Not Really Physics News

[Xjmt]

The Physics Of Lawrence Krauss
Journalists Blame A Case Professor For Destroying The Universe
By James Renner

REVENGE OF THE NERDS - Krauss and Dent wage war with string theorists. Note to readers: Watching reporters try to cover discoveries in quantum physics is like watching squirrels try to water ski. Occasionally, one gets it right, to the amusement of many, but most times it ends rather badly. For instance, when Case physics professor Lawrence Krauss and a colleague from Vanderbilt recently released a new paper titled "The Late Time Behavior of False Vacuum Decay," reporters with New Scientist, the UK's Daily Telegraph, and the Plain Dealer, tried to explain the implications of the paper's findings. And they all got it wrong. Most likely we will, too. But what the hell, right? Let's give it a try.

First of all, Lawrence Krauss is kind of a dick. He really is. He has little patience for reporters who show up at his office at Case asking for an interview. He answers questions while sitting at a computer and corresponding via e-mail with people more important than reporters. And who can blame him? After all, reporters have been screwing up science for decades. Just look at the mess they're making of climate change and evolution. Reporters - daily reporters especially - try to balance interviews when reporting on these topics; they interview him and then they interview someone at the Creation Museum or GOP headquarters for counterpoint. But, in science, there is no "other side." Evolution exists. Global warming exists. Period. Why are reporters giving equal time to crackpots?

Secondly, this man has an ego the size of the Eta Carinae Nebula. He coats his office door and inner sanctum with newspaper clippings about Lawrence Krauss and papers written by Lawrence Krauss and books authored by Lawrence Krauss (pick up the Physics of Star Trek, by the way - it'll blow your Vulcan mind!).

But Lawrence Krauss can get away with being kind of a dick and having a giant ego because he's very good at what he does. Like, LeBron James kinda good. Think of him as the Dr. House of theoretical physics. And he'd have to be pretty damn sure of himself to go around challenging what even the few people as smart as he is think they know about the universe.

A BRIEF HISTORY of modern physics by a reporter who majored in English and once read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Albert Einstein discovered a relationship between matter and energy that is expressed in the neat equation E=mc2. It's good math that works for predicting how planets and galaxies interact and move through the universe, but it doesn't work so well when you try to measure the speed and location of very small things. Subatomic particles adhere to the strange rules of quantum mechanics. For instance, you can never really locate a quark - a building block of matter - and determine how fast it's going at the same time; you can only calculate the probability that it is where you expected it to be.

Part of the problem is that matter exists in different states until it is forced to choose one by an observer. Matter can exist as physical particles or in wave form. A wave is sort of like the notes on a sheet of music. When observed, the notes change into a song. When observed, waves of matter become physical particles.

Physicist Erwin Schrodinger came up with a horrific way of illustrating a paradox that this rule of quantum mechanics creates. Schrodinger imagined a box in which he placed a cat and a bottle of poison gas attached to a Geiger counter. Also in the box is a nucleus that has a 50-50 chance of decaying in an hour. If the nucleus decays it will register as a blip! on the Geiger counter, which will activate the release of the poison gas, killing the cat. But here's the cool part: If you don't open the box, the cat will remain both living and dead. The experiment needs the observer to force a resolution. Think of it this way: if no one looks in the box, why does it matter if the cat is alive or dead?

Yeah, my head hurts, too.

What scientists are searching for is a single theory that can unite Einstein's equation and quantum mechanics. One explanation is string theory, which imagines that quarks are really just tiny strings that vibrate in different ways depending on what they need to do. This explains the strangeness of small things and can be applied to really big things like black holes - if you also believe that the universe has 11 dimensions, which, according to Krauss, is just silly.

"Some of my best students have been string theorists," says Krauss. "But I wouldn't want them to marry my daughter."

Last year, Krauss published a paper that explained that black holes don't exist. He thinks that what we believe to be black holes are really just stars with serious gravity issues. Needless to say, this caused quite a stir amongst his peers.

So then Krauss's name appeared on a paper that seemed to imply that when scientists first observed matter's evil cousin, dark matter, in 1998, it hastened the end of the universe by allowing dark matter to exist, and all hell broke loose. Reporters thought they could understand what he was talking about. And string theorists, smelling blood, were ready to mock him.

"Mankind Shortening Universe's Life" was the headline in the Daily Telegraph. But that's not what Krauss was saying.

"Just because we are determining the configuration that the universe is in, it doesn't change the way the universe behaves," explains Krauss, who coauthored the paper with James Dent, a young physicist from Vanderbilt. In their paper, the two scientists theorize that because we are able to observe dark matter, and dark energy, in the spaces between galaxies that should be voids, our universe might exist inside a "false vacuum." Here's the problem with false vacuums: Should a true vacuum suddenly form inside one, things don't go well. (Place your Dust Buster over a bunch of mini sweet tarts, hit the "on" switch, and see what happens. In this experiment, the mini sweet tarts represent planets.) Turns out, as the universe ages, it has the tendency to form more true vacuums. So if the universe is old enough, our cosmic neighborhood could percolate like a coffee pot at any time.

"The good news is, you won't know what hit you," says Krauss. "But I wouldn't exactly sell your Google stock just yet."

But - and here's where it gets really hard to understand - we didn't hasten the universe's demise by observing dark matter. Like the cat, the universe's destiny was inescapable, the observer just made it real.

Maybe.

"It's the Schrodinger's universe," says Krauss, as if that should clear it up.

ON DEC. 7, James Dent gave a lecture on this new theory in front of a packed house in the physics department at Case. Dent, who just got his PhD last year, has spiky hair, earrings and a goatee; he's more Steve McQueen than Stephen Hawking. He was affable. He made nerd jokes. Everyone laughed. But the physics are so new that even physics students in attendance were left scratching their heads.

"There were probably seven people in that room who fully comprehended what he was saying," admits sixth-year grad student Zak Staniszewski, who got lost when they started showing the math.

Cosmology student Audrey Todhunter at least knows what she should be studying in order to stay on the cutting edge of physics. "It lets you know what you don't know already," she says.

Following such lectures, students traditionally take the visiting speaker out to dinner to pick his brain some more, in private sessions. They debate the nature of the universe over beers and pizza, and slowly get a better idea of the strange reality in which we live.

Reporters aren't invited.



jrenner@freetimes.com More News Stories:Letters:
More Letters From The 2007 Crank File
January 2nd, 2008

[Henry J]

Last year, Krauss published a paper that explained that black holes don't exist. He thinks that what we believe to be black holes are really just stars with serious gravity issues. Needless to say, this caused quite a stir amongst his peers.

Interesting. Reminds me of a website I saw a few years ago that proposed a revision of general relativity theory; wonder if that was based on the same concept as here. Near as I could follow it, where general relativity says that escape velocity approaches infinity as an object gains mass (thus passing the speed of light on the way), the proposed revision would have the surface escape velocity merely approach the speed of light from below. But from a distance (and especially with lots of stars and dust clouds obscuring the view) of 30,000 light years from the nearest known object of either description, it might be hard to distinguish the two cases.

Just look at the mess they're making of climate change and evolution.

Well, what with there being groups that are actively obfuscating both of those subjects, it's no wonder reporters can get confused. It's as if some people think having a strong dislike of a conclusion is somehow evidence against the theory that produced that conclusion. Hey, if that "logic" worked, global warming would be out the window, since nobody with sense actually likes it's overall conclusion.

Henry

[brian]

Speaking of obfuscating climate change, have any of you seen An Inconvenient Truth? I had heard that it was panic-mongering propaganda, since I work with a bunch of Bushies. No comment.

Anyway, I finally saw it this week and on the contrary, I thought it was very clear in its presentation of facts. I recommend seeing it if you haven't yet done so.

Where it did get a bit melodramatic was toward the end, in the prediction of how the seas will rise and decimate the surface of the planet, in particular the site of the World Trade Center.

But the data presented is compelling.

[Xjmt]

Saw it on video and while I found a lot of it compelling I was surprised at just how overall "dry" the presentation is. It IS, as Gore said, basically his speech and slide show on flim.

[brian]

Which was fine with me, in retrospect. I found the speech/slideshow to be the most interesting part. Much less interesting were the in-betweens, where the drama quotient got dialed up.

[Xjmt]

But Brian! "Dialed Up" is the only thing that keeps me awake during movies these days.