Lawrence M. Krauss Shares How Far We Have Come, and How Much Further We Have To Go

 

The Known Unknowns: The Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos – Lawrence M. Krauss (2023)

 

            If I could define myself with just one word, it would be “reader.”  Everything in my life either stems from, or draws from, the many books I have read in my 49+ years on this planet Earth.  My biggest heroes, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Anton Wilson, Richard P. Feynman, etc., came into my life through the written page.  When I began RXTT’s Book Journey almost ten years ago, I dreamed of the possibility that book publishers and authors would appreciate my reviews and want to share their soon-to-be-released work with me.  Dreams do come true.

            The latest advance copy received by the RXTT household is physicist Lawrence M. Krauss’ forthcoming book, The Known Unknowns. (That is the UK title.  The book will be titled The Edge of Knowledge in the USA, probably because Donald Rumsfeld’s use of the phrase “known unknowns” became such a joke in ignorant America.)  After requesting it from Mr. Krauss himself, he contacted his publisher on my behalf and I was sent the book.  MIND BLOWN.

            The reason I read is to enlighten myself, both with new ideas and new information, for I am a curious mind.  Sometimes, the most useful and valuable books are not the ones with the most data, but instead the books with the best questions.  One such book, among many faves, is Richard Feynman’s The Character of Physical Law, a book full of ideas and questions which, it turns out, was also a guiding light for Lawrence M. Krauss.  Feynman’s spirit, willing to share ideas in a thoughtful manner, directly engaged with the toughest questions, and able to explain the most obtuse scientific thought in a manner where a layperson can grasp the fundamentals, is alive and well in Mr. Krauss.  We are all very fortunate.

            Krauss divides this book into five chapters, each one concerning itself with a specific topic where science has shed some light, but where there are still far more questions than answers.  Time, Space, Matter, Life, and Consciousness are the guideposts for Lawrence M. Krauss to not only sum up our current knowledge, but to also point out the vast gaps.  Our collective ignorance is the greatest impetus towards science, scientific discovery, and new knowledge.  The very worst of humanity arises when humans feel absolute certainty, whether political, religious, or social.  Not knowing is the greatest gift to an inquisitive mind.

            My biggest surprise as I devoured this book was its readability.  There are many amazing minds in the world of science, and physics specifically, but very few have the ability to provide us their thoughts and knowledge in such a fun and engrossing manner.  Some books, even great ones, can be a chore to read.  Lawrence M. Krauss has succeeded in creating a book that will enlighten young and old alike, while also opening up their minds to the myriad possibilities yet available for exploration and research.  This may be this book’s most valuable contribution, sparking the mind of some young students out there, and starting their paths toward new discoveries, new fields of research, and, hopefully, new questions.  Questions are truly important.  Anyone claiming to have all the answers is trying to rip you off, and should be treated accordingly.

            Each chapter begins with questions.  For example, the chapter titled Matter starts with these:

What is the World Made of?

How Many Forces are there? 

Is Anything Fundamental?

Is Quantum Mechanics True? 

Will Physics Have an End?

Will Matter End?

Krauss perfectly encapsulates our current state of knowledge in each chapter, sharing it with the reader through the specific details of past scientific achievement.  He then explores how we came to find that knowledge, use it, and seek to understand the underlying principles involved.  One of the best attributes of scientists is their humility in the face of new data.  It allows for self-correction, which is why the scientific method has been such a valuable tool for humanity.  Krauss details the baby steps taken in our human search for knowledge, steps often met with wildly erroneous interpretations, each of them critical points in our collective knowledge.

            Krauss brings his physics knowledge to bear on what is the most complex and mysterious part of our everyday world, the quantum realm.  He guides the reader through the many different steps us humans required to comprehend that the sub-atomic world even existed, and details plainly why it remains such a difficult science to explain.  Everything in our modern world is touched by subatomic processes, from the manufacture of medicine, to the Global Positioning Satellite System, to the various smart phones and gadgets we all take for granted.  None would work without our collective understanding of the processes involved in the quantum realm.  The irony remains that, even as we use quantum science to create new wonders, we still do not fully grasp exactly what processes allow for these modern marvels to function.  We are much like the ancient humans who used fire to bake clay, cook food, warm their home, and provide light, but had no clue as to what caused the fire to exist in the first place.  We now know that free oxygen atoms in our atmosphere combine with the carbon in wood, and that this reaction creates new compounds (Carbon dioxide, water vapor) and energy (light, heat).  It seems common sense to us now, but to a human living 500 years ago this would be utter nonsense.  They “knew” that fire was but one of the four basic constituents of everything that exists, along with Water, Earth, and Air.  For centuries, this basic explanation served its purpose, but it did not actually provide verifiable, repeatable truth.  Only the scientific method does that.

            I hope that this book receives a very wide readership, for it is as equally valuable to a young scientist as it is to a layperson interested in big ideas.  Our world bounces back and forth from close-minded totalitarian fundamentalism to wide-open progressive ideals.  It is very easy for a society to lose ground, to lose hard-earned knowledge and wisdom, because someone, or something, claims to know all the answers.  Beware of anyone telling you to stop asking questions.  RUN AWAY from anyone telling there are no new answers out there and we already know all we need to know.  They are Liars and con-artists and only seek to control you so they can line their pockets.  Find those among us who are kind, who seek new answers and new questions, who understand that, for all we know as humans, our knowledge is dwarfed by the vast amounts we do not know.  Lawrence M. Krauss has crafted an amazing book, one that not only tells us what we know and how, but informs us of what we have yet to find out.  I highly recommend it.

(This book can be purchased here: https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9781637588567 )

Quantum Gravity, and the history of human exploration into the nature of our Universe

Reality is Not What It Seems: The Journey Into Quantum Gravity – Carlo Rovelli (2014)

            Around a year ago I read and reviewed another book by the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli.  (Click Here for that Review) That book was a detailed history of the man known as Anaximander, of whom I wrote that he is “the earliest human that we have record of who helped create the logical and rational framework that set the stage for the scientific revolution all humans have experienced over the past 250 years.”  At the time I bemoaned my inability to read his then-current book Reality is Not What It Seems.  Thank goodness for the good folks at the M.D. Anderson Library of the University of Houston.  They acquired the English translation and this is what I managed to stumble across during my browsing.

            Where to start?  This book is an attempt by Mr. Rovelli to discuss the history of our collective efforts to understand what constitutes the fabric of Reality, the elementary nature of our selves and everything that exists.  Beginning with Anaximander, Plato, and Aristotle, Mr. Rovelli describes how each of these ancient geniuses grappled with the substance of reality, and with the ability and limits of the human to comprehend this reality.  He details the amazing and near-miraculous insights from these men that propelled our entire world forward in the quest to understand. Leuccipus and Democritus formed the basis of “atomist” theory, purely through rigorous analytical thought, understanding that all matter is composed of small indivisible parts. Democritus alone was such an amazing thinker.  It is a shame most of his massive output has been lost to history.

            After the initial period of discovery, once monotheistic religions took over the human landscape, progress was effectively halted, and the knowledge of our forefathers was lost in the Western World.  Scientific fact was replaced by dogma and blind faith in the make-believe magic stories of priests and the governments which aligned themselves with religions.  It was after nearly a thousand years of barbaric ignorance that travelers and scholars visited India and brought back the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, knowledge which was critical to creating the modern world we all share.  From this influx of ancient wisdom and science, someone like Isaac Newton was able to understand and explain what he saw as the structure of the Universe.  Newton saw a fiercely deterministic static Universe.  His laws of motion and his invention of the Calculus allowed humans to plot star and planet trajectories centuries in advance, and his mathematics and science helped the Western world shake free of its religion-induced intellectual coma.

            The world as Newton saw it was un-changing, and infinite.  Scientists continued to study the Universe, finding and creating new tools with which to explore.  In the early 1900’s, Albert Einstein proceeded to shake the world to its core, much like Newton had done before.  Einstein understood that there is no static Universe and that everything is constantly in motion relative to everything else.  He was the first human to grasp that time is not a specific thing, existing separate from the Universe.  He saw that we live in an ever-expanding Present.  Einstein also saw that the world is not what Newton stated.  There is no matter and energy floating in empty space.  There is just matter and energy existing in space-time and gravity is merely the deformation of this space-time by massive objects.  All of these things have been verified countless times.

            What Einstein did for the world at large, quantum mechanics did for the world of the very small.  It is an extremely successful theory and its predictions have been validated countless times as well.  Quantum Mechanics shows us that the world is made up of quantum objects, which have probabilistic traits.  One cannot know everything about a proton, unlike in Newton’s time, when it was assumed that this was possible.  This indeterminacy has been proven to exist throughout the Universe at all quantum levels.

            All of this leads into the discussion of Quantum Gravity.  Einstein’s Relativity and quantum Mechanics work together in most ways, but in special cases, such as black holes, or singularities, both theories fall apart.  Gravity can only be calculated in the macro sense, and quantum effects never give definite answers.  To combine these two theories is the current goal of theoretical physicists around the world.  Some have been working on String Theory, which predicts the existence of super-symmetric particles.  These particles have not been seen in experiments at particle colliders.  This lends more weight to Rovelli’s field, which is studying Loop Quantum Gravity, which seeks to study the constituents of gravity, or the quanta of gravity. 

            Light acts as a wave and a particle.  The quanta of light is the Photon.  Gravity seems to act as both a wave and a particle, gravitational waves having been detected as recently as 2016.  Loop Quantum Gravity postulates that the smallest quanta of gravity are actually small closed “loops” as opposed to points.  He goes into a great explanation of his research and of the ways that scientists have arrived at this idea, one which seems to be more promising that String Theory. What a great book.  The Bibliography at the back will keep me happy for a while too.  I wish I could better describe how much is contained within this awesome book,  but you will have to read it for yourself.

(This book is available for purchase here: REALITY IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS )