String Theory
author: rf
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"By the principle of relativity, there is no way for an observer on the train of planet earth to detect any influence on the train's motion. If the clock of an individual were to fall out of synchronization, this would be a noticeable influence."
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"By the principle of relativity, there is no way for an observer on the train of planet earth to detect any influence on the train's motion. If the clock of an individual were to fall out of synchronization, this would be a noticeable influence."
Richard was the chief scientist for the Mariner IV being run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Science is not always glamorous and the boys were enjoying the attention of the press. That is, except for Murray. He was getting no data. Richard felt sorry for him, and on a whim said, "Boys, where's Mars in relation to the JPL now?" Richard pointed in the direction of Mars and uttered an imprecation. "Okay, our telemetry packets arrive every fifteen minutes. Murray's data for microsatellite particles should change from zero's to one's." Sure enough, right on schedule, the data changed. Murray grinned like a little kid. Richard knew that as they approached the gravity well of Mars, there would be an expected increase.
Two days later, the assistant project manager was seen to be taking taped measurements in the shape of a rectangle around Richard's head. The other scientists grinned at these antics. Richard looked up from an analysis, "What's up, guys?"
Straight-faced, the assistant said, "Engineering is making a lead box for your head. We don't want anymore Heisenberg effects (observer bias on a running experiment)."
Richard was in his seventies, reminiscing about his glory days. "Funny thing," he admitted, "that wasn't the only time on the project it happened. The press had left and Mariner was past Mars. We had to run the experiments a little longer, but the only thing, that could possibly affect the data, was a solar flare. To save money, the air conditioning was set at a minimum, and guys were drowsing at their stations. 'Hey Murray, where's the sun in relation to the JPL?' Murray pointed. I uttered an imprecation, and damn if the telemetry data didn't shift fifteen minutes later. We all had a good laugh over that one."
About the same time Richard was relating this story, the Discovery Space shuttle blew up on re-entry right over Houston Mission control. The cause was determined to be foam insulation striking a wing and a crucial piece of heat resistant tile falling off near the landing gear. It was a national tragedy. Several years later, and a couple of billion dollars in repair and analysis, the shuttle program was ready to fly again.
With manifold more recording devices set to monitor the launch, and eerie scenario developed. Again a piece of foam insulation fell off the fuel tank and a small piece of tile chipped near the landing gear. Commonsense dictated that here was a case for Richard Feynman who solved the O-ring mystery. Feynman was dead - died of cancer. Nobody could figure out why there were such similarities. Fortunately, the re-entry did not end up in disaster, but with the Iraq war and financial mismanagement by the Bush administration, it still spelled the end for NASA's big research programs.
For most folks, there was no connection between these random events. Brian Greene was a string theory physicist. He saw the connection through a strange quark of nature. Early chaos mathematician, Konrad Lorenz, had proposed 'the butterfly effect'. A seemingly random event could have immense perturbations within the cosmic cycle. Brian knew this to be true from personal experience, not that he would admit it to anyone. He understood by the principle of relativity that there was no way for an observer on the train of planet earth to detect any influence on the train's motion. If the clock of an individual were to fall out of synchronization with the Fort Collin's Atomic clock, this would be a noticeable influence.
Outlaw biochemist, Rupert Sheldrake, had stated, "Fractal means there's a resonance across scales. This harmony, this habit of a space/time pattern is just dependent upon some sort of morphic field."
Brian knew that it was far more than that. In this case, he knew he had been part of the shuttle's second failure. James Clerk Maxwell had established that visible light is nothing but a particular kind of electromagnetic wave. German researcher, Fritz Popp, had established that DNA emits biophotons with a characteristic electromagnetic signature. Couple that with 7 billion magnetite crystals in the human brain, and there were the makings for a human 'butterfly effect'. Brian had frequently stated that, "the only reason the electromagnetic force does not completely overwhelm gravity in the world around us is that most things are composed of an equal amount of positive and negative electric charges, whose forces cancel each other out."
He knew he was hedging and had to admit the truth, at least to himself. At the time of the shuttle launch, Brian had been contemplating ditching his wife of twenty-five years. A truck on the highway had crashed into his security fence at that very moment. It awakened him to the disastrous consequences to himself and others if he pursued that course.
Funny thing was the next morning. He looked at his digital watch; it had changed by five minutes from the Atomic clock on his wall, automatically reset by satellite at regular intervals. There was nothing wrong with battery in his watch. Brian KNEW 'the butterfly effect' was real.
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By the way, the second re-entry described above hasn't happened yet.