April 19, 2016

March 28, 2016

February 16, 2016

January 26, 2016

December 22, 2015

December 1, 2015

October 20, 2015

September 22, 2015

Sean Kalafut and Vladamir Bychkov joined us again. Welcome back.

Dick announced that the movie, "The Martian" would be opening soon and suggested that we all go to see it. We watched the trailer for the movie and after words we all agreed it should make an interest night out for the group. We decided to see the movie October 13.

Dwayne announced that the Nobel Conference will be held at Gustavus Adolphus college on October 6 and 7, and that it will focus on addiction. He said that he would be attending.

In Science in the News, Tom showed an interesting animation showing the detailed construction of the International Space Station.

Pete said the pictures from Pluto were still streaming in. He said the two bright spots on the surface of the moon Cirus were particularly interesting.

Chuck then had a lengthy discussion with Vladamir about neutrinos and their oscillation between the three flavors. Sean said the each neutrino carries "a mixture" of all three neutrino masses, and that it only settles on one when you measure it.

We then discussed the book, "QED" by Richard Feynman. Rolf said that Feynman says that we no longer need the Heisenberg principle. (See footnote on page 56.)

Pete said that Feynman's use of "little arrows" is a substitute for adding and multiplying complex numbers.

Dwayne said that, over all, he liked the book - Chuck said he didn't.

August 25, 2015

Two PhD students from the U of M joined us, Sean Kalafut and Vladamir Bychkov. Welcome.

We began with Science in the news. Tom showed a video of the "tennis racket effect. It was shot on a Russian space station. It showed a wing nut being ejected from a bolt and, once ejected, it would occasionally tumble to face the opposite way. Very weird.

Chuck talked about two hyposizied particle, The Myarona and and Weyl. They are both fermions and were found at CERN.

Dwayne said that the latest issue of Scientific American is devoted to Einstein.

Sean Kalafut told us about his time at CERN. He said that he spent the first week testing fiber cables. The rest of the time he worked on the program that forms the third tier of the CMS's trigger mechanism for determining whether the keep an event's data.

July 28, 2015

June, 2015

May, 2015

April 14, 2015

March 31, 2015

February 24, 2015

January 20, 2015

December 2, 2014

October 28, 2014

September 30, 2014

August 19, 2014

Physicist and musician Chuck Kavalovski joined us again - Welcome back Chuck.

Dick reminded us of the upcoming Gustavus Nobel Conference and reminded us to order tickets.

Chuck said that noted physicist Andrei Linde would be speaking at the Misel Conference at the U of M the evening of September 16.

In Science in the News, Dave showed a video suggesting that the speed of darkness is faster than the speed of light. Actually it suggested that if you projected a shadow of your finger on the moon and wiggled your finger, the shadow would traverse the moon faster than the speed of light.

We then discussed the book. Dave said he could easily follow the book until the end of chapter 2 where it started talking about the Higgs field being "stuck" away from zero. Dick said that the other fields that pervade the universe are centered on an energy value of zero but that the Higgs field was different - It was centered on a constant value above zero.

Dave asked about the idea that the more massive a particle is, the LESS space it takes. Later in the book we found a passage that explains this by saying a less massive particle has a longer wavelength so it takes up more space but interacts less with the Higgs field.

Rolf asked about how two quarks feel a stronger force the more you try to separate them. Chuck said it was like stretching a rubber band - The more you pulled the stronger it resisted.

Someone asked about why it is that mathematics describes the universe? Pete said that the universe may just be a program running on God's laptop. Chuck said that mathematics is just a way our brains can wrap itself around the laws of physics.

We ended with Pete reading the summary bullets at the end of chapter 2. Dick said he has always had trouble understanding the role that symmetry plays in the laws of physics.

May 2, 2014

We spent some time talking about last month's announcement of the discovery of B-mode radiation in the cosmic microwave background and how it is evidence for gravity waves from the big bang. The presents of gravity waves in the CMB provides conformation that inflation actually happened. Dick said that Clem Pryke, a professor at the U of M and a leader of the BICEPT 2 team that made the discovery, gave a presentation recently at the U.

Pete lead us through a review of the three chapters on general relativity. Dwayne said that he now had a better understanding of how the curvature of spacetime leads theorists to think that spacetime could be open, closed, or flat. Pete indicated that this spacetime curvature was from the Friedman-Robertson-Walker formula for spacetime, and was not a local effect caused by the gravity of nearby galaxies.

We then had a discussion of how two clocks in an accelerating box would show different times. The author says that they would and says he'll explain how it would be but, he failed in his explanation and everyone in the group was confused.

Pete gave an explanation of tensors and how they were important to Einstein and the development of his theory of general relativity. Sean then asked if Pete could explain "Lie groups" which he did. Pete indicated Lie groups make the math easier to work with.

March 28, 2014

We went to the movies! The group saw the movie "Particle Fever" that documented the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN. It showed the moment the beam first made its way around the ring, the moment the two beams were first crossed in the four detectors, and the moment of the catostrofic failure of the super-conducting magnets. It also documented the meeting when the Higgs discovery was announced.

After the movie, Professor Tony Gherghetta from the University of Minnesota took questions from the audience.

Everyone reported on what they had found out about "The Rings of Saturn:"

Dave: (1) The Library of Congress, and (2) the Cassini flyby.

Tom: (1) The gravity of Saturn is stronger than of earth, (2) Shepard moons help shape the rings and cause gaps, (3) Rings could have been formed by collision of Saturn's moons.

Pete: (1) Maxwell discovered rings must be particles. (2) Mathmatician Sonja Kovalesky proved rings couldn't be solid. (3) Pointcare showed moons with twice the orbital period of the particles effect the particles.

Dwayne: The Roche Limit could explain how a loosly bound object (e.g. a comit) could break apart at the Roche limit and become rings.

Rolf: (1) The Phoebe Ring is a large fuzzy ring that is far away from Saturn. (2) Saturn's magnetiuc field is 570 times stronger than earth's. (3) Saturn's day is less than 11 hours. (4) Rings move an average of 9.7 km/sec., 60 times faster than a bullet.

Dick: (1) Size of ring particles was determined by Cassini space craft sending radio signals of different frequencies through the rings and back to earth. (2) The rings display a "spoke phenominum" due to the way sun light hits the rings.

We watched a YouTube video, Saturn's Rings.

December 17, 2012

Tom brought up the subject of "time dialation" and we had a lengthy discussion.

We watched a portion of "Part 2: Illussion of Time" from Brian Greene's "Fabric of the Cosmos" program and discussed the "loaf of bread."

Rolf brought up Gravity and copared it to the ether.

November 26, 2012

Dwayne continued his review of Chapter 11, Quantum Time.

October 15, 2012

Dick's son Tom joined us for the first time. Welcome Tom.

Wayne led us through a paragraph-by-paragraph review of chapter 11, Quantum Time. We made it through about half the chapter with lots of discussions. One point we all agreed on was that the author made a poor choice in using the "Miss Kitty" and "Mr. Dog" analogies for the double-slit experiment. Dick said he liked "decoherence" as an alternative explanation of the double-slit experiment (i.e., quantum phenomena). Bill felt that much of the chapter was so much "sophistry." We will finish our review of chapter 11 at the next meeting.

Bill drew his interpretation of the double-slit experiment on the board. It depicts a single photon as an amorphous blob as it travels through the two slits. Somehow, one-hundred percent of the energy makes it through the two slits.

As we were breaking up, Pete reported that he had emailed our question - Does a photon interact with the atmosphere? - to Keith Olive at the university. Keith said he wasn't sure but he thought the answer was No, the photon does not interact with the atoms in the atmosphere. Keith suggested we talk to someone in condensed matter. Note: A few days later, Dick talked to Keith and the answer was yes, the photon is absorbed and re-emitted by the atoms as it travels through the atmosphere.

September 10, 2012

Dick reported little progress in our plans for a field trip next year. He did say that Susan had suggested we look into the "Road Scholor" programs for additional ideas.

Rolf reported he may be taking his gravity experiment out of the Sudan mine. The university is requiring him to get insurance and write a proposal.

We then spent some time discussing Dave's question: Can you keep dividing time into smaller and smaller segments? The simple answer is Plank time, but it turns out there were many other questions behind his question. Is time continuous (analog) or quantized (digital)? How does it affect the multiverse? What about time dilation and the twins paradox? Does it affect the quantum leap?

Pete mentioned "Compton scattering" which lead to brief discussion of "permittivity," "permeability," and "refractive index." Pete took an action item to find the answer to the following question: "Does a photon get absorbed and re-emitted as it travels through the air?"

Pete then gave his math moment: "explain de Sitter space." (See Figure 72 on page 310 in Carroll book.) He used his computer program, Mathmatica to plot 1D-Space and 2D-Space, and showed the formula for each. He said that 3D-Space was too complicated to plot but it was easy to modify the formula.

August 13, 2012

Dick said he and his wife were planning on taking a sea cruise next year and suggested making it a book club field trip. He said he was looking at Bright Horizon cruises that include notable scientists speaking on their specialties. Pete said it sounds interesting but he wouldn't be able to participate. The other members seemed interested. More at future meetings.

Rolf presented his idea that gravity is a "pushing" rather than "pulling" phenomena. Dick said that, if that were true, it could explain dark energy which is a pushing phenomena.

Pete presented a math moment about the low entropy of the early universe. (See Table 1 and Figure 41 in chapter 8 of Carroll's book.)

We had a discussion about dark matter. Rolf said that the evidence for dark matter is because stars are rotating around the galaxy slower than Newton's laws predict. Dick said that the math shows that, with dark matter surrounding the galaxy, the rate of rotation decreases linearly with the distance the star is from the center of the galaxy. Without dark matter it would decrease with the square of the distance.

Pete brought up Segal's "Chronometric Theory" which says that the redshift of far away galaxies should be calculated based on its distance, not the square of the distance.

July 16, 2012

Pete's wife, Angie joined us at the meeting as well as Dave and Dick's sister, Susan from Milwaukee.

Sporting a yellow CERN hard-hat, Dick reported on his trip to the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in Geneva, Switzerland. He showed a video of his tour of CERN. Dick, his wife and daughter first took the public tour where they saw the ATLAS control room. Then Professor Roger Rusack gave them a behind-the-scene tour of the facilities. A week and a half after his visit, CERN had a press conference where they announced that they had discovered a "Higgs like particle." Bill and Pete suggested that Dick had shaken CERN up and motivated them to make the announcement.

Pete gave the first of his math moments devoted to Statistical mechanics.

Bill brought up a page from FermiLabs Symmetry web site that says only a small portion of the mass of particles is caused by the Higgs mechanism. Most of the mass is due to the strong nuclear force.

June 13, 2012

We began with the question Dave put on the agenda: What do "they" mean when "they" say there is no reason for time to be just one direction when "they" believe in entropy and entanglement? Dick said there is no fundamental reason - nothing in the laws of physics - that says time should have only one direction.

Pete brought up what is known as "Dirac's belt trick." Dick removed his belt and Dwayne assisted in the experiment. Dick first twisted the belt two complete turns. Then Dwayne, without twisting the belt, looped it around Dick's end one time. With only one looping, both twists were removed! Pete said the math describing this action involves SO(3) (Special Orthogonal - 3 dimensions) and SU(2) (Special Unitary - 2 complex dimensions) operations.

It's still a good party trick.

Dick said the book added some insight into the question "What counts as an observation." (See page 238.) "There is no consensus about what constitutes an observation in quantum mechanics..."

We talked a bit about the "universe's wave-function." Pete added that, in the multi-verse, each membrane could have its own wave-function.

Rolf asked what a "standing wave" was? Dick said, in electronics, it's a phenomenon that occurs when you tune a wave guide. The transmitted wave and the reflected wave are in tune and complement each other.

We had a brief discussion about how, in the early universe, dark matter contributed to galaxy formation.

Dwayne asked if the next Pete's Math Moment could explain "Statistical mechanics."

May 16, 2012

Ralf suggested an exception to Einstein's "equivalence principle." The equivalence principle says there is no difference between the force you would feel due to gravity and the force you would feel in a sealed room in a rocket ship that is being accelerated. (See Figure 16 in Carroll's book.) Ralf suggested taking two synchronized cesium clocks, and placing one at the top of the room and the other at the bottom. If the clocks stayed synchronized, it would mean you were in an accelerating room. If the clocks fell out of sync, it would indicate you were in a gravitational field. Dick said he couldn't find anything wrong with Rolf's logic. He said he would like to see if Bill or Pete could find any flaws in it.

Dick said that the CPT Theorem as discussed on page 139 was a reoccurring theme at many of the colloquia he had attended at the U of M and it is important. He said this section of the book did a good job in helping him understand CPT invariance.

April 25, 2012

Dave raised his question' "Is time constant?" again. He went on to ask if time was a constant when calculating the age of the universe?. Dick said that, within that context, you could think of time as a constant. In other context - e.g., special relativity, GPS satelites, etc. - time was not a constant.

Pete then gave the second in his three part series on Einstein's field equation. He spent most of the time describing the stress-energy tensor.

Pete then brought up the Darac's theory for negative energy and that gamma rays produce both electrons and holes (positrons).

Dwayne put forth the statement, "If there was no movement there would be no time."

We then had a discussion of "eternalism" versus "presentism." Bill is a presentisist.

Dick brought up the "Global Consciousness project" which seems to give hard data that the human race can sense global events a few hours (or days) before they happen. Bill was skeptical.

Little time was spent on the book. Most people were still in the first three chapters so next month we'll review the first six chapters.

March 21, 2012

We began with Pete's Math Moment, "Einstein's equation." Pete said he would need at least two meetings to explain Einstein's equation. He started with a discussion of "parallel transport" on a curved surface. He brought a globe and a bowl to demonstrate.

We then discussed the question that Dave had put on the agenda: "Is time constant?" Everyone voted and the majority said "No." Sean said the rate that time passes slows down as you leave a gravity well. Dick said that the rate depends on your frame of reference. The speed at which time passes slows down as your speed through space increases. Bill wondered if time isn't just a human construct.

We also discussed why time runs in only one direction? On the quantum level, time could run backwards as well as forwards. But entropy plays a role in dictating that time can only run forward.

The question came up, "Why is earth's moon moving away? " We looked it up on Wikipedia and it is because tides on the earth causes earth to loose angular momentum. The moon moves away to compensate.

Pete suggested we look up "Potsdam gravity potato." It's an exaggerated picture of how the earth's gravity varies at different places around the earth. The picture looks like a potato.

Dick said he was having trouble understanding how the early universe had low entropy. (See Carroll's book, page 45, second paragraph.)

February 15, 2012

Dave and Dick's sister, Susan Fohr joined us via teleconference from Milwaukee. Welcome Sue.

We began with Pete's Math Moment, Quantizing classical Newtonian formula. (See File Cabinet, PeteMath001.)

We then had a quick review of everyone's initial reaction to our new book. Most people were still on the first chapter but everyone agreed it looked like a good book for us to read.

We then discussed the question that Dave had put on the agenda: "If we could mathematically show entropy and how everything got to be the way it is today since the Big Bang, could we extend that math to describe tomorrow?" Dick said what Dave was describing was called "determinism," and that it was a basic philosophical idea that Einstein believed in. But the problem is that quantum mechanics says, no matter how much detail you know, you can only calculate a probability that something will happen, not a prediction with absolute certainty. Pete added that the debate over determinism involved the existence of free will.

Bill then raised the question, In the expansion of space, what happens to time?

Rolf then said that discussions of entropy involve closed systems. He asked if this means the universe is a closed system? Rolf also led a discussion of gravity shielding and questioned the existence of dark matter. Dick said that gravitational lensing is an established astronomical phenomenon and is caused by dark matter hallows around galaxies.

can only calculate a probability that something will happen, not a prediction with absolute certainty. Pete added that the debate over determinism involved the existence of free will.

Bill then raised the question, In the expansion of space, what happens to time?

Rolf then said that discussions of entropy involve closed systems. He asked if this means the universe is a closed system? Rolf also led a discussion of gravity shielding and questioned the existence of dark matter. Dick said that gravitational lensing is an established astronomical phenomenon and is caused by dark matter hallows around galaxies.

January 18, 2012

We had a lengthy discussion about Schrodinger's cat. Bill brought a shoe box with a picture of a dead and alive cat to demonstrate. Like scientists who have debated this issue for about 80 years, we were not able to determine if (1.) the cat is either alive or dead OR (2.) the cat is both alive and dead. It all depends on whether you want to look at it classically or quantumly, and where you want to draw the dividing line.

We then discussed Bell's Theorem. Rolf took the lead by reviewing the Gary Felder paper, "Spooky Action At a Distance." Rolf drew the 3x3 matrix from the paper showing which settings of the two detectors would flash the same light and which would flash a different light. We then questioned why the two corners of the matrix would flash the same and nobody could explain it. Pete took an action item to investigate and to come to the next meeting prepared to lead a discussion on Bell's Theorem.

Dave introduced us to a video course on Quantum Mechanics he had just purchased from Great Courses. We agreed that excerpts from the course who make good discussion points for future meetings.

We then had a quick discussion on the Cassimir effect.

Dick agreed to gather the items we would need to conduct the Scientific American experiment on Quantum Erasers.

We then rescheduled out meeting at the university for November 10th to see the double-slit experiment.

October 2011

We had a small discussion about quantum computers and quantum dots.

Dick then asked if entanglement is commonplace in nature, and asked what role it might play?

We then had a discussion about the recent CERN/OPERA announcement about neutrinos traveling faster than light. We also watched a video where two physicists discussed the issue and said that they are skeptical, and that neutrinos from a nearby supernova arrived three hours ahead of the light exactly as expected. They said that the neutrinos would have arrived three years ahead of the light if the OPERA data was correct.

Bill then showed a very interesting video from MIT where the professor demonstrated the Heisenberg principle with a single-slit experiment. As he narrowed the slit, the light pattern on the screen stretched out horizontally. This is because, according to the Heisenberg principle, narrowing the slit fixes the photon's position so its momentum (direction) has to become more of an unknown. Pete wrote the equation on the board:

(Delta X) x (Delta P sub x) = h bar

This got Pete thinking about how a photon with zero mass could still have momentum.

Dave then asked if light is a wave, what is its amplitude?

We then made plans to meet at the university to see their double-slit experiment. (This plan has subsequently fallen through.)

September 2011

Earl brought a friend, Dwayne King. Dwayne said he was on a search for the mutual truths of Science and Theology.

Earl said, for his birthday, his sons had arranged a trip to Chicago to attend an "Ask a Scientist" presentation at Fermi Lab. Dick suggested we make it a field trip for the whole group and everyone indicated they would be interested.

Dwayne asked if we could review the double-split experiment and this lead to a full discussion including Bill's idea of how a single particle (i.e., an electron) could send a small amount of energy through both slits at the same time. Dick was incredulous.

Rolf showed an article in Science magazine that reported researchers had developed a weak measurement technique to sense particles with minimum disturbance. He tried to access it online but had trouble. He will try to have it for our next meeting.

Earl was surprised to learn that, contrary to Newton, changes in gravity are not communicated instantaneously but travel at the speed of light.

August, 2011

We began with a very lively discussion of the famous "Double Slit" experiment which shows that a photon (or an electron) exhibits the behavior of being both a particle and a wave. We watched a video, "Double Slit Experiment" that demonstrated this. We struggled to make logical sense of it but, like scientist for the last hundred years, failed. We then had a short discussion on "entanglement,"

Rolf then mentioned the "Poisson Spot" experiment which we looked up on the internet. Dave asked what Einstein thought of all this and we ended with a brief discussion of Einstein's famous "EPR paper." We agreed we should all read it along with the David Mermin paper, "Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks."

July, 2011

Dave and Dick showed some videos of their recent trip to Florida to see the launch of the Space Shuttle. Bill talked about star formation. We had a discussion about how the moon's orbit is growing each year, and how the orbits of planets change over time.

Rolf described his idea that gravity is not really a pulling force but a "pushing force" from gravitons throughout the universe. We also talked about the tidal forces on earth's oceans and "solid earth tides." Dave asked how gravity warps space and we found a good illustration on Bill's computer.

June, 2011

Earl asked some questions that led to a review of the expansion of space and the microwave background. We then had a short discussion about entropy.

We talked about redshift and Dick asked the question, What happens to the energy that a photon loses when it is redshifted?

We then had a discussion about Earl’s emails that said we travel through time at the speed of light and; when we travel through space, the rate that we travel through time decreases. Pete said the math was a bit more complicated than Earl had charted and put forth the formula: