Gravity Sucks

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         I'm sitting in the dining room reading an article in Scientific American Magazine on gravity.

         "You know Newton's three laws of gravity can apply to every day life,"  I tell Ben. We are as fascinated with gravity as physicists. I hear him sigh at my baiting.

         "An object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by a force," he says, reciting the short version, not interested in math so early in the day- or ever.

         "Things stay the same until something changes," I paraphrase.

         " Ah I get it. An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by a force. Things go on until something stops it, " he chimes in.

         "For every action there is an equal reaction. What goes around, comes around, like karma," I conclude, but there's more to it than that.

         "That's fine for Newtonian physics but gravity doesn't work in Quantum Mechanics." Ben huffs.

         " That's why they came up with super string theory that proposes everything is made up of strings of energy. How the string vibrates determines the element and explains gravity." Something I guessed at long before I heard of the theory.

         "Yeah, but they had to throw in eleven dimensions for it to work," he rustles, still unconvinced.

         "So? You think the five dimensions is all we got? Frankly I don't think there are enough," now it's my turn to huff.

         "Five?" Ben is puzzled as he calculates.

         "Three dimensions of the physical world, time/space and consciousness--so far," I throw out. I turn a page in the magazine to a graphic depicting sub atomic particles doing something filthy with each other.

         "Ok, consciousness encompasses the dimension of dreams, ESP and so on. I get that but where are the others?" He finally says.

         " Conveniently, the theory says there are tiny ones curled up in bigger ones. What's a good theory without unobservable elements to get the math to add up." I add in a snarky tone. Ben considers this for some time while I continue reading.

         "What if our dimension is a tiny one rolled up in a bigger one?" Ben suggests curiously and the idea gives me the weirdest feeling. Like a ball of string unraveling I find myself tangled in the implications.

         "What if gravity is not so much a force but a string of energy and the galaxies are flying away faster as the influence of that string of gravity grows weaker." He wonders aloud. 

         There is a long pause as we ponder the bizarre concept. There is so much about gravity we don't understand.

         The weak and strong atomic forces deal with subatomic particles so we don't relate to their influence but electro magnetism gives us the modern world and yet gravity, so easily overcome as I pick up my cup of tea, keeps us Earth bound and commands time/space itself.

         "Well the universe is full of possibilities," I muse.

         "Nah, there is no gravity the Earth sucks," Ben dismisses.

Reality . . .What a Concept

 

         Ben and I are discussing physics and I'm reminded of a joke.

         Heisenberg and Schrodinger are in a car. They get pulled over by a police car. Heisenberg is driving and the cop asks him "Do you know how fast you were going?"

         "No, but I know exactly where I am" Heisenberg replies. The cop says "You were doing 55 in a 35." Heisenberg throws up his hands and shouts "Great! Now I'm lost!"

         The cop thinks this is suspicious and orders him to pop open the trunk. He checks it out and says "Do you know you have a dead cat back here?"

         "We do now!" shouts Schrodinger.

 

         "Ha, that's a good one, but what about the contradiction between Newtonian and Quantum Physics?" he wonders.

          The physical Newtonian world is pretty predictable but the mind is more like  unpredictable nature of Quantum physics and the way people view reality. Like the source of dreams, creativity and the appeal of David Hasseloff.

         "Our thoughts are made of energy, where do they go once they’re thought?”  I ask as a koan. Ben is silent a long time.

         " Since energy is never lost--merely converted, they must be converted into something else?" Ben suggests.

         “Ah, very good grasshopper.” I answer, playing the role of the zen roshi.        

         "Fortunately others have thought of this," I offer a quote:

         "IMAGINE that someone asks you how to distinguish consciousness from unconsciousness – a difficult task indeed. If consciousness has a physical basis, can the same be said about unconsciousness?
         You might have expected psychologists to have tackled this question, but perhaps not physicists. After all, physics is concerned with the study of matter and radiation. . .  Wolfgang Pauli. . .  proposed that the interaction between consciousness and unconsciousness is analogous to one of the central ideas in quantum physics, called complementarity – that it is impossible to distinguish between the behaviour of an atomic object and its interaction with the instrument observing it."  -Andrei Khrennikov, Professor of Mathematics at the Department of Mathematics at Linnaeus University.

         "Duh, of course consciousness is a quantum phenomenon, class dismissed," Ben utters facetiously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

The Zen of Physics

          

             " I'm still not sure," I muttered.

            "Einstein’s 'God doesn’t play dice with the universe' questions the business of probability, is all," the ficus empathized.

            “ Hey, I know, I live by the  Heisingburg Principle. I think human just don't get how light be both a wave and a particle, because of bias," I opined. There was an almost audible sigh from the large plant as a slight breeze from the open window rustled a leaf.

            “The uncertainty principle is a lot like a zen koan: if a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? But Quantum Mechanics also asks,  If you are not in the woods, how do you know if a tree fell or not?"  it said.

            "Ah we do know because we see fallen trees." I assured it.           

            "All we see is the tree in a different state of being. We see the aftermath of a fall-maybe," It said, getting to the gist of it's argument.

            "We know trees fall because they are cut down and we see the results. Tree upright, now prone," I said impatiently. The plant practically trembled at the image.

            "-Of our actions, sure. But what if we don't see the cause? Then we are just guessing. What if the tree was always prone?" it prodded but I just shook my head. There it goes with the zen koan again.

            "We have no way of knowing but we still have to climb over it, cut it up or detour around to continue our journey with physics and reality, " I said, arching a brow.

            " You can't walk around in a perpetual state of imposition. The wave function's got to collapse some time," it pleaded in frustration.

            "Ok, this time the tree makes a sound, another time it doesn't. Both are valid," I replied.

            "Oh here we go again," it sighed. This conversation had been going in circles for days.

            "So how do we know what is real or not? Aren't we just making it all up as we go along? Why are we having this argument for God sake?" I said crossing my arms in irritation. Just then a nurse approached and touched me on the arm.

            “My aren’t we chatty, who are we talking to today?” she inquired as if speaking to a small child.  You are not part of this conversation I glared at her.

            "Benjamin,” I answered pointing to the slender tree amid the plants that filled a corner of the day room lined with tall barred windows.

            “Of course, but please lower your voice so you don’t disturb the others,” she gave me a condescending smile. The Lane County Mental Health Facility sure hires some naive people, I thought as I watched her fat ass waddle back to a desk and make a note in her daily report.

            "Because you can't convince your Cartesian minded ninwits of interspecies communication yet,"  Ben said sotto voce, as the other plants snickered in agreement.

physics

 

The Mind is a Quantum Event

I have read many books on my favorite subject -Quantum physics and I'm always surprised and delighted when someone proposes what I suspected all along:

"IMAGINE that someone asks you how to distinguish consciousness from unconsciousness – a difficult task indeed. If consciousness has a physical basis, can the same be said about unconsciousness?

You might have expected psychologists to have tackled this question, but perhaps not physicists. After all, physics is concerned with the study of matter and radiation. But you would be wrong. Wolfgang Pauli, winner of the 1945 Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum mechanics, did just that. He proposed that the interaction between consciousness and unconsciousness is analogous to one of the central ideas in quantum physics, called complementarity – that it is impossible to distinguish between the behaviour of an atomic object and its interaction with the instrument observing it."

Andrei Khrennikov and Emmanuel Haven 

 

Duh of course consciousness is a quantum phenomenon, class dismissed.

Capturing Light in a Bottle

This is the coolest, spookiest thing I have ever seen. A single photon is caught on film using a camera that shoots at a ridiculously high speed. The image is amazing. The applications are many but surprisingly the study of photons and it's properties was not listed.

What once was impossible is now visible. We can view single atoms and experiments have shown quantum mechanics in action. A hundred years ago Quantum Mechanics was just a bold theory that most physicists thought couldn't be proved with observation. Maybe in another hundred years we will be able to observe the predictions of String theory.

Quantum Physics or Duh!

I love quantum physics, everyone thinks it strange, mysterious and confusing. Even physicists! But sometimes it seems pretty apparent what's going on. I came across this puzzling video. I was not aware of the wave function (whatever it is) until I saw this but the idea that it could be real makes complete sense to me.

Years ago when I worked at the YMCA and waited for the light bulb guys to come with a delivery I sat in the office reading an article in the Smithsonian Magazine. it was about the weird behavior of electrons, they don't go through a wall, they hit it and just appear on the other side of it. If you affect the spin ( not literally a spin, that's just what they call it -play along) of an electron in space A, the spin of an electron in space B - maybe somewhere on the moon will also be affected.

Wow, man the author opined, electrons and the world of quantum mechanics was very strange, like totally weird. I just shook my head. How this "spooky action at a distance" works was pretty obvious to me: the two electrons are in communication with each other as everything in the universe is connected, duh. When the light bulb guys arrived I showed them this article and they agreed with me, as if I explained to them that the earth revolves around the sun. So there we were, a bunch of non scientists who thought the weirdness these people were freaking out about made sense.

Now I'm sure my opinion is simplistic but I'm a big fan of metaphysics, and I'm beginning to see the shaman, mystic and zen Buddhists are talking about the same thing as physicists and mathematicians, they are merely using a different language to describe their observations. Even the average person like myself is capable of grasping these ideas.

The newest thing is the "string theory" that speculates about multiple dimensions and everything being composed of tiny little string of energy that vibrate. Well yeah. Admittedly there is a LOT about physics that completely eludes me and I have no illusions of understanding anything but sometimes I feel I get a glimpse behind the veil before the weight of logic and the voice of "what the hell do you know punk?" slams me down. But I continue to study physics, the universe and the "unfathomable mystery" of life as Carlos Castaneda's  Don Juan put it. That's OK, It gives me something to ponder while drinking my morning cup of tea.