Category Archives: Science

Mountain Pine Beetles, and Political Polarization, Subvert American Greatness

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Ten men have presided from the oval office during my life.

Of all 45 US presidents, only four grace the granite outcrops of Mount Rushmore: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

Before I hypothesize which of my ten are most likely to earn a giant bust overlooking the dying forests of South Dakota, I have a question: Why isn’t Franklin Delano Roosevelt already up there? Our longest serving, and arguably greatest president’s absence on Mount Rushmore mystifies me.

I’ll get to the focus of this piece, soon, but first, let me share an episode from my honeymoon, last summer: Returning to Iowa from of our meandering journey through the mountain west, we stopped for a few nights in western South Dakota, and during one day, we hiked on a rugged trail near the shadow of Mount Rushmore.

My wife, a Kenyan national, was in the midst of immigration; I had never visited Mount Rushmore: We hoped a pilgrimage to the foot of the great American monument might garner some good luck to her immigration proceedings.

me-n-g_MR1 - 2

The volume of dead trees leaning at perilous angles, and littering the ground produced a post-apocalyptic visage that clashed with the mood of our romantic trek across mid-America.

Mountain pine beetles continue to ravage forests across the western USA. The insects leave behind a fungus after burrowing into bark to lay eggs. The fungus interferes with a tree’s ability to distribute water and nutrients: Eventually, after a few weeks of attack, a tree starves.

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Mountain pine beetle. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Services.

Frequent droughts since the 90’s deprived trees of water and further weakened their defenses against pine beetle intrusion. Lower frequency of cold winters allowed a greater survival rate for pine beetles. More warm days over several years allowed a succession of longer breeding cycles further increasing the pests’ population.

The large number of rotting trees threaten to fuel a fire, given a timely spark. It’s strange I should suggest building another giant sculpture on Mount Rushmore when the federal government isn’t capable of funding an effort to clear away a large hazard to South Dakota’s tourist industry, and the regional ecosystem.

If viewing Mount Rushmore requires passing through an expansive wasteland, in the near future, there may not be enough visitors to view any proposed additions to one of USA’s greatest memorials. But, assuming there is still a collective psych, and fiscal will, to add another face to Mount Rushmore, my logic for and/or against my ten presidents follows:

Lyndon B. Johnson  He essentially quit by refusing the Democrat’s nomination in 1968. He retreated to his Stonewall, Texas ranch, chased by a leftist revolt: LBJ captured little of the Kennedy’s idealistic verve, and his constituency turned on him because of his support of the Vietnam War.

It’s unlikely he would have been elected president in 1964 without the tragic assassination of his boss, so it’s remote that he’ll ever have his face carved into Mount Rushmore.

His legislative prowess influencing passage of civil rights laws is impressive and favor his longterm value, but his perceived deficiencies are likely to forever outshine his accomplishments.

Richard Nixon  If a high IQ were the only consideration, it’s probable Nixon could score in the top five of all presidents, and lead my ten’s intellectual power ranking. Unfortunately, for him, he’s the only POTUS forced from office, so far. Nixon has zero chance of gracing (Should I say tainting?) Mount Rushmore.

Gerald Ford  A decent man and steady public servant. Ford was a fundamentally boring man, who failed to win his only presidential election. His association with, and pardon of, Nixon renders him ineligible for Mount Rushmore.

Jimmy Carter  Unfortunately for Carter, Mount Rushmore projects images of two revolutionaries; a former colonel who first achieved fame leading a charge up a hill during an unnecessary and aggressive war; and the man whose orders led to untimely, often violent, deaths for over half a million Americans.

Appeasing, and avoiding war with a newly minted Islamic Republic (Iran) is unlikely to even long-list Carter for Mount Rushmore. We shouldn’t expect too much from Carter. He inherited mission impossible: Nixon’s resignation would have doomed even the most talented politician running for presidential reelection so soon after Watergate.

Ronald Reagan  He bestrode USA’s political landscape the entirety of my teen years, and his presence carried over into my time in college under the governance of his chosen successor.

Opposition politics seemed like a waste of energy during the Reagan era because of his reelection mandate in 1984—Reagan won every state except his opponent’s home.

election-84

Reagan exerted power and influence unlike any other Cold War politician.

With the Reagan mythology initiated during the Clinton Administration that continues to metastasize under Trump’s peculiar banner, Reagan’s memory-turned-legend demonstrates the kind of mystique necessary to earn a bust on the South Dakotan pantheon.

Not to mention, Reagan’s tough talk at the USSR is in line with the four aggressive personalities already on Mount Rushmore.

Love him, or hate him—and it’s often one extreme, or the other—Reagan is the most probable addition to Mount Rushmore among my ten.

George HW Bush  He was the best moderate politician of my lifetime, but he’ll always be remembered as Reagan’s wimpy backup. Since there’s no logical path to sculpt Reagan and the first Bush on Mount Rushmore, we can write off HW. It’s a shame because he impressed with his ability to make the UN function properly as the New World Order congealed after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Bill Clinton  Possibly the most talented politician since FDR. Unfortunately for Clinton, the waning years of the twentieth century yielded no significant challenges for the baby boomer political prodigy to navigate.

It’s a pity Clinton and Bush II couldn’t switch historical circumstances: The placid historical waters of the 90’s suited a “compassionate conservative” like W; imagine how great Clinton could have been if he had a real crisis during his administration. Clinton’s handling of 9/11 would have certainly amazed historians, and probably, even his contemporary detractors.

Unfortunately, we’ll remember Clinton most for his female associations: detailed, over publicized infidelities in the corridors of power, and, even more, for his marriage to the first woman nominated by a major party, but, shockingly, lost to Trump.

Clinton is another write off for Mount Rushmore.

George W. Bush  Creating a Jeffersonian democracy, by force of arms, between the Tigris and Euphrates was ambitious, bordering on quixotic; of course, if this ever succeeds in any meaningful way, W’s bust will overlook the fruited plain, posthaste.

We won’t know the full effects of invading Iraq for several decades, or centuries. Perhaps USA won’t even exist in the same way once we feel the full brunt of consequences initiated by W’s Mesopotamian maneuvers. It seems Bush II will go down in infamy, or praised as a visionary.

I suspect George W. Bush’s presidency will escape definitive, unbiased classification for the remainder of my life; so I won’t speculate his odds of scoring a spot on Mount Rushmore.

Barrack Obama  Post-racial America fizzled, and regressed—Perhaps racial nirvana was a hope-laden illusion?—but Spockish 44 will look savory in Chaotic 45’s historical wake.

Although Obama, during his second term, imitated Carter’s Iran weakness in Syria, Obama will always be the first US president that wasn’t a white male (this assumes we never discover evidence that another president before Obama was black). Obama’s racial classification seems irrelevant according to modern political correctness, but when looking at Obama through the larger prism of several centuries of presidential history, his election should be a significant turning point.

Obama would be the most passive personality on Mount Rushmore, but we can’t possibly know how the first black president looks in the grand sweep of US history from the viewpoint of 2117, or 2217. If we plan to recognize the political progress of black people in America with an eternal presence on Mount Rushmore, Martin Luther King, Jr. seems like a superior candidate—I’m sure Obama would agree. But, MLK’s lack of a presidential pedigree would make him a bit out of place, so it’s unlikely he could do an end run on Obama.

The Affordable Care Act seems expensive to many of our contemporaries; availing quality healthcare for all humans will be a no-brainer, soon, I hope. If government—or some other surrogate on the cusp of existence—ultimately provides health care for all citizens, the ACA will be landmark legislation. Obamacare in tandem with being the first non-white male elected president makes Obama a probable addition to Mount Rushmore.

Let’s call Obama a dark horse—no pun intended—to earn a bust next to his ideological predecessor, Abraham Lincoln.

Donald J. Trump  If our current president lives up to his detractors, Trump may be distinguished as the last white male POTUS. In that light, we could view Mount Rushmore as a memorial to USA’s faded (Perhaps I should say explosively self-destructive?) era of white supremacy. If that’s the case, and Mount Rushmore eventually becomes a monument to a debunked social hierarchy, Trump is a safe bet for the last spot on Mount Rushmore.

After less than 100 days in office, it’s difficult to say if Trump does or does not have what it takes to get a bust on Mount Rushmore, but if he does, and he has some influence over the construction, he’ll certainly ask for a bigger face. Maybe he’ll manufacture a steel reinforced concrete sculpture on top of the current monument.

In my opinion, the last ten presidents produced two bonafide candidates for future sculptures on Mount Rushmore: Obama and Reagan; both seem worthy according to my arguments above.

Unfortunately, few of my compatriots are capable of simultaneously appreciating the merits of Reagan and Obama. Those who advocate for the greatness of Obama, demonize Reagan. A modern day US citizen who lights a candle at Reagan vigils, believes Obama embodied an existential threat on par with the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

In the currently polarized atmosphere of US politics, it may be difficult to muster the kind of community spirit necessary to develop a common narrative to honor another president on Mount Rushmore.

All the while, mountain pine beetles thrive at the expense of American greatness.

Similar post: An Evolving Universe III—The Insurgent

Stars on Earth

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Sun worship is at least as old as the Great Pyramids. It’s tough to trace the development of sun deities in Egypt and other ancient cultures, and it’s even more difficult to say for certain how sun worship continues to influence modern theology, and science. Here is one of many possible depictions of Ra–apparently, the first Ancient Egyptian sun god:

ra

At some point, Ra combined with the sky god Horus:

horus

Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to streamline the Egyptian pantheon to a single god, Aten:

aten

Akhenaten was King Tut’s father. Akhenaten attempted what appears to be a revolutionary theological simplification; he even moved the ancient Egyptian capital to facilitate a complete cultural transformation. Akhenaten failed to convince his people of the need to abandon all the other deities, and after his reign, Ancient Egypt returned to a more traditional pantheon.

Sun worship wasn’t confined to the fertile crescent: Spanish conquistadors found the Aztecs paying homage their version of the sun god, Huizilopochtli. The Aztecs practiced mass human sacrifice on the conquered tribes that circumscribed their borders. It seems Huizilopochtli had a flair for ornamental fashion:

huitzilopochtli

The Aztecs apparently believed Huizilopochtli died each day at sunset evidenced by the blood stained western sky. Huizilopochtli needed large volumes of human blood to facilitate his rebirth the following morning. This is one of the more interesting theologies I’ve encountered during my slapdash study of religion, archaic and modern. Unfortunately, it’s also the most frightening:

human_sacrifice

Modern science confirms the importance of the sun. Our star makes up over 99% of the solar system’s mass. Earth’s free energy is based on photosynthesis. The calories that power human activity, initially made an eight minute journey across the vacuum of space as photons (particles of light), and then, plants converted the light into more usable energy. Eventually, that energy worked it’s way up through the food chain.

What is the sun, scientifically? The sun is one of billions of stars in our galaxy, The Milky Way. Our galaxy is one of billions in the universe. There are approximately a billion trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) stars in the universe. Many are similar to our sun; most are different. All stars are similar in one way: They fuse hydrogen atoms to generate even more energy; immense quantities of heat energy raise the temperature and push together hydrogen atoms.

Most observable mass in the universe is concentrated in nuclei. Hydrogen is the most common type of atom; a large portion of the universe’s mass looks something like this hydrogen atom:

hydrogenatom

Actually, it doesn’t really look anything like that, but it’s a great model that helps us predict how hydrogen behaves, which is a primary goal of science.

If we add a lot of energy to a large concentration of hydrogen, the electrons escape the nuclei creating a mixture of charged particles, positive and negative, called plasma. It’s important to recognize that a hydrogen nucleus and a proton are essentially the same thing. There are other possible nuclear arrangements for hydrogen; we call them isotopes, but most hydrogen is protium.

hydrogen_1-2-3

It’s common for hydrogen to concentrate at distant intervals in space and time. As hydrogen concentrations grow under gravitational pressure, their temperatures increase. Temperature is a measure of how fast the particles move in a substance. (The specifically correct definition of temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance, but that’s not important to discuss here.)

Protons, like all charged particles, repel other particles, or groups of particles, with positive charge. Protons exert forces on each other that keep them from “touching”each other. As the protons move faster and faster, they get closer and closer. Eventually, they move so fast that they “touch”.

Protons and neutrons inhabit the nucleus, so they are termed nucleons. Nucleons have a kind of velcro covering their surface. Do nucleons really have velcro on them? No. Nucleons don’t have surfaces the way we experience them with our senses. We’re constructing a model that will help us predict behaviors of small unseeable things, not to paint a perfect picture of subatomic particles.

The mythical velcro on nucleons creates strong attachments to other velcro covered things. The velcro represents a phenomenon called strong nuclear force (SNF). Strong as SNF may be, it has a profound weakness: like velcro, SNF has minimal reach, it only acts on other nucleons, and those nucleons must be very close. Once SNF is in play, it’s about 100 times stronger than the electro-repulsion, so it’s possible to build some rather large and complicated nuclei. SNF attracts all nucleons. Here is an image of the largest naturally occurring nucleus, Uranium-238:

u235

The weirdest thing about nucleons is that their mass changes depending on how many there are and what kind of nucleons are near. If we could–we can’t, by the way–break apart the Uranium nucleus into its 238 nucleons, they would add to a different, higher total mass. It seems this would allow the creation or destruction of mass, but it doesn’t because we know, thanks to Einstein, energy and matter are interchangeable. If there is less mass after the nucleon dispersal, then a commensurate amount of energy took its place. Mass increases require the addition of energy.

The mass of two isolated deuterium (see hydrogen isotope images above) nuclei have more mass of the same four nucleons in a helium nucleus:

helium

That means if we push two deuteriums together, energy is created to compensate for the mass lost. We can calculate the precise amount of energy released using the famous formula, E=mc². Take mass and multiply it by the speed of light, and then multiply that product by the speed of light again. Since the speed of light is a large quantity, a small amount of mass equates with much more energy.

It all sounds simple but the trick is getting enough heat energy to raise the deuterium temperature high enough so the hydrogen nuclei can get close enough for SNF to take over. That why it’s called a thermonuclear fusion; thermo means heat.

Fusion creates the tremendous release of energy in a hydrogen bomb.

fireball

That’s not a setting sun, it’s a hydrogen bomb’s rising fireball. Scientifically speaking, a hydrogen bomb is a man-made star.

Here is a video of the history’s largest artificial release of energy. The Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba on October 30, 1961.

This post is the last of a three-part series; here are links the two preceding posts: The Atom Bomb Goes Nuclear; Doomsday Machines.

Doomsday Machines

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We all love a movie about a mad scientist that creates the means to end humanity, posthaste. James Bond, for example, has faced a long line of literary megalomaniacs with apocalyptic designs.

drax2

The Star Wars Saga frequently entails a climax with selfless warriors swarming around a huge embodiment of a maligned, civilization-destroying power–“Starkiller Base” is the most current example in The Force Awakens.

starkiller

Throughout much of history, humans have only been able to imagine that level of destructive power. Now, we live not with a singular, hulking manifestation of doomsday destruction, but instead, with a proliferating and compartmentalized technology that has a similar aim. The hydrogen bomb, as it’s termed in media, could truly end human civilization or at least make those who survived a thermo-nuclear war wish humanity was finished.

It’s beyond anticlimactic to inform billions of humans that our civilization’s climax passed before most people on Earth in 2016 were even born. Oppenheimer indicated his suspicion that the apocalypse might be near when his team detonated the first “atom” bomb in a New Mexican desert. During a TV interview, he quoted an ancient Hindu text: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

It was, at the very least, an annoying grammatical construction. Originally written in Sanskrit, a nearly dead language, Oppenheimer would have struggled to find more apocalyptic words to usher in the nuclear age. Oppenheimer had the peculiar distinction of being a fluent reader of Sanskrit, so we should assume his translation is a good as it gets.

Oppenheimer didn’t trace his ancestry to South Asia–both of his parents were areligious Jewish-German immigrants to USA–but he was obviously intrigued by Vedic Theology. Oppenheimer’s statement was haunting. To make it easier for me to comprehend Oppenheimer’s words, I assume “become” is more of a noun than a verb making “become death” an embodiment as opposed to a process.

Oppenheimer was JV, or perhaps we should say a warm up for the main act, Edward Teller.

teller_edward

Teller was the principle progenitor of the Teller-Ulam configuration. Evidently, the process was first brainstormed by the famous nuclear physicist, Enrico Fermi. In the interest of keeping this explanation as simple as possible, let’s just say Teller-Ulam uses a fission bomb–media and popular culture like to call it an atom bomb–to trigger a larger fusion explosion.

The “hydrogen bomb” is an apt and precisely correct name. The fuel is hydrogen, the simplest atom. The process is challenging not in its complication, but in the energy necessary to light the fuse, so to speak. Without the mastery of fission weaponry, fusion bombs are impossible–until we have an alternative to Tellar-Ulam. To create a hydrogen bomb, just “push” a bunch of hydrogen nuclei together to form half as many helium atoms. Helium is the second simplest atom.

USA detonated Ivy Mike, the first hydrogen bomb, on November 1, 1952 near the Marshall islands.

ivy_mike

To say Ivy Mike had a ten megaton yield is meaningless to most. I might deepen your confusion if I were to say that’s the same as 10,000 kilotons. Let’s use a clarifying example: Little Boy, the fission bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was 15 kilotons.

hiroshima

Here is a video from the documentary Hiroshima that will put August 6, 1945 into a more humane perspective; it’s over eight minutes but worth the time investment.

Once again, to make it as simple as possible, Ivy Mike had the energy of nearly 667 Little Boys.

Why are fusion weapons (aka hydrogen bombs) so much more energetic than fission weapons (aka atom bombs)? It has to do with the peculiar nature of strong nuclear force and how it changes mass into energy under  certain circumstances…

If you liked this post, you might enjoy this one, too: Hunter Gatherers in the Quantum Age.

 

 

The Atom Bomb Goes Nuclear

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After Little Boy exploded 600 m (2000 ft) above Hiroshima, people in the 1940’s said “USA has the atom bomb.”

ATOM BOMB

To call Little Boy an “atom” bomb wasn’t wrong but it’s not precise. Here’s a simple model of the atom with the fewest number of parts, Hydrogen.

hydrogenatom

The defining characteristic of Hydrogen is the single proton in the nucleus. Hydrogen has other isotopes–the same number of protons, different number of neutrons.

hydrogen_1-2-3

A nucleon can be a proton or a neutron. The nucleon number doesn’t affect the chemical properties of an atom; only the proton number can change how an atom interacts with other atoms. Most of the time, there are the same number of electrons “orbiting” as there are protons in the nucleus. The number of electrons determines how an atom reacts with other atoms. Essentially, chemistry is the study of how the electrons of different atoms interact. These atom interactions are commonly called chemical reactions.

Most bombs create energy from interactions between the electrons–chemical reactions–and since electrons are part of the atom: All bombs, are atom bombs.

What made Little Boy different from all the other bombs detonated throughout history? First off all, Little Boy was the second atom bomb. Trinity Test was first.

trinity

Of course, atoms were involved in the energy release during Trinity and Hiroshima, but virtually none came from electron interaction. The energy source was the nucleus.

Little Boy used a much larger atom than Hydrogen: Uranium-235 (Trinity used Plutonium, another atoms with a fissionable nucleus). Uranium’s proton number is 92; the 235 stands for the number of nucleons. If you take the number of protons and subtract it from the number of nucleons, it will give you the neutron number. Here’s a model of U-235. (This isn’t what U-235 really looks like; no one can say for certain because it’s so small that we’ll never be able to see it in the way we see a spherical collection of small balls.)

u235

It’s somewhat correct to say the atom bomb gets its energy by splitting the atom. First of all, we split the nucleus; it’s true that the electrons end up coming along in the process, but what’s taking place with the electrons is irrelevant once we start tinkering with the nucleus. We don’t really split the nucleus either. The goal isn’t to break the nucleus apart like a rack of billiard balls. What we need to do is destabilize the nucleus so it falls apart. We destabilize the nucleus by facilitating a neutron absorption to a U-235 nucleus.

u236

Protons have positive charge and neutrons are changeless. Like charges repel more strongly the closer they are to each other. In a nucleus, the protons are extremely close; they should accelerate away from each other, not maintain a tight, orderly arrangement. This is how we know there must be some other, attractive force in play. It’s called strong nuclear force (SNF). As the name indicates, SNF is quite strong: more than 100 times stronger than the repulsive forces between protons. As of now, SNF is the strongest force we know.

Adding a neutron creates U-236, an unstable nucleus that falls apart quickly. U-236 is unstable because repulsion between protons briefly gains an advantage over the SNF binding all nucleons; this drives the nucleus apart and into smaller, stabler fragments. Energy is released because the new particles move away with relatively more kinetic energy.

The explanation for where the energy comes from is abstract. SNF is so strong, and peculiar in nature, that it can change mass into energy, or energy into mass depending on the arrangement of the nucleons and the type of nuclei they form. The fission of U-236 causes a nuclear rearrangement that releases energy.

u235_fission

The fission byproducts are often unstable, radioactive. The squiggly arrows with a greek letter gamma at the heads represent gamma decay–one of three types of radioactivity. It’s these byproducts that create the infamous radiation sickness long after the blast fades.

The fission of a single nucleus doesn’t produce much energy. But if each neutron flying away from a preceding fission finds another U-235, there can be a chain reaction.

chain_reaction

There were over a billion-trillion U-235 nuclei in Little Boy. Although each nucleus was part of an atom, it’s more precise to call Little Boy a nuclear bomb because the energy arises almost exclusively from the rearrangement of nucleons and the creation of smaller nuclei.

If you liked this post, you might like this one, too: An Electron Story.

An Evolving Universe III—The Insurgent

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darwinbyrichmond

This may seem unorthodox coming from a seasoned physics teacher with an engineering educational background: Charles Darwin is the greatest scientist!

Unfortunately, scant evidence exists for my claim and I’ve already stated and supported my position that Isaac Newton is The Greatest in the first part of this stream of posts. A link to part one is in the previous sentence and this link will take you to part two.

Before venturing further into my argument for Darwin’s scientific supremacy, let’s clarify the difference between evidence and proof; the discrepancies are subtle but distinct. Scientists never prove anything. Evidence accumulates in support of a hypothesis until it becomes a theory. A theory is as close to proven as it gets, but theories are forever under the assault of young upstarts, and old veterans. Perhaps the greatest scientific accomplishment discovers evidence overturning or compelling a theory’s modification.

To say, “Darwin is the greatest scientist” is not a theory—it’s not even a hypothesis. It’s an opinion. Perhaps we should call it a belief; there’s a rationale for the claim, but I’d fail to assemble scientific evidence to support the claim. Basically, you would have to settle for this is how I see it and so should you. I would call it a hypothesis, but there’s no apparent means of testing it; so we keep circling back to the statement, Charles Darwin is the greatest scientist, being an opinion or belief.

I should have said, “I believe Charles Darwin will one day be seen as the greatest scientist.” While this is still a long shot, it’s far from impossible.

The reach of physics is vast: energy, atomic structure, exotic particles, gravitation, and the study of the entirety of space and time. It’s no surprise that the greatest scientists are almost exclusively physicists: Newton, Bohr, Einstein, Faraday, Maxwell…

It’s rare for biologists to get on the greatest scientist list not because they lack scientific prowess; the biologist’s domain is too tiny to compete with physicists. Although we hope life exists in other parts of the universe, as of now, every biological principle we have is confined to a narrow shell of water, land and air in the crustal region of the third planet from an ordinary star in a large, but common, spiral galaxy. It’s probable that one day aspiring scientists will flock to a burgeoning field most likely to be called exobiology, but currently, all biologists must focus their studies near the surface of Earth.

Lisa Randall’s new book Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs frequently uses the words (and various derivatives) “evolution” and “universe” in the same sentence. She writes things like:

“Improved technology combined with theories rooted in general relativity and particle physics have provided a detailed picture of the Universe’s earlier stages, and of how it evolved into the Universe we currently see.”

and

“…part of the beauty of the Universe’s early evolution is that in many respects it is surprisingly simple.”

While I’m sure Darwin would be thrilled to learn 21st century particle physicists use language that evolved from his work, it’s doubtful he foresaw such an outcome. Quantum mechanics in general and particle physics in specific didn’t hit full stride until over a half century after Darwin passed away (he died in 1882).

Modern cosmology kicked in shortly after Einstein theorized general relativity in 1915. The idea that the universe could change on a macro level was offensive to Einstein: He manufactured a cosmological constant to maintain a static universe contrary to general relativity’s mathematical prediction of an expanding universe. Ironically, and a bit humorously, Einstein eventually called his cosmological constant the “biggest blunder” of his life. We now recognize the cosmological constant as the first clue that our universe is growing. Einstein was so brilliant that even his misunderstandings qualify for good science.

In 1927, a catholic priest and physicist, Georges Lemaitre, hypothesized the universe arose from a primeval atom. After several decades of accumulating evidence, Lemaitre’s educated guess would eventually become the Big Bang Theory. The theory of an expanding universe appears to have cleared the way for an evolving universe. If the universe can expand, might it also go through changes that are life-like?

I do realize it’s a huge leap from The Theory of Natural Selection to an evolving universe, but it’s not impossible that Darwin stumbled onto something more universal than he thought. Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Perhaps a 157-year-old scientific insurgency may be about to discover a higher gear?

Go back to Part I or Part II.

If you enjoyed The Evolving Universe try these too:  An Electron Story; Hunter Gatherers in the Quantum Age; De-frag Brain; Binary Fraud; Linear, Circular Politics.

 

 

Poles Apart

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USA Politics are more polarized than usual these days. What does polarized actually mean? The pole is a fundamental concept that gives rise to a vast swath of physical science. Poles are discussed early in the study of electromagnetism—essentially the second half of classical physics.

Earth spins on an axis—an imaginary line that passes through the north and south poles.

gd-0045

Actually, the axis doesn’t pass through the magnetic poles.

geomagnetic-field-orig_full

Earth has a magnetic field. Magnetism arises from charges in motion. Molten iron churns in Earth’s core.

earth-like-an-onion-layers-640x353

Metals, like iron, often have an abundance of delocalized electrons. Electrons have negative charges. It’s the motion of these charges that most likely creates Earth’s magnetic field.

The north magnetic pole is a bit off from the axis.

earthchanges45_02a

The same is true for the south magnetic pole.

earthchanges45_02

Here’s the confusing part: Earth’s geographic north pole is actually a magnetic south pole, and the geographic south pole is a magnetic north pole.

earth-magnetic-field

Why do we call Earth’s magnetic south pole, the north pole? Because an independent magnet’s north pole, points north on Earth. (A compass is just a magnet that rotates about a central point–an axis–with minimal friction.) The north pole of a magnet is attracted to the south pole of other magnets. The arrow of a compass points at Earth’s south pole. That arrow is on the north pole of the independent magnet; hence, we call that direction north.

Earth_field_in-class_answer

I guess we could say the south pole is on the tail of the arrow, but there is a better, simpler way to describe whats happening. It doesn’t matter what point you specify on a magnet. The field passing through the magnet points in one direction.

bTeXS

Notice that the arrows leave the north pole and enter the south pole. This is what’s called a convention. Conventions are arbitrary things. We could just as easily assume field lines leave south pole and enter north poles. It doesn’t matter. We do need to agree on one or the other so we can communicate about magnetic fields without needless confusion.

Magnetic fields exist inside of magnets too. Remember: magnetic fields come from charges in motion. Most magnets are made of metals. Metals have more mobile charges than other types of materials. The magnetic fields arise from small regions called domains that sometimes align. When the domains point in the same direction, the material is magnetized.

image002

North and south poles are a false binary reference systems to help us explain magnetic fields. The only crucial characteristic of a magnetic field is direction. (Actually, magnetic field strength is important too, but not necessary in this post.)

USA has a two-party system. Each party serves as a pole of sorts: the Republicans are at one, and the Democrats occupy the other. Partisans at each extreme believe they have philosophies that clearly distinguish themselves from the opposition. We could say the Republicans stand over the south pole while Democrats reside at the northern extreme. It could be the other way, too. Political poles suffer from some of the similar confusing conventions that we see with magnetic poles.

Political poles are similar to magnetic poles in that they don’t really exist other than a means to explain–and complicate in some ways–a more simple phenomenon. For magnetism, poles help us understand magnetic fields. Political poles help us understand historical progress in the distribution and dispensation of power–this is commonly known as governance.

Republicans are typically classified as conservative, while Democrat are pegged as liberals. Conservatives are leery of change while liberals are more eager to make progress–liberals are sometimes called progressive too. Political progress is similar to a magnetic field line in that  it points in one direction. Conservatives and liberals both advocate progress; truly, they differ only in the preferred rate of change. Conservatives like the way things have been done in the past: they know what works and they think it’s best to stick to the tried and true as we move forward in history. Liberals advocate for a quicker pace and they are keen to experiment with new ideas on how to govern.

If you liked this post, you might like A republic if you can keep it and/or Hunter Gatherers in the Quantum Age.

 

An Evolving Universe II–Energy Spreading

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This post is a continuation of An Evolving Universe I—The Greatest. Part II stands alone, but it will be difficult to appreciate and fully understand III without reading I and II first.

Entropy is a central scientific concept; it seems to have more importance in chemistry, and even more so in physics. Entropy is a measure of disorder in a closed system. Closed, in this context, means energy cannot move—maybe flow is a better word—across arbitrary barriers: the system is closed because it’s insulated, so to speak, from whatever is outside the system. The stuff and the space residing outside the barriers may as well not exist because the energy we care about can’t go there.

Energy doesn’t really move or flow. Energy exists in different arrangements; as the number of possible energy holders increases, the more complicated the system. Energy distributes itself according to strict, but simple, laws of probability. Our universe appears to contain a fixed amount of energy. That energy is allocated to a large number of particles—photons, electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, etc. According to probability alone, energy is more likely dispersed widely across numerous particles as opposed to concentrated on a few, or just one. The level of energy concentration is the measure of order in a system; more dispersed energy makes a more disordered system.

Here’s a good example that might allow you to see the connection between order and energy distribution within a system: Imagine a series of twenty A4 papers, typed on in succession to create a short story. Stack the pages one on top of the other, chronologically. Now, take the stack of papers and throw them into the air. We know what happens: The papers fall back to the ground in a disordered way. It’s impossible to predict how or where they will fall. Reorder the papers in a stack, and then throw them into the air again. The papers fall back in a disordered, but different way than before. Each time we do this, the papers will land in a unique pattern; they will always be disordered compared to the original arrangement. There are an, essentially, infinite number of disordered arrangements of these pages and only one ordered state. Probability tells us the papers are destined to become disordered. Mathematically speaking, it’s unlikely the papers should ever be ordered in a stack that when read, top to bottom, creates a coherent story. The chronological stack is only one of a nearly infinite number of possible arrangement of the papers, and therefore, improbable.

Orderly, concentrated energy eventually becomes disordered, dispersed. Actually, the idea of energy being ordered guarantees misunderstandings. Let’s go back the stack of papers. Not only is it unlikely that the papers will ever exist in chronological order, the papers should rarely be in the same proximity. There are just too many scenarios where the papers are scattered. If the papers are concentrated initially; eventually, they spread out. Our intuition should tell us this is true but we blame it on influences like a person intentionally throwing them into the air. The stack of papers was always doomed to scatter, not because of malicious design or lack of maintenance; the papers will scatter because there’s so many more ways for the paper to scatter than to be stacked chronologically.

Energy prefers to be spread out, dispersed, in much the same way our stack of papers. It’s not that energy strives for disorder; energy tends to spread out on more particles in a system, not because it’s herded along to that end by some shepherd. There’s just so many more ways for energy to spread itself over many particles than to be concentrated on a few, or one.

When energy is concentrated, it’s more probable that it will spread out. Energy’s tendency to move from concentrated to dispersed gives rise to something we are all painfully familiar with: the one-way flow of time. We tend to see time as the master. Time makes our stack of papers scatter. Time disperses energy concentrations. It might be more correct to say the perception of time is created by the overwhelming probability that energy should be spread out, as opposed to concentrated. Time might be the way a conscious being processes the myriad of possibilities present continuously in the now—whatever “now” means. In other words, time is simply a vessel to explore an infinite universe.

Click here to go back to Part I. Here’s Part III.

An Evolving Universe I—The Greatest

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Isaac Newton was the greatest, most influential scientist.

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This is a fact but not a really scientific fact. There aren’t really any facts—even in science—because the scientific method (question, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion, evaluation) dictates all ideas must carry some degree of uncertainty. The scientific method never rests. It does get tired after many iterations. If exhaustive repetitions fail to uncover evidence against—scientists attempt to falsify, not support their predictions—a hypothesis becomes a theory: a scientific fact is born. Keep in mind all facts—theory is probably a better moniker; a fact and a theory are essentially the same—are subject to ongoing review.

Any evidence against a theory compels at least a modification, or even abandonment of that theory. The idea that facts don’t exist confuses the general public; it often confounds people with advanced degrees. Most realize the universe is continuously changing, evolving. Facts are part of the universe. Assuming ideas are manifestations of the physical universe, facts should be subject to evolution too.

Why was Newton the greatest scientist? His influential accomplishments were many. In order of estimated decreasing importance, here is what Newton revealed: the nature of light (he even hypothesized light came in particles called corpuscles, a precursor of photons, but he conducted no experiments regarding this belief), the universal nature of gravitation and the laws of motion. He invented (should we say discovered?) calculus too.

Calculus would be a more significant achievment but another bright chap, Gottfried Leibniz, created the same branch of mathematics about the same time as Newton. Had Newton died in the plague—he fled London when the pandemic ravaged the British Isles—calculus would have been Leibniz’s baby, so to speak.

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It’s unlikely another scientist would have discovered (should we say invented?) the other three ideas within a few decades. Newton’s color theory of light might have taken a century or more before another scientist discovered it.

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If Newton were alive today, he wouldn’t claim to be history’s first scientist; Newton would most likely defer to Galileo. Galileo seems to be the first person we know of to test his ideas. Newton didn’t really do anything distinctly different from Galileo. Newton just took Galileo’s practices to another level.

I’ve never heard an argument that any scientist surpasses Newton’s greatness. Albert Einstein is often considered as Newton’s competition. Einstein was the first scientist to compel a modification to Newton’s gravitation law; it was a cosmetic adjustment really, and it only modified it in extreme conditions. But Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity did do something Newton couldn’t do: Einstein explained the true nature of gravity—a distortion of space-time caused by the presence of matter.

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It’s appropriate that we distinguish between laws and theories. It’s likely most people believe laws are superior to theories. Unfortunately, the word theory is often mistakenly applied when the word hypothesis should be employed. A hypothesis is an educated guess; a theory is system of ideas backed up by a vast and complicated reservoir of experiments. In short, and once again, a theory is what we commonly call a scientific fact.

A law is a mathematical system which allows us to make predictions. Laws are powerful scientific tools. Laws have a profound weakness: they don’t explain what’s actually happening, physically. We just know that, as long as we realize the necessary constraints, laws yield reliable predictions.

Niels Bohr is a dark horse candidate to compete with Newton for greatest scientist. What did he do? Bohr was a father of quantum theory. Why not the father of quantum theory? There are many fathers of quantum theory: Max Planck and Einstein to name two more—there are others we should consider too—but neither really accepted the fundamental weirdness that goes with quantum theory.

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Bohr was the first scientist to embrace the weirdness, the probabilistic nature of the universe, at the root of quantum theory. Once Bohr convinced the scientific community—not all scientists we on board with Bohr, Einstein was stubborn and never accepted the dicey nature of quantum theory—a vast array of successive quantum theorists continued to build the most explicative theoretical system in the history of science: quantum mechanics.

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Bohr is not the father of quantum theory, but he’s the first on the list of potential fathers. Since quantum theory is the most successful scientific system of ideas, it makes sense that the first on the list of fathers is one of the greatest scientists.

It will be nearly impossible to knock Newton of his lofty perch. He had the advantage of getting in at the start of the game. Science didn’t really exist in an organized way when he was born.

The whole discipline rests on a foundation he constructed. Thanks to Newton, the base of science is strong. The only way to supersede Newton may be to discover a new characteristic of the foundation, or something we had not thought about how the foundation rests on whatever is supporting it. In my opinion, there is one possibility for another scientist to take the title of greatest scientist from Isaac Newton.

Click here to go to Part II. Here’s Part III.

An Electron Story

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We humans are victims of common sense. If something is common to me then it must be common to all of us. Unfortunately, vast–and also tiny–sectors of the universe are uncommon to our senses.

The first step to develop a working knowledge of quantum physics is to abandon your belief that anything valuble should fall within the bounds of common sense. Do not worry that I will burden you with an explanation of Schrodinger’s Cat. You probably would not understand me. Honestly, I do not think I understand it. No one really understands Schrodinger’s Cat.

Quantum means small, subatomic small. The word subatomic is a self contradiction. Atom means smallest. According to its most basic definition an atom cannot be broken into smaller parts. Essentially, subatomic means smaller than the smallest.

The word atom represents an influential philosophical breakthrough. Atom arose from the Ancient Greek word, atomos. In the 21st century, we know atoms are not smallest. But just the idea that all matter is made of tiny, indivisible things was a tremendous realization.

Fundamental is probably the best word to represent these tiny, indivisible things.

We continue to search for fundamental entities. These fundamental entities are often called particles in modern physics. The study of particles is the essence of quantum physics. Unfortunately, when we observe the smallest things, classical physics breaks down.

(Classical physics is precisely predictable and mostly algebra-based. Isaac Newton revealed the foundations of classical physics about three centuries ago. Calculus applies marvellously to classical physics too, but algebra is enough to communicate the principal ideas of the subject. By the way, Isaac Newton invented calculus. Classical physics is pretty much all that is taught at the high school level. It is a bit boring after you learn modern physics, so let us get back to the more exciting stuff.)

The most likely candidates for particles of matter appear to be quarks and electrons. There are other particles of matter, but quarks and electrons will serve as excellent representatives for all matter particles during this post.

Our common sense often informs us that nature is fluid and infinitely divisible; continuous may be the best word for this apparent fluidity of the universe. Water running from a hose seems to be a continuous flow of stuff that we can keep dividing forever.

A water stream is effectively modeled using a basic mathematical concept: the number line. According to basic geometric definitions a line can be divided into an infinite number of segments. We could also say a line has an infinite number of points or positions.

A number line is an abstraction. The abstraction only applies under ideal conditions. Experimental evidence indicates that a water stream can be divided into a finite number of discrete particles called water molecules.

Those molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of protons, neutrons electrons.

Electrons are the smallest of the three. It would take nearly 2000 electrons to equal the mass as a proton or neutron. Electrons have a mass of 0.00000000000000000000000000000091 kg. Although there are about a billion billion billion electrons in a human, there is nothing common to our senses about an individual electron.

An electron is so small that looking at one would change its nature. We see objects when photons reflect off those objects: the photons deliver information to our brain via our eyes.

Photons are light-energy particles.

An electron is so small that when a photon bounces off an electron, the electron’s nature is changed: the reflected photon delivers outdated information about the electron to our eyes.

Classically speaking, an electron is not observable. But when not observing an electron it is not really there. An Electron is everywhere in space-time when not observed. It is more likely to be in some places and times compared to others but we can never know for certain. Once observed, the electron becomes what the observation compels!

If you enjoyed this post you might also like: Binary Fraud or De-frag Brain.

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Hunter Gatherers in the Quantum Age

Fifteen thousand years ago it’s probable that all humans banded together in hunter-gatherer clans of 50 to 100. That’s the way we survived for thousands of generations. Subsistence in permanent settlements is relatively novel for our species. Although we have spread world wide on the waves of an agricultural revolution, we thrive on the heart of a fundamentally nomadic species.

Most human brains can’t maintain more than 100 concurrent relationships. Apparently, this is the number when alpha male rivalry drove apart prehistoric nomadic clans. (Try a little test: write down all the people you interact with, face to face, in an average month. I bet you’ll struggle on your pass 50.)

Social media may be a development on par with the printing press because it allows us to engage in hundreds (thousands?) of concurrent relationships, and get past evolutionary cognitive barriers. Ultimately, this new connectedness could generate a hyper-level of creativity. Add this connectivity to the advent of quantum computers—they should be  available in about 30 years—and we might become a completely interconnected species.

What is a quantum computer? Ordinary computers communicate via binary mathematics: All instructions are coded as ones and zeroes, value and no value.

For an obvious reason, humans prefer to use a numerical base of ten symbols: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We start repeating these symbols in different positions and arrangements to represent any quantity on the number line.

All the familiar mathematical operations are possible using only 0 and 1. For example, a base ten 7 is equivalent to 111 in binary. Seventeen is 10001 in base two. I won’t explain how to translate from base two to base ten or visa versa. Just take my word for it.

Computers only have two fingers or I guess you could say the computer alphabet only has two letters. Computers make up for this weakness by processing the 0’s and 1’s rapidly. For example, my computer can do 2,660,000,000 actions every second.

Each 0 or 1 represents a bit that is or is not. Quantum computers have qubits. A qubit is allowed to occupy both value and no value simultaneously. Don’t feel bad if you don’t completely understand; no one really understands quantum physics. Here’s a good example to help you understand the power of quantum computers: If you wanted to find your way out of a complicated maze and, try all options until you discover a correct path. That’s what ordinary computers do, but they do it faster than humans.

I’m sure you can imagine a maze so complicated that my 2.66 GHz processor will get bogged down and take a long time to find a solution. The perfect solution to escape the maze is to try all paths simultaneously. That’s what a quantum computer would do; I guess you could say exponential technological growth becomes essentially vertical.

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If you enjoyed this post, try Binary Fraud or De-frag Brain.