2008 Nobel Physics Prize

[Divinity]

http://www.collegeotr.com/washington_un ... king_12736

Nobel Prize in Physics Shared by U of Chicago Researcher for "Symmetry Breaking"

Posted by Dr. Manhattan 10/07/2008 08:56 AM

The winners of the 20008 Nobel Prize in Physics were announced today, and the honor didn’t just go to one man (or woman). Instead the prize was shared by three different researches, all collaborating on something called “symmetry breaking.” The big winners were Yoichiro Nambu at Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Makoto Kobayashi at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Tsukuba, Japan, and Toshihide Masukawa at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP) in Kyoto University, Japan. Their research is said to have led to “a deeper understanding of our universe.”


How exactly? Well apparently the best way to explain “symmetry breaking” is to look at the example of the snowflake. James Trefil explains:


Both the hydrogen and oxygen molecules are quite symmetric when they are isolated. The electric force which governs their actions as atoms is also a symmetrically acting force. But when their temperature is lowered and they form a water molecule, the symmetry of the individual atoms is broken as they form a molecule with 105 degrees between the hydrogen-oxygen bonds. When they freeze to form a snowflake, they form another type of symmetry, but the symmetry of the original atoms has been lost. Since this loss of symmetry occurs without any external intervention, we say that it has undergone spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Got all that?


You know, as cool as symmetry breaking sounds, I really feel like the Hadron Collider guys got screwed, don’t you?

--------------------------------

Nobel laureates call youth to science
-------------------------------------------
TOKYO: The two Japanese winners of the 2008 Nobel Physics Prize yesterday voiced hope that young people would take up science, with one calling for a sense of "romance" about research.

The Nobel jury in Stockholm gave the award to researchers MAKOTO KOBAYASHI and TOSHIHIDE MASKAWA, along with Japanese-born American researcher YOICHIRO NAMBU.

The two scientists were hopeful that young people would become excited about science as they received congratulatory calls from Japanese Prime Minister TARO ASO. "It is very important to have a sense of romance about science," said Maskawa, a physicist at Kyoto University in western Japan, as Aso put him on speaker-phone at his office.....etc.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.as ... ueID=31202

[junglelord]

Thats kinda of interesting, as I have gone back to try to study gravity and got locked up in the hydrogen atom and then the water molecule via hydrogen bonding. The secret of the universe may be locked up in hydrogen and its special geometric properties due to it having only one electron and one proton. I was just reviewing the special states of energy of water and how this relates to hydrogen bonds. Pretty cool stuff. Wow so they got a Nobel Prize for saying a snowflake breaks symmetry....f me.

[Divinity]

Thats kinda of interesting, as I have gone back to try to study gravity and got locked up in the hydrogen atom and then the water molecule via hydrogen bonding. The secret of the universe may be locked up in hydrogen and its special geometric properties due to it having only one electron and one proton. I was just reviewing the special states of energy of water and how this relates to hydrogen bonds. Pretty cool stuff. Wow so they got a Nobel Prize for saying a snowflake breaks symmetry....f me.

Hmmmm....gives you hope doesn't it, J/L? These people are no more able than you are to obtain such an esteemed prize.

[Solar]

Both the hydrogen and oxygen molecules are quite symmetric when they are isolated. The electric force which governs their actions as atoms is also a symmetrically acting force. But when their temperature is lowered and they form a water molecule, the symmetry of the individual atoms is broken as they form a molecule with 105 degrees between the hydrogen-oxygen bonds. When they freeze to form a snowflake, they form another type of symmetry, but the symmetry of the original atoms has been lost. Since this loss of symmetry occurs without any external intervention, we say that it has undergone spontaneous symmetry breaking.

This is the most interesting part to me. So what about internal intervention? To me, this symmetry notion always seems to end at the point of a perfectly distributed and undisturbed lattice of some nature. Which is why electrostatics is so interesting in relation to it. It also seems to touch on things science doesn't seem to want to say. Or maybe they haven't found the language to say it yet?

You have three choices as a causative agent for breaking symmetry imho: Something external, something internal, or... the two causes are one and the same. Meaning that the symmetry is broken by the nature of the thing itself to 'move' from the condition of symmetry (one) into the multiplicity (many) we perceive via phase transitions, orthogonal relationships, 'thing-ness' etc, geometricizing via the naturally occurring 'sets' of dimensional constants or "Laws".

Their vacuum is not empty. But it contains no "particles". Supposedly just 'charge' fleeting in and out of existence. The whole "zero-point field" idea comes from this correct? I think it was Harold Aspden who pondered to himself 'What is the nature of "space" that it can hold or carry the energy of 'charge'?' - to such extent that we detect a "field". There has to be an intervening medium for that to occur indicating that "space" is something.

[Divinity]

Both the hydrogen and oxygen molecules are quite symmetric when they are isolated. The electric force which governs their actions as atoms is also a symmetrically acting force. But when their temperature is lowered and they form a water molecule, the symmetry of the individual atoms is broken as they form a molecule with 105 degrees between the hydrogen-oxygen bonds. When they freeze to form a snowflake, they form another type of symmetry, but the symmetry of the original atoms has been lost. Since this loss of symmetry occurs without any external intervention, we say that it has undergone spontaneous symmetry breaking.

This is the most interesting part to me. So what about internal intervention? To me, this symmetry notion always seems to end at the point of a perfectly distributed and undisturbed lattice of some nature. Which is why electrostatics is so interesting in relation to it. It also seems to touch on things science doesn't seem to want to say. Or maybe they haven't found the language to say it yet?

You have three choices as a causative agent for breaking symmetry imho: Something external, something internal, or... the two causes are one and the same. Meaning that the symmetry is broken by the nature of the thing itself to 'move' from the condition of symmetry (one) into the multiplicity (many) we perceive via phase transitions, orthogonal relationships, 'thing-ness' etc, geometricizing via the naturally occurring 'sets' of dimensional constants or "Laws".

Their vacuum is not empty. But it contains no "particles". Supposedly just 'charge' fleeting in and out of existence. The whole "zero-point field" idea comes from this correct? I think it was Harold Aspden who pondered to himself 'What is the nature of "space" that it can hold or carry the energy of 'charge'?' - to such extent that we detect a "field". There has to be an intervening medium for that to occur indicating that "space" is something.

Yes, great post. Information has to play a part here. Information instructs the water to become ice, steam, liquid, etc., i.e. to transmute its structure. So what's the relationship between space, charge, pull/push, angular momenta and information?
That's over to you geniuses!

[Grey Cloud]

Hi folks,
A couple of things struck me about the scientists' comments in the original post. Firstly, what part does romance play in science and since when? I would have thought that science (objective, rational, methodical) was the antithesis of romance (subjective, irrational, spontaneous). They must be getting desperate in induct young people into the priesthood.

The second thing is the point Solar picked up on re the loss of symmetry without an external force. How do they know that there was no external force? Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. I thought it was one of their rules that a thing cannot change from state A to state B without a third actor C entering the picture. Surely the law of cause and effect applies?

Divinity wrote:

Information has to play a part here. Information instructs the water to become ice, steam, liquid, etc., i.e. to transmute its structure.

That which instructs the water to become ice etc is the Logos. It is the element Fire. Everything carries within it a fire seed - a part of the Logos. In other words, everything carries it's own copy of the script. I'm using Logos in the sense Heraclitus meant rather than how it is used in the NT (In the beginning was the Logos (word/verb)). The Greeks also used Ananke (necessity) who was the mother of Adrasteia (inescapable) the the Moires (fates). Homer calls Necessity 'a law unto laws'. In short, the water turns to ice because it has to; it has no choice. Humans do have choice because we have free-will. However, as a species we do not exercise it (we think we do but we don't).
P.S. Minor quibble with Divinity's use of the word 'transmute'. I prefer 'transform' as the Universe is alchemy in action and alchemy is the Art of Tranformation (The Great Art).