Commentary by Roger Martin Martin writes about research at KU for Kansas media and in a webzine. Contact Martin at rmartin@kucr.ku.edu or (785) 864-7239. Martin also can be heard on KANU 91.5 FM public radio Archives More articles by Roger Martin Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Physicists would be good candidates for 'Survivor'

by Roger Martin
I never watched that "Survivor" show, but it did make me think about being stuck with strangers on an island. I'd want a physicist around. The stuff going on in physics and astronomy these days really spins my windmill.

Last year, some physicists slowed light down to 38 miles an hour. This year, a group jacked up the speed so that light actually appeared to leave a chamber before it had finished entering it.

These scientists are so far out in front of the public that we'll never catch up. I realized this in 1993 when I talked with a University of Kansas physicist, John Ralston. That was the year I found out that I'd been dead wrong about the electron.

I thought electrons were little balls spinning around the nucleus of the atom much as planets circle the sun. No way, said Ralston. Ever since the 1920s it's been known that electrons are "smeared out," not compact; that they spread out from the nucleus rather than travel in strict orbits. They even wobble a bit as they spin.

Trouble is, physicists are always changing their tune. Back in the 1980s, I heard about string theory. The basic building blocks of the universe, the theory said, were tiny wiggling strings. They existed not in a three-dimensional universe, but in one consisting either of 10 dimensions or of 26. Many of these extra dimensions, it was said, were extremely tiny and curled up.

So I'm talking to Ralston the other day and he tells me that string theory is unraveling. A new theory about "large extra dimensions" is gaining ground, he says. The idea is that there are only five or six dimensions, and the extra ones aren't as preposterously small as those that turn up in string theory. I was glad to hear it.

Those tiny dimensions were really bothering me.

These guys don't just shake up the little picture. KU cosmologist Adrian Melott has received National Science Foundation funding to do computer modeling that will help answer the question of whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse back in on itself.

In the 1980s, astronomers were leaning toward the idea that the whole thing would keep expanding but at an ever-slower rate; it was even possible at that point to hold onto a sliver of hope for a final big crunch. Now, Melott says, it appears the expansion is actually speeding up over time. So the big crunch may be an impossible dream, a twinkle in the eye of Hollywood and no more.

Why? It seems that we're a bit short on the stuff needed to pull everything back together, Melott says. Only about 30 percent of the matter in the universe attracts other matter. It seems that 70 percent of the stuff out there repels matter.

I guess most of the universe is like a big singles bar.

Why do physicists keep tweaking their theories? Because they're scientists. They actually accept new evidence and change their views. They're not like the rest of us.

I don't care if that Richard guy who won the first "Survivor" competition could catch fish.

I'd want a physicist on the island with me.

She'd supply the brain food.