Charlie Rose

Chinosae  02/13/2012 04:28 PM Report

First, as my son would say, she is a babe... If anybody denies that her particles and how they are put together are not has a problem. Now, that the elephant is cleared out...

It called my attention her comment on uncertainty... The fascinating part is yes, it is part of everything and science has to consider it. Then, is uncertainty the same in our 3D world as in a > 3 dimensions world. It made me think that uncertainty becomes more of subject in itself to study. What is uncertain in 3 dimensions could be certain in 4 dimensions once the dimension is understood.

robinrajan89  12/30/2011 04:02 PM Report

That guy isn't letting her talk. Keeps interjecting with his numb headed grunts

JohnHanley  12/23/2011 02:07 PM Report

Lisa Randal is a thououghly facinating person. I suspect a kind of emperical sceptisism in her views that rivals religious zelotry in it's opposition to reason, but I don't think I'll hold it against her, because there's so much I don't understand about her work that I wish I knew.

Do the particles she's studying have mass, or do they create mass, or both? Is this the study of the individual nature of the particle, or it's function in relation to other particles, and what differentiates them?

Does Lisa Randal think that her statement about the mutual validity of Newtonian physics and observations on a quantum level is a principal that has validity elsewere as well?

I wonder if I can be in two places at once. I imagine Lisa Randal to be like a submariner on a long, strange voyage. I wonder what would happen if she were to surface suddenly and see the world that others, without her precious ability to see into the microcosm see?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

winter  12/22/2011 11:24 AM Report

I always find declarations that attempt to describe existence to be less than absolute and tentative to

the point where their opposite might just be TRue. We can

describe our observations and be on valid footing but extropolating them out into the context of Existence is just chance. The goal posts just keep moving.

Theres a Pablo Neruda poem from the film Mindwalk that I like. Recited by John Hurd it can be found on YouTube. "I was like you, searching for the endless star, What did I find? A fish trapped inside the wind."

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/22/2011 03:56 AM Report

That crazy gravity!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-lykken.html

“The other forces of nature that hold us together may not see the extra dimensions, and the particles we are made of may not see the extra dimensions. But gravity, and in particular the graviton—the quantum of gravity that carries the gravitational force—should always be able to move off into extra dimensions.”

“Gravity is made of closed loops of strings, whereas the stuff that we're made out of may actually come from strings that have ends, what are called open strings, and those ends would actually be tied to a brane that lives in this higher dimensional space.”

“You can think of gravitons as closed loops of string that are floating around in the higher dimensional space, whereas you and I are the ends of open strings that are tied to branes and cannot move around in the higher dimensional space.”

So we are dogs on a leash and gravity is free of the leash and containment by our dimensions.

So who is a trillion times weaker?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/22/2011 03:51 AM Report

Modern physics does not consist of measured phenomena summarized in elegant equations; it consists of elegant equations that predict measured phenomena.

This has been called “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.” However unreasonable, it led to the construction of the Large Hadron Collider along the border of France and Switzerland, the largest machine ever built by human beings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-search-for-the-god-particle-goes-beyond-mere-physics/2011/ %2012/15/gIQAyIEzwO_story.html

Good luck and Godspeed in your "unreasonableness".

lostclockmaker  12/21/2011 06:00 PM Report

I respect this lady in many ways. Her abilities are very valuable to Science. As a Christian, I fully understand the way in which she would rather not think of 'God' as a factor in the creation of the Universe. Why? Because of the 'human stain' of religion! I am extremely fortunate in that I can believe in God and His Christ without having to suffer man-made religious bullsh-t. Yes, there are good scientists who have Faith also. I would think that they are NOT bound by the evil of "religion".

REMant  12/21/2011 11:33 AM Report

Defining force and particle is exactly the issue. It would appear that particles are not always present hence cannot really be considered "building blocks." So I think all this smashing rather silly.

The reason the universe, as Einstein observed, is self-comprehending, must be because it is self-organizing, even if it does at the same time "run down." It is in that way a reflection, or rationalization. We do not understand things as they happen unless they've happened before and we can see the similarity and even then, awareness isn't simultaneous. This makes sense if things are considered to be coalescing or coagulating as some force dissipates. Perhaps it is only then that we find particles. They are in that sense "building blocks," but not really an indication of progress as we like to think of it.

We find the opposition of space and time in every area of human endeavor. We constantly argue about it in philosophy, ethics, religion, biology, and so forth, and have for millennia. For many it amounts to a crusade. I do think tho that history gives way to concept the more we gain experience, and if that's so, the universe probably does, too, as it organizes. The problem we have is that we still think so mechanically, like Newton seeing objects moving in time through empty space. More likely "space" is being created out of "time," and when time ceases, of course, so will we, turned perhaps into dark matter. Time travel would be ridiculous.

Gravity would be the weakest force because it is precisely the most dissipated and diffuse; nuclear forces the least and still potentially explosive. None of this seems inconsistent with big bang theory, except the interpretation.

Michael Gerson (of all ppl) had a nice little piece on this topic here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-search-for-the-god-particle-goes-beyond-mere-physics/2011/ 12/15/gIQAyIEzwO_story.html