CERN Claims they Found the God Particle

Where did everything come from? This is perhaps the biggest mystery that science has been striving to answer for decades, if not centuries - how the universe came to be. Mankind’s most curious minds have been yearning to figure out what it is exactly that keeps the universe going as it does now and what is behind the creation of potentially millions of planets and clusters of stars residing within many galaxies.

Over the years, various theories have been presented by men and women of science that seek to explain what it is that governs all forms of matter and energy and why these things behave the way they do. With so many of these postulations, it has become a major objective of the scientific field of physics to perhaps combine all existing theories and laws about the universe and unify them into a single and cohesive “theory of everything.”

The Standard Model

For around the latter half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the new millennium, particle physics is largely governed by what is referred to as the “Standard Model” of Physics. The Standard Model in particle physics is, for the moment, the most widely-accepted theory that provides a decent explanation concerning the behavior of all forms of matter and energy in the universe - particularly, the interaction of fundamental particles with elementary forces that exist in nature.

According to the Standard Model, there are two types of fundamental particles: fermions, which are what matter is composed of; and bosons, which carry forces. These particles are identified and ordered in terms of several properties, specifically mass. The mystery surrounding these particles is that while their mass can be measured, scientists could not say for certain where exactly their mass originated from and why they have such masses in the first place.

The Higgs Field

So, what explains the fact these elementary particles have mass? Well, that’s where the Higgs Field comes in. In terms of the Standard Model, the Higgs Field is known as a hypothetical force field which cannot be seen but is said to exist in every area of the entire universe. It is also this field that gives mass to various elementary particles like quarks and electrons.

A particle’s interaction with the Higgs Field when passing through it is theorized to be the one that gives the particle its mass. And the more that particle interacts with the invisible field, the more mass it contains. And so, according to this theory, without the Higgs Field, nothing would exist in the way that they do now - not humans, not Earth, not the stars, and not the many galaxies in the universe.

But how do we know the Higgs Field actually exists? Many particle physicists believe that among the final missing pieces that could complete the puzzle, the “god particle” - one of the universe’s “force particles” - will be the one to prove the field’s existence and consequently provide a better understanding of the current Standard Model.

The "God Particle" or the Higgs Boson

The term “God particle” was coined around the 1990s by Leon Lederman, a physicist and Nobel laureate who published a book about particle physics and discussed science’s pursuit to discover a specific elementary particle referred to as the Higgs boson. Many scientists dislike the moniker “god particle” and would prefer to use the official term “Higgs boson,” but what is it exactly? And why is it so important in proving the existence of Higgs Field and evaluating the Standard Model?

The god particle or the Higgs boson was proposed by Peter Higgs around the 1960s as a necessary element to support the possibility of an invisible field permeating the universe. And to many particle physicists that agree with Higgs, the hypothetical existence of the Higgs Field requires science to also recognize the presence of the Higgs boson.

As a basic example, picture a ball floating in a swimming pool. The ball is a particle while the pool is the Higgs field. The water of the pool is the one that gives the ball its mass. And if you excite the water by dropping a ball in the pool, it would cause a splash. According to quantum mechanics, this splash is the Higgs boson. And essentially, this “god particle” is an excitation of the invisible Higgs Field. This means the key to validating the existence of the Higgs Field lies in finding the Higgs boson, which some physicists believe could somehow be detected through the use of highly sophisticated scientific equipment.

CERN's Search for the Higgs Boson Using the Large Hadron Collider

Theoretically, particle physicists had predicted that recording the existence of the Higgs boson cannot be accomplished by man-made instruments as the particle is too fleeting. And so, one option they came up with that could confirm the creation of a god particle is by identifying and studying the particles it decays into.

This next-to-impossible search for the Higgs boson became among the main motivations in the 10-billion-dollar construction of the Large Hadron Collider by the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN.

The Large Hadron Collider or LHC is essentially an oval tunnel that stretches 17 miles under the border of Switzerland and France. It’s basically like a racetrack for when particles of matter are smashed together. This is made possible by the fact that surrounding its tunnel is around 9,000 superconducting magnets. These magnets accelerate the abundant stream of photons which travel inside the LHC in both directions almost to the speed of light. At this speed, the protons travel through the tunnel around 11,000 times per second, and with the use of the superconducting magnets, these photons can be directed to collide with each other for millions of times in only a blink of an eye. Sparks of particles are produced by these collisions as a result, and the debris of these particles are the ones captured, recorded and analyzed by the scientists’ high-powered computers.

Among these particles, scientists hoped to detect even the most minuscule droplet of the Higgs boson particle. But because the particle is anticipated to be unstable, they estimated that it would only take a fraction of a second before the god particle disintegrated into other particles. It is in these other particles that scientists hoped to find a pattern of decay that could potentially be the fingerprint of the Higgs boson.

The Tentative Discovery of the Higgs Boson Particle

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Collecting data using the Large Hadron Collider officially begun in early 2010, with ATLAS and CMS - two of the main teams in particle detection at LHC - tasked to pinpoint with accuracy and precision the mass range where the Higgs boson could exist. The two teams worked independently from the other, refraining from discussing their work outside of their respective groups. It was only around the end of 2011 that the two team leaders met with the director general of CERN. It was then revealed that each team held suspicions that they may have finally found the Higgs boson, having narrowed down its mass at around 125 GeV.

By July 2012, CERN announced that the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider resulted to the discovery of a new boson particle with the mass range of 125 and 126 GeV. Both independent experiments reached a local significance of 5 sigma - the conventional standard observed in particle physics before a discovery is officially declared. This meant that there was only one chance out of 3.5 million that each of the discoveries of the ATLAS and CMS teams was nothing more than a random fluctuation.

It would take months of further studies before CERN would confirm with some degree of confidence that the new particle they discovered could potentially be the Higgs boson, which they did so in March 2013. By October of that same year, Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for coming up with the theory that led to the discovery of a new fundamental particle and for furthering the current understanding of subatomic particles and their mass.  

Considering the amazing scientific breakthrough achieved by scientists using the LHC, can we now say with absolute certainty that discovery made at CERN was actually the Higgs Boson?

Well, at this point, men and women of science are refraining from positively saying so. The truth of the matter is our ability to understand the universe is still very much limited, and the most intelligent minds of mankind know better than to automatically jump to conclusions. What can be definitively said for the time being is that even after several tests following its discovery, the boson particle detected using the LHC remains until now consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics. But whether it is actually the much sought-after god particle, more data is required to conclude as such.

In a field where advancement is determined by the improvement or replacement of theoretical models, it can be said that our determination to find the Higgs boson particle is a step in the right direction for scientific exploration. And to many physicists, the discovery of this so-called “God particle” will only just be the beginning of mankind’s passionate pursuit of understanding the origin of everything.

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Sources:

https://home.cern/about/updates/2013/05/basics-higgs-boson

https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-basics-of-boson-dave-barney-and-steve-goldfarb#review

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120704-god-particle-higgs-boson-new-cern-science/

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-the-higgs-boson-was-found-4723520/?all

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/06/30/why-the-new-particles-discovered-at-the-large-hadron-collider-change-everything-nothing/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#Confirmation_of_existence_and_current_status

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

10 Mind Blowing Space Stories that We Were Never Told in School

Number 10: The Smuggled Sandwich

NASA equips its astronauts with the most sophisticated gear that is intended to keep them safe in space as well as help them perform their jobs comfortably while floating around in zero gravity. Coupled with that, they are also provided with food items that are suitable for space travel and would not damage any on-board equipment that could potentially cause a disaster. It goes without saying that taking ordinary “earth food” with you in a space shuttle while you are hurtling through the atmosphere is greatly discouraged and prohibited by NASA because small things like crumbs can get into tiny crevices in equipment and spark a fire.

However, in one mission, an extremely curious astronaut named John Young was able to smuggle a sandwich in his suit and bring it with him to space, even offering a bite to his co-pilot. The amusement turned to terror when they both realized the destructive potential of the sandwich crumbs floating around in a weightless environment. Fortunately for them, they were able to complete their mission and came home in one piece. Because of this stunt, NASA had to assure the public – and Congress – that they will be tightening their security measures and screening so that no stunt like this can ever be pulled again, placing billions of taxpayer dollars and the lives of the crew at risk.

Number 9: The Flatulence Configuration

In another story, the same astronaut, John Young, went on a mission to the moon in 1972 and have made one of history’s lesser known utterances in outer space.

While having a casual conversation with a team member, Young casually mentions some gassy digestive problems he had been experiencing and, right at that moment, let one rip while he was completely unaware that his suit’s microphone was recording everything. Luckily, the mic was not sensitive enough to record the actual “release” of his flatulence but Young was kind enough to give a colorful description of it along with a few “F” words to accompany his adjectives.

Number 8: The Diamond Denomination

You would think that this next one is all Science Fiction and could have come from the mind of an absolutely imaginative writer. However, the existence of this so-called Diamond Planet has been proven by real scientists who have been observing it with much interest.

Called PSR J1719-1438 b, the planet was said to have once been a star and that the debris it produced after it dies has managed to turn into a dwarf planet. Part of a twin-star, this diamond planet managed to survive after its brother exploded into a supernova. Managing to stabilize far enough from being obliterated, it was able to keep its carbon core that now is a colossal chunk of bling.

A pretty impressive discovery after we have all been told that Pluto has been declassified as a planet, shattering our schoolyard belief that it was.

Number 7: The Multiverse Multiplier

The debate on whether or not there are other universes outside our own is a controversial debate that has kept scientists, physicists, and astronomers on their toes and at each other’s throats for years. On one side, experts believe that there is no scientific and mathematical law that allows the existence of another universe, let alone several more.

However, on the other hand, believers of the theory have countered that neither is there evidence that disproves the theory of a multiverse that’s just waiting to be discovered.

Many have held this belief as mere fantasy and something that only happens in speculative fiction and comic books, the fact of the matter is that until scientific advancements can be made that will allow humans to explore outside the known universe, this debate will not soon be put to bed.

Number 6: The Deletion Dilemma

We are all familiar with the iconic broadcast of the first moon landing. The moment Neil Armstrong took his first step and uttered those words that are now deeply etched in human history, it was a completely new ballgame for science and the entire human civilization.

However, in 2006, a shocking twist to the story came to the public eye when NASA half-heartedly admitted that they have lost track of the recordings of the historic Apollo 11 mission but assured everyone that it was simply buried somewhere in their archives. Later, NASA announced that they have found the tapes pertaining to Apollo 11 but revealed that the recordings were “accidentally” erased.

Luckily for NASA, news agencies such as CBS who managed to record the event were able to supply a decent amount of recordings and footage from the Apollo 11 moon landing. A courtesy that was able to save NASA from disgrace.

Number 5: The Shotgun Syntax

A particularly lesser known story from the Space Race was that the USSR armed their cosmonauts with shotguns while American astronauts were busy smuggling Big Macs into space.

Modifying a TP-82 shotgun, Soviet engineers packed these firearms as they flew into space. The reason for packing some heat in the void of space, however, was not to fend off hostile aliens wanting to board their ship or in case they have to fight off space pirates. The modified shotguns were more for the trip home.

The difference between NASA and Soviet re-entry protocol was that NASA chose a much more practical approach to have their astronauts land in the Pacific region where they will then be picked up. The Soviets, on the other hand, chose the vast landscape of Siberia as their landing point. Unfortunately, when Soviet capsules re-entered the planet’s atmosphere, their capsule would sometimes fly off course and land in a different region that were mostly grizzly bear territory.

Number 4: The Giant Sun Complex

The most difficult part of understanding space is grasping the idea of how large it really is. So far, the only information we know about scale is from mock-ups of the solar system with the sun being the largest body in the universe.

Speaking of scale, let us put the sun as an example. We all know that it is a massive star that the planets revolve around on and it has different effects on each planetary body. However, a recent discovery has been made that the sun, which is 109 times larger than the Earth, is dwarfed by an even bigger star called VY Canis Majoris: a hyper-gigantic star that is, roughly, 1.7 billion – yes, BILLION – miles in diameter.

Also, bigger means brighter and hotter. Simply put, if we were to place this hyper-giant star to replace out own sun, chances are, every single planet and moon within its reach will instantly be obliterated. Fortunately for our solar system, VY Canis Majoris is 4900 lightyears away – a distance that makes it difficult for scientists to study. However, experts predict that in about 100,000 years, this star will explode and die and – probably, take a few systems with it along the way. A literal Death Star.

Number 3: The Problematic Pee Postulation

NASA engineers make sure that before they send someone off to space they have covered all the bases from suits to ships – and one of these bases involve getting rid of human waste while in outer space.

To the layman, the answer may be as simple as cracking open a chute and just let things all and float freely out of the ship. However, the solution is much, much more complicated than that. Engineers have to consider, on top of comfort and hygiene, scenarios that can possibly damage a craft or any part of it during the process of waste elimination.

One example posed an almost catastrophic scenario. In 1984, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery was stunned to discover a large icicle made of urine sticking out of the urinal discharge unit. The way it is done, in layman’s terms, is that astronauts would urinate in receptacles that are then ejected into space rather than spray it freely. Due to the technology at that time, a technical problem occurred and resulted in a bright yellow icicle. While it was hilarious to look at, the astronauts had to find a way to remove the shard of iced pee as it could cause serious problems upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. The solution, after trying different ways to get rid of it, was using the shuttle’s mechanical arm grabbing the icicle and breaking it off.

Number 2: The Dark Matter Mystery

We have somehow heard of this mysterious Dark Matter from science shows and movies. With a name that sounds like it was lifted directly from a Space Opera, it is one of the most mysterious anomalies in space and physics.

Dark Matter occurs when Einstein’s famous equation of E=MC^2 is applied to space. Using the equation, scientists are able to determine just how much matter exists in the universe. Surprisingly, however, scientists have only found 4% of matter and are boggled about where the 96% are.

Some theorists believe that the 96% of missing matter is present but comes in the form of the so-called Dark Matter; a form of matter that exists wherever no visible matter is found.

To this very day, scientists and experts are debating if in fact Dark Matter is a real thing since no conclusive evidence is pointing them in the right direction. What is even more frustrating is that Dark Matter, upholding its namesake, cannot be seen or touched; light and radio waves also pass through it seamlessly.

Since it is a fundamental scientific fact that matter – in this case, Dark or otherwise – cannot be created or destroyed, who knows? Maybe it’s right in front of us, staring at us straight in the face.

Number 1: The White Hole Conjecture

Speaking of Einstein, we know that he became famous for proving the existence of Black Holes and how they behave through mathematics.

However, while we have celebrated his discovery of the existence Black Holes and have discovered – through the advancement of our technology – several of them in space, what is less known is Einstein’s discovery of the existence of “White Holes” through his equations.

As you may come to conclude, White Holes are the complete opposite of their darker counterparts. Where Black Holes devour light and matter, White Holes seem to spit them out as if creating them from nothing. With this uncanny quality of creating matter “out of nothing”, they should be easy to spot but, to this day, at least a trace of it is yet to be found.

What is interesting to note is that if ever one is found in space, it can present answers to questions that science has yet to provide such as the origin of the material that is basically the make-up of galaxies.

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Sources:

http://listverse.com/2009/12/31/top-10-mysteries-of-outer-space/
http://www.cracked.com/article_19479_the-6-most-mind-blowing-things-ever-discovered-in-space.html
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/07/12/5-insane-space-stories-we-were-never-taught-in-history-class-sawn-off-shotguns-for-russian-cosmonauts

What is Deja Vu?

Did you ever get that odd and unsettling feeling or sense that you’ve been in an exact situation before? Or you’ve already experienced something that you know for certain you are doing for the very first time? Have you ever felt that overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that you shouldn’t be familiar with at all?

What is Déjà vu? 

This phenomenon is called “déjà vu,” which in French literally means “already seen.” Essentially, it is a sensation that something we’re experiencing at the moment has happened before, whether it’s just a single element such as a taste, a sight or a sound, or whether it’s an entire sequence of events. Déjà vu is a common intuitive feeling that has happened to around 60 to 70 percent of people, and it occurs more frequently to people between 15 and 25 years old compared to any other age group.

Déjà vu is a rather complex phenomenon, and like many unusual phenomena involving the brain, it has yet to be fully understood. There is much speculation as to how and why this phenomenon occurs in people. To many parapsychologists, this occurs when things and experience from our past lives merge with our present life. Several psychoanalysts, on the other hand, attribute the phenomenon to nothing more than simple fantasy and wish fulfillment of our desires and dreams.

Then, there’s the psychological standpoint, which generally considers déjà vu to be caused by a memory mismatch that in turn, causes people to feel that they’ve already experienced a specific event that they know is completely novel to them. Though not fully proven, some experts in the field generally agree that déjà vu occurs because of a communication issue between the short term and long term memory, a rare occurrence that functions like a circuit break.

Although the actual cause of déjà vu has yet to be confirmed by science, there are many different theories that attempt to explain how it happens, and they each have interesting implications for the mechanisms of the human brain. For those who are fascinated by this phenomenon and want to try to get to the bottom of this psychological mystery, here are three psychological theories that have been proposed to explain déjà vu!

Causes of Déjà Vu: Dual Processing Theory [False Memories]

One theory suggests that déjà vu is caused by memories failing to form correctly in the brain. This theory is called “dual processing,” and it is the most widely accepted take on this mysterious phenomenon among psychologists. The dual processing theory is based on the way the human brain processes new information and how it stores short-term and long-term memories. Essentially, the theory holds that déjà vu happens when two cognitive processes are momentarily out of sync.

In 1963, Robert Efron at the Veterans Hospital in Boston tested his proposed idea that a delayed neurological response is what causes déjà vu. According to him, because information enters the processing centers of the brain via more than a single path, it is likely that there are instances that the blending of information might not synchronize correctly.

In testing his theory, not only did he find the temporal lobe of the brain’s left hemisphere to be responsible for sorting incoming information, he also discovered that the temporal lobe receives this incoming information twice, but with a milliseconds-long delay between transmission. The information arrives once directly, and a second time after its detour through the right hemisphere of the brain. Should the second transmission get delayed by just slightly longer, then the brain might put a later timestamp on that information and consider it as a different memory from the previous memory already processed by the first transmission. This neurological delay is what could possibly explain the sudden sense of familiarity people feel on certain experiences or events.

Causes of Déjà Vu: ‘Divided Attention’ Theory

Another theory suggests that déjà vu could be triggered by things that we have seen subliminally but we just haven’t registered on a conscious level yet. Called “divided attention,” this theory relies on the brain’s inability to focus on all things at once, which means it has the tendency to momentarily “forget” about other actions or events that are happening in real-time.

According to this theory, it is not necessary for people to actually have experienced an event or a stimulus in the past for déjà vu to occur. Instead, divided attention theory tells us that when we are first exposed to a situation and we are momentarily distracted by something else such as a thought or a sight, this causes us not to pay attention to what’s going on around us. While we may not have consciously taken note of what was happening to our surroundings at the time, we have, however, taken it in unconsciously. But as we regain awareness, the entire sequence of events rushes back to us as eerily familiar, as if our memory is convincing us that we’ve been there before – which we kind-of have, in a way.

Causes of Déjà Vu: ‘Hologram’ Theory

The last theory that we will be discussing is the ‘hologram theory’. Dutch psychiatrist Herman Sno proposed the idea that memories are like holograms, which means that a person can recreate the entire three-dimensional image from any fragment of the whole.

Based on his reasoning, human memories are so interlinked with each other that experiencing just a single fragment is enough for a person’s brain to reconstruct an entire multi-sensory memory. However, there is a caveat to the brain’s automatic process of “filling in the blanks” – and that is, the smaller the fragment, the fuzzier the ultimate picture or scene will be.

According to Sno, déjà vu happens when certain details in the current environment we are in – be it sight, sound, smell or something else – resembles some remnant memory in our past, and our brain recreates a complete picture or an entire scene from that fragment alone. This could be particularly confusing if our memory of that past event is either vague or incomplete since the brain would just have to put in other bits of information to complete the picture, even if the added memory isn’t actually our own. This brings out a feeling of familiarity as well as the powerful sensation of reliving a forgotten memory which in turn could trigger the experience of déjà vu.

And so, based on this theory, you could experience déjà vu when picking up a can just because the feeling of the metal is the same as the bike handle that you once had, or when you go to a restaurant and saw a table cloth without actually remembering that your grandmother also had the same one on her dining table when you were just a small child.

Although déjà vu has been extensively studied as a phenomenon for over a century, and researchers have come up with dozens of advanced theories about its cause, there is no specific theory that claims to be the 100% accurate answer to this mystery. Until now, we can honestly say that there is no simple explanation for how exactly how déjà vu works and why it happens.

Perhaps sometime in the near future – when our technology is advanced enough and we have learned more thoroughly about how the brain works – will we finally be able to unlock the compelling secrets behind this strange phenomenon.

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Sources:

https://youtu.be/foVMwJtlR5s

https://youtu.be/nFAvUkjba-Q

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/question657.htm

http://www.brainfacts.org/about-neuroscience/ask-an-expert/articles/2014/what-causes-deja-vu/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/03/15/why-we-get-deja-vu_n_9463818.html

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

Dual Processing Theory

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200503/been-there-done

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/deja-vu4.htm

http://www.medicaldaily.com/deja-vu-and-its-relatives-how-simple-mistakes-memory-could-signal-deeper-neurological-problems

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

‘Divided Attention’ Theory

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

http://www.medicaldaily.com/deja-vu-and-its-relatives-how-simple-mistakes-memory-could-signal-deeper-neurological-problems

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

Hologram Theory

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/deja-vu4.htm

http://www.medicaldaily.com/deja-vu-and-its-relatives-how-simple-mistakes-memory-could-signal-deeper-neurological-problems

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

Berenstein Bears proof of Parallel Universes? Mandela Effect Explained

The Mandela Effect

Human memory is truly a peculiar thing. We are astonished by its scope and power, but we also recognize its dismaying fallibility. For years, scientists and researchers in the field of cognitive psychology and neuroscience have been studying extensively how memory works, but while they have taken great strides in gaining a better understanding of it, much of human memory remains a mystery. One thing about it remains certain though – memory isn’t perfect at all. And proof of this imperfection is the phenomenon of false memories – erroneous or unconsciously fabricated recollections of past events that seemingly feel so real and true that those who experience them often refuse to accept any evidence contrary to what they think they know or recall.

While the topic of errors in human memory in general is a fascinating subject matter that has gained the interest of curious men and women of science, one type of glitch in human memory has generated a lot of buzz in in recent years, and people of the Internet refer to it as the “Mandela Effect.”

What is the Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect is essentially defined as a collective misremembering of a fact or event. It refers to a phenomenon where a group of people all misremember the same detail, event or physicality.

The term was coined by self-described “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome who claims to have become aware of the phenomenon after discovering that she shared a particular false memory with several other people. This memory was their incorrect knowledge that South American human rights activist and president Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s when in reality, he passed away more recently in 2013. Beyond this particular memory she allegedly shared with other people, she also began to notice other examples of the phenomenon, leading her to believe that these instances are not simply errors in memory. They exceed the normal range of forgetfulness because for some reason that remains unclear, other people seem to have identical memories of something that supposedly never came to be in our reality.

Examples of the Mandela Effect

One particular example of the Mandela Effect that has generated a very loud online buzz involves the children’s book series and animated TV show “The Berenstain Bears.” As it turns out, a good number of people who grew up knowing the series apparently remember its title to be “The Berenstein Bears,” with the name ending in “ein” instead of “ain.” Some of those who recall this false memory even go so far as to claim that the fictional bears’ surname was changed along the way to make the series seem “less Jewish.”

Another example of the Mandela Effect is the recollection of many people that the United States has 51 or 52 states, and not 50. At present, the United States of America is composed of 50 states, with Washington D.C. considered as a federal district. But the US also has several unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa, which could be the reason why some people have the erroneous notion that there are more than 50 states considered to be a part of the Union. While this misconception is generally expected to have come from non-US residents, there are U.S. citizens that allegedly claim that 51 or 52 states was what they recall they were taught by their educators at school in their younger years.

A last example of the Mandela Effect that we will briefly discuss involves HBO’s popular TV series “Sex and the City.” According to some people, the series was originally named as “Sex in the City” until the network censors decided to make it less overtly suggestive of people engaging in sexual activities. Many people remember that for the first season, the show’s title was originally “Sex in the City,” while some maintain this to be the real title for its entire run. But as far as our current reality is concerned, the title of this classic cable TV show had been nothing else but “Sex AND the City.”

Explanations for the Mandela Effect

How do we explain the fact that many people share the same false memory? Because of the popularity of the Mandela Effect as a phenomenon in recent years, the discussion about the topic has sparked an intense debate that has trapped the issue in a tug of war between two sides – the side of logic and mainstream science against the side of paranormal territory and fringe science.

One far-out theory based on the principles of quantum mechanics argue that those who have personally experienced the Mandela Effect may have actually “slid” between parallel realities. According to this theory, those who grew up in a universe where “Berenstein” Bears is spelled with an “ein” found themselves waking up one day in an alternate universe where the title of the children’s book is spelled as “Berenstain” Bears with an “ain.”

Another far-fetched theory posits that unbeknownst to ourselves, we are actually within a virtual reality the provides us with a manufactured human experience. And according to this theory, this virtual world is prone to “glitches,” which in turn, cause inconsistences in our perception of reality.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of wild speculation, these theories bordering on science fiction yield no practical explanation or testable hypotheses. And from a logical and scientific standpoint, nor are they necessary, since some experts don’t consider the Mandela Effect as a phenomenon at all that deserves to be distinguished from existing types of false memories already well-established in the field of psychology.

A leading psychological theory sees memory as constructive and not reproductive – which means the brain “creates” memories out of various bits and pieces of information it was fed with as opposed to just accurately playing them back like a recording. Memories are not pure; they are fallible. And there are several psychological and social factors that can disrupt and distort the recollection of a particular memory, which include but are not limited to bias, association, imagination and expectations.

From a psychological standpoint, it is generally agreed on that there is normally an identifiable solution and explanation to most cases of the Mandela Effect, and many of these theories or key factors have nothing to do with parallel universes and virtual realities.

One key psychological factor in many cases of the Mandela Effect is what is referred to as the “misinformation effect.” Misinformation affects people’s reports of their own memory. This happens when information presented at a later time interferes with the ability to retain the previous information gathered for a particular memory. In essence, the new information received works backwards in time to distort a person’s memory of the original event. Misinformation Effect reflects two of the cardinal sins of memory: suggestibility – or the influence of other’s expectations on our own memory – and misattribution – or information attributed to an incorrect source. Studies about this phenomenon has raised issues over the reliability and permanence of human memory.

Confirmation bias is also one of the factors that could help explain the Mandela Effect. This type of bias is described as a person’s tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs and hypotheses. Those who are seeking cases supporting the Mandela Effect will often be more easily persuaded by other claims that supposedly validate the phenomenon. And just as they are so easily inclined to agree with such claims supporting the Mandela Effect, these people are also just as prone to discarding any evidence or claim that is contrary to their belief in the phenomenon’s existence.

But out of the many existing psychological concepts and theories about the frailties of human memory that have been raised over decades of research, perhaps the psychological concept that is most similar with the Mandela Effect is what psychologists refer to as “confabulation.” Confabulation is a clinical term used to refer to memory defects experienced by patients with brain damage, but it also describes a common phenomenon that involves the embellishment of truth when recounting events, and the non-deliberate and rarely-conscious invention of facts to fill in gaps in memory. People who have this type of memory disturbance produce incorrect memories from the most trivial details – which is often the case in the Mandela Effect – up to the more complex fabrications as well. Those who produce such misinterpreted memories typically resist any contradictory evidence to what they recall.

Although it might be very tempting to believe that the Mandela Effect is evidence of the existence of parallel realities or proof that our universe is nothing more than glitchy simulation, these kinds of speculations have yet to pass the requirements established by mainstream science that will allow them to be recognized as real theories worthy of consideration. And in light of known and widely-accepted cognitive phenomena that can give rise to shared false memories, most of us are more inclined to believe that well-known cognitive errors sufficiently explain the Mandela Effect and that there is no need to introduce concepts like parallel dimensions or alternate realities to explain the fallibility of human memory. And had Fiona Broome been a cognitive psychologist instead of a psychic ghost hunter, perhaps the term Mandela Effect might have never existed at all.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that the Mandela Effect is still a fascinating topic of interest regarding the quirks of human memory, while also serving as an example that human truth can actually be much stranger than fiction.

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Sources:

http://www.snopes.com/2016/07/24/the-mandela-effect/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory
http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/mandela-effect-introduction/
http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/category/mandela-effects/
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4560
http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/common-explanations/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_effect
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/02/16/mandela-effect-false-memories/#.WSDZh2iGPb0