Nov 25, 2022 07:12 PM
Lab-grown black hole may prove Stephen Hawking's most challenging theory right
https://www.livescience.com/synthetic-el...prediction
INTRO: Scientists have created a lab-grown black hole analog to test one of Stephen Hawking's most famous theories — and it behaves just how he predicted.
The experiment, created by using a single-file chain of atoms to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, has added further evidence to Hawking's theory that black holes should emit a faint glow of radiation from virtual particles randomly popping into existence near their boundaries. What's more, the researchers found that most of the light particles, or photons, should be produced around the cosmic monsters' edges. The team published their findings Nov. 8 in the journal Physical Review Research... (MORE - details)
Be thankful for an out-of-equilibrium Universe
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...uilibrium/
INTRO: You couldn’t make the Universe we have today if everything were always the same. Although many philosophically favored the idea that the Universe was static and unchanging — an idea popularized in the 20th century as the Steady-State Theory — such a Universe would look vastly different than our own. Without an early, hot, dense, and more uniform past, our Universe couldn’t have expanded, cooled, gravitated, and evolved to give us what we have today: a cosmos where galaxies, stars, planets, and even life not only all exist, but appear to be quite abundant.
The reason is simple: the Universe isn’t in equilibrium. Equilibrium, which occurs when any physical system reaches its most stable state, is the enemy of change. Sure, in order to perform mechanical work, you need free energy, and that requires an energy-liberating transition of some sort. But there’s an even more fundamental problem than extracting energy: without beginning from a hot, dense state in the distant past, and then cooling and falling out-of-equilibrium, the Universe we see today wouldn’t even be possible.
Transitioning from unstable, higher-energy states to more stable, lower-energy ones is exactly the process that helped create the Universe as we know it. In many ways, it’s the ultimate “fall from grace” in our cosmic history, and without it, we couldn’t exist. Here’s why.
When rain falls in a region rich in mountainous terrain, it can wind up in many differing locations. The rain that isn’t absorbed by the ground can either slide down slopes, come to rest atop peaks or in areas that are lower than the rest of their surroundings, or head into the lowest-lying area of all: the river at the valley’s floor.
The simplest way to imagine equilibrium is to think about the terrain around you on Earth. When it rains, particularly when there’s a torrential downpour, where does the water wind up?
If the terrain is completely flat, it winds up everywhere, equally, with no bias toward one place or another. With the exception of small depressions that may form and lead to puddles — slight imperfections that represent slightly more stable, lower-energy states — the entire terrain represents an equilibrium condition.
If the terrain is uneven, though, whether hilly, mountainous, or containing a plateau, some locations will be more favorable than others for rain to pool and collect. Wherever you have a slope, the rain will travel down that slope until it reaches a flat area where it can collect. In all locations where the rain pools, you’ll have a condition that looks a lot like equilibrium, but looks can be deceiving.
The rugged and varied terrain of Austria includes mountains, plateaus, hills, valleys, and low-lying flat areas. When it precipitates, there are many locations where rain and snow will pool. Not all of it will wind up in the lowest-lying valley, which corresponds to the ground state.
For example, let’s consider the following “terrain,” above. When it rains, there are multiple different places where the rain can collect, and they fall into three categories... (MORE - details)
https://www.livescience.com/synthetic-el...prediction
INTRO: Scientists have created a lab-grown black hole analog to test one of Stephen Hawking's most famous theories — and it behaves just how he predicted.
The experiment, created by using a single-file chain of atoms to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, has added further evidence to Hawking's theory that black holes should emit a faint glow of radiation from virtual particles randomly popping into existence near their boundaries. What's more, the researchers found that most of the light particles, or photons, should be produced around the cosmic monsters' edges. The team published their findings Nov. 8 in the journal Physical Review Research... (MORE - details)
Be thankful for an out-of-equilibrium Universe
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...uilibrium/
INTRO: You couldn’t make the Universe we have today if everything were always the same. Although many philosophically favored the idea that the Universe was static and unchanging — an idea popularized in the 20th century as the Steady-State Theory — such a Universe would look vastly different than our own. Without an early, hot, dense, and more uniform past, our Universe couldn’t have expanded, cooled, gravitated, and evolved to give us what we have today: a cosmos where galaxies, stars, planets, and even life not only all exist, but appear to be quite abundant.
The reason is simple: the Universe isn’t in equilibrium. Equilibrium, which occurs when any physical system reaches its most stable state, is the enemy of change. Sure, in order to perform mechanical work, you need free energy, and that requires an energy-liberating transition of some sort. But there’s an even more fundamental problem than extracting energy: without beginning from a hot, dense state in the distant past, and then cooling and falling out-of-equilibrium, the Universe we see today wouldn’t even be possible.
Transitioning from unstable, higher-energy states to more stable, lower-energy ones is exactly the process that helped create the Universe as we know it. In many ways, it’s the ultimate “fall from grace” in our cosmic history, and without it, we couldn’t exist. Here’s why.
When rain falls in a region rich in mountainous terrain, it can wind up in many differing locations. The rain that isn’t absorbed by the ground can either slide down slopes, come to rest atop peaks or in areas that are lower than the rest of their surroundings, or head into the lowest-lying area of all: the river at the valley’s floor.
The simplest way to imagine equilibrium is to think about the terrain around you on Earth. When it rains, particularly when there’s a torrential downpour, where does the water wind up?
If the terrain is completely flat, it winds up everywhere, equally, with no bias toward one place or another. With the exception of small depressions that may form and lead to puddles — slight imperfections that represent slightly more stable, lower-energy states — the entire terrain represents an equilibrium condition.
If the terrain is uneven, though, whether hilly, mountainous, or containing a plateau, some locations will be more favorable than others for rain to pool and collect. Wherever you have a slope, the rain will travel down that slope until it reaches a flat area where it can collect. In all locations where the rain pools, you’ll have a condition that looks a lot like equilibrium, but looks can be deceiving.
The rugged and varied terrain of Austria includes mountains, plateaus, hills, valleys, and low-lying flat areas. When it precipitates, there are many locations where rain and snow will pool. Not all of it will wind up in the lowest-lying valley, which corresponds to the ground state.
For example, let’s consider the following “terrain,” above. When it rains, there are multiple different places where the rain can collect, and they fall into three categories... (MORE - details)