All your base are belong to us.

if only...

We are destroying the Universe by looking at it?

What's next from these eggheads, having your picture taken steals your soul. Cue the twilight zone music.

And I am supposed to worry about this stuff?

Do those guys get paid for coming up with this crap?

I would prefer they work on warp drive so we can go take a closer look and maybe hit Rhysa on the way.

My God, spot the idiot journalist's analogy in this muddled moronic piece:

.....we could stop it decaying due what is what is called the "quantum Zeno effect," which suggests that if an "observer" makes repeated, quick observations of a microscopic object undergoing change, the object can stop changing - just as a watched kettle never boils.

Oh. My. God.

We've got to tighten up the criteria for Ph.D.'s - REALLY tighten them up - REALLY REALLY tighten them up. This is the most half-baked idea that I've seen come out of quantum measurement theory, and that's really saying something.

The New Scientist is an amusing magazine - right up there with the National Enquirer - we subscribe, and it's a good read, and usually a good laugh - but really!

If someone takes these idiots seriously then there will be lengthy ethical reviews of their work. Serious impediments to astronomical research will be put in place.

Anyway, it's another reason not to worry about global warming.

Yes, but are we warming the universe? Their comment about the "beginning" was interesting. What was going on before the beginning or was there no such thing as time back then?

"Anyway, it's another reason not to worry about global warming."

Brilliant!!

Quantum physics has always ticked me off, mostly because I never had the time to take the required courses or read the required material to provide an in-depth understanding of many of the theories.

dammit.

...on a sort of related note, I think that giant inter-European country $6billion electron smashing mini big-bang experiment is set to happen on Nov. 26th isn't it? Heard a Physics Prof. mention it a while back and then saw a video/news story on it recently... hold on... will try to find a link...

Aw nuts... SNAFU = delayed until May 2008:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

Like "Schrodinger's cat in which, thanks to a fancy experimental set up, the moggy is both alive and dead until someone decides to look, when it either carries on living, or dies. That is, by one interpretation (by another, the universe splits into two, one with a live cat and one with a dead one."

If the split universe theory is correct then the Peta types with their shorts in knots over Kate bagging that 'buck' can relax, because in the split universe the 'buck' would still be alive ( unless of course we peeked in which case it's quite dead).
Let's hear a cheer for Professors Krauss and Dent and their parallel universe theory and perhaps an "oops" for the 'buck'.

The Telegraph? I mean, the Telegraph? May I remind y'all of the nature of newspapers, as explained by Prime Minister Hacker here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

Meanwhile, speaking as a house skeptic, I'm skeptical about science too when it gets too big for its britches. For a more serious consideration of things metaphysical & epistemological than the pap at the Telegraph, New Scientist, Scientific American, &c, y'all may be interested in this:

Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale?
by Michael J. Disney
American Scientist Magazine
September-October 2007
tinyurl.com/2jexkv

So, what the guy is saying is... there are two universes, one with me wearing pants and in the other I'm starkers? Who wants to sneak a look and destroy an entire universe?

I'm so glad my job deals with three knowns: Velocity, Time, and Distance. All of those exist in the universe with the pants, thanks very much.

TWINKLE TWINKLE UFO. WHERE YOU COME FROM WHERE YOU GO.OUR CAPITAL IS FULL OF SLEAZE.TAKE ONE TO YOUR PLANET PLEASE. and leave him on the planet of TUARUS II where the only inhabitants are a bunch of big big ape things with big honkin spears

WHERE THE HECK IS ALPHA CENTARI? SOMEWHERE PAST JUPITER 2

Theodor von Karman said, "The scientist seeks to understand what is; the engineer seeks to create what never was". What matters is not whether or not we actually know what's metaphysically what (though I do like gas on about it as much as the next person), what matters is what we can do with the epistemological insights into the nature of metaphysics provided by science well done.

On the one hand, perhaps science can't actually do metaphysics. I mean, science is part of epistemology, not metaphysics, and epistemology is subordinate to metaphysics, so I'm skeptical.

Nevertheless, on the other hand, the tens-of-nanometer scales upon which the integrated circuits that are running in the computer you are now using are built do, indeed, appear to depend on some epistemologically interesting metaphysical effects known as "quantum mechanics" and stuff like that. So the whole issue isn't trivial even if only from an engineering perspective.

Just remember that Bertrand Russell said, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts".

@Vitrivius (12:37 AM):

This may seem odd, but the Bertrand Russell quote you supplied looks more profound as I grow older. Had I been half my present age, I would have just shrugged at it.

Me too, Daniel. I guess what one shrugs at is a kind of a measure of one's axiological perspective. I've got a few more aphorisms like Russel's collected over here - tinyurl.com/s4dlp - if you're interested.

So if we split the universe in two, and we land on the side that gets the bum deal, what then? Can we blame Bush? Will the lefties stuck there with us accept fate and just live out their lives quietly, never bothering us again? After all, they could be held equally responsible for the universe's demise if they had ever looked up at night.

I think the proposed "theory" was more philosophical in nature rather then scientific.

PS GO BLUE GO!

I can understand their concern. If they keep looking hard enough, they will discover "On the seventh day, God rested".

That sure shrinks the time-line, lol.

If they keep looking hard enough, John, they will continue the discoveries alluded to by Matt Ridley when he wrote, in 2003, "For the past century the world has got steadily better for most people. You do not believe that? I am not surprised. You are fed such a strong diet of news about how bad things are that it must be hard to believe they were once worse. But choose any statistic you like and it will show that the lot of even the poorest is better today than it was in 1903. [...] All this has been achieved primarily by that most hated of tricks, the technical fix. By invention, not legislation."

Vit

The concept eludes the context.

Syncro

I'm not so sure it does, Syncro. The original reference is to an MSM article pontificating profusely, while serious scientists are quite skeptical, at least as I understand it. And that's where the note in the upper-left corner of SDA comes into play: "This is just the voice of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio - 'You don't speak for me.'"

Context is a many splendored thing, eh what?

Vit

True enough. I stand corrected. Contextually speaking.

Syncro

While we're on the topic of the ability of our little old species to affect the nature of the universe, I would like to urge those of you who haven't recently viewed the canonical video on the tens of thousands of galaxies discovered, in a little tiny sector of the sky, by the Hubble Deep Field telescope, to do so, it's available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgg2tpUVbXQ

Just remember that as Stephen Hawking said:

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

Vit

I watched that and found it to be a cursory explanation of what is...the truth....to be found on many levels and in different ways...individual and collective experiences have touched and clued me in to the possibilities.....the universal truths that we find during the journey are the ones I cherish.

Syncro

Ok, now that we've got the Ultra Deep Field under our belt, consider this. There are likely to be other species who have achieved what we have. Maybe not more than we have, maybe more than we have, who knows? Yet unless we are the only species like us on any planet orbiting any of the tens of millions of stars in any of the bazillions of galaxies we have observed, then what we are potentially observing cosmoquantologically has been observed before. Ergo, if observing it caused it to crash, it would have already crashed, and it hasen't, so it doesn't.

Vit

Bullshit.....no-observation is no observation at all...empirically speaking...I'll go on my own crapulent data....such as it is.

Syncro

No it isn't. Observation of nothing is not no observation. If you put an indicator in a solution and it does not change colour, it is a valid observation of nothing, that is to say, something. If Kate goes hunting and observes no harvestable critters, it is a valid observation of no harvestable critters. Nothing is something, except nothing doesn't exist. And anyway, I though we were talking about philosophy, not something important ;-)

G'night y'all, take care; Vitruvius out.

Vit

I stand corrected again...nothing is the absence of something.. Mind you buck sausage is more filling than track soup.

Syncro

p.s. that was fun :)

That reminded me of a nerdish T-shirt I wear on casual Fridays sometimes (from thinkgeek).

The front has an image of the galaxy with a pointer: "You are here".

Alas, the Swedish Bikini Team (nor any other booblalicious babes in bikinis) have never got in line to have sex with me or even chat me up.

All the smart, cute girls are taken already.

I read this a couple of days ago and just laughed. Clearly someone has an agenda.

Imagine that. Every time I fart, I bring the entire universe closer to its undoing.

Or at least the earth, according to Al Gore, who next will declare that he's God and that he invented all existence...

ha ha

"Britain's No.1 quality newspaper website "

This says it all.Next they will be telling us Bush has sent killer rockets to Alpha Centuri 2 just to blow up some algae and start an inter-galactic war. This is a newspaper??? Cripes.The Enquirer has them beat by a mile.

Fear not earthlings! For a negotiable fee, I shall seal the intergalactic rift using my Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!

So...We are destroying the Universe by looking at it, eh?

Anyone here old enough to remember when the science we worried about wasn't improbable Theory?

Anyone remember a day when scientists were not running funding cons?

This latest startling revelation by funding-hungry science, would be totally laughable were it not for one thing:

It reveals the mindset science funding plays to. In this case we again see them playing to the humankind-are-a-blight-on-the-earth-(and universe)-which-must-be-eradicated-to-bring-celestial-balance cultists. This anti-human cult seem to be in "earth politics" these days but it seems these cosmosologists are giving them opportunity to expand into saving the universe from the human blight.

I find this attitude that there is chaos if everything in nature isn't left unchanged hilarious...particularly if it's mankind doing the changing, then this is big time voo doo. It is positively Druidic thinking that submits to some "earth spirit entity" which must not be tampered with. This ignores the fact that nature IS change..adaption, survival, extinction...the cosmos are in motion...or changing...many things and creature change it...I think it just bothers these earth cultists that it is man doing any of the changing...which is totally anti-humanitarian and of course sociopathic....but don't tell the fruit fly cult...they're too busy loving up the planet to give a damn about humanity.

Bush snuck a peek. It's all his fault!!!

Seriously, though, the really scary thought is that these scientists might actually believe this crap. Further more, they get to do this on funding paid for by people who actually have to work for a living.

Imagine how YOUR life would be if you could get paid high five or low six figure salaries for just publishing end-of-the-earth/universe/time theories.

So if we are to believe the theory that we can destroy something simply by "looking" at it or perhaps "thinking about it" then it goes without saying that all this "focus" and "thinking" and "looking" at the environment is actually destroying it.

My god, The Fruit Fly Guy and the Failed Presidential Candidate have actually CAUSED global warming!

Off With Their Heads (oh, oh - that statement might land me in Hot Water with the CRTC/Richard Warman)!!

Oh well - I will just "think" myself into a warm and fuzzy place.

Not again!

Vitruvius said "... while serious scientists are quite skeptical..."

Some are, some aren't. The problem goes back initially to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which when beyond the postulates necessary for a self-consistent functional theory.

Collapsing wavefunctions and many-worlds "interpretations" derive from philosophic positions, not scientific ones. They can be completely ignored without affecting the operational validity of quantum mechanics.

Oh, and quantum mechanics is the best tested of all the physical theories, seemingly perfect in its description of every situation to which it has been employed. It also apparently requires no "tweaking" to make it fit with theries of everything (TOE).

For those of you interested in TOE, google toe and surfer dude)

So let me get this straight: If I look at the NDP long enough they will disappear or cease to exist?

iggy...we can only hope and pray that it works that way!!

the UN should do something, you know, form a Committee, have meetings, issue reports with special non-scientific summaries for policy makers.

The usual.

I agree, Fred. Countries with a larger population do more looking than ones with fewer people -- they should pay for the damage they're doing to the universe. The major countries of the world should pay Looking Credits to the lesser ones.

We need celebrities to get on board and promote the closing of eyes, or, if you have to, looking only through squinted eyes. (We'll ignore the fact that celebrities do more looking than the population fo a small town, combined.)

I'll have some failed politician write a book called "An Inconvenient Peek" to scare the bejeebers out of school kids.

Let me know of a city that is willing to host a conference on this as soon as possible, please. Stephane Dion just bought a cat and needs to name it.

Tenebris:
regardless of the presumed infallibility of TOE...if you expect me to feel guilt, or submit myself to regulatory control abuses because my simple "being" causes some cosmic decay/disruption (as the theory at hand is positing) well....it just ain't gonna happen....I stand unrepentant in my "being".

There is a counter theory that would hold every "being" has a purpose regardless if the ultimate "purpose of being" escapes the scientific community or not...in this regard I will never yield to science.

Looking forward to he day when these GW fear mongers are listed in Ripley's Believe it or Not.
In the meantime, pardon me for breathing.

Pardon me too, at both ends.

I find this attitude that there is chaos if everything in nature isn't left unchanged hilarious

But what if a butterfly flaps its wings in Bumf*ckistan? That'd prove you wrong, idiot! [g]

On the one hand we're told that we can control the weather by paying a trizgillion dollars to a money-trading outfit but on the other hand we're told that an insect could determine where a hurricane happens. So which is it?

Perhaps we weak-minded, real-world people that actually DO stuff to keep the economy going are too dumb to understand such lofty thoughts.

[PS I'm no luddite and I beleive that legitimate research has a purpose. Chaos theory as applied to the real world is, uh, "questionable" at best - that won't stop the looney left from using it though]

I think once the MSM has looked at an issue for about 2 years it disappears.

global warming is now exiting from the pages as tazers( which do not create greenhouse gases like guns) make their way to centre stage.

and Mssr.Dion after one year has all but exited from the headlines.

All hail the MSM observations.

...i knew global warming was doing this

Schrodinger couldn't look at his cat.

The cat that visits with us is named "Buster".

He brings us mice, rats, shrews, and other assorted garden critters.

Thus there must be an orthogonal world in which all those dead critters are really alive. This is known as the "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum physics.

I could think of a few "orthogonal worlds" which were devoid of stupid people.

But the thing I have most come to appreciate is that "Buster" like Schrodinger's cat still have
FUR.

Seeing that winter is soon approaching, I rather like the idea of having useful FUR laden creatures around for winter.

How do you keep your universe PURRING along nicely?

Seeing that the Hadron collider is searching for the "GOD PARTICLE" it is a good thing Christmas is coming!

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP

Commander in Chief

Frankenstein Battalion

2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)

Knecht Rupprecht Division

Hans Corps

1st Saint Nicolaas Army

Army Group “True North”

time to take Almighty Gore and the Dr. Fruitfly off the minor global warming problem and send them on a mission to save the universe.

If they can avert their almighty eyes from the universe, surely all of us can be saved.

I've got dark matter credits for sale if anybody needs some.

Thnaks for the link, Vitruvius.

This reminds me a little of Idealism. Idealism essentially suggests that everything can ultimately be demonstrated to be a phenomemon of mind.

This point of view cannot be entirely discounted.

I believe it was Korzybski who showed us that photons and electrons deliver to us all our information about the world. However, photons and electrons are travelling at almost the speed of light.

The problem is that our senses and central nervous system are too primitive in their functioning accurately to apprehend the incomning photons and electrons because of their speed.

This is a bit like the phenomenon of a fan appearing to be one solid piece because of its speed when we of course know there are gaps between the blades.

It suggests a qualified form of Idealism, not full-fledged as with Bishop Berkeley, simply because the photons and electrons are real, but our perceiving apparatus is not up to the job of fully comprehending what we are looking at.

So the mind leaps into the fray and fills in the gaps by creating what we understand to be our world by a construction of delusional evaluations.

So maybe the phenomenon needs to be considered from the point of view of the perceiver rather than the apparent result of the experiment.

You know, the Idealist points out that there is no piece of human knowledge that does not exist in the mind of a subject. And in fact I believe there was a view called "helio-idealism" that also suggested that what we call reality was actually a phenomenon of the central nervous system. (Don't worry, I'm not going to stop eating dinner because the steak may be a delusional evaluation based on an inadequate perception of photons travelling at the speed of light.)

Perhaps if these 'scientists' immediately committed suicide the universe could be saved. They created the problem, are they too selfish to fix it?

"quantum mechanics is the best tested of all the physical theories, seemingly perfect in its description of every situation to which it has been employed."

Well Tenebris, that isn't entirely true. For instance, QM (and QCD) kind of do have a problem with gravity, and with relativity.

--------

As far as people observing dark energy and thus hastening the end of the universe, it's poppycock. Like superstrings, nobody has ever actually observed dark energy. The existence of dark energy (a repulsive force counteracting gravity) is inferred from observations of the redshifts of type 1a supernovae.

However, there is a more plausible explanation that doesn't require physicists to fall back on "luminiferous aether" (which is what dark energy amounts to, and which was disproved 120 years ago by the Michelson-Morley experiment). Unfortunately, it requires us to consider that one of the fundamental constants isn't actually a constant. The theory is

GM=tc^3

Where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the universe, t is the age of the universe, and c is the speed of light. Under this theory (postulated by Louise Riofrio, http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com) the speed of light was once much higher than it is today, and has been slowing down as the universe ages; c is proportional to the cube root of the age of the universe.

This explains the high redshift of type 1a supernovae, provides a basis for Guth's "inflation" period immediately following the big bang, and other effects. It completely destroys the need for dark energy to explain the expansion rate of the universe.

--------

Finally, the statement that somehow *our* observation of some aspect of the universe affects the universe in some way is bollocks. It is a complete misunderstanding of what is meant by "observation". The universe is the observer; observation of "dark energy" would consist of dark energy interacting with matter, energy, time, or space, in order to change information. Human beings (or any intelligence at all) are not required for observation to occur. For instance, when a photon strikes an electron and knocks it into a higher-energy orbital, the electron does the observation whether a human watches it or not.

If a human being is required for "observation", then reality would vanish the moment you turned your back.

MAY THE GREAT BIRD OF THE GALAXY TAKE A DUMP ON THE PLANET OF GORUS REDICLOUS

Or as St Augustine said, He whose essence is existence chose to share that existence with all He created.

The big problem with any putative Theory of Everything is that it has to include The Theory of the Theory of Everything, and so on. This raises the standard problems, though, of course, it is possible that Gödel's Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme is wrong.

Any practical Theory of Everything has to at some point define a limiting case to terminate the recursion. Possible limiting cases are God and because that's the way it is, otherwise it would be some other way, and it isn't.

Ed - "For instance, QM (and QCD) kind of do have a problem with gravity, and with relativity."

Nope. Other way 'round.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future."
-- Niels Bohr

The way I see it, if a theory requires that a thing that is observed universally and consistently, be deemed untrue, the thing that has been observed universally and consistently is probably not the problem.

...say it one more time slower McGehee, I think I almost got it last time...
;-)

Heh. When theory contradicts observed reality, theory loses.

Or it should, anyway.

The Universe can damn well look out for itself as far as I'm concerned. It's been doing a fine job for 20 billion years or so.

Thanks Mr. Dion. I always beleived that the answer would come beyond "Uranus."