Physics 4.0

Light -- is it a particle, or is it a wave? The answer, of course, is that it is neither, or both, depending on your point of view. But it's not one or the other.

I was looking forward to starting a new career in physics someday, probably two or three careers from now, and resolving the particle vs. wave discrepancy. Alas, it looks like I'm too late, as Xiao-Gang Wen (MIT) and Michael Levin (Harvard) have come up with what may be just that resolution. Here's a summary explanation in New Scientist magazine.

String-nets. It's elegant. Its covers a lot of concepts. It appears to be validated by the existence of a mineral named Herbertsmithite. (No kidding, it's discoverers named it after a man they admired.) And I'm betting it will even lead directly to a quantum theory of gravity.

If Newtonian physics was Physics 1.0, then Relativity could be Physics version 2, and Quantum Mechanics could be Physics 3. String-nets could be the beginning of Physics 4.0. Pretty cool!

But... so far it doesn't seem to resolve my dilema of entanglement vs. relativity, so maybe there's still room for me to make a contribution to physics by redirecting my efforts. Eventually...

The Shape We're In

The shape of things that have been, are now, and are to come?

Here's a really fun article discussing the "shape" of the universe.

Entanglement vs. Relativity

Disclaimer: IANA physicist, and IANA mathematician

Experiments have provided strong evidence to support the idea of "entangled particles," but I think there must be a limit to the distance...

"...two entangled systems appear to interact across large spatial separations..."

or the Special Theory of Relativity must break down.

Here's where I see them as mutually exclusive:

Take the famous spaceship example for relativity... A spaceship has a clock synchronized to a clock on Earth. The ship leaves Earth and travels for awhile at or near the speed of light, turns around, and returns to Earth... the clocks will read differently, with more time having passed on Earth than on the ship.

Now add to that example a pair of entangled particles. Separate them and keep one on the Earth while one goes on the ship. For this mental exercise, it doesn't matter that the particles can't be monitored without changing the states (they can't transmit information)... while on the trip, if the action at a distance has no limit, then if one changes state a million times, the other will change state a million times. If they change state the same number of times, then time is not relative between Earth and the ship.

If anyone sees a hole in this attempt to apply logic, I would very much appreciate you straightening me out via a comment to this post.

Thanks, John