As for physics...

[Morgana Le Fay]

Hey, join the club!! A newbie? Cool. Welcome to the realm of never ending randomness. We hope you enjoy your stay.

My theory with Sci fi movies is that they care more about visual entertainment - entertainment, period - than fact and reality. But that's sort of what makes them fun. There are limits, tho. Like lasers. That is rather wrong.

[Caffeinerush]

Yeah, technicly lasers shouldn't be seen in the air unless there's LOTS of dust to reflect off of...but if they did it that way it wouldn't look so cool.

[firefly]

There's a laser generator at school which the oldest people get to use to try and measure laser frequency and stuff. It was pretty cool when I got to help although all the safety precautions took ages to sort through... Understandable though, due to the power that it had to have to be usable... anyway. You could almost see it in the air, kind of like a shimmer, and of course you could see it where it hit the shield at the far end of the bench.

[Jandalf on Toast]

Heh...one of the biggest things about Star Wars that would bug me if I let it is the fact that ships and things make noise in space. No mistake, though — those sounds are awesome. (grins) Especially Burtt's seismic charge explosions. Woo!

But yes...if it weren't for my love of the movies, I'd get all picky on them. That's one of the reasons I appreciate "2001: A Space Odyssey" so much.

[Cy Otauna]

Yeah, dear Burtt would be out of a job if lasers didn't scream and TIE fighters didn't whine. I mean, a lightsaber is a physical impossibility (probably) but it's still 4w3s0m3.

The thing I'm reading about now is a continuation of the search for the origin of gravity. (My friend says "it comes from God of course!" and I'm like yes...but it's fun to find out the physical explanation) They say that the universe is rather like a hologram it is a two-dimansional plane, but appears to be a three-dimensional plane and from that illusory plane comes gravity. Sounds kinda crazy, but I havn't read the whole article in SciAm to figure that out. Anybody else heard about this? I asked my Chem/Physics teacher and she was like "Erm..." and went back to significant digits.

[firefly]

That only accounts for three-dimensions. What about the fourth dimension (time) and the fifth etc? How are they affected by this two-dimensional plane theory thing? But anyway, how could gravity be an illusion? I mean, does that mean that we just imagine that we've got our feet on the planet? Because that doesn't add up - that would lead to all of existance occuring in our imaginations - and that leads to the question what is reality and that's getting into philosophy. And what about in space - if the Universe is on that 2D plane then why is there gravity on Earth but none in space and different amounts on different planets/moons etc? Surely if it were due to a certain plane of existance then it would be equal all over, wouldn't it? Huh, I could be completely wrong, but it makes no sense to me...

[Jandalf on Toast]

The universe on a two-dimensional plane...fabric of space-time and all that? Heh...I haven't done much looking into the origins of gravity, though. However, I did find a fascinating article in the Discover magazine (November's issue, evidently) we got a few days ago:

"You'll Know Less If You Read This Story" by Alex Stone

Ever feel that the more you learn about atomic science, the less you know? Recent research indicates that the old adage may be literally true. Physicists have found quantum interactions can impart negative information — acquiring it means you know less.

How can that be? Imagine that a boy and a girl named Paul and Marie are shown two playing cards — the ace of hearts and the ace of spades. Each draws one of the cards blindly from an envelope but can immediately deduce the other's card simply by looking at his or her own. Now suppose that Paul gives Marie the ace he has drawn before either of them looks at the cards. The correlation is broken: Neither can know who originally had Paul's ace. Knowledge has been reduced.

In physics, this game can be played using pairs of electrons in place of cards. Electrons can spin in what are called singlets. One spins in one direction; the other spins in the opposite. They are said to be "entangled" because, in the bizarre world of quantum mechanics, neither electron has a definite spin until one of them is measured. At that instant both particles immediately settle into their respective spins. Put another way, each electron has an equal chance of being measured while spinning in one direction or the other. Unlike playing cards, which can be glanced at and remembered, the electron pairs cannot be observed without nullifying their delicate quality. So if Paul and Marie each have half a singlet, and Paul gives away his electron, the correlation is irrevocably lost. The fragile, solipsistic nature of quantum states allows for negative information.

Theoretician Andreas Winter of the University of Bristol, along with physicists Jonathan Oppenheim of Cambridge University and Michal Horodecki of Gdánsk University, came across this concept while trying to numerically measure quantum information, a key step in creating a computer based on systems of subatomic particles rather than conventional microchips. "What is most surprising," says Oppenheim, "is that in quantum theory that number can be negative."

[firefly]

I can't remember the quote or even who said it, but isn't it a proven fact that just by observing something you influence it? So by trying to observe/measure the electrons you're influencing what'll happen. That's what the article says, right?

[Cy Otauna]

That's wierd. Quantum reality is wierd. It is so...convoluted that I wonder whether some of it is true...but that is interesting. Something like that could be used to...make a fic. Of some kind. Eventually. I've been reading a lot of short stories lately...

I'm gonna read the rest of the article I got my info from this week, and then will speak more about it.

[Jandalf on Toast]

...isn't it a proven fact that just by observing something you influence it?

Which means that if we continue to study quantum mechanics, they will change at every single observation, and will never be the same as before they were discovered, either. That in itself is like a loss of knowledge...heh. The more that's learned, the more there is to discover. It's still strange to think about, that the more scientists would observe, the farther they would have to go...

Article? Ooh, yes...

[Cy Otauna]

Maybe if you go to www.sciam.com you can get the article of which I speak. It was in the last issue, called "The Illusion of Gravity". At the end of this though, and I do not know whwy they put it at the very end, it states that the picture they paint is not possbile for our universe, because ours is expanding. It'd just be really nice if it wasn't.
Taking a bubble bath in the quantum foam...all kinds of strange things happen when you work with infinity, and quantum mechanics has a good deal of infinate-variables in it.

[Morgana Le Fay]

Yes, I just read the article in Sci Am about the Illusion of Gravity - very interesting. I think firefly's semi-right about the planes - if gravity was on one plane then it should be everywhere within that plane, BUT different things are present in different parts of each plane - like us. I'm here, you're there, who knows where our minds are.

And observing something does have an effect on it - take stage fright, for example. And plays - they're never performed the same way twice. How it works is if you go to see the same troupe of players do the same play many many times, then you will see patterns in what they do the same and what changes. Some things will always be the same, others will flux.

Really random suggestion: since light is generated by something and has no physical mass, yet affects everything around it, perhaps gravity is the same way - maybe it's generated by the relationship between matter and the space time fabric.

Another really random suggestion: Are thoughts proof that there are other planes ?- Thinking sure doesn't happen on a physical plane, with the exception of the chemical processes.

Now... where's that quantum foam? My brother needs a bath.