How to Apply Quantum Gravity?

In today’s post I’m going to talk about something a bit different to what I’ve done the last few weeks. I’m going to talk about practical things.

You see, for me quantum gravity isn’t just an abstract idea not connected to anything in real life.  Quite the opposite. These past few days I’ve been doing practical quantum gravity in ton-scale. That is, I’ve been making LignoSpheres: the product that I’m studying both academically, but which is also the main product of my startup company:

I think I mention the practical side of my science every once in a while, but I think at least some of the readers of this blog might not know that my theory of quantum gravity arose from trying to understand how LignoSpheres work and how I can make adhesives with them.

Before understanding what lignin is, I took the concept of the spherical cow and applied it to lignin polymers. This was way before I under that lignin is a hollow nanotubule. In my notebook (and powerpoint doodles), my LignoSpheres were always a lattice of different kinds of spheres, kind of like a Waterman polyhedron, but still two-dimensional. The reason for the two-dimensionality was that I really didn’t believe that lignin molecules were spherical and I just used the model to illustrate reactive groups , or moieties, as well as unreactive ones.

Ok, but what does this have to do with quantum gravity? Well, the above model allowed me to think a bit more rationally about reactions with lignin, but it was only slightly better than nothing. The reason for the limited usefulness was that this model assumed there to be no internal structure in LignoSpheres. However, when I realized that something causes lignin to form into hollow nanotubes, my experiments finally started to work. And this was (indirectly at first) because of quantum gravity.

First of all, I realized that the Waterman polyhedron model wasn’t just an abstract model. It was actually the way LignoSpheres form. When an organic solution of lignin is poured into water, the lignin self-assembles into colloidal sphere. This happens, because lignin is present as a nanotubules (smaller than the link) that can crystallize into hexagonal and square assemblies when being confined by microdroplets of water.

This is the process that I illustrate in my manuscript with the images below:

a)      is the truncated octahedral core of a Waterman polyhedron of lignin nanotubules.

b)     is the uniform-looking LignoSphere that doesn’t reveal its inner structure.

c)      is the hexagonal crystallization pattern of lignin nanotubules that I revealed with the experiment that I describe in the manuscript.

You might think that “this is all moderately interesting but what does this have to do with applying quantum gravity”? Well, if you think that there is order in lignin but no order in liquids, you might think that the above model cannot be directly used. However, when you realize that the same rules that govern the self-assembly of LignoSpheres also govern all of the other molecules surrounding it, even water and solvent, you start approach designing experiments completely differently.

Long story short, using the above model, I’m able to make adhesives and coating with lignin (specifically LignoSpheres) that have before been either impossible, or at least too hard to commercialize. And that’s why our goal is to build into every pulp mill a  LignoSphere factory, where instead of burning the lignin as fuel, converting lignin into carbon dioxide and spewing into the atmosphere, this lignin can become a multi-billion dollar industry, while significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

And all of this because of quantum gravity. Not bad, if I say so myself!