How is the Universe here?

Hi Cavediver,

I have a question that I'm not sure is in the direction you're going, so please feel free to ignore this.

My understanding of electrostatic forces, the same ones you mentioned that make clapping one's hands possible, is that they're transmitted by exchanges of photons. Is that correct? If so, what is it about the exchange of photons that creates a force on the electrons that exchange them (and through them, of course, on the atoms to which they're to various degrees affixed and on up the hierarchy of scale to our hands)?

--Percy

Think about this and digest it for a while, as it is quite mind-blowing. And note that we haven't even begun to talk about quantum theory or relativity - this is purely experimental result and classical thinking, and already our concept of 'physical' is starting to change, as all those properties we thought of as unique to physical objects, are actually properties of those invisible forces. What we think of physical, tangible objects are just the net result of a web of atomic scale forces.

It is interesting that invisible forces (not an alpha particle) in the natural are transmuting elements without the aid of an alpha particle. photons?

It is all quite mind blowing like how the chicken is transmuting the potassium in the creation of the egg and evidence the chicken came before the egg.

Stephen Hawkins however argues otherwise that the egg came first in spite of the egg being evidence that transmutation of atomic nucleur forces happened naturally, etc...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kervran's Proof of Biological Transmutation

*Note, however, that since gravity is infolded EM, one can have extremely powerful infolded EM, yet only have miniscule electrical (outfolded) residues. Thus the actual "available power" in artificial biopotentials may not be quite so small after all.

http://www.cheniere.org/books/aids/ch5.htm

Stephen Hawking and Christopher Langan argue that the egg came before the chicken, though the real importance of the question has faded since Darwin's "On The Origin Of Species" and the accompanying Theory of Evolution, under which the egg must have come first.[5][6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken-and-egg_problem

Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.

Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.

You were asked not to post in this thread. You are off for 24 hours (and longer next time).

My understanding of electrostatic forces... ...is that they're transmitted by exchanges of photons. Is that correct?

Yes, this is often how it is expressed, but they're actually virtual photons and also virtual electron/positron pairs as well. It's essentially a big messy interaction of the quantum fields.

If so, what is it about the exchange of photons that creates a force on the electrons

Uh-oh, I hate this question. Photons carry momentum, so you can easily imagine a photon causing a repulsion. Attraction is slightly harder to explain, but essentially, virtual photons can carry -ve momentum, which if you think about a transfer of -ve momentum from one electron to a second positron, actually causes attraction. Ah, but how does the photon know what particle is at the other end? If it's +ve, then it needs to transfer -ve momentum, and if it's -ve, it needs +ve momentum!! The photon carries no charge itself, so there is no way it can tell. Fortunately, it all comes out in the wash (well, the mathematics) but it is rather messy quantum mechanics, that needs a separate thread. The trick is to understand that whenever we say virtual particle (and I rarely do) what we mean is a complex interaction in the quantum fields that can have characteristics not found in those disturbances that give rise to 'real' particles.

Is there some actual minute possibiliy of something larger possibly passing through a brick wall?

It's staggeringly unlikely. To tunnel, your wavefunction must have an appreciable value in the region you want to tunnel into. But the wavefunctions of large objects are forced to have extremely small extent because of the practically inifnite interactions with the wavefunctions of the practically infininte number of other particles around us. This is decoherence. The only way to keep a wavefunction extended is to isolate it from interactions. This is possible for electrons, even atoms, and actually even molecules in the right extreme conditions. But at our size, it is simply not possible. This is probably no bad thing as our existence is very classical in nature!

But let's just say we could isolate you sufficiently in a chamber to have an extended wavefunction. You shouldn't feel any different, because you yourself would still be classical, as your own self-interactions are more than sufficient to create the decoherence. So your body and conciousness should be fine. But you can't see anything or experience anything as we have purposely isolated you from all external interactions. To us, you would be like Schrodinger's Cat - unobserved, and in a superposition of states that include you on one side of the chamber and you on the other side of the chamber. So it is possible that we could use this to teleport you through a wall that was also in the chamber. To be impressive, we'd need to make a really big isolation chamber. In which case, it would be the isolation chamber that would be the more impressive achievement :)

Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

This is possible for electrons, even atoms, and actually even molecules in the right extreme conditions.

Even atoms and molecules? cool :eek:

I don't want to take you off course but, could you give an example of "the right extreme conditions"?

onifre writes: cavediver writes: [Tunneling] is possible for electrons, even atoms, and actually even molecules in the right extreme conditions. I don't want to take you off course but, could you give an example of "the right extreme conditions"?

Take this with a grain of salt, but here's my thoughts:

cavediver writes: But the wavefunctions of large objects are forced to have extremely small extent because of the practically inifnite interactions with the wavefunctions of the practically infininte number of other particles around us. This is decoherence.

Therefore, "the right extreme conditions" would be things like:
-a near vacuum (other than the tunnel-er and the tunnel-ee, of course)
-near absolute zero
-both?
-a bit of "luck" to hit (enter?) the object at just the right spot

Those are my guesses, for what they're worth.
(and I wanted to bump this thread :))

Hello Stile,
Although we will have to wait for Cavediver to givwe us the correct extreme condition. I do not believe any of your examples would cause an object to fail to have a collapsed wave function. I believe what CD is referring to, is a state where two systems interact while still being in a state of superposition. There by not causing a wave function collapse of any of the interacting sytems. I do not know of any real world examples where you could observe this interaction however, since any observation would cause a collapse of the wave function and your back to classical view of reality where the two objects will interact with each other.

cavediver writes: I guess I should only present this stuff on the condition that the audience promises never to repeat it Anway, presenting at EvC is much more difficult because you have so little feel as to where to pitch the material.

Reconsider the condition, please. The stuff you are presenting here is too good to go untaught even on the probability the message will not get through to most or will get lost in later translations among the masses.

Knowing you are educating the few, I hope, will be enough incentive to keep you going.

How about you giving up all other aspects of life to do these threads full time? We could fill up this thread of 300 and then start another and then another forever! Percy will keep the demented sideshows to a minimum, right? Minimal distractions. What better life than this?

Don't concern yourself with the "most won't understand" stuff. Damn the torpedoes ... Teach.

Please?

cavediver writes: Suddenly we're back to our question of what is 'touch'? If 'things' are 99.99999999% empty space, why do they seem solid? Why do our hands not pass through each other when we clap? Clearly it isn't the 'things' - electrons and nucleus - that are giving rise to the solidity. It is actually the electromagnetic forces generated by those charged electrons. The reason you cannot pass your hands through each other is because of ELECTROSTATIC REPLUSION; not because of any sense of there being 'things' in the way or the common sense view of 'clearly things cannot pass through other things'. When you 'touch' something, all that is happening is that you are being pushed away from some area of space by electromagnetism. Switch off that electromagnetism, and your hands will happily pass straight through each other, just as with colliding galaxies, where the chances of any single pair of stars actually hitting each other is very remote.

Just wanted to add something cavediver didn't mention - matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual. This is very important IMO for the direction of the discussions here as it kind of shifts the topic from Christianty vs the Theory of Evolution.

Here is the whole story:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html

Read the comments after the article, some of them are pretty witty.

I think I understand what you're saying. I do want to point out one thing though:

I do not know of any real world examples where you could observe this interaction however, since any observation would cause a collapse of the wave function and your back to classical view of reality where the two objects will interact with each other.

I'm not assuming that any of the scenarios I mentioned were being observed in any way. In fact, I was assuming they were all necessarily unobservable. In the sense of "it could happen... but we wouldn't be able to observe it happening".

Does that help my case at all? Or not so much?

Agobot writes: Just wanted to add something cavediver didn't mention - matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual.

That's not what the article you cited says.

--Percy

Agobot writes: Just wanted to add something cavediver didn't mention - matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual.

Percy writes: That's not what the article you cited says. --Percy

What does it say?

And how is it different to what we already knew from QM about matter(except for the source of mass), as in:

I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.

Werner Heisenberg

Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

What does it say?

It says nothing new - only that our calculations are getting better because we have better computers. I have said many times here at EvC that nearly all of the mass of a proton comes from 'binding energy' and not from the rest-mass of the basic quarks themselves. This binding energy arises from complex interactions of the quantum fields. They have managed to calculate these interactions better than before.

Agobot writes: What does it say?

It says you need to read more carefully. Or, if you actually realize it didn't say anything to the effect that "matter is 99.9999% empty space and the other 0.0001% is... virtual," then it says you have to stop making stuff up.

As Cavediver said, it says nothing new. It is a more accurate validation of already accepted theory. That's not to say it isn't a stunning analytical accomplishment, because it most certain is.

--Percy