This is science fiction. Just want to be clear about that before anyone might think otherwise.
--------
Of the many disaster/doomsday scenarios that might arise from the start of collisions at the LHC, there is one I haven't seen mentioned although I'm sure it's out there in the imaginarium somewhere...
We live in a quantum universe. All the implications of that fact are incompletely explored. For example, we humans ignore the quantum correlations that exist between all 'isoated' macroscopic systems because its technically impractical if not imposible to do otherwise, and also as that very ignorance may be a precondition for our being able to distinguish one object from another. However, civilizations more advanced than our own may have the ability to keep track of those correlations or at least some highly unusual ones. In particular, a local systematic change in the vacuum state of the quantum fields (or string fields or whatever quantum 'it' is at the bottom of IT all...) somewhere in the universe may be something they might be easily aware of. The vacuum state itself transcends space (and probably time as well), but the quantum fields which effectuate the creation and annihilation of particle states do act in space-time relative to that ground state. Consequently local changes to the vacuum state may also have an instantaneous universal signature if you know how to listen for it. For example, there may be a tachyonic event associated with the production of some exotic particle states. A civilization capable of detecting such 'signals' might be able to trace the origin of the production of such events.
When the quantum fields are excited by collisions induced by our ever advancing accelerator technologies to produce unusual states of high mass, an advanced civilzation (hereafter referred to as "the aliens") might notice the effect via that instantaneously distributed disturbance caused in the vacuum state by the production of those exotic states. Now some would object that cosmic ray collisions are always creating states of much higher mass and exotic character throughout the universe, and also near our own lonely planet -- states certainly much higher in mass than anything we can produce domestically -- so this noisy background of high mass states should make it hard for the aliens to spot our own efforts.
But would it really? The LHC will be circulating beams at very high frequencie;, inducing collisions at that rate. Consequently, the creation of the high mass states, though rare, will occur with remarkable regularity. In particular, if the LHC is capable of producing the Higgs boson state as is ardently expected by the physics community, that regular production of Higgs bosons could be like a gong (or alarm) being struck in the vacuum which many alien societies might be aware of almost as soon as it starts occurring.
The question is then whether we should soon expect a formal visit from the aliens. And would they take the signal as an alert that another civilization has joined the cadre of those able to understand the core principles of the universe, or as a dinner bell?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.