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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Nov 13, 2010 - 02:40pm PT
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Ed well said. thank you!
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Crodog
Social climber
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Nov 17, 2010 - 02:52pm PT
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Antimatter atom trapped for first time, say scientists
By Jason Palmer, Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Antimatter atoms have been trapped for the first time, scientists say.
Researchers at Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have held 38 antihydrogen atoms in place, each for a fraction of a second.
Antihydrogen has been produced before but it was instantly destroyed when it encountered normal matter.
The team, reporting in Nature, says the ability to study such antimatter atoms will allow previously impossible tests of fundamental tenets of physics.
The current "standard model" of physics holds that each particle - protons, electrons, neutrons and a zoo of more exotic particles - has its mirror image antiparticle.
The antiparticle of the electron, for example, is the positron, and is used in an imaging technique of growing popularity known as positron emission tomography.
However, one of the great mysteries in physics is why our world is made up overwhelmingly of matter, rather than antimatter; the laws of physics make no distinction between the two and equal amounts should have been created at the Universe's birth.
Slowing anti-atoms
Producing antimatter particles like positrons and antiprotons has become commonplace in the laboratory, but assembling the particles into antimatter atoms is far more tricky.
That was first accomplished by two groups in 2002. But handling the "antihydrogen" - bound atoms made up of an antiproton and a positron - is trickier still because it must not come into contact with anything else.
While trapping of charged normal atoms can be done with electric or magnetic fields, trapping antihydrogen atoms in this "hands-off" way requires a very particular type of field.
"Atoms are neutral - they have no net charge - but they have a little magnetic character," explained Jeff Hangst of Aarhus University in Denmark, one of the collaborators on the Alpha antihydrogen trapping project.
"You can think of them as small compass needles, so they can be deflected using magnetic fields. We build a strong 'magnetic bottle' around where we produce the antihydrogen and, if they're not moving too quickly, they are trapped," he told BBC News.
Such sculpted magnetic fields that make up the magnetic bottle are not particularly strong, so the trick was to make antihydrogen atoms that didn't have much energy - that is, they were slow-moving.
The team proved that among their 10 million antiprotons and 700 million positrons, 38 stable atoms of antihydrogen were formed, lasting about two tenths of a second each.
Early days
Next, the task is to produce more of the atoms, lasting longer in the trap, in order to study them more closely.
"What we'd like to do is see if there's some difference that we don't understand yet between matter and antimatter," Professor Hangst said.
"That difference may be more fundamental; that may have to do with very high-energy things that happened at the beginning of the universe.
"That's why holding on to them is so important - we need time to study them."
Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard University led one of the groups that in 2002 first produced antihydrogen, and first proposed that the "magnetic bottle" approach was the way to trap the atoms.
"I'm delighted that it worked as we said it should," Professor Gabrielse told BBC News.
"We have a long way to go yet; these are atoms that don't live long enough to do anything with them. So we need a lot more atoms and a lot longer times before it's really useful - but one has to crawl before you sprint.
Professor Gabrielse's group is taking a different tack to prepare more of the antihydrogen atoms, but said that progress in the field is "exciting".
"It shows that the dream from many years ago is not completely crazy."
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Nov 18, 2010 - 02:33pm PT
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Is the Anti-Christ made of antimatter?
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Crodog
Social climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 03:07pm PT
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Nov 18, 2010 - 04:06pm PT
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"Science does not feed a hungry soul."
It does if the "soul" is Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins or Albert Einstein.
Trouble is, not every soul is a Carl Sagan.
.....
It certainly fed mine. The mountains did, too. Also adventure sports of all kinds in general did as well. Not to mention the ladies (shhh...).
As one passes through different age groups, interests change. In different terms, "what feeds the soul" changes.
Adults could do a better job, I think, informing kids of this. So when kids are older - in their 60s, 70s, etc - they're better prepared for these changes.
Nothing disappoints the soul, defeats the soul, like dashed expectations. It's a design of our body machinery, our body makeup.
.....
FWIW, knitting never fed my soul.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 06:32pm PT
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Nothing material can ever feed the soul.
The true nature of the soul is spiritual.
It has nothing to do with material nature.
When the soul comes into contact with material nature it is exactly like a fish out of the water and will suffocate.
Those who falsely identify with their so called material body will perpetually remain bewildered of what is what and who you are and why you're here.
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Crodog
Social climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 06:55pm PT
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:09pm PT
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I understand what Ed's saying. He is really good at explaining the scientific point of view and fortunately for the rest of us, takes the time to do so. However, I have the same psychological reaction to the claim that science can explain everything that I do to the religious fundamentalist who makes the same claim. Noting that all experience is processed through the brain still does not explain ultimate causation. Of course scientists can say that in the future science will be able to prove exactly what the mechanism is, but that also sounds a lot like the religious people telling us that when we die we'll all see the truth. Personally, neither view helps me with my own search for meaning in the here and now.
What is obvious to all is that science for Ed, is a complete path and satisfies every need that he has for explanation. It also appears to provide his moral guidance and it seems the rational explanation for the best way to behave comes very close to the more universal and abstract teachings of religion such as the Golden Rule. The latter was first articulated by Confucius of course, himself a secular humanist, in 500 B.C.
For me the Hindu system of four yogas explains it best. Ed is on the path of jnana yoga where one tries to think oneself to an understanding of the nature of things and the purpose of life. I happen to be on the raja yoga path where one meditates to an understanding. Others reach it through service to society and others through devotion and spreading love in the world, karma and bhati yoga respectively. The goal is the same for all of us - understanding and a good life that helps others.
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:22pm PT
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science never claimed to explain everything -- it's just the study of everything.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:36pm PT
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That's a separate issue Frumy.
Strictly speaking, science is a method for describing physical reality in finer and finer detail. In that regard science is agnostic on matters not pertaining to physical reality.
Ed is going a step further however, and claiming that everything in the universe and including human spiritual experience has a physical basis. I say at that point he has then crossed over from science to his personal faith. Of course he doesn't see it that way and numerous other science folks on this thread are sure to give me yet another lecture on the scientific method and how it is neutral.
Nobody converts anybody on these threads, but we are all (religious fundamentalists excepted) forced to reconsider and refine our belief systems. We use this forum to both stretch and tidy up our personal boundaries.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:37pm PT
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Assuming Jan's 60 and lives to 110, that's 50 more years of living - plenty of time to take 10-20 years of engineering courses - as nothing teaches causality - and a healthy respect for it - like engineering.
I'd recommend statics and dynamics as hors d'oeuvres (assuming a year of engineering physics is already out of the way), about two or three general control systems courses and a couple dozen electronics, cpt and software courses as entrée and finally, most definitely last but not least, a few bio-engineering graduate courses to top it all off as dessert.
The Prize: At the end of it all, Jan would have - if not what she seeks - then at least a much stronger understanding of causality (aka causal dynamics) as never before. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, a damn healthy and compelling R-E-S-P-E-C-T for it. Also, she would see that a causal Cosmos (of causal fate and causal dynamics) is not nearly the monster or nightmare that millions in this celebrity nation, in post-modernist circles and in traditional academic philosophy (which breathes and lives hand in hand with theology) would have the scientifically (and engineering) illiterate believe.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:46pm PT
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I'm afraid that will have to wait for my next life Fructose. I've got more than enough work to do in this one trying to publish all my woo woo experiences starting with the Sherpas.
Meanwhile I will hold Ed and other scientists up as role models over the fundamentalists any day.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:51pm PT
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Post 500
There is God and he has been proven for billions of years up to this very second.
There's no escape from this bonafide fact .......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 18, 2010 - 10:56pm PT
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I get pulled back into this interesting conversation.
Let me try to explain a little more and attempt to do it better.
I have a great appreciation for individual experience, and great respect for it. Many good ideas start there, and it is in this experience that we live our lives. As skipt says, our experience has great value and our relationships with each other span the range of values. We experience hate and love and a large number of feelings. We experience things we can't explain or understand.
I accept that all this happens. My premise, if you will, is that what we experience is based on behavior evolved over millions of years. What we experience is the patchwork inherited by our predecessor species and appropriated to fit our survival in a world we don't really remember. The prehistory of even homo sapiens extends in time back long before what we would consider ancient.
As such, our experience is probably not even unique, that is, other animals express many of the same behaviors and emotions that we do...
So the answer to the big question is simply, there is no greater reason for us being here than for anything else being here... there is no meaning to the improbability of our existence. We make that meaning for ourselves through our lives, and how we effect other lives.
The empathy for life is a first moral lesson. We are all here, we exist, we live, all of us, the bacteria, plants, animals, whatever... we live. It is a unique state and we have a feeling that it shouldn't be wasted.
The golden rule is really just an extension of this, we treat others as we would be treated. Often we think about it in terms of other humans, but probably we will rethink this to beyond that, as our fate on this planet is intimately tied up with the fates of all the other life. There would be no us if it weren't for them... and we will cease to be if they ceased...
Now just how to explain, in detail, what we feel and why, well, that is a long story not nearly completed. But as a scientist, I don't see the need to look beyond what is here in front of us. It is important not to put our hope that somehow we will be saved, we have the entire responsibility ourselves.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 11:11pm PT
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It is important not to put our hope that somehow we will be saved,
All summer long we hear the cries for help.
All summer long their hope is held extremely high to be saved.
All summer long we venture out with high hopes that we will save them when we arrive.
The motto on the front door as you leave says "Failure is not an option"
:-)
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Crodog
Social climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 11:28pm PT
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Crodog
Social climber
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Nov 18, 2010 - 11:52pm PT
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Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
English Proverb
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 19, 2010 - 12:40am PT
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And nature is more powerful then man.
Thus one must submit to nature.
There's no escape ....
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Nov 19, 2010 - 12:30pm PT
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jan ---- strictly speaking science is the study of everything. nothing more & nothing less. period.
you can put you prejudices on it but that is you not science.
you need to get over yourself.
when you die your dead.
what happens after that no one knows. & anyone that says they know is a lier.
science does not care if there is or if there is not a god. science only cares about how things work.
P.S. crodog thats the truth.
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