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Friday, March 04, 2005A Different UniverseRobert Laughlin Laughlin is one of the three Nobel laureates for 1998 for physics. And he addresses an interesting puzzle: While quantum theorists look for the super-tiniest particles whose properties will explain life, the universe and everything, other physicists are trying to decide what to do about atoms that behave differently in groups than alone. To wit, if you've got enough water and you make it cold enough, it will freeze. In fact, it will freeze in 11 slightly different states. We don't know why those (at least) 11 states occur, or how. We do know that if you take a single molecule of water, you can't do it. You need lots of water molecules - though it's not clear how many - but once you've got enough, they form a superstructure, a crystalline lattice work, that is so remarkable you can drive trucks across it to go ice fishing. But what's really cool is that even if one molecule in the structure is out of place, the others will stay enough in the right place enough that it holds and appears uniform. Laughlin's essential premise is that universal laws will have to include universal laws of organization. He shows that some laws (pertaining especially to gases and liquids) work great in large volumes, poorly if at all in small volumes. What does that mean? It means that finding the Grand Unified Theory can't be done just by investigating particle physics, that there's something that goes on where for everything from crystallizing water to molten metal you need a sort of critical mass before there are enough molecules with enough electron shells for the mass of the thing to behave as a uniform thing. While Laughlin is not Richard Feynman, he's one of the entertaining variety of physicist with lots of cool stuff to talk about regarding his research and what it reminds him of in real life. For an fun read that will open your eyes to all sorts of stuff happening around you that you might not have noticed before, Laughlin's is a fine book. 
posted by gbarto at 10:23 PM |
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