HOW LIFE WORKS

                    "If people understood what they're really capable of, 
                     we could transform our societies almost overnight".
                                                             
                                                                                            Kenneth MacLean 

                                       KATE NOWAK

A Rudimentary Guide to Quantum Physics and How it Relates to the Universe

As any first year physics student can tell you, energy is the basic building block of the universe. It is the stuff of which all things are made. So naturally scientists have spent a phenomenal amount of time studying it.

Where the study will end is anybody's guess. It almost ended just over a century ago however, when the scientific community decided they already knew all there was to know about everything. They had dissected this old universe all it could be dissected, they thought, and there was nothing left to learn.

The general consensus seemed to be that the universe more or less ran like clockwork, obeying definite rules of cause and effect. Humanity, in general, was viewed as simply a hapless victim of whatever force happened to be acting on matter. Everyone was so certain of this, in fact, the study of nature was no longer being considered a necessary science. It was actually thought physics would soon be dead.

If you look back through the history of mankind, you'll find this kind of arrogant assuming, usually precedes a revolution of some kind and this time was no exception. Unbeknownst to all the venerable old men of science, a new paradigm was brewing in the background, being led by a very conservative revolutionist who absolutely loathed the idea of bucking the establishment, but did so anyway. His name was Max Planck.

Max realized there was a big gap between scientists saying they knew all the answers and actually knowing them and in this gap lay a few things yet to be figured out. One that was extremely perplexing to Max concerned the way metal changed colours when it got hot. Classic physics failed to explain why metal went from black to red hot and then on to white hot when heat was applied to it and that really bothered Max.

Thinking Outside the Box

You see, Max knew if he was ever going to find the answer, he would have to look in a different direction. He would have to stop taking other scientist's word for how things were supposed to be and start from a place of not assuming anything at all.

In other words, he was going to have to start thinking outside the box. At the time, it was accepted by just about everyone who cared that energy traveled in waves. Experiments had been done that backed up the theory, and energy travelling around more or less like undulating ocean waves just made the most sense.

But because Max had this outside-the-box thing going on, he discounted the wave theory and started asking himself "what if" questions like: What if everything we know so far is wrong? What if energy doesn't just travel in waves? What if it also travels in discrete little lumps that are emitted in multiples of a certain fixed amount depending on the frequency of the vibration they emit?

Complicated, I know, but that's the way scientists think. And Max was a mathematician, too, so that made his thinking even more complicated. Anyway, after he had asked himself the questions and liked the answers he came up with, Max gave the lumps a name, he called them "quanta," a Latin term meaning "countable."

Now whether energy is lumped or wavy may not matter much to you, and you probably don't care if it can be counted, but in the scientific community this was a big deal. Max even came up with a fixed value that could be multiplied by the frequency so that the allowable lumps of energy in any given circumstance could always be figured out.

It was eventually called Planck's constant and it became one of the fundamentals upon which the field of quantum physics is established. Quantum physics is very important to thinking outside the traditional box of creation. So hang in there, please.

Don't panic. Even if you hate science and spent your entire time in school devising ways to skip physics class, quantum physics is not nearly as imposing as the name implies. Although the terminology can be difficult to understand, the basics are easy, as long as you keep an open mind.

Once you have got a handle on quantum physics, it will completely change the way you view reality, allowing you, "to go up a notch." This new viewpoint will enable you to achieve great abundance and success very quickly; like wow ! That's why it's important.
The important thing to understand here is that truth evolves. All truth. Once we believed the world was flat and the moon and sun and stars revolved around it. That was a world truth and because of our way of observing nature at the time, it was self-evident.

Today we hold a completely different set of truths to be self-evident. But as technology advances and new ways of observing the universe are developed, these truths, too, will change.

Ask yourself a "what if" question, What if everything you have learned in your entire life up until this moment is a lie? Realize that just because you have always believed something to be true, doesn't make it so. Open your mind to the idea that you may not know what you think you know.

Quantum physics is the basis upon which the new paradigm of the way we view the world is being established. I'm not going to devote a great deal of space to the subject because I don't want to bog you down with details you don't need and besides, if you are really interested in knowing more about quantum physics, there are many good sites on the net that can explain it far better than I.

I am familiar with the basics, however, and that's all you'll need to know if you want to understand the way the universe is set up and the way life works. Now I recognise it to be a bridge between hope and belief. It proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt that not only is the manifestation of any dream possible, it is inevitable.

Basically, what quantum physics dictates is that things do not exist in physical form until they are actually observed by someone. Until that point, they're only a possibility. Well, actually, they're an infinite number of possibilities that sort of gel together to become a physical manifestation once they are observed.

Following Planck's assertion that radiant energy consists of individual particles, termed "quanta" much the same way matter is made up of atoms, Young's double-slit apparatus began being used in experiments with both light and energy. Variations of the apparatus were used in countless experiments and the one thing that became most apparent in all these experiments is that energy, whether it be in quanta, photon (particles of light) or wave form, is very accommodating.

It does what is expected of it. In test after test, when observers expected energy to behave as a particle, it did so. When they thought it would probably be wave-like, it was. And when observers believed it might start out as one form and end up as another, it did so. In the 1920s, an elite group of physicists met to determine what the basic concepts of quantum physics should be, and the results of Young's experiments showing that nothing actually exists in its physical form until observed by someone, was adopted by the group as one of the concepts. This became widely known as part of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

To better understand what I'm talking about, imagine for a moment that you are shipwrecked on a deserted island. You have just washed up on shore and you are checking the lay of the land. Based on your knowledge of being shipwrecked, which is limited to having read Robinson Crusoe in school, you are expecting to be alone on the island. Friday comes later, remember. You take a quick tour, and sure enough, you're it. No Friday. No anybody. However, based on what you recall from the novel, Crusoe was able to find everything he needed for survival — food, water, materials that can be made into a shelter — so you expect to find the same. And you do.

While on your tour, you find not only a free running stream of fresh water, but a large grove of mango trees, and an abundance of other fruits along with a good sturdy stick that can be made into a spear for fishing. You also find a shallow cave for shelter and plenty of palm fronds that can be woven into a mat for sleeping. It may take a little bit to get a good fire going but, thank God, you either had all those years in the Boy Scouts or you have watched the last five seasons of Survivor religiously. You know you can do it.

At this point, most of us would believe the things found had always been there, just waiting to be discovered. But what quantum physics demonstrates is that until you've actually stepped onto the island, gone exploring and found the fresh water, mango grove, palm fronds and cave you needed for survival, they didn't exist, except as a possibility.

They were there, all right, but only in possibility mode. Everything was everywhere in fact, Palm fronds by the shipload, mangos galore and fresh water streams and pools all over the place, even up in the sky and hanging off the stars. They were there until the moment you appeared on the island. And at that exact instant in time, all of the different possible locations for these thoughtforms in your mind gathered together and transformed into the one reality that you discovered. In essence, you chose them to be there. You created them by your expectations and your thoughts of what should be.

To the next person who comes along, the water, the fruit and the fronds will all be there, but not because they always were, but because you brought them into being when you stepped on the island with your complete set of expectations based on a novel you read in school.

All Together Now

See? I told you it was going to take an open mind! And you must agree, this is certainly thinking outside the box.

There is absolutely nothing in the box of the traditional mindset regarding the realization that you literally preside over an infinite number of possibilities.

In every situation in your life, including the wealth or lack of it you choose to attract to you. By now, you should be getting all goose bumpy, but just wait, it gets even better.

Thanks to the theory of Quantum Entanglement, originally asserted by Albert Einstein and two of his cronies, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, we now have proof that what philosophers have been saying since man first pulled himself out of the primordial ooze and stood up straight, is true. We are all connected. We are all One, sharing a consciousness with the entire universe, perhaps even many universes.

Quantum Entanglement occurs when two particles are created from a single source and then split in two in a laboratory setting. Once split, these two photons will be exact opposites of each other. They will be perfect mirror images of each other and once created, they will ALWAYS mirror one another. If these photons are allowed to separate and only one is exposed to a magnetic field to increase its spin, the spin of the other particle also changes (all be it in the direct opposite direction). The other particle INSTANTLY acquires the opposite quantum state of the particle exposed to the magnetic field.

Basically what Quantum Entanglement tells us is that particles of energy communicate with one another. And it doesn't matter if the two particles are ten inches, ten miles or ten thousand miles away. They instantly communicate with one another. This not only indicates that energy is thinking stuff, it tells us each particle also knows what energy particles elsewhere are doing. That means all energy, everywhere, is connected. And since we are made of energy, as is everything else, that means we are connected, too.
If you find it hard to believe that science has actually been able to prove something so ethereal, don't feel alone. Even Einstein had a tough time accepting some of this stuff, at first labelling the concept of quantum entanglement "nonsensical" and calling the idea that energy particles could actually communicate with each other across space as "spooky action."

Nevertheless, laboratory experiments have established that communication between particles and even clouds of particles does, indeed, take place. In short, the implications have taken us where the logical mind long refused to go, tip-toeing through both human consciousness and the physical world, allowing us to dance freely among the ties that so intricately bind them.

We are all, each and every one of us, part of this amazing whole and complex universe which opens itself to us and makes us privy to everything there is to know, present, past and future. We need only tune in to understand that we are not alone. We are, instead, part of something far greater than we can imagine.

No Matter What You Think, The Universe Says You're Right