Did you know...

[Cobra]

On the whole, it works. You don't act out your dreams every night, do you?

[yoda313]

On the whole, it works. You don't act out your dreams every night, do you?

Hello,

Well no.... I'd have severed my arms off from all those lightsaber battles I dream about!

Kevin

[Doramius]

Did you know that there is a special part of the brain that immobilises your muscles when you are dreaming? Wouldn't want to be punching through your bedroom wall, would you?

Gotta disagree on that one. I kicked the shit out of my wife recently while having a frightening dream & she's done the same to me.

You could have a light sleep apnea. It a disfunction of your immobilization. It also keeps you from going into proper REM sleep. And there are other various degrees of it. Some people have it chronically, while others may have it once in a blue moon. Most of the time you are immobilized, unless something breaks your REM routine. Thus you have the casual stirs in sleep.

The stronger it is, the more unrested you feel when you wake up.

[Shocker Milwaukee]

@Cobra

No & I don't remember my dreams very often, but I know that I got scared by something in my dream & kicked my wife (we both woke up). Maybe a fear reflex overrode the muscular relaxation.

@Doramius

I sure hope I don't have sleep apnea (I don't think so). I sleep on my stomach & don't snore at all. One of my employees has to wear a breathing apparatus to mitigate the symptoms of his sleep apnea (I couldn't deal with that).

[Doramius]

@Doramius

I sure hope I don't have sleep apnea (I don't think so). I sleep on my stomach & don't snore at all. One of my employees has to wear a breathing apparatus to mitigate the symptoms of his sleep apnea (I couldn't deal with that).

There are different levels and types of apnea, you're describing the most common type. There are also other sleeping disorders, but it is true your brain does do something to immobilize your appendages when your are at a deep level of REM sleep. Some soldiers are trained to ignore this and can sleep while doing some minor movements. However, they are usually not at a deep REM sleep and usually feel more exhasted and tired.

[vitualis]

Um... sleep apnoea per se has nothing to do with the paralysis you get when you are sleeping.

Also, Shocker has not described any type of sleep apnoea at all. Sleep apnoea is exactly what it means... that you stop breathing in your sleep. The most common type of sleep apnoea is obstructive sleep apnoea which most commonly occurs in people who are obese. Basically, they have big floppy airways which can close off when they are asleep. Hence the association with snoring. When the brain finally picks up on the cue that it isn't getting enough oxygen, it wakes you up and can consiously take a breath. If you do this many times during the night, you get very poor quality sleep and hence will be pretty tired during the day.

This can be treated with CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) which is the mask device Shocker was talking about. The "positive" air pressure (i.e., greater than atmospheric pressure) splints open the airways so that it doesn't obstruct.

Waking up abruptly from REM sleep and suddenly acting out a movement is not uncommon at all. I'm sure just about everyone will have done it at least once or twice... e.g., a dream that you are falling or something and then you jolt awake and act out your last movement.

Some people will actually act out their REM sleep and this is where they can injure themselves or their partners during sleep. This is known as REM Behavior Disorder. This is a sleep disorder somewhat similar to nightwalking.

Regards.

[Garibaldi]

Did you know that a couple of possible ways to achieve faster than light travel are:
1. Use wormholes or blackholes, although with the latter your body would be ripped to shreds long before you made it to the other side. Where do you think the matter that gets sucked into black holes goes? Somewhere else in our universe? Another universe?
2. It may be possible to use gravity (and element 115) to travel ftl. Some experiments have shown that gravity actually propagates at about 8 billion times faster than light, or even faster. It would then be possible to use gravity onboard spacecraft to travel to distant stars in a matter of minutes or hours. This is the supposed method that the Roswell incident aliens used in their craft.
www.gravitywarpdrive.com
3. "Piggyback" a tachyon.
4. As seen in many scifi shows its also possible that you could "dephase" a ship into another dimension in which relativity as we no it doesn't apply (ie subspace).
5. Even though we cannot be transformed into massless particles, such particles called neutrinos (which may be massless) may be able to travel ftl.
Also, wormholes could be used to traverse dimensions, into parallel worlds and such.

[vitualis]

Did you know that a couple of possible ways to achieve faster than light travel are:
1. Use wormholes or blackholes, although with the latter your body would be ripped to shreds long before you made it to the other side. Where do you think the matter that gets sucked into black holes goes? Somewhere else in our universe? Another universe?

The matter goes nowhere. The concept of a singularity is probably not correct and is a reflection that general relativity is not the end all of equations describing the universe.

There are many possible models of what happens inside a black hole. The matter may be trapped indefinitely slowly spiraling towards the centre but never reaching it because of time dilation. There was a fairly far out idea that there was no centre but rather the matter density is trapped around a spherical shell. And of course, the energy from a black hole is probably slowly being irradiated out (as per Stephen Hawking's hypothesis).

If the matter went into another universe, then black holes wouldn't "get bigger" (i.e., increase in gravitational force) as it absorbed more matter.

2. It may be possible to use gravity (and element 115) to travel ftl. Some experiments have shown that gravity actually propagates at about 8 billion times faster than light, or even faster. It would then be possible to use gravity onboard spacecraft to travel to distant stars in a matter of minutes or hours. This is the supposed method that the Roswell incident aliens used in their craft.
www.gravitywarpdrive.com

And what experiments are those? I can say for certain that they are not experiments done by any respectable scientist. Considering that gravity is a reflection of the curvature of space-time, it travels at no faster than the speed of light. If the sun were to magically disappear right now, we would not know for 8 minutes until the light disappeared. In that eight minutes, there will be no change in the "gravity" felt by the Earth from the sun either.

3. "Piggyback" a tachyon.

Tachyons are fictional... It is the name given to an imaginary particle (i.e., they are NOT even hypothetical or theoretical in our current understanding of the universe) that travel faster than light.

4. As seen in many scifi shows its also possible that you could "dephase" a ship into another dimension in which relativity as we no it doesn't apply (ie subspace).

Firstly, subspace is fictional. Secondly, there is no reason to believe that a multiverse exists. Thirdly, if you could somehow warp the structure of space so that we could enter and exit different universes in the multiverse at will, you could probably do it directly in our own universe.

5. Even though we cannot be transformed into massless particles, such particles called neutrinos (which may be massless) may be able to travel ftl.

Neutrinos travel at or near the speed of light. They do not travel faster. Photons are massless too you know and for obvious reasons, they travel at light speed.

Also, wormholes could be used to traverse dimensions, into parallel worlds and such.

Assuming that stable wormholes could exist and they may not. This is of course assuming the general relativity is actually an accurate description of the universe too.

Regards.

[spiderman2k1]

Did you know Sega Dreamcast was the first next generation console LOL.

[yoda313]

Did you know Sega Dreamcast was the first next generation console LOL.

Hello,

Umm... Probably not.....

My guess would be the "FIRST" true next generation console would have been the "commodore 64" or atari 2400.

It depends on what you call the TRUE FIRST GAME CONSOLE. That is open to interpretation.

All of this next gen nonsense is just fluff to push the new hardware. In reality it's just the next logical progression of the video game industry.

Kevin

[Garibaldi]

And of course, the energy from a black hole is probably slowly being irradiated out (as per Stephen Hawking's hypothesis).

Is this essentially what causes a black hole to dissipate?

Firstly, subspace is fictional. Secondly, there is no reason to believe that a multiverse exists. Thirdly, if you could somehow warp the structure of space so that we could enter and exit different universes in the multiverse at will, you could probably do it directly in our own universe.

I realize subspace is fictional. I was just stating this because it is possible that there is a multiverse, granted there is nothing in proof of it, but it does allow for a solution to the grandfather paradox.


Thanks for your input... I find this topic interesting and I didn't mean to post inaccurate info, thanks for your constructive criticism.

Did you know:
- that the Milky Way is due to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in several billion years. It will be a "cosmic trainwreck."

[Garibaldi]

And what experiments are those? I can say for certain that they are not experiments done by any respectable scientist. Considering that gravity is a reflection of the curvature of space-time, it travels at no faster than the speed of light. If the sun were to magically disappear right now, we would not know for 8 minutes until the light disappeared. In that eight minutes, there will be no change in the "gravity" felt by the Earth from the sun either.

I was just relating info from that site I listed earlier. I remember reading something about branes in The Universe In a Nutshell. In it Hawking speculated that different braneworlds may exist in which gravity would propagate between them (ie a planet on a certian brane could appear to be orbiting nothing, because the gravity from a star on another brane was affecting this). Hawking's speculations were interesting but obviously highly theorietical/

[vitualis]

And of course, the energy from a black hole is probably slowly being irradiated out (as per Stephen Hawking's hypothesis).

Is this essentially what causes a black hole to dissipate?

Yes. Read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. It's fascinating.

From a naive point of view, it does seem that Black Holes by definition should get bigger and bigger... as once something crosses the event horizon, it cannot get back out... What Hawking proposes is that virtual particles (which experimentally can be shown to exist) at the event horizon of a black hole leads to radiation "coming out" of a black hole (though technically at the event horizon boundary) and a reduction in the black hole's mass -- in essense, a mechanism for the black hole to dissipate (though in an extremely slow process).

I realize subspace is fictional. I was just stating this because it is possible that there is a multiverse, granted there is nothing in proof of it, but it does allow for a solution to the grandfather paradox.

The multiverse is a very appealing concept. It potentially can explain many things such as quantum superposition. For example, the in the double-split experiments with a single photon, it is very difficult to explain how a photon can interfere with itself to produce an interference pattern since it MUST go down one path or the other. How does the single photon "know" that it has more than one path?

In a multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics, the photon "knows" because it actually did go down both paths -- it physically goes down one in one universe, and down the other in another universe. In OUR universe, the we get the culmulated result of the interference pattern because at the quantum level, there is some sort of intereference/information transfer between the multiverse.

In a similar sort of way, it can also explain how quantum computing is even possible (and we have determined experimentally that it does work). Although we can only compute at present with a pitifully small number of qubits (quantum bits), there seems to be a huge, paradoxical potential. In classical computing, each bit must either be a 1 or a 0 while in quantum computing, each bit can be both simultaneously. Though I may be misunderstanding how some of this works, if we have the computer trying to find a 4-bit answer, it would take up to 16 cycles before the answer is obtained (2^4 = 16). If we have a quantum computer capable of computing in 4 qubits, it can do so in 1 cycle as each bit is in superposition. Thus, the computing power of a quantum computer is based on 2^n qubits -- it doesn't take a very big N before this is more than all the particles in the universe. Now, there is a problem... how can any computer calculate more information than there are particles in the universe?? A multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics, however, would suggest that the processing is spread over increasing large number of universes.

This is all very interesting though apart from these thought experiments, there is no reason to believe that the multiverse exists. A relative recent article in New Scientist on some very interesting experiments ("Quantum rebel", New Scientist vol 183 issue 2457 - 24 July 2004, page 30 ) seems to defy Bohr's / Copenhagen interpretation of double-split experiment (i.e., nature does not permit us to know which slit a particle passed through - "which way" information - and also see an interference pattern). If Bohr is wrong, then it may be that our underlying assumptions about quantum mechanics is wrong as well... that is, the particle-wave duality of a photon may not be an accurate representation of reality. If this is the case, then there is no need for an artificial mental construct like the "multiverse" intepretation to explain it.

Regards.

[vitualis]

Branes are interesting though completely hypothetical / pure maths constructs. People have tried to explain all sorts of things through branes in a multiverse like way. For example, if force (like gravity) would "leak" out into higher dimensions (i.e., into adjacent branes), then could (possibly) explain why gravity seems to act differently at large scales (or why the inflationary force DOESN'T act at small scales).

BTW: read some for the stuff in that link you provided (the gravitywarp link). I wonder who wrote it... it's interesting stuff, obviously from someone who knows a lot of physics... but it looks like bullshit.

Regards.

[NamPla]

Did you know there are more stars in the sky than there are grain of sand on earth.

Incorrect. There are only a few thousand or so visible stars in our skies.

Which planet's sky are you referring to?

Did you know that our Sun is actually the remains of a massive supernova that occurred billions of years ago?

[NamPla]

Did you know, that according to Superstring Theory, the entire Universe can be considered microscopic (ie sub-subatomic). So that when we look into the night sky, we are not looking "out" into a vast immensity of space, but actually looking "inwards" into a singularity.

[Jumbo_Holden]

Did you know,. Nearly all the song writers of bond themes wrote the songs without knowing anything about the plot of the movies



An exception to the rule was Madonna on the count she was actully in the film

[Garibaldi]

I wonder who wrote it... it's interesting stuff, obviously from someone who knows a lot of physics... but it looks like bullshit.

That's what I was wondering, it "seems" somewhat legit, but I'm not sure.

[Doramius]

I thought Stephen Hawking said it may not be irradiated out. The continual sucking of items may cause it's gravity to become too strong for the mass of matter and it explodes into a new mass of planets, asteroids, various types of matter, etc. This is still just a theory, but it brings a more feasible view of how blackholes work. The event horizon is just another one of his views on how something would be irradiated from the black hole. If you want to hear a good hypothesis about dimensional workings, read Michael Crichton's book, "TIMELINE". The movie scewed it unbelievably. The book is fiction, but the theories about other dimensions is quite interesting and based on actual thoughts from top scientists.

[Garibaldi]

If you want to hear a good hypothesis about dimensional workings, read Michael Crichton's book, "TIMELINE".

I read that book a couple of years ago- very good. If I remember correctly he sent the people to the alternate dimensions via microscopic wormholes in quantum foam. Isn't this considered the most likely place for real wormholes to exist, even though they wouldn't last very long?

[Doramius]

They essentially are everywhere, but we would have no way of focusing to a specific point, like we would tune into a radio station. We don't even have the capability to disassemble a person and reassemble them somewhere else at such a tiny level. You'd be making parts several times smaller than the size of an atom's electron. If we could break a person apart and put them together as a living being with the ability to retain all function and memory as it did previously, then we could send someone into a blackhole or beyond the speed of light. You'd be particles smaller than those found in light energy.

[Cobra]

Did you know that if something comes flying towards your eye, you will blink before you actually see it. It is a very fast reflex action that does not require the brain.

[Doramius]

Did you know that if something comes flying towards your eye, you will blink before you actually see it. It is a very fast reflex action that does not require the brain.

I'm betting you mean before the brain interprets it properly. Often referred to as a flinch. You can see it, but it's moving to quick for your brain to interpret the information and allow you to respond voluntarily.

[vitualis]

I thought Stephen Hawking said it may not be irradiated out. The continual sucking of items may cause it's gravity to become too strong for the mass of matter and it explodes into a new mass of planets, asteroids, various types of matter, etc. This is still just a theory, but it brings a more feasible view of how blackholes work.

What?

I'm pretty darn sure that Stephen Hawking said nothing of the sort.

Stephen Hawkings recent reversed his position on whether information came back out of a black hole. His original view was that it was forever lost and he bet a set of encylopaedia on it. Stephen Hawkings was the original guy who hypothesised that Black Holes DID radiate out and would "evapourate" via the mechanism I mentioned before. This hypothesis is pretty much accepted now. In fact, it is called "Hawking Radiation".

As for the "exploding" thing, that makes absolutely no sense at all. A black hole is already by definition "too massive" for its own good as for it to form, there is such a high mass that the gravitational force exceeds all other exclusion forces that stop atoms / subatomic particles from collapsing. Remember, "light can't escape"? There is no explosion that can throw mass out beyond that of the event horizon so there will be no "formation of planets" or stuff like that.

The event horizon is just another one of his views on how something would be irradiated from the black hole.

Well no. The event horizon is that point in space around a black hole where the gravitation force is to such a degree that not even photons can escape beyond it. What Hawking did was he discovered a mechanism to which a black hole to apparently be irradiating (i.e., losing energy) by way of virtual particles at the boundary of the event horizon.

Regards.

[vitualis]

I don't know about that specific reflex but not all reflexes require processing by the brain. In fact, most do not.

Regards.

[Craig Tucker]

Michael, you sure you chose the right professional field.
Not so much cash in Astronomy.?

[flaninacupboard]

Obviously the doctors waiting room is stacked with some better reading material than the patients waiting room...

[northcat_8]

I don't know about that specific reflex but not all reflexes require processing by the brain. In fact, most do not.

Regards.

Hence the usage of the term "reflex" instead of "reaction"

[Faustus]

Did you know Firefox 1.0, Halo2, and Everquest 2 all came out on the same day (today) creating a vortex of need that (due to my being broke) threatens to suck me in?

[yoda313]

Hello,

creating a vortex

Did you know video games are still selling for the same price as the 8 bit nintendo games were nearly 20 years ago???? ($50USD)... Though production costs have skyrocketed along with expensive ad campaigns

Kevin


----P.S. The video game industry is making as much or more money then the movie industry now -somewhere like $10billion US I think???? Maybe less than that ----