Now, you have to admit that this is a question that will twist the bawain just a bit.  Why? because if you subscribe to either Newtonian or Eisensteinian physics - your going to look at the question differently and therefore your answer is going to vary accordingly.

The question at hand is one that was posited on Slashdot

The question at hand was "How Big Was the Universe When it Was First Born?"  You would think "simple enough" at first blush, that was until it was time to actually answer.   My very first inclination was to answer like a good quantum particle man and answer "at the time of the big bang, the
structure that would come to be the universe was an infinitely small potential but still, calling it potential is really unfair.  Much as calling a Nuclear reaction, "potential" after the first control rod has been raised. Nothing has happened yet, but the release of a great amount of power is all but a given.

So considering how everything tends to be relative, we know how far or the distance covered by a contemporary light year, but what of pre-big bang?

Why?  Well according to the article - traveling back from the big bang  to the very end of inflation and the start of the hot, dense state that scientists identify with as pre-Big Bang, and ask how  big would it be? (I really have to ask here if relativity can be brought into play. If we are asked about a definitive state, isn't that state relative?)  Depending on the particulars of when inflation came to an end, the answer is somewhere between the size of a soccer ball and the size of a city block, no smaller and no larger. 

But that would almost have to be relative to where you are making the observations and could you even make an observation outside?

my bwain hurtz :(

Is Light a Particle or a Wave?

 

Now there is a question that drove many scientists over the hill and completely around the corner.

Einstein really threw in a wrench when he proposed that light consisted of both particles and waves but the kicker was that only one state could be represented at a time as both states collapse even though only one is being "viewed".

It now seems that restriction is a thing of the past.  Scientists at the EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) have succeeded in capturing light’s wave-particle duality, in a what can only be described as tremendously exciting first-ever image.

The Universe Never Started....

Presently accepted universe model

Ok, how many of you just went HUH?!  Really, How many of you subscribe to the cyclic or the constant expansion of the universe?  I know I am partial to the constant expansion theory that holds to the Universe starting when  an infinitely dense singularity began expanding 13.9 billion years ago.

Now in my mind, that lends itself to a very orderly universe, however there is a problem  with the steady expansion of the universe.  Einstein's mathematics of general relativity  predicts the singularity but can not explain what happens immediately  at or before—the singularity, only directly after the start of the singularity.  Physics breaks down at the moment of the event.

Now scientists  have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end.

Of course if you have no big bang singularity you can not have any kind of cyclic theory.  No boom diddy boom - no crunchity crunch.......

So what is exactly holding things all together?  Well the new model predicts a new particle.

From the Phys Org article:

• In physical terms, the model describes the universe as being filled with a quantum fluid. The scientists propose that this fluid might be composed of gravitons—hypothetical massless particles that mediate the force of gravity. If they exist, gravitons are thought to play a key role in a theory of quantum gravity.

For more click HERE for the complete Phys Org article

I want to thank my in-house anime expert Meebles for bring this new Universe Theory to my attention:

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

BMU #438 Juby, Kahn & CrystalWizard

Hi, welcome to episode 438 of Beam Me Up.  This week, something
slightly different.  I had several pieces of stories that by all rights should have played this month. But things being a being as they may, I am catching up on them all.

First off, we have the latest episode in Michael Juby's Squeek Squeek
series which takes up multi - generational star ships, but with a twist.

Then, from the blog we have an excellent article on quantum spin, this one will spin your brain sideways!

Next up is Jason Kahn's In Plain View episode 32.  I don't know about
you but I am treasuring each of these episodes. 

I review Elfin Lied anime series.

I am forever looking for the short films on YouTube.  This episode is no exception.  I found simply enough a short called Portal.  it is short but very entertaining.

I close with pt3 of Mimsy Were The Borogroves.

This and more.  Enjoy!


podcast audio is available Here
  Entire Beam Me Up podcast can be had at beammeuppodcast.com

The Universe Came From Nothing?!

I don't think we have to go over the big bang theory here do we?  You know the Universe began from an infinitely small point and expanded in all directions all at once.  We ok so far?  So the question is what came before the infinitely small point of space/time?

Well that has been the 10,000 dollar question as of late.  From the Slash-Dot article:

• Cosmologists at the Wuhan Institute have published a proof that the Big Bang could indeed have occurred spontaneously because of quantum fluctuations. "The new proof is based on a special set of solutions to a mathematical entity known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation.

The words that make my heart go pitter patter are 'quantum fluctuations' which the Wikipedia explains as  'the temporary change in the amount of energy in a point in space'

We know that energy can not be destroyed, simply changed and matter is just another form of energy.  So I would suspect that a temporary change in the amount of energy at any given point would result in a quantum particle.  If this particle is stable or not is moot, as long and the process once started does not stall.  Because at any given point an unstable quantum particle could evolve into a much more stable unit which given enough time and fluctuations could lead to a macro particle with a much higher energy potential plus the added attraction of being significantly more stable. 

The neat thing is, I  one heard this ripple, quantum energy flux first applied to the very end of the universe, when all matter has bled down to an even quantum state.  At some point a quantum fluctuation would bring about a temporary energy point and damn if that don't sound like the whole universe starting up again.

Here is the Wikipedia on quantum fluctuations

BMU # 420 is Now Online! - Crystalwizard, Hilton, Spiderwoman & Quantum Cats

Welcome to episode 420 of Beam Me Up. Not a bad episode this week. I think the odds are good that you just might enjoy the trip.

I do have opening comments this week of sorts, but find myself reviewing Rio 2. The review is a bit off the cuff, however I think I nail it.

My first offering this afternoon is the first opening theme to the anime series Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple anime series.

From there, before the first story of the afternoon, I found a really good TED science talk concerning quantum entanglement that I put on the blog, but ultimately thought it would make a great
intermediate piece (and that way it gets played even if I go long on the blog)

The first story this week is a tongue in cheek tale "Don't Trust Venusian Mushrooms" by Doug Hilton.

From the Beam Me Up blog (wrfrbeameup.blogspot.com) I just found out that there is to be a new Spiderwoman series, which will be out in November. The alternate cover is however rising a bit of ire for content. I do have a copy of this cover on the blog.

Oh and controversy is not just for Spiderwoman, my comic book guy tells me that weirdness is happening with the Thor series and Captain America....

NASA has been working with a very interesting aircraft that has some very interesting technology.

There are many more articles on the blog, but I really wanted to make sure that I got chapter two part two of Crystalwizard's "Wizard's Bane" on this week.

And that does it for this week and episode 420. Thanks for listening.

Here is the link for this week's podcast   HERE

ISS Could Become the Coldest Place In the Universe?!

What happens when things get cold?  Well, we pretty much have that down as far as our macro universe goes.  But when things get extra cold at the quantum level....well weird crap starts to happen.

NASA is sending some new equipment to the ISS with the sole purpose of getting COOOOOLD.
And not just everyday cold...no sir NASA is looking to create the coldest place in the universe.  The Cold Atom Lab, due to arrive at the ISS in 2016,  it will be able to create an environment that can be kept stable at something extremely close to absolute zero. 

Why would you want to do that you might ask....remember you asked....NASA wants  to study Bose-Einstein condensates.  Kinda makes your brain hurt right?    So what are Bose-Einstein condensates?  Well in simple enough terms that my tiny brain can understand, it is a condition that happens when gasses are cooled to extremely cold temperatures.  At the quantum level each atom begins to behaves much like one giant atom, making quantum effects visible on a macroscopic scale.  Which means that even though the quantum level effects can not be resolved, atomic and sub atomic effects can be observed, so if a bunch of atoms starts acting like one atom, then by proxy, we can observe a quantum state.  Yep, at the very least, NASA and that means we, will for the first time be able to see quantum physics work in real time!

Check out the youTube video below for a much saner explanation. 





Here is the complete DVice article  HERE

Quantum Computers to Compete with Home Computers?

A "Quantum Computer" has for the most part been the minion of science fiction.  Using quantum states for logic instead of 1s and zeros used by today's computer logic systems.  A quantum logic state can  store more than 1 and do it at virtually no power consumption.

Any one of these would make a home or business computers vastly more efficient.  But Physicists believe that a true Quantum computer is still way into the future.  

Now, several teams have demonstrated a "quantum" speed-up that if perfected could give the standard computer a very real competition! Scientists at MIT, studying the effect, have said that the mechanical computation of Quantum may just be possible which would mean that calculations that take hours and days, might be able to complete in a fraction of the time.

Read the Wired / Science Now article HERE

Evaporating Black Holes Hint At Gravity May Not Be A Fundamental Force

This article in the Daily Galaxy  hints at some really troubling ideas.  Since 2011 researchers at the University of York  have been doing research on black holes that changes fundamentally how we view the "permanence" of a singularity.

Up to this point it has universally accepted that anything that crossed the "event horizon" of a black hole  can never crawl back across and escape.  This even in light of Dr. Hawkings modifying his position slightly  on the total loss of information.

However the York researchers study suggests that information can and does escape leads them to suggest that gravity alone may NOT be an all encompassing fundamental force but

• "that space, time and even gravity itself may be emergent properties within a deeper theory," said Samuel Braunstein.  

As you might guess, many physicists  are skeptical that quantum mechanic which is primarily used to describe light and sub-atomic particles can be applied to fundamental forces of nature as it operates in a black hole.  Many feel that it's hard to properly describe the evaporating black hole without the effects of gravity on the system.

From the Article:

• "We cannot claim to have proven that escape from a black hole is truly possible, but that is the most straight-forward interpretation of our results,"  said Samuel Braunstein

read the complete Daily Galaxy article here

Detecting Parallel Universes Impossible?

Parallel Universes.....They certainly are an attractive proposition are they not? The very idea of them has pulled Dr. Hawkings fat out of the fire as well it would seem. The very idea that every action creates a different universe sends some screaming into the night and other into constant spirals of what if and if I do this or in this universe there is no.... (as in Hawkings' information dilemma, he proposes that there are universes that do NOT have black holes and therefore no information can or is lost and that cancels out our universe which has black holes and WOULD seem to lose information....OMG got a head ache yet?)

Myself, I find the prospect fascinating and often speculate on what form my actions would infer in a mirror universe. (the ultimate in nepotism would it not?)

As of late though I have began to doubt the veracity of the arguments championing the multi-verse. Really....what need of a universe to balance out you taking a step either here or there or for that matter just breathing? Then, by their very nature would be an argument for you NOT to exist at all, for there would be far more universes in existence that you were not doing something and not even there. So if you follow and agree with this supposition then the very fact that you exist is an argument that parallel universes do not. (oh the pain...the pain)

So the multi-verse seems about to unravel according to an article in University of Calgary Utoday via The Daily Galaxy that suggests that parallel universes man not be detectable.   Why?  Well some of the reason is physics.  Quantum Physics to be more precise.   Quantum physics works really good at describing and ummm quantifying  (sorry) particles in the sub-atomic world but completely breaks down at the macro level.  Not because the math is questionable, but more our technology and science is not up to measuring large amounts of quantum states at once.  (that little ache behind your right eye should be bordering on white hot agony by this point.  Not to worry, a few more lines and your head explodes anyway....so you do have something to look forward to...)

Let me explain how I work that little nib out.  You remember the double slot results right?  Now some people just love to say that our reality can effect quantum states but the reality is that a quantum state is a Super-position which is inherently unstable.  Any time you try to interact with a particle in a quantum state, its' super-position collapses.  As the Calgary article puts it:

• Superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum physics that says that systems can exist in all their possible states simultaneously. But when measured, only the result of one of the states is given.

So how does this apply to the detection of parallel universes?  Again it comes down to detecting the quantum particles.  From the article:

• Seeing quantum effects requires extremely precise measurements

Christopher Simon,  one of the Calgary researchers who co-authored the article:

• in order to see the quantum nature of this state, one has to be able to count the number of photons in it perfectly,” says Simon. “This becomes more and more difficult as the total number of photons is increased. Distinguishing one photon from two photons is within reach of current technology, but distinguishing a million photons from a million plus one is not. 

So if we can just barely differentiate a state containing at best several quantum particles, the chances of us being able to accurately detect a state with anything approaching a macro size is well beyond our ability to detect it.   Detecting a whole universe may never be within the realm of possibility. 

The article really is fascinating and I have no doubt that I have managed to  mangle the science so read the original here

Time Travel Impossible - Again?

A team of Chinese physicists have put the time travel debate to bed. Their research concludes that a photon can not travel faster than light.

From the article:

• By result, the possibilities of time traveling have been debunked in one fell swoop because it was previously believed that if a single photon could travel faster than the speed of light, it could "teleport" information to another time.

Professor Shengwang Du, Assistant Professor in Hong Kong University of Science & Technology's Department of Physics, study demonstrates that a single photon has to obey the same laws of the universe just as any other Electro-Magnetic wave.

Professor Du points out that by showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, his research also demonstrates the true speed of information carried by a single photon,
thus giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."

read more in the HK Institute of Science & Technology article, Dvice article

Static and Dynamic Casimir Effect

Ok folks...I'm turning off the lights....time to go home...why? Because I have this pain behind my left eyeball and I think my head is going to explode....

You know, I have tried my hand at understanding quantum mechanics, in a shaved chimp kinda way, but the closer I get to getting a handle on it, the rules change.... relatively speaking...

What put me over the edge this time? The Casimir effect, which wrapped up in a tidy bundle describes an effect whereby mirrors can and do produce their own light due to the interaction with virtual bits. Honest!

I was reading this article in IO9, that describes placing two mirrors close together (micro-meters and the wiki article calls for a vacuum) so that the virtual particles that "pop" into existence (you see now why my head hurts? virtual....existence? But if you are interested there is a nice article here on virtual particles. ) will force the two plates together. Now that is a rather badly explained Casimir-Polder force, much less than more. It's what happens when you accelerate this structure to relativistic speeds.

The first weird thing happens when you place your mirrors closer than the wave length of the virtual particle. First off, let me explain, in part, these virtual particles. Most importantly they came in pairs. A virtual particle and an anti-virtual particle. ( I know, ouch....) and when they come into existence they annihilate each other instantly. But as the plates are pushed harder and the speed becomes a goodly fraction of C it then becomes possible for the virtual particles to be separated by a plate so they can not annihilate and therefor become real and should said virtual particle be virtual photons.....? There, I give you light from ummm virtual light courtesy of the Dynamic Casimir Effect.

Really, I have done a poor job at describing a fascinating effect at the quantum level. Read the IO9 and the Wiki articles to get totally twisted.

(Good bye, good night, don't let the door hit you...I need to find my asprin)

Could Quantum Computers Break Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal?

Here is an article, from IO9, that is bound to fry a couple of neurons. Have you heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal? Simply put, it is possible to chart a particle's position or speed but never both. Have you ever wondered "why is that"? Well believe me, person's with more degrees in one place than I have ever seen, wrestle with it daily. Here is part of the problem.

Physicist Paul Diracone describes the problem thus: One of the very, very few ways to measure a particle's position is to hit it with a photon and then chart where the photon lands on a detector. That gives you the particle's position, yes, but it's also fundamentally changed its velocity, and the only way to learn that would consequently alter its position.

Has that weeeeeee little pain started just behind your eyes yet?

The thing is that Heisenberg really meant to say that you can not measure both "with any degree of accuracy" and this is where quantum computers might shine. At least that is what
five physicists from Germany, Switzerland, and Canada hope.

Prepare to fry synapses! From the article:

• Key to quantum computers are qubits, the individual units of quantum memory. A particle would need to be entangled with a quantum memory large enough to hold all its possible states and degrees of freedom. Then, the particle would be separated and one of its features measured. If, say, its position was measured, then the researcher would tell the keeper of the quantum memory to measure its velocity.

Can you just hear Hugo Farnsworth going yeuuuuuuuuuuhwhaaaaaaaaaaaa?

This is what they hope for:

• Because the uncertainty principle wouldn't extend from the particle to the memory, it wouldn't prevent the keeper from measuring this second figure, allowing for exact.....
• ...would fundamentally alter our understanding of quantum mechanics and particle physics.

complete IO9 article

Golden Ratio Discovered in Quantum World

Hidden Symmetry Observed for the First Time in Solid State Matter ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2010)   Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), in cooperation with colleagues from Oxford and Bristol Universities, as well as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have for the first time observed a nanoscale symmetry hidden in solid state matter. They have measured the signatures of a symmetry showing the same attributes as the golden ratio famous from art and architecture.

When applying a magnetic field at right angles to an aligned spin the magnetic chain will transform into a new state called quantum critical, which can be thought of as a quantum version of a fractal pattern. 

Prof. Alan Tennant, the leader of the Berlin group, explains "The system reaches a quantum uncertain -- or a Schrödinger cat state. This is what we did in our experiments with cobalt niobate. We have tuned the system exactly in order to turn it quantum critical."

By tuning the system and artificially introducing more quantum uncertainty the researchers observed that the chain of atoms acts like a nanoscale guitar string.

The research team is publishing these findings in the Jan. 8, 2010 issue of the journal Science.

What kinds of things keep physicists up at night

Shaun Saunders send me this article from NewScientist. Here is the premise:
Recently:

• at the Perimeter Institute, in Waterloo, Canada, a panel of physicists was asked: "What keeps you awake at night?"

Those the responses were varied as one would suspect, a pattern of sorts showed up along several lines of interest.

• What is everything made of?

Ordinary matter, from atoms to galaxies are made of the same stuff. But that "stuff" only accounts for 4% of the total energy/mass of the universe. Physicists are very interested in "dark matter" - hypothetical matter that is undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. And dark matter may account for upwards of 96% of the mass of the universe. Mix in the mind numbing concept of dark energy, which appears to be speeding up the expansion of the universe, and you start to understand what physicists may have stumbled onto, something that could explain the most inner workings of the universe.

• What is the singularity?

From the article:

• Conventional theory points back to an infinitely hot and dense state at the beginning of the universe, where the known laws of physics break down.

And that is exactly what is the most disturbing about the original singularity, that there is a point at which scientific theory can no longer explain or predict what the conditions were like in those first few fractions of a second before time and space began to expand at speeds approaching or surpassing that of light.

• What is reality really?

One of the weirdest occurrences in quantum mechanics is the effect an observer has on an experiment or for that matter the universe as a whole. The ability of an observer to collapse the wave effect has been well documented, But even stranger is this from the article:

• particles that are widely separated can somehow have quantum states that are linked, so that observing one affects the outcome of the other. No one has yet fathomed how the universe seems to know when it is being watched.

The NewScientist article is well worth the read, just the "something ain't quite right here" feeling you get when things aren't quite what you thought they were. There are several more really bent questions that are posited by the article that will certainly get you thinking.

Physicists Measure Persistent Current

Ready to get your frontal lobes juggled? Let's check out Persistent Current. Let me set the stage here or the weirdness might blow a hole out the back of your skull. We all understand that tricky particle called an electron. We know that if you hook a battery up to a light, electrons flow in the circuit. If you remove the battery, electrons stop flowing, right?

Ummm nope - according to Physicists at Yale University. Ok to be fair, we really can't talk about lights, wires and batteries, (well maybe the wires...) and instead discuss the weirdness that happens in tiny rings of metal wire. What the Yale scientists have documented is a strange quantum mechanical effect that influences how electrons travel through metals.

Ok, lets revisit our light bulb and battery concoction. We understand that the current we know is flowing is electrons being pushed along the wire. The current is the electron's motion. So what do we consider the motion of electrons that constantly circle the nucleus of an atom? Is that not the very essence of electrical current? Atoms have electrons that are in constant motion and will continue in motion forever. Persistent Current.

No, this is not ZeroPoint , perpetual, or any other kind of untouched energy just waiting to be exploited.

from the Science Daily article:

• ...it is so faint and sensitive to its environment that physicists were unable to accurately measure it until now. It is not possible to measure the current with a traditional ammeter because it only flows within the tiny metal rings, which are about the same size as the wires used on computer chips.

Just attempting to measure it directly can disrupt it, but the current CAN be measured indirectly.
You can read more on this mind twisting current in this Science Daily article

A step closer to quantum nano computers

Barry sends in a very interesting article from the Edmonton Journal concerning the future of computers.

Drastically smaller and more energy efficient computers are much closer now thanks to a breakthrough by scientists at Edmonton's National Institute for Nanotechnology.

According to the article, scientists there:

• (have) invented the world's smallest quantum dots, atom-sized devices capable of controlling electrons, using a fraction of the power of current computer technology.

This could lead to computer circuits that are 1000 time more energy efficient. Plus being 1000 times smaller than today's processors.

This efficiency is achieved by what is knows as the quantum wave effect. Present circuits are basically wires and switches that control the flow of electrons. Engineers have made these circuits are becoming smaller and smaller and are being asked to handle more and more electrons. This adds heat and effect efficiency. The new technology largely eliminates the need for electron flow and instead makes use of a wave-like phenomenon to transmit information.

Robert Wolkow, the lead scientist on this project, described a scenario in which two people are standing at opposite ends of a calm pool and one person drops a pebble in the water. A tiny wave eventually moves across the pool, sending information about the pebble to the other person. As you can see, if the pebble were an electron, it would not have to travel through a circuit to transmit information, but just create a wave that could be picked up at the end of the circuit.

By creating very small quantum dots (again the dots could be though of as pools with pebbles dropping in them) there is no need for the impracticable ultra cool temps that were previously needed. Also with ultra small dots, its much easier to control the electrons inside and make the output much more predictable.

<- complete article ->

Scientists simulate a ?Black Hole"

A recent article in the Daily Galaxy blog describes a team of scientists in Scotland who have done what science fiction writers have only dreamed of - visiting the event horizon of a singularity, better known as a black hole. But unlike the predictable science fiction movie where something goes terribly wrong and manage to have the Earth sucked into the run-away black hole ( Disney anyone?) This group is using high powered lasers to simulate how a singularity behaves at the point where light can not escape the pull of gravity from the ultra massive core. The simulation takes place when two lasers are fired down an optical fiber cable. The second is much faster and should rapidly overtake the first - but it can't - but the first pulse starts a quantum effect that changes how fast light can travel in the optical material. and so the closer the second pulse gets, the stronger the effect becomes, creating an impassable barrier - a barrier like the event horizon of a black hole. So much so that scientists have begun to study the interaction due to the fact that is so closely resembles the areas around a black hole. Ultimately the effect that can now be brought to the laboratory is the quantum catastrophe singularity - which up to this point was considered impossible. To read more of the research click the link below.

<- UK Telegraph article ->

DARPA seeks Casimir forcefields

Dave Tackett over at the Quasar Dragons blog sends in an odd article from the Register. It seems of late DARPA has expressed interest in the Casimir effect. And no I don't mean they want to develop an insidiously itchy sweater. Darpa's interest is in the little understood "Casimir Force". The mysterious Casimir Force, is the tendency of nanoscopic, barely perceptible spacetime ripples - at the edges of the "quantum vacuum" in which all matter exists - to push things together. Some scientists have previously speculated that one might reverse the effect, fashioning a Casimir repelor platform causing objects to levitate on "literally, nothing".

As strange and far out as this seems, Darpa has gone so far as to issued a request for proposals (pdf), in which it is said:

• The goal of this program is to develop new methods to control and manipulate attractive and repulsive forces at surfaces based on engineering of the Casimir Force. One could leverage this ability to control phenomena such as adhesion in nanodevices, drag on vehicles and many other interactions of interest... Possible approaches ... could include the development of composite materials, engineered nanostructures, mixed-phase materials, or active elements.

Now the Register article is all a bit tongue in cheek, but there are some very interesting points raised, if a bit far fetched.

<- more ->

Quantum Mechanics as Reality TV!

Only on Wired's site could you ever imagine taking the extremes of quantum mechanics and reality tv and putting them together. Why you might ask.... well if you can grasp the concept, it's a light hearted way to describe just what all the buzz is about with the lhc. With tongue firmly in cheek we are told that if you can grasp the compexities of reality tv you too can understand physics at the quantum level.

The article is certainly funny, but for me, it was a geeky way to learn how to understand reality tv!

<- More! ->