Physics is Hard

Here we are, almost at Christmas, and semester one is already done. We've made it through our first classes, first midterms, first exams, and first time getting marks back and it has already been the best time of my life. There have been many ups and downs but that is where the fun in life is. For us kids trying to make it in the tough world that is undergraduate physics, some things were definitely an eye opener.

Today was the day I got my mark in my first physics class, the last mark I received. My early marks were good, all my other classes I am very proud of, but physics was a shock. Throughout the semester even marks in physics were promising. I thought things were going well. I was wrong. Before the exam our professor said our class average was too high. At this point we knew something bad was about to happen.

When we proceeded to take the exam, everyone had the same uneasy feeling and when we finished it was even worse. It was certainly the hardest exam I have ever written and I think many of my classmates felt the same way. When I got my mark back today, my fears were confirmed. Its tough to get bad marks when you know they're coming, well its tough anytime but especially then. However there is something priceless about getting bad marks, and it is the entire reason we go to university; learning.

The marks are all in the past, there is nothing we can do to go back and change them. But there is always something you can take away from them. Maybe its something in how I studied, maybe I was distracted about leaving for the holidays and being so close to finished. Whatever happened, its already happened and there is no way to change it. But you can always learn from what happened and make sure it never happens again, and that is what I hope to do from this experience.

The thing about experiences is that there is always something to learn from them. You need to make sure you take everything you possibly can from an experience while its happening and while you're reflecting, but once its gone you need to leave it where it is, in the past. This is the entire point of living, to learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are the entire fun of life. If you went through you're entire life perfect it would be excruciatingly boring. So enjoy your mistakes, learn from them, and then go make the next one.

The Language of Mathematics

In many sciences, especially in physics, theories and ideas are communicated through math. Equations are how relationships are communicated, how we express the way things work in a way that is universally understood. To many, this would mean math is the most fundamental thing in the universe, because it can communicate ideas across any field, but I think math is only a language to communicate principles that exist whether we communicate them or not.

If mathematics were the most fundamental thing to the universe, it should be able to stand alone, which it does. There are principles of math that are on their own, that can be used to explain things just within math. But these principles of math are then used to explain and expand on principles in other fields. Theories of math are like verbs or nouns, they are only specific elements of a language used to communicate ideas. The beautiful thing about math is it can explain things to people of all different languages and backgrounds in a way they can all understand.

However, consider the following example; a species of beings 3 lightyears away has a very advanced scientific society. They are completely involved in explaining the laws of physics, but the society has an incredible ability of telepathy in their society, so all ideas are communicated through the mind, with no intermediate step. This telepathy is accompanied by only communicating abstractly. In their society, there is no such thing as math. The laws of nature are only in the minds of the beings, over the total telepathic network and are not conveyed through the language of mathematics. To us, these beings would seem to have no knowledge of science, but really they could have a knowledge much more advanced than our own. The point of this example is that even though the society does not have mathematics, the laws of physics still exist and can still be represented. To me this says that physics is more fundamental.

Math is simply our way of translating physical laws into a language we can understand, but it must not be the only way of thinking of our physical world. We could try to think of things more abstractly, then comminicate them through mathematical language. I'm by no means saying math is not important, I'm only saying its not fundemental to the way things really work. If we are to advance in the study of our universe, we should not confine ourselves to limits set by mathematics in explaining physical phemomenon, but allow ourselves to think of things in many different, more creative ways of communication of ideas and ideas themselves.

Science and Science Fiction

Often in human literature, there are connections with science and technology, some of that day and some which does not exist. Most people know of the classic examples of futuristic sci-fi, things like Star Wars, Star Trek, and pretty much any super hero movie. They can be very entertaining to watch and to get caught up in the stories of a different world, but it can be interesting to examine the actual technologies within the movies themselves and look at the real world possibilities.

We've talked before about Star Wars and the most recognizable technology in the Saga, the lightsaber. They are working on a state of matter similar to the lightsaber, which frankly I think is just awesome. The lightsaber wouldn't have much of an impact on your daily life besides the fact of how ridiculously cool it would be to have one. Another technology from Star wars would be the many different types of speeders and star ships. In the world of space travel today, some companies such as SpaceX are planning for commercial space travel, which means you could pay to go to space just for the experience. Obviously this isn't the same as a star fighter battle in space around the forrest moon of Endor, but its a step in the right direction. Some of these ships in Star Wars also have the ability to travel through hyperspace at light speed, which we know through the laws of physics is impossible. So if you were hoping to be able to activate the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon at some point, I wouldn't could on it.

In Star Trek, the Enterprise has a similar function as light speed, called warp speed. Warp speed is said in the various Star Trek series to be achieved when matter is mixed with antimatter creating plasma which when circulated through the warp drive creates a bubble around the ship which allows it to travel at speeds greater than light. Again, as far of we know the cosmic speed limit of light cannot be broken, but the technology described by Star Trek is very interesting. The matter/antimatter interactions which they describe sound very cool, I have no idea if they are possible or not, but the theory is very intriguing. The other thing about Star Trek are the interactions with new forms of life all over the galaxy, and how these interactions go. This goes along somewhat with my last post about the possibilities of life in our universe. If you haven't seen Star Trek I encourage you to try an episode or 2 from any of the different series' or one of the movies, they can be very intriguing.

Finally, obviously most super heros couldn't actually exist, but things Batman of Ironman, where there are mostly just inventions, are the coolest to me. They show how creative people can be, and even though it is all fiction, it shows the possibility of where we might get. Obviously I don't literally mean the possibility of the Dark Knight guarding our streets, but all of science fiction is meant to show the possibility of where science may take us.

I think its important to keep this inventive, creative, wondrous side of science in the forefront of the minds of those pursuing it. When studying science, its easy to see things as static, and always exactly how they are taught. But the aim of science is new ideas, new innovations, and new technologies from the knowledge we have attained. To do this we need to keep our minds open to new ideas, no matter how far out there they are. We have to remember there was a time it was considered blasphemous to say the world was round. Ideas lead to discovery, no matter where the idea comes from. You never know what idea will lead to the next break through.

Living in the Cosmos

On Earth, all of our home, there are many different types of life. From us, humans, to bacteria to trees to fungi, life is all around us. The interesting thing about life on earth is that it all comes from a similar beginning. All life on Earth that we know of is a carbon based life form, or organic. According to evolution, all life today would have started from a single celled organism, millions of years ago, which through genetic mutations eventually changed into all the organisms around us today, including you and I.

This evolution of life here on Earth has inspired a search for life on other planets around the galaxy. You may have heard of planets which fall in the so called "Goldilocks Zone". This means the planet is the perfect distance away in its orbit from its star that the temperature and conditions would be similar to those of Earth, and could theoretically harbour life similar to that of our own planet. Most of the search for life in this field of astrobiology is focused on the search of carbon based life, and most of what you hear about in the news about the possibility for life in the universe will be something about carbon based life specifically. 

This makes sense why it happens, we are curious about other life like us, and the possibility of other humans and intelligent life with whom we could communicate. It is a logical place to start, since the only life we know of is carbon based, why shouldn't we look for other life like it. To me, this point of view is understandable, but somewhat closed minded. 

We only know of one type of life, life like us. So as far as we know this is all that exists. But what is to say there isn't life of many different kinds, most of which is probably nothing like us. Take a minute and try to think about how big the universe is, how immensely large it really is. Think about the possibility of it being infinite, and truly go on forever. Never ending. Its a tough thing to do because our brains aren't suited to think of such things, but still give it a chance. Now think of the possibilities of life within this infinite universe. If the universe is truly infinite, it never reaches its end so anything you could ever think of would have to exist somewhere in the universe, because everything is less than infinity. This is a tough concept to grasp but bear with me. 

If you're thinking of every possibility in infinity, there are probably a couple types of life that don't exist here. Not just different species, but totally different types of life. They could have a totally different elemental structure, they could be larger than our entire planet, there really are and endless number of possibilities of what really could be like. This isn't the easiest thing, but I really encourage you to think about what might be out there. It can be cool to see what your brain can come up with, and thinking about if the universe is infinite and what you think up may actually exist is very exciting. 

There is an important difference here to make between thinking the universe is infinite and what it actually is. Right now, we know generally how old we think the universe is, at least how far we can see so a general sense of scale, and other general ideas about the immensity of the cosmos, but we really can't know. The universe is just too big to see the end of it, and possibly we never will. So when I say the life form you think about could exist at some point, it could very well exist but we may never know if it does or doesn't. Thinking in terms of infinity can be powerful, but I caution at trusting its conclusions, they are all only possibilities.

Particles of Life - Part 3

So far, we have seen particles involved with 2 parts of our universe; those of matter and those of energy. The last types of particles we will talk about are those of the fundamental forces in our world. To do this we need to know what the fundamental forces are. There are 4 of them in total: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.

First, we have already looked at a form of electromagnetism, coming from photons. Photons are the disruption in an electromagnetic field. The force of electromagnetism is transferred through these electromagnetic fields, so when there is a disturbance in this field which results in a force and an energy change, which is why a photon is released.

The strong nuclear force is the force which holds the quarks together so they can form neutrons and protons in the centre of an atom. This force is transferred by a particle known as a gluon, which does exactly like it sounds like it would. It basically glues the quarks together through the strong force. The Large Hadron Collider, at CERN in Switzerland, is the  largest particle accelerator in the world to date. Part of what the LHC has done is observe quark gluon plasma, which is basically this interaction between quarks with the strong force.

The weak nuclear force is able to change the flavour of quarks and other particles spins through the emission of bosons. This may not seem like something that comes up very often, but it is a cool process. The particles are called W and Z bosons and what happens is when a particle, such as a quark, starts undergoing a weak decay, one of these bosons is released and through this emission the quarks properties can change. For example an up quark can be made when a down quark releases a W boson, which is then converted into other particles which we will discuss at another time.

Finally, we all know about gravity. Its what keeps us on the ground. This is typically referred to as a field force, which means it doesnt act by contact by at a distance. What most people would think of gravity as is the attraction between 2 objects. It is a very weak force compared to the other 3 which is why we only notice it when a mass is very large. The field also can only transmit the force at the speed of light. There is a particle which has been theorized, as is currently being looked for, called the graviton which would transfer the gravitational force. Its properties would be similar to the photon, such as it would have no mass. The way they are looking for this particle is by observing something called gravitational waves, which are ripples in spacetime caused by rapid motion of heavy masses, such as black holes. If gravitational waves are observed it would show that gravity is restricted by the speed of light and that gravitons are a major possibility.

In the last 3 posts i have talked about some particles of various types, but these were very limited descriptions, and even limited number of particles. There are many types of particles in our universe which are very intriguing and I hope to talk about more in the future.

Particles of Life - Part 2

This past weekend, at least for up here in Canada, it was thanksgiving. University kids all went home, who could at least, and were able to see family and friends they've been away from for the past few weeks and gave thanks for the life around them. That life, as we discussed in the last post, is made up of particles. Particles are everywhere, in all kinds of different forms of matter and energy. So far we've talked about some of the basic ones of matter. Now we will talk about some of those of energy.

The particle energy which we appear to interact with most would be the photon, which is the particle that makes up light or electromagnetic radiation. This is everything from x rays when you go to the doctors office to the microwaves that heat your food, to the gamma rays coming out of exploding stars. Light is everywhere. A photon is theoretically one unit, or division of light; one single particle. The different types of light, only one of which is the different light we see every day, come from the different energies contained in the individual photons. For example gamma rays are a type of electromagnetic radiation which contain a large amount of energy, and as a result we cannot see them. The interesting thing about light and electromagnetic radiation is it is not only represented as a photon or a particle, it is also represented as a wave, but this is something for another day.

Another intriguing particle of energy is the neutrino. Neutrinos are very tiny, weakly interacting but very abundant particles which are the result of some nuclear decay and interactions. They can also come from interactions in stars and other cosmic activity, so neutrinos are coming from everywhere in the sky. When I say weakly interacting, I mean very weakly. They have no electric charge so they are not effected by any electromagnetic forces, and they have a very very small mass so the influence of gravity is very small. They interact so weakly, they can pass through most matter totally unimpeded. There are trillions of neutrinos passing right through the earth, and even through your own body, with no affect at all.

This makes detecting neutrinos quite the problem. One way to do this is by using heavy water, or something called deuterium oxide. When the cosmic neutrinos pass through the heavy water, they can actually interact with the molecules and release a certain type of radiation that can be identified as coming from a neutrino interaction. This field of study is relatively new, but as scientist refine the methods of detection, we will be able to learn more about what neutrinos are.

These are 2 of the more common types of energy particles you will hear about in physics, but there are of course many more. There is another grouping of particles we have yet to discuss, and those are particles of force. We will discuss these in the next post.

What Makes Us

As I have eluded to in previous posts, the universe is made up of much tinier and intriguing things than it appears to be. What I was talking about are called strings, which is a loose term, but basically they are infinitesimal vibrating objects that make up every type of particle we know of, and then some. The different vibrational patterns give the particles their specific mass, spins, charge, and other quantum properties. Many particles have been conceived for a relatively long time, but we are still finding new particles today.

Some particles that have been known for a while are particles of matter, like the electron or the quark. The electron has a -1 elementary charge and a very small mass, and they are the particle that orbits the nucleus of an atom. They orbit in things call orbitals (physicist aren't always super creative) that have different energy levels, so an electron with a certain amount of energy will orbit in one orbital, and a different energy level in a different orbital and so on. Electrons can change orbitals by gaining or losing energy, by either jumping up or down one energy level respectively. However, when it drops down an energy level, it needs to get rid of the extra energy it has and it does this by releasing a photon, or a particle of electromagnetic radiation, or light energy, but I'll talk about these a little later. This is the basic idea that neon lights are based on.

One other major matter particle, the quark, is quite exotic for something so normal. There are six different known types of quarks, called flavours, which are up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom quarks. Each flavour of quark has a different mass, different spin, different charge and different colour which is a property specific to quarks. The charges of the quarks are interesting as their all fractional elementary charges, either 2/3 or 1/3 positive or negative one elementary charge, depending on the flavour. This seems odd, but the reasoning become apparent when we learn more about what quarks do.

When we look at quarks, we rarely see them individually in nature. Mostly what they do is combine to form other particles we know of, such as the proton and the neutron. A proton is made up of 2 up quarks and a down quark, resulting in a +1 elementary charge, and a neutron is made up of 2 down quarks and an up quark, resulting in a neutral charge. You can see that a proton and neutron will have the same mass. The other flavours of quarks are all much heavier than the up and down quarks, especially the top quark.

Quarks can also make up other matter particles such as baryons and mesons, which can also consists of antiquarks, the antimatter particle pairs of quarks. Electrons also have antimatter counterparts called positrons. Antimatter is a very fascinating concept, but that will have to be for another post. For now, regular matter particles will have to do for your appetite for knowledge. 

There are many more types of particles around us all the time and we will look more into these.

University Life

Well, for those first years like me, we are entering our first experience with midterms. We are just about in our 5th week of classes and hopefully, everyones settling into university life nicely. There have been a lot of new things coming our way in a short period of time and for the next little while it'll be more of the same. Things are getting busy but personally I couldn't be happier with how things are going.

The first thing, and I think the main thing, that is great about university is the people that you become friends with from all over the world. Ive met people, who I am proud to say I now consider friends from different continents, different languages, totally different lives who are now in the same spot as I am and I think thats amazing. Ive met incredible people who have written apps, travelled the world, are five star athletes, anyone who can think of I seem to have met. Its really cool to be around all the time because it totally opens your mind to the possibilities of what are possible. Everyone has such different experiences, but they all seem to come together and interact so fluently, it makes me wonder what is possibilities are possible to come from that.

Then you have classes, and especially in my case, you get to learn exactly what you want to; you get to do exactly what you want and work towards where you want to be. There is a lot of stress that comes from all the work in those classes, but take it for what it is, being marked and assessed and graded just shows you what you don't know, and what you will know even better after relearning. Everything here is a learning experience.

There is so much going on at university, it really is one of the best places to be. Every day something new and exciting happens and it shapes who you will become. Every experience for every person is different, but again the difference in experiences coming together is where innovation can occur, and the thought of that truly gets me excited.

This is how I have found the first few weeks of this new life to be, and I am intrigued to hear about how other peoples experiences have been, so comment below and tell us how things have been for you, wherever you are in your experience.

The Pursuit of Knowledge

Recently, some things about my blog have been pointed out to me and I feel it necessary to clarify what this is about. I am not an expert in physics, I don't have a Ph.D, and I am not trying to act like I do. The posts that I make are completely my opinions, interpretations, and thoughts on the topics I am discussing. I know they aren't always going to be right, but thats not why I write them. I don't write to inform people and teach people about physics. I hope I spark an interest in those who read but for correct information this is not the place. I am writing because I want to learn. 

This may seem counterintuitive. How can the one giving the information be learning? Well, as is often the case with teachers, they learn from their students. This is what Im trying to do in a sense. Everything I write is only how I understand things, its not an official published paper on the workings on the universe. I expect to be wrong, because this is how learning truly occurs; by making mistakes. When you make a mistake and you are corrected it opens the door to actual understanding. THAT is why I write. I hope for readers sake you take this as I mean it. I hope you learn as much as I do, but please don't expect me to be right, because I expect the exact opposite of myself.

Let me say again; I am a first year physics student at the University of Waterloo who has a very basic understanding of concepts which form our universe. I cannot remember a time in my life where I have not been completely intrigued by the world around me, and when I didn't want to learn. This is just the next step in my journey of wonder, a journey I never expect to finish. I am writing this blog to explain topics I THINK I know, but I expect not to. I want you as readers to be just as enchanted by these topics as I am, and if you know more than I do PLEASE let everyone else know too. There is a comment section for a reason. Help me with my journey. Help me understand the workings of the universe even better than I do now. Don't feel embarrassed for me that I got it wrong, feel happy you can teach me a deeper understanding. If you have forgotten why I am in this, I encourage you to read my first post. It will explain what this blog is really about; learning.

I know those who pointed out my factual errors in earlier posts felt bad for having to do so, which I obviously understand. But I thank you for helping me fix those errors and helping me understand how things really are. However in the future, don't just enlighten me, enlighten everyone (I again reference the comments section). Knowledge shouldn't be private, and you shouldn't only gain knowledge for a purpose of something more. Look at things with wonder, and never stop wanting to learn. Don't be afraid to make a mistake because like I said that is when REAL learning occurs. The pursuit of knowledge is a two way street, don't be afraid to change directions.

How Hawking's Name was Born

As we discussed in the last post, we know black holes are some of the most elusive, yet most popular objects in the universe. They are the largest and smallest things in the universe all at the same time, and because of this they are a possible impossibility.

Some of the greatest and most popular scientists in recent history have made their name researching black holes. One that jumps out is Stephen Hawking, who is now one of the most recognizable physicists in science. Hawking's work gave birth to the idea of Hawking Radiation. Hawking Radiation comes from a similar aspect as we previously talked about, where objects crossing the event horizon appear to be annihilated.

Around the surface of a black hole, called its event horizon, the force of gravity is very strong. As a result, particles surrounding the event horizon are experiencing a lot of force. When particles are under this much force, quantum mechanics has some weird effects called quantum jitters. What this means is this; when particles are moving around they do so based on quantum probabilities, which is basically just a map of where a particle could be. These probabilities always jump around, so the motion of individual particles can seem quite random, or jittery. When the particles are under a lot of force, the jitters increase, so the particle has basically no pattern, and even jumps in and out of existence. When this happens, an antimatter particle is simultaneously created out of the energy surrounding the particle, to counteract the existence of the normal matter particle. This is the basic cause of quantum jitters around a black holes event horizon.

This might seem a little weird, but the cause of this effect is even more mystical. When matter and antimatter particles interact, things don't go well. What happens is they annihilate each other, since they are exact copies of each other, but exactly opposite. A mirror image if you will. And since they are both created to cancel each other out, this is exactly what happens. They both cease to exist as particles and release a proportional amount of energy to the matter they both contained. This is really a not a lot of energy when you look at just an individual particle, so black holes can be pretty dim. As you can see, black holes are not really black at all.

So Hawking, who now everyone knows as one of the smartest people alive, showed that "black hole" is really quite a poorly chosen name.

The Darkest Corners of the Universe

Okay, black holes might not be corners, and sometimes they can be ironically bright, but we still recognize them as some of the darkest things around. The idea of black holes has been around for a long time. Since Einstein's theory of general relativity, physicists have solved the equations for a variety of different situations in which the equations could be useful. Eventually, the object is squeezed into a such a small volume that the density of the object approaches infinity. As the density approaches infinity, the change in curvature of space-time is so strong that nothing, not even light can escape its gravitational force. This is the basic explanation of a black hole.

Since black holes were theorized, they have been a huge part of the physics pop culture, everyone hears about black holes and wants to know more of what they are, and for good reason. They are some of the most exotic objects in the universe, and they can do some pretty crazy stuff, and we really don't know much about them.

As I said, they are basically an infinite source of density. This is referred to by physicist and mathematicians as a singularity, because it is impossible to actually deal with numbers at infinity. Instead they look at how things react when they approach infinity. 

Since the centre of matter is so condensed, this is not actually what you "see" if you were to observe a black hole. You would really see the event horizon, or a point of no return for the black hole. If something were to pass a black hole's event horizon, it would be gone forever. At this point the gravitational force is so strong that nothing could pull the object out. As you passed the event horizon, nothing would change from your perspective. You would pass through without nothing changing at all to you. As you approach the singularity at the centre, gravity would get so strong and would change so drastically as you go further that you would get spaghettified. Your feet would be pulled stronger than your head and you would literally be stretched out like a piece of spaghetti. Eventually, you would reach the centre of the black hole but your body would have gone through so much force that you would not recognize yourself. You would be a lifeless clump of matter.


This creates another interesting problem; what does an observer on the outside see when something falls in? According to general relativity, the object would be redshifted. What this means is as the object approaches the event horizon, the observer on the outside would look like they are constantly moving further and further away, so the wavelengths of light get longer and longer until they essentially disappear before ever crossing the event horizon.

Another answer to this question, from the point of view from string theory, is something called a firewall. As the object passes the event horizon, nothing on the inside of this area can ever get out, not even light so it would be impossible to see the object past this point. Obviously we don't see the object just disappear, instead we see something called matter annihilation. This is just as extreme as it sounds. Basically the object entering the event horizon appears to be completely converted into energy. This gives a pretty good ending to the object on the outside, but really it falls forever to infinity at the centre. When dealing with singularities and infinity, these counterintuitive paradoxical situations are essentially a necessity. Infinity does strange things to the world.

Now that you have the basic idea of what a black hole is and where the problems come from, we will be able to go even deeper into these conundrums of the cosmos in the next posts.

Taking a Step Back

Life is a pretty crazy thing. I don't mean the scientific portion of biology that focuses on how life is created, I mean the human aspect of living that everyone of us experiences every day, well I hope you do. Living in todays world there are a lot of distractions that can take away from the joy of life, and if you don't try to see it you may be missing out. 

Every day, people are busy with school for us university students, maybe a job, a family, significant other, or other tasks that are considered vital to living a good life. With all these things putting stress on people and distracting them from enjoying living life. Im not trying to say that these things aren't important, of course you should have a job and a family and anything else like that to fulfill certain aspects of basics life, but these things should not BE your life.

Every day around the campus of uWaterloo, I see people rushing off to class, or stressing out over homework, and not enjoying where they are. University specifically is a great place, its a place for ideas, to collaborate with people interested in the same things as you, meet lifelong friends, and enjoy everything around them. But some people seem to always be concerned about only their studies. This is only part of the experience, just like a job is only one part of life. Sometimes you need to take a break from what you think is important and just relax.

A personal example of this happened to me yesterday. I was reading for my philosophy course and decided to take it outside to enjoy the nice fall day we were having on campus. I was getting distracted pretty easily with some people watching and admiring the setting I was in, looking at the buildings around me. This sounds like I was slacking off but it was really why I was out there, to enjoy it all. Then I looked over and saw a little squirrel just minding his business completely calm around all the bustling people around him. He was going through a garden just looking for some nuts, as squirrels do, but I had realized that even though I knew this is what squirrels do, I had never really seen one go about and find a nut. I spent about 10 minutes not even realizing what I was doing just staring at a squirrel, something everyone sees every day. This is what I mean by taking a step back and enjoying the little things life has to offer, because they're everywhere if you just take a look.

The point of all this is that life isn't about what is important to be successful. Being successful is being happy, and to be happy all you need to do is take everything for what it is, and enjoy everything you see. Don't get to overwhelmed with anything you're doing because it is only really important to you, and if you aren't enjoying what you're doing well the answer is simple: stop doing it. Life is anything but static so don't think change isn't an option. Most of all, do what you love and love everything you do. We only get one shot at life so why not have some fun with it whatever you end up doing.

The Seams of the Cosmos

Ever since there really was a field of study known as physics, those studying it have wondered about what makes up the smallest constituents of everything we see around us. The ancient Greeks came up with the word "atom" to describe the smallest possible, indivisibles piece of matter. Since then, we have been finding smaller and smaller things that make up matter, even smaller than the atom as we call it today, things such as quarks and electrons. But still, scientists must probe further and further to try to find what really makes up everything around us.

One of the leading theories in particle physics, the specific area of research devoted in part to finding the smallest particles, is called string theory. You may or may not have heard about string theory for its claims and unusual methods of getting there, but even if you haven't not to worry. I am going to give you a very basic intro to string theory as best as I can so you can have an idea as to what we may really be made of.

The central theme of string theory comes right out in its name: strings. The theory goes like this: all matter we see around us is made up of vibrating strings as small as physically possible, at a distance called the Planck length (the smallest unit of space allowed). Every different piece of matter, such as quarks or electrons, is made of a string vibrating at a different frequency. A way to think about strings could be similar to notes on a guitar, every note has a different frequency at which the strings vibrate, just like every constituent of matter is just a different vibrational pattern of the string.

So far I've only mentioned matter, like you and me, but string theory can also be used to describe particles of energy, like a photon, or even a particle which transfers a force, like the different types of bosons, which transmit the strong and weak nuclear forces. Any basic particle of the universe, in theory, can be described by string theory. String theory has even been used to predict elementary particles with corresponding masses and spins to their vibrational patterns.

To me, this part of string theory is quiet elegant. The fact that every particle in our entire universe can be described by the same thing is quiet remarkable. However there are some things that hold string theory back, at least in my opinion.

The first is that it will be nearly impossible to actually observe and test string theory because the things we will be trying to see will be smaller than the things we are trying to see. To be able to observe something precisely, we need to probe it with something smaller than the object we are probing. For example if you were trying to map the surface of a golf ball and its dimples by bouncing something off the surface and measuring its path, you would not get a very precise measurement by using a basketball because it could not go inside the dimples, or even close. In the same way, to measure the exact shape of strings and their properties, we would need something smaller than the string itself. The theory proposes its own problem here, since it says strings are the smallest constituents, there literally shouldn't be anything smaller to probe them with if the theory is correct. So if we can see them, it proves part of the theory wrong, and until we can see them the theory can never really be proven right. Seems like a problem to me.

Another problem is that for the math to work in string theory, which I myself don't yet understand, there must be at least 9 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension, for a total of 10 space-time dimensions. Even for a someone in physics like me, who can come up with some pretty radical theories and proposals, the idea of 10 dimensions making up our universe does not make sense to me. It doesn't fit our idea of the universe at all, and the theories used describe the dimensions are anything but elegant. And to me, elegance is part of a good scientific theory.

This was a very basic introduction to string theory but I will almost certainly post more about it in the future. It is a very exciting and interesting aspect of physics in todays world, and I myself am very intrigued to see where the theory takes us.

Research Jobs as an Undergrad

Many of the people reading this blog I'm sure are undergraduate students, just like me, and are probably interested in a research lab assistant job for either a summer job or a Co-op position or something along those lines. Again, just like me. Sometimes information can be difficult to find about such positions. Thats what the Research Jobs for Undergraduate Students page is for, for people to post about interesting openings, cool faculties, and experiences in research positions if you've had them! So please comment something on the page if your interested, or just check it out if your looking for something cool.

A Simulation of the Universe - Part 2

Have you considered where our universe came from? If you read the last post of this blog you certainly must have. Its a very intriguing question and depending on how your brain works there are many different ways to approach it. In the last post, which if you haven't read I strongly recommend you do before reading this one, we talked about one especially interesting possibility of the origins of our universe, and an infinite number of collateral ones.

This possibility is that our entire universe and everything in it exists only as a simulation. This possibility comes from the observation that simulated realities are extremely more common in our world than "actual" realities that we live in. Simulations range to pretty much every aspect of human life, from things like traffic simulations and weather which are quite common all the way to simulations of our entire universe's growth. Even things such as dreaming, books, video games, movies and other sources of fiction could be considered simulations. As you can see, the simulated realities greatly outweigh the actual one that we live in. Based on these numbers, we can draw a conclusion that our universe and the reality we seem to experience every day is also a simulated one.

At this point it would be natural to seriously question this idea. How could the entire world and universe that every human has ever lived in not actually be real? At the appropriate time in history, this question would have been akin to ones such as how could the Earth not be the centre of the solar system? It brings in a particular human arrogance that has built the society we see around us, but I urge you to for a second put it to the side.

Consider one specific simulation now, whichever you like for example a video game like the Sims (a game in which the player controls the entire life of an animated avatar they created). Imagine you are in the game as a character someone else created but you didn't know it and had no way of figuring it out. You would be carrying out a life that someone else had created in a simulation. It would feel like you were living your own life, like everything was normal, you could do anything you felt like doing, you had all your usual free will. But really you would have none of it. Now think about your own life. Do you see any real differences between our life and unknowingly living in a simulation from the inside? I certainly don't. 

So based on this reasoning, we could be living in a simulation our entire life, and never know it.

Of course, theres the element of humanity we have to consider. If we have the presence of mind to ask questions about our creation, and if we are actually real and if we actually exist, could this suggest that we aren't just running the course of someone else's video game? Its a very interesting question that we really can't prove because we would need to probe outside our universe. It also involves the question of God, because if we are a simulation, someone must be running it. These are all questions that I do not have the answers to and as a society we may never have, but nevertheless its very thought provoking. 

If you have any arguments you may have come up with that I overlooked, add it in the comments below!

A Simulation of the Universe

Every day, thousands of simulations are run around the world to take care of many different things, like traffic, weather and other aspects of normal human life. There are even some slightly more extravagant simulations done for things such as tectonic activity, black holes or even simulations of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and our neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, colliding (heres a short video of this9 simulation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4disyKG7XtU). The point is, simulations are going on all the time, we simulate and predict countless parts of life. You probably even simulate things in your own head, when you're day dreaming in class.

With all of these simulations in our own world suggest something profound about the existence of our whole universe. This idea is a pretty unusual concept, and in earlier times would probably have been considered blasphemous for the very thought, but may not come easily so as I try to explain it keep an open mind, explore the suggestions and arguments for yourself. Try to come to your own conclusion about it, because this is just one side to the story. Before I explain the thought behind it, all of these simulations suggest that our entire universe itself, including everything in it (and us), is a simulation. Let me explain.

As I said before, there are countless simulations we do everyday all around the world covering an immense variety of situations. As far as we know, the "reality" that we experience every day is the only one that is what the adjective suggests; real. Just in sheer numbers, there are incredibly more simulated realities than there are real ones, and just based on these probabilities it seems incredibly unlikely that our universe actually is real.

At this point you're probably asking yourself where the simulation could have come from, who or what is running it, and many more questions which I earlier asked you to keep an open mind about and consider. These are important questions to look at because they reveal things about our universe and possible others that you may not have thought of before. 

First, who or what is running the simulation? As I said before, that the whole simulation idea is blasphemous, this question suggests something like a godlike figure, someone or something carrying out this simulation is basically controlling our entire universe. It could be some alien race, just a giant computer, or really any possibility you can think of. Another thing you might think is maybe the thing controlling our universal simulation is only in their own simulation, and then someone else controlling the ones controlling the simulation controlling us, and so on and so on to infinity. This really proposes that everything in our universe is not real at all.

This is a lot of information to take in and it can be a hard concept to grasp. I would be lying if I said I fully understood it, but it is intriguing to think about nonetheless. I encourage you to think about this idea more and in the next post I will try to do a better job at explaining my thoughts on the subject more deeply.

The Mind of a Physicist

Most people who genuinely like studying physics and getting into the deep dark questions about the universe, myself included, can be a little quirky. Again, myself included. This isn't meant as an insult in the slightest, its truly a huge compliment. Being quirky is what makes people themselves and what makes them interesting. This being said, physicists are some of the quirkiest, most interesting people you will ever meet. 

Being an aspiring physicist, this makes me think about what I must be like... and I definitely fit in the overly quirky category. I must be honest though it makes life more interesting, at least in my own head. But physics isn't a subject for the faint of heart, and thats where these quirks come in handy, and in my case I think I'll be able to survive undergraduate physics. I hope may be a better phrase...

In the first Physics Club meeting at uWaterloo today, filled with primarily first year students such as myself, many upper year students were less than optimistic with their predictions for how us Frosh will do in our upcoming studies. They said at least 70% of the students in the Physics Department will drop out of the program by the end of first year. Thats more than 2 of every 3 kids. So sitting in a lecture hall in between 2 people, both of them won't be here in a years time. A little depressing for an enthusiastic 17 like me.

But then I looked around the room at the upper year students who were still fighting for their undergrad, seeing how they acted and taking in some of their tendencies. Then I listened to them for a while, for how they spoke in general and to each other. And while doing these observations I noticed something: these people who are actually making it through physics, in the lucky 30%, have just as many quirks as I do. They have similar interests, similar dialects and even similar idiosyncrasies. Based on this I told myself, hey maybe I'm one of the lucky 30% too. I fit the image, I have the drive, and I want to be where they are in a few years so why not.

So, by being a good scientist and observing my surroundings, making connections, and drawing conclusions I figured out that I'm exactly where I should be. Thats a very good feeling to have at such a young age, and I know I'm lucky for that, even if I'm not in that elusive 30%. I know there are people that go their whole life and don't have this feeling of total content, knowing you are exactly where you should be and you're doing exactly what you should be. And even though it will be a lot of extremely hard work I'm extremely grateful to have the opportunity that I do to explore the universe and do exactly what I want to.

There are a lot of people, at any age, but especially at mine who don't have this feeling, who are just uncomfortable doing what they're doing. And I encourage these people to never give up when it comes to finding your niche, to always be open minded and to not be scared of change. Because sometimes you never know when you're going to find the thing thats perfect for you, so take a chance and go find it. Take it from someone with more than their fair share of quirks, finding something that fits you is the most worth it and fulfilling thing you can do and the more work you put into the pursuit the more rewarding your happiness will be.

An Infinite Number of Yous

This week for many people my age marks the first week of freedom in their young lives, their first university classes, and the first time meeting friends they'll keep for the rest of their lives. Its a very exciting time for us youngsters. But it also gives us the opportunity to think about if things were different. Theres an endless number of things that could be different for us right now, and really for anyone at any point in their life. But your life is the way it is for a reason... or so we think.

In quantum mechanics, everything is based off probabilities of certain situations happening, or not happening. A simple example of this is concept is flipping a coin. When you are about to flip a coin there are two possible outcomes, before you even start. They are heads or tails. Once you flip the coin, you observe one or the other probability occurring, either heads or tails. But what happens to the other probability?  Does it not occur, does it go somewhere else? What exactly happens? 

According to the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, if our universe is infinite, every probability that could occur, DOES occur somewhere in the universe. This can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. In our coin example this would mean that even though you may have seen your coin land on heads, somewhere in the universe the same exact situation played out and it landed on tails. I know its not that easy to visualize.

Think about the word infinity. This basically means there is no end, whatever it is being referenced to goes on forever. So in the case of the universe, this means its spatial and time expanses never end, they goes on forever. If you could see infinitely in every direction it would never stop. In most occurrences in life, which take place within our "infinite universe", there are only a finite number of possible outcomes. Finite would mean there are only a certain number of things, whereas infinite means the list of things that could happen never end. So, in our infinite universe, when there are only a finite number of things that could happen, the finite list will run out before the infinite. Since something has to be filling this space, this means the list of finite things will repeat eventually, but only after every possible outcome has occurred. For our coin example, after you flip heads, somewhere in the infinite universe you flipped tails. 

While trying to explain this concept, which you may still not be getting which is completely understandable (were talking about infinity which is never easy), I have only eluded to our universe being infinite. The other side of the many worlds theory is that there are and infinite number of universes where in each one a different outcome occurs. This is intriguing because in every universe everything could be exactly same except for one small difference. For example in one universe you are a dog and that is the only difference. Or in one universe every person has 5 eyes but everything else is exactly the same. If the many worlds theory is correct, this would mean every one of these possibilities does happen. Every movie you've ever watched, book you've ever read, or even dream you've ever experienced does happen. So Star Wars actually happened, Star Trek will happen, and the Leafs are the defending Stanley Cup Champions. Yes some of these are far fetched but if quantum mechanics is right this is a reality.


This idea can make you feel really small. It essentially says that every good thing you want to happen does happen somewhere, just maybe not to you. To me its humbling. It shows me that nothing in this life is that important, nothing matters at all in the grand scheme of things, unless you make it matter. Everything we do as individuals has no real meaning at all, even as a society. The universe will keep expanding, time will continue on. I don't mean to sound like a defeatist, but my message is this: make sure that whatever you do in life matters to you and you're doing what you enjoy, because when it all comes down to it you're only one of an infinite you's and whatever you do is only important for you. Live life for you and do what makes you happy.

Living the life of Star Wars may be closer than you think

Since moving in on Sunday morning, I have now been a resident of Waterloo for a full 3 days. 3 days of finding my classes, meeting new students, and all around getting orientated with my new home. I guess thats why they call it orientation week. What these three days has done most however, is get me more excited for what the rest of university will be like. After all the meeting and greeting is over this coming saturday, I can't wait to see what its like being in a lecture hall and actually learning what I'm here to learn. Wandering through the library earlier this morning I saw more books than I could imagine all about science and math. Things like this are bringing out the real school nerd in me and I could not be more happy.

I apologize for the life anecdotes of late, but this is WATERLOO Physics so things about the University will come up from time to time. I will be getting back to more physicsy posts in the coming days because I know you all miss them. For a little bit of physics to brighten your day for now, I have this for you.

Researchers at MIT have found a state of energy, or light, that when manipulated in a certain way behaves like matter. In normal terms this basically means lightsabers, which I think will make every part of life better because whats not better with a lightsaber. I'll go more in depth with this topic in the future but I thought you might all like to know that the greatest movies of all time, Star Wars, may soon become a reality.

University - The First Frontier

This time tomorrow, I and the many other first year students excited to be embarking on a semester of studies at the University of Waterloo will be moving into their new residences on campus. Goodbyes will have been said, hugs shared, and maybe even a few tears shed. But through it all, we will still be those same nervous, scared, excited young adults looking into the first glimpse of the real world.

None of us has any idea what to expect, but through stories from our parents, tours of the university, and seminars to help us through it all, we are expected to step into this new world and embrace it all. For me at least, I think I am ready to experience everything this new adventure can throw at me. Let me be clear: by no means do I think I'm even close to being able to handle it, but I am ready to experience it, and start living through real life and to have all the growing and learning experiences that come with that. This means I may have to go through some tough times, maybe some failed tests, missing things I'd rather not, and all the other hardships that come with being an adult. But those hardships are what make you interesting, they're what help you grow into the person you're going to be, and without them life would be boring.

I for one am not someone who enjoys boredom. Thats why this week, starting tomorrow, and really continuing from now on throughout my life, I hope to make things interesting, try new things, meet new people and have experiences that I haven't before. That's what will make life fun for me. This is a pretty bold statement for someone of only 17 years and the naivety that comes with that, but I can be bold sometimes. Physics of course will be at the core of my interesting life, but I'm pretty excited for all the none essential parts too.

Tonight is the night I've been dreaming about for years, the eve of going of to university to start this great chapter in my life. I know my parents are having mixed feelings, like all are on nights like this, but I hope like me they'll be able to start a new chapter in their lives, where they can make it even more interesting than the last one. So, with so many things changing in 24 hours, I once again invite you to take this journey with me, to aid me, and to see how interesting we can make things.

The Struggles of a Scientist

Being a physicist seems pretty glamorous, examining the universe at its core, working with exotic machinery, and of course the accolades that come with discovering a previously unknown to humanity secret of the cosmos. It isn't all it seems to be though, we still have to deal with the hardships that come with living life. For me, life has had some pretty difficult mountains to climb before embarking on my great journey, along with countless others my age; attending university.

This summer hasn't exactly been an easy one for this particular scientist. First, only about 2 weeks after graduating high school, I broke my collar bone biking and was out of commission for about 5 weeks, restricted to my couch from the pain. Even worse than the pain was the boredom. It was not too much fun being stuck inside for the beautiful days of Canadian summer while my friends were out enjoying themselves doing all the things teenagers do. Luckily, I have made a full recovery and my collar bone and I seem ready to take on Waterloo.

Hold on a second, when is life ever that easy? Just as I thought I had escaped the prison that was my basement, something threw me back in. Now, only a week before I'm supposed to move into my new home, I get blood work and receive the FANtastic news that I have mono, which if you haven't had it is just tons of fun. Im being sarcastic of course as once again, I have been bed ridden for another week and now, only days before going away am just overcoming the virus, but I am not out of the woods yet. For the next couple weeks, I'll be constantly feeling exhausted and I have to take it pretty slow, but in the name of science, I'm hopeful I'll have made a full recovery by the time our first classes roll around. I know it sounds pretty horrible, but don't worry its not contagious except through saliva and I don't expect to be kissing too many of my classmates.

Why Time Travel Wouldn't Work

Time travel is a popular science fiction staple, from Back to the Future, to Dr. Who its use has captured the attention of many audiences. Although for now, time travel only exists in a fictional realm, there are many reasons why it could work. General relativity proposes that everything around us, space-time, is one set of dimensions. This suggests that as we can move through space by walking around or any other movement, there should be a way to move through time by moving along its dimension. This is obviously more complicated than it sounds, but theoretically there should be a way to do it.

Now, as is true in many cases, when general relativity seems to provide an answer, quantum mechanics is there to provide a problem. The first of these problems that I can see comes from quantum uncertainty. What I mean by this is, suppose you went back in time 65 million years ago, to the time of the dinosaurs. Currently we think we have a pretty good understanding of what this era would have looked like, based on fossils and carbon dating among other things. But right now this is just a probability of what things would have looked like at that time, and this probability eventually gave rise to our world today. However, since no one was there 65 million years ago, it is still just a probability. Probabilities are what quantum mechanics operate in. What this means is everything has a probability of being a certain way until it is observed as being one way or another, at which time it locks into a certain state of being. In the dinosaur case, the idea we have for that time is just a probability of what it may have looked like, but as soon as someone were to go back and observe how the world really was then, one probability will take form which may or may not be the one we imagined. In any case, there are going to be differences and these could have terrible consequences for today's world.

Another risk comes from the many worlds approach to quantum mechanics, in which every probability that exists does happen in some universe. For example if you flip a coin, quantum mechanics says that the 2 probabilities of heads or tails both happen, in their own universe one of which you happen to observe. So for time travel, when there is a probability of what a certain time looked like or will look like, if you were to travel to a certain time you may observe what you expected, but you may be in a completely different universe. This could make returning difficult because you would have to travel to one specific universe among and infinite possibility. So, even if you did travel to a different time you would be stuck there.

Obviously if anyone would like to reenact Marty McFly, we still have some work to do.

Quantum Computing

Computers have been changing the way our world works since they were invented. They have advanced us and helped us become the global society we are today. They have also been advancing themselves from huge computers with basically no power, to computers we have today which can run simulations of galaxies. The next step in this computational evolution is quantum computing.

Basic computing we know today, such as the laptop you're reading this on, works by using a series of 0's and 1's to relay commands. What this means is everything your computer does is controlled by either a 0 or a 1 and whichever digit is selected controls a different response. This is using classical mechanics, because the digit being used is either a 0 or a 1, but can never be both (keep in mind a computer is doing thousands of things at a time, so its not just one digit, its thousands). As a result, large calculations and computations can be very time consuming. Quantum computing utilizes the uncertainty principle associated with quantum mechanics. What I mean by this is instead of all commands being done by either a 0 or a 1, every command uses both 0 and 1 at the same time.

Using this property of quantum mechanics, the computer can make each entry both 0 and 1 at the same time because the digit is like Schrödinger's Cat, the famous thought experiment. For this thought experiment, imagine a cat is placed in a closed box with no windows or anything to observe the box's contents. Placed in the box with the cat is a vile of poison set to open randomly at any moment once the box is closed. When the box is shut, there is no way to know if the cat is dead or alive without opening the box and observing its contents, so until the box is opened the cat can be thought of as both dead and alive. This applies to computing because the computer can operate using both 0 and 1 at the same time because the digit is always 0 and never zero, and it is always 1 and never 1 all at the same time.

This isn't the easiest concept to come to grips with, knowing one things can be 2 different things at the same time, but using it could make computers exponentially faster. Instead of taking time to sift through every command that comes to a computer and doing it all in order, a quantum computer would be able to do thousands of commands and calculations in a split second, almost infinitely fast. And because everything is taking place at the same time, the more calculations you add do not add more time to the process. It would also greatly reduce the size of computers, or at least the computational piece of a computer. Instead of needing a processing chip like we have now, a quantum computer would only need a few atoms to complete the quantum process.

The unprecedented speed and size of quantum computers certainly makes them a prize of the future, and has astounding possibilities of what they could create. For example, since a quantum computer makes every calculation at once, this means it has the possibility of making every calculation imaginable at once, without even being told to. Such as if we had a  quantum computer make a random passage of words, it would simultaneously make every passage of words that would every or has ever or could every be written, because they are all possibilities. 

The sheer power of quantum computing is intriguing, and at the uWaterloo, I will be experiencing its development first hand. On campus, the newly built QNC, or Quantum Nano Centre seen here, is focusing primarily on the development of quantum computers. In association with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, some ground breaking work is being done in the field and you and I may be reading this blog on a quantum computer sooner than you think.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy - Part 2

Dark matter and energy make up about 95% of the universe's total mass, as we discussed previously. We also have no idea where this mass comes from or what these so called dark substances really are. For an overview of dark matter and energy, refer to my previous post. In this post I will be discussing my personal theory of where these mysterious masses come from.

At the big bang, all known matter and energy began to expand outward from an infinitesimal single point of infinite mass and infinite density, along with space and time. From this moment, observed from WMAP's mapping of the cosmic background radiation, we have seen that matter and energy had small differences in density across the universe's horizon. Intuitively, you would think that because the big bang was the beginning of everything, all matter and energy should be distributed evenly across the cosmos. Luckily for us, the subtle differences in density of matter and energy is what gave rise to all particles and matter as we know it; without these small variations us and everything around us wouldn't exist.

You're probably asking yourself where these variations come from. The main reason is quantum fluctuations, which are small uncertainties arising from the quantum properties of matter. After these fluctuations, matter started to snowball into larger and larger constituents. These then began to be drawn together by gravity into things such as planets, galaxies and clusters. 

This is where dark matter comes in. Dark matter has provided a type of scaffolding for the entire universe. With its exceptional gravitational force, dark matter drew all of the normal matter into these large formations after the quantum fluctuations made atoms and matter as we know it possible. Dark matter does not appear to have come from the big bang, as normal matter has, but instead from a different origin. Because matter, energy, as well as space-time were created at the big bang and expanded into empty nothingness, dark matter and energy must have come from somewhere outside of our space-time continuum.

Dark matter and energy can both only be observed through they're effect on regular matter that we can see, mostly its gravitational influence. But we cannot actually see it, electromagnetic radiation does not interact with dark matter other than being bent through gravity as in the picture to the right, and no other forces seem to either besides gravity. According to string theory, gravity is the only force that can operate between different spacial reference frames, or universes for lack of a better term. In the future I will elaborate on the workings of string theory but for now this is all you need to know. What this means for dark matter is that it could be the matter of a completely different universe, but its gravity is still felt between the spatial gap. In my mind this shows where dark matter and energy come from. Since gravity is the only force that can be transferred between braneworlds (a set of spatial dimensions like ours, or a universe) and gravity is the only influence felt by dark matter in our universe, this shows me dark matter was not something that was created in our universe but something present in its own universe.

You may have noticed that I've mostly only talked about dark matter and not dark energy. Dark matter and energy have similar characteristics, and both are only observed through their gravitational influence. Dark matter provides the attractive force for galaxies to be drawn together, while dark energy provides the repulsive force, or negative gravity which is also allowed through string theory, which drives the universe's outward expansion. Both of these forms of gravity likely come from matter and energy of other universe's. 

There is no way to test this theory right now, but it is where I believe dark matter and energy originate from.