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Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

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Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#31

Post by jdashg »

kstrauser wrote: post #27
anm89 wrote: post #15

This is almost certainly not the strongest in the uninverse based on the sample size of our observations right? This is the strongest we have observed. Still really fascinating.

In cosmology, "in the known universe" is always implicit. If the universe turns out to be flat and infinite, then whatever unlikely thing you can think of happens an infinite number of times in any infinitely small time period you care to mention. Somewhere, in the field of infinity, a whale materialized above a Three Stooges convention and landed on a newly sentient petunia, an infinite number of times since you sta…

"Anything can happen in infinity" only holds if anything can indeed happen, but "doesn't" due to vanishingly small probabilities. Infinite trials still have bounded results. I'm not sure there's a theoretical mechanism that can randomly materialize whales, no matter the unlikelihood!

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#33

Post by yetihehe »

jdashg wrote: post #31
kstrauser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cosmology, "in the known universe" is always implicit. If the universe turns out to be flat and infinite, then whatever unlikely thing you can think of happens an infinite number of times in any infinitely small time period you care to mention. Somewhere, in the field of infinity, a whale materialized above a Three Stooges convention and landed on a newly sentient petunia, an infinite number of times since you sta…

"Anything can happen in infinity" only holds if anything can indeed happen, but "doesn't" due to vanishingly small probabilities. Infinite trials still have bounded results. I'm not sure there's a theoretical mechanism that can randomly materialize whales, no matter the unlikelihood!

There is, it's called quantum fluctuation. It is VERY unlikely a whole whale could materialise this way in a volume of known universe, but not impossible.

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#34

Post by anm89 »

kstrauser wrote: post #30
anm89 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, I appreciate this perspective, I was not aware of that. On the other hand this feels unconvincing to me. The language of science and physics is already obtuse and overly wordy, that's what seperates it from the noise of everyone else talking, because it trades precision for brevity and so it feels reliable . So there are infinite places to draw that line in the sand. Why do we stop right there? Why don't we…

Well, it’s because the more precise words don’t really provide more information. And honestly, we do this exact thing constantly in everyday life without thinking of it as confusing. For example, “Usain Bolt is the fastest man alive”. Sure, that we know of . There might be some kid in Chile that’s .05s faster, but we’ll never know because his life circumstances don’t bring him to our attention. “The Bugatti Chiron is…

If you define man as human and we have open events to let people determine who's fastest, it's totaly reasonable to assume he is actuality the fastest man alive. On the other hand this isn't packaged as some sort of scientific claim and has a lower burden of proof.

I don't think anyone beyond an anecdotal context is explicitly claiming hawking was the smartest and either way, it's not measurable and so is inherently subjective.

Delicious, subjective opinion.

All of these are reasonable statements, it's clear up front that they are subjective statements of opinion or their scopes keep them within validity.

Saying a magnetic field is the strongest in the universe based on a measurement in defined units is drastically different type of claim than the ones you mentioned. In this case it's an invalid claim so we should probably stop saying it.

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#35

Post by dandare »

yetihehe wrote: post #33
jdashg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anything can happen in infinity" only holds if anything can indeed happen, but "doesn't" due to vanishingly small probabilities. Infinite trials still have bounded results. I'm not sure there's a theoretical mechanism that can randomly materialize whales, no matter the unlikelihood!

There is, it's called quantum fluctuation. It is VERY unlikely a whole whale could materialise this way in a volume of known universe, but not impossible.

That is what I heard as well, but I still don't grasp it. Infinities have different sizes too, right? I imagine something like this: the probability of subatomic particle of a functional whale appearing due to quantum fluctuation drops faster and faster with each additional particle, while the additional space of infinite universe increases only with d3. I am no mathematician or physicist though.

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#36

Post by petertodd »

dandare wrote: post #35
yetihehe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is, it's called quantum fluctuation. It is VERY unlikely a whole whale could materialise this way in a volume of known universe, but not impossible.

That is what I heard as well, but I still don't grasp it. Infinities have different sizes too, right? I imagine something like this: the probability of subatomic particle of a functional whale appearing due to quantum fluctuation drops faster and faster with each additional particle, while the additional space of infinite universe increases only with d3. I am no mathematician or physicist though.

I think the intuition you need here is that while the size of the whale is bounded, the size of the infinite universe is not.(1) Thus the argument doesn't work, because the "faster and faster with each additional particle" assumption isn't met.

OTOH, your argument is a good one if we're talking about things like the entire infinite universe undergoing some transformation, provided that the probability of that thing happening somehow diminishes over time.

1) This is by far the best sentence I've ever written on Hacker News. So thank you! :)

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#37

Post by occamschainsaw »

stevespang wrote: post #25

Let's not forget that this neutron star is measured at 5.8 kiloparsec distance from earth which is 18,917.1 light years. Even if observable electromagnetic radiation was traveling at the speed of light, which most is not, we are looking at ancient history, because once this EM reaches earth we are studying phenomena that occurred >189 centuries ago. We don't have a way to know if this star is even still there. Everyt…

The concept of “still there” in time is not very meaningful for cosmology. All of our observations are in ~space-time~ not just space or time.

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#38

Post by curryst »

aaron695 wrote: post #22

I assumed it'd be on earth like the hottest temperature in the Universe. > which is tens of millions of times stronger than what can be generated in Earth laboratories. How hard is this to achieve? Billion $ or impossible? Not sure, but Wiki says labs get higher? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_...

Probably impossible without damaging the earth. The article talks about the magnetic force crushing particles electron fields to be flat or spindle; I would imagine generating a field like that anywhere on Earth would have a chance of flattening the magnetic core of our planet into a disk.

On the funny side, the flat earthers would finally be right.

Re: Astrophysicists detect the strongest magnetic field in the universe

#39

Post by kstrauser »

petertodd wrote: post #36
dandare wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what I heard as well, but I still don't grasp it. Infinities have different sizes too, right? I imagine something like this: the probability of subatomic particle of a functional whale appearing due to quantum fluctuation drops faster and faster with each additional particle, while the additional space of infinite universe increases only with d3. I am no mathematician or physicist though.

I think the intuition you need here is that while the size of the whale is bounded, the size of the infinite universe is not.(1) Thus the argument doesn't work, because the "faster and faster with each additional particle" assumption isn't met. OTOH, your argument is a good one if we're talking about things like the entire infinite universe undergoing some transformation, provided that the probability of that thing h…

That was a very good sentence.
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