I just got some good news. The conflict between quantum physics and relativity over who rules the world is that relativity supposedly doesn't allow for quantum entanglement. Maybe this is a problem for relativity, but it's not a problem for me. For starters, quantum entanglement happens, whether or not relativity allows it. For twosies, I wonder if this problem is a result of perhaps the greatest feat of human imagination suddenly becoming too rigid once it had some rules in place.
Okay, now I'll back up (I didn't want to keep you waiting for the good news). Quantum entanglement, as you may know, is the name for the connection between two subatomic particles that causes them to instantly react to changes in the other. By changes, I mean a change in their spin. I always took this to mean no more or less than the direction in which they are spinning, but in the book I'm reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson- very much up to the Bryson standard- he refers to it as a "property called spin" which made me think that perhaps there is more to it. Anyway, the more important word in that sentence for our purposes is instantly. Changes of subatomic particles in response to their partners (electrons are most commonly cited, but I think the same holds true for positrons and other little guys that they don't bother with in high school chemistry) may be the only thing in the universe that is truly instant.
A website might advertise that it responds instantly to changes in the weather, the score, the world, whatever, but what it means is that when a relevant piece of information changes, a person or a computer inputs the change, and then some more computer things happen, and pretty soon, the website reflects the change. Sometimes people say that a person reacted instantly, but what they mean is that a thing happened, and the person's senses processed it, and very soon after, for a human anyway, the person did something in response. A wrecking ball hitting a building damages it just as soon as the force transfers over to the building, which takes such a short amount of time, that you probably don't notice it, but time passes nonetheless.
Change the spin of an electron though, its quantum entangled sibling changes INSTANTLY. This ruffled more than a few feathers of the birds examining the world of the smallest (most notably that Einstein guy). The reason for the trouble is due to two- maybe three, but we'll get to that- assumptions. The first is that nothing no way no how can go faster than the speed of light. It's not just that our rockets aren't awesome enough yet, it's that our universe apparently has a speed limit. The second assumption is that the particles must be passing a message between them, but if that were true, the message can go faster than the speed of light (people did eventually get around to proving this with entangled particles that were miles apart).
Like I said, this is a problem for relativity, but not for me. Relativity is concerned with mechanics- what makes particles bounce and spin in just the way that they do- I am concerned with ideas. From what I understand, entanglement has not been explained so much as accepted. My feeling is that 1) you eventually have to get to that point when you are trying to explain the universe. It might even be a goal. 2) This one may be beyond our ability to explain mechanically, at least for now. Perhaps there are strings that connect the particles that are undetectable to us, or, and here's where my allegiances lie most comfortably, maybe we just need to get our heads around the idea that the two particles are better described as one thing.
Science is better built for reductionism than holism, even when it's just a tiny iota of holism. It's not a molecule, it's a bunch of atoms! It's not an atom, it's a nucleus with an electron cloud! It's not a nucleus, it's protons and neutrons, and it's not those either, it's a bunch of quarks! The word "molecule" is often more efficient than useful than something like "a set of atoms that are stuck together," but it wouldn't be considered more accurate. Describing things by group saves time, not precision.
In the case of entangled particles, perhaps "one entanglement" is more precise than "two electrons." Maybe there doesn't have to be a signal between the two electrons because you are not just changing one electron, you are changing one entanglement. You could argue that this is avoiding the problem by redrawing the lines so you can't see it, but I would counter that it's the previous set of lines that cause it. Finding new lines and improving on the old ones is pretty much what science is all about.
So why was it good news that the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and relativity is essentially the entanglement problem? Well, I'd heard a while ago that these two systems were incompatible, and that made me sad. I wanted everything with quantum mechanics to be okay, and if it conflicted with relativity, than it didn't mean it was wrong, it just meant that something was wrong. But like I may have mentioned, the entanglement problem is no problem of mine.
That meant I was free to love quantum mechanics without reservation, and I do really love quantum mechanics. My attitude toward the world has always been absurdist. This is a style, but it's also a position. Absurdity touches my soul more than rationality does. Rationality is about rules and decisions, and these give the world some structure, both in our minds and out of them, but on some level I always understood them to be arbitrary. Useful, functional, purposeful, helpful, whatever else-ful, but not capital-r Right.
Absurdity touched deeper for me, but rationality always seemed to win. In the end I just seemed to be discarding reality for Hamlet's nutshell, and I would often dead-end there not entirely sure how it happened.
So imagine my delight, when these headlines made it into my sphere of academia:
Science fact! Electrons can blip out of space in one place and back in somewhere else without occupying the space in between! Science fact! It is completely impossible to know both an electron's trajectory and location! You can only know one or the other, almost as if, they don't exist at the same time! Science fact! Measuring a particle can change it! Not the mechanics of the measurement, the fact that it was measured! THE FACT THAT IT WAS MEASURED!!! WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSE IS THIS!?!?!?!
I'm not going to try to unpack all of that right now, but learning it caused a delightful explosion of many of my fundamental assumptions about the world. It's one of science's greatest triumphs, and to me, it was a reminder that somehow absurdity always gets the last laugh.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Three stories involving hitch-hiking in faraway places.
In Ecuador, I had my first and so far only experience hitch-hiking. The first time I stuck out my thumb I tried to get a look at the driver first. Rookie mistake. Even a car bumping down a dirt road can't notice you and react fast enough to let you in. Also, the driver tends to want to get a look at you first. With hitch-hiking, they get to check you out, but all you know about the person you get is that they are willing to pick up a hitch-hiker. In our case, they weren't just willing, they were thrilled.
We were on our way back from a bird-of-prey reserve when it started raining. We had walked there, which had taken at least half an hour, and now it was getting a little chilly and wet. Why not, we thought. After my first abortive I summoned up the courage to try this without any idea who was going to stop. The first car did. It was a mini truck with an open back, which we were told to hop in. We couldn't really see our driver and his passenger, but we could see the people who trailed us the whole way and were tremendously amused by the whole thing.
After a bumpy and entertaining ride back to town, our driver pulled over to let us out, but actually they were on their way to a famous waterfall, and would we like to join them? Sure. Off we went. It turned out our car was part of a three car caravan, including the grinners behind us. They had an American exchange student behind us. It's kind of sad, all I really remember about him is that he was a Republican. I think he was from Indiana, and an Engineering/Spanish student, but that part I'm less sure of.
The waterfall was great. Later we mentioned that to our Amazonian guide and he asked us if we could feel the energy of the waterfall. I had. It was lovely and powerful. Afterward we were asked if we had time for lunch. We did. They took us to some restaurant that had fast-food decor (plastic trays and tables, you order at the counter, there were overly-colorful pictures of the food), but also had a little of that TGIFriday's thing of "This is a special place. Orange you lucky to be here."
The family was kind, spoke good English, were good conversationalists, had political opinions, and would not let us pay a dime for lunch. They made fun of us for trying.
I had a student in Japan who I didn't really like for at least my first few months of teaching him. He seemed too corporate, too salary-man. I was also a nervous teacher when I started, and he did not seem to appreciate this. He was my student for my entire year there, and eventually I got to know him. Over time, he became more interesting to me, more human. I remember his face, and one or two things he said and the general sound of his voice- little else. One time, toward the end of my stay there, he told me about hitch-hiking to Hokkaido after he graduated. It sounded amazing. It implied a freedom of spirit that I didn't much associate with him or Japan. That night, I was walking home from Ragbag, a trek of a little over an hour that I made every week, and I casually stuck my thumb out as cars passed me. I didn't make a real effort, I wasn't quite brave enough, but it was a long walk, and... his name escapes me, but he made me want to try.
Ragbag nights became the anchor of my week in Japan. Every Thursday I would stay on the Keikyu line one extra stop and go meet my buddies there. We would order pitchers, exchange books and CDs, get drunk enough to wipe away the week up to that point and provide a partial midweek reset. At some point, Carl would say, "Anyone feeling peckish?" and we would order the special pizza. The special pizza had a collection of toppings that freak out people with normal pizza sensibilities. Corn, shrimp, and more that I can't remember. Later I found out that the special pizza was not on the menu, and we were the only people that ordered it. It started half as a joke one night, when they were out of a lot of menu items, but Ryo, our friendly bartender, told the crew he'd whip up a "special pizza."
If it was someone's last Ragbag night we would do shots. On mine, I went to the bar to order them and Ryo asked if someone was leaving. I told him I was, and asked if he'd like to join us. He did. He sat next to me and said, "I'm going to tell you the most beautiful word in the Japanese language. It is 'Sayonara.' It means 'goodbye,' 'so long,' 'farewell,' 'good luck,' 'see you later...' all of these in one word."
In Hawaii, I was in a two car caravan. We spotted a mother and daughter hitch-hiking. Our car was in front, and was the more likely of the two to pick up hitch-hikers. It was also full, so we couldn't. Our driver, however, made the either bold or presumptuous decision to stop a little ways past the hitch-hikers, effectively forcing the car behind us to pick them up. I didn't interact with the hitch-hikers, but I heard from the other car that they claimed to be aliens who liked Earth best out of all the planets, and also apparently needed a ride to the beach.
We were on our way back from a bird-of-prey reserve when it started raining. We had walked there, which had taken at least half an hour, and now it was getting a little chilly and wet. Why not, we thought. After my first abortive I summoned up the courage to try this without any idea who was going to stop. The first car did. It was a mini truck with an open back, which we were told to hop in. We couldn't really see our driver and his passenger, but we could see the people who trailed us the whole way and were tremendously amused by the whole thing.
After a bumpy and entertaining ride back to town, our driver pulled over to let us out, but actually they were on their way to a famous waterfall, and would we like to join them? Sure. Off we went. It turned out our car was part of a three car caravan, including the grinners behind us. They had an American exchange student behind us. It's kind of sad, all I really remember about him is that he was a Republican. I think he was from Indiana, and an Engineering/Spanish student, but that part I'm less sure of.
The waterfall was great. Later we mentioned that to our Amazonian guide and he asked us if we could feel the energy of the waterfall. I had. It was lovely and powerful. Afterward we were asked if we had time for lunch. We did. They took us to some restaurant that had fast-food decor (plastic trays and tables, you order at the counter, there were overly-colorful pictures of the food), but also had a little of that TGIFriday's thing of "This is a special place. Orange you lucky to be here."
The family was kind, spoke good English, were good conversationalists, had political opinions, and would not let us pay a dime for lunch. They made fun of us for trying.
I had a student in Japan who I didn't really like for at least my first few months of teaching him. He seemed too corporate, too salary-man. I was also a nervous teacher when I started, and he did not seem to appreciate this. He was my student for my entire year there, and eventually I got to know him. Over time, he became more interesting to me, more human. I remember his face, and one or two things he said and the general sound of his voice- little else. One time, toward the end of my stay there, he told me about hitch-hiking to Hokkaido after he graduated. It sounded amazing. It implied a freedom of spirit that I didn't much associate with him or Japan. That night, I was walking home from Ragbag, a trek of a little over an hour that I made every week, and I casually stuck my thumb out as cars passed me. I didn't make a real effort, I wasn't quite brave enough, but it was a long walk, and... his name escapes me, but he made me want to try.
Ragbag nights became the anchor of my week in Japan. Every Thursday I would stay on the Keikyu line one extra stop and go meet my buddies there. We would order pitchers, exchange books and CDs, get drunk enough to wipe away the week up to that point and provide a partial midweek reset. At some point, Carl would say, "Anyone feeling peckish?" and we would order the special pizza. The special pizza had a collection of toppings that freak out people with normal pizza sensibilities. Corn, shrimp, and more that I can't remember. Later I found out that the special pizza was not on the menu, and we were the only people that ordered it. It started half as a joke one night, when they were out of a lot of menu items, but Ryo, our friendly bartender, told the crew he'd whip up a "special pizza."
If it was someone's last Ragbag night we would do shots. On mine, I went to the bar to order them and Ryo asked if someone was leaving. I told him I was, and asked if he'd like to join us. He did. He sat next to me and said, "I'm going to tell you the most beautiful word in the Japanese language. It is 'Sayonara.' It means 'goodbye,' 'so long,' 'farewell,' 'good luck,' 'see you later...' all of these in one word."
In Hawaii, I was in a two car caravan. We spotted a mother and daughter hitch-hiking. Our car was in front, and was the more likely of the two to pick up hitch-hikers. It was also full, so we couldn't. Our driver, however, made the either bold or presumptuous decision to stop a little ways past the hitch-hikers, effectively forcing the car behind us to pick them up. I didn't interact with the hitch-hikers, but I heard from the other car that they claimed to be aliens who liked Earth best out of all the planets, and also apparently needed a ride to the beach.
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