20 Subatomic Stories: Is the Planck length really the smallest? 

is 6 inches a good planck length?

Measure twice, cut once

@@mellowfellow6816 that's exactly what my parents thought too, but then they changed their minds when my brother was born

I have a ruler that shows light distance... Got it through V Sauce Curiosity box.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_Y8HgmOoLCM.html

Yes, this was a great question and a superb reply. Really enjoyed this and I will check out the links too.

hello

12 zorblats! Come on man, be precise!

I wonder what civilization came out with zorblats units and how precise they have to be to measure 1/12 of Planck time. Or it may be the exact opposite, they are so underdeveloped that they use a 12 scale factor as some imperial units, and so they must not even know what they are doing!

@@karellen00 Perhaps they count in base 12, which to some extent would be simpler than base 10, if we were to start from scratch? Or perhaps they name powers of their whatever base (let's say 10) in multiples of 5, and have 10 of them, so rather than having milli/micro/nano etc. they have 10^-5 = "kan", 10^-10 = "lub", ... ,10^-45 = "zor", and a "blat" is 4.5 seconds?

@@RichardKMEvason zorTblats!

12. 12 Zzorblats to the plank. Gotta be 12. Maybe even more.

I weep for the future

I am glad that there is so many people that like technical stuff like this!

It's not the maths - it's the physics. The quantum of action represented by Planck's constant gets us "to those values"; going further (or smaller/shorter/more energetic) is not just a question of maths (though it will probably require a different mathematical approach from current ones).

@Brandon Piperjack I'm not sure what you mean - energy measured at a given length? It is true that (for example) the Bekenstein bound is expressed in terms of (amongst other things) Planck's constant and it is related to the entropic content of black holes, and it is true that by combining (in various ways) Planck units you can get to the same limit conditions that would give rise to a Schwarzschild black hole. However, the point I was trying to make is that it's not the mathematical structure that breaks down (unlike for example in calculating "curvature of space-time in a black hole singularity" under GR); it's the actual physical interpretation of the numbers that no longer makes sense: QM formulated in terms of Planck's constant describes nonsense "beyond the Planck units" because what it describes contradicts the (physical) assumptions on which the theory itself is based.

@Brandon Piperjack Nothing to forgive! This may be interesting to read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_particle (and the linked article on the "Black Hole Electron"). And this: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/273888/can-a-photon-have-a-wavelength-less-than-the-planck-length/273902

@@dlevi67 Does it make sense to say that it is the shortest possible length, then, if we don't have a theory that accounts for anything shorter? I'm not trying to be pedantic. It's just a philosophical question that arose while I was wondering how it is that I have heard physicists say this.

@@bsadewitz No, you are not being pedantic at all - the 'problem' is a very interesting one, actually: the theory breaks down at the Planck length - as such, it's the shortest meaningful length (or better, distance) that the theory (QM + SR) can describe for particles with mass/energy. We don't have a better theory, but neither do we have a reason to think that space(-time) is quantised at the Planck length (i.e. there is a physical meaning to it). This is partly because some of the other Planck units (e.g. mass) do not seem to represent a meaningful 'limit', and partly because there is some evidence that space is _not_ quantised. You may also find the discussion here interesting: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/185939/is-the-planck-length-the-smallest-length-that-exists-in-the-universe-or-is-it-th

Simple yet elegant. Well done

😆

Don't put too much energy in it or you might not get away

You must be too sure about something else.

Brilliant. Good job there.

@Roger Dodger 2.9x10^52 Zortblats per Dog Year.

If it helps Spin of Indivisible Particle : Watch... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nnkvoIHztPw.html

Where did the Time Crystal one fit in? That was at least funny.

@@drdon5205 Watch only if hav'nt earlier. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nnkvoIHztPw.html

How about .... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nnkvoIHztPw.html

If Einstein's GR only works in the macro world, how do we know microscopic black holes exist? One of the alleged difficulties of producing a so-called quantum gravity theory is due to the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. To probe ever tinier distances, we need ever greater energies. The problem is that if you concentrate too much mass in a tiny space, the gravity of such a space becomes so huge that black holes form, making the measurement impossible. This is my question. How do we know that a huge energy allocated to a tiny subatomic region of space would create a black hole, since there is no quantum gravity theory to go by? How do scientists know, what are they basing this idea on, to say that a huge subatomic concentration of energy would lead to a microscopic black hole?

Well he might be sorta funny must mostly he's dead serious,his voice,his face,everything.

@@loganwolv3393 Someone is not getting all the jokes :P

Or Dr. Becky

@@loganwolv3393 he has a very dry sense of humor, but I get a good lol once or twice per episode.

@@LeoStaley So easy to miss and hard to appriciate huh? i see.

That seems largely accurate as a heuristic at least baring a few additional complexities for example as atoms get larger the odds that a number of nucleons, typically Helium 4 for some reason perhaps as it is both a local minimum and acts as a boson which means the Pauli exclusion principal need not apply?, will be able to quantum tunnel out of a nucleus. Note the distinction typically as other nuclear atomic configurations can tunnel out of a nucleus it is just orders of magnitude less likely to happen. Probabilistically this effect ignores energy barriers so you need to think of the latch as somewhat "leaky" due to the whole quantum tunneling effect But yes you can think of the energy difference between the reactants and the products as getting released or absorbed for the reaction to take place and those energy sources are generally based on whether the strong nuclear force or electromagnetic force is dominant.

And further I'm adding with this; stars tends to fusion elements that lighter than iron, up to iron; and there is no more energy left to generate with fusion so we require more energy to create heavier elements. But heavier radioactive elements eventually decays into lead and stops there. Shouldn't it decay more keep giving energy untill it hits to iron again? I thought subatomic particles are lazy and they all tend to stay on lower possible hikikomori energy just like me.

@@Haplo-san I think I can answer that, although not at the deepest level. There are many nuclei that are stable even though they don't have the minimum energy like that of iron. This really goes for most of the stuff you see around you, stable oxygen (lighter than iron), stable gold (heavier than iron). They all have energy, but we don't observe that this energy likes to come out on its own. I hope you are familiar with the nuclide chart, with numbers of protons on one axis and numbers of neutrons on the other axis. There is a squiggly line going roughly diagonally that represents stable combinations of protons and neutrons. Typically there's only one or a few stable isotopes for each chemical element (proton count). You can imagine the nuclide chart also in 3D, where each cell stands as a column, protruding out from the chart with a height indicating how much energy is bound up in the nucleus represented by that cell. Then you'll see a kind of "valley", with the line of stability going down the middle. The sides of this valley can be quite steep, but the valley itself also goes gently uphill as you move towards the heavier nuclei. It also goes uphill towards the lighter elements, where it becomes very steep. In a real valley, a boulder can tumble down towards the lowest point, but often they'll get stuck in some impediment along the way, a local minimum. Equivalently, in the nuclide chart, an unstable heavy nucleus can undergo the various decay modes, moving it to a lower energy state, but the decay chain will typically get stuck in a local minimum. We can make a nucleus unstable by bombarding the material with neutrons and hoping that you get a "direct hit". In some situations, like with Thorium, that can nudge the nucleus into another cell in the chart where the energy bound up in the nucleus becomes more easily accessible, hence the interest in Thorium for energy. (Here I'm ignoring that Thorium is very slightly radioactive, for most practical purposes it's stable.) To spell it out, we are adding a small amount of energy to lift the nucleus out of the local minimum, so it can follow another decay path that may move it closer to the global minimum around iron. In the analogy, this is equivalent to lifting a boulder out of a small trench in order to let it continue tumbling down a valley. Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, and may be wrong.

@@eckligt That was informative, thank you. I imagined something like China's rice terraces. If an atom sitting at higher terrace, you may need a neutrons kick of energy to throw it lower terrace but when it reaches ground level, you will require i-don't-know-how-the-f-loads of energy to dig it more into lighter elements. I also imagined splitting a toothpick into two pieces is easier but keep splitting it more into two pieces becomes a pain very quickly. I was seen this chart before but I wasn't familiar with it, so I will dig more into nuclide chart, it looks interresting. Thanks again.

@@Haplo-san I recommend this video from a French research institute that explains this better than anything else I have come across: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UTOp_2ZVZmM.html Note that you may struggle with their highly accented English.

Because neutrons are both unstable and more massive than protons. If there exists a lower energy state for the collection of nucleons, then it will decay into that lower energy state, if a decay path exists. Still, I do wonder why no-one has ever studied or even made n2, even if it is short lived.

Dineutron (2 neutrons) was observed 8 years ago. So it's not completely unstudied.

@@MuttFitness Fascinating. I'll have to look into it! Thanks!

Neither protons nor neutrons truly "stabilize" each other; instead, atomic nuclei will fill out their protons and neutrons so that, roughly, the highest energy proton and highest energy neutron will have the same energy in the nucleus. This is because the energy levels in general become more spread out as you add more nucleons, so if you had a very energetic proton or neutron relative to the other "stack" of nucleons, it would be more energetically favorable for that very energetic proton/neutron to beta decay into the shorter stack. You should think of them as two different stacks of energy levels because they are not identical particles so the Pauli exclusion principle doesn't apply between them. The reason that nuclei tend to fill with a ratio of about 1.5 neutrons per protons is because the proton energy levels are more spaced out due to electrostatic repulsion (since protons are charged). So, roughly speaking, in a given amount of energy, you can fit 3 neutrons per every 2 protons.

The nuclear force is attractive between protons and neutrons, but is slightly repulsive between likes. And protons do not stabilize nuclei. For any given element there are between zero and a few stable isotopes. (Zero for Z > 82, i.e., those elements beyond lead, no isotopes are stable.) For those isotopes with fewer neutrons than the stable ones, the protons tend to beta decay. For those isotopes with more neutrons than the stable ones, the neutrons tend to beta decay. Both processes bring the given nucleus closer to a stable isotope. Makes sense.

Let's see, something like if the space is expanding faster than a particle can move through it, that particle will actually lose energy to the expansion. Photons red shift, electrons slow down.

If Einstein's GR only works in the macro world, how do we know microscopic black holes exist? One of the alleged difficulties of producing a so-called quantum gravity theory is due to the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. To probe ever tinier distances, we need ever greater energies. The problem is that if you concentrate too much mass in a tiny space, the gravity of such a space becomes so huge that black holes form, making the measurement impossible. This is my question. How do we know that a huge energy allocated to a tiny subatomic region of space would create a black hole, since there is no quantum gravity theory to go by? How do scientists know, what are they basing this idea on, to say that a huge subatomic concentration of energy would lead to a microscopic black hole?

good question

Min. Physical..... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nnkvoIHztPw.html

neil deGrass Tyson is annoying. Anyone who likes doing TED videos is a tool.

"... I know you didn't ask me, but..." ;) I really appreciate what Neil deGrasse Tyson does and did for the public awareness of science, though I do think he took it a bit too far. His podcasts with Chuck Nice are some of the unfunniest things I've ever seen. I'd love to see more in-depth videos from him, which are lacking lately. When he's able to put his ego aside, he's a great communicator.

@@ThelemicMagick true, what you said I agree. I can't stand watching Neil, nothing I saw I liked, but its what appeals to the masses is most important. Its like donald trump for conservatives/racists/2nd amendment gun toters. Same goes with left leaning liberal idiots/sjw dimwits/snowflakes. Of course its not this serious, etx, but the idea is the same, the underlying truth about society, and the mass population is the same: fickle like anything, band wagon jumpers. I wish we had good leaders, moral leaders, and role models. I'd vote Dr. Lincoln as one.

My mom made me shave it when I was a baby.

Well, I am fellow teen little to answer, But I can say entangled particles cohere as they interact with environment, and even measurements

@@divyanshvishwkarma9548 And my english is to weak to write this good but I think that entanglement is above time and space. And even event horizon is no barrier for this.

Conditions under the event horizons changes a lot, for instance Space and Time swapping their role (or properties to say) And any event that occurs under event horizon doesn't have any effect on an outside observer, And I am not a physicist now but can say that the monster will either break the entangled, or if it didn't, only a clever experimental physicist can find it😁😁

@@divyanshvishwkarma9548 That I wrote: "entanglement is above time and space"

PhD thesis defense. It is a thing.

Howdy. Agreed and very funny! I looked at his Paper and am amazed! To say or type anymore will REVEAL my idioticy. Thanks for helping me laugh! Cheers

VINCE BERNAL RU-vid done right, glad for giggles

Spin of Indivisible Particle : Watch... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nnkvoIHztPw.html

He isnt an astrophysicist. When was the last time he did any real science? decades ago. For the most part his contributions are posting self-important tweets.

@@rykehuss3435 Agreed, Neil deGrass Tyson is annoying. Anyone who likes doing TED videos is a tool.

If Einstein's GR only works in the macro world, how do we know microscopic black holes exist? One of the alleged difficulties of producing a so-called quantum gravity theory is due to the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. To probe ever tinier distances, we need ever greater energies. The problem is that if you concentrate too much mass in a tiny space, the gravity of such a space becomes so huge that black holes form, making the measurement impossible. This is my question. How do we know that a huge energy allocated to a tiny subatomic region of space would create a black hole, since there is no quantum gravity theory to go by? How do scientists know, what are they basing this idea on, to say that a huge subatomic concentration of energy would lead to a microscopic black hole?

@@rykehuss3435 Tyson is hawt,but Not a real scientist

It still holds well enough in contexts where general relativity doesn’t have to be taken into account. It is still very useful.

joaquin vega Conservation of energy is still the best rule to follow for nearly every phenomena you can see in your everyday life. Especially if an investor aproaches you with his idea about infinite free energy...

If ya wanna run cool, you've got to run on heavy fuel! In other words: ya want the truth? Do the math.

Sure. Everyone should be taught general relativity in first grade. The fact that the kids can't even add yet shouldn't stop them from solving the Einstein field equations.

@@michaelsommers2356 Such fatalism. I've taught 10 year old kids the basics of differential calculus, and I'm nothing but a drunk. Starting from a number line, the x-y plane, linear equations, quadratic equations, and then...bam!...the derivative. Took me 5 hours. That was a class of two, tho.

Watch this, may help ... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nnkvoIHztPw.html

My opinion is that its pure bunk. Gravity cosmology can explain binary stars.

I don't know, but I doubt it. I think the density is the problem.

Tough call. It's always worth doing what you enjoy. But you will not have enough time to establish you professionally. That takes some 30 years or thereabouts.

@@drdon5205 Thank you for the answer.