Alternating currents

For that matter, how would you know if you’d moved into a parallel universe?

I mean, think about it. If—and I’m a little hazy on the physics here, but then, who isn’t—if every decision point creates the opportunity for an alternate reality, who’s to say I’m in the reality I’m supposed to be in? Maybe I tripped or sneezed or got a raspberry seed caught under my dental plate, something to distract me just enough that I made a decision I wouldn’t have otherwise and here I am—divorced from someone I shouldn’t be, driving the wrong car or even standing in the wrong checkout line at WalMart.

What’s more, if my decision created this universe by mistake, and if all of you people are in this universe too, then all of you are also in the wrong place, just because I belched up a bad taste from my chili last night and was distracted as I was playing solitaire on my computer.

Even worse, I’m in my sixties now. That means I’ve had a lifetime of opportunities to stumble around from one bad decision to the next (and I can recall quite a few without even trying) creating and then abandoning one wrong universe after another. I could’ve left hundreds of thousands of billions of people in utter confusion and despair as I slipped seamlessly from one sinking ship to the next.

Oh, you think entering a parallel universe wouldn’t be that easy, huh? Well, I said seamlessly and I’ll stick to it. There is nothing I have found in the literature that guarantees it takes some sort of catastrophically explosive tear in the so-called fabric of spacetime to connect alternate realities. As a matter of fact, any reputable physicist will admit that the “rules” governing such occurrences may be entirely outside our known laws of physics.

In light of that, I feel quite confident in asserting that the nature of such rules, I’ll call it exophysics, pretty much does guarantee that the inter-universe connections occur in ways we have not even imagined.

You want proof? Okay, here’s an experiment. First, pick out a technical field of which you have absolutely no knowledge, like brain surgery, rocket science or guaranteeing your privacy on the internet. Now, assuming you’re not a brain surgeon, rocket scientist or the operator of some on-line social network, tell me how to go about removing a brain tumor, landing on Mars or keeping your email address from some erstwhile Nigerian “prince.” Go ahead, take your time. Use the back of the page if necessary.

You haven’t got a clue, have you? So what makes you think you know the first thing about exophysics?

And even if you could guess the exophysics outside of this universe, that would be absolutely no help in guessing about the exophysics outside another universe, especially if I’ve plunked you into one of my wrong universes to begin with.

All I can say is, I’m really, really sorry. Sorry for creating another wrong universe in which you’re now trapped and sorry for ending the last paragraph with a preposition. I can only have hope. Perhaps, in the next universe, it will be acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition.

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Voodoo Physics

Recently, I came across two books that cast significant aspersions on the entire notion of string theory: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law by Peter Woit and The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin.

First of all, have you ever noticed how scientific works have such long titles? It’s like they’re trying to summarize the book in the title. What’s wrong with a tight, pithy title like Absurdities of String Theory or Cutting the Strings? Why these obsessive run-on sentences trying to squeeze onto book covers? Have you ever seen a really obese individual dressed in spandex or some other stretchy material? Scientific titles must be a real headache for cover artists.

Now, I may have left you with the impression that I have actually read the two books I mentioned. In fact, I wouldn't mind if you had that impression. It might cause you to think I was very intelligent and widely read on matters of physics. If you’ll notice, however, I wrote that I “came across” these books. More specifically, I read about them on Amazon.com. So, while the following might give you the notion I understand it, I’m simply parroting comments from reviewers.

In his book, Woit makes the case that superstring theory is not just far-fetched, it doesn’t even really have the substance to be described as a theory. Since it makes no testable predictions, it cannot be proven, or, more importantly, proven wrong. Essentially, this makes superstring theory unchallengeable, so it survives and flourishes without being subject to the scientific method.

Smolin, for his part, posits that much research in physics—the search for the laws of nature—has entered the realm of the imaginary with its dimensionless sub-atomic particles and multiple parallel universes. A lapsed string theorist himself, Smolin laments that many of the best and brightest new talent among physicists today are being drawn toward this mystical realm.

A RELEVANT ALLEGORICAL VIDEO

And, just when I’m beginning to think it may be safe to go back into the waters of general and special relativity, I see this teaser on my home page from the BBC news service: “Test ‘breaks light speed again.’” The article describes experiments conducted at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland and an associated Italian lab, INFN, at Gran Sasso in the mountains of central Italy, some 450 miles away.  The Geneva lab shot bunches of neutrinos through the earth’s crust at a giant super-sensitive detector at Gran Sasso. The results confirmed an earlier experiment in which the neutrinos arrived some billionths of a second faster than light would have traveled the same distance. This seems to turn on its ear the insistence, in relativity theory, that the speed of light, 186,282 miles per hour, is an absolute limit and that nothing can move faster. (NOTE: These results were later retracted due to experiment errors attributed to faults in equipment handling.)

What's more, I was reading a brief history of the neutrino on a website by the University of California, Irvine, and the synopsis reflects a very similar inception to that of string theory. It gave me pause.

I was starting to like that the idea of string theory, and possibly other conjectures of quantum mechanics, were just so much magical thinking. My mind began to erase branes, multiple universes and extra dimensions from its working chalkboard. The world began to make sense again.

Then those dang Europeans challenge one of the basic tenets of relativity theory.

I’ll bet it was the French. They’re always trying to upset the apple cart.

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Me and my shadow

"You're holding me back"

Okay, here's something to think about:

While you, at your world class best, can propel yourself at about one mile in four minutes, your shadow can move at the speed of light.

Go figure.

"I just can't keep up
with myself."

And if that's true, if you could cast a shadow 186000 miles long, it would take a full second for a change in your position to ripple all the way from your shadow's feet to it's head. (Or should that be "his" head? Does your shadow have a gender? I think that may be more a matter of metaphysics.)

Then it would take another second for the light from that change to travel back to you. In effect, as the "ripple" moved away, it would appear to slow down, because the light source would be further and further away.

"I'm out'a here!"

And then, with just a short burst of speed on your part . . .






I'm just sayin'.

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Incomplete

As I've mentioned, I've been working my way through George Musser’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory. Unfortunately, I haven't been having all that much success.

First off, let me say that I do not believe any fault lies with Mr. Musser or his book. He seems competent and his writing style is pleasant. It's just that I have the same trouble with his book as I've had with every other book on these topics: I've got no freakin' idea what he's talking about!

All I know is that, I start out okay with this stuff, but then it's like watching the author row a boat into the fog. He becomes less and less distinct, and then I can't see him at all anymore. I look hard, but I only can hear the squeak of the oars in the oarlocks, just the vaguest hint at what it's all about. It's so frustrating that I'd like to bang my head against something, but the only thing available is the fog.

I'm sure the fault must be mine. Well, I'm not even sure about that, either. I mean, I'm not exactly stupid. And maybe that's the problem.

The book is for the complete idiot. Maybe I'm not a complete idiot. Maybe I'm an incomplete idiot. Maybe there's some studying I must do or courses I have to take in order to reach complete idiot status.

What I am fully certain of is that drifting about in the fog is getting a mite irksome.

So I'm going to look into this business of becoming a complete idiot. I feel motivated.

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Teensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy

I want to put a few things in perspective. Strings, for instance.

As I mentioned last time, I’m working my way through George Musser’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory. I want to get a handle on what subatomic level we are dealing with when we talk about strings.

Deconstruction of matter:

1. Macroscopic, e.g., diamonds

2. Molecular, diamond allotrope

3. Atomic, carbon

4. Subatomic - Electron

5. Subatomic - Quarks

6. Strings (Image**)

First, let’s take another look at the diagram I used in my last entry, showing the progressively smaller and more basic parts of matter.

Now, try to wrap your mind around this concept: the most common estimate of the size of strings is that a string compares to an atom in roughly the same proportion that a human being compares to the entire observable universe. And we know that atoms are so small that it is only in recent years that we’ve been able to scan to the level of individual atoms with advanced electron microscopes. So I find it hard to imagine how infinitely smaller strings must be.

Beyond that basic fact lies the practical problem of ever even being able to observe a string—assuming they do exist. It would be tantamount to looking from earth to some very, very distant planet in a galaxy far, far away with the intention of being able to read the scoreboard at a Buckyball stadium there (Buckyball being the sporting pastime of the residents of that very, very distant planet). It’s likely to be a long time, if ever, that we have instruments able to directly observe either strings or Buckyball scoreboards on distant planets.

Of course, even when I was in school, no one had ever seen an atom. Technically, just a few short decades ago, atoms were just a theory, sort of like strings are now—or global warming or evolution, for that matter. But, even then, there was evidence that atoms existed. Their effects could be predicted and tested so that, even if we couldn’t see them, we knew the little devils were there.

We’re not quite at that point with string theory, though. There are competing theories which still have legitimate physicist adherents. Among the major contenders is loop quantum gravity theory. Among other things, the loop gravity theory proposes that space itself is actually composed of something, “space atoms” if you will, that act as the means for the transference of gravity—gravity being the main problem between defining the macro-universe (planets, stars, galaxies) and the micro-universe (atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons quarks and strings).

While the effects of gravity were well established by folks like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, their theories don’t hold up on that micro-universe, subatomic level. Hence, as I’ve mentioned, quantum theory was developed.

As Musser notes, for most practical purposes, those discrepancies don’t matter. Both astronomers and particle physicists can each explore their respective fields without regard to the theoretical offsets regarding gravity. But, eventually, when the ultimate questions of black holes or the Big Bang must be answered, then it will matter a great deal.

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