this is way beyond awesome!! when first studying quantum physics decades ago, I learned that one way in which a photon was unique (back then) is that it is its own antiparticle. For example: the antiparticle of an electron is a positron. But the antiparticle of a photon is a photon. However, light, which is massless, is also the result of a collision between matter and antimatter, so it is a rather special thing in the sub-atomic realm. Decades ago, I read about the Higgs Boson and wondered if it would ever be found (it recently has been found) and I studied facts about neutrinos years ago as well, and they are another potential candidate for being its own antiparticle, but neutrinos are so elusive, we still have trouble learning about them. And NOW, I can barely recall learning about the Majorana, this once theoretical, and now empirically defined, particle! This Majorana discovery is incredibly amazing!! btw, not in this article, but what I can tell you from my own studies, the laws of physics are time invariant, which means the arrow of time is defined only on a statistical basis. The conditions of reality that govern individual events do not adhere to any directional flow of time. Nothing in scientific models prohibits events happening in reverse. For example, the baseball can come back into the park, bank off the batters bat, and fly into the pitchers hand, and science can describe how that phenomenon could occur, and does not at all deny the possibility of such an event. (the 2nd law of thermodynamics is the only place where the maps of science deal with an arrow of time) A result of this allows scientists to speak about antimatter very strangely. There are two distinctly different ways to describe a positron, and both are totally accurate. One way to think of a positron is to consider it an electron but with opposite charge. The other way to deal with a positron is to consider it the exact same thing as an electron, only that it is moving backwards in time. In a way, this says that light is moving both forward and backward in time. Yet this sorta makes sense with photons, because when anything experiences increasing velocity, time slows down for it. And at the speed of light, time comes to a standstill. This effectively makes a photon seem like it is everywhere in the universe at once. Time has stopped for a photon. With light, there is no past or future. For the photon, there is no location it was before and no place it will be later. Therefore, as far as the light particle is concerned, it is everywhere at once. But light is a special case in reality. It is the particle exchanged in the electromagnetic force, it is massless, and also the form of energy released in collisions between matter and antimatter. This Majorana thing is extra weird, and that is saying a lot about a sub-atomic particle, because when it comes to the quantum realm of the world, truth really is stranger than fiction. The Majorana particle is its own antiparticle. It is both matter and antimatter simultaneously. This is a particle that is not going the speed of light, yet it is moving through time, both ahead and in reverse. Without being the particle that defines the speed limit of the Universe, the Majorana is moving both backwards and forwards through time simultaneously. It just sits there at the end of the wire, getting both younger and older while we look at it. HA! hahahahAHA! As long as we do science, some things will always remain unexplained. ~ Fritjof Capra. US Physicist.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 06:19:18 +0000
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