Do Time and Space Exist in the Quantum Mechanical Realms of the Microcosm? Black Hole Paradoxes Yet to be Resolved.

""We’ve come a long way in 13.8 billion years; but despite our impressively extensive understanding of the Universe, there are still a few strings left untied. For one, there is the oft-cited disconnect between general relativity, the physics of the very large, and quantum mechanics, the physics of the very small. Then there is problematic fate of a particle’s intrinsic information after it falls into a black hole. Now, a new interpretation of fundamental physics attempts to solve both of these conundrums by making a daring claim: at certain scales, space and time simply do not exist.

Let’s start with something that is not in question. Thanks to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, we can all agree that the speed of light is constant for all observers. We can also agree that, if you’re not a photon, approaching light speed comes with some pretty funky rules – namely, anyone watching you will see your length compress and your watch slow down.

But the slowing of time also occurs near gravitationally potent objects, which are described by general relativity. So if you happen to be sight-seeing in the center of the Milky Way and you make the regrettable decision to get too close to our supermassive black hole’s event horizon (more sinisterly known as its point-of-no-return), anyone observing you will also see your watch slow down. In fact, he or she will witness your motion toward the event horizon slow dramatically over an infinite amount of time; that is, from your now-traumatized friend’s perspective, you never actually cross the event horizon. You, however, will feel no difference in the progression of time as you fall past this invisible barrier, soon to be spaghettified by the black hole’s immense gravity.

So, who is “correct”? Relativity dictates that each observer’s point of view is equally valid; but in this situation, you can’t both be right. Do you face your demise in the heart of a black hole, or don’t you? (Note: This isn’t strictly a paradox, but intuitively, it feels a little sticky.)

And there is an additional, bigger problem. A black hole’s event horizon is thought to give rise to Hawking radiation, a kind of escaping energy that will eventually lead to both the evaporation of the black hole and the destruction of all of the matter and energy that was once held inside of it. This concept has black hole physicists scratching their heads. Because according to the laws of physics, all of the intrinsic information about a particle or system (namely, the quantum wavefunction) must be conserved. It cannot just disappear.

Dr. Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University alongside illustrations of a black hole and an event horizon with Hawking Radiation. He continues to engage his grey matter to uncover the secrets of the Universe while others attempt to confirm his existing theories.
Dr. Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University alongside illustrations of a black hole and an event horizon with Hawking Radiation. He continues to engage his grey matter to uncover the secrets of the Universe while others attempt to confirm his existing theories.
Why all of these bizarre paradoxes? Because black holes exist in the nebulous space where a singularity meets general relativity – fertile, yet untapped ground for the elusive theory of everything.

Enter two interesting, yet controversial concepts: doubly special relativity and gravity’s rainbow.

Just as the speed of light is a universally agreed-upon constant in special relativity, so is the Planck energy in doubly special relativity (DSR). In DSR, this value (1.22 x 1019 GeV) is the maximum energy (and thus, the maximum mass) that a particle can have in our Universe.

Two important consequences of DSR’s maximum energy value are minimum units of time and space. That is, regardless of whether you are moving or stationary, in empty space or near a black hole, you will agree that classical space breaks down at distances shorter than the Planck length (1.6 x 10-35 m) and classical time breaks down at moments briefer than the Planck time (5.4 x 10-44 sec).

In other words, spacetime is discrete. It exists in indivisible (albeit vanishingly small) units. Quantum below, classical above. Add general relativity into the picture, and you get the theory of gravity’s rainbow.

Physicists Ahmed Farag Ali, Mir Faizal, and Barun Majumder believe that these theories can be used to explain away the aforementioned black hole conundrums – both your controversial spaghettification and the information paradox. How? According to DSR and gravity’s rainbow, in regions smaller than 1.6 x 10-35 m and at times shorter than 5.4 x 10-44 sec… the Universe as we know it simply does not exist.""

Lose Yourself Within Time & Space

http://www.universetoday.com/118794/do-time-and-space-exist-at-the-smallest-scales/

Dangerous Ideas In Science Cosmology: This year (2015), debates in physics circles starting to bewilder

Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole: its structure, its origins and its fate. Fundamental physics is the study of reality's bedrock entities and their interactions. With these job descriptions it's no surprise that cosmology and fundamental physics share a lot of territory. You can't understand how the universe evolves after the Big Bang (a cosmology question) without understanding how matter, energy, space and time interact (a fundamental physics question). Recently, however, something remarkable has been happening in both these fields that's raising hackles with some scientists. As physicists George Ellis and Joseph Silk recently put it in Nature:

"This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue — explicitly — that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical."

The root of the problem rests with two ideas/theories now central for some workers in cosmology (even if they remain problematic for physicists as a whole). The first is string theory, which posits that the world is made up not of point particles but of tiny vibrating strings. String theory only works if the universe has many "extra" dimensions of space other than the three we experience. The second idea is the so-called multiverse which, in its most popular form, claims more than one distinct universe emerged from the Big Bang. Instead, adherents claim, there may be an almost infinite (if not truly infinite) number of parallel "pocket universes," each with their own version of physics.


Both string theory and the multiverse are big, bold reformulations of what we mean when we say the words "physical reality." That is reason enough for them to be contentious topics in scientific circles. But in the pursuit of these ideas, something else — something new — has emerged. Rather than focusing just on questions about the nature of the cosmos, the new developments raise critical questions about the basic rules of science when applied to something like the universe as a whole.

Here is the problem: Both string theory and the multiverse posit entities that may, in principle or in practice, be unobservable. Evidence for the extra dimensions needed to make string theory work is likely to require a particle accelerator of astronomical proportions. And the other pocket universes making up the multiverse may lie permanently over our "horizon," such that we will never get direct observations of their existence. It's this specific aspect of the theories that has scientists like Ellis and Silk so concerned. As they put it:

"These unprovable hypotheses are quite different from those that relate directly to the real world and that are testable through observations — such as the standard model of particle physics and the existence of dark matter and dark energy. As we see it, theoretical physics risks becoming a no-man's-land between mathematics, physics and philosophy that does not truly meet the requirements of any."

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/01/27/381809832/the-most-dangerous-ideas-in-science?

Milky Way Galaxy could be a Galactic Interstellar Transport System Through Space-time Einstein-Penrose Wormholes

 ""Based on the latest evidence and theories our galaxy could be a huge wormhole (or space-time tunnel, have you seen the movie "Interstellar?") and, if that were true, it would be "stable and navigable." This is the hypothesis put forward in a study published in Annals of Physics and conducted with the participation of SISSA in Trieste. The paper, the result of a collaboration between Indian, Italian and North American researchers, prompts scientists to re-think dark matter.

Related Articles

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• Dark matter
• General relativity
• Magellanic Clouds
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• Big Bang
• Milky Way

"If we combine the map of the dark matter in the Milky Way with the most recent Big Bang model to explain the universe and we hypothesize the existence of space-time tunnels, what we get is that our galaxy could really contain one of these tunnels, and that the tunnel could even be the size of the galaxy itself. But there's more," explains Paolo Salucci, astrophysicist of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and a dark matter expert. "We could even travel through this tunnel, since, based on our calculations, it could be navigable. Just like the one we've all seen in the recent film 'Interstellar'." Salucci is among the authors of the paper recently published inAnnals of Physics.

Although space-time tunnels (or wormholes or Einstein-Penrose bridges) have only recently gained great popularity among the public thanks to Christopher Nolan's sci-fi film, they have been the focus of astrophysicists' attention for many years. "What we tried to do in our study was to solve the very equation that the astrophysicist 'Murph' was working on. Clearly we did it long before the film came out" jokes Salucci. "It is, in fact, an extremely interesting problem for dark matter studies.""

Full Article Found Here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150121083648.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fspace_time%2Fbig_bang+%28Big+Bang+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

Photonic Booms Faster-Than-Light Could Unlock Astronomical Secrets

""If you sweep a laser pointer across the Moon fast enough, you can create spots that actually move faster than light. Anyone can do it.

This image depicts Hubble's Variable Nebula.

At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Wash., today, Robert Nemiroff, a physics professor at Michigan Technological University, reported that this theoretical curiosity may turn out to be practically useful out in the cosmos. When a superluminal sweep occurs, it typically starts with a flash that may reveal previously unknown three-dimensional information about the scattering object.

Flashes, dubbed "photonic booms" because they are directly analogous to sonic booms, may be detectable on the Moon, on passing asteroids, on fast moving shadows cast on reflecting dust clouds near variable stars, and on objects illuminated by the rapidly rotating beam of a pulsar, said Nemiroff, author of a study accepted for publication by the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, with a preliminary version available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.7581. "And if detected, we could learn more about all of these objects," said Nemiroff.

To reveal the size and surface features of asteroids passing near the Earth, a laser beam might be swept across the rock's surface thousands of times a second, with each sweep forcing a harmless but telling photonic boom. The flashes could be recorded with high-speed cameras attached to large telescopes, potentially mapping out major features on the asteroid."The concept, although not proven in practice, is quite intriguing," said Rosanne Di Stefano, a leading researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Photonic booms could also be seen much farther out in the universe. An example occurs in Hubble's Variable Nebula in the constellation of Monoceros. There, shadows cast by clouds moving between the bright star "R Mon" and reflecting dust move so fast that they might create photonics booms visible even for days or weeks.

The physics that creates the photonic boom is tied to the faster-than-light sweep speeds of the illuminating spots and cast shadows. Specifically, a flash is seen by an observer when the speed of the scattered spot toward the observer drops from above the speed of light to below the speed of light. The phenomenon is possible only because the spots contain no mass and so cannot only move faster than light, but decelerate past the speed of light without violating Einstein's theory of special relativity""

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http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/physics-astronomy/photonic-booms-may-help-illuminate-astronomical-secrets.html

Tesla Electric Motors Boosts It's Roadster’s Existing Cell Battery and Wheel Aerodynamics Technology

Part of the Roadster’s range boost will come from using tires with less rolling resistance and from making modifications to the car’s body that improve its aerodynamics.

But the biggest improvement comes from increasing the energy density of the battery pack. Each pack contains thousands of cylindrical battery cells that look similar to AA batteries. “Cell technology has improved substantially” since Tesla designed the Roadster, the company said in its announcement. For the upgrade it will replace the original cells with new ones that store 31 percent more energy.

Though Tesla isn’t explaining in detail how it achieved the increase in energy storage, it was likely made via incremental improvements to existing battery technology, not through major breakthroughs in battery materials, says Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics and chemistry at Dalhousie University. He analyzed cells made by Panasonic, Tesla’s cell supplier, and found several small changes that might account for a 30 percent increase. For example, Panasonic has done away with some bulky plastic packaging material that had been wasting space inside the cells. He says Tesla’s battery pack could also accommodate slightly larger cells that store more energy.""

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http://www.technologyreview.com/news/533846/how-tesla-boosted-its-roadsters-range-by-50-percent/

Measuring Billions of Elusive Neutrinos Flowing Through the Earth, UMass Amherst Physicists Learn More about the Sun

 ""AMHERST, Mass. - Using one of the most sensitive neutrino detectors on the planet, an international team including physicists Laura Cadonati and Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are now measuring the flow of solar neutrinos reaching earth more precisely than ever before. The detector probes matter at the most fundamental level and provides a powerful tool for directly observing the sun’s composition.

Pocar, Cadonati and colleagues report in the current issue of Physical Review Letters that the Borexino instrument has now measured with high precision the flux of the beryllium seven (7Be) solar neutrino, abundant, low-energy particles once below the observable threshold. With this advance, they can now precisely study the behavior of solar neutrinos with kinetic energy below 1 megaelectron volt (MeV). Borexino scientists also recently reported the first observation of neutrinos produced in a little-studied solar nuclear process known as proton-electron-proton, or pep, and set of stringent limit on reactions involving carbon, nitrogen and oxygen (the CNO cycle) in the sun.

Cadonati says, "Borexino is the only detector capable of observing the entire spectrum of solar neutrinos at once. Our results, the culmination of 20 years of research, greatly narrow the observation precision. The data confirm the neutrino oscillations, flavor changes and flow predicted by models of the sun and particle physics."""

http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/newsreleases/articles/138249.php