Nexus - 0204 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

NEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCENEW designs is the "hadron resonance". All the sub-atomic ("hadron") particles are made of quarks and, sometimes, these quarks spin or vibrate in a more-energetic-than- Dp usual way giving rise to an "excited" \\l v, ly | hadron which may decay back to its normal \\ state (diagram 5) EY GG, — | ons These few examples, then, show that there is a close analogy between crop pat- Ing antiproton terns and the Feynman Diagram processes + of Quantum Field Theory and sub-atomic p matter/antimatter particle physics. annihilation Could these glyphs be an alien message, proton resulting in an telling us how to build a matter-antimatter energy ". drive for a starship? Further research may tell! The Pepper-box Hill glyph (see diagram 1) About the Author: looks like two subatomic particles experiencing a Chris Illert is a former staff mem - "quantum field interac- A . tion” due to the exchange ber of Wollongong University and of three messenger parti- | leading theoretical physicist and cles: 9 We will now take just a mathematician whose papers, pub portion of the Alton | lished in prestigious international Barnes glyph (diagram | yyltilingual science journals, have 2). A reasonable assump- 5 9 tion is that a shaded circle | WON various awards and prizes. Two Me ot sents - | of his papers in the Italian theoretica al represents matter (a pro: h the Italian th tical a ton p+ say), whilst a 2 9 m0 . " ‘white! circle represents | Physics journal "Nuovo Cimento c anti-matter (an antiproton | have recently been selected by the p- say). 9 99 or If an antiproton is collid- American Physicists Association ed with a proton, they | ($.P.LE.) as amongst the best contri - EE annihilate cac . ; Bion annihilate each other | butions to an area of science for more (matter and antimatter don't co-exist much). Out | than a century. of the resulting energy These pri oe —_P- ‘@) flash we can obtain two prize winning papers were pions (7+ and 7-) and an reprinted in full, in the "S.P.LE. Excited hadron decays to its w* meson which, in turn, . ow . Alton Barnes ground state by emitting a photon decays into three more Milestone Series along with the pions as follows: (see dia- papers of Louis Pasteur, Francis eam 2) eee Tha Ffiald (alan About the Author: Chris Illert is a former staff mem - ber of Wollongong University and leading theoretical physicist and mathematician whose papers, pub - lished in prestigious international multilingual science journals, have won various awards and prizes. Two of his papers in the Italian theoretical physics journal "Nuovo Cimento" have recently been selected by the American Physicists Association (S.P.LE.) as amongst the best contri - butions to an area of science for more than a century. These prize winning papers were reprinted in full, in the "S.P.LE. Milestone Series" along with the papers of Louis Pasteur, Francis Crick, and other Nobel Prize winners, as the best contributions in the past century. His computer graphics are also well known internationally, with a full colour plate appearing recently in Scientific American (Jan. 1991, p91): "computer Creatures From An Unseen World". The source of a field (electric or gravita- tional) emits showers of "messenger" (or "ghost") particles in all directions. In the case of the electric field, electri- cally charged particles emit showers of messenger "photons". In the case of gravitational fields, mas- sive objects emit showers of "gravitons". In either case, as one moves closer to the source, the "rain" of messenger particles is denser, so therefore the field strength is greater. gram 3) This matter-antimatter annihilation process releases showers of pions with copious quantities of energy. And we can represent the process quite well with the Alton Barnes glyph, labelling it as follows: (see diagram 4) The lifetime of the w° meson is extreme- ly short, 10-23 seconds, so we never actu- ally "see" it. We only see five pions escap- ing from the p+ p- annihilation. Another important element in these NEXUS - 41 Further research may tell! Excited hadron decays to its ground state by emitting a photon JULY/AUGUST 1991 + YEAR BOOK