chefranden Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 The universe could be a hologram on some extra-universal dude's credit card. Maybe he scratched the bits that were Billy Mays when he bought a coke at Extra-McDonald's. Our world may be a giant hologram * 15 January 2009 by Marcus Chown * Magazine issue 2691. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. * For similar stories, visit the Cosmology Topic Guide DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres. For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not detected any gravitational waves so far, but it might inadvertently have made the most important discovery in physics for half a century. For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan... Read the rest: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2012....html?full=true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 I'm not speaking ill of the dead, I'm speaking ill of a destructive vocal weapon gone silent. Whether or not I'm living in a hologram, it's a happier place without the voice of Billy Mays. That voice is a neurological torture which has always caused me to race to the remote like an Olympics sprinter, just to hit the mute button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 I'm not speaking ill of the dead, I'm speaking ill of a destructive vocal weapon gone silent. Whether or not I'm living in a hologram, it's a happier place without the voice of Billy Mays. That voice is a neurological torture which has always caused me to race to the remote like an Olympics sprinter, just to hit the mute button. Ah, pitchu... you have such a way with words!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Ah, pitchu... you have such a way with words!!! Ah, but noob... it's Billy Mays who actually got paid for his! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Ah, pitchu... you have such a way with words!!! Ah, but noob... it's Billy Mays who actually got paid for his! Makes me sick too. In a society where According to Jim is allowed to air those with wit and creativity seem to get pushed to the back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marty Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Ah, pitchu... you have such a way with words!!! Ah, but noob... it's Billy Mays who actually got paid for his! Makes me sick too. In a society where According to Jim is allowed to air those with wit and creativity seem to get pushed to the back. Maybe it's cause I used to record those screamer v/o spots for a living, but I find it funny so many of you hated Mays voice! I don't find him any more or less annoying than any of the other screamer v/o artists on TV, and I think he's actually a bit more tolerable than the "EVERY TOYOTA MUST GO!! ONLY $29 NINE-NINETY-NINE, NINETY NINE!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Maybe it's cause I used to record those screamer v/o spots for a living, but I find it funny so many of you hated Mays voice! I don't find him any more or less annoying than any of the other screamer v/o artists on TV, and I think he's actually a bit more tolerable than the "EVERY TOYOTA MUST GO!! ONLY $29 NINE-NINETY-NINE, NINETY NINE!" It's not about screaming. It's timbre, Marty, timbre -- that oh-so-unacknowledged area of the vocal arsenal. timbre -- pronounced tam-br -- The quality of a sound independent of its pitch and volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marty Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Of course! I just don't find his voice all that grating. I know people who can't listen to Dave Matthew's Band because of Dave's voice, yet I find Geddy Lee of Rush FAR more grating on my ears than Dave. To each his own, I guess... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Of course! I just don't find his voice all that grating. I know people who can't listen to Dave Matthew's Band because of Dave's voice, yet I find Geddy Lee of Rush FAR more grating on my ears than Dave. To each his own, I guess... Yes, I do think it has much to do with personal preferences (and with exactly how much blood is pouring from the ears). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted July 1, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted July 1, 2009 Yes, I do think it has much to do with personal preferences (and with exactly how much blood is pouring from the ears). I also reach for the mute button. Still, it's hard to argue with success. Perhaps his hologram is still pitching products somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Florduh, who are those millions of people who spend zillions of dollars due to his odious but purchase-inciting voice? And, do holograms have credit cards.....? credit cards with holograms on them.....? (Oh, I'm not right for this mod-ren world.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted July 2, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted July 2, 2009 I prefer the hologram of "Vince" the ShamWow guy. He doesn't persuade me to buy anything, but I am entertained by his delivery. For most people he is probably even more irritating than Billy was, but his unabashed sleaziness is somehow refreshing. He echoes the classic pitchmen of the county fairs I attended as a child, so I guess nostalgia is a component. No accounting for taste! But call now, 'cause we can't do this all day! Did ya get that, camera guy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Pitchmen, in general, freak me out much as preachers do. For their obvious similarities. With preachers, though, you're persuaded to tithe your way into heaven for all the years of your life, and are rewarded with merely being dead. But with a pitchman like Vince, you pay your 20 bucks or so and actually receive your reward of half a yard of mystery fabric. (In either event, I guess, you can't really bitch.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted July 3, 2009 Author Share Posted July 3, 2009 As for grating voices, what about Tom Waits and Dylan? I'm a fan of both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted July 3, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted July 3, 2009 Yeah, Tom Waits. Dylan, not so much. I can only take a song or two. Neil Young - forget it. I'd take Billy Mays singing Old Rugged Cross any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sexton Blake Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 chefranden. No one is ever going to detect gravity waves any more than you can detect ocean waves from another shore because they quickly "lose direction" and get lost in a sea of gravity. That is what is detected on a small enough scale, non-directional gravity behaving like static. Black holes evaporate? Put 2 balls next to each other at the 750 mile mark on a steep hill 1,000 miles long. One rolls down hill and the other rolls up hill, or at least that is what clods who believe in Hawking radiation think happens. This universe is a hologram idea has been around for several years now. Someone's been watching The Matrix too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted July 4, 2009 Author Share Posted July 4, 2009 chefranden. No one is ever going to detect gravity waves any more than you can detect ocean waves from another shore because they quickly "lose direction" and get lost in a sea of gravity. That is what is detected on a small enough scale, non-directional gravity behaving like static. Black holes evaporate? Put 2 balls next to each other at the 750 mile mark on a steep hill 1,000 miles long. One rolls down hill and the other rolls up hill, or at least that is what clods who believe in Hawking radiation think happens. This universe is a hologram idea has been around for several years now. Someone's been watching The Matrix too much. What do you think the noise is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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