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):
- Creation-Annihilation
- 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).
- 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.....]
- 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)
- Electrons/Positrons in a magnetic field
- 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).
- 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:
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).
.jpeg) |
| 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).
