Ask the Dreadlocked Science Geek

[betenoire]

From one Atheist to another (unless I'm remembering wrong and you're not one, in which case I apologise but still want you to answer cuz I think this is wicked fun):

How does one explain "manifestations of the Holy Spirit" (ie - "slain in the spirit" "speaking in tongues" etc) without the existence of God?

I was raised in a charismatic evangelical church (Pentecostal) so that stuff was an every day occurrence around me (well, Wednesdays and Sundays since those were the days that I went to church) and I don't for a minute believe that anybody was consciously faking anything. We're talking about people who on the basic level were sincere and well-meaning and convinced.

So how does it happen? Is it like a group-think thing (which I guess is more about psychology than about science, although I guess psychology is a kind of science, and now I'm confusing myself) or a "mind over matter" thing (like if you believe something hard enough the brain can do all sorts of neat things) or a really emotionally exited neurons firing around thing, or kinda like hypnotism?

[Venus007]

Dear Hot Dr Sciences,

What exactly is the deal with quantum foam and do you think it is real?

Bonus question NASA scientists reciently discovered that lightening storms create small bits of antimatter, why doesn't this cause anhilation as I thought that if matter and antimatter got together it would be a cataclysm because of the enormous energy produced.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/12/...ng-antimatter/

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Venus007

Dear Hot Dr Sciences,

What exactly is the deal with quantum foam and do you think it is real?

Bonus question NASA scientists reciently discovered that lightening storms create small bits of antimatter, why doesn't this cause anhilation as I thought that if matter and antimatter got together it would be a cataclysm because of the enormous energy produced.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/12/...ng-antimatter/

I'll take these separately. I'll talk about quantum foam first because, ironically, it's actually the easier of the two subjects.

Prior to the first third of the 20th century, both space and time were thought to be separate entities and to be smooth, inert and constant. Starting with relativity theory and continuing with quantum theory, the picture changed dramatically. Firstly, Einstein demonstrated that space and time were neither smooth, inert or constant. Matter, for instance, curves space-time. In fact the best operational definition of gravity, so far, is the warping of space-time by the presence of matter. Quantum theory demonstrated that ALL our intuitions about the way the Universe 'really is' break down at the sub-atomic level. Cause and effect, for instance, are not quite so straightforward at the subatomic level. Particles--actually virtual particles--pop into existence and then just as quickly pop out of existence. These virtual particles are highly energetic.

The idea behind quantum foam is this. At the finest possible resolution (known as the Planck length which is ~1.612*10^-35) the structure of space-time is not smooth and continuous but is actually like foam with virtual particles popping into existence and then being annihilated. I wouldn't go so far as to say that quantum foam exists---in the sense that it has an independent existence but it is more of a concept to explain the energetic turbulance of space-time at the smallest scale.

There is one big problem, however. The issue is that mass (or energy) warps space-time (which, you'll recall, is what gravity is) and at present there is not a working theory of quantum gravity. All the other forces are carried by a particle (called a messenger particle) and there is a hypothesized particle called the graviton which would be the messenger particle for gravity. Except, we haven't observed it. The issue is that gravity is weak, REALLY weak. I know it doesn't seem like that every time you fall but consider this...when you walk, with each step, you are overcoming the force of gravity to lift your foot. Every time you pick something up, you are overcoming the force of gravity. You can even overcome the force of gravity to pick up a piece of paper using only a comb and static electricity. So the search for the graviton is the search for the most weakly interacting particle of them all! Until the graviton is found, there's no way to account for the warping of space-time that would be the 'froth', if you will, of the quantum foam.

As far as the anti-matter is concerned, it's not that ANY anti-matter would cause massive annihilation it's that sufficient quantities of it would. A small number of anti-protons encountering protons would annihilate one another and release a lot of gamma radiation. A large number of anti-protons would create a far larger release of energy with more destructive power. Fortunately, antimatter is very rare at this stage of the universe.

This was not always the case, in the very early Universe (before things had cooled down enough for atoms to form) there were almost, but not quite, equal amounts of matter and antimatter. LOTS of collisions took place in a massively energetic holocaust of explosions. The matter we see in the Universe now is the result of there being a slight bias in favor of matter so when all was said and done there was still some matter while all of the antimatter had been destroyed. This was actually good for the Universe because had this not happened the Universe would have had much more density than it does and so the formation of stars would have been much less likely.

Cheers
Aj

[Venus007]

Thanks AJ for your excellent replies. That quantum foam thing has tripped me up and you helped very much to clarify!

As to the antimatter, clearly I watch too much Star Trek.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

As far as the anti-matter is concerned, it's not that ANY anti-matter would cause massive annihilation it's that sufficient quantities of it would. A small number of anti-protons encountering protons would annihilate one another and release a lot of gamma radiation. A large number of anti-protons would create a far larger release of energy with more destructive power. Fortunately, antimatter is very rare at this stage of the universe.

Thanks again!

PS this thread is SO giving me a brain wood

[Melissa]

I've always been curious....

Does "Electroweak Breaking" Affect the Macroscopic World?

[Rufusboi]

I love to cook and so I'm always interested in the science of food.

I've always wondered two things:

1. What is the science behind churning butter? How does the churning turn cream into butter? What are some of the molecular changes going on?

2. Who figured this out? How do you accidentally churn and churn cream until it becomes butter?

Rufus

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Melissa

I've always been curious....

Does "Electroweak Breaking" Affect the Macroscopic World?

Yes and no. To understand why will require some deep discussion.

The electroweak force is what you get when the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces get together. There are four fundamental forces (also known as fundamental interactions) in the Universe they are (in descending order of strength) :

Strong nuclear force
Electromagnetism
Weak nuclear force
Gravity

The strong force is what holds the nucleus of an atom together.
The electromagnetic force is the other force we're most familiar with--light, magnetism, radio, microwaves are all manifestations of the same thing--electromagnetism.
The weak nuclear force is responsible for atomic (beta) decay.
Gravity is, well, the warping of space-time by the presence of mass. (Yes,you actually warp space-time a very tiny bit)

At VERY high energies, not seen in over 12 billion years, the electromagnetic and weak forces unify into the electroweak force.

The reason why we don't SEE effects of electroweak breaking is because the universe has cooled down so much that the symmetry has already been broken. If the universe were MUCH hotter (100 GeV--Giga electron-volts) then we would observe the electromagnetic and weak forces as one electroweak force.

So does it affect the macroscopic world? Yes, in the sense that without it there would be fewer forces. But can we observe it affecting the macroscopic world now? No, because the Universe is too cold a place for it to happen except in VERY high-energy particle accelerators (the LHC at CERN being the one that can probe at those energies)


Cheers
Aj

[socialjustice_fsu]

Aj ~
I understand we are to experience a 'supermoon' the night of March 19, 2011.
I know this means the moon will be roughly 221,000 miles away from the earth plus it will be a full moon. I know this occurs every 18 years. Can you explain this event and it's impact, if any, upon our planet?
Signed,
The One Who Slept Through Astronomy

[dreadgeek]

June:

Actually, this is not quite correct. The Earth forms and then over a period of time, gets bombarded by comets (which is where the most likely came from). Now, as far as mass being added by the living things actually that's not the case. All of the mass in your body and in the bodies of other living things was already present on the planet. Here is where the conservation of energy comes in. Right now, chances are, one of the oxygen atoms you've just inhaled was breathed by a Caesar, or some Roman slave from the time of Caesar. All of the activity you've spoken of--comets and asteroid collisions notwithstanding--redistribute the mass of the planet without actually adding or reducing the total mass.

Originally Posted by June

Dear Giver of Science Wood, (Hah!)

Okay, secondary to worrying about the sun exploding in my lifetime, is this 'nother thing.

So, the earth gets formed and begins cooling, and then condensation occurs and eventually, we get a weather system that creates rain, then over time, the oceans get filled up and the original land masses begin tearing apart slowly and clusters of cells begin evolving into different species. Yadda, yadda.

The original earth mass gets added on to. Millions of years of vegetation and decay, birth and death of humans, animals and plant matter -- All of this 'stuff' adds to the total weight of the earth, right?

Strictly speaking, we should talk about the *mass* of the Earth and not its weight. The weight of an object is a function of the gravitational field the object is in. So if you are, say, 180 lbs on Earth on the Moon you would weight just 30 lbs. So in order to talk about the weight of the Earth we would have to know what gravitational field we're talking about. The mass of the Earth, however, is more or less a constant. We gain trivial amounts of mass from dust blown at us by the solar winds and we gain slightly more (but still trivial) amounts of mass from asteroid impacts (large ones actually cause us to lose mass).

But, my real question is: Could we at some point create so much flotsam and jetsam here that it actually will slow down our rotation, creating longer days and nights or other more catastrophic events?

Actually, the Earth IS slowing down but not because of its mass. Remember that any body in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by another force. The Earth's rotation is slowing down but not because of OUR mass but because of the mass of the Moon. Some of the energy of Earth's rotation is transferred to the Moon. There is also friction from space dust.

It will take a few billion more years before a day on the planet gets appreciably longer though.

Cheers
Aj

[Linus]

Ok. I need to know. Is there a true scientific reason for the level of stupidity on Fox News?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_817723.html

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Linus

Ok. I need to know. Is there a true scientific reason for the level of stupidity on Fox News?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_817723.html

Okay, now I'm back.

Here's why O'Reilly is wrong (I know shocking!):

1) "How did the Sun get there?" Remember that gravity is the warping of space-time by mass and is ALWAYS attractive. So dust in our little corner of the Milky Way is attracted to other parts of dust. These bits of rock and dust start to clump together and orbit one another. The more matter that gathers, the more mass and therefore the more matter that is attracted. At some point *enough* mass is collected that it begins to compress at which point a critical mass is formed and a star is born! That's a LOT of mass but we have caught Nature in every stage of that act in the last 50 years or so.

2) "How did the Moon get there?" The early solar system was a chaotic mess. Not ALL of the material in the solar system went to making the Sun, some of it went to make planets. When the Earth was very, very, very young (less than a billion years old), it collided with something that smaller than the Earth. It would have been a glancing blow but it would have torn the smaller planet apart. When it reformed the Earth had a convenient large moon. How do we know? For one, our rotation is not perpendicular to the plane of our orbit. The Earth is actually tilted at 23 degrees (which is why we have seasons). That kind of thing strongly suggests an impact that knocked the Earth off of a perpendicular axis of rotation. (This has happened to at least one other planet, Uranus, which actually is tilted 90 degrees so, unlike the other 7 planets, it doesn't have a north or south pole but a East or West pole) Our moon actually stabilizes our rotation along with creating the tides.

3) "Why doesn't Venus have that?" We don't know why Venus doesn't have a satellite but it doesn't. Not every planet can be in the position to have a satellite.

4) "Mars doesn't have that?" Mars has two moons Deimos and Phobos. Most likely these are asteroids that were captured by the planet (Mars has a mass similar to Earth's)

I think that just about covers it.

[Daywalker]

Dear AJ,


Is it possible that the very Matter that surrounds
us...is our creator and we are indeed it's Organisms?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Daywalker

Dear AJ,


Is it possible that the very Matter that surrounds
us...is our creator and we are indeed it's Organisms?

Well, it depends upon what you mean. You, me, everyone in fact most *interesting* features of the Universe are made from the remains of supernova. As a very massive star goes through its end-game it makes all of the heavier elements on the periodic table (everything heavier than Helium). So all of the carbon in your body was once in a supermassive star that exploded. All of the oxygen you are breathing came from the same kind of source. So in a very limited and technical sense yes, all of the matter that we are made of and that sustains us is our creator. We are its creation. Billions of years ago some star burned its fuel, fell into the run-away iron-cycle end-game and then exploded. In the fullness of time that material became the Earth and the other planets.

To the degree I am at all deistic, it is that the Universe is the creator. Now, I don't think that the Universe notices we are here other than in the limited sense that living organisms interact with one another. In as much as you are part of the Universe and I am part of the Universe and we are aware that the other exists, the Universe is aware of our existence. In as much as I love my wife and my wife loves me, the Universe cares about my continued existence. But outside of those interpersonal interactions, I don't think the Universe is intelligent or aware of our existence. Supernovae happen not so that there can be life, it's simply a by-product. Earth isn't here so that there *can* be life, life exists because Earth happens to have a range of environments and is stable enough for life to have a chance to get going.

Cheers
Aj

[Daywalker]

Thank you AJ...it was just one of those profound thoughts that spawned
through my attic a few weeks ago. You know, there is so much
(religious) conflict within the Human Species on who Our
Creator is/was...and I thought...wow, what if you're
all wrong and the very Matter that
surrounds us...is our Creator.

[Linus]

Speaking of Life on Earth, is there life out there? Do you think it would be as aggressive as Hawking stated:

If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans," he said.

[Melissa]

Originally Posted by Daywalker

Thank you AJ...it was just one of those profound thoughts that spawned
through my attic a few weeks ago. You know, there is so much
(religious) conflict within the Human Species on who Our
Creator is/was...and I thought...wow, what if you're
all wrong and the very Matter that
surrounds us...is our Creator.

Daywalker - I think you would love the poetry of Whitman and William Blake. They both have the idea that the creator and the creation are the same thing. They argue for Poets replacing priests and institutionalized religion and people learning to value and be in awe of the natural world of which we are a part (hence Whitman's odes to the body, sex, and life) and Blake's awe of art (as creation), and the natural world.

Rather than worrying about an afterlife and keeping an unknowable god figure happy they tell us to revel in life itself and that "god" is in us and in everything we see and to worship that and not some arbitrary angry figure that demands we do X but not Y in order to have an afterlife.

Blake (late 18th century) was an anti rationalist because he said they reduced life to nothing but atoms and molecules and diagrams and theories. In one of his paintings, Blake has Newton looking down at the ground creating a diagram. In this picture, Newton has lost his creative imagination and has lost his capacity to be in awe of and in wonder of the natural world and in doing so has lost his humanity. For Blake, true humanity was located in the creative arts and in the human imagination.

Melissa

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by June

Dear Anti-Matter Specialist,

Some people worry about losing their jobs, but one of the things I worry about the most is the Sun going out. "They" say it will be a few billion years before that happens, but how do they really know? Isn't it entirely possible that it could break into a zillion flaming pieces hurtling outward at any time? What exactly is holding it together, and what do they base the "Billions" theory on?

Is it *possible* that the Sun could break up? Yes, but it would take a truly extraordinary set of circumstances for that to happen. Anything that would cause that (and I can think of only two off the top of my head--a black hole or another very massive star wandering into the neighborhood) would also make life on Earth very interesting and intense--for a very short period of time.

So how do we know that the Sun has a few billion (5 or 6) years left? Largely because of the mass of the Sun. To understand how this relates, we have to digress and talk about stars generally.

A star is simply a ball of plasma (matter in a very energized state) held together by gravity. The energy is provided by the fusing of hydrogen into helium. At the heart of a star, there is a wrestling match--gravity wants to collapse all of the mass of the star into the smallest possible space while heat wants to expand the star. Stars on what astronomers call the 'main sequence' are happily fusing hydrogen into helium. However, in ANY process there is is loss due to inefficiency. So as the star burns it begins to lose mass. Remember that mass is what is creating the gravity so as the star loses mass, pressure begins to win.

Because our Sun is a very ordinary star (it is a G-type dwarf star, the second or third most common type star in the universe) we have a lot of observational data from different stars like ours at different stages of life. Given a particular burn rate (and we know the burn rate of the star by the spectral lines--the light we see from the Sun is only part of the EMF spectrum being put out by it) we can determine at what rate the Sun is losing mass.

The end-game for a star is determined by its mass. For an ordinary dwarf star like ours, the end-game looks like this:

Around 5 or 6 billion years the Sun will have lost enough mass that pressure will, temporarily, have the upper hand. The outer shell of the Sun will then expand out to 1 AU (Astronomical unit which is 93 million miles). This is inconveniently the orbit that Earth occupies. It will then be a red giant star. Over the course of another billion years or so, it will burn off the rest of the helium and slowly collapse back into a white dwarf. This will basically be only the core of the Sun and will be about the size of Earth (although MUCH more massive than Earth is). Over the next few billion years, it will cool down through a brown-dwarf phase until it is a black-dwarf.

Within a reasonable margin of error (say 1% either way) we're pretty certain when the Sun will begin its end-game because of its present mass and heat.

Just because it is SO cool, I'll take you through the end-game of a much more massive star than ours.

REALLY massive stars (like Betelgeuse) have a much more interesting life cycle. They still stay on the main sequence H --> He but once they reach the Helium stage (where that's the only fuel that is left) it will begin fusing Helium into Carbon. This transformation keeps happening until the core becomes Iron. At that point, there's no place else to go. No natural force and fuse Iron into a heavier element and gravity gets the upper hand. The core collapses into itself and the resulting energy release is called a supernova. The star *literally* blows itself apart. If the star has sufficient mass, after the cataclysm of the supernova a black hole or a neutron star will result. A black hole results if the remaining core has sufficient mass to continue collapsing. Otherwise all that is left is a superdense core of neutrons known as a neutron star. These completely exotic objects are some of the strangest things in a very strange universe. They are so dense that a single teaspoon of the stuff would weigh as much as the Earth!

Cheers
Aj

[Melissa]

Why are scientists having problems curing viruses like the common cold virus and AIDS?

Melissa

[Melissa]

Posting for Rufus because he is too busy to sign in, but I am successfully procrastinating this morning so I will write his question for him.

Who invented Meringue? What chemical changes are occuring when you whip egg whites and sugar to form meringue?

Rufus (via Melissa)

[Melissa]

What are some limits of science?

Melissa