Is that What this model is suggesting or is the uneven distribution of mass contributing too?
In some of his novels - most notably A Fire Upon the Deep (from 1992), he imagines the galaxy as divided into concentric zones, each with different physical laws and limits on intelligence and technology. These are referred to as "Zones of Thought," each affecting the potential for intelligence and technological development.
It's not a perfect match, as I think the new theory refers to relative time based on the density of matter at a given location.
Part of me wonders if this analogous to the "watched pot never boils" issue. Wander into the wilderness to do magic...
Others:
- first bobiverse book (followed by all the rest)
- permutation city (next: diaspora, etc)
- Diamond age (so relevant now with spread of LLMs)
- count to a trillion (A cowboy lawyer mathematician takes enough drugs to invent antimatter tech)
> if you have less time in an area (i.e. due to a gravity well, like Earth's) you can equally view it as more space
are so nonsensical (with all due respect), they are not even wrong[0].
And the subtitle says "timescape", which immediately clues me into what the theory is about, instead of "time zone" as in the title.
Could you say more about this part? I don't know what that means.
For supernovae, we know that the galaxies in which they explode are different in different redshifts, so it is possible there are effects that make supernovae brighter or fainter in different redshifts that have nothing to do with dark energy, but instead are related to chemical composition of stars. This is an example of systematic effect that can affect any cosmological measurement using supernovae. People try to control for those, but at the moment the uncertainty on cosmological parameters from SN is dominated not by random component of the error (i.e. related to number of SN), but the systematics and our ability to constrain them.
It's like interpreting the body language: what you think could true only from your cultural perspective about people who share your culture.
Since the universe as a whole is balanced I'm wondering if you're in the dense part of the timescape your fate is to wind up in a black hole.
Gualdrapo•9mo ago
Could explain we haven't found life elsewhere?
XorNot•9mo ago
The problem with where's the other life is already enormous due to the size of our one galaxy.
chneu•9mo ago
We have absolutely no real idea what life will look like.
What if there are already organisms that are so large or small that we just can't comprehend them?
Also, the universe is likely so large that we'll never encounter life like us.
dgfl•9mo ago
Defining it properly is a very interesting problem, but I think this is an extremely active field of study. Saying “what if subatomic particles are actually living organisms” is not a productive line of thought.
iinnPP•9mo ago
How did you arrive at your understanding of the comment?
mr_mitm•9mo ago
> What if there are already organisms that are so large or small that we just can't comprehend them?
lukan•9mo ago
Questions usually can be productive. To answer it, we have to look up and apply the (debated) definitions of life and atoms in our understanding clearly don't meet it.
But since we only know so very little when going really small or really big, I do say it is an interesting thought to give room for quark or dark matter based life, or the theoretical organism of a black hole.
We simply don't know and we will never know, if we think we already know.
mr_mitm•9mo ago
> We simply don't know and we will never know, if we think we already know.
That's a very defeatist and intellectually lazy point of view. As is "just asking questions" which lack support by even a shred of plausibility.
lukan•9mo ago
In my opinion it is the opposite. Claiming we understand life and quarks and quarks can therefore not be part of subatomic life is the lazy approach to me. I am open for it. That doesn't mean I see indications for it, just that I am open for the concept. If I would not be open for unexpected ideas, I would never get them.
And correct me if I am wrong, but I never met a scientist who claimed to really understand quantum mechanics. Well, I heard of some who do, but they are mostly not taken seriously by the rest. So sure, we do know a lot. But understanding it?
mr_mitm•9mo ago
For the record, I wrote "very hard to imagine". If you claim it can be possible, it is you who must produce at least a suggestion on how it could be possible.
> And correct me if I am wrong, but I never met a scientist who claimed to really understand quantum mechanics.
I know that's a popular trope, but what they usually mean is that they don't understand it on an intuitive level. You can understand the math of it just fine.
QM is by far the most successful theory we ever had and laid the foundations for the transistor, lasers, CCD chips, solar panels, MRIs, and much more. It's responsible for arguably the biggest transformation of society of all times. You don't get there without understanding even the smallest nook of that theory.
Maybe we have different definitions of what it means to understand something, but that's not a discussion I'm interested it.
sanderjd•9mo ago
It's just that most people, even those who understand it best, still find it to be pretty wild that things actually work this way.
lukan•9mo ago
Can you explain it?
That is usually the bar for understanding.
Also, can you explain to me how gravity works?
mr_mitm•9mo ago
lukan•9mo ago
To quote wikipedia:
"Scientists are currently working to develop a theory of gravity consistent with quantum mechanics, a quantum gravity theory,[7] which would allow gravity to be united in a common mathematical framework (a theory of everything) with the other three fundamental interactions of physics."
(And unlike your assumptions, my background involves some physic)
So I am curious for your grand unified theory.
mr_mitm•9mo ago
lukan•9mo ago
dgfl•9mo ago
You seem to have some misconceptions around physics. If you go through the formal training that we go through (i.e. spend years thinking about physics problems, papers and textbooks) you should understand that mathematics is a tool, and that physics is our best attempt at building mathematical objects that behave like the real world.
What I mean by this is that we’re well aware that our theories are not perfect, and we can point to what doesn’t work (within our respective fields) quite well. At the same time, we’re aware of certain “features” of reality that cannot possibly be otherwise. Thermodynamics or special relativity are simple examples of this. Their validity is not in question, just as our existence in the first place is not in question (if you want to argue about philosophy go ahead, but that has nothing to do with the point I’m making).
Therefore, even though we don’t have a perfect theory of physics, we can say that we understand certain stuff quite well. And vague statements about life and “new ideas” don’t help us advance our understanding.
P.S. my view of the common “nobody understands quantum mechanics” saying is that only people who are too attached to classical reality can hold that opinion. The great founders of QM grew up without it, so are excused in thinking that QM is unintuitive. But for the most part the uneasy feeling about QM disappears when you let go of classical assumptions for good.
lukan•9mo ago
Sure I agree to that.
"And vague statements about life and “new ideas” don’t help us advance our understanding."
But I disagree that we understand it well enough to exclude subatomic life with certainty.
So vague questions like the one here in this thread certainly won't push the field. It is more about a principle of being open to me and explore the idea a bit with different minds.
Because I know enough history of arrogant science thinking they know it all already. I suppose you are aware of Max Planck? That his Professor tried to discourage him from taking up physics as it is all already well understood and not much remains be found and understood?
Statements from your sibling poster reminded me of that.
sanderjd•9mo ago
lukan•9mo ago
I have a different experience.
And yes, mysticism is also my thing, but I don't see it as odds with science, as I don't make claims about the structure of the world. I simply say, I also did study a bit of physic, before switching to IT, but I did not got the impression, it is remotely solved, nor understood. Go a bit deeper or bigger and it all gets blurry quickly. So plenty of room for all kinds of even more freaky things.
You know the anecdote I shared about Max Planck?
sanderjd•9mo ago
lukan•9mo ago
Because even though I personally tend towards mysticism - as the universe is a pretty big mysterious place to me, this is just curiosity:
"But since we only know so very little when going really small or really big, I do say it is an interesting thought to give room for quark or dark matter based life, or the theoretical organism of a black hole."
I made no claim of anything here. "Just stating, hey things get already pretty wild and unexpected on the border of our understanding. I don't think it is smart ruling anything out yet." If you roll your eyes to this, so be it.
It is just, that I was a bit interested in the history of science and I know rolling eyes is a tradition of the established ones.
sanderjd•9mo ago
exe34•9mo ago
Or maybe we just haven't looked very far at all.
merek•9mo ago
aswegs8•9mo ago
philipov•9mo ago
matthewdgreen•9mo ago
philipov•9mo ago
chongli•9mo ago
Those cosmic filament structures are on the scale of millions and billions of galaxies over distances far larger than the size of a single galaxy. We can’t even resolve individual stars beyond our Local Group of galaxies and still most of the stars within the Milky Way are too far to use our exoplanet detection techniques (2 of them mentioned previously).
Finally, to search for life we’ve been attempting to search for spectral absorption lines of the gases in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, which involves recording a spectrograph during the transit method. This only works for stars with their orbital planes edge-on to us so that we can actually detect the planetary transits and record enough light from them over time to see how the spectrograph changes during the transit events.