Radioactive Decay And Causality

We’re all frightened by radioactivity. We associate it with high level nuclear waste; atomic weapons and the mass destruction of nuclear war; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Three Mile Island and Chernobyl; radioactive fallout that causes cancer and biological mutations. What I’m most frightened about radioactivity is that there is no rational scientific explanation for it! That’s probably because radioactivity resides within the realm of quantum physics, and there’s no rational scientific explanation for that either.

In high school science classes, we are told about a class of elements that have nuclei that are unstable; these are the radioactive elements and they emit radioactivity – Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation. This emission is their attempt to go from an unstable state to a less unstable state and eventually to a stable state. This progression happens at a fixed mathematical progression termed the element’s half-life. In class you get an awful lot of the what – what decays; what are the daughter products; what is the measured half-life; what is the significance, etc. But you don’t get very much, if any, explanations as to the how and the why of events. That’s probably because any attempt to actually explain and how and the why of radioactivity ends up as pure bovine fertilizer.

There are two main anomalies here. Firstly, why would two identical unstable particles in the exact same environment will decay or go poof at different times; secondly why any collection of identical unstable particles will decay or go poof while marching to the beat of a mathematical drum.

DESCRIPTION

Radioactive Decay: We all know about radioactivity (nuclear fission) and how some atomic nuclei are unstable and will at some point decay into more stable forms. So far; so good. The first issue is that nobody can predict when any particular unstable nuclei will go poof. There is no ultimate reason why one nucleus will go poof in five minutes and its next door neighbour won’t poof over the next five hundred years. There is no apparent causality involved. That alone is “Twilight Zone” stuff, but wait, there’s more. As we learn in high school, though the why is never explained, unstable (radioactive) nuclei decay or go poof in a fixed mathematical way, known by the phrase called the “half-life”.  An example would be if half of the unstable nuclei went poof in one year; one half of what remains unstable goes poof during the next year; one half of what is still unstable decays in the third year; one half of what remains after that goes poof in the fourth year, and so on down the line until all the unstable nuclei have gone poof. So if you start in the beginning with say sixteen million unstable nuclei, after one year there’s still eight million unstable nuclei; after two years there’s four million left to go; after three years two million still haven’t gone poof; after four years one million; one year later there’s still a half million left, and so on and so on.

On a human level, apart from the nasties given in the abstract, radioactivity provides an abundant energy supply without any greenhouse gas emissions as well as a ways and means of dating historical events. On a cosmic level, radioactive decay turns complex unstable parent nuclei into simpler stable daughter nuclei by emitting Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation, the former two being nothing more exotic than helium nuclei (the Alpha) and electrons (the Beta). Gamma radiation is best avoided since it is extremely high energy photons that can do your body a mischief.

STANDARD EXPLANATIONS

The standard quantum model attributes radioactivity or radioactive decay to a magical phenomenon called Quantum Tunnelling. Translated, radioactive decay happens for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There is no causality. There is no cause and effect. Things go poof – well, things just go poof.

To get your head around the concept of Quantum Tunnelling, imagine one hundred convicts milling around a prison courtyard with twenty foot walls and no external exits. Then, for no obvious reason, fifty of those convicts vanish from inside the courtyard just to reappear somewhere outside the courtyard, and hence quickly make themselves scarce. One second they are confined within the prison walls; one nanosecond later they are scattering in all directions heading for the hills. They have tunnelled their way past the prison courtyard wall without actually physically doing any tunnelling! The escaped convicts in this analogy are of course those bits and pieces confined (or imprisoned) in the quantum realm, the Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation part and parcel of radioactive decay. 

In the quantum realm, though the nuclei might be unstable, the bits and pieces are held in place by an energy barrier, the equivalent of the twenty foot prison courtyard wall. In the macro world, they don’t have enough energy to clear the barrier, just like a long fly ball that doesn’t have enough oomph to clear the outfield fence and become a homerun – it’s just a long out. But in the micro realm, for reasons nobody comprehends, the unstable and restless-to-escape bits of the unwieldy unstable nuclei can cheat and tunnel past the energy barrier even though they don’t have sufficient theoretical oomph to do so. Not only can they quantum tunnel through, when they do they so instantaneously. And there’s no rhyme or reason behind it. There’s no causality. One second they are inside the radioactive nucleus; the next nanosecond after they are free as a bird and outward bound.

Not that in and of itself is absurd, but absurdity is piled upon absurdity when you consider that the ‘convicts’ don’t escape not only for no reason, but they do so in a precise military precision or mathematical sort of way. So our one hundred convicts become fifty in one hour; then twenty-five of those remaining ‘tunnel’ to freedom in the next hour; thirteen of those twenty-five vanish through the wall in the third hour; six of the remaining twelve head for the hills during the fourth hourly interval; three more go walkabout in the fifth hour; two more vanish in the sixth hour; and the last one standing makes an unexplainable vanishing act in the seventh hour, leaving the prison courtyard in a pristine and very stable state indeed without an inmate in sight. 

How can you have both a total lack of causality AND maintain such military or mathematical (half-life) precision? It’s pure bovine fertilizer.  

PROBABILITY vs. CAUSALITY

The standard model suggests that radioactive decay happens for no apparent reason at all since Quantum Tunnelling happens for no apparent reason at all. It’s all pure probability, even if it dances to a precise military/mathematical tune. The idea that Quantum Tunnelling is just pure probability yet results in a really neat graph when plotted goes rather against the grain of common sense.

Dealing with radioactive decay, well we (the observers) say the odds (probability) that an unstable atomic nucleus will go poof in say one hour (just a measure of time which is a human concept) is 50/50. Actually, it’s 100% certainty if you replace “one hour” with the phrase “sooner or later”. There is no actual probability involved. Now let’s go up one level. Each kind of unstable atomic nuclei, be it uranium (U-235 or U-238), plutonium (Pu), Technetium (Tc), Radon (Rn), Radium (Ra) and all those normally non-radioactive elements that have unstable isotopes, like radioactive carbon (C-14), and many others too numerous to mention, has its own unique half-life. That in itself tells you that causality must be operating. All differing nuclei are only different because they have different numbers of protons and neutrons that comprise them. Yet each, say U-235 nuclei, has the exact same number of protons and neutrons. That’s what makes U-235, U-235. That’s causality, not probability. And U-235 has a specific and unique half-life. That’s causality, not probability. The fact that differing configurations of protons and neutrons result in differing half-lives, and any one unique configuration results in one unique half-life, tells you that things are not random. Causality is operating; certainty follows. I have no idea what is the causality behind Quantum Tunnelling, only that I’m certain there is one.

DISCUSSION

Now IMHO that radioactive half-life decay progression makes absolutely no sense. If nuclei go poof for no reason at all, all those that go poof should do so in a totally random fashion – no fixed pattern. Since there is a fixed pattern that suggests to me that the unstable nuclei have to ‘know’ about this half-life obligation they are required to follow. They are self-aware enough to know when it is their turn to suicide (decay) in order to keep up appearances; maintain the quantum social order, and keep the half-life relationship valid.   

Regarding Quantum Tunnelling, well firstly this violates Einstein’s cosmic speed limit – the velocity light travels in a vacuum. That’s because any gap instantaneously crossed by a particle undergoing Quantum Tunnelling – well, instantaneously means infinity and infinite velocity is greater than the speed of light.

Even scientist and science writer Marcus Chown described quantum tunnelling as “The apparently miraculous ability of microscopic particles to escape from their prisons”. When a scientist starts invoking miracles, you know something is weird!

Presumably if it wasn’t for that energy barrier holding together the bits and pieces of nuclei, stable or unstable, everything within would escape all at once and the micro world would go to hell in a hand-basket, just like if there were no prison walls all the convicts would flee in the immediate here and now. But if that energy barrier (or prison wall) could be breached (via Quantum Tunnelling) the question arises, if the ‘convicts’, macro or micro, can dematerialise and rematerialise elsewhere instantaneously, why don’t they all escape at the same time?

And I fail to see how invoking the wave property nature of elementary particles helps any since that would apply equally to stable and unstable (radioactive) nuclei. The wavelength would be larger than the nucleus, or in our analogy, the convict would be so spread out such that they would be larger than their prison courtyard. Everything, all the bits and pieces in each and every nuclei, should break out and break apart and escape immediately.  

When it comes to radioactivity, apparently nothing chemical or physical can be done that will alter the nature of that radioactivity. Something that’s unstable, radioactive, will decay when it damn well feels like it. You can boil it in oil, sledgehammer it, soak it in acid, swear at it, even invoke the name of Jesus and it won’t alter anything. That in itself is more than just a little bit anomalous – not the Jesus bit but the fact that nothing you can do to an unstable nucleus in any chemical or physical shape manner or form will cause it to decay before it feels like it. 

SUMMARY

Enigma number one is why two identical non-living things in an absolutely identical environment should individually act as something possessing free will, which is acting with seemingly minds of their own. That’s just plain bizarre. If they don’t have self-awareness, and it’s absurd to suggest that subatomic nuclei have consciousness, then the alternative is that things happen for absolutely no reason at all. That’s also just plain bizarre. Further heading into “The Twilight Zone”, well the mathematical half-life behind the concept of the decay of unstable radioactive nuclei is just not the sort of natural behaviour that you’d expect. All unstable nuclei of the same type and in the same environment should all go poof at nearly, if not exactly, at the same moment. They don’t. That too is an enigma, IMHO.

A Quantum Pane In The Glass: Part Two

In quantum physics, you may deduce that those residents of the micro realm, those elementary particles, have some very strange properties bordering on a quasi-free will.  They seemingly have the ability to ‘know’ things about their external world and their relationship to that and make decisions and act accordingly. There are experiments to back this up that include an observation you can make at home to verify this. Look outside your window. What do you see? A very big mystery is what you see, if your window is anything like my window or most windows.

Continued from yesterday’s blog...

CAUSALITY & CERTAINTY vs. PROBABILITY & CHANCE

I need state the obvious here – all photons are identical; the pane of glass in question is obviously identical to itself. Therefore, knowing that and only that, one could only conclude that when photon meets window pane, one and only one outcome is possible.

We, the observer say the photon has such and such a probability of going through, or being reflected from, the pane of glass. If seven out of ten photons go through the glass window, then there’s a 70% probability the next photon will go through. Wrong. As far as that photon is concerned, we, the observer, are irrelevant, and it’s 100% certain to either go through the glass or be reflected by the glass. We can be pretty damn sure that a group of photons won’t gather together in the middle of the glass pane and do an impromptu performance of a Wagnerian opera. There’s no probability involved. It’s one or the other. There’s no superposition of state. The photons aren’t in two places at once – passing through and being reflected.

Another way we can be sure causality is operating, albeit going up one level, is that every time you go to the inside of your window pane looking outside, you see both outside and a faint reflection of you and the interior. Not once in a while; not sometimes 100% outside and no reflection; not sometimes a 100% reflection but you can’t see outside (your window isn’t a mirror after all), but 100% of the time, each and every time, you see both the exterior outside the pane and the interior reflected inside the pane. 

SUMMARY, DISCUSSION & RESOLUTIONS

In summary here, some photons from the inside pass through a pane of glass to the outside; some outside photons pass through that glass to the inside; some photons from the inside reflect off the glass back inside and some outside photons reflect off the glass back outside. The big question is, how does the photon decide what to do? Here comes Ms. Photon heading toward the pane of glass. She has to make up her mind whether to pass on through or reflect back: decisions, decisions. To reflect, or not to reflect, that is the question! IMHO, photons should all go through, or all reflect, from the same pane of clear glass at the same time.

We note from the outset that the glass hasn’t been tinted or polarized – not that that would alter the general picture. What we have here is just an ordinary pane of glass.

Further, no external forces are apparently at work here. Both the photons and the glass are electrically neutral. Gravity plays no role and the strong and the weak nuclear forces are only applicable inside atomic nuclei.

To make a long story shorter, causality rules IMHO! Photons are not in a state of superposition; they are not in two places at the same time. Clearly photons are not in a position to ‘know’ anything. Photons have no decision-making apparatus; they have no consciousness of any kind, no free will to be or not to be. That can be demonstrated by adding a little extra thickness and/or density and/or energy.

But first, one could easily suggest that since even seemingly ‘solid’ stuff is 99.999% empty space, that a photon passing through the glass is passing through that entire void, and a photon reflected has hit a glass molecule and bounced back. One exception to that is that the reflection takes place at the surface of the glass pane, none from the interior of the glass. A second exception would be that reflections off of a solid molecular bit in the mainly empty glass pane would be totally scattered in many directions which is what we don’t see. Basic optics – the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Yet clearly if photons are being reflected, they are bouncing off something. Or, perhaps they are being absorbed by the electrons within the glass matrix and then reemitted, though the photon that’s reemitted might not be the exact same photon – but that’s of no consequence since all photons are identical.    

We note that the greater the thickness or the greater the density the more the pass through to reflection ratio changes. If you look through the exact same pane of glass, but this time edgewise, no photons pass through from one edge to the other edge. The X-ray case study above shows the role of increasing density. Both are an illustration that ultimately things become so thick and/or so dense that while there might not be total reflection, there would be any pass though either. The option for the photon might then be reflection vs. partial penetration. Of course that in itself doesn’t explain the either this or that option the photon takes, at least until such time that it becomes one or the other. In a vacuum it’s 100% pass through and 0% reflection; in the case of a metre thick lump of lead, a light photon will 100% reflect and 0% pass through. Restrictions placed in the photon’s way by density and thickness just tends to confirm an earlier notation that stuff is 99.999% void such that pass through equals boldly going through that void; reflection is a collision with that rare bit of stuff that sometimes gets in your way.

But that’s not the entire story. Thickness is also related to opaqueness though they are not the same thing. Photons can pass through Earth’s entire atmosphere from the fringes of outer space to ground level, yet if you dab a smear of black paint on your pane of glass, well that will strop the photons from passing through albeit black paint is a lot less thick than the Earth’s atmosphere.

Energy plays a role too. X-ray photons are more energetic than visible light photons, which is why X-rays are better for detecting structural flaws (like tooth cavities and bone micro-fractures) which are concealed by external surfaces which are opaque to light.

Air and glass are transparent to light photons, but are generally fairly opaque to the less energetic infrared photons. That’s the general principle or concept behind both the botanical greenhouse and the environmental greenhouse effect, although in the later case not all the components found in air are equally as opaque.

Ultimately invoking variations in properties like density, thickness, energy levels and opaqueness doesn’t totally explain why identical particles, with all other factors being equal too, have this Jekyll and Hyde property whereby some do and some don’t; some will and some won’t.

But we see that while things aren’t totally explained yet, we’re well on the way to determining the real factors that decide the photon’s fate, and it’s not photon’s free will either. 

A Quantum Pane In The Glass: Part One

In quantum physics, you often deduce that those residents of the micro realm, those elementary particles, have some very strange properties bordering on a quasi-free will. They sort of possess a ‘mind’ of their own. They seemingly have the ability to ‘know’ things about their external world and their relationship to that. They make decisions with respect to those relationships and act accordingly. They are not just little inert billiard balls. There are observations to back this up that include an observation you can make at home to verify this. Look outside your window. What do you see? A very big mystery is what you see, if your window is anything like my window or most windows.

Even if you don’t know or understand very much about quantum mechanics, or quantum physics (same difference), you have probably associated it with weirdness. Unlike the certainty and causality domination of your day-in and day-out macro world, the realm of the quantum is centred on probability, chance and randomness where things happen for absolutely no reason at all and identical scenarios will yield different results. One oft given example you can (and have) witnessed – how light (photons) interacts with a common pane of window glass.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Here is a common happening that you have experienced at home or in the office or in the car that you probably never gave a second thought to. That unregistered oddity you experienced is seeing the reflection of AND the passing through of light waves (photons) with respect to a pane of glass simultaneously. What’s so odd about that? Well, what’s odd is that light is both passing through and reflecting from the same pane of glass at the same time. Why both? Why not one or the other scenario? What’s odder still, assuming you are inside, is that not only can you see your reflection or the reflection of what’s in your background but what’s also outside and through your own reflection. You see your reflection and the outside image, both superimposed on top of each other. So photons are both passing through the glass (you can see the outside while you are inside) from the outside to the inside and at the same time reflecting from the inside to the inside (you can see the inside from the inside) both happenings at the same spot on the glass.

And if you go outside the reverse is also true. The outside is partly reflected by the glass surface back to you while you are outside looking in while at the same time light photons from the inside are passing through the entire glass so you can see inside your room though you are standing outside, both inside and outside as superimposed images.

Further, the ratio of pass through to reflection also depends on the thickness of the glass, so presumably the photon ‘knows’ in advance what that thickness is and acts accordingly. If all of that doesn’t strike you as odd, nothing will, though it’s so commonplace it probably doesn’t strike you as odd.

OTHER EXAMPLES

This ‘do I or don’t I’ oddity doesn’t just apply to panes of glass. This applies to a wide range of transparent, even translucent stuff. The same pass through vs. reflect back applies for example to your eyeball. Some photons enter your eye and deliver their message; some photons hit the identical spot but are reflected back, but can then hit a mirror and reflect back again this time entering your eye so that you see your eye that reflected in the mirror.

Speaking of eyes, you can ‘see’ an external bright light even with your eyelids shut, yet some of the light is also being reflected off the external surface of your eyelids.

Sunglasses are another obvious example. You can see your reflection in the outer side of the lenses, but clearly the sunglasses let through without any obstruction photons too.

You can see your reflection in still water and the bottom beneath the surface too if the water is pretty clear and the bottom is fairly shallow. This should also apply to say a polished diamond or other similar gemstones or crystal(s).

Another visual example – you see sunlight reflected off of the tops of clouds when in an aircraft that’s flying above them. As you descend through them and land, though the day is now overcast, clearly some sunlight photons are passed through the clouds. It’s the same clouds; and the same sunlight; and the same observer; but differing outcomes. So the pass through vs. reflection enigma applies equally to translucent objects (like clouds) too.

Though this is an obviously visual puzzle, well that in itself is obvious since we can only see visible light photons. However, photons come in a wide range of forms, from ultraviolet to radio; infrared to microwave; gamma rays to X-rays. Presumably this pass through vs. reflection phenomena takes place with non-light photons too. The most obvious example is that radio, TV or cell phone reception tends to be better outside than inside – one reason for your TV aerial or antenna. So, some radio/TV/cell phone photons are reflected off of the outside of your solid building but some pass through too, but this has nothing to do with frequency or wavelength since these transmissions are on a very narrow bandwidth.

In a similar vein, it’s been advocated for decades that the ideal location to do radio astronomy and/or SETI, searching for alien radio signals, is on the far side of the Moon because the Moon’s bulk is 100% opaque to terrestrial and human generated radio signals that just add unwanted noise to the signals the astronomers are looking for.

One clue that the pass through vs. reflection conundrum must be density related, not just thickness related, comes from X-rays. We’ve all seen X-ray photos of the human hand. The bones stand out; the wedding ring more so, but the flesh is visible too though less so. So some X-ray photons were reflected, greater reflection related to the density of the stuff the X-ray photon was hitting. Yet clearly some X-ray photons passed through since the image of the fleshy bits isn’t as strong as the bones and the bones weren’t as solid an image as the ring. Yet it was the exact same X-ray dose that hit all three substances – flesh, bone and metal.  

THE STANDARD SOLUTIONS

The basic postulate postulated by quantum physicists is that the photon pass through vs. reflection anomaly is an anomaly because it all happens for absolutely no reason at all. It’s all random. It’s all probability. Some photons pass through via the luck of the draw; other photons get reflected by that same random luck of the draw. How is that possible given that we have, in the original example, one identical pane of glass with identical photons impacting? Well, if you don’t invoke causality, you can just about get away with anything anomalous.

The other accepted answer is that any one photon is in a superposition of states. It can be in two places at the same time, so it can both reflect, and pass through the pane of glass at the same time. Either that or the photon has awareness of its external surroundings; it has a mind of its own and decides what it wants to do!

Superposition of state has been experimentally demonstrated via the classic quantum double slit experiment whereby particles, like a photon (but any type of particle will do, like an electron) fired one at a time at two parallel slits, will pass through both slits and thus will interfere with itself and cause a classic wave interference pattern on a target board behind the slits. The only logical conclusion has to be that one particle was in two places at the same time. Personally, I find that absurd, but it’s hard to debate hardcore experimental results.

The one flaw I find in that standard pane of glass situation explanation is that if the photon is in two places at the same time, then both the inside reflected image and the external image – the pass through the glass image – should be equally as vivid. Usually the pass through the glass image is the more obvious of the two superimposed images assuming just one light source, say external sunshine, or the reflected image is the stronger, assuming the prime light source is inside, like say at night.

To be continued…

An Infinite Cosmos: Part Two

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos. 

Continued from Part One.

As we noted in the example of the fridge and your body, it takes energy to reverse entropy or at least hold it at bay. A reversal of entropy is sort of like that closed box with Maxwell’s Demon (representing energy) that controls a slot that the Demon can either open or close that’s in the middle of that closed box that’s of a uniform temperature.  The Demon opens the slot whenever a rapidly moving (hot) molecule heads toward the left side or when a slower moving (cold) molecule heads toward the right side. After a while, the left side of the box will be containing just hot stuff (rapidly moving molecules) and the right side cold stuff (slowly moving molecules). Maxwell’s Demon is like a kid expending energy sorting a bag of 1000 various coloured marbles (maximum disorder) into piles of reds and greens and blues and yellows (maximum order).  Of course our infinite cosmos contains no demons, and marble-sorting kids need not apply if there’s ever a job ad for restoring order to an infinite cosmos.

Okay, without demons (or entropy reversing kids), our infinite cosmos heads towards a state of maximum entropy or maximum disorder or maximum uniformity. The cosmic temperature will be the same everywhere; matter will be evenly distributed. But, can an infinite cosmos ever reach such a state? It could or should take an infinite amount of time, but that’s also assumed. 

Yet alas, what even an infinite cosmos needs is a Maxwell’s Demon. The cosmos, if it is to retain a state of vitality for an infinite duration, needs something that recycles stuff that’s at maximum entropy (maximum disorder) back to the basics of minimum entropy (or minimum disorder) where useful things can continue to happen.

* The Role of Gravity

Gravity seems to be a Maxwell Demon’s kind of force that keeps on keeping on. As long as you have two bits of matter, even just two electrons, you have gravity. Radiation (electromagnetism) could be dispersed evenly in infinite space over infinite time, but it is hard to imagine that situation with gravity. The only real way gravity could be rendered inert and useless as an energy source would be if it was 100% concentrated in just one place – like a super ultra mother of all cosmic Black Holes. The only other way gravity could be nullified would be in matter were distributed so absolutely evenly such that every bit of matter were being gravitationally pulled on absolutely evenly in each and every direction. But the slightest nudge or deviation from this ideal theoretical state (inevitable given quantum fluctuations) would throw everything out of equilibrium. But because matter is energy and energy is matter, if gravity can disrupt the distribution of matter from a state of near perfect uniformity, then energy will follow the short and curly material bits. Light (photons) reacts to gravity as much as electrons do. Further, the one extra nice property that gravity has is that it can’t be blocked. You can block out light or shield yourself from electromagnetic effects, but nothing will shield you from gravity.

* The Recycling Role of Radioactivity

Fortunately, there are several basic ways of recycling complex cosmic stuff back into the cosmos in the form of simple stuff. The first of these however has issues. Gravity can contract and pull together interstellar gas and dust into a proto-star which will ignite under pressure via thermonuclear fusion to form a radiant star. Stars however fuse lighter elements into heavier elements, and when a star goes nova, or becomes a supernovae, those heavier elements increasingly form the next generation of interstellar gas and dust. Eventually, after many generations of enrichment, interstellar gas and dust is lacking in those lighter elements (mainly hydrogen and helium) which easily undergoes fusion. Heavy elements, like iron, just won’t fuse any more and so the continued formation of radiant stellar stuff grinds to a halt. But, there is an escape clause.

Among the heavy elements; elements that stars manufacture, are radioactive elements with unstable atomic nuclei. Radioactive decay re-releases back into the cosmos those fundamental bits and pieces that can reform into those lighter elements that are the basic building blocks for forming radiant stellar objects. There is cosmic recycling from the simple to the complex and back to the simple again.

* The Recycling Role of Cosmic Black Holes

The second way of cosmic recycling is, believe it or not, via cosmic Black Holes. Astronomical Black Holes, via the vacuum energy (quantum foam or fluctuations) and quantum tunnelling, can release elementary particles back into the cosmos. As mentioned earlier, this is known as Hawking Radiation, after theoretical cosmologist/astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Complex stuff can go into a Black Hole, but just very simple stuff ultimately comes back out again.

* The Recycling Role of Life

Life can be an entropy buster as in the case of Maxwell’s Demon, the kid who sorts the marbles, the mum who does the housework, the bird or beaver who gathers up forest debris to make a nest. But, it takes outside energy to accomplish these things and at the end you haven’t decreased complexity – the marbles are still marbles; twigs are still twigs. But microbes like bacteria, etc. can break down complex stuff (like twigs) and turn it into less complex stuff which can be recycled into hundreds of new and different complex things. So, when our home planet eventually meets its Waterloo, and gets scattered back into the cosmic winds, thanks to bacteria, there will be more simple stuff floating around than would otherwise be the case

So complex stuff gets recycled back into simple stuff, all brought together again by gravity to ultimately form complex stuff again. The cosmos receives recycled stuff back, from which it can keep on keeping on!    

* A Fly in the Ointment

In a cosmos that’s both infinite in space and infinite in duration, here’s an interesting ‘angels on the head of a pin’ question. There are two forces which in theory can extend their influence indefinitely, that is, unto infinity. They are electromagnetism (of which light is a prime example) and gravity. So, can the influence of a force cross an infinite space if it has an infinite amount of time to do it in?

Perhaps Maxwell Demon’s ‘closed box’ isn’t really an appropriate ‘container’ for an infinite cosmos. If the cosmos is infinite, can it be described as a closed system? 

The Multiple You

And so finally, consider and reconsider the quantum mantra: “Anything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen will happen”. That’s even more the case when you have infinite time and space to play around with! So, I add to that mantra “and will happen again and again and again, an infinite number of times”. That actually means, or at least very strongly suggests that every possible scenario, every possible history, and every possible variation on each and every scenario or on any theme that you care to think of or think up will happen again and again and again. That, by the way, includes you. You are a scenario, and you, and every possible variation of you and your history will transpire numerous times; actually an infinite number of times. If that isn’t spooky, I don’t know what is, but it’s a logical consequence of having an infinite cosmos. 

An Infinite Cosmos: Part One

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos. 

In the infinite beginning there was something rather than pure nothing – a finite amount of something in an infinite void of nothingness. This scenario eliminates the philosophical quandary of what’s beyond the boundary - that only other alternative. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of how much stuff there is. An infinite amount of stuff doesn’t leave you much elbow room.

In the infinite beginning, well there was no beginning; there can ever be an end. No Alpha – no Omega. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of what comes before the ‘beginning’ and what comes after ‘the end’. 

Okay, having postulated an infinite cosmos in space and in duration, well, other certain and not so philosophical issues come to the fore. If they can be addressed, well that’s all to the good. If not, well it’s back to the drawing board.

I’ll start with…

Olber’s Paradox

The night sky should be as bright as the daytime sky since in whatever direction you look, sooner or later you should see a star or galaxy that’s in your line of sight. That’s Olber’s Paradox because the night-time sky isn’t as bright as the daytime sky. One resolution is that our observable Universe is finite and there are only a finite number of stars and galaxies and thus, there will be lines of sight that do not intersect with an object that’s emitting light.

But what if the cosmos is infinite in size and has existed for an infinite amount of time? Does that resurrect or reinstate the validity or viability of Olber’s Paradox? Not necessarily.

Why is there something rather than nothing? That’s been a prime philosophical question that has raged for eons. But, on reflection, overall, there is a great deal more of nothing than of something. If everything was something, it would be rather difficult to move. There would be no elbow room. In other words, just because the cosmos is infinite in duration and in volume doesn’t mean that there has to be an infinite amount of something within.

Let’s say that pure nothing is a perfect vacuum. Then something within that nothing makes for an imperfect vacuum. One could image a cosmos so dilute that there could literally be gaps of pure nothingness between the bits and pieces of something. Or, one could imagine a universe that contained just one final cosmic Black Hole that had over all the infinite eons gobbled up everything else that had been a something within the cosmos, and thus 99.99999% of that cosmos would contain absolutely nothing. 

That aside…

Stars, like people, are born, and thus their light may not have yet reached us.

Stars, like people, die, and thus their light has ceased to reach us. It has all now passed by.

In an infinite space, stars maybe so far distant that by the time their light reaches us, it’s so diluted or spread out that only one photon per hour hits the eye and that threshold is too low to stimulate the optic nerve and thus register.  

Ever present cosmic Black Holes have gobbled up a lot of the radiation that is emitted and reflected. In fact, in a cosmos that’s infinite, why haven’t those astronomical Black Holes sucked up everything that can be sucked up thus terminating any and all evolving universes within that cosmos? Well the answer is Hawking radiation which theoretically predicts, on pretty substantial grounds, that eventually Black Holes will radiate away their mass. Once input is less than Hawking radiation output, the Black Hole will slowly, ever so slowly, radiate away, giving back to the cosmos what it once took away. There will be more on the significance of that shortly.

Entropy and Cosmic Recycling

Another concept that needs addressing is entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, otherwise known as the ‘arrow of time’ or sometimes as ‘time’s arrow’. If one considers an infinite universe to be a closed box or closed system, then over time, and we have an infinite amount of it, that closed box should reach absolute equilibrium and no further cosmic evolution would be possible. There would be a maximum amount of disorder, and there would be no further energy available to reverse that level of disorder.

It should be noted from the outset that in any closed box or closed system, entropy rules. Things will go from a state of order to a state of disorder without outside interference, that being an external source of energy to reverse the natural trend. The commonly cited example is if you have a closed box (the kitchen), and you turn off the fridge, the kitchen and the fridge will eventually reach absolute equilibrium, the same temperature. The kitchen warms up the fridge; the fridge cools down the kitchen, until both are at the same temperature – maximum disorder. It takes an outside energy source – electricity – to keep the fridge colder than the kitchen and thus in a state is disequilibrium or a state where entropy has not been maximalized. Trouble is, once energy is evenly spread out throughout a closed system (like the fridge in the kitchen), no matter how much of it there is, it’s useless in terms of doing useful things – like initiating change.

Another example: Your own body is a closed system. Your body’s energy is in equilibrium. You are at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit from head to toe. Within that state of affairs, your body can not do useful things. Fortunately, there’s a larger closed system that your body is a part of (like the fridge is part of the kitchen) that enables you to disrupt your body’s equilibrium and thus provide the means for your body to initiate change. Your outside energy source is food, which is good since once you invoke that larger closed system that contains you, that larger system absorbs your body heat that gets radiated away into it. So the fridge needs outside energy to replenish its supply of cold; you need energy to replenish your body heat and to provide the ways and means to keep you keeping on. Of course as we all know, that’s just postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later the fridge breaks down with wear; ditto you too. But in the meantime, and for a little while, you can keep your body’s entropy under control.  

Now any attempt to tunnel around various laws, principles and relationships of physics might be in vain, but not a total waste of time. The laws, principles and relationships of physics are constantly being refined, even overturned as in Einstein refined Newton’s gravity; the Sun going around the Earth got overturned by Copernicus. However, anyone attempting to tunnel over, around, or through the Second Law of Thermodynamics should abandon all hope. If you try to butt heads with entropy you’ll just end up with a sore head. You’d have better luck patenting a ‘perpetual motion’ machine, itself a violation of the ways and means of the entropy concept. In fact entropy is why you can’t construct a perpetual motion machine and why any patent officer worthy of the name would refuse you a patent for one.

Still, in an infinite cosmos, a cosmos that keeps on keeping on, there probably needs to be a way to go from a state of disorder (high entropy) back to a state of order (low entropy).

  

To be continued…

Certainty In Quantum Physics

It is absolutely impossible to read any popular account on quantum physics without running into the words “probability” or “uncertainty” if not in each and every paragraph, then at least on each and every page. Quantum physics and probability fit together like a left hand and a left handed glove! But it’s all bovine fertilizer since the concept of probability is a human concept that has no real application in Mother Nature’s realm.

It is claimed that quantum physics is based not on certainty (i.e. – causality) but on probability, and therefore Mother Nature places the cosmos ultimately under wraps, under a restriction that there just are some secrets that are Hers and Hers alone to know, and not for us mere mortals. However, truth be known, Mother Nature is just as restrictive at times even when probability doesn’t enter into the equation. Therefore, quantum physics isn’t some be-all-and-end-all of failing to come to terms with cosmic certainties. In any event, the concept of probability is a human concept, and quantum physics predates human concepts. Quantum physics maybe full of probabilities to us mortals, but not to Mother Nature.

Probability and quantum physics: the issue here is not whether quantum physics works – it’s been proven 100% accurate down to the 12^th decimal place and then some. It is ultimately responsible for over 1/3^rd of the global economy in technological gizmos and applications. The issue is rather does quantum physics play the game and operate under fixed and final rules of causality or does it play by its own on-a-whim ‘rules’ which aren’t really rules since they are meant to be broken.

Either causality operates or it doesn’t. If it does, then quantum physics does not, cannot, strut its stuff willy-nilly without any cause-and-effect in operation. If causality doesn’t operate then certainty doesn’t operate at any level since the certainty we associate with the macro is built on the uncertainty of the micro. 

Quantum uncertainty, or the opposite side of the coin, probability, is usually made explicit by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which basically states that through no fault of your own or your instrumentation, it is literally impossible to know various contrasting properties about a fundamental particle. The more you pin down and know about one property, the fuzzier another property becomes, and vice versa. You can never know both properties absolutely to a 100% certainty. In fact you can never know either property to the 100% certainty level. That’s because the very act of observing or of measuring changes the properties that you are trying to observe or measure. Mother Nature has forced or placed this not-to-be-negotiated and no-correspondence-will-be-entered-into restriction on you, the observer, or on your sidekick, your measuring gizmo. So there! Or is it really so? The key is that you, the observer, or your measuring doohickie device, is in the bloody way. You can’t know the precise state of affairs of the system you are interested in if you are part of that system. You are not part of the solution; you are the problem!

Probability is nothing more than a statement that you, the human you, don’t know something for absolute certain. That’s it. Once you find out for certain, it’s no longer probability but certainty. If you can’t find out, and the very act of observing or measuring can alter the properties of what you are trying to observe or measure (and that’s really what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is all about), what transpires or eventuates if there is no observation or measurement?

In every definition or explanation I’ve ever seen about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle it is either implied o explicitly stated that an observer and/or measurement is being attempted or considered.

Probability remains probability if you can’t ever know in practice or even in theory. However, one can postulate that an omniscient (all-knowing) deity must know all things not only in practice but in theory too. No person who believes in an all-knowing God could put any stock in quantum physics as operating in the realm of probability; ditto the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. However, I really don’t need to go down that pathway since I state with certainty that there is no God, all-knowing or otherwise.  

Even if you don’t know, but it is possible to know in theory, well that too results in at least theoretical certainty.

But what if it is not possible to know, even in theory, a.k.a. the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Well, that too, doesn’t of necessity rule in probability and rule out certainty.  

As another example of so-called quantum probability, take radioactive decay which is alleged to be lacking is causality – it happens for no reason at all. As far as an observer is concerned, a radioactive atom, or its nucleus, will decay, but exactly when and under what conditions is unpredictable, maybe in 10 seconds, maybe not for a billion years. It’s all probability.

This is an example of Mother Nature hiding skeletons in Her closet. The observer is thwarted in coming to terms with radioactive decay other than through, or by computing, probabilities. Therefore, quantum physics is probability. But that’s only if you accept the lack of causality premise. I totally reject that and suggest that radioactive decay does have a cause – we just don’t know what it is. Thanks to Mother Nature’s closet, we are restricted or prevented with absolutes or limitations to our vision of reality. There are lots of examples of skeletons in Mother Nature’s closet that don’t involve probability (see below), so why should radioactive decay be an exception to the rule?

If a human observer is present, she might say based on computing probabilities, that the radioactive atomic nucleus has a 50-50 chance of going poof in one hour. But, if there is no human observer, the radioactive nucleus will go poof (absolutely certain) – eventually. There’s no probability involved because there are no artificial time units involved – time units are a human concept or invention not part of Mother Nature’s vocabulary. So probability in quantum physics is observer dependent (or dependent on there being an observer) – no observer, no probability, just certainty.

Mother Nature has imposed lots of other absolutes or limitations on us. Jump into a Black Hole and you’re not coming out again, even if you were born on Krypton. No probability here.

You cannot travel at the speed of light – period! No probability here.

If you are inside a closed room (no windows) you have no way of telling if you are on Earth and in Earth’s 1-G gravity field or in space being accelerated at 1-G. No probability here.

Akin to the above, you have no sense of motion while you are sitting comfortably on your sofa. Yet, the Earth is spinning on its axis; the Earth is orbiting around the Sun; the Sun is orbiting around the Milky Way Galaxy; and the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy are on a collision course (relax, not to intersect for another five billion years). Equally, if you were in a spaceship with no windows (no fair peeking outside), and that spaceship were travelling at a constant rate of speed, you wouldn’t feel it and thus you wouldn’t be aware that you we travelling at a rapid rate of knots. No probability here.

Mother Nature doesn’t require you to be hatched; She does require you to die. No probability here.

You are on a train stopped at the railway station. On your left is another train also stopped at the railway station. That other train starts moving to your rear, or, are you moving forward leaving the other train behind. Which is it? It’s soon going to be obvious, but just for a few seconds, you didn’t know. If all that existed were just the two trains and you with no other frames of reference, you’d never know if the other train was moving, or if your train was moving, or both. No probability here.

You cannot observe any part of the Universe that resides over the horizon that marks the observable boundary that contains the observable Universe (just like you can not observe a ship that has sailed over the horizon of the spherical Earth). No probability here.

When you look out into the night sky at the distant stars and galaxies, you are looking back in time, since it takes time for the light of those objects to reach us. But you cannot observe the cosmos further back than 300,000 years post that Big Bang event. That’s because the cosmos was still too thick with stuff to allow viewing. It’s akin to the fact that you cannot view the centre of the Sun because there’s too much sun-stuff in the way. In fact it takes extremely lengthy amounts of time for a photon to struggle its way from the centre to the surface of the Sun. So, 300,000 years is the limit, which is why it’s nonsense for cosmologists to dictate with absolute certainty what the structure and substance of the Universe was like prior to that time, especially that nonsense that a nanosecond after the Big Bang the Universe was just the size of a pinhead – they are just guesstimating and bad guesstimating at that. No probability here.

You cannot change the past. No probability here.

Finally, without our modern technology, the ‘Naked Ape’ could not detect gamma rays, or X-rays, or radio waves, or microwaves, cosmic rays, neutrinos, and a host of other bits and pieces that are part and parcel of the Universe. No probability here. 

So you see that Mother Nature has imposed all manner of absolute obstacles in our way of looking up her skirt and uncovering her ‘private’ nature as it were. That doesn’t mean the anatomy doesn’t exist, only we’re not allowed to peek and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. So, her anatomy is uncertain or probably is this, or that or the next thing but only to us, the wannabe observer.

Finally, consider and reconsider the quantum mantra: Anything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen will happen. Does that sound like a probability statement to you?

In summary and in conclusion, references to quantum physics are full of the word “probability”. They are also filled with terms linking probability to someone like me or to someone like you – an observer. Remove or eliminate the observer and you remove or eliminate the probability in quantum probability.

Profound Events In Modern Science

Science has had many a profound impact on our lives since the turn of the 20^th Century and not always a positive one – depending on who you talk to. There have been literally hundreds of significant scientific concepts, events, including inventions that have had a profound impact on our individual selves and our society. Any list doesn’t bring justice, and there will be howls of protest for omissions, but still, here’s a baker’s dozen that I feel are pretty profound.

Here are some reasonably profound events in science from 1900 to date that I feel are important in the broader historical, social and cultural context.

1) Sputnik (1957): Unless you lived through it, it’s hard to imagine the impact that the launch of the Soviet artificial satellite Sputnik had all of a sudden on the public awareness of outer space as an actual place where things could happen. The shock-horror to the American psyche was profound, resulting in a massive boost to American science and technological education, acerbating the Cold War, and of course resulting in the Space Race which culminated with the first landing on the Moon (1969). Without Sputnik, there still might not have been any human involvement in space and space exploration in general, and where would we be without artificial satellites in orbit today.

2) Humans in Orbit (1961 to date): It may be ho-hum now, but back in the era of Project Mercury people were glued to their TV screens for the coverage of ‘man into space’. Ditto of course the first voyage to the Moon (Apollo 8) and the first landing on the Moon (Apollo 11). When the two Space Shuttle disasters happened, both re-awakened interest in no uncertain terms. Equally, the Russians were rapped in the many early successes of their space program while America suffered early humiliation after humiliation. But in an era of the Vietnam conflict, civil rights riots in the streets, the Cold War, and of course terrorism, manned space flight gave people something positive to cheer about. Further, there have been massive technological spin-offs as well that have filtered down to the general public. 

3) Modern Communications (1900 to date): It’s hard to believe that not all that long ago, a mere six or seven generations back, it took months to correspond between say Europe and America, or across America, or from America to Australia. However did those poor tweens, teens and young adults cope without instant communication feedback via their Facebook, Twitter or emails way back in those dark ages (how sad: sob; sob; sob). But then along comes wired technologies like the telegraph and telephone cabling and wireless technologies like ham radio and telecommunication satellites, the airplane sped things up too and then finally comes along the Internet and everything that’s i-this-gadget or i-that-doohickie, or i-the-next-damned-gizmo that’s under the proverbial sun (that you have to upgrade every six months). Whether ultimately this entire instant “I just gotta be in touch with everybody everywhere 24/7” will prove its worth or not remains to be seen. Back six or seven generations ago, if you had something to say and it took months to reach the person intended, it probably was important. Can one conclude the same today?  Recall how the automobile revolutionized everything and not necessarily for the better.  

4) Quantum Physics (1920’s): Though the first inklings of what would become quantum mechanics surfaced at the very turn of the century, the subject bloomed into a scientific revolution in the 1920’s. It wasn’t very long before applications were found, and today quantum physics is ultimately responsible for contributions to over one-third of the global economy in various gizmos and gadgets and their applications, many of which are in the possession of you readers.

5) First Nuclear Chain Reaction (1942) & Trinity A-Bomb Test (1945): Collectively these two experimental events gave rise to all of the nuclear issues part and parcel of our world today. That first chain reaction demonstrated that nuclear fission was more than just a theoretical idea and that controlled fission would lead to a nearly unlimited energy supply; uncontrolled fission, as demonstrated at Trinity, goes ka-boom, as in the A-Bomb. When controlled, radioactivity has many applications today, nuclear power (which doesn’t give off greenhouse gas emissions but has other issues) being of course one; nuclear medicine another; and radioactive traces are employed in all sorts of environmental work. Nuclear weapons, nuclear arms control, nuclear terrorism, radioactive waste, and related issues are of course on the opposite side of the nuclear coin.

6) Radar (1940’s): RAdio Detection And Ranging (RADAR) was developed in secret just before and during World War Two. Quite apart from all those obvious military applications, radar is central to modern airline operations and safe flying; the same applies to maritime safety; it’s a common tool for police in keeping those with a tendency to put the pedal to the metal under control; its use is obvious in weather forecasting and warning systems; radar helps keep track of all those bits and pieces we’ve put into orbit, and it has applications in geology (ground penetrating radar) to map subsurface terrain, even in astronomy bouncing radio and microwaves off the surface of nearly moons and planets be it from the ground or from space probes. Unless you’ve been caught speeding, you’re probably quite appreciative of all that radar does for you.   

7) First SETI Experiment (Project Ozma – 1960): Let’s for once try to answer that age old question “are we alone in the cosmos”. Make it so, and so it came to pass where experimental time and money was put where only just before the theoretical mouth was. As we are all too aware, that first experiment, conducted by Dr. Frank Drake, failed to detect ET. In fact every SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) experimental effort to date has failed, but there has to be a first time for everything, and Project Ozma was the first SETI effort, and the significance lies in the fact that for the first time ever, and it’s our generation that’s making it so, exobiology (or astrobiology) has become an experimental instead of just a theoretical science, albeit on still in search of its subject. 

8) Flying Saucers (1947 to date): More books, articles, websites, and documentaries have been done about the subject of UFOs than any other aspect of science. Yes science, since there is a case to be answered even if it is a social one, but even the possible connection with extraterrestrial life makes the study a profound and of course interesting one. Alas, if 65 is considered normal retirement then UFOs should already be pensioned off. Despite that, they do keep on keeping on despite all the best debunking efforts by those self-appointed to act as ‘professional’ sceptics.

9) Chariots of the Gods (1950’s to date): It has been pointed out that it would be extraordinary in terms of probability that ET via those pesky UFOs would pick the last generation or two to show up. This is true. However, negating that little objection, there’s the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ – ET has been around for over 100 generations (minimum) with suggestive evidence (not proof) cobbled together from anthropology, archaeology, literature, religions and mythology. While author Erich Von Daniken has been the most visible of the ‘ancient astronaut’ proponents, he wasn’t the first to advocate the idea that ET played a role in the development of mankind. The central issue of profoundness is that any study that suggests that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, and even more to the point, has had a cultural impact on human society, can’t be easily shrugged off.   

10) King Tutankhamen’s Tomb (1922): Ever since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, Egyptology has been big business for publishers, private collectors, museums, Egyptian tourism, etc. However, Egyptology really took off in the mainstream consciousness following the discovery of the Pharaoh known as Tutankhamen, or the Boy King’s tomb, by archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter. The impact on archaeology in general and Egyptology in particular has been and remains profound. There’s hardly anyone who hasn’t heard about Pharaoh Tutankhamen, and worldwide exhibition tours of artefacts found in his tomb attract huge crowds. 

11) Discovery of Penicillin (1928): We all know about that wonder drug penicillin, discovered rather accidentally by Alexander Fleming, which has been responsible for saving more lives than you can shake a stick at. That gave rise to a whole potpourri of antibiotics, but it also gave rise to the Pandora’s Box of antibiotic resistance and the rise of the super-bug, an issue that is both current, ongoing, and of concern to anyone and everyone ever likely be suffer from an infection. 

12) The First Heart Transplant (1967): Anyone who was around at the time can remember the massive amount of press coverage that very first human heart transplant that took place, in Cape Town, South Africa, under the direction of Christiaan Barnard. Back then, this was Big News. Thousands of human heart transplants are now preformed annually and of course it is no longer Big News – unless you are one of those on the receiving end.   

13) Genetic Code (the Discovery of DNA in 1953) & Associated Human Genome Project (2000 to date): Hands up anyone who hasn’t heard about Watson and Crick and the discovery of the substance and structure of DNA in 1953. No hands up? Well that’s not surprising as it is one of the most famous of the famous of scientific achievements in relatively modern times. Ultimately that discovery (along with massive amounts of additional genetically relevant biochemistry since then) has morphed into the Human Genome Project, the importance of which has yet to reach full potential. But full understanding of our genetic makeup is an important tool in coming to terms with all those hundreds of genetic afflictions we can suffer from, and curing (or preventing) same. 

And there’s a dozen dozens more, like the Discovery of X-Rays (1895) so that date is eliminated from ‘modern’ science, though where would modern medicine and dentistry be without X-Rays as well as applications in materials testing, etc. Most of the applications took place in the 20^th Century. Anyway, as I said, there are many more examples that could, probably should be included, but space is limited.

Honourable Mention: Where’s Einstein’s Special and General Relativity? Well, Einstein’s Relativity only rates an honourable mention since it has relatively little impact or application, apart from GPS, in modern society. When (and if) we start to boldly go, then horses will change their colour.