Starship Asterisk*

Thanks. I will review the Bohr model for these formulae.

Chris, your analogy of a string of magnets being pushed at one end now helps me understand electrical current and how it is transmitted inside a conductor at high velocities. Previously, I incorrectly thought the valance electrons individually moved through the conductor at high velocities.

Your analogy also helps me better understand the wave aspects of a photon and electron. The wave is the actual simultaneous interaction between particles started by the movement of just a few particles in one local region of matter.

The string of magnets makes sense when electrons move along a conductor or a radio wave moves through the atmosphere because there is a continuous sea of electrons that can interact simultaneously with each other. I cannot sense how it works in the case of the beam of photons or electrons being emitted through a "hard vacuum" or outer space. I am becoming a believer of an ether existing in outer space that interacts simultaneously when it senses the emission of a beam of electrons or photons. Perhaps this ether is the pairing of matter and anti-matter particles that always exists in the dark void.

Doug Ettinger, Pittsburgh, PA 01/31/11

dougettinger wrote:Chris, your analogy of a string of magnets being pushed at one end now helps me understand electrical current and how it is transmitted inside a conductor at high velocities. Previously, I incorrectly thought the valance electrons individually moved through the conductor at high velocities.

To be clear, the valence electrons do physically move through the conductor. It's just that the current propagates much faster than the actual electrons do.

Your analogy also helps me better understand the wave aspects of a photon and electron. The wave is the actual simultaneous interaction between particles started by the movement of just a few particles in one local region of matter.

No, they are entirely different things. The wave aspect is the product of a quantum analysis of single particles, or small groups of them. There is no arcane quantum effect going on to explain electric current in a conductor. Photons are seen purely as charged particles, which are moving in an electric field.

The string of magnets makes sense when electrons move along a conductor or a radio wave moves through the atmosphere because there is a continuous sea of electrons that can interact simultaneously with each other. I cannot sense how it works in the case of the beam of photons or electrons being emitted through a "hard vacuum" or outer space.

Electric current is always produced by the movement of charged partilces. In a solid conductor, the atoms are close enough together that individual electrons interact with other electrons, which is why the current flows faster than the electrons. In a sparse medium, an electron current is simply the flow of electrons with little electron-to-electron interaction. It's still an electric current, though.

Photons behave quite differently. Outside of some special cases, energy is carried in a medium by photons. Photons do not interact with each other, and photons only have one velocity, unlike electrons. Photons don't move in response to being in some kind of field, as electrons do.

WOW. All I see here is "fall in line like a good little sheep and don't think outside the box.".
How many years of this thinking before Einstein disproved Newton's gravity? I don't actually see anyone trying to answer a question, just belittle the questioner. Maybe the questions he asks are not technically correct, but there is no attempt to understand the question and develop the answer. To see someone tell someone else that they are absolutely wrong seems more from a display of elitism than knowledge.

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.

gb wrote:I don't actually see anyone trying to answer a question, just belittle the questioner.

Many questions were answered, and nobody was belittled.

Maybe the questions he asks are not technically correct, but there is no attempt to understand the question and develop the answer.

This is a science forum. It is the responsibility of the person asking a question to do so within a reasonable scientific frame. If the question is far enough from being scientific in nature, there is no obligation to attempt to decode it; indeed, it could even be against the forum rules to do so.

One must also first get inside the box and be very familiar with it in order to think outside of it.

geckzilla wrote:One must also first get inside the box and be very familiar with it in order to think outside of it.

I'm so glad this made it,s way back. Well it would, wouldn't it ? Cos ,,,, well, we all really want to know don't we. I am really pleased to hear that geckzilla finds my posts sort of "never in the box"....funny.

Ridicule ? No mate ! These guys are genuine nice guys. Every single one of them,,,,know there stuff. And I Love this site. You Will learn so much. I'm just a casual stick in the spokes, for fun... so enjoy.

tc

Hello Forum Friends,

I just noticed that my code name has been changed to "Curious Querier". I like it. Thanks for giving me an excellent identity. I will try my utmost to keep my curiosity within a scientific framework.

As a simpleton, it certainly seems as though matter does absorb space, or perhaps the field that gives matter its mass, call it the higgs field or whatever, but the field that we move against in a non-inertial frame of reference, when we feel acceleration. Einstein pointed out that when matter falls to the earth under the influence of "gravity", it is actually not accelerating, if we take all factors into consideration, it seems more like those on the ground are actually in an accelerated state. When I drop my keys, they fall to the floor, but yet, they don't move at all, they would best be described as flowing with the field, to the floor. It would only make sense that Newton's gravitational calculations would all hold true, but with an actual explanation, the speed of the absorption would be squared.

When I look at a spiral galaxy, it appears to me like a drain, with much debris swirling to it's inevitable end, being sucked up by the huge super massive black holes at the center of it, like a huge water drain, all the debris, not really moving relative to its medium (the water), but just being sucked up by the flow of the medium, eventually, down the drain, except in this example, all the individual clumps of matter are also holes, and each hole an accumulation of many many smaller holes, any debris in the water can not fit down the drain, so it must clump together, and increase the size of the drain, causing an even faster flow, while it itself is being dragged.

It would further seem that time dilation is the result movement through the mass field, requiring energy. I always hear the example of the man flying away from the earth at near to light speeds, and returning to an earth that is much older, as somehow his relative motion caused the dilation, I don't think that can be the case, It would have to be the acceleration to get to near light speeds that would cause any time dilation. Relative motion is reciprocal, any effects felt by one observer, would also be felt in the same proportion by the other observer, so both observers would see the other's clock moving more slowly. However, any real movement through the mass field (acceleration), would of course have an effect on time. As when we sit on our chairs, the mass field moved through us, being absorbed by we, the earth and all the matter clumped here with us. In our accelerated state, we experience time more slowly, than if we were drifting in space, or falling (drifting) to the earth. The effect on time for us, here stuck on earth, would of course be the same distortion as being in a space ship, accelerating at 1g from earth.

Perhaps I have a vivid imagination, or perhaps I just don't know enough of the variables to make a more informed hypothesis, but to me, this all makes sense in this way, much more sense than describing gravity as an attractive force, or a product of the warping of space due to the mass of matter, that just doesn't make much sense to me.

Timbo69 wrote:When I look at a spiral galaxy, it appears to me like a drain, with much debris swirling to it's inevitable end, being sucked up by the huge super massive black holes at the center of it, like a huge water drain, all the debris, not really moving relative to its medium (the water), but just being sucked up by the flow of the medium, eventually, down the drain, except in this example, all the individual clumps of matter are also holes, and each hole an accumulation of many many smaller holes, any debris in the water can not fit down the drain, so it must clump together, and increase the size of the drain, causing an even faster flow, while it itself is being dragged.

Yet, this is just an illusion. In reality, nothing in a galaxy is being pulled into the center. Stars and gas follow approximately circular orbits. The central black hole, even in galaxies with active nucleuses, only absorbs an insignificant amount of mass, and that from very, very close to it.

Thanks Chris, but the black hole at the center does have a gravitational influence on all the mass within the galaxy though, doesn't it, or otherwise, it would not all be amassed together, as it is. Isn't it the inevitable outcome of all galaxies given enough time, to eventually be sucked up by a huge hoover?

Also, how is the equivalence principle rationalized? Wouldn't it make sense that we are moving through a field, or rather that a field is moving through us, in much the same way we would be moving through the same field in an accelerated frame in space?

Tim

timbo69 wrote:Thanks Chris, but the black hole at the center does have a gravitational influence on all the mass within the galaxy though, doesn't it, or otherwise, it would not all be amassed together, as it is.

All the mass in a galaxy influences all the other mass. But the mass of a central black hole is typically very small compared with the mass of a galaxy. Consider our own galaxy. In its center is a four million solar mass black hole. Sounds like a lot. But the orbit of our Sun is defined by the total mass inside that orbit, which is about a trillion solar masses. If the central black hole disappeared, it would have an insignificant effect on our orbit. It doesn't become significant for any but the stars in the inner few hundred light years of the galaxy.

Isn't it the inevitable outcome of all galaxies given enough time, to eventually be sucked up by a huge hoover?

Probably not. It isn't a huge hoover. It's a mass that has things orbiting around it. It can only absorb any of that mass if there's a mechanism for orbital decay. And for the most part, there isn't. There are deep time scenarios that suggest all material will ultimately end up in black holes, which will then evaporate. But that's very speculative, and involves timescales like trillions of trillions of trillions of years.

With respect to my post 6/25/14 on "The Bridge", I will bring up the topic again regarding expansion, space and matter. I was questioning how we would know that matter itself hasn't always been expanding if it was occurring in a uniform reference frame to all other matter.

Now I might postulate the same idea in an accelerating reference frame. As all mass is interacts gravitationally with all other mass wouldn't it exhibit that same effect (as in GR) given the idea that a larger mass was expanding more than a smaller mass. The smaller mass would "feel" the larger mass accelerating toward it and the larger mass also "feel" expansion but less so. If the expansion of matter was slight - it would mimic the concept we have that is defined as gravity? It would be more difficult to detect on small scales but be occurring to all matter uniformly on larger scales (and potentially has been since the Big Bang). In this situation it would be required that matter must be treated as separate entities acting independently from all other mass entities. That alone presents other interesting possibilities.

I had postulated that this expansion could be occurring into a hyperspace we cannot sense and might further hypothesize that, and just for one, the idea of holography universe, might be a explained. This concept may have been discussed before but, since my knowledge of the many facets of physics research is quite limited, I would ask again, "How would we know if matter is expanding (as does the rest of the universe) and have attempts been made to detect this type of expansion?"

This is far-fetched I know (a new dimension of non-measurable expansion?) but given the diligence shown in this thread I would pose the question in an attempt to squeeze the curious idea from my head and expand my knowledge - at least. Thanks, Ron

Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:With respect to my post 6/25/14 on "The Bridge", I will bring up the topic again regarding expansion, space and matter. I was questioning how we would know that matter itself hasn't always been expanding if it was occurring in a uniform reference frame to all other matter.

The question is meaningless unless you define what that expansion is in reference to, and at least how it might potentially be measured.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:With respect to my post 6/25/14 on "The Bridge", I will bring up the topic again regarding expansion, space and matter. I was questioning how we would know that matter itself hasn't always been expanding if it was occurring in a uniform reference frame to all other matter.

The question is meaningless unless you define what that expansion is in reference to, and at least how it might potentially be measured.

That is the truth. Lot's of imagination but no horsepower to back it up. I'll keep letting it stew and see if any new thoughts come to mind that make it a touch more more conceivable. I'd say it's only a matter of time but that's too corny. Thanks for taking the time to read all of our crazy ideas and ushering replies. Ron

None of you are actually serious right, after all it is common knowledge that the langoliers eat spacetime

Love it.... The River Flows, The Water comes from somewhere... Space Time is expanding, Time Paradoxes are real if you acquire the Mass and Speed.. The differences in Time has to be evident through-out the universe. Because we all know this mass and speed is happening right Now !

tc

Even though I have read a fair amount about dark energy and dark matter as a layman I don't recall that its amount was known to be changing versus time in the universe. The significance of that tickles something in my brain that I am unable to scratch. Perhaps it would have made Fritz Zwicky itchy too as he proved to be a real-deal "Trump" of his time.

If nothing else that comparison would have stimulated a "thermal bremsstrahlung".

If matter absorbed space-time matter might become more dense .. creating more gravity .. accounting for the once-huge beasts and vegetation on our planet to dwarf to the present sizes. Time would also change.

Uptod8t wrote:
If matter absorbed space-time matter might become more dense .. creating more gravity .. accounting for the once-huge beasts and vegetation on our planet to dwarf to the present sizes. Time would also change.

According to Einstein, matter does absorb space-time but it doesn't become more dense.

geckzilla wrote:One must also first get inside the box and be very familiar with it in order to think outside of it.

Ah yes, and who is it that qualifies a person to be inside the box .. very often the very person who can't think outside the box, and who has gained his position of authority by NOT thinking outside the box, those also incapable of thinking outside the box setting up the position and the qualifier.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Timbo69 wrote:When I look at a spiral galaxy, it appears to me like a drain, with much debris swirling to it's inevitable end, being sucked up by the huge super massive black holes at the center of it, like a huge water drain, all the debris, not really moving relative to its medium (the water), but just being sucked up by the flow of the medium, eventually, down the drain, except in this example, all the individual clumps of matter are also holes, and each hole an accumulation of many many smaller holes, any debris in the water can not fit down the drain, so it must clump together, and increase the size of the drain, causing an even faster flow, while it itself is being dragged.

Yet, this is just an illusion. In reality, nothing in a galaxy is being pulled into the center. Stars and gas follow approximately circular orbits. The central black hole, even in galaxies with active nucleuses, only absorbs an insignificant amount of mass, and that from very, very close to it.

" .... an insignificant amount of mass per unit of time only .. very significant over a larger unit of time .. also, according to your comment, each black hole should be surrounded by massless space, the black hole having consumed everything close to it, unless the universe was created, like, yesterday or the day before.

warmingwarmingwarming wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

Timbo69 wrote:When I look at a spiral galaxy, it appears to me like a drain, with much debris swirling to it's inevitable end, being sucked up by the huge super massive black holes at the center of it, like a huge water drain, all the debris, not really moving relative to its medium (the water), but just being sucked up by the flow of the medium, eventually, down the drain, except in this example, all the individual clumps of matter are also holes, and each hole an accumulation of many many smaller holes, any debris in the water can not fit down the drain, so it must clump together, and increase the size of the drain, causing an even faster flow, while it itself is being dragged.

Yet, this is just an illusion. In reality, nothing in a galaxy is being pulled into the center. Stars and gas follow approximately circular orbits. The central black hole, even in galaxies with active nucleuses, only absorbs an insignificant amount of mass, and that from very, very close to it.

" .... an insignificant amount of mass per unit of time only .. very significant over a larger unit of time .. also, according to your comment, each black hole should be surrounded by massless space, the black hole having consumed everything close to it, unless the universe was created, like, yesterday or the day before.

No, an insignificant amount of mass compared with the mass of the galaxy, and over billions of years. There is nothing that allows material to generally get closer to the center of a galaxy. A black hole only collects mass when there is some mechanism to bleed that mass of angular momentum. One is gravitational radiation, but that is only significant when a body is orbiting almost at the event horizon. The other is when gas or dust is dense enough that it acts like a fluid, and there are frictional losses. That's what forms an accretion disk. But most black holes don't have those, and most supermassive black holes only have them occasionally.

From the standpoint of a body orbiting a ways out from the center, the central mass is dominated by stars, not the black hole.

Chris Peterson wrote: No, an insignificant amount of mass compared with the mass of the galaxy, and over billions of years. There is nothing that allows material to generally get closer to the center of a galaxy. A black hole only collects mass when there is some mechanism to bleed that mass of angular momentum. One is gravitational radiation, but that is only significant when a body is orbiting almost at the event horizon. The other is when gas or dust is dense enough that it acts like a fluid, and there are frictional losses. That's what forms an accretion disk. But most black holes don't have those, and most supermassive black holes only have them occasionally.

From the standpoint of a body orbiting a ways out from the center, the central mass is dominated by stars, not the black hole.

Please explain why I have not seen any suggestion of a Black Hole having consumed it's surrounding mass, and being left with vacant space surrounding it. In every image of a Black Hole I have seen the Black Hole is consuming matter. Of course you can easily suggest I have not searched thoroughly enough, in which case you will easily provide the image I search for.

warmingwarmingwarming wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote: No, an insignificant amount of mass compared with the mass of the galaxy, and over billions of years. There is nothing that allows material to generally get closer to the center of a galaxy. A black hole only collects mass when there is some mechanism to bleed that mass of angular momentum. One is gravitational radiation, but that is only significant when a body is orbiting almost at the event horizon. The other is when gas or dust is dense enough that it acts like a fluid, and there are frictional losses. That's what forms an accretion disk. But most black holes don't have those, and most supermassive black holes only have them occasionally.

From the standpoint of a body orbiting a ways out from the center, the central mass is dominated by stars, not the black hole.

Please explain why I have not seen any suggestion of a Black Hole having consumed it's surrounding mass, and being left with vacant space surrounding it. In every image of a Black Hole I have seen the Black Hole is consuming matter. Of course you can easily suggest I have not searched thoroughly enough, in which case you will easily provide the image I search for.

What images of black holes have you seen?

Black holes normally have vacant space around them, just like stars.

Chris Peterson wrote:

warmingwarmingwarming wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote: No, an insignificant amount of mass compared with the mass of the galaxy, and over billions of years. There is nothing that allows material to generally get closer to the center of a galaxy. A black hole only collects mass when there is some mechanism to bleed that mass of angular momentum. One is gravitational radiation, but that is only significant when a body is orbiting almost at the event horizon. The other is when gas or dust is dense enough that it acts like a fluid, and there are frictional losses. That's what forms an accretion disk. But most black holes don't have those, and most supermassive black holes only have them occasionally.

From the standpoint of a body orbiting a ways out from the center, the central mass is dominated by stars, not the black hole.

Please explain why I have not seen any suggestion of a Black Hole having consumed it's surrounding mass, and being left with vacant space surrounding it. In every image of a Black Hole I have seen the Black Hole is consuming matter. Of course you can easily suggest I have not searched thoroughly enough, in which case you will easily provide the image I search for.

What images of black holes have you seen?

Black holes normally have vacant space around them, just like stars.

Just ordinary run of the mill stuff here on APOD and elsewhere .. always the image shows a Black Hole eating matter. Can you provide an image of a Black Hole NOT eating matter?