by Tim James
APPENDIX V Paint with All the Colours of the Quark
When you see an object’s colour, what you are really detecting are vibrations in the electromagnetic field. Atoms and molecules harmonise their electrons with a certain amount of energy, which corresponds to the energy of photons being emitted or reflected.
A high-energy photon will hit your eye and your brain makes up the colour violet to account for it, while a low energy photon hits your eye and your brain makes up the colour red.
Fundamental particles do not have an actual appearance in this sense, only the photons they emit do. This is not easy to picture since most objects in our experience have some sort of colour on their surface. If you picture a tennis ball, its surface is green at a naive level but really that means the electrons in the tennis ball’s surface are transferring energy into the photon field at a value your brain interprets as green.
Quarks do transfer energy into the photon field (they have electric charge) but the energies are far too high for our eyes to notice. The actual ‘colour’ of quarks would be the same ‘colour’ as a beam of X-rays or gamma rays so their appearance would be, in effect, invisible.
The same could be said for a single electron moving through space. Unless a particle actually collides with something or gets snared onto an atom and loses energy (which it emits as a photon) we would never see it coming towards us or away from us.
Electrons moving through water give off a blue glow, incidentally (a phenomenon called Cherenkov radiation) but appear slightly more purple in air (the colour of lightning) and slightly pink or green in the snow. The nucleus of an atom, and the quarks, protons and neutrons inside, are, however, utterly undetectable to the human eye.
Acknowledgements
When I was fourteen, my Science teacher, Mr Evans, gave me a textbook on quantum physics. I quickly fell in love with the topic and have wanted to write my own book about it ever since. Fundamental was a real labour of love and I want to thank the people who helped me realise this nerdy dream.
First and foremost I want to thank BreeAnne Kelly (who possibly loves Science even more than I do). Bree was vital in helping me structure the book, giving me critical feedback on which bits were not working and helped me get the tone right, so that the finished product was fun to read as well as fun to write.
I want to thank my partner in crime, the best writer I know, Karl Dixon. Karl gave me invaluable notes on writing style, helped me fine-tune a lot of the jokes and kept me smiling during the whole process, even at times when I did not feel like it.
Thank you to Andrew ‘Hercules’ Pettitt, who made crucial tweaks and polishes to the opening chapters and stopped me from getting carried away with inconsistent, waffley explanations. Merci, mon ami!
Thank you to Marcus Loft and Phil Pavet for making sure my physics was accurate and that my analogies did not detract from the facts.
Thank you to Becky, once again for being unendingly patient with me as I wrote this passion-project and letting me do this the way it needed to be done.
Thank you to my fearless agent Jen Christie who helped me pitch this book and for taking a chance on me… again.
Thank you to everyone at Robinson and Little, Brown for helping me get the book finished and for making it such an effortless process: Duncan Proudfoot for trusting me with such an ambitious topic; Amanda Keats for coordinating the mammoth task of editing; Beth Wright, my publicist, for helping me get the word out about my writing; Andy Hine and Kate Hibbert for negotiating all the international stuff; and a very special thanks to my copy-editor Howard Watson whose attention to detail is unparalleled. It has been a privilege working with you guys.
I want to thank several authors whose books were indispensable during writing. So, although I have not met these people directly, I want to thank Hagen Kleinert, Tom Lancaster, Stephen Blundell, David Tong, Anthony Zee and Leonard Susskind for helping me understand the bits I did not and feel more confident about the bits I did.
Oh, and thank you to Carly Rae Jepsen for providing the music I listened to as I wrote.
Thank you to Seishi Shimizu for being an inspiration to me as a scientist and writer.
Thank you to my father, Paul, for always believing in me. And, most importantly, thank you to everyone who went out and bought my first book which is the main reason I got to write this second one. The support from friends, family, students and strangers has been overwhelming. I hope I get to do this again for you guys!
About the Author
TIM JAMES, the author of Elemental, is a science teacher, YouTuber, blogger, and Instagrammer. Raised by missionaries in Nigeria, he fell in love with science at the age of fifteen and refuses to get over his infatuation. After graduating with a Master’s degree in chemistry, specializing in computational quantum mechanics, he decided to get straight into the classroom. He lives in England.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. R. P. Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (London: Penguin, 1985).
2. S. Giles, Theorising Modernism: Essays in Critical Theory (London: Routledge, 1993).
CHAPTER ONE
1. A. Marmodoro, Aristotle on Perceiving Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
2. J. Gribbin and M. Gribbin, Science: A History in 100 Experiments (London: William Collins, 2016).
3. E. Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (22 August 2017), available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-physics/ (accessed 15 December 2018).
4. I. Newton, Opticks (1704; republished New York: Dover Publications, 1952).
5. A. Robinson, The Last Man Who Knew Everything (London: Oneworld Publications, 2006).
6. P. Ehrenfest, ‘On the Necessity of Quanta’ (1911), trans. L. Navarro and E. Perez, Arch. Hist. Exact Sci., vol. 58 (2004), pp. 97–141.
7. A. Lightman, The Discoveries (New York: Vintage, 2006).
8. E. Cartmell and G. Fowles, Valency and Molecular Structure (fourth edition, London: Butterworths, 1977).
CHAPTER TWO
1. F. Swain, The Universe Next Door (London: John Murray, 2017).
2. G. Lewis, ‘The Conservation of Photons’, Nature, vol. 118, no. 2981 (1926), pp. 874–5.
3. A. Howie, ‘Akira Tonomura (1941–2012)’, Nature, vol. 486, no. 7403 (2012), pp. 324.
4. N. Blaedal, Harmony and Unity: The Life of Niels Bohr (Lexington: Plunkett Lake Press, 2017).
5. B. Franklin, ‘Experiments and Observations on Electricity’, Pennsylvania Gazette (19 October 1752).
6. J. J. Thomson, Recollections and Reflections (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1936).
7. I. Asimov, Words of Science (London: Harrap, 1974).
CHAPTER THREE
1. E. Wollan and L. Borst, ‘Physics Section III Monthly Report for the Period Ending December 31, 1944’, Oak Ridge, Tennessee Clinton Laboratories, Metallurgical Report, no. M-CP-2222 (1945).
2. S. Eibenberger et al., ‘Matter-wave Interference with Particles Selected from a Molecular Library Masses Exceeding 10,000 amu’, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., vol. 15 (2013), pp. 14696–700.
3. D. Cassidy, ‘The Sad Story of Heisenberg’s Doctoral Oral Exam’, APS News, vol. 7, no. 1 (1998).
4. J. Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat (London: Transworld, 1984).
5. D. Charles, ‘Heisenberg’s Principles Kept Bomb From Nazis’, New Scientist, no. 1837 (1992).
6. J. Glanz, ‘Letter May Solve Nazi A-Bomb Mystery’, New York Times (7 January 2002).
7. G. Blazeski, ‘The Nazis were harassing Heisenberg, so his mother called Himmler’s mom & asked her if she would please tell the SS to give her son a break’, Vintage News (8 April 2017), available from: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/04/08/the-nazis-were-harassing-heisenberg-so-his-mother-called-himmlers-mom-asked-her-if-she-would-please-tell-the-ss-to-give-her-son-a-break/ (accessed 15 December 2018).
8. M. Gladwell, ‘No Mercy’, New Yorker (4 September 2006).
9. A. Trabesinger, ‘The
Path to Agreement’, Nature Physics, vol. 4, no. 349 (2008).
10. D. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
11. W. Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1971).
CHAPTER FOUR
1. W. Moore, Schrödinger: Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
2. Moore, Schrödinger.
3. E. Schrödinger, ‘An Undulating Theory of the Mechanics of Atoms and Molecules’, Physical Review, vol. 28, no. 6 (1926).
4. Moore, Schrödinger.
5. M. Brooks, The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook (Brunswick: Scribe, 2017).
6. Narcotics Anonymous, World Service Conference of Narcotics Anonymous (November 1981), available from: https://web.archive.org/web/20121202030403/ http://www.anonymifoundation.org/uploads/NA_Approval_Form_Scan.pdf (accessed 15 December 2018).
7. N. Camus et al., ‘Experimental Evidence for Quantum Tunnelling Time’, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 119 (2017), pp. 23201.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. W. Gerlach and O. Stern, ‘Der Experimentelle Nachweis der Richtungsquanteling im Magnetfeld’, Z. fur Physik, vol. 9 (1922), pp. 349–52.
CHAPTER SIX
1. R. Kastern, The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
2. N. D. Mermin, ‘What’s Wrong with this Pillow?’, Physics Today, vol. 42, no. 4 (1989).
3. I. Born, The Born–Einstein Letters (New York: Walker and Company, 1971).
4. W. Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond, trans. A. Pomerans (New York: Harper and Row, 1971).
5. D. Lindley, Where Does the Weirdness Go? (New York: Vintage, 1997).
6. From a memoir of Ruth Braunizer, Erwin Schrödinger’s daughter, entitled ‘Memories of Dublin’, collected in G. Holfter (ed.), German Speaking Exiles in Ireland 1933–1945 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006).
7. C. McDonnell, ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’, GITC Review, vol. 13, no. 1 (2014).
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. J. von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, trans. R. Bayer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955).
2. E. Wigner, ‘Remarks on the Mind-Body Question’, in I. J. Good (ed.), The Scientist Speculates (London: Heinemann, 1961).
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. A. Einstein, B. Podolsky and N. Rosen, ‘Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Reality be Considered Complete?’, Phys. Rev., vol. 47 (1935).
2. E. Schrödinger, ‘Discussion of Probability Relations Between Separated Systems’, Math. Proc. of the Cam. Phil. Soc., vol. 31, no. 4 (1935), pp. 555–63.
3. J. E. Haynes, H. Klehr and A. Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009).
4. A. Whitaker, John Stewart Bell and Twentieth-Century Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
5. A. Aspect, P. Grainger and G. Roger, ‘Experimental Realization of Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen–Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A New Violation of Bell’s Inequalities’, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 49, no. 2 (1982), pp. 91–4.
CHAPTER NINE
1. R. Ji-Gang et al., ‘Ground to Satellite Quantum Teleportation’, Nature, vol. 549, no. 7670 (2017), pp. 70–3.
2. X. S. Ma et al., ‘Quantum Teleportation Over 143 Kilometers Using Active Feed-forward’, Nature, vol. 489, no. 7415 (2012), pp. 269–73.
3. C. Bennett et al., ‘Teleporting an Unknown Quantum State via Dual Classical and Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen Channels’, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 70, no. 13 (1993), pp. 1895–9.
4. P. Ball, ‘Quantum Teleportation is Even Weirder Than You Think’, Nature Column: Muse (20 July 2017).
5. Y. H. Kim et al., ‘A Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser’, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 84 (2000), pp. 1–5.
6. C. Marletto et al., ‘Entanglement Between Living Bacteria and Quantized Light Witnessed by Rabi Splitting’, Journal of Phys. Comm., vol. 2, no. 40 (2018).
CHAPTER TEN
1. W. Keepin, ‘Lifework of David Bohm’ (11 March 2008), available from: http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/science/david_bohm.htm (accessed 15 December 2018).
2. Y. Couder et al., ‘Walking Droplets: a Form of Wave–particle Duality at Macroscopic Level?’, Europhys. News, vol. 41, no. 1 (2010), pp. 14–18.
3. J. Bush et al., ‘Walking Droplets Interacting with Single and Double Slits’, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 835 (2018), pp. 1136–56; T. Bohr et al., ‘Double Slit Experiment with Single Wave-driven Particles and Its Relation to Quantum Mechanics’, Phys. Rev. E., vol. 92 (2015).
4. J. Cramer, ‘The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Nonlocality’ (2015), available from: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.00039.pdf (accessed 15 December 2018).
5. D. Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity (London: Penguin, 2012).
6. F. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 2000).
7. P. Byrne, The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
8. P. Ball, ‘Experts Still Split about What Quantum Theory Means’, Nature News (11 January 2013). The original poll can be found at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1069.pdf (accessed 15 December 2018).
9. I. Asimov, ‘Science and the Bible’, interview with Prof. Asimov conducted by P. Kurtz in Free Enquiry, Spring (1982).
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1. I. Asimov, New Guide to Science (Harmondsworth: Penguin Press Science, 1993).
2. G. Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius (London: Faber and Faber, 2009).
3. P. Dirac, Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (New York: Dover Publications, 2001).
CHAPTER TWELVE
1. C. Sykes, No Ordinary Genius (London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994).
2. J. Gleick, Genius (London: Little, Brown, 1992).
3. Letter from Robert Oppenheimer addressed to Robert Birge, dated 4 November 1943.
4. R. Leighton, Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
5. A. Zee, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
6. Sykes, No Ordinary Genius.
7. M. Nio et al., ‘Complete Tenth-order QED Contribution to the Muon g-2’ (2012), available from: https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.5370 (accessed 15 December 2018).
8. T. Lancaster and S. Blundell, Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
9. R. P. Feynman, ‘The Theory of Positrons’, Phys. Rev., vol. 76 (1949).
10. C. D. Anderson, ‘The Positive Electron’, Phys. Rev., vol. 43 (1933).
11. D. Dooling, ‘Reaching for the Stars’, Science at NASA (12 April 1999), available from: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/prop12apr99_1 (accessed 15 December 2018).
12. W. Bertsche et al., ‘Confinement of Antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds’, Nature Phys., vol. 7, no. 7 (2011), pp. 558–64.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1. Author Unknown, ‘Who Ordered That?’, Nature Editorial, vol. 531 (2016), pp. 139–40.
2. M. L. Perl et al., ‘Evidence for Anomaloys Lepton Production in e+ e− Annihilation’, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 35, no. 22 (1975).
3. R. P. Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (London: Penguin, 1985).
4. M. Kaku, ‘Beauty Is Truth’, Forbes Magazine (7 October 2008).
5. L. Lederman, ‘Neutrino Physics’, Lecture given on 9 January 1963, Brookhaven Lecture Series on Unity of Science, BNL 787, no. 23.
6. Interview with Gell-Mann, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po-SQ33Kn6U (accessed 15 December 2018).
7. F. Wilczek, ‘Time’s (Almost) Reversible Arrow’, Quanta Magazine (7 January 2016).
8. M. E. Peskin and D. V. Schoeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Boston: Addis
on-Wesley, 1995).
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1. K. Jepsen, ‘Famous Higgs Analogy, Illustrated’, Symmetry Magazine (9 June 2013).
2. J. W. Brewer and M. K. Smith, Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work (New York: Marcel Dekker Inc., 1981).
3. A. Einstein, ‘Obituary of Amalie “Emmy” Noether’, New York Times (5 May 1935).
4. Author Unknown, ‘Why Is the Higgs Discovery so Significant?’, Science and Technology Facilities Council (22 September 2017), available from: https://stfc.ukri.org/research/particle-physics-and-particle-astrophysics/peter-higgs-a-truly-british-scientist/why-is-the-higgs-discovery-so-significant (accessed 15 December 2018).
5. P. Rogers, ‘The Heart of the Matter’, Independent (1 September 2004).
6. L. Lederman, The God Particle (New York: Dell, 1993).
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1. W. Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life (1752; republished London: The Royal Society, 2010).
2. A. D. Aczel, God’s Equation (New York: Delta, 2000).
Index
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
