Tuesday 11 April 2000

Pic of the day: This issue of New Scientist informed us that there could be microscopic black holes from the early moments of the universe, that they might not have evaporated because of their extremely small event horizon (quantum effects), and that they could be anywhere - even inside our bodies! Then again, this issue of New Scientist was published on April 1. That's not a good date to publish a scientific magazine ...

I reckon that Altavista and the other search engines have the word "naked" in their caches at any time. Based on anecdotal evidence (science-speak for hearsay) there would be almost at any time an ongoing search like "naked+Melissa", "naked+Kevin", "naked+chick" (ever wondered how they look without those feathers? Well, probably not unless you are a vegetarian). And there, now and again, will be the a search for "naked+singularity". And the secret government agencies that eavesdrop on the Internet duly notes the phone number and address for future use. Someone is not conforming.

Incidentally, for those who don't play a scientist on TV, naked singularities are black holes without their event horizon, to put it simply. You probably know that black holes bend light by means of their immense gravity. They actually bend space (and time) so light cannot escape. Therefore, we can never see what happens inside a black hole, and also in other ways it is prevented from affecting the larger universe. (Very thoughtful, as there are rather unusual things going on in there, if maths are to be trusted.)

In the core of the black hole there is supposed to be a singularity - a point where all of the mass in the hole is. In normal matter, the electrons hang around way outside the atom's nucleus, so matter is actually empty space for the most part. When this space is squeezed out, you get a neutron star. This requires more gravity than our sun is capable of. But still the forces within the atoms keep things apart, so each neutron does not occupy the same place as all the others. But at some point even this breaks down, and everything is at the same point of space. It has been theorized that two rotating black holes might collide and rip each other's event horizons apart, and the universe would face its perhaps most terrifying event since the Big Bang: The sight of a naked singularity, and whatever it might do to the world around it. (Don't ask me what, I just write here.)

As the worlds one and only Magnus Itland, I've in the past used the handle "Singularis". (It also helps that I'm probably one of the singlest singles in the civilized world, now that actual cave-dwelling hermits have gone out of fashion.) But then I found the web pages of a company (sounds like a fun place to work, incidentally) called Singularis, so I've sort of faded out that handle. But it did sound sort of kewl, did it not? Like some superhero, or hyperhero, or something.

Of course, as the saying goes, we are all unique. Well, some twins are identical, but I don't think that disqualifies them. Identical twins are like natural clones. People who think that the human soul enters at the moment of conception, must have some explaining to do to identical twins: They stem from the same fertilized ovum, or egg cell. Some of them are very much identical, while others are actually mirror images of one another, with even internal organs reversed in one of them. Not quite identical, but genetically identical.

This goes to show that the sci fi stuff about clones is dubious at best. If people cloned me (which incidentally would be a good idea) the clone would develop into a very different person. At best he would look strikingly like me, but have a very different experience in life. It is not obvious that he would ever have asthma, as I had in my childhood. Or if he had, that he would outgrow it (or be Healed, or whatever happened). Even clones are unique.

If some mad scientist managed to clone Hitler, the new Hitler may become a passable painter. The schools today are quite a bit better than in the early 1900s. And furthermore, the treatments for syphilis are now much better. (OK, I may be perpetuating a myth here; but the guy certainly acted like he was in the third stage of syphilis, where the brain is damaged in a particular way, giving rise to chronic megalomania, paranoia and mood swings.)

But to speak of something more comfortable, don't we all tend to wear "event horizons"? A shell around us that separates us from the rest of the universe. Often the processes that go on inside the shell can be strikingly different from the view that is projected outside. There are places, physical or figurative, where we disappear from view. And hidden in the deepest center of this hiding place is the thing that is our core, where everything meets.

I do not expect my life to contain an episode similar to the meeting of two such cosmic giants, who rip each other's event horizons to shreds in the cataclysmic tide of their merging, that seems to tear at the very fabric of reality. (Your expectations may vary.)

But through this diary, which I so shamelessly put up for everyone to see, I hope to provide a window into my own little universe. I may not "bare it all on the Net" exactly ... but I guess you may eventually find me under the keywords "scantily clad singularity".