Those Oops In Physics: Part Two

Some physical scientists – professional skeptics – are quick to jump on what in their opinion are the flaws inherent in what they term pseudoscience or the paranormal. Perhaps they should gaze at their own navels first before criticizing others, as the following hopefully points out.

Continued now from yesterday’s blog…

Oops in Causality     

Causality (the future is contained in the past), cause-and-effect, has to operate across the board if Mother Nature is to be predictable, and prediction and predictability is at the heart of what makes science, science. Yet, some scientists insist some phenomena have no causality. Lack of causality implies that what happens is the result of some sort of ‘free will’ (or variations thereof) which is absurd. That would imply that an electron or a radioactive uranium atom has an independent ‘mind’ of its own. Lack of causality alone in IMHO is nearly sufficient evidence to justify the hypothesis that we are ‘living’ in a simulated (virtual reality) universe.

# Big Bang: Apparently the creation of the Universe (the Big Bang event) happened for absolutely no rhyme or reason at all. That means there was no first cause attributable for the effect that was Big Bang event. Does that strike anyone besides me as odd, as in absolutely impossible?

# Radioactivity: That two identical radioactive (unstable) nuclei will decay (go poof) at different times despite both being in the same place, in the same environment, at the same time. That’s therefore because of the ‘fact’ that an unstable radioactive nucleus will go poof for absolutely no reason at all. If there is no causality behind radioactive decay, then obviously any two identical radioactive nuclei can go poof in a totally random way. But random events shouldn’t result in a precise mathematical relationship, which is what is claimed by observation – the concept of the half-life.

# Electrons: That an electron will drop to a lower energy level by emitting a photon for absolutely no reason at all is strange given that an electron will jump to a higher energy level by absorbing a photon’s worth of energy. There’s no causality in the downward direction; there’s causality in the upwards direction. That’s nuts!  

# Pane in the Glass:  You have one light source. You have one normal everyday clear and clean pane of glass. Some of the light (photons) from the light source will pass clear through the clear glass, but some of those identical photons will reflect off the clear surface of the pane of glass. One set of circumstances yields two differing but simultaneous outcomes. That violates cause-and-effect. That’s crazy, but it happens as you can verify for yourself. 

Oops in Probability     

# Electric Charge: The electric charge of the proton is exactly equal and opposite to the electric charge on the electron, despite the proton being nearly 2000 times more massive. There’s no set in concrete theoretical reason why this should be so.

# Fine Tuning: In fact, you tend to a violation in probability when it comes to numerous examples of fine-tuning – the fine-tuning that allows the Universe to be bio-friendly. For example, if the force of gravity were slightly stronger, the Universe would have re-collapsed into a Big Crunch rather quickly, and thus there would have been no time allowed for life to form and evolve. If the force of gravity had been slightly weaker stars and galaxies wouldn’t have formed. No stars and galaxies: thus, again, a lifeless Universe.       

Oops in Theory vs. Observation

# Matter & Antimatter: Theory predicts there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the Universe. Observation shows that there is a massive predominance of matter over antimatter. Something is screwy somewhere.

# Vacuum Energy: Theory suggests a certain value for the vacuum energy. Experimental observation shows quite a different value for the vacuum energy. In fact, the difference between theory and observation is 120 orders of magnitude. Something is definitely screwy somewhere.

# Protons: Some theories suggest that like an isolated neutron, the proton is, over the long term, unstable and should go poof and decay. Alas, experiments, and there have been many of them, have failed to detect even one proton decay event. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

General Oops: WTF?

# Inflation: In addition to the above, the Big Bang event as a standalone event raised lots of problems, collectively known as the flatness problem; the horizon problem; and the monopole problem. To resolve those issues, a secondary theoretical and rather ad hoc expansion event, termed Inflation, was proposed. Alas, it lacks any shred of actual independent and observational evidence (apart from dealing with the Big Bang issues as noted), and has its own set of problems, not least of which there are many variations on the Inflation theme; how and why Inflation started and how and why Inflation stopped. If the Big Bang were really a comprehensive theory of everything with respect to the origin and early evolution of the cosmos, there wouldn’t be a horizon, flatness and monopole problem requiring an ad hoc tack-on.

# Dark Matter: There apparently isn’t enough mass contained within our galaxy (and others as well) to account for its structure and how it stays together as a collective conglomerate of stars, planets, interstellar dust, etc. So, with a wave of a magic physics wand, physicists and astrophysicists invent out of thin air an ad hoc explanation – all that missing matter must be “dark matter”, matter which we can’t see, can’t detect, and haven’t a real clue as to what it might be

# Cosmic Rays: Cosmic rays tend to be very high energy particles like electrons and positrons, protons and antiprotons, alpha particles and other atomic nuclei that originate from beyond our solar system. After that, things get iffy. Their actual point(s) of origin are anywhere and everywhere and to be honest their origin(s) are rather mysterious. You name the astronomical object and someone will have tagged it as a, if not the, source of cosmic rays. Among the candidates are supernovae, active galactic nuclei, magnetic variable stars, quasars, gamma-ray bursts, even the Crab Nebula (a pulsar) and the radio galaxy Centaurus A. It all seems to be a case of picking a number out of a hat or throwing a dart at a dartboard labeled with astronomical structures. Your guess (and that’s what they are) is as good as mine.

# The Fine Structure Constant: The mysticism over the number 137 (i.e. - actually 1/137) – the Fine Structure Constant – has the same sort of cultist fascination and impact on some physicists and the physics community in general as the dimensions and mathematical relationships and their significance inherent in the Great Pyramid (at Giza, Cairo) has to occultists, numerologists, mystics and pseudo-archaeologists. Then there’s all that endless numerological speculations on and significance of 666 to Christians. A rose by any other name applies here.

Conclusions

As we have seen, there are many ghosts that haunt the academic corridors of academic physics. Physicists need to exorcise those demonic spirits first, before trying to inflict their exorcisms on the rest of the irrational world.

* What can escape from a Black Hole is called Hawking radiation, but in that massive a Black Hole, the one required for a pinhead sized start to the cosmos, that radiation leakage would take a very, very, very long time to ooze out; hardly what you’d call an explosive event.

     

Some Interesting Reading

Baggott, Jim; Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth; Pegasus Books, New York; 2013:

Jones, Sheilla & Unzicker, Alexander; Bankrupting Physics: How Today’s Top Scientists Are Gambling Away Their Credibility; Palgrave Macmillan, New York; 2013:

Smolin, Lee; The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of Science and What Comes Next; Penguin Books, London; 2006:

Woit, Peter; Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics; Vintage Books, London; 2007:



Even More Random Thoughts In Physics

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s yet another potpourri of thoughts dealing with physics and related too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* In reviewing several of my essays I’ve noted that I’ve occasionally said that there is just the one physics, yet I’ve often said for the record that quantum physics and classical physics (General Relativity) are incompatible and forever will be. In other words, there’s no quantum gravity and no Theory of Everything (TOE). Is this in conflict? No. There is the one physics even though you’d be hard pressed to unify thermodynamics with levers, inclined planes and pullies.

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* Universal Parameters: You cannot determine from first principles what the properties of the Universe, or the fundamental particles that make up the Universe, are. They apparently can have free range. A proton is 2000 times more massive than an electron, but you can’t calculate that from the theoretical laws, principles and relationships of physics. It’s only determined experimentally. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why the proton couldn’t have been 0.2, 2, 20, 200 or 20,000 times the mass of an electron. The same applies to the relative forces. The theoretical laws, principles and relationships of physics do not require an opposite yet of equal value charge between the negative electron and the positive proton. Presumably the value of each could have been as far apart as their masses – that is a proton could have been 2000 times as positive as the electron is negative. Why not? There’s no reason why not apart from the fact that the Universe as we know it wouldn’t work, but then we wouldn’t be here to worry about that or what might have been. 

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* We’re all taught in high school the above, that the electric charge of an electron is equal and opposite to that of a proton. The ‘why’ of the relationship is never explained in any shape, manner or form. I’ve never seen an explanation given in any popular particle or quantum physics book. Now either the explanation is so bloody obvious authors don’t feel the need to explain the ‘why’ of the matter and insult the reader’s intelligence, or else the ‘why’ is in the way, way, way too hard basket and authors avoid the question and the issue to avoid appearing ignorant about so fundamental a fact.

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* Black Holes would make excellent, in fact perfect, thermos (vacuum) flasks. Pour into a Black Hole the contents of a star, say like the Sun. All that heat is then trapped and I do mean trapped!

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* Light is a thing; gravity is a thing; things can effect each other, so when it comes to the bending of light in a gravitational field, there’s no need for all this nonsense of warped space, time or space-time, which, after all, are not-things but just mental concepts.

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* If something quantum happens for no reason at all (i.e. – unstable nuclei goes poof) why doesn’t everything micro happen for no reason at all. Or, if some quantum happenings are just probabilities, why aren’t all micro happenings probabilities.

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* An isolated neutron has a half-life of roughly 15 minutes before going poof or decaying into a proton, an electron and an antineutrino. Neutrons that ‘live’ in a community of neutrons like in the nucleus of atoms; as in a neutron star, don’t decay. They are stable in these community relations. That seems like something is screwy somewhere. Why is it so? I thought that might explain why the hydrogen atom (otherwise known as protium) had no neutron (just one electron and one proton), but then heavy hydrogen (deuterium) does have one neutron (plus one electron and one proton) so things get weirder and weirder.

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* You obviously relate to being a human in a human-sized world. You can imagine being a cat or a dog and living in their world. You can probably extend that down to the world of insects and imagine yourself as a fly or ant or butterfly. At a stretch, you might be able to relate to and imagine yourself as a micro-organism living in say a drop of pond water or in the blood stream. But what about navigating down to the worldview of a photon or an electron? That I suspect is way, way, way too alien to imagine in your wildest dreams.

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* We conceive of nanotechnology as building up from micro scratch what technology we want (say micro devices to traverse our blood vessels and clean them up from the inside) by manipulating atoms from the ground up and building whatever we want from those fundamental ‘Lego’ blocks. But what if the fundamental particles are themselves products of nanotechnology?  



The Quantum Realm: Part Two

Now the really interesting thing about quantum physics isn’t so much the physics but the philosophy behind it all. Why is it so? What does it mean? That these philosophical issues matter and should be of interest is because you, the macro reader, is made up entirely – from the ground up – out of the residents of the realm of the micro, the inhabitants of the realm of the quantum.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

As a review, with commentary, these are my takes on quantum strangeness:

Case Study #1 deals with that double slit experiment. IMHO photons fired one at a time at the double slit should not form a classic wave interference pattern with or without slit detectors in place. The concept of superposition belongs in “The Twilight Zone”, though apparently, so the scenario goes, what’s emitted is a particle; what’s detected is a particle; but the flight or pathway in-between is a wave-of-probability. It’s the slit detector that changes wave-of-probability into location, but that exact location must have existed even had the detector (our stand-in observer) not been in place. How does that explain the one photon at a time interfering with itself and causing that classic wave interference pattern? It doesn’t, but it’s a better bet than trying to come to terms with the idea of a thing being in two places at the same time.

Case Study #2, dealing with entanglement, well let’s just say that a particle on one side of the Universe should be independent of the fate of a particle on the opposite side of the Universe. More superposition equals more of “The Twilight Zone”.

Case Study #3: There needs to be a bona fide causality inspired reason why an electron gives away a photon and drops to a lower energy level. It’s not a whim thing. Maybe it’s another photon bumping into the electron and discharging the absorbed photon, maybe not, but it’s not a whim thing.

Case Study #4: Neutrinos should not endlessly change their clothes on route. The fact that they do contributed to some serious reflection that the core of our Sun had actually shut down. Scientists when looking for electron-neutrinos emitted by the Sun’s solar furnace didn’t see enough of them and thought the worst. It wasn’t until much later that they realised they had missed all those electron-neutrinos that the Sun had actually given off but which had changed their attire between the Sun and the Earth.

Case Study #5 notes that if you are made of matter, it would not be a good idea to shake hands with your antimatter twin self! But why matter and antimatter should go poof at all is a bit strange. An electron has a negative charge and its antimatter twin has a positive charge (hence the name positron). They go poof upon contact. But a proton has a positive charge equal and opposite to that of an electron and they don’t go poof when brought into contact so there’s more than just opposite charges annihilating each other at work here obviously. There’s no question that chemical reactions can give off energy, but total annihilation – wow. 

Case Study #6: Quantum Tunnelling should happen for a reason – it doesn’t. Quantum Tunnelling shouldn’t happen instantaneously since that violates the cosmic speed limit – the speed of light. The fact that in the micro world, barriers, well ain’t, makes all human inmates wish they were subatomic particles! 

The overall image that keeps springing to mind is all those Hollywood special effects. They would be an excellent explanation for all of the above weirdness. Think about it!

Finally, we should also note that most of the above examples or case histories involve quantum probability, uncertainty, indeterminism, etc. with respect or relative to the observer which could be you or me.

Case Study #1 suggests that photons (or electrons or any other fundamental particle) are in a superposition of state, which suggests that they can be apparently in two (or more) locations at the same time, and it’s only based on probability as to exactly where that location is. But it is in just one location as the addition of actual slit detectors verifies. So, the key point is that the photon or electron or whatever is 100% at a specific set of coordinates even if the double slit experiment suggests that the photon or electron or whatever is smeared out over a wide ranging area and only probably here or probably there.  So probability really bites the dust since location (one slit or the other) is confirmed by observation – there’s location, location, location; not probable, probable, probable!

In Case Study #2 we have more about that superposition of state whereby a particle may actually be a particle or an antiparticle (probability is 50/50) or spin up or spin down (probability 50/50). But you know, and I know, that in reality, one particle IS a particle (probability 100%) and the other IS an antiparticle (probability 100%) or one particle IS spin up (100% probability) and the other IS spin down (100% probability). There is no indeterminacy even if there is no observer, there is only determinacy, positive actuality, whether or not one or the other is observed. There is no across the universe communication. There is no ‘spooky action at a distance’. There is no probability involved other than 100% probability, otherwise known as a sure thing.

In Case Study #3 we have an electron that absorbs a photon’s energy and thus quantum jumps to a higher energy level. It then becomes a matter of probability as to when that electron emits that photon and jumps back down to a lower energy level. But, as in the case of radioactive decay, the odds are 100% that it will happen. Probability need not apply here. Probability is not applicable. The key concept here is again, ‘sooner or later’.

In Case Study #4, we might not know why the neutrino changes clothes, or exactly when and under what circumstances, so, as far as we are concerned it’s all boiled down to statistical probability what clothes any particular neutrino will be wearing when detected. However, there’s no doubt in my mind that causality is operating and that it’s 100% certain that the neutrino is wearing the clothes that causality has dictated. There’s no probability involved, only the probability that we’re probably pretty dumb for not figuring out why.   

Finally, in Case Study #5 somehow particles and antiparticles seemingly ‘know’ when they meet and greet whether to go poof or not go poof. The mystery is how they ‘know’. But it’s total certainty one way or the other and the observer has no relevance or say in the matter.

Case Study #6: Quantum Tunnelling, as already noted, happens for no reason at all. It’s responsible for radioactive decay which happens for no apparent reason at all. There is no way, rhyme or reason that enables one to predict when a quantum tunnelling event will transpire. It’s all probability. Either that, or a subatomic particle has a free will mind of its own and the knowledge and the ability of a Harry Houdini.

I have one other observation while on the issue of causality and probability if you please. If something quantum happens for no reason at all (i.e. – unstable subatomic nuclei goes poof) why doesn’t everything micro happen for no reason at all. Or, if some quantum happenings are just probabilities, why aren’t all micro happenings probabilities. Now IMHO if 99.999% of all physical effects can be traced back to one or more causes, it’s pretty safe to suggest, even conclude if you’re a betting person, that 100% of all physical can be traced back to one or more causes, even if those causes remain as yet unknown.

Lastly, 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?

I suggest this puts the kibosh on quantum physics being steeped in probability. There is no probability once you eliminate the observer and the observer’s fixation on either where things are; where something is, or whether something is or is not going to happen, and when something is going to happen. Before there were observers, things were somewhere, fixed and absolute, things did their thing without any guesswork or decision-making involved, and things happened sooner or later with absolute certainty.



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…

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.

My Personal Ongoing Worldview: Part Two

Everybody has his or her own particular worldview, philosophy, a set of truisms, a concept of reality, and overall, a degree of certainty on just how the world works. Equally true, that worldview evolves as you grow older. Santa Clause was probably part of your worldview when you were five years old, but unlikely at fifty-five. I’m no exception to the rule, so here are my latest ‘set-in-cement’ thoughts on how the world operates.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

HUMAN AFFAIRS

* There is no God or supernatural deity (or deities) of any kind. Religion can however serve useful purposes, not the least of which it keeps some percentage of the human population employed.

* As suggested earlier, in an infinite cosmos there is no need for a deity of any sort. Therefore it is rather improbable that there is no Heaven or Hell (or associated places) since these must represent actual physical geographies. That being the case, we would have probably discovered them by now.

* No deities, specifically no Christian God does mean that there ain’t no end times, no second coming, no apocalypse or Armageddon, no rapture, no end-of-days or end times. In fact, all religious texts, all those allegedly that are divinely inspired, are pure bovine fertilizer.

* There is no before-the-fact meaning or purpose to your existence other than what you yourself give it. There is nobody from ‘on high’ tapping you on the shoulder or whispering into your subconscious mind that the following (fill in the blank) is your destiny or ultimate fate. 

* There is no such thing as a separate-and-apart part of you termed a soul, spirit, or any other related concept associated with a soul.

* You have no free will. That follows on from my belief that causality (a predetermined clockwork universe) rules absolutely – yesterday, today, and tomorrow. However, free will, even if illusional, serves a useful social purpose forming the general foundation for humanity’s legal system – you are responsible for your actions.

* Death is not something to be afraid of. You experience dying, but not death since once dead, you have no existence and you need to have an existence, you have to be alive, in order to experience something, anything, even death. So you never experience death, only that which is up to but not including death.

* Death is final – there is no afterlife. Post-death is an identical state to pre-life or pre-conception. You get one go per universe between conception and death – make the best of it and enjoy. However, if there are an infinity of universes in space and/or in time, then you can expect to be reincarnated both as yourself and with variations on the theme of yourself (i.e. – you might marry someone else as an example). Perhaps, just perhaps, that’s the real meaning behind the phrases of life everlasting (or everlasting life) or eternal life (or life eternal).

* Given the wide range of highly improbable human characteristics – human uniqueness such as a bipedal gait and high IQ – and extremely rapid rise to a state of having culture and ‘civilization’, the odds are extremely high that human origins and evolution were all genetically engineered by outsiders – aliens for lack of a better word.

* It’s a sweeping generalization I know, but the philosophy of the average human is “it’s all about me. I and my needs come first.”

* If the human species was created, it was a very bad mistake on someone or something’s part. If the human species was an unplanned accident of evolution, Mother Nature screwed up big-time. If one is honest, one would be very hard pressed to name another terrestrial species that has caused more unwarranted death, destruction and overall suffering to all and sundry than Homo sapiens. To be honest, while I can’t speak for the rest of the cosmos, we are surely the scum of the earth and the cosmos should rejoice if we cause our own extinction. It would be well deserved.

* Behind every mountain of mythology lies a molehill of reality. So, as an example, there are mountains of mythological deities; there is a molehill that acquaints these deities as actual realities, the reality being flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials.

* Probability is a human concept with relevance to human worldviews but which has no relevance or application outside of the human experience, or perhaps that should be extended to any self-aware life forms. The real world that’s totally divorced from human affairs and the human species, deals with certainties, not probabilities. But what about quantum physics, surely that’s probability personified. But when you read all about quantum physics, sure you get probability this and probability that, but the references are all with respect to observers and measurements – in other words, with respect to human worldviews.

* Philosophy is like jazz – 95% of it is crap, but what’s good is very, very good. [At least jazz comes out vastly better percentage-wise than rap, hip-hop, heavy metal, ‘music’ which is 100% crap.]

* For obvious reasons, empty what’s full; fill what’s empty; scratch where it itches.

* Finally, you may have to grow old, but there’s no requirement to grow up!

A Universe Without Life: Part Two

You know and I know that at this point in time, our Universe is inhabited. Even if nowhere else in the cosmos, Planet Earth is host to terrestrial life. However, the Universe didn’t start off with any life, especially human life. This puts the kibosh on a certain brand of quantum philosophy, the brand that encompasses the role of the observer and the role played by probability.

Continued from yesterday’s Part One blog…

In a universe without life, it’s probably pretty meaningless to talk about concepts like free will. Then there’s that whole sackful of concepts related to good-and-evil like morals, ethics, sin, badness, righteousness, etc. and as such there’s no need for the concepts of heaven or hell. As such, scratch salvation, redemption, forgiveness, or damnation.

There are no emotions, suffering, pain, sorrow, pleasure, consciousness, or psychology. There’s obviously no disease.

There’s another bagful of concepts like the afterlife, reincarnation or resurrection that can go by the boards. Speaking of the latter, there’s no such thing in a lifeless universe as miracles. There is no such concept required like survival of the fittest; there are no wars, no death, and certainly no taxes! There were no soft science concepts around like society, culture, education (no homework), politics and government (no politicians), no economics (no bills), no religion (no thou shalt nots), no philosophy (who needs angels and pins), history (all those names, dates and places) and no environmental issues that needed addressing. There was no beauty (and no ugly either). In short, that pre-life era – that was what is known as the really good old days!

There’s one other important contrast between a lifeless universe and the universe that, in this case specifically contains and singles out humans and human concepts, and that is probability.  

Probability or uncertainty (two sides; same coin) dominates our existence. What odds my next child will be a female? What odds the next time I fly the plane will crash? What odds I win the lottery this week? What’s the probability I will be promoted this year? What’s the probability that I am normal, being of average height, weight, age, etc.? Even in science as performed by humans, probability or uncertainty dominates. Every measurement has error bars. Every forecast has some degree of uncertainty. Even the Sun rising tomorrow is not absolutely guaranteed (though I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that unlikely event). Every theory can ultimately be found to be wrong or incomplete. And just where is that damn electron anyway?

The fundamental question is, is probability an intrinsic property of Mother Nature like mass and gravity, or is it a human invention; a human concept? IMHO, there are no error bars in Mother Nature’s reality. Mother Nature knows the temperature is this, not around this but within this range. Mother Nature notes it will rain tomorrow, not just a chance of showers. Mother Nature knows that the Sun will rise tomorrow even though it will go nova the day after that. Mother Nature knew that Einstein’s theory of gravity was more precise than Newton’s theory of gravity millennia before Newton or Einstein was conceived of in anyone philosophy. And Mother Nature knows exactly where that damn electron is because the electron is. 

Any observer, via instrumentation or via the five senses, usually has to interpret what that observation actually represents – it’s not always obvious. If it was, science would have concluded its work decades ago, or just be engaged in refining things from the tenth to the twelfth decimal place. Interpretation – the choice between two or more possibilities – well that’s weighing probabilities.

* We’ve all observed a cat rubbing its head along an object. What’s the probability the cat is putting its scent on the object or the probability does it have an itch to scratch?

* We might have observed a boat passing away from us and disappearing over the horizon. Is this because the Earth is probably round or did the boat probably sink?

* In quantum physics, observations suggest a wave-particle duality. But is it more probably a wave or is it more likely a particle? 

* Is that unusual light in the sky probably an alien spaceship or is it probably a weather balloon?

* Does viewing a sunrise suggest t you that the Sun probably goes around the Earth or that the Earth probably is rotating around its axis?

* You spot that tornado on the horizon – maybe it will miss you or maybe it won’t. What are the odds? It certainly can’t both hit you and miss you at the same time and place.

* Is Pluto probably a real planet or isn’t it (and does it even cosmically matter)?

* My friend has a cold. I have a cold. Did I probably catch his or did he probably catch mine or was there probably something contagious in the meal we shared several nights ago?

* That Sasquatch I saw. Was it probably too much to drink or was it probably real and if it was real was it probably a bear or was it probably an unknown primate?

* Did the apple fall to earth because it’s probably seeking its natural place or was it probably due to an external force called gravity?

* Is Schrodinger’s cat probably dead or probably alive? It can’t be both simultaneously despite what quantum physics suggest.

* Why is the night sky dark? Is it probably because the Sun’s not shining in the sky at night or probably because the Universe is expanding or probably because there’s only a finite number of stars and galaxies giving off light.

* Why did the chicken cross the road this morning? You may not know (though you can probably come up with a half-dozen possibilities) but the chicken probably does.

There’s little doubt in my mind that to all of these probably observations there is but one answer(s). In many cases we’ve sussed out the answer(s). We don’t have the answer(s) in all the cases. I say answer(s) because there can be more than one answer acting jointly, like there really was a Sasquatch and yes, you were also really, really drunk; yes the Earth is round, but yes, the boat sank as well. But its an either/or certainty of an explanation(s), not a bit of both ways by sometimes probably having your cake and sometimes probably eating it too, probability, as in sometimes the apple falls to earth because it is seeking its natural place and sometimes it falls to earth because of gravity; or that Pluto is a planet on odd days or in months containing an “R” and not a planet on even days or non-“R” months; or sometimes the night sky is dark because the Sun isn’t in the sky, but at other times the night sky is dark because the Universe is expanding and at yet even on other occasions its only dark because there’s only a finite number of stars and galaxies.

The bottom line is that the Universe isn’t governed by probability. Given identical sets of circumstances or conditions, the outcomes remain the same. Observers and observations are irrelevant. That’s made crystal clear during all those millennia the Universe was observer-free.