Webb telescope spots its first star—and takes a selfie
Tiny new planet discovered around Sun’s nearest neighbor
Astronomers find largest radio galaxy ever
NASA reveals stunning first image of glowing clouds surrounding an exploding star
Astronomers discover new type of star with puzzling origins
Bizarre radio signal repeating every 18 minutes discovered in Milky Way
First-ever “rogue” black hole discovered zipping through the galaxy
First quadruple asteroid system detected
Scientists discover how galaxies can exist without dark matter
Future gravitational wave detector in space could uncover secrets of the universe
We Think We’ve Spotted the Mysterious Birth of a Black Hole
NASA IXPE Observatory’s First Stunning Image: The Glowing Remains of an Exploded Star
Scientists Unveil Largest and Most Accurate Virtual Representation of the Universe
Astronomers Think They’ve Just Detected an “Invisible” Black Hole
HERA Telescope: Early Findings Promise Deeper Understanding of the Cosmic Dawn
Is the “Fine-Tuned Universe” an Illusion? Challenging Popular Arguments for a Multiverse
Astronomers Watch a Star Die and Then Explode as a Supernova – For the Very First Time
An Expanse of Light – Dazzling New Multiwavelength Images of the Universe From NASA
Resolving the gravitational redshift across a millimetre-scale atomic sample
Hubble Observes Triple Galaxy Merger: IC 2431
Universe is Teeming with Quintillions of Stellar-Mass Black Holes
Anatomy of Milky Way’s Star Creation -Occurs in Skeletal Light-Years-Long Filaments
Dark-Matter Asteroids – “Trillions of Trillions May Exist in the Milky Way”
The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse
“Unsolved Mystery ” -Strange Particle from Deep Space Detected at Antarctica’s South Pole
German Shepherd almost killed as METEOR smashes through dog house: ‘Barely missed him’

Tau.Neutrino said:

Webb telescope spots its first star—and takes a selfie
Tiny new planet discovered around Sun’s nearest neighbor
Astronomers find largest radio galaxy ever
NASA reveals stunning first image of glowing clouds surrounding an exploding star
Astronomers discover new type of star with puzzling origins
Bizarre radio signal repeating every 18 minutes discovered in Milky Way
First-ever “rogue” black hole discovered zipping through the galaxy
First quadruple asteroid system detected
Scientists discover how galaxies can exist without dark matter
Future gravitational wave detector in space could uncover secrets of the universe
We Think We’ve Spotted the Mysterious Birth of a Black Hole
NASA IXPE Observatory’s First Stunning Image: The Glowing Remains of an Exploded Star
Scientists Unveil Largest and Most Accurate Virtual Representation of the Universe
Astronomers Think They’ve Just Detected an “Invisible” Black Hole
HERA Telescope: Early Findings Promise Deeper Understanding of the Cosmic Dawn
Is the “Fine-Tuned Universe” an Illusion? Challenging Popular Arguments for a Multiverse
Astronomers Watch a Star Die and Then Explode as a Supernova – For the Very First Time
An Expanse of Light – Dazzling New Multiwavelength Images of the Universe From NASA
Resolving the gravitational redshift across a millimetre-scale atomic sample
Hubble Observes Triple Galaxy Merger: IC 2431
Universe is Teeming with Quintillions of Stellar-Mass Black Holes
Anatomy of Milky Way’s Star Creation -Occurs in Skeletal Light-Years-Long Filaments
Dark-Matter Asteroids – “Trillions of Trillions May Exist in the Milky Way”
The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse
“Unsolved Mystery ” -Strange Particle from Deep Space Detected at Antarctica’s South Pole
German Shepherd almost killed as METEOR smashes through dog house: ‘Barely missed him’

Webb telescope spots its first star—and takes a selfie

Yep. I’ve been watching this. We’re still waiting for an in-focus image.

Tiny new planet discovered around Sun’s nearest neighbor

Proxima Centauri d. “Proxima Centauri now has three known exoplanets: Proxima Centauri b, Proxima Centauri c, and Proxima Centauri d”. Found by the wobble technique.

A slight warning here, for flare stars such as Proxima Centauri the wobble technique is unreliable. Stellar flares can mimic a planet.

Come on folks, please find one around Alpha Centauri.

>https://www.space.com/large-radio-galaxy-alcyoneus-discovery

Astronomers find largest radio galaxy ever

LOFAR. It would have to be. The only low frequency high resolution radio interferometer capable of out-doing previous surveys.

> Astronomers using the radio telescopes were previously unable to detect Alcyoneus because the plumes are relatively faint. The researchers reprocessed existing images of the galaxy, revealing subtle, new patterns that alerted the team to the massive galactic structure.

Aha. There’s been a big astronomy business in re-processing old images in the optical and infra-red ranges. Nice to see that it’s also being done in radio. The main concern here is mistaking raddom fluctuations for genuine signals, but this certainly looks like a genuine signal.

> While radio jets have been detected in many galaxies, including the Milky Way,

Wait. Including the Milky Way, I must have missed that.

> We superimpose LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) DR2 images at 144 MHz of two different resolutions (6′′ for the core and jets, and 60′′ for the lobes) (orange), with the Wide-eld Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) image at 3.4 μm (blue).

Nice.

> NASA reveals stunning first image of glowing clouds surrounding an exploding star

The real news is the success of “A new pair of X-ray eyes on the universe is allowing us to see extreme objects like never before.
Just over two months after launching to space, NASA’s newest explorer – the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE – shared its very first images. And they are stunning.”

I saw the image and immediately thought “That looks like Cassiopeia A”

Guess what. It is Cassiopeia A.

Prettier picture, though. Back in 1994 it used to look like this.

> Astronomers discover new type of star with puzzling origin

“But now, astronomers have discovered two white dwarfs that don’t quite fit the usual description. White dwarfs have atmospheres dominated by hydrogen or helium, but these new ones have surprisingly high amounts of carbon and oxygen in their atmospheres – rather than the usual trace amounts if anything, the team detected concentrations of both elements that were as high as 20 percent.”

Carbon and oxygen in the atmospheres of white dwarf stars are not very unusual. Well, not extremely unusual. Most white dwarfs are classified as DA with hydrogen atmosphere or DB with helium atmosphere. But about 0.1% are DQ white dwarfs with an atmosphere dominated by carbon. So what’s new about these, if anything?

“These aren’t the only perplexing white dwarfs out there. Other recent studies have found white dwarfs with ring systems, white dwarf pulsars, and a particularly bizarre one that’s somehow burning bright in infrared but not visible light.”

Yes, IIRC, the Kepler telescope spotted a white dwarf with a ring system.
White dwarfs that pulsate occur because the white dwarfs band on the H-R diagram chess the variable stars band on the same diagram. Those that overlap are known as DAV dwarfs or ZZ Ceti, stars.
Yes, there are cool white dwarfs, some shine red like red dwarfs and some are even cooler appearing similar to brown dwarfs. I’ve never understood the age of these ultra-cool brown dwarfs, on the standard model of stellar evolution they would be older than the universe, but clearly I’ve missed something important.

> Bizarre radio signal repeating every 18 minutes discovered in Milky Way

“Deepening the mystery, the object doesn’t just do this constantly – it went through an active period in January 2018, took most of February off, then turned back on for most of March. During each of those 30-day active periods it stuck to its strict schedule, but it didn’t appear in the data in the five years prior or the four years since.”

My first guess would be a slow pulsar.

“On rare occasions, it’s possible for a neutron star to be both a pulsar and a magnetar, and since this new object has characteristics of both, that’s a possibility. But there’s one major problem – it spins way too slowly. Pulsars spin on the order of milliseconds to a few seconds, while magnetars can rotate as slowly as once every 10 seconds. This new signal’s 18-minute rotation is far too long to neatly fit into the box. … The thing is, if you do all of the mathematics you find that they shouldn’t have enough power to produce these kind of radio waves every 20 minutes. It just shouldn’t be possible, they should be quiet.

Interesting

Mesmerising rover footage captures rare sight of swirling clouds above Mars

Physicists measure gravitational time warp to within one millimeter

In depth article on James Web Telescope.

Exclusive interview: answers to 20 questions from the James Webb Space Telescope team

Tau.Neutrino said:

Mesmerising rover footage captures rare sight of swirling clouds above Mars

Dramatic, ta.

Newly Discovered “Freak” Star Challenges Ideas Of Stellar Evolution

In a recently published paper, Werner and colleagues announced their discovery of the previously unknown star type. Another paper published alongside the finding suggests the stars the researchers found were created by the merging events of two white dwarfs, a type of small, hot and dense star believed to be at the end of its life cycle.

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

First-ever “rogue” black hole discovered zipping through the galaxy
First quadruple asteroid system detected
Scientists discover how galaxies can exist without dark matter
Future gravitational wave detector in space could uncover secrets of the universe
We Think We’ve Spotted the Mysterious Birth of a Black Hole
NASA IXPE Observatory’s First Stunning Image: The Glowing Remains of an Exploded Star
Scientists Unveil Largest and Most Accurate Virtual Representation of the Universe
Astronomers Think They’ve Just Detected an “Invisible” Black Hole
HERA Telescope: Early Findings Promise Deeper Understanding of the Cosmic Dawn
Is the “Fine-Tuned Universe” an Illusion? Challenging Popular Arguments for a Multiverse
Astronomers Watch a Star Die and Then Explode as a Supernova – For the Very First Time
An Expanse of Light – Dazzling New Multiwavelength Images of the Universe From NASA
Resolving the gravitational redshift across a millimetre-scale atomic sample
Hubble Observes Triple Galaxy Merger: IC 2431
Universe is Teeming with Quintillions of Stellar-Mass Black Holes
Anatomy of Milky Way’s Star Creation -Occurs in Skeletal Light-Years-Long Filaments
Dark-Matter Asteroids – “Trillions of Trillions May Exist in the Milky Way”
The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse
“Unsolved Mystery ” -Strange Particle from Deep Space Detected at Antarctica’s South Pole
German Shepherd almost killed as METEOR smashes through dog house: ‘Barely missed him’

German Shepherd almost killed as METEOR smashes through dog house: ‘Barely missed him’

A fake news website :-)

“Unsolved Mystery ” -Strange Particle from Deep Space Detected at Antarctica’s South Pole

Unfortunately, this is from ANITA not IceCube. Anita is a balloon experiment, so an upward shower of cosmic rays detected by it could have been caused by ANITA swaying in the wind or from a cosmic ray impact on the ground surface or in the atmosphere below.

The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse

Which multiverse? Ah, good, “Eternal inflation”, my favourite. “Throughout the overwhelming majority of the multiverse, dark energy is so abundant as to make life impossible”. Well, yes and no. We don’t know enough to make that claim. One possibility I’ve been toying with Time and Temperature is that dark energy and matter differ only as a result of the symmetry breaking that separated quantum mechanics and general relativity. Thus what are called “fine tunings” are to be expected everywhere and are not freakishly rare.

Dark-Matter Asteroids – “Trillions of Trillions May Exist in the Milky Way”

“If a significant portion of dark matter is in the form of dark asteroids, then they would be extremely common on the galactic scale, with trillions of trillions of them wandering the Milky Way”. Yeah, no. If a significant portion of dark matter is in the form of dark asteroids, then their presence in the solar system would upset the orbits of the planets. And this has already been conclusively ruled out.

Universe is Teeming with Quintillions of Stellar-Mass Black Holes

“The researchers estimate a relic mass density of stellar-mass black holes in the local Universe of 5*10^7 solar masses per cubic megaparsec, which exceeds by more than two orders of magnitude that in supermassive black holes.” Possible.

Astronomers Watch a Star Die and Then Explode as a Supernova – For the Very First Time

“A team of astronomers watched the drama unfold through the eyes of two observatories in Hawaii: Pan-STARRS on Haleakala, Maui, and the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii Island. Their observations were part of the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient survey. They watched the supernova explosion, named SN 2020tlf, during the final 130 days leading up to its detonation.”

An interesting combination. I’m surprised that … no, it makes perfect sense, and is a brilliant idea, as brilliant as using SWIFT and Keck together.

“The discovery dates back to the Summer of 2020. At that time, the progenitor star experienced a dramatic rise in luminosity. Pan-STARRS detected that brightening, and when Fall came around the star exploded as SN 2020tlf.”

This supernova must have been darn close for Pan-STARRS to see stellar brightening before the explosion. How close?

“The team used the Keck Observatory’s Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) to capture the supernova’s first spectrum. The LRIS data showed circumstellar material around the star when it exploded. That material is likely what Pan-STARRS saw the star ejecting in the summer before it exploded.”

Good.

“Red supergiant stars eject material prior to core collapse. But that material ejection takes place on much longer timescales than SN 2020tlf. This supernova emitted circumstellar material (CSM) for 130 days prior to collapse, and that makes it a bit of a puzzle. The bright flash prior to the star’s explosion is somehow related to the ejected CSM, but the team of researchers isn’t certain how they all interacted.”

:-)

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac3f3a

Come on come on, how close is this darn star?

So not close at all. If it’s that far away then how the heck could Pan-Starrs see the progenitor star?

“NGC 5731. In this paper, we use a redshift z = 0.008463 ± 0.0003 (Oosterloo & Shostak 1993), which corresponds to a distance of 36.8 ± 1.29 Mpc”.

I’m not buying it, there’s no way that Pan-Starrs could see the progenitor star at that distance.

Well, they certainly claim to have been able to see the brightening of the progenitor star. See below.
Or to put it another way, the brightening of the host star in the infrared makes it at least 100 times as bright as the host galaxy before it exploded. But at the same time was not bright enough to be detected in visible light (apart from a bit in red). It helps that the host galaxy is intrinsically very faint.

It brightened in infrared 130 days before supernova explosion, and then stayed constant brightness in infrared until the explosion. I certainly would never have predicted that. Good work!

Ruby clouds and water behaving strangely – what we found when studying an exoplanet’s dark side

Since astronomers discovered the first planet orbiting a star other than the Sun, we have found many worlds that are very unlike the ones in our own Solar System. A large number of these “exoplanets” are large, gaseous planets roughly the size of Jupiter, orbiting close to their parent stars once every few days.

more…

mollwollfumble said:

The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse

Which multiverse? Ah, good, “Eternal inflation”, my favourite. “Throughout the overwhelming majority of the multiverse, dark energy is so abundant as to make life impossible”. Well, yes and no. We don’t know enough to make that claim. One possibility I’ve been toying with Time and Temperature is that dark energy and matter differ only as a result of the symmetry breaking that separated quantum mechanics and general relativity. Thus what are called “fine tunings” are to be expected everywhere and are not freakishly rare.

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Me: OK, but hang on, that means there must be an infinite number where one of the two suddenly stops talking English, and starts speaking German.

Nick: Pourquoi pas, c’est possible.

Me: Spoodle flimduff.

Nick Eh?

Me: That’s Venusian for “good point”.

Nick: Look, it’s near certain that there are no intelligent living beings on Venus, and even if there are, they won’t use a language like that.

Me: But in the infinite Universe there must be an infinite number of solar systems where Venus is inhabited by beings with a spoken language , and that is the language they speak.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse

Which multiverse? Ah, good, “Eternal inflation”, my favourite. “Throughout the overwhelming majority of the multiverse, dark energy is so abundant as to make life impossible”. Well, yes and no. We don’t know enough to make that claim. One possibility I’ve been toying with Time and Temperature is that dark energy and matter differ only as a result of the symmetry breaking that separated quantum mechanics and general relativity. Thus what are called “fine tunings” are to be expected everywhere and are not freakishly rare.

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse

Which multiverse? Ah, good, “Eternal inflation”, my favourite. “Throughout the overwhelming majority of the multiverse, dark energy is so abundant as to make life impossible”. Well, yes and no. We don’t know enough to make that claim. One possibility I’ve been toying with Time and Temperature is that dark energy and matter differ only as a result of the symmetry breaking that separated quantum mechanics and general relativity. Thus what are called “fine tunings” are to be expected everywhere and are not freakishly rare.

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

Also humans even if identical will have different thoughts & actions with butterfly’s wing consequences.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse

Which multiverse? Ah, good, “Eternal inflation”, my favourite. “Throughout the overwhelming majority of the multiverse, dark energy is so abundant as to make life impossible”. Well, yes and no. We don’t know enough to make that claim. One possibility I’ve been toying with Time and Temperature is that dark energy and matter differ only as a result of the symmetry breaking that separated quantum mechanics and general relativity. Thus what are called “fine tunings” are to be expected everywhere and are not freakishly rare.

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

Your reasoning explains why it is quite possible for the conversations on one planet to suddenly diverge into German, whereas on the one where I have observational evidence, it suddenly went into French and Venusian, then back to English, but it doesn’t make the infinite number of “identical” worlds hypothesis invalid, because when we observe a scene on a given world we do not have anything like infinite precision. In fact we could pixelate the image of the scenes into two “identical” images that we could not tell apart, even though at the atomic level they were very different.

Also it is true that of the infinite “identical” planets, almost all will diverge by an observable amount over a short period, but there will remain an infinite number that are still identical, at any finite level of precision, no matter how fine you make that, and there will still be an infinite number of “identical” planets after any finite time, no matter how long.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Eerie Implications of the Multiverse

Which multiverse? Ah, good, “Eternal inflation”, my favourite. “Throughout the overwhelming majority of the multiverse, dark energy is so abundant as to make life impossible”. Well, yes and no. We don’t know enough to make that claim. One possibility I’ve been toying with Time and Temperature is that dark energy and matter differ only as a result of the symmetry breaking that separated quantum mechanics and general relativity. Thus what are called “fine tunings” are to be expected everywhere and are not freakishly rare.

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

An infinite number of possible universes will also have an atomic particle just slightly out of place.

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

Also humans even if identical will have different thoughts & actions with butterfly’s wing consequences.

See response to moll.

Tau.Neutrino said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

An infinite number of possible universes will also have an atomic particle just slightly out of place.

This will happen for every other atomic particle as well.

:)

Tau.Neutrino said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I don’t know why they bring multiverses into it. All it requires is for everything that exists to be infinite, even if it is a single universe.

But anyway, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a school mate on the way home one day, probably in 1967:

Nick: Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

Me: Can’t say that it has, but that sounds reasonable.

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

Me: OK

Nick: And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

An infinite number of possible universes will also have an atomic particle just slightly out of place.

See response to moll.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

Say “hi” to Nick for me, in spirit anyway.

> Has it occurred to you that if the Universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of solar systems that have an identical arrangement of planets to the one we live in?

> And of those, an infinite number will have a 3rd planet from the sun that is physically identical in every respect to the planet we live on, down to the microscopic levels of detail.

> And of those, an infinite number will have living beings, including animals identical to humans, and every one of those humans will have had a history identical to their equivalent human on this planet.

> And of those, an infinite number will have two humans walking down a lane identical to this one, and saying exactly the same things we are saying now, using the English language.

This doesn’t follow, but the reasons are quite subtle and actually boil down to infinity divided by infinity.

No two entities are exactly alike, even in theory. Sure it is possible to collect the same number of atoms in approximately the same place. But since position and momentum are Heisenberg conjugates, if it is possible to place the same atoms in the same relative position then the speed of those atoms is unknown. And vice versa, if the speed is the same then the position isn’t.

So if it were possible that somewhere out there in the Macrocosmic all there were an exact copy of the Earth down to its smallest detail then its future and past history must be different. position and speed are both continuous variables, not quantised, so no matter how hard the macroscopic universe tries, it cannot exactly duplicate position and speed, there must be an infinitesimal difference, and such differences grow.

Also humans even if identical will have different thoughts & actions with butterfly’s wing consequences.

See response to moll.

Thanks.

> See response to moll.

Response by moll.

The number of similar configurations in a multiverse is countable infinity (Aleph null)

But the number of positions and speeds of even a single atom is uncountable infinity (Aleph 1)

So the number of other copies of the Earth in a a multiverse is Aleph null divided by Aleph 1, which is exactly zero.

mollwollfumble said:

> See response to moll.

Response by moll.

The number of similar configurations in a multiverse is countable infinity (Aleph null)

But the number of positions and speeds of even a single atom is uncountable infinity (Aleph 1)

So the number of other copies of the Earth in a a multiverse is Aleph null divided by Aleph 1, which is exactly zero.

That assumes for two objects to be considered “identical” they have to have exactly zero difference in position and velocity at every level, but in the scenario being discussed it is only necessary for them to appear to be identical, at human vision scale, so the number of different versions is finite, and the number of copies of each is infinite.

Which is what I said before, but you seem to have just ignored it.

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