Click on the title of this post to navigate to the site where this quote originates:
"I have done my own studies on the Origins of the Universe and as far as our Origin is concerned it can only be theorized and not conclusived. Scientific Investigations had lead to some convincing theories but nothing more. As I posted before what we need to find is the ORIGIN OF SPACE which will lead to the ORIGINS OF ALL THINGS. The Oigins of the Universe is NOT THE ORIGIN OF SPACE. The Universe is like a guest of Space -- it occupies it. I believe that somehow science is missing an oversight. I will tried to explain it again --- space is an entity which at one time contain nothing -- it was empty. This means that after so much time, in our sense of time, something came to occupied it. That something was a pollution to the whole of Space. The problem that I'm having is, just how this something came into being --- thats my problem................................"
* * * * *
FluFlu writes that the stuff inside the universe must be separate from the universe itself. The matter and energy within it are of a different sort from the space it occupies. This is the classical view.
But, the Theory of Relativity, under intense scrutiny since 1905, has shown that matter, energy, space and time are all of the same fundamental essence. Space-time includes matter and energy by means of its plasticity and metamorphic talent. It is still called a "theory" only because we have not yet been able to observe the inner workings of other universes that might possess this same thread in their fabric. If we ever do observe other universes and we can discern such a thread, Einstein's theory will be referred to as the "Law of Relativity". It might be subsumed by some greater theory or law, but this has happened before to Newton's Laws, for instance, which were circumscribed by the "Theory" of Relativity. But they are still called laws.
The only theory in science that is more thoroughly confirmed is Quantum Theory. It too is called a theory only because we do not have instances of other universes to study wherein we can find this as a common thread. We should ignore the technicality because it is clear that "Quantum Law" governs the very nature of existence itself.
To be or not to be. That is the quantum question. Theoretically, there cannot be other universes that do not follow quantum law.
According to the current "standard model" of the universe and its origin, the expanding horizon that we can see with our telescopes may be extrapolated back to even earlier times. Due to the smooth nature of the trajectory that the universe seems to follow, this extrapolation can be extended almost to the very beginning. To do this, it helps to postulate an initial exponential "inflationary" expansion.
But, we cannot extrapolate all the way to t = 0, due only to another technicality. This limit is "theoretically" imposed by the idea that when the universe's history is run backward in time to the point when it must have been so very extremely dense and hot, then the basis for our normal intuitive understanding of physical laws breaks down, apparently.
But, I think that, solely for purely aesthetic reasons, physicists do not like to extrapolate the history of the universe to a point when it was smaller than a tiny distance derived from the definition of Planck's constant and younger than a fraction of a second smaller than a "Planck time". Well, O.K. It may not be necessary to go further than this anyway, but still, we do it.
According to the inflationary expansion hypothesis, the universe began when a virtual "point particle" materialized in the false vacuum and it failed to annihilate with its antiparticle, or else such annihilation is unecessary when virtual particles materialize in the vast energy sea of the false vacuum. Another view may be that there are orthogonal timelines to our own and annihilation simply has not and never will occur on our timeline.
The false vacuum acts like a huge quantity of superheated water. And the universe, remember, is a quantum entity: a particle or wave packet that is governed by quantum principles.
Quantum science is statistical in nature. It expresses events and processes in terms of probabilities. The appearance of a virtual particle is far more likely to occur in a very high energy state than in a lower one. This is because there are an infinite number of possible very high energy states while the number of potential lower energy states is limited by the fact that one arm of the infinite progression is cut off at zero. And, remember, the false vacuum is already a vast reservoir of almost infinite energy.
So, when the universe materialized, it instantly acted like a particle of dust in a cauldron of superheated water. This superheated "fluid" began to change phase. The initial catalytic high energy particle and a parcel of the false vacuum began to expand from a point, or from very near a point, to occupy a much larger and larger volume. Energy continuously transferred from the false vacuum to the new true vacuum of space as we know it, helping to fill it with energy in the form of extremely high energy light photons. As the universe expanded further, it began to cool, as expansion normally cools the contents of a system. High energy, intensely dense photons can indeed behave this way, as laser esperiments show.
And, its entropy also began to rise dramatically. When it had cooled far enough, various forms of matter began to condense out of that still small, dense volume of intense light. When it had cooled further, electrons suddenly were able to couple with protons, or with deuterium and helium nuclei, to give a dense neutral gas that was finally transparent to light itself. Previously, the matter/energy soup had been opaque.
The light that was present when this recombination process was complete is now detectable as the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The light that had not condensed into matter was initially of very high energy, distributed according to a Maxwell distribution. The maximum in this distribution is now red-shifted down into the microwave region. But, because it exists within a very broad distribution, there are still a few remnants of this light that are presently still of an extremely high energy. This may be the source of some of the high energy cosmic rays that have been detected.
The hydrogen, deuterium and helium went on to form stars and galaxies while the universe expanded further. Some of the stars where so enormous that they "burned" their hydrgen/deuterium nuclear fuel very quickly and exploded as supernovae.
The cores of supernovae get so hot during this event and their existence in this state is limited in time so much that heavier elements like boron, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, sodium, iron and all the rest of the elements of the periodic table were able to form and become isolated. Once they were suddenly exposed to the lower density and temperatures of intertellar space, the heavier elements were "frozen out" and preserved. This residue of heavy elements mixed with leftover hydrogen and deuterium to form new stars. After several cycles like this, the newer stars had enough of these elements to become surrounded by protoplanetary disks of dust. From this dust came the planets, including our Earth and all its life.
Yes, as Carl Sagan mused, we are stardust: from this dust we came and to dust we shall return
Showing posts with label hot big bang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hot big bang. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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!
* * * * *
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.
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!
* * * * *
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
