Green | February 13, 2009 | 19 comments

A Universe in a Test Tube

source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/the-cosmos-in-a.html

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pjacobs51
A "universe in a test tube" that could be used to prove theories of everything has been created by physicists using liquid helium and a magnetic field to build a finger-sized representation of the early cosmos.

The low-temperature team at Great Britain's Lancaster University may have found a laboratory test of the ‘untestable’ string theory, made popular by Brian Greene at Columbia University. Within string theory, a brane is a large surface embedded in higher dimensional space — our Universe could occupy such a brane.

The findings of the Lancaster University team according to nature.com could help string theorists to refine their models. A popular theory amongst string theorists is that inflation was caused by the collision of two 'branes'. A brane (derived from the word 'membrane') is a three-dimensional object suspended in a higher-dimensional space. One tenet of string theory is that a collision between a brane and an antibrane could have triggered the Big Bang itself and drove inflation of the universe.
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19 comments // A Universe in a Test Tube

  • asherp
    • 0
      asherp  
    • Image

    • I have to wonder if String theory isn't just a bunch of convenient and beautiful math.

      Garrett Lisi's T.O.E. doesn't require more than 3 spatial dimensions to work.

    • 3 years ago
  • RojoGatto
  • jahbini
    • 0
      jahbini  

    • Good rambling! Makes as much sense as Lucky, the great thinker in Becketts' Waiting for Godot, said:

      "Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattman of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the ..."

      And who of us is to say that Lucky's ramblings have no meaning...

    • 3 years ago
  • travisian
    • 0
      travisian  

    • Absolutely incredible. While I may only understand like every other word in each paragraph, I was able to "string" (har har) enough of it together to get at least a small inkling as to what this means and what, exactly, is going on. My mind is boggled, as always.

    • 3 years ago
  • Skyebeka
  • simguy665
  • Snails
  • squeege
  • jimmypockets
  • tome_erau
    • 0
      tome_erau  

    • I don't know how much I believe in string theory, but I definetly don't believe in an "Everything Theory." It seems like it hasn't been anything more then a 40 year waste of scientific resources. They aren't any closer to answers now, and they have a choke hold on the scientific community so no one can get funding for alternative theories.

    • 3 years ago
  • Rolexsmudgepot
    • 0
      Rolexsmudgepot  
    • tome_erau:

      No doubt man. I mean, I find space research incredibly interesting, and it has definitely opened many peoples minds. Yet even if we do find these answers were looking for, what's it going to solve? Humans have spent incredible effort and energy into searching for answers that come from meaningless questions. We may be excellent calculating innovative machines on the outside, but we're still barbarous, vain, depressed, confused, and stuck in the chase between pleasure and fear on the inside, in general.

      All organized knowledge, leading to further organization we think we need, will never lead to answers, only more questions, and more sorrow.

    • 3 years ago
  • jahbini
    • 0
      jahbini  
    • tome_erau:

      Rolexsmudgepot: Your comment deserves top level visibility!

      Yes, science is the ultimate rabbit hole: it is a fun exploration, with tangible results, but it really does go deeper and deeper.

      And the ultimate synthesis and aggregation of human worth likely lies in another direction entirely.

    • 3 years ago
  • Rolexsmudgepot
    • 0
      Rolexsmudgepot  
    • tome_erau:

      Why thank you sir. Your absolutely right.

      Everything we "hope" for and all this "change" everyone is expecting will never happen if it follows our age old habit of getting caught up in outward repetitious nonsense. There is nothing relevant in taking power away from one person and giving it to another. Good things will happen, bad things will happen. We think were advancing, becoming more and more specialized but less and less integrated. The direction we all need to try and understand is inward. There's a simple nature to us that begs to be given even a moment of consideration.

    • 3 years ago
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
  • Snails
  • Jaecyntalameux
    • 0
      Jaecyntalameux  

    • Interesante. Strangely, I'm reminded of what I've heard on the Hag field while reading this. Perhaps we'll finally find the dimensional "surface" space sits on, and from there, we have one leap to Event Horizon.

    • 3 years ago
  • Jeffnfun631
  • Alex_French
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