10/8/12

Boze-Einstein Condensates, Absolute Zero, Mass, Energy and Singularity (an unscientific comment)

The convertibility of mass and energy means that at some point all of mass in the Universe might be regarded as energy. Mass is a steady-state form of energy. So when mass is frozen down to very low temperature-near absolute zero-that temperature is -459.67 below zero Fahrenheit-perhaps within a billionth of a degree of absolute zero, it behaves strangely.

Einstein and S. Boze developed the idea that when atoms are lowered to that temperature in a clump-instead of acting like individual atoms they would act like one large atom. The Boze-Einstein condensate is an interesting thing to ponder.

Atoms have electrons that orbit a nucleus made of a proton and neutron generally (that are in turn made of other particles or quarks). Just so many electrons can be in particular orbits at a time-the Pauli Exclusion principle means that electrons cannot share simple nuclei. More complex nuclei can have different numbers of electrons in various orbits increasing with complexity. I guess that's why heavy elements such as uranium and thorium radiate fairly easily.

Electrons are fascinating particles-waves. An electron has a wave like orbit with its frequency varying along with it's energy. Sinusoidal wave analogies of electron orbits with peaks and troughs let one regard a peak or trough as a particle value if measured at the right time. One can't get some of the information about the electron when determining its observation at a particular location.

So electrons of Boze-Einstein condensates must have virtually no activity-well, a little because they are not at absolute zero-just close to it.

Stars have potential temperatures of billions of degrees-in other words they have a lot of energy. Human beings live at very low temperature on the Universal scale from hottest to absolute zero-less than about 600 degrees above absolute zero. Human mass though short lived from out point of view is reasonably stable for such complex organic structures.

Could electrons ever be reduced to absolute rest at absolute zero? Absolute zero indicates the non-presence of energy?

Gravity always acts upon mass and so confers a certain energy to it. One would think that gravity traveling at the speed of light across space-time would give up some of its energy to space, for gravity must have some energy if it is to interact with mass at all. Neutrinos with nearly no mass interact very little with mass.
One wonders if gravitational energy would slow down at absolute zero, or if it would have its energy ossified? Boze-Einstein condensates with mass ought to have gravity acting upon that mass and therefore have energy implicitly lifting it slightly above absolute zero.

Reading through a book named 'A Matter of Degrees' explaining the history of physics on the theme of temperature I thought of these several points about gravity and its status at absolute zero that I assuredly can't answer. Yet they are for myself at least interesting points.

If gravity is also a particle-wave or something like an electro-magnetic field of vast size on might wonder if it has some sort of natural form such as a sphere that it returns to in space-time, and if its extent is altered by relativity itself in a kind of recursion based on its composition, or if absolute zero would 'freeze' gravity too.
Another derivative concept I wondered about was the conjecture about infinities in Einstein's general field equations that are said to be at the logical singularity in time=0 of the universe's  history. The equations (that I couldn't process if I spent the remainder of my days upon them) might function toward infinities, yet the actual content of mass and energy fed into them representing the actual amount of mass in the actual Universe probably would be finite. Even with infinite compaction it would logically that with a finite amount of matter to start with there would bee a finite limit to the reduction of a singularity.

Then of course as mass is compacted it increases in energy, and the turbulence of mass as energy perhaps reduced to its most basic form as a one-dimensional membrane makes one think of the opposite super-cool Boze-Einstein condensate acting as a single atom something like a perfect crystal matrix with everything including electrons frozen.

The singular might have one-dimensional membranes acting like a Boze-Einstein condensate. I wonder when or how the most energetic components of the Universe become as inactive as the most cool,  and how the gravity holding the singularity together would be exempt be able to keep enough energy to 'infinitely' compact the entire mass a Universe within.

I wonder if the extension of the special theory of relativity beyond the speed of light as was recently proposed by physicists with two new transformations besides the Lorentz transformation with objects traveling at c still reaching a singularity would apply in a low temperature environment or high temperature equally well? 

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-physicists-special-relativity.html

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