Nothing That Matters

Most focused and elegant of all the six experiments at the LHC is the LHC beauty or LHCb. It will try to find asymmetries in the behaviour of B-Quark and anti-B-quark particles.
Oh then what is quark, B-Quark and the lack of symmetry. What will they signify.
The present model of particle physics, Standard Model, envisages that Proton and Neutrons are made-up of fundamental particles called Quarks. Each ordinary run-of-the-mill proton or neutron is made of two types (Pair) of Quark - UP Quark and Down Quark. Three quarks (two of one type and one of another) make a Proton or Neutron.
Quarks inside the Proton/Neutron are held together by force particles called Gluon's.
Surprisingly there are Two other family of pair of Quarks. These are named exotically as seen in graphic above. Surprising part is that all the matter that we see in the world is made of Up/Down family of Quarks. Quarks of other two families are very short lived. Where has the matter made of other two Quark families disappeared. The Top & Bottom Quarks were at one time also called Truth and Beauty. Together this family is called B-Quark Family.
Quarks have a property that they cannot be seen by themselves - but only as a Quark-Gluon Plasma. Its this Plasma -specially B-Quark family - that will be targeted at the LHCb.
But what will it signify. And what about the Symmetry?
That will be the next post.

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While the Standard Model goes overboard with quantum effects that prevail at less than Planck's length (10^-33 CM). Its almost a boiling cauldron with virtual particle and breaking of various conservations/symmetries. The String theory is rather mum about what is there besides strings at such scale of universe. How does it make or break the theories?

While its not so devastating for String Theory, since Strings are Planck-length sized and hence even if you do not look below that length, your theory works at Planck length - where the boiling cauldron effect of smaller lengths is not there.
But Standard Model - Hmm.... As German would have said "Ganz Schlim". Very Bad. The particle like neutrino, quarks and electrons as per this theory are point sized. That is they are singularity with no size at all. So you have to drill down to zero length to work the theory. It gets into problems. Its only by sleight of Renormalization that anomalies and infinities are kept away. Read my earlier post on Renormalizarion.
String or Standard, no theory can expect to be complete unless it can explain what is beyond their particles in the Vacuum. You cannot do just "Nothing" about "nothing". Nothing cannot be left alone.
Even String theory has to come about the vacuum states of universe.
In that sense both theories are inadequate. Standard Model by not being able to handle vacuum states till the point sized particles and String Theory by trying to avoid dealing with vacuum states at all.
This round goes Zero-Zero to Both. With score remaining 3-1/6 in favour of String Theory.

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Both String Theory and the Quantum Field Theories treat Time in a cavalier manner. It is taken as a given, evenly, continuosly flowing irreversibly.
Both do not explain the arrow of time. In fact the whole of Physics, except for perhaps indirectly Thermodynamic (2nd law: Entropy) can account for this arrow. String Theory does now talk of time being grainy.
But the treatment of time is inadequate in both the theories. An ideal theory should show that the theory is consistent only for forward moving time. It should show by its equations - whether time is continuous or grainy, not simply as an assumption.
Hence both theories score ZERO in this round. The score now is still (3-1)/5 in favour of String Theory.

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Quantum Field Theories (as epitomised by Standard Model), use 4-dimensional space-time, rather 3-D space and unidirectional Time. Number of dimensions in this theory are actually 'filled-in by pen' as the initial fact of universe. Ironically the 4-D space-time is an a-priory borrowed by Standard Model from Einstein's General Theory Of Gravity - a theory which Standard Model fails to encompass within its structure of other three Forces. Therefore space-time and its dimensions are external factors for such theories.

On the other hand the number of dimensions in string theory arise out of the formulation of string-theory itself. The 10 dimensions arise out of the fact that string theory mathematics show that its only with these many dimensions the theory would work. This is a more satisfying and complete situations as compared to assuming the dimensions a-priory as in Standard Model.
This round also therefore goes to String theory. The score-card thus far is 3-1 in favour of String Theory.
But I have a fundamental objection to space hogging 3 dimensions. I would therefore break from this String Theory vs Standard Model slug-fest and revert to this aspect in next post, with your indulgence please!!

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In many quizzes in the newspaper or the web, the answer is given somewhere partially hidden. You are not supposed to cheat and look at the answer before attempting the quiz. String Theory has done something like that. It started with the answer! Quantum Field Theories moved from known to unknown. The approach evolved like peeling the onion skin by skin. It started from electrons to protons, Neutrons and further down to Quark. On the way it took into its unifying fold the three fundamental forces - Electro-magnetism, Weak Force and Strong Force - failing only to grapple with gravity. It was an organic, natural step-by-step evolution. Finally it had still to peel the layer of skin that could explain what the quark is in-turn made of? And the skin to take gravity into its fold?
The string theory started off by first saying what the elementary constituent of all particles and Forces that we know? Simply because its a good mathematical framework and answers many questions - some which quantum Field theories cannot answer.
So this round 3 about starting from an uncertain fundamentals to build super-castles is against String theory. This round goes to Quantum Field Theory. The score so far is 2:1 in favour of string Theory.

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This is round 2 of our discussions about the differences and similarities between the String Theory and the Quantum Field Theories(as epitomised by Standard Model. Click Here For Round1
Elementary Particles emit or absorb other particles(e.g. Force Particles like Bosons) without themselves loosing identity. These may also split up into two or three different particles. In Quantum Field Theories (epitomised by Standard Model) this is intuitively difficult to understand within the scope of this theory. I had earlier pointed it out:-
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 disappearance of a neutron and in its place appearance of a proton + an electron and an anti-neutrino - 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 in appearance of neutrino just out of "nothing"(Space) 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.

For details See my post The More It Changes The More It Stays The Same.
I had also argued on similar lines about a Muon (a fundamental lepton) decaying into a mu-neutrino + an electron and a positron - all three fundamental leptons of different families. Please see my post - Being Fundamental is No Fun' and also on more fundamental issues in my post - 'Elephant = Monkey X Chimpanzee Squared'. But String Theory Beautifully tackles these since it says that particles that we see are only different modes of vibration of strings. Thus a string can change the mode of vibration or split into two strings with different vibrations or else two strings may combine. Neat! I have no issues with it. In fact this is what I have all along been saying in my hypothesis.
This round again goes to String Theory!!! Its ahead of Standard Model by 2-0.

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What are the similarities and differences between String Theories and The Quantum Field Theories(epitomised by Standard Model) of the Particle Physics?. Which one is better in different aspects? Brace for a series of posts on this! Lets look at the procedure of Renormalization.

In Quantum Field Theories of which Standard Model is the epitome, behaviour of particles at very small distances of the order of particles it self - is not known. As I wrote earlier:-
"The equations Scientists write to describe the sub-atomic particles is in too dense a mathematics, even beyond a BS majoring in Mathematics. These equations in raw, strictly theoretical form, give infinite or nonsensical results or are unsolvable - capable of no result. Like too smart an Accountant fudging his books till clean looking figures are achieved, Scientists coax an answer out of these equations through largely empirical mathematical operations called renormalization.
For example the first theory that started the chain of Particle Physics, was Electro-Dynamics propounded by Dirac. While the equation was supposed to describe mechanics of electrons, one of the results showed the world to be filled with negative energy positrons. This is obviously not the thing we observe in reality.
One of the justification for re-normalization is that the measured parameters of sub-atomic particles are the net observable values and intrinsic values are much different."
For detailed justification, please see my earlier post on this - 'A Tycoon Surrounded By A Bevy OF Expensive Bunnies'.
This is highly unsatisfactory way. But the Standard Model did give verifiable answers. The fact remains that this model cannot deal with phenomenon at small distances of space-time.
String Theory is a theory of phenomena at sub-particle distances. Such Renormalization is therefore not needed. Thus the String Theory wins over the Standard Model in explaining phenomena at such distances!!
And The First Round Goes To STRING THEORY!!!

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Four forces of nature - Strong force; Electromagnetic force; Weak force and gravitation, have varying strengths. Strong force is strongest and gravitation is the weakest (billion on billion times weaker than others). This extreme weakness of gravitation makes it difficult to comeup with a unifying theory of all four forces together - although the standard model does cover rest of the three. Scientists call this a "hierarchy problem". Dr.Lisa Randall, string theorist, Harvard professor and a very graceful 43 year old, developed a model of universe based on string theory(alongwith Dr. Raman Sundram), which explains why the gravitation is so weakly felt in our universe though in the beginning of universe all the four forces were indistinguishable from each other.
String theory (M-Theory) says that all particles and forces are nothing but a different vibrational states of thin stringlike structures which exist in 11 dimensions.
Universe consists of 3-dimensional membrane (jargon="brane") surrounded by a higher dimensions.
In their model called RS-1 and RS-2(published in 1999), they propounded that while all other forces are on the same "brane" as our universe, gravity resides on another "brane" separated from our universe by a five dimensional space with extra fifth dimension (time being the fourth). Gravitons (a loop of string), the particle associated with force of gravity is free to travel from gravity-brane to ours. However the space is warped in a negative way by the gravity-brane (anti De Sitter space), due to which though there is a large cluster of gravitons near gravity-brane only a small number are able to make it to our universe-brane. This explains why is the gravity so weak compared to other three forces which are resident on home-brane. Is it not familiar - Dogs bark louder near home-turf.
The extra 5th dimension of the 5-dimensional space separating us from gravity-brane is large enough but appears to be only 10^-31cm wide to us because it is warped in negative fashion. Otherwise Newton law of gravitation would have been inverse cube law instead inverse square it actually is.
This theory and other competing ones (Arkani-Dvali-Dimopoulos= ADD) would be put to test in CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, when it fires up in 2007.
Dr. Randall recently published "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions" to convey to the lay readers the excitement of her work on RS-1 and RS-2.
Happy Reading!! Fources

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Just because energy and mass are equivalent as per Einstein's famous formula E = mc², it does not mean that a transformation of a Hippopotamus (or one monkey and a chimpanzee) into an elephant is possible.   The mechanism of transformation (biological, chemical and physical) must also be scientifically correct.   It should not violate other laws of Physics including the law of entropy. I think, because of the famed equation, scientists are lulled into mute acceptance of the bizarre phenomenon of pair-production and pair-annihilation.
Pair production is emergence of say an electron and positron out of the energy of a photon.  Pair annihilation is reverse of this.  This is true of any particle anti-particle pair.
For these phenomenon to be explained the mechanism of transformation has also to be understood.
What about the laws of physics being followed, including the law of increasing entropy (second law of Thermodynamics).   Pair-production immensely decreases entropy - thus violating this law.
Moreover as argued in my earlier posts, only those particles that have an internal structure can transform into one another.   Or else the two particles on either side of transformation must actually be same with only difference in charge-flavour.   We cant have a fundamental particle just disappearing and have another entirely unrelated fundamental particle(s) in its place - even if conservation of mass/energy is not violated.
In pair-production or annihilation, either the electrons (and positron) must be having same constituent entities as the photon.   Or photon and electron must be same particle but with different charge-flavours.
Such particle transformations is a very serious blind-spot in present standard-model. What do you think, please leave a comment?

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As a child, my son, used to be an Astronaut in morning, a Scientist at noon and a Bus-conductor at night. Film actors can also have fun playing a poor man in morning shift and a billionaire in the night shift. But fundamental particles (Quarks, Leptons and Force-carrier Bosons) can have no such fun.
Its clear that non-fundamental particles with inner structure of fundamental particles, can decay into other non-fundamental particles just by rearrangement of inner structure of fundamental particles.
But how can fundamental particle decay into another, unless they have inner structure - i.e. it is not a fundamental particle.
A Muon (a fundamental lepton) has been observed to decay into a mu-neutrino + an electron and a positron - all three fundamental leptons of different families.
Scientists have a tortuous explanation. They say that initially muon decays only to mu-neutrino and a ghost-transient W-minus boson. This eases the dilemma halfway, since mu-neutrino and muon are associated particles of same family of Lepton. W-boson is only a force-carrying particle which finally decays into electron and positron.
I think this only begs the question.
To me this muon decay is an indication that muon is not a fundamental particle, but has a structure of more fundamental particles, which gets rearranged/ broken-up to emerge as three different particles.
May I draw your attention to my post of 18th Sep "The More it Changes...", which gives detailed reason why fundamental particles cannot undergo transformations/decay.

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This is no nursery jingle, but names of six types of Quarks. These quarks (that make up neutron and proton in nucleus) are grouped into three families (or flavours)- a pair in each family. Each pair is usually seen with each other only. Besides quark, other fundamental particles are Leptons, also six, also seen in pairs (as Electron with its associated neutrino), also grouped into three families. Why is nature so exuberant in displaying a wild zoo of fundamental particles? To confuse us!!
The families can be tabulated as follows:-
----------Lepton Pairs------------ ------Quark Pairs-----------------
1. Electron and its Neutrino(e) : 'Up' Quark and 'Down' Quark
2. Muon and its Neutrino(mu) : 'Charm' Quark and 'Strange' Quark
3. Tau and its Neutrino(tau): 'Truth' Quark and 'beauty' Quark
Truth and Beauty are also known as Top and Bottom by less romantic Scientists.
The first of each pair quarks (Up, Charm and Truth) have a charge of +2/3 (of an electron's charge) and the others have a charge of -1/3.
First of each pair of Leptons (Electron, Muon and Tau) have charge -1, but all the neutrinos have no charge and (maybe) no mass either.
You may notice, the artistic liberties taken by scientists in naming the three pairs of Quark - and step motherly treatment for neutrinos - not even an independent name for the three neutrinos - left to be known by its paired particle - electron/muon/tau. The names of quarks are just that - names which do not reflect any property.
Even one family i.e. first one of Electron, its neutrino, up&Down Quark; is good enough to explain all normal material (except particles found in Cosmic Rays, which are generated by exotic process). Why other two family of Leptons and quark exist, is a mystery not yet solved. The Leptons of other two families are unstable and undergo transformations into first family in short time.
Do these two remaining families combine to make up space - thus remaining hidden from "normal material". If that be so, these particles would get blasted out of "nothing" by exotic particle level encounters - and are thus seen in many Particle accelerator events. Q.E.D.
yea! To me all looks to be Nothing:-))

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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.

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By discovering the electron and Nucleus structure of matter, science progressed by leaps and bounds. We discovered electronics and all the dependent technologies. We also got Nuclear power and Nuclear Weapons. What should we expect from discovering the structure of Nucleons - Proton and neutron? Till now there has been no Technological spin-offs. This is mainly because our understanding of structure of Nucleons is yet not complete.
What are the possibilities from the Fundamental Forces in the Standard Model.
Strong Force - Associated with Quarks within the Nucleons
Weak Force - Associated with decay of nuclear Particles
Electromagnetic Force - associated with photons
Gravitational Force - Associated with Mass Property of Matter.
Each one of these four fundamental forces should be able to give us a source of energy - as electromotive force gives us.
I believe that understanding of Strong Force should give us a large source of energy - which can free us from the tyranny of Petroleum as a source of energy.
Amen!!!
PS: I forgot to mention that Strong Force is the only force out of four fundamental forces, that increases with distance and is perhaps negligible at short distances. That is why quarks indicate independent behaviour when close together inside nucleus, but indistinguishable when these are apart.

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Dontwalkquicklystop.
To make sense of the above non-sense, do nothing, but insert spaces between the words. Now read it:
Dont walk quickly stop.
Its still hard to make unambiguous sense, but spaces between the words, help us to make sense of written language. Same is the role of pauses between the spoken words. Without these spaces, language is not possible.
Punctuation further help us in understanding the language. Spaces by themselves are not sufficient. In fact shifting spaces and punctuation, within a series of characters, can change the whole meaning of the sentence.
Don't walk, quickly stop.
Don't walk quickly, stop.
Punctuation is something between a character and a space. Punctuation is not pronounceable like characters - in that sense its more like spaces. In spoken language sound inflexion and stresses on certain syllables, serve the purpose of punctuation.
In the same manner, space between the nucleus and the electron and between the atoms, defines the material world. If space between the words, is like the space between the nuclei, electrons are the punctuation. Space alone isn't sufficient, electrons are also necessary. Electrons are entities which are neither matter nor space. Unlike other particles having mass, electrons are dimention-less, point entities. In that sense, its just a knot in space.
Nothings and knots make Things!!

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The equations Scientists write to describe the sub-atomic particles is in too dense a mathematics, even beyond a BS majoring in Mathematics. These equations in raw, strictly theoretical form, give infinite or non-sensical results or are unsolvable - capable of no result. Like too smart an Accountant fudging his books till clean looking figures are achieved, Scientists coax an answer out of these equations through largely empirical mathematical operations called renormalization.
For example the first theory that started the chain of Particle Physics, was Electro-Dynamics propounded by Dirac. While the equation was supposed to describe mechanics of electrons, one of the results showed the world to be filled with negative energy positrons.
One of the justification for re-normalization is that the measured parameters of sub-atomic particles are the net observable values and intrinsic values are much different.
For example a proton has some positive charge. But its always surrounded by a haze of space entities of opposite polarization. The observable charge of proton is its much larger intrinsic value, minus the masking effect of negatively polarized haze surrounding it. A wealthy Tycoon surrounded by bevy of expensive bunnies - so that Tycoon's measured wealth is much less than what he actually has.
For equations in particle physics, to give correct results, from only the observable parameters, like observable charge of a proton - some juggling mathematical operation is done to eliminate the effect of space-time continuum. Renormalization is nothing but this jugglery.
If we understand space, we can perhaps write a more straight forward equation for sub-atomic mechanics without need of renormalization.

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What happens between the two instances of time quanta? Jaspal's comment on my last post is interesting.
I had hinted in earlier posts, at the dilemma of measurement of length and Time. When we measure something, we interfere with its state, and change it, by the very process of measurement. This is more true of quanta-sized measurements. We can measure the position of a photon, by shooting electrons (or even photons), at it and measuring the ricocheting electron. We measure photon's position but alter its momentum by giving it a mighty push. This trade-off between uncertainty of measurement of position vis-a-vis momentum, is written as a equation and is called Heisenberg uncertainty Principle. This means that we can never know exact position and momentum of a particle.
A Ghost could be anywhere if you aren't looking.
When you are not looking for the position of the Photon, it could as well be, anywhere in the world. As a result, no particle or quanta is a hard particle with sharp boundaries. There is an uncertain smudging of its boundaries. Like an object under light has a deep shadow (called Umbra) and a larger softer penumbra. This also leads to the wave/Particle duality of light. Light, looks like a wave phenomenon, untill you make it a point, to look for the position of the photon - when it seems to be like a particle.
In fact such soft penumbra like boundaries, of two particles may overlap, without creating a collision ( Pauli Exclusion principle is also involved - but lets forget that for the moment).
This is what happens between two instances of time quanta. They actually overlap. There is infact no timeless gap between the two instances of time quanta.

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When I get excited by Marilyn Monroe's swirling skirt on the cinema screen, my brain is pulling a really fast on me. I am fooled into believing the movements - while actually what is shown to me, is a sequence of still-photographs.
What is on the Cinema Film is a series of frozen-time snaps (taken 1/24^th of a second apart) not any smooth motion. Each snap actually records a scene, only during the period, the camera shutter was open (say 1/250 ^th of a second)- still-photo isn't absolutely still. It takes 1/12 to 1/16 ^th of a second, for the brains visual circuits, to wipe clean from its memory, image of the previous frame. So anything which is shown within this period gets surperimposed on the last image.
The cinema film shows 24 frames in a second. Even this superposition would leave a confusing collage of still-frames - not a perception of a movement. The circuits of brain step in and trick us into believing, that what we are seeing, is a movement - by generating the missing visual information, between the two frames.
The swirl of the skirt is a construct of my brain - not a reality.The brain can also be fooled in its own game.
One funny effect of this 24 frames a second projection, is seen when you see an old cinema film, which used to be shot at 16 frames a second, before WW II. When a film of Mahatma Gandhi, during his 'Dandi March' is shown (now projected at 24 frames/second), the frail old Mahatma is seen as running too fast with jerky motions, in a rather unseemly hurry. In reality, he was walking poderously slow at that time.
If you run the film backwards, you would actually see the action backwards. It really happened once in my college days. In an open air projection of 'Chengiz Khan' - we saw the Heroin giving birth to a child, then getting pregnant and then getting raped in the last scene!!!
Now what has this got to do with discussion on Time and 'arrow of Time'?I would write about it next.

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Why Physics is in such doldrums that breakthroughs are now so few and far in-between? Why are its theories of frontiers of Physics so outlandish - as to get compared with mumbo-jumbo - 'Tao of Physics' ; 'Dance of Shiva' etc? Why has it come to such a pass? Has this to be so? Is there something fundamentally wrong?

Look at Tribal Philosophies. They start from false premises and are able to explain simple phenomenon quite effectively to begin with. But explanations become quainter and less plausible as it goes to slightly more complicated things. It becomes 'Voodoo' and only a handful in society claim to understand it. Is Physics in similar situation?
----------------------
Physics builds its magnificent edifice of theories over the foundation of a premise that reality could be described by using 3 primary units of Length; Mass and Time - like three basic colours in Painting : Red; Blue and Green. All other units and theories are derived from these.
As we go along the mathematics becomes harder and harder. At the frontiers of Physics - Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics for instance need mathematics which is beyond well educated intelligensia. People now look to Frontiers of Physics - as commom man used to look at Voodoo or "Palm Reading" - without the spirit of enquiry.
There would no more be naked Archimedes springing out of bath-tub crying "Eureka".
I believe that the fundamental units (Length, Mass and Time) on which the whole edifice of Science stands - may be only derived units after all - that's why the Mathematics and Physics become so quaint as we get near its frontiers.
Time, as I brought out earlier gets derived from velocity of the fabric of Space moving around us. Could it be that Velocity and Energy are the real Fundamental Units!!!
Anyway attempting to rewrite whole physics in terms of velocity and energy could an interesting exercise in itself.
Good Luck to those who may like to try.

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