The Many Lives Of Radioactive Nuclei

When you study radioactivity in high school or anything that relates to radioactive dating, you’re drilled in the fact that any and every radioactive (unstable) nuclei decay at a fixed mathematical rate called the half-life. Each ‘brand’ of nuclei has its own half-life that’s applicable or unique to those particular nuclei. What’s probably not drilled into you is that unstable nuclei decay for no reason at all and that tends to make a bit of a hash of the half-life relationship which in turn can’t be explained. Something is screwy somewhere.

Is there a relationship between causality and radioactive decay and the precise pattern to that decay? Why is this important or interesting? Because, at least in IMHO, there’s something screwy somewhere between the three that needs resolution. Radioactivity – exactly when something decays, in this case unstable (i.e. – radioactive) nuclei, is totally random. There is no rhyme or reason for the when. There is no cause according to quantum or particle physicists; therefore there should be no pattern according to me. If, contrary to scientific opinion, cause and effect operate at the quantum level (the micro realm where unstable nuclei go poof) then there are plausible mechanisms, again according to me*, that could account for a pattern – the half-life pattern – which is what we observe. So there’s a conflict here, or as I have stated, there’s something screwy somewhere. 

The central theme here is why do unstable nuclei decay according to a precise mathematical relationship termed the half-life? There are potentially dozens of other precise mathematical possibilities, and a near infinite ones if you abandon any mathematical symmetry altogether. Let’s explore a few of those.

For the sake of what follows, let’s assume a barrel full of 1000 marbles. Each marble represents one of the 1000 identical unstable radioactive nuclei ‘marbles’ or atomic ‘marbles’ that sooner or later will go poof and decay giving off, radioactivity – Alpha, Beta and/or Gamma Rays. The barrel is just to keep all of them in place – say like a 1000 atom lump of uranium. The decay or the poof will originate when someone removes a marble or the marble from the barrel.

Now how many ways can one remove marbles from the barrel – how many ways can unstable radioactive nuclei be made to decay.

For the standard half-life relationship to hold, you are restricted to pulling out half of the marbles that are in the barrel per fixed unit of time. You remove one half of the original lot of 1000 marbles per unit of time; then one half of the remaining 500 marbles per unit of time; then one half of the remaining 250 marbles per unit of time; then one half of the remaining 125 marbles, and so on and so forth – 62, 31, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1 and finally all 1000 marbles have been removed and there is no more instability left. All the 1000 radioactive atoms have now gone poof and decayed. You can plot that on a graph and get a nice pattern. That’s what’s in the textbooks.

Since the half-life works on an ever diminishing scale, one-half of the original, then one-half of what remains, then one-half of what remains after that, and so on, why that and why not other possible but similar relationships?

What about three-quarter lives? If you start with 1000 unstable marbles, after one unit of time you decay 750, leaving 250. Three-quarters of 250 is 188 that bite the dust after another identical interval of time leaving 62 to go. Three-quarters of 62 is 46 more who have decayed. That just leaves 16 radioactive marbles in the barrel. 12 of them go poof in the next time interval, leaving a bare quartet. One more time interval sees just one lone radioactive marble left, which of course will give up the ghost in the next (and final) time interval. 

Now what about two-third lives? If you start with 1000 unstable marbles, after one unit of time you decay 667, leaving 333. Two-thirds of 333 are 222 that bite the dust after another identical interval of time leaving 111 to go. Two-thirds of 111 are 74 more who have decayed. That just leaves 37 radioactive marbles in the barrel. 25 of those go poof in the next time interval, leaving a bare 12. One more time interval sees just four lone radioactive marbles left, three of which of course will give up the ghost in the next to last round, the lone and final survivor going down the gurgler in that next (and final) time interval. 

For another example, why a one-half life relationship in favour of an ongoing diminishing reciprocal to the above one-third relationship? Remove one-third of the 1000 marbles leaves 667. One-third now removed from those 667 leaves behind 445 ‘radioactive’ marbles. Remove one-third of those 445 marbles and you’re left with 297. One-third taken away from 297 leaves 198, then 132, then 88, then 59, then 39, then 26, then 17, then 11, then 7, then 5, then 3, then 2, then one is left which goes poof at that last pick of the draw; in that final unit of uniform time.

In a similar sort of exercise to a third-life, you can substitute the standard half-life for a quarter-life (1000, 750, 562, 421, 316, etc.) or a half-life for a fifth-life (1000, 800, 640, 512, 410, etc.).

Another variation on the theme might revolve around why does not Mother Nature decide, per fixed unit of time, on one-half of the original then one-third of the remaining then one-quarter of what remains after that, hence one-fifth, one-sixth, etc. In our 1000 marble in the barrel analogy, that’s one-half of the 1000 removed or 500 left, then one-third removed of the 500 or 333 remain, then one-quarter removed of the remaining 333 leaves 250 remaining, then one-fifth removal of the 250 leaves 200 remaining, then remove one-sixth of the 200 leaves 167, and so on down the diminishing line.

Or what about an inverse square relationship which is a common relationship in physics. So the diminishing relationship is one quarter, followed by one ninth of what remains, followed by one sixteenth of that, followed by one twenty-fifth, followed by one thirty-sixth, etc.  That is, start with 1000 marbles, then removing one quarter of those 1000 leaves 750, then removing one ninth of those 750 leaves 667, and removing one sixteenth of those 667 leaves 625, then removing one twenty-fifth of those 625 leaves 600, then removing one thirty-sixth of those 600 leaves 583, and so on. Why didn’t Mother Nature opt for that mathematical relationship for radioactive decay?

Now consider the near infinite number of alternatives or possibilities.

You could grab out all 1000 marbles in one fell swoop.

You could equally grab out 500, catch your breath, then grab out 500 more.

You could pull out 1 or 2 or 5 or 10, etc. marbles per unit of time. From say the initial 1000, pull out 25 each grab: 1000, 975, 950, 925, 900, 875, etc. Or, one could pull out any random number of marbles every 25 seconds.

You could pull out 1, then 2 then 3 then 4 then 5, etc. per unit of time. Starting with 1000, you’d have 1000, 999, 997, 994; 900; 985; 979; 972, etc. Or, pull out 1, then 2 then 4 then 8 then 16 then 32 then 64, etc. doubling each time. Or 1, then 4, then 9, then 16, then 25, then 36 more, then 47 more, then 64 more, then 81 more, then 100 more, etc., the squares of 1, 2, 3, etc. Or there’s the cubes of 1, 2 3, etc. – 1, 8, 27, 64, 125 and so on until all the marbles have been grabbed. Another relationship could be pulling out 1, then 2 more, then 3 more, then 5 more, then 8 more, then 13 more, then 21 more, then grab another 34, then another 55, etc. where what you grab out is the sum of the previous two grabs. Then there are the primes – grab 1, then 2 then 3 then 5 then 7 then 11 then 13 then 17, etc. There’s no end to the possible mathematically related sequences that have nothing to do with a half-life. 

If radioactive nuclei go poof for absolutely no reason at all – there’s no cause for the effect – as scientists claim**, then all radioactive nuclei decay should be absolutely random. It just so happens that mathematically the most probable way is a totally random way, a totally random selection of marbles from the barrel since there are way more ways of doing something (removing marbles from the barrel) randomly than doing something by the mathematical book – engineering some precise mathematical relationship that one can put down in equation form and graph as a symmetrical line or curve.

Take say two decks of cards, each numbered 1 to 52 and each shuffled well – then each shuffled again. A randomly chosen card from Deck A decides the number of marbles to be removed; a randomly chosen card from Deck B decides the time before you remove them. Picked cards are re-entered back into their respective decks and the decks shuffled again.

Now this is just a convenient-sized quasi-random number generator one can apply to our 1000 ‘radioactive’ marble sample. In reality, the first ‘deck of cards’ would have to represent every possible positive whole number, and the second time generator ‘deck of cards’ every possible increment of the smallest possible time unit – the Planck unit of time – in which anything meaningful can take place, like a nucleus decaying and going  poof.  Both random number generating ‘decks’ together then can deal with every radioactive nucleus that ever was and is in the entire cosmos.

Meantime, back to the 1000 marbles in the barrel and the two finite shuffled deck of cards from which numbers of marbles and time frames are picked randomly. I think you’d agree that if you followed the logic of picking and removing the number of marbles from the barrel based on a random shuffling of one deck of cards and doing so at time intervals based on the random shuffling of a second deck of cards, you are unlikely in the extreme to end up with the standard half-life relationship. Something is indeed screwy somewhere.

In conclusion, if you buy say a 24-can case of beer, there will come a point in time when half the contents (12 cans) have been consumed. But you couldn’t call that time interval the half-life of that case of beer since there is no reason to assume that the next six cans (half of the remaining 12 cans) will be consumed in the next identical time interval and the next three cans in an identical time interval following that. The same argument applies to radioactive (unstable) nuclei. The fact that the half-life relationship exists and has been verified in defiance of all that is logical given the lack of causality is suggestive evidence IMHO for the reality of, our reality being; the Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe scenario. It’s all just software programming done from a higher reality. 

* In the nanosecond that separates no decay from decay, something must of happened IMHO to trigger the decay event. I’ve gone on record elsewhere that a plausible mechanism might be neutrinos slam-banging into unstable nuclei, the impact being the tipping point that triggers the decay event.

**Scientists probably conclude that because nothing they do to radioactive nuclei, either chemically or physically makes any difference to the poof rate of that specific type of unstable nuclei. You can hammer them, boil them in oil, piss on them, feed them to bacteria, give them the evil eye, soak them in Holy Water, oxygenate then, play heavy metal music to them, shine a laser beam on them, freeze them, put them in a vacuum, and for all the good those things do, nothing changes. 

Further Reading:

Malley, Marjorie C.; Radioactivity: A History of A Mysterious Science; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2011:



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.

An Infinite Cosmos: Part Two

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

Continued from Part One.

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

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

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

* The Role of Gravity

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

* The Recycling Role of Radioactivity

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

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

* The Recycling Role of Cosmic Black Holes

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

* The Recycling Role of Life

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

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

* A Fly in the Ointment

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

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

The Multiple You

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

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.

Scientists’ Doublespeak: Part One

Even the very best of scientists can exhibit some sort of scientific sleight-of-hand and bamboozle their lay audience with absurdities. Actually, this approach often is just taking a lazy way out. Explaining things in sufficient detail, to avoid the absurdities, would either be too involved or take up too much text. At least I hope that’s the case. If some scientists actually believe what they write, then something is rotten in academia.

You know there are really times I think some physical scientists spend way to much time wrapped up in their own tiny little academic world, embracing highly intricate mathematical equations, think these formula have some actual connection with reality, interacting with likeminded colleagues, attending conferences of the likeminded – preachers preaching to the converted, and writing texts that contain, well, commonsense absurdities. There are times when perhaps they should just stand back, try to view the entire forest, instead of focusing on just one tiny leaf. Or, if they can’t do that, at least proofread some of the bovine fertilizer they write, especially for the layperson, and somehow come to terms with what they postulate is so absurd, that they end up being laughed at, not only to the detriment of themselves, but of the science they represent and in fact the downgrading of public opinion in science and scientists in general.

For example, these are common points of view I’ve read again and again, and most involve either zero or infinity. I’m not talking here by the way about colleagues having discussions over alternative cosmologies; thinking above quantum gravity; speculations on String Theory; theorizing over the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, ideas surrounding the likelihood of extraterrestrial life; mulling over if we are really virtual reality; ramblings off the top of the head about the possibilities of time travel; “what if” statements about Dark Matter or Dark Energy. Should some scientists wish to ponder over how many angels can squat on the head of a thumbtack, that’s okay too as far as I’m concerned. But I take issue with “and that’s the way it is” nonsense statements. Truisms - truisms that are nonsense. Extraordinary claims that are nonsense.

Particle Physics: Elementary particles are point particles that have zero dimensionality hence zero volume. Now if that were really the case, one couldn’t have particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider that collide, well say protons together. You have to have some sort of dimensionality bulk if you are going to slam into something else – which must have bulk. Further, you are composed of those dimensionless (zero) point particles. In basic maths, zero plus zero plus zero plus zero (extend this millions of times on) equals zero. If all the stuff that makes you up is dimensionless, then you are dimensionless, you have no height, no front-back length, no left-right width, therefore no volume, which if true, ruins your breakfast and your sex life! Another point overlooked is that one of the fundamental properties of particles is spin – angular momentum. Now it has to be obvious to even Blind Freddy that something cannot spin unless it is spinning around a centre (axis of rotation – that’s normally the up-down dimension) and through the left-right and front-back dimensions – like a spinning ice skater. So, if something spins, it has to have a spatial extension, like a planet or a bicycle wheel or a baseball. That an elementary particle has zero volume – that’s an extraordinary claim!

Radioactivity’s Lack of Causality: If there is one thing that you absolutely rely on every day in every way it is causality. If A happens; B happens. If B happens; C happens. Everything happens because something previously happened. Ah, but take radioactivity. A pair of unstable radioactive atoms sits side-by-side. After say one hour, one decays; the other doesn’t, yet their environmental surroundings are the same; absolutely identical. What caused one to go poof but not the other? Who knows? All scientists say is that there was no causality involved. Personally, I think such a statement resides in fairy-dairy land along with the person who uttered it. Einstein summed it up best when he suggested that God does not play dice with the Universe. If one atom when poof and the other didn’t, well IMHO there was a reason for that. There was a cause why one did and one didn’t.  Invoking the absence of cause-and-effect in a physical happening – that’s an extraordinary claim!

Cosmological Singularities: Infinite density has been the state of affairs often attributed to the state of the singularity, an entity which exists in two places. Firstly, a singularity is postulated at the time of the Big Bang event. Secondly, you’ll find the term singularity attributed to the inside of a Black Hole. So what’s this all about? If you cram a lot of mass into a tiny volume, you’ll get a singularity. The Big Bang event contained all the mass there is in our Universe, and because the Universe is expanding, one can run the film backwards to the beginning, and that’s postulated to end up as a rather tiny volume – I say theoretically postulated since it’s theoretically impossible to see what happened until roughly 300,000 years after the Big Bang actually happened. Okay, so we have a Big Bang singularity. The Black Hole singularity is straightforward – a Black Hole by definition contains enough mass, therefore enough gravity, to prevent even light from escaping its grasp. Now that’s a lot of mass. Also, a Black Hole is a relatively small object as astronomical objects go. So, that combination of lots of mass in a small volume arises again. Now mass and associated gravity are within the realm of General Relativity. Tiny volumes are the realm of Quantum Mechanics. The fly in the ointment is that the equations of General Relativity aren’t compatible with the equations of Quantum Mechanics. Physics breaks down when it comes to describing a singularity. Lazy physicists just take the easy option and say that as more and more mass is squeezed into smaller and smaller volumes the density rises and rises until it hits infinity! Lazy physicists fail to engage their wetware and come to terms with what an absurd phrase ‘infinite density’ is. Density is mass per volume. To have infinite density you’d need either infinite mass, and that’s nonsense since the mass inside a Black Hole is hardly infinite nor is the mass of our entire Universe infinite, or zero volume, and that’s equally nonsense. You can’t cram an infinite amount of stuff into zero space. Infinite density – that’s an extraordinary claim!

Infinite Gravity: If, any only if you had infinite mass gathered together in zero volume would you generate infinite gravity. The Universe doesn’t have infinite mass so infinite gravity bites the dust on that basis alone. You can’t have zero volume that contains something, so infinite gravity also bites the dust from that perspective. Any finite amount of mass contained in an extremely tiny volume will generate extreme gravity, but there’s a universe of difference and distinction between extreme gravity and infinite gravity. That’s more soiled underwear for any scientist prone to use the phrase ‘infinite gravity’. There’s no such animal in the zoo of physics. Infinite gravity – that’s an extraordinary claim!

The Big Bang’s Infinite Temperature: At the time of the Big Bang, the temperature therein was no doubt extreme. Any explosive event generates heat, be it a firecracker, an H-Bomb, or a supernova. But no temperature can be infinitely hot. Why? Heat is energy. ‘Infinitely hot’ is therefore something requiring an infinite amount of energy necessary to generate something that’s ‘infinitely hot’. Temperature is also just a measurement of the average velocity of matter/energy. If one had an infinitely hot temperature, the average velocity of the matter/energy would be infinite. One cannot have an infinite velocity since the cosmic speed limit is the speed of light which is 186,000 miles/second. Therefore, the scientist who uses the phrase ‘infinite temperature’ is talking pure bullshit, and I’ve read accounts by some of the greats using that very phrase.  Infinite temperature - that’s an extraordinary claim!

The Big Bang’s Creation of Matter and Energy: It’s rammed down the throats of students starting in junior high school that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only changed from one form to another form. No argument there, from me at least. However, modern cosmologists postulate exactly that at the moment of the Big Bang event – matter and energy were created, a clear violation of basic conservation laws. That’s an extraordinary claim!

The Big Bang’s Creation of Space and Time: Now the question is, can space and/or time be created? Standard model cosmologists say “yes”, space and time were literally created at the moment of the Big Bang event. Space and time had no meaning and no existence prior to that event. The common analogy given is that to ask if there was time and space before the Big Bang is akin to asking if there is something south of the South Pole. In other words, it’s a nonsense question. However, IMHO, it’s those standard model cosmologists who advocate the nonsense. It’s quite easy for them to say that time and space was created. It’s nearly infinitely more difficult for them to write the cookbook that gives the actual recipe. They haven’t; they can’t, because they are advocating the creation of “something from nothing”. Applying Occam’s Razor, that “keep it simple, stupid” rule, it’s way more believable that space and time have always existed and that the Big Bang event happened inside existing space and time. That somehow space and time can be created, was created at the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago – that’s an extraordinary claim!

To be continued…

My Top Baker’s Dozen Anomalies: Part Two

The Universe is filled with mystery. There are a myriad of things that are, but shouldn’t be, or probably shouldn’t be. Adequate explanations are not only lacking, but even the wildest possible theoretical explanations are rather thin on the ground. There often tends to be a massive divide between observation and theory. These anomalies run the range from the Universe as a whole, down to your local neck of the woods, down in fact to the realms of the microscopic. Here are a few of my favourite anomalies from the top down.

There are thousands of books, articles, documentaries, TV shows and websites that are or have been devoted to anomalies or mysteries or the unknown. From UFOs and ancient astronauts to Bigfoot to Atlantis, to ESP to the Bermuda Triangle to religious miracles, the list is seemingly endless. Some are pretty iffy; some have a good bona-fide pedigree. No two people will come up with identical lists of what to them are their top anomalies. There’s just too many that capture the imagination of the great unwashed. Different strokes for different folks. Here’s my list – at this point in time anyway.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

CROP CIRCLES: There’s no disputing, no matter how much the pseudoscience skeptic you are, that crop circles do exist. There are numerous pissed-off farmers whose fields have been vandalized; multi-thousands of after-the-fact eyewitness accounts and an equal number of films and photographs, as well as on-site and laboratory analysis of the phenomena. Observation here is at the 100% certainty level. Finding logical and rational theoretical explanations are however way more challenging than a ‘take two aspirin and call me in the morning’ type of remedy or diagnosis. In fact, no matter what theory is advanced, natural, human or alien, there are massive flaws to be had with each.

No natural phenomena can create a myriad of massive geometrically complex perfect constructions using agricultural crops as the medium. The challenge for a human, or even a team of humans, to create the same in total darkness in just a few hours (this is a summertime event – long days; short nights), without mistakes, without leaving their traces (footprints, tire tracks, litter, etc) without ever getting caught, tried and convicted for trespass and vandalism, is beyond the theoretical pale for even the most ardent of skeptics and skeptical explanations, though human hoaxes are the fallback position, albeit without real evidence. As for ET, why they would travel vast distances to, at least in part, dabble in agricultural graffiti, defies our understanding. If crop circles are an attempt by aliens to communicate with humans, well, there’s been a failure to communicate. Theory here is at the near 100% uncertainty level. There’s a long road to hoe yet to reconcile observation and theory.

ALIEN ABDUCTIONS: The anomaly here is that you have hundreds, if not thousands of case histories by individuals whose testimony you wouldn’t think twice about questioning in just about any other context, yet 1) the scenario seems rather absurd at face value, and 2) why are there so few and far between independent witnesses for what should be at face value be a scenario that’s impossible to conceal from the rest of the outside world. But, I’m not in any position to call these abductees either liars or delusional or mentally ill. In fact I’m sure they are not because who in their right mind would invent such a horrifying scenario, one perpetrated upon themselves.

HUMAN UNIQUENESS: The anomaly here is that we humans are not just a different species to all others past and present, but vastly, vastly different. Four vastly different differences in particular strike me as odd.

We alone of all the mammals are bipedal. We alone of all the primates are ‘furless’ – the “Naked Ape” as Desmond Morris described us.  We alone of all species that are and have ever been, are top of the pops in IQ; king of the hill by an extraordinary wide margin in intelligence or the ability to figure things out, call it what you will, plus the use of tools and technology way above that of any other species. Lastly, humans have very distinct facial features – it’s usually how we recognize the identity of another human we’ve seen before. With all other animal species, you’re hard pressed to tell one individual from another based on facial features. You see one sheep’s face, you’ve seen them all. You tend to recognize individuals of other species by size, color and colored patterns, some sort of deformity or abnormality, not by their distinctive facial features which don’t really exist.

If it suits all the other mammals to adopt a four-legged gait and be quadrupeds; if it suited our nearly 200 other primate cousins to retain their fur; if all other species can exist, survive, even thrive without screwdrivers, the automobile, plastics, central heating, the dishwasher, the Internet and the atomic bomb then we have an anomaly here. Every animal species is different from every other animal species, obviously, but there are differences and then there are DIFFERENCES! The human species is so far out in left field as to be nearly out of the biodiversity ballpark.

SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION: The anomaly here is that, albeit very rare, the human body can spontaneously burst into flame, killing the victim and turning the body into ash. It’s anomalous in that 1) the human body is composed mainly of water which you don’t tend to associate with fire or spontaneous combustion; 2) the body’s temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is hardly scorching heat; 3) this anomaly isn’t noticed in animals; 4) the fire is localized to just the body and immediate surroundings despite the intense heat needed to consume a human body, and obvious sources of external fire, say a burning candle, are usually lacking. The closest theory is that perhaps the victim’s body was saturated with alcohol from excessive drinking, and alcohol of course can burn, but that rarely fitted the lifestyle of the victim and it would take one hell of a drinking binge to saturate bodily tissues with alcohol in high enough concentrations to cause the body to combust. Since animals don’t spontaneously combust, that tends to rule out body fat as a fuel source.  

RADIOACTIVITY: The anomaly here is that radioactivity, the decay of unstable atomic nuclei into more stable configurations happens in a precise mathematical way, called the half-life of the unstable nuclei. This is a verified measurement and bona-fide observation. If you start with say 1000 unstable nuclei of substance X, time how long it takes for the first 500 to decay to a stable state. Once you have that, then you know another 250 unstable nuclei will decay in the exact same amount of time, and another 125 ditto, and so on down the line. But theoretically, how do these unintelligent, inanimate nuclei ‘know’ when it’s their turn to decay to uphold this half-life relationship when there are all kinds of alternatives? You can imagine that the decay process could be, should be, random and haphazard, or follow a bell-shaped distribution curb, like say autumn leaves falling off a tree – a few at first, then a lot, then many, then a lot of what’s left, then the rest of the few left. Or, it would be logical to think that if 500 out of 1000 nuclei decay in say one hour, that all (the remaining 500) will go poof in two hours – a linear relationship. Anyway, observation shows it’s the half-life relationship that Mother Nature decided upon, but there’s no theory to back up that relationship vis-à-vis any other IMHO.

The other and probably more serious anomaly is that there is no accepted trigger mechanism. An unstable nucleus just goes poof for no apparent reason. There is no cause to this effect. You cannot trigger unstable nuclei into going poof by hammering on it, subjecting it to extreme heat or cold, pouring acid on it or by any other physical and/or chemical means as your disposal. Take two identical unstable nuclei, side by side. One goes poof and the other doesn’t. Why? Lack of causality is an anomaly in itself and deeply disturbing. Things happen for a reason. Cause and effect should go back in an unbroken chain right back to the Big Bang (something else which apparently happened for no discernible reason at all).

WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY: Of all things anomalous, quantum physics has to be right up there in the running for the gold medal. On the one hand, it has been verified to incredible levels of precision and when applied in technologies in our modern world, forms the basis for a goodly percentage of the global economy. On the other hand, it makes absolutely no sense, common or otherwise, at all. That’s why the mantra of those employed in applying and dealing with quantum physics, or quantum mechanics as it is often termed, tends to be “shut up and calculate and don’t worry about what it means”.

In our everyday macro world, bullets and billiard balls behave in a predictable fashion. They are macro particles that don’t wave all over the bloody place, otherwise a soldier would never hit his target and a game of billiards would be a farce. You certainly don’t want your car waving on down the highway. But if you lived in the micro (quantum) world, that’s exactly what would happen. Take the infamous double-slit experiment.

If you shine a beam of light, which is but little bullets called photons, or fire any other elementary particle (or micro bullet) for that matter like electrons at a single open slit, the pattern you get at a target behind that slit is just a blob of bullet-like hits. Everything behaves like particles or like bullets. But if you fire those little bullets at a double slit – two slits side by side, the target behind the double slit will show not two separate blobs, but a traditional wave interference pattern spread out over a wide area of alternating high and low concentrations of where the little bullets hit, or didn’t hit. Strange doings that.

Well obviously the little bullets are somehow interfering with themselves while in flight, so the next bit is to shoot them off just one-at-a-time, so that one bullet hits the target behind the slit(s) before the next bullet is fired. That way, bullets in flight can’t get in the way of other bullets. When you do that with a single slit, you eventually get a single blob of bullet hits on the target that’s behind: so far so good. Now fire off your one-at-a-time photon or electron bullets at the double slits. You would expect two blobs, one behind each slit. That’s what you’d expect, but that’s not what you get. What you see is what you get and what you see is still that classic wave interference pattern. So your little photon or electron bullets behave both like bullets or particles, but at the same time behave like waves: wave-particle duality rules the quantum roost. Something is screwy somewhere!

GOD: This isn’t really an anomaly due to any conflict between theory and observation. There is very little of either. The anomaly here is why anyone in their right mind would believe in such a supernatural deity. The gap between observational evidence and theoretical faith is so vast that it staggers the mind – at least it boggles my mind, all the more so since the only real description of God’s bona-fides, the human penned Old Testament, exhibits Him not as a just, loving, forgiving, merciful and compassionate deity but an all-round SOB that makes Hitler look downright cuddly.

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.