start up the inner core with the heat and magnetism.    I'm still sensing the planets are artificially created by a gravitational device to combine the rocks together, and then a heat core like a small sun was purposely inserted to give the planet it's atmosphere?   how does the pulling effect of the core make something so compact for a circular planet to even turn into one, and why is it perfectly rounded so perfectly?.....    it's almost like a person woodworking through a wood project because on that day, he had wood.

 

 

 

2 & 3 Depending on who you ask, either within the next 100-150 years or never. If we don't leave this planet soon, it is almost inevitable that humanity will die out mostly or completely either as a result of global warming or overpopulation. We have been able to reach nearby planets like mars (which is the best nearby candidate for a space colony). We almost definitely have the technology or are close to having the technology to form a sustainable space colony. However if people can actually work together for this goal is one of the deciding factors.

 

 

 

yes, i have a gut feeling that with 8 billion people in this world, the next generation is going to suffer, but then again, every generation has suffered since the dawn of time...  how soon will it be until we all go extinct again and start over as regular instinct driven animals searching for food?   this gripping fear of seeing how this earth (the people) will become really eats a number at my soul.   at the end of the tunnel, there's going to be more bloodshed, more pain, and... ahh shieettt, who cares, we're all bacteria... we started off as an consuming bacteria and now we're just an evolved form of it, to be able to tell the difference that we are bacteria.

 

 

4. There is a paradox about the existence of aliens. I will have to look it up again, but a scientist calculated the probability of encountering (sentient) aliens based on the size of the universe, the density of planets etc etc. The result he got was quite high, giving us the paradox of "Why haven't we encountered sentient life yet?" However it is more likely that we'll find bacteria or other simple life forms out in the universe. Sentient life is less likely.

 

 

i've come up with a theory, that the sentient aliens are us... and that our bodies and genes are from sentient beings of the old extinct entities that died off or ran away....  nah, im just playing.. but, maybe our genes will give us a closer link to what the real aliens were.

 

 

 

 

6. Gravity pulls towards the center of mass. Because a circle (Or sphere in this case) has each point an equal distance from the center, a sphere or more commonly an elliptical sphere is the shape of a planet.

 

 

 

i will have do reading on gravity....   how does gravity even work, and when does it start to pull... how does the core of a planet determine the strength of gravity?   if something like is possible, maybe....

 

maybe we shouldn't say that we need to find a planet to live on, why odn't we just create a planet that runs just like earth because that's the best planet to maximize our bacteria to it's highest potential lust.

[angryhampster]

i hate to be the conspiracy theoriest...

 

but, let's assume the moon landing did take place...

 

why did we just stop visiting the moon after 1972?  what was the true politics surrounding it?

[angryhampster]

See when the universe first came into existence it expanded to roughly the diameter of our solar system in about one second.

 

 

how can you be certain that it took only 1 second ?

 

i think, within a universe, there are other universes's.

 

and within those billions of universes, there are trillions of universes,  and it will all lead to the same source, the engine that keeps all of those trillions and trillions of universes and tri-universes going...

 

energy doesn't not start from nothing, and there had to be something that started, but what was that something that started it? and which engine started that engine? and then it's gonna keep looping to the point where someone from the future, created the tool of the past that started all of this.

[ticklemyiguana]

how does the condensing every begin, and where can they meet up and find the focal point, and how does it even start up the inner core with the heat and magnetism.    I'm still sensing the planets are artificially created by a gravitational device to combine the rocks together, and then a heat core like a small sun was purposely inserted to give the planet it's atmosphere?   how does the pulling effect of the core make something so compact for a circular planet to even turn into one, and why is it perfectly rounded so perfectly?.....    it's almost like a person woodworking through a wood project because on that day, he had wood.

The "condensing" begins because matter has mass, and a property of mass is gravity. Every atom has gravity, and absent of other forces will pull toward other atoms. In a large amount of empty space, these eventually condense to clouds of dust and gas, which pull together tighter and tighter until you have rocks and asteroids which after enough matter has been pulled in, begin to be affected by gravity even further - in the sense that everything greater than about 100km in diameter is round, because the gravity of that object pulls at the mass of it and shapes it around its center.

 

One of the more common equations for determining gravity is:

 

F_g=G*(m₁*m₂)/r²

 

F_g is the force of gravity (in newtons).

G is the gravitational constant. It's googlable, and I actually don't know it off the top of my head, just that it's about 20 orders of magnitude smaller than Coulomb's constant, which defines a similar formula, just for the electromagnetic force.

m₁ and m₂  are the mass of object 1 and the mass of object 2 respectively (in kilograms)

r is the distance between object 1 and object 2's centers of gravity (I believe in meters).

 

What it basically says is that the greater the mass, and the closer it is, the more gravitational force you will feel. (To answer one of your later questions, there's no outer limit to gravity - it just gets very very weak after a while.) Very large objects, such as planets or big asteroids, feel the force of their own gravity enough that it overcomes whatever force (in this case, the structural integrity [probably not the scientific term] of the object) is causing the object to resist its gravity.

 

Moving on to the heat that's generated within a planet, specifically Earth. Not every planet's core is hot, but Earth's is. If you search just about anywhere, you'll get varying answers in specificity, but all agree on three parts - that you have left over heat from the formation of the planet, in which it was mercilessly bombarded by asteroids and other massive objects - potentially a dwarf or proto planet which after impact put enough matter into Earth's orbit to slowly form the moon. These impacts generate an extraordinary amount of heat. Seriously. If I were to describe the cataclysmic effects of planet sized objects hitting each other in space, it would just sound like pure exaggeration. Do yourself the courtesy of looking that up on your own. So this heat remains on Earth and liquefies, well. Pretty much everything. As you may notice when you see oil on water, lower density liquids rise to the surface of a system, as higher density liquids sink. In the process of incredible quantities of molten rock and metal undergoing this rising and sinking, even more heat is generated - it's not a clean process. When you rub your hands together real fast, you'll notice it generates heat. By that same process, gargantuan masses of iron and rock sliding past each other generates even more heat - this is the second part, and when everything "settles"  that heat remains trapped under hundreds and thousands of miles of Earth, and similar to how your house traps in heat, the heat inside the Earth has a hard time escaping. There's a third factor that seems largely responsible for the sustained heat - Earth's mantle and core not really cooling off as it should have, and that's radioactive decay. Radioactive elements are atoms that are unstable and emit energy as they decay toward a more stable state. As you might know, temperature is a measure of heat, which is actually synonymous with kinetic energy. As a result of the release of energy that has basically nowhere to go, it bumps around other atoms and keeps them moving which keeps them hot. As this continues, hotter clusters of elements, just like hot air, rise and cooler clusters fall, and back to the second source of heat, the one about rubbing your hands together, more friction is generated, and more heat happens.

 

Alright. So that's why the center of the Earth is hot - but that's not why stars are hot (at least not the primary reason).

 

Stars coalesce in much the same way that planets do - through gravitational attraction. Now let's back up for just a moment - 13.8 billion years to be specific. This is the start of the universe. You may be familiar with terms like "proton" "electron" and "neutron" and you may know well enough to associate them with atoms. Now, I'm going to skip a hell of a lot of physics right here, because it's not what you asked for. What you need to know is that protons have a lot more mass than electrons (like a planet has more mass than a blueberry), and protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged. Furthermore, they have the same amount of charge, meaning that a proton plus an electron makes zero total charge. Additionally, neutrons aren't yet in the picture.

 

Beginning of the universe - skipping the real nitty gritty subatomic stuff, in a fraction of the smallest fraction of a second you can imagine, there is a universe full of protons and electrons. You may have heard the term opposites attract - and this is where that's from. Very quickly, electrons and protons pair up and form the simplest and smallest element, Hydrogen. That's just one proton, and one electron. There are also hydrogen ions, which are protons that don't have electrons, and free electrons, which are electrons without protons - but for the must part you have hydrogen. A universe of it.

 

You might know that hydrogen is a gas at most temperatures - think Hindenburg - and here it's no different (well actually it's plasma for a significant period, but that's a story for another day). These tiny tiny tiny little particles of hydrogen slowly start to come together and form large clouds of gas. Fast forward a billion years or so. Eventually you have a cloud of hydrogen large enough (and they are large - much larger than your usual star) that it starts pulling really really hard on itself - just like planets. As the hydrogen starts to collapse, it releases energy. Think how when you fall, you have to move, and that movement takes energy. That energy comes from you basically standing up and putting yourself at a higher point. When you fall, that energy is released, and some of it is absorbed by the air that you knock out of the way, and when you hit the ground, that energy is absorbed by both you and the ground, while some of it is released in the form of heat and sound. In much the same way, that falling hydrogen releases energy, and it is absorbed by more and more hydrogen.

 

Now remember when I said that protons are positively charged? Well, for their volume, they are the most positively charged particles in the known universe. If opposites attract, then two of a kind repel - and protons repel each other at close range at a really extreme force. So, like we had the formula for gravity, we have the formula for electromagnetic attraction and repulsion:

 

F_e=K*(q₁*q₂)/r²

 

Look familiar? I copied and pasted it from above and then just switched some symbols for a few variables.

 

F_g=G*(m₁*m₂)/r²

 

Instead of mass, q stands for charge. Instead of gravitational force, F_e  stands for electromagnetic force, and instead of the gravitational constant, we have Coulomb's constant, K. Now one of the big differences here is that if F_e  is positive, the force is repulsive, as in it pushes the two objects apart. If it's negative, it attracts. If we're talking about two protons here, F_e  will always be positive, and therefore they will repel. That's boring. Sorry. What's really important is the difference between K and G. If we say G is 1 (it's not, but nicer than saying "x") then K is about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 20 zeros, and we would call it "100 quintillion". That means that the force of repulsion between two protons is about 100 quintillion times stronger than their gravitational attraction. Honestly we'd have to add or subtract a few zeros, because a proton doesn't equal a single unit of charge or mass, but it repels with an incredible force and will always always always beat out gravity.

 

Until it doesn't.

 

The combined pressure and energy of that massive cloud of gas collapsing is enough to break that force, and get protons to touch. This is where things get real interesting. When two protons touch, they undergo something called nuclear fusion. You might have heard about that - you probably heard about it in reference to weapons, particularly "The Hydrogen Bomb". Well think bigger. Because here, the environment is just right, that instead of a tiny little bit of hydrogen fusing, as it does in the very largest of atomic weapons, a mass bigger than a planet undergoes fusion. A star is literally an incredibly high amount of matter constantly exploding in the same way as our most powerful of nuclear warheads do, every single second for billions and billions of years, and turning into new elements - namely helium (which has two protons, which makes sense because duh). The only thing that holds stars together is their absolutely immense gravity.

 

So that's why things are hot.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 09:09 PM.

[angryhampster]

can you be my science teacher and at your leisure and convenience, answer my questions whenever you are bored or willing to answer it?

 

what books have you read..  where did you get the drive to learn such things.  i'm beginning to gain an interest in astrophysics and astronomy, because if i don't, i would live an average life of beer, random useless hobbies, and strip clubs.

 

the way i was brought up, they made sure i had no interest in it until this year. (my fault again for pointing fingers at something else besides me)..  what books would you reccomend that you have read,  what are your current personal studies in relation to the universe / science. 

 

you explain it to the point a hamster like me can understand.   i guess there is still hope for me afterall.

[angryhampster]

what is the origin of rocks?

 

how did rocks randomly appear after the big bang?

 

edit: there certainly must have been a creator, for something to appear.  it just can't just randomly appear, especially gas and heat...  black holes, 

 

where is the engine that create these physical things that we observe today as natural?

 

would it be possible to possible to alter gravity? on a high strong scale?    let's assume that tesla had the potential to use all types of energy, he couldive easily had the power to create a device that can change gravity, especially since there are buildings that have no gravity, for a cost

Edited by angryhampster, 04 February 2016 - 09:35 PM.

[ticklemyiguana]

Books I've read... Oof. Honestly my favorite books have been science fiction. Dune by Frank Herbert is probably my all time favorite, followed by maybe Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. That's probably not what you're asking - but the fact of the matter is that if you have questions, we live in a day and age that you can ask them and get good answers. The problem is usually noticing or thinking about something enough to have the questions in the first place - which you appear to be doing. Without a mandated education program (school), asking those questions is one of the harder parts of learning.

 

I currently am out of school - actually dropped out, though I studied primarily English and Physics, though I'm a bit of an anomaly. I had the good fortune of being born into a family that's been pretty well established since the American revolutionary war, and education was just a principle, like being polite. Also probably not the answer you're looking for. A lot of the stuff I know now is just stuff I paid attention to in high school and just left in my head to roll around, and asking questions about that leads to more things in my head to roll around and ask questions about.

 

I guess the big thing is maintaining an interest, which I critique schools really really harshly on, and I guess is why I'd recommend reading some good science fiction, and trying to really immerse yourself in the scale of it. I don't know. Some people would probably call that pretty crappy advice. It really is just all about questions, and those just come from being observant. Here's a trick I use whenever I think about it. Consciously and verbally consider whatever you look at or feel or hear or smell or taste. If it's a speaker, form a list of its characteristics in your head, how you know those characteristics, try and visualize what's happening as it makes sound, what's happening to the air as the sound goes through it, and if at any point there's a gap, write it down and look it up when you get the chance. That can get overwhelming, especially at first, so prioritize, but eventually you'll start to form a map of how things relate to each other.

 

Science isn't some huge mysterious thing. It's just wanting to know about the stuff around you.

 

If you really start to get interested, find a course, with a real human professor. Not all professors are great, but most are passionate about their subject to a good degree, and if you come in with questions, most are actually pretty happy to engage you and help you really grasp a subject. Finding an actual academic course on a subject can give some real structure to the knowledge you're accumulating.

 

One thing I will say is once you start to know something really well, and people know it, people ask you questions about it, and oftentimes those questions will glance over something deeper that you don't know, and in attempting to answer the questions people have, you'll often wind up with an even wider base of knowledge because you have to look stuff up and understand it in order to convey it accurately.

 

Some stuff, like the stuff I was trying to convey to Hyginos, can take a really really long time to understand, and so there's definitely a limit to just being interested in everything, but there's not much of a limit on what you can be interested in.

 

For the record, this:

 

can you be my science teacher and at your leisure and convenience, answer my questions whenever you are bored or willing to answer it?

 

you explain it to the point a hamster like me can understand.   i guess there is still hope for me afterall.

 

Is the single highest compliment you can give someone. Thank you. I am pretty much perpetually willing, time allowing for it, to answer questions on things I understand, and try to understand them better.

 

I'll try and get to some of the other stuff tomorrow.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 04 February 2016 - 10:12 PM.

[angryhampster]

education can be scary at times for me.  especially since they throw big words.   when the words starts to sound alike very often, they begin to blur with me, and keeping those chain of thoughts is tougher.    
 

 

By definition, the center of mass of a system of masses is the location at which a mass equal to the sum of the masses of the system could be placed and have the same torque or moment with respect to some other fixed point. For example, with respect to the origin of coordinates, in a 3-dimensional reference frame, the x-coordinate of the center of mass calculation of a system of N masses, mi, goes as follows:

 

(?i=0Nmi)xc = ?i=0Nmixi

The center of mass can also be thought of as the average location of the masses weighted by their masses. For a rigid body with a uniform density, the center of mass coincides with the center of gravity.

 

Two-body System

In a simple one-dimensional coordinate system of two masses, m1 and m2, seprated by a distance d, moving with a speed v relative to each other, suppose that the center of mass is located at a distance x1 from m1 and x2 from m2 so that

 

x1+x2=d

and by defintion

 

x1m1+x2m2=(m1+m2)×0=0

so

 

x1+(?m1m2)x1=d

or

 

x1=(m2m1+m2)dx2=(m1m1+m2)d

Also, in the center-of-mass frame,

 

v1=?(m2m1+m2)vv2=(m1m1+m2)v

so that v2?v1=v as required. Also, in the center-of-mass frame, the total momentum is divided in such as way that each mass gets an equal and opposite momentum.

 

m1v1+m2v2=(m2m1m1+m2 – m1m2m1+m2)v

Note also that in the center-of-mass frame, by definition the center of mass point is stationary so does not experience any net force or torque. See also reduced mass

 

 

 this was hard to soak in.

 

http://astrophysicsf...ss-calculation/

 

i would consider this as an language barrier.

 

my main language is English, but this in-itself is a complete different language and a different use of words but the same words.

 

Escape velocity derivation in the context of Newtonian gravity is straightforward. In a gravitational field the escape velocity of an object is an indicator of the kinetic energy it needs to become gravitationally unbound from the system. If the initial energy could take the object to “infinity,” then it would indeed become unbound, and the kinetic energy required to do this would need to be at least equal to the absolute value of the potential energy. In other words

 

12mv2>GMmr

Note that all of this assumes the object receives no additional energy other than it’s initial kinetic energy, and the gravitational potential energy. In other words, the concept of escape velocity does not apply to, for example, powered flight.

Suppose that the mass trying to escape is m and that there is only one other mass, M. In the case that m?M, the escape velocity is

 

v=(2GMr)?????????

or

 

v?42(MM?)12(1AUr)12  km s?1

or

 

v?11.2(MME)12(rEr)12  km s?1

or

 

v?94,200(MM?)12(1AUr)12  miles per hour

or

 

v?25,000(MME)12(rEr)12  miles per hour

where 1 AU is 1 astronomical unit, and M? is a solar mass, rE is the radius of the Earth, and ME is the mass of the Earth.

Another convenient form (again for m?M) that expresses the escape velocity as a fraction of the speed of light, c, is

 

vc=2rgr????

where rg is the gravitational radius, for which convenient forms are

 

rgrgrg=1.4822×1013M8 cm=1.4822(M/M?) km?M8 AU,

where M8 is the central mass in units of 108 solar masses.

In the case that one of the masses is not negligible compared to the other, simply use the total mass (M+m) in place of M in the above formulas for escape velocity.

 

[Rainbow_Sheep]

You can think of gravity like creating a dent in space. The more stuff you have, the bigger dent you have which means more things fall towards it.

would it be possible to possible to alter gravity? on a high strong scale? let's assume that tesla had the potential to use all types of energy, he couldive easily had the power to create a device that can change gravity, especially since there are buildings that have no gravity, for a cost

We wouldn't be able to change gravity without drastically increasing or decreasing the size of the earth by either taking a huge chunk out of it or adding mass somehow.

Edited by Rainbow Sheep, 04 February 2016 - 11:20 PM.

[JeffMagnum]

education can be scary at times for me. especially since they throw big words. when the words starts to sound alike very often, they begin to blur with me, and keeping those chain of thoughts is tougher.


this was hard to soak in.

http://astrophysicsf...ss-calculation/

i would consider this as an language barrier.

my main language is English, but this in-itself is a complete different language and a different use of words but the same words.

You might like this interview

[PoopSlinger]

You guys described how gravity works on stuff, but lets step it up a notch.  Why does gravity do what it do?

 

http://hasthelargeha...heworldyet.com/

[CraftyDus]

no the feynman video to watch is the clip i already had posted, Jeff!

where he shows that you $#$#&%$---ers will never understand MAGNETS!!!!!!!

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW!!!!!!

[ticklemyiguana]

Dammit Crafty, that's not even what he says.

Poop, we're working on that dammit.