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Justin Gallagher

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Blog Entries posted by Justin Gallagher

  1. Justin Gallagher
    In this Two Part Blog Series, we will be looking at how the universe from the big bang, can exist out of nothing.

    According to the First Law of Thermodynamics, nothing in the Universe (i.e., matter or energy) can pop into existence from nothing. All of the scientific evidence points to that conclusion. So, the Universe could not have popped into existence before the alleged “big bang†(an event which we do not endorse). Therefore, God must have created the Universe.

    One of the popular rebuttals by the atheistic community is that quantum mechanics could have created the Universe. In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed the idea of mass-energy equivalence, resulting in the famous equation, E = mc^2. We now know that matter can be converted to energy, and energy to matter. However, energy and mass are conserved, in keeping with the First Law. In the words of the famous evolutionary astronomer, Robert Jastrow, “The principle of the conservation of matter and energy…states that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy, but the total amount of all matter and energy in the Universe must remain unchanged forever†(1977). The idea of matter-energy conversion led one physicist to postulate, in essence, that the cosmic egg that exploded billions of years ago in the alleged “big bangâ€â€”commencing the “creation†of the Universe—could have come into existence as an energy-to-matter conversion.

    If this is true then one just asks: “Where did the energy come from?â€
    Energy could not have popped into existence without violating the First Law of Thermodynamics. So in reality, when scientists argue that quantum mechanics creates something from nothing, they do not really mean “nothing.†The problem of how everything got here is still present. The matter generated in quantum theory is from a vacuum that is not void.

    Stephen Hawking can help put some light on this...




    From this you can easily see how something can come from "Nothing". To give a quick example, you can get the Number "0" If you add "1" and "-1".

    So what could this negative energy be. There are many ideas with what it could be. Some say it is anti-matter, some say it is the theroetical dark energy, while others say that the Big Bang produced a universe that travels in the oppisopte directing in the fourth Dimension, as neh297 showed us in his blog "Is There a Parallel Universe Moving Backwards in Time?".

    Stay tuned for Part 2 as we give this idea of something from nothing some meat on its bones with mathmatics.
  2. Justin Gallagher

    Spin Foam!!!

    By Justin Gallagher,

    Hopefully you have read the Quantum Foam, blog, if not, that is fine.

    Commence the melting of your brains.

    Are ya ready?

    In physics, a spinfoam or spin foam is a topological structure made out of two-dimensional faces that represents one of the configurations that must be summed to obtain a Feynman's path integral (functional integration) description of quantum gravity. It is closely related to loop quantum gravity.
    Loop Quantum Gravity has a covariant formulation that, at present, provides the best formulation of the dynamics of the theory of Quantum Gravity. This is a Quantum Field Theory where the invariance under diffeomorphisms of general relativity is implemented. The resulting path integral represents a sum over all the possible configuration of the geometry, coded in the spinfoam. A spin network is defined as a diagram (like the Feynman diagram) that makes a basis of connections between the elements of a differentiable manifold for the Hilbert spaces defined over them. Spin networks provide a representation for computations of amplitudes between two different hypersurfaces of the manifold. Any evolution of spin network provides a spin foam over a manifold of one dimension higher than the dimensions of the corresponding spin network.

    A.K.A. Spin foam may be viewed as a quantum history.



    Spin networks provide a language to describe quantum geometry of space. Spin foam does the same job on spacetime. A spin network is a one-dimensional graph, together with labels on its vertices and edges which encodes aspects of a spatial geometry.

    Spacetime is considered as a superposition of spin foams, which is a generalized Feynman diagram where instead of a graph we use a higher-dimensional complex. In topology this sort of space is called a 2-complex. A spin foam is a particular type of 2-complex, together with labels for vertices, edges and faces. The boundary of a spin foam is a spin network, just as in the theory of manifolds, where the boundary of an n-manifold is an (n-1)-manifold.

    In Loop Quantum Gravity, the present Spinfoam Theory has been inspired by the work of Ponzano-Regge model. The concept of a spin foam, although not called that at the time, was introduced in the paper "A Step Toward Pregeometry I: Ponzano-Regge Spin Networks and the Origin of Spacetime Structure in Four Dimensions" by Norman J. LaFave. In this paper, the concept of creating sandwiches of 4-geometry (and local time scale) from spin networks is described, along with the connection of these spin 4-geometry sandwiches to form paths of spin networks connecting given spin network boundaries (spin foams). Quantization of the structure leads to a generalized Feynman path integral over connected paths of spin networks between spin network boundaries. This paper goes beyond much of the later work by showing how 4-geometry is already present in the seemingly three dimensional spin networks, how local time scales occur, and how the field equations and conservation laws are generated by simple consistency requirements.

    The partition function for a spin foam model is, in general...


  4. Justin Gallagher
    Hopefully, anyone who is reading this understands the basic concept behind walking. If not, then google it because I will not cover that topic. What I am here for is to talk about the physic defying ways to travel in Team Fortress 2, a video game created by Valve Software. The game includes nine playable characters, but today we will be focusing on only one class, the Scout.


    The Scout is fast-talking, cocky, baseball fan and street runner from Boston, Massachusetts. He is a fast, agile character, armed with a scattergun, a pistol and an aluminum baseball bat. What is interesting about the Scout is that he is capable of performing the infamous Double Jump, A move so legendary, so bold, that is has been seen in many other video games. The Double Jump defys Newton's First Law of Motion: When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force. In this case, the Scout says screw it and jumps while in midair without the aid of an external force. When you equip the scout with a baseball bat called the the Atomizer, it magically gives him the ability to triple Jump. If you give him a pisol called the Winger, He now can jump 25% higher. This absolutely makes no sense when you try to even comprehend it. However, it gets a little better. In the Game there is a shotgun called the Force Of Nature. Its recoil is so unbelievably god-like that when you shoot it in mid air, it propels the scout in a direction that is opposite of the shot, Thus Following Newtons Third Law of Motion: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body. Here is an interesting video to see it in action:



    As you can see, the scout does not like to follow all of the rules that governs our universe, however, due to this, its allows for some very interesting game play.
  5. Justin Gallagher
    If you have seen part 1, then you may know where I will be getting some of my information down. This time we will be talking about the use of wheel barrows. The wheelbarrow is designed to distribute the weight of its load between the wheel and the operator so enabling the convenient carriage of heavier and bulkier loads than would be possible were the weight carried entirely by the operator. Because of the design we can use the equation Torque=FL.

    The wheel barrows can carry 6 planks, with each being 6.8kg, that is a total of 40.8kg. If that force is applied .3 meters away from the fulcrum, and the force to exerted by the user is .75 m away from the fulcrum. That means that the 40.8 kg which excerts a force of 400.25 N will only require 160.1 N to lift. If we want to find the work with this force and Part 1's Distances, we find that in the x-plane, we use about the same force, so we exert the same 60000 joules, but now in the y-plane, we only exert 16010 joules. A significant difference than from part 1, and this allows twice as many boards.

    Due to this difference, I mainly used wheel barrows to carry the 90 planks down the trail. Next time we will look at Sledge hammers.

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