A theory of everything

[Royston Vasey]

We now have a theory that might unify quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity. Michael Duff brings you up to speed in our latest expert guide

Instant Expert: Theory of everything -

General relativity breaks the quantum rules of elementary particles. Black holes threaten the foundations of quantum mechanics. Something has to give.........


Theoretical physicists like to ask big questions. How did the universe begin? What are its fundamental constituents? And what are the laws of nature that govern those constituents? If we look back over the 20th century, we can identify two pillars on which our current theories rest.

The first is quantum mechanics, which applies to the very small: atoms, subatomic particles and the forces between them. The second is Einstein's general theory of relativity, which applies to the very large: stars, galaxies and gravity, the driving force of the cosmos.

The problem we face is that the two are mutually incompatible. On the subatomic scale, Einstein's theory fails to comply with the quantum rules that govern the elementary particles. And on the cosmic scale, black holes are threatening the very foundations of quantum mechanics. Something has to give.

An all-embracing theory of ...


Link to full article - www.newscientist.com/special/instant-expert-theory-of-everything

[Flying Horse]

Today in my Pegasus Daily Bulletion I wrote about a NASA project.

NASA probe blasts off for Jupiter after launch-pad snags.
Mission managers cope with minor issues, then send Junotoward a 2016 rendezvous with our system's largest planet to study its origin and evolution.
An artist's rendering shows the solar-powered NASA's Juno spacecraft with Jupiter in the background. Each of the solar panels is as big as a tractor-trailer truck. "What we're really going after is some of the most fundamental questions about our solar system -- how Jupiter formed, how it evolved, what really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us," said Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute. Jupiter holds about twice as much mass as the rest of the solar system combined, excepting the sun. It was the first planet to coalesce after the sun formed, gobbling up most of the dust and gas "leftovers" in the early solar system. Fascinating. I hope I'm still around when scientists began assessing the data sent back by Juno.

[Royston Vasey]

Antiproton ring found around Earth

ANTIPROTONS appear to ring the Earth, confined by the planet's magnetic field lines. The antimatter, which may persist for minutes or hours before annihilating with normal matter, could in theory be used to fuel ultra-efficient rockets of the future.

Charged particles called cosmic rays constantly rain in from space, creating a spray of new particles - including antiparticles - when they collide with particles in the atmosphere. Many of these become trapped inside the Van Allen radiation belts, two doughnut-shaped zones around the planet where charged particles spiral around the Earth's magnetic field lines.



Satellites had already discovered positrons - the antimatter partners of electrons - in the radiation belts. Now a spacecraft has detected antiprotons, which are nearly 2000 times as massive.

Heavier particles take wider paths when they spiral around the planet's magnetic lines, and weaker magnetic field lines also lead to wider spirals. So relatively heavy antiprotons travelling around the weak field lines in the outer radiation belt were expected to take loops so big they would quickly get pulled into the lower atmosphere, where they would annihilate with normal matter. The inner belt was thought to have fields strong enough to trap antiprotons, and indeed that is where they have been found.

Piergiorgio Picozza from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy, and colleagues detected the antiprotons using PAMELA, a cosmic-ray detector attached to a Russian Earth-observation satellite. The spacecraft flies through the Earth's inner radiation belt over the south Atlantic.

Between July 2006 and December 2008, PAMELA detected 28 antiprotons trapped in spiralling orbits around the magnetic field lines sprouting from the Earth's south pole (Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/737/2/l29). PAMELA samples only a small part of the inner radiation belt, but antiprotons are probably trapped throughout it. "We are talking about of billions of particles," says team member Francesco Cafagna from the University of Bari in Italy.

"I find it very interesting to note that the Earth's magnetic field works a little bit like the magnetic traps that we are using in the lab," says Rolf Landua at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. There, researchers have been trying to trap antimatter for ever longer periods to compare its behaviour with that of normal matter.

Alessandro Bruno, another team member from Bari, says antimatter in the Earth's radiation belts might one day be useful for fuelling spacecraft. Future rockets could be powered by the reaction between matter and antimatter, a reaction that produces energy even more efficiently than nuclear fusion in the sun's core.

"This is the most abundant source of antiprotons near the Earth," says Bruno. "Who knows, one day a spacecraft could launch then refuel in the inner radiation belt before travelling further."

Millions or billions of times as many antiprotons probably ring the giant planets.

Article source - www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128245.500-antiproton-ring-found-around-earth.html

[pod 7]

Hi all no mention of this so far, so i will let you know, ---not sure of the finite details but Tomorrow night (dont know the time an asteroid will pass between earth and the moon, sorry but thats all i have on it ,i caught the end of a news report on the T.V.----Have a feeling if you are in the correct position you should see it with a pair of binoculars, other than that dont forget your crash helmet he he only joking

[apple]

I have a theory.


It is what it is and knowing what it is or isn't isnt going to make it any more or less than what it already is.

[Coldwarrior]

As there is different forms of matter, there is no reason why there couldn't be different forms of energy or perhaps something in between.
We all know that light travels thru space. What if space isn't really empty but comprised of particles too small to measure. Perhaps those particles have an accumulated mass that comprises the mass the scientist can't find. As there are strong and weak nuclear bonds maybe there are strong and weak forms of gravity. Deciding which one is the strong one make take some work but as galaxies travel further and further away from the core of the big bang center and are still accelerating maybe at some point with more than half of the mass of the universe behind them they will slow down, stop and return for another cycle. Scientists think that dark energy is pushing them. Where in hell is there any example of something being pushed beyond the explosion the first propelled the object. Everything is pulled. If galaxies are accelerating they are being pulled by gravity greater than the mass behind them pulling them back.
Tesla who was Einsteins equal in math and a far greater practical inventor than Edison thought Einstein was nuts. The concept of gravity warping space was discounted by Tesla because you can't warp something that doesn't exist. But maybe they are both right. If space as we think of it isn't empty but has an invisible mass we cannot detect. That mass can extend far beyond our imagination but it has a limit and everything we know of our universe is contained within that bubble. If a person could go beyond that edge just 2 millimeters they would never be able to come back because there would be no light to show where the universe is. That is a place where nothing exists. That is hell.

[Royston Vasey]

More info about the Higgs boson and the LHC -

On Tuesday, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will present details of a milestone in their hunt for the elusive Higgs boson.

But what exactly is it?

And why have particle physicists spent more than 40 years searching for the tiny fundamental particle?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16116236