Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen Huake Xueba for clue delivery! This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: SF Chinese (ID: kexuejiaodian), author: SF

When we pour a glass of water, we may not realize that the water in the glass is actually a key to the mystery of the universe. Recently, scientists have discovered a surprising link between the viscosity of liquids and physical constants, providing new insights into the laws of the universe and the origin of life.

Wen| Chen Qiang

Viscosity, the "viscosity" of fluids (both gases and liquids), is a property we often encounter in our daily lives. We feel it when we boil water, bathe, pour cooking oil, or move through the air.

Viscosity is considered impossible to calculate theoretically because it depends strongly on the structure, composition, and interactions of the fluid and on external conditions, which are very complex factors. Nobel Prize-winning American physicist Steven Weinberg compares the difficulty of calculating the viscosity of water to the difficulty of calculating physical constants. Physical constants refer to numbers whose numerical values are fixed in physics and are considered impossible to calculate theoretically.

Physical constants determine the lower limit of viscosity. Despite this difficulty, scientists have come up with a formula to try to do just that. In 2020, physicists Kostya Trachenko of Queen Mary University of London and Vadim V. Brazhkin of the Russian Academy of Sciences published their research in Science Advances. Two fundamental physical constants determine the minimum viscosity of all liquids. The two constants are Planck's constant (the physical constant that determines the quantum world) and the mass ratio of protons to electrons (another fundamental physical constant).

The discovery was shocking. Because viscosity is a complex property, it varies with different liquids and environments. However, their results show that the lowest viscosity of all liquids can be expressed by this simple formula.

The research also has practical applications. When studying chemical, chemical, or biological processes, scientists may sometimes need to consider low viscosity conditions. At this point, it is found that viscosity has a lower limit, which can provide a useful theoretical guide to what direction we should work towards. This study also tells us that we shouldn't waste resources trying to break this limit, because this limit is determined by natural constants.

Physical constants are closely related to life. Even more surprisingly, the lower limit of viscosity is closely related to life science. In another 2023 study, published in Science Advances, Trachenko analyzed the effects of changes in physical constants on the viscosity of liquids and the existence of life.

Trachenko's research showed that physical constants affect the existence of life by determining the viscosity of liquids. "Understanding how water flows in a glass turns out to be closely related to solving the problem of physical constants," he said. Life processes within and between biological cells require substance exchange, and viscosity is the factor that determines this substance exchange. If the physical constants change, so does viscosity, affecting life as we know it. For example, if water were as viscous as tar, life would not exist in its present form, or at all. This applies not only to water, but to all life forms that use the liquid state to function. "

Although physical constants are supposed to be immutable, if they can be changed, it's bad news for fluids and liquid-based life. Trachenko found that if certain physical constants (such as Planck's constant or the mass of an electron) changed by just a few percentage points, the viscosity of our blood would become too high or too low, affecting our body's functioning.

Where do physical constants come from? There are many physical constants, among which the more famous are vacuum light speed, Planck constant, universal gravitational constant, Boltzmann constant and Avogadro constant. In addition, there are dimensionless physical constants, that is, they have no physical units, but are pure numbers. Fine structure constants are dimensionless physical constants that represent the interaction between electrons and photons. In addition, the mass ratio of protons to electrons mentioned above is also a dimensionless physical constant.

Physical constants determine the structure and laws of our universe, such as the splitting and merging of atomic nuclei, the formation of elements, and the composition of compounds necessary for life. Trachenko et al. also showed that physical constants determine the viscosity of liquids. If the physical constants had changed slightly, the universe might have been completely different, devoid of stars, heavy elements, planets, and life.

Surprisingly, the physical constants are thought to have been fixed billions of years ago, so that stars could synthesize heavy elements, before life as we know it appeared. At the time, these constants did not seem to take into account cellular life billions of years later, but they were just right for cellular life to be born and evolve.

No one has yet been able to explain why physical constants have such values. One possible answer is the "anthropic principle," that is, the physical constants are what they are because they are the only way to conceive us, otherwise there would be no us asking questions. In any case, these questions may involve philosophical categories and require us to seek answers at a deeper level.

References:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba3747

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh9024

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.