Frank Wilczek - QCD: The Power And The Glory

The lecture is the 20th in the series of Royal Academy Nobel Laureate Lectures hosted by The Royal Danish Academy Of Sciences And Letters in collaboration with Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Professor Frank Wilzcek:
"QCD – quantum chromodynamics – is our modern fundamental theory of the most powerful force in nature, the strong nuclear force. After a brief oration in praise of the ideal mathematical beauty of QCD and its imposing experimental success, I will describe several of its ongoing and future applications at the frontiers of knowledge. These include the frontier of precision (muon g-2), the frontiers of high temperature and density (heavy ion collisions), the frontier of late stellar evolution (supernovae and neutron stars), and the frontiers of theoretical adventure and cosmology (axions)."

Dr. Frank Wilczek is a theoretical physicist, author, and intellectual adventurer. He has received many prizes for his work, including a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Frank has made seminal contributions to fundamental particle physics, cosmology and the physics of materials. His current theoretical research includes work on Axions, Anyons, and Time Crystals. These are concepts in physics which he named and pioneered. Each has become a major focus of research world-wide.
In recent years Frank has become fascinated with prospects for expanding perception (especially color perception) through technology. He is developing hardware and software tools for this.

Frank has authored several well-known books and writes a monthly "Wilczek's Universe" feature for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality”, distils the most profound and mind-expanding insights of modern science, and explores their implications for questions that are usually considered philosophical or even theological. Early reviews have been enthusiastic, including this from the New York Times: “Whether or not you’re accustomed reading physics for pleasure, the Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek’s *Fundamentals* might be the perfect book for the winter of this plague year ... Wilczek writes with breathtaking economy and clarity, and his pleasure in his subject is palpable . . .”

Wilczek received a B.S. at the University of Chicago in 1970, and a PhD in physics at Princeton University in 1974. Currently he is the Herman Feshbach professor of physics at the MIT; Chief Scientist of the T. D. Lee Institute and Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Distinguished Professor at Arizona State University; and Professor at Stockholm University.

He has been married to Betsy Devine since 1973. They have two daughters.

Foto: Michael Clark

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Is there a geometric explanation of Planck's constant? Does this explanation require at least one extra spatial dimension?

Dr. Roger Penrose has suggested instead of trying to create a particle called the "graviton" to explain gravity, why not try to describe subatomic particles in terms of spatial curvature, as in the twist in a piece of real thread.

What if we add one extra spatial dimension to the "Twistor Theory" of Dr. Roger Penrose? It can be "chiral" by having either Right-hand or Left-hand twist. It can be "Quantized", based on the number of twist cycles.

If Physicists describe electrons as point particles with no volume, where is the mass of the particle?

Can one extra spatial dimension produce a geometric explanation of the 1/2 spin of electrons? The following is an extension of the old Kaluza-Klein theory. Can a twisted 3D <---> 4D soliton containing one extra spatial dimension help solve some of the current problems in Particle Physics?

What do the Twistors of Roger Penrose and the Geometric Unity of Eric Weinstein and the exploration of one extra spatial dimension by Lisa Randall and the "Belt Trick" of Paul Dirac have in common? Is the following idea a “Quantized” model related to the “Vortex Theory” proposed by Maxwell and others during the 19th century? Is the best explanation of the current data a form of “Twistor Theory” first proposed by Dr. Roger Penrose during 1967? During recent years Dr. Peter Woit has explored Twistor Theory as a possible solution to help explain the current Standard Model.

Has the concept of the “Aether” been resurrected from the dead and relabeled as the “Higgs Field”?

In Spinors it takes two complete turns to get down the "rabbit hole" (Alpha Funnel 3D--->4D) to produce one twist cycle (1 Quantum unit).
Can both Matter and Energy be described as "Quanta" of Spatial Curvature? (A string is revealed to be a twisted cord when viewed up close.) Mass= 1/Length, with each twist cycle of the 4D Hypertube proportional to Planck’s Constant.

In this model Alpha equals the compactification ratio within the twistor cone, which is approximately 1/137.

1= Hypertubule diameter at 4D interface

137= Cone’s larger end diameter at 3D interface where the photons are absorbed or emitted.

The 4D twisted Hypertubule gets longer or shorter as twisting or untwisting occurs. (720 degrees per twist cycle.)

If quarks have not been isolated and gluons have not been isolated, how do we know they are not parts of the same thing? The tentacles of an octopus and the body of an octopus are parts of the same creature.

Is there an alternative interpretation of "Asymptotic Freedom"? What if Quarks are actually made up of twisted tubes which become physically entangled with two other twisted tubes to produce a proton? Instead of the Strong Force being mediated by the constant exchange of gluons, it would be mediated by the physical entanglement of these twisted tubes. Are these the “Flux Tubes” being described by many Physicists today? When only two twisted tubules are entangled, a meson is produced which is unstable and rapidly unwinds (decays) into something else. A proton would be analogous to three twisted rubber bands becoming entangled and the "Quarks" would be the places where the tubes are tangled together. The behavior would be the same as rubber balls (representing the Quarks) connected with twisted rubber bands being separated from each other or placed closer together producing the exact same phenomenon as "Asymptotic Freedom" in protons and neutrons. The force would become greater as the balls are separated, but the force would become less if the balls were placed closer together. Therefore, the gluon is a synthetic particle (zero mass, zero charge) invented to explain the Strong Force. The "Color Force" is a consequence of the XYZ orientation entanglement of the twisted tubules. The two twisted tubule entanglement of Mesons is not stable and unwinds. It takes the entanglement of three twisted tubules to produce the stable proton. The term “entanglement” in this case is analogous to three twisted ropes being wrapped around each other in a way which causes all of the ropes to move if someone pulls one of the ropes. Does the phenomenon of “Asymptotic Freedom” provide evidence that this concept is the correct interpretation of the experimental data now available? Can the phenomenon of "Supercoiling" help explain the "Multiple Generations" of particles in the Standard Model? The conversion of twist to writhe cycles is well understood in the structure of DNA molecules. Can the conversion of twist to writhe cycles and vice-versa help explain "neutrino oscillations"? Within this model neutrinos are a small, twisted torus produced when a tube becomes overtwisted and breaks producing the small, closed loop of twisted tube (neutrino), and a twisted tube open on each end, which is shorter than the original. (Beta Decay)

Within this subatomic model gravity is produced by a very small higher dimensional curvature imbalance within atoms, which causes all atoms to be attracted to all other atoms. This extremely weak attraction reveals the very small scale of the curvature imbalance. This produces the curvature of spacetime on a larger scale like the solar system which is required to counterbalance this small imbalance in the individual atoms.