CARBON DIOXIDE

Acolytes to the First Church of Global Warming should be reminded that the primary sources of the “greenhouse gas,” carbon dioxide, (after the burning of fossil fuels) are animal respiration (breathing) and the outgassing of the world’s vast variety of carbonated beverages. Therefore, I propose that, in order to keep all the Greenland glaciers from melting and flooding out all the beach houses in Malibu, Easthampton, South Beach, St. Barths, and St. Tropez … that the UN encourage, nay initiate genocide anywhere in the world that it might pop up; the PETA people reverse course and ban the killing of plants (that use up carbon dioxide) while encourage the slaughter of carbon dioxide producing livestock; and that the eco-terrorists force all the Coca Cola, PepsiCola, Budweiser, Kirin, Fosters, etc. bottling plants around the world to cease production.

Dino's Demise

No, I’m not talking about Dean Martin. I’m referring to the extinction of dinosaurs and what we can infer from this event about our climate, past and present. As I have previously posted in this blog, Robert Rohde of the University of California at Berkeley offers the following chart of carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

I believe that this seems a thoroughly researched attempt to track carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere over the last 600 million years. In viewing this chart (you may want to print it out to better follow the following discussion), I got to thinking about how this might correspond to the waxing and waning of the Earth’s flora and fauna. So back to Google I went and came up with the following rough biota chronology which I would like here to relate to Rohde’s chart:

4.5 billion years ago -- The Earth was thought to be formed.

3.5-3.9 billion years ago -- First primitive life forms inhabited the Earth’s seas.

450 million years ago -- First land plants appeared on Earth. These plants, through their acquired ability to carry on photosynthesis, could absorb carbon dioxide and water and produce hydrocarbons and emit oxygen. Please note that the Rohde chart has carbon dioxide volume levels at this point at about 6,000 parts per million (about 0.6%)

230 million years ago (during the Triassic period) – Dinosaurs first appeared. Please note that the Rohde chart has carbon dioxide volume levels at this point at about 1,000 parts per million (about 0.1%). This says then that, over the previous 220 million years, plants, through photosynthesis, had seemingly reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide to one-sixth the level that it was when land plants first appeared. This can begin to explain the surfeit of hydrocarbons buried in the earth in form of oil, gas, coal, etc. The chart also shows a dip in carbon dioxide levels to a nadir of around 500 parts per million (0.05%) at around 320 million years ago which suggests to me that this is when the Earth’s salad bar was most plentiful. It was also during this period that Pangaea had started to separate itself into our present continents.

150 million years ago (Jurassic period) – Many species of dinosaur had already gone extinct and many others had taken their place. There were two primary types of dinosaurs: plant-eaters (rhoetosaurus, acrocanthosaurus, brachiosaurus, etc.) which were often gigantic (often weighing more than 80 tons) slow-moving creatures … and plant-eater eaters (often fast-moving raptors). Back at about 320 million years ago a plant-eating population probably began to appear (possibly including proto dinosaurs) which reduced the flora cover and allowed carbon dioxide levels to resurge and peak at around 2,500 parts per million (0.25%) during the Jurassic period.

70 million years ago (Cretaceous period) – Dinosaurs were thought to have gone extinct during this period. Note that carbon dioxide levels started to drop precipitously at about 100 million years ago to about 700 parts per million (0.07%) which suggests that plant life was resurging and plant-eaters diminishing most likely due to raptors holding sway. And as the plant-eating dinosaurs food supply of these raptors was reduced, the raptors began to go hungry (since they were unable to munch on plants.) Many scientists believe that it took almost 10 million years for this extinction event to occur. However, a stressed population of dinosaurs might have been dealt a coup de grace with an event like a comet strike or a massive caldera explosion. With these plant-eating machines of dinosaurs gone, plants once again had an open field and continued to reduce carbon dioxide.

5 million years ago – proto man first appeared on earth. Obviously man has, over the millennia, nurtured plants with his agriculture and exploited them for shelter and fuel. But carbon dioxide levels have not fluctuated that much during man’s sway on earth … not nearly to the magnitude as before he arrived. Obviously, because of drastically reduced carbon dioxide levels, our Earth seems to have become more susceptible to periodic ice ages (probably caused by other exogenous factors). These ice ages, in turn, have caused short-term increases in carbon dioxide levels as much of the world’s flora was buried under huge glaciers. These increases in carbon dioxide levels may have been the feedback that eventually raised the Earth’s temperature and melted much of the ice. Today carbon dioxide levels hover around 370 parts per million (0.037%) after possible recent lows of 310 parts per million (0.031%) about 40 years ago.

The Dark Side

Astrophysicists recently have been mapping the presence of “dark matter” in the universe. Dark matter had been postulated to exist because all the gravitational effects demonstrated in the universe cannot be explained by all the observable matter. Thus, it was concluded that there is matter, composed perhaps of exotic fundamental particles, that is invisibly affecting things. Scientists speculate that dark matter might comprise 2/3rds of the entire universe’s mass. This mapping of this dark matter has been recently accomplished by measuring, with the Hubble telescope, the gravitational deflection that dark matter is causing the light from distant galaxies (ala Einstein’s theory that gravity can bend light). This is called a “gravitational lens” and the amount of dark matter (with its gravity) is measured by the size of these deflections. The more dark matter in a particular section of the sky, the more bending has been observed to occur. Also this dark matter apparently can also be located three-dimensionally by how the various light wave lengths are affected – the redder the deflected light, the further away the dark matter is (ala the “red shift”). The interesting new result of this exhaustive work is that dark matter seems to be mainly co-located with visible matter.

Also “dark energy” has be scientifically surmised because, given all the universe’s matter and dark matter, its expansion should be slowing down. In fact, the edge of the universe is speeding up. Therefore, scientists feel there must be some unknown energy source that is pushing against all this gravity to cause this unexplained universe’s expansion acceleration. They are currently devising experiments to try to measure this dark energy and it location.

Now gravity is a force … and force is defined by “mass x acceleration”. Obviously gravity has more to it than just being a force and saying that gravity as we know it (canonic gravity) exists for dark matter (whose mass is undefined) is somewhat suspect. I would like to speculate there might be something called “virtual gravity”. That would be a form of gravity that exists without any discernable mass. This could exist if, during the Big Bang, gravity was created (gravitons?) along with other fundamental particles (matter), energy, etc. Quickly thereafter virtual gravity attached itself to matter (mass) and became canonic gravity … but there was still a surfeit of virtual gravity after the entire universe’s mass had been so sated. And since it seems relatively rare to create new matter out of energy, there still should exist a large excess of virtual gravity in the universe. (I have speculated in the past about how any new matter, when created, acquires gravity.) This extra virtual gravity could, in fact, be what we know as dark matter.

A more interesting speculation is that, since virtual gravity has no discernable mass, astrophysicists’ calculations requiring the existence of “dark energy” may well be greatly overstated. In fact, if one removes “mass” from the equation for virtual gravity’s force, one is left with only “acceleration” … which is exactly what the edge of the universe is supposedly doing.

Hell Explained

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

“First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct ... leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’"

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A".

Anon.

Global Warming Redux

Today’s (11/7/06) NY Times (in the Science Section) has a very interesting article on global warming. It mentions virtually all the possible reasons for global warming that I have previously documented. And it adds one more – the movement of our solar system within the Milky Way may change the amount of cosmic rays bombarding our earth which, in turn, changes the level of cloud cover and therefore our climate. However, one of the more interesting discussions centers on the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Robert Rohde of the University of California at Berkeley offers the following chart of carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere over the last 600 million years --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

-- showing the dramatic drop in levels of this gas. He also was quoted here as saying that “carbon dioxide is just one of the many influences” on our climate. Q.E.D.

Acceleration of Light

In a previous Junk Science blog, I posited that things that might travel at the limit of speed (light rays in a perfect vacuum for instance) appear to have infinite acceleration at time zero (at the instant of creation) and zero acceleration thereafter. I will try here to rationalize this conclusion.

The formula for acceleration is d/(t**2) or distance divided by time squared. This can be also expressed as (d/t)*(1/t). Now, at time zero plus the minutest amount, light will be traveling at 186,000 miles per second. Also substituting in the second part of this formula, 1/0.1 = 10, 1/0.001 =1000, 1/0.000001=1,000,000, etc. Therefore, as the time interval decreases to nothing (gets infinitely small), the second part of this formula gets infinitely large. And, anything times infinity is infinity. Ergo, the acceleration of light at time zero is infinite.

Of course, one may then use the same logic to argue that the acceleration of anything is infinite at time zero. However, most other entities have virtually zero speed at time zero (plus the minutest amount). Therefore, zero times infinity is not infinity.

Haiku Q.

Enigmatic hair
How does one strand tell the next
Where, how much to curl?

Darwin Schmarvin

Recently the NY Times ran a squib in its Science Section about crickets in Hawaii that were being decimated by a parasitic fly whose larva burrow into the cricket and kill it. This fly is attracted to the cricket by its distinctive chirp and lays its eggs to the fatal detriment of the cricket. On the island of Kauai, since 1991, these crickets have been in sharp decline as a consequence. However, more recently the population of these crickets has risen dramatically as they have fortuitously lost their ability to chirp by a genetic mutation that eliminated a protuberance on their forewings that, when rubbed together, produces this clarion call. And this genetic change has all occurred in less than 20 generations according to researchers.

There is a branch of evolutionary science (not based in “intelligent design” or God-directed genetic mutation) called the “eonic effect” which proposes a non-random or environmentally-directed pattern of evolution. This somewhat contradicts Darwin’s basic claim of “natural selection,” a totally random process of genetic mutation which then preserves the more beneficial of these mutations through the better survival and reproduction of various effected species. It seems to me that pure Darwinian evolution could not have produced this cricket’s almost-complete genetic mutation in just 20 generations. The reason for my skepticism derives from the fact that such a random mutation should take many generations to first occur. Then, because both forewing protuberance and non-protuberance crickets would successfully breed (the parasitic fly still to kill the former), many, many more generations would be needed for this mutation to become rife.

I have sensed for a long time that the eonic effect has been at least a partial contributor to biota evolution (including for our own species) … mainly because of the immense diversity of plants and animals that has occurred in the relatively short period (even if tens of millions of years). Clearly, non-agenda-driven statisticians could contribute mightily to our better understanding of the push and pull between these two seeming contributors to evolution.

(You may ask: How then do the female crickets find the non-chirping male ones to mate? The answer is there are still a few chirpers left ... soooo ... all the non-chirping males congregate near the male chirpers and, when the females come acallin', they are usurped by the non-chirpers. I wonder how the Darwinians would explain this one? Survival of the non-fittest? What happens when all the chirpers die off? Perhaps the females will start using escort services?)

Gravity's Rainbow

Here are some thoughts about gravity that have been keeping me awake for lo these many nights:

- We were somewhat led astray in Physics 101. A bowling ball and a golf ball do NOT fall to Earth from the same height at the same rate. Gravity is a function of the density of opposing masses and the distance between them. Since the bowling ball is more massive than the golf ball, it falls slightly faster, but because the mass of the Earth so overwhelms the mass of these two balls, the difference is so slight as to be almost immeasurable.

- In the U.S., force is measured in poundals (a function of the existing gravitational pull of the Earth). Mass is measured in pounds, ounces, etc. I find it a little strange that the weight of things on Earth (a force) is given in pounds, etc. when they really should be given in poundals (or newtons … or dynes).

- We know a lot about gravity except what it really is? Clearly gravity exists at the celestial level. It even seems to exist at the molecular level. (Isn’t this how dust bunnies come to be?) And I even believe that it exists at the sub-atomic level. Otherwise, how can black holes have such massive gravity when all their atoms have been crushed down to their most elementary particles? Beyond this I cannot speculate except that gravity may, in the very end, be another dimension. (Einstein said that gravity was a “warp in the space-time continuum”. I suspect that, if he were alive today and given the speculation on a 10-dimensional world, he might also label it another “dimension".)

- Speaking of black holes, their massive gravity keeps even light from escaping their grasp. Doesn’t this suggest that photons have at least some mass however minute? Also, Einstein’s “gravity lens” bends light around large stars. This too supports the idea that photons have some minimal mass since their “mass” is clearly influenced by the gravity of these large stars.

- Matter, by its mass, has gravity; energy doesn’t (at least in many scientists’ opinion). Is this the major difference between them? When matter is converted to energy (say through fission), it seems to lose its gravity. And if energy can be converted back into mass (a controversial postulate*), must it re-acquire gravity first?

- Gravity can seem to emanate from empty space. Consider the donut. Its center of gravity, when horizontal is at the center of its whole … so one cannot balance it on a pencil in this orientation. If one had a donut the size of the earth and someone fell from outer space toward its center of gravity, would the faller keep on going through the whole and back into space? If one was walking on the surface of this weird planet toward the hole, at what point would one’s adhesion to the surface become unstable enough to jeopardize one’s safety?

- Gravity seems to act instantaneously across the vastness of space (consider Pluto obediently staying in its orbit), whereas a gravitational wave (a fluctuation in the curvature of space-time which propagates as a wave) is said to travel at the speed of light. If the Sun were to suddenly disappear, how long would it take for the planets in our Solar System to fly off into space? At the same time someone on Pluto saw, after a 4.1 hour delay, the Sun's light go out … or instantly? I propose that, if it would be instantly, then there is more evidence that gravity is indeed another dimension.

- Gravity, it seems, has organized the matter in our universe into planets, planetary systems, solar systems, and galaxies. However, once converted to energy, this same universe tends to dissipate due to entropy. Therefore, entropy’s antithesis (in two different ways) is gravity.

* In 1998 researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center successfully converted energy into matter. This feat was accomplished by using lasers and incredibly strong electromagnetic fields to change ordinary light into matter.

Junk Science

Junk Science

I once heard a creationist elaborate on his reasons why the theory of evolution was hokum. His incredulous interrogator asked how he could deny all the fossil discoveries that supported Darwin’s theory. He replied with the assertion: “Almost every scientific theory I’ve ever heard has later been proven incorrect.” This, unfortunately, is not that far from the truth. Certainly Freud’s theories have been largely debunked and Darwin’s teachings on evolution are coming under increased scrutiny … particularly those concerning the randomness of genetic change being evolution’s driving force. And even Einstein has had some of his postulates enfeebled by more recent experimental discoveries (as of yet however, remarkably few). This assertion about flawed scientific theories is a disturbing fact (even though it does not support the derived assertion of the loopy creationists who voiced it.)

Most of these “failings” of science occur on the theoretical side. Applied science seems to be much more reliable. Certainly, our ability to send a space probe to Mars and run a rover around the Martian landscape for over a year is a remarkable applied scientific achievement. But when theoretical “scientists” take a small number of observations and then extrapolate consequences to a much larger universe (e.g.s, cholesterol-reduced diets, global warming, magnetic cures, damaging silicone implants, etc.) things become problematic. The problem seems to be either these scientists don’t sufficiently emphasize their caveats … or our ratings-hungry media ignore them. So we, the public, are jerked around. First we must eschew butter in favor of margarine. Then we discover that the hydrogenised unsaturated fats in oleo are very, very unhealthy. We are even becoming more subjected to “scientific” papers that use phoneyed-up data to justify their conclusions.

This is all very dangerous. Imagine if the scientists on the Manhattan Project, used today’s standards for scientific proof when building the atomic bomb. We might well have easily annulated ourselves. Even this author, while exposing my ideas under the title “Junk Science,” probably needs to include more warnings in my feeble fantasizing.

Global Dimming

PBS is at it again. The other night they ran another breathless science documentary called “Global Dimming.” The premise of this program was that particulates migrating to our upper atmosphere were reflecting more and more sunlight back out into space (global dimming) … therefore causing global cooling. These particulates, of course, are mostly man-made … from car and plane combustion emissions, power plant exhausts, and other hydrocarbon burnings. (They conveniently ignore massive dust storms, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, intrusions of space dust, and other natural causes.)

The drama of this premise was that this global cooling is partially canceling out the global warming caused by mankind’s creation of greenhouse gasses (mostly carbon dioxide). Therefore, it was stated (gasp) that our attempts to remove particulate pollution from our environment would, in effect, speed up the process of global warming! The estimate was that global dimming has more than halved what would have been the effect of greenhouse gases on our global temperature rise (about one degree Fahrenheit over the last 40 years.) It was also estimated (by a starry-eyed scientist) that, by the end of this century, global warming would increase by as much as twenty degrees and that this would melt the Greenland ice cap and that this, in turn, would flood out all of Florida (talk about dramatic graphics!) Oh, yes … and polar bears would have disappeared. They would swim and swim looking for sea ice … and eventually drown.

It was then stated that the last time global temperatures rose dramatically was about three million years ago when a “natural” increase in carbon dioxide caused an episode of global warming of this magnitude. My question is “Why is an increase in carbon dioxide of this magnitude in prehistory 'natural' whereas what is happening now 'unnatural'”? Have all the justifications for this prehistoric episode disappeared?

Global Warming

I have not read Michael Creighton’s new book, “State of Fear” (nor do I intend to), but I hear it debunks some of the myths surrounding global warming. There is little doubt that some atmospheric warming is taking place currently … but it is unclear to me that this is primarily due to man’s carbon dioxide creating activities.

If developed nations are responsible for global warming, then we are in for an interesting future … since the developing world (with its multi-billions of people) will all too soon also be in the “developed” world category. However, we do know from the history captured in geological formations that the world has gone through many natural warming and cooling cycles. These cycles have apparently been caused by one or more of the following events (roughly in order of potential effect):

1) Changes (wiggles) in the amount of the orthogonal offset in the Earth’s rotational axis relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun. (This offset is what causes our world’s seasons.)

2) The periodic cycle of sunspot activity (and other solar dynamics) causing a change in the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth.

3) Enormous emissions of Earth’s gasses and particulates naturally and during cataclysmic geological events like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

4) The Earth’s on-going global chemistry which creates and destroys massive amounts of inorganic compounds.

5) The periodic small perturbations of the Earth in its orbit … closer to and further from the sun

6) The evolving structure of the Earth’s upper atmosphere (magnetic, chemical, and electrical) which filter out or permit in the ethers of space.

7) Shifts in the Earth’s ocean currents caused by intercontinental plate tectonic movements and other poorly-understood factors.

8) The effect of the Earth’s biomass and mankind on the composition and proportions of our atmospheric gasses (carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, etc. -- e.g., early plants converted enormous amount of naturally occurring carbon dioxide into oxygen … which then enabled the evolution of animals … who then reciprocated by converting oxygen back into carbon dioxide). By the by, methane has 20 times the atmospheric warming effect as carbon dioxide … and is mainly produced by nature, not by man.


The notion of a change (caused by the burning of fossil fuels) in the relatively small proportion of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (from 310 to 370 parts per million during the last 40 years) is responsible for our current warming cycle seems to me to be the essence of human species egocentricity. If one truly comprehends the scope of the above-outlined possible reasons for global warming, then one has to conclude that politics must the driving force behind our current environmental hysteria. I think that any “scientist’ who lays global warming totally at the feet of the increase in carbon dioxide must first quantify the effects (positive and/or negative) of all the above possible causes.

Besides, global warming might not be all that bad. Imagine the huge wheat fields that could be planted in Siberia and Canada’s Northwest Territories. Imagine the opening of a passage through the sea ice north of Canada and Russia. Imagine the home heating fuel cost savings throughout the world. If, in fact, we are in a long-term warming cycle then, instead of moving to Florida for my retirement, I can just wait for Florida to move to me.

Neutrinos

Recently I watched a PBS program on neutrinos. This was a fascinating saga of the search for the Fermi-posited neutrino by first locating huge vats of carbon tetrachloride deep inside mountains to count the number of neutrinos coming from the decay of electrons deep inside the sun. As these measurement technologies became more and more sophisticated (which I will not relate here) it became clear that, not only were there neutrinos, but they were indeed as numerous as predicted -- billions fly through every one square inch of our bodies every second. But since they carry no electric charge, they pass through the most solid of solids with little or no interaction -- thus their measurement difficulties. (Also, enormous one-way transfers of charged matter into inert subatomic particles would suggest that entropy is much more onerous than I have until now believed.)

One website (grandunification.com) suggests that the recombination of a photon and a high-energy neutrino can produce an electron. This theory fascinates me since it would provide a way for electrons to travel from the sun to the Earth by first splitting apart and later recombining. (Very few electrons travel through the vacuum of space and into the Earth’s atmosphere.) Why is this important? May I suggest two reasons:

1) If photovoltaic (solar cell) production of electricity (continuous electron streams) is, in fact, caused by (at least in small part) the combination of photons and neutrinos to produce electrons then this might lead to much more efficient solar energy capture research. (It has never made any intuitive sense to me that silicon or gallium arsenide wafers could, by themselves, forever produce electrons from only interactions with photons without some sort of external replenishment. This would require some everlasting source of electrons in the solar cell since there clearly can be electron sinks in the circuit … such as a charging battery.) It is also curious to note that gallium is used in newer neutrino measuring devices.

2) If photosynthesis is also triggered by such electron recreation from sunlight, then this would be part of the hydrocarbon manufacturing process. (If photosynthesis causes electrons to be produced from photons and neutrinos, then these electrons could be the first step in the electrolysis of water and/or carbon dioxide into their components … which then could chemically combine into various hydrocarbons.) If we were to fully understand this process, we might be able to replicate it more efficiently (from the quintillions of neutrinos and photons coming from the sun) to reduce one posited cause of atmospheric warming (carbon dioxide excess) and, at the same time, produce enormous hydrocarbon energy reservoirs.

And, if the above two hypotheses are true, then it would seem that the counting of neutrinos coming from the sun might have been or can be done a lot more simply.

Afterthought: If electrons can split into neutrinos and photons and then recombine (even in extremely small numbers) then isn’t it possible that this process could be the justification for “tunneling electrons”? Clearly, neutrinos can tunnel through resistors … and certain photons also (egs., x-ray, infrared, or gamma ray photons.)

Entropy

Many scientists predict that the universe will eventually wind down into a permanent state of entropy. That is, all forms of energy (or activity) will have decentralized themselves and all semblance of cosmic (and maybe even atomic) order will have disappeared. A scientific internet website’s definition of entropy is: “Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so.” (Remember, energy doesn’t really disappear. There is still the thermodynamic law that states that all energy is preserved either in its kinetic form, its potential form, or as electromagnetic radiation.)

Therefore entropy is a complete state of chaos where electromagnetic radiation and energy still exist but are so dispersed as to be effectively non-existent at a singular point. Eventually (billions and billions of years hence), all suns will have burned out … all planetary motion will have ceased … and all knowledge will have been lost. Thus, the antonym for entropy could be (and often is) stated as “organized information”. But, I have a somewhat different take on entropy’s antonym -- I think it is “evolution”. If entropy is the ultimate winding down of information … then evolution is the spontaneous winding up of order … encoded into the billions of DNA chemical pairs of millions of species on this earth (and perhaps on millions of other earth-like planets.) This is complimented by the quadrillions of bytes of information that is stored in our printed and electronic libraries – all enabled by the information encoded in the DNA of humans.

This makes evolution even more unique and, yes, precious – it is a guppy swimming upstream against the tsunami of ever-growing entropy. Thus, there is a race to the death, albeit a multi-billion year race, between physical entropy and biological evolution. I have no idea which one will win this race, but I suspect that our eventual fate is not as predetermined as many today predict.

3 Questions

If entropy is the ultimate fate of our universe, how is it that information and structure (anti-entropy) seems to be ever-growing?

Why does not the progression in the number of electrons at each valence level in an atom behave in a regular and predictable way?

Why is the temperature of absolute zero so absolute? (Can't atoms have negative movement?)

Photosynthesis

To the NY Times Editor,
Your "Observatory" article in the June 21st, 2005 Science Times section talks about photosynthesis taking place near deep-ocean hydrothermal vents using the meager light that eminates from the lava deep inside these vents. The implication from the scientists' quotes in this article is that photons are only present in the visible light spectrum. In fact, photons are indeed produced in the infrared section of the electromagnetic spectrum (produced by the heat eminating from these vents) ... and for that matter across the entire electromagnetic spectrum ... even for radio waves and gamma rays. Therefore, who is to say that photosynthesis may not be able to convert photons at these different energy levels into biological building blocks?
Sincerely,
George W. Potts

Speed Limit

In a previous blog, I posited that the “speed of light” should really be called the “limit of speed” (speed limit). This is partly because light’s speed is extremely variable … scientists have recently been able to slow light down significantly … and because all other electromagnetic waves in a vacuum (and even the edge of the expanding universe) travel at close to this same maximal speed. Einstein has postulated that, at the absolute limit of speed (speed of light in a total vacuum), three rather strange things occur:

1) Time slows down to zero
2) Distance (along the speed vector) contracts to zero
3) Mass increases to infinity

Fortunately, the curve of approach to these events is very, very, very asymptotic to the limit of speed. For instance, at 10% of the limit of speed, there is almost no measurable time-slowing effect whereas at 99.99999999% the limit of speed, the length of second there is 19.6 hours on Earth (not infinity). It also seems to me, that the true limit of speed may never be fully achieved … because the above events can be also quite onerous. (Even the ether of space is not an absolute vacuum.) For example, if photons have even miniscule mass, then light achieving its absolute upper limit would have its photons more massive than a black hole. Also, if light from galaxies at the edge of space were traveling at the full limit of speed, then leaving there 13 billion years ago (in our time), it would have traveled no distance in no time (in its frame of reference … see my previous blog, “Perpetual Motion”). Thus, it would suffer no attenuation of its brightness, nor any attenuation from the trillions of other galaxies populating our universe, suggesting that our resulting night sky might be as bright as our day sky.

The following observations spring from what Einstein has postulated:

- Why is the limit of speed 186,000 miles per second? This is the real question of our age. I currently have no idea why this is so but I do believe that it might spring from the relationship between zero and infinity (notice the occurrence of these numbers in Einstein’s postulates). And this in turn depends on the mathematics of these numbers. For instance math currently recognizes that any positive number divided by infinity is zero … and any positive number divided by zero is infinity. However, math currently also says that zero divided by zero is zero. I disagree. I think it is one. And math currently also says that infinity divided by infinity is infinity. I also disagree. I think it is also one. (The reasons for these two conclusions of mine spring from limit theory.) Note that, at the limit of speed, speed is defined by zero distance divided by zero time, which, according to my mathematics, is unity. (Also, note that atomic physicists normalize all their cyclotron and linear accelerator calculations so that the speed of light becomes unity.)

- The edge of the universe is said to be expanding at the limit of speed. If one looks at one edge of the universe relative to its opposite then its total speed would far exceeds the limit of speed. Therefore speed must be relative to its point of origin.

- If speed is relative to its point of origin … not to the speed of other objects. So is speed really a vector not a scalar?

- I also wonder what effect do things traveling at or near the limit of speed not in a straight line but in a (tight) circle have on time slowing down?

- Time slows down with increasing speed. This implies that time itself has a rate of forward progress … or speed. And, since speed is a distance divided by time calculation, we have on our hands a profound paradox.

- If, at near the limit of speed, distance contracts, then why do elemental particles, when accelerated to a very high percentage of the limit of speed, get longer?

- (Somewhat related observation) Can photons in the electromagnetic spectrum outside of the visible light spectrum (such as infrared) cause photosynthesis in plants or other primitive life forms?

- Things that might travel at the limit of speed (light rays in a perfect vacuum for instance) appear to have infinite acceleration at time zero (at the instant of creation) and zero acceleration thereafter.

- Another approach to enumerating the speculated ten dimensions (see initial blog) of our existence might be:

1st dimension = distance (d)
2nd dimension = plane (d^2)
3 dimension = space (d^3)
4th dimension = time (t)
5th dimension = speed (d/t)
6th dimension = acceleration (d/t^2) (Is this then a proxy for gravity? – which on Earth is 32 feet per second per second).
7th dimension = dispersion (d^2/t)
8th dimension = dosage (d^3/t)
9th dimension = planar time (t^2)
10th dimension = spatial time (t^3)

Perpetual Motion

Hey Einstein here's a poser: How can a photon traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) … for almost 14 billion years … and oscillating about 10^15 times a second ... not represent perpetual motion? All this is done with the total photon energy of only about 1/10^42 ergs (an erg is 23.9 billionths of a calorie)? (This analysis is taken from the fact that the Hubble telescope has picked up light from a far distant galaxy ... formed about the time of the big bang.)

The Speed of Light

I recently saw a PBS documentary on Albert Einstein in which much of the history of his “relativity” postulating was revealed. In particular, Einstein had been perplexed by the notion, previously proven by Maxwell, that light travels at 186,000 miles per second (about 670 million miles per hour) independent of the speed of its source or that of the observer. Einstein would imagine himself riding on a beam of light and shining another light which would then also travel off at the speed of light – an obvious logical conundrum. Einstein solved this problem when he realized that, as objects speed up, time slows down. Thus, as he sat on a beam of light, an eternity at the original light source would be zero time to Einstein. (This is the basis of much science fiction that has austronauts, after traveling through space at a very fast rate for a few of their years, return to earth to meet their great-great-great grandchildren. Also, please note that Einstein's postulate has indeed been proven by comparing atomic clocks sent into space and returned to be compared with their calabration twins kept here on earth.)

Now this notion of relative time creates its own conundrums. We are traveling at various speeds through the cosmos. At the equator, we are rotating around the earth’s circumfrence (about 28,000 miles) every 24 hours … or at about 1,150 miles per hour. We on Earth are also traveling in our orbit around the sun ever year, which works out to be about 67,000 miles per hour. The sun is also traveling around the black hole at the galatic center of the Milky Way at about 250 kilometers per second (559,000 miles per hour). And the Milky Way itself is traveling on its own track throgh the fabric of the cosmos at a speed combining both absolute displacements from other galaxies and the speed it inherits from the big bang expansion (being relative to its distance from the edge of the universe). I have been unable to quantify this speed … but it is certainly in the millions of miles per hour. (The edge of the universe itself is thought to be expanding at the speed of light.) The result of all this is that “time” through the universe progresses relative to other locations at rates different from one another by factors from nanoseconds up to eons. (However, these discrepencies can probably never be fully reconciled because time appears to be consistant at individual observation points.) To me, this suggests that the notion of multiple parallel universes may not be that far-fetched after all ... they are here with us in ours.

(Note: “speed of light” is an unfortunate term because all electromagnetic radiations (X-rays, gamma rays, microwaves, etc.) travel at this same rate in a vacuum … as well as does the edge of our expanding universe. Thus 186,000 miles per second might be better named the “limit of speed”.)

Electromagnetic Spectrum

I have a number of questions concerning the electromagnetic spectrum (ES -- see table in previous blog posting):
1) Why is it called the "electromagnetic spectrum"? How do electrons or, particularly, magnetism relate to the physics of this process?
2) What are the limits of the ES wavelengths? Can they be very large (infinite)? Can they be infinitely short?
3) Is it possible that the electromagnetic "waves" are merely the paths that their photons traverse as they oscillate (at their given frequency) orthogonal to the path of their forward motion whilst traveling at the speed of light?
4) The brightness of a light wave (or other ES wavelengths) is representative by its amplitude. Does the amplitude of ES waves change with the amount of energy injected into the photons? Can amplitudes be infinitely (or very, very) large?
5) If so, why doesn't more energy shorten the wavelength and not increase the amplitude? (Or, for that matter, why doesn't more energy produce more photons (candelas)?
6) Concerning the famous "double slit" experiment (where an interference pattern on a screen at the other side show that light exhibits wave-like behavior when passing through two slits in a shirt cardboard):
a) If one rotates the shirt cardboard 90 degrees relative to the light source will the interference pattern persist?
b) If one increases the thickness of the shirt cardboard two times, five times, a thousand times;
will the interference patterns persist?
c) Will the interference patterns persist if one uses laser (coherent) light?
d) If the slits in this cardboard are further apart than twice the amplitude of the light waves being passed through them, will interference patterns still persist?
e) How far away from the shirt cardboard can the screen be and still show the interference pattern?
7) What is the relationship between ES wavelength (or photon equivalent mass) and the (electron) characteristic of various atoms and/or molecules that cause such wavelengths to be absorbed, reflected, refracted, partially passed through (translucent), or fully passed through (transparent)? Does it relate to the ES wavelength (photon oscillation rate?) versus the oscillation rate of the electrons (quantum effect?)?
8) Assuming that the intensity (candelas for light and other ES waves too) of any ES source is representative of the number of emitted photons (per square area), at what level of intensity do photons start interfering with each other when they are emitted from a discrete point … if at all? (Could this be the corona or flash effect one sees during a total eclipse of the sun?) Is there a theoretical limit to ES intensity?
9) The "red shift" is used to calculate the speed at which stars are receding in the universe. (The speed of the receding star is said to cause its emitted light's wavelength to shift toward the longer or red side.) However, we know from Einstein, that the speed of light is absolute and does not depend on one's observation point. How do we resolve this seeming conflict? Is this supporting of the notion of ES frequency being a new dimension?
10) From the above table and the formula E=M*C**2 it is clear that photons have a different equivalent mass (the mass that would be equivalent to the indicated energy) depending on their ES frequency (larger for shorter frequencies, eg, a gamma ray photon has an equivalent mass of about 1/4 of the mass of an electron at rest, whereas a visible light photon, about 6 millionths of the mass of an electron at rest), but do the equivalent size of these photons also change with their ES frequency?