Luka


 * Knowledge Issue:** How do perception and our own cultural background affect the very conception as well as the possibility of accepting discoveries in quantum physics as well as their implications?


 * KI and the Topic:** Quantum physics is one of the most intriguing fields of science, but also most likely the one we know the least about. Experiments in the field met strong opposition from religious, particularly creationist, groups as well as other people who are simply concerned with the risks of the experiments as well as whether they are actually worth the massive amounts of resources. It often meets opposition due to a lack of understanding and the refusal of most people to accept something that goes against almost everything they think they know (a possible paradigm shift).

- Experiments with antimatter and strange matter could serve to prove the Big Bang Theory, which would prove all creationist theories wrong, and hence face strong opposition from most religious groups, particularly the Roman Catholic Church - Other experiments with strange matter and the possible discovery of quarks could serve to prove the "many worlds theory" - that there are in fact parallel universes, again meeting opposition from religious groups, as this seems to give a sense of futility to existence - Some people are concerned with the risk of running these experiments - there is a chance that these experiments could in fact create a black hole or destroy the whole world (Reilly's google image search for "large hadron collider" seemed to show how prominent this belief is as only 3 of the pictures were of the machine, all the others being pictures of the Earth exploding or imploding) - Some people are concerned whether funding these experiments is in fact worth the resources, as it costs billions and billions of dollars to run only one such experiment, that produce minute results (e.g. only a billionth of a gram of antimatter can be created with the current technology) - New discoveries in the field can lead to the very morphing of reality, something that could be the greatest paradigm shift of all time - for instance, the surpassing of the known limitations of space and time that are so deep-set in the human mind (e.g. two things existing in two places at the same time) - It is practically impossible for the human mind, that is so limited by perception, to even conceive ideas of a different reality (an example is an experiment by Einstein in the quotes section) - in that example, it is the limitation of the observer's perception that limits what we see as reality
 * Perspectives:

****Quotes:** - " If the reader is to follow such strange ideas [that antimatter is the mirror of matter], many questions need to be raised and addressed more carefully. For instance, how could gravity ever become a repulsive force? How could cosmic inflation proceed faster than the speed of light, as Fraser tells us it does? **"

- "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless."

- "If you thought you didn't have enough to worry about, consider this catastrophe projected in a lawsuit filed recently in Hawaii: The plaintiffs warn that a huge particle accelerator on the Swiss-French border could create a ravenous black hole that could gobble up the entire Earth or produce strange new forms of matter that would destroy the world as we know it. "

- "Let's say that a radioactive atom decays. In so doing, it emits a pair of particles. The particles are linked forever in this way: the laws of nature dictate that if one of the particles is spinning in a way that we can call clockwise, then the other particle is spinning counterclockwise. Now, let's say that you measure the spin of one of the particles. It turns up clockwise. By this very act of measurement, then, you have // determined // the spin of the other particle— even if it is at the other end of the universe. Einstein called this "spooky action at the distance," but it has been proved right time and again. What happens, according to physicists' current interpretation, is that each particle exists in two states simultaneously, somehow spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Only when an observer makes a measurement on one particle does that particle settle down and choose one spin. This choice affects which spin its partner chooses. This suggests to some scholars a level of reality beyond the familiar everyday one, a reality in which spatial distance is meaningless (because the second particle receives the information about the first particle's choice simultaneously and makes its own choice based on that instantaneously)."

Bibliography:**
 * "But It's Just a Small Black Hole.(Editorial Desk)(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)." //The New York Times.// 157. 54272 (April 6, 2008): 13(L).//Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center//. Gale. Dulwich College Shanghai. 1 Feb. 2010 .
 * The Hunting of the Quark.(Science; PHYSICS)." //Time.// 89. 20 (May 19, 1967): 120. //Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center//. Gale. Dulwich College Shanghai. 1 Feb. 2010 .
 * Pesic, Peter. "Symmetries Obeyed and Broken.(Review)." //American Scientist.// 88. 6 (Nov 2000): 544. //Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center//. Gale. Dulwich College Shanghai. 1 Feb. 2010 .
 * Begley, Sharon. "Both Religion and Science Can Reveal Life's Meaning." //Opposing Viewpoints: Constructing a Life Philosophy//. Ed. Mary E. Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. //Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center//. Gale. Dulwich College Shanghai. 1 Feb. 2010 .

