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Research shows the universe is NOT a fractal

TheTinMan

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Well, to be a little more specific, they found that at very large scales that matter is evenly distributed.

I came across this article the other day and wondered what you gals and guys thought about it. Ever since my first experience with lsd i've been enamored by fractals and natures tendency to move and grow in a fractal pattern.

here's the article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48758083/?__utma=154396583.140558106.1337178292.1345753208.1345779108.17&__utmb=154396583.1.10.1345779108&__utmc=154396583&__utmx=-&__utmz=154396583.1345779108.17.16.utmcsr=msnbc.msn.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/id/48758083/ns/technology_and_science-science/&__utmv=154396583.|8=Earned%20By=newsvine%7Ctechnology%20%26%20science=1^12=Landing%20Content=Original=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=technology-science.newsvine.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Internal%20to%20Original=1&__utmk=44606052#.UDb1xNBkvpE

Here's a video explaining the study
http://www.space.com/17213-einstein-was-right-matter-is-scattered-randomly-across-the-universe-video.html

The science is sound (i'm not a scientist), but won't gravity force it into a fractal pattern eventually? Matter is matter and if one clump has a lot of mass a less massive clump is going to be pulled in, right? Wouldn't it fall into the same fractal shape?

What are your thoughts on this?
 

Vladimir

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I don't know how they can claim to know something like this. It's like interviewing 100 people and making some "discovery" about our psychology. How can anyone hope to determine how matter is distributed throughout the universe?
 

The Gopher

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I don't know how they can claim to know something like this. It's like interviewing 100 people and making some "discovery" about our psychology. How can anyone hope to determine how matter is distributed throughout the universe?

I can see how you can theorise on it but claming you know it would be odd.
 

addictedartist

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try and weigh fire or catch the wind in a jar. the universe researches the universe, sounds fractal to me.:borg:
 

Etheri

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Matter is matter and if one clump has a lot of mass a less massive clump is going to be pulled in, right?

Matter is matter, and it doesn't matter which clump has a higher or a lot of mass. What matters is whether or not the matter is massive enough to be significant over the required distance. When it comes down to it, you're pretty much right, but your wording made me cringe. (As if you implied heavy matter pulls on light matter, as if the light matter doesn't pull back with the same force.)
 

Architect

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Matter is matter and if one clump has a lot of mass a less massive clump is going to be pulled in, right? Wouldn't it fall into the same fractal shape?

I'm not surprised it isn't, but would not have been surprised to find it is.

Gravity is the weakest force, even though it extends to infinity (theoretically) in a practical sense it dies off quickly. Given the distances involved it's not unexpected that on the largest scale matter disperses evenly.
 

Da Blob

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It would impossible to determine if this universe was fractal, for one would have to compare it with a known fractal universe, to make that determination...

Science really is just a matter of making comparisons...
 

Etheri

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It would impossible to determine if this universe was fractal, for one would have to compare it with a known fractal universe, to make that determination...

Science really is just a matter of making comparisons...

If this was the case, we'd be unable to say anything about anything unless we had serveral of them. For example, we wouldn't be able to determine anything much about the world economy, as we have no other world economies to compare it to.

Since we can use models and such, while they do indeed lack accuracy etc, we're capable of making quite some statements. We can use diffrent models to compare, then compare reality to the most accurate model(s). Isn't that exactly what we do with maths? Maths isn't reality, we just utilise it whenever it's model fits our problems, despite resemblance being imperfect.

(To prove my point : Eucledian space is built upon straight lines. We use eucledian metric everywhere around us, every single day. Yet, I challenge you to find an example of a single truly straight line in reality... Models and approximation. They work.)
 

ascii

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How can anyone hope to determine how matter is distributed throughout the universe?

I'm no cosmologist, but can't you just apply basic statistics here? If you measured the distribution of matter in a bunch of different parts of the universe, couldn't you average them out to come up with a rough idea?
 

Da Blob

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If this was the case, we'd be unable to say anything about anything unless we had serveral of them. For example, we wouldn't be able to determine anything much about the world economy, as we have no other world economies to compare it to.

One can say whatever one wishes about unique phenomena, but such statements are opinion, not science. Science is limited to studying that which can be measured or compared to similar, yet different redundancies.

Since we can use models and such, while they do indeed lack accuracy etc, we're capable of making quite some statements. We can use diffrent models to compare, then compare reality to the most accurate model(s). Isn't that exactly what we do with maths? Maths isn't reality, we just utilise it whenever it's model fits our problems, despite resemblance being imperfect.

Math is not science, unless it is science of pure redundancy, there are no unique phenomena in math, no individuals, no instances - everything is reduced to abstract, generic redundancy involving units.

(To prove my point : Eucledian space is built upon straight lines. We use eucledian metric everywhere around us, every single day. Yet, I challenge you to find an example of a single truly straight line in reality... Models and approximation. They work.)

There's the man-made world and then there is the natural world, one is a poor imitation of the other.

Again, it is impossible to determine if our universe is not a 'chamber' of a fractal multiverse - that should seem obvious :confused:There many different fractal formula and averaging them together on a large scale so that they cancel each other out does not seem to be ethical, it is like mixing black and white together to say neither exists, but only gray
 

PhoenixRising

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This study could be representative of the shape of the entire universe. However, we really don't know how big the universe is, so 3 billion light-years in length may be a large chunk of universe, or it may be minutely small in comparison to the whole. Because of this, the universe could be any overall shape, including fractal. If the sample we took is in fact relatively small, then it could be analogous to looking at the skin cells on a person's arm. When looking at the cells under a microscope, they appear to be grouped in a certain pattern. However, when you zoom out, the skin looks continuous and smooth. Zoom out again to see the form of the entire person and you find a very fractal organic form. I think the range in which we can observe the universe is just too small to claim that we know the overall shape with certainty.
 

Etheri

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One can say whatever one wishes about unique phenomena, but such statements are opinion, not science. Science is limited to studying that which can be measured or compared to similar, yet different redundancies.

Math is not science, unless it is science of pure redundancy, there are no unique phenomena in math, no individuals, no instances - everything is reduced to abstract, generic redundancy involving units.

There's the man-made world and then there is the natural world, one is a poor imitation of the other.

Again, it is impossible to determine if our universe is not a 'chamber' of a fractal multiverse - that should seem obvious :confused:There many different fractal formula and averaging them together on a large scale so that they cancel each other out does not seem to be ethical, it is like mixing black and white together to say neither exists, but only gray

I disagree (Oh opinions). Science is opinions, models and man-made worlds. Science is greatly built upon (idealistic) mathematical models. Man-made worlds everywhere. Yet we use them, because they work - to some extent. We use the opinions which give us best results. Is classic mechanics vs relativistic mechanics no more than 'Newton vs Einstein', where we'll still use newton in most cases - knowing it's an approximation of a model which is already imperfect. Why would maths not be science? Perhaps it's only science once it is applied, but even then, we apply our man-made world to measure our real, natural world, and it's giving us great results.

I'm not saying any opinion is scientific, I'm not saying you can just 'choose' your reality. I'm saying you can 'choose' how you want to 'model' your reality, as long as you have decent and sound arguments to back you up. If you choose wisely, your model will give viable results. If you choose badly, your model will be a useless spinoff of your fantasies. But models are considered science as long as they get close enough to the reality they're trying to represent.

Look at statistical physics. It's built upon man-made worlds of imagination. It constantly uses rules and theorems which we know do generally not apply (Real systems are almost never ergodic). Yet we can use it to find pretty much any experimental law they'll teach you in highschool.

Particles are comparable, we have a near infinite supply, yet what do we compare quantummechanics to? Do we test the behaviour of one single particle, and compare it to the behaviour of other particles? Sure, broglie compared photons to everything else. Is the entire theory no more than a man made mathematical world which solutions are the same results we find in our natural reality, hence the succes of the theory? Does this make QM less scientific?

There many different fractal formula and averaging them together on a large scale so that they cancel each other out does not seem to be ethical, it is like mixing black and white together to say neither exists, but only gray
Science doesn't concern itself with the ethics of it's answers, as ethics are personal opinions, rather than scientific opinions. Why would you have to throw all fractal formulae on a big heap, and avarage them out? Which avarage are you even using? What would be wrong with a single big fractal formula? Or perhaps a lineair combination / superposition of serveral fractal formulae? The specifics would have to answer to our reality. You seem to be guessing : There are lots of fractal formulae, so lets avarage them out, compare it to something that seems silly and have myself an argument. For the sake of me doing exactly the same thing :
There are lots of solutions to most differential equations, often an infinite ammount. Which one do you take? Do you just take a superposition of all these solutions, weigh them to fit your question and sum them up? Would that not be like... exactly what we do in classical physics, quantum mechanics, fluïd dynamics, systemcontrol, and everywhere else we use differential equations and (quasi) lineair models? In your case :
Greyscale = x black + (1-x) white, if you consider the absolute cases of black (x=1) and white (x=0) to be part of your greyscale, then sure, there is only grey. Black is just grey without any white in it.
 

BigApplePi

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Fractal what? Distribution of matter or behavior of matter? "Fractals are typically self-similar patterns, where self-similar means they are "the same from near as from far" - Wiki

I thought after galaxies are racing away from us
Galaxies themselves spin
Stars within orbit around the galaxies' center of mass
Stars within have planets around them
Planets have moons around them
Moons have astronauts around them
...
Chemicals have electrons in orbit around a nucleus
...

Ain't that some imperfect sloppy fractal or what?

I don't know about gravity, but think of the behavior of force.
 

Etheri

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Chemicals have electrons in orbit around a nucleus

I'd say you went one step too far. I see your point and similarities, but it ruins your statement more than that it empowers it. We are, after all, speaking about (scientifically) entirely diffrent things here. A beautiful allegory, all the same, but it makes the chemist inside me sad.
 

BigApplePi

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I'd say you went one step too far. I see your point and similarities, but it ruins your statement more than that it empowers it. We are, after all, speaking about (scientifically) entirely diffrent things here. A beautiful allegory, all the same, but it makes the chemist inside me sad.
I don't follow you. You mean I misspoke or I jumped too far? Electrons orbit atoms but with molecules they jump all over the place is my understanding. They don't do that because of gravitational force, but so what? There is an orbital inclination ...
 

BigApplePi

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Da Blob said,
Again, it is impossible to determine if our universe is not a 'chamber' of a fractal multiverse - that should seem obvious :confused:There many different fractal formula and averaging them together on a large scale so that they cancel each other out does not seem to be ethical, it is like mixing black and white together to say neither exists, but only gray
I disagree (Oh opinions). Science is opinions, models and man-made worlds. Science is greatly built upon (idealistic) mathematical models. Man-made worlds everywhere. Yet we use them, because they work - to some extent. We use the opinions which give us best results. Is classic mechanics vs relativistic mechanics no more than 'Newton vs Einstein'
Don't we choose the model most compatible with the context? Special contexts can blow this model as it does with Euclidean space --> non-Euclidean.

Science doesn't concern itself with the ethics of it's answers, as ethics are personal opinions, rather than scientific opinions.
One could say humans choose the context and so they choose the science possibly damning other contexts and by implication other sciences.

Why would you have to throw all fractal formulae on a big heap, and avarage them out? Which avarage are you even using? What would be wrong with a single big fractal formula? Or perhaps a lineair combination / superposition of serveral fractal formulae? The specifics would have to answer to our reality. You seem to be guessing
Yes. Some knowledge and experience could be required here. Let's hold off on averaging fractals, lol.
In your case :
Greyscale = x black + (1-x) white, if you consider the absolute cases of black (x=1) and white (x=0) to be part of your greyscale, then sure, there is only grey. Black is just grey without any white in it.
Along a closed line segment the ends points are black at one end and white at the other with gray in between.
 

Etheri

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I don't follow you. You mean I misspoke or I jumped too far? Electrons orbit atoms but with molecules they jump all over the place is my understanding. They don't do that because of gravitational force, but so what? There is an orbital inclination ...

You jumped too far. Electrons don't orbit. At best (s-orbitals), the space where you have the highest probability to find an electron is an orbit (which is related to the bohr radius). Within bohr's model, you're right... But schrödinger does not agree. Bohr is a nice and visual model, far easier to comprehend, unfortunately, these orbits he so heavily depends on are simply wrong. Molecules and atoms follow the same QM rules, molecules are just obviously far more complex. In both atoms and molecules, electrons are not 'located'. (They jump all over the place, as you'd say). Even an orbital is only a '90%-probability volume'. And only s-orbitals would go along with the idea of an orbit. p, d and f orbitals don't even remotely look like what you'd require to have your electron orbit the nucleus.

And ofcourse, as you stated, there's no gravitational force. Also, if our planets orbitted the sun the way an electron circles it's nucleus, we'd not have a quite this regular climate. Instead we'd randomly go between burning and freezing. Also note that electrons are not located in the same sense that the earth is. The wave properties of electrons are far more prominent than those of our planet.

The diffrence is QM. Wave properties have alot of influence on electrons etc, which means they're not localised, and if something isn't localised, how could it possibly orbit? On the other hand, any QM effects on planets are easily ignored due to the planets size in comparison to it's wavelength.
 

BigApplePi

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Oh QM! I have to give in to superior knowledge ... if that's what one calls it. But I've held QM at arm's length ever since I decided I didn't know what they were talking about.

Granted you've described wave behavior, but what the hey. Are you going to tell me we don't know where the electron is because we can't pinpoint a wave? I hope you don't throw Heisenberg at me because I don't get that either. What the heck is an electron anyway? A moving force? A particle or a wave or both?
 

Etheri

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Don't we choose the model most compatible with the context? Special contexts can blow this model as it does with Euclidean space --> non-Euclidean.

One could say humans choose the context and so they choose the science possibly damning other contexts and by implication other sciences.

Yes, but that's exactly my point. We do not need 'other universes' to compare to. We can produce models, and compare our only universe to those, picking the model which suits our purposes best. Science isn't about comparing diffrent (parts of) reality, it's about comparing man-made worlds to the real, natural world through approximation. I'm not seeing where you're saying anything diffrent than me D:
Yes. Some knowledge and experience could be required here. Let's hold off on averaging fractals, lol.
Wasn't me who proposed it, I just wanted to show that the idea is actually viable and an often used technique in science.
On a sidenote, would a superposition or avarage of fractals still be a fractal? Since fractals can be seen as periodic motions (oscillations), would it be possible to find fractals which, when applied together in the right ways, would not result in a fractal anymore, as the periodicity disappears? My gut says, as with regular periodic functions, it probably is. (Tl dr : avaraging fractals might not have a fractal as result)
Along a closed line segment the ends points are black at one end and white at the other with gray in between.
Then your definition of grey is exclusive of black and white, which i'm sure is the general consensus, but no more than definition and agreement.

All I wanted to show is that the idea of avaraging out fractals is not as bad as Da Blob was making it look, regardless of how valid or viable it is (in this actual case). My point is his comparison and arguments were both wrong.
 

Etheri

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Granted you've described wave behavior, but what the hey. Are you going to tell me we don't know where the electron is because we can't pinpoint a wave? I hope you don't throw Heisenberg at me because I don't get that either. What the heck is an electron anyway? A moving force? A particle or a wave or both?

I'll try to keep the ideas simple, for that reason i'll also make gross over simplifications and stuff. Don't hate D;

At first, we found light phenomena can only be explained by a particle - wave duality. Meaning they're particles and waves both. Particles are localised, waves are spread out. This is what heisenberg says. Basically heisenberg tells you what you cannot do. Most important parts here are that you're limited in knowing both 'the position' and 'the impulse' of a particle. (If you know 100% certain EXACTLY where a particle is, then you have NO idea about how fast it's moving, and vice versa.)

Later, broglie applied these ideas which were being worked out for photons to other particles. All particles, to be exact. Everything, including you and I have both particle and wave properties. However, our wavelengths are so small in comparison to our size, that they do not matter. We can easily ignore the wave properties. This is because the 'order' of this not knowing is very small. (wavelengths vs size). (I'll make up numbers cause i'm too lazy to do the maths or research atm, but put into relative numbers : if the 'uncertainty' on position and impulse both to an electron is 50%, then this is pretty big. Apply this to a football, and you'll get something like 0.00000001%, which ... doesn't really matter.) = TL DR, and this isn't sound scientific, but small particles are alot more 'wave' and alot less 'particle' in comparison to big particles. (meaning the bigger / more mass a particle has, the easier you can ignore its wave properties)

In electrons, however, we cannot ignore these wave-parts. So yes, an electron is both a wave and a particle. And yes, we cannot localise electrons because we cannot pinpoint waves. No, an electron is not a moving force, it's a moving smear of mass and charge. So because we do not know 'where' an electron is, we represent the place you'd find an electron (as particle, with a probe such as a photon or an other electron) as a probability, rather than an exact position. And this is the fundamental diffrence between QM and classic mechanics. Classic mechanics is deterministic : you can find out the position, you can find out the velocity, and once you do you'll know exactly what happens next. QM is probabilities, chances. 'You might find the electron here, or maybe there, or maybe...'

THIS EXPLAINS IT BETTER THAN I EVER WILL. And it only takes a minute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vc-Uvp3vwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_h4IoPJXZw
 

BigApplePi

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@Etheri
(If you know 100% certain EXACTLY where a particle is, then you have NO idea about how fast it's moving, and vice versa.)
Am I allowed to use my intuition here? Position and speed are entirely different concepts or dimensions. By the time I've determined a position, my action has let the particle go ... too late to get its speed. If I measure its speed, by the time I've tried to pinpoint its position, its gone. I wonder if that's a correct observation as I'm using a lot of undefined words here?

Later, broglie applied these ideas which were being worked out for photons to other particles. All particles, to be exact. Everything, including you and I have both particle and wave properties.
Is this acceptable:
Everything has both because an existing particle must BE somewhere, at least for a moment. A wave means that an existent particle is not an island, but has influence on its surroundings. The WAY it influences is it "waves at you."
No, an electron is not a moving force, it's a moving smear of mass and charge.
Whoops. You just uttered a couple of curse words. What is "mass"? Is it the "resting" content of what the wave-particle is? What is "charge"? Some special kind of wave-particle influence? (Since there appear to be difference kinds of charges, these wave-particles must be different. If that is so, we must get inside them to explain the differences.)

Question: to separate the particle from wave, could we say the particle part is what we see for position (corresponding to mass), while the wave part is the moving part (corresponding to energy)? Maybe that's too strong a statement.

So because we do not know 'where' an electron is, we represent the place you'd find an electron (as particle, with a probe such as a photon or an other electron) as a probability, rather than an exact position. And this is the fundamental difference between QM and classic mechanics. Classic mechanics is deterministic : you can find out the position, you can find out the velocity, and once you do you'll know exactly what happens next. QM is probabilities, chances. 'You might find the electron here, or maybe there, or maybe...'
Kind of like, "It's a probability because I don't really know and can't know, so I label it by saying: probability = I don't know. Here is a concept I can pose: Suppose the observer (God) as mind only were outside the physical universe. Then since a particle exists with existence properties, it would HAVE a position and speed at the same time. It's just that only this "God" would know it.

I believe experiments have demonstrated this probability. I'm wondering though if this is for a large stream of electrons rather than one. I suppose so.
THIS EXPLAINS IT BETTER THAN I EVER WILL. And it only takes a minute.
The 1st link is okay, but not the 2nd. Why would the electron hitting the wall with particle-ness cause the wave part to disappear everywhere else? Is that because it's one electron alone whereas sound and water waves involve a medium of sound and water particles? This is makes water and sound misleadng. If ONE electron travels, does its wave appear in 3-dimensions everywhere or is that only for a stream of electrons with a probability distribution? Or does the single electron carry its waveness with it only in the direction which it travels?
 

walfin

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I don't understand, why can't a fractal be largely evenly distributed at the "zoomed-out" level?
 

Etheri

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I don't understand, why can't a fractal be largely evenly distributed at the "zoomed-out" level?
Because it follows, from the definition of a fractal, that it 'looks similar / the same' at every 'level of zoom'. It should still look like a fractal at the zoomed-out level.

Am I allowed to use my intuition here? Position and speed are entirely different concepts or dimensions. By the time I've determined a position, my action has let the particle go ... too late to get its speed. If I measure its speed, by the time I've tried to pinpoint its position, its gone. I wonder if that's a correct observation as I'm using a lot of undefined words here?
It's not that intuitive. Lets look at the problem in one dimension. x(t) and vx(t) being the position and the speed along this one dimension. Lets say you have an object, and you measure it's position, then you have x(0). If you measure it again , you'll have another position (x(1)), from which you can approach dx / dt = vx. Measure it again (x(3)) and you can approach the acceleration (d²x/dt². If we consider that in classical physics, we typically don't use d^3 x/dt^3, we can calculate all three of these exact.)
Note that we need TWO measurements (at diffrent times) (to find x and vx, ignoring ax here).

In quantum, you can find the position and momentum (=velocity) in one simultaneous measurement. However, this measurement will ALWAYS have incertainty inherent to it. There's no possible way to bypass this. This is because you measure the wave functions that are applicable to this position. These tell you the impulse (velocity), but not exact, because they are wavepackets.

Is this acceptable:
Everything has both because an existing particle must BE somewhere, at least for a moment. A wave means that an existent particle is not an island, but has influence on its surroundings. The WAY it influences is it "waves at you."
Whoops. You just uttered a couple of curse words. What is "mass"? Is it the "resting" content of what the wave-particle is? What is "charge"? Some special kind of wave-particle influence? (Since there appear to be difference kinds of charges, these wave-particles must be different. If that is so, we must get inside them to explain the differences.)

I'm talking about mass and charge as proporties of the particle / wave (... insert more advanced theories as to why that is not 100% accurate.) Mass for gravitational interaction, charge for electromagnetic interaction.
Quantum says a particle is in multiple places at once (everywhere it's wavefunction says where and howmuch probability to find it) until you 'probe' it. Probing it requires interaction (photon / electron / electromagnetic field / etc.) Without interaction and a probe, we cannot measure. By probing, measuring, we force the object into it's particle sense, much like the video said. The wave is everywhere, but the particle is only in one place. But before you probe it, you have no way of knowing which place this will be, and some experiments show it's actually waving through the place (interference / diffraction) . This is why you only require one measurement. One measurement tells you where the particle is, what wave functions still apply, and by the wave functions you know it's energy and thus it's velocity. (Altho, since you go by waves, you'll never know it exact.)
Question: to separate the particle from wave, could we say the particle part is what we see for position (corresponding to mass), while the wave part is the moving part (corresponding to energy)? Maybe that's too strong a statement.
Wrong, and you can't truly seperate particle from wave. Both particle and wave have their own properties, but they're connected. Both particle and wave have mass, impulse, position. Particles are entities, they cannot be split. A photon is absorbed as a whole, or not at all. They are 'quanta' of energy. Yet these unsplitable quanta are in multiple places at once - as waves. Even when you probe a particle, and it thus becomes a particle, it still has it's wave functions. These will just be much more located, much less probability. A single wave packet, rather than a superposition of lots of them.

Kind of like, "It's a probability because I don't really know and can't know, so I label it by saying: probability = I don't know. Here is a concept I can pose: Suppose the observer (God) as mind only were outside the physical universe. Then since a particle exists with existence properties, it would HAVE a position and speed at the same time. It's just that only this "God" would know it.

I don't know, I truly don't. I'm inclined to say no, the particle has multiple positions and velocities each with their own probability. It only gets one position and one velocity once you probe it. Schrödingers cat, the cat is both dead and alive, both with their own probability. You do not know which until you look. In quantum mechanics, (I know this isn't very intuitive), the cat is both alive and dead until you look. Once you look, you force the probability waves (% alive, % dead) into one particle with one position and momentum (100% alive or 100% dead). Reality only becomes what it is once you look. Once you probe, before that, all options are there, and likely along their probability.
I believe experiments have demonstrated this probability. I'm wondering though if this is for a large stream of electrons rather than one. I suppose so.
The 1st link is okay, but not the 2nd. Why would the electron hitting the wall with particle-ness cause the wave part to disappear everywhere else? Is that because it's one electron alone whereas sound and water waves involve a medium of sound and water particles? This is makes water and sound misleadng. If ONE electron travels, does its wave appear in 3-dimensions everywhere or is that only for a stream of electrons with a probability distribution? Or does the single electron carry its waveness with it only in the direction which it travels?
It's a mixture of thought experiments and real experiments but they're pretty sound. To see the duality, you should look at the double-slit interference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

Wall of text incoming, but i'll try to make this as clear as possible. It's not that easy to understand and it feels very illogical.
The two slit experiment shows interference between photons. (Same has been done for electrons!). As waves, this experiment is easy to understand. Lets look at it in terms of particles. Imagine we have a stream of particles, and each particle has a probability to where it'll end up, then you could find the same results...

However : Imagine you attach a measurement to see which photon goes through which slit, and then -while the experiment was double-slit- you only plot the ones that went through slit1. You'd get a normal single slit pattern. However, we can do this for both slits, and the total of the experiment is just the adding up of our slit 1 and 2. However, this won't give us the clear interference pattern, yet something entirely diffrent! Measuring which slit our photons go through changes our experiment and ALTERS REALITY. In the case of not measuring (where photons remain waves of probability), it's impossible to know whether they go through slit 1 or slit2. There is even to pose more, the particle goes through both slits at once. That's exactly what the second video is showing, your waves can pass through both holes at once - as waves!- and will only become a particle with a single position and momentum once it is probed (in this case hits the wall)

To go back to your question. ONE electron travels everywhere by huygens principle as wave. Until you probe it, then it appears in one place, with one velocity. Before you probe it, it is everywhere, and you have no way of knowing where it'll end up. That being said, the wave functions follow certain laws. (Schrodinger equation). Imagine an electron is being pulled into a positive charge (electromagnetic force), then obviously the probabilities of the wavespackets aligning with the charge moving there are much higher than those where the wavepackets move away from the attractive force. However, since there is uncertainty concerning the particles velocity inherent to quantum mechanics, what if the particle has enough velocity to escape the attraction? Despite it being more likely to find the particle close to the attractive force, it is still possible to find it moving the other direction, because it had the energy to escape the potential well.
 

Da Blob

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I don't understand, why can't a fractal be largely evenly distributed at the "zoomed-out" level?
Because it follows, from the definition of a fractal, that it 'looks similar / the same' at every 'level of zoom'. It should still look like a fractal at the zoomed-out level.


Ho hum! so exactly what does a fractal look like if one is inside of one?

What POV is available that would justify generalizations of how something looks from the outside, if all observations are limited to the inside?

Not being snarky here, but is there any evidence as to what a POV from the inside of a fractal would be?

The 2-D visual representations of fractals, are for the most part built upon linear equations. How could one ever state that a POV was not that of a component of a greater equation?

As mathematical equations, fractals are usually nowhere differentiable, which means that they cannot be measured in traditional ways.[2][6][8]

An infinite fractal curve can be perceived of as winding through space differently from an ordinary line, still being a 1-dimensional line yet having a fractal dimension indicating it also resembles a surface.[1]:48[2]:15

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_mathematics
 

addictedartist

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The universe is fractal because it is in fact not itself a fractal but constists entirely of fractals , which are in some sense just starting or beyond themsleves into a new set of fractals perhaps the equation is more complex then simple, however in order to see the complex you must be simple, as ten is made up of ones does not make it not ten or not ten ones:confused: just like people are individuals but belong to a community of people regardless of subjective localized opinion and objective growth and expansion of preconceived limits to the unlimited potential of the human mind to alter the perceptions of the masses:p
 
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