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It’s the same with the universe: we know it works, but we don’t know why it works.
Why
Wrong! Okay, mostly right. For n = 2, 4, 8 … up to n = 1023 or so, it works. But then it doesn’t. The reason is going to sound very strange: the total mass of the llama is not just the mass of the stuff inside of it. It also includes the energy that holds that stuff together.
Llama
Mass is the property of objects that makes them resist changes in velocity.
Mass
In our universe, the mass of something includes the energy needed to keep that stuff together.
Massss
Particles—in our current theory—are actually indivisible points in space. That means that in theory they take up zero volume and they are located at exactly one infinitesimal location in three-dimensional space. There’s actually no size to them at all.32 And since you’re made of particles, that means you’re not mostly empty space, you are entirely empty space!
Particles
According to quantum mechanics, they are superbizarre little fluctuations in fields that permeate the entire universe.
Qm
Almost nobody understood what the Higgs boson was, but lots of people got very excited.
Classic
One of them (inertial mass) is how resistant something is to being moved, and the other (gravitational mass) is how much it wants to be moved by gravity.
Mass
If the gravitational mass of the llama is larger, then it gets pulled by a larger force from the Earth; but since the llama also has a larger inertial mass, it takes a larger force to get it moving. The two effects perfectly cancel out each other, and the cat and llama fall at the same speed.
Vacuum free fall
“the very fabric of space-time itself is a physical manifestation of quantum entropy concepts woven together by the universal nature of location.”
Space
This kind of question raises the possibility that we could be looking at things all wrong, as we have done in the past (e.g., “The Earth is flat” or “Hey, let me put some leeches on you to cure your disease!”), and that getting a firm, concrete answer could change the way we think about the universe and our place in it. The stakes are very high!
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Somewhere in Switzerland, a watchmaker just had a heart attack.
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Was JFK assassinated by aliens? Are there more dimensions to space than three? Is the universe powered by unicorns? Can you eat a pure marshmallow diet without gaining weight?
Asking the real questions
Wormholes may sound like fantasy, but they’re actually not inconsistent with any current law of physics. Unfortunately, all the calculations so far suggest that they would be very unstable, collapsing almost instantly, meaning that you’d hardly have time for an in-flight beverage before it collapses around you.
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It turns out physicists have a pretty good story for how we ended up in a nonbland universe full of structure. Here’s the theory: small quantum fluctuations in the early universe were stretched by the rapid expansion of space-time (i.e., inflation) into huge enormous wrinkles that seeded the formation of stars and galaxies by gravity, which was aided by dark matter; and at some point in there, dark energy started stretching space out even farther.
Good story
To summarize, random rolls of nature’s dice at the quantum level were blown up by the rapid expansion of space, which led directly to everything we see today. Without inflation, the universe would look a lot different.
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(Ever tried to squeeze a rock into a diamond? Not easy)
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You see, we live in a universe that is like an onion. Not because it makes everyone cry when you slice it or because it’s an essential ingredient in any great soup but because it’s made up of layers and layers of emergent phenomena.
Onion
Int
Whether we are alone in the universe depends on these two factors: is the potential unlikeliness of life overshadowed by the crazy bigness of the universe? If you roll the dice enough times, even the nearly impossible is likely to happen.
Roll the dice
electrons. 68 hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com
Lhc
