h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our typical thoughts of transmission of information all take plcae in binary which is easily reproducable through wave functions in many different ways. It is the convenient way to consider information. Quantum Physics is not practical for a binary system and until a feasable transmission system that accomodates that type of system, eg. thirds and such, binary is the way to go. Now it is technically impossible to transcend the speed of light but some thoughts have been put forth about binary transmission. Things such as gravity transmission, any change in gravity (this is not equivalent to mass before I get postings on an error) if indeed caused by the theoretical particle known as the graviton, transmits data instantaneously to infinity (Fg -> 0 as r -> infinty). Because there is some amount of gravitational data then trasmited to every point in the universe because the universe must not be infinite. If it could be found that graviton's can be affected we could theoretically from any other point determine the point of origin or the message. Since it would be likely only one of the possible messages are intelligable or relevant we could determine the point of origin. Thus is a system for instantaneous transmission of data. The data is not contained in the energy but in our interprentations of such.

As to things such as tunnel experiments, The tunnel experiments seem only to be feasable as single particles over infintesimal distances and only "through" materials that are sutable for the tunnels. Future work may or may not prove this feasable but we cannot know yet.

Current theories on the so called spooky effects, Particles acting as waves but exhibit none of the properties of said wave, lean towards the idea that a field permeates this universe with the properties of waves inscribed at frequencies where any particle attaining that quantam frequency will exhibit those patterns even though they are simple particles and always remain such. This eliminates duality which may or may not be a problem.

As a side note, thanks to Richard Feynman, we now know that certain things apparently move backwards in time. In certain quantum cases the effects happen prior to the cause.

On the "information travelling faster than light" subject, I have an amusing bit of pub semantics...

1) By pointing a laser beem from the Earth onto the surface of the moon, and swinging the beam vigorously from side-to-side, it should be relatively easy to create a "spot" which travels across the surface at speeds in excess of the speed of light. The spot itself is not a physical entity, so no physical laws are being broken.

"But that doesn't count, because any information carried to the spot is coming from Earth, and therefore never exceeds the speed of light"

2) Imagine two lunar bases a long distance apart. The spot is arranged so it can swing from one to the other, travelling along the ground between at faster than lightspeed.

"So...?"

3) The spot arrives at the second base. This means that the information that the spot has LEFT THE FIRST BASE has reached it faster than the speed of light...

"*Hic*"

Has anyone ever heard of an experiment in which particles were split into neutrinos and one nuetrino was stopped from travellling after so much distance, and the other stopped at the same time, despite there being nothing to stand in its way (I would use the correct terminology but I heard this from a freind and don't know if it's right)
?

cat, you may be talking about an experiment outlined in the bbc's christmas lectures. sounds the same but was more complex than that.

peet, the light (wavey particle) that hits base one is not the same light (wavey particle) that hits base two, therefore the journey is taken by two separate light 'energy packets', and is not a 'faster than light journey'. (if I was pissed, you might have melted my brain with that one.

moose, interesting, but how would you filter chaos?

as far as light goes, if it is a packet of energy, similar to a particle that behaves like a wave, when all the energy is spent, who picks up the packets and puts them in the bin? (this often worries me in the middle of the night when I am convinced I may be sleeping on empty packets of light...)

*PRaK jiggled his head...*

The experiment you are speaking of was actually quite intersting. I believe it was done in Denmark. At the fork of a rather straight section of river, Scientist split the particle and sent each down one branch of the river. At a station 26 miles down each river branch were two recievers. The theory being proved was that when the particle was split, Each piece had certain characteristics which are not determined until that piece is measured, ie detected. Each particle has a spin value which is not determined until it is observed. Each has an equal value but must have an opposite value to conserve momentum. The spin is not determined until long after the particle is split yet always when they are observed, the spins always equal out.

As for filtering out chaos, If we couldn't filter out chaos we'd never have gotten radio, TV or anything off the ground. The theories of interference is basically what it takes.

Some additional comments:

On black holes:
Black holes are places which have a mass so great that not even light can escape. The event horizon is the imaginary sphere which marks the boundry between "light can still leave" and "light is trapped forever, short of polar energy dispersions". If a photon entered the event horizon at c, it would probably spiral around the center of the black hole forever. I say "probably" because it is impossible to see this, due to the fact that this is taking place in a black whole. If somthing were traveling faster than the speed of light, it would not be guarenteed to come out. You would need to draw a "tacheyon (sp) event horizon", a new barriar marking where this faster-than-light particle's Point Of No Return is. If this is sufficiently faster than the speed of light, and the black hole isn't very massive, it is possible that the tacheyon event horizon would be a single point. On time dialation effects: I don't know what happens past the event horizon, but the effects are felt outside it. If you were in a space station orbiting the black hole, time would go slower for you. Ie, what you percieved as a week could be a year for someone in empty space. At the event horizon, you would enconter effects like those in a speed-of-light ship -- your radio would show all events in the universe happening at once. Once you got past the event horizon, weird thing that require classes in quantum physics to understand would happen. However, no one would ever know.

On the "two split photons" thing:
Yes, the particle wouldn't know it's spin value until it was measured. This is a basic principle of quantum physics. NOt that I mean to delve into the less cerebral topics discused in this forum's last iteration, but tis is the whold idea of Schrodinger's cat; the cat is both dead and alive until you open the box.

If you guys have any more problems, email me at [email protected]

i READ ABOUT THE CAT IN THE BOX EXPERIMENT when I was 12.I thought it was an interesting concept, but a cat didn't need to die just to demonstrate the theory, If the box had been made of glass then you would have known straight away;I think the idea is good, but needs expanding.Does anyone know about the experiment where a scientist took an enclosed glass environment and tried to match the conditions of pre-life earth, right down to electrical storms (I think he used some kind of electrodes) after a while he noticed a new substance in the container.It was D.N.A.
A freind-when told about this experiment-asked "but waht role in the experiment was the scientist?"

I know of the experiment of which you speak... It wasn't actually DNA they found, but organic molecules which were close in structure and complexity to the constituent parts of RNA (and hence DNA) - it proved that molecules with the complexity of DNA could have been generated spontaneously.

But what role was the scientist playing?.....
Is there a philosophy forum anywhere?

Far too many

R any of them any good??

The whole Schrodinger's Cat thing rests on the fact that you don't know wheather the cat is dead or alive. The whole point is that, UNTIL YOU KNOW, the cat is both dead and alive. A glass window would defeat the entire idea.

P.S. If you wanted to, you could adjust this experiment to not result in a cat dying. Instead of hooking the decaying particle up to a gun, you could attach it to a light, so that, until you opened the box up the light was both on and off.

P.P.S. Deoxyribonucleic acid is abbreviated DNA, with no periods.

Perhaps the Cat was implying that Douglas Adams (D.N.A.) was created in a laboratory experiment...?

Now peet is learning my antiphysics thought crime.
he's sharper than he looks...

Moose:

If it is possible to express binary information eaisily with a wave form, Im asumeing a sinudsoid, then why wouldnt more complex waveforms be capable of rendering the more complex digits. As in fm and am radio?

And wyh would gravity need to transmit anything, isnt it simply a reaction of what is to what isnt? if something changed at one point in the universe, then the gavity should balance out there, if the gravitons are independant particles then they should be capable of adjusting themselves without recieving transmissions.

perhaps i ust dont know where my towel is

More complex waveforms do contain the possibilty for more information but in binary forms. A complex wave is really just the overlay of several common wave forms each in the traditional sinusoidal pattern. However trying to seperate the common waveforms from the complex waveform is tricky buisness. There are usually sevewral waveforms that fit the bill and that makes it difficult for decoding. Radio waves can be complex in the ways there are because it is simply a resonantion. The data is never encoded or decoded it is simply transmitted the same way sound is.

As for gravitons, the point of that statement is that there is a change in force which is subject to instant transmission. This Force is determined by F=(G*m1*m2)/r^2. By fluctuating the force of gravity between two values, a binary message is created. Gravity doesn't exactly balance because both masses are needed for the value of F,if gravity balanced the force would remain the same no matter what the conditions because the second mass would change with respect to the first.

In reguaards to the perception of waves, particles, and everything in general, what struk me as strange about general realativity is that time does not nescesarily slow down or stop. It is our perception of time that that ritards and finaly ceases. Knowing that we only hear up to about 20Khz and only see a small spectrum of radiated energy, that the tunneling we observe in atomic situations could apply to the universe. After all we could be an atom in a giants fingernail.

As a sideline, binary *isn't* the only way of transmitting information - analogue encoding of signals can be just as useful. Rather than, say, transmitting the number "80" by flipping a signal rapidly between 0 and 100% of its strength to produce a binary data stream, you could send just two pulses, one reference pulse at 100% amplitude, then a data pulse at 80% amplitude... Much more efficient.

xactly.I still swear by smoke signals.The one thing none of you are taking into account is that as yet mankind is too greedy and disorganised to have developed particularly long range manned space travel yet, so we don't really have much use for all these fantastic theorys, unless we happen to stumble accross the one aliens happen to use(your the physics geniuses, you do do the maths-but i'm willing to put a high yeild bet that the chances of that are pretty small)






I also predict that one of you will reply to this opening with the words "not as small as you'd think" (as you've probably guessed by now, i'm way out of my league here)