Programmed Reality

Tachyons, entanglement, cold fusion, dark matter, galactic filaments.  Just when you thought physics couldn't get any stranger...

- THE VERY COLD: Fractional Quantum Hall Effect: When electrons are magnetically confined and cooled to a third of a degree above absolute zero (See more here), they seem to break down into sub-particles that act in synchronization, but with fractional charges, like 1/3, or 3/7.

- THE VERY HIGH PRESSURE: Strange Matter: The standard model of physics includes 6 types of quarks, including the 2 ("up" and "down") that make up ordinary matter.  Matter that consists of "strange" quarks, aka Strange Matter, would be 10 times as heavy as ordinary matter.  Does it exist?  Theoretically, at very high densities, such as the core of neutron stars, such matter may exist.  A 1998 space shuttle experiment seems to have detected some, but repeat experiments have not yielded the same results.

- THE VERY LARGE DIMENSIONAL: Multidimensional Space: String theories say that we live in a 10-dimensional space, mostly because it is the only way to make quantum mechanics and general relativity play nicely together.  That is, until physicist Garrett Lisi came along and showed how it could be done with eight dimensional space and objects called octonions.  String theorists were miffed, mostly because Lisi is not university affiliated and spends most of his time surfing in Hawaii.

- THE VERY HOT: Quark-Gloun Plasma: Heat up matter to 2 trillion degrees and neutrons and protons fall apart into a plasma of quarks called quark-gluon plasma.  In April of 2005, QGP appeared to have been created at the Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

My view on all this is that it is scientific business as usual.  100 years ago, we lived in a smaller world; a world described solely by Newtonian Mechanics, our ordinary everyday view of how the world works.  Then, along came relativity and quantum mechanics.  Technological advances in laboratory equipment and optics allowed us to push the limits of speed and validate Relativity, which ultimately showed that Newtonian Mechanics was just an approximation of the larger, more encompassing theory of Relativity at slow speeds.  Similarly we pushed the limits of probing the very small and validated Quantum Mechanics, which showed that Newtonian Mechanics was just an approximation of the larger, more encompassing theory of Quantum Mechanics at large scales.  In the 1960's, we pushed the limits of heat and energy, discovered  and found that our Quantum Mechanical / Relativistic Theory of the world was really just an approximation at low temperatures of a larger theory that had to encompass Quantum Chromodynamics.  Now, we are pushing the limits of temperature, or the slowing down of particles, and discovering that there must be an even larger theory that describes the world, that explains the appearance of fractional charges at extremely low temperatures.  Why does this keep happening and where does it end?

Programmed Reality provides an explanation.  In fact, it actually provides two.  

In one case, the programmers of our reality created a complex set of physical laws that we are slowly discovering.  Imagine a set of concentric spheres, with each successive level outward representing a higher level scientific theory of the world that encompasses faster speeds, higher temperatures, larger scales, colder temperatures, higher energies, etc.  How deep inside the sphere of knowledge are we now?  Don't know, but this is a model that puts it in perspective.  It is a technological solution to the philosophy of Deism.

The second possibility is that as we humans push the limits of each successive sphere of physical laws that were created for us, the programmers put in place a patch that opens up the next shell of discovery, not unlike a game.  I prefer this model, for a number of reasons.  First of all, wouldn't it be a lot more fun and interesting to interact with your creations, rather than start them on their evolutionary path and then pay no further attention?  Furthermore, this theory offers the perfect explanation for all of those scientific experiments that have generated anomalous results that have never been reproducible.  The programmers simply applied the patch before anyone else could reproduce the experiment.

Interestingly, throughout the years, scientists have fooled themselves into thinking that the discovery of everything was right around the corner.  In the mid-20th century, the ultimate goal was the Unified Field Theory.  Now, it is called a TOE, or Theory of Everything.

Let's stop thinking we're about to reach the end of scientific inquiry and call each successive theory a TOM, or Theory of More.

Because the only true TOE is Programmed Reality.  QED.

Tags: physics, programmed reality, cosmology, quantum mechanics, fractional quantum hall effect, strange matter, strangelets, multi-dimensions, string theory, quark-gluon plasma, quarks, qcd, quantum chromodynamics, toe, gut, grand unified theory, unified field theory, entanglement, cold fusion, tachyons, dark matter, galactic filaments
Categories: Cosmology | Future Tech | Particle Physics | Physics | Programmed Reality | Quantum Mechanics | Science

I remember the days when we were all amazed at the concept of a white dwarf star; the final evolutionary state of most stars after their gravitational collapse.  It can't collapse any further due to something called electron degeneracy pressure.  I always visualized it by imagining atoms jammed together to the point where their electron shells were nearly touching.  A white dwarf's density was such that a teaspoonful would weigh as much as an elephant.  They are about the size of the earth.

But there was an even more bizarre concept - the neutron star.  Still more dense, it was proposed by Baade and Zwicky in 1933, a year after the neutron was discovered.  For a star that has more mass than the Chandrasekhar limit, or 1.44 solar masses, when it collapses at the end of its life, its density is even enough to overcome the forces that hold a white dwarf together.  In the late 60's, one was actually observed and by the 70's, the concept was considered to be well accepted by most astronomers.  Neutron stars can't collapse any further due to the Pauli exclusion principle.  I always visualized it by imagining neutrons jammed together to the point where they were nearly touching.  A neutron star is maybe a billion times denser than a white dwarf.  They are about the size of Manhattan.

But then, I thought, what if the mass of the star was so large that even the neutrons collapsed into their constituents, quarks?  Well, I don't know if anyone else had such an idea and now, doing a little web research, I can't seem to put my finger on when such a concept was first proposed.  But I'm starting to see a buzz about quark stars.  In 2008, astrophysicists Denis Leahy and Rachid Ouyed proposed the quark star as the result of super-supernovae (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080603-aas-neutron-quark.html).  And now, astrophysicists from the University of Hong Kong have presented evidence of a quark star in super-supernova SN 1987A (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126964.700-quark-star-may-hold-secret-to-early-universe.html)

So, now I wonder, what next?  Quarks probably have their own sub-quark constituents.  String theorists say quarks are made of vibrating strings.  If so, could a massive enough star, or a dense enough hunk of matter overcome "quark degeneracy" and collapse into a "String Star?"  A star consisting of string material that is so compressed it can vibrate anymore?  

So I searched the web and am proud to say that I have found no such proposal.  So, I hereby claim it.  Someday, someone will lay claim to discovering a string star.  You heard it here, first.  :)

 

Tags: quark star, neutron star, cosmology, string theory, string star
Categories: Cosmology