The Universe is a Strange, but knowable place

What do we know empirically about the universe?

Frank Wilczek,

Theoretical Physicist

Strong Interaction, 2002 (UCSB)

Nobel Prize winner

Princeton PhD.

The "W" map of the visible universe as a composite image of photographic plate exposures.

Start

M I T Lecture

The Universe is a Strange Place

In quantum mechanics atoms appear as actual musical (resonate) instruments

Bohr atom

"highest form of musicality in the realm of physical thought" Einstein about Bohr's equation referring to the "frequencies of emitted light"

emission

Bohr's formulas for the light quantum were not unlike formulas for the emission of sounds made by musical instruments.

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Matter

caco3

electron and proton fields

"Its really fields"

Lorenz

"spread out object or wave patterns are electrons -- not points

Nuclei (1930s)

The extent of knowledge before Fermi's experiments.
Charge	+	–


particle	proton	electron
	baryon	lepton

Next

1960s

Nucleons

Neutron Neutron decay

Quarks and gluons are a more elaborate version of electrons and photons

quarks (comprise mesons and hadrons or protons and neurtons) & gluons (bind together the quarks)

Proton Proton

You do not get a determinate result from the same input.

The character of quantum mechanics
(Modern subatomic physics)

decay They are conglomerates, (not single particles) of smaller units that exchange energy in small, but discrete --meaning separable and not continuous-- amounts that we see as frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Asymptotic freedom (What he received the NP for based on his graduate work)

"imprints as energy momentum in jets" (emitted from electron - positron annihilation in super colliders like Fermi or CERN

Radiation events of a high energy are rare
small transfers of energy and momentum are quite common

radiation We see the basic interactions in these annihilation and that there are quarks and gluons and they interact as the mathematical theory exists.

Wilczeck says there is NEED for CLARITY with respect to radiation.

Einstein's First Law

E = MC2

Einstein's Second Law

M = E / c2
(This actual equation he used in his drafts)

Mass is equal to Energy divided by the speed of light squared.

What is energy?

Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy?

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QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
"Empty space is in reality a wildly dynamical medium" -- filled with vibrating particles and waves of radiant emissions and absorption of subatomic particles.

Space is really a very " dynamical medium that interacts with its constituent part(icles)s."

energy fluctuates

you can borrow energy for very brief moments

"Beware of thinking there is nothing there" in so called empty space, where at the quantum level there is a seething activity of energy in motion.

Quantum Electrodynamics or QED, says there is dynamical vacuum in constant flux -- eternal movement

This QED formulation relates to the accounting for the mass of particles.

What do your eyes observe here in this photograph above?

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QCD
Quantum Chromo dynamics

Mass corresponds to energy

Albert Einstein

different particles correspond to different vibration patterns in space

hydrogen "stable particles" are vibration patterns

with "a particularly long life-time"

that occur in a dynamical void

M=E/ c2 = hv/c2 = <> V = Mc2/h

"every mass is associated with a corresponding frequency"

Particles are the tones (frequencies) of these vibration patterns in the dynamical void

The "music of the spheres" is really the music of the void (actual, truth, testable and mathematically ascertainable) in that subatomic entities are mathematically very much like instruments that resonate at a predictable range of frequencies.

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Certainty is a scale of ordinary expectations.

1. So there are some things that we know, for certain such as the four forces, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or natural selection, or Boyle's law.

2. Then there are things we are fairly certain about; such as the fact that the Southern Ocean Oscillation is a cycle of warm and cold water moving periodically across the Pacific Ocean from the Indian Ocean, or panthers and cheetahs do not show sufficient genetic variability to survive very many more generations.

3. And then, there are things we are less certain about such as dark matter and what happens to information in a "black hole."

But this empirical scale from certainty to uncertainty means that we can distinguish facts from phantasms.

Next.

At ever smaller scales the behavior of the universe is more and more probabilistic.

Our scale

atomic level

subatomic

quark

Planck scale

Subsequent smaller and smaller layers of the quantum order of things.

Ever more minute levels of the microcosm

Scale in science

Quark and the Jaguar

Based on
OHMS Laws
V=IR

LESSONS:

"If we work to understand, then we can understand."

(free wheeling research --much of it unpromising -- vast effort internationally open & honest)

"The part of the world we understand is by any measure strange and beautiful."

That is ordinary matter -- using a educationist approach to analysis-- does reveal the basic properties of existence under "ordinary" conditions.

next

Cosmology is confusing:

Quarks and gluons [fields] (as was just described) ordinary matter is only 5% of the entire Universe

25% is in Dark Matter (we don't know what it is -- it is transparent -- impervious to light and - it clumps together but is impervious to neutrinos -- it is only detected by gravitational disturbance

70% the mass is "dark energy" smooth exerts negative pressure and presses things apart on very large scales

Frontiers of Symmetry

QED to QCD

• Unification -----Proton decay and super-symmetry (extra dimensions not just space and time)

• Supersymmetry ----> World and Dark Matter

• QCD to axioms and dark matter

• weak force and the Higgs fields / particles

Most compelling and exciting idea

Hypothesis of Unification

Different kinds of interactions are described mathematically are similar:

• Electromagnetic
• strong
• weak

There is a barrier to our understanding hem as all manifestations of the same thing, but how do they have different force

gravity unification seems to be a "non-starter"

Gravity almost works as well under supersymmetry

"Gravity fits too! (Roughly)"

beautiful meaning works better than we could have anticipated it to work.

Gravity, unlike the other forces cannot be understood in the same mathematical manner as the electro, weak, and strong forces are understood.

Indeed, the quantum mechanical level of physics contradicts the behavior of bodies on a macroscopic scale that respond to gravity.

Source

Frank Wilczeck
Theoretical Physicist
MIT Lecture
Nobel Laureate Lecture Series
(Ford / MIT), March 2005

Three great lessons

1 if we work to understand we can understand

2 strange and beautiful is the world we do understand

3 We still have a lot to learn

Questions asked.

Q&A

"the mass is the frequency itself?" Answer: "Yes."

"Hard" rigorously tested facts

as hard as they get

masses really do correspond to frequencies

"We are children of light" in a scientific and not a theological sense

"happy that we can learn about it"

Gravitons (Questioner) if we detected them -- what implications would they have?

BROADLY (FW):
experimental and astrophysical
detect gravitational waves might be possible and the estimates of their strength could be tested

(would be a new form of telescope to detect violent aspects of the universe and deeply penetrate exploding stars)

gravitons would mean that gravity would behave very differently than we are able to predict.

Gravity waves are just too weakly interactive for us to detect now and for centuries to come.

Planck's constant hydrogen

energy is related to frequency

when you have light, light is photons and the energy of the photon is related to the frequency of the wave (light waves).
comparable to the light's frequency (vibrations)

The electron and the nuclei of atoms exchange energy.

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Einstein's favorite joke

A man whose car will only start after a lot of effort (push)

gets it to the mechanics

none can fix it after examination of the car...

He finds the 7th mechanic, who inspects the car and looks at its assembled parts
tightens the bolts and the car works!

The bill is $150.00

How dare you charge me; it took only 30 seconds!; I want an itemized bill, so the Mechanic gives him one:
Itemized bill Parts 0 Labor .11¢

"Knowing which screw to turn $149.89 "

CERN developed the WWW as a need to communicate among high energy physicists
by Tim Berners Lee

Pure research pays off in very unexpected ways, and can not be done always with an end in mind!

Can you create a tiny black hole? Theoretical speculation says yes, in an accelerator
So small they would be very unstable and would decay quickly but they would act like particles.

It could be catastrophic certainly, but it is not likely.

We are not as close to that as people think.

See:

Frank Wilczek, "QCD MADE SIMPLE." Physics Today, August, 2000. pp. 22-28

Quantum chromodynamics is conceptually simple. Its realization in nature, however, is usually very complex. But not always.

http://www.frankwilczek.com/Wilczek_Easy_Pieces/298_QCD_Made_Simple.pdf

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