Friday, March 07, 2008

 

Sub-Planck


Sub-Planck refers to hypothetical, speculative, and conjectural physics beyond or smaller than the Planck scale. The Planck length and Planck time are the smallest units in accepted models of physics. It is possible that the Planck scale represents the ultimate smallest scale conception of space and time; indeed this is what current Quantum Gravity research is based Common knowledge in physics is that the sub-Planck scale may not an aspect of physical reality at all; however, even a successful theory of Quantum Gravity does not mean that there is a further sub-Planck development someday to be discovered. Indeed classical gravity breaks down at precisely the Planck scale energy levels. It is possible that no conceptual or mathematical description of sub-Planck physics can be made without "breaking the unity of a single quantum" in physics. However, even if not done, common knowledge of physicists does not mean that various averages over various broken quantum pieces may not make sense in their total sum and even if the individual pieces are not physically identifiable or relatable to particles or fields in the Universe.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sub-Planck". This entry is a fragment of a larger work. Link may die if entry is finally removed or merged.

Comments:
==DEFINITION==

Wiki fascism: (noun) The tendency of editors and administrators (or those with Wikipedia power) to instantly assume all contributions, new pages, and other modifications are wrong, invalid, misguided, don't follow procedure, no wanted, and to delete them -- instead of letting these new pages grow by the user community's edits and additions. Killing the baby pages at birth; not letting them mature. This tendency was not prevalent in years before 2007 but is perhaps inevitable now that Wikipedia has grown. Also involves killing common knowledge additions to articles before the contributor has tracked down the exact reference on the assumption that the contributor is wrong or that the contributor has no clue what he is talking about. Also involves petty empowered Wikipedia experts playing “God” with the content and direction of the Wiki project contrary to its original sprit of a community and its replacement by a new orthodox order of privileged editors and censors.
 
From PhyOrg yesterday ;-)
Integral’s IBIS instrument captured the gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 19 December 2004 that Philippe Laurent and colleagues have now analysed in detail. It was so bright that Integral could also measure its polarisation, allowing Laurent and colleagues to look for differences in the signal from different energies. The GRB shown here, on 25 November 2002, was the first captured using such a powerful gamma-ray camera as Integral’s. When they occur, GRBs shine as brightly as hundreds of galaxies each containing billions of stars. Credits: ESA/SPI Team/ECF

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory has provided results that will dramatically affect the search for physics beyond Einstein. It has shown that any underlying quantum 'graininess' of space must be at much smaller scales than previously predicted.

They go on to say it's not the Plank length at 10^-35 but 10^-48 at least...
 
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