Three German Watchmen (Übermensch)

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Let me pick up in my hands that beautiful spherical glass paperweight on my table.

It looks solid, feels solid and of course is solid.

But, is it?

Let me shrink myself like Alice into a size that is a million billion times smaller. I am now truly in a Wonderland unlike anything I saw earlier.

I find the solid sphere mostly vacuum with electrons in hazy clouds. And this micro-nano-femto-world is governed by precise but totally unfamiliar quantum laws.

Let me take a Hydrogen nucleus. It has a tiny but 'heavy' proton. If I now release
a 'microlight' electron nearby, one expects that the electron will inexorably plunge into the proton like two romancing teenagers.

But no! In the vicinity of the proton there stands Heisenberg with a stick to chase away the incoming electron. He doesn't like their merger like a Khap Panchayat watchman. The electron retreats but comes in from another direction. Heisenberg again chases it away. This goes on and on. There is fight between love and law. On the 'average' (quantum world is all about averages), the electron 'cloud' hangs in there in a size a million billion times that of the central proton. That is what gives 'size' for the Hydrogen atom.

Let us now bring another Hydrogen atom nearby. The proton of each 'covets' the electron of the other. But there is our Heisenberg with his stick to see that they don't form an incestuous mess. That is what gives size to the Hydrogen molecule and 'bond' them together. Bring in more and more Hydrogen atoms and cool them. The process goes on and I have liquid Hydrogen, and oh yes! 'solid' Hydrogen (most of which is otherwise empty), thanx to Heisenberg.

Now let us get back to our single Hydrogen atom. And add one proton to the nucleus and bring in one more electron from afar.

Now another German Überman comes in with 'his' stick. His name is Pauli. He is a tough Headmaster. His classroom has a gallery of 2, 6, etc increasing number of chairs. He wouldn't let any two electrons to occupy the same chair. He chase them to the next nearest chair. We then have the next atom, called Helium more or less. Bring in another proton and electron. He chases the new electron to the next rung. And it goes on, bringing variety and spice to our life on Earth.

By and large it is this Heisenberg Pressure and the Pauli Pressure that gives 'solidity' and size to my glass sphere, which is nothing but vacuum mostly.

There is a third Überman watching the game smilingly. His name is Einstein. He would like to play the spoilsport. He would pour more glass into the sphere while it is cooling. The sphere gets bigger and bigger.

Now comes a South Indian Brahmin called Chandrasekhar. At a certain limit named for him, when the sphere gets truly BIG, the Einstein Crunch (Gravity) suddenly overcomes the Heisenberg and Pauli electron Pressures and the glass sphere shrinks to the size of a peanut. All its electrons are squeezed into their nuclei and become neutrons. We call it a neutron star or a pulsar.

But the neutrons too are kept away by the Headmaster Pauli and his stick. The new Pauli pressure gives a size (though infinitely smaller) to the neutron star.

Einstein pours more 'glass' to watch the fun.

At a certain limit named for Oppenheimer and Volkoff (all Germans), Einstein wins once for all, and all the neutrons collapse into nothingness called a 'Black Hole'.

It is not nothingness; it has all the mass that went in. But Einstein says mass is energy. So, it is swirling with intense energy. And Einstein allows energy to be converted into mass back and forth. So, around the Black Hole intense processes of creation and annihilation of 'particles' is taking place where again Heisenberg and Pauli rule the roost. And this conversion of pure energy into pure massive particles is facilitated by what is laughably called the 'God-Particle'.

This much is theory. We see pulsars but not Black Holes (they are black, no?).

The CERN scientists are trying to do it the other way round: Instead of pouring in more 'mass', they are pouring in what amounts to the same thing: 'Energy'.

And look for tiny Black Holes and possibly their God-Particle.

Wish them well!


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