|
|
|
By Ryan Ries I am almost entirely ignorant about both physics and cosmology, but I do like to think. Sometimes I get ideas that I feel are somewhat novel and hopefully original. I just wanted to quickly jot these ideas down before I forgot them, for future reference. 1.) In terms of quantum mechanics, do quantum-entangled particles exist in nature? If so, how many particles in the Universe are entangled and how did they get that way? Is it possible that a particle in my brain is entangled with a particle within someone else's brain, even if they are on the other side of the world? Assuming that all the thoughts and ideas I have are the result of physio-chemical changes in my brain, could one of my thoughts therefore inspire some sort of change within someone else's brain which might have as little as one entangled electron in common with my own? I thought of this while pondering the coincidence of how Charles Darwin conceived of biological evolution through natural selection, but at the same time, two other people just happened to stumble upon the same conclusion, and what a tremendous coincidence it was for three unrelated people to arrive at such a profound idea at about the same time. I'm sure there are better examples. It reminds me of when I read in some new-age hippie book that someone was doing an experiment with rats running through tunnels, trying to see if rats successfully navigating tunnels in Australia would increase the proficiency with which rats in New York could successfully navigate tunnels of identical design. 2.) Along the same lines, I recently learned about "referred pain" through which a person might injure their foot, but also feel the resulting pain somewhere else, like in their shoulder. This happens because when that person is a baby, maybe even fetal, their nerves are still growing and developing, and as that person grows exponentially, nerve tissue is stretched out and deformed in some really enigmatic ways. That's probably a horrible description. But it instantly made me think about the Universe at large. As today's physics closes in on confirmation of extra dimensions, could it help to visualize those extra dimensions in this way? During the Big Bang, perhaps a structure or dimension of finite space was unleashed, and as the Universe expands, that dimension is stretched with the expansion of the Universe, like nerve tissue in a fetus. Such a dimension would undoubtedly be stretched inperceptibly thin by now. Maybe this is the channel through which entangled particles communicate? (I bet such a discovery would make Einstein happy, considering his loathing of the concept of "spooky action at a distance") |