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The Fifth Force

Now, therefore, write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel.” (Deut. 31:19) The four known fundamental forces are: gravitational force, electromagnetic force, strong (nuclear) force, and the weak force (beta decay). Newton first described the gravitational force in his famous universal law of gravity. Today, we use Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to describe gravitation fields. Electromagnetism was described in the 19 c. by Faraday and Maxwell. Strong and week forces were discovered much later, in the second half of the 20 c. Since Albert Einstein started a search for unified field theory, unsuccessfully trying to unify (describe by a single theory) gravity and electromagnetism, the quest for a unified field theory – the “Theory of Everything” – became the holy grail of theoretical physics. Strong and [...]

Joseph and His Brothers

I grew up in Russia and was raised on the metric system based on decimal arithmetic. When we immigrated to the U.S., I had to learn a new for me (but, actually, very old) Imperial system of measurements. I still struggle with it (decimal system, apparently, was hardwired in my brain). There are many number-systems or positional notation systems. Ancient Babylonians used the base-60 system; the Hindu-Arabic system uses the familiar decimal base-10 system; the Mayans used the base-20 system. There are base-2 binary, base-12 duodecimal, and base-16 hexadecimal systems, to name a few. Aside from the binary system used by computers, we humans mostly use decimal and, sometimes, duodecimal systems. The all-familiar decimal system is used in the metric system of measurements. In base-10 positional notation, there are 10 decimal digits—0, 1, [...]

Entangled Sisters

The story of entangled twins is continuing in the Torah portion Vayeitzei (Genesis 28:10–32:3.)  Structurally, it is very similar to the story in the previous Torah portion, Toldot (see “Entangled Twins”).  In this portion, we again read about two entangled siblings—albeit, this time, sisters—about deception and spontaneous symmetry breaking. Two sisters were Rachel and Leah. Moreover, according to Midrash, Rachel and Leah were also twins (Seder Olam Rabbah).[1] As inseparable twins, they were “entangled,” as it were. They were somewhat opposite—one introvert, the other extrovert; one beautiful, the other, perhaps not so much (she had “weak eyes”): Now Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. And Leah’s eyes were weak; but Rachel was of beautiful form and fair to look upon (Genesis 29:17). Rachel and [...]

Leprous Cats and Angry Birds

In the Torah portion Tazriah (Leviticus 13), the Schrödinger cat[1] gets leprosy. Well, it’s not really leprosy, it’s a mysterious supernatural disease called tzara’as, nowadays translated as psoriasis. And it’s not a cat, but a Jew who gets afflicted by tzara’as. In fact, cats, other animals, and even gentiles (i.e., non-Jewish humans) are immune to this spiritual malady. So why do I call a poor Jew afflicted with tzara’as a “Schrödinger cat”? Because he sure acts like one. Indeed, had I not studied quantum mechanics and had I not learned about the collapse of the wave function[2] back at the university, I would have surely discovered it by reading this Torah portion (parshah)! A Jewish person with a skin lesion or boldness (present company excluded) is brought to a priest (kohen), who examines it [...]

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