The Perfect Wave: With Neutrinos at the Boundary of Space and Time

309 Pages·2014·4.724 MB·English

by  Heinrich Päs

The Perfect Wave

The Perfect Wave
With Neutrinos at the Boundary of Space and Time
H E I N R I C H PÄ S
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2014
Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
An earlier version of this work was fi rst published as
Die perfekte Welle: Mit Neutrinos an die Grenzen von Raum und Zeit,
copyright © 2011 by Piper Verlag GmbH, München.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Päs, H. (Heinrich)
Th e perfect wave : with neutrinos at the boundary of
space and time / Heinrich Päs.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-72501-0 (alk. paper)
1. Particles (Nuclear physics)—History. 2. Neutrinos—Mass.
3. Cosmology. 4. Space and time. I. Title.
QC793.16.P37 2014
539.7'215—dc23 2013025630
To my father, who inspired in me the curiosity for
the things beyond the horizon, and the love of nature.
To my mother, who inspired in me the
love of beauty— and of books.

Contents
Preface ~ ix
1 Dawn Patrol in Honolulu ~ 1
2 Eleusis, Plato, Magic Mushrooms ~ 7
3 Quantum Physics: Th e Multiverse of Parmenides ~ 17
4 Black Dots on a White Background:
Th e Particle World ~ 34
5 Beyond the Desert: Symmetries and Unifi cation ~ 51
6 From Symmetry Breaking to Supersymmetry ~ 65
7 Birth of an Outlaw: Th e Neutrino ~ 81
8 Nuclear Decays a Th ousand Meters Underground ~ 97
9 New Physics Is Falling from the Skies ~ 115
10 Cosmic Connections ~ 131
11 Neutrinos: Key to the Universe ~ 154
12 Extra Dimensions, Strings, and Branes ~ 167
13 Einstein’s Heritage: What Is Time? ~ 188
14 How to Build a Time Machine ~ 202
15 Against Hawking and the Timekeepers ~ 213
16 Into the Wilderness of the Terascale ~ 230
17 Epilogue: Major Tom and the Singing Socrates ~ 248
Notes ~ 257
Further Reading ~ 265
Ac know ledg ments ~ 279
Index ~ 283

Preface
Warning up front! Th is book deals with established scientifi c
insights and with wild speculations. Th ere is motivation, even
justifi cation, for the speculations, but they are neither proven
nor confi rmed by experiment. While much of the established
science itself can sound crazy when fi rst encountered, I highly
recommend that the reader be alert to this diff erence.
Well, all I can say is that at times truth is stranger than fi ction.
—Vikas Swarup, Slumdog Millionaire
Of the topics treated within this book, quantum physics in
Chapter 3, particle physics in Chapter 4, and the importance
of symmetries in Chapters 5 and 6 refl ect the recent scientifi c
state of knowledge, as does the discovery of neutrinos and their
masses, treated in Chapters 7 and 9. Th is is also true for the
theories of special and general relativity in Chapter 13 and the
major part of cosmology described in Chapter 10. Th e promo-
tion of the concept of symmetries to GUT theories and super-
symmetry as well as cosmic infl ation is speculation which
nevertheless represents the present hopes and expectations of
most of the scientists working actively in these fi elds. String
theory and extra dimensions are speculations, too, considered
to be “wilder” by many physicists since they deviate more
strongly from established theories or are more diffi cult to probe