Tag: physics

Satyrdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Here it is again.

Yes, it’s a day that ends with the letter y. That means that PINO Trump is letting loose with another fact-free, incredibly stupid text. In this case, Trump is declaring that he as 47 has won the Nobel Prize in Physics. This is so mind-jarringly freakin’ insane that I had to vet it several times.

How Trump just subtly claimed a Nobel Prize in physics

In a post on his Truth Social platform Thursday, Trump appeared to take credit for the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded to physicists John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis earlier this month for their discoveries related to quantum mechanics in 1984 and 1985.

Trump cited a statement, attributed to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, which appears to give the president credit over the experiments conducted decades ago.

See, Chris Wright is not the name of any of the physicists who won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

But Trump in his alternate reality thinks one of them is named Chris Wright. Chris Wright, a former CEO. Crazy Donnie’s statement states, “Chris Wright: ‘A former Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist won the Nobel Prize in physics for work in Quantum physics. Quantum computing, along with AI and Fusion, are the three signature Trump science efforts. Trump 47 racks up his first Nobel Prize!!’”

Chris Wright.

John Clarke, Michel Devoret, John Martinis.

Those names are not at all similar. To claim it as an honest mistake is all kinds of BS.

Further, though, and worse, Trump chalks this up as a victory for himself. He had nothing to do with any of it. What a liar and a fool he’s proven himself to be once again. But as Nan put it, yet, yet, yet, Trumpets are quite satisfied with this idiot leading them.

What unthinking, foolish sheeple they are in MAGAland. But as we’ve seen, they don’t care until they’re personally affected.

Then, of course, it’s too late.

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Floof Dimension

Floof Dimension (floofinition) – 1. A measurable aspect of some kind, as seen by an animal.

In use: “Although he was a large animal, using floof dimensions, he wedged himself into the box.”

2. An existence employing spatial, temporal, and classic physics which animals know, but humans can’t comprehend.

In use: “Animals live lives of adventure in the floof dimension, often requiring them to eat and sleep more frequently in the human dimension, so that they can recharge and return to the floof dimension with fresh energy.”

3. Popular American musical floof group active beginning in the 1960s, who melded multiple musical influences to create the champagne floof sound.

In use: “Songs such as “I Wouldn’t Let You Sleep Last Night”, “Empty Bowl Blues”, and “Aquarius/Let the Cat Out”, kept the Floof Dimension atop the hit list.”

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Floofsics

Floofsics (floofinition) – A branch of science that deals with matter and energy and their interactions with animals.

In use: “While humans observe physics, animals observe floofsics, often demonstrating that they don’t respond to the forces of nature, such as gravity, as humans do.”

photo courtesy of Facebook/Life with Cats

 

 

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Humaverse

“Listen,” she said. “It’s very simple.”

Although she was a little girl (four, I’d guess, and then remembered, oh, yeah, she told me that before, she is four) with a high-pitched voice, her tone carried a judge’s authority.

“I’m listening,” I said, injecting a hint of jocularity.

My hint gained me an eye-roll. “We remain in a humaverse. It’s only the timeverse that’s changed.”

I conjured up more questions. She stilled them with a small rosy palm.

“Stop. I know what you’ll ask,” she said. “The humaverse is the universe as humans perceive it.”

I pursed my lips to issue another question but faced the all-powerful palm again.

Eyebrows going up, she tilted her head. She did that often, resembling a small dark-haired, white parakeet when she did. “I’ve been through this before. Let me finish. Humans have certain perceptions and observations that create agreed and accepted preconceptions about how everything is supposed to work, like gravity, time, and light, for instance. I’m talking classic physics, of course. Light travels at cee. Gravity is a force that causes bodies to be attracted to one another, as Newton expressed in the most commonly accepted explanation in this humaverse. Time flows from the past to the future and can’t be revisited. Well, it can but you need to shed preconceptions to make that work. Most people can’t.”

Her glance lashed me. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure that you can’t.”

“Hey, that’s — ”

“Excuse me, I’m not finished. So, that’s why it’s called the humaverse. It’s the universe as humans define it. Others can use it, though, but they’re not usually limited by the humaverse’s laws. It depends.”

“Okay.” It depended on what? “And a timeverse?”

“A timeverse is an agreed upon reality within a humaverse based on the constraints and parameters established by the results from major events of a specific time-period, as humans think it happened.”

“Like…who won world war two.”

“Everyone always brings that one up.” She sounded mystified. “That, and Jesus of Nazareth. But, yes. There are many timeverses. Some people call them alterverses, but they’re not really. To be a true alterverse, enough residual chi-energy to change humaverse rules must be present. I’m talking about classic physics, of course.”

“Of course.” Like I knew, but I didn’t want another eyeroll. If her eyes were weapons… “So…there can be more than one humaverse?”

“Of course. Now we’re wasting time. Yellow will be coming after us. Let’s go.”

Swinging around, she marched off. “Adults,” she said. I wasn’t sure if she talked to herself, me, or someone else. All were possible with this child. “They can learn if they can just forget.”

As I hurried to catch up with her, I thought with cynical amusement, I never will.

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Imaginary Physics

“What do you have?” he said.

“Chi-particle. Can you break it?”

“Can I break it. We can break anything here. I’ll give you a tachyon and a baryon.”

“That’s not enough.”

“I think that’s fair.”

“It’s not enough. Throw in a meson.”

“No way. A chi-particle isn’t worth a tachyon, baryon, and meson.”

“I disagree.”

“Take it somewhere else, then. Know how hard it is to get rid of a chi-particle?”

“Know how hard it is to capture an extra one?”

“If it’s so hard, and they’re so special, why are you trying to get rid of it?”

“These are special circumstances.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I need to change a chi-particle.”

“Look, I feel you, buddy, but I’m pretty limited. It’ll be hard as hell for me to get rid of that. People don’t want them. And Chi-particles have imaginary mass. Know what that does to real mass?”

“Yes, but they’re faster than light. They’re faster than tachyons. They have the longest half-life of anything out there. Hell, they’re the fundamental energy-particle of life.”

“That’s why people don’t want them. They already have them. Everyone has one. They worry about what another chi-particle will do to the relativity of simultaneity.”

“Yes, but Blink drives won’t work without them.”

“Blink drives are in the future. I have to deal with the present.”

“There is no future or past, there’s just now.”

“Oh, no, don’t start trying quantum bullshit on me. I’m an eternalist. I’ll not have presentism in my shop. You want to talk presentism, take it somewhere else.”

“Okay, okay, forget about time.”

“Forget about time?”

“Just give me a pentaquark and a tachyon, instead.”

“Where do you think you’re at? Look around you. You think I have anything as exotic as a pentaquark here?” He laughed. “Next, you’ll be asking for a heptaquark.”

“Well, what can you give me, then? Make an offer.”

“What about some leptons? I got every flavor you want.”

“I’m already lousy with leptons. Try again.”

He thought. “What flavor of chi-particle is it?”

“Human, of course.”

“Human huh?”

“I wouldn’t be dealing with you, if it wasn’t a Human chi-particle.”

“Okay. I’ll give you a tachyon, baryon, and boson.”

“A boson?” 

“Yeah, that’s a good deal.”

“You kidding me?”

“You won’t get that anywhere else.”

“A Higgs boson?”

“Now you’re trying to take advantage of me.”

Both accepted the swap after sniping at one another for a few minutes. Neither was satisfied, but then, nobody ever was, dealing with imaginary physics.

 

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Catmology

From the Human word cat and -logia, study of, we have catmology.

Catmology was originally the study of cats. However, in more recent popular culture, catmology has come to be accepted as the theory that the universe is cat-centric.

Evidence of this developing trend is on display in the world wide web and Internet. Cat rescues, cat love, photos of cats being cats, seem to be at the forefront, fighting with ‘real news’, such as the Superbowl, lessor sports information like baseball, cricket and football scores, fashion trends or if the POTUS knows how to read, to dominate our interests.

It certainly seems plausible that cats started the Big Bang. Something was sitting there and along came a cat. “Hey,” said the cat, “what’ll happen if I knock this over?” So they did. Bang. Then they probably rolled around in it a bit.

Some will point out inconsistencies in this theory. How can cats be there when there was nothing else except hot, dense matter? Catmologists will admit, they don’t know, but will counter, it’s quite possible that a cat managed it somehow. Cats have long defied every other law of special and normal physics. If any creature can tear or slip through the space-time fabric, it’s probably a cat. In a personal aside, I believe it was a ginger cat. They’re always getting into trouble.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to someday learn that physicists changed the string theory to the fur theory. Cat fur seems to be everywhere. Revealing it as the most fundamental aspect of our reality seems like a no-brainer.

 

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Permutations of the Arrows of Time and its Effect on Now

Thanks to the notebook (paper power!), I further evolved my novel’s setting, establishing that, theoretically nine arrows of time exist and six stages of chi-particles exist.

A Now can have between one and nine arrows of time. The arrows of time affect how Now is perceived and experienced. When all nine arrows of time exist in one Now, the Now is dominated by entropy and chaos. It becomes extremely short-lived. The gamma chi-particles responsible for Now cycle through existence more quickly, gaining energy and mass while slowing. Once the gamma chi-particles gain sufficient and energy, they move into the delta stage of chi-particle existence and decay into elements.

In our Now existence, where I, Michael, am sitting and typing in 2017 on Earth, five arrows of time exist. Three are the forward moving arrows of time involving psychology, thermodynamics and cosmology (Hawking’s take on Eddington’s idea). They work in relatively parallel synchronicity.

The other two arrows of time in this reality are the biological arrow of time and the imaginary arrow of time. We can’t grasp the imaginary arrow of time but we perceive its impact; from this emerges the paradoxes and conflicts of our existence that we can’t explain.

Hawking’s three arrows of time are dominant in this Now, providing the Now with a relatively long life and stability. This also affects the states of time I call Hawking Time, which are the present and the near and far futures and pasts. The near and far states are extensions of the impact of strong psychological and cosmological arrows of time, providing us (as the observers) with the false impressions that the future and past exist when they’re actually just knowledge/awareness of other Nows.

In the novel’s Now, the same five arrows of time are in place as in our Now. The difference emerges from the Now’s creation. The Now was created when beta chi-particles encountered a wave function collapse. The five arrows of time emerged. That’s normal.

Here’s where it changes. The beta chi-particles would normally become gamma chi-particles. In this instance, the beta chi-particles became binary gamma chi-particles. This, coupled with a more dominant imaginary arrow of time, causes the binary gamma chi-particles to continually loop back into themselves. Crashing into themselves creates new iterations of almost the exact same Now, but with a side effect of chronological entanglement. In essence, the Hawking states of time are misconstrued about being the future and the past. Additionally, the binary gamma chi-particle presents the characters with the illusion that they can control the past and the future and overcome the inherent paradoxes.

This will not happen ‘forever’. Eventually, as in the case of a standard gamma chi-particles, the binary chi-particles of the novel’s scenario will cycle and decay to the point that they gain more mass and energy, becoming delta chi-particles, etc.

Glad I cleared that up. Needed to more fully understand it to be consistent and more clearly tell the story. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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A New Notebook

(EDITING NOTE: “Long Summer” was the working title for the trilogy that is “Incomplete States”.)

As I was writing this week, I realized that I needed a notebook and pen.

I had the pen. I’ve stowed pens in most of my coats, jackets and computer cases. I often also put one into a shirt pocket or clip it to my collar as a writing talisman.

But the notebooks have been used and not replaced. Fortunately, I have a stash of new composition notebooks, often referred to as ‘lab books’, at home. I pulled out a new one today and stuck it into my computer bag. Once at the coffee shop, I blessed it with my usual annotations on the cover of name, the month and year, and the place where I started using it. As always, I wrote using my Z4 pen. As usual, the ink didn’t dry before I swept a hand across it, leaving a black smear on my heel and a barely legible blotch on the notebook.

I needed the notebook because the computer was coming up short. I’ve been working out further kinks in my chi-particle theory and how it interacts with a wave function collapse to create ‘now’. All of this is the concept behind the novel in progress, ‘Long Summer’. Along the way, I began exploring the existence of more arrows of time than the three Hawking proposed, and did equations and charts about the permutations of time available.

It was all becoming confusing and entangled. Naturally, that led me back to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the EPR paradox, and finally, expanded thinking on quantum entanglement. Hence a notebook was needed. I could draw and chart all of this with explanations and labels faster than I could type. That visual progression helped me organize and clarify my thinking and understanding. I further evolved the thinking behind the stages of chi-particle existence and their properties.

After all that, I could finalize address the aspects of my novel concept that bugged me: how do chi-particles interact with sentient entities (such as Humans) to create a moment of Now?

If Now is the only time that exists (despite the apparent existence of the arrow of time), how and why do entities think of a remembered past/history?

If a past doesn’t exist, how does a perceived past continue occurring during a Now moment?

Of course, one thing to always remember is just because they remember a Now as a past doesn’t mean that the past actually still exists; it only exists (or existed) as a Now moment.

That led me at last to a paradox that I didn’t fully appreciate. The deception of our own observational bias about who and what we are, and how we experience the arrows of time, with apparent knowledge of a substantive and concrete past that actually causes and establishes now, continually gets in the way of comprehending, plotting and expanding in the other directions. I keep returning to the logic of what I know.

All this greatly enhances my appreciation for the amazing thinking and math behind physicists and their theories. My thinking is ‘deep’ to me and causes me angst as I struggle to hold on and comprehend. Yet, their thinking was so much deeper and more complex and abstract. They really are amazing thinkers.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Sciencing….

Yes, science is a noun and not a verb but it’s human nature to advance using words in other manners. This use came out out of a beer conversation:

Friend: “What have you been up to?”

Me: “Sciencing and writing, mostly. Socializing.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

Yes, besides writing and reading, I’ve been sciencing on the side: sciencing (verb) – to peruse and read about scientific discoveries.

I doubt it will catch on. Purists are probably already praying to grammar gods and making sacrifices to ensure it doesn’t.

First up was Ethan Siegel’s post about a super-Earth possibly missing from our solar system. He is writing from a paper being published. The authors posit that our solar system isn’t the norm and that giant rocky planets are being discovered, contrary to expectations.

A missing planet? What evil non-scientific forces might be behind this scientific discovery?

From the article:

Having small, rocky worlds in the inner solar system and large, gas giants in the outer solar system isn’t the norm, as we might have expected. Gas giants and rocky planets, it turned out, could be found anywhere, with large worlds just as likely as small ones to be close to their parent stars. The planets that we were finding showed that there’s nothing forbidding gas giants from becoming “hot Jupiters,” and in fact they turned out to be quite common. But the second surprise was even more puzzling, and came thanks to the pioneering work of NASA’s Kepler space observatory. While rocky, Earth-sized worlds — and slightly larger and slightly smaller rocky worlds — were common, as were Neptune-and-Jupiter sized worlds, there was a third class of planet that was the most common of all. In between the size of Earth and Neptune lied a possibility we had overlooked: a super-Earth (or mini-Neptune) world. As it turned out, there were more super-Earths than any other type.

Other exciting and intriguing information came out of Popular Mechanics through a Jay Bennett article about “Virtual Particles” hopping in and out of existence and neutron star.

About 400 light-years from here, in the area surrounding a neutron star, the electromagnetic field of this unbelievably dense object appears to be creating an area where matter spontaneously appears and then vanishes.

Quantum electrodynamics (QED) describes the relationships between particles of light, or photons, and electrically charged particles such as electrons and protons. The theories of QED suggest that the universe is full of “virtual particles,” which are not really particles at all. They are fluctuations in quantum fields that have most of the same properties as particles, except they appear and vanish all the time. Scientists predicted the existence of virtual particles some 80 years ago, but we have never had experimental evidence of this process until now.

New reports are always exploding out of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, and resulted in an article I read in Wired about Feynman diagrams 0n strange numbers emerging from the tests. As an old science fiction reader and a Doctor Who fan, anytime we start talking about physics and strange numbers, I start wagging my tail.

Feynman diagrams were devised by Richard Feynman in the 1940s. They feature lines representing elementary particles that converge at a vertex (which represents a collision) and then diverge from there to represent the pieces that emerge from the crash. Those lines either shoot off alone or converge again. The chain of collisions can be as long as a physicist dares to consider.

To that schematic physicists then add numbers, for the mass, momentum and direction of the particles involved. Then they begin a laborious accounting procedure—integrate these, add that, square this. The final result is a single number, called a Feynman probability, which quantifies the chance that the particle collision will play out as sketched.

Joseph Dussalt and the Christian Science Monitor published an article asking if Einstein could have been wrong about the speed of light being a constant. Their article actually covers scientific efforts being made to prove Einstein incorrect, why, and under what circumstances.

In his theory of special relativity, Einstein left a lot of wiggle room for the bending of space and time. But his calculations, and most subsequent breakthroughs in modern physics, rely on the notion that the speed of light has always been a constant 186,000 miles per second.

But what if it wasn’t always that way? In a paper published in the November issue of the journal Physical Review D, physicists from the Imperial College London and Canada’s Perimeter Institute argue that the speed of light could have been much faster in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. The theory, which could change the very foundation of modern physics, is expected to be tested empirically for the first time.

There’s a lot to read, discuss and digest out there beyond the US Presidential election, new literature, Brexit, demonstrations and protestors, holidays, sports, wars and cats.

Now get out there and science.

 

 

0

Nobel Prizes

Love the Nobel Prize for Physics this year. You’ve probably heard but I’m a pedantic beast so I’ll tell you that three Brits, working in the US, won the Nobel Prize for their work in exotic matter.

David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz are the three awardees. Being a science fiction fan, I love such work that pushes our thinking into new directions and recognizes new potential.

Over in Medicine, Yoshinori Ohsumi won for his work on cells that eat themselves in a process called autophagy. I pay less attention to medicine than physics, so my reaction was…whhaaat?

These discoveries and the explanations behind them unroll reams of imagination and story ideas. I swear my brain began overheating. I’ll never understand this stuff but it’s cool to think about theoretical applications and situations, and how you can take off into new directions. So many ideas and stories, so little time. My mortality and human limitations really limit me.

(Hah, and there’s another kernel of an idea for a story/novel/incident. So many ideas….)

Knowledge! Got to love it.

 

 

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