Monthly Archives: March 2022

A team of scientists recently published a paper indicating that life on Earth is the result of what can only accurately be described as cosmic teleportation.

Humankind has long sought to penetrate the mystery of how life came to exist on our planet. But what if the only reason were here right now is because the universe cheats?

If we trace the origin of life back to the dawn of biology on Earth, we find ourselves rewinding tothe primordial soup from which our first ancestors rose.

However, the basic building blocks of life had to be present before anything could ooze its way out of the soup and into the future. So the question is: how did amino acids end up on Earth?

According to the research team, which included scientists from the Max Planck Institute and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, our origin story actually began in space.

Per the teams research paper:

Here we prove experimentally that the condensation of carbon atoms on the surface of cold solid particles (cosmic dust) leads to the formation of isomeric polyglycine monomers (aminoketene molecules).

In other words: the researchers experimentally formed complex amino acids in a space-like environment. This is significant because its long been believed that life was only able to form on the Earth because of its proximity to the sun.

This new research doesnt necessarily change that. Its clear life thrives on our planet due to its unique amenities. But if the basic building blocks of life, amino acids, can form into complex chains in the void of space, its possible the universe is practically teeming with the potential for life.

However, getting those building blocks to form in cold temperatures is no easy feat. First, you have to push the boundaries of chemistry by designing amino acids that can form in a waterless paradigm. Then you have to leave the laws of physics behind to overcome whats essentially an insurmountable barrier.

The gist of the problem is that molecules have greater thermal energy at higher temperatures. Thats why combustion engines work.

Here on Earth, its warm enough for atoms to use thermal energy to overcome the energy barriers to their formation into amino acids.

But out there in space? Its cold and molecules are lazy. They dont have enough energy to climb over the energy barrier.

In order to overcome this, the researchers simply relied on the universes natural penchant for cheating.

Instead of giving the atoms more energy, the universe teleports them past the barrier and pretends like it never happened. This is a wacky quantum process called tunneling.

As Chemistry Worlds Katrina Kramer explains:

Tunnelling is actually a terrible word to use because the term conjures up images of a particle boring its way through a wall. But there is no hole, tunnel or any other type of opening involved.

Instead, we need to use the same currency the field of quantum mechanics deals in: probability. A particle can be described as an oscillating wave, its amplitude representing the probability of finding it in a certain place. When encountering a barrier, this wave doesnt end abruptly. Instead, it continues inside and on the far side of the barrier, albeit with a smaller amplitude.

Basically, life on Earth exists because the universe allows particles to glitch through walls like characters in a poorly-modeled video game world.

The amino acids were made out of were very likely formed in space through ridiculous circumstances before eventually being forged into cosmic masses made of improbable organics.

Per the teams paper:

As demonstrated here, a portion of these organics could be in the form of peptides. At later stages, such dust becomes the building blocks of comets or meteorites. The formed organics could therefore have been delivered to the early Earth during the period of heavy bombardment.

Quantum tunneling might sound like the kind of thing scientists make up when they cant explain what happened, but its actually a phenomenon theyre quite familiar with.

The sun, for example, only shines because enough random particles tunnel past their own energy barriers to cause the chemical reactions necessary to keep it burning.

Life, or at least its building blocks, might not be as rare as we once thought. Unfortunately for us, however,it seems like planets that can support it are.

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Scientists think quantum tunneling in space led to life on Earth - The Next Web

There are few thought experiments in science as famous as Schrdinger's Cat, even though most people couldn't explain it to you if they tried.

It's not that the implications of the thought experiment are opaque. In fact, the implications of the thought experiment are the one thing that almost everyone knows: that Schrdinger's Cat is both alive and dead at the same time.

But what does that even mean? What chain of logic could possibly lead to that kind of result?

Fortunately, you don't need a degree in physics to understand what Schrdinger was getting at with his thought experiment, and even Albert Einstein praisedSchrdinger for devising such a simple illustration of some of the more confusing parts of quantum mechanics.

So, in short, don't worry. The Schrdinger's Cat thought experiment isn't nearly as complicated as many seem to believe, and properly understandingSchrdinger's Cat is an essential part of grasping the fundamental features of the bizarre quantum realm of physics.

ErwinSchrdinger was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist who was instrumental in developing many of the fundamental aspects of quantum theory.

Other than his well-known thought experiment,Schrdinger is most famous for his wave equation, which is used to calculate the wave function of a quantum system at different points in time.

Even though he played such a large role in its formation,Schrdinger didn't always agree with his fellow quantum theorists. In fact, many of the ideas that they proposed for quantum mechanics sounded preposterous toSchrdinger, especially one of quantum mechanics' most famous features: superposition.

Quantum superposition is a feature of quantum mechanics where a particle can exist in more than one quantum state, and it is only when a particle is measured that its definite state can be determined.

Understandably, this adds a layer beneath physical reality that strikes many people as either counterintuitive or painfully obvious.

On the one hand, it hardly seems revolutionary to say that you can't determine a particle's state until you measure it. You can't determine your height until you measure it either, so what's the big deal?

The difference between the two is that you are a certain height, whether you measure it or not. If your height had the quantum property of superposition, you would not have a definite height at all prior to measurement.

Generally speaking, you would have an entirely even chance of being in any given measurable state, so if we restricted that to just the five-foot range, you would have a 1-in-12 chance of being five feet and one inch tall,five feet and two inches tall, and so on, but you wouldn't be any of those heights until we measured you.

This latter part cuts against our own lived experience since we never encounter something in our day-to-day lives that exist in such a superposition. When you descend in scale enough to be dealing with individual atoms and even smaller particles, not only is superposition possible, it's been verified time and again over the decades.

The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics isn't one thing specifically, but an assortment of ideas about quantum theory that are closely associated with two major founders of quantum mechanics, Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

What matters for us is the idea that Bohr postulated in the 1930s that a quantum particle and the instrument used to measure that particle do not act independently of each other, but rather become inextricably linked in the process of taking the measurement.

This has led to the common generalization that a particle "knows" that it is being watched and responds to the presence of an observer by defining its state so it can be measured.

This directly contradicts very basic principles of classical physics and logic, and it's what so flummoxedSchrdinger that he developed his famous thought experiment to show just how absurd that idea is.

In order to show that a particle can't be linked to the observer on a quantum level,Schrdinger devised the idea of a diabolical device in a box. Inside the box, there isSchrdinger's Cat, as we now know it, but there is also a Geiger counter wired to a hammer.

There is also a sealed glass bottle containing poison gas and a tiny amount of a radioactive substance. Quantumly, that substance can either decay or not decay at any given moment.

If the substance decays, the Geiger counter detects the radiation and triggers the hammer to break the glass bottle, releasing the gas into the box, which would in turn kill the cat.If the substance does not decay, nothing happens and the cat remains alive.

But, because of the principle of superposition, the substance can both decay and not decay, so the Geiger counter is both smashing the bottle and not smashing the bottle, andSchrdinger's cat is both alive and dead, all at the same time.

The Copenhagen interpretation would therefore imply that it isn't until the experiment is observed by opening the box that the quantum state of decay or not decay is decided, so it is only after opening the box that the true fate of the cat inside is settled.

This question is exactly whatSchrdinger was getting at with his thought experiment. The implications of the Copenhagen interpretation simply aren't logical when applied to his cat in a box.

The proposed outcome does not match our reality, and so Schrdinger and other opponents of the Copenhagen interpretation argued that it was straying away from science and entering the world of philosophy and metaphysics.

An important distinction that needs to be made is thatSchrdinger was not saying that quantum superposition isn't real.

He was trying to illustrate that the human observers of the experiment are not the deciding factor, since any interaction with a particle in superposition by just about anything can count as an observation in the quantum sense.

Long before a human ever opens the box, the fate ofSchrdinger's cat had already been decided by the Geiger counter.

Of the Copenhagen interpretation, Einstein, writing toSchrdinger in 1950, said;

this interpretation is, however, refuted, most elegantly by your system of radioactiveatom + Geiger counter + amplifier + charge of gun powder + cat in a box, in which the[quantum wave-function] of the system contains the cat both alive and blown to bits. Is the state of thecat to be created only when a physicist investigates the situation at some definite time?Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independentof the act of observation.

As Dr. Christopher Baird, an assistant professor of physics at West Texas A&M University writes: 'quantum state collapse is not driven just by conscious observers, and 'Schrodinger's Cat' was just a teaching tool invented to try to make this fact more obvious by reducing the observer-driven notion to absurdity. Unfortunately, many popular science writers in our day continue to propagate the misconception that a quantum state (and therefore reality itself) is determined by conscious observers."

So now you know the real story behindSchrdinger's cat, but don't worry, quantum mechanics is weird enough without having to resort to a feline multiverse.

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What is Schrdinger's Cat and why is everyone trying to kill it? - Interesting Engineering

image:Prof. Tomer Volansky view more

Credit: Tel Aviv University

A new study led by Tel Aviv University researchers demonstrates unprecedented sensitivity to an exciting dark matter candidate. As part of the new NASDUCK (Noble and Alkali Spin Detectors for Ultralight Coherent dark-matter) collaboration, the researchers developed unique innovative quantum technology that enables receiving more accurate information on invisible theoretical particles suspected of being dark matter with ultralight masses. The study was published in the prestigious Advanced Science journal.

The study was led by Prof. Tomer Volansky, research student Itay Bloch from the Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy in the Raymond & Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences at Tel Aviv University, Gil Ronen from the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University, and Dr. Or Katz, formerly of the Weizmann Institute of Science (now from Duke University).

Dark Matter is one of the great mysteries of physics. It composes most of the matter in theuniverse, and it is known to interact through gravity; however, we still know very little of its nature and composition. Over the years, many different theoretical particles have been proposed as good candidates to serve as dark matter, including the so-called axion-like particles.

Prof. Tomer Volansky explains: The interesting thing about axion-like particles is that they can be significantly lighter than any of the matter particles seen around us, and still explain the existence of dark matter, which for years was expected to be significantly heavier. One of the main ways of searching for dark matter is by building a large experiment with lots of mass, waiting until dark matter collides with it or is absorbed in this mass, and then measuring the minute energetic imprint it leaves in its wake. However, if the mass of the dark matter is too small, the energy carried by it is so insignificant that neither the collision nor the absorption effect can be measured. Therefore, we need to be more creative and use other properties of dark matter.

In order to discover these particles, the researchers have designed and built a unique detector in which compressed, polarized xenon gas is used to find tiny magnetic fields. Surprisingly, it turns out that axion-like particles which play the role of dark matter, affect the polarized xenon particles as if it is placed in a weak anomalous magnetic field which can be measured. The innovative technique used for the first time by the researchers, enabled them to explore a new range of dark matter masses, improving previous techniques by as much as three orders of magnitude.

PhD student Itay Bloch adds: This is quite a complex operation, since these particles, if they exist, are invisible. Nevertheless, we have succeeded with this study in constraining the possible properties of axion-like particles, by the very fact that we have not measured them. Several attempts have been made to measure such particles by turning them into particles of light and vice versa. However, the innovation in our study is the measurement through atomic nuclei without relying on an interaction with light, and the ability to search for axion-like particles in masses that were hitherto inaccessible.

The study is based on especially complex mathematical methods taken from particle theory and quantum mechanics and employs advanced statistical and numerical models in order to compare the empirical results with the theory.

Prof. Volansky concludes: After five months of sustained effort, we have presented a new method that expands what we thought was possible with magnetometers; therefore, this is a small but significant step towards finding dark matter. There are many more candidates for dark matter, each with its own quantum properties. However, axion-like particles are among the most interesting options, and if we ever find them, that would be a huge step forward in our understanding of the universe. This experiment was the first of the NASDUCK collaboration, showing the promise that lies in our detectors. I have no doubt that this is just the beginning.

New constraints on axion-like dark matter using a Floquet quantum detector

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For the first time, new quantum technology demonstrates capabilities that may enable detection of ultralight dark matter - EurekAlert

The present has a special status for us humans our past seems to no longer exists, and our future is yet to come into existence. But according to how physicists and philosophers interpret Einsteins Theory of Relativity, the present isnt at all special. The past and the future are just as real as the present - they all coexist and you could, theoretically, travel to them. But, argues Dean Buonomano, this interpretation of Einsteins theory might have more to do with the way our brains evolved to think of time in a similar way to space, than with the nature of time.

The human brain is an astonishingly powerful information processing device. It transforms the blooming buzzing confusion of raw data that impinges on our sensory organs into a compelling model of the external world. It endows us with language, rationality, and symbolic reasoning, and most mysteriously, it bestows us with consciousness (more precisely it bestows itself with consciousness). But, on the other hand, the brain is also a rather feeble and buggy information processing device. When it comes to mental numerical calculations the most complex device in the known universe is embarrassingly inept. The brain has a hodge-podge of cognitive biases that often lead to irrational decisions. And when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe, we should remember that the human brain was optimized to survive and reproduce in an environment we outgrew long ago, not decipher the laws of nature.

Is Einstein still right?Read moreTo date, the most powerful tool we have devised to overcome the brains limitations is called mathematics. Once in a while an outlier such as Einstein or Schrdinger conjures up equations that allow us to describe and predict the external world, independently of whether the human mind is capable of intuitively understanding those equations. We can plug those equations into a computer, which can then pump out predictions about what will occur when, whether or not we (or the computer) understand those equations.

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Much as chess is beyond the grasp of Schrdingers cat, an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics is probably beyond the grasp of the human brain.

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Mathematics, however, is mostly agnostic to the interpretation of the equations of modern physics. This is particularly clear in the case of Schrdingers equation, which helped master the quantum world of particles that underlies much of our digital technology. No one can really claim to intuitively understand what a wavefunction actually is, or what it means for two photons two be entangled. Much as chess is beyond the grasp of Schrdingers cat, an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics is probably beyond the grasp of the human brain.

The equations that comprise the laws of modern physics have proven accurate beyond any reasonable expectation, but when we interpret the equations of relativity and quantum mechanics, we often forget to take into account the inherent limitations, constraints, and biases, of the organ doing the interpreting. This point is particularly relevant in the context of what the laws of physics tell us in regard to the nature of time.

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Under eternalism time-travel is a theoretical possibility, as my past and future selves are in some sense physically real. In contrast, under presentism the notion of time travel is impossible by definition.

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While there is no universally accepted view as to the nature of time, the two main views are referred to as eternalism and presentism. In its simplest form eternalism maintains that the past, present, and future all stand on equal footing in an objective physical sense. The past, present, and future all coexist within what is called the block universe. Under presentism, my local present moment is fundamentally and objectively different from the past and future, because the past no longer exists and the future is yet to exist. Importantly presentism is local, and distinct from the empirically disproven Newtonian notion of absolute time, in which clocks moving at different speeds will remain synchronized. While some have argued that the distinction between eternalism and presentism is a false dichotomy, the fundamental difference between them can be easily captured in the context of time travel. Under eternalism time-travel is a theoretical possibility, as my past and future selves are in some sense physically real. In contrast, under presentism the notion of time travel is impossible by definition, one cannot travel to moments that dont exist.

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It is important to note that relativity does not predict that we live in an eternalist universe, rather it allows for an eternalist universe.

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One of the strongest arguments for eternalism was planted in 1908 by Herman Minkowskis geometric interpretation of Einsteins special theory of relativity. In it, time is represented as one axis in four-dimensional space, and movement of a clock along any of the three spatial dimensions will slow the rate at which it ticksMinkowski bound space and time into spacetime. But any geometric representation of time inevitably corrals the brain to think about time much like spacethinking of past and future moments in relation to now, as being as real as positions to the left and right of here. Indeed geometry, as formalized by Euclid over two thousand years ago was the study of static spatial relationships, and it was likely the first field of modern science because it had the luxury of ignoring time. Einsteins theory of general relativity further cemented the concept of spacetime into physics. But it is important to note that relativity does not predict that we live in an eternalist universe, rather it allows for an eternalist universe. Relativity makes no explicit testable predictions regarding eternalism versus presentism. Indeed, it is far from clear that there are any testable predictions that could prove or disprove eternalism or presentism (other than the emergence of a confirmed time traveler). And if advanced aliens ever came to Earth and assured us that we live in a presentist universe, I dont think anybody would claim that proves relativity is wrong (although presentism does set boundaries on the solutions to the equations of general relativity).

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Contrary to our everyday experiences, when interpreting the laws of physics, perhaps the architecture of the human brain imposes a bias towards eternalism.

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While the laws of physics do not assign any special significance to the present, they are ultimately agnostic as to whether the present may be fundamentally different from the past and future. Why then, despite our clear subjective experience that the present is special, is eternalism the favored view of time in physics and philosophy? Contrary to our everyday experiences, when interpreting the laws of physics, perhaps the architecture of the human brain imposes a bias towards eternalism. Thinking about time as a dimension in which all moments are equally real, better resonates with the brains architecture which readily accepts that all points in space are equally real.

The human brain is unique in its ability to conceptualize time along a mental timeline and engage in mental time travel. We can think about the past and simulate potential futures to degrees that evade the cognitive ability of other animals. It is mental time travel that allows us to engage in species-defining future-oriented activities, such as agriculture, science, and technology development. But how did humans come to acquire this ability? Evidence from linguistics, brain imaging, psychophysics, and brain lesion studies, suggest that the human brain may have come to grasp the concept of time by co-opting older evolutionary circuits already in place to represent and conceptualize space. A common example in the context of linguistics is that we use spatial metaphors for time (it was a long day; I look forward to seeing you). Imaging studies show a large overlap in brain areas associated with spatial and temporal cognition, and people with brain lesions that result in spatial hemineglect (generally characterized by an unawareness of left visual space), often exhibit deficits in mental time travel.

Our brains certainly did not evolve to understand the nature of time or the laws of the physics, but our brains did evolve to survive in a world governed by the laws of physics. Survival, of course, was not dependent on an intuitive grasp of physical laws on the quantum and cosmological scaleswhich is presumably why our intuitions epically fail on these scales. But questions pertaining to the reality of the past and future, fall squarely within the mesoscale relevant to survival. Thus, if one accepts that our subjective experiences evolved to enhance our chances of survival, our subjective experience about the passage of time and the fundamental differences between the present, past, and future, should be correlated to reality. A common counterexample to this point is our incorrect intuitions about the movement of the Earth. However, our incorrect perception that the Earth is static while the sun moves around us, pertains to the cosmological scale and is largely irrelevant to survival.

Empirical evidence from physics should always override our intuitions about the world. Yet in the case of the presentism versus eternalism debate there is actually no empirical evidence for eternalism. But there is some empirical evidence for presentism. Our brains are information processing devices designed to take measurements and make inferences about the physical world. Indeed, on the mesoscopic scale the brain does an impressive job at creating a representation of reality by measuring the physical properties of the world. It measures light, weight, temperature, movement, and time, in order to simulate the world well enough to survive in it. Our subjective experience of color or temperature, help us survive because they are correlated with reality.

I suspect that our subjective experiences regarding the nature of time also evolved because they capture some truth about the nature of the universe.

Perhaps one day objective evidence will emerge that we live in an eternalist universe, and we will understand why our subjective experiences are misleading. But until that day, we should accept our experience that the present is objectively different from the past and future as empirical evidence in favor of presentism.

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Einstein and why the block universe is a mistake - IAI