Category Archives: Quantum Physics
Faith: the Axis Upon Which the Wheel of Science Turns – aish.com Ponder, Philosophy, Featured – Aish
Beneath every "fact" lies a series of assumptions that cannot be proven. Like it or not, even science requires a leap of faith.
Bill Nye, the 'Science Guy,' affirms that his "point of view is based on the facts of life" and not on faith-based "suppositions of life."1 For Nye, science is the only reliable, ultimate, unstoppable, and undeniable guide to truth and is faith-free. While scientific knowledge is the power that saves, faith, for the 'Science Guy,' is a weakness that only blinds. Nye believes that science alone can save the world and that faith must step aside to make way for the future. This is because, says Nye, people of faith "just can't handle the truth."2
But is science really faith free? Max Planck, Nobel laureate in physics and pioneer of quantum theory, thinks not. As Planck explains, "Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with."3 For Planck, faith is the axis upon which the wheel of science turns. If one does not have faith, then one may not have science.
To illustrate Planck's insight, consider Nye's claim, "science is the only basis for truth." Is this idea, in and of itself, a truly scientific claim? Not at all. This claim is not open to experimental testing or to falsification. It is a claim that goes beyond the scientific method. There would thus be no purely scientific reason for accepting the truth of the above claim. Consequently, the claim that "science is the only basis for truth" would logically have to be false if it were true. In philosophy, this is what is called a self-defeating claim. At best, the proposition would be a paradox or a mystery, but otherwise, it is just self-referentially incoherent.
The 'Science Guy' Bill Nye is keen on trumpeting the "undeniable facts of science" as opposed to the "mere suppositions" of faith. But can science ever know anything for certain? Consider the confidently asserted certainty of "the central dogma of molecular biology," proclaimed by co-discoverer of the DNA double helix Francis Crick as a "fundamental biological law" in 1956. The central dogma holds that genetic information flows in only one directionfrom DNA (and RNA) to proteins, and never the other way around. This idea was believed to be a biological "law of nature" that operated without exception and was the conceptual basis for the Human Genome Project of the 1990s.
In the early 2000s, however, scientists increasingly witnessed phenomena that broke the biological law. They discovered that DNA can be edited as a result of life experience and that the way DNA is read depends on the surrounding environment. In other words, "the body keeps the score."4 With the discovery of what is today known as epigenetics, it became clear that information can be "transferred from a protein sequence back to the genome." Consequently, explains molecular biologist Eugene Koonin, "the Central Dogma of molecular biology is invalid as an 'absolute' principle: transfer of information from proteins (and specifically from protein sequences) to the genome does exist."5 The history of science is full of such cases where scientists have found exceptions to what were once viewed as exceptionless laws of Nature. How, then, can any scientific facts be undeniable?
Uncertainty in science may be the only scientific fact that we can ever be certain of. This is because science itself has discovered numerous areas where there are limits to what can be known through observation and experiment. Consider, for example, big bang cosmologythe leading scientific theory that describes the universe's origin, structure, and development. According to the standard big bang model, derived from Einstein's theory of general relativity and observational data, the universe began 13.7 billion years ago in a singularityan infinitely small point in which matter was infinitely compressed. Everything that physically exists, including matter, energy, space, and time, came into existence at the big bang singularity. Thus it makes no sense to speak of physical reality or even a "time before" this point.
Science itself has discovered numerous areas where there are limits to what can be known through observation and experiment.
The existence of an initial singularity of this sort represents a fundamental limit to the observational powers of science. Any "science" that speaks of the conditions that gave rise to the singularitysuch as an infinite multiverse or a quantum vacuum stateis not truly scientific because science can never test it. To assert that science will someday be able to adequately describe the conditions "before" or "beyond" the initial singularity is not a statement grounded in current science but, rather, in a philosophical faith.
While big bang cosmology reveals that there are limits to what scientists can know when studying the largest known phenomenon (the whole universe), quantum physics has also shown that there are limits to what scientists can know when studying the smallest conceivable objects (atoms and their constituent parts). Classical physics, which was the standard view of physics before 1900, said that it was possible simultaneously to know both the position and motion of a given particle with complete accuracy. While the precision of a classical physicist might, in practice, be limited only by the available technology, there was no reason in principle to expect that better technology would not eventually overcome such limits.
Quantum physics has also shown that there are limits to what scientists can know when studying the smallest conceivable objects (atoms and their constituent parts).
According to the standard view of current quantum physics, however, even perfect instruments cannot measure the location and velocity of a body simultaneously with impeccable precision. This fundamental limit on the accuracy of measurement is known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. As mathematical physicist John Barrow explains, "The quantum picture of reality introduces a new form of impossibility into our picture of the world. This impossibility replaces a past belief in unrestricted experimental investigation of Nature which was based upon a misconception of what existed to be measured."6 With quantum physics, says philosopher of science Michael Ruse, "we seem to have reached an outer point of what we can know."7
The renowned philosopher of science Karl Popper showed that the most exalted status that any scientific theory can reach is "not yet falsified, despite our best efforts."8 Scientific theories can never be verified, proven, or confirmed because an infinite number of experiments remain to be performed before all other possibilities can be ruled out. Consequently, scientific theories can only be falsified. For instance, it takes only one black swan to falsify the hypothesis that all swans are white. If a given hypothesis is to be counted as genuinely scientific, it must make testable predictions about the world that may be potentially refuted by later experimentation or possible observation.
The cornerstone of the scientific mind is its continuous openness to the possibility of being completely wrong. In order for science to function as science and make any progress in knowledge, science must always have humility as its foundation. If a given phenomenon appears to contradict our best-known science, then science must reserve judgment until scientists can find a way to investigate it adequately. Science, in principle, cannot make infallible pronouncements about what is possible. Indeed, our best theory of atomic physics (quantum mechanics) says that scientific accuracy can only deal in probabilities. Science, in both principle and practice, can never know anything for certain. Thus, while Bill Nye's "facts of life" may exist in theory, our most advanced current scientific knowledge of them is middling at bestand always will be.
Featured Image: Unsplash.com, Kinson Leung
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Faith: the Axis Upon Which the Wheel of Science Turns - aish.com Ponder, Philosophy, Featured - Aish
James Bardeen, an Expert on Unraveling Einsteins Equations, Dies at 83 – The New York Times
James Bardeen, who helped elucidate the properties and behavior of black holes, setting the stage for what has been called the golden age of black hole astrophysics, died on June 20 in Seattle. He was 83.
His son William said the cause was cancer. Dr. Bardeen, an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Washington, had been living in a retirement home in Seattle.
Dr. Bardeen was a scion of a renowned family of physicists. His father, John, twice won the Nobel Prize in Physics, for the invention of the transistor and the theory of superconductivity; his brother, William, is an expert on quantum theory at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.
Dr. Bardeen was an expert on unraveling the equations of Einsteins theory of general relativity. That theory ascribes what we call gravity to the bending of spacetime by matter and energy. Its most mysterious and disturbing consequence was the possibility of black holes, places so dense that they became bottomless one-way exit ramps out of the universe, swallowing even light and time.
Dr. Bardeen would find his lifes work investigating those mysteries, as well as related mysteries about the evolution of the universe.
Jim was part of the generation where the best and brightest went to work on general relativity, said Michael Turner, a cosmologist and emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, who described Dr. Bardeen as a gentle giant.
James Maxwell Bardeen was born in Minneapolis on May 9, 1939. His mother, Jane Maxwell Bardeen, was a zoologist and a high school teacher. Following his fathers work, the family moved to Washington, D.C.; to Summit, N.J.; and then to Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where he graduated from the University of Illinois Laboratory High School.
He attended Harvard and graduated with a physics degree in 1960, despite his fathers advice that biology was the wave of the future. Everybody knew who my father was, he said in an oral history interview recorded in 2020 by the Federal University of Paraguay, adding that he had not felt the need to compete with him. It was impossible, anyway, he said.
Working under the physicist Richard Feynman and the astrophysicist William A. Fowler (who would both become Nobel laureates), Dr. Bardeen obtained his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1965. His thesis was about the structure of supermassive stars millions of times the mass of the sun; astronomers were beginning to suspect that they were the source of the prodigious energies of the quasars being discovered in the nuclei of distant galaxies.
After holding postdoctoral positions at Caltech and the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the astronomy department at the University of Washington in 1967. An avid hiker and mountain climber, he was drawn to the school by its easy access to the outdoors.
By then, what the Nobel laureate Kip Thorne, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, refers to as the golden age of black hole research was well underway, and Dr. Bardeen was swept up in international meetings. At one, in Paris in 1967, he met Nancy Thomas, a junior high school teacher in Connecticut who was trying to brush up on her French. They were married in 1968.
In addition to his son William, a senior vice president and the chief strategy officer of The New York Times Company, and his brother, William, Dr. Bardeens wife survives him, along with another son, David, and two grandchildren. A sister, Elizabeth Greytak, died in 2000.
Dr. Bardeen was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, as is his brother and as was his father.
Although he was speedy at math, Dr. Bardeen didnt write any faster than he spoke. William Press, a former student of Dr. Thornes now at the University of Texas, recalled being sent to Seattle to finish a paper that Dr. Bardeen and he were supposed to be writing. Nothing had been written. Dr. Bardeens wife then commanded the two to sit on opposite ends of a couch with a pad of paper. Dr. Bardeen would write a sentence and pass the pad to Dr. Press, who would either reject or approve it and then pass the pad back. Each sentence, Dr. Press said, took a few minutes. It took them three days, but the paper got written.
One of the epochal moments of those years was a monthlong summer school in Les Houches, France, in 1972 featuring all the leading black hole scholars. Dr. Bardeen was one of a half-dozen invited speakers. It was during that meeting that he, Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University and Brandon Carter, now of the Paris Observatory, wrote a landmark paper entitled The Four Laws of Black Hole Mechanics, which became a springboard for future work, including Dr. Hawkings surprise calculation that black holes could leak and eventually explode.
In another famous calculation the same year, Dr. Bardeen deduced the shape and size of a black holes shadow as seen against a field of distant stars a doughnut of light surrounding dark space.
That shape was made famous, Dr. Thorne said, by the Event Horizon Telescopes observations of black holes in the galaxy M87 and in the center of the Milky Way, and by visualizations in the movie Interstellar.
Another of Dr. Bardeens passions was cosmology. In a 1982 paper, he, Dr. Turner and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton described how submicroscopic fluctuations in the density of matter and energy in the early universe would grow and give rise to the pattern of galaxies we see in the sky today.
Jim was delighted that we used his formalism, Dr. Turner said, and was sure we got it right.
Dr. Bardeen moved to Yale in 1972. Four years later, unhappy with the academic bureaucracy in the East and yearning for the outdoors again, he moved back to the University of Washington. He retired in 2006.
But he never stopped working. Dr. Thorne recounted a recent telephone conversation in which they reminisced about the hiking and camping trips they used to take with their families. In the same conversation, Dr. Bardeen described recent ideas he had about what happens as a black hole evaporates, suggesting that it might change into a white hole.
That was one aspect of Jim in a nutshell, Dr. Thorne wrote in an email, thinking deeply about physics in creative new ways right up to the end of his life.
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James Bardeen, an Expert on Unraveling Einsteins Equations, Dies at 83 - The New York Times
Doctor on Verge of Death Fell in Coma, ‘Saw Heaven’ and Recovered in 2 Months – The Epoch Times
Is there really a heaven? Do people have souls? Dr. Eben Alexander, a former associate professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School, answered these questions with his own experience.
Dr. Alexander has been a researcher in neurosurgery for 25 years and is known worldwide for his development of modern neurosurgical techniques and treatment of complex brain diseases. During his 15 years at Harvard Medical School, he published over 150 neurosurgical articles, both individually and collaboratively.
In 2008, without warning, Dr. Alexander developed an extremely rare form of bacterial meningitis that was hardly documented in the medical literature. He fell into a coma within a few hours. Dr. Alexander, a former lifelong believer in science, said that he saw heaven while in the coma and realized that these phenomena, which he had previously considered nonsense, were in fact no fantasy. He wrote a book about his experiences titled Proof of Heaven, which was a New York Times bestseller for 15 weeks.
The following are some highlights from Health 1+1s interview with Dr. Alexander.
In November 2008, I suddenly developed a severe case of bacterial meningitis and was admitted to the hospitals intensive care unit (ICU). It was an extremely rare form of meningitis that was barely documented in the medical literature.
Within a few hours, I fell into a deep coma.
In my coma, I found myself rescued by a slowly spinning white light with a perfect musical melody. The white light was surrounded by golden and silvery hair-like things. Then, a gorgeous and very real entrance valley slowly opened. At that time, my consciousness was only the size of a speck of light, on the wings of a butterfly. There were several million butterflies flying around me.
There was a lush green and vibrant meadow below. There was no sign of death or decline. There were thousands of lives dancing there, and I call them souls among lives. The place was filled with joy, with angels singing from high above and pure soul pearls being pulled out of the lights and reflecting against the deep blue sky, and there were songs coming from all around.
A thunderbolt passed through my consciousness, which was the first thing I knew in this dimension.
I knew that I was loved by a loving compassionate divine being who was not a judge. I could feel that this divine being was very compassionate.
I had no memory of this world at that time, and I had forgotten the language. I had no recollection of Eben Alexanders life or my knowledge of the universe; and my memory was empty.
Fortunately, I was not alone. Our consciousness was all on the wings of a butterfly. A very beautiful lady was beside me, and her clothes were the same as the attires of the joyful dancing beings in the valley. She and I had a deep connection, as she was my guardian angel. Throughout my journey, she was the one who telepathically sent me all the comforting messages: You will always be loved and cherished. You dont need to be afraid. You will be well taken care of.
There are no words to describe how beautiful it was, and I think that was the message I wanted to bring back to this world.
When I woke up in the ICU after that near-death experience, for a moment, I couldnt recognize my family members, who were at my bedside, including my mother, wife, and son. All I knew was that I had been on a strange and mysterious journey.
If you saw my condition, you would think that I was hopeless. However, I miraculously recovered two months later.
Almost all the doctors said that I survived because of the near-death experience I had. Nevertheless, I dont think I just survived, but I recovered completely and became more energetic.
In the hours following the near-death experience, my language returned; and within a few days, my childhood memories came back. My knowledge of the language, neurology, the brain, the universe and physics was all restored within two months of waking up from the coma.
I documented the neocortical damage to my brain to prove that what I saw was not a dream, hallucination, or fiction. In fact, there is clear medical evidence that my neocortex was in a state of damage.
According to the Glasgow Coma Scale, a score of 15 is normal, a score below 9 is considered being in a deep coma, and a score of 3 is considered being a corpse. For most of the time, I was in a coma, and my score would have been 6 or 7, and sometimes as low as 5.
In addition, CT and MRI brain tests showed that all eight lobes of my brain were affected, so my own cerebral cortex would not have been able to generate this experience.
I think it is important to point out that the conventional science based on Newton and materialism, which is promoted by the mainstream media today, should have been disproved 80 years ago, when quantum physics was born. Yet many in the scientific community have not yet emerged from their confusion.
I spent the first 54 years of my life in the worldview of conventional science. I taught neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School for over 15 years, and I thought I knew a thing or two about the brain, thoughts, and consciousness. However, after my near-death experience in 2008 and nearly 12 years of scientific research, I have gained a much deeper understanding of how science understands the brain, mind, consciousness, and reality.
The idea of free consciousness is much more convincing than the outdated materialism ideology. I did not believe it before the coma, and this experience has brought about a refreshing change in my understanding of humanity and the universe.
We mistakenly believe that consciousness is generated by the material brain, as I did before I fell into a coma, but this is not true.
The new theory in science is the filtering theory.
That is, the brain is like a physical processing plant. Our will is free even when it is not in the brain, and it possesses great power to influence the physical world. The placebo effect, for example, is the miraculous healing effect that occurs when the patient is simply comforted in the mind.
The book Spontaneous Remission: An Annotated Bibliography documented over 3,500 unexplained cases of self-recovery from cancer, and infectious, congenital, and degenerative diseases in the mid-1990s. The reason was often that the patients own faith had an unexpected healing effect.
Actions such as sitting in meditation and praying can also help people enter a healing state, as I have experienced with my therapeutic near-death experience, although our modern medicine is largely unable to explain how near-death experiences can have miraculous healing effects.
We can also look to other near-death experiences for reference. For instance, Anita Moorjani recovered from being on the verge of death from cancer, and skeletal surgeon Mary C Neal miraculously recovered 30 minutes after drowning. These separate cases of spiritual healing are all amazing examples. And the placebo effect is similar to the effect of praying, which is a very powerful healing method.
If our consciousness can influence our bodies and healing effects, we can probably influence what happens in real life as well.
My story is so powerful that hundreds of doctors, nurses, and health care workers, especially those who work with the deceased, have realized that when the material body dies, the consciousness does not die with it. They have seen so much evidence.
If you look at our modern understanding of consciousness, the subject of near death [experiences], and other things beyond the physical brain, you will find vivid examples everywhere in life.
In fact, near death experience is not a modern term. It existed as early as in the time of Plato, who recorded the life review of Er, son of Armenios of Pamphylia, who almost perished in battle.
When Er revived, he told the other soldiers, When you die, you will see all the important things in your life flashing in front of your eyes. The most important thing I learned from retrospect is that we exist to love each other.
After exploring this, we believe that the power of the divine is absolutely real. From a scientific and philosophical point of view, materialism was already outdated 80 years ago.
However, I am not exploring religious beliefs. From 2002 until my coma, my soul was lost for many years. I gave up my faith in God, I gave up praying, I stopped taking my sons to church, and I stopped praying for them at night. However, my near death experience proved to me forever and without question that the power of Gods mercy is absolutely real in this universe.
Similar experiences from many other people have also proven this: the most important thing we learn from near death experiences is that do unto others as you would have them do unto you, a truth that is built into the very foundation of the universe.
If we cause suffering to others without reason, we will pay the price in our passing. When passing through a dimension with life reviews, like the valley I passed through, we experience the same pain as the persons we hurt. So for some people who have hurt others, their life review experience will be hellish.
In the midst of all the light and compassion, the pain and suffering is particularly visible. There are also a series of corrections to help us repay, so that in the next life we are kinder and more lovingthats the ultimate destination of consciousness through this process.
I would say that it changed everything. It changed my perception of the existence of the soul, my relationship with the universe, and my relationship with others.
Im not the only one. Over 90 percent to 95 percent of people who experienced near-death experiences woke up more compassionate, less materialistic, and more focused on helping others, showing kindness and affection.
I came back from my journey with the realization that one of our greatest challenges is how to love ourselvesto enrich our understanding of Gods compassionate providence, which is what we really need to do.
The most profoundly difficult part of this experience is not what happens after we die, but how we live this life soberly and meaningfully. We need to recognize that our souls are connected to God and to the lives of the universe, and to use that to guide our lives.
I also believe that the source of life is not evolutionary, as Darwin believed. Even so, this misinterpretation has permeated our economic, political, and social systems, and has evolved into the so-called survival of the fittest, every man for himself, and elimination of those who compete with you. This is not right. Modern biology has found many examples to prove the existence of intraspecies and interspecies cooperation and communication, such as dolphins helping whales deliver, and different species helping each other.
When we are born into this world in a physical body, we seem to be abandoned by the spiritual world. Nevertheless, what people forget is that we are not really abandoned, we just need to rediscover the connections. In particular, we need to experience our world fully so that we can live it more meaningfully.
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Doctor on Verge of Death Fell in Coma, 'Saw Heaven' and Recovered in 2 Months - The Epoch Times
Quantum Computing Global Market Report 2022-2026: Quantum Computing Set to Transform Finance & Banking Landscape with Remarkable Processing Power…
DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Quantum Computing - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
Global Quantum Computing Market to Reach $411.4 Million by 2026
The global market for Quantum Computing estimated at US$112.6 Million in the year 2020, is projected to reach US$411.4 Million by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 24.2% over the analysis period.
Quantum computing presents a dynamic paradigm for solving complex optimization issues due to its ability to process information in a different manner than classical computers. The market is primarily steered by increasing government and private funding on research programs intended to leverage quantum computing for information processing and other applications.
Factors such as increasing incidents of cybercrime coupled with growing adoption of emerging technologies such as machine learning, smart manufacturing, cloud computing and molecular structure research are anticipated to set a perfect stage for growth of the quantum computing market.
While increasing application in sectors like defense, healthcare, chemicals and banking are favoring the market, availability of fault-tolerance systems and efforts to leverage quantum computing for realistic programs are expected to fuel the market growth.
The U.S. Market is Estimated at $62.4 Million in 2021, While China is Forecast to Reach $54.6 Million by 2026
The Quantum Computing market in the U.S. is estimated at US$62.4 Million in the year 2021. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$54.6 Million by the year 2026 trailing a CAGR of 27.2% over the analysis period. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 18% and 22.6% respectively over the analysis period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 22.4% CAGR. The US is the dominant market, due to increasing focus of government agencies and the defense and aerospace sectors on quantum computing to leverage machine learning.
By End-Use, Space & Defense Segment to Reach $146.4 Million by 2026
Quantum technologies remain key research focus within the space & defense sector owing to their disruptive role in a diverse spectrum of areas and applications. The incorporation of quantum computing technologies is anticipated to considerably benefit the space and defense establishments.
The concept is expected to enable exciting military applications and support national programs. In the global Space & Defense (End-Use) segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 22.1% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$37.5 Million in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$162.2 Million by the close of the analysis period.
Key Topics Covered:
I. METHODOLOGY
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. MARKET OVERVIEW
2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS
3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS
4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE
III. MARKET ANALYSIS
UNITED STATES
CANADA
JAPAN
CHINA
EUROPE
FRANCE
GERMANY
ASIA-PACIFIC
REST OF WORLD
IV. COMPETITION
Companies Mentioned
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/lfy493
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Journey of the upanishads to the west – The New Indian Express
The Upanishads have been read by people from all over the world and translated into different languages. Great Western Philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and orientalists like Max Mueller were greatly influenced by the Upanishads. It is interesting to see how the Upanishads travelled to the west.
The eldest son of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal was Dara Shikoh, who lived from 1615 to 1659. Though he was made the crown prince, Dara Shikoh could not become the emperor as he was defeated, and later killed, by his younger brother Aurangzeb. Daras mother tongue was Persian, but from a young age, he was very interested in reading about the religions of the world in different languages. He assembled a team of Pandits in Varanasi for the first-ever translation of the Upanishads into a non-Indian language. The team prepared draft translations that were edited and polished by Dara. The book produced was called Sirr-i-Akbar (The Great Secret).
In 1775, Daras translation first came to the notice of western scholars when a copy was sent by the French resident at the court of Shuja-ud-daula, Nawab of Awadh, to Anquetil Duperron, a famous French traveller and translator. At that time, Persian was the most well-known Eastern language in Europe. Duperron translated the book from Persian into Latin. It was published under the name Oupnekhat.
When Arthur Schopenhauer read this, he was most impressed. He said, The Upanishads are the production of the highest human wisdom and I consider them almost superhuman in conception. The study of the Upanishads has been a source of great inspiration and a means of comfort to my soul. From every sentence of the Upanishads deep, original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy, and earnest spirit. In the whole world, there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. The Upanishads have been the solace of my life and will be the solace of my death.
American poets Ralph W Emerson, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau popularised Upanishads in America before they got a big boost by the visit of Swami Vivekananda. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger said that most of his ideas and theories were heavily influenced by Upanishads. Scientists Niels Bohr and Nikola Tesla and astronomer Carl Sagan were also fans of the Upanishads.
Another Nobel Prize-winner physicist, Heisenberg, who is known for his uncertainty principle, visited India and had long talks with Tagore, which convinced him that his ideas about Quantum Physics were not as crazy as they sounded! Upanishads have a universal appeal that transcends the boundaries of east and west.
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Journey of the upanishads to the west - The New Indian Express
Research Fellow (Ultracold Indium), Centre for Quantum Technologies job with NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE | 299071 – Times Higher Education
About the Centre for Quantum Technologies
The Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) is a research centre of excellence in Singapore. It brings together physicists, computer scientists and engineers to do basic research on quantum physics and to build devices based on quantum phenomena. Experts in this new discipline of quantum technologies are applying their discoveries in computing, communications, and sensing.
CQT is hosted by the National University of Singapore and also has staff at Nanyang Technological University. With some 180 researchers and students, it offers a friendly and international work environment.
Learn more about CQT atwww.quantumlah.org
Job Description
The successful candidate will lead a team experimentally studying ultracold indium. The experiment consists of an ultrahigh vacuum chamber, electromagnets, and several laser systems in the blue and ultraviolet. The position involves leading PhD students with ample technical training to build scientific equipment and study ultracold quantum systems.
Job Requirements
The position requires a wide range of scientific and technical skills. The successful candidate will be required to study ultracold quantum phenomena, so this person must be familiar with quantum measurement, quantum dynamics, etc. The successful candidate must also be able to work with ultrahigh vacuum technology, design and build custom electronics (including embedded circuits), assemble optical systems, build diode lasers, work safely with high voltages, machine mechanical parts, and operate lab plumbing. Additionally, the successful candidate must be skilled at leading small teams of capable scientists and training new students to be technically proficient. The successful candidate must also be adept at scientific writing.
Covid-19 Message
At NUS, the health and safety of our staff and students are one of our utmost priorities, and COVID-vaccination supports our commitment to ensure the safety of our community and to make NUS as safe and welcoming as possible. Many of our roles require a significant amount of physical interactions with students/staff/public members. Even for job roles that may be performed remotely, there will be instances where on-campus presence is required.
Taking into consideration the health and well-being of our staff and students and to better protect everyone in the campus, applicants are strongly encouraged to have themselves fully COVID-19 vaccinated to secure successful employment with NUS.
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North American Solar Power Equipment Market Report and Growth Forecasts to 2027: United States is Set to Continue Market Dominance, Achieving Market…
DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "North America Solar Power Equipment Market Size, Share & Industry Trends Analysis Report By Equipment, By Application, By Country and Growth Forecast, 2021-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
The North America Solar Power Equipment Market is expected to witness market growth of 10.4% CAGR during the forecast period (2021-2027).
The solar power industry's technology is continuously improving, and this trend is expected to continue in the future. Quantum physics and nanotechnology advancements have the potential to improve the efficiency of solar panels. The solar panel market has enormous development potential, and solar energy is predicted to become the most dominant energy source in the future. Solar energy system installations in commercial as well as residential end-use applications are on the rise, creating lucrative growth prospects in the market. Another important factor is the emphasis on CO2 emission reduction. Solar energy can boost green energy output while preserving natural gas and coal sources that are rapidly decreasing. As a result, governments all over the world are promoting renewable energy sources and encouraging the widespread deployment of solar systems, propelling the solar panel market growth.
Solar power can also be used during a drought or a heat wave. Natural gas, coal, and nuclear power use a lot of water to cool themselves. Power generation is at risk during heat waves and severe droughts, as witnessed in recent years. Solar power systems, on the other hand, do not need water to produce electricity. Solar power also produces jobs in the renewable energy sector.
In the United States, solar electricity is more economical, accessible, and widespread than it has ever been. As per the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Solar power capacity in the United States has increased from 0.34 GW in 2008 to an anticipated 97.2 GW now. This is enough amount of energy to power 18 million American homes. Solar energy, in the type of solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar-thermal power, provides over 3% of all electricity in the United States. Usually, the cost of solar photovoltaic panels has decreased by about 70% since 2014. Solar energy markets are quickly growing across the country, as solar electricity is already cost-competitive with traditional energy sources in several states. Hopefully, despite government funding cuts to the EPA and DOE, this trend will continue as innovative and forward-thinking businesses embrace the changing landscape of energy generation and transition to renewables.
The US market dominated the North American Solar Power Equipment Market by Country in 2020, and is expected to continue to be a dominant market till 2027; thereby, achieving a market value of $33,167.7 Million by 2027. The Canadian market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 12.9% during (2021 - 2027). Additionally, the Mexican market is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 11.9% during (2021 - 2027).
Market Segments Covered:
By Equipment
By Application
By Country
Key Topics Covered:
Chapter 1. Market Scope & Methodology
Chapter 2. Market Overview
2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 Overview
2.1.1.1 Market Composition and Scenario
2.2 Key Factors Impacting the Market
Chapter 3. Competition Analysis - Global
3.1 Publisher Cardinal Matrix
3.2 Recent Industry Wide Strategic Developments
3.2.1 Partnerships, Collaborations and Agreements
3.2.2 Product Launches and Product Expansions
3.2.3 Acquisition and Mergers
3.2.4 Business Expansions
3.2.5 Geographical Expansions
3.3 Top Winning Strategies
3.3.1 Key Leading Strategies: Percentage Distribution (2017-2021)
3.3.2 Key Strategic Move: (Product Launches and Product Expansions: 2020, Feb - 2022, Feb) Leading Players
Chapter 4. North America Solar Power Equipment Market by Equipment
4.1 North America Solar Panels Market by Country
4.2 North America Mounting, Racking, & Tracking System Market by Country
4.3 North America Storage System Market by Country
4.4 North America Others Market by Country
Chapter 5. North America Solar Power Equipment Market by Application
5.1 North America Utility Market by Country
5.2 North America Residential Market by Country
5.3 North America Non-Residential Market by Country
Chapter 6. North America Solar Power Equipment Market by Country
6.1 US Solar Power Equipment Market
6.2 Canada Solar Power Equipment Market
6.3 Mexico Solar Power Equipment Market
6.4 Rest of North America Solar Power Equipment Market
Chapter 7. Company Profiles
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/opq6aw
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Fireworks are only possible because of quantum physics – Big Think
This Monday, July 4, 2022, is remarkable for a number of reasons. It happens to be aphelion: the day where the Earth is at its most distant from the Sun as it revolves through the Solar System in its elliptical orbit. Its the 246th anniversary of when the United States officially declared independence from, and war on, Britain. And it marks the annual date where the wealthiest nation in the world sets off more explosivesin the form of fireworksthan any other.
Whether youre an amateur hobbyist, a professional installer, or simply a spectator, fireworks showsare driven by the same laws of physicsthat govern all of nature. Individual fireworks all contain the same four component stages: launch, fuse, burst charges, and stars. Without quantum physics, not a single one of them would be possible. Heres the science behind how every component of these spectacular shows works.
The anatomy of a firework consists of a large variety of elements and stages. However, the same four basic elements are the same across all types and styles of fireworks: the lift charge, the main fuse, a burst charge, and stars. Variations in the diameter of the launch tube, the length of the time-delay fuse, and the height of the fireworks are all necessary to ignite the stars with the proper conditions during the break.
The start of any firework is the launch aspect: the initial explosion that causes the lift. Ever sincefireworks were first inventedmore than a millennium ago, the same three simple ingredients have been at the heart of them: sulfur, charcoal, and a source of potassium nitrate. Sulfur is a yellow solid that occurs naturally in volcanically active locations, while potassium nitrate is abundant in natural sources like bird droppings or bat guano.
Charcoal, on the other hand, isnt the briquettes we commonly use for grilling, but the carbon residue left over from charring (or pyrolyzing) organic matter, such as wood. Once all the water has been removed from the charcoal, all three ingredients can be mixed together with a mortar and pestle. The fine, black powder that emerges is gunpowder, already oxygen-rich from the potassium nitrate.
The three main ingredients in black powder (gunpowder) are charcoal (activated carbon, at left), sulfur (bottom right) and potassium nitrate (top right). The nitrate portion of the potassium nitrate contains its own oxygen, which means that fireworks can be successfully launched and ignited even in the absence of external oxygen; they would work just as well on the Moon as they do on Earth.
With all those ingredients mixed together, theres a lot of stored energy in the molecular bonds holding the different components together. But theres a more stable configuration that these atoms and molecules could be rearranged into. The raw ingredientspotassium nitrate, carbon, and sulfurwill combust (in the presence of high-enough temperatures) to form solids such as potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, and potassium sulfide, along gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide.
All it takes to reach these high temperatures is a small heat source, like a match. The reaction is a quick-burning deflagration, rather than an explosion, which is incredibly useful in a propulsion device. The rearrangement of these atoms (and the fact that the fuel contains its own oxygen) allows the nuclei and electrons to rearrange their configuration, releasing energy and sustaining the reaction. Without the quantum physics of these rearranged bonds, there would be no way to release this stored energy.
The Macys Fourth of July fireworks celebration that takes place annually in New York City displays some of the largest and highest fireworks you can find in the United States of America and the world. This iconic celebration, along with all the associated lights and colors, is only possible because of the inescapable rules of quantum mechanics.
When that first energy release occurs, conventionally known as the lift charge, it has two important effects.
The upward acceleration needs to give your firework the right upward velocity to get it to a safe height for explosion, and the fuse needs to be timed appropriately to detonate at the peak launch height. A small fireworks show might have shells as small as 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter, which require a height of 200 feet (60 m), while the largest shows (like the one by the Statue of Liberty in New York) have shells as large as 3 feet (90 cm) in diameter, requiring altitudes exceeding 1000 feet (300 m).
Different diameter shells can produce different sized bursts, which require being launched to progressively higher altitudes for safety and visibility reasons. In general, larger fireworks must be launched to higher altitudes, and therefore require larger lift charges and longer fuse times to get there. The largest fireworks shells exceed even the most grandiose of the illustrations in this diagram.
The fuse, on the other hand, is the second stage and will be lit by the ignition stage of the launch.Most fusesrely on a similar black powder reaction to the one used in a lift charge, except the burning black powder core is surrounded by wrapped textile coated with either wax or lacquer. The inner core functions via the same quantum rearrangement of atoms and electron bonds as any black powder reaction, but the remaining fuse components serve a different purpose: to delay ignition.
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The textile material is typically made of multiple woven and coated strings. The coatings make the device water resistant, so they can work regardless of weather. The woven strings control the rate of burning, dependent on what theyre made out of, the number and diameter of each woven string, and the diameter of the powder core. Slow-burning fuses might take 30 seconds to burn a single foot, while fast-burning fuses can burn hundreds of feet in a single second.
The three main configurations of fireworks, with lift charges, fuses, burst charges and stars all visible. In all cases, a lift charge launches the firework upward from within a tube, igniting the fuse, which then burns until it ignites the burst charge, which heats and distributes the stars over a large volume of space.
The third stage, then, is the burst charge stage, which controls the size and spatial distribution of the stars inside. In general the higher you launch your fireworks and the larger-diameter your shells are, the larger your burst charge will need to be to propel the insides of the shell outward. In general, the interior of the firework will have a fuse connected to the burst charge, which is surrounded by the color-producing stars.
Theburst chargecan be as simple as another collection of black powder, such as gunpowder. But it could be far more complex, such as the much louder and more impressiveflash powder, or a multi-stage explosive that sends stars in multiple directions. By utilizing different chemical compounds that offer different quantum rearrangements of their bonds, you can tune your energy release, the size of the burst, and the distribution and ignition times of the stars.
Differently shaped patterns and flight paths are highly dependent on the configuration and compositions of the stars inside the fireworks themselves. This final stage is what produces the light and color of fireworks, and is where the most important quantum physics comes into play.
But the most interesting part is that final stage: where the stars ignite. The burst is what takes the interior temperatures to sufficient levelsto create the light and colorthat we associate with these spectacular shows. The coarse explanation is that you can take different chemical compounds, place them inside the stars, and when they reach a sufficient temperature, they emit light of different colors.
This explanation, though, glosses over the most important component: the mechanism of how these colors are emitted. When you apply enough energy to an atom or molecule, you can excite or even ionize the electrons that conventionally keep it electrically neutral. When those excited electrons then naturally cascade downward in the atom, molecule or ion, they emit photons, producing emission lines of a characteristic frequency. If they fall in the visible portion of the spectrum, the human eye is even capable of seeing them.
Whether in an atom, molecule, or ion, the transitions of electrons from a higher energy level to a lower energy level will result in the emission of radiation at a very particular wavelength. This produces the phenomenon we see as emission lines, and is responsible for the variety of colors we see in a fireworks display.
What determines which emission lines an element or compound possesses? Its simply the quantum mechanics of the spacing between the different energy levels inherent to the substance itself. For example, heated sodium emits a characteristic yellow glow, as it has two very narrow emission lines at 588 and 589 nanometers. Youre likely familiar with these if you live in a city, as most of those yellow-colored street lamps you see are powered by elemental sodium.
As applied to fireworks, there are a great variety of elements and compounds that can be utilized to emit a wide variety of colors. Different compounds of Barium, Sodium, Copper and Strontium can produce colors covering a huge range of the visible spectrum, and the different compounds inserted in the fireworks stars are responsible for everything we see. In fact,the full spectrum of colors can be achievedwith just a handful of conventional compounds.
The interior of this curve shows the relationship between color, wavelength, and temperature in chromaticity space. Along the edges, where the colors are most saturated, a variety of elements, ions, and compounds can be shown, with their various emission lines marked out. Note that many elements/compounds have multiple emission lines associated with them, and all of these are used in various fireworks. Because of how easy it is to create barium oxide in a combustion reaction, certain firework colors, such as forest green and ocean green, remain elusive.
Whats perhaps the most impressive about all of this is that the color we see with the human eye is not necessarily the same as the color emitted by the fireworks themselves. For example, if you were to analyze the light emitted by a violet laser, youd find that the photons emerging from it were of a specific wavelength that corresponded to the violet part of the spectrum.
The quantum transitions that power a laser always result in photons of exactly the same wavelength, and our eyes see them precisely as they are, with the multiple types of cones we possess responding to that signal in such a way that our brain responds to construct a signal thats commensurate with the light possessing a violet color.
A set of Q-line laser pointers showcase the diverse colors and compact size that now are commonplace for lasers. By pumping electrons into an excited state and stimulating them with a photon of the desired wavelength, you can cause the emission of another photon of exactly the same energy and wavelength. This action is how the light for a laser is first created: by the stimulated emission of radiation.
But if you look at that same color that appears as violet not from a monochromatic source like a laser, but from your phone or computer screen, youll find that there are no intrinsically violet photons striking your eyes at all! Instead,as Chad Orzel has noted in the past,
Our eyes construct what we perceive as color from the response of three types of cells in our retina, each sensitive to light of a particular range of colors. One is most sensitive to blue-ish light (short wavelength), one is most sensitive to red light (long wavelength), and the third to a sort of yellow-green. Based on how strongly each of these cells responds to incoming light, our brains construct our perception ofcolor.
In other words, the key to producing the fireworks display you want isnt necessarily to create light of a specific color that corresponds to a specific wavelength, but rather to create light that excites the right molecules in our body to cause our brain to perceive a particular color.
A violet laser emits photons of a very particular, narrow wavelength, as every photon carries the same amount of energy. This curve, shown in blue, emits violet photons only. The green curve shows how a computer screen approximates the same exact violet color by using a mix of different wavelengths of light. Both appear to be the same color to human eyes, but only one truly produces photons of the same color that our eyes perceive.
Fireworks might appear to be relatively simple explosive devices. Pack a charge into the bottom of a tube to lift the fireworks to the desired height, ignite a fuse of the proper length to reach the burst charge at the peak of its trajectory, explode the burst charge to distribute the stars at a high temperature, and then watch and listen to the show as the sound, light, and color washes over you.
Yet if we look a little deeper, we can understand how quantum physics underlies every single one of these reactions. Add a little bit extrasuch as propulsion or fuel inside each starand your colored lights can spin, rise, or thrust in a random direction. Make sure you enjoy your fourth of July safely, but also armed with the knowledge that empowers you to understand how the most spectacular human-made light show of the year truly works!
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Fireworks are only possible because of quantum physics - Big Think
AdS/CFT: 25 Years of the ‘Bridge’ to an Unknowable Universe – The Wire Science
An artists impression of a black hole and its accretion disk. Illustration: XMM-Newton, ESA, NASA
Twenty-five years ago, in 1997, an Argentine physicist named Juan Martin Maldacena published what would become the most highly cited physics paper in history (more than 20,000 to date). In the paper, Maldacena described a bridge between two theories that describe how our world works, but separately, without meeting each other. These are the field theories that describe the behaviour of energy fields (like the electromagnetic fields) and subatomic particles, and the theory of general relativity, which deals with gravity and the universe at the largest scales.
Field theories have many types and properties. One of them is a conformal field theory: a field theory that doesnt change when it undergoes a conformal transformation i.e. one which preserves angles but not lengths pertaining to the field. As such, conformal field theories are said to be mathematically well-behaved.
In relativity, space and time are unified into the spacetime continuum. This continuum can exist in many possible spaces. Some of these spaces have the same curvature everywhere, and come in three forms (roughly, universes of certain shapes): de Sitter space, Minkowski space and anti-de Sitter space. de Sitter space has positive curvature everywhere like a sphere (but is empty of any matter). Minkowski space has zero curvature everywhere i.e. a flat surface. Anti-de Sitter space has negative curvature everywhere like a hyperbola.
Because these shapes are related to the way our universe looks and works, cosmologists have their own way to understand them. If the spacetime continuum exists in de Sitter space, the universe is said to have a positive cosmological constant. Similarly, Minkowski space implies a zero cosmological constant and anti-de Sitter space a negative cosmological constant. Studies by various space telescopes have found that our universe has a positive cosmological constant, meaning it is approximately a de Sitter space (but not exactly since our universe does have matter).
In 1997, Maldacena found evidence to suggest that a description of quantum gravity in anti-de Sitter space in N dimensions is the same as a conformal field theory in N 1 dimensions. This AdS/CFT correspondence was an unexpected but monumental discovery that connected two kinds of theories that had thus far refused to cooperate.
The Wire Science had a chance to interview Maldacena about his past and current work in 2018, in which he provided more insights on AdS/CFT as well.
In his paper, Maldacena showed that in a very specific case, quantum gravity in anti-de Sitter space in five dimensions was the same as a specific conformal field theory in four dimensions. He conjectured that this equivalence would hold not just for the limiting case but the full theories. So the correspondence is also called the AdS/CFT conjecture. Physicists have not proven this to be the case so far but there is circumstantial evidence from many results that indicate that the conjecture is true.
Nonetheless, the finding was hailed as a major mathematical victory for string theory as well. This theory is a leading contender for one that can unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. However, we have found no experimental evidence of string theorys many claims.
Nonetheless, thanks to the correspondence, (mathematical) physicists have found that some problems that are hard on the AdS side are much easier to crack on the CFT side, and vice versa all they had to do was cross Maldacenas bridge! This was another sign that the AdS/CFT correspondence wasnt just a mathematical trick but could be a legitimate description of reality.
So how could it be real?
The holographic principle
In 1997, Maldacena proved that a string theory in five dimensions was the same as a conformal field theory in four dimensions. However, gravity in our universe exists in four dimensions not five. So the correspondence came close to providing a unified description of gravity and quantum mechanics, but not close enough. Nonetheless, it gave rise to the possibility that an entity that exists in some number of dimensions could be described by another entity that exists in one fewer number of dimensions.
Actually, in fact, the AdS/CFT correspondence didnt give rise to this possibility but realised it mathematically. The awareness of the possibility had existed for many years until then, as the holographic principle. The Dutch physicist Gerardus t Hooft first proposed it and the American physicist Leonard Susskind in the 1990s brought it firmly into the realm of string theory. One way to state the holographic principle, in the words of physicist Matthew Headrick, is thus:
The universe around us, which we are used to thinking of as being three dimensional, is actually at a more fundamental level two-dimensional and that everything we see thats going on around us in three dimensions is actually happening in a two-dimensional space.
This two-dimensional space is the surface of the universe, located at an infinite distance from us, where information is encoded that describes everything happening within the universe. Its a mind-boggling idea. Information here refers to physical information, such as, to use one of Headricks examples, the positions and velocities of physical objects. In beholding this information from the infinitely faraway surface, we apparently behold a three-dimensional reality.
It bears repeating that this is a mind-boggling idea. We have no proof so far that the holographic principle is a real description of our universe we only know that it could describe our reality, thanks to the AdS/CFT correspondence. This said, physicists have used the holographic principle to study and understand black holes.
In 1915, Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity provided a set of complicated equations to understand how mass, the spacetime continuum and the gravitational force are related. Within a few months, physicists Karl Swarzschild and Johannes Droste, followed in subsequent years by Georges Lematre, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Robert Oppenheimer and David Finkelstein, among others, began to realise that one of the equations exact solutions (i.e. non-approximate) indicated the existence of a point mass around which space was wrapped completely, preventing even light from escaping from inside this space to outside. This was the black hole.
Because black holes were exact solutions, physicists assumed that they didnt have any entropy i.e. that its insides didnt have any disorder. If there had been such disorder, it would have appeared in Einsteins equations. It didnt, so QED. But in the early 1970s, the Israeli-American physicist Jacob Bekenstein noticed a problem: if a system with entropy, like a container of hot gas, was thrown into the black hole, and the black hole doesnt have entropy, where does the entropy go? It had to go somewhere; otherwise, the black hole would violate the second law of thermodynamics that the entropy of an isolated system, like our universe, cant decrease.
Bekenstein postulated that black holes must also have entropy, and that the amount of entropy is proportional to the black holes surface area, i.e. the area of the event horizon. Bekenstein also worked out that there is a limit to the amount of entropy a given volume of space can contain, as well as that all black holes could be described by just three observable attributes: their mass, electric charge and angular momentum. So if a black holes entropy increases because it has swallowed some hot gas, this change ought to manifest as a change in one, some or all of these three attributes.
Taken together: when some hot gas is tossed into a black hole, the gas would fall into the event horizon but the information about its entropy might appear to be encoded on the black holes surface, from the point of view of an observer located outside and away from the event horizon. Note here that the black hole, a sphere, is a three-dimensional object whereas its surface is a flat, curved sheet and therefore two-dimensional. That is, all the information required to describe a 3D black hole could in fact be encoded on its 2D surface.
Doesnt this remind you of the AdS/CFT correspondence? For example, consider a five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space inside which there is a black hole. We can use the correspondence to show that the entropy of the theory that describes the boundary of this space matches exactly with the entropy of the black hole itself. This would realise the conjecture of t Hooft and others except here, the information is encoded not on the event horizon but on the boundary of the five-dimensional space itself.
This is just one example of the wider context that the AdS/CFT correspondence inhabits. For more examples and other insights, do read Maldacenas interview with The Wire Science.
The author is grateful to Nirmalya Kajuri for discussion and feedback on this article.
Originally posted here:
AdS/CFT: 25 Years of the 'Bridge' to an Unknowable Universe - The Wire Science
Information Can Escape a Black Hole Both On the Outside and Possibly to Another Universe (Stephen Hawkings – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries…
Posted on Jun 26, 2022 in Black Holes, Physics, Science
It has been said that Newton gave us answers; Stephen Hawking gave us questions. A trio of physicists appear one step closer to resolving the black-hole information paradox, one of the most intriguing physics mysteries of our time.
Spacetime seems to fall apart at a black hole, implying that space-time is not the root level of reality as suggested by the famous paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago, but emerges from something deeper, observes George Musser, author of Spooky Action at a Distance, for Quanta about Hawkings seminal theory that in a fiery marriage of relativity and quantum physics says that when a black hole forms and then subsequently evaporates away completely by emitting radiation, the information that went into the black hole cannot come back out and is inevitably lost, violating the laws of physics that insist unequivocally that information can never get totally lost.
Enter EinsteinThe Dissolution of Spacetime
In 2003, Hawking found a way that information might escape during the holes evaporation, but he did not prove that the information escapes, so the paradox continued, until now. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought of, Hawking said. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe.
Although Einstein conceived of gravity as the curved geometry of space-time, his theory also entails the dissolution of space-time, which is ultimately why information can escape its gravitational prison, adds Musser, summarizing a landmark series of calculations by three physicists that show that information does escape a black hole through the workings of ordinary gravity with a single layer of quantum effects, which seems impossible by definition based on new gravitational calculations that Einsteins theory permits, but that Hawking did not include.
The Most Exciting Thing Since Hawking
That is the most exciting thing that has happened in this subject, I think, since Hawking, said one of the co-authors, Donald Marolf of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Its from that mysterious area where relativity and quantum mechanics dont quite mesh, that the question of what happens to information in a black hole emerges, says says researcher Henry Maxfield at the University of California, Santa Barbara in calculating the quantum information content of a black hole and its radiation.
The Big Question
Maxfield was co-author of a paper, co-written with physicists Ahmed Almheiri at the Institute for Advanced Study and MITs Netta Engelhardt and Marolf UC Santa Barbara in 2019, that takes us one step closer, says Maxfield, to resolving the black hole information paradox. The hope was, if we could answer this question if we could see the information coming out in order to do that we would have had to learn about the microscopic theory, said Geoff Penington of the University of California, Berkeley, alluding to a fully quantum theory of gravity.
Black Holes Gently Glow and Radiate
It goes back to this problem in the 1970s that Stephen Hawking discovered, Maxfield explained. Black holes those extremely dense, high-gravity voids in space-time arent completely black. They gently glow and radiate, he said. And as they do that, the black holes evaporate. But one element of Hawkings calculations, Maxfield continued, is that this state of Hawking radiation destroys information about the original quantum state of the material drawn into the hole.
This is very different from what quantum mechanics does, Maxfield said. In principle, the laws of physics are completely reversible. In other words, information about the materials original quantum state should exist in some form. So there was this conflict that quantum mechanics behaves one way and gravity seems to behave another way.
Tip of the Iceberg
We were interested in something closely related, which was trying to identify where the information is located, Maxfield said about the non-linear path to their calculation as a modification to Hawkings calculation broadening it to include a method for quantifying the information.
So theres that early radiation when the black hole is still young that doesnt really carry any information, Maxfield said about their calculation about how much information is stored in a black hole as it evaporates, and the finding that the amount of information indeed decreases over time.. But once the black hole has shrunk away to half its size it takes a very long time the quantum information starts coming out. This is what youd expect from quantum mechanics.
The calculation that Maxfield, Englehardt, Almheiri and Geoff Penington (who was concurrently doing very similar work at Stanford) made, reports UC Santa Barbara, is but a tip of the iceberg.
The Biggest Clue Weve Had
It doesnt mean that weve completely understood everything, Maxfield said. But it is the biggest clue weve had for a really long time as to how this tension gets resolved.
They found that the information is coming out, even if they didnt have all the reasons why it comes out, Marolf commented. But the idea is that this is a first step. If you have a way of performing that calculation, you should be able to open that calculation up and figure out what the physical mechanism is. This calculation is something we expect is going to give us insight into quantum processes in black holes and how information comes out of them.
Im very resistant to people who come in and say, Ive got a solution in just quantum mechanics and gravity, said a skeptical Nick Warner of the University of Southern California. Because its taken us around in circles before.
Max Goldberg via UC Santa Barbara and Quanta
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