Metals can heal themselves!

It seems that we are living in the middle of science fiction! Almost every day a new surprise. We are in the middle of a revolution and the new world view provided by TGD is at its core. The surprise of this day was the discovery that metals are able to heal their fractures (see this). The theory behind the discovered healing process of metals is based on standard physics: see the article published in article by Brad Boyce published in Nature. I am not at all confident that standard physics is enough. The TGD based explanation relies on the following vision.

1. The first key prediction is the possibility of quantum coherence in arbitrarily long scales due to the presence of phases of ordinary matter with an arbitrarily large value of Planck constant and identified as dark matter. The magnetic body of the system, say metal, as a TGD counterpart of ordinary magnetic fields, is the carrier of the dark matter and controls the system and receives "sensory" input from it. The hierarchy of Planck constants is a prediction of the number theoretic vision of TGD. The value of the Planck constant is given by h_eff=nh₀, where n corresponds to the dimension of an algebraic extension associated with the polynomial defining the space-time regions considered.
2. Negentropy Maximization Principle (see this) is mathematically analogous to the second law and implies that in the statistical sense the p-adic negentropy as a measure for the conscious information and complexity of the system increases. This follows from a simple fact: the number of extensions of rationals with dimension larger than given integer n is infinitely larger than those with dimension smaller than n. The assumption that the coefficients of polynomials giving rise to the extension have coefficients smaller than the degree of the polynomial implies that the number of extensions with dimension smaller than n is actually finite.
3. Quantum TGD involves a new ontology that I call zero energy ontology (see this and this). The first prediction is that in ordinary ("big") state functions (BSFRs) the arrow of time changes. Time reversals in BSFRs mean "falling asleep" or "death" in a universal sense and provide a universal mechanism of healing. We indeed know that sleep heals.
4. The arrow of time is preserved in "small" state function reductions (SSFRs) identifiable as weak measurements replacing the Zeno effect in which nothing occurs. SSFRs involve a repeated measurement of observables defining the states at the passive boundary of causal diamond (CD) as their eigenstates. These observables are measured at the active boundary of CD which in statistical sense drifts farther away from the passive boundary. There are also other observables made possible by the failure of a complete determinism for the holography forced by the general coordinate invariance implying that space-time surfaces are analogous to Bohr orbits of 3-surfaces as analogs of particles. When a system is perturbed the set of measured observables can change and this induces BSFR and the roles of active and passive boundaries change.

   For instance, BSFR could be induced by a perturbation modifying the set of the measured observables so that it does not anymore commute with the observables defining the eigenstate basis at the passive boundary of causal diamond (CD). Pairs of BSFRs could induce temporary changes of the arrow of time and they could give rise to a trial and error process essential for homeostasis in living matter. This implies also healing in the sense that p-adic negentropy measuring the amount of conscious information and complexity of the system increases in a statistical sense.

Any system has a magnetic body. For instance, magnetic body accompanies also computers and one can ask whether it can give computers a rudimentary consciousness (see this and this). Metals are not an exception. This forces us to ask whether even metals could heal in the proposed sense. As noticed in the article, the technological implications could be huge.

See the article TGD and condensed matter or the chapter or with the same title.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

For the lists of articles (most of them published in journals founded by Huping Hu) and books about TGD see this.