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Everyday science

Everyday science

Transmogrified physics: we want your examples of this new field of science

07 Jan 2020 Robert P Crease
Taken from the January 2020 issue of Physics World.

Robert P Crease seeks your input on an entirely new realm of phenomena

Screwdrivers

As a new decade dawns, you will be thrilled to learn that I have come across a new field of physics. It involves surprising, near-magical and hitherto unnoticed connections between the micro and the macroworld. I therefore call it “transmogrified physics”.

A prime example is screwdriver oscillation – an important phenomenon that often shows up when you’re doing home improvement. There you are, assembling a cabinet, when you suddenly discover you need a Phillips head screwdriver. You go to your toolbox but find only flatheads. Frustrated, you drive to the hardware store and buy one, chastising yourself at being so unprepared. You return to your project and continue working.

Evidently, the fact that screwdrivers, like neutrinos, have mass means that they’re able to oscillate from one state to another.

Two hours later, you find you need a flathead. You go back to your toolbox and discover it now contains only Phillips heads. I have witnessed this phenomenon several times – and you surely have encountered it as well without realizing its significance. Evidently, the fact that screwdrivers, like neutrinos, have mass means that they’re able to oscillate from one state to another. Further exploration of this property is bound to shed more light on the nature of oscillation itself.

Superfluidity and condensates

Another example of transmogrified physics is political superfluidity. This manifests itself when an inept politician creeps upwards career-wise in ways that defy expectations and even rationality. The US currently has a sterling example, and I understand that the UK does too. More research into this phenomenon will have immediate and positive applications in understanding political behaviour.

Then there’s the phenomenon of human condensation. This occurs in situations where otherwise distinct and astute individuals enter social environments in which they lose their identifying properties and enter an energy state of low intelligence in which they become interchangeable. Such environments include campaign rallies, student parties and university departmental meetings. Study of this familiar phenomenon may allow these social environments to be restructured to promote more lucid and level-headed behaviour.

I also present you with the Van Damme effect, which is the impossibility for matter and its time-dilated identical twin to occupy the same space. This phenomenon is inspired by the movie Timecop, in which the character played by Jean-Claude van Damme confronts two versions of the villain – one being a time-travelled version of the other – and pushes the two together. The pair vanish from existence in a screaming conflagration, giving off lots of energy (the villain being a politician, of course).

Such an event, which does not involve matter and antimatter but pairs of identical time dilated particles, has not yet been detected in the microworld, but if it has appeared in the movies there must be some truth in it. Physicists should look for this phenomenon, and when they find it, they should name it after Van Damme. I’m also pleased at the thought that this is surely the first time that his name has ever been mentioned in a physics magazine.

Or how about the Yalu River Effect. Have you ever noticed that physicists, speaking honestly and informally, will tell you that they do science because it’s intellectually and personally rewarding, and that they can’t think of anything more interesting and fun to do. But the moment they talk to politicians, these same scientists claim they do science for the technological spinoffs, practical applications, military uses, social benefits, national pride and other patriotic things it brings?

This effect is named after a phenomenon in the Korean War, in which North Korean troops retreated behind the Yalu River when they landed in trouble. The river separates North Korea from China, and the troops knew that they were safe on the other side because South Korean, US and UN troops would never cross into Chinese territory to attack them. Similarly, scientists know that they are not politically vulnerable when they defend their work with reasons linked to national defence and competitiveness.

Pioneers required

Some of my other real-world physics phenomena can be more quickly described.

Asymptotic freedom in relationships. Second thoughts about your ex. Impossible to live with, but more attractive after moving out.

Parity violation of the sexes. When the male/female ratio in parallel administrative posts, or of salaries in identical positions, has a value of >1. This number is unity in advanced civilizations.

Outgassing. Enough said.

Attention scattering. What happens at parties when physicists begin to explain what they do.

Dark energy. Your phone is somewhere in the house but you can’t find it, so you a have your neighbour call you, but then you remember it’s on soft-vibrate and probably under a thick cushion or pile of clothes. You know the phone is somewhere out there, vibrating yet unable to be detected.

Gravity waves. What you emit when somebody at a meeting you’re chairing makes a humorous but embarrassingly awkward and politically incorrect joke, and you have to stifle your laugh yet convey to everyone both verbally and by your demeanour that the comment was unacceptable.

The critical point

“Transmogrified physics” has been overlooked by working scientists, no doubt because they are so obsessed with the microrealm that they pay little attention to its often astonishing connections with the macroworld. Exploring this new branch of science is bound to be richly rewarding, and I am sure that it will lead to several Nobel prizes.

I have only begun to explore this new realm, and much remains to be discovered.

I realize that I have only begun to explore this new realm, and much remains to be discovered. I therefore invite you to join me in becoming pioneers, and to e-mail me phenomena that you have encountered. I will discuss the field’s progress in a future column.

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