Life at the subatomic scale? (Physicists please!)
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Is this...
Interesting.
66%
 66%  [ 12 ]
Boring.
22%
 22%  [ 4 ]
Total bollocks!
11%
 11%  [ 2 ]
Total Votes : 18

AnimalMother




Posts: 12390
Location: England
PostPosted: Mon, 13th Sep 2010 22:32    Post subject: Life at the subatomic scale? (Physicists please!)
dingo_d wrote:
iconized wrote:
Btw: That example of yours: femotechnological
So it means femto technology? 10^-15, 6 zeroes more than nano. At that level you don't have building blocks like atoms, electrons, protons or neutrons.


You still have quarks, bozons, and other wild 'stuff' ^^


edit: this is an interesting but complex speculative account of life at the femto level, read at your peril! I hope someone 'gets it' enough to make a relevant comment. Wink

Guys, you're way off, you have no sense of the order of magnitude when it comes to the scale of the subatomic. Which is okay, not many people do.

A femtometre is on the scale of a a proton in terms of charge radius, and it is also the size of a hydrogen atom nucleus. We're talking about manipulating baryons here, composite particles, nothing like mass fundamentals lol Laughing. For the record Bosons are huge relatively, just because they're a discrete particle does not mean they're on the same scale as quarks.

What I was describing is life on the scale of the atomic nucleus, basically I was referring to life where the strong nuclear force has the dominant influence, which is only possible at homologous densities of 1×10e9 kg/m3 or above. This is theoretically possible in a quantum gravity field of 3-8×10e12 m/s², the conditions of which are met by the outer crust of a neutron star. In this environment you could have stable relatively massive complex nucleonic structures, which speculatively could easily match the complexity of the human brain in an infinitesimal volume. To life on this scale we would appear to effectively be static structures. Because the rate of reaction in that environment would be millions of times more rapid then the reactions we experience, they would process information at rate meaning the plank time frequency of perception would be be far higher for them, although still nowhere near the natural unit.

Basically, if a neutron star exists in a binary gravitational flux, there is every possibility that it's outer matter would form gravitationally defiant nucleon structures which have a greater potential energy dynamic thus mimicking the formation of life on earth at a different scale.

Analogously imagine the gravitational flux as the tides of earth's oceans, and the increase in energy state provided by structural defiance of gravity with the same energy dynamic that our sun provides.

Of course the conditions of life are still are stringent (in a different way obviously) as they are in an environment such as earth. The difference being that there are far less neutrons stars then there are proto-earths, thus meaning the potential for life forming in this way is almost infinitely less probability wise. Sad

Still if it did happen, they would be so superior to us in terms of physical construct and perception that in the time it takes for you to have a shit they would advance from stone age equivalents to demigods of their universe. Twisted Evil


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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AnimalMother




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PostPosted: Mon, 13th Sep 2010 22:33    Post subject:
I took this post from another topic when I realised that I'd actually like some sort of discussion about this. KThxBye Crying or Very sad


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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dingo_d
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PostPosted: Mon, 13th Sep 2010 22:44    Post subject:
It's merely a theory and it would fall of in a pseudo theory leaning towards philosophy.

But an interesting concept... not sure what to discuss (especially considering I'm two yrs until I could properly discuss about the subatomic particles and nuclear physics Sad)...


"Quantum mechanics is actually, contrary to it's reputation, unbeliveably simple, once you take the physics out."
Scott Aaronson
chiv wrote:
thats true you know. newton didnt discover gravity. the apple told him about it, and then he killed it. the core was never found.

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Epsilon
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PostPosted: Mon, 13th Sep 2010 23:19    Post subject:
Not the god equation again please Razz
If life did exist at such a level, then yes it would have a vast amount of capacity for intelligence much higher than us poor homos, but it wouldn't be able to do much with it´s intelligence. Just sit there, figure out how everything works and interrelates and then get bored with itself, if it has a concept of self which I doubt it would.
The question is would it be able to do much about it's physical predicament, being able to live at the surface of a neutron star might have it's benefits. But it certainly has it's disadvantages as well, primarily being stuck in the gravity field and no optimal conditions of life elsewhere but at the star.
Yes it might be able to move it´s entire existence into planck space but can anything live there, even such an entity like this which such obscure conditions for optimal living.

If a tree falls in the forrest etc. Wink
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AnimalMother




Posts: 12390
Location: England
PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 00:16    Post subject:
Epsilon wrote:
Not the god equation again please Razz
If life did exist at such a level, then yes it would have a vast amount of capacity for intelligence much higher than us poor homos, but it wouldn't be able to do much with it´s intelligence. Just sit there, figure out how everything works and interrelates and then get bored with itself, if it has a concept of self which I doubt it would.
The question is would it be able to do much about it's physical predicament, being able to live at the surface of a neutron star might have it's benefits. But it certainly has it's disadvantages as well, primarily being stuck in the gravity field and no optimal conditions of life elsewhere but at the star.
Yes it might be able to move it´s entire existence into planck space but can anything live there, even such an entity like this which such obscure conditions for optimal living.

If a tree falls in the forrest etc. Wink


The theory is sound, this kind of life could exist given perfect conditions. This is not philosophy. Thanks for such an involved answer!

The gravity could be overcome by such creatures using a reactionless drive, based on general relativity you could theoretically 'swim' in curved space without using reaction mass. Of course this requires two or more intersecting gravitational fields with similar orders of magnitude, which is provided *zing!* by the dynamics of the binary gravitational flux I mentioned in the first post. Very Happy All it would require is static cohesion propulsion based on the casimir force. Which would be easy for a civilisation on this scale to construct. Not so easy for us however. Sad

This isn't something I have pulled out my ass, at least not entirely. I have authored a treatise on this in the field of speculative physics, which should pass into electronic collation within the next month or two.

I've actually authored a few scientific discourse papers, I have stuff available in 'SPIRES', VALDO, arXiv, ProQuest and of course Entrez. I would like to link to them, but I don't want to reveal my identity. Epsilon you're an intelligent man, you should think about writing some of your more novel thoughts down. It a great feeling to have something accepted into a scientific database. Of course whether or not it gets published or is even considered notable is another thing entirely. Crying or Very sad


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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TSR69
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PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 00:25    Post subject:
AM, I was under the impression you studied biology with specialisation anthropology?


Formerly known as iconized
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AnimalMother




Posts: 12390
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PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 00:50    Post subject:
iconized wrote:
AM, I was under the impression you studied biology with specialisation anthropology?


Not exactly, I have studied biology, I recently completed my PhD in molecular and genomic biology, with a specialisation in viral engineering and gene therapy. But anthropology was only a minor in my under-graduate degree. Physics was actually a major part of my doctorate thesis in relation to viral structure dynamics, so I have extensive experience in this discipline too. Smile


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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TSR69
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PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 01:05    Post subject:
wow that is quite a list


Formerly known as iconized
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PumpAction
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Posts: 26759

PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 01:35    Post subject:
I have a lot of questions, sorry if some of them should sound stupid.

First of all what type of intelligence are we talking about?
I would assume that the kind of intelligence that comes into my mind requires consciousness of your self.

If this would apply to the life forms you are talking about:
What does it take to have a consciousness of your self (physically).

And is it possible (or even mandatory) that those life forms could have a different type of intelligence. Maybe one that does not now something like ego and has different "goals". Or are "ego" and "goals" terms that only our type of intelligence knows and needs?

I think I'm becoming to specific. Truth is while I thought of different types of lifeforms outside the ones we know (and I found it always funny and honestly stupid to assume that extraterrestrials would be something like us, carbon based, or in our scale, with our motives and even funnier to expect something with our shape Laughing) and even in other scales, my knowledge on this matter is not enough to further develop those ideas.

I vote very interesting and would like to hear your thoughts on the possibility of life in a much larger scale, if the discussion should allow it. (And no it's not religiously motivated Laughing)


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Praetori




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PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 09:08    Post subject:
Sorry for being off-topic. AnimalMother, congratulations on your PhD. I wish I would get the chance to talk to you more. I'm a science-based archaeology (archaeobotany/zoology)/physical anthropology student who wants to do a Master's in evolutionary biology (and I secretly still want to study biology!). Basically, everything you do sounds amazing. Please start more threads on biology as well, because I bet I could learn a ton from you and Spankie (who I believe is a biomedical scientist).
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Atropa




Posts: 878

PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 14:02    Post subject:
AnimalMother wrote:

For the record Bosons are huge relatively, just because they're a discrete particle does not mean they're on the same scale as quarks.

Isn't quarks around 10^-18 m? Not that far of.

AnimalMother wrote:

To life on this scale we would appear to effectively be static structures. Because the rate of reaction in that environment would be millions of times more rapid then the reactions we experience, they would process information at rate meaning the plank time frequency of perception would be be far higher for them, although still nowhere near the natural unit.

To my understanding GR is not well suited for comparing two such different systems. Might be wrong.

AnimalMother wrote:

Basically, if a neutron star exists in a binary gravitational flux, there is every possibility that it's outer matter would form gravitationally defiant nucleon structures which have a greater potential energy dynamic thus mimicking the formation of life on earth at a different scale.

I have no idea but wouldn't the fluctuations be rather big? Don't hide it if you have some numbers.

[quote="AnimalMother"]
The gravity could be overcome by such creatures using a reactionless drive, based on general relativity you could theoretically 'swim' in curved space without using reaction mass. [/quote]
What does this mean?
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TSR69
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PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 14:08    Post subject:
I wanted to begin this article with saying that I was amazed that I was the only one that thinks this is total bollocks but in the meanwhile I have a brother in arms. Looking and nano level with an electron microscope (but there are other tools as well) our probes bounce off a surface or better said because of certain forces the probes bounce off. We created theories about the contents of atoms and have defined the building blocks of the atom as electron, proton and neutron. These elements define the properties of an atom and keep it together but also keep atoms apart.

Inside the atom (and between atoms as well) I only know there is a vast amount of emptiness. I will have to take your word for it AM that 1 femtometer is about the charge radius of a proton. Now we try to imagine that in this very inhospitable place some even smaller particles are capable of creating complex structures that can be seen as life. The glimpses we have seen of elementary particles seems to suggest that they can't maintain their form very long unless they are a part of some bigger structure like the electron but here also my lack of knowledge kicks in I am afraid. The idea of life at femto level seems very very unlikely to me.

But hey all you need is imagination. Lets focus on Femto Da Vinci, FDV is a life form at femto level. There are so many like him that I can't possibly name 10^xth prefix that could describe their numbers. He is as old as Methuselah and probably even older. In order to create a better, warmer life for himself and his many fellows he came up with the idea of creating life at a level bigger than the atom. Apparently his kind feels comfortable at 310,15 Kelvin. FDV knew that there were some atomic scale building blocks to be found on Mars and he made sure a meteorite from Mars landed on Earth. How he managed that is yet another epic tale of the imagination. They waited an evolution and voilà. Only disadvantage of these life vessels that sometimes they get cold and stay cold, then they need to jump ship. However doom is glooming on the horizon, humanity have attracted the attention of some alien life some star systems away. This life form communicates by means of radio signals and some time ago they started to receive insignificant radio signals from earth and decided for an "unaliened" mission to destroy it. Meanwhile our sun - the sun itself is a huge life form - is looking at earth with more and more disgust. These puny humans are polluting its solar system with garbage and the sun is considering to go supernova a bit earlier than needed. Since the sun is so big thinking goes slow so we might have a few more years.

More stories coming up:
- My Boson lady
- Tachyon and me

Not ridiculing your thought experiment AM but I used my imagination and this is what came up, sorry Sad
Edit: Found your source: Dragon's Egg
Btw I am way to ignorant on this subject to really say something useful.
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Shocktrooper




Posts: 4556

PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 16:29    Post subject:
AM, already tried to get a virus to do quantum tunneling? From what I've read there are alot of projects like that going on and its quite realistic that scientists are gonna succeed in the near future.
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AnimalMother




Posts: 12390
Location: England
PostPosted: Tue, 14th Sep 2010 19:37    Post subject:
iconized wrote:

Edit: Found your source: Dragon's Egg


Started reading that plot summary and was worrying for a minute that it'll go into technical detail about the formation of life on a neutron star, but thankfully seems it's more fantasy then having any real basis in science. I've never read it actually, or even heard of it.

But I have had extensive conversations about this with a physicist friend, we were talking about life at different scales, and he was the one who mentioned femto-tech so maybe he had read it.

I like your input by the way, very imaginative. Don't worry I'm not serious about this or anything, after all I realise the possibility is boarding on the impossible, simply because there are relatively few neutron stars in binary clusters. It's all speculation really, which is what I've submitted it as, but in theory life could exist at that scale, which I find fascinating. I may be a scientist but that doesn't mean I have no imagination!

I'll answer some of you other guys later, too busy now!


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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Ronhrin
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PostPosted: Wed, 15th Sep 2010 22:22    Post subject:
Actually, I have "thought" about this concept several times in the past, but it is only highly speculative stuff.

The amount of neutron stars per galaxy also doesn't help that much, the conditions necessary for sub fermionic life to develop would require a far greater perfect balance of variables than the estimate conditions for biological life to appear.

With current knowledge it is indeed a possibility not to be discarded, but not without a high dosage of speculation.

Got to be honest, this is almost a cliche, a few months ago, when I thought seriously about this, a thought came into my mind, "if ever I was to discuss such a subject online with someone who understands it, it would be with AM", and here you are, posting this thread Laughing


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AnimalMother




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PostPosted: Fri, 17th Sep 2010 16:29    Post subject:
Ronhrin, I have to say in terms of scientific discourse you are certainly one of the most capable members of the site and I definitely respect you for this. It takes a certain ability to be able to discuss such diverse disciplines of science as a coherent whole.

But when it comes to metaphysics i.e Theories of reality, consciousness, perception, existance etc. We are certainly on a different page, I would conjecture that this is because of my in depth studies into quantum naturalism and the enlightenment that comes from recognising the infinity of existence in itself. The matter-energy dynamic, space-time duality, M-theory and the true manifestation of consciousness on a quantum level are wholly interrelated, when you recognise this, you start to see things differently.

I won't deny though that it took something special for me to truly conceptualise this as a whole.


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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AnimalMother




Posts: 12390
Location: England
PostPosted: Fri, 17th Sep 2010 16:52    Post subject:
Praetori wrote:
Sorry for being off-topic. AnimalMother, congratulations on your PhD. I wish I would get the chance to talk to you more. I'm a science-based archaeology (archaeobotany/zoology)/physical anthropology student who wants to do a Master's in evolutionary biology (and I secretly still want to study biology!). Basically, everything you do sounds amazing. Please start more threads on biology as well, because I bet I could learn a ton from you and Spankie (who I believe is a biomedical scientist).


Thank you! My thesis was entitled "Epigenetic Manipulation of Hominid Neurogenetic Phylogeny" in case you're interested. Very Happy Basically it was about factors excluding natural selection that have influenced the evolution of the human brain, including how our consciousness manifested, inferring it is essentially a controlled psychedelic experience. It also included conjecture on how we may induce similar artificial beneficial modifications to the human mind.

For example, the rate of hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptic formation in the brains of our ancestors was heavily influenced in an epigenetic way by retroviral neurological infection of a large sub-population of hominids about 200-300 thousand years ago. This is what results in the modern phenomena of 'eidetic memory' which was apparently far more common in our ancestors, but has become highly recessive due to the genetic drift effect of modern human society (i.e. The Neolithic Revolution in ancient Sumer, something you are probably familiar with). Thus the potential exists to use gene therapy with an appropriately engineered vector to give an individual an eidetic/photographic memory! Got a distinction for it actually!

I will definitely start more scientific centric threads in the future, I'm pleasantly surprised with the response to this one. There are some highly intelligent people on this forum, scientifically educated or not. Good luck with your degree! Smile


"Techniclly speaking, Beta-Manboi didnt inject Burberry_Massi with Benz, he injected him with liquid that had air bubbles in it, which caused benz." - House M.D

"Faith without logic is the same as knowledge without understanding; meaningless"
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Ronhrin
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PostPosted: Fri, 17th Sep 2010 17:12    Post subject:
AnimalMother wrote:
Ronhrin, I have to say in terms of scientific discourse you are certainly one of the most capable members of the site and I definitely respect you for this. It takes a certain ability to be able to discuss such diverse disciplines of science as a coherent whole.

But when it comes to metaphysics i.e Theories of reality, consciousness, perception, existance etc. We are certainly on a different page, I would conjecture that this is because of my in depth studies into quantum naturalism and the enlightenment that comes from recognising the infinity of existence in itself. The matter-energy dynamic, space-time duality, M-theory and the true manifestation of consciousness on a quantum level are wholly interrelated, when you recognise this, you start to see things differently.

I won't deny though that it took something special for me to truly conceptualise this as a whole.


You are obviously referring to the other thread, and the thing is, I can certainly understand that your studies may have been more depth than mine and your understanding of the mechanics of reality is fairly superior to mine, but the conclusion that you achieved with your superior understanding is the same as mine, the relation between the known aspects of the universe is interrelated and dependent from one another, I recognize the same conclusion as you.

The main core of what I suggested in the other thread was that there are certain assumptions that we make that cannot be considered as fact, there is an absolute truth about every given aspect of nature, but that truth may be impossible to understand or conceptualize with human intellect.

For example, M Theory, we defined it in such a way because it makes logical/mathematical sense to us, but it relies strongly on assumptions that we make and there is a inherently possibility that those assumptions are wrong!

What I say is that no theory can be considered as something more than a "most likely" possibility of defining nature.

Most of the scientific community accepts the Lambda CDM model as an absolute, when in fact, all we have is best guesses and observations that are being interpreted to fit a worldview, they could, very well, be indicative of a entirely different mechanism that we fail to conceptualize or understand.

There is a great analogy that I use and hopefully you understand what I mean by this, the whole foundation of Meteorology relies on the prediction of future events while considering present information, such as speed, temperature, pressure and composition, and the truth is that although we have a fairly great ability to gather this data, the true dymanics of weather are so far more complex and not properly understood that renders Meteorology as more of a probabilistic calculation than a factual science.

When the data we gather about something so seemingly accessible and close to us such as Earth's weather still proves to be more complex than what our understanding conceptualizes, how can we accept as practically factual the nature of the universe when our ability to gather data is mediocre to say the least.

There is a truth about it (hence my argumentation about logic on the other thread) but we might be unable to access it.

We might be correct or incorrect about our assumptions, that's why I strongly advise against taking assumptions as more than mere possibilities to understand the mechanics of nature.


Last edited by Ronhrin on Fri, 17th Sep 2010 20:11; edited 1 time in total
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Praetori




Posts: 1221
Location: EU
PostPosted: Fri, 17th Sep 2010 18:56    Post subject:
AnimalMother wrote:
Praetori wrote:
Sorry for being off-topic. AnimalMother, congratulations on your PhD. I wish I would get the chance to talk to you more. I'm a science-based archaeology (archaeobotany/zoology)/physical anthropology student who wants to do a Master's in evolutionary biology (and I secretly still want to study biology!). Basically, everything you do sounds amazing. Please start more threads on biology as well, because I bet I could learn a ton from you and Spankie (who I believe is a biomedical scientist).


Thank you! My thesis was entitled "Epigenetic Manipulation of Hominid Neurogenetic Phylogeny" in case you're interested. Very Happy Basically it was about factors excluding natural selection that have influenced the evolution of the human brain, including how our consciousness manifested, inferring it is essentially a controlled psychedelic experience. It also included conjecture on how we may induce similar artificial beneficial modifications to the human mind.

For example, the rate of hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptic formation in the brains of our ancestors was heavily influenced in an epigenetic way by retroviral neurological infection of a large sub-population of hominids about 200-300 thousand years ago. This is what results in the modern phenomena of 'eidetic memory' which was apparently far more common in our ancestors, but has become highly recessive due to the genetic drift effect of modern human society (i.e. The Neolithic Revolution in ancient Sumer, something you are probably familiar with). Thus the potential exists to use gene therapy with an appropriately engineered vector to give an individual an eidetic/photographic memory! Got a distinction for it actually!

I will definitely start more scientific centric threads in the future, I'm pleasantly surprised with the response to this one. There are some highly intelligent people on this forum, scientifically educated or not. Good luck with your degree! Smile


I would actually be very interested to read your thesis. I tried to find it on ScienceDirect and such but, being a thesis, I can't find it anywhere. Sounds extremely interesting. Where are you working after your PhD? Will you go for an academic career?
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