Nick Cook – A Ramble Through an Oxford Author's Imagination and Inspiration

Nick Cook – A Ramble Through an Oxford Author's Imagination and Inspiration

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Showing posts with label Waves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waves. Show all posts
Musical Notes and the Universe of String Theory
04:05

Musical Notes and the Universe of String Theory
“You are the music while the music lasts.” 
– T.S.Eliot
When you pluck a guitar string a sound wave is produced that vibrates the air molecules producing a musical note that you hear. Imagine that the universe around you is the product of a similar vibration. That’s what string theory is all about.

Picture the smallest known building block in the universe, smaller than an atom, smaller than electron, smaller than a quark, and peer inside any of these and you’ll see a dancing filament of energy called a string. Just how small are we talking here? Well, if you scaled up a hydrogen atom to the size of the universe, the string inside it would only be the width of a human hair.

Why the need for string theory at at all? After all don’t we have Einstein and his theory of gravity that accurately deals with very large objects such as planets and stars. We have quantum mechanics which explains what happens with the very small. However, the problem for physicists is that these theories can conflict with each other. There are also shortfalls in these theories that tell us that we don’t fully understand how the cosmos works. For example Einstein’s gravity theory simply can’t cope with what happens inside the extremes of a black hole. Therefore the search has been on for a theory that ties everything together has been on – sometimes referred to as the grand unification theory. Step centre stage and meet the candidate that attempts to unify the very large, the very small, gravity, and even time itself – string theory.

All particles around us go through four basic interactions: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear interactions, and weak nuclear ones. Einstein covered gravity, and quantum mechanics dealt with the rest, but string theory attempts to tie everything together. 

String theory suggests that when a string vibrates, unlike a guitar string producing musical notes, particles are actually created. Also, by changing the frequency of the string, any sort of particle can be made. It’s an elegant theory, but for the maths behind it to work, it requires more dimensions than the four we can currently observe. In addition, at the heart of string theory, is the idea that gravity is a particle that we have so far failed to detect, the graviton. This particle is also predicted by quantum theory, as was the Higgs Boson, whose existence now looks confirmed by the Large Haldron Collider (LHC) in Geneva. The graviton is another juicy boson and there is a chance that the LHC may be able to confirm its existence as well.

If string theory is proven to be correct, it may answer questions that have baffled science for some time such as black holes, the existence of extra dimensions, dark matter and dark energy; and even the origin and fate of our universe itself. And it may be that the LHC provides the stepping stone towards confirming string theory’s credentials.

 Related Articles

 Higgs Boson – The Treacle of the Universe 
http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/higgs-boson-treacle-of-universe.html

 Splitting Reality – The Many Worlds Theory 
http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/splitting-reality-many-worlds-theory.html

 Part of Our Universe is Missing – A Big Part 
http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/part-of-universe-is-missing.html

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A Cat, a Box and a Riddle – Schrodinger’s Cat
03:59

A Cat, a Box and a Riddle – Schrodinger’s Cat

In 1935, Erwin Schrodinger tried to make a point with a metaphorical cat in a box. He was tackling what he saw to be an absurdity of the Copenhagen theory at that time that suggested the act of the observer influenced the behaviour of subatomic particles. This relates to the concept that something like a photon is a wave until it’s observed, at which point it becomes a particle.
Now Mr Schrodinger really didn’t buy into this theory so he came up with the wonderful thought experiment of Schrondinger’s Cat. For those who aren’t familiar with this, in this example illustrates the duality of particles, it goes like this:
The cat is in a sealed box. There is also capsule which, depending on a random trigger, will release poison into the box. Until the box is opened, the cat is in limbo, both alive and dead (a wave). When we open the box and observe the cat it becomes either very alive, or a very dead cat.
Before anyone writes in to complain about cruelty to the animals, just to point out this was an entirely a thought experiment!
Many have problems with this theory including Einstein himself. You can see why. If you think this through does that mean as you are walking down the street, it dissolves into a fuzzy state of matter behind you until it’s observed again? You can see why a lot of people weren’t very happy about this theory. However, from Schrodinger’s very famous cat, came the interpretation of the many worlds theory... parallel worlds in other words. That will be a subject of another blog, but for now, and before you dismiss this all as madness, the super-positioning of matter (wave) and and also being a particle at the same time, in two places at once, has been demonstrated in the lab. This is real... it happens... think about the profound implications as you watch this TED video.
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Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
08:43

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."  
– Albert Einstein
The world is real isn’t it? You're in it so of course it must be, but have you ever wondered what happens to the universe when you turn your back on it? 

Some quantum physicists believe that electrons and even the nucleus of the atoms all around us, exist everywhere at the same time. This is called super positioning, where matter exist as waves, that is at least until we get involved. The moment it is observed and the spotlight of our senses sweep across, it stops being a wave and locks into position as a particle in our reality.

It’s a bit like that child’s game Statues, in which the curator turns their back on the other players. They then have to try to sneak up and tag the curator, but the moment the curator turns they have to freeze into statues, Now imagine the children could be everywhere at once and you have a reasonable metaphor for how reality may actually work. The curator, the observer, you, turns and the world becomes solid. In other words we create the world as we experience it! 

Makes you wonder what would happen if you turned your head quickly enough, what you might catch from the corner of your eye.
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