We live in a world of enlightenment, or so it would seem. For example, the Laws of Thermodynamics have been well understood and taught generation after generation for over a century now, and then some. Such revered laws literally shape the manifestations of realty we can expect to see. It's how we expect reality to behave. In fact we DEPEND upon reality to behave in such a manner, and indeed reality dutifully complies, or so it would seem.
Meanwhile, toiling away in laboratories, (some of them purposely undisclosed) a few dreamers continue seeking out traces of magic, like alchemists seeking to transmute lead into gold. It would appear that some, in fact, are closer to achieving the Holy Grail than most on this planet would have believed is possible even though the element of gold may not have actually been transmuted from the baser element, lead. In other laboratories even stranger things are happening, we are told. According to established theory, according to what the majority believes IS official reality, what is happening in some of these laboratories is tantamount to heresy - the conjuring of black magic. Traces of unaccountable heat are being measured, seemingly defying the first and second laws of thermodynamics. We are told of a lab located in Cranbury, New Jersey that seems to be conjuring up excess heat in ways thought impossible. They claim to have produced exotic new species of what we had always believed to have been a well understood element, a claim obviously as controversial as the excess heat measured. We are told of labs located elsewhere on the planet where the faint whispers of unexpected asymmetries attributed to magnetism and electromagnetism are being observed and meticulously mapped out. Will they be able to find the right brass lamp? Will they figure out the right combination of incantations to speak? Will they get their genie? Will they get their wishes? In our reality where the paradigms our society have been meticulously and painfully patched together for over a century it would be considered an absolute affront, an extremely rude gesture to have a genie pop out of the lamp in this day, the Age of Enlightenment - to grant us a few wishes, wishes that might go so far as to seemingly disregard a few revered Laws of Thermodynamics. How rude! Get back in your lamp! After all, genies and fairies don't really exist. Magic is nothing more than a collection of imaginary toys children play with, toys that must be set aside when we finally grow up. To be an adult is to observe that the Laws of Thermodynamics are carved in stone as were the Ten Commandments, or so it would seem. If perhaps just enough of us close our eyes long enough. If just enough of us clap our hands together. If just enough of us dare remain child-like for one day longer. For one day longer believe that genies and fairies can exist, that a faint whisper of magic permeates the atmosphere like an illusive scent from an exotic flower. Perhaps just a few of our deepest wishes may eventually, some day soon, come true. In 2006 may some of your deepest wishes come true. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
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Jones wrote..
>This kind of outrageous idea is only plausible if you understand
fully the ramifications of a "transitory state" in the QM sense of slowing time down to attoseconds... and the most (only) well-studied example being water. NOTE that water is being used mainly as a metaphor for the transitory state - as water, although arguably bosonic in a molecular sense (and having vastly different properties in some of the ice configurations like ice-9) is not precisely the best example for this hypothesis. Probably the best example would be carbon. I suggest that water remains the only near analogy to your idea. Water is
masculine in that it hides no mystery while feminine carbon has cameleon
characteristics like Bismuth. Carbon, as in wet diamond changes it's mind as
well as it's face. Never depend on carbon, ask the Rice university carbon nano
bunch. Ever their valued discovery went out of the window to a richer suitor.
<grin>
Prof. Chaplin's website recognizes the dependibility of water. We reside on a water planet which is the only known such structure in the universe. The odds of this occurence is beyond measure. Richard
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