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----------------------------- 2396 - PLANCK - the smallest things.
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- We thought the atom was indivisible, until it was split to reveal protons, neutrons and electrons inside. These too, seemed like fundamental particles, before scientists discovered that protons and neutrons are made of three quarks each.
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- Have we reached the most fundamental layer of matter when we get down to quarks and gluons inside protons?
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- And even if quarks and electrons are indivisible scientists don't know if they are the smallest bits of matter in existence.
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- In experiments quarks and electrons seem to act like single points of matter with no spatial distribution. But point-like objects complicate the laws of physics. Because you can get infinitely close to a point, the forces acting on it can become infinitely large.
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- Superstring theory states that all particles, instead of being point-like, are actually little loops of string. Nothing can get infinitely close to a loop of string, because it will always be slightly closer to one part than another.
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- That "loophole" appears to solve some of these problems of infinities, making the idea appealing to physicists. Yet scientists still have no experimental evidence that string theory is correct.
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- Another way of solving the point problem is to say that space itself isn't continuous and smooth, but is actually made of discrete pixels, or grains, sometimes referred to as space-time foam. In that case, two particles wouldn't be able to come infinitely close to each other because they would always have to be separated by the minimum size of a grain of space.
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- Another contender for the title of smallest thing in the universe is the singularity at the center of a black hole. Blackholes are formed when matter is condensed in a small enough space that gravity takes over, causing the matter to pull inward and inward, ultimately condensing into a single point of infinite density.
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- But scientists don't think blackholes can be infinitely dense. They think this infinity is the product of an inherent conflict between two reigning theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics.
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- When a theory of quantum gravity can be formulated combining these two theories then the true nature of blackholes will be revealed.
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- Singularities would be roughly the size of superstrings. Superstrings, singularities, and even grains of the universe could all turn out to be about the size of the "Planck length."
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- A Planck length is 1.6 x 10^-35 meters (the number 16 preceded by 34 zeroes and a decimal point). This size is an incomprehensibly small scale that is implicated in various aspects of physics.
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- The Planck length is far and away too small for any instrument to measure, but beyond that, it is thought to represent the theoretical limit of the shortest measurable length.
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- According to the “uncertainty principle“, no instrument should ever be able to measure anything smaller, because at that range, the universe is probabilistic and indeterminate.
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- This scale is also thought to be the line between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
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- This scale corresponds to the distance where the gravitational field is so strong that it
can start to do things like make blackholes out of the energy of the field. At the Planck
length we expect that quantum gravity takes over.
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- Perhaps all of the universe's smallest things are roughly the size of the Planck length.
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- Other Reviews on the subject of Planck dimensions:
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- 1109 - Science has got everything down to 4 forces and 26 constants in Nature. But, this is not simple enough! There must be something less? The theory of everything still escapes us.
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- 1108 - What forces control everything? The Higgs Boson and the Constant Coupling Factor of the Higgs Field get us up to 25 fundamental constants.
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- 727 - Absolute Zero. Generating formulas for each of the Planck Constants.
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- 368 - Planck Time, time comes to us in particles.
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- June 9, 2019
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