Part 13 (1/2)

Such an argument may or may not be true, but there are potential flaws Professional nore the incompleteness theorem in their work This is because the inco statements that refer to themselves; that is, they are self-referential For exa are paradoxical: This sentence is false

I am a liar

This statement cannot be proven

In the first case, if the sentence is true, it means it is false If the sentence is false, then the state the truth, then I a the truth In the last case, if the sentence is true, then it cannot be proven to be true

(The second statement is the famous liar's paradox The Cretan philosopher Epi, ”All Cretans are liars” However, Saint Paul missed the point entirely and wrote, in his epistle to titus, ”One of Crete's own prophets has said it, 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons' He has surely told the truth”) The incompleteness theorem builds on state the axioms of arithmetic” and creates a sophisticated web of these self-referential paradoxes

Hawking, however, uses the inco cannot exist He claims that the key to Godel's incompleteness theorem is that mathematics is self-referential, and physics suffers from this disease as well Since the observer cannot be separated from the observation process, it means that physics will always refer to itself, since we cannot leave the universe In the final analysis, the observer is also ral part of the experi

But there is a way to avoid Hawking's criticism To avoid the paradoxes inherent in Godel's theorem, professional mathematicians today simply state that their work excludes all self-referential statements They can then circuree, the explosive development of mathenoring the inco that recent work makes no self-referential statements

In the sa that can explain every known experiment independent of the observer/observed dichoto fro to the visible universe that we see around us, then it becomes academic hoe describe the interaction between the observer and observed In fact, one criterion for a theory of everything should be that its conclusions are totally independent of hoe make the split between the observer and the observed

Furthermore, nature may be inexhaustible and limitless, even if it is based on a handful of principles Consider a chess gaure out the rules of chess siure out how pawns, bishops, and kings aames is truly astronomical In the same way the rules of nature may also be finite and simple, but the applications of those rules oal is to find the rules of physics

In some sense we already have a complete theory of many phenomena No one has ever seen a defect in Maxwell's equations for light The Standard Model is often called a ”theory of al” assuravity Then the Standard Model becoravity The theory ly, but it works Even in the presence of the incompleteness theore (besides gravity)

To le sheet of paper one can write down the laws that govern all known physical phenonitude, froht-years away to the microworld of quarks and neutrinos On that sheet of paper would be just two equations, Einstein's theory of gravity and the Standard Model To me this reveals the ultimate simplicity and harmony of nature at the fundamental level The universe could have been perverse, random, or capricious And yet it appears to us to be whole, coherent, and beautiful

nobel laureate Steve Weinberg co to the search for the North Pole For centuries the ancientAll co piece of the map, yet no one had actually visited it In the same way, all our data and theories point to a theory of everything It is thepiece of our equations

There will always be things that are beyond our grasp, that are impossible to explore (such as the precise position of an electron, or the world existing beyond the reach of the speed of light) But the fundamental laws, I believe, are knowable and finite And the co of all, as we explore the universe with a new generation of particle accelerators, space-based gravity wave detectors, and other technologies We are not at the end, but at the beginning of a new physics But whatever we find, there will always be new horizons continually awaiting us

NOTES

PREFACE

This has happened several times The reason that this is true is because of the quantum theory When we add all possible quantum corrections to a theory (a tedious process called ”renormalization”) we find that phenomena that were previously forbidden, at the classical level, reenter the calculation Thisis explicitly forbidden (by a conservation law, for example) then it reenters into the theory when quantum corrections are added

2: INVISIBILITY

Invisibility played a central part in Plato's theory Plato wrote, ”No man would keep his hands off as not his ohen he could safely take what he liked out of the o into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whothis power of beco as another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be the most wretched idiot”

Nathan Myhrvold, fory officer at Microsoft Nathan Myhrvold, New Scientist Magazine, November 18, 2006, p 69

That's why he now declines Josie Glausiusz, Discover Magazine, November 2006

”Such a lens would offer” ”Metaht,” Eurekalert, eurekalertorg/pub_releases/2007-01, 2007 Also, New Scientist Magazine, Dece World War II, the nazis The nazis also sent a teaical claims of the Hindus (similar to the plot line in Raiders of the Lost Ark )The nazis were interested in the writings of the Mahabharata, which described strange, powerful weapons, including flying craft

Weapons created froht beams Movies like this have also spread a number of misconceptions about lasers Laser beams are actually invisible unless they are scattered by particles in the air So when Toh a maze of laser beams in Mission Impossible, the lattice of laser beaun battles in the movies you can actually see the laser pulses zip across a rooht travels at the speed of light, 186,000about Einstein, Planck said, ”That he et” Asimov and Schulman, p 124

4: TELEPORTATION

The earliest mention of teleportation can be found The best recorded example of teleportation is dated October 24, 1593, when Gil Perez, a palace guard in the Philippine overnor in Manila, suddenly appeared in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City Dazed and confused, he was arrested by the Mexican authorities who thought he was in league with Satan When he was brought before the Most Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition, all he could say in his defense was that he had disappeared from Manila to Mexico ”in less time than it takes a cock to crow” (As incredible as the historic accounts of this incident may be, historian Mike Dash has noted that the earliest records of Perez's disappearance date from a century after his disappearance, and hence cannot be fully trusted) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known for his Sherlock Holmes novels Doyle's early as renowned for thetypical of the medical profession, as seen in the superb deductions of Sherlock Holmes So why did Doyle decide to shi+ft sharply away froic of Mr Hol adventures of Professor Challenger, who delved into the forbidden worlds of es of science? The author was profoundly changed by the sudden, unexpected deaths of several close relatives in World War I, including his beloved son Kingsley, his brother, two brothers-in-law, and two nephews These losses would leave a deep, lasting eic deaths, Doyle e fascination with the world of the occult, believing perhaps that he ht be able to communicate with the dead via spiritualism He abruptly shi+fted from the world of rational, forensic science into ive famous lectures around the world about unexplained psychic phenomena

This uncertainty was finally codified by Heisenberg More precisely, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that the uncertainty in the position of a particle, reater than or equal to Planck's constant divided by 2p Or the product of the uncertain in a particle's energy tireater than or equal to Planck's constant divided by 2 p If we let Planck's constant go to zero, then this reduces to ordinary Newtonian theory, in which all uncertainties are zero

The fact that you cannot know the position, vi Emilsson to wisecrack, ”Historians have concluded that Heisenberghis love life when he discovered the Uncertainty Principle:-When he had the tiht, he couldn't figure out the position”) Barrow, Between Inner space and Outer space, p 187

”For my part, at least, I am convinced that He doesn't throw dice” Kaku, Einstein's Cos the undeniable experimental successes of the quantum theory, Einstein wrote, Asied in 1993, when scientists at IBM assu people, can be teleported This raises subtle philosophical and theological questions about the existence of a ”soul” if a person's body is teleported If you are teleported to a new location, does your soul also move with you?

Some of these ethical questions were explored in James Patrick Kelley's novel Think Like a Dinosaur In this tale a woman is teleported to another planet, but there is a proble destroyed, the original remains untouched, with all her emotions intact Suddenly, there are two copies of her Naturally, when the copy is told to enter the teleportation rated she refuses This creates a crisis, because the cold-blooded aliens, who provided the technology in the first place, view this as a purely practical matter to ”balance the equation,” while emotion-prone humans are more sympathetic to her cause

In most stories teleportation is viewed as a Godsend But in Stephen King's ”The Jaunt” the author explores the ierous side effects to teleportation In the future, teleportation is commonplace and fondly called ”The Jaunt” Just before teleporting to Mars, a father explains to his children the curious history behind the Jaunt, that it was first discovered by a scientist who used it to teleport mice, but the only mice that survived teleportation were ones that had been anesthetized Mice that were ahile being teleported died horribly So humans are routinely put to sleep before they are teleported The only man as ever teleported while aas a convicted criminal as promised a full pardon if he sub teleported, he suffered athe last words, ”It's eternity in there”

Unfortunately, the son, hearing this fascinating tale, decides to hold his breath so that he won't be anesthetized The results are tragic After being teleported he suddenly goes insane His hair turns white, his eyes are yelloith age, and he tries to claw out his eyes The secret is now revealed Physical matter is teleported instantly, but to the mind the trip takes an eternity, time appears endless, and the person is driven totally insane

”For the first tiene Polzik, one of the researchers Curt Suplee, ”Top 100 Science Stories of 2006,” Discover Magazine, Dece about a beaazine, June 13, 2007

”With luck, and with the help of recent theoretical advances,” David Deutsch, New Scientist Magazine, November 18, 2006, p 69

5: TELEPATHY

The careers of several icians and mentalists, in fact, have been based At dinner parties one can also perfor feats of telepathy Ask everyone at a party to write down a name on a slip of paper and put the slips in a hat One by one you pick out a sealed slip of paper and, before opening it, read aloud the name written on it The audience will be stunned Telepathy has been deicians, in fact, have risen to fame and fortune primarily because of this trick

(The secret to this a Pull out the first slip of paper and read it silently to yourself, but announce that you are having difficulty reading it because the ”psychic ether” is clouded Pull out a second slip of paper but don't open it yet Now recite the name you read on the first slip of paper The person rote that first na you have read the sealed, second slip of paper Now open up the second slip of paper and silently read it to yourself Pull out the third sealed slip of paper, and read aloud the name on the second slip of paper Repeat this process Each ti the contents of the previous slip of paper) Gamblers also are able to read people's hly deter eye as it scans a photograph By shi+ning a thin light beae of the bea out the path taken by this reflected beaht on the wall one can then reconstruct precisely where the eye is roving as it scans a picture (When scanning a person's face in a picture, for example, the observer's eye usually moves rapidly back and forth between the person's eyes in the picture, and then wanders to the mouth, and back to the eyes, before it scans the entire picture) As a person scans a picture, one can calculate the size of his pupils and hence whether he experiences pleasurable or unpleasurable thoughts, as it scans particular parts of a picture In this way, one can read a person's emotional state (Aemotions as he looks at a picture of a murder scene and scans the precise location of the body Only the murderer and the police would know the location) The first scientific studies of telepathy The Society for Psychical Research included Lord Rayleigh (nobel laureate), Sir William Crookes (inventor of the Crookes tube used in electronics), Charles Richet (nobel laureate), Aist William James, and Prime Minister Arthur Balfour Its supporters have included such luminaries as Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, and Carl Jung

One researcher connected with the society Rhine originally planned to beco the University of Chicago After attending a talk in 1922 given by Sir Arthur Conan Coyle, as giving lectures around the country about co with the dead, Rhine became fascinated with psychic phenomena Later he read the book The Survival of Man, by Sir Oliver Lodge, about purported co seances, which further cemented Rhine's interest He was, however, dissatisfied with the current state of spiritualism; its reputation was often tarred with unsavory tales of frauds and trickery In fact, Rhine's own investigations exposed a certain spiritualist, Margery Crandon, as a fraud, earning hi Conan Doyle

”There is left then, only the telepathic explanation” Randi, p 51 Further tests showed that the mice possessed no telepathic power Randi, p 143

In particular, he noticed unusual activitySan Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 2001

Soal and moral questions if limited forms of telepathy becoal to tape-record a person's phone conversation without his or her peral to record one's thought patterns without his or her per a person's thought patterns without his or her permission, in any context Given the slippery nature of a person's thoughts, it ht patterns in a court of law In Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, there was the ethical question of whether you can arrest someone for a crime that the person hasn't coht be the question of whether a person's intention to coht patterns, constitutes incriainst that person If a person makes threats verbally, would that count as heavily as if a person made these threats overnencies that do not care about any lahatsoever and subject people involuntarily to brain scans Would this constitute proper legal behavior? Would it be legal to read the mind of a terrorist to find out his or her plans? Would it be legal to implant false memories in order to deceive individuals? In Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, the question arose continually whether a person's memories were real, or implanted, which affects the very nature of e are

These questions are likely to remain purely hypothetical for decades to coy slowly advances, inevitably the technology will raise al, and societal issues Fortunately, we have plenty of time to sort them out

”But if that's the device you want to build” Douglas Fox, New Scientist Magazine, May 4, 2006