Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2016 November 9

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November 9

Wiktionary: "timescape"

At the English Wiktionary, we're struggling to define the physics (astrophysical? cosmological?) sense of the word timescape. One editor put down "A function of time that is dependent on the position of the observer", but this doesn't seem to fit some of the quotations we have found: see "Citations:timescape". David Wiltshire uses the term in his concept of "timescape cosmology". Please help if you can. Thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:44, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

You might perhaps look at Gregory Benford's 1980 novel Timescape, which is the earliest use of the word I know of, and predates your current citations by nearly 30 years. Benford was/is of course a practicing scientist, so probably used (or coined) the word with some firm idea of what he meant by it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.95} 90.211.130.104 (talk) 12:25, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I am aware of this book. However, we are trying to establish the use of the word in a physics rather than a science fiction context (hence the post at this reference desk). — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:12, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, you could actually ask Benford directly. He is or was a working physicist with a particular interest in time, so he should know both what he meant by it and what meaning it has in current science, and as an active writer he's easy to contact via his website. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.130.104 (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think it's a word in the usual sense. Wiktionary did a bang-up job of getting a lot of quotes about it, and in almost every one, it sounded like it was being coined afresh. The word is an analogy of landscape to time, clearly. Beyond that, each author is saying something different. It lacks the clear definition of something like spacetime. Wnt (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

The book by Ishi Nobu is self-published and appears to be science fiction or mysticism (or nonsense), not physics.

The other two citations use the word only to refer to a specific model called "timescape cosmology". It was published in PRD, which is a prestigious journal, but there's no Wikipedia article on it, and I'm almost sure it has very little buy-in among cosmologists since it (deliberately) violates the cosmological principle which almost all cosmologists believe is correct.

"Timescape" isn't in the standard vocabulary of physics. Any paper that used it would have to explain what it meant by it. Of "timescape cosmology", Wiltshire says "The word 'timescape' captures the idea that it is the relative calibration of ideal clocks in a nonuniform dynamically evolving geometry which is a distinguishing feature of the present cosmology." Based on that, and not really understanding the model, I'd say it means something like "a physical model where the nature of time depends in some way on position." But considering all uses in physics (if there are others), I doubt you could give a definition more specific than "something like a landscape but involving time".

In short, I agree with Wnt. I don't know Wiktionary's rules, but there probably shouldn't be a physics-specific entry for "timescape". -- BenRG (talk) 19:12, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, this is useful. I'll see if anyone else would like to comment here. In the meantime, I'll delete the Nobu quotation. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:41, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

90.211.130.104, on a whim I left a message for Benford through Facebook. (The contact form on his website doesn't work.) Let's see if he responds. He doesn't seem to be very active on Facebook – I only see posts from 2014. However, that could be because I am not a Facebook friend of his. — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:03, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, no response from Benford so far. — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:46, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I think it makes sense for Wiktionary to keep track of frequently coined words - there really are some words so prone to be made up on the spot that they are practically a part of the English language - wikt:girlcott for example. But they should be presented cautiously. Wnt (talk) 14:27, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Can cancer be treated by infecting cancer cells with microbes?

Thinking about the question posted above about why radiation therapy works for cancer led me to an answer that is purely my OR so it's probably not worth posting there. Basically, I think that an offshoot growth that originates from a very complex self regulating system, is typically going to be much more vulnerable to external stresses as it's less adapted for survival under general conditions. This suggests that tumors should be more vulnerable to infections, which leads to the question if cancer can be treated by infecting people with certain microbes. Count Iblis (talk) 21:35, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

There has been research into using retroviruses to deliver gene therapies that carry "suicide genes," which would induce cell death in cancers during replication. I'm not sure if your adaptation idea bears out, however, or whether cancer cells are "more" vulnerable to infections. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

See Coley's toxins and Oncolytic virus. There have been anecdotal reports of spontaneous remission after bacterial/viral infection going as far back as before the germ theory of disease. It's an active area of research to this day. It's worth noting that some chemotherapeutics are actually derived from bacterial extracts, such as the anthracyclines. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:41, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

There are experiments (with mixed success) in which brain tumors are treated by infecting them with the polio virus, which activates the immune system to kill the tumor. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Do you have anywhere the OP can read more about these experiments? --Jayron32 00:27, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

This[1] could be a good starting place. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:32, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

The general term for these types of therapies is immunotherapy. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 10:17, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

The ultimate cure for cancer may be to program viruses to seek out and destroy the specific genetic mutation in one cancer cell, then let it loose to find others in the body. If the cancer mutates, the virus would then need to be reprogrammed. Once we can program viruses faster than cancer cells can mutate, we should have a cure. StuRat (talk) 18:17, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

There are a lot of possibilities. There is no subdiscipline of biology that in which intricate cleverness of design and strategy are more important than in immunology! Usually non-replicating viral vectors are preferred, in part so the researcher doesn't get featured in I Am Legend. Just do a PubMed search for viral vector tumor and you'll see some ideas come up. The most recent is "Dipeptide-functionalized polyamidoamine dendrimer-mediated apoptin gene delivery facilitates apoptosis of human primary glioma cells." (see PAMAM) That's a mouthful... but I've seen more complicated ideas. But another recent paper on that list cites some literature suggesting why entirely non-viral options seem more promising to some: [2] Wnt (talk) 19:12, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, this very interesting stuff! Count Iblis (talk) 21:27, 10 November 2016 (UTC)