Category Archives: Science

September 17, 2021

Wilczek: Fundamentals

I just finished Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality (2021), by Frank Wilczek. It’s yet another book explaining fundamental physics for lay readers, and it does so pretty much entirely within the bounds of mainstream science. I enjoyed reading it, but it’s mainly a review of physics as we know it.

I saw it on the library’s list of new books and put it on hold back on May 14th. It didn’t become available until September 3 — more than a three-month wait. Apparently lots of people wanted to read it.

Bottom line, I recommend it as an easy and enjoyable read, especially for those with a more casual interest in physics.

21 Comments | tags: Frank Wilczek, Heisenberg Uncertainty, Isaac Newton | posted in Books, Physics

September 8, 2021

Smolin: Time Reborn

By Wyrd Smythe

I’ve been reading science texts almost as long as I’ve been reading anything. Over those years, many scientists and science writers have taught me much of what I know about science. (Except for a Computer Science minor, and general science classes, most of my formal education was in the Liberal Arts.)

Recently I read Time Reborn (2013), by Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist whose personality and books I’ve enjoyed. I don’t always agree with his ideas, but I’ve found I do tend to agree with his approaches to, and overall sense of, physics.

However in this case I almost feel Smolin, after long and due consideration, has come around to my way of thinking!

24 Comments | tags: arrow of time, is time fundamental, Lee Smolin, spacetime, time | posted in Books, Physics

September 3, 2021

Pancomputation III

By Wyrd Smythe

Oh, look! Dancing Pixies!

In the last two posts I’ve explored some ideas about what a computer is. More properly, what a computation is, since a computer is just something that does a computation. I’ve differentiated computation from calculation and, more importantly, evaluation. (This post assumes you’ve read Part I and Part II.)

I’ve also looked at pancomputationalism (the idea everything computes). The post hoc approach of mapping of random physical states to a computation seems especially empty. The idea of treating the physical dynamics of a system as a computation has more interesting and viable features.

That’s where I’ll pick things up.

4 Comments | tags: analog computer, computation, computationalism, digital computer | posted in Computers, Science

September 2, 2021

Pancomputation II

By Wyrd Smythe

Computer cluster?

Last time I began exploring what we mean by the terms “computer” or “computation.” Upon examination, these turn out to be not entirely obvious, so some resort to the edge cases: Computers are Turing Machines; or Everything is a computer.

Even then the situation remains stubbornly not obvious. Turing Machines are abstractions quite different from what we typically call computers. Saying everything computes creates such a broad umbrella that it renders the notion of computation nearly useless.

This series explores the territory between those edge cases.

7 Comments | tags: analog computer, computation, digital computer | posted in Computers, Science

September 1, 2021

Pancomputation I

By Wyrd Smythe

Two computers?

Earlier this year I wrote a trilogy of posts exploring digital dualism — the notion that a (conventional) computer has a physical layer that implements a causally distinct abstract layer. In writing those posts I found my definition of computation shifting slightly to embrace the notion of that dualism.

The phrase “a (conventional) computer” needs unpacking. What is a computer, and what makes one conventional? Computer science offers a mathematical view. Philosophy, as it often does, spirals in on the topic and offers a variety of pancomputation views.

In this series I’ll explore some of those views.

5 Comments | tags: analog computer, computation, digital computer | posted in Computers, Science

August 30, 2021

Flat Space of the Torus

By Wyrd Smythe

Flat Earth!

To describe how space could be flat, finite, and yet unbounded, science writers sometimes use an analogy involving the surface of a torus (the mathematical abstraction of the doughnut shape). Such a surface has no boundary — no edge. And despite being embedded in three-dimensional space, the torus surface, if seen in terms of compensating surface metric, is indeed flat.

Yet a natural issue people have is that the three-dimensional embedding is clearly curved, not flat. It’s easy to see how wrapping a flat 2D sheet into a cylinder doesn’t distort it, but hard to see why wrapping a cylinder around a torus doesn’t stretch the outside and compress the inside.

In fact it does, but there are ways to eat our cake (doughnut).

43 Comments | tags: 2D space, 3D space, cosmology, flat space, Flatland, space, torus | posted in Math

August 27, 2021

BB #75: Gloves and Shoes

By Wyrd Smythe

Speaking of Bell tests, I’ve noticed that science writers often struggle to find a good metaphor that illustrates just what’s so weird about the correlation between entangled particles. Bell tests are complex, and because they squat in the middle of quantum weirdness, they’re hard to explain in any classical terms.

I thought I had the beginnings of a good metaphor, at least the classical part. But the quantum part is definitely a challenge. (All the more so because I’m still not entirely clear on the deep details of Bell’s theorem myself.)

Worse, I think my metaphor fails the ping-pong ball test.

35 Comments | tags: Bell's Theorem, particles, quantum mechanics | posted in Brain Bubble, Physics

August 26, 2021

QM 101: Fun with Photons

By Wyrd Smythe

Last time I explored the quantum spin of photons, which manifests as the polarization of light. (Note that all forms of light can be polarized. That includes radio waves, microwaves, IR, UV, x-rays, and gamma rays. Spin — polarization — is a fundamental property of photons.)

I left off with some simple experiments that demonstrated the basic behavior of polarized light. They were simple enough to be done at home with pairs of sunglasses, yet they demonstrate the counter-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics.

Here I’ll dig more into those and other experiments.

10 Comments | tags: Bell's Theorem, photons, QM101, quantum mechanics | posted in Physics

August 25, 2021

QM 101: Photon Spin

By Wyrd Smythe

Earlier in this QM-101 series I posted about quantum spin. That post looked at spin 1/2 particles, such as electrons (and silver atoms). This post looks at spin in photons, which are spin 1 particles. (Bell tests have used both spin types.) In photons, spin manifests as polarization.

Photon spin connects the Bloch sphere to the Poincaré sphere — an optics version designed to represent different polarization states. Both involve a two-state system (a qubit) where system state is a superposition of two basis states.

Incidentally, photon polarization reflects light’s wave-particle duality.

8 Comments | tags: Bell's Theorem, photons, QM101, quantum spin, wave-function, wave-particle duality | posted in Physics

August 19, 2021

BB #74: Which MWI?

By Wyrd Smythe

I finished The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality (2017), by Paul Halpern. As the title implies, the book revolves around the careers and lives of John A. Wheeler (1911–2008) and Richard Feynman (1918–1988). After Feynman graduated from MIT he became Wheeler’s teaching assistant at Princeton. The two men, despite very different personalities, became life-long friends and collaborators.

One of Wheeler’s many claims to fame is his promotion of Hugh Everett’s PhD thesis, The Theory of the Universal Wave Function. That paper, of course, is the seed from which grew the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

The thing is, there are two major versions of the MWI.

3 Comments | tags: Many Worlds Interpretation, MWI, Paul Halpern, quantum mechanics, Sabine Hossenfelder | posted in Brain Bubble, Physics