(no subject)

[theweaselking]

A radical new project could permit human beings to create a "baby universe" in a laboratory in Japan. While it sounds like a dangerous undertaking, the physicists involved believe that if the project is successful, the space-time around a tiny point within our universe will be distorted in such a way that it will begin to form a new superfluid space, and eventually break off, separate in all respects from our experience of space and time, causing no harm to the fabric of our universe.

"[T]he baby universe has its own space-time and, as this inflates, the pressure from the true vacuum outside its walls continues to constrain it. As these forces compete, the growing baby universe is forced to bubble out from our space-time until its only connection to us is through a narrow space-time tunnel called a wormhole..."

Eventually, the "umbilical" connection between our space-time and the baby universe would be effectively cut, and the baby universe would enter into its own unique process of unending expansion. From our perspective, it would be lost inside a microscopic "black hole", which will not appear to expand into our space-time. Hawking radiation will be emitted and the tiny black hole will "evaporate", sealing the separation between the two universes.

Comments

[scixual.livejournal.com]

That makes me wet.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*grin* You have just described the environment in which the Manhattan Project went forward, in the early 1940s.

> They're playing with forces that are straight out of science fiction,

Yep. And when the Manhttan Project started in '42, Astounding magazine had been publishing stories about atomic power for a good two years.

(Which was handy, as when they printed Cleve Cartmill's "Deadline" in 1944 and were investigated by counter-intelligence agents, being able to point out that they had a history of printing this kind of thing helped calm everybody down. Eventually.)

> and I have no reason to believe that they really understand what they're
> doing well enough to know what the consequences of this experiment will
> really be.

A common characteristic of scientists. Did you know that when they detonated the bomb at Trinity, they had no idea what was going to happen? One physicist thorized that they'd have a tiny atomic reaction going out there for all eternity, a miniature sun burning in the desert until the end of time.

> Are we sure that this is a real story and not a hoax?

Personally, yeah.

> It sounds way too fantastic to be real science.

*blinks* Why on earth would you say that? Look, people have tools and are poking at a theory.

Ten-dimensional math. Eh. :)

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

I am always disturbed that this stuff doesn't conflict with my concept of reality.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

You too, eh?

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

This probably won't happen anytime soon, since the Large Hadron Collider of CERN, Switzerland is slated to open in 2007 as the largest of its kind in the world, and one of its purposes is to try to create micoscopic black holes. Theorists disagree on whether it will be able to. To the best of my knowledge, the most we have today is quark soup, made in America. So baby universes are probably a way off.

In any case, I am opposed to this, and to the LHC as well. Gravity is so poorly understood, these experiments should only be done on uninhabited planets. But perhaps this is why we never see any aliens: They all create black holes when they reach our tech level, and erase themselves from history.

Note that Hawking radiation has not been observed in nature, and Hawking's theories perfectly fit the universe of the 1990es, which is rather different from the universe today.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Um, how would they know if the experiment worked?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

The sudden invasion of evil twins with goatees and short skirts.

On a lighter note, my guess is they won't know, but if everything they can measure behaves the way they expect it to, they'll theorize it could have, and if not, they won't. (Assuming the "if not" does not provide them with evidence in some way.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Like this:

"If our hypothesis is right, we should see X, Y, and Z, and we should NOT see Q. Therefore, if we see X, Y, and Z, and not Q, we have not disproven our hypothesis. If we do NOT see X, Y, and Z, or if we see Q, then our hypothesis is obviously not totally correct."

You know, by doing science.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

It seems like too broad a hypothesis though. It's like having the hypothesis that if I see that both Kerry is gone and her sneakers are gone when I wake up in the morning, then obviously Kerry is doing cartwheels outside somewhere. Then I wake up, see both Kerry and her sneakers are gone, and anounce to the world that Kerry is doing cartwheels.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

But it's not that broad a hypothesis.

If their theory on new universes is correct, and they have created a new universe, they will see *very specific* results.

If they don't see those specific results, then either their theory is wrong or they have not created a new universe.

If they DO see those specific results, then they have not yet disproven the ideas that their theory is correct and that they created a new universe.

Comparing to Kerry - if she's gone and her sneakers are gone and you hear her shouting "Wheeee!" and she comes back in with grass stains on her hands (and maybe one on her back from a fall), then your hypothesis that she's out doing cartwheels might be correct. If cartwheels don't cause grass stains (because she's doing them on a gym mat) or if she doesn't do cartwheels, then you won't have her being gone AND her shoes gone AND hear the "wheeee!" AND see grass stains.