atoms – Harmonia Philosophica

Quantum space. Ghostly differences. A calm lake.

The foundation stone of quantum mechanics doesn’t just describe the behavior of infinitesimal subatomic particles – it also governs the movement of the largest and most massive objects in the Universe, says a prominent astrophysicist.

Planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin was exploring the concept of astrophysical disks – sometimes called accretion disks; massive self-gravitating swirls of matter which form seemingly everywhere. Planets orbit stars forming solar systems, which in turn orbit super-massive black holes at galactic centers…

While these disks may start off with a circular shape, over epic stretches of time they can ripple and warp, exhibiting vast distortions that still can’t be definitively explained by astrophysicists. While investigating an area of quantum physics called perturbation theory to see how it could mathematically represent the forces in astrophysical disk evolution, explaining how these vast objects warp over aeons, Batygin discovered something remarkable.

In the theory, an astrophysical disk can be modeled as a series of concentric wires that slowly exchange orbital angular momentum among one another. “When we do this with all the material in a disk, we can get more and more meticulous, representing the disk as an ever-larger number of ever-thinner wires”, Batygin explains. “Eventually, you can approximate the number of wires in the disk to be infinite, which allows you to mathematically blur them together into a continuum. When I did this, astonishingly, the Schrödinger equation emerged in my calculations”. (1)

Who says atoms are something different than “macroscopic” elements of space? Who defines what is microscopic or macroscopic after all, except our subjective sense of relative size? All our science is based on seeing differences where there are none. And then trying to merge or reconcile these differences through an ‘elegant’ theory which can bring everything together…

A universe inside an atom.

A particle as big as a universe.

Consciousness inside nothingness.

Nothingness inside the mind of a wise man…

The less stones you through into the lake, the calmer its surface will be. And then and only then, will you be able to see the cause of everything in it. Reflected on the quiet surface, you see yourself. On a calm night, you smile.

And somewhere on the pristine surface a galaxy is born…

Ghost images. Glows. At the corners of the universe…

A team of physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) has used a technique known as ‘ghost imaging’ to create an image of an object from atoms that never interact with it.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering (RSPE) said the experiment relied on correlated pairs of atoms. “One atom in each pair was directed towards a mask with the letters ‘ANU’ cut-out,” Associate Professor Truscott said. “Only atoms that pass through the mask reach a ‘bucket’ detector placed behind the mask, which records a ‘ping’ each time an atom hits it.

The second atom in the pair records a ‘ping’ along with the atom’s location on a second spatial detector. “By matching the times of the ‘pings’ from pairs of atoms we were able to discard all atoms hitting the spatial detector whose partner had not passed through the mask.

“This allowed an image of ‘ANU’ to be recreated, even though – remarkably – the atoms forming the image on the spatial detector had never interacted with the mask. That’s why the image is termed a ‘ghost’.” (1)

Atoms interacting atoms. Everywhere. From Earth to the corners of the vast universe, ghosts appear all the time. Photos and electrons from the beginning of time interact and leave their trace until the end of the cosmos. In a way, everything we see and feel is the result of what was in the beginning. Everything happening at the beginning of time were the result of things happened to the atoms of the universe at the end of its life. Quantum interactions know no limitations. They are instant and pass through any barrier we have come to believe to. Everything is interconnected, affecting everything, beyond the borders of time and space.

Look around.

There are ghosts everywhere.

This is not just quantum mechanics.

This is life. This is philosophy.

See that glow in your heart.

It is not you. It is the universe.

Born.

Dying.

Being.

More alive than ever…

Memories. For ever (changing)…

Conventional memories used in today’s computers only differentiate between the bit values 0 and 1. In quantum physics, however, arbitrary superpositions of these two states are possible. Most of the ideas for new quantum technology devices rely on this “Superposition Principle”. One of the main challenges in using such states is that they are usually short-lived. Only for a short period of time can information be read out of quantum memories reliably, after that it is irrecoverable.

A research team at TU Wien has now taken an important step forward in the development of new quantum storage concepts. In cooperation with the Japanese telecommunication giant NTT, the Viennese researchers lead by Johannes Majer are working on quantum memories based on nitrogen atoms and microwaves. The nitrogen atoms have slightly different properties, which quickly leads to the loss of the quantum state. By specifically changing a small portion of the atoms, one can bring the remaining atoms into a new quantum state, with a lifetime enhancement of more than a factor of ten. These results have been published in the journal “Nature Photonics”. (1)

The atoms are everywhere. Changing all the time. But we want them to be somewhere. In order to control them. In order to keep information there.

Because we want to create memories.

In an ever changing world, we want to find stability. Even though everything changes all the time, we want them to follow stable rules, patterns, certain paths. Inside everything, we need something. We seek constancy in an ever turbulent cosmos.

Because we need to be able to remember. To know.

And the weird thing is that we do know. Even though it seems we cannot find stability, we somehow find it. Because we do remember. Because we Are. Something we do not fully grasp now. And yet, we feel it. The world is not what it seems to be. The world can stop moving. The world can stop changing. The world can come to a halt.

As long as we decide it.

As long as we stop trying.

As long as we accept it is already stable…

See the stars moving.

They are not.

Yes, now I remember!

The sound of atoms… The sound of the universe…

What does an atom sound like? Apparently it’s a “D-note”.

That’s according to scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, who have revealed in a new study that they’ve captured the sound of a single atom.

“We have opened a new door into the quantum world by talking and listening to atoms,” study co-author Per Delsing, a physics professor at the university, said in a written statement. “Our long term goal is to harness quantum physics so that we can benefit from its laws, for example in extremely fast computers.”

For their study, Delsing and his colleagues constructed an artificial atom 0.01 millimeters long and placed it on the end of a superconducting material. Then they guided sound waves along the surface of the material, bounced sound off of the atom, and recorded what came back using a tiny microphone located on the other end of the material. (1)

The whole universe is a symphonic orchestra.
The scientists got that right.
But we are not just listening.
We are part of that orchestra!

We are mathematicians.
Playing a tune as we formulate reality.
A sacred reality we are honoured to be part of.

Open your ears.

Listen to Pythagoras.

His silence echoing through the aeons…

More deafening than ever.

Science jargon, meaning, void…

An international team of scientists has shown for the first time that atoms can work collectively rather than independently of each other to share light. The researchers showed the sharing of light or “photon-mediated interaction” between artificial atoms confined to a one-dimensional quantum system. (1)

Science has become complicated and void of meaning.

Jargon not related to our every day life. Quantum mechanics is good. Being complicated is not a problem on its own.

Not being able to talk into a way that others understand you IS a problem. And it really shows that YOU have not really understood what you have “discovered”.