Transcendian ponders, "What is wrong with this question?"

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Well, there's nothing really wrong with it as such, IMHO. It's just a question, after all. Just a straightforward solicitation for knowledge, and so where's the harm in that? It's not like you're Martin Luther nailing the Communist Manifesto on the doors of the Vatican or something. So ask away!

On the other hand, people who ask self-referential questions have always struck me a bit odd...

........"It's not like you're Martin Luther nailing the Communist Manifesto on the doors of the Vatican ..."

WTF?

'What is wrong with this question?'

Only that any questions about string theory are self reducing.

If you have to ask a question about it, you don't know enough to understand it, and if you do know enough to understand it, you don't understand it!

"Only that any questions about string theory are self reducing."

I'm a frayed knot.

I always marvel at people who speculate on the existence and nature of another universe. There are so very many mysteries within our own to explore! Why, just investigating the near-infinite sublte complexities of making really good toast should be enough to keep one busy for a lifetime or two.

Unless... you don't suppose there could be a different universe in which perfect toast is a constant? Where burnt toast simply can't happen?

Or (*shudder*) a universe where perfect toast exists in all its glory but goes completely unappreciated because no intellegent life ever came about there?

It looks like someone got a Talkie-Toaster for Christmas.

I toast, therefore I am - Talkie-Toaster

How psychic that you should say that. I'm not a Red Dwarf watcher but I did happen to stumble on a brief Talkie-Toaster clip just this weekend. Although I didn't consciously think of it when I made that post.

Unless...

What if there is a sort of subsconscious toast undercurrent to this universe? An undiscovered inherent property of all matter and energy that binds everything together via an intangable toasty goodness? Perhaps toast figures prominently into the Unified Field Theory.

Perhaps we are all one. We are all "toast".

Nicely done. I almost left a brown spot on my chair reading that.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the toast segment in the "Engineers' Guide to Cats" video....

Naaaah, probably not.

But then there's Del.......

Del's got that video and, yes, it has a lot to do with that segment of the "Engineers' Guide..." But right now Del can't be bothered. He's gone out with friends to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Guest ponders: "Perhaps we are all one"

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Running a bit late one morning, a famished Buddhist monk spys a New York City hot-dog vendor and rushes over to him: "Quick!! Make me One with Everything!"

"I toast, therefore I am..."

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Salut!

Yuck. String theory is wonderful stuff to ponder and it sounds like it is an open field when it comes to imaginative ideas on how it would work. However, it actually is a bit more rigorous than that.

There are two basic forms of string theory that you are interested in. Supersymetry postulates 10 dimensions (M-Theory adds one more dimension for a total of 11) and Bosonic (not a salad dressing) postulates 26 dimensions.

My knowledge is very limited with string theory, but I believe none of those dimensions actually are parallel universes as you envision. There are alternate dimensions and they typically are on a nano-scale and loop back onto themselves. They are too small to technically observe.

However, there is a theory, or actually a term, called Multiverse, which postulates multiple universes. Obviously, science fiction is very fond of this, but you might want to read more at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

At this point you are tramping more in the realm of philosophy than science in my view, but fascinating none the less.

So, to answer your title's question, that depends on where you hang your theoretical hat. String theory doesn't actually posit multiple universes, but proponents of multiple universes can embrace string theory as part of the grand scheme, but that is a little like a quantum physicist embracing atomic theory.

You can spend 8 years at a university and study this field. After that you can pretty much postulate what you want and not many people can challenge you and have much of a leg to stand on. Which is the advantage and disadvantage of string theory. It just isn't a tangible subject that you can apply the scientific method to.

One theory I have is that string theory was actually contrived to provide physicists with their own special subject they can talk/argue about while sitting on bar stools. The rest of us only have politics and the mysteries of women to talk about. The only common denominator for both of us is that the bar stools and the drinks are the same.

I did read some about the multi-verse in a profile of a guy that did calculations for MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction. I was prompted to the question because of an interview I heard with a physicist at Duke regarding the great void that had recently been discovered that seemed to support String Theory. As well Jorries blog was discussing an experiment that purported to demonstrate a photon that moved faster than it was supposed to. Then I wondered if there was another universe, or universes, what would distinguish one from the other. Then I asked the question.

My father who taught English and Drama told me that when he didn't want to have a conversation with someone at a bar, he told them he was a physicist.

I have read up on Wikepedia and in Scientific American on these subjects on my own, and do accept that I rarely get to drink with physicists. I have gotten to drink with pilots, or poets, or grips and gaffers, or basically people for whom it either works or doesn't.

What am I missing about the number of theoretical dimensions that prevents a proper answer to my question?

Is it proven that there could not be another universe, and is it illogical to look at the speed of light as a distinquishing characteristic? What difference does the size of the universe make? If it is big enough to have the distinquishing characteristic of another universe, such as a different constant, then it may be big where it is.

"We are not here to figure out how not to do it!"

I am trying to figure out how one might see people from outerspace, and am not inclined to depend on them as visitors in the flesh. If there was another universe with a higher speed for light, this would be a good spectrum to look for signals if a reciever could be fabricated that decoded or tuned to them.

My solar sail concept as an antenna is apparently unworkable due to "coherence".

So I am left to wonder if the nano particles suspended in self directed circuits as posited as the upcoming computer advance might be turned to be the tuner that explains why we have dreams and visions and hallucinations, and delineate which of those has an independent reality.

What I am trying to figure out is what science will produce pictures made by people from outerspace, or other time, or other universe. Obviously so far our regular tv has not produced these shows. I actually am not married to any theory that does not produce results, but am looking for the result.

If there is some light around that moves faster than the light in our universe, it would be interesting to find what was on it, if it was possible, which it might be, though that would really mean there was only one universe.

"So I am left to wonder if the nano particles suspended in self directed circuits as posited as the upcoming computer advance might be turned to be the tuner that explains why we have dreams and visions and hallucinations, and delineate which of those has an independent reality."

I generally like where you are coming from. However, with respect to your search in alternative universes for a workable explanation of visions and and hallucinations, I am sure I can hear Occam sharpening his razor...

One of the foremost attractions of such idle, in vacuo speculation is that it maintains for its participants the comfortable illusion of having advanced the frontiers of knowledge without demanding that they actually do so.

Occam is not sharpening his razor. Occam is turning in his grave.

Perhaps our computers in this Universe co opts the brains of humans in other Universes, making them so dysfunctional in daily life, that they're confined to mental hospitals! Booga Booga!!!

Your own brain is the only thing known that knows that reality is based on Quantum Physics and at the same time is based on Quantum Physics!!!

Is there a possibility that knowing this, one could feedback thoughts in the proper way to alter reality?!

Hmmmm?

But do they share the same toast?

"There are two basic forms of string theory that you are interested in. Supersymetry postulates 10 dimensions (M-Theory adds one more dimension for a total of 11) and Bosonic (not a salad dressing) postulates 26 dimensions."

Anonymous,

Photons, and possibly other particles, are known to exhibit both particle characteristics and wave characteristics. Is it possible that these are particles that are vibrating not only in the x and y direction but also in the higher dimensions (the tiny curled-up ones)? As they vibrate in these higher dimensions they "pop in and out" of our more familiar three-dimensional universe, endowing them with inexplicable dual properties of both particles and waves?

More musings of a cosmology heretic.

Bill Morrow

Hm, I am not well versed on the subject, so I just can't say for sure. However, a photon is not really an elemental particle in the Standard-Model of physics.

There are twelve basic building blocks in the Standard-Model. Six of these are quarks up, down, charm, strange, bottom and top. The remaining six are leptons, the electron, two heavier relatives, the muon and the tauon, and three neutrinos.

I am starting with the Standard-Model because I think that we have reasonable confidence that it is valid down to a point (due to well documented and repeatable experiments). However, we have a problem with the Standard-Model when it comes to describing a quantum theory for gravity. String theory tries to pick up from the elemental particles downward.

A photon is is made up of two quarks. I don't remember which two, but this implies that each quark must be a string (in string theory) that vibrates or oscillates in a unique way. Can both strings oscillate into and out of the 4-D observable space-time? I don't think strings vibrate or move in that fashion; that is, cross into and out of dimensions. Maybe someone here knows.

However, I think the Standard-Model already addresses the duality of photons, so we may not need to dip into string theory to answer that question. Quantum mechanics refers to that as quantum fluctuations or statistical uncertainty, but I don't know the underlying theory or math behind it.

Please dont denegrate the rest of us who (as you say) philosohize on the mysteries of women. They are a lot more complex than string theory...

More than you think. My girlfriend likes to talk about string theory.

"They are a lot more complex than string theory..."

Really? My impression is that women are pretty much like men - sans Reason and Accountability.

"What is wrong with this question?"

String theory is rubbish. Don't waste your mind on it.

Bobguz

Silly me. And here I thought I was supposed to keep an open mind until a theory was proven or disproven. No offense mean't, but that is simply an opinion.

On the other hand, the difference between good toast and burnt toast is definitely quantifiable.

"String theory is rubbish."

Prove that!

What's wrong with this question?

I don't think it would be possible to change only one significant physical property, such as the speed of light in another Universe. Too many physical properties would be affected. It would be like changing the freezing point or the hydrogen bond energy of water molecules. That effect would change a huge number of events, including life as we know it.

You mean George, down the street?! And Babs next door?! And Shirley, too?! That's too much to take in!!!

I must have a lie-down on my Ches lounge!

"Oh fan-boy!!!"

"Theory" An idea formed by speculation!

Well...Can be a right answer? I think not!

"Never stop asking the question!"

Mind your throats, please!! Can't you see I'm having a Big Bang Theory?!

Thank you for clearing up the difference between an hypothesis (an educated guess) and a theory, (an educated guess, critical portions of which can usually be experimentally demonstrated).

String 'theory' is not a complete waste however. The mathematical gymnastics it requires will hopefully prove useful someday when they can be applied to a real and measurable set of observations.

Truth is...the only thing wrong with the question is your typo.

1. There are just too many fundamentals about how THIS universe works that we don't understand, for us to be able to speculate usefully about what might happen in another universe if we tweaked one of the constants.
2. I don't think we could build a 'signal machine' for a universe with a different speed of light, any more than we can build one in ours. On my planet we have many 'signal machines'. Each one designed specifically for a different range of frequencies. One of our 'signal machines' , our eyes, is built right into our bodies. When you are under water, your eyes work fairly well even thought the speed of light in water is about 3/4 of what it is in air. From this I would deduce that the critical issue for 'signal machines' is frequency, not speed.
3. What does a liquid brain have to do with any of this?
   

Dear Johnfotl, Since my theory, hypothisis, idea about finding hardy photon holographic images using a solar sail or panel is apparently flawed, or ignorant, I had then wondered if there were signals my brain got that a replicated brain might get.

So I imagined making a liquid brain and wiring it up to see if it got visions and was a better antenna for what I was looking for.

Dream Screen: There once was a man,/With wires in his head./And all that he dreamed,/Came out on a screen,/At the end of his bed.

I wrote that poem at least 30 years ago and have heard of recent near same successes using MRI technology.

Having worked with light as a photographer I was soon aware that it moved slower in glass, but had not really got around to thinking of it as possibly going faster much.

For fun: OuterSpace: I'm in outerspace./Right behind my face,/You might think I'm right infront of you,/But really I'm some other place./I'm in outerspace right behind my face. -Would be a good rap song don't you think?

Thanks for the notes.