> “In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.”
Well, maybe someone could imagine it, otherwise, all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed..
Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
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Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#12Then there are neutrons that are like protons with just a little bit more. It's sort of like infinity + 1. Is it bigger or is it equal? (I know, infinity is not a number, really)
Wat?
Neutrons are (primarily) UDD while protons are (primarily) UUD. Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#13Is it surprising there are signs of the heavy quarks? The diagrams that include them have tiny but nonzero values. Hearken back to Hitchhiker's - it is not impossible, just highly improbable.
No, it's not surprising theoretically, but experimentally it's still quite an achievement to be able to spot even these rare events.
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#14Then there are neutrons that are like protons with just a little bit more. It's sort of like infinity + 1. Is it bigger or is it equal? (I know, infinity is not a number, really)
Huh? With a little bit more what? Complexity? I expected that they would be pretty much the same except with a different mix of the different quarks and such (and also, unstable without having a nucleus to be a part of, and with a neutral charge)
I've heard neutrons described as a union of a proton and an electron based on masses. The reality is probably much more complex.
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#15> “In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.” Well, maybe someone could imagine it, otherwise, all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed..
Just needs a little abstraction- and not the leaky variety
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#16Had to re-read the Title for a sec. I thought it was referring to Proton, the compatibility layer software.
And here I was thinking it was about Proton, the Mail/Calendar/VPN/Cloud Storage/PM/etc.
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#17> “In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.” Well, maybe someone could imagine it, otherwise, all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed..
Maybe all the other instances crashed, but we got lucky and get to apply the anthropic principle.
The real question is, are we running on bare metal, in a VM, or in a container?
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#18I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article.
So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes?
Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person).
my question is... why? why must protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron? why not a charge of +1.8e, or +3e, or 0.1666e, etc? Certainly it is convenient that a proton and electron complement each other, but what makes that the case? Does this question even make sense?
so, there's a concept of a "positron", which I can understand - of course it has charge +e, it is the "opposite" of an electron. it is an anti-electron. at least that makes some kind of sense. but a proton is made up of this complex soup of other elementary particles following all these crazy rules, and yet it also ends up being exactly +e.
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? With a little bit more what? Complexity? I expected that they would be pretty much the same except with a different mix of the different quarks and such (and also, unstable without having a nucleus to be a part of, and with a neutral charge)
I've heard neutrons described as a union of a proton and an electron based on masses. The reality is probably much more complex.
Certainly when a free neutron decays it releases a proton and an electron, but also (probably, hypothetically) an antineutrino.
Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’
#20> “In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.” Well, maybe someone could imagine it, otherwise, all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed..
Maybe all the other instances crashed, but we got lucky and get to apply the anthropic principle. The real question is, are we running on bare metal, in a VM, or in a container?
> The real question is, are we running on bare metal, in a VM, or in a container?
We can't be running on the bare hardware; there is clearly an OS enforcing the hardware abstraction (e.g. every electron is identical).
But is each universe its own process? What happens if you fork()?