Where did we go wrong?

Physics has found itself in an unpleasant dead end. Although it has its own Standard Model, recently supplemented by the Higgs particle, all these advances do little to explain the great modern mysteries, dark energy, dark matter, gravity, matter-antimatter asymmetries, and even neutrino oscillations.

Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin

Lee Smolin, a well-known physicist who has been mentioned for years as one of the serious candidates for the Nobel Prize, recently published with the philosopher Roberto Ungerem, the book “The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time”. In it, the authors analyze, each from the point of view of their discipline, the confused state of modern physics. “Science fails when it leaves the realm of experimental verification and the possibility of denial,” they write. They urge physicists to go back in time and look for a new beginning.

Their offers are quite specific. Smolin and Unger, for example, want us to return to the concept One universe. The reason is simple - we experience only one universe, and one of them can be scientifically investigated, while claims of the existence of their plurality are empirically unverifiable.. Another assumption that Smolin and Unger propose to accept is as follows. reality of timenot to give theorists a chance to get away from the essence of reality and its transformations. And, finally, the authors urge to restrain the passion for mathematics, which, in its "beautiful" and elegant models, breaks away from the really experienced and possible world. experimentally check.

Who knows "mathematical beautiful" string theory, the latter easily recognizes its criticism in the above postulates. However, the problem is more general. Many statements and publications today believe that physics has reached a dead end. We must have made a mistake somewhere along the way, many researchers admit.

So Smolin and Unger are not alone. A few months ago in "Nature" George Ellis i Joseph Silk published an article about protecting the integrity of physicsby criticizing those who are more and more inclined to postpone to an indefinite "tomorrow" experiments to test various "fashionable" cosmological theories. They should be characterized by "sufficient elegance" and explanatory value. “This breaks the centuries-old scientific tradition that scientific knowledge is knowledge. empirically confirmedscientists remind. The facts clearly show the "experimental impasse" of modern physics.. The latest theories about the nature and structure of the world and the Universe, as a rule, cannot be verified by experiments available to mankind.

Supersymmetric Particle Analogs - Visualization

By discovering the Higgs boson, scientists have "achieved" Standard Model. However, the world of physics is far from satisfied. We know about all the quarks and leptons, but we have no idea how to reconcile this with Einstein's theory of gravity. We don't know how to combine quantum mechanics with gravity to create a coherent theory of quantum gravity. We also don't know what the Big Bang is (or if there really was one).

At present, let's call it mainstream physicists, they see the next step after the Standard Model in supersymmetry (SUSY), which predicts that every elementary particle known to us has a symmetrical "partner". This doubles the total number of building blocks for matter, but the theory fits perfectly into the mathematical equations and, importantly, offers a chance to unravel the mystery of cosmic dark matter. It only remained to wait for the results of experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, which will confirm the existence of supersymmetric particles.

However, no such discoveries have yet been heard from Geneva. If nothing new still emerges from experiments at the LHC, many physicists believe that supersymmetric theories should be quietly withdrawn, as well as superstructurewhich is based on supersymmetry. There are scientists who are ready to defend it, even if it does not find experimental confirmation, because the SUSA theory is "too beautiful to be false." If necessary, they intend to reevaluate their equations to prove that supersymmetric particle masses are simply outside the range of the LHC.

Anomaly pagan anomaly

Impressions - it's easy to say! However, when, for example, physicists succeed in putting a muon into orbit around a proton, and the proton "swells", then strange things begin to happen to the physics known to us. A heavier version of the hydrogen atom is created and it turns out that the nucleus, i.e. the proton in such an atom is larger (i.e. has a larger radius) than the "ordinary" proton.

Physics as we know it cannot explain this phenomenon. The muon, the lepton that replaces the electron in the atom, should behave like an electron - and it does, but why does this change affect the size of the proton? Physicists don't understand this. Maybe they could get over it, but... wait a minute. The size of the proton is related to current physics theories, especially the Standard Model. Theorists began to vent this inexplicable interaction a new kind of fundamental interaction. However, this is only speculation so far. Along the way, experiments were carried out with deuterium atoms, believing that a neutron in the nucleus can influence the effects. Protons were even bigger with muons around than with electrons.

Another relatively new physical oddity is the existence that emerged as a result of research by scientists from Trinity College Dublin. new form of light. One of the measured characteristics of light is its angular momentum. Until now, it was believed that in many forms of light, the angular momentum is a multiple of Planck's constant. Meanwhile, Dr. Kyle Ballantine and professor Paul Eastham i John Donegan discovered a form of light in which the angular momentum of each photon is half Planck's constant.

This remarkable discovery shows that even the basic properties of light that we thought were constant can be changed. This will have a real impact on the study of the nature of light and will find practical applications, for example, in secure optical communications. Since the 80s, physicists have wondered how particles move in only two dimensions of three-dimensional space. They found that we would then be dealing with many unusual phenomena, including particles whose quantum values ​​would be fractions. Now it has been proven for light. This is very interesting, but it means that many theories still need to be updated. And this is only the beginning of the connection with new discoveries that bring fermentation to physics.

A year ago, information appeared in the media that physicists from Cornell University confirmed in their experiment. Quantum Zeno effect – the possibility of stopping a quantum system only by conducting continuous observations. It is named after the ancient Greek philosopher who claimed that movement is an illusion that is impossible in reality. The connection of ancient thought with modern physics is the work Baidyanatha Egypt i George Sudarshan from the University of Texas, who described this paradox in 1977. David Wineland, an American physicist and Nobel Prize winner in physics, with whom MT spoke in November 2012, made the first experimental observation of the Zeno effect, but scientists disagreed whether his experiment confirmed the existence of the phenomenon.

Visualization of the Wheeler experiment

Last year he made a new discovery Mukund Vengalattorewho, together with his research team, conducted an experiment at the ultracold laboratory at Cornell University. The scientists created and cooled a gas of about one billion rubidium atoms in a vacuum chamber and suspended the mass between laser beams. The atoms organized and formed a lattice system - they behaved as if they were in a crystalline body. In very cold weather, they could move from place to place at very low speed. The physicists observed them under a microscope and illuminated them with a laser imaging system so they could see them. When the laser was turned off or at low intensity, the atoms tunneled freely, but as the laser beam got brighter and measurements were taken more frequently, penetration rate dropped sharply.

Vengalattore summarized his experiment as follows: "Now we have a unique opportunity to control quantum dynamics solely through observation." Were "idealistic" thinkers, from Zeno to Berkeley, ridiculed in the "age of reason", were they right that objects only exist because we look at them?

Recently, various anomalies and inconsistencies with the (apparently) theories that have stabilized over the years have often appeared. Another example comes from astronomical observations - a few months ago it turned out that the universe is expanding faster than known physical models suggest. According to an April 2016 Nature article, measurements by Johns Hopkins University scientists were 8% higher than expected by modern physics. Scientists used a new method analysis of the so-called standard candles, i.e. light sources are considered stable. Again, comments from the scientific community say these results point to a serious problem with current theories.

One of the outstanding modern physicists, John Archibald Wheeler, proposed a space version of the double-slit experiment known at the time. In his mental design, light from a quasar, a billion light-years away, passes through two opposite sides of the galaxy. If observers observe each of these paths separately, they will see photons. If both at once, they will see the wave. Hence Sam the act of observing changes the nature of lightwhich left the quasar a billion years ago.

According to Wheeler, the above proves that the universe cannot exist in a physical sense, at least not in the sense in which we are accustomed to understand "a physical state." It can't have happened in the past either, until... we've taken a measurement. Thus, our current dimension influences the past. So, with our observations, detections and measurements, we shape the events of the past, back in time, up to ... the beginning of the Universe!

Hologram resolution ends

Black hole physics seems to indicate, as at least some mathematical models suggest, that our universe is not what our senses tell us to be, that is, three-dimensional (the fourth dimension, time, is informed by the mind). The reality that surrounds us may be hologram is a projection of an essentially two-dimensional, far plane. If this picture of the universe is correct, the illusion of the three-dimensional nature of spacetime can be dispelled as soon as the research tools at our disposal become adequately sensitive. Craig Hogan, a professor of physics at Fermilab who has spent years studying the fundamental structure of the universe, suggests that this level has just been reached. If the universe is a hologram, perhaps we have reached the limits of reality resolution. Some physicists have put forward the intriguing hypothesis that the space-time we live in is not ultimately continuous, but, like an image in a digital photograph, at its most basic level consists of some kind of "grain" or "pixel". If so, our reality must have some sort of final "resolution". This is how some researchers interpreted the "noise" that appeared in the results of the Geo600 gravitational wave detector a few years ago.

To test this unusual hypothesis, Craig Hogan and his team developed the world's most accurate interferometer, called Hogan holometerwhich should give us the most accurate measurement of the very essence of space-time. The experiment, codenamed Fermilab E-990, is not one of many others. It aims to demonstrate the quantum nature of space itself and the presence of what scientists call "holographic noise". The holometer consists of two side-by-side interferometers that send one-kilowatt laser beams to a device that splits them into two perpendicular 40-meter beams. They are reflected and returned to the point of separation, creating fluctuations in the brightness of the light rays. If they cause a certain movement in the division device, then this will be evidence of the vibration of space itself.

From the point of view of quantum physics, it could arise without a reason. any number of universes. We found ourselves in this particular one, which had to meet a number of subtle conditions for a person to live in it. We then talk about anthropic world. For a believer, one anthropic universe created by God is enough. The materialistic worldview does not accept this and assumes that there are many universes or that the current universe is just a stage in the infinite evolution of the multiverse.

Author of the modern version Universe hypotheses as a simulation (a related concept of the hologram) is a theorist Niklas Bostrum. It states that the reality we perceive is just a simulation that we are not aware of. The scientist suggested that if you can create a reliable simulation of an entire civilization or even the entire universe using a powerful enough computer, and the simulated people can experience consciousness, it is very likely that there will be a large number of such creatures. simulations created by advanced civilizations - and we live in one of them, in something akin to the "Matrix".

Time is not infinite

So maybe it's time to break paradigms? Their debunking is nothing particularly new in the history of science and physics. After all, it was possible to subvert geocentrism, the notion of space as an inactive stage and universal time, from the belief that the Universe is static, from the belief in the ruthlessness of measurement ...

local paradigm he is no longer so well informed, but he too is dead. Erwin schrödinger and other creators of quantum mechanics noticed that before the act of measurement, our photon, like the famous cat placed in a box, is not yet in a certain state, being polarized vertically and horizontally at the same time. What might happen if we place two entangled photons very far apart and examine their state separately? Now we know that if photon A is horizontally polarized, then photon B must be vertically polarized, even if we placed it a billion light years earlier. Both particles do not have an exact state prior to measurement, but after opening one of the boxes, the other immediately "knows" what property it should take on. It comes to some extraordinary communication that takes place outside of time and space. According to the new theory of entanglement, locality is no longer a certainty, and two seemingly separate particles can behave as a frame of reference, ignoring details such as distance.

Since science deals with different paradigms, why shouldn't it break down the fixed views that persist in the minds of physicists and are repeated in research circles? Maybe it will be the aforementioned supersymmetry, maybe the belief in the existence of dark energy and matter, or maybe the idea of ​​the Big Bang and the expansion of the Universe?

So far, the prevailing view has been that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate and will probably continue to do so indefinitely. However, there are some physicists who have noted that the theory of the eternal expansion of the universe, and especially its conclusion that time is infinite, presents a problem in calculating the probability of an event occurring. Some scientists argue that in the next 5 billion years, time will probably run out due to some kind of catastrophe.

Physicist Rafael Busso from the University of California and colleagues published an article on arXiv.org explaining that in an eternal universe, even the most incredible events will happen sooner or later - and in addition, they will happen an infinite number of times. Since probability is defined in terms of the relative number of events, it makes no sense to state any probability in eternity, since each event will be equally likely. “Perpetual inflation has profound consequences,” writes Busso. “Any event that has a non-zero probability of occurring will occur infinitely many times, most often in remote regions that have never been in contact.” This undermines the basis of probabilistic predictions in local experiments: if an infinite number of observers throughout the universe win the lottery, then on what basis can you say that winning the lottery is unlikely? Of course, there are also infinitely many non-winners, but in what sense are there more of them?

One solution to this problem, physicists explain, is to assume that time will run out. Then there will be a finite number of events, and unlikely events will occur less frequently than likely ones.

This "cut" moment defines a set of certain allowed events. So physicists tried to calculate the probability that time would run out. Five different time ending methods are given. In the two scenarios, there is a 50 percent chance that this will happen in 3,7 billion years. The other two have a 50% chance within 3,3 billion years. There is very little time left in the fifth scenario (Planck time). With a high degree of probability, he may even be in ... the next second.

Didn't it work?

Fortunately, these calculations predict that most observers are the so-called Boltzmann Children, emerging from the chaos of quantum fluctuations in the early universe. Because most of us aren't, physicists have dismissed this scenario.

“The boundary can be viewed as an object with physical attributes, including temperature,” the authors write in their paper. “Having met the end of time, matter will reach thermodynamic equilibrium with the horizon. This is similar to the description of matter falling into a black hole, made by an outside observer.”

Cosmic inflation and the multiverse

The first assumption is that The universe is constantly expanding to infinitywhich is a consequence of the general theory of relativity and is well confirmed by experimental data. The second assumption is that the probability is based on relative event frequency. Finally, the third assumption is that if spacetime is truly infinite, then the only way to determine the probability of an event is to limit your attention a finite subset of the infinite multiverse.

Will it make sense?

Smolin and Unger's arguments, which form the basis of this article, suggest that we can only explore our universe experimentally, rejecting the notion of a multiverse. Meanwhile, an analysis of data collected by the European Planck space telescope has revealed the presence of anomalies that may indicate a long-standing interaction between our universe and another. Thus, mere observation and experiment point to other universes.

Anomalies discovered by the Planck Observatory

Some physicists now speculate that if there is a being called the Multiverse, and all of its constituent universes, came into existence in a single Big Bang, then it could have happened between them. collision. According to research by the Planck Observatory team, these collisions would be somewhat similar to the collision of two soap bubbles, leaving traces on the outer surface of the universes, which could theoretically be registered as anomalies in the distribution of microwave background radiation. Interestingly, the signals recorded by the Planck telescope seem to suggest that some kind of Universe close to us is very different from ours, because the difference between the number of subatomic particles (baryons) and photons in it can be even ten times greater than "here". . This would mean that the underlying physical principles may differ from what we know.

The detected signals likely come from an early era of the universe - the so-called recombinationwhen protons and electrons first began to merge together to form hydrogen atoms (the probability of a signal from relatively nearby sources is ca. 30%). The presence of these signals may indicate an intensification of the recombination process after the collision of our Universe with another, with a higher density of baryonic matter.

In a situation where contradictory and most often purely theoretical conjectures accumulate, some scientists noticeably lose their patience. This is evidenced by a strong statement by Neil Turok of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada, who, in a 2015 interview with NewScientist, was annoyed that “we are not able to make sense of what we are finding.” He added: “Theory is becoming more and more complex and sophisticated. We throw successive fields, measurements and symmetries at the problem, even with a wrench, but we cannot explain the simplest facts. Many physicists are obviously annoyed by the fact that modern theorists' mental journeys, such as the reasoning above or superstring theory, have nothing to do with the experiments that are currently being carried out in laboratories, and there is no evidence that they can be tested experimentally. .

Is it really a dead end and it is necessary to get out of it, as suggested by Smolin and his friend the philosopher? Or maybe we are talking about confusion and confusion before some kind of epoch-making discovery that will soon await us?

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