walking through walls

[blanchardd]

Many people have often sought ways to phase through walls. Now for faster travel, Strategic advantage, Unissued access, or more mischievous reasons is unimportant. The want is there and where there is a will there is one hard headed enough to try.

 

So the reason this topic has emerged on this wonderful morning at 2:00 am is as simple as my own curiosity. Last night (roughly at this time) I was watching the discovery channel about magnetism. When the topic of atomic magnetism came up I was immediately enticed.

Learning that a spinning nuclei generates a tiny magnetic field only to be increased in force by the spinning electrons own magnetic field creates a small but, relatively strong magnetic field. Now among my constant quarries of the day this one unlike all others that had faded stayed bugging at the back of my mind. So I hand the torch to you, is it possible to demagnetize the atom thus since there is nothing to repel your own atoms rendering the wall / object penetrable?

[swansont]

No. The "spinning" involved is spin angular momentum, aka intrinsic angular momentum. It's not a physical spinning, and the value is quantized. The best you could do is find an isotope which has a net zero spin because of the way all the nucleon spins add together. I believe Ca-40 is one.

[Severian]

The particles in your body all have a finite, non-zero chance of spontaneously tunnelling to the other side of the wall. So if you just keep walking into the wall, eventually you will tunnel through. (It might take a few trillion years though.)

[blanchardd]

Well as disappointing as it may be thank you for the replies.

I will continue with other means of fast transport.

[PhDwannabe]

The particles in your body all have a finite, non-zero chance of spontaneously tunnelling to the other side of the wall. So if you just keep walking into the wall, eventually you will tunnel through. (It might take a few trillion years though.)

 

I did once hear this in a physics class, along with the somewhat similar--and even more amusing--"On a large enough timescale, eventually, all of the air molecules in the room will suddenly bounce <pointing towards corner> that way, and we'll all suffocate."

[blanchardd]

I did once hear this in a physics class, along with the somewhat similar--and even more amusing--"On a large enough timescale, eventually, all of the air molecules in the room will suddenly bounce <pointing towards corner> that way, and we'll all suffocate."

 

Hmmm, seem an interesting way to die.

[swansont]

I did once hear this in a physics class, along with the somewhat similar--and even more amusing--"On a large enough timescale, eventually, all of the air molecules in the room will suddenly bounce <pointing towards corner> that way, and we'll all suffocate."

 

But the molecules move at hundreds of m/s, so the amount of time the air would be in that configuration would be much shorter than the time it takes to suffocate.

[timo]

But the molecules move at hundreds of m/s, ...

There's a non-zero chance that they don't.

[swansont]

There's a non-zero chance that they don't.

 

True, but you still have to obey conservation of energy; it would take more than just bouncing toward the corner of the room to make them come to rest there. It would take just the right collision with the wall for each and every molecule. And conservation of momentum applies too, so the room has to shift ever so slightly on the previous collisions with the opposing wall.

[timo]

True, but you still have to obey conservation of energy.

Real men use the (grand-)canonical ensemble

[PlatinumZr0]

The particles in your body all have a finite, non-zero chance of spontaneously tunnelling to the other side of the wall. So if you just keep walking into the wall, eventually you will tunnel through. (It might take a few trillion years though.)

 

Interesting answer. It is also very possible that you will get stuck to the wall and not completely enter, nor pass through it. Your chances of walking through are probably 10x10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 etc. In other words, those trillion or so years would have been a waste of time, because you are now stuck in the wall. Also, the particles in your skin and the particles in your stomach are not synchronized. so it is possible your skin will get through, but your stomach won't be able to.

[lemur]

Many people have often sought ways to phase through walls. Now for faster travel, Strategic advantage, Unissued access, or more mischievous reasons is unimportant. The want is there and where there is a will there is one hard headed enough to try.

 

So the reason this topic has emerged on this wonderful morning at 2:00 am is as simple as my own curiosity. Last night (roughly at this time) I was watching the discovery channel about magnetism. When the topic of atomic magnetism came up I was immediately enticed.

Learning that a spinning nuclei generates a tiny magnetic field only to be increased in force by the spinning electrons own magnetic field creates a small but, relatively strong magnetic field. Now among my constant quarries of the day this one unlike all others that had faded stayed bugging at the back of my mind. So I hand the torch to you, is it possible to demagnetize the atom thus since there is nothing to repel your own atoms rendering the wall / object penetrable?

 

So it is magnetic force that causes objects to be experienced as solid? I always though it was electrostatic force.

[swansont]

So it is magnetic force that causes objects to be experienced as solid? I always though it was electrostatic force.

 

It is the electrostatic force. The premise of the OP was flawed.

[Severian]

Interesting answer. It is also very possible that you will get stuck to the wall and not completely enter, nor pass through it. Your chances of walking through are probably 10x10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 etc. In other words, those trillion or so years would have been a waste of time, because you are now stuck in the wall. Also, the particles in your skin and the particles in your stomach are not synchronized. so it is possible your skin will get through, but your stomach won't be able to.

 

I wasn't really recommending that you try it.

[PlatinumZr0]

I wasn't really recommending that you try it.

 

Yes but in theory, that is what would happen. Theoretical physics remember?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I think Severian is in a good position to remember theoretical physics, being a physicist and all.

[between3and26characterslon]

I wasn't really recommending that you try it.

 

 

I recommend you do try it, remember the faster you go the more chance you have of getting through

[ScaryPirateMan]

Hmm... again, don't really know science, but if you were to somehow slow the spin of your atoms, thus reducing the magnetic field they generate, wouldn't you just kind of... I don't evaporate or something? I mean, wouldn't that collective magnetic field be the glue that holds you together?

 

 

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I don't think you're held together by a subatomic magnetic field, no. Chemical bonding doesn't work that way. (See link for details.)

[swansont]

And you can't slow the spin down. It's intrinsic and quantized. You're stuck with it. The best you can do is arrange things so all the parts add to zero.

[random]

check out the technology used in the Philadelphia experiment, If any of it was validated and therefore truthful it should give you some insight on how solid matter can pass through solid matter.

 

Also if anyone is knowledgable there is some sort of contraption designed to produce neutrino's or somthing that were fired and passed through miles of earth th be recaptured in another lab. Though they spent a gazillion dollars on useless technology it is pretty cool.

[lemur]

The military's interest is not in passing through physical walls but in passing through any time of boundary designed to prevent penetration and influence by military power. Thus, the metaphor of passing seamlessly through a wall should be understood more as having the symbolic meaning of achieving military goals with minimum collateral damage. If the military can achieve its goals without inserting its physical presence into a resistant territory, it would do so. The reason it has to physically "invade" is to overcome the psychological territorialism that occurs when people assume they are dominant just because there are no occupying soldiers in their territory. Bureaucrats can preach all day and night to the population that they are not an autonomous state but often times they will just ignore that until an occupying force makes itself physically imminent. The problem is that if combat results, the cost is violence and casualties. The question is how many casualties and/or damage has to be sustained before people give up the will to resist power with destructive violence.