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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Science For Brendan

Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 9:56 AM

Not one billion, but ten billion:

It is not the case that the Universe is only filled with photons (look around the room). And it is not the case that 1/2 the Universe is matter and the other half is anti-matter (there would be alot of explosions).

Therefore, some mechanism produced more matter particle than anti-matter particles. How strong was this asymmetry? We can't go back in time and count the number of matter/anti-matter pairs, but we can count the number of cosmic background photons that remain after the annihilations. That counting yields a value of 1 matter particle for every 1010 photons, which means the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter was only 1 part in 10,000,000,000.

This means that for every 10,000,000,000 anti-matter particles there are 10,000,000,001 matter particles, an asymmetry of 1 particle out of 10 billion. And the endresult is that every 10 billion matter/anti-matter pairs annihilated each other leaving behind 1 matter particle and 10 billion photons that make up the cosmic background radiation, the echo of the Big Bang we measure today. This ratio of matter to photons is called the baryon number.

Here's Zizek's interpretation of this weird and mysterious extra particle:

That one particle, that disturbance in a divine order of ten billion photons, is responsible for the whole magic show.

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I just watched all those Bing commercials posted above.

The ones where people start free-associating tangentially related concepts, spouting loud seemingly nonsensical streams of words of questionable informational value and little to no narrative to tie it all together.

Charles Mudede, sometimes reading your work feels like watching those Bing commercials.

Half the time is spent scratching my head and waiting for some punchline to redeem the piece.

Posted by Ackham needs more coffee on June 23, 2009 at 10:02 AM

yes we can call it Mudede's constant, that is, there is a 1/10000000 chance any thing he says about science, history, anything even partially objective, makes sense.

Now as to the universe.

How did we get something from nothing?

Writing ever more complex and surprising origination theories seems to be not that much better than saying "well there's this thing we can't understand called God and ....."

it's maybe like only 1/10 000 000 the better....

Posted by PC on June 23, 2009 at 10:09 AM

where's your god NOW?

Posted by Max Solomon on June 23, 2009 at 10:30 AM

Watching Zizek talk science is like watching those New Guinea tribesman talk about Coke bottles.

Posted by Fnarf

on June 23, 2009 at 10:34 AM

Why do you discriminate against dark matter so?

Just because a dark matter photon isn't pearly white doesn't mean it doesn't have feelings.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on June 23, 2009 at 11:06 AM

oh philosophers, where would you be without quantum mechanics? You can mix it into any meaningless theory of Life, the Universe, and Everything and you will never be challenged because people have this idea that things they don't understand must be profound.

Posted by matt! on June 23, 2009 at 11:24 AM

@6 is why I hate Mudede's posts. People like Mudede are the reason why laypeople think that philosophy as a field is just a collection of empty pseudointellectual bullshit. Mudede is to honest philosophy what beefnecked powertripping cops are to honest law enforcement.

Posted by cephi on June 23, 2009 at 12:07 PM

Umm... OK, I haven't been up to date on particle physics research since college, but matter/anti-matter annihilation is NOT the only source of photons. Any accelerating charged particle can produce them. The real universe asymmetry comes from spin, and a decade ago my professor, one of the discoverers of the Top quark, didn't have an explanation.

Can you go learn something about Feynman diagrams and explain why any of this makes the remotest sense?

Posted by Schmooze on June 23, 2009 at 3:22 PM