I haven’t written about this subject in a long time. I just picked up a Science book for the first time in a long time and I was re-fascinated by the “reality” of what is really going on inside and outside us. I’ve read these books so many times and realized it before, but it’s amazing how easily and quickly we can forget, and start seeing the World, what we call “reality” as mundane and predictable, while the exciting stuff happens “only in the movies.” But the gist of ‘actual’ reality (how else do you say it?) is this:
- Quantum reality is the reality of everything in the Universe, from your toe-nail to the furthest Galaxy.
- Quantum reality is this: Anything can, will, and does happen for any reason, spontaneously, with no energy or time expended.
Everything in the Universe is made of one thing, “Quarks” (This our current understanding. It could be that something even smaller, called “Strings” make up the Quarks, but for our discussion here let’s keep it at Quarks for simplicity’s sake. We’re trying to imagine the smallest indivisible particle that makes up everything.)
Quarks make up everything, you me, your dog, the trees, the air, Stars, and planets.
Quarks are subject to the ultimate Law of the Universe which is no law: Quantum Flux. Everything can and does happen, not every second, but since we are dealing with Quantum reality in Zero time. Like light, quarks are truly eternal. They do not experience time. Actually Quarks and Light create time, but I’ll explain that later.
So here’s what’s happening right here, right now at this moment: The hundred trillion trillion trillion quarks that make up my typing hands, every single one of them is leaping in and out of existence, perhaps to the other side of the Universe, perhaps to another Universe.
Look outside at a tree. Every particle of that tree is quantumly leaping all over the Universe and all throughout time. So why do you see a solid tree not moving? Because for every particle that disappears, another Quark, maybe from Abraham Lincoln’s leg, maybe from the Galaxy Andromeda is taking its place. So the whole looks relatively stable. Same for every “large” object, a rock, a blade of grass, a drop of water.
So why don’t large bodies quantumly leap? Actually they could. If you stood in times square for a trillion years you would see someone magically vanish at some point during that time and end up somewhere else. It’s sort of like the proverbial monkeys at a typewriter. Given enough time, they will eventually write a Shakespeare play.
The reason large bodies don’t quantumly leap (very often!) is because large bodies are actually hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trillions of Quarks. The chances that they would all synchronize and quantumly leap at the same moment to the same place are that once every trillion year thing.
Still, it brings up an interesting point. Even though the odds unimaginably, astronomically against it, it is possible that you could fall asleep in your bed tonight and wake up tomorrow in Africa or Mars, the other side of the Universe, or 1928. It is non-zero. So if you magically quantumly lept from your bed to say Africa tomorrow, not at the speed of light, but in Zero time and taking Zero energy, the interesting Question becomes what is the Mechanism for making this happen?
Here’s the interesting answer: That’s the way it is.
The Ground State of the Universe or the Multiverse, of Everything that is or could possibly be is that Everything can and will happen, does happen, and does not need a reason.
The so called “Physical” laws of the “Macro” world we are used to, are simply the result of the symmetry breaking caused by the quantum “jitters” of the ground state being spontaneous.
This is also why we age, and why time moves forward. When one of your Quarks leaves you, for another planet, or another century, the Quantum “Vacuum” replaces him with another visitor. And the Quantum Vacuum is remarkably accurate: maybe to 1 part in 100,000,000. That one mistake in a hundred million is caused by the “uncertainty” principle itself which states that nothing can be 100% certain. That one mistake, over time, causes everything, our bodies included to slowly deteriorate or as we call it “age.” This is the cause of all entropy, the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, which states that everything moves from a state of Order to Disorder.
That last bit depressed me. At first when I read again about Quantum reality, it excited me: I thought, “What if there was some way to bring ‘coherence’ to a larger body?” “Then wouldn’t it Quantumly leap?” Even though its probably impossible, and even if it were, I can’t imagine how it could be achieved, or even controlled, it still was exciting to imagine.
But then I realized that this same mechanism that perhaps could make “magic” a reality also is relentlessly in charge of aging and decay.
Let’s play a “thought” experiment. Imagine you could somehow achieve coherence and assuming you somehow also manage to control the spontaneity of it, you decided to travel to someplace back (or for that matter, forward) in time.
In other words the Universe truly became your oyster. The only thing is, because of the Uncertainty Principle, you still would age and die. I can’t see any way around that, because the Uncertainty principle is the ground state of existence, and assuming that you or someone in the future could somehow do these “magical” things, it would be the Uncertainty Principle that itself enabled the Quantum Leaps.
I don’t see any way around that bit at the moment. Now maybe, somehow, someway, there is a way to slow aging, for instance if somehow, coherence slowed the number of mistakes uncertainty produced over time. That would be an interesting topic to consider on its own.
Related Posts:
- Want to Travel Through Space and Time? Don’t Collapse Your Wave Function! – Stephen Pickering
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