Quantums of Nothingness

 

Quantums of Nothingness

Caution: The Science Described Here May be Mind-Boggling

While clicking about on YouTube recently, as I’m like to do occasionally, I came across a video.  Of all things, it was on the subject of theoretical physics, Quantum

That Impression Making Book

Physics to be exact.  It’s a topic that, to be honest, no one really understands no matter what they may say.  Be that as it may, it’s clearly heady stuff.  But why not when F-18 fighters chasing Good & Plenty candy shaped UFOs is old news.  It reminded me of when as a kid, I had a paperback spanning everything from Number Theory to Relativity entitled “One Two Three … Infinity.”  I was mesmerized when physicist-author George Gamow described a hypothetical printing process operated by monkeys hitting typewriter keys at random.  Together, all of them, and if you were to count their number, they would total a figure equal to the number of atoms in the universe.  It was mind-boggling in the nature of its scope.  That incredible number, all together pounding away on typewriters at the speed of light, when given enough paper, ink, typewriters, time, and of course monkeys, could print all the English works that have ever been or ever will be printed.  Much would be gibberish of course but eventually, everything from an inventory of King Solomon’s treasure trove, even if it may have never existed, to the Declaration of Independence would eventually emerge.  Starting at the beginning of time, only an infinitesimal fraction of the total job would be completed by now.  It was beyond my comprehension and better reading than that hoard of Blackhawk Squadron comics

Blackhawk Squadron Comics

at my Saturday morning barbershop in those days.  I was enthralled by the idea, the sheer size of the effort, the unfathomable time needed, the utter randomness of the task, and the concept of that lazy eight on its side, ‘∞,’ symbolizing infinity.  It was a life-changing paperback.  That book, “One Two Three … Infinity” would be with me all my life until it was lost in a house fire along with everything else.  It made such an impression on me it may have set the trajectory for my professional life as an engineer, while those Blackhawk comics where André, with his pencil-thin mustache uttering old French profanity like "Sacre bleu!” set me on course to be a military pilot. 

I mentioned that my “One, Two, Three” paperback discussed Relativity.  Fortunately, it did at my laymen’s level of understanding.  In the time since 1947 when the book first appeared, the field of physics has come a long way.  It has advanced so far in fact, that today there is a disjoint between Relativity, long a mainstay of physics, and the emergence of Quantum Theory.  This rift is difficult to describe here other than to mention that while the classical mechanics of Newton was eventually eclipsed by Relativity, it in turn is being challenged by Quantum Theory.  This came about when physicists’ interest in nature delved into examining ever smaller particles in yet smaller worlds, where things get really weird.  It was Quantum physics that emerged in an attempt to explain nature’s behavior in this domain.  In this smallest of small worlds, Relativity Theory crumbles.  Likewise, Quantum mechanics has its limits.  It doesn’t explain how our world functions in its entirety, just in infinitesimal space.  In this tiny scaled-down world it runs into serious trouble when physicists attempt to extrapolate it to very large dimensions, on the order of cosmic proportions, that is to say, into the realm of Relativity.  If mankind is to move on to a better understanding of our world, a unified theory that simultaneously explains observed phenomena in both worlds is urgently needed.  

    A major dust-up, the inevitable clash between the relativity’s deterministic repeatability and the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, is underway.  Others using String Theory, fraternizing with both sides, try to lash them together to keep the boat, which we call theoretical physics, afloat.  What eventually emerges, as we delve into the big secrets of this small world, could be another revolution in physics, an all-encompassing theory by which to interpret the universe.  Undoubtedly, its implications will be staggering.  Whether we like the unrelenting speed of technological change or not, the dividends of yet unimaginable technology rest in its realization.  Beyond that, it could shed light on the nature of what we call reality, the very fabric by which nature operates, even whether the universe is built on quantum probabilities or whether it is fundamentally deterministic, where every event is linked to a definite cause (relativism).  Might Sir Isaac be soon relegated to the dust heap of archaic theories, the nouveau Aristotle?  

Whatever the outcome, which undoubtedly will only be temporary in such a fast moving field, be it the unification of Relativity with Quantum Physics or the emergence of some totally new way to understand how the inherent nature of matter, space, and time work, it will rely on experimentation to show the way.  Experiments have and will continue to nudge us along the pathway of discovery by turning theoretical math, so dominant here, into accepted theory.  Much like great Italian composers like Vivaldi, Verdi and Puccini could transpose the tunes and rhythms in their heads into symphonies, so brilliant Italian minds are today at work to conceive and create the tools necessary to perform experiments yet beyond definition.  These investigations may result in a complete paradigm shift in current thinking and ultimately lead to that much sought, all for one and one for all, unified approach, a theory of everything.  

In the past, I’ve written of men like Da Vinci and Marconi, yet there are many other Italian scientists and researchers who reside on the sidelines of notoriety but nonetheless change the world every day by making important contributions.  There is one Italian physicist in particular, who day by day is renowned for creating nothing.  I think that’s quite a nice job if you can get it.  His only professional focus in life is to create nothing.  Wow. Just imagine a sinecure like that.  I imagine that if someone were to ask him what he’d been working on that day, he could honestly reply, “Nothing.”  That’s correct, I said his job is to create nothing or more precisely, nothingness.  But before I get to him, there have been many who preceded him as pathfinders, who also sought nothingness.  The ‘nothingness’ I’m referring to here is what is commonly known as a vacuum, something familiar to each of us, yet so important for conducting experiments in physics.  Sounds a lot like the Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First” (click to see video) doesn’t it?  In physics, “vacuum” means a truly empty space, a void, an environment with nothing in it.  No matter, and I mean the noun here, is present whatsoever.  But nowadays, in the technospeak of Quantum Physics, that is no longer true (more later).  Early interest in vacuums began with Aristotle’s idea that there was no true empty space, for nature

Torricelli Conducting His
Famous Experiment

fights nothingness.  Aristotle had claimed that a vacuum was a logical contradiction and went on to coin the phrase: Horror vacui, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”  Aristotle was onto something.  It turns out he was right about nature abhorring empty space.  It’s always working hard to fill it.  

Theories are one thing but action to create a vacuum had to wait until Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli appeared on the scene.  Evangelista was born in Faenza, Romagna, then a Papal State of Rome in 1608.  His father, Gaspare, a modest textile artisan, his mother, Caterina, and two younger brothers were very poor.  It was Gaspare who first appreciated his son’s remarkable talents and appealed to his brother, Giacomo, a monk, to see that Evangelista received a basic education.  In 1624, Giacomo enrolled Torricelli into a Jesuit College to study mathematics and philosophy.  Then in 1626, uncle Giacomo sent Torricelli to Rome to study science under the tutelage of Jesuit monk Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the Collegio della Sapienza, today the University of Rome.  Castelli had been a student of Galileo.  It’s interesting to note that Torricelli filled the gap in years (1608-1647) between Galileo and Newton, first as a student of Galileo where beginning in 1641 he moved to Florence to serve the elderly astronomer as his assistant and secretary during the last three months of Galileo’s life.  Evangelista’s career did not end until Newton was a child in ‘nappies’ as my British friends are accustomed to calling diapers.  

Evangelista is best known for his invention of the barometer, though little known for something equally important.  Using a glass tube about a meter in length, sealed at one end, he filled it with mercury to the top.  Capping it with his finger, he then inverted the tube into a dish filled with mercury and then removed his finger.  He observed that as a result of the inversion, the mercury did not completely flow out of the glass tube into the dish.  He put it this way:

“We have made many glass vessels ... with tubes two cubits long. ….  These were filled with mercury, the open end was closed with the finger, and the tubes were then inverted in a vessel where there was mercury.  We saw that an empty space was formed and that nothing happened in the vessel where this space was formed.”

Close-up of Inverted 
Tube with Vacuum

A portion of the capped top was clearly empty, devoid of matter and
met the requirements of a vacuum.  The settled column had essentially adjusted its height to balance the force of the atmosphere pushing on the surface of the liquid in the bowl.  Eventually, he would realize that the column would move up and down with changes in atmospheric pressure (an early barometer), but he immediately noted the presence of the evacuated space at the top of the tube.  This void, something I surmise he’d surprised himself by creating, was the first recorded instance where a partial vacuum had ever been created.  His barometer got lots of attention, but in its development, a sustained vacuum had been achieved.  Contrary to what Aristotle had said, he just may have captured empty space which became known as a ‘Torricellian Vacuum.’  Today, the torr (not to be confused with the Ford Torino), a unit of pressure used in vacuum measurements, gets its name in honor of Torricelli.  This earliest of steps marked a significant breakthrough that has since brought us to today. 

Maybe it’s not so surprising to appreciate but as the objects of interest have gotten smaller and smaller, just the opposite has happened with the tools employed to

Enrico Fermi's "Chicago Pile,"
The World's First Nuclear Reactor

investigate them.  They have grown larger and larger.  While Galileo used observation and his keen mind, Torricelli a glass tube and mercury, and Einstein relied mostly on mathematics and blackboard chalk, today’s tools can occupy thousands of acres.  Examples include the Fermilab particle accelerator in Illinois.  Enrico Fermi, for which this laboratory is named while he himself is called the "architect of the nuclear age," was an Italian physicist and later a naturalized American who created the world's first nuclear reactor.  It was known as the “Chicago Pile.”  Another, the sanctum sanctorum of physics, is the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located 575 feet below ground near Geneva.  Here, particles far beyond well-understood electrons such as quirky quarks, leptons, and the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, referred to as the “God particle” (which constitute an energy field), are investigated.  At $9B, the LHC is the world's largest machine and the most powerful particle accelerator ever built.  It consists of a tunnel complex

The Vast Extent of the CERN Large Hadron Collider

running along a 17 mile (27 km) dual ring-shaped circuit of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of circling particles to speeds approaching that of light.  To put it into some astonishing perspective, a proton in the LHC will make 11,245 circuits every second in a gravitational control field 100,000 times more powerful than the gravitational pull of Earth.  I sure hope they know what they’re doing with almighty-sounding things like “God particles” and while playing God don’t accidently conjure-up something like a black hole to swallow us.  But what do I know, for such outcomes were never mentioned in my “One, Two, Three … Infinity” paperback.  As a minimum, you’d hope they make you take your watch and belt off at the door!  

In contrast, however, getting back to the topic of vacuums, this may require a greater degree of mental gymnastics to wrap one’s brain around.  Beginning with the familiar, we’re all well acquainted with common vacuum devices such as a typical household vacuum cleaner that produces enough suction to reduce air pressure by around 20% and the ubiquitous soda-fountain straw.  Outer space, that few of us have experience with, is an even higher-quality vacuum.  It may be surprising to learn but a perfect vacuum, so necessary if we are to control circling particles in accelerators like the LHC, has been approached but never achieved.  Like the speed of light, a perfect vacuum is attainable only in theory.  And as I hinted at earlier, tricky Quantum Theory has updated the definition of a vacuum.  It asserts that a vacuum, even a perfectly crafted one, going so far as to certify it empty of all matter, is not really nothingness at all, for it’s not really empty.  Even in what appears to be empty space, forces exist.  Aristotle was right, there is no such thing as truly empty space.  Rather, and according to modern quantum physics, a quantum vacuum is now thought of as a sea of continuously appearing and disappearing particle pairs, matter and anti-matter to be exact, that exist very, very, very briefly.  Hard to believe but these ghostly things, (shall I call them particles?) borrow and return energy through the mediation of those recently discovered Briggs particles permitting them to fluctuate into and out of existence.  Now I can appreciate why they call them “God Particles” for they appear to give and take away life, mass in this case, to particles as they pass through its field.  Have a headache yet?  This is where my layman’s comprehension falters.  Does this make sense?  Have I entered a twilight zone here, some inescapable event horizon of understanding?  Should Scotty beam me up?  Yet didn’t Einstein, as he emerged from a cloud of chalk dust, say with an innocent equal sign that matter and energy were equivalent (E=MC2)?  However, to prove or disprove current theories and unify theoretical physics, if that’s possible, we still need ultra-high vacuums on the order of 10 -13 torr or less for openers.  Achieving these ideal vacuums of infinitesimal torr remains a challenge.  Nevertheless, over the centuries, scientists have found increasingly effective ways of sucking air and everything else out of spaces to produce ever better vacuums, where nature’s true secrets live.  

All this prelude leads me to the man with the current best answer, another Italian physicist, Dr. Cristoforo Benvenuti, the physicist I characterized earlier who day by day, as opposed to Torricelli, is renowned for creating nothing.  Yes, here is a man whose

Italian Physicist, Dr. Cristoforo Benenuti 

job sucks.  Dr. Benvenuti's invention is a new type of “getter pump,” that in a Magiver style TV move, mops up stray molecules that could obstruct a speeding particle.  As hard as it is to imagine, the metal walls of the vacuum chamber themselves constitute an inexhaustible source of unwanted gases.  When evacuated in the extreme, it’s difficult to imagine but the main source of residual molecules, after a furious sucking session, isn’t what has been missed but hydrogen atoms dissolved in the CERN stainless steel acceleration chamber walls along with other out-gasses released when particles bombard the walls.  I imagine it much like the contamination tasted when drinking stale water from an old plastic bottle or a hose that has been lying around.  Getter pumps aren’t new.  Unbeknownst to me, while riding my tricycle around the living room as I watched “Howdy Doody” a few years back, this concept in powdered form was used to coat the inside of the vacuum tubes and thus improve on the vacuum in the tubes of our old Hallicrafter TV.  Cristoforo’s invention markedly reduces the possibility of outgas contamination.  His technique applies a thin getter non-evaporable coating to the walls.  This coating

Miles of CERN Stainless Steel Accelerator Tubing

acts like a sponge to absorb any remaining stray gas molecules floating around like dust motes in a sunny room, as well as preventing the release of molecules from the walls themselves.  His version of a getter consists of a thin layer of titanium, zirconium, a few others, or alloys thereof, deposited by means of a plasma discharge.  By adhering to the metal substrate, it forms a shield of sorts, like a spray coating of PAM on a frying pan, which inhibits the degassing from the chamber’s inner metal surfaces.  His invention offers the unrivaled possibility of producing high vacuums of 10⁻¹⁰ to 10⁻¹⁴ torr for particle accelerator systems.  That undoubtedly is major sucking, clearer than a nun’s google browser history.

Many Italians who likely enjoyed doing their math homework as children have gone on to make valuable contributions to the foundations of physics and thus our understanding of the natural order of things.  Contributors span the centuries to this day.  In addition to Torricelli and Benvenuti whom I have highlighted, there are many additional Italian scientists

Fabiola Gianotti - 2012 Person
of the Year Fifth Runner-up

who have joined their predecessors in this quest to reveal nature’s secrets.  These achievers are not restricted only to men either.  A major case in point is Fabiola Gianotti, the Italian particle physicist who led a research team in the discovery of the Higgs boson field, a medium which gives particles mass, who in 2016 was named the first female Director-General of CERN.  Then in 2019, she was renewed for a second term of office beginning in January 2021.  Talk about breaking that proverbial glass ceiling or in Torricelli’s day, a bunch of glass tubes!

If there is a conclusion lurking here on a subject that has no apparent consensus yet concerning the interactions of matter and energy, it just might be that we have a choice.  We might wait until those prescient hard at work monkeys pound out the next eclipsing vestige of theoretical physics.  My guess is that the wait will take a while.  I’d bet quite a while in fact.  Yet there is a charm in something undefined, something quite hidden as we wait for some future particle collision, something yet undiscovered, that allows for imagining what might be.  That is something all the monkeys in the world lack.  Besides, I’d much prefer to see it through much faster, and for that I’d leave it to the Italians, already hard at work at nothing. 

 

From That Rogue Tourist

Paolo