Whenever one talks about physics, the coolest thing to discuss is all the fringe science. This is the stuff that science fiction novels are made of whether it be alien life, space travel, multiple dimensions, or Frankenstein’s monster. There are two particular recurring tropes in science fiction that I would like to discuss that actually have a decent amount to do with particle physics: teleportation & time travel. So, as far as I know and as far as I’ve been told, we haven’t officially sent anyone or teleported anyone to any time or anywhere. That being said, I’d also like to discuss whether or not these are possible. I will be splitting these topics into two posts because I feel like it’s a bit too much to wrap one’s head around both of these concepts at the same time. Since I sort of already began talking about one of these in my last post, I’ll just continue with that one in this post.

Teleportation

Here’s the kicker with teleportation: We haven’t been able to teleport a person but we’re pretty close albeit with a large caveat. It all has to do with a concept called quantum entanglement. I talked about this concept in my last post when I was explaining how quantum computing would work based upon quantum entangled particles. The gist is that two or more particles can share the same everything barring position such that their states cannot be defined irrespective of each other. They are the monkey-see, monkey-do of the quantum world. Whatever happens to one must happen to the other(s) and vice versa. Though this has grand implications for the transfer of data in a computer, it also has some great implications for teleportation. Quantum teleportation is the process by which quantum information, the exact state of a particle, can be transmitted instantly from one location to another. The current most-likely method for human teleportation relies on this method. However the catch is that the original particle is immediately destroyed through the scanning process. Picture this: There are two phone-booth kind of looking machines each in a different location. You step into one of these booths, select your destination and then almost instantly you’re zapped to there. The key word being “zapped”. Your entire being is reconstructed in another location. The issue is that doing this with anything larger than a photon is incredibly complicated as one of the requirements for the quantum teleportation is obeying the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.This just states that one cannot know both the momentum and position of a particle at any one time.

Piecing together the almost relatively infinite number of particles that make us up is ridiculously hard because of this. CalTech scientists were able to teleport a photon by using three photons where two photons were entangled, one photon of the two entangled was given information about the one not entangled photon which transferred it to that photon. I can’t even begin to explain the exact mechanics behind it, but that’s what happened pretty simply. To sum it up, there is hope, but it will be along time before we see anything practical. Also, while you’re already thinking about all of this wildly conceptual stuff, it may be a good time to consider what our existences are. One theory for how we might arrive at teleportation was that rather than using quantum methods, we would reassemble our atoms in one place after scanning and destroying our originals. Since we would effectively be killing ourselves and then remaking ourselves and continuing to live, it begs the question about whether our life actually ended at that moment. My personal favorite blog/website on the internet is called WaitButWhy.com and they cover this exactly: What Makes You You?  I would highly recommend reading this post in your spare time if you’re interested. The other material on the site is really wonderful too especially the Why Procrastinators Procrastinate and The Fermi Paradox articles. I look forward to talking about time travel next week! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns in the comments below and I’ll be sure to address them!

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time talking about the details of physics and its particles, but I haven’t really gotten into the whole point of researching all of this. Personally, my interest is due to how much I love science and gaining knowledge about the world, but it’s totally understandable that everyone else who reads this post may not have the same interests or outlook as me. So, I thought it would be appropriate to take some time to discuss some of the benefits that have been reaped from particle physics research. In the rest of physics there are obvious implications, but just as with other work new applications are abundant.

The Well-Known-ish Ones:

• WWW – (World Wide Web) This one is a bit of a misnomer. The World Wide Web was not created due to a discovery in particle physics or anything like that. It was actually created as an effort to create an international platform for collaboration between physicists all around the world.
• MRIs – (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) These magic machines that seem to know more about our bodies than we do work through something called superconducting wire. Superconducting wire is used primarily in superconducting magnets. The term superconducting just means that the medium is able to carry a charge with zero electrical resistance. This is super useful in applications where there is a need to carry a high amount of charge. The superconducting magnets are electromagnets that produce much higher magnetic fields than traditional and natural magnets. An MRI uses these by aligning the atoms in your body by their spin with the poles of the magnet and varying the field in certain areas to capture the energy changes due to spin changes as an image.

The Not-So-Well-Knownish Ones:

• Diagnosing – MRIs were just mentioned as a way a concept of particle physics is applied as a medical diagnostic method, but there is menagerie of other methods that involve the manipulation of atoms, protons, electrons, and smaller particles to reveal important information about the body. Other devices include PET scans, X-Rays, and CT Scans.
• Treating – LASIK Eye surgery? Yup, particle physics. Practically anything that has to do with the application of high-intensity lasers. Beyond the eyes, we use the ejection of protons, electrons, and other particles to deal with other afflictions such as cancer.
• Computing – Okay, I have to admit that this is probably one of my most favorite applications of particle physics. I think computers are just AWESOME. Like seriously, how in the world did we get smart enough to figure out how to make what I’m typing this up on right this second? It’s astounding, but I digress. You’ve probably heard of supercomputers. Basically like anything else with the – prefix, they just do their job really well. They can process faster, more efficiently, and can just do more. NASA and other big names use these to handle calculations and simulations that our average laptop just can’t handle. (Which is still saying something because even basic flip cell phones can handle more than the computers that were used to get us to the moon.) Particle physics opens up the realm of possibilities for quantum computing. This all works on the principle of quantum entanglement. Pairs or groups of particles interact in such a way that one cannot identify the state (the rotation of spin for example) of one without describing the other or others. Applications of this include manipulating a quality of one which simultaneously affects the other(s). As computers are just complex applications of “off” and “on”, two states, and the same can be said for these particles, they are an ideal option for computing. This is especially so due to how the changes are instantaneous. Computing on the quantum level would be something akin to asking a question and knowing the answer the moment the question is even formed. Me, you, everybody, as it happens:
• Industry & Security – These are probably the least well-known applications of particle physics. In industry, superconducting cables are ideal for power transmission. Turbulence, one of the most challenging concepts to deal with in any field from oil extraction and pipelines to weather models, can be tackled using instruments such as detectors and amplifiers developed for use in particle physics. Their ability to detect minuscule changes in fluid is immensely helpful in the pursuit of understanding turbulence in various circumstances. Additionally, the techniques used to examine particles and work with them are equally as helpful in the fields of bio-medicine, drug development, and microbiology. They help to provide insight into how the structure of proteins lead to their function (another topic I’m quite fond of) and even with the development of drugs. On the security front, super-cops. Joking, I swear. We use methods meant for detecting the particles from radioactive substances as a means of monitoring the nation’s nuclear reactor cores.

As you can see, there is such a wide spectrum of ways that particle physics can be applied and help further various efforts. Despite being so small, they really do make a large difference.

Okay, so I decided to start this post early in light of the recent events or rather not so recent events. As you may have heard, we have just recently confirmed the existence of gravitational waves! YAY! or maybe not? In all honesty, this is actually a rather somber event for physics, but I will definitely get into that later.

First off, I think it would be appropriate to go into what exactly gravitational waves are and why it is that everyone is talking about it (or at least I’ve been raving for the past couple days). This may end up being a sort of long post, so bear with me!

Looking back to my first post, I talked about there being separate particles to represent the main forces in the universe. You may have noticed that I had discretely not mentioned what was going on with gravity. I was planning to devote an entire post to it and now I’ve got that opportunity!

General Relativity

Albert Einstein published the geometric theory of gravitation (GTR) a.k.a. general relativity in 1915. The crazy thing is that this was one hundred years ago and it has consistently been the accepted theory. So, here’s something important: Einstein first developed a special theory of relativity. It states that the laws of physics are the same for all observers in the same inertial frame of reference. An inertial frame of reference is a frame of reference where everything being looked at is moving at a constant or zero velocity. For instance, one frame could be a person looking at a bus moving at a constant speed. Another would be on the bus looking at the immobile person. However, if the bus or the person were to be slowing down, speeding up, or changing direction then they would not belong in the same inertial frame of reference. Einstein then developed the general theory of relativity which dealt with objects with constant acceleration. This allowed for an explanation for how time passed differently in different situations of acceleration. In fact, it is proven for instance that time passes by more quickly at 10 km above the Earth’s surface. Everything from how we look at planets in space or predict the travel of a rocket is dependent on these findings.

Gravity

The whole idea behind gravitational waves is the concept of a fabric of space-time that can bend and deformed. Picture it as this:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBRBSJzFmEs]


Essentially, the presence of an object with mass actually warps the space-time fabric around it. The more massive the object, the more the space-time fabric gets warped and the larger the pull on the surrounding objects. Following that logic, that would mean that everything and everyone including you reading this post is applying a gravitational force on the objects near you. It is obviously rather small at the scale of an individual’s mass. We can feel the gravity of the Earth because it is so many more times massive than we are:

I’m sure you’ve heard of black holes, yes? Well, they happen when an incredibly massive object collapses in on itself to a very small size. As seen in the video, an object such as this in the space time fabric creates  somewhat of a point in space that bends the space-time fabric practically into a funnel. Super-massive stars generally do this when they die. This is because the stars are constantly fighting a tug-of-war battle between gravity and the pressure created from the nuclear fusion reactions in the star. Usually they balance out but as a star runs out of fuel for the nuclear reaction, the mass remains generally the same while the pressure decreases meaning gravity wins out.

The way that the gravitational waves were discovered is that two super-massive black holes collided and combined. This collision caused a ripple in the space-time fabric that traveled and hit the Earth. Now, it would seem that something that huge would be extremely noticeable, but it happened and no one seemed to bat an eye, except they kind of did. Physicists had sensors set up for this very purpose! The system worked on the basis of mirrors and the path of light. Light will follow a relatively straight path unless bent by a change in the space-time fabric. A gravitational wave does this exactly. The sensors were set up to detect the slightest of variance in the path of the light. The variance was within a fraction of the width of an atom! However, it was definitely large enough to be conclusive evidence for the existence of gravitational waves. This was the final prediction based upon Einstein’s theory of general relativity that had yet to be experimentally proven!

The Somber Part

Now, here’s the somber part. One of the greatest, most fulfilling, and inspiring things about science is the discovery. Attaining some new information, a new understanding, a revelation of tiny facet of the world that was always there unbeknownst to us. So why isn’t finding gravitational waves the most amazing thing ever?

It’s not a discovery. It’s just an observation. [Insert internal screams of agony.]

We’ve had very few true discoveries in the past couple decades beyond finding out the universe’s expansion rate is increasing. Finding that one of the last few mysteries we still have has been closed suggests that perhaps we are coming to a point in human history where anything more to be learned is beyond our comprehension or grasp. In some ways it would have been better if we had not been able to validate the existence of gravitational waves. That would have created more questions and more room for exploration. Regardless, it is still a proud event in science and I believe that despite being sobering, it can and will provide further insight and allow us to make more discoveries. I don’t believe physicists are quite done yet with the world and I look forward to their next discovery!