Black Holes are actually Super Computers?? -Scientific American

[Feydd]

Entropy increases or remains a constant only in places were life does not exist. On earth once life started, everything began taking an orderly shape. So one could argue that this law is some what flawed. While it is true that most of the universe has no life, the places that do are constantly moving towards a more 'orderly state'.

 

[MLMIB]

oh geez, I'd love to see this thread get started, 'n I'd hafta link in this physics PHD guy I know, crazy smart. at some study session started sayin how hawking stole all his ideas(well most)

fun thread to read no doubt

*goes to take an advil*

 

[Super Nade]

Entropy increases or remains a constant only in places were life does not exist. On earth once life started, everything began taking an orderly shape. So one could argue that this law is some what flawed. While it is true that most of the universe has no life, the places that do are constantly moving towards a more 'orderly state'.

That is not true! What you see as macroscopically orderly is not so in the grand scheme of things. In case of living beings, we constantly expend energy (radiate energy) so you are increasing entropy. Any field, by definition has infinite degrees of freedom (i.e you can't represent the field by coordinates but only specify an observable associated with it at those coordinates). So field=increase in entropy. You cannot patition the universe into "with life" and "without life" parts unless they are isolated from each other, i.e there should be no way to signal from one half to another. More precisely, their light cones (event horizons) should not intersect. A simple example of non-intersecting light cones is the past and future. You cannot signal from the past to the future.

In essence, the law of entropy is not flawed and is always valid.

About quantum encryption:
All quantum encryption is based on the "No Cloning" theorem of Wooters and Zureck. It means that a quantum state cannot be copied without changing the original state. So if your quantum channel is hacked, you and the reciever would know.

 

[Feydd]

I get it now. Since everything is based on energy, even matter, when it gets broke down into energy lets say by nuclear fussion within a star, it gets broken down in to a less complex form.

 

[Super Nade]

The central theme is the word "degrees of freedom".

It means the possible states the system can be in. Doesn't have to be position coordinates, it can be energy levels or any other variable.

Such coordinates are called Generalized Coordinates.

So a Field has infinite number of GC's which means it has a state of maximum entropy.

I can't stop myself from talking can I

 

[Malpine Walis]

yes i read the article it was amazing, also did anyone check out the latest issue? the quantum encryption? about how we can make pretty much in decipherable codes, it was awesome

I just got the current issue yesterday. Thus fas, I have only skimmed the article but it doesn't look like that code would be all that hard to mess with. My impression is that they are using an optical channel for key exchange. The main advantages that present in that article are the optical channel and the high degree of randomness.

Optical channels are extraordinarily difficult to hack into (in if TommyHolly drops back in here, he can run through some of that better than I can as that is his line of work) but once you have broken into one, it would still be vulnerable to a “man in the middle” attack.

Basically, if I did get into an optical line that was being used for key exchange, I could represent myself to Alice as if I was Bill and the other way around. Then I can use my key to decrypt what Alice sends me and re-encrypt it for transmission to Bill.

As far as randomness goes, that is a classic weak point in any system. If your Sunday paper has cryptograms in the puzzle section, you can see a simple example of a code that can be broken with pencil and paper in a few minutes. Modern cryptographic systems are more complex but can still be cracked if you can figure out the underlying system that was used to convert the original message into the corresponding cipher text.

Such was the major flawed assumption made by the Germans in WW2. Every message from anywhere to anywhere else has the same key with a new key chosen out of a code book daily. Had the allies gotten a code book, they would have been able to crack all messages sent that day as fast as they were received. Fortunately for the Germans that never happened.

Unfortunately for the Germans, that was not the only mistake that they made with their Enigma crypto system. Another vulnerability was that certain radio operators would either begin or end every transmission with the words “Heil Hitler”. Given that information (one radio operator can identify another operators morse code almost as easily as recognizing a voice BTW), every morning when the first messages of the day were sent, the allied cryptography group at Bletchley Park would try to find the “Heil Hitler” string in a number of messages and once they had that, they could then proceed to break all the messages for the day. Often they had broken the days code before lunch time.

 

[TommyHolly]

I never read the original article all the way through. I was busy getting dental work, (which didn't hurt at all this time?).

As far as hacking into fiber: The only place to do it and not screw anything up is at the end equipment where the data gets "repeated". You only have repeater stations where you are going extremely long distances. They usually look like little one room buildings along the side of the highway with a small fence around it. (I tried finding a picture on the net, after searching through 1,000 jpegs I can't find one?)

If you break into the repeater, then you are only hacking the end equipment and not the fiber itself. The problem with getting at the fiber in the middle of the run is you have an exact amount of light coming in and you need the same exact amount to leave in the same way. Any changes made and you will lose light "power" dB (attenuation). Also, the way the light is transmitted depends on the end equipment transmitting it and the end equipment recieving it. You would have to duplicate both without any attenuation. It's "basically" impossible to hack the fiber itself but the end equipment is easy.

 

[Malpine Walis]

Ah, thanks for the information Tommy. If you want to read the article again, you can get it here:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000479CD-F58C-11BE-AD0683414B7F0000

As with Discover, that link only lasts as long as the current issue is on the news stand but you should have no problem with it for a week or two. Of course, subscribers can read it for the next few years.

Then too, don't worry about the image search. I am reasonably sure that we all know what a shack looks like.

Then too, as both of us observed, it ain't gonna be easy by any means to hack the middle of the line. If we want to do a James Bond job, I did have a specific idea in mind:

If you do break a fiber line, you would have to do it when the line is (you would know a better term) “dark”. Any line that is used for trusted data would, once first used, be kept alive with a continuous carrier signal. At least I would do that, then the break and restoration of the signal would be a dead giveaway that the line had been tampered with. So the only time that you would ever be able to pull it off reliably would be after the line is put in place and before it is first used.

To be honest, signal matching had not occurred to me but I doubt that Mr. Bond would have to worry about that as any equipment that he had would be up to the task. What I would think to be important here would be the actual size of an optical repeater. Here too, I did some image searches and I gather that they are anywhere from the size of a modem up to a 2U case. Of course, if you had a multiple conductor cable to tap into, you might well need the whole of the shack to hold all the equipment but that much stuff would assume generous extra capacity on the lines (not that the phone company is not known for over wiring just to have that ability but even so...) figure a large suitcase if you are an international spy.

Then too, as you observed, it would probably be easier to hack an end point. That much is really nothing new as far as cryptography goes. Most existing internet traffic is cryptographically secured. Yet when we log onto our bank's web site or buy something from newegg, there is the possibility that someone at the other end can retrieve our credit card information after it has been decrypted.

Speaking of end points, that brings me to Van Eck Hacking. (free tip: use a flat panel monitor and paint your room with flat paint). If you can get to an end point, there are a number of ways to intercept information. Basically, Van Eck hacking is any of a number of techniques for monitoring the passive radiation and reconstructing a useful signal from the data so collected.

One example would be to use a high speed video camera and simply point it at a window into a room from which you want to grab data. Let's say for point of argument that there is a CRT monitor in that room that is set at 1024x768@60hz. If your camera is capable of grabbing data at a similar rate, it is possible to reconstruct the image on the monitor using the pulses of light that are reflected off of the walls. Flat paint and a TFT display will confound most of the equipment that would be used to gather such data, hence the reason for my free tip above. Yet that is not the only possible route for a successful Van Eck Hack. Given sufficiently sensitive radio receivers, it may be possible to reconstruct the image on a TFT panel by intercepting the radiation coming from the frame buffer on your graphics card.

 

[TollhouseFrank]

my dad brought the article in from work, and i got a chance to read it. It was quite interesting. Black holes aren't quite what i learned about in highschool 6 years ago, anymore.

 

[XWRed1]

Speaking of end points, that brings me to Van Eck Hacking. (free tip: use a flat panel monitor and paint your room with flat paint). If you can get to an end point, there are a number of ways to intercept information. Basically, Van Eck hacking is any of a number of techniques for monitoring the passive radiation and reconstructing a useful signal from the data so collected.

Have you read Cryptonomicon? They talked about that a fair bit, but I assumed it was fictional.

 

[Malpine Walis]

Actually, I am reading it right now. And while it is a plot device in the book, in the real world it is quite real. I don't think that anyone has a clue how common it is but it is very possible with relatively limited resources.

YGPM

 

[TollhouseFrank]

van eck hacking? its possible, but is not very reasonable. You'd have to have the reader within less than 2 feet of most devices to use it (from what i've understood). Not very good for 'distance' hacking.

 

[tom10167]

exacty energy cannot be created or destroyed only changed into other forms of energy -basic physics...

Basic physics says A LOT of things that don't *really* apply. What works on paper often does not work out realistically because there are so many outside factors, ones that scientists have not considered, undertstood, or even knew existed.

 

[Malpine Walis]

Tom, would you please link us to an example of what you have in mind?

While I have an issue with the statement that you quoted, it is in the rarefied upper level of physics. Now that you mention it, it is a fact that matter and energy are different ways of looking at the same thing and either is convertible to the other with no violation of physical laws. Of course, it would help if physicists would agree on what to call the one thing that both matter and energy are part of. AFAIK, the big word that is being thrown around for that one thing is “scalar fields”. There is of course a minority of scientists who prefer any of a few other terms. However, one has to stay on top of some really odd stuff (most of which will in the end be disproved) to keep track of the stuff...

I did not post that before because the subject is not really accessible to most people. However, that does not mean that everything that everyone would like is possible. Rather the opposite.

More to follow...

MW

 

[austinbmxnig]

the human race is incredible, i can't wait till aliens visit us and we get all their technology, or they kill us all, either would be fun

 

[dicecca112]

Basic physics says A LOT of things that don't *really* apply. What works on paper often does not work out realistically because there are so many outside factors, ones that scientists have not considered, undertstood, or even knew existed.

Well first of all relativistic physics, quantum theory. If you look at a simple case such as relativity you notice that everything you were taught in physics 101 is essentially wrong. there is no mention in Physics 101 that 3.0X10^8 is the speed limit for everything, and nothing can travel at the speed of light, there is no mention that most of the formulas you were taught are wrong and the relativity factor to fix them, like 1/2mv^2 should be 1/2(gamma)mv^2. And now with string theory, that is something that is cutting edge. And even before that who knew about the particles that are smaller than neutrons and protons and electrons?

 

[tom10167]

Well first of all relativistic physics, quantum theory. If you look at a simple case such as relativity you notice that everything you were taught in physics 101 is essentially wrong. there is no mention in Physics 101 that 3.0X10^8 is the speed limit for everything, and nothing can travel at the speed of light, there is no mention that most of the formulas you were taught are wrong and the relativity factor to fix them, like 1/2mv^2 should be 1/2(gamma)mv^2. And now with string theory, that is something that is cutting edge. And even before that who knew about the particles that are smaller than neutrons and protons and electrons?

That's exactly what I mean.

"Perpindicular vectors do not affect eachother regarding speed" something like that. Basically, if you shoot a bullet perfectly along X, and drop a bullet at the exact same time, they will hit the ground at the same time.

Until you factor in wind, irregularities in the earth's surface. My point is, just because something seems like it would work, doesn't mean it actually will. We don't have too much "hands on" experience with black holes, so I can only assume that there may be external factors we have not considered.

 

[XWRed1]

Well first of all relativistic physics, quantum theory. If you look at a simple case such as relativity you notice that everything you were taught in physics 101 is essentially wrong.

Relativity doesn't invalidate newtonian physics. Most all of that stuff either works fine if you have only one reference frame, or decide not to approach the speed of light.

Until you factor in wind, irregularities in the earth's surface. My point is, just because something seems like it would work, doesn't mean it actually will.

That doesn't mean the laws of physics don't apply. Those are just more variables. The outcome is deterministic, those variables can be taken into account if desired.

 

[Malpine Walis]

Basic physics says A LOT of things that don't *really* apply. What works on paper often does not work out realistically because there are so many outside factors, ones that scientists have not considered, undertstood, or even knew existed.

Well, it is relatively easy to demonstrate that outside factors can skew an experiment. For example, let's consider falling objects. Galileo proved like 500 years ago that heavy object don't fall faster than light objects (in his day the church said the opposite as a matter of official doctrine). Yet if you drop a hammer and a feather, anyone can easily see that the hammer falls faster. In this case, drag from the air is the outside factor that disturbs the experiment. However, if you do the same experiment in a vacuum, you have removed the outside influence and again we see the hammer and feather falling at the same rate. Here is a link to a lovely demonstration of the matter:

http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/feather.avi

If one really thinks that scientists don't know all that much because they have not taken the outside factors into account, the how the heck did David Scott get to the moon to perform that experiment in the first place?

Well first of all relativistic physics, quantum theory. If you look at a simple case such as relativity you notice that everything you were taught in physics 101 is essentially wrong.

A few points of note here. First, are we even in the same universe? I love the sentence “If you look at a simple case such as relativity...” How pray tell is relativity simple? The last thing I heard, relativity is a modification of Newtonian physics. Or to put it another way, Newtonian physics is a subset of Einsteinian physics.

Relativity does not tell us that Newton was wrong any more that Newton told us the Galileo was wrong before him. Science is a process not of revision but of refinement with each advance building on the work that preceded it.

there is no mention in Physics 101 that 3.0X10^8 is the speed limit for everything, and nothing can travel at the speed of light,

Nor need there be as the velocity of light hardly matters for ordinary physics 101 stuff like falling objects. To bring relativistic effects into a 101 class would lead to confusion to no good purpose. Far better to stick with what is important and for the purposes of a 101 class, 10 mph + 10 mph = 20 mph. Of course when you consider relativistic effects, you may find that 10 mph + 10 mph (really) = 19.9999999 mph but why bother for practical purposes?

And even before that who knew about the particles that are smaller than neutrons and protons and electrons?

I am not sure where you are going there but it bears noting that at the dawn of the 20th century, atoms were only considered empirically as a mathematical convenience. Yet in the space of a couple of decades, not only had we nailed down the nature of atoms and established the existence of the three particles that you mentioned but many other particles had been experimentally observed. Heck, in 1930 antimatter was another mathematical conveniences but in only a few years, we were making the stuff in routine experiments.

One of the interesting bit about black holes is that they were theorized to exist about the same time as antimatter. However, in that black holes are much harder to study than the fine structure of matter, scientists had only theory to go on until the first object was identified as a candidate black hole (google for “cygnus X1” if you want some background). Yet now that we have found quite a few, it seems that the vast majority of our theoretical work has proved to be right “on the money” so to speak.

 

[Super Nade]

And now with string theory, that is something that is cutting edge.

Nobody has experimentally verified string theory. THe only way you can do that is if energy scales in the order of billions of bilions of Joules are accesible.
String theory provides an elegant Mathematical way of "trying to consistently unify" General relativity, the theory of the big, with the Standard Model, the theory of the small.

String theory makes no experimentally verifiable predictions in our 4D world. According to string theory the only possible dimensions are 8+2 and 24+2. Nobody knows why. Some physicists have derisively referred to String Theory as recreational Mathematics. I don't know enough to offer an opinion on this.


There are apparantly infitely many solutions for a given scenario and strange things like time travel are shown to be possible.


Hiscock @ Montana State had a paper out which said if an extemely massive cylinder or an infinitely long cylinder were rotating in space and a person walks around it he/she would be able to travel back in time. So the person would see someone standing infront of him and if he tried to touch the stranger, he can feel somebody trying to touch him!

Space-time warps itself around the cylinder forming a so called CTC (Closed Time-like curve). These CTC's come up a lot in string theory and people are thinking of using black holes to test this out.