Put your hand on the table. Or on your neighbor. (Ask first.) Feels solid, doesn’t it? Feels real. It’s not. Not solid, that is. Reality is open to debate, and discussed below.
According to the Cambridge dictionary, the definition of solid is: “hard or firm, keeping a clear shape.” Fair enough, but what your hand feels isn’t what people normally think of when they say “solid.” What you perceive as a solid table (or neighbor) is actually the intra-molecular forces of the atoms in the table resisting movement, as induced by the intra-molecular forces of your hand.
The table is solid only as a convenient semantic short hand, distinguishing it from liquid or gaseous. Either of which states of matter would simply move aside as you push your hand into them. The “solid” table resists because its component atoms are locked in a crystalline arrangement. And will be until temperature, or some solvent destroys that arrangement.
The atoms of your hand aren’t actually in contact with the atoms of the table (or neighbor). An atom, regardless of species, is, in fact, mostly empty space. The structure of an atom is a clump in the middle, called the nucleus, surrounded by a number of electrons, roving the periphery. The relative size of the nucleus to the rest of the atom has been compared to a marble on the fifty-yard line of a stadium, with the electrons zipping around the cheap seats.
One might quibble whether that nuclear cat’s eye is more accurately represented by a pea, or a golf ball. Is the stadium a high school field, surrounded by metal bleachers, or something more like the Astrodome? Valid questions, but not all that pertinent to this discussion. The point is that, chubby or svelte, an atom is almost completely empty space.
What keeps you hand from passing through the table, are those repulsive forces between atoms. I don’t really understand exactly what those forces are. We should all be grateful to them, though. Without these forces, nothing stops us all from falling directly to the center of the Earth’s mass. Not a fun trip, I imagine.
As humans, we perceive the universe as made up of solid objects, when it is not. That is simply our minds making sense of the way atoms tend to clump together. A coping mechanism. It’s similar to watching TV, and seeing the show, instead of a collection of pixels. In reality, that show on the screen is nothing more than very small dots of color flashing on and off. The table you’re caressing (or your neighbor, if they haven’t called the cops on you yet) is a conglomeration of atoms, floating in some pattern.
In fact, the only difference between the various types of atoms floating in that pattern are the number and way its component subatomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons) are arranged within that notional football stadium of mostly empty space we call an atom. It’s worth pausing here to appreciate that all matter (as far as we know) is composed of various blueprints of just three particles. Which means the only difference between the table and a ham sandwich is the way the electrons, neutrons, and protons are arranged. Or, a big pile of ham sandwiches if you want to keep the mass the same.
We’ll set aside for the moment the likelihood that there are even smaller particles which make up electrons, neutrons, and protons. One reality-shaking concept at a time.
The idea that subatomic particles are simply Lego blocks, which can be used to build whatever matter is desired is the basis for replicator and transporter technologies in the Star Trek universe. I don’t specifically recall anyone on the Enterprise replicating a ham sandwich, but it’s probably happened at some point. The replicator essentially is a very, very advanced 3D printer, fabricating the sandwich not just molecule-by-molecule, but subatomic-particle-by-subatomic-particle. The same for reassembling a person on the receiving transporter stage. We won’t go into what happens to the original article on the sending stage. Suffice to say, Bones McCoy has a point.
Now, this subatomic sieving, sending, and reassembly process would require a tremendous amount of computing power and sophistication. Certainly, a few orders of magnitude better than we possess today. The passenger is literally 3D printed after transmission down to a staggering level of detail. Or, so is the canon. No wonder transporter malfunctions are such a rich vein of Star Trek plot devices to mine.
Now, can we do this type of thing today? Or even begin to figure out how it might be accomplished? Of course, not. It wasn’t until a bit more than one hundred years ago that the scientific community accepted the existence of the atom, let alone the internal architecture. That’s because science only focuses on what data supports. Or, it’s supposed to. Human frailty and greed sometimes interfere with this ideal. But that’s a subject for another essay.
The point is that science will always lag behind what people can conceive. Sometimes, science will lose its way for various reasons. But eventually, the data drags us back to reality. Which has been waiting patiently while we detoured through make-believe.
Ironically, make-believe is just as important as the hard-nosed pursuit of facts which science should be. Science is, for want of a better word, myopic. She, out of necessity, focuses on details; mass, speed, temperature, rates of decay. Our understanding is thus laid, brick by solid brick. If we were different types of beings, perhaps that would be enough for us. But we are human. And human beings are compelled to lift up our eyes from the dust and peer at the horizon.
That is what all of speculative fiction is, science fiction, fantasy, and the diverse hybrids the two have foaled. Authors realize that they have taken leave of reality, but keep the shore in sight as they spin new worlds from make-believe. In our example of the transporter (and the replicator) it is understood that humans don’t know how to perform this apparent miracle, today. In fact, it may be a long time before that knowledge is grasped. If ever. Still, that inability doesn’t stop us from speculating how the technology would affect society. Or how it would affect individuals, which is often a more compelling way to bring the point home.
When will we know how to transport people about as if they’re streaming TV shows? I really don’t know. It might come with a breakthrough next week. Or, it might never be within our grasp. Or, an equivalent technology might arise via a completely different mechanism. At the end of the nineteenth century, lighter-than-air craft were widely believed to be the future of air travel. Balloons and zeppelins still work, but not as well for our purposes as winged aircraft. At the turn of the twenty-first century, many of us despaired that man would ever visit the moon again. Since, SpaceX and Blue Origin have rekindled that dream, and more. Ten years ago, I personally wouldn’t have bet on artificial intelligence as a working technology for another hundred years, or more. Today, I’m not so sure. (Definitions, moral, and legal questions noted, but not addressed at this time.)
No matter, Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were all busy intellectually exploring the possibilities of manned flight, space travel, and robots without waiting for the real world to catch up. That helped immensely once science reduced those technologies to practice. Verne, Heinlein, Asimov, and legions of others had scouted the territory. Of course, they got things wrong, missed some wrinkles, focused too much on others. That’s an occupational hazard when you step away from reality, to get some perspective on the bigger picture. Even a flawed map is better than no map at all when traveling new lands. We figured it out. Or, at least think we have.
Arthur C. Clarke famously said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Certainly, demonstrating a cell phone or even a flash light would be more than enough to get you burned at the stake for witchcraft a few centuries ago. How many fantasy story elements might eventually become reality through better understanding of the universe? Scientists currently think that there are extra dimensions curled up next to the ones we can perceive. As humans, we’re limited to the basic plan (three spatial dimensions plus time). Researchers are currently working on upgrading to the premium package (six additional channels of reality to surf). Seems like magic to me.
Will we ever fly to other stars, encounter aliens, build true AIs? I couldn’t tell you. But I have a gut feel that we will, sooner or later. We are clever, little monkeys. Puzzling out the universe, and accomplishing the impossible has worked out well for us. With the occasional self-destructive detour along the way. Betting against human ingenuity is a losing game. Simply because we cling to the faith that we can drag reality up to the doorstep of our dreams.
Spoiler alert, reality doesn’t change. It sits there, immutable. What alters is our ability and willingness to grasp reality’s true nature. The world used to be flat. The rest of the universe used to revolve about us. And the table was solid. The world grew round beneath our feet, and shifted from the center of the universe to the low-rent district. And the table isn’t solid. It just looks that way.
If you like Levels of Reality, check out my novels at Novus Mundi Publishing, or just order them directly from Amazon:
A Grand Imperial Heir (sequel to A Grand Imperial War)
And visit my website, https://raytabler.com/, for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!