Light Waves, Sound Waves, Wi-Fi and the Universe

"Beyond Imagination"

At the beginning of the film Oppenheimer there’s a scene or sequence that conveys this sense of the young physicist’s mind being blown by his awareness of the incredible universe we live in. As I watched that scene it triggered thoughts and imaginings of my own regarding the nature of reality. It’s almost strange how we lose our curiosity about the galaxies and matter and how do our minds and bodies work and where life comes from. 

I remember learning about the structure of atoms in high school chemistry. There's a sense in which atoms are like our solar system. There is more nothingness than substance. That is, we have this huge space but a handful of planets circulating within it. So, too, an atom has a tiny nucleus made up of protons and neutrons which has even tinier electrons floating around it. In other words, there is more space than substance. And this is what our bodies, tools, furniture and everything else is made of. 

One of the questions that crossed my mind back then was this. What if you could line up all the molecules in your body in such a way so as to be able to walk through a wall? Those kinds of questions are where sci-fi comes from.

In 2014 I wrote a blog post about another physics conundrum. I was thinking about all the things that surround us that we can't see. In fact, it's somewhat staggering. 

I started the strange thought that the room I'm in is filled with sound waves but I couldn't hear them. Wherever you went, if you had a the right kind of radio you could pick up a radio station.

When we were kids, my dad had purchased a multi-band radio that could pick up short wave signals from all over the world. Even though he mostly listened to WOR on the AM dial I remember occasionally tuning in to strange languages on some of the other dials and trying to guess where they were coming from. "Is that Russian? Is that Finnish?" I imagined that I was listening to a submarine captain in the Baltic Sea.

All these sounds were accessible, surrounding us, but we couldn't hear them. Nor could we see those sound waves even though they were streaming all around us.  It was interesting to contemplate.

Fast forward to the present. Think of the bombardment nowadays. Satellite radio is spraying signals continuously, and satellite television. Your GPS device signals are ever instructing, and the old fashioned network TV towers keep singing. We're surrounded by a cloud of noises we can't hear at all.

Now consider this. Science has shown us that we're also awash in light waves. We don't see light waves, of course, but only see the objects that they reflect off of. Our light bulbs emanate photons likewise invisible to perception or comprehension. The sun, too, is perpetually spraying light in all directions. Scientists point out that light is a wave but also has particle-like properties. So we're surrounded by all these sound waves and light waves we can't see.

And then there is air. Oxygen and nitrogen not only fill the rooms we sit in and the atmosphere outside, but also go into our bodies as we breathe. We can't see these gases either. It's simply amazing how much stuff is wrapped around us that we are blind to.

So here is the question I asked in 2014: What if we could see all this unseen "stuff"? 

It might be interesting for a moment, but somehow I have to think if we could see all those sound waves and light waves, and all that air swirling around, it would be a little challenging. I can envision my room here stuffed with a giant mass of shredded cottonball-like material, and myself absorbed in it. Maybe I wouldn't even be able to see this computer monitor because all that "stuff" was in the way.

Bottom Line: I think I like it just as it is, the room an empty space with an easy chair where I can curl up and read a good book.

What do you think? 

Tech Tuesday: The 5G Conspiracy

Back in the 90s, Minnesota Power was seeking to shore up its power resources by adding a backup connection to the grid that comes out of Chicago. What this meant was the addition of a corridor of high tension wires across Wisconsin.

As you might expect, there were plenty of people opposed to this. "Not in my back yard" applies to all kinds of matters, and having wires strung across the back 40 doesn't always have a lot of appeal for most people.

Well, one day a full page ad appeared in the newspaper paid for by these opponents. The ad included a quote from a friend of mine who was the PR spokesperson for the power company. The ad declared how evil he personally and the power company were for placing deadly power lines across the land. The ad informed readers that 60 children and infants had purportedly died from the low-frequency magnetic fields that were generated when strung across a reservation in Canada.

60 children died? This is quite an indictment. Was it true? Are power lines this unsafe? (The answer is no, though it will kill you if you illegally trespass, climb a tower and touch the wires.)

That story came to mind when I read Kaitlyn Tiffany's article in the May issue of The Atlantic, Something's in the Air. The article is about conspiracy theories related to technology in general, and with regards to 5G specifically. 

She opens with by noting that cancer caused by power lines was a major conviction of many people back in the 70s. Televisions and microwave ovens were believed to be human health risks. More recently, the notion of having cell phones next to our brains was leading to brain damage. (That is why I always put you on speaker phone. JK)

In short, Tiffany begins her article by citing the manner in which our paranoia can be fed when we do not understand technologies. 

I once wrote an article about how we are constantly bombarded with radio waves and sound waves and other kinds of wavs, that if we could see it all, we'd see that we are sitting in a solid mass of waves. What looks like empty space is not empty at all.

The article's intro is designed to remind us that in the light of history (and I am surprised the Luddites didn't get noted at this point) the current resistance to 5G shouldn't surprise us. What is surprising, however, is its vehemence. She writes:

A wildly disorienting pandemic coming at the same time as the global rollout of 5G—the newest technology standard for wireless networks—has only made matters worse. “5G launched in CHINA. Nov 1, 2019. People dropped dead,” the singer Keri Hilson wrote in a now-deleted tweet to her 4.2 million followers in March. As the coronavirus spread throughout Europe, fears about 5G appear to have animated a rash of vandalism and arson of mobile infrastructure, including more than 30 incidents in the U.K. in just the first 10 days of April. In the case of one arson attack in the Netherlands, the words “Fuck 5G” were reportedly found scrawled at the scene.

The article is well researched and quotes people from different points of view. David Savitz, an epidemiologist, notes how cell phones went from nowhere to everywhere in about a decade. Simultaneously, wifi and cell towers became ubiquitous.  "Now nearly every public urban place has Wi-Fi," he said, "and we will soon have small cell towers every few blocks. Whether or not you believe this will give you brain cancer, you didn’t have a chance to opt out."

Further on in the article Tiffany writes about businesses that have emerged to protect us from the adverse effects of all this technology, both products and services. Would you like your new home inspected to make sure it's not killing you? For $150 an hour, this can be done. If you know who to call. (A 21st century version of Ghostbusters, I suppose.)

Everything above is only scratching the surface as to why the 5G rollout has encountered resistance. There's that whole other aspect of a techno-culture with wraparound surveillance. They can be watching and listening to us everywhere we go. They track us by our cell phones. Why not all the other sensors in our Internet-of-Things world?

BOTTOM LINE: It's an informative deep dive into a complex issue. Wherever you stand on this issue, I believe Kaitlyn Tiffany brings a fair and thorough overview of what's happening in our age of disruptions.

Here's the link:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/great-5g-conspiracy/611317/