jwz - "causing no harm to the fabric of our universe."

jwz - "causing no harm to the fabric of our universe."

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"causing no harm to the fabric of our universe."

[Sat, 5-Aug-2006 4:01 PM]

[	Tags	\|	doomed, mad science, space, the future	]
[	music	\|	Finitribe -- Built In Monster	]

Physicists In Japan Plan To Create New Universe In Lab

A radical new project could permit human beings to create a "baby universe" in a laboratory in Japan. While it sounds like a dangerous undertaking, the physicists involved believe that if the project is successful, the space-time around a tiny point within our universe will be distorted in such a way that it will begin to form a new superfluid space, and eventually break off, separate in all respects from our experience of space and time, causing no harm to the fabric of our universe.
"[T]he baby universe has its own space-time and, as this inflates, the pressure from the true vacuum outside its walls continues to constrain it. As these forces compete, the growing baby universe is forced to bubble out from our space-time until its only connection to us is through a narrow space-time tunnel called a wormhole..."
Eventually, the "umbilical" connection between our space-time and the baby universe would be effectively cut, and the baby universe would enter into its own unique process of unending expansion. From our perspective, it would be lost inside a microscopic "black hole", which will not appear to expand into our space-time. Hawking radiation will be emitted and the tiny black hole will "evaporate", sealing the separation between the two universes.

Previously.

link

Comments:

From:

boggyb
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:08 PM (UTC)

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That sounds like an excuse to blow up the universe.

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From:

ammutbite
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:13 PM (UTC)

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I am somehow not reassured in the least by the hollow sounding promise to "cause no harm".
On the other hand,it would make for a great "I Love Lucy" episode.

(scene- destruction of space-time continuum)
Desi: Lucy, you have some splainin to do...
Lucy: Waaaah!

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

cliph
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:41 PM (UTC)

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Sometimes I wish I could "green thumb" an LJ comment à la Digg and this would be one of those.

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From:

duskwuff
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 5:21 AM (UTC)

You mean like this?

(Link)

see subject

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From:

cliph
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 11:01 AM (UTC)

Re: You mean like this?

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Boy is my face red, and square.

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From:

brutsid
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:22 PM (UTC)

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Universes are recursive!

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From:

imperator_mei
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:39 PM (UTC)

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Yeah, I did that back in 1995. There was this completely separate universe I created in my living room. The experiment was fully successful, so much so that this parallel universe is now completely undetectable from this one.

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From:

imperator_mei
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:40 PM (UTC)

Also...

(Link)

Lisa: "I created Lutherans!"

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

rapier1
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:49 PM (UTC)

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AKIRA!

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From:

dixieflatline
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:16 AM (UTC)

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If this leads to me getting one of those awesome bikes, I could really care less about anything else.

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From:

upandabove
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:52 PM (UTC)

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Holy shit o.O I hope this isn't true :S Shit like this always happens in sci fi movies and the universe ALWAYS ends.

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From:

autodidactic
Sat, 5-Aug-2006 11:58 PM (UTC)

(Link)

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From:

dr_wrebagzhoe
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:03 AM (UTC)

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Oh, well. It's been nice...

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From:

dariens_haircut
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:20 AM (UTC)

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Assuming, just for a second, that this experiment is successful and, indeed, does not destroy our space-time; will the eventual inhabitants of this new universe, assuming that there are any, come to visualize its creation as some sort of "big bang"? Or will they think it was created by some big invisible man in the sky who is white and has a long beard?

Surely, they will never guess that their universe was created by scientists in a previously existing universe.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

gytterberg
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:36 AM (UTC)

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He'd probably be yellow and clean shaven, actually. His long coat would be white.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From:

dariens_haircut
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:53 AM (UTC)

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Ah, good point. One can only imagine what sort of porn will be developed in this new universe. It will probably make sh*tting d*ckn*pples look positively normal.

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From:

korgmeister
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 3:02 AM (UTC)

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I think this is the true motivation behind the experiment - to create a universe where tentacle rape demons actually exist.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From:

205guy
Tue, 8-Aug-2006 1:39 AM (UTC)

Lost in transcription

(Link)

The creator of our universe was probably also yellow and clean shaven, actually, with a long white coat. Generations of medieval monks transcribing his description and depiction gradually morphed him into the image we know. That would explain the recursivity.

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From:

sir_bissel
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 1:46 AM (UTC)

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...So what I'm getting from this is we should make sure the scientists have fire crackers and white beards when they do this?

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From:

glapaloopscap
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:21 AM (UTC)

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Anyone else reminded of Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan?

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From:

omni_ferret
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 2:49 AM (UTC)

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The first thing that came to mind was actually The Authority's shiftship.

Schild's Ladder does ring a bell, yes; wow, nice site.

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From:

korgmeister
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 3:01 AM (UTC)

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Yes, that and 'Time' by Stephen Baxter.

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From:

gfish
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 3:28 AM (UTC)

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And the recent _Learning the World_ by Ken MacLeod...

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From:

mackys
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 4:35 AM (UTC)

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I'm going out of my mind trying to find a reference to a sci fi story I read with exactly this plot. I think I read it in a _Year's Best Sci Fi_ anthology but I can't remember which. I thought it was called "Fiat Lux" but there are a million stories called "Fiat Lux." Or maybe that's not the title.

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From:

citizen905
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 2:19 PM (UTC)

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This is essentially the plot of Cosm by Gregory Benford.

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From:

abates
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 12:41 AM (UTC)

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The bits that fill me with confidence are "if the project is successful" and "The project takes as its starting point two basic theories".

I know they're pretty sound theories, but then so was the idea that the Sun revolved around the Earth, at the time...

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

temujin9
Mon, 7-Aug-2006 5:04 AM (UTC)

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In particular, the project relies on a magnetic monopole, which has yet to be found and which are supposed to be quite rare.

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From:

mjgardner
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 1:12 AM (UTC)

Forget all the hoo-hah about human cloning

(Link)

If this isn't "playing God" I don't know what is.

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From:

mc_kingfish
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 1:33 AM (UTC)

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What the hell are you talking about, Beavis.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

hobbitluvin
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 3:30 AM (UTC)

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Simpsons did it.

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From:

xrayspx
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 5:57 AM (UTC)

One vote for "No"

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I assume everyone reads JWZ's blog, including Japanese people, so I will use the forum to register my No vote.

Please Don't.

Honestly, I think that any experiment with a >0 chance of erasing everything should be approved by everyone before we do it. Kind of like how they didn't really know what atomic weapons would do to the atmosphere before they actually set one off. "whoops" is not appropriate here.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

ak_47
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 2:19 PM (UTC)

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So, summing it all up, they will create something that lasts for tiniest amount of time and then "it" will just "evaporate" without any detectable trace. Meanwhile, clever Japanese physicist will fully enjoy their fat grants subsidized by ignoramus taxpayer. That's what I call being smart!

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

1423
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 2:57 PM (UTC)

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Can we choose what (or who) to put in the new universe before we seal it?

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

ahruman
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 3:31 PM (UTC)

(Link)

So, all they need to do is manipulate the (hypothetical) Higgs field and apply a (hypothetical) monopole.

Right. Carry on, then.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

dzm6
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 5:18 PM (UTC)

Dear Japanese People...

(Link)

Having read the comments I'm thinking the general message is:

Dear Japanese People;

Please stop exploring your God-like powers to create and destroy. It seems to really freak everybody else out.

Thanks!

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

1eyedkunt
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 7:56 PM (UTC)

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funny - i often like to think that maybe we're microscopic organisms in some sort of unremarkable test-tube universe in the high-school science laboratory of a race of Very Large Beings, and that our entire universe exists in a matter of days for them.

i like it that we're creating our own mini universes.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:

exiledbear
Sun, 6-Aug-2006 11:16 PM (UTC)

Here's the real article without the hype and fluff

(Link)

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9604030

Although, the fluff is easier to read and understand. From what I gather from the article, they've found a new interesting solution from the GR equations, one that says, if I'm reading them right, that stable monopoles are possible under certain conditions.

It looks like they did computer simulations only. This is only theory at the moment, I suspect it would take a very expensive particle accelerator to try to see if this theory is correct or not. Something like the Cern LHC, perhaps.

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