Life's simple things.....

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Thought exercise....

It's been a long while since i've dreamt...=P..and in the middle of the day too...=)

And it's been an equally long while that I've sat down to think and wonder abt nonsense. Somehow, in the hectic scuttling about in this busy world, I realise tt i no longer ask the same questions i used to ask. Not that I've found the answer to them, but i think as i've grown older, i kinda pushed aside my pursuit for questions in return for the pursuit of answers.

But after taking up some new hobbies, continuing some old passions and trying to learn new things and reading into nonsense. I find myself asking a billion more questions and there are actually a lot of questions out there that have no answers.

Soooo.....it's late at night and i kinda spent the whole day sleeping...and while wordless songs play on my itunes....i think ill just ramble a bit on my random thots. I'll also try and defragment my dream---It was kinda complicated/warped and, in a way, looped. (not to mention loopy=P) I don't really know where to start, so I shall start from the easiest part and build up from there.

We have heavily depended on electricity all our lives for a lot of things. Everything we do, see and move is due to the fact tt electricity is being pushed around in their circuits/semiconductors. These electrons have been the "carriers" of our energy. It has served it's purpose very well, despite heavily relying on natural resources (hence, the ever hot topic of the pursuit of clean energy----water, wind, nuclear etc.) But at the end of the day, we can't deny the fact that all of us have just taken for granted tt electrons are the ONLY possible carriers. We have heavily relied on electricity because of the fact tt it's small to be transferred from atom to atom without the physical movement of atoms, and the fact tt these electrons have a unique interaction with magnetic fields (which begs the question---what are magnetic fields exactly?). In other words, (for non-physics pple), the movement of magnetic fields cause the repulsion of electrons in wires, and hence causes the pushing of these "carriers" of energy (simple generator) . However, no matter how much we try to find alternate "clean" energy, the fact that we are using electrons, always means that there is the one common pathway of moving magnetic fields (be it the spinning of giant magnets to produce these fields or varying electromagnets), and this may not be the most economical method.

Looking at things from another perspective---in the past, we built tubes and wheels to transfer the energy of water to push mills and work for us. However, as time passed, we substituted these tubes with wires, and water with electrons. But what if these wires and electrons have now become the "tubes", and "water" of our present time/near future? What IF, it is time for someone to discover a whole new smaller particle that can be the new "carrier" of our energy.

This brought me to another long part of my dream---what is the smallest particle around? There are currently a lot of theories, but one of the nicest and most elegant theory is the string theory (particle physics). In short, what this theory says is everything is made of smaller particles, and these minitiarisation of particles occurs in a "linear" fashion---ie, we are made out of carbon and stuff, and carbon and stuff are made of atoms, and atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. The thing is the smallest particles that we have accepted and have been taught are electrons, protons and neutrons, and these are 3 different entities. So it just begs the question once again--- what makes up these 3 entities? Because, if we were to follow the string theory (or human nature for tt matter), there has to be a single "fundamental" particle that would make up these electrons, protons and neutrons. And lo and behold, with the advent of faster accelerators, we have actually discovered smaller particles that make up protons----quarks. (This is just an example) (weird name, with an equally weird history to it's naming=P). What they are, I am not sure=P...and somehow the explaination of it (with my limited reading/knowledge) is just beyond me=P but that's not impt=P There is the whole big family of fermions--and then there are the sub groups of lepton (eg. electrons) and quarks (eg. the stuff of protons and neutrons)

There are just soo many possibilities to quarks, (and leptons for tt matter) and so many questions. And for all we know, quarks may just be an intermediate block tt is being made up of an even smaller "fundamental particle". But what IF these quarks or fundamental particles "X" can replace electrons as the new "carrier" of electricity? What if "X" being so small, can function even better than an electron at being pushed around in "tubes". What if X actually interacts with another "force" other than magnets? And the transfer of forces is much more efficient than "hoping" that the electrons "happen" to cut thru magnetic forces. If this were to happen, we will find ourselves replacing electrons with X. The world will no longer be so dependent on electricity. (and who knows....we will start seeing the advent of nanoscopic X-tronics? as opposed to microscopic electronics) Another question that I was thinking was what IF these particles X were to be able to interact with gravity---in the same way as electrons interact with magentic forces? What if we are just MISSING the whole picture? We haven't entertained this thought because of the fact that gravitational forces are all around us and it is constant. Electricity came about because we happened to stumble on magnets' effect on electrons due to our ability to manipulate magnetic fields. However, we are stuck here on earth and the immense gravity of earth "inwards" is constant, hence there is no changing force to exert on particle X. But the fact of the matter is there are differing forces of gravity, like how the sun attracts the earth and the earth attracts us=P Thus if we could find a way to utilize the ever present gravitational force around us onto particle X, we would have the most most abundant energy source. But i guess, the first thing would be to have pple think of this possibility before we can find it. gravity is but an example of a force...all I am trying to say is we can't just let our mind be set on magnetic forces as the only force able to "work".

Moving on from that line of thought would be the continuation of the string theory, or the minitiarisation of "stuff". It is believed that the smallest particle, or "string", form different paticles because it vibrates at very different wavelengths, amplitudes and DIMENSIONS. (I am a total sucker for dimensions.....seriously, i am a true believer of the existence of extended dimensions/alternate dimensions). With the string theory , there is a postulation that there are 10 dimensions and 1 time dimension (among other postulations/models). Before i even try to get technical (which i will fail miserably cuz this is just too theoretical and beyond me=P), let's try and explain it in a different way, let's say we are comic book characters on a 2-dimensional sheet. Our world would just be flat, and we will be moving "left and right". The fact that we are bound by 2-D means tt we will never be able to see another sheet of paper that is placed directly on top of us, because this sheet of paper is on a totally different plane---the 3rd dimension). In other words, the size of our world only depends on how BIG we can extend our piece of paper---ie in that 2-D plane only, and we won't notice the other sheet of paper even if it were to be stacked directly on top of our sheet. This may be cuz we arent looking out for it, or we simply do not exist in it, or we are but a part of a dimension tt builds the OTHER dimensions. (just like how 2 D is a part of 3 D, but it lacks a WHOLE dimension to exist as 3D).

For all we know there are other dimensions out there stacked on ours?

Another question about the string theory is how it leads to the undeniable fact tt there is a beginning (the smallest fundamental particle) and an end (the biggest "space"). [Which is how human nature leads us to believe in a God or divine power/source being...physicists have coined a term called the theory of everything=P). I am catholic, but as much as i am a religious person (or i hope so), I have also refused to just accept things as they are.] The string theory, or the minitiarisation of objects (let's try not to quote a theory tt cannot be proved for the benefit of those of us who are cynics) will naturally lead us down a never ending path of finding smaller/larger particles.

It's like a never-ending quest of trying to break up smaller and smaller pieces to find the "truth", to find out what makes "us". This is impossible (which is why God is such a convenient source of answers for many---due to it's convenient explanation tt it cannot be explained. Don't get me wrong, I am a true believer of my faith, for many reasons...but one thing i refuse to let myself be, is to turn to religion as a substitute to answers to questions tt i do not know or have no control over).

BUT what IF it isn't a string theory? What if it's a loop theory? What if, instead of an end and a beginning.....it's is one giant loop?=P in short, what if there is actually a galaxy in that tiny atom of ours. But just that it is too small for us to vision it. And what if somehow (by some weird dimension) that galaxy is ours. What we see is literally limited and we have yet to reach the ends. In other words, we are still continuously finding newer and newer stars, planets, galaxies, systems...just as at the same time we are continuously trying to split the atom into smaller particles.

The problem is we are limited by our magnification abilities. So the quark's point of view at us, may be like us trying to look beyond our galaxy.

With respect to the "2 pieces of paper" dimension analogy above. Just imagine if that piece of paper is representative of all 3 dimensions now. It will be difficult to imagine a 4th or more dimension (excluding time), because this dimension is on a totally different sheet of paper stacked on top of us. But what if the 2 sheets of paper are not 2 distinct sheets of papers stacked on each other? But actually a continuation of one paper that is rolled up on itself?

So let's say the paper represents all the dimensions of our current world. The fact that once it starts rolling up on itself, it is entering into another dimension. But since we are stuck within this flat sheet of paper, we are oblivious to the "rolling".

This loop theory may actually be the reason as to why as we go further down into the miniaturisation step, the quarks seem to exist in numerous dimensions (10 +1 time). That and the fact that those immense black holes in space no longer exhibit the laws of physics and somehow can suck matter and radiation... and even distort reality due to its supposed immense gravitational pull. This existence of distortion or extra dimensions may be due to the "rolling of the paper".

Which means tt there might actually exist the possibility of an alternate reality that is just "stacked" on top of ours---like pages on a comic book=P And maybe in this parrallel dimension, we may even find anti-matter=P Who knows? Maybe we can discover teleportation along the way---may it be via wormholes or via the reproduction and destruction of quantum states.

haha.....i shall stop here for tonight or risk sounding crazy. But these are just some of my random thots and theories. I used to have tons of sketch books on crap like these.

Also used to have tons of sketches on biological theories of DNA..heh.

I doubt any of you would have read until this far=P Well, I used to read a bit into stuff like these when i was younger....esp when i had a lot more time. Used to read a bit abt teleportation ( I dunno if anyone remembers, but there was an article many years back on scientists being able to "teleport" light.....i was actually hoping to hear more from that project=S) forcefields, DNA sequencing and the possible genetic codes=P (literally a code---that, if we learn to decipher, can actually tell us exactly what the programming language of the cell is.)

Somehow, being in medicine somehow stripped my "wondering"=S It's not a bad thing i suppose esp since there really are a lot of things to learn and we are in a profession of pple coming to us for answers? But i think we have lost the questioning environment. And in a way, the medical field is kind of myopic in that we are not exposed to outside knowledge and somehow the community is as such.

I guess we need a balance...of questions and answers. But of the two, i personally think questions are more important......

....for without questions...there won't be answers.

(BTW, the quarks, string theory, theory of everything and other physics stuff (like black hole) do exist...as in, i did not make those up....in fact, the 10+ 1 dimension is a well recognised model in numerous particle physics academic. But the loop(y) theory and other nonsense are from me tho=P...so read at own risk...haha)

5/04/2008 12:26:00 AM

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