A Whipple in Time

LIGHT SPEED

2011-08-27T17:11:00.000-04:00

What is the speed of light?

From WikiPedia;

The speed of light (meaning speed of light in vacuum), usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time. This speed is approximately 186,282 miles per second. It is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel. It is the speed of all massless particles and associated fields - including electromagnetic radiation such as light, in a vacuum, and it is predicted by theory to be the speed of gravity (that is, gravitational waves). Such particles and waves travel at c regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial frame of reference of the observer. In the theory of relativity, c interrelates space and time, and appears in the famous equation of mass–energy equivalence E = mc²

But what exactly is the speed of light? Speed is defined as a vector component of distance divided by time. But relativity makes a mockery of that by saying that, in fact, space and time are defined by the speed of light.

So maybe we should not call it the 'speed' of light.

To two observers, one moving near the speed of light, odd things begin to happen. Relativity of simultaneity is the concept that simultaneity–whether two events occur at the same time–is not absolute, but depends on the observer's reference frame. According to the special theory of relativity, it is impossible to say in an absolute sense whether two events occur at the same time if those events are separated in space. This is way hard to comprehend, so I need pictures. Let's say Alex lives in a metal cylinder, a biosphere that is self sufficient for his needs. Alex is no dummy; even though he can't see out of his metal can, over the years he has developed analytic mathematical tools and sophisticated models of the universe. He has a working knowledge of relativity. Being the good scientist, he records detailed measurements of all unusual events. One day he records the time of a large electrical discharge at one end of his tin can, and a few seconds later another large discharge at the other end of his can.

From Alex's reference frame, these events are clearly separated in time and space (his can is very large). He happily concludes that one event followed the other in the sequencing of time. Shortly thereafter, he gets a telepathic message from Mark (this has never happened before, so it is quite exciting for Alex). Mark tells Alex that he saw Alex's ship pass by at a very high rate of speed (nearly light-speed!) and that a lightning discharge hit the front and back of Alex's ship - at the same time! Alex is amazed, but after working through the math he concludes that factoring in speed, time dilation, and space-time curvature, the two discharges did occur at the same time in Mark's reference frame. Accepting that Mark's reference frame is more valid because he is moving and Mark is not, Alex revises his records to show that the two events were simultaneous.

However, to Mark and Alex's chagrin, a higher life form, Dad, was watching from another reference frame. By Dad's observation, Mark is the one moving, while Alex's ship is standing still. Dad is frustrated with the simpletons - clearly Alex was correct from the start and the two discharges were separated in time. Because Mark was moving, he saw them at the same time.

Of course, Dad may not be as advanced as he thinks he is and even more advanced beings are watching from different reference planes. In fact, there are nearly an infinite number of reference frames available, and all are equally valid. Now if Alex's ship is moving, and it happens to impact on Mark's planet, then those timelines will need to merge. Neither will be the same reference frame as before, but after impact they will be the same. Could that be considered a probability wave collapse on the macro scale?

There are some researchers that believe that is indeed what is happening at the quantum scale. The elaborate relativistic dance done by elemental particles mean they often interact, creating the need to collapse reference frames. The collapse of the timelines means lost information, leading to entropy.

Back to the Speed of light. Maybe light has zero speed. The reference frames start at zero and can grow to a level that complements entropy. This concept is not new, and is very controversial, but it would hold an appeal in terms of strict definition. Plus our science fictionists would not be tempted to break the light speed barrier if it was zero. Mass requires space, space requires time, and time is defined by entropy. The photon doesn't have that problem, it is essentially massless (contains only energy mass), and is very stable. If we are able to leave them alone, and consider them an unmoving point particle, life gets easier.

Ah, but you say, these things move in relation to one another! But with a nearly infinite number of reference frames, photons can coexist happily in different timelines and still be motionless.

TIMELINES

2011-08-08T11:54:00.000-04:00

I am fascinated by timelines and entropy. Are collapsing timelines the catalysis of entropy?

Early Philosophical Scientists applied Newton’s Laws and determined that a perpetual machine should be possible, at least perpetual motion of the second kind. None of Newton’s laws contradicts the possibility. However, they soon ran headlong into an oddity, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is not possible to deduce the Second Law from Newton’s Laws of motion, but lo and behold, heat loss appears to be inevitable, or as Rudolf Clausius concludes: “The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum”.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the only law of nature that makes a fundamental statement about past and future.

The Many-worlds Interpretation holds that each quantum event spins off a new universe. Under this view, it would hold that in an infinite number of similar universe sets Schrodinger's cat is dead, and a like set would see that Schrodinger's cat lives. This bothers me, and I can not believe it is this complicated.

I happen to prefer a form of the Decoherence Interpretation, that implies many timelines (equally real depending on relative viewpoint) will occur in the quantum state, and a loss of the ordering of the phase angles reduces the possible outcomes through cutting the number of relativistic timeslices. Relativity of simultaneity certainly exists at the atomic scale, even though it is impossible to judge its contribution to wave-particle duality. This reverses the many-worlds outcome back to the quantum state where I think it belongs. It will really irritate me when I'm proven wrong.

Take our good friend the protium atom for example. Nice and simple, One proton with a happy electron. According to the most accepted theories, protons are comprised of two up quarks and one down quark, held together by one of the four fundamental forces of nature, the strong interaction. This force is mediated by a swarm of gluons. All of this is packed into a space of about about 1.6 femtometre in diameter. For those that are wondering, that's small ( if you cut a foot long hot dog into slices to share with 2 trillion of your friends). What is really amazing is that those three quarks do not even come close to being crowded in that space. In that space, they do an elaborate dance in time with the strong nuclear force. The quarks rock, roll, and reel - constantly changing partners (and color!).

This dance is done at nature's maximum speed. In fact, the quark also has a spin, and no-one has quite figured out how to increase the speed of light to account for how that works. Usually we just say, "well, it is a point particle", meaning, "crap if I know". The proton has a positive electrical charge, and throws out magnetic field lines that can capture an electron to form the hydrogen atom. Each of these particles are moving at speeds that are significant and different from one another. The principles of the relativity of simultaneity come into play, even at these small scales.

THE PROTON LOCOMOTION DANCE

This brings us to another of the four fundamental interactions in nature operating in the hydrogen atom, Electromagnetism. Electromagnetism is the force that holds the electron and proton together inside the atom. Even though the electron is a slow poke compared to the photons, gluons, and quarks, it still moves at an estimated 1,365 thousand miles per second. This means that for each partner in this dance, relativistic timelines exist where the down quark sees the electron in a different place and speed than its cousin the up quark. A complex dance, where each partner anticipates the movement of the next and is played out in multiple timelines. Saying that one timeline is more real than the next would be wrong, they are all equally valid. The multiple timelines at atomic scale would look like a probability wave. The particles would also need to obey basic laws within those timelines. For example, the electron will obey the Pauli's exclusion principle, allowing for a loophole to explain interference patterns at electron configuration nodes.

THE MATTER WAVE

2011-06-20T16:13:00.000-04:00

The term 'wave' is not well defined. One person's interpretation of a wave will certainly conflict with another. When a surfer says 'he caused the wave to collapse', it is not the same as a quantum wave collapse.

Wikipedia's opening sentences under wave (scientific) is;

In mathematics and science, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and time, usually accompanied by the transfer of energy.Waves travel and the wave motion transfers energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium—that is, with little or no associated mass transport. They consist, instead, of oscillations or vibrations around almost fixed locations

They go on to say;

A single, all-encompassing definition for the term wave is not straightforward. A vibration can be defined as a back-and-forth motion around a reference value. However, a vibration is not necessarily a wave. An attempt to define the necessary and sufficient characteristics that qualify a phenomenon to be called a wave results in a fuzzy border line.

Whereas the wavefunction is more closely defined as;

A wave function or wavefunction is a probability amplitude in quantum mechanics describing the quantum state of a particle or system of particles. Typically, it is a function of space or momentum or rotation and possibly of time that returns the probability amplitude of a position or momentum for a subatomic particle. Mathematically, it is a function from a space that maps the possible states of the system into the complex numbers. The laws of quantum mechanics (the Schrödinger equation) describe how the wave function evolves over time.

The wavefunction is a mathematical model of probability that the quantum particle will be found in a particular place. You could find it there, or it might be elsewhere, but the odds go up in certain locations.

Let's dismantle Schrödinger's equation with a sledgehammer.

i - This is an imaginary number - hold on - it is not like your imaginary friend, this just allows the function to oscillate into negative numbers and still return a possible answer.
h with the cross - This is Planck's constant divided by 2 Pi.
funny a divided by funny a times t - That's really not a funny a, but a rounded d. This represents the partial differential of the energy function with respect to time The math of calculus allows us to study a relationship of input and output (functions). So if you wanted to calculate the slope of the Friday night party line using the inputs of a bottle of Jack, beautiful women, and a fast car, then a partial differential at one selected point in time could give you possible outcome solutions. This is also why you need the imaginary friend and negative numbers.
the pitchfork, 'psi' - This is a statistical odds of finding the particle in a certain place.
the hatted H - the Hamiltonian is the set of possible total energies of the particle.

Two possible solutions for a quantum 'particle in a box' are shown here. They turn out to be 'standing waves'. The probability is highest of finding the particle in the location of the greatest deflection, diminishing to zero at node points.

Two possible solutions for a quantum 'particle in a box' are shown here. They turn out to be 'standing waves'. The probability is highest of finding the particle in the location of the greatest deflection, diminishing to zero at node points.

SCHRODINGER'S CAT (2)

2011-06-14T11:30:00.000-04:00

That the cat still is a topic of conversation 80 years after Schrödinger's original thought experiment is amazing.

But why?

THOMAS YOUNG

You can put part of the blame on Thomas Young. Thomas Young (13 June 1773 – 10 May 1829) was an English polymath, and dabbled in physiology, language, musical harmony and Egyptology. Oh yea, and also physics.

In Young's own judgment, of his many achievements the most important was to establish the wave theory of light. To do so, he had to overcome the century-old view, expressed in the venerable Isaac Newton's "Optics", that light is a particle. Isaac Newton, who did many experimental investigations of light, had rejected the wave theory of light and developed his corpuscular (or particle) theory according to which light is emitted from a luminous body in the form of tiny particles. Nevertheless, in the early 19th century Young put forth a number of theoretical reasons supporting the wave theory of light, and he developed two enduring demonstrations to support this viewpoint. With the ripple tank he demonstrated the idea of interference in the context of water waves. With the two-slit, or double-slit experiment, he demonstrated interference in the context of light as a wave. In a paper entitled "Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics", published in 1803, Young describes an experiment in which he placed a narrow card (approx. 1/30th in.) in a beam of light from a single opening in a window and observed the fringes of color in the shadow and to the sides of the card. He observed that placing another card before or after the narrow strip so as to prevent light from the beam from striking one of its edges caused the fringes to disappear. This supported the contention that light is composed of waves. That the double-slit experiment can also prove the particle theory was not lost on the physicists of the 1927 Solvay conference, both must be versions of the natural world. A good lay description of the double-slit experiment is "Dr. Quantum - Double Slit Experiment & Entanglement" by Fred Alan Wolff, or Cassopedia Project's "Double Slit Experiment - The Strangeness Of Quantum Mechanics", both of which are usually available on YouTube.

The nature of quantum physics is such that the old methods of experiment, observe, record, refine, no longer provide valid data. In the double-slit experiment, the act of observation changes the outcome. That something can be a particle, and a wave, at the same time is difficult to understand intuitively. But with an overwhelming amount of evidence it needs to be treated as a natural state.

Quantum mechanics differs significantly from classical mechanics in its predictions when the scale of observations becomes comparable to the atomic and sub-atomic scale, the so-called quantum realm. Quantum physics deals with a subject that has several key facets that must be taken at face value.

The subject is very small. For example, we cannot directly see an electron, and we don't suspect we ever will (the electron is smaller than the amplitude of visible light). REFERENCE: Standard Model, Atom, Elementary particle.
Our knowledge of the subject is inferred from behaviors, reactions, and other indirect consequences. The rules of quantum mechanics are based on statistical math models. REFERENCE: Scanning tunneling microscope, Particle accelerator, Feynman diagram.
Our methods of observation use tools that also have quantum fussiness and can cause one quantum particle to interact with another. One of the outcomes of this is that we can never measure a complete set of the subjects attributes. Schrödinger equation, Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
The subject displays both wave-like and particle-like behavior. REFERENCE: Wave-particle duality, de Broglie wave, Complementarity.
The subject displays a particle-like behavior when acted upon. REFERENCE: Wave function collapse Generalized position eigenstate, Measurement in quantum mechanics.
The subject displays a wave-like behavior when left alone, in that "a quantum state is a set of mathematical variables that fully describes a quantum system". REFERENCE: Wave packet, Quantum state.
The subject is fundamentally a product of energy, mass, space, and time. REFERENCE: E = mc2.
The subject exists as a discrete, unchanging entity (like a movie frame) at point Planck time. REFERENCE: Quantum, Canonical quantization, Max Planck.
From one Planck time unit to the next, the displacement of the subject in space is limited to the distance of one Planck length (the next movie frame displacement cannot exceed the speed of light). REFERENCE: Displacement operator, Atomic electron transition.

During a 1961 lecture for undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology, Richard Feynman, said this about the concept of energy:

There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing all natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no known exception to this law—it is exact so far as we know. The law is called the conservation of energy. It states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same.

—The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Since 1918 it has been known that the law of conservation of energy is the direct mathematical consequence of the translational symmetry of the quantity conjugate to energy, namely time. That is, energy is conserved because the laws of physics do not distinguish between different instants of time (see Noether's theorem).

So, if we put the pieces together, and use the old axiom that after all the impossible things are discarded, the remainder, however unlikely, must be considered. In this case, I swear it doesn't seem like it should warrant being stuck in limbo with Schrödinger's cat.

SIDE NOTES:

The quantum realm is inhabited by very, very small particles, bits of matter. They translate in space and time in quanta, similar to frames on a movie reel. When they move, they exhibit a wave pattern. The term 'wave' is poorly defined in this case, and the mathematics implies a repeating pattern of probable locations.

When we do something to observe the location of the particle, it is like petting the cat with a 710J John Deere Backhoe. Liable to be some damage to the cat, and you won't be able to determine its location or velocity.

In order to explain the interference pattern, you either; (1) assume that the probability wave is all there is, and that the act of observation brings the particle into reality and collapses the wave. (2) assume that there are hidden variables, 'a unifying theory' or a carrier mechanism that will carry and shape the wave form. (3) assume that each quantum shift spins off a new universe, a global mind, or everyone has their own universe. (4) go all metaphysical with Doctor Quantum and ring up the Dalai Lama.

SCHRODINGER'S CAT

2011-06-07T16:47:00.000-04:00

I have worked on this diary entry a long time. I do not mean that it took me a lot of work time, I mean it took a long time to work. I originally started the post to simply say that I hated Schrödinger's cat. Then I found out that I was misguided, because Schrodinger's cat still lives! Yes, it is true that she is 76 years old, but she did not age while in the box (unknown quantum state) until she was released in 2000 by Serge Haroche. After learning Kittish English, she moved to an unknown location in the US and is working as a fashion photographer. I find now that I have a lot of respect for that cat.

SCHRODINGER'S CAT

However, I still hate Schrodinger's cat thought experiment. It was a stupid thought (my opinion). Why not a rat? That sounds better, Schrodinger's rat experiment. Why in a box? Why not deep in a cave where you could not hear the poor tormented thing scratching and meowing as it thirsted to death? Why not have the diabolical device just turn on a lamp inside the box? - we would still have to say the lamp was in; an on and an off, quantum state until we looked to see for sure. At least you would not be talking about an uncertain probability state with a dead cat stinking up the room. What was wrong with the 'if a tree falls in the forest' thought experiment anyway?

Schrödinger's original purpose was to bring the quantum level world into the macro level world as a point of contention with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. It illustrates what he and others saw as the problems caused by thinking of the wave function as a real entity. I liked the response added by Einstein, "so if the trigger is hooked to dynamite instead of hydrocyanic acid, can the cat be thought of as both alive and blown to pieces"? As I was thinking through my thoughts on this thought experiment, I realized I needed to think some more about what caused Erwin to thunk up such a stupid thought.

That the Copenhagen interpretation became a dominate facet of quantum mechanics was the culmination of the 1927 Solvay Conference, and highlights one of the brightest periods of modern physics.

1927 SOLVAY CONFERENCE ATTENDEES

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics developed between 1871 and 1927, due to the contributions of a remarkable collection of minds all working around this same time. They theorized a new world of discrete quantities of energy, entities which fit neither the classical idea of particles nor the classical idea of waves. These 'quanta' were not continuous in time, not divisible beyond a certain size, and could only be measured and defined as a state of 'probability'. Physicists were asked to step beyond the world of empirical experiments and pragmatic predictions and accept that the observer became a variable in the equations. According to their interpretation, the act of measurement causes the calculated set of probabilities to "collapse" to the value defined by the measurement. This feature of the mathematics is known as wavefunction collapse. The concept that quantum mechanics does not yield an objective description of microscopic reality - but deals only with probabilities, and that measurement plays an ineradicable role - is the most significant characteristic of the Copenhagen interpretation.

The Newtonian world had become familiar territory where the physicist felt in control, leading to the famous quote, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement" (often cited to William Thompson). However, as pointed out by the same Lord Kelvin, there were "dark clouds" on the horizon even then. The dark clouds he was alluding to were the unsatisfactory explanations that the physics of the time could give for two phenomena: the Michelson–Morley experiment and black body radiation. In 1871, Ludwig Boltzmann and James Maxwell formulated the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. Boltzmann further identified the logarithmic connection between entropy and probability, which helped usher in the era of modern physics. Stating that the pressure of a gas arises from the force exerted by molecules or atoms impacting on the walls of its container, kinetic theory developed a statistical probability in a quantized form. This was at a time when most physicists still did not believe in atoms or molecules. Then came a remarkable group of physicists that developed modern physics as we know it, and came together in Solvay, Belgium, in 1927.

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (April 23, 1858 – October 4, 1947) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1918.

PLANCK 1878

The grandfather of quantum physics, Max Planck was working on black body radiation for the power company in 1984. At first, Planck did not include energy quantization, and did not use statistical mechanics, to which he held an aversion. In November 1900, Planck revised this approach, relying on Boltzmann's statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics as a way of gaining a more fundamental understanding of the principles behind his radiation law. Even though Planck disliked the philosophical and physical implications of Boltzmann's approach, his recourse to them was, "an act of despair ... I was ready to sacrifice any of my previous convictions about physics." He eventually came up with the Planck postulate, stating that electromagnetic energy could be emitted only in quantized form, in other words, the energy could only be a multiple of an elementary unit E = hν, where h is Planck's constant, also known as Planck's action quantum (introduced already in 1899), and ν is the frequency of the radiation.

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1921.

EINSTEIN 1905

As a young physicist, Einstein was convinced that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. On 30 April 1905, Einstein completed his thesis and was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich. His dissertation was entitled "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions". Einstein published four additional papers in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal that year. 1905 was Einstein's annus mirabilis or "miracle year", and these papers could arguably mark the post-Newtonian age of physics. These four articles contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. (1) "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light", received March 18 and published June 9, proposed the idea of energy quanta. This idea, motivated by Max Planck's earlier derivation of the law of black body radiation, assumes that luminous energy can be absorbed or emitted only in discrete amounts, called quanta. (2) "On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat" received May 11 and published July 18, delineated a stochastic model of Brownian motion. Using the kinetic theory of fluids, this paper cemented the reality of the atom, and formalized the value of statistical mechanics. (3) "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" was received on June 30 and published September 26. It reconciles Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics, by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. This later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity. (4) "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" was received on September 27 and published November 21. In this paper Einstein developed an argument for arguably the most famous equation in the field of physics: E = mc2. Einstein considered the energy-matter equivalency equation to be of paramount importance because it showed that a massive particle possesses an energy, the "rest energy", distinct from its classical kinetic and potential energies.

Other important papers include;

In 1907 and again in 1911, Einstein developed the first quantum theory of specific heats by generalizing Planck's law. His theory resolved a paradox of 19th-century physics that specific heats were often smaller than could be explained by any classical theory. His work was also the first to show that Planck's quantum mechanical law E=hν was a fundamental law of physics, and not merely special to blackbody radiation.
Between 1907 and 1915, Einstein developed the theory of general relativity, a classical field theory of gravitation that provides the cornerstone for modern astrophysics and cosmology. General relativity is based on the surprising idea that time and space dynamically interact with matter and energy, and has been checked experimentally in many ways, confirming its predictions of matter affecting the flow of time, frame dragging, black holes, and gravitational waves.
In 1917, Einstein published the idea for the Einstein-Brillouin-Keller method for finding the quantum mechanical version of a classical system. The famous Bohr model of the hydrogen atom is a simple example, but the EBK method also gives accurate predictions for more complicated systems, such as the dinuclear cations H2+ and HeH2+.
In 1918, Einstein developed a general theory of the process by which atoms emit and absorb electromagnetic radiation (his A and B coefficients), which is the basis of lasers (stimulated emission) and shaped the development of modern quantum electrodynamics, the best-validated physical theory at present.
In 1924, together with Satyendra Nath Bose, Einstein developed the theory of Bose-Einstein statistics and Bose-Einstein condensates, which form the basis for superfluidity, superconductivity, and other phenomena.
In 1935, together with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, Einstein put forward what is now known as the EPR paradox, and argued that the quantum-mechanical wave function must be an incomplete description of the physical world.

Niels Henrik David Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1922.

BOHR ~1920

In 1912, Bohr went to work for Ernest Rutherford at Manchester University. By 1914, experiments by physicists Ernest Rutherford, Henry Moseley, James Franck, and Gustav Hertz had largely established the structure of an atom as a dense nucleus of positive charge surrounded by lower-mass electrons. Working with Rutherford's model, Bohr further postulated that electrons resided in quantized energy states, with the energy determined by the angular momentum of the electron's orbits about the nucleus. The electrons could move between these states, or orbits, by the emission or absorption of photons at specific frequencies. By means of these quantized orbits, he accurately explained the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom.This became a basis for quantum theory. Bohr also conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analyzed as having several contradictory properties. For example, Bohr concluded that light behaves either as a wave or a stream of particles depending on the experimental framework — two apparently mutually exclusive properties — on the basis of this principle. Bohr continued to be a champion of the Copenhagen interpretation throughout his life.

Werner Karl Heisenberg (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1932.

HEISENBERG - 1927

On 1 May 1926, Heisenberg began his appointment as university lecturer and assistant to Bohr in Copenhagen. It was in Copenhagen, in 1927, that Heisenberg developed his uncertainty principle, while working on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. On 23 February, Heisenberg first described his theory in a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Published in 1927, the principle implies that it is impossible to simultaneously both measure the present position while "determining" the future momentum of an electron or any other particle with an arbitrary degree of accuracy and certainty. This is not a statement about researchers' ability to measure one quantity while determining the other quantity. Rather, it is a statement about the laws of physics. That is, a system cannot be defined to simultaneously measure one value while determining the future value of these pairs of quantities. The principle states that a minimum exists for the product of the uncertainties in these properties that is equal to or greater than one half of ħ the reduced Planck constant (ħ = h/2π). For me the uncertainty principle is the basis of my life - the more information that I know about a subject, the less I understand - and this occurs at about the same ratio as Heisenberg's theory.

Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond, 7th duc de Broglie (15 August 1892 – 19 March 1987) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1929.

DE BROGLIE ~ 1929

Broglie's, "Research on the Theory of the Quanta", was published in 1924 and introduced his theory of electron waves. This included the wave-particle duality theory of matter, based on the work of Max Planck and Albert Einstein on light. This research culminated in the de Broglie hypothesis stating that any moving particle or object had an associated wave. De Broglie thus created a new field in physics, the mécanique ondulatoire, or wave mechanics, uniting the physics of energy (wave) and matter (particle).
The concept of the particle creating the wave was supported by Einstein, confirmed by the electron diffraction experiments of Davisson and Germer, and generalized by the work of Schrödinger (although unlike Schrödinger, de Broglie considered the wave to be real, not statististical).

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1933.

SCHRODINGER ~ 1927

In January 1926, Schrödinger published in Annalen der Physik the paper "Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem" (Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem) on wave mechanics and what is now known as the Schrödinger equation. In this paper he gave a "derivation" of the wave equation for time independent systems, and showed that it gave the correct energy eigenvalues for the hydrogen-like atom. This paper has been universally celebrated as one of the most important achievements of the twentieth century, and created a revolution in quantum mechanics, and indeed of all physics and chemistry. A second paper was submitted just four weeks later that solved the quantum harmonic oscillator, the rigid rotor and the diatomic molecule, and gives a new derivation of the Schrödinger equation. A third paper in May showed the equivalence of his approach to that of Heisenberg and gave the treatment of the Stark effect. A fourth paper in this most remarkable series showed how to treat problems in which the system changes with time, as in scattering problems. These papers were the central achievement of his career and were at once recognized as having great significance by the physics community.

The cat came later.

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1933.

DIRAC - 1933

Dirac's "Principles of Quantum Mechanics", published in 1930, is a landmark in the history of science. It quickly became one of the standard textbooks on the subject and is still used today. In that book, Dirac incorporated the previous work of Werner Heisenberg on matrix mechanics, and of Erwin Schrödinger on wave mechanics, into a single mathematical formalism that associates measurable quantities to operators acting on the Hilbert space of vectors that describe the state of a physical system. The book also introduced the delta function. He proposed the Dirac equation as a relativistic equation of motion for the wavefunction of the electron. This work led Dirac to predict the existence of the positron, the electron's antiparticle, which he interpreted in terms of what came to be called the Dirac sea. Dirac's equation also contributed to explaining the origin of quantum spin as a relativistic phenomenon.

Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1945.

PAULI - 1945

Pauli made many important contributions in his career as a physicist, primarily in the field of quantum mechanics. He seldom published papers, preferring lengthy correspondences with colleagues such as Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, with whom he had close friendships. Many of his ideas and results were never published and appeared only in his letters, which were often copied and circulated by their recipients. Pauli was apparently unconcerned that much of his work thus went uncredited.

Pauli proposed in 1924 a new quantum degree of freedom (or quantum number) with two possible values, in order to resolve inconsistencies between observed molecular spectra and the developing theory of quantum mechanics. He formulated the Pauli exclusion principle, perhaps his most important work, which stated that no two electrons could exist in the same quantum state, identified by four quantum numbers including his new two-valued degree of freedom. In 1926, shortly after Heisenberg published the matrix theory of modern quantum mechanics, Pauli used it to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom. This result was important in securing credibility for Heisenberg's theory.

Pauli introduced the 2 × 2 Pauli matrices as a basis of spin operators, thus solving the nonrelativistic theory of spin. This work is sometimes said to have influenced Paul Dirac in his creation of the Dirac equation for the relativistic electron. In 1930, Pauli considered the problem of beta decay. In a letter of 4 December to Lise Meitner et al., beginning, "Dear radioactive ladies and gentlemen", he proposed the existence of a hitherto unobserved neutral particle with a small mass, no greater than 1% the mass of a proton, in order to explain the continuous spectrum of beta decay. In 1934, Enrico Fermi incorporated the particle, which he called a neutrino, into his theory of beta decay. The neutrino was first confirmed experimentally in 1956.

In 1940, he proved the spin-statistics theorem, a critical result of quantum field theory which states that particles with half-integer spin are fermions, while particles with integer spin are bosons.

In 1949, he published a paper on Pauli–Villars regularization: regularization is the term for techniques which modify infinite mathematical integrals to make them finite during calculations, so that one can identify whether the intrinsically infinite quantities in the theory (mass, charge, wavefunction) form a finite and hence calculable set which can be redefined in terms of their experimental values, which criterion is termed renormalization, and which removes infinities from quantum field theories, but also importantly allows the calculation of higher order corrections in perturbation theory.

Max Born (11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) Won the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1954.

BORN ~ 1912

In 1921, Born formulated the now-standard interpretation of the probability density function for ψ*ψ in the Schrödinger equation of quantum mechanics. Up until this time, matrices were seldom used by physicists; they were considered to belong to the realm of pure mathematics. Born had used them in his work on the lattices theory of crystals in 1921. While matrices were used in these cases, the algebra of matrices with their multiplication did not enter the picture as they did in the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. In 1925, Born and Werner Heisenberg formulated the matrix mechanics representation of quantum mechanics. On 9 July, Heisenberg gave Born a paper to review and submit for publication. In the paper, Heisenberg formulated quantum theory avoiding the concrete but unobservable representations of electron orbits by using parameters such as transition probabilities for quantum jumps, which necessitated using two indexes corresponding to the initial and final states. When Born read the paper, he recognized the formulation as one which could be transcribed and extended to the systematic language of matrices, which he had learned from his study under Jakob Rosanes at Breslau University. Born, with the help of his assistant and former student Pascual Jordan, began immediately to make the transcription and extension, and they submitted their results for publication; the paper was received for publication just 60 days after Heisenberg’s paper (Hiesenberg won the Nobel Prize for this work in 1932). Heisenberg wrote a letter to Born in which he said he had been delayed in writing due to a “bad conscience” that he alone had received the Prize “for work done in Göttingen in collaboration — you, Jordan and I.” Heisenberg went on to say that Born and Jordan’s contribution to quantum mechanics cannot be changed by “a wrong decision from the outside.” In 1954, Heisenberg wrote an article honoring Max Planck for his insight in 1900. In the article, Heisenberg credited Born and Jordan for the final mathematical formulation of matrix mechanics and Heisenberg went on to stress how great their contributions were to quantum mechanics, which were not “adequately acknowledged in the public eye.”

OK, so back to the cat, so one day Mrs Schrodinger calls her husband at work and says, "Erwin, have you seen the cat?"

The purpose of all of this is to try to understand how physicists reached the point we are now (and I want to focus on the time element). The people at the 1927 Solvay conference conceived quantum mechanics, and were, (it could be said 'still are') the ones that have explained it to the rest of us. These were the ring-leaders. They took away Newton and replaced it with uncertainty. Well, the Copenhagen interpretation (subjective interpretation) divided the physics world into two major camps (each with many factions). Bohr, Born, and Heisenberg were leaders of the subjective interpretation of quantum mechanics. All versions of the Copenhagen interpretation include at least a formal or methodological version of wave function collapse, in which unobserved eigenvalues are removed from further consideration. The strictly subjective interpretation is that nothing at atomic scale is real, that a system is completely described by a wave function ψ, representing an observer's subjective knowledge of the system. They believe that the observer brings reality through the act of observing. The Copenhagen interpretation rejects questions like "where was the particle before I measured its position?" as meaningless. The measurement process randomly picks out exactly one of the many possibilities allowed for by the state's wave function in a manner consistent with the well-defined probabilities that are assigned to each possible state. According to the interpretation, the interaction of an observer or apparatus that is external to the quantum system is the cause of wave function collapse, thus according to Heisenberg "reality is in the observations, not in the electron".

The other dissenting interpretation from Copenhagen was that quantum mechanics was not a complete theory (championed by Einstein, Schrodinger, and Pauli). It is unrealistic to make the tool into something more than a tool. So, the wavefunction, and probability are describing only a part of nature - mathematically. The current usage of "realism" and "completeness" originated in the 1935 paper in which Einstein and others proposed the EPR paradox In that paper the authors proposed the concepts "element of reality" and the "completeness" of a physical theory. They characterised "element of reality" as a quantity whose value can be predicted with certainty before measuring or otherwise disturbing it, and defined a "complete physical theory" as one in which every element of physical reality is accounted for by the theory. In a semantic view of interpretation, an interpretation is complete if every element of the interpreting structure is present in the mathematics. Realism is also a property of each of the elements of the maths; an element is real if it corresponds to something in the interpreting structure. For example, in some interpretations of quantum mechanics (such as the many-worlds interpretation) the key vector associated to the system state is said to correspond to an element of physical reality, while in other interpretations it is not.

The state of physics changed completely within the period of about 15 years. In 1905 when Einstein published his first paper, Newtonian physics ruled the landscape. He was finally recognized for his work on light quanta in 1922 (he won the 1921 Nobel, the following year). By the time of the Solvay conference in 1927, quantum mechanics was nearly fully formed. We have made tremendous progress in the last 80 years, but we are still divided by the Copenhagen interpretation. It seems a handful of physicists took it the first 90% and all other physicists have been filling the remaining 10% since then.

Several of the other interpretations that still have a following are as follows;

Incomplete Theory: Classification adopted by Einstein
Main article: Grand Unified Theory
The Copenhagen interpretation
Main article: Copenhagen interpretation
Many worlds
Main article: Many-worlds interpretation
Consistent histories
Main article: Consistent histories
Ensemble interpretation, or statistical interpretation
Main article: Ensemble interpretation
de Broglie–Bohm theory
Main article: de Broglie–Bohm theory
Relational quantum mechanics
Main article: Relational quantum mechanics
Transactional interpretation
Main article: Transactional interpretation
Stochastic mechanics
Main article: Stochastic interpretation
Objective collapse theories
Main article: Objective collapse theory
von Neumann/Wigner interpretation: consciousness causes the collapse
Main article: Quantum mind/body problem
Many minds
Main article: Many-minds interpretation
Quantum logic
Main article: Quantum logic
Other interpretations
Main article: Minority interpretations of quantum mechanics
Time-symmetric theories
Main article: Retrocausality

Student: "What's the meaning of it all?"

Professor: "Shut up and calculate!"

THE AETHER

2011-06-02T13:00:00.001-04:00

The Aether. According to ancient and medieval science aether, also spelled æther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere. When Isaac Newton was formulating his laws of motion, mechanics, and gravity, he needed a medium for them to operate within. He adopted a modified form of the Luminiferous aether, although he did write, "I do not know what this Aether is", but that, "if it consists of particles" they will be "exceedingly smaller than those of Air, or even than those of Light". Once again, Newton may have been well ahead of this time. From about 1600 until the late 1800's various Aether Theories held sway on the Physics landscape. The ubiquitous aether has always had irritating problems; then the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment really rocked the boat, and we haven't quite recovered yet.

HOW TO EXAMINE THE LUMINIFEROUS AETHER

The concept of a medium to occupy space is still a very attractive one. Otherwise, you would be forced to explain what it is that does occupy empty space, is it a construct?, a geometry? Falling back on emptiness or lack of matter fails to explain how the separation came to be in the first place. Einstein favored the construct of a space-time continuum to provide fabric of space. Mathematically it is a manifold consisting of "events" which are described by a coordinate system. Spacetime can be complicated, but if you just apply a little Dr. Seuss juice it makes it all a little simpler, "From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere." In spacetime, a point is here, or it is there, and the two points are separated by a construction of time and energy (or mass). It is interesting to note that the light-like formulation of the spacetime interval seems to imply that light speed is not a speed, but a resting spot (zero speed).

HERE TO THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Modern theories are proposing a Higgs boson sea of elemental particles held in a low energy state field. I must admit, I don't get how the Higgs boson works, but it sounds cool. Are the field lines round? How will they fit together?

FITTING THE HIGGS IN A SMALL ROOM

Another form of the space/time geometry model that I particularly am attracted to is the 'holodeck model'.

ENTROPY (TIME) EVENT HORIZON

This theory holds that what we see around us is merely a projection on the entropy (time) event horizon. The omniverse is naturally in a very high state of entropy, but something occurred to cause a singularity. The singularity was completely ordered, with every possible elemental particle in line and entangled. This was highly unstable and reacted by creating an entropy wave (time in our universe). The entangled particles waves interacted and collapsed. This process was very rapid at the beginning of the universe (inflationary period), but began to stabilize as the event horizon enlarged and fewer and fewer interactions were required. Entropy carries us along on a sequential Lumiere ride through time. This cosmological event horizon can be modeled similar to a black hole's event horizon, ie, that entropy is proportional to the area of its event horizon divided by the Planck area. The metric expansion of space, modeled mathematically by FLRW, is an exact solution of Einstein's field equations of general relativity, and observed and measured by Edwin Hubble.

MODELS

2011-05-10T17:02:00.000-04:00

Models are essential for humans in order to understand the universe around us. A model seeks to represent empirical objects, phenomena, and physical processes in a logical and objective way. Scientific theories, laws, postulates, and ideas are a way of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical tools to use to predict and understand future patterns. A model can be a scaled version of the real thing, a verbal description, a picture, contrasts, or more importantly these days, a mathematical formalization of physics.

It is really important to understand that all models are inherently false.

Models serve a very important purpose. No one would argue that Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is not one of the greatest works of human intelligence, but they will tell you that it is fundamentally incorrect. Newton's model of the universe still has value, and is still taught in the universities because of its facility to predict motion and force, and its easy visualization.

When my son was in the eighth grade, he had a science project to build a model of the Boron atom. He asked me for my help (BIG mistake). We made a model with each electron on a straight wire at the correct respective n-distance from the nucleus to depict its electron shell energy. Further we color-coded each electron to correspond to the shell configuration. We then graphed a simple scale for shell size to each other.

He received a poor grade because he didn't show the electrons on a ring circling the nucleus (this was 1998, so the knowledge that electrons do not 'circle' the nucleus was only 80 years old, give or take a moron or two). I was incensed, and went in to explain the rationale to the teacher. He told me that Alex received a bad grade because he did not show the electrons on a fixed ring circling the nucleus. I explained the energy scales, configuration patterns, overlap detail, and then he asked me where the rings were shown, and I gave up.

Electrons circling the boron atom nucleus in the Bohr model.

Ask anyone you meet to draw an atom, and the Bohr model of the atom is the most likely picture you will get. It is easy to understand, it predicts the behavior fairly well, and no one can see an atom anyway (these things are very small, probably operate in extra dimensions, and they act funny). The point is, the model that we all carry in our head of an atom is wrong, and misleading. Probably looks more like the following, if you could see it.

Boron Atom Dramatization

First of all, if I scale the electron cloud of a boron atom up to the size of the next graphic, and I show the nucleus and electrons as white dots, this is what you would see;

Atom mass shown in white.

If you actually see any white, clean your screen, it is just dust.

That is why mathematical models are so important. Most things that we want to study now are just too small to see. We are learning about them by their behavior when they interact with other things. Mathematics gives us a tool to use to predict an outcome, and then test it by observing experimental behaviors. Einstein said, "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

DECOHERENCE

2011-05-10T10:06:00.000-04:00

In quantum mechanics, quantum decoherence (also see dephasing) is how quantum systems interact with their environments to exhibit probabilistically additive behavior. Quantum decoherence gives the appearance of wave function collapse (the reduction of the physical possibilities into a single possibility as seen by an observer) and justifies the framework and intuition of classical physics as an acceptable approximation: decoherence is the mechanism by which the classical limit emerges out of a quantum starting point and it determines the location of the quantum-classical boundary. Decoherence occurs when a system interacts with its environment in a thermodynamically irreversible way. This prevents different elements in the quantum superposition of the system+environment's wavefunction from interfering with each other. Decoherence has been a subject of active research since the 1980s.

TIME DEVELOPMENT ENTROPY

2011-05-09T22:58:00.000-04:00

The time development operator in quantum theory is unitary, because the Hamiltonian is hermitian. Consequently the transition probability matrix is doubly stochastic, which implies the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This derivation is quite general, based on the Shannon entropy, and does not require any assumptions beyond unitarity, which is universally accepted. It is a consequence of the irreversibility or singular nature of the general transition matrix. I do not fully understand this, but it seems to imply that all possible choices in the quantum state must add up to 100%. The quantum state collapse gives up information through the entropy laws. The original concepts of decoherence proposed by David Bohm and John Bell were held in little regard for many years, but the advances in quantum computing have caused a resurgence in the study of dephasing. While Bohm felt that a carrier wave was responsible for the duality of particles, dephasing holds that the particle is real in many states, but releases information (irreversibility) when interaction occurs.

Vector phasing, may be functions or frequencies; instead of matrix multiplication, linear transformations may be operators such as the derivative from calculus. These are only a few of countless examples where eigenvectors and eigenvalues are important.

In this shear graph, the yellow arrow
undergoes a phase shift but the red arrow does not.
Therefore the red arrow is an eigenvector,
with eigenvalue 1, as its length is unchanged.

The Bloch sphere is a representation of a qubit,
the fundamental building block of quantum computers.

The Protium atom is an example where both types of spectra appear. The eigenfunctions of the hydrogen atom Hamiltonian are called eigenstates and are grouped into two categories. The bound states of the hydrogen atom correspond to the discrete part of the spectrum (they have a discrete set of eigenvalues that can be computed by Rydberg formula) while the ionization processes are described by the continuous part (the energy of the collision/ionization is not quantized). In mathematics, a shear mapping or transvection is a particular kind of linear mapping. Its effect leaves fixed all points on one axis and other points are shifted parallel to the axis by a distance proportional to their perpendicular distance from the axis. It is notable that shear mappings carry areas into equal areas.

Folding Space.

A simple cube being folded and multiplied

The concept of multiple spacial eigenvector values coexisting in the wave function is not new. Some of the quantum information computing work being done is also focusing on time eigenvalue vector analysis.

Superposition, Quantum Algorithms (a fixed sequence of quantum logic gates), Particle Entanglement, and the Quantum Decoherence are all important aspects being studied. The goal in quantum computing is to get the quantum state to release information. The theory of decoherence has made a huge comeback in main-stream thinking. Now decoherence is seen less as a complete collapse of the probability wave (or the disappearance of a carrier wave), and more as the release of information to our timeline through a process of entropic information leak. The probability wave never fully collapses, but must make decisions based on interactions to remain in concert with the laws of physics (a partial collapse).

The Protium atom orbital shells.

MANIFOLDS

2011-05-07T11:05:00.000-04:00

I would really like draw a picture of the fabric of space, but the math needed to model space-time is too complicated. We can think in terms of the three space dimensions, but when we start to go into higher dimensions the models just do not translate in our brains.

Enter the mathematicians.

Euclid of Alexandria wrote "Elements" somewhere around 300BC. The fact that you can find Euclid's work repeated in any text book of geometry and algebra attests to it's remarkable impact on the sciences. In some ways, you can also see a beauty to the progress of Euclid's mathematical formulations. Euclid probably took many of the concepts and proofs from other mathematicians of the time, but he was the first to put together all of that knowledge into writings that survive. Euclid started with five main postulates upon which he built his mathematical model of the world.

Any two points determine a unique line containing them.
Any line segment may be extended.
Given a point P and a distance r, there is a circle with center P and radius r.
All right angles are equal.
That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.

Euclidean Geometry was the only game in town for a couple thousand years, but that was not for want of trying. Many mathematicians took a shot at postulate number five, which did not follow directly from the previous four. Euclid saved the fifth postulate till last for a reason. He obviously had problems with it himself, and by definition, the postulate has some esoteric flaws. Take perspective; when we view a railroad track disappearing into the distance, we understand that the tracks are parallel - but that they appear to converge to a point. Can we model visual perspective as a geometry of it's own? The answer is yes, but for centuries Euclid's geometry held it's own. This dominant view was overturned by the revolutionary discovery of non-Euclidean geometry, primarily through the works of Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (who never published his theory), János Bolyai, and Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, who demonstrated that ordinary Euclidean space is only one possibility for the development of geometry, and Jules Henri Poincaré, who was looking for the math to back up his theories of relativity.

Hyperbolic space is a geometrical space analogous to Euclidean space, but such that Euclid's parallel postulate is no longer assumed to hold. Mathematicians would have been content to just play around with the math, but along came a German mathematician, Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, whom was not content with the status quo. Riemann came up with a new geometry using “tensors”. He also found a way to relate his new geometry to four dimensional analysis. His broad vision of the subject of geometry was expressed in his 1867 inauguration lecture "Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen" (On the hypotheses on which geometry is based), published only after his death. Riemann's new idea of space proved crucial in Einstein's general relativity theory and Riemannian geometry, a mainstay of modern geometric analysis.

Then in 1896 Pieter Zeeman and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz used post Euclidean geometry to accurately model a part of the natural world, magnetic spectral lines, and the door was open. Lorentz went on to work with a young physicist, Albert Einstien, on a new theory of relativity. By 1906 it was noted by Poincaré that, by using an imaginary time coordinate √−1 ct, the Lorentz transformation can be regarded as a rotation in a four-dimensional Euclidean space with imaginary time being the fourth dimension, "manifold space".

The concept of manifolds is important because you can model complicated structures in terms of the relatively well-understood properties of simpler spaces. For example, a manifold is typically endowed with a differentiable structure that allows one to do calculus and a Riemannian metric that allows one to measure distances and angles. Symplectic manifolds serve as the phase spaces in the Hamiltonian formalism (Sir William Rowan Hamilton) of classical mechanics, while four-dimensional Lorentzian manifolds model space-time in general relativity.

Using the Lorentz transformation, you can mathematically model how two observers' varying measurements of space and time can be converted into each other's frames of reference.

This idea was elaborated by Hermann Minkowski who used it to restate the Maxwell equations in four dimensions showing directly their invariance under Lorentz transformation. He further reformulated in four dimensions the then-recent theory of special relativity of Einstein. From this he concluded that time and space should be treated equally and so arose his concept of events taking place in a unified four-dimensional space-time continuum. In a further development he gave an alternative formulation of this idea which did not use the imaginary time coordinate but represented the four variables (x, y, z, t) of space and time in coordinate form in a four dimensional affine space. Points in this space were regarded as events in space-time. The spacetime interval between two events in Minkowski Space is either space-like, light-like ('null') or time-like, creating Nutches for Nitches to fill.

Orbifolds

Phase space

ECCENTRICS

2011-05-06T16:08:00.000-04:00

It is important to note that every major advance in physics is preceded by the work of an Eccentric. This is a living document, since new Eccentrics appear all the time. In my list of eccentrics I have not included the Eccentrics that turned out to be Geniuses (Newton and Einstein come to mind).

Psychologist Dr. David Weeks mentions people with a mental illness "suffer" from their behavior while eccentrics are quite happy. He even states eccentrics are less prone to mental illness than everyone else.

According to studies, there are eighteen distinctive characteristics that differentiate a healthy eccentric person from a regular person or someone who has a mental illness (although some may not always apply). The first five are in most people regarded as eccentric:

Nonconforming attitude
Idealistic
Intense curiosity
Happy obsession with a hobby or hobbies
Knew very early in his or her childhood they were different from others
Highly intelligent
Opinionated and outspoken
Unusual living or eating habits
Not interested in the opinions or company of others
Mischievous sense of humor
The eldest, only child, or youngest boy.

NOTABLE ECCENTRICS:

Richard Laming (c. 1798–May 3, 1879): A British Eccentric, Richard tested and was accepted as a surgeon by the Royal College of Surgeons. He established a practice in London and worked until 1842. Surgeons of the 1800's were sometimes a little sketchy. Known more for how fast they worked (no anesthesia) the surgeon was an iffy profession. Richard appeared to try to do his best, and studied in Paris, France for several years.

More importantly, Richard fancied himself as a natural philosopher. During his leisure moments, Richard developed an interest in the theory of electricity. Between 1838 and 1851 he published a series of papers speculating about the electrical makeup of atoms. He hypothesized that there existed sub-atomic particles of unit charge; perhaps one of the first persons ever to do so. He suggested that the atom was made up of a core of material surrounded by concentric shells of these electrical 'atoms', or particles. He also believed that these particles could be added or subtracted to an atom, changing its charge.

It wasn't until 1909-1913 that Richard was proven correct by Ernest Rutherford and Neils Bohr.

Henri Poincaré (29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912): A well respected mathematician and scientist at the time, Henri Poincaré developed and published the Theory of Relativity in 1904, the year before Einstein published his paper. Einstein, later in life, acknowledged that Poincaré as the pioneer of Relativity. While not the best example of the Eccentric, Poincaré's views and responses to Einstein's theft of the Relativity Theory give him honorable mention in the roles of Eccentrics.

William Gilbert (24 May 1544 – 30 November 1603): After playing around with his toy model earth, he concluded that the Earth was itself magnetic and that this was the reason compasses point north (previously, some believed that it was the pole star (Polaris) or a large magnetic island on the north pole that attracted the compass). He was the first to argue, correctly, that the centre of the Earth was iron, and he considered an important and related property of magnets was that they can be cut, each forming a new magnet with north and south poles.

Isaak Yudovich Ozimov (1920 – 6 April 1992): There is no telling what the power of science fiction has been on the actual progress in science fact. We do know that after 500 books and numerous other short writings, Isaac Asimov has helped to shape our world view of science. The Oxford English Dictionary credits his science fiction for introducing the words positronic brain (an entirely fictional technology), psychohistory, and robotics into the English language. I would personally be insulted if the "Three Laws of Robotics" were not required for the first sentient robots.

Isaac Asimov may also have given us the answer to the heat death of the universe and a way to reverse entropy in the "The Last Question".

David Joseph Bohm (20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992): David Bohm obtained his doctorate degree while with the theoretical physics group under Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley. David actually was not allowed to defend his thesis, because it was used by the Manhattan Project and immediately classified by the FBI. To satisfy the university, Oppenheimer certified that Bohm had successfully completed the research. As a post-graduate at Berkeley, he developed a theory of plasmas, discovering the electron phenomenon now known as Bohm-diffusion. After the war, Bohm became an assistant professor at Princeton University, where he worked closely with Albert Einstein. In May, 1949, at the beginning of the McCarthyism period, the House Un-American Activities Committee called upon Bohm to testify before it— because of his previous ties to suspected Communists. Bohm, however, pleaded the Fifth amendment right to decline to testify, and refused to give evidence against his colleagues. Princeton suspended him and he eventually left the United States in the early 1950's.

Bohm became dissatisfied with the orthodox approach to quantum theory and began to develop his own approach (De Broglie–Bohm theory) - a non-local hidden variable deterministic theory whose predictions agree perfectly with the nondeterministic quantum theory. Before an understanding of decoherence was developed, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics treated wavefunction collapse as a fundamental, a priori process. Bohm's theory provides an explanatory mechanism for the appearance of wavefunction collapse.

Any Pure Mathematician (You can find them anytime); Broadly speaking, pure mathematics is mathematics which studies entirely abstract concepts. From the eighteenth century onwards, this was a recognized category of mathematical activity, sometimes characterized as speculative mathematics, and at variance with the trend towards meeting the needs of navigation, astronomy, physics, and engineering - the applied sciences. “There are three kinds of mathematicians; those who can count and those who can't.”

“Relations between pure and applied mathematicians are based on trust and understanding. Namely, pure mathematicians do not trust applied mathematicians, and applied mathematicians do not understand pure mathematicians. Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself any more." -- Albert Einstein.

"Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC); Now here was a nut job. He founded a religion worshiping math.
Godfrey Harold Hardy (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947); Hardy felt only pure mathematics to be worthy, he once said that general relativity and quantum mechanics were "useless", and only fit for engineers.
Ramanujan (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920); Mostly self-taught, during his short lifetime, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3900 results (mostly identities and equations). Although a small number of these results were actually false and some were already known, most of his claims have now been proven correct.

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705^[1]] – April 17, 1790); Ben Franklin was referred to in his day as a 'polymath'. You can read that as 'eccentric'. Franklin was a leading author and printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania.

THE OBSERVER

2011-05-02T23:52:00.000-04:00

The Protium Atom under scrutiny.

According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, there is a limit to the amount of information that you can define for a quantum particle. The more precise you measure one attribute, the less you know of the other. This established the concept of complementarity as one of the basic principles of quantum mechanics. Niels Bohr maintained that quantum particles have both "wave-like" behavior and "particle-like" behavior, but can exhibit one kind of behavior only under conditions that prevent exhibiting the complementary characteristics. This complementarity has come to be known as the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics.

In the double-slit experiment, the common wisdom is that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle makes it impossible to determine which slit the photon passes through without at the same time disturbing it enough to destroy the interference pattern.

There have been many experiments trying to circumvent the issue of disturbance due to direct measurement of a photon. The delayed choice quantum eraser experiments "found a way around the position-momentum uncertainty obstacle and proposed a quantum eraser to obtain the 'which-path' or particle-like information" without disturbing the wave function. They could then choose to 'see' the path that the particle took later, or erase it.

It was found that there is no interference pattern when which-path information is recorded, even if this information was obtained without directly observing the original photon, but that if you somehow "erase" the which-path information, an interference pattern is observed. The total pattern of signal photons at the primary detector never shows interference, so it is not possible to deduce what will happen to the idler photons by observing the signal photons alone, which would open up the possibility of gaining information faster-than-light (since one might deduce this information before there had been time for a message moving at the speed of light to travel from the idler detector to the signal photon detector) or even gaining information about the future (since as noted above, the signal photons may be detected at an earlier time than the idlers), both of which would qualify as violations of causality in physics.

This has lead many to remark that the observer is somehow important to the results. This gives the observer some control over reality, or implies that reality can not exist without the observer (tree falls in the forest concept). The conciousness causes collapse interpretation attributes the process of wave function collapse (directly, indirectly, or even partially) to consciousness itself.

The other important weirdness to note is that time is somehow held in suspension until the observation is made. This is most graphically shown by quantum entanglement. Entangled particles can be at opposite ends of the universe and still 'pass' information to the entangled twin. These particles are entangled in space-time, meaning that they are also entangled in time, according to S. Jay Olson and Timothy C. Ralph of Australia's University of Queensland. The time component may play a larger role in understanding the quantum process than previously thought. The entangled particles may be linked in time, rather than through space.

TIMENSIONS

2011-04-28T23:11:00.000-04:00

The spacial dimensions are easy to visualize. A Cartesian Coordinate System (credited to René Descartes) in three-dimensional space is an ordered triplet of lines (axes), any two of them being perpendicular; a single unit of length for all three axes; and an orientation for each axis. Each axis becomes a number line.

To get from one location to another in the same coordinate system all I need is a direction and distance (vector). In the Cartesian Coordinate System, a vector can be represented by identifying the coordinates of its initial and terminal point. For instance, the points A (x1,y1,z1) and B = (x2,y2,z2) in space determine the free vector AB.

I intuitively understand and live in a four dimension universe, but for the life of me I can not visualize four dimensions. But when Susan asks me to meet her somewhere, I get a coordinate for all four of those dimensions (i.e., corner of Brambleton Ave.(x), and Monticello Ave.(y), on the third floor of the old post office (z), at 2:15pm (t), which I promptly forget. The path I take to get there is not a straight line. Of course, if I wanted to go from Earth to Mars, then my starting point and my destination move through time and space during my travel interval (requires a little more planning, but still within my Newtonian grasp).

But if I wanted to go see Abraham Lincoln give the Gettysburg Address, then I would need some serious coordinate help. If I went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, I would miss the speech by about 53,861 days. Not only that, but since the Milky Way Galaxy moves at about 600km/s, Earth has shifted about 2.7 trillion km towards the Great Attractor. Luckily, Einstein gave us a spacetime coordinate system, so that I can find my way.

A Particle also inhabits a portion of spacetime. A particle such as a photon 'ocillates', and this action exhibits itself as a frequency. The frequency of a photon determines its nature. The electron in the Protium atom 'orbits' the proton (inhabits an electron shell). The Protium electron has a velocity that is relativistic and should exhibit time dilation, etc.

The Protium electron oscillates through a field around the proton.
(Simplified in two dimensions)
The electron orbit exhibits a sinusoidal pattern as it moves through time.

Quantum physics tells us that the particle exhibits a wave-particle duality. There is no reason to doubt that it is a particle of matter, so something else is going on. The particle has been dimensionalized (phased), and exists in folds of time dimensions. The particle sets up a wave pattern of 'probabilities'. They are real, but are called probabilities because they can 'collapse', or dephase, to a point particle when required (Quantum Decoherence). Decoherence occurs when a system interacts with its environment in a thermodynamically irreversible way. The timeline that will define our view of the present depends on how we slice the spacetime diagram.

STUFF

2011-04-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

THE STUFF THAT STUFF IS MADE OF

Time (what we observe) - a physical quantity that we use to sequence events, and compare intervals between them. Time is also used to define the a of change to quantify motions, work, and force.
Time (what it is) - Time is still not fully understood. The best predictive models define time as a structure, and is an element of the space-time continuum. Another model of time holds that time is the geometry of energy, mass, and space. This implies that 'the present' is the expanding event horizon of an entropy wave (a projection or holographic representation of the workings of the universe), 'the past' is collapsed quantum probabilities, and the future is the steady progression from an ordered to an unordered structure.
Energy (what we observe) - is a quantity that is often understood as the potential of a physical system to do work on other physical systems.
Energy (what it is) - energy arises from conservation of momentum (4-momentum in relativity and momentum of virtual particles in quantum electrodynamics). The conservation of momentum, can be directly derived from homogeneity (=shift symmetry) of space and so is usually considered a fundamental driver of a force. Some predictive models (i.e., superstring) present fundamental particles (force carriers) that are the purveyors of energy.
Speed of Light- a physical constant, usually denoted by c, and is the maximum speed of the universe. Mathematically it is a vector in one dimensional space equal to one Planck length divided by one Planck unit time.
Mass - Mass is physical representation of energy through time and space. All types of agreed-upon matter exhibit mass, and many types of energy which are not matter—such as potential energy, kinetic energy, and trapped electromagnetic radiation (photons)—also exhibit mass.

Space - (Free Space or Vacuum) - Three dimensional space with no matter. Space and time are closely linked and may be manifestations of the same fundamental construct or geometry.
Matter - has mass and occupies volume (three dimensional space).

THE FORCES THAT MAKE STUFF WORK

Electromagnetism - Electromagnetism is the force that causes the interaction between electrically charged particles.
Gravitation - the force that generates between bodies with a force proportional to the mass.
Strong Interaction - the force that binds the nucleus of an atom together.

Weak Interaction - the force that causes radioactive decay and fusion.

INTERESTING STUFF

Hydrogen - The most abundant element in the universe appears to be the hydrogen atom. Hydrogen in its most common isotope, protium, has one proton and an electron. Niels Bohr predicted a model of the Protium atom with an electron with a stable orbit at a set energy state. The Bohr model is highly predictive for a system where two charged points orbit each other at speeds much less than that of light, like Protium.

Stylized Bohr Model - Protium Atom

The Protium atom is incredibly small, and we have never seen one. The things that we believe about atoms come from predictive models that have been developed, and then tested, based on observed behavior of interactions.

Between 1838 and 1851 Richard Laming, a British surgeon and natural philosopher, hypothesized that there existed sub-atomic particles of unit charge; perhaps one of the first persons ever to do so. He suggested that the atom was made up of a core of material surrounded by concentric shells of these electrical 'atoms', or particles. He was considered as an eccentric.

A working mathematical model of the atom started developing in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Working with the Ernest Rutherford model derived from the Geiger–Marsden experiment, Niels Bohr developed a quantum physics-based modification of the Rutherford model. The Bohr model is highly predictive for the protium atom, a single positively charged proton and a negatively charged electron orbital, and related the lines in emission and absorption spectra to the energy differences between the orbits that electrons could take around the atom.

The stylized Bohr Model shown above is the visual representation of the atom that most of us still connect with what an atom looks like (it probably doesn't). However, it is important to note that if the protium atom were expanded to the scale of the above picture, neither the proton or electron would be visible. The matter in a protium atom is tiny in comparison to the space it takes up (0.000000000000119%, give or take a decimal or two).

Photons - the photon is an elementary particle and has no rest mass and will not decay spontaneously. The photon can be emitted/absorbed by an atom in transition to a lower/higher energy state, matter/antimatter annihilation, and other energy transitions. The photon is often described as an energy packet and force carrier for the electromagnetic force.

Electrons - In the Standard Model of particle physics, electrons belong to the group of subatomic particles called leptons, which are believed to be elementary particles.

Wave Function Collapse - Particles, like the photon, can exhibit a wave-particle duality. They are particles, but until they interact, they act like waves. While not main-stream physics, there are theoretical models using Eigenstates of time to yield a solution to this dilemma, showing that the time vectors can set up an interference pattern, but on collapse pinpoints a specific time vector with the particle observed. All time vectors are equally real until collapse at a point. Continuous observation of a portion of the field can truncate the wave equation.

WHERE DID THE TIME GO?

2011-04-24T10:37:00.000-04:00

Time dilation, as predicted by the Theories of Relativity, is an observed difference of elapsed time between two observers which are moving relative to each other. Say Alex is running very fast with relation to Dana. Alex and Dana will both report back to us that light speed is 186,000 miles per second, and they will both tell us that a beam of light will take the same time from their position to reach point A.

However, Dana will report that Alex's clock is moving very slow, and Alex will report that Dana's clock is moving very fast. Alex will not agree with Dana with regard to the distance from her to point A, and vice versa. To Dana, not only does Alex appear to be moving slowly, but his distance measurements are shorter than hers due to length contraction. Dana and Alex will not always agree on the order of events, so that the relative past and future will not be the same (Relativity of simultaneity).

It is important to tell yourself again that for each observer, the speed of light, time measurement, and distance calculation (amount of space between points) remains the same. So if there were a continuous change to our relative time position, our perception of time would remain consistent, and it would not be noticeable.

ENTROPY

2011-04-22T23:46:00.000-04:00

Entropy. There is a unique connection between time and the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy is the only quantity in physics that implies a progression - the arrow of time - that leads from now to then. As time passes, the 2nd Law states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases. You could look at entropy as a kind of clock. The 2nd Law usually implies a loss of heat, or energy, in a system. You can't make a perpetual motion machine because of the 2nd Law. But perhaps, if you look at that wild idea of time slowing down - then entropy is more a measure of the time dilation than a loss of energy.

The implication is that the 2nd law pulls us through time. In Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, time dilation occurs when two observers are in relative uniform motion, one clock appears to move slower than the other. If we are changing relative position through time, the Lorentz transformation describes how, according to the theory of special relativity, two observers' varying measurements of space and time can be converted into each other's frames of reference. It is named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz. It reflects the surprising fact that observers moving at different velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times, and even different orderings of events.

Not such a huge leap to see time as the movement from one relativist point to the next! Hey, what's the probability of that? Continuous time evolution of an isolated system that obeys Schrödinger's equation (or Dirac's equation) involves the collapse of the wave function. Entropy, and the expansion of space, may be the relativistic expression of the 2nd Law.

WHAT IS TIME?

2011-04-21T07:51:00.000-04:00

Time is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. We intuitively feel it passing; we can say that time flies, or crawls, or seems to stand still. It can be wasted, squandered, and it can somehow be something on our hands. But what is it? Does it flow like a river? Does it slip like the sand through an hourglass? It certainly never backs up for me. So we sense that time has an arrow, pointing from the past to the future.

However, the laws of physics do not forbid time from 'flowing' backwards. Time symmetry holds for many of the classical variables, including;

Position of a particle in three-space
Acceleration of the particle
Force on the particle
Energy of the particle
Electric potential (voltage)
Electric field
Electric displacement
Density of electric charge
Electric polarization

and others. As a matter of fact, the classical variables that are sensitive to time reversal are those that clearly have a time component built into them; such as, power (rate of work), velocity, and angular momentum.

Arthur Eddington, who coined the arrow of time terminology, concluded that as far as physics goes, the passage of time is merely a property of entropy (more on entropy later). So what is time? The answer is usually two parts philosophy, and one part 'it just is'. Clearly time is needed to get something from here to there, and the passage of time itself is a form of movement that carries us from now to then. From Isaac Newton's aether, to Albert Einstien's space-time continuum, time and space are necessary components of the basic laws, but are never really defined. Is time a something? Is it made out of smaller bits of fundamental goo? What is space? If it is expanding, can it be compressed?

Clearly it is important to our consciousness that time move in one direction, but is it just the part that we sense? Through history, people understood that there were limits to our senses and that sound, and vision, and indeed, the real world around us extended beyond the threshold of our limited perception. We knew that dogs could smell better, hawks and falcons see better, and cats move in the dark.

Most physicists are beginning to believe that time and space do have a finite size, with the smallest time being the Planck time, defined as the time it takes light to travel one Planck length (named after Max Planck). This means that our experience of the world is like watching a cartoon, one Planck slice at a time.

So why the arrow? Why don't the frames flip backwards?

THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE

2011-04-18T16:25:00.000-04:00

As predicted by Alexander Alexandrovich Friedman in his solution to the general relativity field equations in 1922, and verified through red-shift observations of distant galaxies by Edwin Hubble in 1929, the universe appears to be expanding. The Metric Expansion of Space leads to some interesting notions about our perception of reality. But one of the most interesting concepts to come forward is from José M.M. Senovilla and his team at the University of the Basque Country in Spain. His team has offered a solution that has time slowing down and disappearing from the universe. While certainly not main-stream thinking, the proposal offers some insights into the reality of time.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/scientist-says.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626354.000-is-time-slowing-down.html