Mission Impossible (Or Highly Improbable): Part Two

In Alice in Wonderland (or was that Through the Looking-Glass – I can never remember which one of the two it was*) it’s stated that it’s possible to believe many (as in six) impossible things before breakfast. Science and associated philosophies have had to deal with impossibilities and wildly improbable things, some of which are straight forward, and some of which aren’t – perhaps to the point where something possible is in fact impossible and fundamentally wrong. Conversely, something considered impossible might in fact be possible and fundamentally right. 

A cautionary note: when it comes to what’s possible or impossible; plausible or implausible; probable or improbable, majority doesn’t rule. This isn’t a democracy. If a billion people believe nonsense, it’s still nonsense. This however is in contrast to what has been proven beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. If a billion people continue to disbelieve something that has been proved, then it’s those billion people who are nonsense, not the idea.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THIRDLY, let’s look at commonly accepted scientific beliefs that are IMHO ultimately flawed concepts – flawed to the point where I suggest they are either flat out impossible or at best wildly improbable. [This is the section where scientists wish there really were a Hell they could send me to!]

IMPOSSIBLE COSMOLOGY

There are those cosmologists who believe (or so they say) that our Universe was created from nothing – absolute nothing. First there was nothing; then there was something, so they say, but without bothering to explain in acceptable layman’s language the ‘how’ of that. If fact, they just take that as given and then just deal with, and devote their time and energy to, the subsequent expansion and understanding of that something. That something can be created out of nothing somehow violates one of the most cherished and fundamental of all scientific principles, one which even elementary school students are taught. It’s a violation of the ultimate conservation of matter and energy. Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed, only changed in form, from one kind of matter to another; one kind of energy to another; or matter to energy and vice versa. 

That the Big Bang somehow created time and space. I propose instead that the Big Bang happened in previously existing time and space.

That the Big Bang somehow created both matter and energy - matter and energy being two sides of the same coin as per Einstein’s famous equation. I propose instead that the matter/energy that we observe in our Universe was actually matter/energy that was recycled from a previous universe.

You will sometimes find in the literature statements by scientists (who should know better) that at the moment of the Big Bang event, the temperature of our ‘Universe’ – such as it was in the beginning – was infinite. As the Universe expanded, and expanded some more, expanding ever outwards, it cooled and continued cooling to reach what we note as today’s cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) temperature, just several degrees above the theoretical absolute zero. This is absolute nonsense. It is rubbish. It is impossible (the infinite temperature in the beginning, not today’s measured CMBR temperature). Scientists sometimes play extremely loosely with the word ‘infinity’, when they actually mean ‘extremely’ high (or dense or vast, etc.). So, why can’t the Big Bang event have had infinite temperature? Simplicity itself! If you add, subtract, multiply or divide any finite number into infinity, you get – infinity! In the case of the Universe expanding, if you double her dimensions, you have a reduction in her density (mass or energy) by a factor of eight. That’s fine if you start with a finite value, but infinity divided by eight is still infinity. Our Universe would never cool below an infinite temperature no matter how much it expanded! That’s clearly not what we observe (and if that weren’t the case we wouldn’t be here to contemplate the matter since life couldn’t arise in an environment of infinite temperature), so clearly the origin of our Universe had a finite (even if extremely high) temperature from the get-go.   

Then there are cosmologists would have you believe that space itself is expanding; that ‘dark energy’ is a property of space that pushes apart space itself, creating more space, which comes equipped with its own quota of ‘dark energy’, which further expands or pushes apart space, creating thus even more space and more ‘dark energy’ – it’s a vicious circle and the ultimate ‘free lunch’ if true. However, I maintain that’s impossible.  There may well be a repulsive force, a sort of antigravity called ‘dark energy’, and it may be a property of space itself, but it repels or pushes matter further apart, not space. Translated, the Universe’s matter is expanding, with the assistance of ‘dark energy’, through existing space. That matter is not being carried along by space itself, space expanding due to the repulsive nature of its ‘dark energy’. [As an aside, if one prefers, one can think of ‘dark energy’ as a pull force that pulls things apart, and thus gravity as a push force that pushes things together, instead of associating ‘dark energy’ with push, and gravity with pull. A rose by any other name… . The bottom line is that ‘dark energy’ is repulsive; gravity is attractive, which has nothing to do with one being prettier than the other!]  

That one can squeeze the contents of the entire observable universe into a volume less than that of a pinhead – much less in actual fact. Okay, pull the other one! 

IMPOSSIBLE PHYSICS

Item one in the ‘impossible physics’ category is that the elementary or fundamental particles are only ‘point** particles’ existing as dimensionless objects with no volume. That might simplify particle physics maths, but is nonsense. That idea, if correct, would render impotent particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. How could two particles collide if they don’t have any volume?

A second item in the ‘impossible physics’ category is that particles also behave as waves (the wave-particle duality). The wave aspect, despite experimental evidence, is an illusion IMHO. Particles are particles – tiny billiard balls if you will. If you have mass you do not wave (although under the right circumstances you might vibrate). Photons don’t have mass and so you do have light (photons) behaving as waves, which is also why photons travel at the speed of light. That’s unlike mass particles, for example like electrons that do have mass. They can’t travel at the speed of light. Look at it this way, or at least through the philosophy of Occam’s (Ockham’s) Razor that simpler is better; the fewer the assumptions required to explain things, the better. Say you have an electron emitted from a specific point ‘A’ in space and time – say from the electron-gun in your TV set. That electron impacts your TV screen at a specific point ‘B’ in time and space. What happens to the electron in-between ‘A’ and ‘B’? Does it wave all over the place on the journey so that its location between ‘A’ and ‘B’ is just probability, or does it travel like a little billiard ball in a straight line from ‘A’ to ‘B’? If all the electrons emitted by your TV set’s electron-gun waved all over the place, each could take varying intervals of time to reach your TV screen. Your TV picture would be a mess!

Thirdly, Black Holes have singularities at their centre with zero volume and infinite density. The problem with that is that if you chuck matter into a Black Hole (ending up ultimately in their singularity), the Black Hole’s event horizon grows in size. If that is so, that is if the Black Hole grows in size, then the singularity must have finite volume that increases as you throw more and more stuff into it.

Now, it has been speculated that matter that gets sucked into a Black Hole undergoes a phase change into a new form of matter, sort of like ice to water to steam, or steam to water to ice. What exactly the nature of that inside-the-Black-Hole phase change is – well, your guess is as good as mine. However, I have come up with an idea. The matter sucked inside a Black Hole has been transformed into ‘dark matter’! Now ‘dark matter’ has mass and gravity, but doesn’t interact with any electromagnetic forces. We know that because ‘dark matter’ exists within our Universe; not of necessity hidden exclusively within Black Holes. So, how does ‘dark matter’ get out of a Black Hole and into our Universe at large? It doesn’t, at least not as ‘dark matter’ but maybe a Hawking radiation. Well, that doesn’t explain the ‘dark matter’ all around us. So there has to be an exception, and I suggest that exception was the transformation of a previous universe’s Big Crunch – forming the Mother of all Black Holes – so warping space-time that it turned itself inside out and emerged as a While Hole, spilling out its contents and forming our Universe in the process. The Mother of all Black Holes transformed much of that universe’s ordinary matter into ‘dark matter’, but the process of Black to While Hole transformation happened so rapidly that not all matter got so converted before the spewing. So, what was vomited as our Universe was a lot of ‘dark energy’, but not quite 100%, keeping in line with what we observe, or detect but don’t observe directly, today. 

A fourth item has to do with the Holy Grail of physics, the TOE (Theory of Everything). It is commonly accepted that there are four fundamental forces in the cosmos – electromagnetism (quantum physics), the strong nuclear force (quantum physics), the weak nuclear force (quantum physics), and gravity (classical physics). A TOE would somehow relate all four forces; they would be unified into just one overall grand physics concept. But, the fly in the ointment has been gravity. Perhaps gravity isn’t a force but a property of space itself (as is its counterpart, ‘dark energy’). If that’s so, then it might prove to be impossible to come up with a TOE that unifies the three quantum forces with classical gravity. Put another way, gravity in the form of general relativity (the macro) and quantum physics (the micro) are forever bound to be un-bonded – it’s like there are two totally separate types of incompatible software governing the cosmos.

Another concept that has actually mastered the TOE is known as string theory, superstring theory, or M-theory. It’s one of these wildly improbably ideas that’s the ‘in thing’ in modern physics – and has been for decades. And therein lays one of the problems. While it is ascetically beautiful and explains much about life the universe and everything from Hawking radiation to the unification of quantum and classical physics, it has three flaws. Firstly, it’s pure abstract mathematical theory. Secondly, variations on string theory is now over 30+ years strong without having one shred of experimental evidence to back up the basic idea that elementary particles are tiny vibrating strings and not little billiard balls. Thirdly, string theory requires the total existence of ten or eleven dimensions. These extra six or seven unobserved and undetected dimensions (additional to the four we commonly interact with) are unobserved and undetected because they are curled up so tightly that they’re down to ultra micro size, way below the threshold of observation and detection – how connivent. If you accept that premise, well there’s this bridge in Sydney I have going for sale real cheap! 

Particle/nuclear physicists would have you accept that unstable (radioactive) nucleus decays into more stable nucleus without any reason; without any cause. First it is unstable; then all of a sudden, at a time undeterminable, ‘poof’, it is stable, or at least on the pathway to eventual stability, with alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation given off in the process. Firstly, things don’t happen without a cause. That’s impossible IMHO. Maybe the unstable nucleus got hit with a cosmic ray or a neutrino (there’s lots of them around) which triggered the ‘poof’ event. But something was the trigger. Secondly, how could radioactive decay happen to individual nuclei without cause, yet collectively all the nuclei decay over time by following a neat and precise and predictable (half-life) mathematical relationship?

I believe there is a prim and proper causality explanation to radioactive decay. I suggest above the impact between an unstable nucleus and either a cosmic ray or a neutrino. Of the two, cosmic rays can’t penetrate very far into the ground, but neutrinos can and do, in fact nearly all neutrinos pass right through the Earth itself without the slightest fuss and bother. However, a few neutrinos do run smack into something. Most of the times it’s a stable nucleus and nothing happens. Occasionally, it’s an unstable nucleus and that impact is enough to trigger the instability cascade down the slope to stability. So, unstable nuclei, deep inside the Earth, get whacked too and thus decay too, generating a lot of Earth’s interior heat in the process. Now, I suggest my idea is subject to experimental research and verification – or not. All one needs to do is artificially increase the normal background neutrino rate and see if the half-life of a radioactive element changes! These external influences like neutrinos (maybe cosmic rays), are uniform enough (everyday normal constant background rates) so that given impact events, if 1000 unstable nuclei  go ‘poof’ after one time unit; the next time unit sees 500 nuclei go ‘poof’ and so on. So, my neutrino (or cosmic ray) impact idea explains the half-life phenomena.

By analogy, picture a roomful of inflated toy balloons. Standing outside the room, toss dart after dart into the room. At first, you hit lots of balloons; say half of them in one hour’s worth of dart tossing. But, as the number of inflated balloons decrease, so in the next hour worth of dart tossing, you’re not going to hit as many inflated balloons, maybe only half of the half that’s left, and in the hour after that even less (another half of the half), until there’s one balloon left standing - until a stray dart find that and the room is now stable and free of inflated balloons. It’s a half-life relationship. Now substitute a collection of unstable nuclei for the balloons and neutrinos (or maybe cosmic rays) for the darts and there you have it. Causality rules, okay?

Either that or maybe you have to assume intelligent, communicating, all-knowing unstable nuclei. Imagine this conversation as an explanation. Jane: “Hi Clive” Clive: “Hi Jane” Jane: “Look Clive, one of us must go ‘poof’ now in order to keep this half-life relationship in sync” Clive: That’s okay Jane, I’ll go ‘poof’ – see ya”. Jane: “Thanks a bunch!” Of course the above conversation is hardly one that anyone could take seriously!

So if an unstable nucleus goes ‘poof’ without any cause, then the collective of all such nuclei bound together each participant going individually ‘poof’, each without cause, would be have to end up being collectively a totally random and variable result, not a half-life predictable result. That’s not what we observe.

IMPOSSIBLE PHILOSOPHY

I doubt that there is such a thing as ‘free will’. If, in the beginning, one defines a set of initial conditions, a finite number of particles having deterministic laws and relationships governing them, and hence starts the clock running, then, crunching the numbers by cranking the handle, one can predict an absolute outcome for those particles based on those laws and relationships X number of time units in the future. If that is acceptable, then there is no independent ‘free will’ variable. It’s a clockwork universe. 1 + 1 = 2, the first time, the last time; all times in-between. No variations allowed. 

I also doubt that you have an invisible friend who art in heaven. Sorry, but there’s no evidence supporting the existence of any supernatural creator God or gods.

To be continued….

* Having since looked it up, I’ve confirmed it as the White Queen’s statement from Through the Looking-Glass.

**A point is zero dimensional; a line or curve is one dimensional; a square or circle is two dimensional; a cube or sphere is three dimensional.

Six Impossible Physics Things

We all like lists: The ten best this, the top dozen that; the five worst ranking next thing. That’s why the popularity of the Guinness Book of Records. In “Alice through the Looking Glass”, the White Queen believed in six impossible things before breakfast. Exactly what those impossible things were is not stated – so here’s mine that reside in the land of physics.

The public’s perception of physics is that everything is pretty cut-and-dried; all the basics are known and it’s now just a routine matter of getting to that next decimal place in accuracy as well as dotting a few more of this and crossing a few more of that. The days of revolutionary physics that we saw in the early 20^th Century with quantum mechanics and relativity are long gone now. Well, all that’s not quite the case. There’s a lot that’s proposed, even accepted by most physicists, that’s not really set in concrete. I think some mainstream physics, even some proposed challenges to the mainstream, are so far off the beaten track, way down south in La-La Land, as to be, for all practical purposes, as near to impossible as makes no odds. I think physics is in for a few more revolutions yet.   

1) String Theory is one of those proposed challenges to the mainstream and replaces the standard model of particle physics by substituting tiny vibrating strings for all those particles, like electrons and quarks and neutrinos, etc. that we know so well. Different vibration rates determine whether something is an electron or an up-quark or a down-quark or a neutrino, etc. That in itself isn’t too bad an alteration. Where string theory falls off the rails IMHO is that in order to work, the Universe has got to be comprised of not the standard three special dimensions and the one dimension in time we’re used to existing in, but a total of ten, even eleven dimensions. Sorry, it’s those extra dimensions that tip the weirdness quotient off the scales. String Theory wouldn’t be too bad were there the slightest tad of experimental evidence for string ‘particles’ and those additional dimensions. There isn’t. That wouldn’t be all that unusual if String Theory were something that was brand new. Alas, the theory has been around for way over three decades now, and it still just resides as pure hypothetical, albeit elegant (and extremely difficult to understand), mathematics. String Theory just is not going anywhere. It’s a dead end. As far as I’m concerned, String Theory is impossible physics until such time as even the tiniest shred of experimental evidence is on the board. I’m not holding my breath.

2) The standard model of particle physics often states that elementary particles are ‘Point Particles’. So what are ‘Point Particles’? These are the fundamental particles that are in existence not as little billiard balls but as geometric points, points that are without extension (volume). In other words, a point has zero dimensions – no length, no width, no height, no area and no volume. There’s really something screwy somewhere if that is to be believable! The fundamental flaw is that particles, like the electron, have mass. You cannot cram mass, however tiny, into zero volume! So, an electron must have a volume, therefore an electron cannot be a ‘Point Particle”. So what’s the rational? Though never explicitly stated, I suspect it has an awful lot to do with keeping the maths simple! It’s easier to deal with a ‘Point Particle’ when crunching the numbers than adding in all sorts of other variables and complications like mass and volume. Unfortunately, I’ve read way too many physics tomes where the concept of zero volume seems to be taken literally – at face value. If that’s the case, then those who apparently advocate such a position are akin to the White Queen.

3) Lack of causality in a process really bothers me. It’s akin to getting something from nothing – a free lunch. There are two such ‘free lunches’ advocated. One is the Big Bang scenario that kick-started our Universe off. After a lot of physics and chemistry, that ultimately led to biological entities - you and me. I’ll have more, much more to say about the Big Bang’s free lunch later on.

Meantime, free lunch number two - radioactive decay. The standard scenario goes that one has an unstable atom, or unstable atomic nucleus actually. To achieve greater stability, the atomic nucleus spits out various bits and pieces – alpha particles, beta particles and/or gamma rays. The problem is, there is no rhyme or reason to exactly why and when, especially when, those bits and pieces get spat out. You can take two identical radioactive atomic nuclei. One might go ‘poof’ after a few seconds; the other ‘decides’ to hang tight for several millions of years before undertaking that change of pace. Physicists argue that if there is no rhyme or reason why both don’t behave in identical fashions, seeing as how they are identical atomic nuclei, then causality doesn’t operate. There is no external trigger. There is no overriding cause-and-effect in operation.

Nuts to that! If an atomic nucleus goes ‘poof’, there is a cause-and-effect reason. If two go ‘poof’ at different times, there is a cause-and-effect reason for this too. While the two atomic nuclei might be identical, their surrounding environment isn’t, IMHO. That’s the hidden variable. Take two identical human twins; one stays at home safe and sound while the other goes off to war, bullets flying around him. Though identical, one goes ‘poof’ before the other. There is cause-and-effect in operation. And so it is with unstable atomic nuclei. A ‘bullet’ hits one; no ‘bullet’ hits the other until much, much later on down the track. What that ‘bullet’ is, is open to question, but there’s a ‘bullet’ out there somewhere. Unstable atomic nuclei don’t decay or go ‘poof’ for absolutely no logical reason at all. There is a trigger. Radioactive decay, with no causality attached, as a free lunch, is IMHO an impossibility of physics.     

4) Quantum Gravity (the Theory of Everything) is the Holy Grail of all things physics. Why? Well, there are two types of physics. There is classical physics, the physics you have to deal with in your day-to-day macro world. Then there is quantum physics, the physics of the very, very tiny; the micro worlds which for all practical purposes are, if not irrelevant, at least unnoticed in your day-to-day existence. Another distinction is that macro or classical physics is a continuum, like a ruler. Quantum or micro physics are bits and pieces; discrete units, like money. You can have one and three quarter inches; you can’t have one and three quarter cents. So what’s the problem? Well, there are four fundamental forces that control life, the Universe and everything. Three of these are quantum forces or operate from or within the realm of the micro-micro-microscopic. This trilogy is comprised of the strong nuclear force (which hold atomic nuclei together); the weak nuclear force (which allows atomic nuclei to break apart – radioactivity) and electromagnetism. The other and final force however is a continuum – gravity. It’s like there being three brothers and one sister! As in the sibling’s case, physicists suspect that all four are born of one parentage. Alas, the DNA doesn’t match up!  Gravity apparently has different parents! Now that just won’t do. One Universe should allow for, indeed require, one ultimate parentage. Alas, despite all the best efforts of all the finest physics in the world over many generations, the three brothers just don’t share a common DNA with their alleged sister. My resolution is that perhaps that really is the case. The idea that there is quantum gravity is just a straightforward impossibility. There are indeed two sets of parents – one resulting in quantum triplets; the other producing an only child – gravity. The two are unrelated.

5) The Big Bang event is the proposed theory for the origin of our Universe some 13.7 billion years ago. It is supported by various observations: so far so good. Where it falls off the rails is that it also apparently requires, according to the standard Big Bang model, that the creation of our Universe wasn’t from something, but from nothing. That nothing not only spawned matter and energy (two sides of the same coin), but also created both time and space. Oh, and all of this happened in a created space way less than the volume of your standard atom. Now that’s small!

Now number one, IMHO it’s impossible to create from scratch matter and energy. It’s a violation of the basic physics drummed into every high school science student – “matter (and energy) can neither be created nor destroyed but only changed in form”.

Number two is that causality demands that a cause creates an effect – the Big Bang was an effect, something caused it, and that something could only have preceded it in time. Therefore the Big Bang did not, could not, create time. The Big Bang happened while the clock was already ticking.

Number three is that you cannot create a something within a zero volume. Therefore the Big Bang did not create space. It happened in existing space.

Lastly, it’s absurd in the extreme to believe that our entire Universe – everything – could be squeezed into a volume of atomic dimensions. So, yes there was a Big Bang, but there is a lot of associated baggage which is totally impossible by anything approaching what’s taught in Logic 101.  

6) Your own reality probably isn’t what you think it is. Take your favourite character from your favourite video game or simulation. That character would be blissfully unaware that they ‘lived’ in a virtual reality. They would be blissfully unaware that there were thousands of copies (or clones) of them (since presumably more than one copy of the game or simulation exists). They would be blissfully unaware that there were thousands of other video games and simulations (universes) in existence.

Now the 64 cent question is, how can you be sure that you too aren’t someone else’s simulated video game or virtual reality character? You can’t be – you’re blissfully unaware or ignorant one way or the other. Maybe you are; maybe you aren’t.

But if your favourite character had to calculate the odds that they and their universe were unique, they would, at gut-level, say they were a one-off. Their universe was a one-off too. But you know better. You know there are thousands of clones of your character and thousands of universes – one universe per unique video game title or simulation. 

So is there just one you and one Universe – our Universe – or, one step on up the line are you someone else’s (or something else’s) favourite character; their puppet who’s pulling your reality strings? The odds are vast indeed in favour of what you think is physical reality is actually, while not impossible, highly improbable. That’s because there are many, many, many scenarios that could create a virtual you; only one scenario that would create a really real you. The upshot is that you probably don’t exist in the manner you think you do!

In conclusion, I suspect the applecart of physics will be upset yet again, and again, and again.