In my post about the double-slit experiment, I briefly mentioned the idea that there may be concepts which we are simply incapable of understanding.
In a brilliant coincidence, the latest edition of New Scientist has this as their cover article.
New Scientist issue 2811, 7 May 2011
To read the full article online you need to be subscribed to the magazine, but the start of the article is accessible
Some highlights from the full article:
"Another fundamental constraint on our knowledge is the feature of quantum mechanics we know as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has its roots in the discovery that certain things in nature, such as energy, are packaged up in fundamental, indivisible units called quanta. In the 1920s, Werner Heisenberg realised that the measurable characteristics of a quantum object such as an electron do not have a defined value, but many possible values each with a probability attached to it. To pin the value down means taking lots of separate measurements, but doing so blurs our knowledge of another characteristic. The best-known consequence is that we can never simultaneously know a particle's exact position and momentum."
"Importantly for you and me, we wouldn't be here without [Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle]: the uncertainty principle provides our best explanation for how the entire universe came into being. That's because uncertainty shatters the notion that anything ever has exactly zero energy. So the universe could have come into existence spontaneously when its energy state momentarily flickered away from zero. Heisenberg himself pointed out that uncertainty in time measurements destroys common-sense notions of cause and effect - which perhaps makes the idea of something appearing from nothing a little easier to swallow."
"Gregory Chaitin formulated a number, known as omega, that defines the probability of whether a randomly chosen program will halt or not in terms of a string of 0s and 1s. Omega is infinitely long and irreducibly complex, and Chaitin has described it as the DNA of mathematics. Now he is working out how to use omega to examine real DNA."
"Another area of biology that some say lies beyond the limits of science is consciousness. Decades have passed without any real progress, says Russell Stannard, emeritus professor of physics at the Open University in the UK, and author of The End of Discovery. That may mean it is beyond us, he concludes. "Consciousness is a very good candidate for us having exhausted all that can be said about it.""
"Now we use computers to store, access and process vast amounts of data. We have become extremely successful at sharing that data too, in a way that connects many minds together to solve the toughest of questions. That is how we reached the point where we can understand and even predict the movement of stars and electrons."
"Proof of string theory faces other, even bigger obstacles. Even with the extra dimensions in place, there remains the problem of getting to the energies at which string theory could be tested. Probing things on such small scales requires working at extremely high energies - to smash them into ever-smaller pieces takes ever more energy. That is why particle accelerators need to get more powerful to delve deeper into the nature of matter. "To test string theory you'd need a collider the size of a galaxy""
"A little over 100 years ago, nobody had the slightest idea that the quantum world even existed. Now it lies at the heart of our understanding of the universe. Today's unknowns sometimes become tomorrow's great theories. A hundred years from now, who knows what we will know?"
This is an excellent article and I recommend getting hold of a copy of the magazine. It's only £3.50 so it's a bargain.
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