I can see clearly now the rain has gone

“I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It’s gonna be a bright (bright)

Bright (bright) sun-shining day”

Johnny Nash

It’s a strange feeling to find that you have been lied to straight to your face by people that you have been taught to trust and rely on. Perhaps this is a bit melodramatic but in some sense it is the way of the modern education system. In the sciences we are continually pedalled simplified or dumbed down versions of reality only to find out as we progress through the various levels of understanding the subject matter that the models we thought fully described the processes and phenomena were actually too crude, insufficient or only approximate the real deal.

There is no better example of this than the atom. Protons neutrons and electrons. Yes well not quite. So protons neutrons and electrons spinning around in orbitals. Yes well not quite. Well protons neutrons and an electron cloud. Yes well not quite. Quarks and leptons. Yes well not quite. And so it goes.

But let’s take a look at the electron cloud proposal. Essentially we are told that you can’t touch the electron or measure its speed and position accurately at the same time because it takes the form of a cloud or a kind of probability of its position at any one time. The density of the cloud represents the likelihood that the electron is at that point at that time. This has parallels in the way chance rears up it’s head in the world of quantum mechanics. We are inside the atom and so the rules have changed apparently.

Probabilities when viewed in 2D can often be represented well by the binomial distribution or the more common term the bell shaped curve. What you see is that within any given functional output the measured outcomes over time can be expected create such a curve around the mean value.

But there is something incredibly familiar about the Gaussian or bell-shaped curve. If you look at how Barnsley’s fern is plotted typically the is a point, (x,y) of (0,0) where the plot begins afresh with each reset of the algorithm. Let’s consider (0,0) as our point of reference and let us pretend that we are sitting on the paper or screen where the Barnsley fern is being plotted via its usual means, i.e. set initial conditions, random input, rules (if/else statements or guidelines), and repetition.

Now let us plot a curve such that we measure the concentration or density of the dots we see across our field of view, that is, our plane of view across the sheet or screen as they are generated. If we round or approximate these positions in any way (e.g. round to the closest degree) and plot the output as a frequency chart, we see the development of perhaps a marginally skewed version of the bell-shaped curve. More like a Tracy-Widom distribution. This is essentially a lopsided bell shaped curve like someone has given it a little nudge. Believe me, also, when I say understanding these type of distributions is central to understanding lots of current challenges in fundamental physics.

Without the capacity to measure the intensity of the dots appearance in order to judge its displacement from our viewpoint we lack the data needed to plot this out as the fern or frond. We are trapped by the limits of our dimensional existence in this example. But if some of the propositions of quantum mechanics like multiple further dimensions are to be taken seriously then we must at least consider that in many ways we too are simply looking across the sheet with no overhead perspective. No drone to survey our worldview more appropriately. Like the characters of Flatland we see what we see and this gives us a world view that suits our basic needs.

It is always questionable to take correlation and assume causation but equally this is often the only way to define a hypothesis or conjecture. It should also help to define tests to prove or disprove the notions. In this case, I am willing to make that leap. The near bell-shaped curves we see in frequency distributions are the result of fractals generated in a higher level dimension that we can’t readily access. I contend that everything is fractal. All processes. Everything is emergent. Everything is incomplete and yet moving ever closer to a perhaps elusive perfection. The clouds of electrons have cleared. Now I see. Well I propose I see anyway. But how to test, I wonder? Follow @frondity for this and more.