Eight amazing things physics has taught us

What are the most amazing things that we know about the physics of the universe? If you were to pick ten what would they be?

I recently read Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality (2021) a popular science book by Frank Wilczek. My interest in the book was piqued just to see what Wilczek's choices for his "ten" were. I got a copy from the public library and became entranced because I discovered what a gifted writer and expositor Wilczek is. I found I was learning some physics I did not know; or at least getting a deeper understanding of what I should know. I then bought my own copy so I could annotate it. I have previously enjoyed the insights in many of Wilczeks' Physics Today columns.

The book gives a popular presentation of some physics "basics" such as celestial mechanics, the Standard Model of elementary particles (which he renames the Core), and Big Bang cosmology.  I found it full of insights. I also appreciated that Wilczek does not have the hard reductionist or scientism edge found in the popular books of some distinguished theoretical physicists such as Weinberg and Hawking. However, a careful reading led me at times to be somewhat disappointed and irritated, for reasons that I discuss briefly below. In the end, this is because, not surprisingly, I have a much more emergentist perspective on reality, seeing it as stratified.

First, here are the ten things that Wilczek finds amazing, helpfully summarised in his chapter titles.

Part I. What There Is 

Chapter 1. There's Plenty of Space

Chapter 2. There's Plenty of Time

Chapter 3. There Are Very Few Ingredients

Chapter 4. There Are Very Few Laws

Chapter 5. There's Plenty of Matter and Energy

Part II. Beginnings and Ends 

Chapter 6. Cosmic History is an Open Book

Chapter 7. Complexity Emerges

Chapter 8. There's Plenty More to See

Chapter 9. Mysteries Remain

Chapter 10. Complementarity Is Mind-Expanding

Here are some of the ideas associated with each of the ten keys.

There's Plenty of Space

The scales of the universe are incredible. Beyond us, there is the vast numbers of stars and galaxies, and distances of more than ten billion light years. Within us, each of our bodies contains more atoms than there are stars in the universe. Our brains have as many neurons as there are stars in our galaxy. An atom is largely empty space.

There's Plenty of Time

Cosmic time is abundant. The quantity of time reaching back to the big bang dwarfs a human lifetime... [which] contains far more moments of consciousness than universal history contains human life spans. We are gifted with an abundance of inner time.

There Are Very Few Ingredients

Everything in the universe is made of just a few particles: leptons, quarks, and neutrinos. And forces and the associated bosons, such as photons, gravitons, and gluons. These particles have just a few properties: mass, charge, colour, and spin.

 "The most basic ingredients of physical reality are a few principles and properties. Four simple yet profound general principles govern how the world works.

1. The basic laws describe change.

2. The basic laws are universal.

3. The basic laws are local.

4. The basic laws are precise.

Newton realised locality was a problem. Fields rather than particles are the fundamenta building blocks of matter.

Quasiparticles are discussed. In high school, Wilczek was inspired by a visit to Bell Labs where he learnt that quanta of lattice vibrations are phonons. He describes how he introduced anyons in the early 1980s and how they were then identified with quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall states.

There Are Very Few Laws

From forces we are led to fields, and from (quantum) fields, we are led to particles.

From particles we are led to (quantum) fields, and from fields, we are led to forces.

Thus, we come to understand that substance and force are two aspects of a common underlying reality.

The four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear) are described by just a few simple mathematical equations.

The art and science of spectroscopy is described as "Atoms sing songs that bare their souls, in light."

Wilczek's Ph.D. work on quark confinement and asymptotic freedom in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) was the beginning of QCD being accepted and used.

Newton's gravity theory presented the puzzle of the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass. Einstein's gravity solved the puzzle and "fulfills Newton's aspiration for a theory of gravity based n local action". 

    "we can portray the majestic logic of general relativity in ten broad             strokes... "

    "John Wheeler, the poet of relativity, summed it up this way: "Space-time     tells matter how to move; matter tells space-time how to bend."

Wilczek makes the debatable and misleading claim that "The equations of QED, QCD, general relativity, and the weak force, ... have powered many advances, including lasers, transistors, nuclear reactors, MRIs, and GPS."

There's Plenty of Matter and Energy

The fact that the amount of solar energy falling on the surface of the earth is vastly greater than current human energy consumption.

The concept of "dynamical complexity" is introduced but not defined. "Music and ritual are purified expressions of dynamical complexity."

"The principle that the essence of human purposes is experienced through flows of information in dynamic complexity, rather than through details of chemistry and physiology, is both mind-expanding and liberating. It challenges us to imagine how minds could emerge elsewhere in the universe, and it prepares us to embrace those minds within our circle of empathy."

To me, this is "mumbo jumbo" and reflects the muddled thinking that occurs when Wilczek wildly extrapolates from "fundamental" physics to broader and deeper questions about humanity. The last chapter has similar weaknesses.

Cosmic History is an Open Book

A lucid short summary is presented of big bang cosmology. What we know and why we know it. The chapter ends with a brief reference to Augustine's prescient insights about time. It is what clocks measure and so time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

Complexity Emerges

How did the featureless simple "soup" that existed a million years after the big bang develop into the complex universe seen today with structures such as stars, galaxies, planets, and biological life? This short chapter (only eight pages) mostly talks about the role of gravity. The chapter could have been much richer by discussing the emergence of complexity in biology, psychology, and sociology. Again, simple laws can produce complex properties.

There's Plenty More to See

The discovery of the Higgs particle and gravitational wave astronomy are both described. Some speculations are made to connect "Quantum Perception and Self-Perception."

Mysteries Remain

What triggered the big bang? Could it hapen again?

Are there meaningful patterns hidden in the apparent sprawl of fundamental particles and forces?

How, concretely, does min emerge from matter? (Or does it?)

Wilczek describes violation of time reversal invariance (T) in elementary particle physics and the Peccei-Quinn proposal for a new field to explain this. The corresponding particle was dubbed the axion by Wilczek, which fulfilled his high school dream to give a particle that name when he encountered a laundry detergent with that name. The axion "cleans up a problem" in elementary particle physics.

Axions are candidates for dark matter.

Complementarity Is Mind-Expanding

Bohr's concept of complementarity (embodied in wave-particle duality in quantum theory) is embraced. 

Complementarity is the concept that one single thing, when considered from different perspectives, can seem to have very different or even contradictory properties. Complementarity is an attitude toward experiences and problems that Ive found eye-opening an extremely helpful. It has literally changed my mind. Through it, I've become larger: more open to imagination, and more tolerant.

I am no fan of this perspective. I am all for having an open mind, considering a range of perspectives, and living with dialectic (intellectual tensions). However, I do not use quantum theory to justify that. There is a multitude of moral, philosophical, social, and political reasons that provide much more compelling justifications for humility. Bohr's perspective and extrapolations from the atomic world to politics has a long and dubious history that has systematically been debunked by Mara Beller, including in Physics Today.  Nevertheless, these ideas just won't go away, as seen why a recent volume of papers on Quantizing International Relations.

In summary, I love Wilczek's discussions of physics, and I think eight of the ten chapters describe amazing things about the physical world that we have learnt and should contemplate with awe and wonder.  But, two of the chapters make speculations about how the type of theoretical physics that Wilczek has made seminal contributions to is profoundly relevant to technological, social, economic, and political reality. I would much rather draw on the insights and debates from the humanities and social sciences to understand those realities and our place in them.

Philosophy in a nutshell

How should we live? What really exists? And how do we know for sure? 

These three questions are at the heart of philosophy as an academic discipline.  This raises the question as to what the "philosophy of physics" is and what it should be? Philosophy of Physics: A Very Short Introduction by David Wallace explores this. He begins by stating that "Daniel Dennett defines philosophy as what we do when we don't know what questions to ask." I found that somewhat unsatisfying and went to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. 

Most definitions of philosophy are fairly controversial, particularly if they aim to be at all interesting or profound. That is partly because what has been called philosophy has changed radically in scope in the course of history, with many inquiries that were originally part of it having detached themselves from it. The shortest definition, and it is quite a good one, is that philosophy is thinking about thinking. That brings out the generally second-order character of the subject, as reflective thought about particular kinds of thinking—formation of beliefs, claims to knowledge—about the world or large parts of it.

A more detailed, but still uncontroversially comprehensive, definition is that philosophy is rationally critical thinking, of a more or less systematic kind about the general nature of the world (metaphysics or theory of existence), the justification of belief (epistemology or theory of knowledge), and the conduct of life (ethics or theory of value). 

Each of the three elements in this list has a non-philosophical counterpart, from which it is distinguished by its explicitly rational and critical way of proceeding and by its systematic nature. 

Everyone has some general conception of the nature of the world in which they live and of their place in it. Metaphysics replaces the unargued assumptions embodied in such a conception with a rational and organized body of beliefs about the world as a whole. 

Everyone has occasion to doubt and question beliefs, their own or those of others, with more or less success and without any theory of what they are doing. Epistemology seeks by argument to make explicit the rules of correct belief-formation. 

Everyone governs their conduct by directing it to desired or valued ends. Ethics, or moral philosophy, in its most inclusive sense, seeks to articulate, in rationally systematic form, the rules or principles involved. 

The three main parts of philosophy are related in various ways. For us to guide our conduct rationally we need a general conception of the world in which it is carried out and of ourselves as acting in it. Metaphysics presupposes epistemology, both to authenticate the special forms of reasoning on which it relies and to assure the correctness of the large assumptions which, in some of its varieties, it makes about the nature of things, such as that nothing comes out of nothing, that there are recurrences in the world and our experience of it, that the mental is not in space.

On the lighter side here is Philomena Cunk's brief engagement with philosophy.

The wonders and mysteries of bioluminescence

 Members of my family have been reading Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder, and things that sustain you when the world goes dark, a personal memoir by Julia Baird.

This reminded me of how amazing and fascinating bioluminescence is, stimulating me to read more on the science side. One of the first things is to distinguish between bioluminescence, fluorescence, and phosphorescence.

Bioluminescence is chemical luminescence whereby a biomolecule emits a photon through the radiative decay of a singlet excited state that is produced by a chemical reaction. 

In contrast, fluorescence occurs when the singlet excited state is produced by the molecule absorbing a photon.

Phosphorescence occurs when a molecule emits a photon through the radiative decay of an excited triplet state, that was produced by the absorption of a photon.

Bioluminescence can occur in the dark. Fluorescence cannot as there are no photons to absorb. Phosphorescence is sometimes seen in the dark but this is because the molecule absorbs invisible UV light which produces the triplet state which has a very long radiative lifetime.

Baird gives beautiful and enchanted descriptions of seeing "phosphorescence" on her daily early morning ocean swim. She acknowledges that this is actually bioluminescence not phosphorescence. I should stress that in pointing this out I am not "unweaving the rainbow", as for literary purposes using "bioluminescent" would be clunky.

 

There is a useful webpage from a research group at UC Santa Barbara. They also have a detailed review article from which I took the image above.

Bioluminescence in the Sea

Steven H.D. Haddock, Mark A. Moline, James F. Case

A much shorter review that I read this morning is

Bioluminescence in the Ocean: Origins of Biological, Chemical, and Ecological Diversity, by E.A. Widder

An article in Quanta magazine, In the Deep, Clues to How Life Makes Light by Stephanie Yin

So what is the underlying photophysics and quantum chemistry? The following review is helpful.

The Chemistry of Bioluminescence: An Analysis of Chemical Functionalities 

Isabelle Navizet, Ya-Jun Liu, Nicolas Ferré, Daniel Roca-Sanjuán, Roland Lindh

Almost all currently known chemiluminescent substrates have the peroxide bond, -O-O-, in common as a chemiluminophore. This chemical system facilitates the essential mechanism of chemiluminescence—providing a route for a thermally activated chemical ground-state reaction to produce a product in an electronically excited state. The basics of this process can be understood from studies of ... dioxetanone. [it] contains a peroxide bond, [and] fragments like the firefly luciferin system to carbon dioxide.

The squiggly line denotes the bond that is broken to produce the excited singlet state.

The figure below shows the potential energy surface that describes the dynamics leading to the emissive state. Note the presence of two conical intersections.

 

Much of this photophysics can be understood in terms of a "two-site Hubbard model" discussed in this classic paper that I love.

Neutral and Charged Biradicals, Zwitterions, Funnels in S1, and Proton Translocation: Their Role in Photochemistry, Photophysics, and Vision

Vlasta Bonačić-Koutecký, Jaroslav Koutecký, Josef Michl

In simple terms, all that is different in the biomolecular system is that the enzyme and the larger chromophore tune energy levels so that the energy barriers are much smaller so that the steps needed for bioluminescence become accessible at room temperature.

This highlights two fundamental things. 

Chemistry is local. This is relevant to understanding Wannier orbitals in solid state physics, to hydrogen bonding, and how protein structure aids function.

"Biochemistry is the search for the chemistry that works" [in water at room temperature].

Junior faculty position in condensed matter available at UQ

The physics department at the University of Queensland has just advertised for a junior faculty position in condensed matter. Only applications from women will be considered. The advertisement is here and the closing date is January 19.

The photo is of the beach at Bribie Island, my favourite holiday location, about one hours drive away.

Aside: it was gratifying that the last faculty hired in condensed matter at UQ, Peter Jacobson, first heard about the position on this blog.

How can funders promote significant breakthroughs?

 Is real scientific progress slowing? Are funders of research, whether governments, corporations, or philanthropies, getting a good return on their investment? Along with many others (based largely on intuition and anecdote) I believe that the system is broken, and at many different levels. What are possible ways forward? How might current systems of funding be reformed?

The Economist recently published a fascinating column (in the Finance and Economics section!), How to escape scientific stagnation. It reviews a number of recent papers by economists that wrestle with questions such as those above.

Philanthropists... funding of basic research has nearly doubled in the past decade. All these efforts aim to help science get back its risk-loving mojo.

In a working paper published last year, Chiara Franzoni and Paula Stephan look at a number of measures of risk, based on analyses of text and the variability of citations. These suggest science’s reward structure discourages academics from taking chances.

Another approach in vogue is to fund “people not projects”. A study in 2011 compared researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where they are granted considerable flexibility over their research agendas and lots of time to carry out investigations, with similarly accomplished ones funded by a standard NIH programme. The study found that researchers at the institute took more risks. As a result, they produced nearly twice as much highly cited work, as well as a third more “flops” (articles with fewer citations than their previously least-cited work). 

Despite the uncertainty about exactly how best to fund scientific research, economists are confident of two things. The first is that a one-size-fits-all approach is not the right answer,... DARPA models, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s curiosity-driven method, and even handing out grants by lottery, as the New Zealand Health Research Council has tried, all have their uses.

The second is that this burst of experimentation must continue. The boss of the NSF, Sethuraman Panchanathan, agrees. He is looking to reassess projects whose reviews are highly variable—a possible indication of unorthodoxy. He is also interested in a Willy Wonka-style funding mechanism called the “Golden Ticket”, which would allow a single reviewer to champion a project even if his or her peers do not agree.  ...many venture-capital partnerships employ similar policies, because they prioritise the upside of long-shot projects rather than seeking to minimise failure. 

The study that I would like to see done is along the following lines. Identify at what age and what type of institution and what type of funding environment, the biggest breakthroughs happen. I suggest that you will find in the U.S.A, that it was done by young faculty at the top 20 institutions in an era when they did not have to worry much about getting grants. If so, then I think most of the money should be given to them!