Aspects of the Universe You Want Explained

So what was better before sliced bread?

Not dying of the plague.

This thread is pure Jabba bait.

Why the hell does Murphy's law exist? And why does it always have to apply to me???

Murphy's Law does not exist. It is a mechanism of the power of suggestion. Once an idea is put into our minds of a thought or image or color or word or even luck, we will subconciously be more attentive to it and single it out. It could also be referenced to the collective conciousness when applied to popular sayings or words for example.

Metaphysically, Murphy's Law can also be a by product of our imperfectin that we can not escape. It represents the inherent flaw in all of us. Things go wrong in the outside world because we can not fix the mistakes within ourselves. As we become obsessed with our flaws and mistakes and bad luck, so do we give power, and truth, to Murphy's Law.

Why is this thread in the Chewers Forum when its clearly not about any Chewers? The universe demands an explanation.

Why does Diva and a few other chewers come in an thread and post stuff like this?

Inquiring chewers want to know.

Hey, I put a smiley. That means "Don't take this post seriously."

I don't know, seems like a Culture and Free Form thread to me. But alas, it isn't up to me so...

Why do stale eggs smell like bad farts?
Why are CDs and DVDs packaged more tightly than the Hoover Dam?
Why do birds suddenly appear everytime you are near?

I thought that was LSD wrapped in bacon.

sulphur...
the same reason hot dogs are...
magnets are to blame...

Re: Re: Aspects of the Universe You Want Explained

I think it does more than that. I believe it is a focusing area for the camera. But I could be wrong.

Yes, but you do this often. Weren't you a part of Czar Chamber?

What truly happens within the heart of a gravitational singularity?

What is the secret of the grail?

Where is the Lost Ark?

absolutely nothing...
the second coming is a clone of Christ made from DNA from the blood left in the grail...
the Bush family has it...

Who knows? A singularity is that region wherein the laws of physics predict that the laws of physics break down.

(A more interesting statement than anything any theologist or philosopher has produced, if you ask me.)

Why do cats enjoy sitting in cardboard boxes so damn much? A 20 pound cat will make an effort to sit in a shoe box if one's around.

Cats emulate people because they are stupid, so they find real freedom in controlled self-induced confinement, waiting to be saved.

Who the FUCK invented the tie?

Why doesn't Kristen Kreuk return my phonecalls?

The earliest known version of the necktie has been found in the massive mausoleum of China's first emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who was buried in 210 B.C...Unearthed in 1974 near the ancient capital city of Xian, the tomb contained an astonishing 7,500 life-size terracotta replicas of Shih Huang Ti's famed fighting force. Legions of officers, soldiers, archers and horsemen, all carved in meticulous detail, guard the emperor's sarcophagus. The armor, uniforms, hair, and facial expressions of the soldiers are reproduced in exquisite detail. Each figure is different - except in one respect: all wear neck cloths. Since silk was a great luxury, the cloths could indicate the ultimate honor Shih Huang Ti bestowed on his soldiers; they were trusted enough to guard him until the end of time. taken from infoplease.com

otherwise... I blame Beau Brummell.

When can I go into a grocery store and buy what I need with my good looks?

If men are from mars, and women are from venus, and men have such a shit time understanding women...why the fuck haven't we checked any of the other planets yet?

How does Escrow work?

Every month, a portion of your mortgage payment gets dropped into a seperate account (an escrow account) and saved. This money is accumulated and paid when the taxes and insurances are due (usually a yearly premium) on your house and property. Occasionally, the taxes and/or insurance fluctuates up or down depending on the year, and the escrow you paid into that account is either too much or too little to pay the full amount due. When the escrow doesn't cover the payment, you are billed. When the escrow is more than the what's due, the money rolls over to cover the next year's payment.

They like the feeling of the cardboard against their fur. The more intriguing question would be:

If there is a single piece of paper laying in the middle of the carpet, why do cats HAVE to lay on it?

What is it about the other room that makes a cat need to be there so damn fast?

I was too lazy to really focus on this, but it looks complicated and yet at the same time informative.

Is there really only one person for everyone?

Why don't human's birth in litters?

How is it possible to have larger infinities and smaller ones (it is, I just finished a book on Fermat's equation/formula/theorem and it told me so)

Are black holes made from bigger stars bigger?

So, if the universe was created in the Big Bang, with a bunch of chemicals swirilin around, where did the chemicals come from and where were they if there was not a universe yet?

Way to ignore my questions assholes :-P

That's not a very good answer.

The idea that human perception creates the universe is called the Strong Anthropic Principle.

The Anthropic Principle in general states that we are necessarily viewing the universe now at a privileged time (because it took a while for us to evolve) and that informs our opinion about what the universe is, and how it works.

The Big Bang theory indicates that there was no matter prior to the singularity event. Imagine a perfect equation describing no space and no time, developing a flaw which requires reality to be explained in terms of space and time, with energies at the beginning so enormous that particles are created out of vacuum. Even after that there was some time before the massive energy involved subsided enough to allow the nuclear force to prevail in allowing basic particles to come together as matter in the form we know it.

There's really no point in trying to imagine that, though. Who can? Our brains did not evolve to encompass that kind of thinking.

About cats. They're just very curious, as the saying goes. They have a desire to feel out anything new introduced to their regular environment, which stems from a territorial nature. Spaces which can be crawled into have a natural appeal to cats due to their need to intimately know their own territory and to be aware of all possible sleeping or hiding spaces. Likewise objects which can be climbed and perched atop have an appeal as far as their instincts to survey their territories from the highest possible vantage point.

Cats are cool. Little killers. Whereas a dog will regard its owner as the alpha male of its pack, a kind of unconditional love, a cat regards its "owner" as a mother figure, from which it can get food and attention when and only when it desires. They will purr and rub their faces all over you, but if you were 6 inches tall, they'd kill you.

Hey, old habits and all that.

Why can you tolerate and often simmer in your own farts but are stopped dead in your tracks by someone else's stench?

For a quick answer I will use an example:

The "smaller" infinity: all the numbers from 1 to 2. Like 1.1, 1.001, 1.0000000001, 1.9 and 1.99999999999999999

The "larger" infinity: all the numbers from 1 to 3, this includes all the numbers from 1 to 2 plus all the numbers from 2 to 3 (like 2.1, 2.0000001 and so on).

Yeah but that just seems crazy.


How about the classic paradox: If there is a ball 4 feet away from a person and they want to get to it. They move halfway there, then half way of the remaining distance, then half way of that distance then half way of that distance. Will they ever reach the ball? Also this brings up the question of how mostion is possible considering that there is infinity between any two numbers.

Great, now my head hurts.

How about proportionality, and is there a limit to it? For instance, if you look at how tiny earth is compared to the universe, it is possible to imagine a proportionally tiny universe existing inside of one of the atomic particles that make up the stuff we are made of. How about Newtonian physics, that seem to break down and become irrelevant the further we explore the minute. Does that problem support or go against the possiblility of smaller and smaller universes, and conversly, larger universes of which ours is just an atomic particle? It's like a house of mirrors, when you think about it.

I've got another one; how is it that there is never an end to the number of fresh, new designs for shoes? By now, all possible designs should have been created, yet, each season, I am amazed at the new ways designers think of wrapping leather around a woman's foot. I have tried to come up with sketches of my own, but I just can't think of any new shoe designs, and so I am awed by this phenomenom.

shoes are but a smaller infinity within a larger one.... %-p

If we look at the paradox classically, then no, you will never reach the ball. Instead you will keep getting closer and closer but never reach it.

If we look at the problem quantum mechanically, then yes you will reach the ball because there is a smallest possible distance, the Planck's length, which Mr. Interweb tells me is 10^-33 meters. So with a quick calculation, if you started 1 m from the ball and halved your distance with every "step" you'd only need 111 steps to reach it.

Out nerd THAT.

Zeno's Paradox doesn't depend on quantum theory at all.

http://www.deltalink.com/dodson/html/zeno.solution.html

I remember learning this in linear algebra. I don't remember it, but I remember learning it.

Because it reminds them of my mousepad? My cat loves sitting on my mousepad.

Judging from current feline activity, the lack of thunder in that room. Or the presence of thunder in this room, whichever you like.

Actually it does. The geometric series argument only works when you look at the world in classical terms, but the real world is quantum mechanical. Before the person could take the infinte number of steps to get to the ball, which is required for the geometric series argument, the person would be limited by Planck's length, as that only takes 111 steps (if starting from 1 meter).

One doesn't need to take an infinite number of steps.

I can cover one meter in one step. That one meter is composed of an infinite series of intervals (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 and so on), but an infinte series does not add up to an infinite distance, it adds up to a finite distance, in this case one meter, which I covered in one step. That's the whole trick: an infinite series adds up to something finite, not something infinite. So if you look at the problem classically, you do reach the ball/ cross one meter. It's purely mathematical, and was solved long before quantum physics came along. The paradox lies in the misunderstanding that an infinite series must result in an infinite sum.

Physically, yeah, you'd get down to the smallest interval being planck's distance, but that doesn't change the fact that an infinite series adds up to a finite sum. Which is where the so-called paradox lies.

If you don't take an infinite number of steps, it stops being an infinite series, and there is no point in time that you can reach the ball.

If you look at the question as: you must travel one meter. But because one meter is composed of an infinite number of finite distances (1/2 +1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16+...) how can you ever move, then your argument holds water. But if you look at it as a person taking steps in a classical world, first half a meter, then a quarter, then an eighth, and so on, he will never ever get there.

Yes he will. It doesn't seem like it, but he will. Such an infinite series does indeed have a finite sum. It doesn't seem to at first look, but it does. Illustrating how the first ten steps, or ten thousand steps, or ten billion steps let you get closer but never quite reach the end isn't a good approximation of infinite steps. Infinite is infinite, not just a whole lot. That's why it doesn't immediately make sense that an infinite series has a finite sum. That's where the supposed paradox comes from.

Nevertheless, an infinite series does have a finite sum, and I can cross an infinite number of intervals with one step.

Exactly. What he CAN'T ever do is take one step and cover 1/2 meters, a second step and cover an additional 1/4 meters, and an additional step and cover 1/8 meters, and so on and ever reach his destination. By definition he can never actually make a last step because there will always remain some distance between him and the ball. What you're talking about is the motion paradox, that in order to travel 1 meter you must first travel half a meter, but first you must travel a quarter of a meter, and so on ad infinitium, so how can you ever possibly move? Obviously a finite distance is composed of an infinite number of intervals yet you are able to traverse that distance in a finite manner. Two different things.

Hahaha old Zeno is up to his tricks again I see. I agree with Adverb on this one, but that's irrelevant. So if the sum of an infinite number of intervals = a finite number (for the sake of this discussion, make it one). Then basically what you are saying is that the sum of infinity = 1, yes? Thus infinity is a myth? I'm confused if this is not a valid conclusion.

If you take smaller and smaller steps but eventually stop, then you haven't taken an infinite number of steps, you've taken a finite number, and haven't described an infinite series. That's where the confusion lies.

No, but the sum of infinity isn't what we're talking about, we're talking about an infinitely long series of smaller and smaller numbers. A series infinitely long that goes 1/2+1/4+1/8+...1/(n^2) converges to 1 as n goes to infinity. Resisting this convergence is like deciding 1+1 doesn't equal 2. If n is really big, the sum is almost 1. But infinity's infinity, not just a really big, finite number.

That's why you can cross an infinite number of smaller and smaller intervals to reach the ball. If you took each step individually you'd also reach the ball, but you'd have to take an infinite number of steps to do it. Not just a whole lot, an infinite number.

If there's a solution to the motion paradox that involves quantum mechanics, I'd like to see Adverb provide it. Because his post is the only time I've ever heard quantum mechanics entering into it.

He's arguing on the physical definition of "there". It's true you can never actually touch something because of the uncertainty principle and quantum mechanics and so on, but the solution to Zeno's paradox doesn't need to take that into account any more than you do when you pick something up.