The universe has only one electron

[Nicolas]

This article just blew my mind. Just the possibility of it being true amazes me. I've never heard of it before, does anybody here have any more information on the subject?

For the laymen like me: it has "spacetime" and "world lines" written on it. This should be enough to draw your attention.

 

[Einstein]

I've read about this idea before. The one electron starts at the beginning of the universe and traverses through the span of all time till the end of the universe. Then that same electron repeats the journey over and over and over. Till you have a universe filled with identical electrons.

 

[seivtcho]

lol

Where I can read more about that?

 

[Nicolas]

lolWhere I can read more about that?

Did you click on the hyperlink?It's this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

 

[seivtcho]

Sounds too strange. The author gives no evidences, and builds the strange hypothesis only because all electrons have the same mass. But all protons have the same mass too. All neutrons have the same mass too. Does this mean, that they time travel too? And when a time traveling proton is being splashed into sub - atomic particles, why the other protons don't disappear? And when one electron annihilates with one pozitron, Why this doesn't lead to the death of all electrons and all positrons?

 

[Einstein]

Obviously if you are making stuff up, you get to make up the rules too. Just like present day theoreticians do. But they call it theory. It's just glorified fiction if you ask me.

 

[Gpa]

All that article tells me is that John Wheeler might have known Albert Hofmann. They may have "exchanged" ideas. :whistle:

 

[Nicolas]

Heck, that's not even an article. I just never heard of this hipothesis and it just sounded awesome to me.

 

[Darby]

There's really nothing more to read about. As the article states, this was an idea by John Wheeler during a phone call to Feynman. In 1940 Richard Feynman was 2 years away from getting his PhD. Wheeler was his PhD advisor. Professor Wheeler just bounced an idea off of Feynman. There was no paper and it wasn't a theory. It was just a thought that Wheeler tossed out. Feynman dismissed the idea but it did inspire him in another direction.

I'm surprised that you didn't pick up on the more important interesting information in the article considering that this is a time travel forum. Something about Feynman Diagrams, Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and positron-electron annihilation.

 

[Nicolas]

W

There's really nothing more to read about. As the article states, this was an idea by John Wheeler during a phone call to Feynman. In 1940 Richard Feynman was 2 years away from getting his PhD. Wheeler was his PhD advisor. Professor Wheeler just bounced an idea off of Feynman. There was no paper and it wasn't a theory. It was just a thought that Wheeler tossed out. Feynman dismissed the idea but it did inspire him in another direction.I'm surprised that you didn't pick up on the more important interesting information in the article considering that this is a time travel forum. Something about Feynman Diagrams, Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and positron-electron annihilation.

Well sir, like I said, I'm a layman. The words "time line" were more than enough for me.I'm glad you were surprised though. Thanks for the compliment.

 

[Darby]

WWell sir, like I said, I'm a layman. The words "time line" were more than enough for me.I'm glad you were surprised though. Thanks for the compliment.

What Feynman took away from the conversation was the idea that, on a Feynman Diagram, a positron annihilating an electron, can be viewed as traveling backwards in time. He proposed as a matter of symmetry (time reversal symmetry - one of the conservation laws of physics) that anti-particles can be viewed as moving backwards in time.

 

[Grimp]

When I was studying chemistry in university they taught me the idea that electrons arnt actually particles, they are waves, which makes sense, so yeah, the whole universe is one electron? Well you could say, the whole universe is one wave! Wouldnt that make more sense? xD

 

[Einstein]

I tend to look at all particles as just a group of standing waves. But there are lots of different types of waves.

 

[thomas pendrake]

I have had the privilege of meeting and discussing physics with Archibald Wheeler, and know that he had a great mind and a sense of humor. The one-electron theory serves the purpose of illustrating a number of principles and helps us to understand the ultimate unity of the Universe, the connectedness of it all. Dr.Wheeler probably was chuckling a bit during the conversation, but I suspect that he did want Feynman to think about the image.

I particularly found Wheeler's representation of the Universe as a U with an eye resembling the eye on the seal of the U.S. looking back on itself, the act of self awareness by the Universe giving it it's existence. He saw the Eye as representing the consciousness of God. I have known no atheist Physicists.

 

[aboleth_lich]

I have known no atheist Physicists.

Although you may not have personally know any atheist physicists, there are of course several renowned physicists who are also atheists. Particularly notable among them, as both physicists and atheists, are:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpSt-qk0g98, Stephen Hawking, and Stephen Weinberg. Moreover, while Niels Bohr may not have explicitly self-identified as an atheist--he clearly expressed a disinterest in religion.

There are of course also notable physicists who self-identify as agnostic, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Conversely, there are of course many physicists who are indeed theists.

To suggest that physicists, or scholars of any particular scientific field, don't come in all of these flavours in terms of religious belief is rather silly. Personally, I've meet scientists, physicists included, who are atheists, others who are theists, and others who are agnostic--no one particularly famous though, merely colleagues.