Gravity and Quantum Physics
Many incredible things have been found about our lives, space, and even what we thought was true. We are finding out something very interesting about gravity right now and dark matter. So far it is only a theory but some scientists are saying dark matter may not exist at all and that is why we can’t find it. This presents a problem however, and the problem is dark matter is needed to prove some gravitational effects. If the theory is correct, gravity is being created at least some times without mass being present. Einstein said you needed mass to create gravity.
I couldn’t help but think how this affects time. It seems to put us closer to figuring out what would be needed for a time travel device. I am not saying we can create one now, just that the idea we would have needed massive amounts of mass may no longer be necessary to create enough gravity to warp time. While this theory is new, and yet needs to be proven, it does make one think about things.
Time is one of the most important and mysterious things in our lives. We can’t see it, but do see the results of it passing. Everything on earth ages. We invented the concept of time and now we are trying to revise that concept. For millennia we were told time passes. We are born, age and die. Recently this idea is being challenged. Some scientists are telling us rather than time passing, all time is happening at the same time. This idea blows my mind and until it can be proven, I am not a buyer.
So many things we have taken for granted are changing and the discovery of quantum physics has proven some things in the world of the tiny, just don’t act in a way some of us would call rational. The slit test is one of them. Who would have ever thought you could change the result of an experiment just by watching it take place? I found this hard to believe, but I have to accept this is true because it has been proven. When a particle of light was shot at two slits it goes through one, but when the experiment is watched, it goes through both slits at the same time. Tell me you don’t find this highly strange; I know I do. I bet some scientist somewhere is working on a way to utilize this idea right now.
Quantum entanglement is another weird thing most of us, including me, will never understand. Again, it is in the quantum world. If an atom is hit with information and another atom is entangled with it, that information will be received by the second atom instantly. This may not sound like a big deal, but what if I tell you that other atom could be at the other end of our galaxy or even at the end of the known universe? You might be thinking this is impossible because light is limited in its speed to about 186,000 miles per second so how can this be? It seems it should take a little over 4 years just to reach the nearest solar system. Something else is at work here which has nothing to do with the speed of light and right now it seems like magic. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance and no one seems to be able to give a rational answer to why it works. Sure, they will tell you there is a link formed between the two particles but that still does not give one the mechanics of how the link is able to get instant communication.
Just when you find out some of the weird stuff of quantum mechanics you come across more brain twisting phenomena. We are used to seeing things stop at barriers. If we drive our car into a wall, it will either stop because the wall forced it to or demolish the wall. It won’t be very good for the car either. In the quantum physics world this is not always the case. If you shoot an atom at a barrier, it just might go through to the other side. This reminds me of those abduction stories where it is said aliens went through the walls of a house to get into a bedroom. It just strains credulity. It does make one wonder however if anyone is working on a way to do this using some quantum principle to do this.
Sometimes the fluctuations in quantum mechanics can be halted and when this happens, things change and quantum behaviors change. Presently experiments are going on at Princeton University with thin insulators which can be switched into a superconductor. The insulator is only 3 atoms thick. This is something very new and I believe unexpected.
Some scientists have been quoted saying quantum physics is not weird at all, but their explanations have yet to prove this to me, I still think it is an extremely weird field of science and wonder what will be the next weird thing we will discover about it? There is no doubt in my mind finding out about the quantum world was the biggest breakthrough in science maybe ever, and this will be proven when future generations use this science to perform what we would think of as miracles today.
An example of this might be a future phone which could reach people on other planets instantly. Could you imagine someone easily talking to someone else who lives on another planet and doing it as easy as we make a call today? One can only imagine what might be invented. Perhaps instead of that so called warp engine which is yet to be, an engine using entangled atoms will be able to give us instant transportation to anywhere and they might be the basis for some sort of transporter.
There is also the possibility we might come up with another new type of physics which will also seem even more magical. We never thought we would discover quantum physics and yet it is here and healthy.