Is the time difference between the neutron experiment results due to time dilation? One of them had the neutrons moving at high speed, I.e. In a particle beam.
No. Well, sort of. The time difference has to do with how you store free neutrons. Different conditions suppress, to varying extents, the possible energy states of the vacuum field.
Just as in the Casimir experiment it was demonstrated that opposed conductive plates are attracted with a force that results from the suppression of vacuum energy states between them, so must the decay of the neutron be modulated by the vacuum field.
If you contrive the storage system to suppress the vacuum energy to a greater extent, the field will interact less with free neutrons and they will live a little longer. Likewise, the more possible energy states, the shorter they live.
This effect is apparent because the free neutron is quite unstable and short-lived. It is readily affected by the particle-antiparticle pairs that are always popping into and out of existence in the vacuum.
Protons, which are very stable and last a long time, show the same effect, but you would be long dead by the time you observed it. So not a practical experiment.
Why does a radioactive element decay at a particular time? Why is it random? Why is Schroedinger's cat a superposition of alive/dead with no way of predicting which one until you observe it and collapse the wave equation?
The answer to all of these is the same. The background state of the universe is chaotic. It visibly affects things that are unstable, while not having much effect on things that are stable.
The faster something is moving, the more mass it has. The more mass, the less it is affected by the vacuum field. This is the mechanism of time dilation. Increased mass, decreased size, increased density, surrounded by mass, all of these contrive to suppress the interaction of the vacuum field with an object by limiting the possible states it can occupy.
The outcome looks to us like order, but it's not. Everything is randomness and chaos.
Newton's laws are approximations because they apply simple math to chaos. Likewise, general relativity is a geometric theory applied to a chaotic universe. It's a good approximation of what we see, but it's only an approximation. No geometric theory can explain something that is fundamentally chaotic.
The article mentions generating a beam from a reactor core, in which case for a 'Fast Neutron' reaction they would have 2 or 3 MeV, and be travelling at on the order of about 10% of the speed of light. That's fast, but far below the level at which any time dilation effect would be significant.
Jemm|6 years ago
Just as in the Casimir experiment it was demonstrated that opposed conductive plates are attracted with a force that results from the suppression of vacuum energy states between them, so must the decay of the neutron be modulated by the vacuum field.
If you contrive the storage system to suppress the vacuum energy to a greater extent, the field will interact less with free neutrons and they will live a little longer. Likewise, the more possible energy states, the shorter they live.
This effect is apparent because the free neutron is quite unstable and short-lived. It is readily affected by the particle-antiparticle pairs that are always popping into and out of existence in the vacuum.
Protons, which are very stable and last a long time, show the same effect, but you would be long dead by the time you observed it. So not a practical experiment.
Why does a radioactive element decay at a particular time? Why is it random? Why is Schroedinger's cat a superposition of alive/dead with no way of predicting which one until you observe it and collapse the wave equation?
The answer to all of these is the same. The background state of the universe is chaotic. It visibly affects things that are unstable, while not having much effect on things that are stable.
The faster something is moving, the more mass it has. The more mass, the less it is affected by the vacuum field. This is the mechanism of time dilation. Increased mass, decreased size, increased density, surrounded by mass, all of these contrive to suppress the interaction of the vacuum field with an object by limiting the possible states it can occupy.
The outcome looks to us like order, but it's not. Everything is randomness and chaos.
Newton's laws are approximations because they apply simple math to chaos. Likewise, general relativity is a geometric theory applied to a chaotic universe. It's a good approximation of what we see, but it's only an approximation. No geometric theory can explain something that is fundamentally chaotic.
There. Is. No. Meaning.
Sleep well!
simonh|6 years ago