/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9677714]

What if experiments testing deep, low level behavior of the universe aren't merely discovering this stranger and stranger behavior the deeper you go, but causing it by "stress testing" the universe more than it normally is, and we might break it by doing the wrong experiment some day?

Is this a topic anyone has even thought of and has a decent refutation to?

[Anonymous No.9677717]

>>9677714
What if it's like a soap bubble and if we do the wrong experiment someday we can pop it. How do we know it's this resilient thing that can withstand everything we throw at it?

[Anonymous No.9677721]

>>9677717
I hate that people think our universe is some kind of bubble. Assuming we're basing this off the Big Bang Theory, why would our universe have a physical boundary?

[Anonymous No.9677723]

>>9677721
I didn't mean a literal spherically shaped bubble or anything about a boundary. I meant maybe it's abstractly fragile.

[Anonymous No.9677734]

>>9677723
What is? Our universe? How so? The laws of physics have stood up to every theory we've thrown at them (that's why they're 'laws'). I don't think you can "break" the universe. We've got a long way to go, but we have a pretty good basic model of how things work, just not why. Maybe I just don't understand the question as a total, but I don't know how you can "stress" the universe to the point where you cause any sort of collapse. We're fairly insignificant on the grand scale that is the universe.

[Anonymous No.9677736]

>>9677723
>>9677714

Stephen Baxter wrote a short story along these lines in his collection Phase Space. A scientist suspected that the universe was an illusion, so he sent a laser beam to bounce of a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. The idea was to suddenly greatly increase the volume of space that had to be simulated, and thus overload the simulation machinery, forcing our keepers to drop the charade and show themselves to us properly.

That's a great collection. All the stories are loosely linked but set in different versions of reality with different truths underlying them.

[Anonymous No.9677741]

>>9677714
We can never stress test universe to any meaningful extent compared to natural phenomena like black holes and magnetars and whatnot... and due to fundamental laws of physics you cant trigger any large scale effects without MASSIVE energy input unless universe is some kind of simulation with serious faults, and that is extremely unlikely.

[Anonymous No.9677742]

>>9677734
I'm not saying it is, I'm asking if this is a topic people have studied or whether it has a name. Whether there is any precedent in this area of thought. I'm just asking a question and whether anyone else has considered it or refuted it as an idea

>>9677736
I'll go read that anon, thanks for the post

[Anonymous No.9677744]

>>9677741
What I'm saying is, how do we know that large phenomenon are the stress testers? We know they exist and nothing bad happens. What if it's weird small stuff like building some new particle accelerator that all of a sudden causes something weird we don't understand yet that destroys the universe or something. Is this an area of study?

[Anonymous No.9677748]

>>9677744
Yes, the study of physics. How would a particle accelerator destroy the universe? Think in terms of physics. What can we do with a particle accelerator that doesn't spread occur naturally in nature? A particle accelerator is just making particles move really fast. That happens every second of every minute of every hour of every day, etc. And has been happening since the beginning our our universe.

[Anonymous No.9677762]

>>9677714
It is a topic people have thought of. Google "false vacuum."

That being said, much higher energy levels are reached by nature during events such as hypernovas and neutron star collisions; and those events haven't "broken the universe." I wouldn't worry about it, buddy.

[Anonymous No.9677795]

>>9677762
Thanks anon I think I've heard of that before now that you mention it.