The Lone Electron

One way of coming to terms with the cosmos is to do thought experiments and keeping things simple. When you come to terms with the simple picture, then you can gradually build up the complexity until you start to model the real cosmos. There’s nothing much simpler than to imagine an entire universe that contains one and only one electron – absolutely nothing else: just the Lone Electron. What sort of worldview would our Lone Electron have or we have of it? Actually it would be Boring with a capital B.

With respect to a Lone Electron universe, let’s consider…

ACCELERATION/DECELERATION: None. The same argument applies as with velocity. 

ARROW OF TIME: If there is no time experienced by the Lone Electron, then there can be no arrow of time either. In short, the Lone Electron has no experience of a past, present, or future.

CHARGE: Yes, the electron has a charge of minus one or in other words a negative charge of one unit. However, in order for charge to be meaningful, it has to be acting with or against another charge of which there is none. So, does our Lone Electron have charge in this context or doesn’t it?

COLOUR: An electron is colourless. In any event you need photons, electromagnetic energy, light waves, to transmit (wavelength and frequency) what we (our brains) interpret as colour. Our drab, bland, colourless Lone Electron has no photons to transmit any information about itself, and there are no eyeballs and brains to interpret that information in any event.

ELECTROMAGNETISM: The electron is most associated with electromagnetism and the electromagnetic force. The associated force particle is the photon and electrons can absorb and emit photons (absorb and emit energy). However, in this scenario, there are no photons, so therefore there is no electromagnetic force. In any event, a force is only a meaningful concept if there are two of more particles involved, since, if you are the sum total of things, you can’t give off or receive a force.

ENTROPY: Entropy is a statistical concept where over time, left to themselves, things tend to go from an ordered state to a disordered state, like before-and-after pictures of a wild party. One electron does not make for statistical analysis, so the electron’s state of order or disorder is what it is. It doesn’t increase nor decrease. In fact it’s rather meaningless to philosophize over it. 

EQUILIBRIUM: The Lone Electron is in a state of equilibrium with respect to its surroundings. It could hardly be otherwise since there are no other surroundings except nothingness.

EXISTENCE: Yes, it would be incorrect to say our Lone Electron didn’t exist. However, there’s nothing else around it to verify that existence or give any meaning to it.

GRAVITY: Since the electron has mass, it must have gravity. However, gravity only has real meaning between two (or more) objects with mass, like the Earth – Moon – Sun trilogy; or, in the most traditional of traditional scenarios, the Earth – falling apple scenario that, according to mythology, inspired Isaac Newton. So, in the Lone Electron scenario, it’s pretty meaningless to talk about gravity. In fact it might be meaningless to talk about gravity since gravity is equivalent to acceleration as shown by Einstein. Acceleration implies motion or velocity which in the context of a one electron universe is meaningless. Further, the (hypothetical) particle associated with gravity, the graviton, would be conspicuous by its absence in this Lone Electron thought experiment.

MASS: Yes, the electron has mass. However, it’s yet another particle, known as the Higgs Boson that gives particles with mass, their mass. The Lone Electron has no Higgs Bosons around to give it muscle.

MOMENTUM: None. The same argument applies as with velocity. 

PHASE: There is no phase. One electron does not a solid, liquid, gas or plasma make. An electron, all by its little lonesome, cannot undergo any phase change, like say from a liquid to a solid.

SENSE OF IDENTITY: Our Lone Electron doesn’t have a sense of self-awareness since it isn’t conscious and in any event it has nothing else around it to provide a contrast to itself.

SPACE: Since the Lone Electron exists in this universe, it has to exist in some sort of realm, a concept we call space. However, space is not a thing, and the electron is, so while the two share a common existence, its all apples and oranges.  

SPIN: Our electron will either be spin-up or spin-down. However, orientation, as with velocity, is always with respect to something else. If you removed all of the rest of the Universe (stars, planets, constellations, the Sun, etc.) just leaving the Earth, well the labels North and South Pole become meaningless. There no longer is anything that’s up or down or sideways that one can orient the Earth’s axis to. We know north because that’s where the North Star is located. No North Star. We know south because the Southern Cross is overhead. No Southern Cross. A compass isn’t any help because it’s only an arbitrary convention what we call north and south and in any event the compass is an example of that ‘something else’. 

STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE: The strong nuclear force only applies in keeping an atomic nucleus together. Protons, with a positive charge, would like to repel each other. That they are held in check – confined to quarters - is due to the strong nuclear force. There is no atomic nucleus in a one electron universe, therefore there’s no strong nuclear force.

TIME: An electron is a fundamental particle, a basic building block. It doesn’t change any spots and there’s nothing else around to cause the electron’s spots to change or to ‘witness’ change. No change means the concept of time is meaningless, so therefore, no time unit need apply here for a job.

VELOCITY: No, the concept of velocity is meaningless in this context. Velocity only has meaning when measured relative or compared to something else. If you drive along at sixty miles per hour, that’s relative to the landscape you are driving past, like the surface of the road. The Lone Electron has no landscape for its velocity to be measured against.

WEAK NUCLEAR FORCE: The weak nuclear force governs radioactivity, or the decay of unstable atomic nuclei into more stable forms. One type of radioactivity (Beta decay) can emit an electron, but in the absence of any nuclei, unstable or otherwise, our Lone Electron has no connection with the weak nuclear force since in this, our electron’s universe, there ain’t no such critter. 

So we see how much more meaningful it is to have more than one item per universe. Fortunately, our Universe satisfies that criteria. But the real interesting bit, at least from a philosopher’s point of view, is how some of our most take-it-for-granted concepts that form our worldview, disappear or have no meaning when applied to just one entity. It’s impossible for us to imagine a worldview without there being time, the arrow of time (past, present, and future) or entropy. It’s impossible for us to imagine a worldview without mass or gravity. It’s impossible for us to imagine a worldview without motion. Yet it is entirely possible to imagine a Lone Electron universe where exactly that worldview has to apply!

The Simulation Hypothesis in Outline Form: Part Two

INTRODUCTION: The odds are fairly high that we reside in a computer software generated simulation (video game) universe. The chain of logic leading to this conclusion and what a simulated Universe might help explain, are outlined.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

In cosmology, there’s a fundamental imbalance between the relative amounts of matter and antimatter that just shouldn’t be. Physics predict that there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the Universe because equal amounts should have been created ‘in the beginning’. There apparently isn’t, so there apparently wasn’t. Why that is so is of fundamental importance. You wouldn’t expect God or Mother Nature to goof this up.

In cosmology, ‘dark energy’ is apparently causing our expanding Universe to accelerate that expansion rate ever faster and faster. Trouble is, the greater the expanded space, the more ‘dark energy’ exists which further creates more space creating more ‘dark energy’ in a never ending vicious circle. So ‘dark energy’ is apparently being continually created out of absolutely nothing in total violation of the conservation laws of physics, a concept drummed into every high school student’s grey matter. Again, God or Mother Nature is unlikely to create exceptions to an otherwise apparently universal rule.

In astronomy, there are distant objects (quasars) with wildly differing red-shifts (velocities) which are apparently connected or in close association. If true, it makes a mockery of physics as we know it. I’m sure God or Mother Nature doesn’t make a mockery of physics.

Why are there two separate and apart sets of software running the Universe? There’s the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear and the weak nuclear) and then there’s gravity. These two arenas, the micro scale quantum and the macro scale where gravity holds sway, just can not be unified, despite attempts by the greatest intellects over many, many decades. Is this the result of an all knowing, all powerful creator God? Would Mother Nature design more than one unified software package when creating Her Universe? 

There’s a concept in physics called the vacuum energy which has been experimentally verified. The trouble is, there are 120 orders of magnitude difference between those experimental results and what theory predicted. It’s the worst discrepancy ever known in science between theoretical expectations and experimental results. To put that in perspective, the difference between one and one hundred is only two orders of magnitude; between one and one thousand is three orders of magnitude; between one and ten thousand is four orders of magnitude, etc.  120 orders of magnitude difference boggles the mind. Something sure is screwy somewhere, and I’m reluctant to blame God or Mother Nature for the stuff up.

Physical constants, like the fine structured constant – aren’t. How can you have a constant in physics that refuses to stick to a constant value? That’s hardly a rational action of a God or Mother Nature.

Then there’s the whole category of quantum weirdness. First up, we have the phenomena of wave-particle duality where sometimes an electron (for example) behaves like a wave; other times like it’s a tiny billiard ball.  Secondly, quantum entanglement where two elementary particles light years apart can seemingly ‘communicate’ with each other instantaneously (something Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”). All things quantum are nightmares created by an irrational mind – hardly the stuff worthy of a God or Mother Nature.

Why are all members of any one of the types of fundamental particles identical? Well, the simulation software code for each type of particle is the exact same, so the particles are the same.

Who ordered that? Speaking of the elementary particles, there’s not only a 2^nd generation or family of these fundamental particles, but a 3^rd generation as well. Why is there a second and third generation or family of the elementary particles that play no role whatsoever in the physics of the Universe? Generation one is the electron, neutrino, up quark and down quark which make up the proton and neutron (and the antiparticle equivalents), but there’s a second generation that’s more massive (the muon instead of the electron but with the same charge) and ditto the third, in this case the electron equivalent being the tauon with the same charge. The interesting bit is that they play absolutely no role in our everyday observable universe. Again, why these 2^nd and 3^rd generation family of particles? Again, why don’t they play any role in life, the Universe and everything? What’s the point of their being? Why create a second and third story on your house if you never use them? Strange doings! In the simulation scenario, well the Supreme Simulator says ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time, but they weren’t ultimately needed’

That feeling of deja vu we all seemingly get once in a while. Well, our Supreme Simulator might stop, reverse, and restart bits and pieces of his overall simulation run – if we’re in that part, well we get the feeling of ‘been there, done that’.

As a general rule of thumb, just about anything science says is near impossible, yet for which there’s some degree of credible eyewitness testimony to the contrary, might be a candidate as a quirk courteous of our Supreme Simulator! Collectively, these topics fall under a general umbrella called ‘anomalies’ and whole books can be read that are full of case histories. For example, your attention is directed to the many volumes compiled by William R. Corliss of anomalies culled from the scientific literature in his Sourcebook Project series. Then there are those wonderful collections of anomaly tomes penned by Charles Fort.

Crop circles have no adequate explanation. Theories revolving around the natural, or human, or alien ultimately make little if any sense. Perhaps crop circles are one of the Supreme Simulator’s ways of making our hum-drum lives ‘interesting’.

Ghosts are explainable as a previously deleted simulated software program that still has some residue left.

The afterlife is just another piece of simulation software.

A final resolution to the ‘is there / isn’t there’ ‘free will’ debate. There isn’t – only the illusion of one – if we live in a simulated Universe. We dance to the tune of the programmer or ‘computer game’ player, if player they be. 

So, in conclusion, to paraphrase a rather famous observation, the Universe is a rather anomalous place, and we probably haven’t seen the end of the weirdness yet. I maintain it’s plausible that some geek (maybe a highly technologically sophisticated extraterrestrial), somewhere out there, created a computer software generated simulation video game called “Planet Earth” or “The Universe” or some such, and, well, the rest is history and here we are.

The Quantum Mess: Part Two

Are observers really necessary in order for reality to have reality? Is the realm of the quantum really spooky? Is causality doomed? Welcome to the world of the quantum mess!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE QUANTUM MESS – WAVE/PARTICLE DUALITY: It’s well established that elementary particles can behave in experiments like waves, and waves behave like particles. It’s called ‘Wave-Particle Duality’ or just ‘Duality’. That duality isn’t in doubt, but it is one of those aspects of the quantum that is a puzzlement. So, to explore a bit about this, I was interested in whether or not generalized wave behaviour, or generalized particle behaviour, seems to be predominant. If waves (or particles) could account for 90% that’s quite a different kettle of fish than if it’s a 50-50 split.

So, let’s represent particles in motion (particles standing still are rather boring) by machine gun bullets. I’m sure we all agree bullets are particles. Let waves be presented by water waves or sound waves – again, I’m sure we can agree these are true waves or exhibit real wave behaviour. Now, can one or the other (maybe both) account for these particular bits of physics.

Reflection – Well, waves can reflect off of surfaces; so can bullets. No help.

Refraction – Refraction represents a change in velocity and direction when going from one medium to another. Both particles (bullets) and waves (water or sound) refract. Bullets fired in air towards water will alter direction and slow down when hitting the water. A water wave will change speed and direction if the bottom conditions change – say become shallower and more on one side of the wave than the other. No help.

Density – Particles slow down as the density of the medium increases. Bullets go farther and faster in a vacuum than in air; faster in air than in a liquid; and they don’t really travel all that well through solids. Solids really cramp their style. Waves, as represented by sound, don’t travel at all in a vacuum; slowly in air; faster in liquid; faster still in a solid. So what do elementary particles do in experiments? They tend to exhibit pure particle behaviour. Stuff tends to impede their progress. If photons were waves, they couldn’t (seemingly) travel in a vacuum. It’s one vote for particles.

Energy Transfer - Water waves can convey energy; ditto sound waves – thunder can rattle windows. If you get hit with a bullet, well particles too can carry and transfer energy. No help.

Collisions – Fire two machine gun bullet streams at right angles to each other, or head on for that matter. While you’ll get lots of misses, you’re bound to get some impacts and scattering too. Two waves crossing at right angles, or meaning head on, ultimately pass right through one another. Photons (light beams) pass through one another; but electrons or protons or neutrons collide (in particle accelerators). It’s a draw.

Obstacles – Water waves will tend to go around small obstacles, like rocks or boats they encounter, but not large obstacles, like a coastline. Sound waves might find a large obstacle too big to circumnavigate and bounce off instead. But sound waves will go around a chair in middle of your living room where your speakers are. Hiding behind the chair won’t eliminate the sound. But hiding behind a rock or boat or chair though when the bad guys show up firing their bullets just might protect you. Substitute the bullets with a flashlight beam (light photons). Well, you’re protected. Light doesn’t go around corners. Substitute the bullets with radio energy photons. Well, you’re not protected. That suggests waves and obstacle size are both relevant. But electrons, neutrons or protons – well a rock or chair should shield you. It seems to be a draw again.

Escape Routes – A wave (water or sound) can go through an open door or through two (or more) open doors side-by-side at the same time (and cause constructive and destructive interference on the other side). A bullet can go through one door or another door (if there are two side-by-side), but not through both at the same time. It’s an either/or proposition. Even firing lots of bullets will provide an either/or situation for each individual bullet. There will be no interference pattern on the other side. So what do real micro particles do? Well, both. One door (or slit), it’s bullets time. Two doors or slits, its wave time because you get interference patterns. So, overall, it’s a vote for a wave, since a wave won’t be expected to produce an interference pattern going through just one door. BUT it’s here where Mother Nature (mom) goes off the deep end, because if you fire your micro particles at a very slot rate at the two doors, you’d expect that each particle will be faced with an either/or choice, and thus no interference pattern should form. Mom says otherwise, and mom rules, OK?

So, for all this pondering, I’m left with one vote for particles; one vote for waves. It just apparently reaffirms that wave-particle duality is real, and here to stay.

THE QUANTUM MESS - ENTANGLEMENT: Pick and remove a card from a standard deck. Don’t look at it. Bury it in a time capsule. Send the rest of the unobserved deck of 51 cards via rocket ship off to the Andromeda Galaxy. Leave instructions. Generations upon generations later, with the deck of 51 safely in the Great Galaxy of Andromeda, you’re great, great, great (add lots more greats) grand-person can dig up and look at lone card in the time capsule. Say it is the Ace of Diamonds. You do not now need to observe the original deck in Andromeda to know 1) it contains 51 cards, and 2) that it is missing the Ace of Diamonds! That’s entanglement. And entanglement is something that Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance’ because you can come by information/knowledge instantaneously – faster than the speed of light. Thus, Einstein was not amused!

On the micro level, the example usually given involves electrons (though one can experimentally substitute oppositely polarised photons). No two electrons can be in the exact same atomic ‘orbit’ if they have the exact same quantum configuration – the Pauli Exclusion Principle. One such configuration is called ‘spin’ and there are two mutually exclusive possibilities called ‘spin up’ and ‘spin down’. Any electron is either ‘spin up’ or ‘spin down’ with respect to ‘spin’. So, two electrons can occupy the same atomic ‘orbit’ if one is ‘spin down’ and the other is ‘spin up’. If either electron flips from ‘spin up’ to ‘spin down’, then its orbital partner must instantaneously flip too, but in the opposite manner. [Ignore the fact that even while in their atomic orbit, two electrons couldn’t ‘communicate’ quite instantaneously and thus it would still take some finite time for a spin to flip.] Now, separate the two electrons and send them travelling so that there becomes a vast distance between them. If later on you observe the spin orientation on one, then you instantaneously know the spin of the other – faster than the speed of light! Where ‘spooky’ comes in is that if one of the isolated electrons flips, then the other apparently must flip also in response. Yet the two are out of touch and out of reach, so how do they know each other’s state, and how do they instantaneously communicate same – faster than the speed of light? Something’s rotten somewhere! I can only conclude that since electrons have no free will, no ability to communicate with each other, and can not violate the cosmic speed limit, that once separated and thus isolated they either don’t flip, or it doesn’t matter because observing one will now tell you nothing about the state of the other, and therefore nothing ‘spooky’ happens. It doesn’t matter because once separated, the entanglement is no longer valid – the two electrons are like a divorced couple that have no further interaction with each other.   

Further readings in entanglement:

Aczel, Amir D.; Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics; John Wiley & Sons, N.Y.; 2002:

Clegg, Brian; The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science’s Strangest Phenomenon; St. Martin’s Griffin, N.Y.; 2006:

To be continued…

Exterminate the Observers: Exterminate Them! Part Three

Quantum physics is a world where we’re told that probability and uncertainty rule and causality is thrown to the winds. However, I think it’s the observer that’s the real fly in the quantum physics ointment. Left to its own devices, the micro (quantum physics) would (certainly should) mirror the macro (classic physics) and thus causality rules both realms. Whatever applies to the micro must apply to the macro since the macro is made up of the micro (and thus I feel free to sometimes use more familiar macro examples in the following text). It’s the observer who is interpreting, albeit through no fault of her own, things as being in a state of uncertainty or as just probability.

 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

It is also claimed that the very act of observing or measuring alters the properties or values of what you are observing or measuring. Well, yes and no. Let’s take the ‘yes’ case first. If you put a photon detector between the photon emitter and its target (say at the point of the double slit to try and pin down which slit the photon is going through, then of course the act of doing that, the act of measuring or observing in midstream disrupts the otherwise natural state of affairs.

A biologist monitoring wildlife populations, movements and interactions may, if not very careful, influence those very parameters by her presence, just like human behaviour is altered if you know you’re in the spotlight.

Is a grain of salt that goes untasted salty? Presumably the act of tasting (an observation or measurement) alters the properties of what is being tasted – in the case of table salt, it dissolves when tasted.

Sticking some sort of device into flowing water to measure its rate of velocity, force, etc. will subtly change that flow and its properties.  Stick a thermometer into a bowl of soup to measure its temperature – well that very act will of course change the temperature of the soup!

Now examples from the ‘no’ side: observing a star through a telescope doesn’t change the properties of the star. Placing a seismometer on the ground to measure earthquake activity and intensity isn’t going to cause any change in seismic activity. Hearing the thunder doesn’t alter the properties of the lightning bolt.

Of course it could also be a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ depending. You’d think that observing an electron because the photon has to bounce off it in order for you to measure it, must thus alter its course, and thus has affected the direction-of-motion property of that electron. But, it depends – would it have happened anyway or did you deliberately introduce the photon. If the former, your observation didn’t affect the electron; if the latter, it did.

Upgrading the issue to the broadest of scales, if something is only known or has reality or is created by observation, then which came first, the observer, or the Universe? Since observers, of the flesh and blood kind, could not survive the reality of the Big Bang event (whether or not they created that reality) and conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang – even long after the Big Bang in fact until the heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. were manufactured inside stars – and since one can explain how an observer-less Universe can evolve observers, it seems the simplest explanation (simplicity, all else being equal, being one of the core philosophies in science) is that the Universe created the observer and not the other way around. I suspect that if all observers were to become extinct, the Universe would go on its merry way, caring not one bit.

Now if one has an observer as creator of the universe and its reality, that seems to be just a sleight-of-hand way of replacing the term ‘God’ with the term ‘observer’, and as physicist Victor Stenger and biologist Richard Dawkins (among others) have recently argued, there is no scientific evidence for a ‘God’ existing far less creating anything.

However, I can think of (not as my original thoughts I must add) two scenarios where our Universe and its reality were created by ‘observers’. The first is a variation on physicist Lee Smolin’s idea that a universe can ‘reproduce’ via black holes. Black holes can create or spawn baby universes, and so a universe that has physics that maximise the production of black holes maximises its own reproductive fitness. My variation is that an ultra advanced extraterrestrial civilization/technology could in fact have the ability to manipulate matter/energy into forming a black hole and thus creating a new universe – like our Universe! 

The second scenario is again of an extraterrestrial intelligence nature. I can imagine some alien Ph.D. student doing a thesis along the lines of “Planet Earth and Associated Universe: A Simulated Construction”. In other words, we are all, and our reality is all, just a simulation – a software package. But that’s not so strange an idea. By analogy, there are multi-thousands of software simulation packages right here available for our scientific use, as a training tool (say for pilots, astronauts, medical doctors), and just for fun (video games). I actually find this quite plausible. Simulated universes can greatly outnumber a real universe, so what odds that we’re in a real universe instead of a simulated one? I find one piece of evidence suggestive. That is, there are apparently two independent sets of software that together, but apart, run the cosmos – classical physics and quantum physics. I have sometimes wondered whether the quest for a Theory of Everything, for quantum gravity, is a futile exercise. See, our extraterrestrial Ph.D. student is a computer geek, not a physics geek!

If either of these above scenarios are correct, one can readily equate a supernatural God with a flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial whose technology is, from our point of view, indistinguishable from magic (i.e. – supernatural happenings), as Arthur C. Clarke would postulate.

What’s at stake here? The macro universe, which is made up of by the micro (quantum) universe, at the level of billiard balls and pussy cats is anything but a universe measured in probabilities and degrees of uncertainty. The micro universe, from the point of view of observers, is everything probability and uncertainty.  But, is the micro universe really that way or does it only give an illusion of that? If there were no observers (which would unfortunately mean we wouldn’t have any ways and means of discussing the issue) I would maintain that the micro would mirror the macro. In short, causality rules at the most fundamental of levels.

Einstein fought this battle and lost. There’s currently experimental evidence that quantum physics is at the heart an uncertain world and a measure of all things that are just probability. That’s the sort of environment that allows for free will – you just can’t predict in advance which way you’re brain is going to jump, brain activity being chemical, thus physical, thus ultimately quantum. But perhaps there’s yet an undiscovered level of reality that governs al things quantum and eliminates probability and uncertainty, even though to us, as observers, that’s what things look like - now. But even if some deeper level of reality within the quantum world exhibits real causality, if electrons have coordinates; if cats are alive or dead and not in-between, then there can’t be free will. Perhaps that’s what’s ultimately at stake.   

CONCLUSION: Things are only in-deterministic or uncertain (as in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal) or have probability (as in the cat is probably dead but equally probably alive) to the observer – or to use a layman’s term, all things (well, some things) quantum are ‘fuzzy’. However, from the point of view of Mother Nature, all things are deterministic, certain, and absolute. She knows where the electron is; and She knows all about that cat’s state of animation. My bottom line is that if there were no observers, no life of any kind, no measuring devices like photographic film or Geiger counters or rulers or thermometers, the Universe would still exist. It would have an absolute physical reality. It would have to have that in order to bring forth into being observers who could and would observe and construct measuring devices to measure.

And with that statement, I’ve been expelled from Quantum Physics 101 – again.

Evidence Required for Extraordinary Claims: Part Three

A phrase has appeared in many popular science books as well as sceptical books about various aspects of the paranormal and pseudoscience’s, but which has, in classic meme fashion, spread to other subjects as well. That phrase is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. However, I feel that phrase has well outlived its original purpose, is total nonsense, and has passed it’s ‘use by’ date by several decades at least. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is often the mantra when it comes to the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).

 Many ideas or fads, be they in the sciences or the arts, don’t last long – theories come and theories go and actual fashions and fashion in music change yearly. What’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’ is often pretty fickle. A lot of what was popular in 1947 (the birth year of the modern UFO era) has fallen by the wayside now - but, interestingly enough, not the UFO ETH. The UFO ETH is as popular as ever, maybe even more so now than in 1947, not that popularity equates of necessity to something factual. If a billion people believe a stupid idea – like an invisible friend who art in heaven – it’s still a stupid idea. However, over six decades on, despite all the professional and amateur sceptics and the universal naysayer, the government denials, scientists professing ‘no evidence’, the ‘giggle’ factor and the ‘silly season’ publicity, the UFO ETH is alive and well thank you very much. Something must be driving this. Perhaps, at least as far as many of the great unwashed are concerned, there is some signal in the noise – some sort of evidence (albeit not physical enough to be acceptable to many professional scientists) that’s swaying the general public.

It is suggested, with good reason, that the whole issue of the UFO ETH must be judged on the basis of the evidence. And, it is claimed, that the evidence for visitation is so poor that very few scientists find it convincing. And that is true, at least the part that few scientists, publicly at least, find the UFO ETH somewhat lacking in solid evidence. Thus, the UFO ETH has garnered somewhat of an aura of being a ‘silly season’ subject, unworthy of scientific study. [To be honest, I’d often like to survey academics / scientists for their private opinions!]

UFOs vs. evidence for the ETH – there is no absolute smoking gun - yet. I’d be the first to acknowledge that. I’d suggest however that this is a case of where there’s smoke, there’s smoke. The fire has yet to be seen through the smoke. There however has got to be something suggestive about the nature of that smoke to drive lots of people, even some quite intelligent people, to accept the possibility of the UFO ETH. I mean the idea just didn’t pop out of the ether – out of thin air. Something very suggestive is driving it. 

I would ask the question whether by evidence one means a physical artefact that can be put under the microscope, or is human testimony, the sort that would convict someone of a crime and put them on death row enough evidence? I’m 99% convinced scientists would say the former, yet the evidence for the UFO ETH is 99% the latter (plus a few radar returns and films). Actually IMHO it’s ludicrous for UFO ETH sceptics to poo-poo and give the thumbs down to eyewitness testimony. After all, it’s accurate eyewitness testimony that enables the trained investigators to properly identify the vast majority of UFO reports, turning them into identified flying objects. So, when sceptics need eyewitness testimony to be accurate and turn UFO cases into something with ordinary and mundane causes – that’s fine. But when the tables are turned, sceptics turn turncoat as well so as to re-enforce their already-minds-made-up point of view. That is, eyewitness testimony that turns a UFO sighting into an unexplained bona fide UFO case, well then clearly the eyewitness testimony counts for nothing in terms of bona fide evidence.   

Now there are lots of current concepts in science that have absolutely no evidence to support them, yet are taken quite seriously by physical scientists. A partial list would include concepts like the Multiverse, the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, string theory or its related M-Theory, the possible existence of ten or eleven dimensions, the Ekpyrotic (two branes colliding origin of the) Universe theory, and, shock horror for those interested in SETI, the total lack of any under-the-microscope, hard core evidence whatsoever for any intelligent life forms other than intelligent terrestrial life forms. Yet it is acceptable for scientists to research these areas without being subject to having their sanity questioned. I fail to see why the UFO ETH is an exception to this.

Scientists need more than 20 fingers and toes to list all of the there-is-no-evidence-for- these-way-out-theories in science that ultimately had to wait years, decades, longer even for experimental confirmation. If scientists had put these in the too hard basket, or dismissed them with a ‘I just don’t believe it - it can’t be therefore it isn’t’ attitude, well we’d still all believe that the sun goes around the Earth, black holes would be confined to the pages of science fiction, and as for gravity bending light rays – forget it.

There are other ‘the nature of the evidence’ parallels with UFOs – physical phenomena that don’t stand still; you can’t poke and prod, put under the microscope, examine at your leisure and which are unpredictable in space and in time. Ball lightning comes to mind; ditto Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP); and you can’t rewind the clock and prepare for (instruments at the ready) and witness the one-off Tunguska event. There seems to be a double standard for evidence here. UFOs have a ‘giggle factor’; ball lightning does not, yet both have theoretical underpinnings that make their existence plausible. In the case of UFOs, it’s the Fermi Paradox – if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist, they’ve had enough time to colonize the galaxy, so where is everybody?

So, in conclusion, that ultra overused phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is nonsense. Claims of course require evidence, but again the word ‘extraordinary’ is in the mind of the beholder. What’s extraordinary to one is routine, boring, commonplace and downright bloody obvious to another. And speaking of the common phrase, another one that can be applied to the UFO ETH is “absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence”.

Conclusion: If you make a claim, extraordinary or otherwise, you’ve got to be prepared to back it up with your evidence, your whole evidence, and nothing but your evidence.

Electron-ness: Why Are All Electrons Identical? Part One

INTRODUCTION: Individual members of the fundamental or elementary particles are absolutely identical* with one another. In a police identification line-up, you couldn’t tell them apart. Why? Rather than go into an exhaustive review of the entire particle zoo, I’ll just hit on the electron and its antimatter mirror twin, the positron.

BEGINNINGS: Go to your local store and buy several items of the same product – say a package of three golf balls. Though the golf balls appear identical, closer examination will reveal ever so slight differences. One ball maybe fractionally larger; another ever so slightly less spherical; perhaps the third is ever so slightly lighter. The generality that extends from this is that any two seemingly identical products will have nevertheless slight variations in their properties.

Now buy a packet of three electrons (or their antimatter equivalent, the positron). Each electron, or positron, will be identical in size, mass and electric charge to as many decimal places as you care to measure. All electrons (and positrons) are 100% absolutely identical clones.

Take one electron and one positron and bring them together. They annihilate releasing a fixed amount of energy. Take another electron and another positron and repeat the scenario. The pair will annihilate releasing an identical amount of energy in the process. The amount of energy released in each electron-positron annihilation case is the same, to as many decimal places as you can measure. That’s quite unlike taking a match from a box of matches, striking same and releasing its stored chemical energy as heat energy. Another match from the same box wouldn’t release, to as many decimal places as you care to measure, the absolutely identical amount of heat energy.

WHY IS THIS SO? #1: How come identical golf balls aren’t but identical electrons (or positrons) are?

Electrons (or positrons), having mass, can be created from energy (just like mass can be converted to energy as in the case of the electron-positron annihilation process). You (human intelligence) can’t create identical golf balls, but a seemingly non-intelligent natural process (Mother Nature by any other name) can create or produce copies of a fundamental particle, like an electron (or positron), that are clones of one another down to the nittiest-grittiest detail.

Even with quantum mechanics in force, you’d think energy could create or be converted into an electron with twice the standard electron mass or twice the electric charge, or thrice even. But no. You see one electron you’ve seen them all – every electron that is, was or will be, anywhere, everywhere, anytime, every time in our Universe.  Electrons, like Black Holes, have no hair. That means they have no individual personality. In fact Black Holes can be said to have some fuzz because they can and do differ in terms of size, mass and electric charge. Electrons have the exact same size, mass and electric charge, so absolutely no hair!  Relative to Black Holes, electrons (and positrons) are absolutely bald!

Invoking all things quantum is still a bit of a copout in that while quantum means things are this or that, one unit or two, one energy level or two energy levels, there’s no explanation as to why it’s only one or two, not one & a half. It just is, but why remains a mystery.

SO, WHY IS IT SO? #2: Why are all electrons (and positrons) identical?

1) Of course THE copout answer is that that’s just the way God wanted it and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the matter.

Unfortunately, there is no real evidence for the existence of any deity past and/or present that stands up to any detailed scrutiny.

2) One could resort to an explanation via string theory merged with quantum physics. String theory just replaces elementary particles as little billiard balls for elementary little bits of string (albeit not string as we know it). Now maybe, as in all things quantum, these strings can be one unit in length, or two units, or three units, or four units, etc. Any positive whole number multiple of one string length is okay.  Now say that a two length unit of string is an electron. A two unit length of anti-string is therefore a positron.

Or, one can suggest that strings vibrate and can only vibrate at specific frequencies as any musician playing a stringed instrument knows. So, a string vibrating at one allowed frequency is an electron; if it vibrates at another allowable frequency maybe that’s a proton or a neutron. Again, a vibrating anti-matter string would produce manifestations of the antimatter particles, a positron being dependent upon one of the allowable vibrating frequencies.

Of the two possibilities, it’s the vibration rate theory that’s preferred. All strings are of the same fundamental length – their rate of vibration can differ, but at precise intervals. What causes strings to vibrate at the rate they do, and how they can change rates of vibration (morph from one kind of particle into others) are questions better left for another time.

Unfortunately, string theory has no credibility in terms of any actual experimental evidence, and, to add insult to injury, it requires the postulation of ten to eleven dimensions in order to fit the pieces together. If string theory gets some experimental runs on the board then, and only then, will it be time to take strings seriously.

3) Well, one other possible explanation is that all electrons are absolutely identical because there is only one electron in actual existence. If you see the same object twice, thrice of a zillion times over, then it’s the same object and the fact that it is consistently identical is not a great mystery. But how can the Universe contain only one electron? That seems to be the least obvious statement anyone could ever make – the statement of a total wacko.

Well, one explanation goes something like this. Our one electron has zipped back and forth between the Alpha and Omega points again, and again, and again. Now multiply ‘again’ by zillions upon zillions upon zillions of times. When you take a cross section at any ‘now’ point in time between the Alpha and the Omega, there will be zillions upon zillions upon zillions of electrons visible ‘now’. Simple, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, while there is no violation of physical laws at the micro level in travelling through time (apart from going forward at a rate of one second per second which we do whether we like it or not), no exact causality mechanism has been proposed to explain how and why an elementary particle shifts gear into time reverse (or forward again). But, this is interesting, this time travel bit, so let’s explore it in some greater detail.

To be continued…

*The concept of identicalness can bring us into some weird scientific and philosophical territory. Two people examining the same object will not agree to the Nth degree that the object under consideration is the exact same object, an identical object, when compared from each person’s perspective. Perception is ultimately a function of brain chemistry and no two people have the exact same brain chemistry due to various factors like genetics, age, physiology, disease, fatigue, and/or intakes of various solid, liquid and gaseous elements and compounds that directly affect brain chemistry. The differences may be really tiny and nitpicky but nevertheless present. To take another case, if three court stenographers all record and transcribe a days worth of testimony, no doubt there will be (ever so) slight differences in the final three versions.

Even the same person experiencing the same object or event a second, third, etc. time – say watching a film again or listening to a CD track again, won’t have identical experiences, again due to the internal brain chemistry being slightly different on each occasion. That’s apart from the fact that external influences like temperature, humidity, pressure, and general wear and tear (entropy) all affect that object or event and the environment between that object/event and the person experiencing the object/event. Those external factors also change from moment to moment.  

People though tend to agree (brain chemistry not withstanding) on what an independent umpire says about an object or event – the independent umpire being an instrument or measuring device. Instruments are of course also subject to external influences, but aren’t affected by brain chemistry – they have no brains!

Measurements tend to be numerical, and numbers are pretty straight forward. However, all measurements are subject to some uncertainty or error margins, especially analogue devices like a ruler – is it 1.510 cm or 1.511 cm or 1.509 cm? Or a thermometer – is it reading 31.37 degrees or 31.38 degrees or 31.36 degrees? Or take a standard watch or clock – is it 12:00:00 or 12:00:01 or 11:59:59?

Digital instruments however have readouts that have a finite number of places in which to display the result, so they don’t tend to give you a plus or minus uncertainty error bar. A digital instrument will readout that the length IS 1.510 cm; the temperature IS 31.37 degrees; the time IS 12:00:00, and everyone looking at the readout will agree.   

In the case of an electron, the independent umpire gives the same numerical results for each electron it measures. Of course there are still error bars, but with each further decimal place reached, identicalness holds and the error bars get less and less.