Honey, I doomed the universe

MannyPim · Nov 21, 2007

Now this is really way out there kinda stuff. I understand about 20% of what they are saying here. And I'm afraid that if someone tried to explain the rest of it to me, I would end up understanding only 10%. But... I'm just not buying it.... Story: Paris - Astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the universe by simply looking at it, according to a theory reported in next Saturday's New Scientist. The novel idea is being aired by two US physicists, who attack the notion that the universe, believed to have been created in the "Big Bang" some 13.7 billion years ago, will go on, well, forever. In fact, the poor old cosmos is in a rather delicate state, they say. Until recently, a common idea was that the energy unleashed in the Big Bang happened when a "false vacuum" - a bubble of high energy with repulsive gravity - broke down into a safe, zero-energy "ordinary" vacuum. But recent evidence has emerged that places a cosmic question-mark over this cosy thought. For one thing, cosmologists have discovered that the universe is still expanding. And, they believe, a strange, yet-to-be-detected form of energy called dark energy pervades the universe, which would explain why the sum of all the visible sources of energy fall way short of what should be out there. Dark energy, goes the thinking, is a result of the Big Bang and is accelerating the universe's expansion. If so, the universe is not in a nice, stable zero-vacuum state but simply another "false vacuum" state that may abruptly decay again - and with cataclysmic consequences. The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the universe, "wiping the slate clean", says Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The longer the better The good news is: the longer the universe survives, the better the chance <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible. </div>

MeteorWayne · Nov 21, 2007

First of all, stuff from New Scientist should be taken only with Tequila. Second, this is all tied up Heisenburg's uncertainty principle, which makes my brain hurt anyway <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id. I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function </div>

yevaud · Nov 21, 2007

Heisenberg may have discussed this. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

MannyPim · Nov 21, 2007

Second, this is all tied up Heisenburg's uncertainty principle, which makes my brain hurt anyway Heisenbergs's principle I don't have much trouble with.... The idea that looking through a telescope can endanger the very existence of the Universe.... that's hard to wrap your head around.... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible. </div>

vogon13 · Nov 21, 2007

I might have too. But the closer you look through my posts here, the less likely you are to find it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

qso1 · Nov 22, 2007

MannyPim: The idea that looking through a telescope can endanger the very existence of the Universe.... that's hard to wrap your head around.... Me: I don't buy into this either but assuming its true...to me its one of those things that if it is...its meant to be. Whatever caused the Universe caused us which in effect would cause the Universes end according to this theory. I'm quite certain the end will be well beyond my lifetime and so its number 345,657,878,231 on my list of worries. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> My borrowed quote for the time being:There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened. </div>

centsworth_II · Nov 22, 2007

Now THAT'S funny. Ah, humans.... Hundreds of years after the persecution of Galileo we still just can't shake the notion that somehow we are at the center of the universe. Scientists trying to prove that human activity is causing global warming are pikers compared to the purveyors of this theory! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

SpeedFreek · Nov 22, 2007

The bad news is: the quantum effect, a truly weird aspect of physics that says whenever we observe or measure something, we reset its clock. Krauss and colleague James Dent point to measurements of light from supernovae in 1998 that provided the first evidence of dark energy. These measurements may have reset the decay clock of the "false vacuum" back to zero, back before the switching point and to a time when the risk of catastrophic decay was greater than now, say Dent and Krauss. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe," says Krauss. So, whenever we observe something, we reset its clock. Well, we need to define the word observe here. The light from those supernovae fell into our telescope in 1998. Was that the observation? What if nobody was looking through that telescope at the time, or collecting the data? The light would have still hit something - either the floor or wall of the observatory if no retina intercepted it, or a metal plate where there was no film loaded into the camera, or a CCD that was not switched on. What if the telescope was never built at that location and a cow was standing there at the time gazing into the sky and that light hit the cows retina? How about if the light hit its ear instead? What if the light was absorbed by something else, like a patch of damp earth? By what criteria is the light deemed to have been "observed" and how is this different from the light simply hitting something? What if all humans suddenly died but our equipment was left on and still running, collecting data - does that count too? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> _______________________________________________ SpeedFreek </div>

kyle_baron · Nov 22, 2007

So, whenever we observe something, we reset its clock. Well, we need to define the word observe here. The light from those supernovae fell into our telescope in 1998. Was that the observation? What if nobody was looking through that telescope at the time, or collecting the data? The light would have still hit something - either the floor of the observatory, or a metal plate where there was no film loaded into the camera, or a CCD that was not switched on. I have two observations on this subject matter. First off, how can the clock for a photon be reset, when the clock isn't running and time has stopped???????????? A photon has to be absorbed, in order to remove it from the universe. Observation has nothing to do with it. For example, observations (of a photon) can take place in many locations, not just one. This hypothesis will become a theory when "pigs can fly". <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

dragon04 · Nov 22, 2007

Yes, yes. I'm absolutely certain that the interaction of photons with some telescopes is far more significant than the interaction of photons with every other bit of matter in the entire Universe. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> It's really hard to believe that someone who considers himself a scientist would make such a proposition. And this comes from a guy at Case Western? How the HELL did he slip under their radar? I guess everyone is compelled to have a resident kook. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!". </div>

centsworth_II · Nov 23, 2007

To be fair, I guess the thinking behind theories like this has it's origin in the many legitimate experiments that seem to show that quantum events (even past events) do seem to be affected by observation. The theory that our observations of the universe affect the state of the universe substantially is just, in the eyes of its proponents, the the logical extension of these laboratory experiments. The problem, I think, is that it is much more likely that we just do not understand exactly what is happening at a quantum level in these experiments and can not apply their results to the entire universe. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

SpeedFreek · Nov 23, 2007

I agree, but I think either the author of the article is drawing false conclusions, or the scientists themselves are being misquoted, or they are just plain wrong! For instance: "The bad news is: the quantum effect, a truly weird aspect of physics that says whenever we observe or measure something, we reset its clock. Krauss and colleague James Dent point to measurements of light from supernovae in 1998 that provided the first evidence of dark energy. These measurements may have reset the decay clock of the "false vacuum" back to zero, back before the switching point and to a time when the risk of catastrophic decay was greater than now, say Dent and Krauss. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe," says Krauss./i> Whenever we observe or measure something, we affect it at the quantum level, that much is accepted. But what did we observe in 1998? The light from supernovae. This light was dimmer than we thought it should be if the expansion of the universe was still decelerating, so we inferred that the expansion had started to accelerate. We inferred it. We did not detect, observe or measure any dark energy or false vacuum itself, nor have we done so since, so how did our measurement of photons that had passed through it, after they had passed through it, affect it? And if the false vacuum can be affected by the observation of a photon that has passed through it, this means that if at any place and any time in the history of the universe, anything absorbs a photon from light that has passed through that false vacuum, it sets the same process off, so there is only an infinitely small point in worrying about it! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> _______________________________________________ SpeedFreek </div>

emperor_of_localgroup · Nov 23, 2007

I have a cynical comment to make about all this, many of you may not like. I don't know what other research papers these two scientists published but my guess is a lot of papers on expansion of the universe caused by dark energy. Now unable to find dark energy, this is a preemptive attempt to keep the validity of their previously published papers. "Sorry, we were right, but we destroyed the evidence". Btw, I'm not arguing against findings of quantum mechanics. But we are yet to relate/correlate quantum destruction-by-observation with destruction-by-observation in macroscopic worlds. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Earth is Boring </div>

vogon13 · Nov 23, 2007

Maybe the Pioneer Anomally is a characteristic of this 'quantum effect' propogating out of our solar system to 'interact' with 'dark matter', 'dark energy' and 'false vacuum' in the greater universe ?? Wonder what will 'come back' ????????????????????????? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

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