Awakening
Tauhid Nur Azhar
The advancement of information technology has made it easier for us to access various sources of knowledge, making discussions in the public sphere not only wider but also deeper and more profound. Theories that were once unfamiliar are now part of everyday conversations, linked to various phenomena in various activities and interactions of life.
Many casual conversations cite theories such as quantum mechanics, wormholes, string theory, the theory of everything, grand unified theory, quantum field theory, entanglement, relativity, genome sequencing, cloning, gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9, generative AI based on Transformer, algorithms, coding with Python, and theories related to cyberpsychology with various terms such as OVT, FOMO, YOLO, etc.
Perhaps this is the beginning of the awakening era of the intelligent species known as Homo sapiens, both in spiritual and intellectual aspects, which has brought civilization to the era of uncovering various universal truths.
Questions about the essence of human existence (read: self) are often discussed across dimensions, from religious, philosophical, and skeptical approaches based on scientific facts that encourage critical thinking, as well as practical-pragmatic approaches that are more concrete but not necessarily in line with theoretical approaches.
This phenomenon is very interesting. From a psychosocial perspective, for example, it can be observed that there is a public preference for approaches that are based on objective and transparent references. The systems and patterns that are applied in the communal sphere must be objective, scientific, and evidence-based, based on valid and accurate data, and have a clear structure and function (read: measurable).
Society is becoming smarter, more critical, and has a structured and systematic analytical power.
Referring to the DIKW theory or data, information, knowledge, and wisdom, which is analogous to a pyramid, the abundance of data (including noise) that is currently circulating, some of which is filtered into valuable information and can meet the criteria as components of knowledge that can construct logical or rational understanding. The next stage related to wisdom or wisdom is, of course, back to the personal achievements of each individual, although not separated from the process of growing communal awareness.
In many coffee shop conversations, it is common to discuss thermonuclear reactions in the sun that produce heat of 15 million degrees Celsius in the core, by fusing hydrogen atoms into deuterium and then back into helium. The sun’s energy source is the result of the thermonuclear reaction 411H→24He+energy, and we receive photons in the form of Quanta packets that are used by chlorophyll plants to perform photosynthesis and produce O2.
In the first nuclear reaction observed in 1919, Ernest Rutherford bombarded nitrogen with alpha particles and identified the lighter particles emitted as hydrogen nuclei or protons (¹H1 or p) and the product nucleus as a rare oxygen isotope. Meanwhile, in the first nuclear reaction produced by artificially accelerated particles in 1932, British physicists JD Cockcroft and ETS Walton bombarded lithium with accelerated protons and thus produced two helium nuclei, or alpha particles.
In essence, the sun, nuclear reactions, and the nature of matter have become common topics of discussion in coffee shops, campuses, and even in online gatherings and social media interactions.
Even the definition of the supernatural, which was once thick with mystical nuances that relied on personal experiences that were transcendental and could not be explained, is now being discussed in casual conversations.
The supernatural, which is often attributed to various events and mechanisms that are not visible to the senses, is now being studied and discussed. For example, the existence of commensal bacteria or normal flora in our bodies. Their significant role in regulating our metabolic and immune systems is now becoming more widely known and understood.
The composition of microbiota in each part of the human body is different, depending on the environmental conditions. For example, the skin microbiota in dry and sebum-rich areas is dominated by Betaproteobacteria and Propionibacteria, while in humid areas it is dominated by Corynebacterium and Staphylococcus. Each population, in the form of colonies of microbiota or normal flora, has its own role.
Bacteria like Lactobacillus plantarum in the digestive tract, for example, have the ability to help synthesize 5-Hydroxytroptamine, also known as Serotonin. Serotonin is made from the essential amino acid tryptophan, which cannot be produced by the body and must be obtained from food. About 90% of serotonin is found in enterochromaffin cells that line the digestive tract, while about 10% is produced in the brain.
The supernatural, which is still truly supernatural, includes discussions about wormholes, which are often raised in science fiction films or novels as a theoretical basis for reducing distance in space and time, so that in the future we will be able to explore galaxies that are millions of light-years away.
For example, how biological creatures that are thought to exist on various planets in different solar systems and scattered throughout the galaxy can be interconnected. Because with an understanding of the Goldilocks zone related to the ideal physical-chemical composition and the distance of revolution from the ideal central star, it is not impossible that there are various types of life in the universe.
Mr. Dewandaru, one of the top officials of our central bank, with a strong academic background from one of the top universities in America, is very enthusiastic about discussing this. Hycean, which was initially labeled as the planet TOI-270, one of the exoplanets that is thought to have oceans, is one of his favorite topics. Including various studies on wormholes, of course.
So, what is a wormhole?
A wormhole is a hypothetical solution in general relativity that describes a tunnel that connects two different points in space-time. Formally, a wormhole is a topological structure that allows travel between distant places in a short time, or even between times, if the wormhole is stable.
Wormholes were first proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1935 in the form of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge. They described this solution using Einstein’s field equations, which showed that two black holes could be connected through a “tunnel” of space-time.
So far, based on theoretical studies and a series of experiments, there are two main types of wormholes: Schwarzschild wormholes, which cannot be traversed because they collapse too quickly, and traversable wormholes, which allow travel from one point to another without collapsing, but require exotic matter with negative energy to prevent the wormhole from collapsing.
For traversable wormholes, one of the requirements is the presence of negative energy to stabilize the structure and keep the tunnel open. In quantum field theory (QFT), there is a phenomenon known as the Casimir effect, where two conductor plates placed very close together experience an attractive force due to quantum fluctuations in the field between the plates.
The Casimir effect produces negative energy in a limited space, and is often used as a simple analogy to show that negative energy may exist in quantum systems. In other words, quantum fluctuations explained in QFT may play a role in creating or stabilizing wormholes.
A more speculative relationship between QFT and wormholes comes from the idea that emerged in quantum entanglement theory, where physicists such as Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind proposed a relationship called ER = EPR (Einstein-Rosen = Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen). This idea states that pairs of particles that are entangled may be connected by a wormhole on a microscopic scale. In other words, wormholes could be a physical channel for quantum correlations that occur between entangled particles.
In an effort to unify gravity with quantum mechanics (Quantum Gravity), wormholes are considered important objects because they can describe how space-time behaves on a quantum scale.
Other theories, such as string theory or quantum gravity loop, attempt to describe how gravity works on a quantum level and how structures like wormholes may emerge naturally in the quantum universe.
However, when we talk about wormholes while accompanied by a slice of toasted bread with butter and srikaya, accompanied by a cup of hot cappuccino with highland Gayo coffee beans roasted at medium temperature, we certainly cannot escape from a series of questions about the relationship between macro and micro systems, can we?
Because planets, stars, galaxies are collections of matter that are subject to the laws of general relativity with gravity, aren’t they? However, when we talk about intergalactic travel with humans as the transported entity, we are also talking about micro-spaces that contain different laws, quantum laws. As we can learn in a relaxed and entertaining way through the movie Ant-Man with Scott Lang as the main character.
In a video uploaded to YouTube, I received a valuable education from a YouTuber with a science content named Abdul Muin Banyal. Abdul Muin Banyal himself, from the data in his YouTube bio, is a master of education from the University of Minnesota and a science communicator who is very good at presenting complex ideas in a clear and logical way.
He said at the beginning of his discussion on quantum field theory, “Every point in space is considered to have a field connected to a certain energy level…”, which is one of the premises of QFT that is very interesting, isn’t it?
He also discussed several cutting-edge approaches in theoretical physics, including String theory and QFT, which have been mentioned several times in this article. So, what are they really?
String theory is an initiative in physics to unify two main theories, general relativity, which describes gravity on a large scale (such as planets, stars, and galaxies), and quantum mechanics, which governs the interactions of particles on a microscopic scale. In string theory, elementary particles such as electrons or quarks are not considered as point-like objects, but as one-dimensional strings that vibrate. The vibrations of these strings determine the type of particle that is observed, so that various particles in the universe can be considered as different vibrational modes of the same string.
String theory also predicts the existence of additional dimensions beyond the four dimensions of space-time that we understand (three dimensions of space and one dimension of time). The theory suggests that there are 10 to 11 dimensions, depending on the version of string theory used.
On the other hand, Quantum Field Theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework used to model the interactions between particles in the universe on a quantum scale. In QFT, all particles are considered as excitations of the underlying quantum field. For example, electrons are considered as excitations of the electron field, and photons are excitations of the electromagnetic field.
One of the strengths of QFT is its ability to explain particle interactions through the exchange of virtual particles, known as bosons (such as photons for electromagnetic forces, gluons for strong forces, etc.).
QFT is quite effective in explaining three of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces) that are summarized in the Standard Model of particle physics. However, QFT has difficulty incorporating gravity, which is described by general relativity.
There is also another concept or approach that is quite interesting, Quantum foam, or quantum foam. Quantum foam is a concept developed by physicist John Wheeler, which describes quantum fluctuations on a very small scale (Planck scale) in space-time. At this scale (~ 10^-35 meters), space-time is considered to be very dynamic, with geometry that is constantly changing and forming structures similar to foam, due to the strong effects of quantum fluctuations.
Quantum foam is a picture that, on a very small scale, space and time are not smooth and continuous, but are constantly changing due to quantum phenomena. This is in contrast to the classical view of general relativity, which considers space-time as smooth and continuous.
As a result of these discussions on the supernatural, we will certainly continue to wonder about the various fundamental concepts related to our presence in the universe, won’t we? Even in the quantum universe, there is no empty space or vacuum, but rather space with particles that have reached a minimum energy level, known as zero-point energy.
And imagine if we delve deeper into the concept that every particle has a field and is connected based on energy levels, as well as atoms that undergo excitation, which in Niels Bohr’s atomic theory is described as electrons that gain energy and jump to higher orbits and radiate. While in quantum mechanics, excitation can only occur with specific energy values. For example, a hydrogen atom in its ground state requires an excitation energy of 10.2 eV to reach the first excited state, and 12.1 eV to reach the second excited state.
Then we will see that the universe is a matrix function with infinite order that is interconnected, won’t we?
And from a neurobiological perspective, perhaps some of us will see that the essence of existence is perception. Because related to the existence of creatures, we can only assume based on the information received by the sensory system and processed into perception.
All things that we are aware of in life are perceptions that are constructed from multi-sensory data that have undergone cognitive and metacognitive analysis in several brain structures, including the prefrontal cortex and striatum, so it is reasonable that some people believe that life itself is a layer of illusion in the midst of multiple layers of illusion that build the universe of perception.
Of course, the conclusion is not that simple, because observable matter, phenomena that can be studied, and various transcendental things across dimensions, whatever their form, are still indicators of existence. What we need to realize is that there are many ways to achieve layers of awareness that can be analogized with the mechanism of excitation that can make electrons jump to higher orbits. And that’s why we will continue to seek and continue to improve ourselves.
