We are made of stars
Jun. 22nd, 2012 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsCalling any quantum physicists amongst you!
I was listening to Brian Cox on the radio this morning, talking about his new book. And he was saying again about how everything is made up of these tiny particles, which each can be simultaneously anywhere in the universe from one moment to the next. Which is, you know, bloody marvelous and exciting. BUT - can someone please explain to me if that is the case, how does anything have any form or stability? How do these ever moving particles come together and make a rock or a tree or something as amazing and complicated as a person? If everything is always in motion, how to we hold it together for long enough to have a single coherent thought?
Bloody physics. It blows my mind!
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Date: 2012-06-22 09:25 am (UTC)In terms of these moving particles coming together and forming objects… well, they are all together anyway – they are inside atoms… inside you and me… they are all moving all the time, but on such tiny scales that they are invisible to the human eye – the problem is that you can never measure exactly where they are. The nucleus of an atom is held together by something called the Strong Nuclear Force, while the Electromagnetic Force keeps the electrons bonded to it (and it’s also responsible for all physical phenomena except gravity). There is also the Weak Nuclear Force (responsible for radioactive decay), plus the Gravitational Force ( the large-scale force which keeps us orbiting the sun, and keeps us on the earth - it's the weakest of all the forces). The Strong Nuclear Force is something like 10^38 times stronger than Gravity (that’s 10 with 38 zeros after it – a massive number!).
If you did GCSE Chemistry, you would probably have learned about electron shells around a nucleus… 2 in the first shell, 8 in the next shell, 8 in the next and so on. However, it’s not really like this: the electrons orbit the nucleus in a ‘probability cloud’ in which you cannot determine the exact position or momentum of any electron (and the positions of the electrons in the shells are determined by things like the angular momentum and spin number of each electron... which I won't go into because it gets even more complicated :P).
Interestingly, you wouldn’t think it, but an atom is actually made up of more empty space than particles. If you took a hydrogen atom (1 proton and 1 electron) and scaled the proton up to the size of a basketball, the electron would be about 20 miles away!
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Date: 2012-06-22 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 09:51 am (UTC)So are you saying that the particles are brought together by the atoms, and that then the atoms are brought together by whatever forces (nuclear etc) that form stuff...
So particles are contained, they aren't totally randomly buzzing everywhere across the universe at any one time?
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Date: 2012-06-22 10:37 am (UTC)An atom is made up of a nucleus containing proton and neutron particles, with a 'cloud' of electron particles orbiting around it. The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are held together by the Strong Nuclear Force and then the electrons are held around the nucleus by the Electromagnetic force (I think - hope I got that right, it's been a few years since I did my degree).
Atoms can then bond with each other to make up structures and objects... such as a rock or a tree.
So a rock is made up of atoms which are in turn made up of the tiny particles.... so if you broke down a rock into its most fundamental particles, you would end up with millions and millions of tiny electrons, protons and neutrons (and then breaking them down further you would get things like quarks, fermions etc, which is when you get into nuclear physics).
Quantum physics deals with the interaction of these tiny particles... on such a small scale that it's almost incomprehensible to the average person on the street. This is where things get tricky and the idea of particles randomly buzzing around the universe comes in... essentially, quantum particles exhibit some strange behaviours that are really complicated to explain (such as being able to 'tunnel' through walls and exist in an infinite number of possible locations simultaneously).
Basically, I think the idea of the particles being simultaneously anywhere in the universe at any moment comes from the fact that we can't actually measure where they are - we can only work it out in terms of probabilities... so nothing is 100%.
It's like the problem of the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment... there's a cat in a sealed box. It could be dead, it could be alive, depending what happened in an earlier random event... and you can only determine for sure whether it is dead or alive when you open the box. However, before you open the box, in theory, the cat could be both alive and dead at the same time. This is essentially the principle of quantum physics (quantum superposition, in which an electron exists in all possible states simultaneously until it is measured and therefore only one of those states is determined).
It's all rather complicated though... took me 4 years of quantum physics lectures at university to understand it all, so I'm not surprised it's got you confused :P
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Date: 2012-06-22 10:51 am (UTC)I first read about Schroedinger's cat in a sci fi novel - Dan Simmons I think. I kind of understand that concept although, yeah, it still blows my mind.
I really wish at school we'd done more about this kind of thing in physics so I could have appreciated the sheer poetry of science then. I've come to this aspect of it very late!
Thank you for being so patient with this ignoramus *g*
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Date: 2012-06-22 04:52 pm (UTC)And on the Jibcon front, good choice of cons. I've been to mostly North American ones but attended Jibcon this year and I have to say that the panels at Jibcon are the best! I think part of it is because the guests love being in Rome so much too. Wish I could go again next year but not in the cards. But I'll make it there again someday. You will have a great time.
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Date: 2012-06-22 05:11 pm (UTC)I figured JIB sounded like the best con, judging by the great videos everyone posted from this year's one... the guests all looked relaxed and like they were having a lot of fun :). I was considering trying to go to one of the US cons, since I visit the states fairly often anyway, but I can fly to Rome for much less than the cost of a plane ticket to the US, which means more money to spend on the con itself :P.
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Date: 2012-06-22 11:53 am (UTC)Nothing I learned in science lessons at school made sense! I had the most dull science teachers on the planet.
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Date: 2012-06-22 12:15 pm (UTC)P.S. Completely unrelated topic, but I just saw on your LJ page that you're going to JIB next year... I got a Demon Pass, so I'll be heading there too :D. It's my first con though, so I don't know anybody yet (I've only been part of the fandom since last September) :P.
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Date: 2012-06-22 12:49 pm (UTC)My husband is a huge fan (if that's the right word) of Prof Cox and so I've ended up watching a of of his programmes through my husband and I have to say, I left school thinking I hated physics, but he makes it fascinating! I don't pretend to understand some of it, but it's really interesting to listen to what he says and his infectious passion for the subject, and I've learned a great deal :)
Yes, I am going to JIB this year, it's my first time and I guess you sussed from my Lj comment, I'm just a little bit excited. I've been around the fandom about two years, but got into the con scene more recently and absolutely love it. I've made friends who I know will stay with me for life, even when Supernatural is just a distant memory!
Maybe we can catch up there!
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Date: 2012-06-22 01:06 pm (UTC)Seriously, do keep in touch with us - I know Dizzo in real life now thanks to meeting at Asylums and there is a bunch of us going to Rome!
My chemistry O level teacher was very entertaining, he'd leap around the class like a mad thing, but my physics teacher was awful (I dropped that subject before O level because I'd learned nothing from him apart from something about focal lengths maybe??)
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Date: 2012-06-22 01:22 pm (UTC)I've never been one for going to conventions in other fandoms (I've been involved in various other fandoms for the last 12 years), but reading all the gossip from this year's JIB and seeing everyone's videos, I really wish I'd been there.
I was tempted by Asylum and the Paris cons this year, but then people cancelled and they didn't seem worth it (plus I had to work the weekend of the Birmingham one... I did drive right past the convention hotel on the Friday afternoon though, on my way back home from my parents' house :P). Hence the reason for going to Rome next year, because it sounds like the best one :)... I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to survive meeting J2 in person, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, lol. I'm taking the whole week off before the con, so am currently planning on making it into a holiday in Rome as well, since I've never been before :).
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Date: 2012-06-22 01:37 pm (UTC)You could always try easing yourself into the Con experience with a Asylum before Rome - A8 was actually almost as enjoyable as JIB this year, in spite of Jared's cancellation. Sometimes it is actually more fun without the Js because everyone is more relaxed (fans that is, the guests tend to be pretty relaxed anyway).
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Date: 2012-06-22 01:54 pm (UTC)I was debating whether to take the week off before the Rome con or the week after (I asked for the time off before the tickets went on sale to make sure I would be able to go)... maybe it would be worth changing it to the week after if other con-goers will be staying in Rome afterwards too?
At the moment, it was just going to be me on my own in Rome for a week beforehand, unless I could find someone else to come with me (most of my friends are either teachers who can't take time off in May or they work in my office which means they can't take time off in the same week).
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Date: 2012-06-22 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 03:56 pm (UTC)Because reading your question the thought that finding an expert in that field
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Date: 2012-06-22 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 04:19 pm (UTC)