If it hasn’t become painfully apparent at this point, I absolutely love physics. I love all things science, most of all the stuff that I couldn’t imagine myself. Every little thing that happens, every thing we do, involves so much and yet we find it to be so simple to type something like this or call someone we love on our cellphone. It really just goes to show that practically anything is possible. I like to reference Murphy’s Law often in that anything that can happen, will happen and so all of the amazing possibilities that I’ve discussed and many more are a reality, if not now, then later. So, I felt for this last post, it would be appropriate that I outline what I’ve talked about thus far, give a bit of a summary, and the possibilities of what all this random physics could be.

1. Welcome to the world of particle physics!
   • There are 25 known particles
   • The most important of which are the Gauge Bosons, which are the force carriers
   • Completely understanding and harnessing these fundamental particles would mean that we could do anything from controlling gravity to manipulating some of even the most basic laws of physics.
2. Antimatter
   • Antimatter is like matter’s evil doppelganger
   • Bananas produced antimatter
   • The antimatter within bananas will not kill you
   • Though I’m sure there would be plenty of other uses, if we had a convenient abundance of antimatter it would be a great way to get rid of radioactive waste or just waste in general
3. Accelerators
   • Particles have an approximate size – their Compton wavelength
   • In order to understand particle physics, we smash atoms together at speeds near that of light
   • There are very few accelerators in the world
   • Finding the Up quark would mean that we have a complete list of all the particles and that they all really exist leaving room for more experimentation.
4. Gravitational Waves!? and Relativity!
   • Einstein’s special theory of relativity deals with objects in the same inertial frame reference
   • Einstein’s general theory of relativity deals with objects with constant acceleration which explains how time passes differently in different situations of acceleration
   • Gravity as we feel it, is the warping of the space-time fabric around extremely massive objects like the sun or the planets
   • Stars work by countering gravity due to their large mass with the force of the nuclear fusion reactions occurring inside
   • Gravitational waves were detected when two super-massive black holes collided and combined which sent ripples through the space-time fabric. These ripples were picked up using a system of mirrors and lasers. The path of the laser was changed ever so slightly, but was still detected
   • This may be the end of discovery in physics, but hopefully not
   • Further understanding gravitational waves and harnessing their energy or how they work could mean a lot for the advancement of science today
5. Practical Practices of Particle Physics
   • Particle physics research has contributed to everything from machines meant for medical diagnosis, to treating medical ailments with lasers, and monitoring waste from nuclear reactor cores
   • So this post doesn’t really contribute anything to the wonder as it’s more of the reality, but I definitely believe that’s a large part of the wonder anyway because it shows what is already possible.
6. The Teeny-Tiny Stuff of Science Fiction: Teleportation Edition
   • Quantum entanglement might just be the key to teleportation
   • It’s that or destroying and reconstructing the individual’s body every time
   • If we could figure out how to safely do this with multiple particles at once, then voila! We would have our way to teleportation.
7. The Teeny-Tiny Stuff of Science Fiction: Time Travel Edition
   • There’s a number of space-related options including black holes, worm holes, infinite cylinders, and cosmic strings which all rely on the same idea that a closed time-like loop would allow for time to pass more quickly inside while time went by slowly outside.
   • A time machine could work on the basis of exotic matter
   • Pretty much all of the ways we know of are hypothetical, and at the same time also equally as impossible and deadly if they were realized.
   • However! If we were to figure out a way to protect the individual from harm as this goes on, then we could time travel!
8. Theories of Everything: String Theory
   • One of the biggest problems in physics currently is that we do not have a way to explain gravity using quantum mechanics
   • String theory is a solution for that
   • String theory basically states that all of the fundamental particles are actually extremely tiny vibrating strings. Different oscillations mean different particles.
   • Having a theory that unifies all that we know regarding physics means that we can finally expand and exploit physics beyond our current understanding. Understanding all of it, means being able to use it however we please or at least coming up with the means to.

The possibilities are endless and I simply cannot wait to see how things change over the rest of my life. I hope that with my posts I’ve helped to inform and entertain, but also maybe instill a slight love for physics that was not there previously. Thank you for reading and I will always be open to new questions or comments so feel free to ask me anything, anytime!

I’ve talked earlier about both quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity which both come together to provide an almost all-encompassing explanation for everything in the physical universe, but there are in fact other theories out there that build off of these. These other theories are “theories of everything” because they mean to unify and provide a complete consistent description of our universe. One of the most pressing issues in physics today is formulating a quantum theory of gravity. The issue is that gravity, unlike the other fundamental forces, is solely explained by classical physics through Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The other fundamental forces, the strong, weak, and electromagnetic force, can all be explained within the bounds of quantum mechanics. For looking at all of the forces at once, it simply does not make sense to have to approach gravity differently than the others. This is where string theory among other somewhat new theories come into play.

String theory is pretty much exactly what you might expect it to be. Often times in physics, things don’t quite turn out like how you would expect them, but string theory I find to be rather straight forward. The whole concept is that all of the fundamental particles that I had talked about in my first post are actually just incredibly tiny strings.

So maybe that doesn’t seem to make everything fall into place, but it does give us options. Thinking again about the fundamental particles, we can assume that these are just little points in space. Sure they may take up some volume, but they are just points with no more structure to them than that. However, if we were to zoom into these points enough, we might find that they really are pieces of string. If you’ve ever partaken in the game of Cat’s cradle, you know that playing with string can get complicated. In the same sense, these strings can move and oscillate and just act in so many more ways than a simple dot can. Now, imagine that each fundamental particle correlates to the same kind of string, but just one that does a particular movement. The electron for instance might have a string that tends to zig zag and the up quark might have a sin wave. This creates a baseline for all of the fundamental particles, including the fundamental particle for gravity, the graviton. This string theory then takes the place of ordinary quantum field theory which involved point particles and allows all of the fundamental forces and the individual particles play nicely.

There are, of course, some issues with string theory. One of the larger issues with string theory is that because of the incredibly small size of the strings, they are currently near impossible to see with the technology we have. The proposed size of the string is called a Planck length which is about 10^(-35) m. The other issue with string theory is that sure the strings would serve to explain the fundamental particles, the bosons, but would it also explain regular matter, the fermions? The answer to this is supersymmetry which is just a complicated way of saying that for every boson, there’s a fermion. Proof of supersymmetry would be extremely convincing evidence to support string theory. As particle accelerators improve, they may soon be stumbling upon high-energy supersymmetry which would then finally give us a unified theory.

One of the most amazing notions that people have explored in terms of science and physics, is the idea of time travel. There is no dispute that going back in time, or forward to the future just for the experience alone would be amazing. With all the technological innovation and advancement that is currently occurring it would seem appropriate that we would already have some sort of idea how to do this, or even be on the verge of making it happen, but sadly that is not the case. The closest we’ve come is in science fiction movies, TV shows, and books. (List of time-travel movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Time_travel_films )

Back to The Future is by far one of my favorite movie series not only for the whole adventure aspect, but that the movie paints the picture of the world today as highly technologically advanced with flying cars and hover boards. (since I first saw the movie I’ve wanted a real hoverboard.) The creators of the movie believed back then that we could do all of this, and yet we haven’t. I think this is wholly important because it draws the line between what is science fiction and what’s not. Unfortunately, time-travel is one of those ideas that are looking more and more like fiction every day. There is a variety of theories surrounding time travel, but a large portion of them point toward time travel being practically impossible, for us that is. Yes, I know, it’s the same old story- this awesomely cool thing can only work with super small particles and humans can’t do it because we would die. Here are the methods by which time travel for a particle may be possible, and how we, unfortunately, would die from it:

1. Black holes
   1. Black holes, as I mentioned before, are points in space that are infinitesimally dense and thus drastically bend the space-time fabric.
   2. The method of traveling would involve flying around the rim of the black hole at the speed of light. As time would pass by more quickly for the traveler, upon returning to Earth the traveler would have aged considerably less than those still on Earth.
   3. Flying that fast and the forces that we would feel would no doubt kill us
2. Wormholes
   1. Worm holes are essentially points in the space-time fabric that have been folded on to themselves and will thus provide a gateway between different spots in the fabric.
   2. The wormholes would end up being very small and short-lived and so whatever would go through them would have to be extremely small as well
3. Infinite Cylinder
   1. This idea is based upon a similar concept as the black hole. If you have an infinitely long extremely dense rod, then you can swing around the rod to allow time to pass by more slowly for you.
   2. The problem is again that you would not be able to handle the forces being applied to you.
   3. Plus, you’d need to make this rod.
4. Cosmic Strings
   1. These are either loops or infinitely long tubes of energy leftover from the creation of the cosmos. If two of these were able to get next to each other and be parallel, it is suggested that they would pull the space between them so much so that it would form a small time-like loop like the other scenarios in which time would pass more quickly.
   2. The forces, again, they are too strong.
5. Time Machines
   1. It’s a relatively common idea that traveling through time would need to be facilitated by some sort of machine or device, though not anything like a Phone Booth or a DeLorean.
   2. Most employ the concept of using exotic matter which essentially works in the opposite manner than what matter is generally expected to, but there is so very less of this in the world that it would be rather impossible to gather enough to make a time machine with it.
   3. One concept that may work involves a hollow ball with a donut-shaped interior where strong gravitational waves are inflicted upon the center. The individual would ride along the interior on some sort of vehicle. This mimics the closed time-like loop of the above space options.
   4. The caveat with this last option is that the gravitational fields required would need to be immense and extremely accurate.

If all else fails, these are paradoxes that might destroy us if we did so much as try:

1. Grandfather paradox
   1. If you go back and accidentally do something to hinder your existence, then you would cease to exist or further permanently alter the timeline.
2. Butterfly effect
   1. Even the smallest of changes in the past could have catastrophic changes for the future.
3. Self-consistency
   1. The particles in the timeline prefer to be as they were in the past and so just being there poses an alteration and would thus be impossible.

All in all, it seems like it will a long while before we actually see any real time travel come about, but for now I guess we can make do with just trying to preserve ourselves so we last to see the future. Here is a great article from my favorite website, WaitButWhy.com: http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html on Cryonics, a prospective way of more conventional time traveling.