Sunday, May 29, 2011 Lethbridge

6:15 am

We have SUNSHINE!

The temperature is +1 C, with a high predicted of +13 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today Sunny. Increasing cloudiness this afternoon. Fog patches early this morning. High 13. UV index 6 or high. Tonight Clearing. Low plus 1. Normals Max: 20°C Min: 7°C

The sky is bright blue, not a cloud in sight. Beautiful!

2:00 PM Birding

We saw 2 birds in our backyard for the first time this spring/summer: 2 Clay-colored Sparrows and 3 Cedar Waxwings.

4:00 PM Science

I continue to read "The Beginning of Infinity". Deutsch has written a chapter called the Multiverse that describes his understanding of quantum theory. Even though the chapter is well written the ideas are mind-bogglingly counter-intuitive. It makes for fascinating reading but at the same time I am not sure that I have the ideas firmly in place.

One of the difficulties, but not the only one, is that some of the terms are familiar but now have a new meaning. For example, I think that a complex living organism is now called a universe. This makes some sense if one considers the vast gap between considering quantum particles such as photons and sub-atomic entities such as electrons and protons and quarks and their conglomeration into a body that has a cohesive structure. Another involves the concept of time. Is it continuous or discrete? The leaning is toward discrete but what are the implications of a smallest unit of time?

My strategy is to keep reading in the hopes that some of my confusion will be reduced by further descriptions and explanations but I do plan to come back and reread this chapter again. Deutsch points out that quantum theory is totally described using mathematics and that he has tried in this chapter to use words to describe the theory. This is a bit like the tail wagging the dog. Usually we give priority to language to describe our ideas and to play with new combinations. Language is also the basis of what we call understanding. But with quantum physics the roles are reversed and the mathematics becomes the vehicle for thinking and playing.

I am also beginning to see that information is an important concept in understanding the nature of physics. I am now curious to see if James Gleick's book "Information" describes this. I must get back to reading this.

This is a book with many new ideas. Great stuff! I like his emphasis on the "reach" of an idea, which leads to the title of the book.