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Re: Hypertrophy of a Heated Actinide, When Universes Collide etc.



Well, I dunno about that:
On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, brian whatcott wrote:

Current news snippets include the surprising intelligence that
a phase change of Plutonium between 400 and 600K swells its volume
by 25%.

Americium, next in line is 50% as dense (?) and a theory
suggests the localization state of electrons would be responsible.
(Certainly, electron behavior would have to be the reason,
I suppose...)

...but much, much more tantalizing is a theory that dispenses
with abominable inflation, in favor of a universe rather like
the one I mentioned in a response for Professor Agashe; devoid of
mass, charge, and much else which collided with another universe.
It appears to placate the string people too....

It replaces inflation by a collision between two universes
(branes). The theory requires extra dimensions, an experimentally
testable prediction, if there aren't too many extra dimensions. It
also makes predictions about the gravity-wave spectrum

I see there is adverse comment from Harvard, Oxford AND
Open University for MITs recent web initiative. (One comment all
but called it a publicity stunt!)...so they must be doing
something right!

(Some morsels from New Scientist's current issue, and IoP's
web notes)

Brian


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net> Altus OK
Eureka!


--
Franz Kafka's novels and novella's are so Kafkaesque that one has to
wonder at the enormity of coincidence required to have produced a writer
named Kafka to write them.
Greg Nagan from "The Metamorphosis" in
<The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>