Among the many things I'm currently in the middle of reading is Lisa Randall's Warped Passages. It's a good way for a layman to learn a bit about many recent developments in theoretical physics. Even if some of her stories are a bit hokey and her name-dropping a bit grating.
I was led to the following thought:
Generally a mathematical abstraction is just that, an abstraction of certain aspects of objects (or situations or experiences or whatever). They gather together what entities have in common, explicitly leaving aside what makes them individuals, unique. Uniquenesses do not mathematical relations make.
When statisticians count "households" in a demographic, there's no concern for who is arguing with whom under any particular roof. We count nine planets (wait...eight...damn you Neil DeGrasse Tyson...) without in counting distinguishing that Saturn has rings and Mercury does not.
But particles are represented differently, as nothing beyond pure abstraction. There is nothing that makes them individuals. A photon is a photon is a photon. Same with electrons, etc. Any can be replaced with another of its own kind, and this replacement makes not the slightest bit of difference.
But...can this be right? Does a particle's individual history not matter at all, not serve to distinguish it from others of its kind? Does photon #17483 have no individual quirks and eccentricities that serve to distinguish it from photon #334981?
For nothing at scales above simple molecules is this true. Unicellular organisms are (barely) distinguishable individuals. Galaxies and galactic clusters are unique. Potentially, so are universes, with separate sets of physical laws (or at least separate constants and parameters of those laws) and different, quite complex histories.
Is there a scale of sizes of things such that, when we get small enough, we suddenly (or is it gradually) transition from the incorrigibly unique to the thoroughly interchangeable?
No comments:
Post a Comment