Elephants and Feathers Have the Same Mass?

Summary of "Radical New Theory Could Kill the Multiverse Hypothesis" by Natalie Wolchover

Wolchover explained the rise of a theory that completely revolutionized the way quantum physicists view the universe. The concept was called scale-symmetry, and it stated that in the basic, fundamental laws of the universe, there was no mass or length. Then when scale-symmetry "broke," time and space expanded exponentially "and mass and length spontaneously [arose]." The modern theories of physics required two separate set of particles at drastically masses. New theories stemmed off of scale-symmetry might have provided the answer. One theory stated when scale symmetry "broke," "[Different] sets of self-contained laws [operated] above and below [a] critical point[,] just as water behaves differently than ice." Another theory called "agravity" named for the phrase "adimensional gravity" explained "the laws of physics at all scales ... through separate dynamical effects." As scientists test these theories they have regained a sense of hope (Wolchover, 2014).

This article showed an enormous leap in the world of quantum physics. Popular theories that have been widely accepted for decades might finally be proven to be wrong! The article was extremely advanced; The material was beyond college level and the concepts were very abstract. After reading the article over multiple times, I finally understood the article and how drastically it impacts the scientific community. These findings could completely alter the way we look at quantum physics! Once you understand its content, this article was informative and interesting to read.

Wolchover, N. (2014). Radical new theory could kill the multiverse hypothesis. In WIRED. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2014/08/multiverse/ (Reprinted from Quanta Magazine, 2014, August 25)