End of the world
I've been re-reading some books I have on possible ways that the world could end. If most poeple uttered that sentence, you'd have a fair shot at accuracy if you made some comment about UFO's, Nostradamus, or seven-headed dragons from the East. None of those things pop up in the types of books about which I'm talking, and which I've been devouring with some felicity over the past few days.
Some of these books deal only with scenarios of human extinction. Notably, a book ("The End of the World: The science and ethics of human extinction") by John Leslie has occupied me for the day. It deals quite ostensibly with issues like the eruption of super-volcanos, global warming, ecological disruption, biological warfare, nuclear war, and super-diseases. Scattered among his random scenarios (which include significant scientific explanation and analysis as to possibility and plausibility), he has some quite interesting (though less plausible) ways for humankind to end our brief experiment in living.
1) Star-Wars. Back in the 1980's, President Reagan pushed for a missile-defense system based around a series of satellites armed with lasers. The idea was that if someone (the Soviets) launched a nuclear missle at us, we could use the laser to shoot it and make it explode in the high atmosphere, instead of down on the ground over us. In theory, the idea sounds good. While having radioactive debris scattered through the high atmosphere isn't great, it's arguably a better option than a 10-miles wide smoking crater where Chicago used to be. Recently, President G.W. Bush brought back the idea of a missile-defense system. The goal is the same - to make the nuke explode at the highest point of its arc - only this time we would have specialized missles we would fire to intercept the nuke instead of lasers. Why is this a problem?
Well, many scientists who objected to to original Star Wars (the nickname of Reagan's program) idea on non-logistical grounds did so because of a particular fear. Apparently, we've never exploded a nuclear weapon in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Due to the gases which make up our atmosphere at the levels where we would be blowing up a nuclear weapon, the possibility of fire is a worry. The keen reader might wonder what material would catch on fire if we detonated a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere, and the answer is simply this: the atmosphere. Yes, many scientists worried that the intense energy burst of a nuclear weapon could IGNITE THE ATMOSPHERE, causing all of the gases which keep us (and all other living things around here) alive to be burned off the planet in a matter of a few minutes.
If you can imagine a wall of flames extending from the ground to the top of our atmosphere, and from horizon to horizon, rushing toward you at nearly the speed of sound and not get chills, you are a stronger man than I.
2) Another book ("Our Final Hour" by Sir Martin Rees), details an interesting possibility that encompasses far more than the end of human life. In one particularly stunning example of the dangers of theoretical physics, he outlines a possibility which left even me a little shocked and worried. Theoretical physicists are building larger and more powerful particle accelerators each year, and larger experiments are being conducted than have ever been done before in the field.
For those of you who don't know what a particle accelerator is or how it works, scientists use powerful magnets to accelerate a tiny particle around ring until it reaches almost the speed of light. Once they get it to full speed, they smash the particle head-on into another particle. This usually causes one or both particles to shatter into even tinier parts and releases an enormous amount of energy.
In what appears to be a non-sequitur but isn't really, I'll take a short break from talking about particle accelerators to discuss the energetic states of natural laws of the universe. There are many physical laws of the universe which define how all objects interact with each other. These laws are things like gravitation, the laws which determine the speed of light, and laws of thermodynamics. Well, these laws are necessary for the universe to exist in the manner in which we know it, but there is absolutely no reason why these laws are necessary. We could easily imagine an alternate universe where a different set of natural laws governed existence.
The problem with our natural laws and constants is that we do not know where they lie on a graphical representation of the energetic states of all possible sets of natural laws and constants. At least in our universe as it exists now, we would expect for our constants and laws to be settled into their lowest energetic states. We can safely say without much hesitation that there are no small changes that could be made to the laws of our universe without having them slide back to their former values quickly.
Think of a ball sitting in a small hollow. With the expenditure of a small amount of energy, you could lift the ball a small bit from it's hollow. If you released the ball, it would roll back down into the hollow where it previously sat. But what would be the result if the ball were in a small hollow halfway up a hill? A small expenditure of energy would still cause it to be displaced only a small bit and it would return to its previous location, but if you expended enough energy to raise it up entirely out of its hollow, it would proceed to roll down the hill until it reached the bottom of the hill (or another hollow).
In mathematical terms, our universe rests in a 'minimum' of energetic states (the vertical axis on which the graph is drawn), but we don't have any idea whether it rests at a local minimum (the hollow on a hill) or the absolute minimum (the bottom of the hill).
Here's where particle accelerators come into play. When we smash the particles into each other, they release huge amounts of energy all at once in a very small area. There is the risk that such an expenditure of energy will move the ball (the laws of our universe) out of the minimum in which we sit. If we in fact are only in a local minimum of possibilities, we would proceed to 'roll' down the line of possibilities until we reached a new stable location (a new minimum).
To say that such an event would unmake mankind is likely an understatement. In all likelihood, we might be unmaking mankind, the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, and even the empty space in which it is situated. The idea of settling into a group of laws which make the existence of matter itself impossible is not out of the picture.
What is a bit scarier is that what we view as empty space has occasional particles speeding through it at near the speed of light. They are routinely shot out of stars as a result of the nuclear processes which keep the stars burning. There exists a small chance that someday two of these particles could strike each other head-on in the depths of space on the other side of the universe and achieve the same result. Our entire universe and everything contained in it might simply cease to exist in a single instant because of a chance meeting of two particles so far away that the light from the suns which emitted them never reached the Earth.
Yikes.
Some of these books deal only with scenarios of human extinction. Notably, a book ("The End of the World: The science and ethics of human extinction") by John Leslie has occupied me for the day. It deals quite ostensibly with issues like the eruption of super-volcanos, global warming, ecological disruption, biological warfare, nuclear war, and super-diseases. Scattered among his random scenarios (which include significant scientific explanation and analysis as to possibility and plausibility), he has some quite interesting (though less plausible) ways for humankind to end our brief experiment in living.
1) Star-Wars. Back in the 1980's, President Reagan pushed for a missile-defense system based around a series of satellites armed with lasers. The idea was that if someone (the Soviets) launched a nuclear missle at us, we could use the laser to shoot it and make it explode in the high atmosphere, instead of down on the ground over us. In theory, the idea sounds good. While having radioactive debris scattered through the high atmosphere isn't great, it's arguably a better option than a 10-miles wide smoking crater where Chicago used to be. Recently, President G.W. Bush brought back the idea of a missile-defense system. The goal is the same - to make the nuke explode at the highest point of its arc - only this time we would have specialized missles we would fire to intercept the nuke instead of lasers. Why is this a problem?
Well, many scientists who objected to to original Star Wars (the nickname of Reagan's program) idea on non-logistical grounds did so because of a particular fear. Apparently, we've never exploded a nuclear weapon in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Due to the gases which make up our atmosphere at the levels where we would be blowing up a nuclear weapon, the possibility of fire is a worry. The keen reader might wonder what material would catch on fire if we detonated a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere, and the answer is simply this: the atmosphere. Yes, many scientists worried that the intense energy burst of a nuclear weapon could IGNITE THE ATMOSPHERE, causing all of the gases which keep us (and all other living things around here) alive to be burned off the planet in a matter of a few minutes.
If you can imagine a wall of flames extending from the ground to the top of our atmosphere, and from horizon to horizon, rushing toward you at nearly the speed of sound and not get chills, you are a stronger man than I.
2) Another book ("Our Final Hour" by Sir Martin Rees), details an interesting possibility that encompasses far more than the end of human life. In one particularly stunning example of the dangers of theoretical physics, he outlines a possibility which left even me a little shocked and worried. Theoretical physicists are building larger and more powerful particle accelerators each year, and larger experiments are being conducted than have ever been done before in the field.
For those of you who don't know what a particle accelerator is or how it works, scientists use powerful magnets to accelerate a tiny particle around ring until it reaches almost the speed of light. Once they get it to full speed, they smash the particle head-on into another particle. This usually causes one or both particles to shatter into even tinier parts and releases an enormous amount of energy.
In what appears to be a non-sequitur but isn't really, I'll take a short break from talking about particle accelerators to discuss the energetic states of natural laws of the universe. There are many physical laws of the universe which define how all objects interact with each other. These laws are things like gravitation, the laws which determine the speed of light, and laws of thermodynamics. Well, these laws are necessary for the universe to exist in the manner in which we know it, but there is absolutely no reason why these laws are necessary. We could easily imagine an alternate universe where a different set of natural laws governed existence.
The problem with our natural laws and constants is that we do not know where they lie on a graphical representation of the energetic states of all possible sets of natural laws and constants. At least in our universe as it exists now, we would expect for our constants and laws to be settled into their lowest energetic states. We can safely say without much hesitation that there are no small changes that could be made to the laws of our universe without having them slide back to their former values quickly.
Think of a ball sitting in a small hollow. With the expenditure of a small amount of energy, you could lift the ball a small bit from it's hollow. If you released the ball, it would roll back down into the hollow where it previously sat. But what would be the result if the ball were in a small hollow halfway up a hill? A small expenditure of energy would still cause it to be displaced only a small bit and it would return to its previous location, but if you expended enough energy to raise it up entirely out of its hollow, it would proceed to roll down the hill until it reached the bottom of the hill (or another hollow).
In mathematical terms, our universe rests in a 'minimum' of energetic states (the vertical axis on which the graph is drawn), but we don't have any idea whether it rests at a local minimum (the hollow on a hill) or the absolute minimum (the bottom of the hill).
Here's where particle accelerators come into play. When we smash the particles into each other, they release huge amounts of energy all at once in a very small area. There is the risk that such an expenditure of energy will move the ball (the laws of our universe) out of the minimum in which we sit. If we in fact are only in a local minimum of possibilities, we would proceed to 'roll' down the line of possibilities until we reached a new stable location (a new minimum).
To say that such an event would unmake mankind is likely an understatement. In all likelihood, we might be unmaking mankind, the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, and even the empty space in which it is situated. The idea of settling into a group of laws which make the existence of matter itself impossible is not out of the picture.
What is a bit scarier is that what we view as empty space has occasional particles speeding through it at near the speed of light. They are routinely shot out of stars as a result of the nuclear processes which keep the stars burning. There exists a small chance that someday two of these particles could strike each other head-on in the depths of space on the other side of the universe and achieve the same result. Our entire universe and everything contained in it might simply cease to exist in a single instant because of a chance meeting of two particles so far away that the light from the suns which emitted them never reached the Earth.
Yikes.
posted by The Academian | 8:15 PM
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