Thoughts on Constructal Theory

Fundamental ideas are few and far between. Professor Bejan has proposed a new scientific principle. You can learn more in his book, Design in Nature. TED Bucharest. Webpage.

Flow is such that in time, flow is more and more easy. He believes this principle explains why flows are persistent.

Here I  search for applications of the principle for Quantum Systems.

The key concept is persistence. On the other hand, the principle requires time's arrow. For atomic scale bodies, past and future are equivalent. Time appears when Information enters the picture. Quantum Information though, does have a direction in time. One will have to accept another interpretation  of Quantum Mechanics to incorporate the Constructal Law.

I believe that Quantum Mechanics, as all other fundamental laws, which can be derived from an extremum principle, are our description of reality, not reality. As descriptions go, they are intrinsically directed in time, because we are. A Quantum Theory of Information, thus, describes a real field, the Quantum Field, but our description of it, is directed in time. Bejan's Law can be incorporated, as our observation, that persistent flows take into account, past flows for future flows, i.e., there is memory.

Another problem altogether, is where that Information is stored. I propose the use of the Cellular Automaton which follows rule 110, in Wolfram's classification. This is the simplest universal computer I am aware of, discovered independently by Harold V. McIntosh, and Matthew Cook. Wikipedia. How in Nature is this rule coded? I don't know. As a human description though, it does not matter, we have to Decode Reality, as Vlatko Vedral explains in his book "Decoding Reality". Wikipedia.

Finally: We have the problem of the Holographic principle. Why everything is coded in two dimensions? I believe that this means that we can use the simplest mathematical model which shows a phase transition in Statistical Mechanics, and two dimensions are enough.

Putting these elements together - Constructal, Holographic, and Automatonical - is a task for later. One will guarantee permanence, and the other two minimanility, and completeness, respectively. This seems like a nice framework to decode reality. Whether or not, reality really works like that, is a question in philosophy not in science.

The purpose of this effort, is to construct an autopoeitic model of reality, i.e., one that maintains, and builds itself self consistently.

Science in a Smartphone?

P.S. I am reading Caselli & Ceccarelli's "Our astrochemical heritage". There are surfaces, order, and complexity there. I recommend it.

Astrochemical Heritage: Couriers, Chondrites, and Constructal

Chondrites

Constructal Theory.

Couriers are Mexican American business people crossing the border with mementos from both sides of the Mexican American huge border. You can read in Spanish an article here.

Chondrites are time and space messengers. They bring information from 4566.6 ± 1.0 Ma .

Paola Caselli and Cecilia Ceccarelli are two Italian scientists who recently wrote a review about Our Astrochemical Heritage.  I find some interesting links between these three spacetime correlations.

I believe in the existence of correlations which we have not completely disentangled yet. Almost to the point of appearing magical. In this note I record some.

The heritage Caselli & Ceccarelli are talking about, is what is stored in, among other things, meteorites, and comets. Obviously we are all made of stardust, and thus the heritage is even more intimate. Chondrites are primitive:

A specimen of the NWA 869 chondrite (type L4-6), showing chondrules and metal flakes

This may look like an ordinary rock, but it got to Earth from outer space. If you know how to read the message recorded on it, you see millions of years of slow and, seemingly purposeful processes. Chondrules are actual millenarian structures, as if they were alive millions of years ago little wormlike structures were formed.

"Prominent among the components present in chondrites are the enigmatic chondrules, millimeter-sized objects that originated as freely floating, molten or partially molten droplets in space; most chondrules are rich in the silicate minerals olivine andpyroxene."

This is fascinating; I explain.

There was no life as we know it, but some constructal principle was obviously in force. Professor Adrian Bejan discovered something he calls Constructal Theory. He says that matter flows in such a way, that flow is easier next time around. Here we have a principle in space and time, that tells us, that there is a next time around, i.e., there is permanence, I will say, Nature tries to occupy bigger and bigger volumes of spacetime.

Caselli & Ceccarelli discovered regions in space with anomalous chemical composition, mainly isotope distributions different than in the surrounding volume. These are called hot Corinos. Gas and dust lowers the temperature in these regions, by blocking heat from coming in, at low temperatures, on the surface a dust particles, chemical reactions occur producing the separation, the anomalous isotope distribution. That is our Astrochemical Heritage. We see complexity, coming spontaneously, out of the inorganic world. Those are our origins.

Now let me jump a few million years; look at another boundary, the thousand kilometer border between Mexico and the United States. As you can read in Why Nations Fail, by Acemoglu and Robinson, that border separates countries that have developed very differently. According to these authors, one difference is the political way people organize. In Mexico 98% of crimes are not  solved, according to Javier Sicilia. In the US the record is better. Inclusive Institutions vs. Extractive Institutions. 

The couriers of the article that appeared today in the Mexico City newspaper, La Jornada, which I link above, are businessmen crossing the border to communicate communities, which are not allowed free passage through the border. The links within the communities go way back, maybe fifteen thousand years. The book by Dr. David E. Hayes-Bautista, "El Cinco de Mayo", records that in 1962 Californios fought in two anti-imperialist wars at the same time. The American Civil War, against the slave owners of the South, and the Mexican French war, against the Empire of Napoleon III. These two communities, Mexicans in Los Angeles, and Mexicans in Puebla, are actually the same community. Both cities have the same name: Puebla de los Angeles, one chose Puebla, and the other Los Angeles, but they have a common heritage. 

To bring these two apparent disparate ideas together I use professor Bejan's ideas:

Once the first Americans walked all through the continent coming from Asia, they made a path, which they have been walking time and time again. This happened after the last glaciation. They did not need visas then, and do not need visas now.

Caselli & Ceccarelli are telling us that differentiation started before life appeared in the Universe. Once deuterium and other heavy isotopes were separated, they became our heritage, we are the product, of our separation, and our coming together, because after all we are all Cosmic dust. 

Information and the Modern World

I do follow information in the news and daily life. I process it and I act. To me that is the meaning of life. Right now I am teaching an Introduction to Astronomy class, reading Decoding Reality, by Vlatko Vedral, and taking an Artificial Intelligence class from edX.org.

Julian Assange is getting sick in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, Bill McKibben is organizing students for civil disobedience, and I am finally getting a grasp on what Information means.

May you live in interesting times!

Since 1968 I felt the world was coming to an end. Now the feeling is more acute, nevertheless do not expect this blog to provide a handbook, on how to survive the December 21, 2012, coming end of the world.

Please come again. I feel I have something to say.

Nice

Autopoiesis

After listening to Humberto Maturana's lecture last year at CERN, I have this to write:

1. I understand autopoiesis better
2. Some questions show the person did not understand
3. There is a discovery made by Maturana's school

I felt that professor Bertolucci felt attacked, when nothing in the presentation or answers by Maturana implies an attack. The way I understand this is through the concept of reality/objectivity. Maturana claims that we construct our path through life. This path convinces us that we are ok, most of the time. We are not crazy scientists trying to endanger ourselves and others. Nevertheless "reality" is constructed.

I do believe that there is a reality which is not "reality" that I approach to, all through my life path.

Vlatko Vedral, David Deutsch, and John Wheeler, were more willing to take this path. I do not know professor Bertolucci, but I feel better guided by the Wheeler school.

Maturana's discovery can be called the objectivity of subjectivity.

Humberto Maturana

Autopoiesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Autopoiesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

 "Autopoiesis (from Greek αὐτo- (auto-), meaning "self", and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning "creation, production") literally means "self-creation" and expresses a fundamental dialectic among structure, mechanism and function. The term was introduced in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela:"

'via Blog this'

Information and I

I am reading in my Cloud Reader from Amazon, Kindle: Decoding Reality, by Vlatko Vedral.

This guy stole my ideas!

Actually he could have not, because I have not published them!

Cellular Automaton

Wikipedia

This mathematical object could be the foundation for a description of reality.

Recently I have written in this blog that an electron reads a Turing Machine, which could be Rule 110 in Wolfram's classification.

This is my answer to the question: How does the electron move?

If you want your code to be executed in a computer, you need to write the code, and the machine has to read it.

I believe this is a good metaphor of how an electron moves. The simplest rule I know, which can be a Universal Computer, is the 1-D Cellular Automaton 110.

Meta Theory of Thermodynamics and Quantum Gravity

Vlatko Vedral has been working on the Probability/Information Theory for Science. Recently he published in "The New Scientist" the idea of a Meta-Theory. Here I ask myself: So what?

I myself have been thinking for some time about the relevance of Claude Shannon's ideas on fundamental science. Taking the point of view, that Information Theory has two components, one technological, and the other fundamental, I write here what the consequences could be.

As a technological tool, Information Theory, describes how humans communicate, and read the Book of Nature; as a fundamental tool , it describes the interaction between two parts of the Universe, whether conscious or not, as understood by a third system, which is conscious: Us.

We can write computer programs, so an automaton directs another automaton. They will keep doing that, whether or not we die. The Voyager Program probes, are still going away from the Solar System, even though some of its creators are dead. Both voyagers could have been designed to communicate among themselves. Even if the Human species disappeared, they could have kept communicating, and maybe directing each other autonomously.

The fundamental question is if the Universe interacts this way. That is, if the law of gravity, say, describes as a computer program, how different objects direct each other. Of course we will have to Decode the Universe to maintain this point of view.

Thermodynamics is a probabilistic description of heat. The motion of objects we call heat, exists, nevertheless our description is not the thing, but the description. Quantum waves exist, our description is not the thing either. Vedral has studied both descriptions, as stepping stones to construct Quantum Computers.

The fact that computer based descriptions of Quantum Gravity, have not succeeded, could mean that there is no physical reality to Gravity at the quantum level, or that there is a confusion about the description and the thing.

Vedral's Meta Theory could mean, that whichever is the case, as long as we know what Information Theory is, we should make progress.

I hope he is right.

What a Big Fish!

Discord

Death

Death is good, because then we can see  life as a Work of Art. I read that Einstein thought so.

His life was definitely a Work of Art. From a very young age, he was curious about Nature. A magnet, given to him by a relative, set him thinking about his surroundings. His years at authoritarian German schools, led him to a more civilized place in Switzerland, his time in Italy, presented him the  contribution to culture of the Renaissance. Then Princeton witnessed, his stubborn refusal to go along with the Military Industrial Complex.

What a Work of Art!

Vlatko Vedral

Nikku Mudhasudhan

Today I went to see a friend. He wants me to help him build an ac/dc driver for street Led lamps. Also I learned that Dr. Mudhasudhan might've found a diamond planet, like the one presented in the Midnight episode of Doctor Who. Mudhasudhan is very young, he was born in the seventies, and is doing better than my friend an I.

I have to find my own diamond planet!

Thoughts

Quantum Mechanics is still mysterious, at least for me. Yesterday's Physics Nobel Prize, goes a long way towards solving the mystery.

The 1% should return the money they stole, and humanity should go back to finding out the best ways to survive the human created mess!

Physics Nobel Prize 2012

Serge Haroge and David J. Wineland won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics.

NYT

For some, this may end the mystery of Quantum Mechanics. For me it only heightens it.

Some may take this to mean, that quantum computers are around the corner, and now we live in a quantum universe of information wave functions, which are not real. For me, it supports the view that wave functions are as real as light waves, and that Albert Einstein, was right after all. I believe that the initial battle between Bohr and Einstein, was more of a political fight, than a scientific one. Einstein was left to rot in a corner of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies, because he refused to join the Military Industrial Complex, which Bohr started.

The wave function exists, even though, Quantum Mechanics is the best Statistical description we have of the microscopic world.

Here is my, very speculative opinion.

It starts with Feynman's Checkerboard.

In a discrete version of Dirac's Equation, which governs electron motion in quantum computers, a zigzag fractal path, tells the electron how to move. My question is where is the computer program directing this motion?

I believe that a 1-D Cellular Automaton, maybe the 110, studied by Harold V. McIntosh, Matthew Cook, and Stephen Wolfram, is simple enough, to exist all over the place, and that the electron, as in a Turing Machine,  can read and execute the program.

The Dirac Wave Function then, has to be real, so the electron knows what to do following the instructions.

There.

Information

I have considered Information for several years now. I entered Theoretical Physics in 1972 with the purpose of contributing to a Theory of Information. After studying Communications and Electronics Engineering, I felt that the twentieth century was the time to establish many elements of Information. One can study Statistical Mechanics as the application of Information Theory to the motion of more than two interacting particles. Besides, the Work World of data manipulation started, and is now a full fledged money making industry, as Chemical, and Electrical Engineering were before.

Jacob Bekenstein started the study of Statistical Mathematics in General Relativity, with the concept of the measure of Entropy, as proportional to the area of a black hole. John A. Wheeler, and Stephen Hawking established the importance of It from Bit, and the temperature of these objects. Now we know that,  very likely, every galaxy, has a black hole in its center, and Caleb Scharf, has published a great book on his ideas of the role of black holes in making the Universe work," Gravity's Engines".

I do not claim here any fundamental breakthrough, but obviously the twenty first century, is the time to know what Information is.

An electron follows instructions, as coded in Dirac's Equation, maybe through a one dimensional cellular automaton with a simple rule, which acts as a Universal Computer. Rule 110, as proved by Harold V. McIntosh, has that property.

I do not know how the electron reads this automaton.

Lyrics to My Dad is a Mexican Man

"my dad is a mexican man. 

my dad’s got dirt on his hands.

have you met my dad? 

my dad works for the space program. 

my dad has a few big plans. have you met my dad?"

Song here

October 2, 1968

I was nineteen years old, through the balcony in our apartment in Mexico City, I saw military tanks going towards the Three Cultures Plaza in Tlatelolco. I was planning to go, but the show of force changed my mind. The next day I saw our student movement wounded. Raul Alvarez Garin, and Felix Hernandez Gamundi, our representatives, were taken to jail.

Forty four years later, we have to keep fighting!

My Son!