Little actions add up over time. A single raindrop doesn't have much effect, but if you have enough raindrops and enough time, you can carve a Grand Canyon.
(Rick Hanson)
Saturday, August 27, 2011
The brain - cause and cure of suffering
All animals, including us, have evolved three strategies to help pass on their genes. The animal tries to:
Separate what is actually connected, in order to create a boundary between itself and the world
Stabilize what keeps changing, in order to maintain it's internal systems within tight ranges
Hold onto fleeting (flüchtige) pleasures and escape inevitable pains, in order to approach opportunities and avoid threats
For sheer survival, these strategies work great. Whenever a strategy runs into trouble, uncomfortable (sometimes even agonizing) alarm signals pulse through the nervous system to set the animal back on track.
Whilst trouble comes all the time, most animals don't have nervous systems complex enough to allow these strategies' alarms to grow into significant distress. But our vastly more developed brain is fertile ground for a harvest of suffering.
Only we humans worry about the future, regret the past, and blame ourself for the present. We get frustrated when we can't have what we want, and disappointed when what we like ends. We suffer that we suffer. We get upset about being in pain, angry about dying, sad about waking up sad yet another day.
This kind of suffering - which encompasses most of our unhappiness and dissatisfaction - is constructed by the brain. It is made up. This is ironic, poignant (schmerzlich) - and supremely hopeful, for if the brain is the cause of suffering, it can also be its cure.
(from Rick Hanson: Buddha's Brain)
For sheer survival, these strategies work great. Whenever a strategy runs into trouble, uncomfortable (sometimes even agonizing) alarm signals pulse through the nervous system to set the animal back on track.
Whilst trouble comes all the time, most animals don't have nervous systems complex enough to allow these strategies' alarms to grow into significant distress. But our vastly more developed brain is fertile ground for a harvest of suffering.
Only we humans worry about the future, regret the past, and blame ourself for the present. We get frustrated when we can't have what we want, and disappointed when what we like ends. We suffer that we suffer. We get upset about being in pain, angry about dying, sad about waking up sad yet another day.
This kind of suffering - which encompasses most of our unhappiness and dissatisfaction - is constructed by the brain. It is made up. This is ironic, poignant (schmerzlich) - and supremely hopeful, for if the brain is the cause of suffering, it can also be its cure.
(from Rick Hanson: Buddha's Brain)
Greatest remaining scientific questions today
It's sometimes said that the greatest remaining scientific questions today are:
1. What caused the Big Bang?
2. What is the grand unified theory (GUT) that integrates quantum mechanics and general relativity?
3. What is the relationship between the mind and the brain, especially regarding consciousness experience?
The last question is up there with the first two because it is as difficult to answer, and as important.
It can still take many years before we completely understand the relationship between the brain and the mind, but meanwhile a reasonable working hypothesis is that the mind is what the brain does.
(from Rick Hanson: Buddha's Brain)
1. What caused the Big Bang?
2. What is the grand unified theory (GUT) that integrates quantum mechanics and general relativity?
3. What is the relationship between the mind and the brain, especially regarding consciousness experience?
The last question is up there with the first two because it is as difficult to answer, and as important.
It can still take many years before we completely understand the relationship between the brain and the mind, but meanwhile a reasonable working hypothesis is that the mind is what the brain does.
(from Rick Hanson: Buddha's Brain)
Understanding our identity would transform the world
Imagine you look into the mirrow and you could see past the momentary You of today. Imagine you could see back to the You of years ago, the child you once were, the toddler.
Send your consciousness backward through time, at lightning speed, past your parents, past your grandparents, down past all the generations before them. Your ancestors, your primate ancestors, back past all the animals before them, down to the earliest life, into the first cell, then down into that cell, to the complex chemicals that made it possible. And down into the molten earth and the forming solar system, back to the birth of your carbon and oxygen, and iron atoms in exploding stars far across the galaxy. Look back through the universal expansion, to the creation of the elementary particles that you are made of at this very moment, in the Big Bang.
This is not fantasy. This is science. We are all this. We are is the sum total of our history.
How far back we understand that history and how much of our identity we claim is up to us.
No one had this choice before. Our generation is the first, because we are the first to know our real (scientifically proven) origin story.
People don't change from learning facts. People change from discovering a big new identity that is available to them, that is meaningful, exiting and that connects them to people they want to be part of. Under these circumstances people can actually change very quickly.
Our species is central to the cosmos and central to the future of earth and those of us who are alive today, at that pivotal moment, may be the most significant generations ever.
If we could simply live up to this identity, we would transform the world.
(Nancy Ellen Abrams)
Send your consciousness backward through time, at lightning speed, past your parents, past your grandparents, down past all the generations before them. Your ancestors, your primate ancestors, back past all the animals before them, down to the earliest life, into the first cell, then down into that cell, to the complex chemicals that made it possible. And down into the molten earth and the forming solar system, back to the birth of your carbon and oxygen, and iron atoms in exploding stars far across the galaxy. Look back through the universal expansion, to the creation of the elementary particles that you are made of at this very moment, in the Big Bang.
This is not fantasy. This is science. We are all this. We are is the sum total of our history.
How far back we understand that history and how much of our identity we claim is up to us.
No one had this choice before. Our generation is the first, because we are the first to know our real (scientifically proven) origin story.
People don't change from learning facts. People change from discovering a big new identity that is available to them, that is meaningful, exiting and that connects them to people they want to be part of. Under these circumstances people can actually change very quickly.
Our species is central to the cosmos and central to the future of earth and those of us who are alive today, at that pivotal moment, may be the most significant generations ever.
If we could simply live up to this identity, we would transform the world.
(Nancy Ellen Abrams)
The Big Bang wasn't the beginning
In this very entertaining but clearly scientifically profound speach, Sean Carroll confronts us with a new scenario regarding the origin of our Universe: The Big Bang wasn't the beginning.
"An unbroken egg is a low-entropy configuration, exactly like our universe at the Big Bang, and yet when we open our refrigerator we are not surprised to find this low-entropy configuration. That's because an egg is not a closed system: It comes out of a chicken. - Maybe the Universe comes out of an universal chicken?!"
"An unbroken egg is a low-entropy configuration, exactly like our universe at the Big Bang, and yet when we open our refrigerator we are not surprised to find this low-entropy configuration. That's because an egg is not a closed system: It comes out of a chicken. - Maybe the Universe comes out of an universal chicken?!"
Why started our universe in an extremely low-entropy state?
All of the macroscopic manifestations of the arrow of time - our ability to turn eggs into omelets but not vice versa, the tendency of milk to mix into coffee but never spontaneously unmix, the fact that we can remember the past but not the future - can be traced to the tendency of entropy to increase, in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In the 1870's, Boltzmann explained the microscopic underpinnings of the Second Law: Entropy counts the number of microstates corresponding to each macrostate, so if we start (for whatever reason) in a relatively low-entropy state, it's overwhelmingly likely that the entropy will increase toward the future.
However, due to the fundamental reversibility of the laws of physics, if the only thing we have to go on is the fact that the current state is low entropy, we would with equal legitimacy expect the entropy to have been larger in the past. But the real world doesn't seem to work that way, so we need something else to go on. That something else is the Past Hypothesis: the assumption that the very early universe found itself in an extremely low-entropy state, and we are currently witnessing its relaxation to a state of high entropy.
The question of why the Past Hypothesis is true belongs to the realm of cosmology. The anthropic principle is woefully inadequate for the task, since we could easily find ourselves constituted as random fluctuations (Boltzmann brains) in an otherwise empty de Sitter space. Likewise, inflation by itself doesn't address the question, as it requires an even lower-entropy starting point than the conventional Big Bang cosmology.
The way out is, that we can accept the Big Bang had a low entropy, but deny that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. The idea that the Big Bang is truly the beginning of the universe is simply a plausible hypothesis, not a result established by reasonable doubt. General relativity doesn't predict that space and time didn't exist before the Big Bang; it predicts that the curvature of spacetime in the very early universe became so large that general relativity itself ceases to be reliable. Therefore quantum gravity absolutely must be taken into account.
In quantum field theory it is natural to assume that de Sitter space itself should be fluctuating. The entropy associated with de Sitter space is (a) low when the energy density is high and (b) high when the energy density is low. (Therefore the decay of a high-energy de Sitter space into a state with lower vacuum energy is just the natural evolution of a low-entropy state into a high-entropy one.) When the de Sitter space starts at the bottom, where vacuum energy is very small, quantum fluctuations will occasionally push the field up the potential, from the true vacuum to the false vacuum - not everywhere at once, but in some small region of space.
What happens when a bubble of false vacuum fluctuates into existence in de Sitter space? Inside the bubble, where we've fluctuated into the false vacuum, space wants to expand; but the wall separating the inside from the outside of the bubble wants to shrink, and usually it shrinks away quickly before anything dramatic happens. Therefore, most of the time, the bubble will disappear again as the field will simply dissipate away back into its thermal surroundings.
However, every once in a while we could get lucky: We could find a fluctuation in a low-vacuum energy de Sitter space (creating a bubble of false vacuum, with the space inside wanting to expand), and simultaneously a fluctuation of space ifself (causing the wall separating the inside from the outside of the bubble to have a weaker tendency to shrink), creating a region that pinches off from the rest of the universe.
The tiny throat that initially still connects the two is a wormhole, which is unstable and will quickly collapse into nothing, leaving two disconnect spacetimes, the original parent universe and the tiny baby.
So, in quantum field theory, spacetime can not only bend or stretch (as in ordinary classical general relativity), but also split into multiple pieces. In particular, a tiny bit of space could branch off from a larger universe and go its own way. The separate bit of space is, naturally, known as a baby universe.
(Inspiration and extracts from Sean Carroll: From Eternity to Here)
In the 1870's, Boltzmann explained the microscopic underpinnings of the Second Law: Entropy counts the number of microstates corresponding to each macrostate, so if we start (for whatever reason) in a relatively low-entropy state, it's overwhelmingly likely that the entropy will increase toward the future.
However, due to the fundamental reversibility of the laws of physics, if the only thing we have to go on is the fact that the current state is low entropy, we would with equal legitimacy expect the entropy to have been larger in the past. But the real world doesn't seem to work that way, so we need something else to go on. That something else is the Past Hypothesis: the assumption that the very early universe found itself in an extremely low-entropy state, and we are currently witnessing its relaxation to a state of high entropy.
The question of why the Past Hypothesis is true belongs to the realm of cosmology. The anthropic principle is woefully inadequate for the task, since we could easily find ourselves constituted as random fluctuations (Boltzmann brains) in an otherwise empty de Sitter space. Likewise, inflation by itself doesn't address the question, as it requires an even lower-entropy starting point than the conventional Big Bang cosmology.
The way out is, that we can accept the Big Bang had a low entropy, but deny that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. The idea that the Big Bang is truly the beginning of the universe is simply a plausible hypothesis, not a result established by reasonable doubt. General relativity doesn't predict that space and time didn't exist before the Big Bang; it predicts that the curvature of spacetime in the very early universe became so large that general relativity itself ceases to be reliable. Therefore quantum gravity absolutely must be taken into account.
In quantum field theory it is natural to assume that de Sitter space itself should be fluctuating. The entropy associated with de Sitter space is (a) low when the energy density is high and (b) high when the energy density is low. (Therefore the decay of a high-energy de Sitter space into a state with lower vacuum energy is just the natural evolution of a low-entropy state into a high-entropy one.) When the de Sitter space starts at the bottom, where vacuum energy is very small, quantum fluctuations will occasionally push the field up the potential, from the true vacuum to the false vacuum - not everywhere at once, but in some small region of space.
What happens when a bubble of false vacuum fluctuates into existence in de Sitter space? Inside the bubble, where we've fluctuated into the false vacuum, space wants to expand; but the wall separating the inside from the outside of the bubble wants to shrink, and usually it shrinks away quickly before anything dramatic happens. Therefore, most of the time, the bubble will disappear again as the field will simply dissipate away back into its thermal surroundings.
However, every once in a while we could get lucky: We could find a fluctuation in a low-vacuum energy de Sitter space (creating a bubble of false vacuum, with the space inside wanting to expand), and simultaneously a fluctuation of space ifself (causing the wall separating the inside from the outside of the bubble to have a weaker tendency to shrink), creating a region that pinches off from the rest of the universe.
The tiny throat that initially still connects the two is a wormhole, which is unstable and will quickly collapse into nothing, leaving two disconnect spacetimes, the original parent universe and the tiny baby.
So, in quantum field theory, spacetime can not only bend or stretch (as in ordinary classical general relativity), but also split into multiple pieces. In particular, a tiny bit of space could branch off from a larger universe and go its own way. The separate bit of space is, naturally, known as a baby universe.
(Inspiration and extracts from Sean Carroll: From Eternity to Here)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
2009 Terry Lectures - The New Universe and a Cosmic Society
In the year 2009, Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams held a series of Lectures at Yale University, which are a must to see if you would want to understand how the latest scientific insight into cosmology can help forming a universal consciousness capable of addressing the pressing issues our global society faces today.
Please note that each of those lectures takes approx 1 hour, but rest assured that they are worth every second of your attention:
- 2009 Terry Lecture: (1) The New Universe
- 2009 Terry Lecture: (2) Stardust Plus Time Equals Us
- 2009 Terry Lecture: (3) This Cosmically Pivotal Moment
- 2009 Terry Lecture: (4) Cosmic Society
(For additional information about the work of Joel R Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams visit their website new-universe.org)
Think cosmically, act globally, eat locally
Think cosmically, act globally, eat locally
(Nacy Ellen Abrams)
(Nacy Ellen Abrams)
Becoming a Cosmic Society
If we wake up to the reality of our universe and our predicament (Dilemma) on earth.
If we humbly accept facts without letting ideologies depress or distort them.
If we become willing to expand our interpretations of our religious traditions to encompass new knowledge.
If we integrate it into our thinking and eventually our dreaming and our art.
Then our culture will have a new Enlightment - and we will become a cosmic society.
(Nancy Ellen Abrams)
If we humbly accept facts without letting ideologies depress or distort them.
If we become willing to expand our interpretations of our religious traditions to encompass new knowledge.
If we integrate it into our thinking and eventually our dreaming and our art.
Then our culture will have a new Enlightment - and we will become a cosmic society.
(Nancy Ellen Abrams)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Pressing Problems - Carbon Dioxide
We live in the middle of the best period for life on Earth, but we have pressing problems to deal with.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been essentially constant for the last 2000 years. In fact it has not gone above 300 ppm (parts per million) for at least the last 800.000 years.
But in the industrial revolution our ancestors started to burn fossil fuels. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been doubling every 30 years since the year 1800.
The graph of the human contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is now shooting up almost vertically.
The last thousands of years humans had almost no impact on the global scale, but we now starting to have an enormous impact. If we continue at the present rate, the amount of carbon-dioxide will increaee by a factor of 8 in this century. The consequences for climate will be catastrophic. We have to stop these exponential increases in our impact in the environment very quickly.
The reason why the societies around the world seem to be unable to deal with these long-term problems may be, that they can't grasp the immense lenght of time that our present actions will affect.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been essentially constant for the last 2000 years. In fact it has not gone above 300 ppm (parts per million) for at least the last 800.000 years.
But in the industrial revolution our ancestors started to burn fossil fuels. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been doubling every 30 years since the year 1800.
The graph of the human contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is now shooting up almost vertically.
(Picture of Concentration of Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere from new-universe.org)
The last thousands of years humans had almost no impact on the global scale, but we now starting to have an enormous impact. If we continue at the present rate, the amount of carbon-dioxide will increaee by a factor of 8 in this century. The consequences for climate will be catastrophic. We have to stop these exponential increases in our impact in the environment very quickly.
The reason why the societies around the world seem to be unable to deal with these long-term problems may be, that they can't grasp the immense lenght of time that our present actions will affect.
We live in the middle of the best period for life on Earth
Our technologies have gotten way ahead of our ability to control or even understand their effects, largely because we don't know how to look far enough ahead. This is why our society has not grasped the seriousness of disrupting the global climate or causing mass extinctions.
We need to understand, how our special moment of human existence fits into the larger scales of cosmic time. We live in the middle of the best period for life on Earth!
That period began about half a billion years ago, when - thanks to micro-organisms - the earth acquired the oxygen-rich atmosphere that we all breath today. That's when all the large creatures started to evolve.
It will end in about half a billion years, when the increasing heat of the sun evaporates all the water which will ultimately be lost.
We need to understand, how our special moment of human existence fits into the larger scales of cosmic time. We live in the middle of the best period for life on Earth!
That period began about half a billion years ago, when - thanks to micro-organisms - the earth acquired the oxygen-rich atmosphere that we all breath today. That's when all the large creatures started to evolve.
It will end in about half a billion years, when the increasing heat of the sun evaporates all the water which will ultimately be lost.
We are made of the rarest material in the universe
The vast majority of all visible matter is Hydrogen and Helium, those two elements which came right out of the Big Bang and from which the stars are made of.
Only at the death of stars all the other atoms of the table of the periodic system get created and blown out into the universe as stardust. Intelligent beings - which contain these rare materials (e.g. carbon) - can only be made of stardust!
All visible things in the universe, the stars, the planets, the dust and all the galxies, together total less than 0,5% of what's actually out there.
We have now a new theory of the universe, according to which allmost everything in the universe is made of two invisible things: Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
We are made out of stardust, but stardust wouldn't exist without dark matter. The gravity of the dark matter pull ordinary matter into the centres of the forming galaxies and there the ordinary matter forms stars, and stardust and planets and ultimately us.
Look at this fascinating fly-through of the Bolshoi-Simulation produced by the biggest NASA computer. This highly accurate computer simulation represents the density of dark matter in our observable universe.
Only at the death of stars all the other atoms of the table of the periodic system get created and blown out into the universe as stardust. Intelligent beings - which contain these rare materials (e.g. carbon) - can only be made of stardust!
All visible things in the universe, the stars, the planets, the dust and all the galxies, together total less than 0,5% of what's actually out there.
We have now a new theory of the universe, according to which allmost everything in the universe is made of two invisible things: Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
(Picture of Cosmic Density Pyramid from new-universe.org)
We are made out of stardust, but stardust wouldn't exist without dark matter. The gravity of the dark matter pull ordinary matter into the centres of the forming galaxies and there the ordinary matter forms stars, and stardust and planets and ultimately us.
Look at this fascinating fly-through of the Bolshoi-Simulation produced by the biggest NASA computer. This highly accurate computer simulation represents the density of dark matter in our observable universe.
(For further information visit new-universe.org)
Our bodies are at the midpoint of all possible sizes
There is a smallest and a largest size in our universe.
The smallest size allowed by physics is the Planck Length (10-33 centimeters), at which quantum gravity is supposed to become important and the largest size is simply the diameter of the universe.
That spectrum of sizes therefore spans...
The smallest size allowed by physics is the Planck Length (10-33 centimeters), at which quantum gravity is supposed to become important and the largest size is simply the diameter of the universe.
That spectrum of sizes therefore spans...
- size of the cosmic horizon
- size of a supercluster of galaxies
- size of a galaxy
- size of the distance to Orion Nebular
- size of the solar system
- size of the earth
- size of a mountain
- size of a human
- size of an ant
- size of a bacterium
- size of a DNA
- size of an atom
- size of a nucleus of an atom
and even smaller...
- the weak interactions
- the massive dark matter
- the grand unified theory (GUT)
- the Planck Length
Changing the World through a shared Cosmology
There is a profound connection between the enornous global problems we are facing today and the fact that most people have no accurate understanding on the full big picture.
We simply don't know how we fit into the Universe. We don't get what the scientific cosmic discoveries mean for us, in our lives, on an emotional level. But we need to understand this big picture, because otherwise this disconnect is ever going to be more severe.
The biggest problem facing us today is not how to save the world. We know technologically much of what needs to be done and a lot that could be done today.
The biggest question facing us today is, what can possibly motivate people to change enough, fast enough, to do enough.
Have a look at that amazingly insightful speach of Joel R Primack from the University of California in Santa Cruz and his wife Nancy Ellen Abrams, which should allow you to see that you and all of us fit into the newly emerging scientific picture of the universe in an astonishing way.
In the new picture of the universe, we humans are central or special in surprising ways:
(For additional information about the work of Joel R Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams visit their website new-universe.org)
We simply don't know how we fit into the Universe. We don't get what the scientific cosmic discoveries mean for us, in our lives, on an emotional level. But we need to understand this big picture, because otherwise this disconnect is ever going to be more severe.
The biggest problem facing us today is not how to save the world. We know technologically much of what needs to be done and a lot that could be done today.
The biggest question facing us today is, what can possibly motivate people to change enough, fast enough, to do enough.
Have a look at that amazingly insightful speach of Joel R Primack from the University of California in Santa Cruz and his wife Nancy Ellen Abrams, which should allow you to see that you and all of us fit into the newly emerging scientific picture of the universe in an astonishing way.
- Our bodies are at the midpoint of all possible sizes.
- We are made of the rarest material in the universe.
- We live in the middle of the best period for life on Earth.
(For additional information about the work of Joel R Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams visit their website new-universe.org)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Everyone is doing the best they can...
Everyone is doing the best they can from their level of consciousness.
(Deepak Chopra)
(Deepak Chopra)
Thoughts emerge from consciousness
Particles emerge from a void that is pure potential. Thoughts emerge from a void that is pure consciousness.
(Deepak Chopra)
(Deepak Chopra)
"Make me one with everything"
The Zen master goes up to the hot-dog vendor and says: “Make me one with everything”
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Galaxies result from quantum fluctuations
It's breathtaking to look into the sky at the distribution of galaxies through space, and imagine that they originated in quantum fluctuations when the universe was a fraction of a second old (before inflation caused by super-dark energy took that tiny region of space and blew it up to an enormous size).
Various distinct vacua
To a physicist, a "vacuum" does not mean "empty space". It simply means "the lowest energy-state of a theory". Looking at the potential energy curve for some field, the bottom of every valley defines a distinct vacuum state.
Potential Energy of a Quantum Field
The energy associated with a field can arise in different ways.
Usually energy of a field comes about because the field is changing from point to point in spacetime (there is energy in the stretching associated with the changing field values, much like there is energy in the twists or vibrations of a sheet of rubber).
But in addition to that, fields can carry energy just by sitting there with some fixed value. That kind of energy, associated with the value of the field itself (rather than the changes in the field from place to place or time to time), is known as "potential energy".
Vibrations in quantum fields give rise to particles. If a field is constant everywhere, so there are no vibrations, you don't see any particles.
The background value of a field - the average value it takes when we imagine smoothing out all the vibrations - is not directly observable. Nevertheless, it can be indirectly observable, as this "potential energy" can affect the curvature of spacetime.
Potential energy can be converted into other sorts of energy.
Usually energy of a field comes about because the field is changing from point to point in spacetime (there is energy in the stretching associated with the changing field values, much like there is energy in the twists or vibrations of a sheet of rubber).
But in addition to that, fields can carry energy just by sitting there with some fixed value. That kind of energy, associated with the value of the field itself (rather than the changes in the field from place to place or time to time), is known as "potential energy".
Vibrations in quantum fields give rise to particles. If a field is constant everywhere, so there are no vibrations, you don't see any particles.
The background value of a field - the average value it takes when we imagine smoothing out all the vibrations - is not directly observable. Nevertheless, it can be indirectly observable, as this "potential energy" can affect the curvature of spacetime.
Potential energy can be converted into other sorts of energy.
The Boltzmann-brain problem
Why do we find ourselves in a universe evolving gradually from a state of incredibly low entropy, rather than being isolated creatures that recently fluctuated from the surrounding chaos (high-entropy state)?
One year "Change the World"-Blog
Today marks a very special date for this blog as it is now exactly one year ago, since the very first posting was published.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Quantum tunneling - Should I buy an insurance for that?
Quantum mechanics tells us, that classical particles as we observe them, are actually wave functions.
This means that an object (e.g. a planet) isn't really a collection of classical particles; it's described by a wave function, just like everything else. That wave function characterizes the probability that we will find the constituents of the planet in any of their possible configurations.
One of those possible configurations, inevitably, will be a black hole. In other words, from the point of view of someone observing that planet (or anything else), there is a tiny chance they will find that the planet has spontaneously collapsed into a black hole. That's the process known as "quantum tunneling".
Don't be alarmed. Yes, it's true, just about everything in the universe - the Earth, the Sun, you, me - has a chance of quantum-tunneling into the form of a black hole at any moment. But the chance is very small. It would be many many times the age of the universe before there were a decent chance of it happening.
(see also Sean Carroll: From Eternity to Here, p.308)
This means that an object (e.g. a planet) isn't really a collection of classical particles; it's described by a wave function, just like everything else. That wave function characterizes the probability that we will find the constituents of the planet in any of their possible configurations.
One of those possible configurations, inevitably, will be a black hole. In other words, from the point of view of someone observing that planet (or anything else), there is a tiny chance they will find that the planet has spontaneously collapsed into a black hole. That's the process known as "quantum tunneling".
Don't be alarmed. Yes, it's true, just about everything in the universe - the Earth, the Sun, you, me - has a chance of quantum-tunneling into the form of a black hole at any moment. But the chance is very small. It would be many many times the age of the universe before there were a decent chance of it happening.
(see also Sean Carroll: From Eternity to Here, p.308)
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Number of particles in Universe
There are approx 1088 particles within our comoving patch of the universe (observable part of the universe).
Time is a great teacher...
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
(Hector Berlioz)
(Hector Berlioz)
Quantum Field Theory
The basic idea of quantum field theory is simple: The world is made of fields, and when we observe the wave functions of those fields, we see particles.
Unlike a particle, which exists at some certain point, a field exists everywhere in space; the electric field, the magnetic field, and the gravitational field are all familiar examples. At every point in space, every field that exists has some particular value (although that value might be zero).
According to quantum field theory, everything is a field, but when we look at a field, we see particles. When we look at the electric and magnetic fields, for example, we see photons, the particles of electromagnetism. A weakly vibrating electromagnetic field shows up as a small number of photons; a wildly vibrating electromagnetic field shows up as a large number of photons.
Quantum field theory reconciles quantum mechanics with special relativity. (This is very different from "quantum gravity", which would reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity, the theory of gravity and spacetime curvature.)
(see also Sean Carroll: From Eternity to Here, p.269)
Unlike a particle, which exists at some certain point, a field exists everywhere in space; the electric field, the magnetic field, and the gravitational field are all familiar examples. At every point in space, every field that exists has some particular value (although that value might be zero).
According to quantum field theory, everything is a field, but when we look at a field, we see particles. When we look at the electric and magnetic fields, for example, we see photons, the particles of electromagnetism. A weakly vibrating electromagnetic field shows up as a small number of photons; a wildly vibrating electromagnetic field shows up as a large number of photons.
Quantum field theory reconciles quantum mechanics with special relativity. (This is very different from "quantum gravity", which would reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity, the theory of gravity and spacetime curvature.)
(see also Sean Carroll: From Eternity to Here, p.269)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Daylight Moon - Der Mond kämpft um seine Existenz
Abschied & Beständigkeit
Der Mond verblasst im Tageslicht.
"Lass mich ziehen" sagt er.
So lebe wohl Du Teil von mir.
Du bist so fern.
Die Zeit unendlich.
Die Sehnsucht groß.
Die Zukunft ungewiss.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
What's your Well-Being Index today?
"Well-being" is a broad concept that encompasses all aspects of a person's life, including physical and emotional health, lifestyle habits and job satisfaction, social relationships, financial well-being, experience of stress and enjoyment on a daily basis, and access to fundamentals such as healthy food, healthcare, and a safe place to live.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index describes well-being in terms of six domains: Life Evaluation, Physical Health, Emotional Health, Health Behaviors, Work Environment and Basic Access.
Click here to calculate your individual Well-Being Index and here if you'd like to learn more about the underlying scientific methodology.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index describes well-being in terms of six domains: Life Evaluation, Physical Health, Emotional Health, Health Behaviors, Work Environment and Basic Access.
Click here to calculate your individual Well-Being Index and here if you'd like to learn more about the underlying scientific methodology.
Consciousness Matters - The work of IONS
Click here to refer directly to the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Der Mond lacht laut
Ich sehe den Mond an, jetzt schon seit mehr als einer Stunde, und mir wird mal wieder klar, dass wir unser Schicksal nicht selbst bestimmen.
Das Universum bestimmt den Weg. Der Mond scheint, ob wir es wollen oder nicht.
Wenn ich mir den Mond noch etwas genauer betrachte, dann sieht es fast so aus, als würde er die Menschen auslachen, weil sie noch immer glauben, alles unter Kontrolle zu halten.
"Träumt weiter..." höre ich ihn lachen.
Das Universum bestimmt den Weg. Der Mond scheint, ob wir es wollen oder nicht.
Wenn ich mir den Mond noch etwas genauer betrachte, dann sieht es fast so aus, als würde er die Menschen auslachen, weil sie noch immer glauben, alles unter Kontrolle zu halten.
"Träumt weiter..." höre ich ihn lachen.
Das Atmen der Ozeane
Als ob er mir sagen wollte "Ich bin hier, selbst wenn Du mich nicht immer sehen kannst", so schien der Mond gestern spät abends durch das Fenster. Er rief mich zu sich und ich ging heraus und setzte mich zu ihm. Er war prächtig und stand dort noch immer in seiner vollen Schönheit, selbst wenn der Zeitpunkt des Vollmondes in dieser Periode bereits schon wieder vergangen war. Ich blickte lange in sein wundervolles Antlitz und spürte unsere Verbundenheit. Eine tiefe Verbundenheit die zu jedem Zeitpunkt besteht. Genauso wie der Mond die stetige Zu- und Abnahme der Gezeiten und damit das Atmen der Ozeane ermöglicht, so atme und lebe auch ich nur durch diese Verbindung. Für eininge Minuten war ich wieder alleine mit meinem Mond, genoss die Zweisamkeit, spürte unsere Einheit. In der Gewissheit, dass es niemals enden wird, stand ich dann irgendwann wieder auf, mit Tränen in den Augen, und sagte "Bis ganz bald..."
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