String Theory: A Knotty Theory

String Theory suggests the substitution of tiny vibrating strings for little billiard ball particles, but requiring in the process an extra six spatial dimensions. It gets the thumb’s down until such time as proponents of String Theory get some experimental runs on the board, something not accomplished in over four decades.

String Theory is one of those proposed challenges to mainstream physics and replaces the standard model of particle physics by substituting tiny vibrating strings for all those little billiard ball particles, like electrons and quarks and neutrinos, etc. that we know so well. Differing string vibration rates determine whether some particle is an electron or an up-quark or a down-quark or a neutrino, etc. That in itself isn’t too bad an alteration. Where String Theory falls off the rails IMHO is that in order to work, the Universe has got to be comprised of not the standard three spatial dimensions and the one dimension in time we’re used to existing in, but a total of nine, even ten spatial dimensions (plus one of time). Sorry, it’s those extra spatial dimensions that tip the weirdness quotient off the scales.

Spatial dimensions are just a useful mathematical concept consisting of points, length, area and volume that has no actual structure or substance. There’s nothing magical about a right angle. Spatial dimensions are a not-thing, a human invention.  That there are up to ten spatial dimensions (not three) if Superstring Theory or M-Theory* is correct turns a useful concept into nonsense. In the words of the late physicist Wolfgang Pauli, that’s “not even wrong”** which was a phrase adopted by and which gave rise to the title of the anti-String Theory book by Peter Woit (2006).

String Theory wouldn’t be too bad were there the slightest tad of experimental evidence for string ‘particles’ and those additional spatial dimensions. There isn’t. String Theory just resides as a pure hypothetical, albeit elegant (and extremely difficult to understand), branch of mathematics (you could hardly call it real physics). That wouldn’t be all that unusual a situation if String Theory were something that was brand new. However, String Theory in its earliest form dates back to the late 1960’s with Gabriele Veneziano hence Leonard Susskind and others. So, alas, this theoretical can-of-worms is now four decades old without the worms even reaching first base, far less getting so much as even one run on the board. In fact, nobody has even ever seen one of the theoretical worms, which is obviously why they are still theoretical four decades on. Pioneering string theorists nearly qualify for a pension by now and should be looking forward towards downsizing to their retirement village, albeit not quite yet a nursing home!  

String Theory just is not going anywhere. It’s a dead end. As far as I’m concerned, String Theory is impossible physics (even if elegant mathematics) until such time as even the tiniest shred of experimental evidence is on the board. String, Superstring, or M-Theory (as substitutes for the standard model of particle physics) is pure bovine fertilizer on the grounds that after four decades it remains a purely abstract mathematical concept with no experimental verification.  I’m not holding my breath that experimental verification will come anytime soon, if ever.

In conclusion, never in the history of physics have so many spent so much time and energy for so little results. 

* M-Theory is a unified String Theory or Superstring Theory that incorporates differing versions of String Theory that has no substance or structure apart from pure abstract mathematics an thus gets the same thumb’s down as String Theory itself and for the same reason. Another negative is that it must postulate the existence of even a further extra spatial dimension, as if an extra six weren’t already too much of a good thing.

** If you’re ‘not even wrong’, well that’s just about the ultimate insult to a practicing scientist since it’s no crime to be wrong, and most scientists are wrong a lot of the time.



Was Time Created?

Is it possible to create time? If you accept the modern cosmological paradigm that’s exactly what happened 13.7 billion years ago. If you accept that, was the creation of time a once only creation or is the creation of time occurring even as you read this? Or, is the whole idea of literally creating time something only those smoking the good stuff could conceive of, while those of a less befuddled mind view as total bovine fertilizer? It’s the latter IMHO, or should be.

According to the standard model of modern cosmology, the Big Bang event 13.7 billion years ago created both space and time. Exactly what the recipe was isn’t given, but there was this act of creation nonetheless. Again, the standard model gives a scenario that even after the Big Bang event, right up to the present time (and presumably beyond our present time) space is still be created (out of nothing) and thus to make room for all this additional space, space itself has to expand (into what isn’t stipulated) and thus we have the popular phrase that we exist in an “expanding universe”.

But if space itself is expanding, then space is a thing, and things cannot be created out of nothing which is what those advocating an expanding space are, well, advocating.

I have elsewhere examined this issue of expanding space and found it to be IMHO utter claptrap. That’s because the concept of expanding space treats space, as noted above, as if space were a thing. Space is not a thing anymore than society, atheism, Wednesday or velocity is a thing; or beauty. Some thing maybe beautiful, but beauty is not a thing.

Now what about time? The alleged creation of time, unlike that of space, seems to have been a one-off happening at that Big Bang event – or is it? Was time, 13.7 billion years ago, created for all time, unlike space, or is the creation of time an ongoing process?

Time only seems to exist up to and including this very moment – right ‘now’. One second from now is in the future and future time does not yet exist. So is time constantly being created in order for there to be a future?  If so, how is it being done, or again, what’s the recipe for creating or cooking up a batch of time? There can’t be a bona fide recipe; otherwise some nerdy geek could create a batch of time at the same time, or within time, which already exists! That concept of creating a bubble of time within existing time should make your head ache!

But relax, there’s no need for the aspirin. There has not been one nanosecond of time created by all the humans who ever were and are (and are likely to be), nor by any of humanity’s machines or devices. No theoretical physicist has ever claimed for example that the Large Hadron Collider could create time, even though it’s supposed to come as close as possible to creating the sort of energies though present at the Big Bang event. Tis a pity actually since many of us feel at times as if there’s not enough time in the day (week, month, or year) to accomplish everything. So wouldn’t it be nice if you could create a bit of extra time on the sly and have a 25 hour day or an eight day week.  Sadly, that’s to be realized only in your dreams (or science fiction books and films).  

The flipside that one second from now is in the future and future time does not yet exist, is what happened to the time that existed just one second ago?  It’s gone. The only record of what happened one second ago rests in your memory or in some recorded device, natural or artificial, all of which only exists or is accessible in the current now. You might remember an event from five years ago, but you remember it ‘now’. A fossil might be evidence of a previous time, but that evidence only exists for your consideration ‘now’. A newsreel film might document an event that happened decades ago, but when you view it you see it ‘now’. When you look at the stars, you see their starlight that was emitted years before, but you see it ‘now’.

It would seem that the only bona fide reality time has is ‘now’. Past time is no longer tangible; future time is yet to be tangible. There’s something very profound about ‘now’ – it’s only in the ‘now’ that things change, and of course change is what gives the concept of time meaning.

But let’s suppose that ‘in the beginning’ time was created ‘in the beginning’. There was a slice of time created at the alpha point – that “now” that gives time ‘reality’ that from the beginning onwards moves forward (in time) until it reaches the omega point. Or, perhaps there was a “now” slice of time created at the alpha point, but that slice stays put while reality moves past it until the omega point is reached. Think of a factory line where there is a row of gizmos (reality) and a worker (time) walks on up the line from gizmo to gizmo and attaches a doohickie to each gizmo in turn from alpha to omega. Or, the worker (time) stands still while a conveyor belt with the gizmos (reality) on it rolls past the worker from alpha to omega while he attaches to each a doohickie in turn.

However, a slice of time is awkward if there’s a different ‘now’ occurrence for different people as viewed by different people. That’s actually a consequence of Einstein’s Special Relativity (see further below).

Why postulate a ‘slice’ of time? Well, as already pointed out, time has no existence in the past and no existence in the future. There’s only that slice of ‘now’ time. How thin is that slice of ‘now’ time? How short is that duration of ‘now’ time? Well there is a concept of the shortest possible interval of time with the caveat that nothing can actually happen in any sense of the term meaningful in any shorter interval of time. Any interval of time can be infinitely subdivided, but there does come a point where nothing of substance can happen if the interval is too short. How short is short? Let’s just say the number of shortest yet meaningful time units that would fit into one traditional second of time vastly, vastly, vastly outnumbers the entire human population past and present. When we say “short”, we really, really, really mean “short”.

But if time were created for the entire duration it would be required for, then that implies some foresight or foreknowledge on the part of the process that created time (or the cook that owns the recipe book). Speaking of the cook, it’s like the cook knowing in advance how big a turkey to buy and prepare for Thanksgiving dinner by knowing in advance how many guests will be present.

If time can be created even if only as a slice of time, then time can cease to be created.

If time were to stop being created, we’d never know since nothing would or could change (which is what time measures – rate of change). We only perceive time because things change from second to second; minute to minute; hour to hour, etc. If time stopped, our hearts would stop in mid-beat, clocks wouldn’t tick, boiling water would stop in mid-boil, and photons on route from the Sun to your eyeball would freeze in mid-space. Presumably if this had ever happened, you’d be none the wiser since that would imply that time was rebooted.

Another fly in the ointment is that while everyone perceives their personal rate of time flow at one second per second (and a second of time by the way is an artificial manmade unit of measurement), not everyone views everyone else’s time flow rate as being one second per second. The flow rate of time, as Einstein pointed out (Special Relativity) is relative. Further, depending on frame of reference, one can see Event A happen before Event B while someone else sees Event B happen before Event A, while a third body sees Event A and Event B happen simultaneously. That’s because it’s the speed of light that’s the physical constant. It does seem odd that in the beginning (assuming a beginning) it wasn’t time or space that was created as being a constant rather it was the speed of light. Actually that makes some sense since both time and space are not things, but light is a thing. However, it’s as if the speed of a batted or thrown baseball was always fixed and the dimensions of the ballpark and the playing field shape-shifted from second to second to accommodate the required outcome!

But adding Special Relativity to the creation of time equation just makes the creation of time recipe super complex. So let’s just drop the idea of time as a thing. Depending on point of view, events happen more or less quickly to others than you think is natural from your frame of reality. You just by force of habit translate that into time units, a habit you need to break. 

When it comes to the concept of time, it is second nature to suppose that no matter what starting or alpha point you presume, a question “what came before that?” is obvious even to blind Freddy. Therefore, it is way easier to adopt the philosophy that there was no alpha point (or omega point) – that time has always existed (and will always exist). Therefore, there was no need for time to be created.

If time wasn’t created, was there ever a first moment when time came to be? That would be the case if (and that’s going to be a mighty bug if): 1) time was an intrinsic property of matter and energy, and 2) if matter and energy were created from scratch. Leaving Point 2 aside for another day, time is not a property of matter and energy*. It’s not difficult to imagine a universe with just one electron in it. As far as that electron is concerned there is no time since there is no change to the state of that universe since there is no change, cannot be any change, to the state of the sole inhabitant of that universe – the one and only electron. Therefore time is not an intrinsic property of matter (and energy).

Finally, you cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell time, nor can any mechanical instrument. You can say that time can be measured, but what are you actually measuring? What you are measuring are the changing properties of things you (or an instrument) can see, hear, etc. What about a clock? What changes on a clock? Well the minute hand moves from 4 to 5 or on a digital watch the reading changes from 4 to 5. There is a change in the properties of the clock or the watch that you can see or hear. You just label that change in the clock’s properties, time. Your label of time is a concept, a human concept. 

All concepts, like society or beauty, are created, but in the minds of living things, and not just by human beings either since one can imagine non-humans appreciating beauty. No doubt my cats view a full food bowl as something of great beauty! Of course that means in another sense that time has been created, but by humans (and maybe by other animals) for humans. Just like mathematical concepts (more human inventions) help us come to terms with, or help us explain, reality, ditto our artificially constructed concept of time. You certainly don’t hear cosmologists talk about the Big Bang creating concepts like mathematics, society, Wednesday, birthdays, beauty, atheism or velocity. Concepts like these have no tangibility – you can’t weigh them or put them under a microscope.

Conclusion: Time is the most mysterious facet of the cosmos and of your daily life you ever have to come to terms with, though most people don’t bother. But it needn’t be if you stop thinking of time as a thing and view time as a concept, like say your birthday. Unfortunately, way too many cosmologists imply that time is a thing and that the thing we call time was literally created. It’s very easy to say that time was created at the Big Bang event and those hundreds of cosmologists say exactly that. But it’s quite another thing to produce the recipe for how that was accomplished, and on that point these same cosmologists are very strangely silent on the matter. Extraordinary claims (like stating that time was created) require extraordinary evidence – one of those mantras the scientific community love to hurl at those advocating anything they call pseudoscience – but none is given by those very same cosmologists. 

What the Big Bang event did do was set in train all those laws, principles and relationships that govern the cosmos and govern change in the cosmos, which is what our concept of time measures.

So, was time created ‘in the beginning’ – no; ‘once upon a time – that doesn’t work either. No matter how you slice and dice things, the idea that time can be created, like space, is also IMHO utter claptrap. That’s because the concept of creating time treats time as if time were also a thing. Time is no more a thing anymore than space is a thing. But if time itself is being created, then time is a thing, and again things cannot be created out of nothing which is what those advocating the creation of time are, well, advocating.

The easiest way to deal with the concept of time is that that’s exactly what time is – a concept, an abstraction, but not a thing. If time isn’t a thing then time could not be created. If time isn’t a thing, then time travel isn’t possible. You can travel in a thing (i.e. – a car), not in a concept.

*If you consult any science reference book on the fundamental properties of matter and energy, time will not be listed, though things like mass and charge and spin, etc. will be.

Cosmology 101: Part One

The standard cosmological model, the standard origin of our Universe model, the Big Bang event, is an “in the beginning” model. The Big Bang marked the beginning of our Universe; what happened before that is akin to asking what’s south of the South Pole. However, I prefer a “once up a time” scenario, which implies there was a time before the Big Bang created our Universe, and ultimately, us.

THE COSMOS IS THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF ALL THAT IS OR EVER WILL BE

“The Cosmos”: That’s what I call all that is, and all that every will be. My cosmos is infinite in size and in time*. From the get-go I’m eliminating the philosophical issues of ‘what comes before time existed’; and ‘what exists beyond any existing space’? The answers are that nothing came before time existed because time has always existed; and nothing exists beyond existing space because existing space is ever endless. 

Into this infinite sea of time and space resides an infinite (or even finite if you prefer – that’s not the critical bit) amount of matter and energy. One can put an infinite amount of stuff into an infinite amount of space and still have lots of room left over for the matter/energy to move about and interact in.

Now that matter/energy can be infinitely old because matter, in the form of elementary particles like electrons and quarks do not age (like humans do) and energy particles, like photons (and thus far hypothetical gravitons) don’t age either. A billion years is to an electron or a photon as a nanosecond is to a human.

This cosmos is overall in a ‘steady state’, even though there’s lots of activity going on, from transitions (beginnings and endings) and evolutions (interactions) constantly taking place. This is much like a box full of water molecules, where, depending on local conditions, some molecules are disassociating into hydrogen and oxygen atoms; oxygen and hydrogen atoms are combining to form water molecules; some molecules are travelling at rapid rate and the local state is gaseous; some are travelling at a somewhat slower rate and are in a liquid state; some are really sluggish and are in a solid state. There are lots of things happening, but overall, the box is in a relatively steady state. 

Within this infinite cosmic sea, pockets of matter and energy have now and then clumped together to form what we would term a universe (like interstellar gas and dust can clump together to form a star). Actually in this infinite sea there are many universes, like raisins in a loaf of raisin bread. One could call this set of island universes The Multiverse and indeed many have, but The Multiverse could equally include all those multi-trillions of theoretical Many World universes (the common alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation of all things quantum) or the set of often proposed parallel universes or even the proposed set of computer-generated and simulated universes. Since I’m not dealing with those sorts of universes in this scenario, I’ll refrain from using the term Multiverse and stick with cosmos. 

OUR ISLAND UNIVERSE

Now our Universe is but one tiny island in this infinite sea. And while the infinite cosmos, all that is and every will be, didn’t have any origin, our Universe did. And, as things appear now, will have a predictable end.

And there are lots of other universe islands too, some or all of which may or may not have origins and endings similar to ours. Some of those other island universes may have destinies linked with ours, not so much in space (although that’s possible), but in time.

Because our Universe resides in an infinite sea of space, our Universe, since it had an origin and is expanding through that sea, must have a boundary. That boundary however isn’t how far matter has expanded into that sea; rather it is how far the light from our Universe has expanded, at the speed of light. Thus, if we assume our Universe is spherical, the outermost boundary is one of the maximum extent to which light has travelled, and so observers outside our Universe will see us way before they can touch us, as our light is obviously travelling at a higher velocity, and has expanded further, than our matter.

In such a scenario as I have proposed, our Universe could rotate. Why not? Motion is the rule, not the exception in the Universe. Everything inside our Universe seems to rotate or revolve. Earth rotates on its axis; the Sun rotates on its axis; the Solar System rotates and the planets revolve around the Sun. Our Milky Way Galaxy rotates; entire clusters of galaxies revolve around a common centre of gravity. If our Universe is all there is, it’s pretty meaningless to talk of its rotation or revolution, for with respect to what is it rotating or revolving? But, if there is a larger existence outside, then it is meaningful to talk about our Universe having motion relative to that larger outside.

THE ORIGIN OF OUR UNIVERSE: A BIG BANG

So, what is the origin of our Universe? Well, cosmologists tell us it was the Big Bang** event. Somehow, some 13.7 billion years ago, our Universe came into being from something relatively tiny (not ‘big’ at all), which ‘exploded’ (‘banged’), spewing its matter/energy guts out thus spreading the contents of said matter/energy ever outwards resulted in the expanding Universe (of matter/energy) we see all around us today.

Now there’s one hell of a lot of stuff in our Universe, all of which is in motion – expanding, ever expanding outward. Now it takes energy to put matter into motion, so given the lot of stuff present at the origin of our Universe, there had better be a lot of energy available to give all that stuff a bit (and then some) of a push. Now where, did all, that required energy come from?

If time and space; matter and energy, have always existed, it’s illogical to suggest that the origin or our Universe can be explained somehow as ‘in the beginning there was nothing; then there was something – our Universe’.  It’s more logical to propose a ‘in the beginning there was something; then there was something else – our Universe’.  That previous something I suggest was a previous universe.

HOW DO YOU CREATE A BIG BANG?

If our Universe is expanding, then it’s logical to propose that a universe can also contract. In fact, given the force of gravity, it’s very logical that a universe chock full of matter will contract under the combined force of all that gravity – which is a pull force. If a universe contracts, it must of necessity get smaller and smaller, the opposite of a Big Bang. We call that sort of contracting universe experiencing a Big Crunch event.

Now, can a Big Crunch universe give rise to our Big Bang Universe? The end product of a Big Crunch is the mother of all Black Holes. So how do you get out of a Black Hole? Well, any Black Hole, even the mother of them all, has extreme gravity, even to the extent of preventing light photons from reaching escape velocity, but that’s not the same as infinite gravity, so, given enough oomph – in this case momentum – a Black Hole can be a very quickie sometime thing. So, what’s this momentum thing? Well, it’s just the product of mass multiplied by velocity. A high mass at a low velocity can have the same momentum as a low mass travelling at a high velocity; obviously a high mass travelling at a high velocity must have a very high momentum, one that’s hard to stop. The mass of an entire universe travelling at near light speed is about as close to an infinite runaway freight train as it gets. 

I asked about the energy supply. Well, a Big Crunch universe has massive kinetic energy. As it crunches, the velocity of all its bits and pieces ever increases, until, as close to Big Crunch time as makes no odds, everything is coming together at pretty close to light speed as suggested above. It’s hard to stop massive amounts of matter, travelling at such a velocity, dead in its tracks! It is much like a swinging pendulum which has mass and velocity and so the pendulum travels from one side, through the bottom of its arc due to its momentum, and up the other side. A contracting (Big Crunch) universe will pass though its minimum (the point of least volume) and via pure momentum, start expanding (call this a Big Bang) again. That’s one source of energy oomph. The Black Hole in-between is a sometime thing.

To be continued…

*Our expanding Universe is, in terms of space, a three dimensional structure (and not by analogy so beloved by traditional cosmologists something represented as a two dimensional expanding balloon’s surface). You, as a smaller three spatial dimensional object, reside inside the Universe (like your liver resides inside you). And just as you have an inside and outside (your skin separates the two), and your liver has an inside-the-liver and an outside-the-liver, so too must our Universe have an inside (where you reside) and an outside, but if, and only if our Universe has a specific shape, and therefore a finite internal volume.

I can think of no three dimensional geometric shape of any kind, which if finite in surface area, doesn’t also contain within a finite volume. To have an infinite volume would imply this shape has no boundary, border, edge, or membrane; whatever. If it has no shape, it can’t be a geometrical structure, like that of a sphere, ellipsoid, cylinder, cube, funnel, or pyramid, or even something totally irregular in structure (possessing no overall symmetry at all) like that of an amoeba. If our Universe has no overall shape, then no boundary, border, edge, or membrane – whatever - is possible. There’s actually only one ‘shape’ that can contain an infinite volume, and that’s a ‘shape’ that’s infinite in extent in all three dimensions, which is to say no shape at all.

One could go off the deeper end and imagine a ‘shape’ that’s finite in two dimensions but infinite in the third, like a cylinder whose length extends infinitely. Perhaps there’s a ‘shape’ to the Universe that’s finite in one dimension but infinite in two, say like a cube but with the left – right and back – forward dimensions just going on, and on, and on, and on forever. Both these ‘shapes’ have infinite volumes, but there’s no reason to suggest, no observational, even theoretical evidence, that any direction, any dimension is preferred or is unique vis-à-vis any other. It’s said that our Universe is both isotropic and isometric in that it tends to look the same in any direction and has no preferred directionality to it. That’s one reason the Universe is assumed to be of spherical shape, if it has to have any shape at all.

So, get into a rocket ship and head off in a constant straight line direction of your own choosing, making any course corrections necessary when gravitational forces from within the Universe, like from stellar or galactic objects, Black Holes, etc. deviate you from your one true path. Because this is a thought experiment, you can imagine yourself travelling as fast as you want to and ignore general relativity and speed limits. If you’d rather not do that, confer upon yourself immortality and live to see the end of your journey. Sooner or later, if the Universe has finite volume, you’ll encounter that border, boundary, edge, or membrane – whatever. You now have an awkward question to face. What’s on the other side?

By proposing from the get-go, a Universe with an infinite volume, a no shape Universe, there can not ever be that border, boundary, edge, or membrane – whatever – that you eventually run into. And therefore, there’s no awkward question to ever have to face and answer.    

I’m just changing the word ‘Universe’ to ‘cosmos’ and placing our Universe within that larger infinite ‘shape’.

Oh, you hit that same brick wall, that awkward question, with our fourth dimension, time. What comes before, whatever; what comes after, whatever?

**I could use the synonymous (to my way of thinking) phrase “White Hole” event, since the Big Crunch resulted in a Black Hole which immediately upon rebounding (expanding) became the opposite of a Black Hole – a White Hole which we have named the Big Bang.

Variations on a Theme Cosmological: Part One

The standard model explaining the origin of our Universe basically attributes no causality to that origin. First there was nothing, and then there was something. The transition was the Big Bang event; the something was the creation of matter, energy, time and space. However, to my mind, any something must have a cause, and thus my variation on the standard model postulates that there was a cause; a before the Big Bang. The before recycled previous matter and energy to become our matter and energy; the Big Bang event itself happened within existing space and time.

In the infinite beginning was the vacuum energy (a quantum state of energy and matter, even if the matter is virtual). The vacuum energy resided in space and time (or space-time, post relativity theory). Now why ‘in the infinite beginning’? It eliminates the awkward, nagging and very annoying philosophical question of ‘what came before that?’ Its neigh near impossible to avoid asking that because one just can’t come to terms with a finite beginning to everything. It’s obvious in a common sense sort of way that no matter how far back you go, something came before that.

From the vacuum energy (which again is a quantum phenomenon often termed vacuum or quantum fluctuations, the quantum jitters or quantum foam), at least one macro universe arose. This is theoretically possible (see references at the end) although I strongly suspect it has an awful lot to do with the quantum mantra that ‘if it’s not forbidden, it’s compulsory’ – at least if you’re willing to wait long enough. Of course maybe more than one universe arose from the vacuum energy. The more the merrier!

Once formed, a macro universe is inherently unstable and will have to either expand (under at least the influence of ‘dark energy’) or contract (under the influence of gravity).

Roughly 13.7 billion years ago, one such macro universe experienced a runaway contraction, which terminated in a Big Crunch. All the matter and energy of that universe converged and contracted into a smaller and smaller volume, eventually forming the Mother of all Black Holes via the merging of existing smaller Black Holes and other matter and energy being sucked in to same – eventually there would be no escape; a single massive Black Hole is the end product of a Big Crunch.

That also means that the Mother of all Black Holes contained the Mother of all Singularities – the heart and centre of all Black Holes.

The Mother of all Singularities was a macro object, contrary to popular perception. As it’s impossible to have any object with zero volume and infinite density, a Singularity must have finite volume and finite density. As more and more stuffs get added to the Black Hole, and thus to its Singularity, the density keeps rising. But, it eventually hits its finite limit and as stuffs continue to be added, the density remains at its limit, and volume increases instead. Eventually that volume exceeds the size of the quantum realm. Because this Big Crunch Mother of all Singularities contained the contents of, the sum total of, an entire universe, it was of necessity of monster size. I don’t know how large, but I’ll guesstimate somewhere in the range of a stellar to galactic sized object

Because matter/energy influence space-time, and vice versa (matter ‘tells’ space how to warp; space ‘tells’ matter how to move – i.e. General Relativity), such a massive macro monster of a Singularity would warp space-time, and in such a brief time, to such an extent that all space-time in the region would be unstable, as would be the Singularity (think radioactive particle decay here as an analogy).  The volatile and unstable distortion of space, time, matter and energy resulted in the dead guts of the former universe, contents residing in the Mother of all Singularities, ‘decaying’ or ‘exploding’ or just plain spewing the content of its guts back out again, in a reverse of the Big Crunch. That event we of course now call the Big Bang; the ‘object’ doing the spewing we can call, for lack of a better phrase, a ‘White Hole’. Thus we have the previous universe’s Big Crunch, which created the ultimate Black Hole, massive distortion or warping of space-time, hence a spewing White Hole, and our Big Bang. General Relativity allows for or permits such a scenario.

If anything unfortunately finds itself on a one-way journey down a Black Hole, ultimately ending up as part of that Hole’s Singularity, then apart from the property of mass, all other distinguishing features, colour, texture, chemical composition, shape, hardness, physical state (solid, liquid, gas or plasma), etc. will be crushed out of it and lost forever. What remains wouldn’t look anything like what went in. What remains of a TV set would look the same as the remains of a human being! A Singularity is the ultimate crusher!

Thus, a Singularity (not than anyone has ever seen one) would have to be nearly featureless, a uniform a blob of stuff as you can imagine. A Singularity certainly has mass, volume, and would have a perfectly spherical shape, temperature, perhaps electric charge, maybe rotation as well, but otherwise would just be a homogenous sameness through and through. In fact, there are those who suggest that a Singularity represents a new state of matter – a phase transition from the states we know to something else entirely. For example, if you had a star made of matter, and another identical star in every way except it was composed of antimatter, and the two stars merged, you’d have one big Ka-Boom! You’d end up with the total annihilation of matter into pure energy. Now, say the matter star, once its fuel ran out, collapsed under gravity into a Black Hole. Now say the antimatter star, once its fuel ran out, collapsed under gravity into a Black Hole. Now merge the matter Black Hole with the antimatter Black Hole. What do you get? Not a Ka-Boom, but a much larger Black Hole with twice the mass! Be that as it may, I notice that a homogenous Singularity mirrors our homogenous Universe.

Our observable universe appears to be both isotropic (it pretty much looks the same from any given point) and homogeneous (the universe is uniform no matter where you go). Collectively, these facets are known as the Cosmological Principle. In actual fact however, the observable universe isn’t really ultra homogeneous – it’s really sort of lumpy, what with all those planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc. However, the lumpiness is on a pretty small scale relative to the size of the observable universe. It’s akin to a smooth beach of sand. Only on close examination, on the micro scale is the beach lumpy, in that you’re likely to find shells and pebbles that also comprise the beach and which are lumpy.

Currently, the concept of ‘inflation’ is used to explain why the Universe is so smooth and uniform, akin to blowing up a balloon smoothes out its wrinkles. Quantum fluctuations at the time of inflation, which would have occurred with micro-seconds of the Big Bang, accounts for the tiny variations in the Universe’s properties – a slight lumpiness in the distribution of matter, slight (and I do mean slight) differences in background temperature (the cosmic microwave background radiation), and so on.

But, if our overall bland, homogenous, isotropic Universe arose from an overall bland, homogenous, isotropic, one-kind-of-stuff parent Singularity, then who needs inflation to account for the overall smooth appearance of our Universe?  Of course, again, it’s not 100% smooth because random quantum fluctuations operated even back then (13.7 billion years ago) and in those first few micro-seconds of the Big Bang event. So the Universe is indeed a little bit variable and a little bit lumpy, which is just as well, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.

One final bit, probably only part of our parent Singularity accounts for our observable universe. The rest of said Singularity accounts for that part of our entire Universe that we can’t observe. What the ratio between observable and total is, I know not, but why do I have this feeling that what we observe is only a tiny fraction of all that’s out there!

The question arises that if our Universe originated from another universe’s singularity, and that in our Universe singularities form the centre of Black Holes (of all sizes), then could these singularities, if they became large enough and unstable enough (via the extreme warping of space-time), ultimately form new baby universes in their own right?

Where all this differs from the standard cosmological (Big Bang) model is: 1) The Big Bang wasn’t a micro (quantum realm) event; 2) the Big Bang event occurred in existing space and time instead of creating space and time; and 3) there was therefore a ‘before the Big Bang’, but alas, a ‘before’ probably forever beyond our capabilities of directly knowing the fine print.  With respect to 2) immediately above, is there any observation that has been, or can be made, that can distinguish between space expanding (as a result of the Big Bang having created space in the first instance) and expanding space carrying matter/energy along for the ride (the standard spiel), vis-à-vis matter/energy moving through space as the result of a Big Bang explosion (or spewing event) in pre-existing space? The answer is “no”.

How is this process maintained indefinitely, such that there not only was no beginning, but no end either? I mean if all universes expand forever, things ultimately come to an apparent sticky end. Well, assuming a universe doesn’t have a sufficient mass/energy density to cause the expansion to slow down, stop, reverse, and collapse back to a Big Crunch (like ours), then sooner or later, part of an ever expanding universe will intersect with part of another ever expanding universe (if Mother Nature can produce one universe, she can produce more than one universe). The resulting local increase in mass/energy density due to that intersection could be enough to trigger that area to undergo a gravitational collapse with a local Big Crunch the ultimate result, resulting in the production of a new universe – which may, or may itself expand indefinitely or may collapse into another Big Crunch scenario.

An Analogy: All analogies are a bit suspect, but this one I hope will illustrate my general idea immediately above. I’m going to substitute a supernova for the Big Bang.

To be continued…

Some Alternative Cosmologies: Part Two

The standard model of cosmology, the Big Bang event, not only postulates an origin for all matter and energy (out of nothing) but of time and space too (equally out of nothing). First there was nothing; then there was something. The Big Bang cosmology is seriously flawed IMHO. That the Big Bang event, our entire universe, started out being smaller than the head of a pin puts the icing on this cake of the absurd. Fortunately however, there are alternatives.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

3) The Big Crunch/Cyclic Model – Most of the standard Big Bang texts deal with the question of what would happen if our Universe’s expansion rate slowed, stopped, and reversed direction (under the attraction of gravity), ultimately contracting in what’s called a “Big Crunch”. The idea is that the Big Crunch would result in another Big Bang and the cycle (BB – BC – BB – BC, etc.) would repeat endlessly. However, since it looks extremely likely that our Universe will never slow, stop, and reverse, it’s a moot point. However, if there’s a Multiverse, then perhaps some other universe did undergo a Big Crunch turning into the Mother of all Black Holes and singularities in the process, so warping the fabric of space and time that the contents of that universe spewed out and became our Big Bang event and hence our Universe.  

4) String Theory’s Colliding Membranes Model – Despite my bucketing string theory for having lacked the ability (to date) to put experimental runs on the board, the mathematics can easily come up with a quantum theory of gravity, a key to understanding what happened before our Big Bang event. The basic idea is that string theory predicts the existence of branes (short for membranes) separated by something called “the bulk”, all existing in higher dimension space-time. If two of these branes (or braneworlds) collide, and our Universe is one of those braneworlds by the way, then that event mirrors what we observe as the Big Bang. The branes would collide, separate and re-collide at regular intervals, a sort of variation on the cyclic universe theme.

Gasperini, Maurizio; The Universe Before the Big Bang: Cosmology and String Theory; Springer, New York; 2008:

Steinhardt, Paul J. & Turok, Neil; Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang; Phoenix, London; 2008:

5) The Dual Matter/Antimatter Model – Nobel Laureate physicist, the late Richard Feynman, proposed that antimatter was the same as normal matter, but matter traveling backwards in time. To the best of my knowledge, not having seen the proposal anywhere else – yet – I did an extreme extrapolation of that to suggest that, because the standard Big Bang event model predicts that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created at that event, that in fact the Big Bang created two universes – ours of normal matter going forward in time; another equal but opposite universe going backwards in time (from our point of view) and composed of what we call antimatter.

6) The Multiverse Model(s) – For reasons way too numerous to mention, one of the current in-topics in cosmology is whether or not our Universe is unique, or one of many, and there are in fact many theoretical roads which lead to a Multiverse. I sum it up this way – if Mother Nature can create one universe (ours), she can create more than one. It is getting to the point by the way, where the evolution of the concept of a Multiverse, or parallel universes or alternative universes has passed from sci-fi through to not just scientific speculation but to the point of becoming nearly a scientific/cosmological requirement.

Carr, Bernard (Editor); Universe or Multiverse?; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2007:

Gribbin, John; In Search of the Multiverse;

Allen Lane, London

; 2009:

Kaku, Michio; Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos; Penguin Books, London; 2005:

Rees, Martin; Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others; Free Press, London; 2002:

Vilenkin, Alex; Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes; Hill & Wang, New York; 2006:

Wolf, Fred Alan; Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds; Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York; 1988:

7) The Steady State/Quasi-Steady State Model – The original Steady State cosmology, proposed by Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, was once a serious rival to the Big Bang cosmology. It suggested that our Universe has always existed and will always exist and wouldn’t change in its overall appearance. The way that was accomplished was to suggest that as the Universe expanded and stuff got diluted, new stuff was being ever created and thus the density of the Universe never changed. However, the Steady State theory has gone the way of the dodo because it failed various observational tests. In particular, the original Steady State theory failed to predict the cosmic microwave background radiation, and couldn’t actually explain it. However, Hoyle, Geoffrey Burbidge and Jayant V. Narlikar have proposed a modified version, which they term the “quasi-steady-state-cosmology”. Unfortunately, Sir Fred passed away before the layman’s text was published.

Casting one’s fate into the wind could the original Steady State theory and the Big Bang theory both be right? Not in our Universe, as one, the Steady State, has no beginning, and one, the Big Bang does (even if both may have no end – at least they are compatible that way). But, if you scale a Steady State universe up – super-size it – then you could have Big Bangs inside the super-sized Steady State. These Big Bangs replace the creation of bits of matter in the original scaled down Steady State. Of course we’re in one of those Big Bang bits contained in a larger super-sized Steady State universe.

Going one weird step further, in a similar way, of our Universe on a micro scale produces all these virtual particles via the vacuum energy which pop into and out of existence, in a super-sized universe, the equivalent might be Big Bangs yielding to Big Crunches – an equivalent of particles coming into existence and popping out of existence.

Burbidge, Geoffrey & Narlikar, Jayant V.; Facts and Speculations in Cosmology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2008: (layman’s version)

Hoyle, Fred, Burbidge, Geoffrey & Narlikar, Jayant V.; A Different Approach to Cosmology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2000: (technical version)

So you see, there really are lots of alternatives to, or variations on, the standard Big Bang cosmological model, and many propose, indeed require, a before-the-Big-Bang scenario.

You’ll note that I never said there wasn’t a Big Bang event, it just wasn’t IMHO 1) a quantum event, and that 2) it occurred in existing space and time, just like every other happening you’ve ever learned about, witnessed, studied in depth or otherwise experienced in one way or another.

Some Alternative Cosmologies: Part One

The standard model of cosmology, the Big Bang event, not only postulates an origin for all matter and energy (out of nothing) but of time and space too (equally out of nothing). First there was nothing; then there was something. The Big Bang cosmology is seriously flawed IMHO. That the Big Bang event, our entire universe, started out being smaller than the head of a pin puts the icing on this cake of the absurd. Fortunately however, there are alternatives.

A key question in modern cosmology, rarely asked, its answer usually assumed, is whether or not the Big Bang event actually created space and time, as well as producing or providing our supply of matter/energy that we observe all around us. The central foundation of the Big Bang event, apart from the observational evidence of an expanding cosmos, was that the Big Bang event somehow created time and space, out of nothing for apparently no reason, and thus, the often assumed answer is “Yes”. But, there’s no evidence for this. No laboratory has ever created time and/or space. There’s no real even theoretical recipe textbook way of doing this.

What if one rejects that premise? So, what if the answer instead is “No”? What if the Big Bang was created out of something, and for a reason? Then it’s a whole new ballgame! If time and space pre-existed the Big Bang event, 13.7 billion years ago, then that suggests that because time existed prior to the Big Bang event, that there was a chain of events (a cause) that led up to and included the Big Bang (an effect). In fact, I invoke the principle of causality (cause and effect) which is one of the, if not the, foundation upon which all science is based, to ‘prove’ (as far as that’s possible, but which is as close to certainty IMHO as makes no odds) that the Big Bang event had a cause. Therefore, there had to have been a before-the-Big-Bang. Hells, bells, even “The Bible” attributes a cause to the origin of the Universe – ‘In the beginning, God created…”. Ditto that for all other major religions.

Now I realize that the nature or properties of time and space (or space-time post Relativity Theory) are a good deal more complicated than described. In fact, whole books have been devoted to the physics and philosophy of same. But, the key point remains. Can space and time (or space-time) actually be created where no space and time (or space-time) existed previously? If not, then space and time (or space-time) has always existed and therefore the Big Bang took place in existing space and time (or space-time).

Faced with a choice between accepting a Big Bang event that had a cause, and a Big Bang event that had no cause, I’ll accept the former (hands down) and consign the latter to the fantasy land occupied by such notables as Santa Claus, James Bond, Little Red Riding Hood, Rocky and Bullwinkle, the Tooth Fairy, Harry Potter, the Easter Bunny, assorted elves, goblins and the Loch Ness Monster! Anyone believing that all of time, space, matter and energy, were created out of absolutely nothing, for absolutely no reason, is living in that same fantasy land.

Of course one shouldn’t be just negative about things. One should try to put forward a constructive alternative(s). If the standard model of the Big Bang event were the only game in town, then this essay would be an exercise in futility. Fortunately for me; unfortunately I guess for proponents of that standard model it’s not the only game in town. Here’s a list of various cosmologies and where you can get more information on (at least) some of them.

1) The Standard Big Bang Model (Pro and Con) – It’s obvious from the above that I feel this is seriously flawed. However, here are several standard texts that deal with it as given, and several that don’t.

Barrow, John D.; The Book of Universes; The Bodley Head, London; 2011:

Clegg, Brian; Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe; St. Martin’s Press, N.Y.; 2009:

Chown, Marcus; Afterglow of Creation: Decoding the Message from the Beginning of Time; Faber and Faber, London; Revised Edition; 2010:

Gilmore, Robert; Once Upon A Universe: Not-So-Grimm Tales of Cosmology; Copernicus Books, New York; 2003:

Goldsmith, Donald; The Runaway Universe: The Race to Find the Future of the Cosmos; Basic Books, New York; 2000:

Guth, Alan H.; The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for A New Theory of Cosmic Origins; Vintage, London; 1998:

Hawking, Stephen; A Brief History of Time; Bantam Books, New York; 2^nd Edition; 1996:

Hawking, Stephen & Mlodinow, Leonard; A Briefer History of Time; Bantam Press, London; 2005:

Silk, Joseph; On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2005:

Silk, Joseph; The Infinite Cosmos: Questions from the Frontiers of Cosmology; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2006:

Singh, Simon; Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About It; Harper Perennial, London; 2005:

2) The Vacuum Energy Model – There are those who claim that empty space has intrinsic properties like the vacuum energy / quantum fluctuations / quantum jitters, and above all ‘dark energy’ (which I think, if not identical to, is at least a kissing cousin of the vacuum energy). So, the more space you have (and space is apparently expanding) the more ‘dark energy’ and/or vacuum energy you have. Call the Universe a box with sides of one unit length. The volume of the Universe is one cubic unit. Now double the length of the sides to two units. That’s an eight-fold increase in volume, hence of activity associated with ‘dark energy’ or the vacuum energy. (The mathematics is straight forward: 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 cubic unit; 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 cubic units.) Regardless whether of not the ‘dark energy’ and/or the vacuum energy is a property of space itself, or manifests itself in some other way, in either case if you have more space you have room for more activity inside your space box. You have more something, so you can apparently get something from nothing, or, in other words, a free lunch! Could the ‘free lunch’ be an entire universe?

In the infinite beginning there was the vacuum energy, a quantum state where energy can create matter – antimatter particle pairs (even if the matter is just composed of virtual particles) and where the particles then annihilate each other back into pure energy again. The vacuum energy resided in space and time (or space-time, post relativity theory). From the vacuum energy (which again is a quantum phenomenon often termed vacuum or quantum fluctuations or the quantum jitters), at least one macro universe arose. This is theoretically possible – just don’t ask me to explain the technical details although I strongly suspect it has an awful lot to do with the quantum mantra that ‘if it’s not forbidden, it’s compulsory’ – at least if you’re willing to wait long enough. Of course maybe more than one universe arose from the vacuum energy. The more the merrier!

Cole, K.C.; ‘The ultimate free lunch’ (in) The Hole in the Universe; Harcourt, San Diego; 2001; p.168-171:

Tryon, E.P.; ‘Is the universe a vacuum fluctuation?’ (in) Nature, Vol.246, 1973; p.396:

Vilenkin, A.; ‘The universe as a quantum fluctuation’ (in) Many Worlds in One: The Search for other Universes; Hill and Wang, New York; 2006; p.183-186:

To be continued…

The Big Bang’s Metaphysical Baggage: Part Two

The Big Bang event is the leading scientific cosmological theory when it comes to explaining the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and simply everything. While the Big Bang event is the leading candidate and the standard model, it’s not the only one. That’s fortunate, because while a fair bit of once theoretical now verified observational evidence supports that standard cosmological model, it also comes as well with a fair bit of metaphysical baggage. It’s mainly that metaphysical baggage that concerns me.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

BIG BANG EVIDENCE

If the Big Bang is so apparently wrong on so many fundamental counts, then what’s the positive evidence for it? What prompts cosmologists to advocate the standard model?

1) Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR): If you have a massive hot explosion (like the Big Bang), and all that heat energy expands and expands, then you’d expect the temperature of the area occupied by that energy to drop, the temperature ever decreasing as the volume that finite amount of energy occupies increases. As the energy expands it gets diluted and thus cools, but can never reach an absolute zero temperature. And that’s just what we find on the scale of the Universe. There’s a fine microwave energy “hiss” representing a temperature a few degrees above absolute zero that’s everywhere in the cosmos. That’s the diluted heat energy of the very hot Big Bang – well it has been a long time and is now spread throughout a lot of volume. That microwave “hiss”, called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), was predicted way before it was discovered, and one bona fide way of confirming evidence for a theory is to make predictions that are born out by experimental observations.

2) Composition of the Universe:  At the theoretical but expected temperatures and pressures of the Big Bang, you might expect a certain amount of some interesting nuclear chemistry to take place and generate various substances. Particle physicists used to calculating such things predicted the relative amounts and types of stuff the Big Bang event would generate, and the theory matches observations to a high degree of accuracy – nearly all hydrogen and helium will be created by a ratio of roughly three to one. All the rest of stuff (very, very minor amounts relative to hydrogen and helium) that we know and love (like oxygen and iron and gold, etc.) was synthesised via the conversion of hydrogen and helium to those heavier elements by nuclear fusion processes – cosmic alchemy – in stars and often resultant supernovae, not in the Big Bang. 

3) Expansion: If you have a large explosion, a really big bang, a violent vomit event, you’d expect the bits that received the most oomph, the bits with the most energy would be expelled the fastest; other bits with less energy would lose the race (if this were a track meet). And thus the bits of spewed stuff spreads out – fastest in front, like a marathon run. A bacterium on one of these bits would see every other bit moving away from it. Some faster bits are outpacing the bacterium inhabited bit; the bacterium occupied bit is outpacing and leaving behind the slower bits. If the bacterium assumes it is standing still, then both the faster and slower moving bits appear to be receding away from it. The bacterium observes all other bits moving away from it at speeds proportional to their distance from it. The bacterium might assume from all of this that its bit was a special bit – the centre bit – but we can see that’s not so. Any bacterium on any of the bits would conclude the same thing. They too would be wrong. Does that mean there was no centre? Of course there was. Equally incorrect would be the conclusion that there was no centre – there was, the site of the original big spew.  

Substitute our local gravitationally bound cluster of galaxies as the bacterium’s bit; all other external galaxies and clusters of galaxies that have no connection to our local galactic group are the other bits, and there’s your analogy. Do we observe these other galactic bits to be moving away from us at velocities proportional to their distance from us? Yes indeed; you bet we do; spot-on! 

As an alternative, let’s look at a marathon analogy. We have this long distance marathon that starts off with say 1000 runners at a specific point in time and space. The finishing line is at a 150 mile radius out and the runners can run in any direction they choose. They, for the sake of this analogy, run at 15, 12, 9, 6 or 3 miles per hour. Let’s look at the relativities from the point of view of the middle runner, the one running at 9 miles per hour. After one hour he sees the 15 mph runner six miles ahead running at a relative velocity of 6 mph; the 12 mph runner 3 miles ahead with a relative velocity of 3 mph; the 6 mph runner 3 miles behind also at a relative velocity of 3 mph; and the 3 mph runner 6 miles behind with a velocity relative to our 9 mph runner of 6 mph – that’s assuming all took off and headed in one direction.

But if the 9 mph runner looks at those running in the exact opposite direction, the anti 3 mph runner is 12 miles behind with a relative velocity between them of 12 mph; the anti 6 mph runner is 15 miles away with, you guessed it a relative velocity difference of 15 mph; the anti 9 mph runner is 18 miles distant, relative velocity 18 mph; the anti 12 mph runner is 21 miles away at 21 mph relative velocity; the anti 15 mph runner is 24 miles away and moving away at 24 mph. Translated, there is a direct correlation between how far away the various runners are, and how fast they are running, which you can graph for verification. After two hours the distances between any two runners moving at different velocities will have doubled; after three hours trebled; after four hours quadrupled, and so on, though each runner is maintaining their respective velocities. Again, the relationship holds for each runner; each runner might think themselves in the centre as all other runners appear to be moving away from that runner’s point of view, yet it’s not the case that any runner is the centre – yet there was a centre when the starting gun went off.

Now kindly note that there is nothing in that trilogy of evidence for the Big Bang that requires that event to have: 1) created time; 2) created space; and 3) to have been a quantum-sized happening.

WHERE’S THE RECIPE BOOK?

The ultimate recipe book that would support the Big Bang event’s causality with the creation of time and space; the origin of matter and energy, has yet to be written by those advocating that very point of view.

There’s no recipe to the best of my knowledge for how to cook up a batch of time!

Equally there’s no recipe for how to bake a cake of space!

How do you mix up a quark salad or a neutrino soup when there’s nothing in the pantry to start off with? Can anyone please give me the recipe?

From an equally empty supermarket you apparently can produce a kinetic energy pie. I want to see the recipe for that!

The Universe, it has been said, is the ultimate free lunch. But a lunch still needs a recipe book. When physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists can actually write and publish such a cookbook, well then its Nobel Prizes all around. Till then, I think they should veer away from statements about the creation of time, space, matter and energy from nothing. Till then, my mantra remains “there is no such thing as a free lunch”.   

BEFORE THE BIG BANG

While I’m convinced there was a before the Big Bang, the nature of that ‘before’ is vague at best since the transition between before the Big Bang through the Big Bang to after the Big Bang is unknown (at present anyway), since the relevant equations break down into pure nonsense under those extremes. What’s probably reasonable is to call whatever existed pre Big Bang a ‘universe’, maybe a ‘universe’ within a larger Multiverse. If conservation laws have any meaning, that ‘universe’ (within a Multiverse perhaps) contained the same amount of stuff (matter and energy) as ours does though the mix might have been different. This pre Big Bang ‘universe’ certainly consisted of volume (space) and change (time). What’s less certain is whether that ‘universe’s’ laws, principles and relationships of physics were the same as ours. If not, just about anything goes. It’s probably more reasonable and constructive to assume their physics is our physics. Translated, to answer Einstein’s famous question, God, or Mother Nature, had no choice in the matter about how to construct or arrange a universe.

WHAT CAUSES EXPLOSIONS?

What caused the Big Bang explosion? Okay, we have a pre Big Bang ‘universe’. Something happened there that caused our Big Bang explosion. What causes explosions (ultimately a lot of kinetic energy) and could they be up to the task of causing our Big Bang spew?

Well fine particulate matter like coal dust or equivalents when in the presence of oxygen and ignited can violently explode and expand. Still, that’s hardly a sufficient means to create our Universe. However, that’s a form of chemical energy, and under the right conditions, chemical energy can be released quickly enough that for all practical purposes you have an explosion – think of gunpowder, a firecracker, sticks of dynamite, hand grenades or their mature equivalents, conventional bombs dropped from aircraft, or even the mini controlled explosions that drive your automobile engine and hence your car. You also have other explosive mixtures, like when sodium hits water, and there are lots more to boot, often the staple of high school chemistry classes. However, chemicals are very inefficient in terms of being converted to energy. Hardly any of the matter gets converted to energy. Chemical energy is not the way to proceed to generate a really big, Big Bang.

Then there is nuclear energy. Atomic energy can be controlled, released steady-as-she-goes, as in electricity-generating nuclear power plants or facilities. Or, nuclear energy can be released in real quick-smart fashion, as in uncontrolled reactions that result in ka-booms that produce mushroom clouds as in thermonuclear weapons; the A-bomb, the H-bomb, etc. Energy is released when atomic nuclei are split apart (fission) or rammed together (fusion). It’s the former that produces our electricity; both can power up those mushroom clouds. Its fusion that powers our Sun (and all the other shinning stars), which in simple form is just one gigantic bomb continuously going off. Only the Sun’s immense inward gravity contains the explosion (outward radiative pressure) keeping it confined to the circular disc we observe in the daytime sky. Alas, fuel eventually runs out, in petrol tanks and in stars. In stars, when the fuel is finally consumed, gravity wins. Stars collapse slowly, or if originally massive enough, really suddenly. These massive stars implode; rebound and explode – a supernova is born. But even a supernova pales in comparison to what the Big Bang must have been like, for even supernovae in particular, and nuclear energy in general, while more efficient in converting matter to energy relative to chemical energy, still would fail any efficiency audit.  

If you want to pass the matter-to-energy efficiency exam, there’s only one game in town: matter meets antimatter! Matter-antimatter reactions produce the most efficient means known to humans of generating explosive energy – 100% efficiency to be precise. Translated, 100% of the matter (and the antimatter) gets converted to energy. No leftovers. If a little bit of matter can generate a massive amount of energy in ultimately what amounts to a relatively highly inefficient nuclear fusion process, imagine what a massive amount of matter meets antimatter could generate!

One could image a super-lump of matter merging with an ever-so-slightly-less super-lump of antimatter. That would in theory result in a super-ultra violent explosion (the Big Bang) but giving us, our Universe, its matter dominance (over antimatter) that we observe. However, I strongly suspect that such super-sized lumps would have to be so massive that they would turn into Black Holes first, and the merger of two Black Holes, even one each of matter and antimatter, just gives you a larger Black Hole. All annihilation hell might be going on inside, but since the explosion can’t escape the pull of a Black Hole’s gravity, it’s of no consequence.

Still, as the most efficient means of generating explosive kinetic energy, getting the biggest bang for your buck, matter-antimatter annihilation needs some further thought and consideration. Is there a way of generating a Big Bang via the matter-antimatter component of a prior, pre-Big Bang ‘universe’ without the massive lumps?

To be continued…

Six Impossible Physics Things

We all like lists: The ten best this, the top dozen that; the five worst ranking next thing. That’s why the popularity of the Guinness Book of Records. In “Alice through the Looking Glass”, the White Queen believed in six impossible things before breakfast. Exactly what those impossible things were is not stated – so here’s mine that reside in the land of physics.

The public’s perception of physics is that everything is pretty cut-and-dried; all the basics are known and it’s now just a routine matter of getting to that next decimal place in accuracy as well as dotting a few more of this and crossing a few more of that. The days of revolutionary physics that we saw in the early 20^th Century with quantum mechanics and relativity are long gone now. Well, all that’s not quite the case. There’s a lot that’s proposed, even accepted by most physicists, that’s not really set in concrete. I think some mainstream physics, even some proposed challenges to the mainstream, are so far off the beaten track, way down south in La-La Land, as to be, for all practical purposes, as near to impossible as makes no odds. I think physics is in for a few more revolutions yet.   

1) String Theory is one of those proposed challenges to the mainstream and replaces the standard model of particle physics by substituting tiny vibrating strings for all those particles, like electrons and quarks and neutrinos, etc. that we know so well. Different vibration rates determine whether something is an electron or an up-quark or a down-quark or a neutrino, etc. That in itself isn’t too bad an alteration. Where string theory falls off the rails IMHO is that in order to work, the Universe has got to be comprised of not the standard three special dimensions and the one dimension in time we’re used to existing in, but a total of ten, even eleven dimensions. Sorry, it’s those extra dimensions that tip the weirdness quotient off the scales. String Theory wouldn’t be too bad were there the slightest tad of experimental evidence for string ‘particles’ and those additional dimensions. There isn’t. That wouldn’t be all that unusual if String Theory were something that was brand new. Alas, the theory has been around for way over three decades now, and it still just resides as pure hypothetical, albeit elegant (and extremely difficult to understand), mathematics. String Theory just is not going anywhere. It’s a dead end. As far as I’m concerned, String Theory is impossible physics until such time as even the tiniest shred of experimental evidence is on the board. I’m not holding my breath.

2) The standard model of particle physics often states that elementary particles are ‘Point Particles’. So what are ‘Point Particles’? These are the fundamental particles that are in existence not as little billiard balls but as geometric points, points that are without extension (volume). In other words, a point has zero dimensions – no length, no width, no height, no area and no volume. There’s really something screwy somewhere if that is to be believable! The fundamental flaw is that particles, like the electron, have mass. You cannot cram mass, however tiny, into zero volume! So, an electron must have a volume, therefore an electron cannot be a ‘Point Particle”. So what’s the rational? Though never explicitly stated, I suspect it has an awful lot to do with keeping the maths simple! It’s easier to deal with a ‘Point Particle’ when crunching the numbers than adding in all sorts of other variables and complications like mass and volume. Unfortunately, I’ve read way too many physics tomes where the concept of zero volume seems to be taken literally – at face value. If that’s the case, then those who apparently advocate such a position are akin to the White Queen.

3) Lack of causality in a process really bothers me. It’s akin to getting something from nothing – a free lunch. There are two such ‘free lunches’ advocated. One is the Big Bang scenario that kick-started our Universe off. After a lot of physics and chemistry, that ultimately led to biological entities - you and me. I’ll have more, much more to say about the Big Bang’s free lunch later on.

Meantime, free lunch number two - radioactive decay. The standard scenario goes that one has an unstable atom, or unstable atomic nucleus actually. To achieve greater stability, the atomic nucleus spits out various bits and pieces – alpha particles, beta particles and/or gamma rays. The problem is, there is no rhyme or reason to exactly why and when, especially when, those bits and pieces get spat out. You can take two identical radioactive atomic nuclei. One might go ‘poof’ after a few seconds; the other ‘decides’ to hang tight for several millions of years before undertaking that change of pace. Physicists argue that if there is no rhyme or reason why both don’t behave in identical fashions, seeing as how they are identical atomic nuclei, then causality doesn’t operate. There is no external trigger. There is no overriding cause-and-effect in operation.

Nuts to that! If an atomic nucleus goes ‘poof’, there is a cause-and-effect reason. If two go ‘poof’ at different times, there is a cause-and-effect reason for this too. While the two atomic nuclei might be identical, their surrounding environment isn’t, IMHO. That’s the hidden variable. Take two identical human twins; one stays at home safe and sound while the other goes off to war, bullets flying around him. Though identical, one goes ‘poof’ before the other. There is cause-and-effect in operation. And so it is with unstable atomic nuclei. A ‘bullet’ hits one; no ‘bullet’ hits the other until much, much later on down the track. What that ‘bullet’ is, is open to question, but there’s a ‘bullet’ out there somewhere. Unstable atomic nuclei don’t decay or go ‘poof’ for absolutely no logical reason at all. There is a trigger. Radioactive decay, with no causality attached, as a free lunch, is IMHO an impossibility of physics.     

4) Quantum Gravity (the Theory of Everything) is the Holy Grail of all things physics. Why? Well, there are two types of physics. There is classical physics, the physics you have to deal with in your day-to-day macro world. Then there is quantum physics, the physics of the very, very tiny; the micro worlds which for all practical purposes are, if not irrelevant, at least unnoticed in your day-to-day existence. Another distinction is that macro or classical physics is a continuum, like a ruler. Quantum or micro physics are bits and pieces; discrete units, like money. You can have one and three quarter inches; you can’t have one and three quarter cents. So what’s the problem? Well, there are four fundamental forces that control life, the Universe and everything. Three of these are quantum forces or operate from or within the realm of the micro-micro-microscopic. This trilogy is comprised of the strong nuclear force (which hold atomic nuclei together); the weak nuclear force (which allows atomic nuclei to break apart – radioactivity) and electromagnetism. The other and final force however is a continuum – gravity. It’s like there being three brothers and one sister! As in the sibling’s case, physicists suspect that all four are born of one parentage. Alas, the DNA doesn’t match up!  Gravity apparently has different parents! Now that just won’t do. One Universe should allow for, indeed require, one ultimate parentage. Alas, despite all the best efforts of all the finest physics in the world over many generations, the three brothers just don’t share a common DNA with their alleged sister. My resolution is that perhaps that really is the case. The idea that there is quantum gravity is just a straightforward impossibility. There are indeed two sets of parents – one resulting in quantum triplets; the other producing an only child – gravity. The two are unrelated.

5) The Big Bang event is the proposed theory for the origin of our Universe some 13.7 billion years ago. It is supported by various observations: so far so good. Where it falls off the rails is that it also apparently requires, according to the standard Big Bang model, that the creation of our Universe wasn’t from something, but from nothing. That nothing not only spawned matter and energy (two sides of the same coin), but also created both time and space. Oh, and all of this happened in a created space way less than the volume of your standard atom. Now that’s small!

Now number one, IMHO it’s impossible to create from scratch matter and energy. It’s a violation of the basic physics drummed into every high school science student – “matter (and energy) can neither be created nor destroyed but only changed in form”.

Number two is that causality demands that a cause creates an effect – the Big Bang was an effect, something caused it, and that something could only have preceded it in time. Therefore the Big Bang did not, could not, create time. The Big Bang happened while the clock was already ticking.

Number three is that you cannot create a something within a zero volume. Therefore the Big Bang did not create space. It happened in existing space.

Lastly, it’s absurd in the extreme to believe that our entire Universe – everything – could be squeezed into a volume of atomic dimensions. So, yes there was a Big Bang, but there is a lot of associated baggage which is totally impossible by anything approaching what’s taught in Logic 101.  

6) Your own reality probably isn’t what you think it is. Take your favourite character from your favourite video game or simulation. That character would be blissfully unaware that they ‘lived’ in a virtual reality. They would be blissfully unaware that there were thousands of copies (or clones) of them (since presumably more than one copy of the game or simulation exists). They would be blissfully unaware that there were thousands of other video games and simulations (universes) in existence.

Now the 64 cent question is, how can you be sure that you too aren’t someone else’s simulated video game or virtual reality character? You can’t be – you’re blissfully unaware or ignorant one way or the other. Maybe you are; maybe you aren’t.

But if your favourite character had to calculate the odds that they and their universe were unique, they would, at gut-level, say they were a one-off. Their universe was a one-off too. But you know better. You know there are thousands of clones of your character and thousands of universes – one universe per unique video game title or simulation. 

So is there just one you and one Universe – our Universe – or, one step on up the line are you someone else’s (or something else’s) favourite character; their puppet who’s pulling your reality strings? The odds are vast indeed in favour of what you think is physical reality is actually, while not impossible, highly improbable. That’s because there are many, many, many scenarios that could create a virtual you; only one scenario that would create a really real you. The upshot is that you probably don’t exist in the manner you think you do!

In conclusion, I suspect the applecart of physics will be upset yet again, and again, and again.