Two of the main forces
that help keep the universe orderly are gravitation and
electromagnetism. Electromagnetism actually seems to have “if/then”
logic embedded within it, although scientists have used a semantic
cheat that tends to hide this reality.
Before scientists advanced
an equation describing electromagnetism, there was first Newton's
famous law of gravitation. The equation for this law is one that can
be used to calculate the gravitational attraction between any two
objects in the universe. The equation looks like this.
In this equation F
represents the force of gravitation between the two objects, m1
represents the mass of the first object, m2 represents the
mass of the second object, and d is the distance between the two
objects. G is a fundamental constant of nature called the
gravitational constant.
After this equation was
introduced, scientists began learning a lot about electrical charges.
Before too long, someone had the idea: let's try to describe
electromagnetism with an equation similar to the equation for
gravitation. But there was a problem with that. Gravitation always
results in attraction. But electromagnetism is a force that can
either result in attraction that moves thing closer together, or
repulsion that tends to push things apart.
It works like this: if you
have two particles nearby that are both protons (or both electrons),
there is an electromagnetic force of repulsion between them. But if
one of the particles is an electron and the other particle is a
proton, there is an electromagnetic force of attraction between
them. If one of the two particles is a neutron, then there is neither
a force of electromagnetic repulsion between the two, nor a force of
electromagnetic attraction between the two.
But how to shoehorn such a
setup so that it follows an equation similar to the law of
gravitation? Scientists came up with an answer. The answer was to
create a semantic convention by which electrons are considered
negative charges, and protons are considered positive charges. Using
such a convention, it was possible to declare Coulomb's law, which
is stated as follows.
In this equation F
represents the force of electromagnetic attraction or repulsion
between the two objects, qa represents the charge of the
first object, qb represents the charge of the second
object, and r is the distance between the two objects. K is a
fundamental constant of nature. Under this formula, a
negative number (for F) is considered a force of attraction, and a
positive number (for F) is considered as a force of repulsion.
For scientists, this
semantic convention works very well. It allows them to do exact
calculations involving electrical charges. There is just one problem
with this semantic convention: it is a cheat, a cheat that is not
justified by the actual situation we find in nature. We can call
this cheat “Coulomb's cheat.”
Judging nature purely by
its actual characteristics (without considering semantic
conventions or what is convenient for scientists doing calculations), it is not accurate to say that electrons are negative
charges and protons are positive charges. Nature itself has no
characteristics that justify the claim that a proton has a
positive charge and an electron has a negative charge.
It is easy to imagine
universes in which it might be justified and accurate to call the
electron charge negative and the proton charge positive. One such
universe would be one in which electrons always caused a repulsion
between themselves and other particles, and in which protons always
caused an attraction between themselves and other particles. But we
don't live in such a universe. It might also be accurate to call the
electron charge negative if electrons tended to produce repulsion
more often than they tend to produce attraction. But as far as
scientists can tell, electrons do not tend to produce more repulsion
than attraction, and produce just as much attraction as repulsion.
The same thing is true for protons.
So the long-honored
semantic convention of considering electrons as negative charges and
protons as positive charges is not actually warranted by what we
find in nature. But how can we accurately describe what is going on,
without using this time-honored cheat? For starters, we can stop
using the terms “negative” and “positive” in talking about
charges, and simply use the term “proton-like charges” to refer
to charges like that of the proton, and the term “electron-like
charges” to refer to charges like that of the electron.
To describe what is going
on in nature (without using Coulomb's cheat), we can use two
flowcharts. Below is a flowchart that describes the rule followed by
a proton in regard to how to react to some nearby particle.
Below is a flowchart that
describes the rule followed by an electron in regard to how to react to some nearby particle.
These flowcharts give us
an accurate description of electromagnetism, without the unwarranted
cheat of considering electrons as negative charges and protons as
positive charges. But when you look at these flowcharts, you might
have quite a realization. The realization is: nature is actually
computing to determine whether there should be an attraction, a
repulsion or neither between two particles. What is going on is not
simply a law that can be expressed as an equation. What is going on
is that nature is using an algorithm, a bit of programming, some
“if/then” logic. Each one of those diamonds in the diagram
represents a piece of “if/then” logic. Each line leading out of
the diamond represents either an “if” or a “then” in some
"if/then" logic.
This particular piece of
“if/then” logic is actually fundamental to our existence, because
if nature stopped performing this piece of code at any instant, the
chemistry in our bodies would instantly be turned off, and we would
all die within a few seconds.
The realization that
electromagnetism is fundamentally algorithmic is not at all a trivial
one. If nature has programming inside its very core – if it has
"if/then" logic at the heart of one of its most fundamental forces –
it is reasonable to assume that programming is controlling other key
operations of nature, such as the development of large-scale order,
the origin of life, and the origin of intelligence. Pondering this at
length, it becomes all too reasonable to assume that since the time
of the Big Bang, the universe has been progressing along a path that
it was programmed to achieve from the very beginning.
So far I have justified
the first part of this post's title, by explaining why electromagnetism
is algorithmic. But what about my claim that electromagnetism is
exquisitely balanced? I will justify that claim in the second part of
this two-part post, and will explain two ways in which
electromagnetism is as finely balanced as the Washington Monument would be if it were positioned upside down, and balanced on its top tip.
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