OT: An Existential Dilemma

[guybrush threepwood]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Well often the scientific invistigation rested with "matter and energy cannot be created, only converted" so it looked for the source or result. Their new "creation of the universe" theory bloew that out. And Quantum now puts as 4 in 11 dimensions. As we are to the 3d creatures, much less the 2d and 1d.. could reflect on our ability to understand 5,6,7,8,9,10 (11 is a special case). The whole thing makes your head hurt but it will be interesting to see where it goes and what things will shift from "bunk" into scientific.

Ah, OK, as someone who actually works professionally with these things (I am working with particle physics), I am always pleasantly surprised to find people who are actually informed about these issues. :-)

But allow me to try to briefly clarify a few issues (this thread IS supposed to be OT, right ). Quantum mechanics does not as such allow for creation of matter/energy, does not say anything about the dimensions of our universe, and does not say anything about big bang.

Quantum mechanics is the almost 100 year old non-relativistic theory which is concerned with particles/wave duality, wave-function developement+collapses (giving non-deterministic results), and things like that. (OK, maybe that was a lousy explanation, but its hard to make it short+precise).

Anyway, I dont know that the big bang theory has necessarily done anything to our matter/energy conservation. But it does certainly bring up many puzzles that need to be answered by the cosmological and particle physics theories of tomorrow.

The need for more than our 3+1=4 dimensions is put forward by string theories. These are a collection of theories that we suspect might in the very long run replace the particle physics theories of today (among other things they might finally give us a particle physics description of gravity).

Anyway, anyone with an hour to spare who wants an extremely pedagogical introduction to all this (with cartoons and stuff), should check out particleadventure.org.

Sorry if this is too OT for the OT thread.