Category Archives: Quantum Physics

The human brain is a mysterious organ that is much bigger than it looks. This deceptive characteristic of the brain is also reflected in the sense of self that humans entail. While what we look like are just a collection of atoms and molecules, the sheer probability of having consciousness, and that too, this advanced, triggers a belief that humans are much more than just flesh and bones.

And this is how the concept of soul is fostered. Religious texts and teachings frequently bring the soul into the discussion. What some perceive as soul boils down to consciousness that assists us in being us. Soul is believed to exist beyond the laws of life and death. It is postulated that our soul existed before we did and will exist after we do not. However, this concept becomes feeble when looked through a scientific spectacle.

Sean M. Carroll, a physicist specialising in cosmology, gravity, and quantum mechanics, shared his piece of mind regarding this never-ending journey of a soul through a blog post. Sean elaborately analysed the tributaries of this thought that claims that life after death does not end at decomposing of the body but exists beyond that.

The questions that target the sanctity of this belief revolved around the fundamental laws of physics that play their role in the interaction of atoms with their surroundings. Sean throws light on the fact that for life after death to be true, the basic structure of physics of atoms and electrons will have to be demolished, and someone will have to build a new model. Believing n life after death, to put it mildly, required physics beyond the standard model. Most importantly, we need some way for that new Physics to interact with the atoms that we do have.

Most people perceive souls as a blob of energy. What Sean argues about is the interaction of this energy with the world that we witness and the building blocks of it that we do not see. Multiple equations such as the Dirac equation, Lorentz invariance, Hamiltonian system of Quantum Mechanics, Gauge Variance, etc., will be proven void, or the concept of the soul will lose trustful ground in attempts to justify the existence of life after death.

While discussions such as these do tickle the thought process, it also sways us away from the more reality-centric questions about human beings and the consciousness giving them an identity. So, what do you think about the existence of an immaterial, immortal soul and the life after we die?

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Is Afterlife Possible? Scientist Reveals the Physics Behind Death - News18

For some of us, the idea of parallel Universes sparks our wildest dreams. If there are other Universes where certain events had different outcomes where just one crucial decision went a different way perhaps there could be some way to access them. Perhaps particles, fields, or even people could be transported from one Universe to another, enabling us to live in a Universe thats better, in some ways, than our own. These ideas have a foothold not only in science fiction, but in theoretical physics as well, from the infinity of possible outcomes from quantum mechanics to ideas related to the Multiverse.

But do these ideas have anything to do with observable, measurable reality? Recently, a claim has surfaced asserting that weve found evidence for parallel Universes from the ANtarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna: ANITA. Its true: the experiment found evidence for cosmic ray particles thats quite difficult to explain using only conventional physics. But to leap to the most fantastical, outlandish, revolutionary explanation is absolutely premature. In all fields of science, we have to take tremendous care not to fool ourselves. We must endeavor to knock down any new, wild hypotheses, and instead make sure that known laws of nature cant conceivably explain what were seeing.

Science is about being appropriately skeptical, and when we take that approach, we see that the evidence for a parallel Universe all but evaporates.

From a physics point of view, parallel Universes are one of those intriguing ideas that captures our imaginations, and compels us to consider their existence, but at the same time, its an idea thats very difficult to test. Parallel Universes first arose in the context of quantum physics, which is notorious for having unpredictable outcomes even if you know everything possible about how you set up your system. If you take a single electron and shoot it through a double slit, you can only know the probabilities of where it will land; you cannot predict exactly where it will show up.

One remarkable idea known as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates that all the outcomes that can possibly occur actually do happen, but only one outcome can happen in each Universe. It takes an infinite number of parallel Universes to account for all the possibilities, but this interpretation is just as valid as any other. There are no experiments or observations that rule it out.

A second place where parallel Universes arise in physics is from the idea of the Multiverse. Our observable Universe began 13.8 billion years ago with the hot Big Bang, but the Big Bang itself wasnt the very beginning. A very different phase of the Universe occurred previously to set up and give rise to the Big Bang: cosmological inflation. When and where inflation ends, a Big Bang occurs.

But inflation doesnt end everywhere at once, and the places where inflation doesnt end continue to inflate, giving rise to more space and more potential Big Bangs. Once inflation begins, in fact, its virtually impossible to stop inflation from occurring in perpetuity at least somewhere. As time goes on, more Big Bangs all disconnected from one another occur, giving rise to an uncountably large number of independent Universes: a Multiverse.

The big problem for both of these ideas is that theres no way to test or constrain the prediction of these parallel Universes. After all, if were stuck in our own Universe, how can we ever hope to access another one? We have our own laws of physics, but they come with a whole host of quantities that are always conserved.

Particles dont simply appear, disappear, or transform; they can only interact with other quanta of matter and energy, and the outcomes of those interactions are similarly governed by the laws of physics.

In all the experiments weve ever performed, all the observations weve ever recorded, and all the measurements ever made, weve never yet discovered an interaction that demands the existence of something beyond our own, isolated Universe to explain.

But according to the various reports regarding the ANITA experiments unexpected findings, you may have read that scientists in Antarctica have discovered evidence for the existence of parallel Universes. If this were true, it would be absolutely revolutionary. Its a grandiose claim that would show us that the Universe as we currently conceive of it is inadequate, and theres much more out there to learn about and discover than we ever thought possible.

Not only would these other Universes be out there, but matter and energy from them would have the capability to cross over and interact with matter and energy in our own Universe. Perhaps, if this claim were correct, some of our wildest science fiction dreams would be possible. Perhaps you could travel to a Universe:

So what was the remarkable evidence that demonstrates the existence of a parallel Universe? What observation or measurement was made that brought us to this remarkable and unexpected conclusion?

The ANITA (ANtarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna) experiment a balloon-borne experiment thats sensitive to radio waves detected radio waves of a particular set of energies and directions coming from beneath the Antarctic ice.

This is good; its what the experiment was designed to do! In both theory and in practice, we have all sorts of cosmic particles traveling through space, including the ghostly neutrino. While many of the neutrinos that pass through us come from the Sun, stars, or the Big Bang, some of them come from colossally energetic astrophysical sources like pulsars, black holes, supernovae, or even mysterious, unidentified objects.

These neutrinos also come in a variety of energies, with the most energetic ones (unsurprisingly) being the rarest and, to many physicists, the most interesting. Neutrinos are mostly invisible to normal matter youd have to pass a typical astrophysical neutrino through about a light-years worth of lead to have a 50/50 shot of stopping one so they can realistically come from any direction.

However, most of the high-energy neutrinos that we see arent produced from far away, but are produced when other cosmic particles (also of extremely high energies) strike the upper atmosphere, producing cascades of particles that also result in neutrinos. Some of these neutrinos will pass through the Earth almost completely, only interacting with the final layers of Earths crust (or ice), where they can produce a signal that our detectors are sensitive to.

The rare events that ANITA saw were consistent with a neutrino coming up through the Earth and producing radio waves, but at energies that should be so high that passing through the Earth uninhibited should not be possible. So now, we have to put our skeptical goggles on, and ask some important questions concerning how seriously we should take these observations.

Scientifically, this means that:

So where, in all of this, do the parallel Universes come in?

Because there were only three explanations for what ANITA saw.

Somevery good science ruled out the first option(back in January of 2020), which means its almost certainly the second option. The third? Well, if our Universe cannot violate CPT, maybe this comes froma parallel Universe where CPT is reversed: an explanation thats as unlikely as it is poorly reasoned.

In fact, back in April of 2020, physicist Ian Shoemaker came up with a spectacular but mundane explanation for what ANITA saw: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays could have simply reflected off of certain types of ice at or near the Antarctic surface, creating the illusion that these particles traveled through the Earth from the perspective of ANITA. Remember: in science, we must always rule out all the conventional explanations that dont involve new physics before we resort to a game-breaking explanation. Over the past decade, a number of remarkable claims have been made that have disintegrated upon further investigation. Neutrinos dont travel faster-than-light; we havent found dark matter or sterile neutrinos; cold fusion isnt real; the impossible reactionless engine was a failure.

Theres a remarkable story here thats all about good science. An experiment (ANITA) saw something unexpected, and published their results. A much better experiment (IceCube) followed it up, and ruled out their leading interpretation. It strongly suggested something was amiss with the first experiment, and completely mundane explanations involving no new physics at all could wholly account for the full suite of what weve seen. As always, conducting more science will help us uncover whats truly occurring. For now, based on the scientific evidence we have, parallel Universes will have to remain a dream solely confined to the realm of speculation and science fiction.

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No, we haven't finally found evidence for a parallel Universe - Big Think

Mairead MaguireDeputy Editor

The Schrdinger lecture theatre will now be called Physics Lecture Theatre, after staff and students in the School of Physics called for its renaming in light of revelations about the physicists abuse of young women and girls.

The annual Schrdinger lecture series will be changed to the What is Life? lecture series, with discussions to continue in the coming months about what this will entail.

In an email statement to The University Times, Trinity Media Relations Officer Catherine OMahony said: This is a complex situation and the School of Physics has approached it in a careful and considered manner.

The current approach continues to honour the indisputable scientific contribution of Erwin Schrdinger, while acknowledging disturbing information much of it from Schrdingers own diaries which is now also known.

The theatre was originally named Physics Lecture Theatre but the name was changed in the 1990s to celebrate Schrdinger and his contributions to quantum theory.

The School of Physics executive recommended the change to the Provost last month.

Suggestions for a new name included the Walton theatre for Ernest Walton, who is known for splitting the atom. Another possibility is that it be renamed after a female physicist.

In an email to physics students and staff at the time, Head of School Prof Jonathan Coleman said: There was a diversity of opinion on how the School and College should react, but it was clear that a large majority of both staff and students now favour changing the name of the lecture theatre in the Fitzgerald Building that has borne his name since the 1990s.

A petition lobbying for the change has raised over 200 signatures.

In a survey conducted by third-year theoretical physics class representative Ruaidhr Campion, almost two-thirds of undergraduate physics students said they wanted the lecture theatre to be renamed.

Coleman added: Naming it for another person could well be seen as a tainted honour after it had been previously been named for such a controversial person as Schrdinger.

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Schrdinger Theatre to be Named 'Physics Lecture Theatre' The University Times - The University Times

August 26, 2011 Posted by Madhu

The key difference between quantum physics and quantum mechanics is that quantum physics is a branch of science that focuses on quantum mechanics whereas quantum mechanics is the set of principals used to explain the behaviour of matter and energy.

People use the terms quantum physics and quantum mechanics with different meanings. Although we sometimes use these terms to describe the same thing, there is a difference between quantum physics and quantum mechanics. We can identify quantum physics as a branch of science that study theories like quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. In other words, mechanics is a set of theories we study in the branch of science known as physics.

1. Overview and Key Difference2. What isQuantum Physics3. What isQuantum Mechanics4. Side by Side Comparison Quantum Physics vs Quantum Mechanics in Tabular Form5. Summary

Quantum physics is a branch of science that focuses on systems explained by theories such as quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Scientists and researchers focus on this area in order to use this knowledge to understand the behaviour of particles at the subatomic level. However, sometimes we use the terms quantum physics and quantum mechanics interchangeably.

Quantum mechanics is the set of principle that explains the behaviour of matter at atomic (or subatomic) scale. The word quantum itself describes a fundamental concept of quantum mechanics the quantized or discrete nature of matter and energy.

Quantum mechanics was born when Max Plank introduced the concept of quantized energy (E =nhf) to explain the blackbody thermal radiation. Then, Einstein came up with the concept of photon to explain the particle nature of light. It led to a theory known as wave-particle duality, which describes the possession of both wave and particle qualities by matter and energy. Louis de Broglie introduced this concept.

Fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics also include Bohr models to describe atomic structure by Niels Bohr, Schrdinger equation (widely used equation to calculate quantum waves) byErwin Schrdinger, uncertainty principle (which explains the probabilistic nature of matter and energy) by Werner Heisenberg, and Pauli Exclusion Principle by Wolfgang Pauli. The explanation known as Copenhagen interpretationand the phenomenon known as quantum entanglement also belong to the quantum mechanics.

Quantum physics is a major branch of science while quantum mechanics is a branch of quantum physics. So, the key difference between quantum physics and quantum mechanics is that quantum physics is a branch of science that focuses on quantum mechanics whereas quantum mechanics is the set of principals that explain the behaviour of matter and energy.

Furthermore, quantum physics can predict and describe the properties of a physical system while quantum mechanics can describe properties of molecules, atoms and subatomic particles regarding the interactions between them and with electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, this is the difference between quantum physics and quantum mechanics in terms of their usage.

Although we use the terms quantum physics and quantum mechanics interchangeably, they are different from each other. The key difference between quantum physics and quantum mechanics is that quantum physics is a branch of science which focuses on quantum mechanics whereas quantum mechanics is the set of principals that explains the behaviour of matter and energy.

1. Squires, Gordon Leslie. Quantum Mechanics. Encyclopdia Britannica, Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc., 3 Aug. 2018, Available here.

1. 3871213 (CC0) via Pixabay

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Difference Between Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics ...

Max Planck is sometimes considered the father of quantum theory

In the first half of the 20th Century, a whole new theory of physics was developed, which has superseded everything we know about classical physics, and even the Theory of Relativity, which is still a classical model at heart. Quantum theory or quantum mechanics is now recognized as the most correct and accurate model of the universe, particularly at sub-atomic scales, although for large objects classical Newtonian and relativistic physics work adequately.

If the concepts and predictions of relativity (see the section on Relativistic Time) are often considered difficult and counter-intuitive, many of the basic tenets and implications of quantum mechanics may appear absolutely bizarre and inconceivable, but they have been repeatedly proven to be true, and it is now one of the most rigorously tested physical models of all time.

One of the implications of quantum mechanics is that certain aspects and properties of the universe are quantized, i.e. they are composed of discrete, indivisible packets or quanta. For instance, the electrons orbiting an atom are found in specific fixed orbits and do not slide nearer or further from the nucleus as their energy levels change, but jump from one discrete quantum state to another. Even light, which we know to be a type of electromagnetic radiation which moves in waves, is also composed of quanta or particles of light called photons, so that light has aspects of both waves AND particles, and sometimes it behaves like a wave and sometimes it behaved like a particle (wave-particle duality).

An obvious question, then, would be: is time divided up into discrete quanta? According to quantum mechanics, the answer appears to be no, and time appears to be in fact smooth and continuous (contrary to common belief, not everything in quantum theory is quantized). Tests have been carried outusing sophisticated timing equipment and pulsating laser beams to observe chemical changes taking place at very small fractions of a second (down to a femtosecond, or 1015 seconds) and at that level timecertainly appears to be smooth and continuous. However,if time actually is quantized, it is likely to be at the level of Planck time (about 10-43 seconds), the smallest possible length of time according to theoretical physics, and probably forever beyond our practical measurement abilities.

It should be noted that our current knowledge of physics remains incomplete, and, according to some theories that look to combine quantum mechanics and gravity into a single theory of everything (often referred to as quantum gravity see below), there is a possibility that time could in fact be quantized. A hypothetical chronon unit for a proposed discrete quantum of time has been proposed, although it is not clear just how long a chronon should be.

One of the main tenets of quantum theory is that the position of a particle is described by a wave function, which provides the probabilities of finding the particle at any number of different places, or superpositions. It is only when the particle is observed, and the wave function collapses, that the particle is definitively located in one particular place or another. So, in quantum theory, unlike in classical physics, there is a difference between what we see and what actually exists. In fact, the very act of observation affects the observed particle.

Another aspect of quantum theory is the uncertainty principle, which says that the values of certain pairs of variables (such as a particles location and its speed or momentum) cannot BOTH be known exactly, so that the more precisely one variable is known, the less precisely the other can be known. This is reflected in the probabilistic approach of quantum mechanics, something very foreign to the deterministic and certain nature of classical physics.

This view of quantum mechanics (developed by two of the originators of quantum theory, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg), is sometimes referred to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Because the collapse of the wave function cannot be undone, and because all the information associated with the initial possible positions of the particle contained in the wave function is essentially lost as soon as it is observed and collapsed, the process is considered to be time-irreversible, which has implications for the so-called arrow of time, the one way direction of time that we observe in daily life (see the section on The Arrow of Time).

Some quantum physicists (e.g. Don Page and William Wootters) have developed a theory that time is actually an emergent phenomenon resulting from a strange quantum concept known as entanglement, in which different quantum particles effectively share an existence, even though physically separated, so that the quantum state of each particle can only be described relative to the other entangled particles. The theory even claims to have experimental proof recently, from experiments by Ekaterina Moreva which show that observers do not detect any change in quantum particles (i.e. time foes not emerge) until becoming entangled with another particle.

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, mentioned above, is not however the only way of looking at it. Frustrated by the apparent failure of the Copenhagen interpretation to deal with questions like what counts as an observation, and what is the dividing line between the microscopic quantum world and the macroscopic classical world, other alternative viewpoints have been suggested. One of the leading alternatives is the many worlds interpretation, first put forward by Hugh Everett III back in the late 1950s.

According to the many worlds view, there is no difference between a particle or system before and after it has been observed, and no separate way of evolving. In fact, the observer himself is a quantum system, which interacts with other quantum systems, with different possible versions seeing the particle or object in different positions, for example. These different versions exist concurrently in different alternative or parallel universes. Thus, each time quantum systems interact with each other, the wave function does not collapse but actually splits into alternative versions of reality, all of which are equally real.

This view has the advantage of conserving all the information from wave functions so that each individual universe is completely deterministic, and the wave function can be evolved forwards and backwards. Under this interpretation, quantum mechanics is therefore NOT the underlying reason for the arrow of time.

Quantum gravity, or the quantum theory of gravity, refers to various attempts to combine our two best models of the physics of the universe, quantum mechanics and general relativity, into a workable whole. It looks to describe the force of gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics, and represents an essential step towards the holy grail of physics, a so-called theory of everything. Quantum theory and relativity, while coexisting happily in most respects, appear to be fundamentally incompatible at unapproachable events like the singularities in black holes and the Big Bang itself, and it is believed by many that some synthesis of the two theories is essential in acquiring a real handle on the fundamental nature of time itself.

Many different approaches to the riddle of quantum gravity have been proposed over the years, ranging from string theory and superstring theory to M-theory and brane theory, supergravity, loop quantum gravity, etc. This is the cutting edge of modern physics, and if a breakthrough were to occur it would likely be as revolutionary and paradigm-breaking as relativity was in 1905, and could completely change our understanding of time.

Any theory of quantum gravity has to deal with the inherent incompatibilities of quantum theory and relativity, not the least of which is the so-called problem of time that time is taken to have a different meaning in quantum mechanics and general relativity. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, devised by John Wheeler and Bruce DeWitt back in the 1970s. Their attempt to unify relativity and quantum mechanics resulted in time essentially disappearing completely from their equations, suggesting that time does not exist at all and that, at its most fundamental level, the universe is timeless. In response to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, some have concluded that time is a kind of fictitious variable in physics, and that we are perhaps confusing the measurement of different physical variables with the actual existence of something we call time.

While looking to connect quantum field theory with statistical mechanics, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking introduced a concept he called imaginary time. Although rather difficult to visualize, imaginary time is not imaginary in the sense of being unreal or made-up. Rather, it bears a similar relationship to normal physical time as the imaginary number scale does to the real numbers in the complex plane, and can perhaps best be portrayed as an axis running perpendicular to that of regular time. It provides a way of looking at the time dimension as if it were a dimension of space, so that it is possible to move forwards and backwards along it, justas one can move right and left or up and down in space.

Despite its rather abstract and counter-intuitive nature, the usefulness of imaginary time arises in its ability to help mathematically to smooth out gravitational singularities in models of the universe. Normally, singularities (like those at the centre of black holes, or the Big Bang itself) pose a problem for physicists, because they are areas where the known physical laws just do not apply. When visualized in imaginary time, however, the singularity is removed and the Big Bang functions like any other point in space-time.

Exactly what such a concept might represent in the real world, though,is unknown, and currently it remainslittle more than a potentially useful theoretical construct.

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Quantum Time Exactly What Is Time?

Einstein was no stranger to mathematical challenges. He struggled to define energy in a way that acknowledged both the law of energy conservation and covariance, which is general relativitys fundamental feature where physical laws are the same for all observers.

A research team at Kyoto Universitys Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics has now proposed a novel approach to this longstanding problem by defining energy to incorporate the concept of entropy. Although a great deal of effort has gone into reconciling the elegance of general relativity with quantum mechanics, team member Shuichi Yokoyama says, The solution is shockingly intuitive.

Einsteins field equations describe how matter and energy shape spacetime and how in turn the structure of spacetime moves matter and energy. Solving this set of equations, however, is notoriously difficult, such as with pinning down the behavior of a charge associated with an energy-momentum tensor, the troublesome factor that describes mass and energy.

The research team has observed that the conservation of charge resembles entropy, which can be described as a measure of the number of different ways of arranging parts of a system.

And theres the rub: conserved entropy defies this standard definition.

The existence of this conserved quantity contradicts a principle in basic physics known as Noethers theorem, in which conservation of any quantity generally arises because of some kind of symmetry in a system.

Surprised that other researchers have not already applied this new definition of the energy-momentum tensor, another team member, Shinya Aoki, adds that he is also intrigued that in general curved spacetime, a conserved quantity can be defined even without symmetry.

In fact, the team has also applied this novel approach to observe a variety of cosmic phenomena, such as the expansion of the universe and black holes. While the calculations correspond well with the currently accepted behavior of entropy for a Schwarzschild black hole, the equations show that entropy density is concentrated at the singularity in the center of the black hole, a region where spacetime becomes poorly defined.

The authors hope that their research will spur deeper discussion among many scientists not only in gravity theory but also in basic physics.

Reference: Charge conservation, entropy current and gravitation by Sinya Aoki, Tetsuya Onogi and Shuichi Yokoyama, 2 November 2021, International Journal of Modern Physics A.DOI: 10.1142/S0217751X21502018

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Einstein Finally Warms Up to Quantum Mechanics? The Solution Is Shockingly Intuitive - SciTechDaily

Almost anytime physicists announce that theyve discovered a new particle, whether its the Higgs boson or the recently bagged double-charm tetraquark, what theyve actually spotted is a small bump rising from an otherwise smooth curve on a plot. Such a bump is the unmistakable signature of resonance, one of the most ubiquitous phenomena in nature.

Resonance underlies aspects of the world as diverse as music, nuclear fusion in dying stars, and even the very existence of subatomic particles. Heres how the same effect manifests in such varied settings, from everyday life down to the smallest scales.

In its simplest form, resonance occurs when an object experiences an oscillating force thats close to one of its natural frequencies, at which it easily oscillates. That objects have natural frequencies is one of the bedrock properties of both math and the universe, said Matt Strassler, a particle physicist affiliated with Harvard University who is writing a book about the Higgs boson. A playground swing is one familiar example: Knock something like that around, and it will always pick out its resonant frequency automatically, Strassler said. Or flick a wineglass and the rim will vibrate a few hundred times per second, producing a characteristic tone as the vibrations transfer to the surrounding air.

A systems natural frequencies depend on its intrinsic properties: For a flute, for instance, they are the frequencies of sound waves that exactly fit inside its cylindrical geometry.

The Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler solved the equation describing a system continuously driven near its resonant frequency in 1739. He found that the system exhibited various and wonderful motions, as he put it in a letter to fellow mathematician Johann Bernoulli, and that, when the system is driven precisely at the resonant frequency, the amplitude of the motion increases continually and finally grows out to infinity.

Driving a system too hard at the right frequency can have dramatic effects: A trained singer, for instance, can shatter a glass with a sustained note at its resonant frequency. A bridge resonating with the footsteps of marching soldiers can collapse. But more often, energy loss, which Eulers analysis neglected, prevents the motion of a physical system from growing unchecked. If the singer sings the note quietly, vibrations in the glass will grow at first, but larger vibrations cause more energy to radiate outward as sound waves than before, so eventually a balance will be achieved that results in vibrations with constant amplitude.

Now suppose the singer starts with a low note and continuously glides up in pitch. As the singer sweeps past the frequency at which the wineglass resonates, the sound momentarily grows much louder. This enhancement arises because the sound waves arrive at the glass in sync with vibrations that are already present, just as pushing on a swing at the right time can amplify its initial motion. A plot of the sound amplitude as a function of frequency would trace out a curve with a pronounced bump around the resonant frequency, one thats strikingly similar to the bumps heralding particle discoveries. In both cases, the bumps width reflects how lossy the system is, indicating, for instance, how long a glass rings after it is struck once, or how long a particle exists before it decays.

But why do particles behave like humming wineglasses? At the turn of the 20th century, resonance was understood to be a property of vibrating and oscillating systems. Particles, which travel in straight lines and scatter like billiard balls, seemed far removed from this branch of physics.

The development of quantum mechanics showed otherwise. Experiments indicated that light, which had been thought of as an electromagnetic wave, sometimes behaves like a particle: a photon, which possesses an amount of energy proportional to the frequency of the associated wave. Meanwhile, matter particles like electrons sometimes exhibit wavelike behavior with the same relation between frequency and energy.

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How the Physics of Resonance Shapes Reality - WIRED

It was the last class of my last semester of my last year in college.The course was the theory of quantum physics and, although it was more than four decades ago, I never have forgotten my bespectacled philosophyprofessor with his thick, black, curly hair standing at the front of the classroom, back when we still used chalk and leisure suits were in style.

He was my kind of teacher, part poet, part showman, and all fun. He had the right skill set to teach non-science majors like me about the importance of physics, not the calculations and numbers, but the theorem that the world can be seen in different dimensions.

Opinion/Ng: Decorated Green Beret reports for duty as Journal's new veterans columnist

Before you graduate, he said to us, I have one final assignment for you.

Some people believe that the solutions to our problems are in the future, yet to be discovered, I recall him saying. Others believe those solutions are rooted in our past, in our history. What do you think is the answer? And with that …, he said, bowing and lowering his outstretched arms as if he were taking acurtain call, …I will leave you with thatfinal riddle.

And off into the world I went.

Of course, the purpose of the riddle was not to find an answer but to examine how we think and how we look atchallenges in life, and to understandthat our conclusion, like those ink-blotted Rorschach tests, says more about who we really are than what we actually see right there in front of us.

So, my answer is history.

Opinion/Ng: For a RI doctor and me, it's only three degrees of separation instead of six

When I first moved to Providence, I could not help but notice that many of the restaurants and shops in downtown taped signs in the windows.Black Lives Matter. Justice for George Floyd. Justice for Breonna Taylor. The call and the passion for racial justice were there in open view, and I learned that my new town did not shy away from the issue but instead embraced it.

To mark Black History Month,I searchedour archives at The Providence Journal on issues related to Rhode Islands history on race, its sins and atonement.

In 2006, The Journal published a 15-part series called Rhode Island and The Slave Trade that detailed how some of our now most-heralded communities Newport, Bristol and Narragansett were bastions of forced labor of human beings brought here in chains. It includes stories about how some of the states forefathers brutalizedliving souls who, to the owners, were no more than possession thathappened to be made of flesh and blood.

But it also outlines how evenin the 1770s a debate was raging in Rhode Island on the morality of slavery, if not its legality.For even in 1787, when Rhode Island outlawed slave trading, the trafficking did not stop.Nearly half of the states slave voyages occurred after trading was banned, with much of the trade relocating from Newport to Bristol.

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The stain of slavery cannot be wiped clean, even if we fill a library full of books about that grim chapter.But remembering that history is a first step.

Our reporter Amy Russo wrote in November 2021 how Brown University released an updated editionof a study examining its ties to slavery more than a decade after it had alreadyacknowledged its complicity in slavery and conceded that the university's prosperity was tainted.

The legacy of slavery is thatit is asin that keeps on taking. But it also affords us the opportunity for redemption.

Amy reported that same monthhow the Providence Preservation Society conceded that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, centuries after the first slave ships set sail from Rhode Island, it had played a role in the displacement ofresidents, mostly African Americans and people of Cape Verdean descent, from the area once known as Lippitt Hill, in the name of historic preservation.

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For the article, Amy tracked down those from a generation displaced by gentrification. "The entire East Side was decimated," Deborah Johnson told Amy, remembering how her world was upended when she was only 11. "It felt to me like it happened overnight.Swoop! Gone."

But in the hopes of righting a wrong, the Preservation Society said it would now diversify its board and advisory committees and assist people of color. It cannot undo the past, but perhaps it can help chart a new future.It's one step, with the promise of many more to come.

Our State House reporter Patrick Anderson has been tracking the two-year effortto implement voters' decision to shortenthe state's namefrom"State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" to "Rhode Island." But printing up new stationeryis one thing; scrubbing words that are literally carved into stone on a building is another.The analogy cannot be ignored. Some sins are not easily erased.

Still, it is one step.

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Voices more eloquent than mine have valued the lessons of history.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana, philosopher.

"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts." Edward R. Murrow

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

So yes, my answeris history.

David Ng is executive editor of The Providence Journal. Email him atdng@providencejournal.com.

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Opinion/Ng: As we observe Black History Month, what RI's past sins can teach us - The Providence Journal

The Big Bang is, for most, the beginning of all science questions about the universe and the mind and all that Many dislike the Big Bang because, while it is makes the best sense of the universe, it implies that there is a God. What are the arguments either way?

Some see the Big Bang as engineered, though not by a divine Mind.

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, argued in Scientific American last October that advanced aliens engineered the Big Bang and that, when we humans are sufficiently advanced, we will create other universes as well. Loebs hypothesis is not logically stranger than the many that attempt to account for the Big Bang without underlying information/intelligence.

It does not appear that the Big Bang had a natural beginning. It was the beginning. Before it, there was nothing at all, which is a hard concept for us to grasp. In a debate with naturalist philosopher David Papineau, theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor described it as an effect with no physical cause. Despite their other differences Papineau agreed with that.

Some have argued that there were multiple Big Bangs, each building on the ashes, so to speak, of the last. University of Birmingham philosophy prof Alastair Wilson attempts to explain the concept poetically, relying on cosmologist Roger Penrose,

For a philosopher of science, Penroses vision is fascinating. It opens up new possibilities for explaining the Big Bang, taking our explanations beyond ordinary cause and effect. It is therefore a great test case for exploring the different ways physics can explain our world. It deserves more attention from philosophers.

For a lover of myth, Penroses vision is beautiful. In Penroses preferred multi-cycle form, it promises endless new worlds born from the ashes of their ancestors. In its one-cycle form, it is a striking modern re-invocation of the ancient idea of the ouroboros, or world-serpent. In Norse mythology, the serpent Jrmungandr is a child of Loki, a clever trickster, and the giant Angrboda. Jrmungandr consumes its own tail, and the circle created sustains the balance of the world. But the ouroboros myth has been documented all over the world including as far back as ancient Egypt.

The ouroboros of the one cyclic universe is majestic indeed. It contains within its belly our own universe, as well as every one of the weird and wonderful alternative possible universes allowed by quantum physics and at the point where its head meets its tail, it is completely empty yet also coursing with energy at temperatures of a hundred thousand million billion trillion degrees Celsius. Even Loki, the shapeshifter, would be impressed.

Well, it sounds grand but, once we take our explanations beyond ordinary cause and effect, we lose the power of logic to evaluate them.

Neurologist Steven Novella offers another approach. Also hat tipping cosmologist Roger Penrose, outlines a theory by which the universe could have come about from nothing without a beginning by asking us to reimagine what nothing means. Perhaps there cant be nothing but the fact that the universe is expected to wind down until it undergoes heat death may be, he considers, a way out:

Perhaps the laws of reality (the metaverse, whatever) simply do not allow for a state that we would understand as completely nothing. We think of nothing as simply the absence of stuff, of matter and energy, but perhaps its more complicated than that. It may simply be impossible for there to be truly nothing in that simplistic sense. This, of course, deals with the ultimate nature of reality, where physics borders metaphysics.

What if the maximally expanded and cold universe mathematically approaches the identical state as the singularity that resulted in the Big Bang? Again, our human minds limited by the frame of the Earth cannot wrap around this concept, but we can crunch the numbers. At some point the heat death universe becomes a singularity, and then starts another cycle of the universe. If you want to really blow your mind, some physicists even speculate that this would be the same universe. Not another version of the same matter and energy, but the actual same universe in space and time. Essentially the end of the universe and the beginning of the universe are the same moment in time, the universe loops back in on itself in one giant self-contained temporal cycle.

The universe would then be temporally finite but unbound (Stephen Hawking discussed this in his book, A Brief History of Time). The best analogy is a ring, we just keeping going around the ring forever, but there is no true beginning or end. In this concept there is no beginning or end, there is no before, there is just a bound infinite loop. This solves the something from nothing problem, because the universe did not come from anything, it just always was. This still leaves us with the deeper question why is there something instead of nothing, but that may not be a useful line of inquiry.

In that case, the matter that makes up the universe must be assumed to be an eternal Something.

Novella places his trust in mathematics but its hard to know if we should trust mathematics if he is right.

In the beginning, the Lord created the heavens and the earth is a simpler explanation in that it has the advantage that God is not considered to be either the universe or part of the universe. Eternal existence is simply part of the nature of God. But that makes more sense for God than for the universe.

The non-theistic explanations are colorful but it is not clear that they solve problems. Rather, they demonstrate the difficulty we have imagining absolutely nothing.

You may also wish to read:

Freebits: An interesting argument from the Big Bang for free will There are two types of uncertainty, we learn, only one of which could create free will. Astrobiologist Caleb Scharf argues that information isnt just a way to probe the fundamentals of nature; it may be part of the fundamentals.

and

Round 3: Egnor vs Papineau: The Big Bang has no natural beginning, In the debate between theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and naturalist philosopher David Papineau, the question gets round to the origin of the universe itself. Egnor maintains that the Big Bang, which is held to have created the universe, is an effect with no physical cause. Papineau agrees.

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How Easy Is It To Imagine Absolutely Nothing? - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Jonathan Logan

Editor in Chief

Audio drama and motion picture tell a story in two very different forms. The radio adaptation of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds is an audio drama that most people are familiar with, after its airing on CBS Radio in 1938 convinced many listeners Earth was under alien attack. Audio dramas counterpart, silent films, make do without sound, just as compelling audio drama makes do without visual information.

Both mediums take advantage of sensory deprivation by going without either audio or visual stimuli. Apple TVs Calls, directed by Fede Alvarez, merges both audio and visual drama by withholding exact visual information and restricting the viewer to hear only phone calls between two people. The nine episode series tells the story of an apocalyptic event through a series of phone calls that cross timelines and make viewers scream at their screens as a star-studded cast, including Rosario Dawson and Pedro Pascal, acts out their roles to a tee. The phone calls are played over visceral, synth-style visuals that allow the mind to build its own world.

The show starts out at the end. Time advances at a rate of one second per second for all of us together, but Calls wants us to ask questions about our own individual timelines. What if there is always a beginning and an end to our stories that could be accessed not via any direct experience, but by phone calls? Without direct experiences involving their five senses (or however many humans might have) the characters go through the same sensory deprivation we, the viewers, go through. A simple phone call from one character to another turns into a mind-voyage as an unexplained anomaly connects people to other timelines, to their past or future selves and to loved ones. They can only use words to talk to the confused person on another timeline as they both try to make sense of an end-of-times event that they dont realize they are directly involved in!

Most science fiction stories today treat quantum mechanics and parallel universes like the Staples button (that was easy). When stories need to explain a phenomenon science cant explain, they throw quantum foam onto an already sloshy ocean in the hopes that well never see deeper than the surface. Calls does not do this. Instead of slapping the quantum Staples button and using parallel universe jargon, it asks us to believe in many worlds, in other possibilities. Instead of trying to prove that many worlds exist, the show, via character Dr. Wheating, gives viewers a simple thought experiment: imagine that a persons entire life exists on another train (world) that left the station (being born) just before your train (your world) left the station. Of course, the same is true for past versions of their life.

Calls forces you to tap into a resonant sense you never knew you had in an attempt to make up for the lack of directly experiencing other train rides. The characters inability to directly access these other worlds can be explained by not being able to jump from one train to another. Trains can also accelerate, meaning our timelines get out of phase with other timelines. In some episodes, a character will call a loved one or a friend three or four times in the span of just 20 minutes for them, but because worlds can be out of phase, they end up talking to their loved ones or friends for what is to them 20 years or more.

To compensate for the anomaly that is connecting people to their past and future timelines, the Universe kills whomever they talk to. By the last episode, so many people have accessed their other lives via phone calls that the Universe (or Many Worlds, if you believe) becomes chaotic and threatens to eliminate the entire human race for breaking the laws of physics.

But thats not what this show wants viewers to think. Physics is lame. Instead, it dives into the personal tragedies that lead the characters to make the decisions they do. They are museums of decisions. Their lives are ephemerides of emotion, and when they cross paths with another timeline via phone calls, they simultaneously recognize all of their mistakes while also changing the course of an entire world. Sure, were all just drops in an ocean, but Calls makes you feel like a ripple.

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