Insult to Injury (feat. Patrick Stewart!)

Okay, so I know that the title of this post might be a little misleading, but let me explain.

This and this annoy me (don't worry, they open in a new window and they're just articles). I could go on and on, listing site after site, article after article on the elusive and now-discovered particle, the Higgs Boson. Don't get me wrong, I am overjoyed that we have found evidence for the Higgs Boson. If it proves to be conclusive and we confirm it based on in-depth analysis of the data then I will dance around the streets and make myself look like an idiot to everyone except those that will feel the same way.

But whereas those two previous articles annoyed me, THIS aggravates me. Why? Let me sum up the article if you don't want to read it with the only important information that everyone immediately takes away from it.

1) The page title of the article. Here is a screenshot of the tab open on my computer at the moment:

"Higgs boson found". That's all anyone needs to read!

It simply starts with "Higgs boson found: Scientist.....". That's the first thorn in my side. I'm going to avoid saying what the problem with this is until the end of my short list so that hopefully it makes a more significant impact on you.

2) The big bold audience-attracting title.

Awwwwwwww.....how nice.......

I understand the sentiment here. I really do. I love the fact that in this incredible man's lifetime, he saw his work come to fruition. But let's take a closer look, shall we?

They did?

This gets under my skin. This genuinely makes me think that this article was not written for an all-inclusive audience, but rather for an audience with people that really doesn't see the need to take interest in this discovery beyond acknowledging that it happened. I'm fine with people not really taking an interest in the discovery. If you are not scientifically-inclined then good for you, you're not necessarily down the road to self-destruction! However, I do not really appreciate fairly credible news sources releasing stories with titles like this (or at least just in this case alone). Again, I will explain after the list.

3) The very first line of the article.

"The search for the 'God particle' is over."


Uh, I wasn't aware of that. I mean, the current search for it is suspended until we analyze the data more, but as far as I know, the search isn't over.

4) The first remediate phrase.

"However, the teams, which included hundreds of Britons, stopped short of declaring it the Higgs boson, saying more work is needed to confirm its properties."



Finally! That's what I was looking for. Yet, it still bothers me. This is the end of the short list so I can finally bring to bear why this article in particular irks me, whereas the first two I mentioned only annoy me to a small degree.


It is one thing to claim the definitive existence of a newly-supported particle. It is one thing to then make clear the skepticism surrounding this potential new Higgs boson. It is quite another thing to acknowledge the skepticism surrounding the potential new Higgs boson and make it sound as if it is still discovered even though they outright acknowledge that they are still "confirm"ing the particle! Look, I understand that this is a breaking story and is worthy of being in the annals of history for all-time. Again, I am overjoyed at what we found. But let me clarify what we actually found if you don't want to go into the technical/scientific videos surrounding the newly discovered particle. When they attempt to find particles in particle accelerators, what they really do is smash a stream of particles against another stream of particles, and look through the "jets" of energy that come out of the collision to find trails of particles. These collision creates everything from antimatter, to supermassive particles, to miniature black holes (that then emit more particles and energy). From the jets and trails left in the specialized detectors they can find evidence of different particles. From the data they collect on these jets, scientists can determine an astounding number of factors, including electric charge, mass, speed, energy, etc. This data is then correlated to proposed energies of particles that are hypothesized by other scientists. The accuracy of the data found versus the proposed model is then checked by Standard Deviations. Typically a level of 4 to 6 "Sigma" (the greek letter notation for 1 standard deviation) implies that there is a high level of confidence that this is the Higgs boson that has been searched for. This particular finding had a confidence level of 5 sigma. This is amazing and leaves very little room for error.


But here is where I believe the media should have taken this with a grain of salt or at least clearly defined that this is not necessarily "THE" Higgs boson instead of "a" Higgs boson. The reason why I say it may not be "THE" Higgs boson is simply because there are bosons that have multiple different forms. For example, the W boson has two different types: the W+ and the W- boson, which respectively denote a positively-charged and a negatively-charged W boson. We also know that different bosons mediate different particle interactions. They each have different properties. So when certain popular media sources release stories instantly declaim that they've found the Higgs boson, the entire search is over, and everybody can go home and stop arguing about it, you might be able to understand that this gets to me. While there is a fairly reasonable chance that this is the one possible form of Higgs boson that we need to complete the Standard Model of particles, there is still the possibility that this is an exotic form of Higgs boson, or that it isn't in the correct state of energy (the article does point out the fact that scientists were cautious to the fact that it was slightly lighter than what they predicted it would be), or even that *gasp* maybe it's not the Higgs boson?! For all we know (until the scientific community at CERN confirms it), this could be an entirely new type of boson! Do you remember the huge fiasco over the neutrinos that supposedly traveled faster than the speed of light? If you do, do you remember what they found was the cause of the groundbreaking announcement? The team of scientists didn't plug a fiber-optic cable all the way in. The whole debacle resulted in the head scientist overseeing the project stepping down without comment. Further experiments in multiple other labs confirmed that neutrinos still travel at the speed of light. A majority of the embarrassment over the experiment's faulty results must have been highly amplified by the media's coverage of it. I'm not against the media at all. I'd be a hypocrite if I said so. But when major news outlets burst out of the gate with a possible upheaval of an 100-year-old proven theory, an excitement from a community larger than the close-knit international particle physics community builds tension in the air. It's a let-down for not only the scientific community but for the general community when such a possibly-momentous event is undercut by such a (frankly) silly error.


So I'm not saying go out and harass the general media. I'm not trying to in this post. What I am saying, though, is take this with a grain of salt. The "definitive" headlines that some are proposing out there are not necessarily true. Appreciate it when an article acknowledges the skepticism and the room for other possibilities that should be there.


Alright, so let me hopefully clear up any preliminary questions about the Higgs boson. The importance of the Higgs boson is two-fold. All elementary particles at the moment fall under different classifications within something called the Standard Model. While it truly is a boring name, it really is integral to picking apart our universe down to the smallest observable objects. In this case it is what we call Elementary Particles.

Ignore the fact that it says the Higgs boson is yet to be confirmed. Actually, don't. Keep it in mind (as per above). But this is the Standard Model. It contains a classification of every known/observed smallest particle. So if you're wondering why a proton or neutron is not on this chart, it is because they are made up of quarks (u, d, c, s, t, b). A proton has a quark structure of uud (or two up quarks and one down quark). A neutron has the quark structure of udd (or one up quark and two down quarks). Every piece of matter that we know about consists of some combination of Elementary Particles from the Standard Model. So why is the Higgs boson left out of this perfect little box? Easy. Everything has mass, correct? Or, at least, everything that doesn't travel at the speed of light (i.e. neutrinos and photons) has mass, right? Right. Well, what is mass? Many would define it as the weight of a collection of atoms. This is the simplest way to put it, but it is not entirely correct. Weight is relative. Something weighs more in the presence of higher gravity. So let's get a little better definition. Mass is the density of a particle or collection of atoms in a "space". It doesn't "weigh" anything unless in a gravitational field. But it has some sort of density to it. This is much closer and generally, before the potential discovery of the Higgs boson, was the relatively precise way to define mass. However, if the Higgs boson is confirmed, it changes the whole definition. Why? Because when we throw around the term "density" that means that something has to be dense, or else it doesn't make sense! So the Higgs boson, as a force carrier, interacts with other particles in the "Higgs field". This interaction is supposedly what causes mass. If the Higgs boson is confirmed by these results (and not just "a" Higgs boson, remember?), then we have completed the standard model. We can explain all of the particles and interactions simply through this table (plus a slew of other complex equations of course). I am leaving out gravity specifically because as far as we know that could be an entirely new realm of physics, or it could be the density of Higgs boson interactions within the field somehow attracts other Higgs interactions or increases the likelihood of other Higgs interactions the closer particles get to the "Higgs-dense" object. Just an idea, I actually don't really know what I'm proposing...


So what does the Higgs boson mean for the universe in general? Well one important thing about the Higgs boson is that it is indiscriminating when it interacts with matter. Which for our purposes really doesn't mean much, but there are two things in the universe that concern the scientific community that we have not directly observed, and those are dark energy and dark matter. Dark matter is really important because it makes up such a large percentage of our universe! It really is an important focus issue for the scientific community simply because of the fact that 1) We cannot see or observe it directly as far as we know, and 2) The Higgs boson would be the particle that would interact with both "normal" matter (the matter that we are composed of and that we see everyday) and dark matter. As the first article puts it,

"It's like a city with two populations, each speaking a different language, and no translators or bilingual interpreters. The two groups of people go about their separate lives, never directly speaking with each other. Likewise, in our galaxy, dark matter and ordinary matter pass right through each other all the time.

The Higgs boson could be the bilingual particle we've been looking for."

So while this is an exciting and possibly ground-breaking discovery I will leave you with two thoughts. One is presented by the internet's nitpicking, trolling, flaming, and non-sequitur population that we all know and love (this just goes to show how much people that spend way too much time on the internet appear to pay attention, but really are just skimming):

(Note: This is more just because it's Patrick Stewart)

 The second is just a fun and friendly send-off for you to feel good about! As always, comments, questions, suggestions, ideas, gimmicks, rhetoric, happy thoughts, daydreams, nightdreams, and pleasantries are always welcome in the comments below! Or feel free to send an email to universalranking@gmail.com . As always, thank you to all who read this, and hopefully it gets you thinking!

--J

Can I have one?

Jumped The Gun! (Part 2)

Welcome back! Actually, I guess that sounds like it was more aimed towards me than you, so I apologize for that, but welcome back all the same. I'm sorry for the brief two-week hiatus as I ran around Europe with a few very good friends. Sadly I was not around to post when they discovered the Higgs Boson on July 4th, but once I finish with this post I will add a new one soon after with an update about the Higgs Boson and its importance (and the grain of salt we should be taking with the discovery). However, let us get into the nitty-gritty of today's (hopefully long-awaited) post!

If you will recall from a few weeks ago I posted concerning a new idea I had and one that I might want others to simply reflect upon or if they had any ideas of their own or comments on what I thought that they should feel free to do so! Also, if I might add here, there is no question or comment that sounds silly. I can assure you, that no matter what level you may or may not understand what I discuss here, if there is anything I can do to help you understand better, do not hesitate to ask in the comment section below! The purpose of this blog is to bring matters that are rarely discussed into the open and to attempt to help the less-scientifically-fanatic public understand. So if you feel like you don't want to ask a question because you deem it too rudimentary, trust me, I am sure that there is someone else reading this blog that understands it only on the exact same level that you do or even less. If you do feel like this is all way over your head, the same rule applies, with the addition that I wholeheartedly congratulate you for at least reading this and making an attempt to understand it.

Okay, so I realize that was a bit of a tangent but it has been on my mind for awhile and I thought that I should put it in (maybe I should add that to the description of the blog? Thoughts?). So let us cast our minds back to the previous post (you may want to open it up in a different window to help refer to). We have established the following concepts firmly (hopefully):

1. Creation-Annihilation
1. This is the concept that a photon (or packet of energy) can spontaneously become a pair of particles (usually an electron-positron for demonstrative/instructive purposes).
2. This process does happen and has been proven through the example of a Creation happening on the edge of a black hole where one particle is within the Event Horizon and therefore is trapped, leaving the other particle to fly away at the speed of light without bonding to anything. This creates Hawking Radiation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation). [Actually that picture on the page is really cool....I might have to change my cover photo.....]
3. The pair of particles, in most cases, are in such close proximity to each other that they immediately begin attracting each other through electromagnetism and contact each other again, resulting in a photon being created and the particle/antiparticle "disappearing" (Annihilation)
2. Electrons/Positrons in a magnetic field
1. As suggested above, electricity and magnetism are actually linked through the Electromagnetic Force (one of the four basic Forces). As such, an electron can be not only affected by an electric field, but also by a magnetic field (see the .gif from Part 1).
2. Considering a constant direction and strength of a magnetic field, an electron will actually curve in the exact opposite direction than a positron will.

Alright, so here's where we continue (finally, right?). A few weeks ago I was thinking about Hawking Radiation and the separability of electron-positron pairs resulting from Creation-Annihilation. I figured that if a black hole could separate these pairs of particles before the electromagnetic forces attract and bring them back together, shouldn't there be other possible, more localized methods to separating the particles? So I sat down to think about it, and messed around with certain ideas, and I eventually just arbitrarily calculated the rough attractive force between the two particles (given by F = (kQq)/r^2 . Don't worry about what it means). This is not a new thing and it is fairly easy to calculate (especially, for those who understand the equation, considering that it reduces basically to F = (kq^2)/r^2 . Ignoring the fact that r increases gradually and then decreases after the splitting force overcomes the attractive force. Also ignoring the fact that we don't really understand much about the splitting angle, the splitting force, or the splitting speed. I just calculated it with a very rough frame of error.). 

After the calculations, even with the frames of error, it is a huge number (i.e. a lot of force). The basic concept from here would be that I would have to find a way to overcome the attractive force just enough so that the particles while in that close proximity cannot attract each other. So as you might already be able to guess, I turned to magnetic fields! Well, actually, I turned to magnetic fields for all of 3 seconds simply because of the fact that to get a magnetic field to match the force at least equally would be HUGE (I decided for fun to try to figure out the magnetic field strength. It's even bigger and I'm sure that I made multiple mathematical substitutions that are not even remotely doable. I didn't even try to figure out the actual number. All I know is that there are multiple variables that are to the power of four and have factors of 10^16 in the variable itself. To give you an idea, from some of my substitutions with relativistic energy calculations the final magnetic field strength had an instance of the speed of light to the fourth (i.e. c^4) which is approximately 3*(10^8) m/s to the power of four. This roughly equals a number on the order of 8.1*(10^33) or 8 decillion!!!). My theory is this: If a Creation happens in a fantastically powerful magnetic field, it is possible for the particles' attractive forces to be overcome by the magnetic field and therefore be separated similar to the Creation happening on the edge of a black hole, as seen below:

This is a drawn simulation of a Creation happening within a magnetic field. Similar to the Feynman Diagram in Part 1, the first photon line and the dotted line as the diagram progresses to the right simulates an unchanged Creation-Annihilation. With the magnetic field (denoted by the "X" marks) of a particular strength, the particles can be diverted away from each other. (Please ignore the faded lines. Remnants from doing math on the other side of the page.) [Note: To all of you that know about Particle Physics, please excuse the directions of the electron and positron. I accidentally labelled the two paths backwards. I know that in this situation the electron should curve down and the positron should curve up. Forgive my grave mistake!]

SO WHAT IS THE USE FOR ALL OF THIS?!


Well actually, not much at the moment. Practically, without the use of superconducting magnets this would almost be impossible to accomplish. Also, it is not the easiest thing to nail down these Creations. They happen (as far as we know) on a very random basis. The most that we can do to increase the likelihood of these Creations is to manipulate the light beam that we use to attempt to "spawn" particle-antiparticle pairs. Making the photons in the light more energetic is one method (this is done by increasing the frequency of the light). For example, a blue light is more "energetic" than a red light, simply because the frequency of the light is greater (infrared is the least energetic light spectrum, while ultraviolet is the most energetic light spectrum). The greater abundance of energy makes the Creation (conversion from energy to matter) much easier and much more likely to occur. Another method is to make the light beam more intense. This does not, in fact, increase the energy of the photons. However, what it does do is make the Creation more likely to occur.

Let's put it this way to make it easier to understand. You have some fairly-weighted coin; let's say a quarter for demonstrative purposes. You have a 50% chance of getting Heads and a 50% chance of getting Tails. If you flip the coin once every 5 seconds, you will have a 50% chance of getting Heads and a 50% chance of getting Tails once every five seconds. But now take a second, equal quarter. Your four possible outcomes if you flip the coins simultaneously are (where H is Heads, T is Tails): HH, HT, TH, TT. If you flip the two coins simultaneously every 5 seconds, now you have a 25% chance of getting each possible combination. But let's say you only really care about getting a result of Heads. So now instead of you considering both Heads and Tails, you're now considering either whether you get a Heads or not. In the first situation, with only one coin, you have a 50% chance of getting a Heads every 5 seconds. But now when you look at the second situation, it's changed! Now out of four possible combinations, THREE of them result in you getting at least one Heads and only ONE result of you getting no Heads. So now the chance of you getting at least one Heads every 5 seconds jumps up to 75% chance. This pattern continues almost on an exponential level, where with three coins you have eight results (HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, TTT). So your chances are now 82.5%! This increases more and more with every added coin.

So now let's consider the Creations again. Let's say that the coin is now a photon. There is some ridiculously small probability that it will cause a Creation and split into a particle and an antiparticle in a particular frame of time. You can say that for every "x" seconds, the photon will cause a Creation or it will not (heads and tails). You don't really care how many of each you have, or in what order, but what you really want is at least one Creation, if not more. So you start adding photons. Now you have two, or three, or five, or ten, or a hundred, or a million. Even though the probability for a creation is tiny, the more photons you have, the more "opportunities" there are for at least one photon to cause a Creation. Ideally you would want many more, but generally we wouldn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The main question that arises first from this is: "Well, we have things like lasers, blue flashlights, and LED lights that will make you practically blind, why don't we see this everyday?". There are two answers. First, you don't see this everyday simply because this happens on an extremely small level, definitely not visible to the naked eye. So don't expect to see electricity shooting out of your flashlight the next time you turn it on (although if you do I would recommend either getting yourself or your flashlight checked out....). The second answer is because air exists. Yes, it's a strange answer, but think about it. The likelihood that a stray electron or positron would simply miss every single atom of oxygen, nitrogen, etc. in our atmosphere is nonexistant. So if for any random reason a photon were to cause a Creation, the particle or antiparticle or both would either interact with each other or the atmosphere first before being even remotely measurable. The reason why we know these Creation-Annihilations actually exist is because we've created them in particle accelerators and we've observed the resultants from deep space, where the average atomic density is about 1 atom per cubic meter of space (or vacuum to be precise). So to even use magnetic fields on a light beam and expect results, this would have to be conducted in as close to a vacuum as possible.

The Possibilities Are.....Endless?


So let's take the situation where you have a high-intensity, high-energy light beam (most likely an ultraviolet laser) traveling through a superstrong magnetic field in as close to a perfect vacuum as possible. The most mundane application I can think of using this is to simply analyze the creation of different pairs of particles (electron-positron are the most common as they require relatively possibly the least energy). Theoretically anything can be created out of a Creation (as long as it is a Fermion [i.e. any combination of quarks, electrons, taus, and muons or any antiparticle thereof]), but the more mass involved in the particle-antiparticle, the more energy is required to cause such a Creation.

The most interesting idea I thought could be done with this, is if an object were placed such that the path of the positrons from the Creation were aimed at the object, it could be imagined that this light beam/supermagnet setup could initiate disintegration! Most atoms have a strong outer "valency" shell of electrons, which serve not only to repel the electron valency shells of other atoms, but also to "shield" the positive charge of the nucleus, which could attract the electrons in a valency shell of another atom. When a positron comes into contact with an electron, it is the same thing as an Annihilation. The electron-positron collision results in the two particles being "turned into" (usually) two photons, which then speed off in some unknown direction. If you have two atoms that are close to each other, the electrons in the outer shell keep the two atoms away from each other (or at least their respective nuclei). When you break down the shells, the positive charges of the nuclei start to repel each other much stronger than the electrons do. If you had a cluster of nuclei with no electrons, once you stopped constraining them, they would explode away from each other due to repulsive positive forces.

So think of this: Now you're directing a (hopeful) stream of positrons at a normal object, composed of normal atoms. When the positrons start hitting the shells of electrons, they break down. The nuclei of those atoms repel and break away. You essentially are letting the forces of the atoms themselves break the object apart. It would be similar to cutting diamond without actually putting any physical pressure on it. You could technically cut a straight line through the diamond (second hardest substance known to man, basically) and not put a hair of detectable physical pressure on it. If we could actually viably create a situation where this Creation-splitting effect created a stream of one type of particle or antiparticle, we could basically have a disintegration ray (sci-fi-esque, I know, but still....)!

As always, comments, questions (of any caliber), suggestions, complaints, short-orders, jokes, and rhetoric are more than welcome! I have now set up an email account for those of you who want to keep your questions private or if you aren't comfortable with asking openly on the account. You can email me at universalranking@gmail.com and I will answer you as fast as humanly possible. I swear that if I use your suggestion or question as a jumping-off point in a new post, I will not (unless otherwise stated) mention you directly or otherwise. You can retain complete anonymity. But as always, you can comment anonymously anyway, but if email is easier for you then by all means that is fine!

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it, and pass on the blog to those who would be interested!

-- J

EDIT: So, in the midst of researching and brushing up on a few theorems, I discovered the term Delbruck Scattering buried in a list of relevant terms to what I was searching for. It's a cool effect, and I'm somewhat relieved because it's not quite the same thing as what I discuss here. But if you've got a mind for Quantum Electrodynamics, I'd recommend looking into it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delbruck_scattering). 

Jumped The Gun! (Part One) [No Rhyme Intended] {Hope You're Not Offended}

Welcome back everyone! I've decided that in honor of last month's tenth post on this blog, I will introduce a new type of post here! Hopefully everyone enjoyed the last post and if you want me to analyze particular works, etc. feel free to let me know (comment box is below every post as always)! But I've had a somewhat crazy idea over the past few days and I feel that I should share it with everyone. So I will put it up here and see what you guys think (and of course I will explain everything as necessary as I go). Most likely this will be a two part post, as it's a big idea (it's even going to be *dunhdunhdunhhhhhhhhh* MULTIMEDIA!)! So let's begin shall we?

First, let me explain why I named this post "Jumped The Gun!". Approximately two days after I started thinking about this problem, I noticed an article on the Popular Science website (http://www.popsci.com) detailing a new weapon introduced by the military. It is based on the concept that a high-powered laser will ionize the air that it passes through, essentially making it a perfect electrical conduit. The high-powered laser is then immediately followed by a massive release of electrical charge, forming a highly controlled lightning bolt. The bolt's easiest path happens to be the perfect line of ionized air particles, and so the lightning follows the path that the laser took, striking whatever the laser beam ended up on. It uses the same natural principles as lightning, except that lightning follows a randomized pattern and more or less only by coincidence. While fairly impractical, it is a really cool idea, and yet it doesn't quite get to the heart of my idea and the principles it uses. Let me premise my post by saying that I know perfectly well that if my idea had any feasibility, someone else must have thought of it before and discarded it.

So what is the concept behind the problem? Well let's consider one of my previous posts, where I discussed particle-antiparticle creation-annihilation (http://universalranking.blogspot.com/2012/02/continuation-theory-on-dimensional.html). I never fully discussed where the creation comes from beyond "random energy" but there is actually one key point that I should clarify. When I said energy, I really meant small quantized packets of energy, also known as photons! So when I state that particle-antiparticle pairs are spontaneously created from packets of energy, I mean that actual photons spontaneously "turn into" bits of matter. One of the most common of these pairs is an electron and a positron. The positron is basically an antimatter counterpart of an electron. It has the same exact mass, and the same magnitude of charge, but the alignment of the quarks is exactly the opposite of that of the electron and therefore the direction of charge is exactly the opposite (positive). When a positron and an electron come into contact, they annihilate (as stated in the "Continuation" post) and create (usually) a pair of photons. The exceptions to that case include though the annihilation to a single photon, but usually this only happens when the creation comes from a low-energy photon (more on why that is in a bit).

We are going to assume for this post that there is a single photon creating an electron-positron pair that immediately annihilates to another single photon (for simplicity's sake). And now we get to the multimedia!
Cue Diagram 1!

Yes, it's a hand-drawn diagram (only the best for the people that actually read this blog!)!

So before you confuse yourself trying to decipher what this is, let me make it easier. This diagram is known as a Feynman diagram and is used to show the interactions of particles through time. One thing to immediately note is the "Time" axis along the top pointing to the right. This means that the particle is changing as time passes, not necessarily as it "moves to the right". That is pretty much the only really difficult concept to wrap your head around which is not necessarily thinking of the particle moving. Theoretically it could be completely still in space but it would still be diagrammed as above. So what does this diagram show? It shows a photon suddenly turning into an electron and a positron, which then a little later collide together, resulting in another photon. For those who want a little more information, the Electromagnetic Interaction Vertex Strength is how relatively strong or likely the reaction will be compared to the other three fundamental force reactions (Strong Force, Weak Force, and Gravity). So the strength/probability of this electromagnetic interaction is about 1/137th of that of the strongest type of interaction force (the Strong Force). To give some measure of comparison, the strength of gravity relative to the Strong Force is about 1/(10^39) or 1 over 1 with 39 zeros after it!

So back to the point. This diagram shows what actually can happen to a photon randomly, and it is the case I would like you to keep in mind (refer back to the diagram if it gets confusing at any point). One difficulty with this scenario is that the photon has to have enough energy to make this happen (in more technical terms, the Energy of the photon [given by E = h * f , or Energy = Planck's Constant * frequency] must be at least twice the rest mass of an electron for the interaction to occur). The spontaneous creation of an electron-positron pair is not definitively known as of the present, however the annihilation is simply due to the fact that the electron and the positron are attracted to each other intensely due to their opposing charges. They therefore collide fairly quickly after the point of creation due to their close proximity. The only known instances of this principle being violated was detailed in the previous post (when the creation occurred on the very edge of a black hole). The point of all this was to set up and demonstrate what can and does happen in real life and the basis for my idea!

So here's the other part to consider in the idea. Electrons (and positrons), as well as being affected by electric fields, are affected by magnetic fields! However, whereas electrons (and positrons) are attracted usually in straight lines by electric fields, magnetic fields affect electrons in different ways. In this case, a magnetic field going away from the viewer at a 90-degree angle to the path of the electron (or positron) forces the electron in a curve (and eventually in a full circle if the magnetic field is strong enough and large enough to encompass the circular path of the electron) such as in the following way:

The small pluses on the square indicate a magnetic field going away from the viewer. If the pluses were replaced by dots, that would indicate that the magnetic field was going towards the viewer, and consequently the path of the electron would curve in the other direction. The path of an electron in the opposite direction of magnetic field as shown above would accurately represent the path of a positron in the magnetic field shown above. In simpler terms, the path of an electron and the path of a positron are exactly the opposite in the same magnetic field.

Here is where part one of this post ends. If you can catch a glimmer of where I am going with these ideas, feel free to speculate below or ruminate on it by yourself! As always, if you have a comment, a question, a suggestion, or any digression, let me know below or on Facebook! I will be glad to field any of the above (bonus points for rhyming).

If you like the new style of post (me sharing random brainchildren) then definitely let me know! If you hate it, let me know as well! Comments and questions are always appreciated and help me to expound on what I need to or to delve into new and exciting implications!

And finally I have a challenge for each and every one of the people that actually read this post. It is as followed and not meant to be an annoying solicitation. The frequency of my updates generally relates to my readership. I am encouraged when I see a spike in page views and the more I see, the more I feel obligated to update more often. So here's your challenge if you're reading this. Go out and tell one (or more if you want) friend that you think would be interested in this kind of subject matter about this blog. Give them the link to the blog. If you want to help out even more, tell them to tell one (or more) of their friend(s)! The more the merrier (and the more posts)!

As always, thank you all who read this, and I will update with the second part of this post (and the actual meat of my crazy and probably already-discarded idea) once I return from my Eurotrip!

--J