THERE are no atoms here. Instead, there are black holes that stick together to form bizarre versions of molecules. Let the black holes settle down, and you get something that looks like a solid but acts like a liquid.
Welcome to the supergoop universe. This hypothetical reality derives from string theory, which allows for a large number of possible universes, each with different physical laws.
It might sound like no more than a physicist鈥檚 daydream. Supergoop can鈥檛 be created in our universe, and string theory in general is famously difficult to prove. Still, the idea could be useful whether or not string theory is true, as it may help us solve the dual nature of glass.
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The supergoop universe has many forces beyond the ones we experience, which means it has particles we have never seen. It also has supersymmetry, so all those particles have superpartners of the same mass. This stops atoms from forming, because supersymmetry doesn鈥檛 allow for complex enough configurations of the particles.
There is gravity, though, and sometimes the exotic matter can collapse into black holes. The multitude of forces gives these black holes many different charges, letting them take on the role of atoms which clump together to build molecules. Some of these could even be complex enough to form the basis for life (see 鈥�Is there a supergoop cradle of life?鈥�).
鈥淭he way you get different black hole molecules is by altering little microscopic details of string theory,鈥� says of Harvard University. 鈥淚f you have lots of these little black holes and toss them in the air and fiddle with them, they exhibit goopy behaviour.鈥� Let the black holes relax gravitationally into their basic, stringy components, and you get supergoop.
聯If you have lots of these little black holes and you fiddle with them, they exhibit goopy behaviour聰
How does this help us understand glass? To our eyes, glass looks like a solid, but at the molecular level it resembles a liquid, with molecules arranged not as a tidy crystal lattice but in a disorderly fashion. The trouble is, no one knows how molten glass settles down into this dual state. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 surprising, that to this day there is no good theoretical model of the glass transition,鈥� says Tarek Anous of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
That鈥檚 where the black-hole molecules come in.
Anous, Barandes and colleagues first proposed supergoop in 2011, when they also described how black-hole molecules could offer an easier way to model the behaviour of glass ().
鈥淭here are a number of features of the black hole case that make it mathematically easier to study them,鈥� says Barandes. 鈥淭he physics is exotic but the math is simple.鈥� Last week at MIT, Anous presented results that provide fresh reasons to believe the analogy holds, and that the behaviour of glasses is nicely mimicked in supergoop ().
But not all glass researchers are ready to embrace the goop. 鈥淭here鈥檚 so much understanding that needs to be done about structural glasses with real-world chemistry,鈥� says John Maur of the in New York. 鈥淚 think the best efforts are geared towards understanding the actual glasses made out of real atoms.鈥�
Is there a supergoop cradle of life?
According to string theory, there is an alternate 鈥渟upergoop鈥� universe where black holes form molecule-like structures. So could this universe give rise to black-hole-based life? Tarek Anous of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thinks so.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no reason why you can鈥檛聽create arbitrarily complicated stuff out of supergoop,鈥� he says. That聽throws up a philosophical stumbling block.
In the string theory multiverse, anything you want to happen can happen if you pick the appropriate universe. That raises an enigma: why do we live in our universe, not in a different one? If you change any of the fundamental constants in our universe, we wouldn鈥檛 be here to observe it, but we don鈥檛 know why the universe should be so well suited to us. It becomes tempting to think our universe is special, and that makes physicists uncomfortable.
鈥淭hen the onus is on the physicists to explain why it seems we鈥檙e so special,鈥� says Anous.
Supersymmetry almost provided an answer. Some theorists suggested that universes with a low degree of supersymmetry聽鈥� probably including our own聽鈥� are the ones that can give rise to atoms, molecules and complex life. In that case, a whole class of universes might have life, and we would not be special.
Now it seems supergoop could give rise to atoms too, and it exists in a highly supersymmetric universe.
The goop also means we are not special, but it erases the possible explanation, and it presents a whole new riddle, Anous says. 鈥淭hen you can ask, why aren鈥檛 we supergoop?鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕oop cosmos helps crack glass鈥檚 secrets鈥�
