{"id":97974,"date":"2022-12-19T21:17:01","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T04:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=97974"},"modified":"2022-12-23T16:37:03","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T23:37:03","slug":"unintended-corruption-and-other-quirks-in-current-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/12\/unintended-corruption-and-other-quirks-in-current-physics.html","title":{"rendered":"“Unintended Corruption” and Other Quirks in Current Physics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Not quite the way things really are
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Herewith, I share some more notes that have been inspired by and\/or are based upon Michael Guillen\u2019s Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith<\/em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021).\u00a0 Dr. Guillen, who grew up in East Los Angeles (not too terribly far from where I myself was raised, although he\u2019s a few years younger than I am) before studying mathematics, physics, and astronomy at UCLA and Cornell, taught physics for eight years at Harvard University before becoming the chief science editor for ABC News.\u00a0 They constitute an initial hasty and unpolished pass on the topic that they address:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the most basic concepts in physics are almost impossible to conceive.\u00a0 For example:\u00a0 In 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein confided in his old friend Michele Besso that \u201cThe whole fifty years of conscious brooding have not brought me nearer to the answer to the question, \u2018What are light quanta?\u2019 Nowadays every scalawag believes he knows what they are, but he deceives himself.\u201d\u00a0 (125)<\/p>\n

Or consider the electron.\u00a0 Physicists once believed that it was simply a particle.\u00a0 In fact, although this may have been out of date among educated physicists by the time I was learning about electrons and neutrons and protons in elementary school and high school, it\u2019s how I myself pictured them at the time.\u00a0 I thought of atoms as being, effectively, little \u201csolar systems,\u201d in which the nucleus was the sun and the electrons were the planets.\u00a0 (Dr. Guillen, who is somewhat younger than I am, says on page 126 of Believing is Seeing<\/em> that his middle school science teacher taught him precisely that.)\u00a0 The notion was reasonable enough.\u00a0 But it\u2019s false.\u00a0 Thanks largely to the work of a young French nobleman and physicist, Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie, we now know that, like photons, electrons behave simultaneously like particles and waves<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s this curious phenomenon, which Guillen illustrates with the idea of a twenty-story building:\u00a0 To go from its ground floor to its twentieth floor, you need to cover the distance between them.\u00a0 (It makes no difference whether you take an elevator or climb the stairs.)\u00a0 Atoms can crudely be compared to a multi-story building in which the nucleus is on the ground floor and its electrons are on various floors above the nucleus.\u00a0 But electrons can travel from one floor to another without traversing the floors in between.\u00a0 \u201cQuite literally,\u201d writes Guillen, \u201cthey dematerialize from one floor and instantaneously rematerialize on another.\u201d\u00a0 (126)<\/p>\n

We might call the foregoing \u201cteleportation.\u201d\u00a0 But there\u2019s also the matter of communication<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Electrons spin like tops, either clockwise or counterclockwise.\u00a0 Consider two electrons from the same atom that fly apart rather in the manner of twins separated at birth.\u00a0 Each of them has a certain spin.\u00a0 And here\u2019s the interesting part:\u00a0 \u201cMeasuring the spin of one electron,\u201d Guillen says, \u201cinstantaneously affects the spin of the other \u2014 as if the two electrons are in telepathic communication\u201d (126).\u00a0 This is what is known in the trade as quantum entanglement<\/em>.\u00a0 And, at the time that Guillen was writing Believing is Seeing<\/em>, the longest distance actually measured in corroboration of the concept of quantum entanglement is 746 miles.\u00a0 Scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China, located in Hefei, were able to confirm instantaneous communication between two electrons that were separated by that distance.<\/p>\n

Moreover, writes Guillen,<\/p>\n

according to quantum physics, an atom is all smeared<\/em> out, like a giant wave.\u00a0 But not like a wave at the beach.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a wave of probability<\/em>. . . .\u00a0 At any given moment, a typical atom is probably where classical physics says it should be.\u00a0 But you can\u2019t say it\u2019s there with complete confidence because it can be in many places simultaneously.\u00a0 (127, italics in the original)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This phenomenon is called quantum tunneling<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of current science that\u2019s worth mentioning is the fact that, although most physicists strive mightily to avoid sloppiness and mitigate if not altogether eliminate bias from the experiments and their analysis,<\/p>\n

according to quantum physics, objectivity is something of a myth.<\/p>\n

The reason: Physicists and their equipment cannot avoid interacting with whatever they\u2019re observing.\u00a0 That interaction inevitably affects the observation.\u00a0 (127)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Guillen terms this consequence \u201cunintended corruption\u201d (127):<\/p>\n

This unintended corruption is especially important when observing tiny things, such as light quanta and subatomic particles.\u00a0 But it ultimately afflicts all<\/em> experiments.\u00a0 (127-128)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What this means, Guillen concludes, is that the universe disclosed by contemporary physics \u201chas no meaning without observers to describe it.\u201d\u00a0 The universe \u201cand its observers, its sentient inhabitants \u2014 that\u2019s us! \u2014 are inextricably connected.\u201d\u00a0 (128)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Universe could only come into existence if someone observed it,\u201d says Sir Martin Rees.\u00a0 \u201cThe Universe exists because we are aware that it exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Objectivity, then, is a myth. . . .<\/p>\n

There is no avoiding this quantum corruption.<\/p>\n

Here is a concrete example of what this means: Imagine a spinning electron locked inside an opaque box.\u00a0 According to classical physics, the electron is either spinning clockwise or counterclockwise; there is no third possibility.\u00a0 Moreover, if you leave the electron alone, the direction of its spin will not change.<\/p>\n

Quantum physics sees things very differently.\u00a0 According to quantum physics, an electron behaves like a wave of probability<\/em>.\u00a0 It is simultaneously spinning clockwise and<\/em> counterclockwise.<\/p>\n

However . . . the instant you open the box, the instant you interact with the electron, you cause<\/em> one of the possibilities to be fully realized.\u00a0 The electron you observe will be spinning in only one direction \u2014 either clockwise or counterclockwise \u2014 and no longer both.<\/p>\n

Thus, you are not<\/em> an objective observer.<\/p>\n

You are not<\/em> merely observing some preordained reality.<\/p>\n

You are unavoidably helping to determine the outcome.<\/p>\n

You.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an absolute truth<\/em>, then, that no matter how carefully or honestly you do an experiment, its results will always be tainted by your involvement in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cScience no longer is in the position of observer of nature,\u201d explained the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, \u201cbut rather recognizes itself as part of the interplay between man and nature.\u201d\u00a0 (128-129, italics in the original)<\/p>\n

Drawn from pages 121-129 of Guillen, Believing is Seeing<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Herewith, I share some more notes that have been inspired by and\/or are based upon Michael Guillen\u2019s Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021).\u00a0 Dr. Guillen, who grew up in East Los Angeles (not too terribly far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32790,32901,32904,32895,12167,32907,909,32787,3457,69,8771,32889,2195,12452,32898,8768,4237,1230,743,243,32892,401,3901,6381],"class_list":["post-97974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-believing-is-seeing","tag-clockwise","tag-counterclockwise","tag-de-broglie","tag-electron","tag-entanglement","tag-faith","tag-guillen","tag-logic","tag-mathematics","tag-mechanics","tag-michael-guillen","tag-physics","tag-probability","tag-probability-wave","tag-quantum","tag-quantum-entanglement","tag-reason","tag-religion","tag-science","tag-spin","tag-theism","tag-theory","tag-werner-heisenberg"],"yoast_head":"\n"Unintended Corruption" and Other Quirks in Current Physics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Herewith, I 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