Universal Physics laws

[LeedsRhinos]

Is there a possibibity that in some far outer reaches of the universe some differant laws of physiscs apply and some unknown elements exist?

[wildwood]

Without a doubt.

[Teddio]

Very unlikely in this Universe. There is no evidence of any law being violated. For example, the inverse square law for gravity and the law of conservation of momentum. Also evry part of the Universe, including ourselves, can claim to be in the "outer reaches" Of course this is not to say that explanations exist for the laws of physics or that new laws will be discovered but all the law will be universal.

[chamois]

The Periodic Table we currently use is already at element number 118 - Ununoctium. Now I'll stop here for a moment to preempt those that would say that many of the newer elements have extremely short half-lives and are of no real significance in this discussion. My argument is that no matter how short their half-lives, they can still be demonstrated here on Earth. The so called synthetic elements and others are still elements or they wouldn't be in the Periodic Table.

Ununoctium was discovered in 2006 and it would be naive for anyone to declare that this is the last element we shall discover here on Earth. There is absolutely no reason why our 118 elements and others still to come should not be discovered elsewhere in the universe in the future.

After all, many of the additions that have been made to the Periodic Table since Mendeleev would not have occurred without advances in technology. Technology does not stand still, and as we progress, more elements will come to light. both on Earth and elsewhere in the universe.

It would be arrogant of Man to think otherwise

[jake-the-peg]

I think I need to take issue with Teddio saying there is no evidence of any law being violated.

Especially as he picks out Gravity.

Science constantly finds instances where laws are violated and this goes on to give us more accurate and better understanding.

The orbit of mercury could not be explained with the simple inverse square law as formulated my Newton and was one of the great sucesses of General relativity that it was able to explain this phenominum.

Conservation laws are also interesting because some like momentum have never been shown to be violated whilst others are approximate.

However there's no reason to believe that any particular point in the universe should have be different laws of physics to any other, that would imply that it was in some way "special".

[tompaine]

Following on from Jake

Gravity is a good example where we don't yet have a full understanding. In particular where relativity predicts a singularity, say a blackhole or a big bang singularity, this means that relativity cannot explain what is happening. Relativity is violated when considering the very small. Quantum mechanics does not allow singularities but until we have a theory of quantum gravity the theory is incomplete. Slightly more controversially, the same may be true of the very big. It has been posited that dark matter is a fudge and not necessary to explain the movement of galaxies and the laws of gravity should be revised instead.

[ludwig]

Revise the laws of gravity? - flipping heck Tom you'll be telling me you believe in ghosts next. ;-)

[tompaine]

I might Ludwig. Of course i'd need some evidence and a working hypothesis of what constitutes a ghost and then some predictions of observable ghostly events. For starters I would like to know: Do ghosts wear ghostly clothes?

[kwicky]

I believe our universe is a closed system and the laws of physics apply. But at the same time there could be other universes that possibly differs from ours. There should be no monopoly when it comes to a big bang.