Mid-morning. You worked on mulching
yesterday afternoon and watched “Person of Interest” and “Bones” before
retiring to the bedroom. – Amorella
With
rests it took you an hour and a half to mow the front yard. The grass is
starting to seed so it’ll grow fast but next week you are leaving for Florida
on Thursday and Tim is mowing until after you return and maybe even then. Carol
is mowing the north section because it is flat. The rest you are waiting until
late afternoon or evening to mow because of the heat. – Amorella
1124
hours. Once the heat makes me nauseous and I have a light-headed sense of potential/actual
dizziness I come indoors. Amazing, all these years since the incident in the
Grand Canyon (1960) and I have never fully recovered.
You’re still alive, boy. – Amorella
1130
hours. I am and I am grateful for it.
Post. – Amorella
1131
hours. If however, I am in a situation where the health question is whether to
pull the plug on me or not, I want it pulled.
Understood, boy. Acceptance in such a
situation is honorable and basically a humble decision. – Amorella
1135
hours. I am a little leery this is me not you responding on the ‘acceptance’
above. Though – you signed. I don’t think I could have signed for you. I never
have that I can remember. It would have been wrong and dishonest to do so.
You
had a late lunch at Panera/Chipotle and after stopping at Home Depot and Lowe’s
for garden supplies you are at Natorp’s Nursery for more plants and supplies
this quite warm Spring afternoon. – Amorella
1615
hours. It is 85 degrees with a pleasant southern breeze as long as you are
sitting in the shade otherwise it feels downright hot. I saw a good-looking
black Tesla in the Home Depot lot. If they were about forty thousand cheaper
I’d look for one as a next car. I can’t help it; nicely styled electric/hybrid
cars and Spring just go together. If they could get other electrics into the
240 miles range that would be fine for going to Kim and Paul’s. We wouldn’t use
any gas at all. Very cool.
You are home and Carol is out caring for her
flowers in the heat; not your cup of tea. Later though, you have the back
southwest section to mow, then you’ll be done except for the trimming. –
Amorella
1652
hours. Good you mentioned that because it takes two battery charges to do a
full trimming. I can do one tonight then one in the morning. I saw a physics
answer on Quora yesterday and it might be pertinent to the story as far as
probable physics is concerned.
Drop it in, boy. I am not adverse to
material that might proof useful in the books. – Amorella
** **
From yesterday and today's Quora:
What major advances in theoretical physics will the 21st
century see?
Bartosz Milewski, Physicist turned Programmer
I can only speculate on what advances we would hope
to see in the 21st century.
Let me start
with the obvious:
1. Find out if supersymmetry is real. This may be right around
the corner, if the LHC discovers a supersymmetric partner to any of the known
particles. Possibly related: Find out what dark matter is made of.
2. Figure out why we have so many elementary particles. The
Standard Model looks more like a periodic table of particles, waiting for a
theory that would explain the variety and the patterns we see there. We need
the Grand Unification.
3. Study additional dimensions, if they exist.
4. Find out if string theory (M-theory) is real.
5. Unify gravity with the rest of particle physics. Extend
physics beyond the black-hole horizon.
It's possible that we'll be able to solve these puzzles within
the framework of relativistic quantum theory and Riemannian geometry, using
existing mathematical tools -- maybe stretching them a little further. But it's
also possible that we'll have to revolutionize the foundations of theoretical
physics and maybe even mathematics.
Here are some thoughts:
- Our mathematical and computational tools drastically limit our
understanding of the Universe. We use perturbation theory wherever it's
applicable; and then some (renormalization). Are virtual particles
"real" or an artifact of perturbation theory? Do quarks make sense
when perturbation theory breaks down in the strong coupling regime?
- Symmetries play a very important role in physics, but we don't
understand their origin. We use mathematical models to describe reality.
Symmetry means, roughly, that different sets of numbers describe the same
reality. Or that we use too many variables, and some of them are redundant. We
have gauge-invariant theories (locally symmetric theories), but we have to fix
the gauge in order to do calculations. A gauge-invariant photon (the
four-potential) has longitudinal and time-like components that are not
physical.
- We don't really understand the role of the observer. Quantum
theory is based on the duality between the observed and the observer. The
Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is unsatisfactory. The observer
is described by classical physics and there is a discontinuity between quantum
and classical description.
The Many Universe interpretation doesn't explain probabilities.
If all outcomes are realized, where do probabilities come from?
We cannot apply quantum theory of the whole Universe because we
don't have an external observer who could measure probabilities of various
outcomes.
The observer problem and the anthropic principle are fundamental
to our understanding of the Universe. Is the Universe knowable at all?
- We have only
now started to digest the products of the computer revolution. Computers will
further change not only what we can calculate. They will influence the very
foundations of mathematics and physics. So far we've been fascinated with bits and
bytes, with numbers. But the theory of computation goes beyond numbers. Type
theory, category theory, constructive logic, and the recent developments in
homotopy type theory are all influenced by computers. The old wisdom was that
breakthroughs in physics lead to developments in mathematics and, more
recently, to the development of computer technology. In the 21st century we
will see the reversal of this flow: from computers to mathematics and then to
physics.
*
Tim
De Coster, MD theoretical physics, BS Physics minor
mathematics
As it has already been noted, a lot of this is speculation, but
here is my go at it:
In my opinion, the greatest noticeable change will come in an
area not many physicists are particularly interested in or would consider as
theoretical physics (though it is, and rightfully so).
Biology is at the moment booming business. Experimentalists in
this area can acquire lots of data in a very short amount of time. Despite the
fact that a lot of biological phenomena are described qualitatively in the
literature (different kinds of heart arrhythmias for example), not much
theoretical underlying models have been made.
The power of computers has gone up drastically in the last
couple of years, making it possible for scientists to finally analyze all these
acquired data. Currently physicists (and mathematicians as well) are creating
models (called complex systems due to its many differential equations all
acting together) to describe heart and brain functioning and malfunctioning,
DNA-folding, gene reproduction, ... In a short amount of time, noticeable
results have already been achieved, helping physicians to diagnose diseases
easier and helping them to resolve them.
(A comment adding to this that comes from the answer of Bartosz Milewski "In
the 21st century we will see: from computers to mathematics and then to
physics")
Due to this, in the next years that are left of the 21st
century, I see in the realm of possibilities to find a solution for a lot heart
arrhythmias, lengthening many peoples lives by possibly 20 years (an example: a
current research field are atrial arrhythmias as it is predicted that in 5
years 3 million people in the US alone will get one of those Atrial fibrillation-the growing
epidemic (and this can have no significant effect, but can also lead
to an infarct How Common Is
Atrial Fibrillation?, Worldwide
Epidemiology of Atrial Fibrillation: A Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study)
(a reason for these arrhythmias is the increase of overweight people, possibly
due to a lot of sitting jobs)) (Page on
researchgate.net).
Other changes I see happening is a highly increased
understanding of the functioning of the brain, leading to possible solutions
for treating psychological diseases or Alzheimer.
Despite the fact that it doesn't look that way, there is
actually a lot of physics and mathematics involved in the problems I mentioned.
They are just coated in a medical language that often scares people.
Certainly some
major advances will be made as well in the more to the imagination speaking
fields as particle physics, astrophysics and condensed matter physics. I would
however opt for the more biologically oriented mathematical modeling due to the
fact that I believe it will most increase our quality of life (some physicists
might prefer to discover a unified theory putting together gravity and the
standard model to living an extra 20 years, but as we as physicists are highly
outnumbered by the rest of the world, I'll stick with my answer).
*
Rainer Winkler, PhD in physics, work in information
technology
- Understanding Quantum mechanics.
- Understanding Gravity in a unified model containing particles
and quantum mechanics. But not fully understanding all elementary particles.
- Developing theories by applying massive computing power, not
to calculate values, but to automatically generate and check models. This will
be made possible by improved knowledge in software development.
- At least one
wildcard ;-)
Selected and
edited from -
http://www.quoraDOTcom/What-major-advances-in-theoretical-physics-will-the-21st-century-see/answer/Bartosz-Milewski
[and two other responses]
May 7 and 8, 2015
- Quora
** **
1719
hours. This certainly leads a plausible way towards the marsupial humanoid
20,000 year leap into their future.
One of the interesting aspects in the story
is the fictional fact that because of similar environments and water as a base
the DNA between the marsupial humanoids and the humans is very similar to the ‘cousins’
if you will between your Neanderthals and Homo sapiens even though one is
primate and the other marsupial. Of course Diplomat, the child of Pyl and Yermey,
is partly the product of a lab experiment where DNA is ‘bent’ to allow such
biological/chemical programming to survive. Diplomat is a hybrid in the true
sense of the words. Post. – Amorella
1729
hours. I think the word ‘hybrid’ pretty much describes what you say above
Amorella. Readers will have to accept this as plausibility; the marsupial
humanoid technology is so many centuries ahead. Who knows what could be
scientifically plausible at that time. It’s all just fiction.
And it is just as well that it is, boy. –
Amorella
1735
hours. Suppose seven percent of the books are true. That would be a good joke.
On you or the other reading audience? –
Amorella
1752
hours. You threw my thinking off there, Amorella. I guess on both.
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