The day the world stopped making sense

Well I might just be stating the obvious here, but just let me get this out first: WHHHHAAAAATTTTTT???

Alright, moving on.

1 neutrino. 1 experiment. 16,000 runs. 1 conclusion: somewhere along the line, someone screwed up. Now the question is who?

I'm not making much sense am I? Alright, here it is.

One of the most important concepts in modern physics is the fact that the maximum velocity (or is it speed? hmm that does put things into perspective...) that can be reached in the universe is 3 * 10^8 m/s or the speed of light or if you will, the speed reached by a photon in a vacuum. But a recent experiment done at CERN in conjunction with a lab in Italy revealed that when they sent a muon neutrino from one lab to the other, it had arrived 60 ns faster than light would have. And that does not make sense on so many levels. First of all, neutrinos have a mass (albeit a very small one) while photons do not. So inertia would predict that it is impossible to accelerate a particle so as to give it the speed of light because the more it is accelerated, the more massive it becomes, the more it will oppose further acceleration, etc. Also, at the speed of light, time is supposed to stop. Does that mean that by going faster, you go back in time? No, no, no! The faster you go, the more time contracts. But it can't contract more than 0....

So it all boils down to this: either the experiment at CERN was somehow flawed and the results are wrong, either Einstein screwed up and the last 100 years of physics need to be revised. Either way, an institution that I profoundly respect fails (because Einstein is an institution within himself!).

And this has nothing to do with the topic, but did you know that Einstein means "one stone" in German? One stone in the foundation of modern physics? One stone gone astray? One stone traveling through space-time at the speed of light?

Reason as the foundation of the universe?

I believe in reason. If I could have a religion in this world, it would probably be reason and logic. I also believe in the laws of physics, chemistry, biology and yes natural selection. I believe in evolution. Up until now, I never saw a contradiction between these beliefs. However, I recently read an article about a speech pronounced by the Cardinal Ratzinger (the current Pope) over 10 years ago and suddenly, my belief system started to develop internal contradictions. This is even more ironic considering that I don't believe in religion or in God. So, in that case, how can a religious argument make me, not doubt my previous beliefs, but somehow make me reorganize them. Well, I have to hand it to Ratzi (I think Ratzinger sounds cooler than Benedict... besides the fact that there were I don't know how many Benedicts before him so that makes him just another one in the pile, Ratzinger makes me think of a rat of the type that you find in the movie Ratatouille... cute, adorable and witty... but anyway, leaving aside the sacrileges and coming back to the subject at hand). Here is the excerpt of his speech that managed to shut up the die-hard scientist with a constant rebuttal in me (for a moment in any case):


La question qu'il faut poser ici, va à vrai dire plus en profondeur : il s'agit de savoir si la doctrine de l'évolution peut se présenter comme une théorie universelle de tout le réel, au delà de laquelle des questions ultérieures sur l'origine et la nature des choses ne sont plus permises ni même nécessaires, ou si de telles questions dernières ne dépassent pas au fond le domaine de la recherche ouverte aux sciences naturelles.
Je voudrais poser la question de façon encore plus concrète. Tout est-il dit avec un type de réponses tel que nous le trouvons par exemple chez Popper dans la formulation suivante : La vie comme nous la connaissons consiste en des "corps" physiques (mieux des processus et des structures), qui résolvent des problèmes.
C'est ce que les différentes espèces ont "appris" par la sélection naturelle, c'est-à-dire par la méthode de reproduction plus variation ; une méthode qui, de son côté, fut apprise selon la même méthode. C'est une régression, mais elle n'est pas infinie... En fin de compte il en va d'une alternative qui ne se laisse plus résoudre simplement par les sciences naturelles ni non plus au fond par la philosophie. Il en va de la question de savoir si la raison ou le rationnel se trouve ou non au commencement de toutes les choses et à leur fondement.
Il en va de la question de savoir si le réel a surgi sur la base du hasard et de la nécessité (ou, avec Popper, suivant Butler, du luck et cunning [heureux hasard et prévision]), et donc de ce qui est sans raison, si, en d'autres termes, la raison est un produit latéral accidentel de l'irrationnel et est finalement aussi insignifiant dans l'océan de l'irrationnel, ou si reste vrai ce qui constitue la conviction fondamentale de la foi chrétienne et de sa philosophie : In principio erat Verbum - au commencement de toutes les choses il y a la force créatrice de la raison. La foi chrétienne est aujourd'hui comme hier l'option pour la priorité de la raison et du rationnel.


Ouf you got me there Ratzi! So natural selection is based on random variation and adaptation. True. Natural selection is the basis of evolution. True. Evolution explains the origins of man. True. Man is a rational being. True (in most cases). Random variation, through its unpredictable nature and its reliance on chance alone, is the antithesis of reason. True. Therefore, reason was born from a lack of reason and is the accidental byproduct of an irrational universe. Based on that premise, Christianity is the embodiment of reason for it presents a world created by a rational being as opposed to an irrational universe who developed reason only as a side project.

Weeeeeeelll the beginning is good, my problem is with what follows next. You know, like the lack of an actual tangible and rational proof of your rational being? Or the lack of rational premises to your arguments? Anyway, leaving old arguments aside, Ratzinger is right on one thing. The main question here is whether reason is at the basis of the world. In a sense, this can seem a bit of a superfluous question for, pardon my familiar language, who the hell cares if the intent of our being here is rational or not as long as we are here, we are functional and we are rational and able to understand our origins. That would be judging the question a bit too quickly. In the same logic we could say why should we try to understand the functioning of the universe or of black holes or even the origins of the universe because it really doesn't affect us or our present condition. Because it's a mental exercise. It satisfies our natural curiosity. So bear with me here.

Anyway, coming back to the question at hand, is the origin or the universe rational or irrational? Well, if we accept evolution and quantum mechanics as some of the basic theories explaining our world, then we must also accept the conclusion that the universe spans from irrationality. This is further supported by chaos theories and the second law of thermodynamics which propose the increase of entropy as the universe evolves. Therefore, the universe is not organized and cannot be the product of reason. Reason is a glitch that somehow got inserted into the fabric of the cosmos and brought us, rational beings, at the top of the evolutionary curve. And you know, that does not diminish in any way the power or the appeal of reason. If it's not the basis of our origins, it is what got us here. It is what makes us special and different from the other components of nature. Note that this does not make us better than the rest of the food chain, for decisions made based on cold hard reason may end up being atrocious and make us seem more inhumane than a worm. And anyway, that pertains to another discussion.

Therefore, Ratzi, I disagree with your conclusion and your assumption that Christianity is rational because it proposes a rational view of the creation of the universe is preposterous if only for the reason that you assume that the universe must be rational from beginning 'till end. It is not. Sorry. But you get brownie points for trying!

As a side note (and I promise that with this I'm done), the ending of the article is really touching:


La tentative pour redonner, en cette crise de l'humanité, un sens compréhensif à la notion de Christianisme comme religio vera, doit pour ainsi dire miser pareillement sur l'orthopraxie et sur l'orthodoxie. Son contenu devra consister, au plus profond, aujourd'hui - à vrai dire comme autrefois - en ce que l'amour et la raison coincident en tant que piliers fondamentaux proprement dits du réel : la raison véritable est l'amour et l'amour est la raison véritable. Dans leur unité, ils sont le fondement véritable et le but de tout le réel.


The purpose of humanity is love and reason and in Christianity they form a whole. It's cute actually. And it kind of got me thinking that maybe a cold hard (true) reality is not preferable to a loving and caring (fake) reality. I know that in a previous post I talked about how humanity doesn't need Christianity anymore because its lessons have been absorbed into popular culture and the legal system (charity, the concept of not stealing or killing, social care, etc.). But maybe a society that believes too hard in the survival of the fittest can regress from these principles and go back to a caveman-like social and political organization. Anyway, I don't really have time to get into this, but it is a fascinating question that is worth exploring.

And that concludes my article. Happy Easter everyone!

Cosmic symphony

"La matière de l'univers procederait d'une symphonie de cordes vibrantes."

Brian Greene

J'aime l'idée comme quoi nous sommes une symphonie avec une musique primordiale qui pulse dans nos veines, une musique cosmique cristallisée et solidifiée en atomes, molécules et cellules, en organes, en corps et en sociétés, en planètes et en étoiles, en systèmes solaires et en galaxies. La toile du temps et de l'espace qui joue un concert pour l'éternité.



Bon maintenant parlant de façon moins mystique, ce que tout ça veut dire est que selon les dernières théories trouvées par les physiciens pour expliquer notre Univers se trouve la théorie des cordes (ou plutôt des supercordes... version améliorée et enrichie de vitamine C et de glucosamine de l'ancienne théorie). Alors selon cette théorie, tout ce que l'on voit autour de nous, à la base, n'est pas des électrons, des quarks, des photons ou des gluons (bah en fait si, mais ça revient un peu à dire que le monde est fait de molécules de glucose et d'hydrocarbures...c'est pas faux, mais c'est incomplet comme réponse). La matière de l'univers serait composée de minuscules cordes qui seraient à peu près de la longueur de Plank (10 à la -33 cm) et qui vibrent selon différentes fréquences. Et c'est cette vibration qui donnerait leurs propriétés aux particules qu'on observe dans la nature. C'est génial non? On est tous en train de vibrer constamment. Peut-être que mon prof de physique des ondes n'était pas tellement à coté de la plaque quand il racontait sa blague du gars qui demande à une fille si elle veut savoir sa longueur d'onde hahaha!

Mais bon je sais pas trop si cette théorie fait du sens ou pas. J'ai pas fini de me renseigner là-dessus, mais elle semble un peu trop tirée par les cheveux. J'ai pas regardé la mathématique derrière ça (une chance, parce que je risque de faire une commotion cérébrale après juste 2 lignes), mais ce qui me chicotte le plus c'est l'histoire de la longueur de Plank. Parce que, voyez-vous, un des plus grands problèmes de la physique théorique des dernières décennies était la réconciliation de la théorie de la relativité générale d'Einstein qui explique la force de gravité et le mouvement des astres, et la mécanique quantique qui décrit le monde des particules subatomiques. Et lorsqu'on combine ces deux théories, qui chacune est capable de décrire avec une grande précision les phénomènes de son propre domaine, eh bien c'est la catastrophe et plus rien ne fait de sens. Et pourquoi? Deux mots: principe d'incertitude (bon trois si on veut compter le déterminant). Le principe d'incertitude dont j'ai déjà parlé brièvement auparavant stipule que lorsqu'on descend à des grandeurs subatomiques, on ne peut pas mesurer la position et la vitesse d'une particule parce que la mesure d'une grandeur a pour effet de changer la deuxième. Et ceci s'applique aussi (ce qui nous intéresse plus dans ce cas) aux champs. On ne peut pas mesurer l'intensité d'un champ et son taux de variation. Et donc, ça implique que lorsqu'on prend une superficie d'espace et on l'amplifie jusqu'à tant d'arriver à des grandeurs subatomiques, et plus précisément, à une superficie avec un diamètre de la longueur de Plank, l'espace devient un lieu très instable à cause de ses fluctuations (petite explication est nécessaire ici: l'espace est baigné de champs qui sont liées à la toile d'espace-temps et dont on ne pourrait pas se débarrasser. Même le vide contient des champs avec la seule distinction que ces champs auraient une intensité zéro...et étant donné que dans le subatomique le principe d'incertitude est roi, une valeur de zéro ne veut rien dire si elle peut fluctuer d'un instant à l'autre tant que la moyenne reste autour de zéro bien sur). Donc l'espace-temps lisse, calme et uniforme d'Einstein devient un tourbillon d'incertitude lorsqu'on considère des petites grandeurs, rendant ainsi les deux théories complètement incompatibles (bon je ne vais pas rentrer dans les détails de pourquoi on voudrait mélanger les deux théories, mais ça a rapport avec le Big Bang et les trous noirs).

Et donc, comme par magie, la théorie des cordes élimine ce problème en mettant une fin à l'amplification qu'on peut faire à l'espace justement à la longueur critique?? En d'autres mots, c'est comme s'il y aurait une résolution maximale à l'espace (comme une photo qu'on agrandissait trop et qui devenait floue à cause du nombre insuffisant de pixels). D'une certaine façon peut-être qu'on est juste trop habitués à entendre que dans le monde de la physique tout est infini et toute limite paraît artificielle. C'est peut-être juste une conséquence de mon éducation. Mais la conclusion est que je la sens pas trop.

Quote of the month

Lorsque je contemple la réalité (ce qui existe à cet instant) j'imagine dans mon esprit comme un sorte de cliché, un instantané, une image mentale comme figée dans la glace, de tout l'Univers maintenant. En écrivant ces mots, mon idée de ce qui existe maintenant, mon idée de la réalité, se réduit à une liste de tous les événements qui, à cet instant, peuplent cette image mentale fixe - le tac de l'aguille de la pendule de ma cuisine qui indique minuit; mon chat figé en plein vol entre le bord de la fênetre et le plancher; les premiers rayons du Soleil illuminant les toits de Paris; le brouhaha à la bourse de Tokyo; la fusion de deux atomes d'hydrogène au coeur de notre Soleil; l'émission d'un photon dans la nébuleuse d'Orion; le dernier souffle d'une étoile près de s'effondrer en trou noir... Voilà les événements qui ont lieu en cet instant précis; […] mais gardons à l'ésprit la complication suivante. Une liste de l'instant présent - la réalité, si l'on en croit cette manière de voir les choses - est un drôle de truc. Rien de ce que l'on voit maintenant n'apparaît sur cette liste de l'instant présent, puisqu'il faut un certain temps à la lumière pour atteindre notre rétine. Tout ce que l'on voit maintenant a déjà eu lieu. […] Par conséquent, aussi étrange que cela puisse paraître, bien que l'image mentale comme figée dans la glace rassemble notre vision de la réalité, notre vision intuitive de "ce qui existe tout là-bas" n'est, quant à elle, constituée que d'événements que l'on ne peut ni expérimenter, ni modifier, ni même enregistrer à l'instant présent. En fait, notre liste de l'instant présent ne peut être réalisée qu'après les faits.

Everything that we see in this instant has already happened.

Brian R. Greene - The Fabric of the Cosmos

Quote of the (last) month

I kind of realized that I forgot to put a quote last month (bad bad me). So I thought I'd just put an extra one this month. Kind of like a two-for-one deal. Except I'm not trying to sell you anything. Unless you might consider that through this blog I'm selling my ideas, but that's more of a metaphor than anything else cause I'm not getting any money nor other benefits from this, other than the narcissistic pleasure of seeing my "thoughts" on a screen. And I am rambling...again...

I've been reading this book called First you build a cloud: and other reflections on physics as a way of life on and off for about 2 years now (I'll end up finishing it eventually) and it really is a wonderful piece of literature for the amateur physicist in you (or scientist in general). It is a very vague introduction to physics as it relates to our everyday life, but it is written in such a way as everyone can understand and I consider it to be a very pleasurable read (not to mention that it boosts up my ego when I discover all the stuff that I already know about physics...yes yes I'm an arrogant narcissist...shoot me).

This is a quote I discovered a couple of hours ago when I was reading in the metro on my way home and it struck me because it represents the epitome of my vision of the world (I think I was trying to explain this concept to my boyfriend at one point but it really didn't come out as great as this hahaha). And it's sort of poetic-ish...

"Whenever an infant is born, the dice, in the shape of genes and enzymes and the intangibles of chance environment, are being rolled again... Each one of us is a statistical impossibility around which hover a million other lives that were never destined to be born - but who, nevertheless, are being unmanifest, a lurking potential in the dark storehouse of the void."

Loren Eiseley

Doesn't it just contrast so nicely with Einstein's whole "God doesn't play dice with the universe"? Well, take that All! God DOES play dice with the universe (and when I say God, I mean the personification of all the natural forces and laws that make up our world, and not some invisible man in the sky watching our every move to make sure we're all good kids). Yes, as far as I see it, the world is merely one probability after another with the chances slightly tipped into one direction or another by natural laws and forces.

However, if the universe is simply a statistically determined chain reaction, we come to a sort of cause and effect vision of the world. And in that case, if everything has a physical cause, that had another physical cause, that had another physical cause and so forth until the beginning of time, up to what point is free will an actual part of our life?

I shall leave you with that question until my next post (because I'm frankly falling asleep in front of my monitor and I feel this might be a long discussion).

Endless Questions

What is a human being made of? Fundamentally I mean. If you go deep down to the basic elementary units of homo sapiens sapiens. What would you find? My answer would have been matter. Atoms. Neutrons, protons and electrons. Quarks. Photons. The same subatomic particles that make up the rest of the universe. But if this is the basis of what we are, then why are we different? Different concentrations? Different mixtures of these basic particles? Could be very plausible. After all, no two people have the exact same DNA.

But that still doesn't answer the initial question. What are we physically? You could say it's our atoms, but then again there's that theory that says that after 7 years each and every atom we had initially, has been exchanged by another identical one. So as we go about our day, we exchange a carbon atom for another, we leave an electron and pick up another one passing by, we exchange phosphate groups, so that after 7 years, there's nothing left of our original particles and then the cycle starts all over again.

But can we even say that there's a particular carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atom out there that is solely ours? I read in a book once (I think it was "First you build a cloud" if I remember correctly) that we are more like a wave than a structure by itself. Meaning that we are not so much constituted of individual particles, but by the links and the bonds between them. A wave is a vertical movement of particles and as it travels towards the shore (thus it travels horizontally), it constantly changes particles. But the movement that it confers to each new acquired particle is identical to that of each and every previous particle. Therefore, a wave is an independent entity with no material constitution. It is merely a repetition of patterns and movement. And that's what we are as well: a repetition of chemical reactions and bond formation. Nothing stays fixed and the only thing that stays constant is the pattern. In a way, we are like a dish that constantly recreates itself, but never changing the initial recipe.

So then where does our consciousness come from? What is so different between me, a cat and a lamp? Why can I think this very instant, the cat can only follow instincts and the lamp can't even move? Well you can say that the lamp is a solid and therefore cannot move even if it was conscious. Ok fine, what about water or mud then? They certainly have the capacity of movement, but they don't unless something interacts with them. Maybe it's like the formation of atoms. An extra proton and electron makes up an oxygen atom with completely different properties compared to nitrogen. So more is not only quantitative, but also qualitative. However, since a 25 story building is by far bigger and has more matter than me, but that still doesn't give it the ability to move or think (at least as far as we know), we could say that it is the complexity of the structure and not its size that brings about this fundamental difference.

However, that still doesn't convince me. A computer can be fairly complex but that doesn't give it a consciousness. In Western cultures, we associate consciousness and the ability to think with the brain. But animals have a brain or some sort of a nervous system and you don't see dolphins or dogs inventing the theory of relativity. What part exactly of our brain makes us different? And what is it about the brain that makes it so special to begin with? After all, it's just a bunch of chemical reactions that conduct an electrical current. Any house has a hellish amount of wires going through it plus whatever appliances we plug in and since here in Canada almost everything runs on electricity, in what sense is this different from a human brain (putting aside the fact that our brain has a lot more "wires" than a house)? What about our brain enables it to coordinate an entire body, all the while helping us interact with others in society and letting us reflect upon our existence and discover the world that surrounds us?

When I was in high school I learned in biology that a human being is made up of cells and in chemistry that the basic building blocks of matter are atoms (which then make up molecules). But these two views seemed contradictory and somehow I was missing the link between them. Then I took a course in molecular biology and finally, upon studying the cell, I found out that cells are made up of molecules and thus atoms, and the connection between the two was made and these different views of the world were reunited. In the same way, I am now trying to relate the physical existence of the brain, which is that of molecules, chemical reactions and electrical currents, to the more esoteric, but nonetheless real existence which is the consciousness and the ability to form thoughts.

Somehow, I feel like the consciousness is to the brain what virtual particles are to a proton in physics. But at the same time, I have a hard time believing that this reasoning can go beyond the level of a metaphor since there's no Uncertainty Principle for objects as big as a brain (hell, even a cell is too big to fit in the Uncertainty Principle) and therefore that excludes the possibility of a virtual particle for the brain. And even if it were possible, the only resemblance between a virtual particle and a conscience is their lack of material existence and nothing more (though, now that I think about it, some virtual particles have mass so even that doesn't hold true).

On the other hand, the exchange of virtual particles makes up a force and therefore has the power to pull particles together. So maybe consciousness is an exchange. One of my chemistry teachers once told me that energy was represented by movement (as abstract as that may seem...and anyway I was never fully satisfied with that explanation) and I always thought that the formation of thoughts was actually a connection that was made between two neurons. However, how those connections are formed I have no clue. You could say that they are influenced by our outside surroundings and the signals that we collect through our senses, but then could you say that the only difference between an ordinary person like myself and Einstein is our experiences? Somehow I find that doubtful since there was nothing extraordinary about the life Einstein lead. Then can we say that some people are predestined to be geniuses? Is it in our DNA? But then how is that expressed in our phenotype? Because DNA is useless unless it's expressed in some sort of physical form, be it a protein or an eye color. So then how is the DNA of a genius expressed? Does he have a bigger brain or more neuron connections?

I can't give any definitive conclusions on this topic since all I can do is come up with hypotheses. However, this is what I find so fascinating about the human brain. We can see it, we can touch it, we can cut it up in pieces, we can put it under a microscope, but even with all that, we still know less about it than about subatomic particles which can only be studied through collisions in a cyclotron and through an analysis of electromagnetic traces on a sheet.

The 5 Phases of growth and random physics grumble

Cred ca lebedele dirijeaza autoruta de langa conditile de coordinare a scociului rosu colaborativ and the speed of life is 300 m/s.