Nothing That Matters

When can we call a disappearance of something and appearance of a new thing in its place - a Change/Transmutation and when can it be just a coincidental occurrence of two unconnected events. For example can a disappearance of a neutron and in its place appearance of a proton + an electron and an anti-neutrino; be called a change? Can appearance of neutrino just out of "nothing"(Space) be called a change? My disappearance from a chair and my Wife's appearance there, in my place, are definitely two unconnected events, despite magicians well-known tricks of tranforming a rabbit into a pigeon. No magician even as a sleight of hand has attempted converting a husband into a wife.
In a chemical change, the atoms of various Chemical elements on left hand and right hand side of the chemical equation, remain same (are conserved), they only realign and form new molecules.
New entities in a change/transformation must retain certain parts of old entity. There must be an element of continuity for a process to qualify to be called a change. The more it changes, the more it remains the same. To put it scientifically - there must be some type of "Conservation" for a process to be called a change/transmutation.
In fact science is about only those changes where conservation is observed - rest isn't science.
In chemical change its conservation of those atoms of elements on both sides of equation. In lay-man's terms, in transmutation of neutron, the quarks(that make-up both neutron and proton) and leptons(electron and neutrino) are conserved, so is mass/energy. Scientist use a more rigorous approach to call it conservation of quantum numbers that they assign to properties of these fundamental particles.
But what about just sudden appearance of a neutrino in empty space out of "nothing". There appears to be no conservation here. Perhaps our knowledge of that level of particle structure is incomplete. May be the sub-space entities out of which space is structured (as I propose in this blog), are conserved, in transmutation of space into a neutrino.

Posted by Girish Bhatnagar at 4:30 PM