Vacuum Genesis Afterlife?
September 12, 2009 11:03 PM
I'm trying to explain vacuum genesis and the probability that we'll all appear here again at some point.... to some friends. We've all been drinking.
I know I saw an article where a physicist - a woman - stated something along the lines of - "I know I'll be here again."
I'm trying to explain how particles appear in a vacuum, how this is testable, how given a long enough amount of time and a large enough vacuum that anything might appear. Including an awesome world where we all exist again and have magical powers. And I have a pet dragon.
Where is the article I'm thinking of? I know it had a picture of Mozart's bust and it was green... because a green bust of Mozart will bamf into existence at some point in the impossibly far future.
Halp. They don't believe me.
I know I saw an article where a physicist - a woman - stated something along the lines of - "I know I'll be here again."
I'm trying to explain how particles appear in a vacuum, how this is testable, how given a long enough amount of time and a large enough vacuum that anything might appear. Including an awesome world where we all exist again and have magical powers. And I have a pet dragon.
Where is the article I'm thinking of? I know it had a picture of Mozart's bust and it was green... because a green bust of Mozart will bamf into existence at some point in the impossibly far future.
Halp. They don't believe me.
Floam, there's more to it than that. What the OP is saying is not just that it'll happen again, created out of normal matter. The OP is saying it will spontaneously come into existence out of nothing.
If so, it won't last very damned long. It's possible to violate mass-energy conservation because of Heisenberg uncertainty. New energy can come out of nowhere and exist briefly. BUT, the product of the amount of new energy and the duration that it exists is less than Planck's constant.
That's the basis for "virtual photons". They exist, but the energy inherent in them isn't real, in the sense of being permanent and indestructible.
It's true that particles can appear in a vacuum. There are, as I understand it (IANAP) two ways that can happen. First, a gamma ray or other high energy photon can temporarily transform itself into a particle/anti-particle pair, which almost immediately annihilate one another and reproduce a new photon with the same characteristics as the original one.
And it's possible for a particle/anti-particle pair to spontaneously appear out of nothing, and then spontaneously disappear again because of Heisenberg uncertainty. But they won't exist for long, because Planck's constant is a really tiny value.
The odds that multiple kilograms of particles would all appear at once, in the same place, at exactly the same time, arranged in the right configuration, to reproduce some object that previously existed is unlikely in the extreme. But even if it did happen, it would only exist for a period of time so brief as to make a femtosecond look immensely long.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:56 PM on September 12, 2009
If so, it won't last very damned long. It's possible to violate mass-energy conservation because of Heisenberg uncertainty. New energy can come out of nowhere and exist briefly. BUT, the product of the amount of new energy and the duration that it exists is less than Planck's constant.
That's the basis for "virtual photons". They exist, but the energy inherent in them isn't real, in the sense of being permanent and indestructible.
It's true that particles can appear in a vacuum. There are, as I understand it (IANAP) two ways that can happen. First, a gamma ray or other high energy photon can temporarily transform itself into a particle/anti-particle pair, which almost immediately annihilate one another and reproduce a new photon with the same characteristics as the original one.
And it's possible for a particle/anti-particle pair to spontaneously appear out of nothing, and then spontaneously disappear again because of Heisenberg uncertainty. But they won't exist for long, because Planck's constant is a really tiny value.
The odds that multiple kilograms of particles would all appear at once, in the same place, at exactly the same time, arranged in the right configuration, to reproduce some object that previously existed is unlikely in the extreme. But even if it did happen, it would only exist for a period of time so brief as to make a femtosecond look immensely long.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:56 PM on September 12, 2009
(Just in passing, that's how gluons work. A gluon is a quark and an anti-quark and it spontaneously comes into existence because of Heisenberg uncertainty. It exists for a brief period of time and then vanishes again. And that is why the Strong Force has limited range: the gluons cannot travel further than a certain distance without violating that limit of Planck's Constant.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:00 AM on September 13, 2009
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:00 AM on September 13, 2009
What Chocolate Pickle said here is right. However, CP's following comment isn't: gluons are not quark anti-quark pairs - they are fundamental vector gauge bosons. Chocolate Pickle is probably thinking of confinement and hadron jets.
posted by Electric Dragon at 5:09 AM on September 13, 2009
posted by Electric Dragon at 5:09 AM on September 13, 2009
I have to disagree with Chocolate Pickles interpretation. While I don't know the article to which you're referring, the idea the author is referring to is not simply a misunderstanding of the uncertainty principle and quantum field theory. The author was not proposing that it's a certainty that she'll pop into existence in this Universe.
The idea is rather that the Universe itself is just a random entropy fluctuation in some "bigger" space of Universes. There's no limit to how complicated these fluctuations can be, but the more complicated a given configuration is, the less likely it is to arise randomly. (Thus the concept of "Boltzmann Brains".)
So the idea is that long after our Universe disappears, this big bathtub from which our Universe sprang will keep on popping out new Universes. Most of them will be very small and short lived, but every once in a while, one that sort of resembles ours will pop up. And eventually, just by pure chance, one that is indistinguishable from ours will pop up.
As for gluons, the reason the strong force is short lived is due to confinement (gluons, like quarks but unlike photons, are charged under the color force).
posted by dsword at 5:38 AM on September 13, 2009
The idea is rather that the Universe itself is just a random entropy fluctuation in some "bigger" space of Universes. There's no limit to how complicated these fluctuations can be, but the more complicated a given configuration is, the less likely it is to arise randomly. (Thus the concept of "Boltzmann Brains".)
So the idea is that long after our Universe disappears, this big bathtub from which our Universe sprang will keep on popping out new Universes. Most of them will be very small and short lived, but every once in a while, one that sort of resembles ours will pop up. And eventually, just by pure chance, one that is indistinguishable from ours will pop up.
As for gluons, the reason the strong force is short lived is due to confinement (gluons, like quarks but unlike photons, are charged under the color force).
posted by dsword at 5:38 AM on September 13, 2009
I know I saw an article where a physicist - a woman - stated something along the lines of - "I know I'll be here again."
What that speaker failed to realize is that the next time around, being identical to this time around, will be completely indistinguishable from this time around in every respect, and therefore is this time around. It's a hall of mirrors, man.
Have another drink.
posted by flabdablet at 6:59 AM on September 13, 2009
What that speaker failed to realize is that the next time around, being identical to this time around, will be completely indistinguishable from this time around in every respect, and therefore is this time around. It's a hall of mirrors, man.
Have another drink.
posted by flabdablet at 6:59 AM on September 13, 2009
I tend to disagree with that principle, flabdablet. It seems more a logical exercise than a scientific one. Just because two objects are completely and utterly indistinguishable in every respect doesn't mean we only have one object.
posted by Phyltre at 8:50 AM on September 13, 2009
posted by Phyltre at 8:50 AM on September 13, 2009
It does if you're both of them.
posted by flabdablet at 9:19 AM on September 13, 2009
posted by flabdablet at 9:19 AM on September 13, 2009
Except - see - when the new universe I'm describing appears, it will be entirely similar to this Universe, however, we will have all the memories of our previous life as well as magical powers. Perhaps we will develop the memories as we age in this new universe, however our magical powers will allow us to prevent aging past where we'd like...
I know this seems trite and silly but I'm being completely serious here. Given the infinity of the bathtub-universe-generator, I see absolutely no reason to assume that this won't result.
But now we're done drinking, we all have hangovers and no one wants to talk to me about this stuff. But thanks to everyone for commenting because I'm certain this conversation will come up again. Either in this universe, or in the one where I have a pet dragon.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:52 AM on September 13, 2009
I know this seems trite and silly but I'm being completely serious here. Given the infinity of the bathtub-universe-generator, I see absolutely no reason to assume that this won't result.
But now we're done drinking, we all have hangovers and no one wants to talk to me about this stuff. But thanks to everyone for commenting because I'm certain this conversation will come up again. Either in this universe, or in the one where I have a pet dragon.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:52 AM on September 13, 2009
Except - see - when the new universe I'm describing appears, it will be entirely similar to this Universe, however, we will have all the memories of our previous life as well as magical powers.
Dude, that's what we tried last time around and it didn't work out so well.
The next gig is gonna be dynamite. Huge. You'll see.
posted by flabdablet at 7:47 PM on September 13, 2009
Dude, that's what we tried last time around and it didn't work out so well.
The next gig is gonna be dynamite. Huge. You'll see.
posted by flabdablet at 7:47 PM on September 13, 2009
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Actually, I believe you read something like that, but I don't believe that the person who wrote it really knew what she was talking about.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:21 PM on September 12, 2009