Thinking Like a Greek

We live in an age of specialization and compartmentalization. Science, religion, mathematics, politics, philosophy, and literature are separate fields of study. Each of these has dozens of sub-categories with their own terminologies and modes of thinking.

However, the ancient Greeks

didn't make a distinction between philosophy and science, nor did they recognize the range of disciplines such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, etc. that we do today. There simply wasn't the depth of knowledge and range of information that later made separate disciplines practical. In the Greek era, one individual could be an expert in several fields.

The splintering of knowledge makes it difficult to recognize patterns that may cross knowledge silos. More importantly, some believe that there is a deeper underlying reality to the universe that is understood only piecemeal by experts in their respective specialties. No human being has yet fully grasped, much less been able to explain to his fellow creatures, such a reality.

In a book to be released this Tuesday, Professor of theoretical physics Heinrich Päs ponders the "One."

his book proposes, rather than a definitive answer, an exploration of both the mind-bending conclusions of modern physics and the long history of the beguiling notion of a unifying, universal fabric. His book proves a heady mix of history, philosophy and cutting-edge theory that is fascinating, provocative and at times infuriating.

I'm a sucker for these books that explain the nature of the universe, where it came from and where it's going. If the writer presumes to discuss the nature of man, then I must resist the temptation to tell him to stay in his lane, which in this case is theoretical physics. He's thinking like an ancient Greek.

Comforted by Limitation

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek reflects upon the "deeply strange" nature of carbon- or radioactive-dating. [bold added]

What makes radioactive nuclei such ideal clocks is that they are reliably unreliable. An isotope’s half-life can be determined accurately by observing lots of decays. For instance, radioactive carbon, which is used to date organic material, has a half-life of about 5,700 years. But it’s impossible to predict when any individual nucleus will decay. In fact, an individual nucleus is a kind of anti-clock: It does not register the passage of time at all. There is no observable difference between old and young nuclei.They remain ideally young, we might say, until they suddenly and explosively die. By monitoring decays within this homogeneous population we measure time statistically, with confidence.

(Graphic from toppr)

In other words scientists can very accurately predict the behavior of a large group of atoms but cannot tell how a single atom will behave.

Of course, it's very easy to analogize this principle of quantum physics to the science of human behavior.

The study of the behavior of groups and whole societies has made significant advancements, but the Holy Grail seems to be predicting how an individual will behave; an immense amount of data has already been stored about each human being who owns a cellphone.

From his eye movements, demographic characteristics, and social networks it would be logical that an algorithm could predict what a person was going to buy, who he would vote for, and whom he will marry.

But hooray for free will, which the ancients said limits the omniscience of a Deity or which moderns might say will constrain the emerging singularity.

If scientists are having difficulty predicting the decay of a single carbon atom, then they are sure to have trouble with a human being. Despite my admiration for science and progress, I am comforted by that idea.

What Makes It Tick

Scientists are devising ever-more-accurate methods to measure time:

WSJ Gif: best if viewed
with recreational substances

Today’s cutting-edge clocks are based on measuring the vibrations of atoms and molecules. The most precise atomic clocks are so accurate that, over a period of time equivalent to the whole history of the universe to date, they would be off by less than one second.

Today’s quantum horologists are looking to improve things further. For instance, it might be possible to monitor atomic nuclei, which vibrate faster than whole atoms.

Despite the scientific advancements, we're no closer to understanding time's essence. However, there is consensus on several of time's properties: [bold added]

Most physicists agree that time had a beginning, and that it is measured from, and indeed came into being with, The Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago. Whether, how and when time might end in the future is a more open question, depending on different notions of the ultimate fate of the universe and other mind-bending concepts like the multiverse.

(Image from medium.com)

The so-called arrow of time refers to the one-way direction or asymmetry of time, which leads to the way we instinctively perceive time as moving forwards from the fixed and immutable past, though the present, towards the unknown and unfixed future. This idea has it roots in physics, particularly in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, although other, often related, arrows of time have also been identified.

Our extremely precise methods of measuring time are akin to counting the wrinkles in Einstein's brain. We can observe and record all the data we want, but we're no closer to finding out what makes it tick.

Back to the Universe

A bargain even in 2001: 2 Hawking books plus pictures at a cost of $9.99.

Pi is an irrational number (3.14159265.... goes on forever to the right of the decimal point without repeating a sequence), and it's somehow fitting that one of the leading examples of human rationality, physicist Stephen Hawking, died on "Pi Day" (3.14) in England.

I took a crack at his best-seller, A Brief History of Time, when it first came out in 1988 but didn't have the discipline to read it (skimming a technical text is not considered reading, by the way). I had better luck in 2001 when it was reissued with pictures and diagrams. Here is an excerpt from the chapter entitled The Arrow of Time:

In a quantum theory of gravity, as we saw in the last chapter, in order to specify the state of the universe one would still have to say how the possible histories of the universe would behave at the boundary of space-time in the past. One could avoid this difficulty of having to describe what we do not and cannot know only if the histories satisfy the no boundary condition: they are finite in extent but have no boundaries, edges, or singularities. In that case, the beginning of time would be a regular, smooth point of space-time and the universe would have begun its expansion in a very smooth and ordered state. It could not have been completely uniform, because that would violate the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. There had to be small fluctuations in the density and velocities of particles. The no boundary condition, however, implied that these fluctuations were as small as they could be, consistent with the uncertainty principle.

The universe would have started off with a period of exponential or "inflationary" expansion in which it would have increased its size by a very large factor. During this expansion, the density fluctuations would have remained small at first, but later would have started to grow. Regions in which the density was slightly higher than average would have had their expansion slowed down by the gravitational attraction of the extra mass. Eventually, such regions would stop expanding and collapse to form galaxies, stars, and beings like us. The universe would have started in a smooth and ordered state, and would become lumpy and disordered as time went on. This would explain the existence of the thermodynamic arrow of time.

The above passage may be somewhat abstruse, but by the time the reader encounters it on page 191 Professor Hawking has already discussed thermodynamics, space-time, quantum mechanics, gravity, and the origin of the universe, all prerequisites to this discussion. He was a brilliant theoretician, writer, and teacher. R.I.P.

Time:

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist,” Hawking said of the meaning of life. “Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

Fake Cosmology

(Photo from the Indie Spiritualist)

I don't think--but am not absolutely sure--that this is a parody from the Onion.

Quantum physicist Amit Goswami (his name itself invites skepticism) said: “We Honestly Have No F*****g Idea What We’re Doing”.

Excerpts:

We have been just winging it to tell you the truth...Seriously, I haven’t a clue what’s going on. Either does anyone else in my field. We keep proving stuff that never actually happened...

Over the years there have been just a handful of us pretending to know something about the universe that no one else does, but this is all lies to feed the charade. I’ve had some great times during the years; travelling the world, and giving talks on our pretend finds...

I found out a long time ago that everything can be proven with a mathematical equation. Now, I mean everything; from unicorns, fire-breathing dragons, God and even the G-spot. None of it is true. Me and the handful that know the truth have been riding the Quantum Physicist celebrity wave for quite some time now, but it must end – before someone gets hurt.

Quantum physics has always been unfathomable to common folk with assertions like:
1) a cat can be both dead and alive;
2) particles separated by vast distances can "spookily" affect each other instantaneously.
3) light is both a wave and a particle.

(By Sam Hollingsworth)

An old saw, but true: when somebody with knowledge and authority tells you something that doesn't make sense, don't accept it unquestioningly.

Now that everything's on the table, I personally am intrigued by a cosmological idea rumored to originate from Dr. Goswami's native country: it's turtles all the way down.

No Brakes

(Graphic from University of Cambridge)

Discoveries are generally greeted with cheer, but, if the invention is powerful enough the reaction is often fear (for example, Oppenheimer's reaction when he witnessed the destructive force of the first nuclear explosion).

We may be facing such a turning point in history with the development of artificial intelligence, married with the speed of quantum computing. To this humble blogger it's not at all comforting that the leader in quantum computing is Google, possessor of one of the largest data troves on individual behavior.

In a small lab outside Santa Barbara, Calif., stocked with surfboards, wetsuits and acoustic guitars, [physicist Hartmut] Neven and two dozen Google physicists and engineers are harnessing quantum mechanics to build a computer of potentially astonishing power. A reliable, large-scale quantum computer could transform industries from AI to chemistry, accelerating machine learning and engineering new materials, chemicals and drugs.

“If this works, it will change the world and how things are done,” says physicist Vijay Pande, a partner at Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has funded quantum-computing start-up Rigetti Computing.

Two years ago Google changed its corporate motto from "Don't be evil" to "Do the right thing." Two comments: 1) the history of the world is replete with villains--even mass murderers--who thought they were doing the right thing. 2) I much prefer an ethic of restraint--not to do evil--than one that purports to guide the powerful, for who really will tell them what they're doing is wrong?

It's a new generation who may not be familiar with Lord Acton:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely

Quantum Biology

The 21st century has been christened the century of biology. That's a safe prediction, given the advances in chemistry, engineering, and data processing--not to mention biology--but the solution to the thorniest problems may just lie in quantum physics.

(UC-Berkeley image)

Quantum theory posits the duality of matter in particle and wave forms, describes how seemingly dissociated bodies affect each other (quantum entanglement), and disavows objective truth in favor of probabilities.

Quantum biology purports to explain puzzling phenomena, such as how plants developed high efficiencies of energy transfer in photosynthesis. Some theorists even speculate that it provides a scientific basis for consciousness. Such enthusiasm may seem far-fetched to the vast majority of people--including your humble observer--who are not quantum physicists, but as those physicists are wont to say, all things are possible.

Quan-trepreneurship

"Infinity Machine" sounds like over-hype
...but what if it's not?

Time Magazine's cover story is about, potentially, one of the most important inventions of the 21st century. The quantum computer is

so radical and strange, people are still trying to figure out what it's for and how to use it. It could represent an enormous new source of computing power--it has the potential to solve problems that would take conventional computers centuries, with revolutionary consequences for fields ranging from cryptography to nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals to artificial intelligence.

The technology sounds like gibberish to the layperson, including your humble correspondent. If you, dear reader, are conversant with the italicized terms, you are a smarter person than I:

An adiabatic quantum computer works by means of a process called quantum annealing. Its heart is a network of qubits linked together by couplings. You "program" the couplings with an algorithm that specifies certain interactions between the qubits--if this one is a 1, then that one has to be a 0, and so on. You put the qubits into a state of quantum superposition, in which they're free to explore all those 2-to-the-whatever computational possibilities simultaneously, then you allow them to settle back into a classical state and become regular 1's and 0's again. The qubits naturally seek out the lowest possible energy state consistent with the requirements you specified in your algorithm back at the very beginning. If you set it up properly, you can read your answer in the qubits' final configuration.

Other physics concepts that would-be quan-trepreneurs need to be familiar with are quantum entanglement and quantum tunneling.

Not one in ten thousand people can explain any of them; nevertheless, somewhere in their back offices the wizards of Wall Street have already started drafting the IPO documents.