In Star Wars, we see streaking stars as the Millennium Falcon jumps to hyperspace.
However, according to the Unruh effect, we would more likely see a warm glow!
The Unruh effect predicts that a body that is accelerating through a vacuum will encounter warm radiation due to an interaction with the quantum fluctuations within the vacuum of empty space.
However, to produce a glow warm enough for detectors to measure, a body such as an atom would have to accelerate to the speed of light in less than a millionth of a second. Such an acceleration would be equivalent to a g-force of a quadrillion metres per second squared.
Now that is an interesting quantum effect!
However, according to the Unruh effect, we would more likely see a warm glow!
The Unruh effect predicts that a body that is accelerating through a vacuum will encounter warm radiation due to an interaction with the quantum fluctuations within the vacuum of empty space.
However, to produce a glow warm enough for detectors to measure, a body such as an atom would have to accelerate to the speed of light in less than a millionth of a second. Such an acceleration would be equivalent to a g-force of a quadrillion metres per second squared.
Now that is an interesting quantum effect!
Furthermore, because the Unruh effect would only be visible from the perspective of the fantastically accelerating body, it’s essentially impossible to see.
However that hasn't deterred the physicists from looking at ways of possibly detecting the effect.
https://gizmodo.com/unruh-effect-visible-in-the-lab-physics-1848977467
Pursuing this path may give them a "warm glow" in their wallets, but what is now stirring up their interest some 50 years since the effect was first theorised?
Well, they believe that Unruh radiation (emitted by particles as they accelerate in space) is analagous to Hawking radiation (emitted as particles accelerate towards black holes).
So, it's more grist to the mill for the theorists! 😎
P.S. Hawking radiation has also never been observed.
However that hasn't deterred the physicists from looking at ways of possibly detecting the effect.
https://gizmodo.com/unruh-effect-visible-in-the-lab-physics-1848977467
Pursuing this path may give them a "warm glow" in their wallets, but what is now stirring up their interest some 50 years since the effect was first theorised?
Well, they believe that Unruh radiation (emitted by particles as they accelerate in space) is analagous to Hawking radiation (emitted as particles accelerate towards black holes).
So, it's more grist to the mill for the theorists! 😎
P.S. Hawking radiation has also never been observed.
😉 Neither has the energy release when they evaporate. Maybe another infinity and we all will be wiped out.
I'm reminded of a race dreamed up by Niven who were getting as far away as possible.
That sounds like the Puppeteers and the Pak who flee a gigantic black hole at the centre of the galaxy that is setting off a chain reaction of supernovae which threatens all life.
I have the candidate book in my collection - Destroyer of Worlds - written by Niven and Lerner.
It's a 'new' Known Space book, published in 2009.
That is an interesting statement >
For me it depicts exactly part of the 'component function' that eventually leads to a new Big Bang.
Of course, it takes more than just one galaxy entering 'that phase'.
The closer things get to a new BB the faster/excelleration of such takes place. (it becomes non-linear)
I like to describe BB's as the single biggest 'discharge events' that ever take place.
It is Black Holes that allow the 'charging function' to exist.
This is why I say > "All black holes go to the same place, regardless of their location within the Universe".
Without elaborating, I also state that it takes (a minimum of) two 'universes' for the final function to event.
This implies that a DEUOVERSE exists. It could be more than 2, but that is something I could never know.
PS.
Black Holes will never be a means of travel for life.
Last edited:
I can't remember the title. Too long ago but the author was just Nven. 😉 One of my favourites. Some exaggerated science such as light year sized light sales and gravitational telescopes.
Co authors though. Wilbur Smith has been doing that. My wife has bought me odd ones. In one case the other author was a lady. I suggested to the wife that if she sees another like that don't buy. I bore no relationship what so ever to his usual books.
Time line:
William George Unruh - Canadian physicist, born 1945.
Nyota Uhura - Communications Officer, first appearance 1965.
Get the picture?
You suggested that the Unruh effect was named after the flight deck officer on Starship Enterprise.
If it had been named after her, it would have been called the Uhura effect.
Your statement made no sense to me and that's why I made a joke about it. 😉
If it had been named after her, it would have been called the Uhura effect.
Your statement made no sense to me and that's why I made a joke about it. 😉
The concept of Big Bang leading to Big Bang is described by Roger Penrose in his hypothesis of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology.
In simple terms, Penrose invisages a daisy-chain of universes.
I suspect Roger Penrose may have had second thoughts about his “multi universe” idea once the universe expansion was found to be accelerating not slowing down.
His book, The Emperor’s New Mind, quantum mechanics of the mind, was kind of a letdown, but at least he was in there kicking. Can’t say I blame him too much, Old School physics can get a little boring after a while sometimes. 😀
excerpt (Foreword)
“STEPHEN W. HAWKING: Although I'm regarded as a dangerous radical by particle physicists for proposing that there may be loss of quantum coherence, I'm definitely a conservative compared to Roger. I take the positivist viewpoint that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality. All that one can ask is that its predictions should be in agreement with observation. I think Roger is a Platonist at heart but he must answer for himself. [pp.3-4]
ROGER PENROSE: At the beginning of this debate Stephen said that he thinks that he is a positivist, whereas I am a Platonist. I am happy with him being a positivist, but I think that the crucial point here is, rather, that I am a realist. Also, if one compares this debate with the famous debate of Bohr and Einstein, some seventy years ago, I should think that Stephen plays the role of Bohr, whereas I play Einstein's role! For Einstein argued that there should exist something like a real world, not necessarily represented by a wave function, whereas Bohr stressed that the wave function doesn't describe a "real" microworld but only "knowledge" that is useful for making predictions. [pp.134-135]”
excerpt (Foreword)
“STEPHEN W. HAWKING: Although I'm regarded as a dangerous radical by particle physicists for proposing that there may be loss of quantum coherence, I'm definitely a conservative compared to Roger. I take the positivist viewpoint that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality. All that one can ask is that its predictions should be in agreement with observation. I think Roger is a Platonist at heart but he must answer for himself. [pp.3-4]
ROGER PENROSE: At the beginning of this debate Stephen said that he thinks that he is a positivist, whereas I am a Platonist. I am happy with him being a positivist, but I think that the crucial point here is, rather, that I am a realist. Also, if one compares this debate with the famous debate of Bohr and Einstein, some seventy years ago, I should think that Stephen plays the role of Bohr, whereas I play Einstein's role! For Einstein argued that there should exist something like a real world, not necessarily represented by a wave function, whereas Bohr stressed that the wave function doesn't describe a "real" microworld but only "knowledge" that is useful for making predictions. [pp.134-135]”
Last edited:
Quantum consciousness? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
Penrose suggests that consciousness derives from the collapse of quantum superpositions which previously existed as pieces of spacetime curvature. 😵
I've said before that Penrose makes my brain hurt!
Mathematical formalism is a favourite topic of Roger Penrose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(philosophy_of_mathematics)
According to formalism, mathematical statements are without regard to any interpretation or meaning given to them.
That would appear to be the standpoint of Bohr rather than that of Einstein (and Penrose himself).
According to formalism, mathematical statements are without regard to any interpretation or meaning given to them.
That would appear to be the standpoint of Bohr rather than that of Einstein (and Penrose himself).
