In Part 1. of this series (which starts here), I introduced you to Elementary Particles and I flirted with the notion that all matter is, essentially, energy. But that’s just the beginning of the weirdness. Among the most mysterious and, frankly, illogical behaviors of Elementary Particles is that they are not fixed in a way we normally consider matter to be…
Elementary particles are subject to “quantum fluctuations.” When we look for them, they “show up” not in exact places, but in ranges of space. They usually show up where they should—but sometimes they don’t. They behave in probabilistic ways and these probabilities—the possible places where they may show up—spread out across the entire universe with the odd result that even empty space is permeated with particles popping-in and popping-out (this is know as the Casimir Effect). The particles in our bodies sometimes show up in unexpected places—sometimes “my” particles show up in you and “your” particles in me—and sometimes particles from both our bodies show up in galaxies far, far away…
Even weirder is that these probabilistic characteristics only seem to happen when we look at Elementary Particles. Otherwise they don’t. Otherwise particles in our bodies don’t really exist as particles—but merely as the probability of a particle, and that probability is shaped like a wave.
Yeah, I know, seems like I’m just stringing words together with no regard to making sense, but the way I’m explaining this reflects our best understanding of the dual “wave-particle” nature of matter at the “quantum” level. This non-fixed, probabilistic behavior is what led Heisenberg to establish his Uncertainty Principle. Matter behaves wave-like when we do not observe it, but “collapses” into particle behavior when we do–and this collapse prevents us from knowing certain properties; observation conceals part of matter’s nature.
Now you may be wondering, why am I taking the time discuss all this weirdness when what I really want to do is build a model of how everything works? Well, for two reasons: first, to establish that the way we experience the world is fundamentally different than the way the world is; and second, to begin the discussion about why such differences matter.
As we sketch more and more of the Model of Everything, we’ll discovery that our experiences do not exist in the component parts of things—and we will have to confront the question: can we say that such experiences are “real”, and more importantly are all such experiences equally real?
NEXT: Part 3. The Emptiness of Things, Large and Small
May 12, 2010 at 8:44 pm
you know i love this subject but even i am very confused when you state that our particles can show up in a galaxy far, far away….(i’ll take that as my first Star Wars nod)
can you explain a little further how that is theorized or maybe just a specific example of how we can know this?
also, could you give examples that you feel demonstrates this idea of matter acting different when observed by us? like, the theory of gravity….we all can see gravity affecting matter around us. i don’t know that this is linked but it’s an example that we can all identify with.
May 14, 2010 at 1:54 pm
i once heard a quote that went something like this: “if you think you understand quantum theory, then you don’t understand quantum theory…”
…and that’s because it’s so &^%%$^@ weird. But to answer your questions more directly–matter, at subatomic levels, does not behave like a particle, but rather a wave. The problem is, as soon as you observe/measure the wave in space/time, it stops being a wave and behaves like a particle. This is “wave/particle duality” and was discovered initially in the famous “two-slits” experiments. They are simply fascinating, and further experimentation has proven that the world of subatomic particles is still weirder than those experiments revealed.
Now when you try to measure a particle (that behaves like a wave) it can appear anywhere within the space where that particle is “waving” (i should add that it is a wave of probability, if that isn’t too confusing). In any case, the wave function (the math that describes the probability) determines where in space the particle may be found when it is looked for–it has a high probability of appearing where is it “supposed” to and ever-increasing lesser probabilities of being found farther and farther away from where it “should” be.
What this means is that if you were to look into the atoms that make up your body, and try to observe/measure a single electron in one of those atoms, it will likely show up where is should be, or it may show up only “close” to where it should be and that “closeness” is governed by the probability described in that particle’s wave-function.
I should add that observations proving the accuracy of the wave function are among the most tested (and confirmed) in the history of science.
Now I know I haven’t spoken about the actual experiments but there are many good books on this topic. One of the best I’ve read recently (because he includes lots of different experiments) is Brian Greene’s “Fabric of the Cosmos”… http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Cosmos-Space-Texture-Reality/dp/0375727205
Does this help at all?
May 15, 2010 at 8:26 pm
I like this approach very much. I like that you’re emphasizing the dynamism and probability at the baseline of matter/energy; one of the things I’ve found frustrating with many materialist models and claims (at least in popular treatments) is how inflexible and deterministic they seem to be. So many folks seem to me to still be working with this mechanistic ‘billiard ball’ model when what we are learning about matter is that it is so much more dynamic and fluid than previous paradigms.
Also I really the points you make in conclusion, that it is important to recognize that our experiences of the world may have very little correlation with reality as unmediated by our perceptions, and whether or not anything we can call reality depends upon its being something we can break down into component parts.
Looking forward to the next installment!
May 15, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Hang on, let me try something . . .
May 15, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Once more . . .
May 15, 2010 at 8:34 pm
OMG. I can get different monsters!!!!!!!
So cool. I like this one, here, with the bat wings — I could flap ominously after my children to check up on them.
Hmmmmm, my daughter just left with a friend . .. are they reeeeaaaaaaaally going to the mall? What’s the probability? If I directly observe them, will they collapse into a maternally approved state . . .?
. . . flap . . . flap . . . flap . . .
May 17, 2010 at 11:20 am
haha, Anna, you’re a goofball! but in defense of your goofiness, i do like the bat glob monster best so far.
okay, just so i think i understand a bit of what you’re saying Ty…..when scientists try to observe matter at it’s most basic or lowest level, instead of it being a dot with a definate cooridinate it’s more like a constantly moving string of energy. But when a single matter particle is thought of as a whole, it has to have a definate cooridinate so in theory it’s a dot but in actuality it’s a constantly moving wave. did i get this right?
May 17, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Getting closer, but not quite there yet!
When sub-atomic particles are observed, it’s not that we use particle descriptions for convenience or estimation–it’s that they really do appear as particles! When scientists look for the dot, they see the dot (albeit not necessarily where they expect to see it), but if they don’t look for the dot (rather, if they don’t look at all) matter behaves entirely differently, it behaves like a wave.
In the original double slit experiments they “shot” single electrons at a screen with two slits in it, behind the wall was a photo-electric plate so they could see where the electrons landed. They also put up detectors so they could tell which slit the electron went through. Half the time it went through one and half the other–on the photo-electric plate they could see an accumulation of hits behind each slit. This is electron particle nature, and it’s not a surprise.
When they turned the detectors off, however, the hits did NOT occur behind each slit, but rather in an “interference pattern” (the result of electrons traveling as waves, which they do when not observed). Now initially it was thought this was all due to an “observation effect”–that is, the detectors themselves disturbed the electrons and that’s why they behaved as particles (implying their “true” nature is as a wave). Since this experiment however, which i think was done in the ’30’s, there have been other ways to “observe” an electron without actually interacting with it, and it has confirmed these results (which were predicted by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle).
Check out this vid:
May 17, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Jesse, I’m sticking with the bat wings, and my goofiness is indefensible. 😉