Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Origin of the Universe

Take a peek at http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/forums/t/32309.aspx and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cosmologyandcosmogony/ for a spirited debate on the validity of the HBB theory. The Astronomy forum on cosmogony is a discussion of which I have got really tired recently. I am seeking change-over to an exchange about the implications of a quantum dynamical hypothesis for an inflationary initiation of the HBB.

There seems to be no recognition of such implications. If the universe really did begin as a point particle, called an "inflaton", that appeared in a "false vacuum" by virtue of the tendencey of quantum particles to simply materialize out of nothingness along with their antiparticles, then many questions seem to be settled. But, new ones appear, as is usually the case in science.

For instance, virtual quantum particles that appear out of nothing along with their antiparticles annihillate each other almost instantly. They are called virtual because their lifetime is so brief and they cannot be detected directly. The existence of virtual particles can be proven by studies of muon decay in powerful particle accelerators and by other means. For a virtual particle to remain in existence and become detectable in its own right, it must appear at the event horizon of a black whole, as has been shown by Steven Hawking.

The particle and antiparticle fail to mutually annihilate because one falls into the black hole and the other escapes. If the universe began as such a virtual particle, does this imply that it is or was near the event horizon of an ultramassive black hole?

Our universe may still be in the vicinity of our antiparticle, our anti-universe. It may remain close enough for the gravitational fields of both to overlap. There is much evidence that the reason gravity is difficult to incorporate into unified field theories, grand unified theories or "theories of everything" is that it is unlike the other forces. It can "leak" out of our universe and thus appear to be a very weak force when, in fact, it is the strongest of all the forces. There are quantum phenomena that would allow our universe and our anti-universe to remain near each other for a long time, say, 13.7 billion years, without mutual annihilation.

When quantum particles, which are also quantum wave packets, are detected statistically or even individually, they appear as waveforms and as their interference waveforms as well. In the case of whole universes, these may be regarded as humongous collective quantum states of all the matter and energy that they subsume. Then, there are quantum States A and interference State B for our particle, our universe's waveform, and States A' and B' for our antiparticle or anti-universe. Furthermore, these interference states, in order to be mathematically well described, must be able to hybridize. They can thus form the superpositions of states: A+B, A-B, A'+B', A'-B', A+A', B+B', A-A', B-B', B'+A, B'-A, A'+B, A'-B. Now, gravity can leak between all these states, there being 16 in all. So, the quantity of matter and energy in any one state may be only 1/16 th of the total. This is 0.0625 of the whole. Or else, maybe it is only about 0.04 of the total, depending on how you add up the States and the individual components of the States. If one eliminates the null states, those having a (-) sign, as possessing no gravitational field, one arrives at either 1/22 or 1/10 of the whole that any one state would contribute snd this would represent 0.045 or 0.10 of the whole. If one takes only the primary States into account then only A, B, A' and B' would superpose. Any one of them contributes 1/4 or 0.25 of the whole. There might be other reasonable combinations.

From our perspective within, say, State A, for instance, we can detect the existence of the whole by various means but we can account for as much as, say, 0.25 of it through the inventory of matter and energy in our universe. Maybe we can account for only 0.04 of it. Regardless, we are tempted to postulate some form of Dark Energy and Dark Matter to make the balance sheet work out right. We do this because we are not used to thinking in terms of the quantum dynamical metaphor and because we simply cannot see these other States. They are invisible and intangible.

The mystery of the "missing antimatter" is also accounted for in this scheme. There is no antimatter in our universe because it was all gathered into existence within our anti-universe and its interference wave, the States A' and B' and, perhaps, the other superposed States with primed components.But, there is no Dark Energy or Dark Matter. And, because this "missing mass" is all in some other universe, forever seperated from us by all means except through gravity, we will never be able to detect any of it directly.

Dark Matter is accounted for by MOND, modified Newtonian dynamics. The superposition of States requires that a small constant should be added to the right side of Newton's equation for his Law of Gravity. This small constant represents the "missing matter" in galaxies and galactic clusters. It results from leakage of the gravitational field between the superposed States, which may be so similar that they have galaxies and galactic clusters in almost the same positions but in different orientations. In other words, they are not quite congruent. So, the leakage appears as a smeared out, blurry, spherically distributed small but finite contribution to these cosmological objects' gravitational fields.

The matter and energy inventory of our universe does not balance because we have not taken into account the superposition of States. Statistical analysis of the distribution of energy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) shows that it is projected upon the sky as if from a flat surface. This implies that the geometry of the universe is flat, not curved like Einstein thought. For it to be flat, however, means that there is an enormous amount of matter and energy in the universe that is unaccounted for. Dark Energy was postulated as a source of this "missing mass", energy having a mass-equivalence through Einstein's famous equation. This idea gained traction when some supernovae were observed at enormous distances. Their brightness showed that they are further away than their red-shifts might indicate if the Hubble constant is applied. This means they are receding faster than is expected. The interpretation has been that this discrepancy amounts to acceleration of our universe's expansion NOW, in the more modern era, even though the more rapidly receding supernovae are observed to have existed THEN, in the most distant past.

It is a backward interpretation that succeeds only because it is perfectly backward and therefore it works - sort of. But, then it runs into reality. To explain this acceleration, Dark Energy was invoked as an ad hoc bandaid to patch the wound that this "observation" made in the s0-called "standard model" of the universe and its origin. So, Dark Energy fills the universe with its "missing mass". But, its nature is unknown and it appears to be an untestable hypothesis. There are conjectures about it - that it may be a new kind of field called "quintessence" that results in cosmological objects repelling each other when they are placed at great distances or that it may result from Einstein's cosmological constant. Ignored is the possibility that the data are being misinterpreted.

Instead, we are all supposed to be happy with an almost supernatural explanation for what amounts to sloppy hypothesizing.

Why do so many distinguished scientists take Dark Energy seriously? It is because they can see no other way past the conundrum that they have themselves created out of whole cloth. They are all trained in quantum mechanics and dynamics but the implication to cosmogony of this, the most well-tested theory in all of science, is so anti-intuitive that they refuse to consider it. So, they go for a hypothesis that is even more anti-intuitive.

Well Stanley, NOW look at the fine mess that you've got us into!

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In a future post I shall explain how the assumption that the Hubble constant is indeed a constant has helped get us all into this mess.

You can see which are the leaders of the herd by watching for the ones who are out front when the stampede changes direction. If we look for the leaders at the time when acceleration became popular and when Dark Energy was first proposed, we can tell who might really be responsible for this joke. Then, we might be able to tell better why this mistake has propagated so far for so long. The Science Citation Index might be useful for this. One of its features is a list of citations by scientists and how often that citation was cited by other scientists in their own papers. It is difficult for me to spend much time in libraries. But, I shall find out if the SCI is available online. In another future post, I shall report on my finding.