Week 5: Symmetry and Supersymmetry

·     My Asymmetrical world – Each semester I have a new class and clinic schedule. Each day of the week, I depart for my scheduled day at a different time of day, and arrive home at a different time of day. Some weeks, I attend classes at 3 different locations. My mode of transportation varies from commuting with fellow classmate, to driving my own car, to taking Golden Gate Transit, to riding BART.

·       Just what does this "CP violation" really mean?

·       ANNA PHAN | USLHC | USA, says:

·       When we look around ourselves, everything is made up of matter – protons, neutrons and electrons. Even looking out into space, all the planets, stars and gas that we can observe is made up of these particles. There is a cosmological excess of matter over antimatter which is at odds with the theoretical symmetry between them.

·       The theoretical symmetry between matter and antimatter is more commonly known to particle physicists as CP. If nature treated matter and antimatter alike, then nature would be CP-symmetric. If not, CP is violated.

Week 4: Energy Matter & the Four Forces

·       How has e=mc² affected you?

·       This explanation seemed most relevant:

·       Mass-energy convertibility has far-reaching consequences. Your car's engine is powered by fossil fuel, which comes from prehistoric plants. The plants got their energy from sunlight, which was produced by nuclear fusion in the sun. So your car, and virtually all other activity on Earth, is ultimately powered byE=mc².

·       How would you compare the four “forces”?

Properties of the Fundamental Forces

• The strong interaction is very strong, but very short-ranged. It acts only over ranges of order 10^-13 centimeters and is responsible for holding the nuclei of atoms together. It is basically attractive, but can be effectively repulsive in some circumstances.
• The electromagnetic force causes electric and magnetic effects such as the repulsion between like electrical charges or the interaction of bar magnets. It is long-ranged, but much weaker than the strong force. It can be attractive or repulsive, and acts only between pieces of matter carrying electrical charge.
• The weak force is responsible for radioactive decay and neutrino interactions. It has a very short range and, as its name indicates, it is very weak.
• The gravitational force is weak, but very long ranged. Furthermore, it is always attractive, and acts between any two pieces of matter in the Universe since mass is its source.

·       What is the function of gravity?

Gravity is the force that attracts two bodies toward each other, the force that causes apples to fall toward the ground and the planets to orbit the sun. The more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational pull.

Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces, along with the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces.

It is what causes objects to have weight. When you weigh yourself, the scale tells you how much gravity is acting on your body. The formula for determining weight is: weight equals mass times gravity. On Earth, gravity is a constant 9.8 meters per second squared, or 9.8 m/s2.

Week 3: Synchronicity

1.    What evidence can you find for synchronicity?

Several times a week, a topic will arise, either in conversation, or lecture, or in the media. I have noticed that if I have an interest or question about the topic, a Facebook post will present itself and lead me to an answer. Answers may reveal themselves from other resources, but I am surprised at how many times they show up on social media.

2.     Based on what you know, how would you explain connectivity?

What I currently know about connectivity is a visceral pain when witnessing the violence inflicted upon others – people that I don’t know personally. If we are not all connected, then how could I feel that pain.

Week 2: Quantum Mechanics

1. Reflections on Uncertainty

It seems though chaos and uncertainty are the predictors of our continued existence. The more we know about one thing, the less we know about another.  More certainty leads to more rigidity.

2. Comments on Causality

The “Causality Dilemma” is the most interesting concept of Causality to me: i.e. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 3.Is the Universe weird?

If by weird, you mean, irregular, asymmetric, unpredictable, uncertain, then yes!

Week One: The Meaning of Time

1.     Can we slow time down?

     Only when we are waiting for the results of a diagnostic biopsy or lab report; when we are late for an                appointment the lights at the intersection seem to be in a holding pattern; when our job is so boring, the tick      of the clock (non-digital) takes an “eternity” to advance. Time seems to pass by slower than when we are          fully engaged and enjoying life to it’s fullest.

2.     What are the cultural implications of time?

      Industrialization seems to have made us want to speed everything up. Faster is stronger, more intelligent, more powerful, according to that model. Slower is the opposite. Standardized time was established by the Railroad. Our language is influenced by the concept of time. Some expressions include: "Beat the clock”, "time flies", "pass the time away", "ahead of one's time", etc.

3.     What about a parallel universe? I love thinking about the possibility of a parallel universe, but apparently, it is not a reality that we can expect based on research – If there are parallel universes, there would be no way to know because they wouldn’t interact with one another.