Julia Schwartz

September 29, 2003

The Elegant Universe and Other Related Topics

            String theory and the other ideas presented in Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe are rather interesting to me primarily on the basis of the philosophical ramifications of their implications. Of course, the actions and reactions of teeny tiny little particles are very entertaining, as well – but such tiny particles, like quarks and bosons, are hard to take seriously in application to my own life because their size and obscurity to the majority of the population don’t strike any chords of reality for me. Still, understanding of those concepts would be highly enjoyable and rewarding, as it’s best to start from the tiniest particles up when you’re trying to understand life.

            If science were able to understand particles and particle motion to the point where we could determine the exact location and velocity of every particle in the universe, thus being able to determine the future of the world – I have no clue what would happen to humanity as we know it. First of all, I can’t even imagine anyone being able to calculate all that, because if the universe is a defined region, it’s so large that it would take eons to calculate the data for every single miniscule particle, but it almost seems wrong to assume ends of the universe – as though somehow the universe is an infinite structure. If that’s the case, then there is no way to determine the absolute future by tracking particle motion, just as there’s no way to count all the numbers on our number lines.

            However, assuming there was some way to track particle motion so that we could determine the future of the world and all who live here and outside of us… life would undeniably have to change. If we think belief in destiny entails a lack of control over our action, rendering free will futile, than particle motion is the ultimate destiny. We’d almost lack a reason for making any sort of decision at all, if this were the case. Of course, there rises another question, of how the determination of particle location and velocity accounts for free will and change: I may be right here, right now, but the only thing monitoring what I do next is my mind, so particle tracking might say I’m here typing this response forever, yet I’m really only going to be doing so for a short while longer, since my mind will change tasks… unless one accounts for all the individual particles in my brain, and determines the motions they are making to determine the next decisions I will make. Even so, it would probably require an infinite number of calculations made an infinite number of times to be able to trace the future by using the present, so, ultimately, because we cannot fathom infinity, we can’t track all the particles in the universe to determine its future.

            The concept of virtual particles that are created as anti-matter but realize they cannot exist under the circumstances they are indeed existing under is highly appealing to me due largely to comparisons to Schrödinger’s cat or my definition of Arcadia. To me, Schrödinger’s cat and the idea of virtual particles are similar in the respect that they entail circumstances that cannot exist, but do until we try to find them – who is to say that the virtual particles wouldn’t cease existence as anti-matter (or legitimate, real matter) if scientists didn’t take the measurements? We only know the particles are created and cease to exist because we have monitored them, but if we never monitored them in the first place… who knows what could happen.

            Thus, The Elegant Universe and the grand unified theory are interesting to me on two levels: that of the scientific nature, and that of the concepts the science nudges us to think about in relation to human life as it is lived out philosophically. I’m very curious to hear more about experimentation in particle research and discovery, and of course that ominous grand unified theory, as well as its potential implications on the passing of time.