OK, so here's the anti-matter thing, just by itself.

[originalpckelly]

1. I apologize for being a jerk.
2. Ignore everything else I said, except for this, I'm not finished thinking about the other stuff.

Why aren't we made of anti-matter? Something doesn't seem right about that. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? Why not for every thing there is an equal and opposite thing? Why wouldn't the universe be symmetrical? It would seem more absurd in a closed system (which presumably it is) that things weren't conserved, which symmetry is.

I may be wrong, but isn't there a way to graph sine and have it be in terms of going around a circle? (Radians, right?) What if you had two sine waves, always on opposite sides of the circle?

The diagram would seem to make sense, that's what I was talking about with the hexagon, it's just a tool to understand what I'm talking about here, which is symmetry. It's hard to explain symmetry without visual aids, as I found out after trying this before without them. (It might also be that this is such a stupid idea, it would be hard to explain with or without them. )

I'm just suggesting this, I would probably never be able to publish in a qualified science journal, so I'd probably have to write some kind of science fiction just to get the idea out there to more qualified people. It's just an idea, and hopefully this will explain my idea as it concerns the case of the missing anti-matter.

The only real argument it would seem is whether or not there is a conserved universe. If there is, then I argue we ought to have symmetry in everything.

 

[Artlav]

Why should the universe be symmetric?
We use symmetric logic, so it's natural to expect the things around us to be symmetric.

But, consider this:
There are true-existing things.
Can you show me something that's false-don't exist?

Only things there are are the ones existing, so the universe is fundamentally non-symmetric.

Which brings the question, why should there be symmetric amounts of antimatter?

Also, where is your "other side" will be?

 

[originalpckelly]

Why should the universe be symmetric?
We use symmetric logic, so it's natural to expect the things around us to be symmetric.

But, consider this:
There are true-existing things.
Can you show me something that's false-don't exist?

Only things there are are the ones existing, so the universe is fundamentally non-symmetric.

Which brings the question, why should there be symmetric amounts of antimatter?

Also, where is your "other side" will be?

Out of phase, if I get that term right. I've been doing music for the last few years, and you can take something out of phase, and it's like making an equal and opposite of it. In my music program, it's described in terms of degrees (with 180* being out of phase), but it's probably possible to describe it in terms of radians, and if I've got it right, that's the way this stuff is described.

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

I don't think it actually matters as it concerns the bigger structures, it's just the small stuff. Although, I guess you could make a whole person out of phase. It's not like there is a real anti-self, it's just out of phase with each other. It would still be doing the exact thing, just the exactly opposite thing. If you play an out of phase sound by itself, it's still the same sound, in other words.

This is in phase v. out of phase, you'll notice it's kind of like an equal and opposite thing:

That's just my stupid idea, I'm sorry for bothering you guys with it. I hope you can forgive me.

<---Me
:withstupid: Sadly, even when I'm in my own presence, I'm still with stupid. :rofl:

Oh and that part about "symmetric logic", it's not an artificial construction, that Newton guy had a law about that stuff. Of course, he may have been kind of out of it after being hit in the head with that apple. (That's not what actually happened, but it sounds good, so I'm sticking with it.)

 

[agentgonzo]

AFAIK, astronomers are still puzzled as to why there seems to be an imbalance of more matter than antimatter.

Also, the universe is not necessarily symmetric. From memory, Chien-Shiung Wu showed parity violation in the 50s (emissions of beta particles from, I think, a caesium atom are not symmetric about the atom under cryogenic conditions)

 

[Urwumpe]

The problem in the universe is not symmetry, but the lack of it. There seem to be rules for symmetry to be broken, but not all such rules are known yet - but the LHC is meant to "discover" a few of them.

Also: in all symmetry models, never forget one aspect of real world particle physics: Some particles are their own anti-particle. This observation alone explains quite a lot of how symmetry gets broken in the universe.

And spin alone does not explain this. Electrons have the same spin as their antiparticle, the positron. All that is different between these is the charge.

 

[originalpckelly]

AFAIK, astronomers are still puzzled as to why there seems to be an imbalance of more matter than antimatter.

Also, the universe is not necessarily symmetric. From memory, Chien-Shiung Wu showed parity violation in the 50s (emissions of beta particles from, I think, a caesium atom are not symmetric about the atom under cryogenic conditions)

I've heard about that too. It's the Kaon thing. Perhaps the equal and opposite thing happens for anti-matter scientists?

If you have a clock in the mirror, it's going to look like it's going the opposite direction. Like time is going in reverse.

This idiot will suggest that's what happens. It's a way to find the arrow of time, for us.

"
CP violation

While trying to verify Adair's results, in 1964 James Cronin and Val Fitch of BNL found decays of KL into two pions (CP = +1). As explained in an earlier section, this required the assumed initial and final states to have different values of CP, and hence immediately suggested CP violation. Alternative explanations such as non-linear quantum mechanics and a new unobserved particle were soon ruled out, leaving CP violation as the only possibility. Cronin and Fitch received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery in 1980.
It turns out that although the KL and KS are weak eigenstates (because they have definite lifetimes for decay by way of the weak force), they are not quite CP eigenstates. Instead, for small ε (and up to normalization),
KL = K2 + εK1 and similarly for KS. Thus occasionally the KL decays as a K1 with CP = +1, and likewise the KS can decay with CP = −1. This is known as indirect CP violation, CP violation due to mixing of K0 and its antiparticle. There is also a direct CP violation effect, in which the CP violation occurs during the decay itself. Both are present, because both mixing and decay arise from the same interaction with the W boson and thus have CP violation predicted by the CKM matrix."

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

Think about decay, isn't that a form of entropy? Why does entropy always go one way? If you break an egg and make a movie of it, it's not going to look right in reverse. Melt an ice cube, it won't look right in reverse either. Isn't that kind of the problem here? These guys need to put this stuff in non-physibabble terms, but from what I get, it kind of sounds like that. We're always going one way in time in experiments.

However, since the explanation is in physibabble, all I've got is in my head, trying to understand this in common terms.

 

[agentgonzo]

However, since the explanation is in physibabble, all I've got is in my head, trying to understand this in common terms.

I'm having trouble understanding what you are trying to say because you don't seem to conform to any normal form of sentence structure. However, one of the major problems with trying to understand the subatomic universe is that it doesn't make any sense at all in common terms. That's why you need a university degree to understand it.

 

[Urwumpe]

That's why you need a university degree to understand it.

Actually it helps if you get rid of common sense as quickly as possible, because common sense is actually common nonsense.

I have never seen a decision aid, which makes as many errors as common sense. Many phenomena in particle science are actually not too hard to grasp, if you find somebody who can explain them in easier terms - for example Stephen Hawking or Richard Feynman.

 

[originalpckelly]

The problem in the universe is not symmetry, but the lack of it. There seem to be rules for symmetry to be broken, but not all such rules are known yet - but the LHC is meant to "discover" a few of them.

Also: in all symmetry models, never forget one aspect of real world particle physics: Some particles are their own anti-particle. This observation alone explains quite a lot of how symmetry gets broken in the universe.

And spin alone does not explain this. Electrons have the same spin as their antiparticle, the positron. All that is different between these is the charge.

If you run time in reverse, will an electron's spin be the same? Perhaps there are particles for whom we cannot observe their real anti-spin versions in forward time, because the only anti-spin is the time reversed version?

If you put a clock in a mirror, it should look like it's going in reverse. (I tried it and it works.) I'm a moron, however, and so I'd assume I'm wrong and that it cannot be explained that way.

If you saw a clock in reverse in a movie, would you assume time went in reverse for the place where the clock was being filmed? No, you would assume that the movie was in reverse, or that it was a trick clock. What if time can go in reverse?

hsnap:

This is what happens when the neighbors keep me from recording. I get to thinking, and it's a scary thing.

Which is a simpler explanation?
1. Time can go in reverse and the symmetry of everything is preserved.
2. Even though the universe is probably conserved, even though if you look at water the waves are symmetrical, even if everything appears to have symmetry everywhere else, that for some things there is no symmetry, including the arrow of time. That it makes sense the CMB looks like a spotty teenager, rather than thinking something is SO NOT RIGHT when looking at it.

Whatever folks, I'm the idiot.

In music/sound, you can reverse the playback of a sine wave, and it will sound OK. However, if you reverse speech, it sounds weird. Maybe it's like that way for the universe too?

 

[Urwumpe]

If you run time in reverse,...

Does time selectively run in reverse? After all, do you really see a sequence in reverse time, if you play back a video in reverse? Sure not. You only see a new projection in a new order. But the physical process you filmed did not revert.

 

[originalpckelly]

Does time selectively run in reverse? After all, do you really see a sequence in reverse time, if you play back a video in reverse? Sure not. You only see a new projection in a new order. But the physical process you filmed did not revert.

Perhaps it's not that way for the universe. If you look in a mirror and watch an egg break, it will still look like like an egg just broke. I know if I go break an egg in a mirror, it's not going to magically look like it came back together. That's because the motion in the breaking of the egg is more than 2d, while the motion on the clock is 2d, and in 2d there's only two directions of rotation.

It's a pretty trippy explanation, and it's probably just the product of a know-nothing.

 

[Urwumpe]

It's a pretty trippy explanation, and it's probably just the product of a know-nothing.

Yeah. It the explanation which comes if somebody does not know, what he sees. A projection is not the same as the original event.

 

[originalpckelly]

Yeah. It the explanation which comes if somebody does not know, what he sees. A projection is not the same as the original event.

I think it's pretty obvious that I'm using a mirror as a tool to explain various types of symmetry. To those of us with common sense, we'll think the universe is conserved and if it is, then there should be conservation in everything (equal and opposites for everything.) To those of us who think that symmetry can break, well, they'll keep looking at the universe as a black monolith while screeching.

It doesn't matter in the long run, because no one will be able to tell if we're all drunk enough. Cheers.

 

[Urwumpe]

Which universe? The whole universe, or the visible one?

 

[originalpckelly]

Which universe? The whole universe, or the visible one?

I completely agree with you, but Urwumpe this is simple math.

What is another name for spin? Inherent angular momentum, IIRC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(physics)

So let's think about this. If you don't have something spinning the other way, have you found the thing that conserves inherent angular momentum? No.

Basically, what they are saying is that momentum is not conserved, or if you apply this momentum formula to angular momentum, that you will get one side equal to some non-equal value:

It's not common sense, it's math, and the common sense explanation of it in the case of a mirror.

Or to make this REALLY clear to you and to the rest of them:

Basically, they are saying that ZERO IS NOT EQUAL TO ZERO! :rofl:

You would have to say that in order for this to work out the right way. If a positron has the same "direction" of spin as an electron, that means that the positron is just a particle that conserves mass/charge not spin, and that either we haven't discovered the other anti-spin particle, or we can't.

If you add up the universe, then subtract it from itself (which I wholly admit is impossible, this is a thought experiment thingy) then you have to believe the universe-universe isn't equal to 0. What we define as the universe currently must not meet the logical definition of the universe, which is the thing that is not the product of division.

I think there should have to be someone who's not an initiated physicist in every study, someone these people have to explain it all to. My old IB Physics-X teacher used to do that for the guys who build rockets, so they wouldn't screw something up. He was like the work checking physicist. There should be a math guy. At some point, a math guy would have come to this and demanded it be explained. "How can you have something subtracted from itself not equal itself?"

That's really what's going on with conservation of momentum, you can call it symmetry, but that's just the geometric description of it. As long as these math ideas are true, then there shouldn't be any doubt they hold true for all situations. 1-1 simply does not equal a non-zero value. As long as you are dealing with rational thinking. It's logic, and in the words of Spock, these people "are highly illogical, captain."

I may be wrong, and I'm self-deprecating most of the time, I figure it's the best way to do things. That way if I screw up something, I'm already prepared. So I could be an idiot, but you'd have to define 0 ≠ 0 to prove me wrong. Which one's simpler? 0 ≠ 0 or we just don't see the whole picture? 0 ≠ 0 doesn't apply anywhere else, why should it apply here? And anywhere else is any situation where you have a conserved value, which by definition is the universe. Perhaps it isn't conserved, but then I ask where all the extra stuff comes from, and wouldn't that thing be the universe?

 

[Urwumpe]

I completely agree with you, but Urwumpe this is simple math.

What is another name for spin? Inherent angular momentum, IIRC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(physics)

As the name indicates, the spin has originally been thought of as a rotation of particles around their own axis. This picture is correct insofar as spins obey the same mathematical laws as do quantized angular momenta. On the other hand, spins have some peculiar properties that distinguish them from orbital angular momenta: spins may have half-integer quantum numbers, and the spin of charged particles is associated with a magnetic dipole moment in a way (g-factor different from 1) that is incompatible with classical physics.

 

[Hielor]

I don't think it actually matters as it concerns the bigger structures, it's just the small stuff. Although, I guess you could make a whole person out of phase. It's not like there is a real anti-self, it's just out of phase with each other. It would still be doing the exact thing, just the exactly opposite thing. If you play an out of phase sound by itself, it's still the same sound, in other words.

There is not always a single "exactly opposite thing" for every action. Depending on how you define "opposite" (temporally? spatially? another way?) any given action can have any number of "opposites."

 

[cjp]

(Last time I made a long post it seemed like it killed the thread. I hope that doesn't happen here.)

One thing that distinguishes forward time direction from backward time direction is entropy. The second law of thermodynamics says that when entropy changes, it must always increase (that is: in forward time direction. Therefore, it must decrease when you 'play the tape' backwards).

Now the interesting thing is what causes this asymmetry. It is not a fundamental law of physics, for (AFAIK) when you reverse the time direction, what you see is perfectly possible. The problem is that it's extremely improbable. Entropy is purely a matter of statistics.

Take for instance a particle decaying into two other particles. If this process is physically possible, then the reverse is also possible: the two other particles recombining to form the original particle. However, these two particles would have to approach each other extremely closely for the reverse reaction to occur. Therefore, if the two particles cross the universe in completely random paths (like most particles), the reverse reaction is extremely unlikely to occur.

As a result, the decaying happens spontaneously, while the 'un-decaying' (almost) doesn't happen at all. The direction of a reaction can be predicted by calculating a number (the entropy), which tells how 'chaotic' a certain state is. Basically, entropy is just a statistical property. The decayed state has a higher entropy than the non-decayed state.

I think it's fascinating to see something asymmetrical appear from something symmetrical. It looks like it's impossible, but I think it's just improbable. Let me explain:

Suppose we stopped time right now, and started reversing it. What would we expect, based on the laws of physics, if we didn't know we reversed time? Some things are perfectly reasonable, like reversing the rotation of the earth, but we wouldn't expect things like broken eggs that 'un-break', and 'un-decaying' of particles, because that would violate the second law of thermodynamics. In other words, they would be very improbable.

Yet, somehow that is what would happen if we reverse time. Therefore, I see only one conclusion: from a thermodynamics point of view, our past is very improbable.

I'm sure this has been used as an Intelligent Design argument. I don't have a problem with that, but if there are any atheist physicists reading this: please feel free to come with an alternative explanation.

 

[Hielor]

Yet, somehow that is what would happen if we reverse time. Therefore, I see only one conclusion: from a thermodynamics point of view, our past is very improbable.

I'm sure this has been used as an Intelligent Design argument. I don't have a problem with that, but if there are any atheist physicists reading this: please feel free to come with an alternative explanation.

I don't really like that way of phrasing it ("our past is very improbable") because that ignores the directionality. It would be highly improbably for us to go toward the past, but we're not going toward the past, we're going toward the future, which is the more probable direction.

 

[Eagle]

I don't really like that way of phrasing it ("our past is very improbable") because that ignores the directionality. It would be highly improbably for us to go toward the past, but we're not going toward the past, we're going toward the future, which is the more probable direction.

Agreed. Suppose if you paused a state and reversed the velocities of every particle no matter how small. (lets assume no outside fields either) I highly doubt that you will see many chemical or nuclear reactions reverse themselves at all and instead will find yourself at a state fundamentally similar to where you would be if you hadn't reversed the particles.