from the time-travel-is-more-energy-efficient-than-destroying-the-universe dept.
Stephen Hawking seems to have turned into the man with the sandwich board that says: "The end is nigh." Not only has he warned us that aliens might destroy us, but he's also been worrying that artificial intelligence might do the same. Now he's perceiving a threat that might not merely put an end to Earth, but to the whole Universe.
As the UK's Sunday Times reports (Paywalled), Hawking is worried about the God particle. This, discovered by physicists during experiments within CERN's Large Hadron Collider, is a vital ingredient to explaining why things in our world have mass. However, in a preface to a new book called "Starmus" -- a collection of lectures gives by famous scientists and astronomers -- Hawking worried that the Higgs Boson might become unstable. He wrote: "The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100 bn gigaelectronvolts (GeV)." What might this lead to? Hawkins explained: "This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light. This could happen at any time and we wouldn't see it coming." He also stated that such a disaster is, he stresses, very unlikely — and the fact that such a possibility even exists is exciting because it suggests a whole new realm of physics.
Additional Coverage at Dailymail.co.uk, and at Cnet.com.
Dear SN Denizens, would you agree with this interpretation?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday September 08 2014, @08:03PM
If this should be true, then we should hope that Many Worlds is also true. Because this would be a quantum suicide scenario, and if MWI is true, then we should always find ourselves in the world where the vacuum didn't decay.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Monday September 08 2014, @08:11PM
As I understand it (IANAP) the Many Worlds interpretation implies that there EXISTS a universe where the decay does not occur. That it's the one we (people currently typing/reading this message) inhabit is a different question. In Many Worlds, no particular world (for example, this one) is "special" or immune to adverse events.
Of course, if catastrophic decay DOES occur in this world, there are alternate versions of ourselves living in a world where it doesn't. Whether those versions are "us" or not is a question I leave to the philosophers.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:14AM
No, the MWI is not accurately described as "parallel worlds", but rather as "splitting worlds". That is, the one world (containing the one "you") splits into two worlds (normally each containing a different future version of the same "you") on a quantum event (after that, they of course continue to exist in parallel). So the one pre-decay world splits into two worlds, one in which the vacuum decayed (and you don't exist any more), and one in which it didn't (and you continue to exist). In other words, in this case the "you" actually didn't split but just moved on into the single world without decay. Assuming that this future "you" is not the same "you" as the pre-decay "you" is equivalent to the assumption that in a single-world scenario your future "you" is not the same as the present "you".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday September 09 2014, @11:59AM
I know most people aren't anime fans, but Steins;Gate [myanimelist.net] does a really good job of explaining this theory. Not so much as Many Worlds, but Many Timelines where a "decision" or event causes the time line to diverge. Both timelines continue on, but with slight or significant variance. In one timeline a friend of his is a boy, but is a girl in another because of something that happens to his friends mother when she was pregnant. In another one of his friends buys a different cell phone...
The series has nothing to do with an actual Steiner Gate, which is the intersection of the natural angle formed in a Steiner tree. Because of the success of the anime you almost can't even find that information anymore. Here are a couple of links if you want to know about Steiner "trees"
Definition of the Steiner problem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steiner_tree_problem [wikipedia.org]
Great Youtube demonstrating the usefulness of a Steiner tree and describes the "Steiner Point" or "Steiner Gate" as I had previously heard it called before the Anime came out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAyDi1aa40E [youtube.com]
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 5, Funny) by skullz on Monday September 08 2014, @08:11PM
I think it could happen because I don't know enough about it to actually say yes or no BUT I do watch some science fiction. So, what we need to do is to try to create an unstable Higgs Boson on some remote asteroid. Then gather a scrappy crew of misfits with no actual scientific experience but lots of personal flaws to launch a rescue mission and stop the vacuum wave with raw strength and fortitude.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 08 2014, @08:27PM
Let me help translate this
"Then gather a scrappy crew of misfits with no actual scientific experience"
The away team has some red shirts, gotcha, something tells me at least one doesn't make it home. Except for Worf, he never dies.
"but lots of personal flaws"
the icy personality yet beautiful, 7 of 9
"launch a rescue mission"
Transporters down, so they fly a shuttle, which curiously always has the flight characteristics of a WWI biplane and the combat survivability of a (non UK, oh the burn) WWII battleship. (well technically the Hood was a UK battle cruiser, but whatever)
"stop the vacuum wave with raw strength and fortitude."
Hmm I think I've seen this episode. This is like, all of the doomsday episodes, right?
I'd give it a 6 out of 10. A bit stereotypical but I'd watch, because... what else would I watch, anyway?
Thankfully the best part of the "trek movie reboots" is they haven't rebooted the TV series'es with the same director. At least not yet. Thank $diety.
A new trek reboot, that doesn't suck, might be fun now that PADDs are looking a little obsolete compared to ipads.
(Score: 4, Funny) by WillR on Monday September 08 2014, @11:23PM
Picard, Riker, Worf, and red shirt ensign number 4432 fly down on the shuttle with a backpack full of antimatter bombs.
On the way, Picard and Riker have a 2 minute debate about whether there's a categorical imperative to save the universe, or whether preferring to exist is merely and individual's aesthetic choice. They enter the force field (against Dr. Crusher's strenuous objections), and place the bombs which seal the vacuum bubble forever. A reference is made to Picard being right about categorical imperative, credits roll.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:42AM
I feel like I just re-watched an episode I had forgotten!
As an abutting UID, I implore you to live long and prosper.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Monday September 08 2014, @08:33PM
That's a really good idea. It would be even better if the took one of the old space shuttles to get there (so they could land on the asteriod easier -- just fly in). Of course, the only way to stop a life ending vacuum would be another vacuum (or maybe an anti-vacuum it's tough to be sure). That secondary vacuum would of course be created by a necular weapon arranged in some spectacular arrangement. Large explosion... Shuttle gets tossed around very violently.. and then coast home on fumes.
Now we just need a name.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 08 2014, @08:49PM
"or maybe an anti-vacuum it's tough to be sure"
Maybe just to be sure, we could nuke it from orbit, no wait, maybe starbucks and apollo could use explosives to blast a hole in the hull so the life ending vacuum fire goes out. Or they could stick an ewok in the "hole in space" to clog up the "space drain" to save us all. Clog up a hole... a large deep hole. A terrifying hole. Where have I seen that before... I can see the title now "The dreaded space goatse from outer space"
The saddest part of this whole story is this is likely exactly how hollywood movies are made. Where do you think jar-jar came from?
"Soylent News, The Sci Fi Movie". Look on the bright side, a SN sci fi movie would be less likely to incite a riot than having Ethanol Fueled do standup comedy. Heck I'd watch that one too, but I'm guessing it wouldn't achieve a G-rated "bring the kids" movie rating.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 08 2014, @08:55PM
(or maybe an anti-vacuum it's tough to be sure). That secondary vacuum would of course be created by a necular weapon arranged in some spectacular arrangement.
No no no, you shoot it with the reconfigured deflector dish!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by forsythe on Monday September 08 2014, @10:46PM
Actually, that causes the problem in the first place. Now you have to fly inside the thing and create a static warp shell.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday September 08 2014, @11:09PM
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday September 09 2014, @12:45AM
If Marvel comics have taught me anything, time travel fixes everything.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:45AM
something i dont think i've ever seen acknowledged in any time travel plot is that you'd be ~0.00026 ly away from the earth for every year you went back.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:20AM
That depends on the direction in which you go back in time. An absolute "the same place at a different time" does not exist.
Of course any time traveller would be silly to use any direction not leading back to earth (unless a "space travel" is the actual goal of the traveller, of course).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by DNied on Tuesday September 09 2014, @12:33AM
You forgot the obligatory ballsy woman who saves the day.
I mean, what have you been watching in the last 15 years?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:23AM
Well, given that it would destroy the whole universe, doing it elsewhere in our universe would not help. Better find a wormhole into another universe and do it there.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Monday September 08 2014, @08:20PM
Hawking points out that a particle accelerator able to reach 100bn GeV would be larger than the earth.
But supernovae seem perfectly capable of reaching this energy. If this is possible, shouldn't it have happened in some supernova or other by now? Or is this so fantastically unlikely to occur that even with the requisite energy it's unlikely for this to happen even for all the massively high-energy interactions that happen in any given supernova?
Or maybe it HAS and the Bubble o' Doom just hasn't reached us yet...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 08 2014, @08:37PM
Yes accelerators don't produce unusually high energy particles compared to cosmic rays, what they DO produce is ridiculously high beam currents compared to cosmic rays. This usually twists peoples minds up something fierce the first time they learn it. So... you're saying every square meter of the entire planet gets hit by like one cosmic ray particle per year thats over a TEV, just like are inside the LHC? Yeah, man, yeah, its just the beam current in the LHC is insane, so you'd get the same results out of a detector thats not even plugged into an accelerator, its just that it would take like 100 universe lifetimes or something to generate as much data off natural cosmic rays as you'd get in like 1 second of LHC operation.
Accelerators have always been about high, controllable beam currents. Never about getting like one particle with a high energy. For that you just need a big cosmic ray detector like those neutrino observatories.
Some of my numbers might be off by an order of magnitude, or ten. But the general idea, yeah, 1 TEV+ cosmic rays are hardly rare, as isolated incidents. So its hard to imagine some rube goldberg far tail of the spectrum where "a" cosmic ray somewhere in the universe didn't hit 100 billion billion EV, at least once. Its not that ridiculous. Assuming this isn't the journalism filter speaking and they actually meant a mere 0.1 TEV which is not unusual at all (like one probably passed thru your body within the last year, if my bad numbers are right?)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:31AM
There are even cosmic rays with energies in the 10^20 eV that have been encountered. If such a thing could trigger a vacuum metastability event, it would have happened by now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @08:44PM
Our universe seems to be expanding faster than the speed of light. Light from extremely distant galaxies will literally never reach us as the space between is expanding faster than the light can travel.
This could mean that, if there ever was such an event in our universe, and this bubble of true vacuum would expand at light speed, and at sufficient distance from us, then it would never reach us, nor would we ever be aware of it. There could be events like these happening all around us all the time outside our visible part of the universe and we would never know.
(Disclaimer: I Am Not an Astro Physicist)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 08 2014, @08:56PM
If ACs argument is correct then a sufficiently long space wormhole would seem to fix all known problems with faster than light transportation. A sufficiently long wormhole would be, effectively, in another universe even if its technically continuous between here and there. The nearest stars might forever be out of direct range, but we could F around going 20 billion light years that way and then 20.000001 billion light years in reverse for a net short distance hop. Better be really careful about accuracy and precision if you need 9 sig figs to ever hope to see home again.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:58AM
Depending on the type of FTL travel, you may not even need to do all that. With Alcubierre drives and 'jump' drives you don't actually travel faster than light; you effectively do, but that's not enough to mess with causality. For example, with 'jump' drives / space folding, you don't even move, so even though you have traveled farther than light would in that span of time you have not accelerated beyond the speed of light.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Monday September 08 2014, @09:23PM
Yay for dark energy! Protecting us from Higgs-related True Vacuum Doom Bubbles from now until it eventually rips the universe apart.
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Monday September 08 2014, @08:36PM
Excerpts from 'Snarky Particle Critiques, a Review' :
"Stephan Hawking is preparing for a new profession: science fiction!"
"Stephen Hawking's New Apocalyptic Faith: God didn't create the universe, but God can destroy it"
subicular junctures
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @08:44PM
I'm pretty sure the only God particle is Jesus.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 08 2014, @09:24PM
Isn't that better than the Greek Mythology, where Gods left their particles all over the place, sometimes resorting to quite reprehensible ways to do so?
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:29AM
And some people indeed theorize that Jesus appearing in the world would lead to apocalypse. A certain John did an extensive study of what might happen in this case. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:39PM
The Higgs bosun was called the "God particle" because of media self-censorship. A reporter asked a CERN physicist what they called the Higgs (before it was confirmed, when they were still looking), and the answer was "We call it 'that God damned particle'." They excised the "damned". Calling it the "God particle" had nothing to do with God, they were swearing because it was so elusive.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 5, Funny) by tangomargarine on Monday September 08 2014, @08:57PM
The psychotropics were funny the first couple times, but enough is enough.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by mtrycz on Monday September 08 2014, @09:24PM
It's not the "God particle", it's the "Goddamn particle", but censors got in the way.
I can't bear it. Please spread this simple truth.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Lagg on Monday September 08 2014, @09:25PM
The way I see it the guy is just posing questions and theories that when you think about it aren't really any less funny sounding than the work that made him famous in the first place. I would agree that he seems like one of those endtimes hobos if not for two pretty critical factors: 1) He's saying this stuff like a scientist should. Being extremely careful to note that it's not a tested hypothesis or that it even can go beyond theory and that even if it was tested it's highly unlikely, but that doesn't stop media from warping it but I think both him and us are used to that by now and 2) He's a stubborn bastard but again like any good scientist will know when he's wrong if his argument is disproven. I forget exactly what the topic was but for years he was debating with various circles about its validity and the usual steps of critical thinking, he addressed them fairly and when the time came that he was definitively disproven he was signed to deliver a lecture that people for some reason thought was an epic groundbreaking thing wherein he basically said that he was wrong and broke down exactly why he was wrong.
At the time people said it was a let down and that he had fallen from his prior greatness or some nonsense like that but to me it was the point at which I knew for sure that the guy doesn't do this stuff just to sound wacky. They're genuine questions being posed just because they're questions that aren't seriously asked and tested. He's not necessarily saying it because he truly believes it or if he does he will happily accept a strong counter point that disproves it because that is his end game: Like the next good scientist he asks questions in an attempt to understand just a tiny little bit more of the universe.
So no I can't say that I agree with either his theory (not because of inherent weakness necessarily, just that testing at that level of energy would become catastrophic in itself. So if anything I only disagree because of theoretical limits, and this is also why I'm not a physicist. Lots of theoretical limits there) or the interpretation of him. Still though, crazy as some of his theories may sound they're still questions worth asking. You have to understand that he's not some kind of biblethumper or delusional nutcase, he'll defend his argument to the last and people who initiate the discussion are going to be in for a tough battle but he's equally capable of considering a good argument and using that to either refine his theory or retract it entirely with no shame or bad blood.
You know... Do science in other words. Carl Sagan said it best really and I'm paraphrasing it: If a child asks why the sky is blue. Don't say "because it is". Sometimes the most obvious and silliest sounding questions are the best ones worth pursuing. Case in point, the sky being blue instead of violet used to be a pretty good question. Now that we know how the visible light spectrum works it's not, but that just goes to show what initially dumb-seeming questions can lead to.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Monday September 08 2014, @10:44PM
>If a child asks why the sky is blue. Don't say "because it is"
- Why the sky is blue?
- Because it contains oxygen which is blue.
- why is oxygen blue?
- because it filters the sun's light so that the frequencies that we associate with the color blue are dominant.
- why does it filter the sun's light at those frequencies?
- because the electrons that compose its atomic structure are so-and-so and they release energy so-and-so
- why do they release energy that way?
- because (some subatomic fluff)
- and why (fluff)?
- because (as yet undiscovered fluff)
- and why (fluff)?
- because it's like that.
I don't see the point of not telling like it is earlier. The kid asked why, not how.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Tuesday September 09 2014, @12:23AM
You just ruined your own point by demonstrating why you don't "tell it like it is" (and saying "because it's like that" is not telling it like it is). If that was any kind of response we would have ended the steps after atmosphere and attributed it to god pooping out cotton candy or something. Reaching the stage where you cannot offer any more answers is the stage that opens up new possibilities which is exactly what Hawking is trying to do here. When you reach that stage you don't say "because it's like that". You say we don't know yet and then investigate. That's the entire goddamned point of the scientific method, answer questions, integrate and reinforce previous questions and then rinse and repeat.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday September 13 2014, @10:22PM
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:33AM
So you say, instead of saying nothing, we should tell them wrong "facts"?
The sky is blue because the blue light is scattered much stronger than the red light. This is also why sunsets are red. If it were absorption from oxygen, the sunset would be blue as well.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:54PM
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @10:14PM
On the plus side, I wouldn't have to find the next months rent. #winning
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday September 08 2014, @11:15PM
Considering this would require something on the order of 10^7 times more energy per particle than LHC. It could be an issue when space based research for high power events starts to get explored. Probably about the time that resourceful people on earth realize that in space mining and processing is needed to supply the earth with what it needs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RaffArundel on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:01PM
Not sure what the linked articles are reporting but the specific concern was that vacuum would be created (initiated?) by quantum tunneling to that unstable state, so the energy level could be lower. I don't believe anyone has suggested we would do it, but it could happen (or already has happened) somewhere in the universe.
A quick skim of a couple of articles offer the following get-outta-jail-free-cards:
1. The "I aten't dead yet" super-symmetry theory was trotted out. I assume they are saying that the sparticle of the Higgs Boson acts to stabilize the field.
2. There is an attribute of dark matter that smooths the field. Dark matter! Is there anything it cannot do? Well, I mean other than actually, you know, discover WTF it is?
Here is another link:
http://www.livescience.com/47737-stephen-hawking-higgs-boson-universe-doomsday.html [livescience.com]
(Score: 1) by kstox on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:29AM
We have collisions above us, that are so much greater than can be generated by a puny human particle accelerator.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:42PM
You have to die from something, it might as well be the destruction of the universe. After all, from your point of view, when your life ends, the universe ends, too.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:40PM
Actually a decaying vacuum would be one of the better ways to die. You'd not see it coming (because it approaches at the speed of light, so any forewarning signal you could receive would have to be faster, which it can't be). You'd not notice it (again, because it moves at the speed of light, the not-yet-destroyed part of your brain has no way to notice that another part already has been destroyed before it gets destroyed itself). And you don't even have to worry about what you leave behind (because whatever mess you may have produced got destroyed by the very same process as well).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday September 10 2014, @02:27AM
"so any forewarning signal you could receive would have to be faster, which it can't be"
Actually quantum entangled photons may be a way to circumvent that. Though as of now that method won't work but perhaps there is a way. It's not fully explored asfaik.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:23PM
The last time there was major work regarding the Higgs-Boson, someone created a useful site to determine if the LHC had in fact destroyed the planet. You can make use of this service here:
http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ [hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com]
As you'll notice, it is in fact 100% accurate, even if the code is rather simple.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Tuesday September 09 2014, @09:11PM
Seriously, a sandwich board? Didn't anybody stop to think how ridiculous that would look on Stephen Hawking?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @08:03AM
Stop to think? Next time you will be asking them to report accurately.
No, Hawking isn't worried. The particle has a worrying feature. He takes pains to point out that the worst case scenario that the Physics could lead too is extremely unlikely, and in fact exciting because it could need to new discoveries.
If there is a problem, it is that Hawking needs to pick his words more carefully as most of the world only sees what he writes after it has been summarized by idiots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @09:46PM
how much is that in ^E=mc2^^^eh^^^ grams?
if they have mosquitoes that big i don't mind the universe ending ...
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Wednesday September 10 2014, @02:41AM
100 bn gigaelectronvolts GeV = 100 * 10^9 * 10^9 * eV = 16 joule (hint very little energy, absolutely speaking)
E = m * c² m = E / c²
So that 16 joule translates into m = 16 / c² = 1.8 * 10^-16 kg
Which is quite little mass. Something like the mass of the Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria which weighs 3*10^-16 kg.
The catch in all this isn't energy or mass. It's the fact it's a lot of energy-or-mass per space.
It's like that you could theoricly start a nuclear fusion by running you microwave oven on 1 gram of hydrogen for 30 minutes. But the thermal leaks will squander any such attempt. The challenge is to contain the heat, make it better than random nuclear core collision (good enough probability) and get some useful energy extraction. Also neutron radiation will go right through any lead protection so you need to think about that too ..