An evening with the nerds

I was out with some friends and colleagues tonight. We went to hear a presentation about the 16 official world champions of chess, from the first champ Willem Steinitz, to the reigning champion, Magnus Carlsen. Two weird guys who have written a book about these 16 champs presented the story. It was an evening with nerds. The kind of stuff I like. Very enjoyable.

It was a great presentation, the kind of stuff I enjoy, besides science, of course. The lecture room was filled with these people who watch the chess world championship broadcast, for hours and hours. Very cool.

And then we went out to drink some beers, and discuss chess, and science and mathematics and physics. All the good stuff that life has to offer, except skiing, which wasn’t much of a topic tonight.

And we discussed climate change in the way climate change should be discussed. The science, not just the political crap that we hear all the time, from people who don't understand how the Navier-Stokes equations works. Discussing climate change is a lot more interesting when you talk to people who are scientists and mathematicians, and who know more than just to repeat that stupid argument that all scientists agree. Consensus is not an argument in science. Remember what good old Feynman said:

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

The first beer was not so good. It had some grape juice mixed in. The second one was better, a clean pure IPA. And the I went home, and I felt this urgent need to write something.

(Picture taken tonight)

A-Z Challenge 17: Quantum leap

You sometimes hear people talk about quantum leaps as a metaphor: “We have made a quantum leap”. If you study physics, you learn about quantum leaps in the lectures on quantum mechanics, of course. That’s where the metaphor comes from. In the physics lectures, you also learn that a quantum leap is incredibly small. Usually, it’s an integer times Planck’s constant, which is order 10 to the power minus 34 (in units of Js, Joule seconds). That is, 0.000…01, with 34 zeros after the decimal point and before the digit 1. Correspondingly, the Planck length is order 10 to power the minus 35 meters. That's the scale of the quantum leaps.

The Planck length does not have a clear physical meaning, but Planck's constant does. Multiplied by frequency, it's the typical separation between the energy levels of a quantized system (e.g. a harmonic oscillator), and hence the magnitude of a quantum leap.

So whenever I hear a car or computer manufacturer claiming that they have made a technological quantum leap, I think this is not an improvement worth paying for, if you see what I mean.

A-Z Challenge 05: Education

Years ago, when I was a young physics student, I tried to avoid anything that smelled of industry and commercial application of science. I wanted to do pure science for science’s sake.

Now I’m working for BigOil.

The story goes like this: I wrote my master thesis on the theory of elementary particles, a weird but interesting mix of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity (this mix is called quantum field theory). When I had received my master degree, I got a job offer within geophysics, and petroleum exploration.

I discussed this issue with an old professor I got to know. Should I accept the job offer, or go for a PhD in quantum field theory? This is what the old professor said:

“It doesn’t really matter which wave equation you solve, but for some you get better paid.”

It’s probably the best advice I ever got. And I’ve got education for a life.

Higgs and other fields

 This week, Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. More than 40 years ago, Higgs and his co-workers predicted theoretically the existence of an elementary particle known as the Higgs boson. In 2012, the Higgs particle was finally detected in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva.

In a popular-science book by Leon Lederman, the Higgs boson was nick-named the God particle. This name is strongly disliked by both physicists and priests, because it could give the false impression that God has something to do with it. That’s not the case.

Science deals with theoretical predictions and experimental confirmation (or rejection) of the theories. Religion is just a question of belief (or lack of it), and is outside the scope of science.

Lederman, in his book, first wanted to call it the Goddamn particle, because of the enormous efforts and billions of dollars spent in the search for the Higgs boson. But the publisher didn’t approve it

I thought it was really cool when the Higgs particle was found, because I used to work with this kind of stuff when I was a physics student. Elementary particles are the basic building blocks of everything, all kinds of matter, and even light. The weird part of theoretical physics known as “quantum field theory” is the mathematical description of elementary particles and their interactions.

For every particle there is a field, and for every field there is a particle, the observable quantum of the field. Even light has a particle; the photon. And of course, there is a Higgs field, associated with the Higgs particle.

In fact there are many Higgs fields, at least four. Three of the Higgs fields are busy, giving mass to other particles, by so-called spontaneous symmetry breaking. The 4th Higgs field is free (because light, the photon, didn't acquire a mass), and is observable as the Higgs particle.  

More than 20 years ago, I wrote my master thesis on an even crazier part of quantum field theory, something called super-symmetry. In super-symmetry, there are more Higgs-like particles, and a myriad of other new particles, none of which have been observed in the labs so far.  

Working with super-symmetry was very entertaining, but I’m not sure it’s useful. I was in doubt if I should continue with this, or switch to something else. Once, I discussed this with a professor I knew (he was an outstanding teacher). The advice he gave me is probably the best I ever got:

“It doesn’t really matter which wave-equation you solve, but for some you get better paid.”

So, I swapped field (literally speaking), from elementary particles to acoustic and electromagnetic waves. I did my PhD in applied geophysics, and started to work for BigOil. I never regretted, and I even think I’m useful to society, sometimes >:)

(The picture is a random page from my master thesis, written back, in 1992. I still have a copy of the thesis in my bookshelf. I haven't opened it for more than 10 years, until recently, when I wanted to refresh my mind on the Higgs stuff.)

Sun gone wild

The sun has gone crazy the last few days, with very powerful magnetic storms. I read in the newspapers that this has caused problems for the air traffic, in particular near the poles.

And it creates northern light.

The magnetic storms send bursts of electrically charged particles into space. When the particles come close to the the Earth, they follow the magnetic field towards the north and south poles. That's why you need to be far north (or far south) to see the norther (or southern) light.

It's not very often we see strong northern light as far south as our town (at 63 degrees north). It's a spectacular view, but it's just some cool physics in action >:)

(The picture is from our local newspaper. It shows the northern light flashing over the town.)

Real dimensions

Here's some more cool stuff about dimensions. It's about real dimensions that are not really real (it's funny how the word real has different meanings in English).

Usually when we think about dimensions, they are integer numbers, like 3 for our regular space, and 4 if we include time to make it space-time.

In physics we sometimes have to compute infinitely long sums (integrals if you know calculus). Sometimes these sums in 4-dimensional space are infinite. That's not what we want.

We can fix this by making the dimension slightly less than 4, for instance 3.99, which is a real number (and not an integer). The infinite sums now splits nicely in a finite term, which is the answer we seek, and an infinite term that we trash.

Then, in the end, we let the dimension go almost back to 4, say 3.999999999999.

It's magic, isn't it? And what does it mean? It's just a math trick that let us do computations, nothing more and nothing less. The dimension of our real space-time is still 4 >:)

(The trick outlined above is called dimensional regularization. It was invented by the physicists t'Hooft and Veltman who won the Nobel Prize in 1999. I have no idea how to picture a 3.99 dimensional space, and there's no need to do it as long as the math works. The picture above is a 4-dimensional hypercube from Wikipedia)

Higher dimensions

I'm working late today, preparing a lecture for Friday morning. It's on a cool subject, something called Hamilton's canonical equations. It's a funny game that takes place in a 6-dimensional space (so-called phase space).

The first 3 dimensions are the familiar world where we live.

Maybe we can use the other dimensions for something funny, like telepathy or getting in touch with the dead? Sorry, folks. You can't >:(

The first 3 dimensions describe where we are, and the last 3 dimensions describe how fast we're moving and in which direction. The 6-dimensional space is just a convenient way to represent our motion with mathematics. That's it.

Hamilton's equations are fundamental in both classical physics and quantum mechanics. In the quantum world of superstrings and such, there are other funny things coming into the theory as well. But still it's just a convenient way to describe physics in the language of mathematics.

Higher dimensions can't be used for anything exotic at all in our peaceful lives on Earth.

Sorry if you got disappointed, but I can tell you that theoretical physics is really cool >:)

(I found the picture of Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) on Google Images. The photographer is probably dead long time ago, so I guess he doesn't mind if I use the photo. Sir William looks a little bit grumpy, doesn't he? Anyway, he was a really smart guy)

Thanksgiving

Holy shit! Six Flags Airlines was spectacular this evening. The tickets are pretty expensive, but they give you bang for the buck. I've been a frequent customer for some years, but never experienced anything like the roller-coaster ride we got today.

The start was smooth and easy. At cruising altitude the captain started to tease us: "Weather is nice. Good landing conditions. Easterly winds, so we expect some turbulence when we approach for landing"

And turbulence we got! No kidding.

I could never imagined an airplane moving like that, up and down and sideways, bullying the laws of physics. Some people cried, and some puked (the smell can not be mistaken).

The plane made a downward move so rapid that not a single ass touched the seat, like we were weightless in outer space. A tall man, two rows in front of me, banged his head in the ceiling. I bet you tighten your seatbelt better next time, dude.

I think we were all pretty shaky and exhausted when we touched down on the runway.

These pilots really impress me. They know how to keep a Dash 8 flying. They're very experienced, flying up and down in the turbulence between the small and remote airports in the north, all day, all year. And they all retire happily at age 56.

It's Thanksgiving today, so I should probably say: "Thank you guys for bringing us down safely"

In Satan we trust >:O

I have this damn novel to write

What the Hell am I doing? Probably, I’ve started something I will never be able to finish. Never mind; it’s not so important. Different from Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, I’m not “in it for the money”; but just for fun.

This is what happened: In Winterland, in the Easter holidays, it has become a tradition that normal, well-behaved people read crime novels. This Easter I wanted to be normal too, so I read a couple of crime novels. The books weren’t too bad; entertaining stories with well-constructed plots; but it was definitely not like Jean Genet or Ibsen or Dostoyevsky (who wrote great “crime novels” like Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamasov).

In a moment of exaggerated self confidence, I said, to my old lady:
- Bet I could write crime stuff like that myself.
Shit, I shouldn't have said that, because she immediately gave me the challenge:
- So prove it.
Now, I’m working on the plot, and inventing the characters, and personalities and names for all these mean bastards who make trouble for my hero; they even try to kill him. Then I need conflicts and tension, in every scene, I learnt from the writer-blogs I follow (thank you for these very useful blogs, such as Straight from Hel, The Blood Read Pencil, and Judy Croome). And all the time I find myself swimming in semicolons; I have to stop that immediately.

I had to make a few choices. I don’t have the time to do research (other than in geophysics), so I will use a setting and environment that I know fairly well. In about all the crime novels I have read, the main characters are police officers or journalists. Not so in my novel. My hero is a physics professor (what else, and yes, I know I’m not the first, Dan Brown’s protagonist is professor in iconology).

Then I have to choose the language. Chinese and Swahili are out of question, don't know a single word of it, and my German is very rotten now. Then I’m left with English or Winterlandic, don’t know yet what I will choose. Anyway, I will probably publish the shit chapter by chapter on my blog (or a parallel one) as I write.

Sorry, no more time for blogging now. I have this damn novel to write ... >:)))

Emmy Noether

Here is a little text that I’ve had almost finished for some time. I thought today, 8th of March, would be a suitable day to post it:

Some time ago a colleague of mine was revising his book on the history of science and creative thinking for a new edition. He had noticed that basically all the names he had mentioned from the history of science were men. He had written something on Marie Curie of course, but that was it. He came to me and asked if I knew about any women who had made outstanding contributions to the development of science. One name that immediately came to my mind was Emmy Noether.

Emmy Noether (1882-1935) was a German mathematician who worked at the University of Gottingen, until she moved to USA in the 1930’s, to escape the German nazi -regime. For many years, she worked without being paid, because women were not supposed to do research. The famous mathematician David Hilbert announced Noether’s courses in his own name, to avoid that they were stopped by the university board (Hilbert wrote an angry letter to the board, asking if the university was supposed to be an academic institution or a spa).

Emmy Noether has made important contributions to both abstract algebra and to theoretical physics. As a student, I first heard about her work in the quantum mechanics and quantum field theory courses, and this amazing property known as Noether’s theorem. It states the relationship between mathematical symmetries and conservation laws. Well known to anyone who had basic physics in high school is the principle of conservation of energy. Using Noether’s theorem, this follows from symmetry with respect to time: The potential energy of a bucket of water running off the Niagara Falls would be the same if it was measured today or next week. It’s the vertical drop that counts, not the day you measure it.

The symmetries related to space and time are relatively simple to understand. But Noether’s theorem applies to more abstract cases too. One example is the so-called gauge symmetries that lead to conservation of electric charge (these currents that flow through all our electric and electronic devices). Electric currents can not just appear or disappear. A similar, but even more abstract, example is the gauge symmetries leading to conservation of “color” in quantum chromo dynamics, the theory of nuclear forces (these enormous forces that we release in nuclear power plants).

Finally, there are empirical conservation laws that are not related to known symmetries, and the converse of Noether’s theorem has never been proved. Not even Emmy Noether was able to do that.

The smallest and the biggest

When I was in junior high school, I used to sit in the back of the class, next to my friend Foggy. We were talking all the time, and making some noise, for sure, but were still able to learn what we should. My favorite class was mathematics, no doubt. But this was before I discovered theoretical physics.

In senior high, I had a really good physics teacher. I got very fascinated by the most extreme ends of physics, the smallest and the biggest: Elementary particles and atoms at the smallest scale, stars and galaxies on the biggest scale. All the everyday physics in between, the kind of things we experience and feel in our lives on earth, I found mostly boring.

When I went to the university, it was an easy choice, it had to be physics. I found that astrophysics was kind of boring at the advanced level. Most of the time we were computing equations of state for white dwarfs and neutron stars. However, elementary particles was really cool. So, I was majoring in quantum field theory; this amazing mixture of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity.

Unfortunately, there are not many jobs in the quantum business. When I graduated, I started to work with the plain everyday stuff; geophysics. Surprisingly, I find it really interesting, because the mathematical methods we use to solve our problems are basically the same in all branches of science.