What I want to explain here is far away from most cosmology as presently understood. It came about through a very different set of known facts (the study of cycles), although these are not known to most people in the scientific world. However, what is put forward is quite consistent with known physics, indeed I would argue that it MUST result from known physics. It is not consistent with Big Bang...

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What I want to explain here is far away from most cosmology as presently understood. It came about through a very different set of known facts (the study of cycles), although these are not known to most people in the scientific world. However, what is put forward is quite consistent with known physics, indeed I would argue that it MUST result from known physics. It is not consistent with Big Bang Theory, because it suggests that the Universe is vastly more ancient than that. I call it The Harmonics Theory, and it can most easily be understood as arising from a single simple axiom:

"The Universe consists of a standing wave which develops harmonically related standing waves and each of these does the same."

This axiom is consistent with any field equations such as Maxwell's equations, Quantum Mechanics or Relativity. The fact that each wave produces harmonics is strongly related to non-linear wave equations. I would argue that the ultimate wave equations of the Universe must be non-linear. If they were linear then we would have no senses, because light would pass through our eyes without interaction, and the same for all other senses.

The consequences of this axiom are what makes it interesting. A single fundamental wave, let us call it frequency 1, loses energy gradually to waves of frequency 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 ... and then each of these does the same. This means that frequency 2 loses energy to 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 ... and 3 loses energy to 6, 9, 12, 15 ... while 4 loses energy to 8, 12, 16 ... and 5 to 10, 15 .. and 6 to 12, 18 ... and so on.

It is immediately evident that some frequencies such as 12 are produced in many ways while others such as primes are produced in 1 or few ways.

When calculations are done to high order (I have done to about 10^53) it is found that there are certain patterns that almost repeat, and certain orders of magnitude where especially strong harmonics of the original wave form. The first of these especially strong harmonics is 34560 and others tend to be near powers of that number or at about powers of 10^4.5 which is found to correspond quite well to the observed spacing (spacing is naturally inversely related to frequency) of the sequence:

observable universe, galaxies, stars, planets, moons, .... cells, atoms, nucleons.

Within each of the levels of very strong structure there are secondary strong structures typically at ratio of 12, 24, 28, or 20 above and below the strongest one of that level. So the outer planets are the dominant structure but the inner planets are spaced at 1/28 of the distances from the Sun. Likewise, spiral galaxies are dominant, but satellite galaxies are spaced at 1/12 of the distance between spirals.

At all levels of structure there are observable tendency towards quanta or periodicity. At some levels of the structure, both the wave spacings and cycle periods are observable, giving strong support to the existence of standing wave structures: (matching cycles periods in years to wavelengths in light years is correct because the waves propagate with the velocity of light)

a. The megawalls of galaxies are at a spacing of 588 million light years according to present estimates of the Hubble constant. A cycle of 586 million years is found in geology according to Afanasiev, geology professor at Moscow University.

b. Cycles with periods 11.1, 9.6, 8.88, 5.92, 4.44 years are commonly reported according to Edward R Dewey who founded the Foundation for the Study of Cycles. My own analysis of nearby stars shows that they more commonly are spaced at distances in light years near these same figures.

c. The spacing of outer planets indicate waves of 80 and 160 light minutes and such periods are found in many solar phenomena. This period is also indicated by galaxy cores and other phenomena throughout the universe. See papers by Kotov.

For more details, background and graphics please see:

Harmonics Theory - The Physics and Maths

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An alternative model for all of cosmology exits in self-similar fractal scale-invariant cosmology between quantum and macroscopic cosmology, or simply fractal scale cosmology. The term for this field of research is more specific and can be considered a branch, or sub-field, of the more generic field of fractal cosmology which includes fractal patterns in matter distributions between all...

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An alternative model for all of cosmology exits in self-similar fractal scale-invariant cosmology between quantum and macroscopic cosmology, or simply fractal scale cosmology. The term for this field of research is more specific and can be considered a branch, or sub-field, of the more generic field of fractal cosmology which includes fractal patterns in matter distributions between all cosmological matter objects. This field of research is not simply fractal cosmology. My research into this field, into a specific model, directly correlates a scale relation between atomic quantum systems and macroscopic cosmological systems through a uniquely explicit framework. The framework reconciles many disparaging differences between the two scaled systems and is fairly intuitive (simple). The results have been thus far very interesting.

Click here for latest details on this model

Click here for older details on this model

In this specific sub-field of research in fractal cosmology, there are actually very few individuals doing remotely similar research. The notable few that are, besides myself, are Robert L. Oldershaw and Laurent Nottale. Our specific models are currently fundamentally different though the premise is loosely the same, that macroscopic cosmological systems are a scale invariant self-similar representation of quantum systems through some form of scale transforming framework, and that subsequently other macroscopic systems have quantum scaled relatives. I urge you to explore our individual models to get a fulsome perspective of all the research being done. Notably the quality of research material differs. I concede I have not been as polished as the others, but in response I turn the focus to my results.

My own research into my specific model has derived very interesting results which have been my only driving motivation to pursue this research and my model. Whether or not this line of research is correct or not is inconsequential as the importance lies in exploring the possibility to either validate or invalidate it. My current belief is that this field of research will be fruitful, through I maybe proven wrong, my results indicate otherwise.

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Israel,

Yes. And it's actually worse than that. The Concordance model (If an 'observational' cosmologist view will do) was just the 'closest approximation' that could be agreed. It's highly inconsistent with current findings, including CMBR anisotropies.

You refer to; "the mechanism used to make light .. change its wavelength as it travels long distances." Unbelievably No! According...

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Israel,

Yes. And it's actually worse than that. The Concordance model (If an 'observational' cosmologist view will do) was just the 'closest approximation' that could be agreed. It's highly inconsistent with current findings, including CMBR anisotropies.

You refer to; "the mechanism used to make light .. change its wavelength as it travels long distances." Unbelievably No! According to current 'Baryon Acoustic nonsense theory' light 'decouples' in the early universe, so no change on the journey is allowed for in redshift theory except in the local emitter area. It quite beggars belief really as that conflicts with most other astronomy! There are in fact many effects that could add to redshift. I listed them on an APS blog page recently (can't find it right now) but the very expansion itself on the 12bn yr journey is one!

A few of the inconsistencies are officially admitted, such as here;

Ostriker & Nabb 2012 (specifically on galaxy evolution, but way behind mine here which resolves the anomalies);

Helical CMBR asymmetry and also; giving the complex and unique 'anomalous' CMB Anisotropic pattern precisely predicted by the DFM;

Copi et al 2010 Large-Angle Anomalies in the CMB.

But it's 'head in the sand' as editors wont publish any other theory. You have to smile!. The DFM give pre 'big bang (not!) conditions, resolves around 9/10 of the anomalies, and logically derives slowly decelerating expansion with 'joined up' cosmology.

I've taken the 9 page strait jacket off my essay, which now more readably explains the foundations. Academia.edu Jan 2013 It's only just lodged, do please give me your thoughts (The main paper including the full list of effects not allowed for is still in draft).

So most admit current theory is quite inconsistent, but wont look at any alternatives as they're different from current theory! Bring back Spock I say.

Best wishes

Peter

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A New Theory on the Origin of Our Universe

A new physical model of our Universe, called Model Mechanics, has been formulated. The current state of our Universe as interpreted by Model Mechanics is as follows: Space isoccupied by a stationary, structured and elastic light-conducting medium called the EMatrix.A mass-bearing particle called the S-Particle is the only fundamental particle...

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A New Theory on the Origin of Our Universe

A new physical model of our Universe, called Model Mechanics, has been formulated. The current state of our Universe as interpreted by Model Mechanics is as follows: Space isoccupied by a stationary, structured and elastic light-conducting medium called the EMatrix.A mass-bearing particle called the S-Particle is the only fundamental particle existsin our Universe. The different absolute motions of the S-Particles in the E-Matrix gives rise

to all the observed particles such as the electron and the different quarks. Also, the absolute motions of the S-Particles or S-Particle Systems give rise to all the forces and processes of nature. Model Mechanics leads to a new theory of gravity called Doppler Theory of Gravity(DTG) and DTG unites with the electromagnetic and nuclear forces naturally [1, 2]. It alsoleads to a new theory of relativity called Improved Relativity Theory (IRT). IRT includes

SRT as a subset. However, unlike SRT, the equations of IRT are valid in all

environments….including gravity.

In cosmology, Model Mechanics provides natural solutions to the following problematic cosmological observations of the current theories:

1. The observed accelerated expansion of the far reached regions of the universe disagrees with the predictions.

2. The observed rotational curves of galaxies disagree with the predictions of current theories.

3. The observed paths of travel of the spacecrafts Pioneer 10 and 11 disagree with the predictions of current theories.

4. The observable universe appears to have a much larger horizon than it is allowed by its observed age.

5. The GRT description of gravity gives rise to the observed flatness problem of the universe.

6. Dark matter....this is the free S-Particles that are not in orbiting motions around the E-Strings.

7. Dark energy....this is a repulsive effect arises from the interacting objects following the divergent structure of the E-Matrix.

The above Model Mechanical description of our current Universe leads to a new interpretation for the origin of our Universe. This new interpretation provides explanation for the following mysteries of our universe:

1. How the electrons and up quarks were produced during the Big Bang.

2. Why is there a preponderance of matter over anti-matter in our universe.



A paper entitled "The Origin of the Universe as Interpreted by Model Mechanics" is available in the following link:

http://www.modelmechanics.org/2011universe.pdf

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I would like to propose an alternative model of the origin and evolution of the universe. It starts from the assumption that the universe is finite with a spacetime boundary. In the Big Bang model we implicitly assume the existence of a time boundary. The general theory of relativity introduces the concept of spacetime so that time and space do not have a separate independent existence. This...

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I would like to propose an alternative model of the origin and evolution of the universe. It starts from the assumption that the universe is finite with a spacetime boundary. In the Big Bang model we implicitly assume the existence of a time boundary. The general theory of relativity introduces the concept of spacetime so that time and space do not have a separate independent existence. This implies the existence of a space boundary as well as a time boundary.

All that exists in the universe lies with this spacetime boundary so it makes no sense to talk about "before the beginning" or "outside of the space boundary". It is the expansion of space at the boundary which is the cause of the general expansion of space which is observed. Going back in time towards time zero in this model means that we are contracting towards a zero volume, zero energy universe which is more satisfactory than the hot big bang singularity which proposes higher and higher energy densities as you approach time zero.

In this expanding universe the total energy must remain at zero so that the change in spacetime curvature associated with the expansion of space must lead to matter formation. Another way of looking at this is to consider the Schwarzschild relationship between the amount of mass in a region and its radius: r = 2Gm/c². As the universe expands there is a requirement for the formation of matter arising from the gravitational potential energy of space.

This matter formation appears from observations to have taken place when the universe was 378,000 years old since the cosmic microwave background radiation has a redshift of z = 1,100. In this model the CMBR is directly associated with matter formation. The process of galaxy formation is proposed as the initial formation of galactic black holes due to the release of tension in the fabric of spacetime. Then star formation follows as a result of the galactic black-hole formation. The material in the disk or sphere of the galaxy causes the motion of stars in the galaxies to be as observed. No dark matter. No dark energy.

This idea is explained a little more fully in:

universe

Richard

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Israel Perez and Peter Jackson from Feb. 5, 2013

Yes. It’s called the STOE.

The Scalar Theory of Everything (STOE) is a self-consistent model that was derived from considerations of galaxies and galaxy clusters. The STOE explains many mysterious phenomena from diverse observational disciplines. The STOE is simpler and more encompassing than other models. An important part of the...

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Israel Perez and Peter Jackson from Feb. 5, 2013

Yes. It’s called the STOE.

The Scalar Theory of Everything (STOE) is a self-consistent model that was derived from considerations of galaxies and galaxy clusters. The STOE explains many mysterious phenomena from diverse observational disciplines. The STOE is simpler and more encompassing than other models. An important part of the STOE is to show the correspondence to general relativity and quantum mechanics. This allows the successes of the current models to be incorporated into the STOE while explaining problem observations.

The STOE posits spiral galaxies are sources and elliptical galaxies are sinks of our universe. The sources are continually injecting the constituents of our universe and sinks are continually ejecting the constituents of our universe. This explains the cooling flows and the differing observations between spiral and elliptical galaxies. The infall of matter in spiral galaxies is modeled as a cooling flow, also.

The simplest structure that can conceptually produce a wide range of differing observations is an interaction of two different types of entities. The simplest form of the small is light. Light in experiments suggests two types of behavior, particle-like and wave-like. Therefore, the STOE posits two components and their interaction produce differing structures, more complex objects, and the diverse behavior observed in our universe. One component that can produce wave-like behavior is a plenum named after Descartes' plenum. The plenum is infinitely divisible and ubiquitous. The density of the plenum produces a scalar potential $\rho$ field.

The particle-like component of our universe is called a hod. Hods cause a static warp in the $\rho$ field in accordance with the Newtonian spherical property. ``Static'' such as caused by a stationary electron in a stationary electromagnetic field because hods are neither a Source nor a Sink of energy. Hods merely modifies the $\rho$ field. Because the $\rho$ field near hods must attract other hods, the hods decrease the $\rho$ field. Only the divergence of the plenum density acts on only the surface of the hod. The Michelson-Morley experiment indicates the flow of the plenum has no effect on the hod perpendicular to its surface. The Michelson-Morley experiment is also why the Lorentz Ether Theory and gravitational ether developed. Therefore, the plenum is not a fluid. The limit of the speed of light implies the hod is two-dimensional because that presents a zero cross section in the direction of travel through the plenum. The minimum plenum density is zero. Therefore, the hod surface marks a discontinuity in the plenum of zero $\rho$.

The forces are applied by contact rather than action-at-a-distance. The forces are hod to plenum, plenum to plenum, and plenum to hod.

Supporting this conjecture is the observation that there are two types of physical energy, potential and kinetic. Hods cause potential energy. The plenum causes kinetic energy. The interaction is a third form of force in our universe that may be likened to ``spirit'', which is what Liebniz was attempting to show the “spirit’s” existence.

The hods' influence on the plenum implies some plenum is ``bound'' to the hod and causes close hods to be bound to other hods. This structure is matter. The plenum content of matter causes the inertial characteristics. The hods cause the gravitational effects. The equality of potential energy and kinetic energy in matter results in the weak equivalence principle. The STOE speculates the amount of plenum bound to hods depends on the $\rho$ environment of the matter. The relative amount of plenum per hod determines the equivalence principle.

Matter or bodies are structures of hods and plenum. The divergence of the $\rho$ field on the surface of a hod then causes matter attraction according to established gravitational physics and causes the frequency change of electromagnetic signals.

The $\rho$ at a point in space is the heat equation solution for point sources, sinks, and matter in a three dimensional space.

My book (self published) describes the history and current STOE. My Chapter 14 of “Black Holes and Galaxy Formation”, 2010, eds. A. D. Wachter and R. J. Propst, Nova Science Publishers, Inc. (New York, USA) lists several speculations for future investigation.

I am an independent researcher and am the only one working on the STOE.

My next efforts are to examine QSOs and the interference pattern for single photons. If QSOs are as H. Arp [“Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science”, Aperon, (Montreal, Canada)] suggests, then they should improve the redshift-Cepheid distance correlation according to the STOE.

A key to understanding the small is to understand light. The Fractal Principle suggests the understanding must be consistent with everyday world understanding. The wave-particle duality and Schrodinger’s cat ideas fail the Fractal Principle. The STOE model of photon interference patterns produced good correlation to light observations. Its weakness was explaining experiments with one photon at a time in the experiment. The current calculation needed several photons at a time in the experiment even if only one passed through one of the slits at a time. Afshar et al. (2007) used a low intensity light such that only one photon at a time could be in the experiment. I think this is because the photon interacts with the mask and screen. Photons are obeying Bohm and the TIQM model of quantum mechanics. Because the plenum waves travel much faster than photons, The backward-in-time wave of TIQM may be the reflection of the induced plenum wave from the mask and screen.

Hodge

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Dynamic Dimensionality

Zeeya, Fellows, I write as a keen tenderfoot in your fascinating discussions,

Alternatively... imagine the nascent Universe which, at its point of inception, has zero dimensions. Next imagine an initial extremely rapid early expansion (inflation?) of that point universe (singularity), through a closed unit interval [0,1] fractional dimensionality, into a...

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Dynamic Dimensionality

Zeeya, Fellows, I write as a keen tenderfoot in your fascinating discussions,

Alternatively... imagine the nascent Universe which, at its point of inception, has zero dimensions. Next imagine an initial extremely rapid early expansion (inflation?) of that point universe (singularity), through a closed unit interval [0,1] fractional dimensionality, into a Universe which fleetingly has integer-one spatial dimension. Now imagine that one dimensional universe seamlessly continuing to expand, but with decelerating expansion, through a second sequential closed unit interval [0,1] fractional dimensionality, momentarily establishing a Universe which has integer-two spatial dimensions (surface of last scattering?). From that transient two dimensional state, imagine further continuous expansion of the Universe being realised through a third sequential closed unit interval [0,1] fractional dimensionality, creating a Universe which has integer-three spatial dimensions.

Consider; might this have been how the current state of our universe emerged (unfurled) into its three spatial dimensions? For a visual metaphor, kindly reflect on the unfurling of a fern from a seed, through a growing sprout (koru), then revealing a frond surface, to become a fully formed space-filling plant? Applying Occams razor, is this imagined continuous progression of dynamic dimensionality (seamlessly from 0 to 1, to 2, to 3 spatial dimensions) not more physically and mathematically less complicated than a cataclysmic and instant short-cut leap from 0 to 3 spatial dimensions at the Big Bang (and why did it immediately settle at 3 dimensions)?

Consider further; might the closed unit interval [0,1] fractional dimensionality, be what we perceive as the illusion of Time as it is counted or clocked between successive integer spatial dimensions? Perhaps our current Universe, which has three clearly revealed spatial dimensions, is continuing to undergo dynamic dimensional and cosmological co-expansion, with dimensional unfurling through Time (closed unit interval [0,1] fractional dimensionality) continuing towards four revealed spatial dimensions and beyond in the future?

Consider; might there be a reservoir of furled dimensionality which is revealing itself through unfurling from 0 dimensions at the point of inception, through 0 to 1, to 2, to the present 3 spatial dimensions and beyond in the future to 4, to 5, to 6, to 7, to 8, to say 9 or 10 spatial dimensions with late accelerating expansion? Perhaps such an unfurling reservoir of 9 or 10 furled dimensions is related to those multiple dimensions postulated in the foundations of String Theories?

Intriguingly; in such a Universe with fundamentally dynamic dimensionality, the furled equal factors of revealed space would represent the furled capacity constrained to a revealed scale. Such dimensional and cosmological co-expansion may thus be proportional to a very simple radical expression, where the radicand is the number of revealed dimensions and the index is the remainder of furled dimensions where total dimensionality is fixed. Interestingly, modelling with this simple radical expression, the ensuing extent of dimensional and cosmological co-expansion appears to exhibit characteristics of early inflation, intermediate decelerating expansion, nearly linear expansion and late accelerating expansion. For those interested in graphic numerical illustrations of this simple radical expression, kindly look at this short paper http://figshare.com/articles/Dimensional_and_Cosmological_Co
_Expansion_through_Dynamic_Dimensionality/1036499

Hoping to get some scientific feedback and perhaps even develop joint author traction on these ideas with esteemed forum members...

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The crisis in the fundamental physics, including cosmology - the "crisis of interpretation and representation" (T.Romanovskaya), the "crisis of understanding" (K.Kopeykin), it is the crisis of the philosophical foundations, especially in understanding of space and time.

The way to overcome the crisis - is a further deepening of the Geometry, but rather in the "origin of Geometry"...

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The crisis in the fundamental physics, including cosmology - the "crisis of interpretation and representation" (T.Romanovskaya), the "crisis of understanding" (K.Kopeykin), it is the crisis of the philosophical foundations, especially in understanding of space and time.

The way to overcome the crisis - is a further deepening of the Geometry, but rather in the "origin of Geometry" (E.Husserl) and the dialectico - ontological unification of matter, search for the absolute foundations of physics and knowledge, the absolute generating structure. Necessary to consider limiting (absolute, unconditional) states of matter: absolute motion (rotation, "vortex", discretuum) + absolute rest (linear state, continuum)) + absolute wave ("figaro" of states = discretuum + continuum).

The geometrized basis, the triune Universum: "universum-sphere" + "universum-cube" + "universum-cylinder". Each limit (absolute, unconditional) state of its way - the absolute vector, the vector of the absolute state. This "triangle" of absolute states of matter - the ontological representation of the triune foundation - "origin of geometry", the beginning of physics, the beginning, framework and carcas of knowledge. This is what David Gross calls - "general framework structure" (D.Gross, an interview "Iz chego sostoit prostranstvo-vremya/What is in the space-time) the same for the QM and for GM. Today QM and GM are parametrical theories without ontologic justification.

Semantically poor picture of the world "In the beginning was the Big Bang" should be replaced with a picture of the world "In the beginning was the Logos (MetaLaw, the "law of laws")...", the base of which the "General framework structure" or the "Absolute generating (maternal) structure" . This is the «Cosmic Origin».

Should always be keep in mind the philosophical covenant of John Wheeler:

"Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers".

It would be nice if FQXi will hold the new contest of cosmological models: «Cosmic Origins». In the world today there is a lot of alternative views and models , other than «the classic big-bang model».

Carlo Rovelli made a good conclusion in the article SCIENCE IS NOT ABOUT CERTAINTY: PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS :

"This is a standard idea of how science works, which implies that science is about empirical content, the true interesting relevant content of science is its empirical content. Since theories change, the empirical content is the solid part of what science is. Now, there's something disturbing, for me as a theoretical scientist, in all this. I feel that something is missing. Something of the story is missing. I've been asking to myself what is this thing missing? I'm not sure I have the answer, but I want to present some ideas on something else which science is.

This is particularly relevant today in science, and particularly in physics, because if I'm allowed to be polemical, in my field, in fundamental theoretical physics, it is 30 years that we fail. There hasn't been a major success in theoretical physics in the last few decades, after the standard model, somehow. Of course there are ideas. These ideas might turn out to be right. Loop quantum gravity might turn out to be right, or not. String theory might turn out to be right, or not. But we don't know, and for the moment, nature has not said yes in any sense.

I suspect that this might be in part because of the wrong ideas we have about science, and because methodologically we are doing something wrong, at least in theoretical physics, and perhaps also in other sciences."

So, in the search for primordial structure of the Cosmos (Universum). The first step: from science formulas to science forms.

Regards,

Vladimir Rogozhin

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Hello,

I have no direct business with cosmology, but I have a deep interest in fractal geometry and have recently made discoveries about their properties that are seem to only point to and have direct business with QM and cosmology.

Yesterday I published my findings.

I heard Max Tegmark mention this forum and am hoping it is the right place to introduce different...

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Hello,

I have no direct business with cosmology, but I have a deep interest in fractal geometry and have recently made discoveries about their properties that are seem to only point to and have direct business with QM and cosmology.

Yesterday I published my findings.

I heard Max Tegmark mention this forum and am hoping it is the right place to introduce different perspectives.

Blair

Fractal Geometry a Possible Explanation to the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe and Other Standard ΛCMB Model Anomalies

Abstract:

One of the great questions in modern cosmology today is what is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe. It has been recently discovered this property is not unique to the universe; trees also do it and trees are fractals. Do fractals offer insight to the accelerating expansion a property of the universe and more?

In this investigation the classical (Koch snowflake) fractal was inverted to model and record observations from within an iterating fractal set and at a static (measured) position. New triangles sizes were held constant allowing earlier triangles in the set to expand as the set iterated.

Velocities and accelerations were calculated for both the area of the total fractal, and the distance between points within the fractal set using classical kinematic equations. The inverted fractal was also tested for the Hubble's Law.

It was discovered that the area(s) expanded exponentially; and as a consequence, the distances between points – from any location within the set – receded away from the observer, at exponentially increasing velocities and accelerations. The model was consistent with the standard ΛCMB model of cosmology and demonstrated: a singularity Big Bang beginning, infinite beginnings; homogeneous isotropic expansion consistent with the CMB; an expansion rate capable of explaining the early inflation epoch; Hubble's Law – with a Hubble diagram and Hubble's constant; and accelerating expansion with a ‘cosmological’ constant. It was concluded that the universe behaves as a general fractal object. Thought the findings have obvious relevance to the study of cosmology, they may also give insight into: the recently discovered accelerating growth rate of trees; the empty quantum like nature of the atom; and possibly our perception value of events with the passage of time.

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The house in general and Peter, John M, Steve and Tom in particular,

I still need help on this CMBR. We, i.e. Peter, John M and I just had some discussion on the 'Black hole' thread but I think it would be more appropriate to discuss here and not distract on the black hole topic.

For such an important evidence as CMBR it would appear we are not yet clear about certain things. I...

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The house in general and Peter, John M, Steve and Tom in particular,

I still need help on this CMBR. We, i.e. Peter, John M and I just had some discussion on the 'Black hole' thread but I think it would be more appropriate to discuss here and not distract on the black hole topic.

For such an important evidence as CMBR it would appear we are not yet clear about certain things. I thought I was right about what I know but I may be wrong and also need doubts clarified. IF a smoke analogy is appropriate, regarding the CMBR...

(1) Is this to be seen as a fog present everywhere in the universe or (2) is it a smoke streaming towards us from all directions or (3) is there a third model?

In some accounts I see different statements that make it difficult to be clear. For instance, it is said not to have any discernible direction or source, in which case it would resemble a fog (model 1) since smoke would have a direction from a source, but in other descriptions it is said to bear the imprints of what happened in earlier epochs, suggesting that it has been travelling towards us carrying those imprints (model 2).

On the view that is propagating towards us, it makes sense that the imprints of what it encounters on the way are on it enabling us to glimpse scenarios from earlier epochs. But there doesn't seem to be a discernible direction in space that one can say points towards the edges of the universe or point towards the past, which would have been the case for radiation coming from such a direction.

John M in reply, says "The surface of last scattering is wherever that light emanates from, be it the sun, stars and planets, or the walls of the room and the people in it, that provide us with the information about them. Now this background radiation has no such apparent source of 'last scattering'", which as I pointed out would seem to imply that we reading this are also part of that 'surface of last scattering'.

Some clarification is therefore appreciated given the importance of the CMBR evidence to cosmology…

Regards,

Akinbo

PS. John, M, it would seem there is a difference between light been redshifted because it is being cooled by some mechanism like reducing energy density and light being redshifted because the source is moving away.

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Steve,

Bulk diffuse plasma shocks moving wrt each other is fundamental astrophysics, and I specify 'fermion' pairs as electron/positron pairs, which with free protons constitute 'pure plasma'. I agree 'earth bound' plasma conventions are a little different (I too have studies plasmas as well as optics and am a member of the APS Plasma Physics group) so can't be directly transferred....

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Steve,

Bulk diffuse plasma shocks moving wrt each other is fundamental astrophysics, and I specify 'fermion' pairs as electron/positron pairs, which with free protons constitute 'pure plasma'. I agree 'earth bound' plasma conventions are a little different (I too have studies plasmas as well as optics and am a member of the APS Plasma Physics group) so can't be directly transferred.

In recent years we have greatly increased knowledge about space plasma coupling characteristics, density, distribution and motions (including far higher density and positron fraction that theorised!). I use that latest data not old inconsistent assumptions and theory.

You seem incredulous about 'plasma clouds' refracting light (including localising it's speed to the electron rest frame c). I'm not surprised. It's a new analysis, and it's predictions have been met; as soon as the VLB Array came on line! i.e. (worded rather carefully);

"We report on the first detection of the theoretically-predicted rare phenomenon of multiple parsec-scale imaging of an active galactic nucleus induced by refractive effects due to localized foreground electron density enhancements, e.g., in an AU-scale plasma lens(es) in the ionized component of the Galactic interstellar medium."

Pushkarev A.B., et al., VLBA observations A&A 2013.

The 'Smith Cloud' is a rare unattached plasma cloud in rapid motion wrt our galaxy. Within the Smith Cloud (subject to extinction distance) light and CMB radiation does c wrt the Smith Cloud bulk rest frame. That's how it refracts and lenses images!; by absorption and re-emission (Compton/Raman atomic scattering).

Now if you propose that the electrons of an identical plasma cloud or planetary shock elsewhere doing say 0.5c wrt Earth re-scatters light at anything OTHER than the local 'c' then perhaps your 'single absolute rest frame' for the universe may have a theoretical basis. Otherwise it still fails on simple logic, as it did 200 years ago. I've found the 'hierachical' (small system within larger system) model is the only one which doesn't. Do you understand it?

Lastly; You site Smoot, but did you know even his website has 'ether' in the title!? He found and specified a hierarchy of local system speeds building up to the 'axis of evil' but his analysis ended with the paradox unresolved so he suggested 'local' variable expansions! Also "The dipole is a frame dependent quantity" is entirely consistent with inertial systems (frames) as real Lagrangian bulk 'flow' rest frames. Do you refute that all bodies have surrounding plasma shocks in the bodies rest frame, and/or that bodies (and shocks) all move wrt each other? and/or that propagation speed in all systems isn't 'c'? (SR).

Best wishes

Peter

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Steve,

A logical explanation of 'superluminal jets' is "quantitatively consistent with observations that do not have other explanations". As is 'kinetic decoupling', dwarf spheroid formation, the recovery of Snell's Law at the near'far field transition and the dozens of other predictions. But I agree if you ignore all those and assume that refractive index is frame invariant then the model...

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Steve,

A logical explanation of 'superluminal jets' is "quantitatively consistent with observations that do not have other explanations". As is 'kinetic decoupling', dwarf spheroid formation, the recovery of Snell's Law at the near'far field transition and the dozens of other predictions. But I agree if you ignore all those and assume that refractive index is frame invariant then the model offers nothing.

That would be interesting, as a beam of light passing through identical glass lenses on the ISS and Earth would do so at different speeds! Now that IS a novel prediction! I suspect you simply didn't understand that all I axiomise is light passing through at the SAME speed in each lens rest frame irrespective of relative motion. Thus the relative v, which is the Earth/ISS v. The axiom may be too simple to comprehend.

I do NOT then suggest some 'red shift' just due to 'passing through' a lens. There is a red OR blue shift dependent on the direction of that relative medium v. That's as found by observation. Indeed we can precisely estimate galaxy rotational velocities from the shifts. The 'lensing' time delays found are then also logically derived).

Plasma (normal space plasma not 'dfm') has what's termed an 'optical depth'. It simply behaves like a giant lens, but because n=1 it is 'spectroscopically transparent'. The only way we can detect it is than from the effects of it's bulk motion, which is precisely what Atlas 3D analysed and the VLBA confirmed (though theoretically problematic without understanding the rather hidden kinetic implications of 'atomic scattering')

"...plasma has enough invisible and undetectable mass to account for dark matter, which is an invisible and undetectable mass...is this explanation progress?" I'm not sure if that data itself can be "progress", but it certainly leads to more coherent understanding. It's only very recently we've discovered that the densities of 'plasma >> dust' particles are a number of orders of magnitude greater than the 'weak field approximation' assumption, partly due to the 'transparency' of plasma. If you have preconceptions which disagree with the actual densities you're not alone, but just look them up, or I can provide plenty more links.

The ontology is like that giant jigsaw puzzle. The very fact that it all fits into place and gives a beautiful coherent picture is evidence supporting it's veracity. Of course there may be other ways it fits, but the current SM is certainly not one! It's been well proved however that it can be successfully denied by avoiding looking at it (that needs no more re-verification!) which avoids the trauma of challenging fundamentals (in the same way as cosmic contraction I surmise!).

Best wishes

Peter

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DARK ENERGY AND EXPANDING SPACE

The expansion rate of the cosmos is apparently accelerating which is contrary to not only common sense but what generations of cosmologists would have bet the family farm on; a decelerating cosmos is what any sane astronomer would have predicted. So something is screwy somewhere, but there are so many problems with an accelerating Universe and what drives...

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DARK ENERGY AND EXPANDING SPACE

The expansion rate of the cosmos is apparently accelerating which is contrary to not only common sense but what generations of cosmologists would have bet the family farm on; a decelerating cosmos is what any sane astronomer would have predicted. So something is screwy somewhere, but there are so many problems with an accelerating Universe and what drives that acceleration that cosmologists might not have to worry about losing their family farms.

We have been aware that our Universe has been expanding for going on nearly a century now. Of course we are also aware, from a quite considerable earlier time that what goes up must come down. In other words, gravity grabs. The Universe has lots and lots of gravity, so presumably, what goes up (i.e. – the expansion rate) must come down (i.e. – the expansion rate must at least slow down, maybe even stop and reverse). Cosmologists were very interested in finding out exactly what the rate of deceleration was. How fast was the Universe’s expansion rate decreasing? It’s like you car might be going uphill, but at an ever slower and slower rate.

Okay, so, several teams of astronomers did the relevant observations and crunched the numbers and guess what – the Universe’s expansion rate was accelerating, gravity be damned. That’s sort of like driving your car uphill and having it go faster and faster without you putting the pedal to the metal. Well, that surely was an unexpected result. So, they needed an explanation. The astronomers (team leaders anyway) got the Nobel Prize, but that was for the discovery, not for the explanation. You see, there wasn't any explanation. So, what do we want – an epicycle. When do we want it – now! What was the ad-hoc epicycle to be? It was called “Dark Energy”, a sort of anti-gravity that was pushing the Universe apart faster and faster and faster. Trouble is, nobody then, or now, has the foggiest idea what Dark Energy is, yet in order to account for what this epicycle does, it must represent some roughly 70% of what makes the Universe up. That’s a lot of epicycle that lacks any plausible explanation. Did someone mention rabbits and hats?

When considering all things cosmological, it’s become apparent that astronomers only observe about 4% of the matter plus energy that should be present. That is, about 96% of the matter plus energy that should be present and detectable to account for the observed behaviour of our observable universe is missing! Now 1% might be understandable given measurement uncertainty (error bars), but hardly 96%! So, cosmologists have postulated concepts termed ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ to make up the deficit. However, nobody has the foggiest idea what exactly ‘Dark Matter’* and ‘Dark Energy’ actually are. Neither has actually been detected, either out there, or in the laboratory down here – obviously. The anomaly here is that ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ are both ad hoc theoretical concepts to make sense of various astronomical observations, but without benefit of any actual observation of ‘Dark Matter’ and/or ‘Dark Energy ’to back things up. That’s a rather slight-of-hand trick, and until cosmologists put actual observational money on the board where their theoretical mouth is, it’s all an anomalous pie-in-the-cosmic-sky.

Further, there is a quintet of really big problems with Dark Energy.

Problem One: Conservation laws – the bedrock of physics that are rammed down your throat in high school science - are violated. Apparently the density of Dark Energy remains constant while the volume of the Universe expands. Expanding space creates additional Dark Energy which further expands space which creates additional Dark Energy; round and round in an endless cycle. That’s something from nothing. That’s a free lunch. Of course the phrase “Dark Energy” was just tacked on to ‘explain’ the accelerating universe, though it explains nothing. We, to repeat my earlier observation, still haven’t a clue what Dark Energy actually is, even though the concept has now entered its mid-teenage years, enough time you’d think for cosmologists to pin this anomaly down.

Problem Two: If Dark Energy is real energy, and it has to be in order to provide universal oomph, expand the universe and accelerate the cosmos; and energy can be converted to matter (Einstein’s famous equation), what kind of matter can Dark Energy turn into – traditional stuff like standard matter and antimatter or something exotic?

Problem Three: Space, IMHO, is a not-thing. You can’t hold it, measure it, or detect it with your senses. Space cannot clobber you over the head. It has as much reality as the concept of Wednesday. Space is not a physical something. Space has no effect on anything else. Energy is a thing. You can measure it and detect it and note the various effects it has on other things. A thing (energy) cannot be a property of a not-thing; a not-thing cannot contain properties that are things.

Problem Four: Ultimately, if space really is a thing, a thing that’s a something, then space apparently has the property of elasticity. If space is expanding and carrying matter (i.e. – anything from individual atoms through entire galaxies and clusters of galaxies) along for the ride piggyback style (as opposed to individual atoms through to entire galaxies and clusters of galaxies expanding throughout existing space) then one would expect to observe our Sun-Earth distance getting greater; the Moon-Earth** distance expanding more rapidly than tidal forces allow for; our entire solar system’s diameter increasing; ditto the diameter of entire galaxies. Alas, there’s no such evidence. Galaxies that we see today that existed billions of years ago (because it took their light that long to reach us) have the same sort of geometrical size and structure as galaxies that are much closer (hence more recent in age) to us. Galaxies don’t expand so the space within them isn't expanding either. That just leaves the voids between galaxies, or between clusters of galaxies to do the expanding. But that begs the question of why the discrimination between the space that’s between Earth and the Moon (not expanding) and the space between our galaxy and Andromeda Galaxy (not expanding) or the space between our local cluster of galaxies and our nearest other cluster of galaxies (expanding). It’s all nonsense. If space itself is expanding; all of space is expanding, not just select bits or areas.

Problem Five: Despite promoting expanding space via an intrinsic property of space, the Dark Energy, as the greatest thing since sliced bread, no scientist can give you the equation; the actual recipe for creating space, especially the creation of space out of absolutely nothing. Wouldn't we all like to create some extra space in the home out of absolutely nothing? Just spray some Dark Energy out of a can and you've instantly added an extra bedroom or pool-room to your abode. It’s easy to say that space is constantly being created via Dark Energy, but hardcore equations speak louder than waffle-words.

Something is really screwy somewhere!

*The requirement for Dark Matter to explain gravitational anomalies goes back to the early 1930’s, so cosmologists/particle physicists have had eighty years to figure this out, but without (to date), any runs on the board.

**The Moon-Earth distance can be monitored to extreme precision, as in down to inches, thanks to the mirrors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts.

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A PARALLEL ANALOGY BETWEEN SUPERNOVAE & COSMOLOGY

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which...

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A PARALLEL ANALOGY BETWEEN SUPERNOVAE & COSMOLOGY

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which is detailed here). Supernovae gave me a possible clue to a cyclic Multiverse.

Cosmology is the study of the evolution of our Universe as a whole – from birth to death, or maybe birth to death to rebirth. Stellar objects and events, like nova and supernovae are in the cosmic scheme of things almost insignificant in comparison. It’s like comparing the life and times of an individual insect to the life and times of Planet Earth. Still, there might be a lot to be gleamed from comparing the life and death of our Universe to the life and death of the stars within that Universe.

A cyclic universe – one with birth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth, death, etc. is a far more philosophically satisfying universe than a one-off born, live, and fade-away universe, which is what our Universe appears to be. A cyclic universe is probably more pleasing because such a concept more closely mirrors nearly all local reality – the cyclic four seasons endlessly repeating; day-night-day-night; New Moon – Full Moon – New Moon – Full Moon; evaporation – rainfall – evaporation – rainfall; the carbon cycle; the nitrogen cycle; you name it, it recycles. Okay, maybe you don’t. You maybe are like our Universe – born, live yet doomed to fade-away. But the broader human species continues to recycle – birth, death, birth, death, etc. The names and the faces change, but the human cycle continues. Actually all of your stuff will recycle too. Part of you today might be part of a cockroach 100 years down the track! That aside, the Big Question is how can you generate a cyclic universe, one which eventually goes from initial Big Bang expansion to one which contracts into a Big Crunch then rebounds again? How do you generate that from a Big Bang universe that’s apparently doomed to keep expanding, ever expanding, forever, and ever, amen?

The standard model of cosmology suggests that our Universe had a one-off moment of creation (the Big Bang) and will over trillions of years surrender to entropy (the evolution of a state of order to ultimate disorder) and die an eventual “heat death” (where the temperature – heat energy, the ultimate end product of all other forms of energy conversion – is exactly uniform throughout). So we go from Once Upon A Time/In the Beginning through to Cosmic Evolution through to The End. But that’s the narrow view. What if there were many universes, and they could interact? Then there might not be an overall Once Upon A Time/In the Beginning and ultimately The End. The parallel analogy with supernovae explains all.

THE STORY OF THE SUPERNOVAE: We've all heard of supernovae, and while quite rare, there has been one visible to the naked eye recently that occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud (SN 1987A), a nearby companion mini-galaxy to our own visible from the Southern Hemisphere. It was first witnessed on Planet Earth after the light flash travelled thousands upon thousands of years, traversing intergalactic and interstellar space, to arrive locally on the 23rd of February 1987. It was the first visible naked eye supernovae event since 1604 – rare indeed.

Their cosmic story and cosmic significance is fairly straight forward. Stars form out of interstellar gas, dust and perhaps larger debris. This mix of stuff slowly but surely contracts, all under the mutual attraction of their individual gravities that eventually brings it all together in a lump sum – if massive enough an embryo star forms. The intense pressures heat up the interior, and if the embryo star is indeed massive enough, the heat and pressure will be enough to cause the gas, etc. to start to fuse, usually starting with hydrogen fusing to helium and releasing [solar] energy in that conversion – nuclear fusion is what powers the stars.

Now interstellar gas and dust clouds are not all uniform in size. So, some stars fire up with the bare minimum of stuff, other stars fire up with a lot of stuff in their core bellies, but not too much. These are sort-of like Goldilocks stars; stars like our Sun. A few stars formed from such a thick region of gas and dust that they were ‘born’ obese.

How massive newborn stars are will determine their lifespan and their fate. The relationship tends to be that the thinner you are at birth, the longer you’ll live. Very skinny stars are very frugal with their fuel. These misers have stellar life-spans perhaps measured in roughly a trillion or so years. When their fuel finally runs out, they just slowly, ever so slowly, fade away into a white dwarf then finally as a dark and cold black dwarf cinder. Average stars, like our Sun, are less thrifty, but even so manage a lifespan of roughly ten billion years. Average stars will go through a more complex evolution, but ultimately they too will settle down to a long retirement, cooling, ever cooling when the fuel is exhausted. They too will go out not with a bang but with a whimper.

However, some stars are born just plain fat! Some stars can also put on weight after-the-fact by stealing mass from a nearby companion star via their stronger gravity and close proximity. However the star gets fat, fat in a stellar sense (lots and lots of mass), the more massive a star is, the greater the temperatures and pressures in that star’s core, and the faster nuclear fusion reactions go. Really massive stars live life in the fast lane; they live fast; they die young. And they don’t go out with a whimper, but with a bang – sometimes endlessly hiccuping or burping or vomiting – novas; sometimes imploding due to massive gravity when their core fuel gets close to empty (leaving a bit of a void) which causes a massive rebound and a super-ultra-violent explosion called a supernovae. That really does spew their stellar guts back into the interstellar winds. While there are several different types of supernovae that have ultimately different origins, that’s of no concern in this context. The important bit is that stuff gets spewed back into space and eventually recycled.

Exploding stars, the novae but especially the supernovae return not only gas and dust and debris back to the interstellar medium, but enriched gas, dust and debris since the enormous temperatures and pressures cook up the heavier elements (elements more complex than helium), elements that are essential for life to ultimately grace the cosmos with its presence.

Gas and dust from one star’s ‘burp’ intersect with gas and dust from another star’s ‘hiccup’ and maybe intermingle with the ‘spewing vomit’ from a supernovae, all ultimately contracting again under mutual gravity to form a second, even third generation star and stellar planetary system. Our Sun is at least a third generation star and is made up of former spewed stuff, some of which is now heavier than just hydrogen and helium; ditto the Sun’s family of planets, including Planet Earth. If it weren't for supernovae, we wouldn't be here. The late astronomer, Carl Sagan, said it best when he stated that we are indeed the end product of “star-stuff”.

So the basic cosmic cycle is stars form from interstellar gas and dust; stars live; some stars spew their guts of gas and dust back out into interstellar space, providing the raw materials for the next generation of stars. You get creation – destruction – creation – destruction, over and over again, albeit at different times in different places.

THE PARALLEL COSMOLOGY ANALOGY: So what the hell does the above have to do with cosmology? There’s lots of stars; only one Universe – or is that really the case?

One set of assumptions has to be made from the get-go. I postulate that the cosmos, all that is and ever will be, is infinite in both space and in time. This assumption is more philosophical than scientific. If you ever postulate a finite cosmos, a cosmos with a boundary, a fixed volume, you must, of necessity, deal with that maverick who asks, “Well, what exists beyond that boundary?” If you postulate a beginning and/or an end, that same maverick will annoy you with, “Well, what happened before that or after that?” It’s just easier to wrap your head around a cosmos that is infinite; a cosmos that had no beginning and will have no end. Unfortunate, the standard model of cosmology postulates a beginning, and a fade-away ending and a finite amount of stuff and space to stuff it into.

We all know the standard scientific spiel to the creation of our Universe – no, not the Biblical Book of Genesis, but the Big Bang event. Well, already we have a parallel analogy – supernovae are mini big bang events.

Now the Big Bang and other associated real time events like an additional oomph of an in the beginning “inflation” have resulted in our Universe expanding, ever expanding. There’s lots of observational evidence for the Big Bang and the expansion. So, lots of stuff has been vomited out into the cosmos from a unique point in time – 13.7 billion years ago. But if there was a finite Big Bang, then there must also have been a finite amount of space to stuff that vomit into. That violates my philosophical ideals of not only no boundary in time, but no bounds in space for our Universe to strut its stuff in.

Anyway, we have expansion of stuff spreading out through space. Well, that’s a parallel analogy with the spewing out of gas and dust via stars going nova and supernovae. Now common-sense might suggest that the original oomph of the Big Bang would eventually run out of puff as the one-way attraction of gravity would slow the expansion down, and down, and down and eventually cause the expansion to come to a grinding halt – then reverse, as gravity would cause everything to contract once again back into the configuration from which the Big Bang arose from. In other words, the expected fate of our Universe was to be born from a Big Bang, live and evolve, and die in a Big Crunch.

Alas, life isn't that simple – Mother Nature is a baseball pitcher with a wicked curveball or knuckleball. Mother Nature’s a real Hall-of-Fame bitch. A bunch of astronomical party-poopers discovered that the expansion of the Universe isn't slowing down; it bloody well accelerating! Thus, no Big Crunch is on the horizon in the far future, only a “Heat Death” as entropy ends up ruling the roost. So runs the standard spiel. So how are you going to eventually generate a second or third or one-hundredth generation universe out of that mess? But that’s the limited view. Let’s climb the cosmic mountain for the grander picture.

What comes now to the rescue is that there is more than one Big Bang (maxi nova or supernovae) universe; more than one expansion event, because, there’s more than one universe, more than just our Universe, within that infinite (in space and time) cosmos referred to above.

And so, while from our limited point of view there is our Universe, and thus we assume the one-and-only-Universe, in fact there is more – much, much more. If you have a lot of universes in the infinite cosmos, all of which started off with a supernovae-like Big Bang, then, sooner or later, the spew of one (or more) will intersect with the spew of another (or more).

Thus, a lot of expanding regions of individual universes will intersect, eventually. That intersect region will, under combined gravities, start to slow things down. That region will slowly, but surely, start to contract. That contraction will eventually collapse into a Big Crunch. It seems something cyclic has happened. Lots of Big Bangs have generated a Big Crunch – actually a lot of Big Crunches when you look at the total 3-D picture. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions B, C, and D in one direction, say left. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions E, F and G in the opposite direction. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions H, I, J and K in the up direction; Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with the L, and M Big Bangs in the downward direction, and so on and so forth. The Big Crunches (resulting in the Mother of all Black Holes) will be symmetrical, turning inside out into newly vomiting Big Bangs, or White Holes.

And so the endlessly cycling of stellar nova/supernova (expansion) to intersecting clouds of interstellar gas/dust (contractions) thus forming new stellar objects, some of which will in turn vomit up their quota of interstellar gas/dust has a parallel though many orders of magnitude on up the line. Endlessly cycling Big Bang expansions intersect to form high gravity regions which contract (in Big Crunches) to form new regions where conditions are ripe for a new Big Bang event. And so we have an overall cyclic cosmos or Multiverse (because there is more than one universe). There’s not just one expanding universe slowing down and contracting to ultimate reform that one expanding universe again, but a whole pot-pourri of universes that are all just expanding, intersecting and contracting, comings and goings at different times and places – night and day; Full Moon to New Moon; evaporation to rainfall; etc.

In fact, if you think about it, the idea that there are many expanding and contracting universes is but the next logical step in what was already proven to be a natural progression. Once upon a time Terra Firma (Earth) was the centre of the Universe. Now we know better. Then the Sun and solar system were elevated to that centre. Now we know better because there are lots of suns and planets that have eliminated our uniqueness. Once upon a time our galaxy was considered to be the be-all-and-end-all of the Universe. Today we know better. There are billions and billions of other galaxies out there and our galaxy occupies no special place in space or time and has no special appearance. So, I suggest that our Universe is now not the centre of the universe (or cosmos to avoid confusion). We have a Multiverse! And we have a cyclic Multiverse that should satisfy that philosophical idealistic need referred to at the start.

Now it could already be the case that part of our expanding Universe has recently (even as in multi-millions of years ago) intersected part of another expanding universe. However, we wouldn't be aware of that because it’s going to take billions of years for the visuals and the gravitational effects to reach us from such vast distances.

There is at least one interesting consequence inherent in this cyclic Multiverse. Even if there is only a finite amount of mass and energy in this infinite volume (and that doesn't have to be the case since you can fit an infinite amount of mass and energy into an infinite volume), that finite mass and energy has been recycled an infinite number of times in the unending past and will be recycled an infinite number of times in the unending future. The upshot of that is that anything and everything that can happen, everything that is not forbidden by the laws, principles and relationships inherent in nature, has happened an infinite number of times and will happen again an infinite number of times. Translated, you have and will exist again, and again, and again in all possible permutations. Although the ‘you’ that is reading this in the ‘now’ will fade away (that sounds nicer than kicking-the-bucket), take comfort in that another ‘you’, somewhere and somewhen else, will carry on carrying on the ‘you’ tradition.

JOHN’S COSMOLOGY-SUPERNOVAE ANALOGY IN SUMMARY FORM

Cosmology 1) Contracting Universe

Cosmology 2) Big Crunch (Black Hole forms)

Cosmology 3) Transition to…

Cosmology 4) Big Bang (White Hole spews)

Cosmology 5) Expanding Universe

Cosmology 6) Intersection with another expanding universe

Cosmology 7) Gravity rules, brings stuff together

Cosmology 8) New universe forms

Cosmology 9) New Universe contracts

Supernovae 1) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

Supernovae 2) Massive star forms

Supernovae 3) Star undergoes normal stellar life span

Supernovae 4) Supernovae happens

Supernovae 5) Expulsion of supernovae gas/dust into interstellar space

Supernovae 6) Interaction with other interstellar gas/dust

Supernovae 7) Gravity rules, brings stuff together

Supernovae 8) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

POINT AND COUNTERPOINT: Now your standard run-of-the-mill, everyday professor of cosmology at your local leading university will tell you if you show her this scenario that it is all total nonsense and I should be consigned to the pseudoscientific rubbish bin. The Big Bang event was a one-off; it was unique; a one-of-a-kind; a fluke; just one of those interesting things that happen for no apparent reason at all. The Big Bang event created time and space, therefore time and space cannot be infinite.

But – and you’ll read that non-observation (since there was no one around including any lady cosmologists to observe at the Big Bang’s ground zero) in any standard book on the subject – it’s nonsense, a scientific fabrication if you really stop and think about it. You cannot create something, anything, without having the space already available to create it into. That applies to the creation of our Universe as much as it applies to creating widgets in a factory! To claim otherwise is to suggest all of ultimate creation was kick-started in no space at all! How absurd is that! Consider the reverse: how can you cram everything into nothing?

Now if the Big Bang event did not, could not, create space way back then, then space is not undergoing continuous creation today contrary to the standard spiel. Translated, space is not expanding into some non-space region of non-existence. Expanding space either means that space is getting thinner and thinner (less dense) like an expanding balloon skin stretching (and that’s nonsense – how can space decrease in density?), or new space is being created out of nothing to fill the void as space expands. You can’t create something out of pure nothing; not then (at the Big Bang); not now. That’s a violation of all the basic conservation laws that are the bedrock of physics.

So, the obvious alternative is that what’s expanding is the stuff vomited out by the Big Bang event into pre-existing space and the vomit just keeps thinning out as it expands throughout an ever wider volume of that pre-existing space. Now fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those cosmology professors, there’s no actual observational test or experiment that can be done to distinguish between the two possibilities and settle the matter. If there were such observational evidence that proved that space itself was expanding (and thus being continuously created even as I type this) that evidence would be given in the textbooks. But it’s not there. All you get is just the standard scenario: “the Big Bang created space; space is expanding and therefore space is still being created today”. The unwritten sentence is “just take my word for it” because I can’t back it up with any evidence, far less proof. The only evidence is that something is expanding. That something could equally be Big Bang stuff spewing out into pre-existing space like an exploding firecracker will spew its contents outward bound and ever expanding.

It’s the unanswered question that remains in fact unasked in the standard textbooks – what exactly is our Universe’s expanding space expanding into? What is our expanding space shoving out of the way as it expands, ever expands? It can’t be pre-existing space according to the standard model since the Big Bang event created all of space; the entirety of space in the beginning 13.7 billion years ago. Perhaps space is pushing into a theoretical higher dimension (whatever that really means), but that would be an ad hoc pull of the rabbit out of the proverbial hat where nobody advocating that could provide any evidence that either the rabbit or the hat exists at all. Besides, all those extra dimensions predicted by the purely mathematical and hypothetical string theory (if string theory is to work) are compactified; curled up into super-ultra microscopic foetal positions; they are tiny. They aren't the sort of higher dimension you can expand a universe of space into. So it’s back to the drawing board for our standard lady (and gentlemen) cosmologists.

The other bit, the creation of time, is equally absurd. The Big Bang was an event. It was an effect. If causality has any meaning at all, and it’s one of the foundations upon which all of science rests on, then an effect has a cause. Causes must precede effects when cause and effect are intimately related (there are of course lots of causes and lots of effects that have no connection). Therefore, whatever caused the Big Bang event (or effect), must of necessity have happened before (preceded) the Big Bang event. Therefore, there must have been an already existing time prior to the Big Bang event and therefore the Big Bang event did not, could not, create time. Since there was a before the Big Bang, since cause always precedes effect, then again time could not have been created – time has always been, is, and always will be.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those professors of cosmology ramming down the standard ‘creation of time and space’ scenario to their students, all equations (that which usually substitutes for lack of ways and means to do actual observations) that try to describe the Big Bang event; ground zero when space allegedly equals zero and time allegedly also equals zero, totally break down. So the standard ‘create time and space’ model is pure extrapolation (running the film backwards from today’s data) and ultimately a best guess. So while I've no doubt the Big Bang scenario is correct in the broad-brush generalities, there is a lot of observational evidence that something really big happened 13.7 billion years ago that kick-started our Universe off on its evolutionary path, when it comes to some of the nitty-gritty details, like that ‘create time and space’ detail, well I just think that is plain wrong – pure and simple.

So why is that ‘Big Bang created time and space’ the only accepted scenario? It is beyond me, except it probably has a lot to do, not with science, but the sociology and the office politics of science – peer pressure. Science, like the church and other formal institutions does not approve of mavericks that go against the grain. So if you want a Ph D., a job, research funding, a career with promotions, publications, etc. you don’t rock the boat. Science, and that includes cosmology, for all its self-correcting ways and means and methods and ideals is still, ultimately, a human endeavour. As such, you tow the party line; go with the flow; parrot to your students what your professors parroted to you.

Now there are a few bold cosmologists who do acknowledge that the Big Bang event still has some kinks to be ironed out and that there was a “before the Big Bang”. That’s not to say they would endorse my scenario. They probably wouldn't in a pink fit!

Heading back on track, even if my supernovae analogy is wrong, there still had to have been an existence both of time and space prior to the creation of our Universe via the Big Bang event, and that alone suggests that all things are still cyclic or re-cyclic in the cosmos.

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THE BIG BANG’S METAPHYSICAL BAGGAGE

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...

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THE BIG BANG’S METAPHYSICAL BAGGAGE

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.

When anyone ponders the origin and evolution of our Universe, the science of cosmology, one is confronted with the Big Bang theory – the Big Bang event. So, what did the Big Bang do, or didn't do; what was it, or wasn't? And, most importantly, should you put any credibility into the Big Bang scenario seeing as how 1) nobody was around to witness the event, and 2) the scenario, as given by the standard model, is grossly in violation of the very laws, principles and relationships of physics that you’d expect cosmologists to support. Are their any solutions that are out-of-the-box that can reconcile the Big Bang event without violating what scientists should hold most dear? I can think of two!

For those of you unacquainted with the Big Bang scenario, in the beginning (13.7 billion years ago) the Big Bang event created our Universe – all of space and time; all of matter and energy; all from a volume less than a standard pinhead! Now for the objections!

THE BIG BANG VIOLATES BASIC PHYSICS

1) Standard Big Bang violation number one - the Big Bang didn't create time:

The concept of time is nothing more than a measurement of rate-of-change. If nothing ever changed, the concept of time would be meaningless. Now change suggests there must be at least two events. Event One happens; Event Two happens. The change is that difference between the state of play identified with Event One and the state of play identified with Event Two. That change equates into a time differential. Event One happens at a time separate and apart from that of Event Two. Event One if it’s the cause of Event Two, must have happened prior to Event Two. Event Two in turn, can act as the cause of Event Three, and so on. Translated, there was no first event; there was no first cause. There was no first event because there had to be a prior cause that caused that event. There was no first cause because there had to have been an earlier event that caused that cause.

Now the Big Bang event was both a cause and an effect. As a cause, the Big Bang caused the subsequent event, the kick-starting of the evolution of our Universe. As an effect, well something prior to the Big Bang must have acted as a cause of the Big Bang effect. Translated, that cause must have been prior in time to the Big Bang; therefore there is such a thing as a before the Big Bang and therefore the Big Bang event could NOT have created time. Taken to its logical conclusion, there could never have been a first cause; there could never be a first effect, therefore time is infinite since the chicken (cause) and egg (effect) paradox is only solvable by postulating infinity.

2) Standard Big Bang violation number two - the Big Bang didn't create space:

This supposition is easily disposed of. Can any handyman reading this think of any possibility of how they could create something, anything, be it building something from scratch, or writing words on paper, or even thinking those words or thinking about building something, without there being pre-existing space, be it space in your garage, space that exists in your exercise book, or the space that exists between your ears that conceives of building X or writing Y? No? Nothing, but nothing, springs into reality, even if only a nebulous mental reality, without there being pre-existing space. The Big Bang is a reality. It had to have been created in a reality. Any reality has a space or volume component. Therefore, the Big Bang (creation of our Universe) event happened in pre-existing space or volume; therefore the Big Bang event did not, could not, have created space. You can not create your own space, the space you yourself exist in. It’s sort of like giving birth to your own self. It’s a paradox.

3) Standard Big Bang violation number three - the Big Bang didn't create matter/energy:

One of the most cherished conservation principles, drummed into every science student, from junior high through university, is that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed in form. Also, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed in form. Post Einstein, the two have been combined, since matter can be turned into energy and vice versa. However, the central bit is creation. Creation from nothing (or destruction into nothing) is not allowed – except for some unfashionable reason at the Big Bang according the standard model of cosmology. Why this should be the sole exception to the rule is quite beyond me.

Now there is such a thing as creation of virtual particles from the vacuum energy (quantum fluctuations). However that’s not a free lunch (something created from nothing). It’s the conversion of energy to mass (as per Einstein’s famous equation) and the virtual particles can annihilate each other and return back into energy. I just thought I’d better mention that in case some bright spark considered that process a mini version of the Big Bang. It’s not as in this case the creation (and annihilation) of virtual particles would be just a very, very tiny bang that violates nothing in terms of the conservation of matter and energy.

4) Standard Big Bang violation number four - the Big Bang wasn’t a pinhead event:

The Big Bang wasn't a quantum event: The Universe is expanding, ever expanding. That’s not in doubt (see below). Standard model cosmologists now play that expanding Universe ‘film’ in reverse. Travel back in time and the Universe is contracting, ever contacting. Alas, where do you stop that contraction? Well the standard model says when the Universe achieves a volume tinier than the tiniest subatomic particle! When (according to some texts) the Universe has achieved infinite density in zero volume – okay, maybe as close to infinite density and as close to zero volume as makes no odds.

Translated, in the beginning the Universe was something within the realm of quantum physics!

Now just because you can run the clock backwards to such extremes, doesn't mean that that reflects reality. How any scientist can say with a straight face that you can cram the entirety of not only the observable Universe, but the entire Universe (which is quite a bit larger yet again) into the volume smaller than the most fundamental of elementary particles is beyond me. Either I'm nuts for not comprehending the bloody obvious, or the standard modellers are collectively out of their stark raving minds. Actually I suspect the latter because they are caught out in a Catch-22. They are between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Now if cosmologists really believe the entire contents of our Universe was crammed into a small space, even one larger than quantum-sized, then of necessity you have our embryo Universe nicely, and tightly, confined within a Black Hole! Nothing can escape from a Black Hole (except Hawking radiation, but that leakage is so slow it’s like having just one drop of water come through your roof over the duration of a category five hurricane). So you can’t have a Big Bang that releases our Universe from its Black Hole prison. So there! The Big Bang had to have been of such a size that a Black Hole was not part of the picture.

CORRECTIONS TO THE BIG BANG STANDARD MODEL

1) Correction number one - the Big Bang was a macro event:

I’m not out of my stark raving mind, so it’s the standard modellers that are totally nuts. Now that’s easy to say, but basic everyday logic backs me up. Let’s start with the notion that it is impossible to achieve infinite density. There is a limit, a finite limit, to how much stuff you can cram into how much space there is available (which is what density is – mass per unit volume). Once that limit is reached, any more stuff added on will not increase the density any further, just increase the volume. Keep on keeping on piling on the stuff and it won’t take very much stuff that’s value added to increase the volume beyond the realm of the quantum. Once beyond that boundary, you’re in the realm of the macro, and macro means sizes above that of a pinhead.

In this case, I suggest the ultimate size was multi-billions of pinheads worth. Regardless, macro rules the Big Bang. In our reverse-the-expanding-universe film, try imaging doing that with an expanding hot air balloon. If you reverse that inflation, do you stop when the balloon is devoid of air (the sensible thing to do), or do you continue the contraction until the balloon is smaller than the full stop at the bottom of this sentence’s question mark? Of course you don’t go beyond the point of common-sense, yet that is what the standard modellers have done. Further, they insist we swallow their lack of common-sense (not of course that that is actually suggested by them), hook, line and cosmological sinker.

2) Correction number two - The Big Bang spewed out matter/energy into existing time and space:

If the Big Bang event was a ‘spew’ event, an event which must have had both pre-existing space and time coordinates (if you spew, you do so at a particular place at a particular time), and if matter/energy can neither be created or destroyed, then of necessity the Big Bang spew (of matter/energy) happened I repeat in already existing space and time. Nothing could be more obvious.

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?

AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL

So what if there is more than one expanding pre-Big Bang ‘universe’, say a pre-Big Bang Multiverse that contains lots of expanding ‘universes’. Some of these ‘universes’ are, like our own Universe, matter dominated. Some however are antimatter rich. Now say one of each start to intersect at their expanding boundaries. There will be very little direct meeting of the two minds since the matter (and antimatter) is spread thinly. It’s like you can have two galaxies collide without there being any actual collisions between the stars contained in each, because the distance between those stars is vast relative to the sizes of the stars. What does rule the roost however is the gravitational force. Slowly, but surely, the intersection starts the slow but sure collapse of all the stuff. Eventually, the bits get close enough where a few matter-antimatter annihilations take place, but that oomph drives more bits into each other’s arms and so you quickly get a chain reaction yet one that transpires in a medium still tenuous enough and a region without sufficient density to form a super-sized lump and a harmless Black Hole. Might that matter-antimatter chain reaction manifest itself as a non-quantum, macro Big Bang - our Big Bang?

Whether this scenario is plausible or even possible I know not, but it has a nice feel to it; it just might be. Even if not, it might suggest a seed for the next generation of cosmologists, or those currently more cosmologically savvy, to pursue.

YET ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE

Lastly, here’s a wicked curve ball. What if the Big Bang is a theoretical impossibility of physics pure and simple, despite the observational evidence? There’s only one way I know of to generate convincing impossibilities – virtual reality; a simulated universe where there need be no connection at all between what you observe and what theoretically caused the various things that you observe. My scenario: the expansion; the CMBR; the ratio of hydrogen to helium, are all simulated.

Our reality, our Universe including the Big Bang (and ultimately you) is nothing but a computer-generated program, software created by some entity, probably extraterrestrial. Having set up the parameters, it’s just a matter of hitting the ‘start program’ key and seeing what happens. We humans have already done this sort of activity so there’s nothing implausible about this possibility.

Now I've often wondered if some great extraterrestrial computer programmer specializing in generating virtual reality worlds and universes would leave enough clues to his (its) ‘subjects’ that they in fact were just software generated virtual beings in a simulated universe. One such type of clue would be no way those virtual creations could reconcile observation with theory, as in the case of the Big Bang.

For another example we have observations of four physical forces yet no theory which unites the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force) with the one classical force – gravity. There is no viable theory of quantum gravity despite thousands of physicists searching for one over many generations now. It’s like there are two sets of different software running the Universe.

One of the many Big Bang ‘in the beginning’ predictions of theoretical things is magnetic monopoles – magnets with either a south pole or a north pole, but not both. Alas, we've never ever found and confirmed the reality of even one monopole. So strange is that that a new concept states that the very early Universe underwent an additional oomph of very rapid inflation which so diluted the created monopoles that there are no longer any monopoles in our neck of the woods. That does appear a bit like clutching at straws.

You have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy.

You have particles that behave both as a wave and as little billiard balls – observed but theoretically impossible in classical physics.

Speaking of particles, there are three fundamental properties of particles (like the electron, neutrinos, the numerous quarks, etc.) and their anti-particles (like the positron). They are charge, spin and mass. Despite the relatively large number of particles (including the equal and opposite anti-particles), there are only a few allowed values for charge and spin, values pretty much confined to the infield. But, for some reason, the mass (usually expressed in equivalent energy units – Einstein’s equation again) of the various particles are not only scattered throughout the ballpark but are all over the map. They take on values (albeit one value per type of particle) over many orders of magnitude without any apparent pattern or regularity or relationship between them – and nobody has the foggiest idea why, not even a validly theoretical idea. Nobody can predict from first principles what the masses should be. It’s like someone just drew a few dozens of numbers out of a hat containing multi hundreds of thousands of values and assigned them to the few dozens of particles willy-nilly. Something is screwy somewhere because something so fundamental shouldn't be so anomalous.



In the real world, the macro world, the classical world, no two things are identical down to the last microscopic detail – you are unique; every bacterium is unique; every house, den, nest, and ant hill is unique; so is every baseball and grain of sand. In the unreal world, the micro world, the quantum world, all fundamental particles of their own kind (i.e. electrons or positrons or up quarks or photons) are identical to the last measurable detail. Why? Who knows! But a possibility from the simulated universe is that there is one software code or sequence of bits and bytes for each type of fundamental particle. So every time that sequence is used, you get that type of entity and only that type.

There are constant reports of physical constants that aren't – constant that is. That’s totally nuts!

Then you have observations of quasars with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities) yet quasars which appear to be causality connected.

In physics, time travel to the past is theoretically possible – though damned difficult in practice. However, that means that those time travel paradoxes are possible, even likely. Paradoxes like going back in time, say ten years, and killing yourself (which is a novel way of committing suicide), means you couldn’t have existed to go back in time in the first place in order to kill yourself, which means you’re not dead so you can go back in time and murder yourself, etc. What kind of physics is that? Curiouser and curiouser.

Any and all miracles, Biblical or otherwise, are explainable as easily as saying “run program”.

More down to earth, you have multi-observations of things like the Loch Ness Monster, those highly geometrically complex crop circles, and ghosts, yet there’s no real adequate theory, pro or con, that can account for their observed existence or creation.

All up, perhaps some cosmic computer programmer/software writer whiz with a wicked sense of humour (a trickster ‘god’?) is laughing its tentacles off since we haven’t been able to figure it (our virtual reality) out. Of course maybe the minute we do, the fun’s over and ‘Dr. It’ hits the delete key and that’s the way the Universe ends – not with a Big Crunch, nor with a Heat Death, but with a “are you sure you want to delete this?” message! “Yes”.

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OUR EXPANDING UNIVERSE: IN SPACE OR BY SPACE?

You will frequently encounter in astronomical and cosmological texts the idea that space or space-time is a thing, a flexible membrane type of thing that can influence the motion of objects, in fact carry the flotsam and jetsam of the Universe around. This flexi-space is increasing over time, expanding, and by carrying the bits and pieces that...

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OUR EXPANDING UNIVERSE: IN SPACE OR BY SPACE?

You will frequently encounter in astronomical and cosmological texts the idea that space or space-time is a thing, a flexible membrane type of thing that can influence the motion of objects, in fact carry the flotsam and jetsam of the Universe around. This flexi-space is increasing over time, expanding, and by carrying the bits and pieces that comprise the Universe, provides the reality behind the common phrase ‘the expanding universe’. Unfortunately, space is not a thing and the consequences arising means the common mechanism for an expanding universe is nonsense.

In just about any introductory textbook on astronomy or primer on cosmology, you’re bound to read that the Universe is expanding (true enough) because space itself is expanding, and like dots painted on a balloon being blown up, the flotsam and jetsam of the Universe is spreading apart, somehow ‘glued’ to that expanding space. How any astronomer or cosmologist can write such claptrap with a straight face is quite beyond me.

My basic premise here is that if space itself is expanding, then space itself is a thing. Common sense tells you that space is not a thing. You cannot see it, hear it, touch it, feel it or taste it. If you think space is a thing, well grab hold of some of it and try to stretch or expand it (but do it in private or others will doubt your sanity). Whether you talk about 3-D space (volume) or the four dimensional space-time (time being the fourth dimension), it is just the empty stage, IMHO, where the drama of real things is played out.

To my way of thinking, not-things (like space, time and dimensions* in general) can be subdivided indefinitely. They are continuous. No matter the length, area or volume, whatever you have can be divided in half and in half again and again and again and you still have a length, area or volume. Things have a built-in limit as to how far that thing in question can be divided down before you hit fundamental bedrock. Sooner or later you hit and enter the realm of the electron, those quarks, neutrinos, photons, gluons, gravitons and other force and matter particles that cannot be divided down any farther. These are things.

EXPANDING SPACE

So if space itself is expanding, well that’s nonsense because…

There’s space between your ears, but that doesn't mean you’re getting a swelled head!

You move through existing space when going from home to the office, to the supermarket or going to a foreign city on business or vacation. When commuting to the office, the distance between home and office doesn't increase on a daily basis.

The Moon orbits the Earth through existing space. The Moon is getting farther away of the Earth on a daily basis. Even there’s a lot of space between the Earth and the Moon, and the Moon is getting further away from the Earth, that’s not because space is expanding, but because of tidal forces.

The Earth/Moon pair orbits the Sun through existing space. There’s a lot of interplanetary space between the Earth/Moon system and the Sun, but the Earth/Moon to Sun distance hasn't changed in thousands of millennia.

The Sun (and solar system) orbits around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy though existing space. There’s a lot of interstellar space between the Sun and the galactic centre but the Sun isn't getting any more distant from that centre.

So far, so good: even astronomers and cosmologists will agree with that assessment. But all of a sudden, with a snap of their fingers, once out in intergalactic space things move apart, or rather galaxies (of which our Milky Way is one of billions and billions) move apart from other galaxies as if being carried piggyback on an expanding intergalactic space (which however is the same space as interplanetary and interstellar space).

Actually there’s an exception of every galaxy moving away from every other galaxy – clusters of galaxies that are cheek-by-jowl are bound together by their mutual gravity, and sometime in such a cluster galaxies can approach each other. A case in point has our own Milky Way Galaxy, and the Andromeda Galaxy on a collision course, but rest easy, the intersection won’t happen for another five billion years – give or take a million.

But wait, isn't every galaxy in the observable universe bound or attracted by gravity to every other galaxy? I mean the force of gravity doesn't extend outwards and then at some point fall off a cliff, or get shut down and off.

If space is expanding, then space is a thing with properties. What are the properties of a thing that expands?

Most common are 2-D structures. You put extra air in your tires, it’s the rubber that expands; while blowing up a balloon, well it’s that membrane-like surface that stretches; you have stretching fabrics (like the elastic in your underwear). The oft used cosmology textbook analogy is painting dots (representing the galaxies) on the surface of an expanding balloon (representing expanding space), and as the balloon expands the ‘galactic’ dots get further apart. But the analogy fails because the balloon’s expanding surface is a something. Besides, all 2-D analogies aren't worth the paper they’re written on since 1) the actual Universe is 3-D and 2) there are 3-D analogies available.

So there are pretty common 3-D analogies. An entire rock will expand, not just the surface, sitting out in the hot sun; a rising cake or soufflé or baking raisin bread are common examples in the kitchen. The analogy oft given is that of baking raisin bread, where the raisins are the galaxies and the expanding bread is akin to space, and thus the ‘galactic’ raisins get further and further apart as the bread expands. But this analogy fails too because the raisin bread is a something.

Now when something expands, it gets thinner or more dilute. As you keep putting on weight, the elastic in your underwear stretches thinner and thinner. In the case of the raisin loaf, if you start with a 500 gram mass of dough in a container of say 300 cubic centimetres, what you end up with is 500 grams in say a volume of 500 cubic centimetres. The same amount of stuff, in a larger volume, means that the stuff has been diluted.

If space is a something, and space itself is expanding or stretching, then space must be getting thinner and/or more dilute over time. If however, this space-as-a-something remains constant over time, even though it’s expanding, then you’re getting a free lunch – something from nothing. That extra space is being manufactured by forces unknown out of nothing at all. Claptrap!

SPACE-TIME

Anyone who is anyone who knows a bit about gravity and General Relativity knows that space-time is flexible. Mass ‘tells’ space-time how to flex; how space-time flexes ‘tells’ mass how to move. However, that also implies that space-time is a thing, a physical medium that can be manipulated.

Matter and energy and associated forces and force particles are two sides of the same coin as related by Einstein’s famous equation. So, that should be sufficient for any and all actions, reactions, interactions, etc. to be explainable without resorting to warped space-time. However, let’s look at the most well known illustration of alleged warped space-time, the experimental observation that proved Einstein’s prediction that Mass indeed ‘tells’ space-time how to flex and how space-time flexes ‘tells’ mass how to move. The case in point was the deflection of photons of light emitted by a star whose light passed very close to our Sun. That deflection meant that observers on Earth saw the star ever so slightly out of position while the Sun was in the line-of-sight vicinity. (All this was observed during a solar eclipse; otherwise the starlight would have been drowned out by the Sun’s light.) The explanation: starlight photons (mass or energy) want to go straight but space-time was warped and thus those photons got deflected from the straight and narrow. Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

On the other hand, the starlight’s light-wave photons are things; the Sun is a thing; the Sun’s gravity is a thing. So objects, matter and energy, things existing in space and time that pass within the Sun’s gravity, should be affected, in this case deflected from their straight and narrow path. Why invoke warped space-time? It might be a nice way of looking at things, but airbrushing isn't confined to just the fashion industry!

Roll an iron ball past a magnet and you’ll get a deflection from the straight and narrow – like with the photon and the Sun. But roll a marble past the same magnet and the marble will continue on straight and true. So, the trajectory of the iron ball or the marble vs. the magnet (part of the electromagnetic force) has nothing to do with warped space-time, though the action took place in space-time.



Take your basic trilogy of quarks (in a neutron or proton) who love each other so dearly that they can’t stand to be apart. If you force them apart, the strong nuclear force which normally keeps the quarks cheek-by-jowl will just get stronger the farther apart you pull the trio of quarks apart – like a rubber band being stretched. When you release your hold on this threesome, they snap back together. Their path deviates back from what you dictated – nothing to do with warped space-time though the action took place in space-time.

Or take the decay of an unstable atomic nucleus. The castoff particles hit other unstable nuclei cascading off more bits and pieces which hit more unstable nuclei on the brink, etc. You get a chain reaction, even perhaps a nuclear blast. That’s the weak nuclear force in action. Again, that’s not dependent on warped space-time though the chain reaction takes place in space-time.

But let’s back to the warping of space-time which seems allegedly to be the providence of gravity and just gravity.

But what kind of flexing, or space-time warping could account for most (not all) galaxies running away from most (not all) other galaxies – actual observations of the expanding Universe. None that is obvious and leaps to mind other than a sort of infinite Mexican sombrero type structure where all large clumps of matter (most galaxies) start off at the top of the hat and roll off, to the north, south, east and west, and all points of the compass in-between, down to the – well the ‘down’ doesn't end. But somehow you have to picture that in 3-D since the surface of the ‘sombrero’, where all the action is, is 2-D.

CONSEQUENCES

Once you accept the idea that the notion of space itself is expanding – space itself creating more space out of nothing – is total nonsense, then certain consequences follow. One is that the stuff of the Universe is expanding through existing space rather than the stuff of the Universe being carried piggyback on the back of space. If the stuff of the Universe is expanding through existing space, the stuff of the Universe has always expanded through existing space. Existing space was present throughout the Universe’s expansion right back unto the beginning – that Big Bang event. If space existed at the time of the Big Bang event then space existed before the Big Bang event, as the Big Bang event needed space to bang into, just like any other explosive event you can think of, from a firecracker to an H-Bomb to a supernova has to happen in existing space. Therefore there was an existence before the Big Bang. There was a before the Big Bang and whatever cosmology accounts for the Big Bang needs to take that into account.

IS THERE AN OBSERVATIONAL TEST?

Is there any actual observational evidence that proves conclusively that it is space expanding and not flotsam and jetsam moving apart through existing space? No. But I can think of a possible test or two that might conclude the issue. If space is expanding then objects that are approaching each other (like the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy) due to mutual gravity or because of intrinsic motion, should be fighting against the grain and be approaching each other more slowly than would otherwise be the case. Or, on the other hand, two objects receding apart, like the Earth and the Moon (due to tidal forces) are going with the grain and should be separating more rapidly than otherwise would be the case. I've yet to read any account of this sort of measurement and observational confirmation which would only arise if the velocities of the Milky Way/Andromeda pair or Earth/Moon pair were indeed anomalous. The latter experiment, the increasing Earth/Moon separation should be a relatively easy experiment to do. Due to the reflective mirrors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo moon-walkers we know the Earth-Moon distance to extreme precision. It should be straightforward whether the Moon is receding from the Earth faster than tidal forces can account for.

CONCLUSIONS

There’s a very solid principle in science known as Occam’s Razor, which pretty much states than when faced with a pot-full of competing ideas or explanations, bet the family farm on the one which makes the least assumptions and seems the most straightforward. In other words, “keep it simple, stupid!” Applying Occam’s Razor, there’s a very easy and common-sense answer to this claptrap. All objects at any scale move through existing space. Space just is – it contains things from the energy of the (not so perfect) vacuum, to interplanetary/interstellar/intergalactic gas and dust, to solar systems, to quasars, to the largest of galactic clusters. Therefore, if now, then way back when. The origin of the Universe also took place in existing space. The Big Bang event did not create space for space is not a tangible thing that can be created. Further, there’s no astronomical, observable test (apart from the possibilities I suggested above and variations on those themes) that can distinguish between expanding space, and matter expanding through space.

And if you are of a religious frame of mind (and I'm not), well God couldn't have created the heavens and the earth; life the universe and everything, unless God had some existing space in which to work. God Himself took up space.

P.S. That space is not a thing was demonstrated back in the late 1880’s by the famous Albert Michelson and Edward Morley experiment. The idea was that since light or rather light-waves travelled through space (i.e. – from the Sun to the Earth), they had to be carried along by a something, just like water-waves are carried along by the medium we call water and sound-waves need air, liquid or a solid to propagate them. So light-waves, by analogy, needed a medium to carry them, which was called the ether or the ether wind, which was space. Now the idea was that the Earth, in orbit around the Sun, would sometimes be moving with the ether grain and sometimes against the ether grain. The speed of light should therefore vary when measured on Earth depending on whether light was moving parallel with the ether grain, parallel against the ether grain, or crossing perpendicular to the ether grain as Earth was orbiting through the ether grain. Of course the null results shocked the physics community for it showed no variation at all in the velocity of light regardless of the time of year it was measured; therefore no ether; therefore waves were being transmitted through nothing. The null result eventually led a young Einstein into his radical proposal that the speed of light was constant anywhere and everywhere to any and all observers, but that’s another story. The Michelson/Morley experiment has been repeated many times with ever more accuracy – still a null and void result.

*Space, a 3-D volume, is composed of a trilogy of dimensions – up/down, back/front, left/right; or latitude, longitude and altitude. Area is two dimensional (2-D); length is 1-D or just one dimension. Now, are dimensions a thing? If not, then volume (space), area and length are not things either.

ADDENDUM

BINGO!

In an effort to explain about the concept of expanding space, astronomer Philip Plait inadvertently presented the exact opposite argument which is that space can’t be expanding (and therefore the expanding universe must be expanding throughout existing space), a point of view I've been advocating seemingly forever. Here’s Plait’s extract.

“Space expands, but this expansion can be countered by gravity. You might expect that, say, two stars orbiting each other will get farther apart as space expands between them. However, that’s not the case. Since the two objects have gravity, and they are bound to each other – that is, their gravity holds them together – space doesn't expand between them.” [Plait’s emphasis.]*

*Plait, Philip; Death from the Skies! These Are the Ways the World Will End…; Viking, New York; 2008; p.278:

So, taken to its logical conclusion, space is not expanding between the Earth and the Moon. Space is not expanding between the Earth and the Sun. Space is not expanding between the Sun’s solar system and the triple star Centauri system. Space is not expanding between the Sun and the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, space is not expanding between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy, space is not expanding between the local group of cluster of galaxies (containing the Milky Way and Andromeda) and the nearby Virgo Cluster of galaxies, etc. Any two bits of matter have mutual gravity and so therefore there can be no expanding space anywhere, since gravity is everywhere.

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MORE ABOUT DARK ENERGY AND THE EXPANSION OF SPACE-AS-A-THING

Why is the modern standard model of cosmology a pseudo-science? Basically because it is advocating something akin to a perpetual motion machine - even worse. A standard pseudo-scientific perpetual motion machine operates at 100% efficiency. Energy input equals energy output and energy output is recycled back into energy input....

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MORE ABOUT DARK ENERGY AND THE EXPANSION OF SPACE-AS-A-THING

Why is the modern standard model of cosmology a pseudo-science? Basically because it is advocating something akin to a perpetual motion machine - even worse. A standard pseudo-scientific perpetual motion machine operates at 100% efficiency. Energy input equals energy output and energy output is recycled back into energy input. There is no waste energy; no heat loss. The cosmos is even worse. Energy output exceeds energy input. The cosmos is way more than 100% efficient! Toss in 100 units of energy and you get 200 units of energy output (invented figures but it conveys the idea). In the case of the cosmos, the energy in question has been termed "dark energy", and dark energy is created by space-that-is-a-thing and dark energy in turn creates more space-that-is-a-thing, and the cosmic perpetual motion machine just keeps on keeping on.

How does space-which-is-a-thing create ever more dark energy and how does dark energy create more space-which-is-a-thing and where the heck does all of this stuff come from? Who knows! But the concept IMHO is pseudo-scientific nonsense. How do you get around the paradox of creating something from nothing?

While on the 'how' questions, how did the Big Bang event create space - assuming space to be a thing of substance and structure. Again, who knows! And a 'what' question: What is space-that-is-a-thing composed of? Who knows! Space clearly has no relationship to the standard model of particle physics. It's not composed of fermions or bosons nor any of the standard four forces associated with particle physics.

But here's an oddity. One needs to get away from the idea that space is just out there - it is up close and personal too. Space-that-is-a-thing however is not only around you but is inside of you, so it shouldn't be too difficult for some bright spark to 'capture' some and put it to the standard laboratory tests. How can something that's literally in front of your nose be so unknowable?

Is space-that-is-a-thing and dark energy the same thing? If not, what is dark energy and what is it composed of and how does it relate to the standard model of particle physics? Just calling something "dark energy" doesn't explain it. And like space-that-is-a-thing, dark energy should also be all around and inside of you. It can't be that difficult therefore to isolate some. It's not as if you have to travel into intergalactic space to get a beaker full of the stuff.

Here's another nail hammering down the coffin containing the space-that-is-a-thing concept. We've all seen the analogy of space-that-is-a-thing being a rubber sheet with a bowling ball distorting the flat shape of the rubber and a marble sent rolling across the rubber sheet in the direction of the bowling ball. The straight path trajectory of the marble is altered. The marble curves into 'orbit' around the bowling ball assuming it doesn't just curve around and fly past. If the former, the marble will eventually go 'crashing' into the bowling ball and not maintain any orbit for very long. In any event, the marble heads inward toward the bowling ball. By analogy, shouldn't our Moon be spiralling in towards the Earth much like our artificial satellite orbits eventually decay? Alas for the rubber sheet analogy of space-that-is-a-thing, our Moon is moving away from the Earth a few centimetres per year, not moving closer.

I do think at times that modern cosmologists have gotten so wrapped up in their technical essays of complex mathematical equations and jargon that they have totally forgotten much of what they were taught in their high school science classes, like there's no such thing as a cosmic free lunch.

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SPACE, AN UNSUNG PARTICIPANT IN THE UNIVERSE?

"I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in...

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SPACE, AN UNSUNG PARTICIPANT IN THE UNIVERSE?

"I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other; which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain; but I hope the principles here laid down will afford some light either to that or some truer method of philosophy" - Sir Isaac Newton.

It is human to acclaim only participants that are noisy or shiny or have a good or bad smell. But only near super-humans like Newton know that the most important participants may not fall into this category, which is why he says in the quote above that these participants can only be apprehended by the inner senses using the power of reason.

It is true that space has no taste, it has no smell, it has no colour and makes no noise. But can its participation in the drama unfolding in the universe be discerned using the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles? The view that space is not a nothing comes broadly under the label 'substantivalism'. There are sub-groups, some of which include General relativitists, for whom the substance is then 'space-time', and not just space. Newton, himself in many respects was the arch-priest of this view. In his Scholium and the Principia, he put forward his views using causes, effects and properties for argument, section 5.

I have a substantivalist tendency and with good scientific reasons of my own. This thread is for cosmological topics, but as it has been alluded here that space is nothing, I think it necessary to make some counter presentation to the rational and lucid but IMHO misleading arguments claiming space is nothing. Not to repeat Newton's arguments, I present here evidence from what we can see and evaluate with our eyes – evidence from gravitational orbits, which if interpreted dispassionately indicate the possible roles space may be playing, aside the cosmological roles ascribed to it.

1. THE SHAPE OF ORBITS

Motion according to Newton's first law can continue perpetually unless a frictional force acts to bring the body to rest. Orbital motion was desired to be analogous to the linear motion of Newton's first law of motion in a straight line and would consequently be circular in shape (the form that preserves an equi-potential orbit) and continue perpetually without being driven (a sort of perpetuum mobile?). Alas, orbits are not circular but elliptical in shape. Kepler also desired a circle, but Mother Nature presented us with the ellipse. Perhaps, there is a puzzle in this elliptical gift?

Reasoning from mechanical principles implies such a shape of orbital motion is not according to Newton's first law. The motion is under action of a force or of forces.

2. CENTRIPETAL/ CENTRIFUGAL FORCES

In gravitational orbits, Newton mathematically showed that a centripetal force equal in magnitude to mrω² was operational, where m is the mass of the orbiter, r its radius from the hub and ω its angular velocity. A centripetal force, like all forces has direction, which is radially inwards to the centre of the circle.

From the laws for circular motion in which a centripetal force is present, there must necessarily be a centrifugal force which will be equal and opposite in effect to the centripetal force so that no resultant force is acting and the body can keep moving with uniform motion equivalent to a state of rest. Switching off the centripetal force makes the orbiting body spiral away and switching off the centrifugal force makes the orbiting body spiral inwards under its momentum collapsing ultimately into the hub.

Unfortunately, in gravitational orbits this centrifugal force that prevents collapse of the circular motion is ghostly and not easily discernible.

Newton seemed to also realize the compelling need for this centrifugal force to balance the effect of gravity and maintain the planets in their circular paths. Seeing no other source, he suggested that the centrifugal force must be arising directly from the motion of the planets themselves. The difficulty and illogicality of this however becomes apparent on three grounds. Firstly, since the centrifugal force must be acting on the body to oppose the centripetal action of gravity which also acts on it, it would appear unusual for the generator of the force, i.e. the orbiting body, to be the subject of the force as well. The idea from Newton’s third law is that an object experiences force because it is interacting with some other body or agency and not with itself. Therefore a body cannot give rise to an action force which also serves as a reaction on it. Secondly, a force arising directly from a circularly moving body must be in a tangential direction to the orbit, being a vector like velocity. To balance and be equal and opposite to the centripetal force however, we see that the centrifugal force or its component must act radially outwards on the orbiting body, while the centripetal force acts radially inwards on it. Whatever momentum or force arising from the orbiting body’s motion can therefore not be the source of the centrifugal force since it would be acting tangentially at right angles to the orbital radius and cannot have any component in a radial direction to oppose the centripetal force, in the way the centrifugal force would be required to do. Thirdly, a body moving in accordance with Newton’s first law of motion as planets are deemed by some to move, while it can be subject to forces whose resultant on it must then be zero, cannot generate force from its own motion or state of rest which would be contributory to the same resultant state of rest or uniform motion. Conclusion: The motion of the planets is not the source of the centrifugal force, whose source must then lie elsewhere.

3. THE MOON KEEPS FALLING BUT DOES NOT REACH THE GROUND!

Newton got deserved acclaim by showing that the acceleration with which objects fall under gravity at the earth’s surface was related to the centripetal acceleration towards the earth of the moon in orbit, taking the inverse square law into account. In other words, like objects here on earth the moon is also falling under the influence of the same force of gravity.

Assuming the inverse square law and therefore an acceleration due to gravity on the moon due to the earth to be approximately 0.0027ms^-2 instead of the terrestrial value of 9.8 ms^-2, we will expect from the most optimistic view of a constant and non-inverse squarely increasing acceleration of 0.0027 ms^-2 and using s = ut + ½ gt² that the moon will fall and reach the ground in about 6 days, if it is indeed falling under the earth’s gravity as Newton demonstrated, given that the moon is about 3.8 x 10⁸ metres away and is being acted on by gravity alone and no other force. Unlike the historical apple however, it is long overdue for the moon to fall on our heads, yet something prevents it from doing so. Who or what is this benevolent agent preventing this?

4. MORE CONTRAVENTIONS TO NEWTON'S SECOND LAW OF MOTION

Newton’s second law of motion states categorically that acceleration due to force A must take place in the direction of that force. This implies that observed deceleration of an accelerating body acted on by a force A must be due to another force B acting in the opposite direction and cannot be due to the continuing action or stoppage of action of force A. Furthermore, Newton’s law of gravitation stresses that although gravitational force can vary in magnitude according to the inverse square law, it has a constant direction of attraction which cannot change. Therefore any change in the direction such as observed repulsion between masses must be due to the presence of another force.

In gravitational orbits, the sun-earth for example, we see the satellite respond to gravity and move closer to the hub as it approaches perihelion. However instead of continuing in that direction, moving closer to the hub, what we see is a kind of repelling action at perihelion. It is as if the direction of gravity has changed. Instead of attraction, we get repulsion.

To simplify and illustrate, we can use the simple pendulum with a visible bob but an invisible string as an example. We expect things to proceed in an orderly manner and for the pendulum to swing from side to side, which is what happens. However, an observer oblivious of the string because it is invisible must be baffled by the ordinary course of events. This observer knowing about gravity is not surprised by the downswing but he must indeed be alarmed if on reaching its lowest point, instead of continuing downwards in the direction of gravity, he sees the bob swing upwards. He must therefore question, whether gravity can reverse its direction, thereby repelling the bob upwards. As the bob accelerates downwards, increasing in velocity, by what means does it stop accelerating and instead start reducing in velocity and decelerating to gravity? The observer cannot be blamed for suspecting a ghost at work. It must however be an orderly ghost, since the pendulum has a period which remains regular. A less superstitious person would however acknowledge that a force yet to be identified but whose characteristics we can discern from our observations is at work and acts on the pendulum bob in a manner opposite to gravitational action thus preventing what will amount to a contravention of Newton’s second law and his proposal of a universally attractive nature for gravity.

Analogously, reasoning with these mechanical principles we can suspect that a force opposed to gravity is at work in orbits. It is this force that will prevent contraventions to Newton’s laws that will occur and explain the mysterious deceleration to gravity at perihelion. The observed deceleration to gravity will represent a contravention of Newton’s second law and his law of universal gravitation if no force is deemed responsible. Newton’s second law therefore, compels the presence of another force in addition to gravity to serve as one of the return forces operating the orbit as with oscillations of the simple pendulum.

5. ANGULAR MOMENTUM CONSERVATION DOES NOT WORK AS AN ALIBI

Although using considerations involving angular momentum conservation, angular velocity can increase when the radius of the orbit reduces, it cannot be used to contravene Newton’s second law and convert angular acceleration to angular deceleration without the intervention of a force.

A further reason for the non-attractiveness of angular momentum conservation as an explanation for the seeming contraventions of Newton’s second law and the universally attractive nature of gravity is somewhat of a mathematical nature.

Angular momentum is given by mr²ω, where m is the mass of the orbiter, r is the radius of orbit and ω is the angular velocity. If the angular momentum is exactly conserved and mass is constant, r²ω will be a constant and ω will be inversely proportional to r². This will result in disharmony with the inverse square law and Kepler’s third law, both of which have the relationship between angular velocity, ω and radius,r as

ω² = k /r³, where k is a constant.

If angular momentum conservation is to be used in explaining the reduction in angular velocity with increasing radius and the sequential increase in angular velocity with reducing radius, then (1) Kepler’s third law will be invalid and T² will be directly proportional to r⁴ instead of r³, where T is the period of oscillation and (2) the inverse-square law will be invalid and instead will be an inverse-cube law, with gravitational force proportional to 1/r³.

There is also nothing in the laws of momentum conservation compelling momentum conservation in the direction of deceleration at perihelion as it can be equally conserved in the direction of continuous acceleration and continuous reduction of orbital radius as the orbiter spirals inwards. The angular deceleration seen at perihelion must therefore be the outcome of an orderly force.

Kepler’s first and second laws, imply that what we observe in the motions of planets is governed by law and cannot be attributed to random perturbations. That is, even in the absence of perturbation, Kepler’s first and second laws with the alternating increase and decrease in angular velocity and the alternating acceleration and deceleration of planets to the sun’s gravity will hold. Conservation of angular momentum features prominently in the quantum scenario, but as we cannot observe directly what is occurring, we refrain from using it for argument.

6. CONTRAVENTIONS TO THE LAWS OF ENERGY CONSERVATION – ANY FREE LUNCH?

When the radius of orbit of a satellite reduces, the kinetic energy (K.E.) increases while the potential energy (P.E.) reduces as P.E. is converted to K.E. and the satellite is speeded up.

However because P.E. decreases by twice as much as the K.E. increases by applications of the known dynamical equations below, there is on the whole, a loss of energy when the orbital radius of a satellite reduces.

Assuming the zero of potential energy in the gravitational field of the hub is at infinity by convention,

P.E. of mass in orbit = - GMm/r

while

K.E. of satellite in orbit = GMm/2r

where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the hub, m is mass of the satellite and r is the radius of the orbit.

Einstein’s General relativity similar to Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory (for charges) says that acceleration of masses in gravitational orbits leads to loss of energy which is radiated away as gravitational waves.

The consequence of the above is that when the satellite accelerates to gravity, it should spiral and the gravitational orbit progressively collapses. Contrary to what physics predicts, orbiting bodies alternately gain and lose energy, with energy and potential being lost as perihelion is approached and energy and potential being regained after perihelion and as aphelion is approached. Ordinarily we could explain away what we see in orbits as conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy and back but for inability to account for the energy loss and the force that makes the orbiter rise to the same height in aphelion as in previous orbital cycles.

The loss of energy and potential due to the effect of gravitational force is comprehensible. What is not accounted for is the source of the energy that makes the orbiter to regain the same potential since the initial energy lost must have radiated away as heat or gravitational waves and is not available for re-conversion to potential energy after perihelion.

Also generally speaking, inter-conversion between potential energy and kinetic energy requires a force to effect the conversion. The simple pendulum once again is a good example that illustrates this inter-conversion. While gravitational force effects conversion of the potential energy of the bob to kinetic energy as it downswings from one end, a different force will be needed to convert the kinetic energy at its lowest point back to potential energy in the upswing. This is provided by the tension force in the string. In gravitational orbits, the force that converts the maximum kinetic energy at perihelion to the maximum potential energy at aphelion is mysterious but it must exist. If we could identity the force then all would be well and if there is no force, then at least we must identify the source of the energy replenishing the orbit.

Putting this quantitatively, from equations for P.E. and K.E. above,

Total energy of a satellite in orbit in joules (J) is given by

P.E. + K.E. = - GMm/2r

Using the sun-earth system as an example and given the mass of the sun as 2x10³⁰kg, mass of the earth as 6x10²⁴kg, the earth’s perihelion distance as 147x10⁹m and aphelion at 152x10⁹m, we have:

Total energy of earth in orbit at aphelion (P.E.and K.E.)= - 2.63x10³³J

Total energy of earth in orbit at perihelion (P.E. and K.E.)= - 2.72x10³³J

Therefore, total energy at perihelion is less than at aphelion by 8.94x10³¹J as expected from orbital dynamics. This is energy lost per cycle between aphelion and perihelion which represents 3.4% of initial energy at aphelion. If no new energy is added, the next aphelion will occur at a distance of 147x10⁹m instead of the previous 152x10⁹m.

Also although the rate of energy lost is likely to increase more rapidly, if we optimistically assume a steady loss, the orbit is expected to collapse after 29.4 cycles (100/ 3.4 ), that is after about 30 years, but this has not happened billions of years, since the earth formed and started orbiting the sun. Rather what we see is that approximately the same quantity of energy lost is replenished and the aphelion distance is fairly maintained at least for more than thirty cycles. Who is the replenisher and provider of this free lunch?

7. SOME POSSIBLE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UNKNOWN AGENT PRESERVING THE ORBIT

i. Must be invisible

This is obvious as we cannot visualize the agent responsible for maintaining the orbit. It is certainly not matter, but may be anything else.

ii. Must possess force that can oppose gravity.

The agent must provide force capable of opposing centripetal force of gravity and give the balancing centrifugal force. It must therefore tend to oppose gravity and instead promote spreading tendencies for gravitational masses in space.

iii. Must be able to supply energy

The agent must be capable of supplying energy to replenish the orbit and prevent collapse. In doing this, it must at a stage in the orbital cycle intervene to prevent collapse by causing deceleration of the orbiter to gravity and increasing its potential.

iv. Must be omnipresent in time and place

The agent must always be available to carry out its functions. Since all the orbital cycles are prevented from immediate collapse, the agent must not be a temporary one but present all the time, for all the cycles and as well throughout the visible universe wherever orbits either of stars, planets and galaxies occur.

8. PARTICIPANT IN MOTION IN DIGITAL OR SIMULATED UNIVERSES

In Simulated Universes, the space between objects can be represented, e.g. by pixels on the computer screen for example. When we observe objects move on the screen, the pixels representing the object change to the character of those representing space, while the pixels representing space in the direction of motion, change to the character of pixels representing the moving object. In other words, the cooperation of the pixels representing space is required for motion to take place. It is my opinion that something similar happens in a real digital universe, with slight difference.

This is responsible for my frequent reference to Zeno's Dichotomy Argument and his Arrow paradox, both of which try to show that in some sense motion cannot occur without the fullest cooperation and participation of that which we call space. The Dichotomy paradox suggests motion cannot commence without the cooperation of the first pixel, nor will it end without the cooperation of the last. While the Arrow paradox says something similar, that the Arrow would not even leave the pixels constituting it in the first place unless our concept of motion undergoes a revolutionary review.

Akinbo

(This post are mainly excerpts from an old unpublishable paper of mine in response to John Prytz insistence that Space is Not-thing).

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It makes far more sense that the Object universe, what is, is not expanding but merely continuously recycling itself. What is being observed expanding then is the Image reality created from processing of received EM radiation. Radiation that persisted in the environment, after the configurations of objects forming events, from which it scattered, ceased to be.So the Object universe is not all...

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It makes far more sense that the Object universe, what is, is not expanding but merely continuously recycling itself. What is being observed expanding then is the Image reality created from processing of received EM radiation. Radiation that persisted in the environment, after the configurations of objects forming events, from which it scattered, ceased to be.So the Object universe is not all that is seen but something else. The Earth is not a stationary observer of the whole universe expanding away from it but moving as it orbits the sun and with the motion of the solar system and motion of our galaxy which takes it away from the origins of the majority of the sensory data being received. The Earth is the center of the fabricated Image reality visible universe but has no preferential position within the unseen Object universe.

Experiment

Space-time in the output image reality is a nothingness because no sensory data was provided by it from which to create an Image reality representing it. However that does not mean that foundational space is just an emptiness. To show this it might be possible to create turbulence in a vacuum, using various kinds of apparatus.For example spinning food processing or blender type blades or something on a much, much smaller scale as the effect may be extremely small. That turbulence should affect the way in which light travels through that space. It maybe that it is very difficult to produce turbulence if it is a super fluid that wants to move as a whole but it could be tried. Surely overcoming inertia the fluid resisting change of trajectory must be moved or altered in some way, which may be detectable using changes to EM passage in proximity as an indicator. Compare before motion and after motion light paths.The turbulence should persist even if for a very short time after the motion has stopped. So disturbance of the light directly can be discounted and any disturbance can be attributed to disturbance of the vacuum filling medium.

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COSMOLOGY: IN THE BEGINNING, AND AFTERWARDS TOO

Gravity rules the cosmos. You can’t come to terms with the origins, evolutions and ultimate fates associated with cosmology or astrophysics without understanding gravity and the theory of relativity. Quantum theory also has to apply to cosmology (and astrophysics) any time you run across micro phenomena where quantum effects need to be...

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COSMOLOGY: IN THE BEGINNING, AND AFTERWARDS TOO

Gravity rules the cosmos. You can’t come to terms with the origins, evolutions and ultimate fates associated with cosmology or astrophysics without understanding gravity and the theory of relativity. Quantum theory also has to apply to cosmology (and astrophysics) any time you run across micro phenomena where quantum effects need to be considered and where they apply. Unfortunately, there are circumstances where both gravity and quantum physics need to be simultaneously considered - singularities. Unfortunately gravity and quantum physics aren't compatible.

The Alpha: In the beginning was the Big Bang event origin of our Universe – 13.7 billion years ago. The origin of the Universe (the Big Bang) was a quantum event because the initial size of our Universe was such that quantum effects dominated. At least that’s what the standard model dictates. It was also a time of extreme gravity, since all the mass of the cosmos was situated at the same time and place. But the relevant and separate equations of relativity and quantum mechanics break down as one approaches such extremes as would of applied at the Big Bang Alpha, giving rise for the necessity of a new theory of quantum gravity in order to come to terms with the Alpha object.

There are two main pillars of modern physics – relativity (part of classical physics) and quantum mechanics or quantum physics. Alas, the two pillars aren't compatible, and thus, a Holy Grail for physicists is to find a ‘Theory of Everything’ (TOE) that merges the two. Now in the day-to-day life of physicists, a TOE isn't essential, because relativity deals with the very big (the macro-universe) and quantum mechanics the very small (the micro-universe), and rarely do the twains meet. But, meet the two do in exceptional circumstances. Relativity deals with gravity (in the main), and on quantum scales, gravity is so weak that gravity can safely be ignored. But, there are objects that are very small, yet very dense – that is, tiny objects that have high gravity. There are basically two such objects – the Alpha Big Bang object or singularity and Black Hole singularities, or, to be honest, singularities in general regardless of where or when. And thus, to come to terms with the physics of singularities (immense gravity; micro size), the relativity and quantum worlds need to combine. So, TOE is basically a search for a theory of quantum gravity, and there are various highly complex and theoretical scenarios that fit the bill (though not yet even remotely experimentally confirmed).

Now while theories of everything or theories of quantum gravity are, in the final analysis, necessary (it just doesn't wash that relativity and quantum mechanics can’t be made compatible – you can’t have two separate software packages governing the overall Universe), it is my opinion that they aren't necessary to come to terms with singularities, which are usually described as an object of zero (point) dimensions and infinite density.

However, it is my opinion that it is absurd, in the extreme; to even slightly entertain the idea that a (Big Bang or Black Hole) singularity even remotely approaches such limits, far less acquires them. One cannot have a zero (point) dimensional object; one cannot have an object of infinite density. A singularity must have some sort of volume, and must have a finite density, even if the volume is very tiny, and the density is extremely extreme.

The basic logic is that a singularity has a finite volume and finite density. As you add more stuff to the singularity, the volume might remain the same but the density increases. However, as more and more stuff gets added, ultimately the density reaches the maximum possible, and from that point onwards, the volume of the singularity increases, finally increasing beyond the point where quantum mechanics can play any useful role, and gravity alone is the lone player left standing in the game.

Thus, a singularity could be large enough in volume that relativity theory alone can deal with the extreme gravitational conditions. The Big Bang object, containing the mass of the entire Universe, would be (the ultimate as) such a singularity. Massive (Galactic) Black Hole singularities, ditto. Singularities aren't quantum objects. If you continue to add mass to a Black Hole, it gets bigger; the singularity at the centre gets bigger. To believe otherwise is, IMHO, entering the realm of scientific fantasy.

The upshot off all this is that the Big Bang was not a quantum event, nor would a future Omega Big Crunch be, and likewise, Black Holes are not quantum objects.

The Omega: In the beginning was the Big Bang event origin of our Universe – 13.7 billion years ago. Now what? It’s taken 13.7 billion years to get to ‘now’; what’s the state of play in another 13.7 billion years, or even 137 billion years hence?

What’s the ultimate fate of our Universe? Our Universe is currently expanding post Big Bang – ever increasing in volume like a balloon blowing up and up. Now either our expanding Universe will one day cease to expand as gravity slows things down to a crawl, then a stop, then a reversal – a contracting Universe, or our Universe will keep on expanding forever and ever and a day, ultimately terminating in a Heat Death. A Heat Death is when the temperature of the entire Universe becomes uniform. Every place has the same temperature, and that’s going to be cold – as close to absolute zero as makes no odds. Thus the Heat Death is the death of heat. That’s the Universe ending not with a bang (or even a very Big Crunch) but with a whimper. I really don’t like that ending at all.

Assuming that the Universe will ultimately contract into a Big Crunch, what will happen? Well, as one gets ever closer to the Big Crunch, density increases (but will not, can not, become infinite) and temperature increases (but again, not infinitely so) and the volume of space decreases (but will never become infinitely tiny) and time just keeps ticking on. Further, we know there are lots of Black Holes out in the cosmos; both small and massive (such as exists at the centre of our own galaxy). As the Universe contracts, these Black Holes will get closer and closer, not only to each other, but to the rest of non-Black Hole stuff as well. Ultimately, all the non-Black Hole stuff will get ingested into existing Black Holes as the Universe shrinks and matter’s density increases. Of course large Black Holes will also ingest smaller Black Holes, until ultimately, at the time approaching Big Crunch; there will be one ultimate/universal Black Hole left containing all that was.

Then what happens? The conditions inside a Black Hole are still unknown, beyond the equations of current physics, but whatever parameters are present, infinities aren't among them (which might put me at odds with most astrophysicists). My reasoning is that no matter what, there’s only a finite amount of stuff comprising the universal Black Hole. Squeezed into a tiny area, the density will be extreme, but not infinitely so. The volume will be tiny, but not infinitely so. That is because there is an ultimate limit to how small length (hence volume) can get. The smallest possible length is known as Planck length and anything less than that space ceases to exist. Planck length is 1.6 x 10 to the minus 35 meters. Gravity might be so intense that not even light can escape, but it doesn't take an infinite amount of gravity to do that. And there can’t be a time equals zero, either at the beginning (Big Bang) or at the end (Big Crunch). Because time exists in discrete quantum units (Planck-Wheeler time units), one must go from a minus one (contracting phase) time unit directly to a plus one (expanding) time unit, as there can be no time unit where time equals zero. In other words, you go from a Big Crunch directly to a Big Bang, contraction to expansion, endlessly cycling or recycling. Or, the universal Black Hole ingesting in all matter and energy (approaching the Big Crunch) turns inside out and becomes a universal White Hole (the Big Bang) spewing out stuff (matter and energy).

That’s sort of akin to having four cars approach an intersection, on each from the north, south, east and west. If each car is one kilometre from the intersection, and each car is travelling at say 50 kilometres per hour, then it is clear this contraction of automobiles will result in a Big Crunch. However, it might be difficult to then go to an automobile expansion as the cars will be a wreck and in no condition to go anywhere! That’s one possibility.

The other possibility is that it might be unrealistic to expect in a contracting Universe that each and every bit and piece will meet at exactly the same point in time and space. Using our car analogy, what if each car was one kilometre away from the intersection, but say the north car was going 46 kilometres per hour, the east car 48 kilometres per hour, the south car 50 kilometres per hour, and the west car 52 kilometres per hour. Then, we can go directly from automobile contraction to automobile expansion as each car passes through the intersection while only having near misses with the other vehicles.

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COSMOLOGY AND THE MULTIPLE YOU

The quantum mantra revolves around the theory that in physics, anything not forbidden is compulsory - given enough time and/or space. While there is nothing forbidden about an identical twin(s) of yourself existing elsewhere in the cosmos, how compulsory that is depends on what sort of cosmological model you adopt.

You are unique, aren't you? There...

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COSMOLOGY AND THE MULTIPLE YOU

The quantum mantra revolves around the theory that in physics, anything not forbidden is compulsory - given enough time and/or space. While there is nothing forbidden about an identical twin(s) of yourself existing elsewhere in the cosmos, how compulsory that is depends on what sort of cosmological model you adopt.

You are unique, aren't you? There never has been a person exactly like you before, there isn't now, and there never will be. Maybe! Depending on what's really real in all things cosmological, the odds that there are identical copies of you out there can range from plausible if improbable, to plausible and probable, to in fact near certainty, even certainty. The key issue revolves around the concept of infinity, or near infinity. If one has an infinite number of universes to play around with, and/or infinite time, then every possible history is, sooner or later, somewhere, compulsory.

The idea of a duplicate you or two or three isn't that far-fetched. Even on Planet Earth, this tiny speck within the cosmos, you have had, do have, and will have doppelgängers. But those are just look-alikes, not actual duplicates of you down to the nittiest-grittiest detail.

From the outset, some definitions are in order. We have the 'observable universe' which is that part of the entire Universe we can actually see in the here and now. Parts of the Universe that exist, but which light hasn't yet reached us, aren't part of our 'observable universe' - yet. The 'Universe' is all that we can ever know about, regions seen, and regions as yet unseen. Then there is the 'Multiverse' which, if it exists, are a conglomerate of separate Universes, each of which exists as a discrete entity in a three dimensional arena and which we could potentially interact with. Think of separate houses along a street you can visit in turn as separate universes. An overall analogy could be the nucleus part of a liver cell (our 'observable universe'), the entire cell (the Universe), and the grand collection of liver cells - the liver Multiverse as it were. Apart from those, there are parallel (mirror/shadow/alternate) universes which 'exist' - for lack of a better phrase - in other planes of existence and like houses that exist in a time instead of a special sequence, say on the same block of land, one can't easily travel from one to another. There's also the Many Worlds Interpretation variation of parallel universe, and simulated universes.

Firstly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the existing Universe? That's plausible, but probably unlikely.

Discussion: The existing Universe could be as near to infinite as makes no odds. It obviously can't be infinite, because it would take an infinite amount of time to expand the Universe to an infinite volume, and we know the Big Bang took place less than 14 billion years ago. And, the Universe can't contain an infinite amount of stuff; otherwise it would have to have an infinite volume to house it all. The fact that our night sky is dark, suggests that there can't be an infinite number of stars and galaxies in our observable universe, otherwise, no matter in which direction you looked, you'd see a star or galaxy and the night sky would be as light as the daytime. However, from our point of view, while not infinite, the Universe is still BIG! And it does contain a lot of stuff. It is within the bounds of possibility that within such a vast space, by chance, there could be a duplicate(s) of you, even more identical to you than any identical terrestrial twin you might happen to have. The odds aren't very high to be honest, but they aren't zero. However, even if an identical copy of you exists elsewhere out there, the probability is far greater that they already have, or someday will. The odds that two copies of you exist right now multiply the odds against by many orders of magnitude. Finally, even if another copy of you exists somewhere out there now, they are in all probability way to far away for the both of you to ever shake hands.

Secondly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in a cyclic Universe? That's not only plausible, it borders on near certainty.

Discussion: Current cosmological observations suggest that our Universe began some 13.7 billion years ago in a Big Bang. Alas, the expansion of our Universe appears not only not slowing down, but ever accelerating due to something cosmologists and astrophysicists are calling dark energy - which they admit they don't really understand. Anyway, despite dark energy, many cosmologists cling to the concept that eventually the expansion will slow down, halt, and reverse, resulting in ultimately a Big Crunch billions of years in the future. That Big Crunch leads directly to another Big Bang - expansion - contraction - Big Crunch - Big Bang, etc., etc. Thus one has an ever oscillating or cyclic Universe with no beginning and no end. Ah, the concept of infinity (this case in time) rears its head. Since the Universe has already gone through an infinite number of these cycles, as surely as night follows day follows night, anything that could have happened, has happened, and happened an infinite number of times. That includes in infinite number of you, and the life your leading now right down to the last detail an infinite number of times, as well as leading differing lives in every possible variation from the major (marriage, career, children, lifespan, etc.) through to the relatively minor, right down to the highly trivial (like an infinite number of lifetimes absolutely identical to the current one except for one morning when you had an ever so slightly different breakfast cereal). Just think, somewhere in the infinite past, there was a version of you who lived an entire lifetime driving a car and never hit a red light! Again, anything that is within the realm of possibility, even if improbable in the extreme, has happened, and has happened again an infinite number of times. Such is the nature of infinity. The other nice thing about an infinite Universe (whether in time or space) is that all those unsuccessful eggs and sperm, all those failed or un-germinated seeds, all those spores and pollen that never bore fruit, all those lives that never were, all now get their moment in the sun!

There's an interesting variation on the above theme. Most of us are probably familiar with the sci-fi idea of being caught in a time-loop. You repeat an interval of time over again and again, probably until some weird sense of deja vu alerts you that something's not quite right. Expand the idea to the grandest scale possible. Big Bang - expansion - contraction - Big Crunch - Big Bang - expansion, etc. but each cycle isn't a new cycle with a new history and new possibilities rather each cycle is absolutely identical to the one that came before, and the one before that, etc. So, there will be an endless number of you, but there will be no wild new things in your lives, just the same old life, again and again. Maybe that's where we get our now and again sense of deja vu from.

Of course in a cyclic universe, one universe dies before the next is born, so a copy of you in a previous universe is kaput before your universe comes into being, and you will be kaput before the next cycle starts, so there's no meeting of identically like minds.

Thirdly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the Multiverse? That's not only plausible, but much more likely than if only our one Universe exists.

Discussion: We live in a Universe that is very friendly to life-as-we-know-it (life-not-as-we-know-it is another can of worms that need not concern us here). That is, it seems that the various physical laws and physical constants are fine tuned to allow our kind of life. If any of those values were slightly greater or slightly lesser, the biophysics and biochemistry that allow organic life forms to exist wouldn't be possible. For example, if gravity were ever so slightly weaker, atoms/molecules wouldn't coalesce into macro-bodies like galaxies and stars and planets. If gravity were ever so slightly stronger, stars would be far more massive on average, and the more massive a star, the shorter it's lifespan, to the point where there wouldn't be enough time for life in a young solar system to develop before the parent star went poof! So, that fine tuning leads to a trio of possibilities.

The first is that we (meaning the Universe's life forms) are just incredibly lucky that our one and only Universe just happened to meet all the Goldilocks criteria that allow us to exist. The second is that there is indeed, an intelligent designer responsible for those conditions. For want of a better word, let's call this intelligent designer "God". (There's an interesting variation on this theme and that is this Universe was created by an extraterrestrial intelligence in another Universe, a feat which might be relativity simple to a highly advanced technology able to manipulate the basic forces of physics.)

The third possibility is that there is a Multiverse. We can all agree that our Universe is a Goldilocks universe. We can also all agree that we can imagine other universes, while superficially akin to ours (it would at least have space and time), have differing values for some of all of the physical properties we associate with ours - differing values for the physical constants, the types and numbers of physical forces and particles, the physical laws that are part and parcel of physics, etc. It's akin to humans - we're all superficially similar, yet each one of us (past, present and future) is unique (even identical twins differ and the same applies to clones as well as nurture affects us as well as nature). So, like we have a multiverse of humans, we could have a multiverse of universes (the Multiverse), some of which, like ours, will be Goldilocks universes, although most won't be because some critical constant(s) or force(s) or particle(s) or law(s) will be different enough not to allow the complexity we associate with life-as-we-know-it.

In other words, there exist dozens, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe multi-millions or billions (or more) of universes where the physical laws and constants may well be different. That being the case, most universes will be barren of life because their physics, hence chemistry, aren't compatible with life-as-we-know-it. But a few, by chance, will be Goldilocks Universes. It wouldn't surprise anyone that because we exist, our Universe must be a Goldilocks Universe.

How exactly a Multiverse would come about is neither here or there. But there is at least one theory. To help explain various observational cosmological anomalies that would follow a traditional Big Bang, several decades ago the idea was floated that immediately following the Big Bang came a period of ultra-rapid inflation, before the expansion settled down to a far slower rate. Today, inflation is widely accepted as part and parcel of the Big Bang model. However, inflation need not have ceased at the exact same nanosecond everywhere. That is, if inflation continued on at one point, another Universe would quickly form, and if inflation didn't shut down exactly at the same moment, another bubble or pocket or baby universe would bud off, and so on and so on, resulting in a sort of bubble/foam collective of universes - the Multiverse.

The upshot is that lots of universes (a Multiverse), could mean a lot of you! However, distances separating the various copies of you are now even vaster, so again, getting together for dinner and drinks isn't possible.

Fourthly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in Parallel Universe(s)? It's plausible, but perhaps not all that probable.

Discussion: We've all seen various sci-fi shows where our heroes get propelled into some sort of parallel or mirror universe. The characters they meet are close to, but not identical to themselves. The history they encounter is similar to, but not identical to the history they know. Of course that's for the sake of the plot. A parallel universe could easily contain a parallel you. Unfortunately, sci-fi aside, while there's theoretical reasons to postulate parallel universes, there's no known way of getting to them (and therefore no way of meeting yourself - assuming another yourself exists). But like in the Multiverse concept, if there are multi-billions of parallel universes, that increases the odds of a duplicate you.

Fifthly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the 'Many Worlds Interpretation' of quantum physics? That's taken as given!

Discussion: There is a theory known as the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics that each time anything, from fundamental particle to human being, comes to a fork in the road as it were, and has to make a choice(s), both/all forks are taken (something can be, and not be at the same time). To accommodate both/all alternatives, this quantum decision making (in the case of the micro), or macro decision making (in the case of scales we're familiar with), the entire Universe splits, and where we had one Universe, we now have two (or more), one for each fork. Of course when you consider the number of forks that the Universe encounters, well it's been calculated that every second, some 10 to the 100th power of Universes need to be created. (Just think how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of decisions (usually quite trivial, often subconsciously) you make every day. There has to be a new Universe to accommodate every alternative. Of course that means that when you add up all these collected Universes, there must be a lot of you, and a lot of everything else, each one ever so subtly different. In the case of deciding between wearing a green dress or a red dress there are now two Universes - one with you in a green dress; one with you in a red dress. And as in the case of parallel universes, there's no known, even theoretical, way of getting from this (say green dress) one to say another one of them (say red dress) and thus exchanging greetings with your identical self or selves.

Lastly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you as a Simulation? That too is as close to certainty as makes no odds!

Discussion: Do you exist? I mean really, really exist and have a physical reality? That's a pretty dumb question you'll probably ask! The answer is an obvious 'yes'. But, what if I were to suggest that the odds are very high that you have no actual physical reality, and that I have no actual physical reality, and that in fact all terrestrial life, Planet Earth, perhaps the entire observable universe has no actual physical reality! In other words, what if we are a computer simulation!

Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that in the real physical Universe, there exists some tens of thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations which have evolved technology our equal or better; even more advanced than we can conceive of. The odds are high that most would have invented computers - hardware and software. Any one civilization, such as our own, have (to date) produced multi-thousands of computer programs, many of which simulate life forms - think of the hundreds, indeed thousands of computer or video games. No doubt these programs will grow, over time, ever more complex and lifelike until they simulate reality to the same degree as reality itself.

If one advanced civilization produces multi-thousands of individual computer programs that simulate an actual, or imagined, reality, what are the odds that we aren't one of those simulated thousands vis-à-vis being that advanced civilization that actually exists in real reality? How could you know if you were real (hardware), or imaginary (software)? I maintain there's no way of you knowing, at least for absolute sure.

There's only a relatively few actual civilizations, but untold numbers of created false (simulated) realities - what odds we are one of the real ones and not one of the imaginary/simulated many?

Perhaps our concept of 'God' is nothing more than a mythological version of some advanced, but hardly supernatural, extraterrestrial computer programmer! Now as long as nobody hits the delete key!

But of course if there are multiple copies of that computer program containing you then that equates to a lot of you! You could exist hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times over, all leading perhaps identical, but more likely as not, similar 'lives'. Now you quite obviously could not meet yourself as each piece of software is akin to a one universe - the collection of all the units of that software is akin to a type of Multiverse!

Is the idea really so way out in left field that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it could be right? We have to look to advances in our own terrestrial computing power to determine that. Computer generated simulations are already realistic enough that they are used to train pilots and MDs and other humans in professional activities where mistakes in training, if done in real situations, could be disastrous. Our cinema industry has already produced computer generated virtual reality films, bypassing real actors and real scenery. It's entirely possible to bring back in a sense dead actors to star again in new productions. We've all be awed by computer generated special effects in films that are so realistic that if you didn't actually know better, you'd swear they were real.

Walk into any DVD store and you'll find thousands of video (computer) games and/or simulations that you can run on your PC. Most have 'humans' in various role-playing guises that are software generated and which you interact with. The reality factor is increasing by leaps and bounds. At what point will the software become complex enough such that these simulated 'beings' are advanced enough to have self-awareness? What happens when the computer software programming these virtual 'humans' becomes equal to the software (brains) that program us? What happens when the computer software complexity exceeds that of the human brain? Far fetched? Methinks not. Now just replace our virtual 'humans' with ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, we're the virtual reality in somebody (something) else's actual reality.

That theory is testable. While I can think of no way to prove I'm not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication, we too are simulated beings. No software (computer or human wetware - brains) is perfect. If there are any glitches, or software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that - the fine structure constant for example or the proton-electron mass ratio has apparently changed over astronomical time periods), or say the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate for no real apparent reason (that sounds familiar - recall dark energy). Computer software - from our experience - is always being upgraded and updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we're a product of that software.

Even though there could be multiple copies of a video game that contains you as a character, it's one you per copy, so again, no meeting yourself. That's not to prevent the creator of the game from including multiple copies of you within the one game - if so; well a conversation between you and copies of you won't be very interesting since you each know what you're going to say before you say it!

Finally, one bright note is evident. Even as you approach your own demise, take heart and rejoice, for somewhere out there, there is another you(s) to carry on, and on, and on, and on, and on! As the sun (once upon a time) never set on the British Empire, so to will the sun never set on you.

By the by, if you want to split hairs, you could insist that any copies of you aren't really identical in that the elementary particles, atoms and molecules making up your twin aren't the same elementary particles, atoms and molecules making you up. The flaw in that argument is that all fundamental particles, like say all electrons, are identical to as many decimal places as you care to measure and calculate.

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THE BRANES AND THE BULK AND THE BULK OF THE BRANES: THE BRANE NEW WORLD OF BRANEWORLDS

For millennia, New Age devotees have related observations of nebulous exotic entities from apparently alternative realities like Parallel Universes that have made a crossover into our reality. Rational people suggest that’s just so much bovine fertilizer. Or is it? Perhaps theoretical physics and String...

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THE BRANES AND THE BULK AND THE BULK OF THE BRANES: THE BRANE NEW WORLD OF BRANEWORLDS

For millennia, New Age devotees have related observations of nebulous exotic entities from apparently alternative realities like Parallel Universes that have made a crossover into our reality. Rational people suggest that’s just so much bovine fertilizer. Or is it? Perhaps theoretical physics and String Theory might just support such an exotic scenario, the scenario of the Braneworld.

Question: Might 3-Braneworlds equal Parallel Universes (or in mystic-speak Astral Planes; Alternative Realities; Spirit Worlds; Parallel Realities; Higher Planes of Existence; Higher Dimensions; Portals in Space-time, as well as a host of related New Age claptrap phrases that non-New Age squares indeed call claptrap) from which come ‘higher beings’, ‘astral entities’, our ‘enlightened space brothers’ or even plain ordinary everyday run-of-the-mill aliens.

You cannot have nebulous otherworldly beings, or alternate reality entities, without having an alternative place or reality or an other-world(s) from which they come from visiting from and call home. Higher planes of reality and associated phrases have been called so much poppycock and confined to the rubbish bin, but perhaps prematurely.

Well, String Theory comes to the rescue, if not for the benefit of New Age gurus, then for cosmologists and theoretical physicists. But perhaps we can kill the two birds with the one stone as it were.

It all starts with String Theory. Now you probably think of the elementary particles, if you think of them at all, as very tiny little billiard balls. However, some bright sparks decades ago came up with an alternative. Instead of a zoo full of different types of little billiard balls, there were tiny vibrating strings. How they vibrated determined what kind of elementary particle it was – one good vibration/second might be an electron; two good vibrations/second a positron; three good vibrations/second equate to a neutrino, etc.

Strings could either be open (like an ordinary piece of string) or closed loops like a circle or ellipse; somewhat like a doughnut.

Now these strings are one-dimensional. But there can be two-dimensional Stringy objects, called Branes, short for Membranes. In fact, Branes became the generic name for all structures in String Theory, usually identified as p-Branes (weak pun) where the “p” stood for the number of spatial dimensions. So a 1-Brane was a string; a 2-Brane was a membrane; a 3-Brane was akin to our own version of reality. A 3-Brane is commonly referred to as a 3-Braneworld.

Oh, there’s a catch. In order for String Theory to theoretically work, there has to be extra dimensions (I can hear New Age mystics cheering now), in fact nine spatial dimensions all up, plus the one dimension we call time. So, in fact you could go all the way up to a 9-Brane. Again all p-Branes have an extra time dimension as well tagged on. All up, that’s six more spatial dimensions than we are comfortable with, but they tend to be out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Most extra dimensions are extremely tiny and curled up and hiding in-between the bits and pieces, the flotsam and jetsam of the quantum realm. But one extra dimension could be extremely large indeed providing the space all else, like 3-Braneworlds, is housed in.

Now 3-Braneworlds have to exist in higher dimensional space, like a 4-Brane which we can’t traverse. It’s just akin to how a fridge magnet is ‘trapped’ on a 2-D fridge surface (a 2-Brane plus extra time dimension) yet resides within a 3-D (3-Brane plus additional time dimension) space. Or, to use another analogy, a 2-D shower curtain hangs in 3-D space but the water droplets are confined to the 2-D shower curtain surface. We’re confined to a 3-D universe ‘surface’ (3-Braneworld plus one time dimension) but that resides in a 4-D (4-Brane plus one time dimension) volume. To cut to the chase, lets just call that what our spatial 3-Braneworld universe reside in a realm of five space-time dimensions. That realm has been given a name – it’s called the Bulk. Why it is called the Bulk I have no idea, but that’s what it is named.

I've notched the Bulk up to being a five dimensional space-time (out of a possible ten), but it could just as easily I guess be the tenth space-time dimension (9 spatial and one of time). It doesn't really matter since we can’t directly see it, taste it, touch it, hear it or smell it, be it a 4-Brane or a 9-Brane. But regardless, the absolute key point is that gravity can connect 3-Braneworlds via the Bulk whether the Bulk has a 4-Brane, 5-Brane, 6-Brane, 7-Brane, 8-Brane or 9-Brane spatial dimensionality.

So much for the background theory: now, the interesting bit is what if our universe were in fact, in reality, really a 3-Braneworld (plus a single dimension of time) residing in 4-Brane spatial volume, or the equivalent, a five space-time dimensionality (the Bulk). What if in fact there were other 3-Braneworlds (each with a time dimension) residing in that same 4-Brane (plus time dimension) volume of five dimensional space-time (the Bulk). Because of that residing (or hiding) in a higher spatial dimension, two 3-Braneworlds could exist within millimetres of each other, unseen, separated by the Bulk. Why unseen? It’s back to those tiny open and closed strings and where they call home.

Closed strings are confined to our own 3-D or 3-Braneworld universe (like water droplets on that shower curtain) where they appear as those elementary particles that are associated with electromagnetism like photons and electrons, as well as those particles part and parcel to the strong and weak nuclear forces. These three forces are the quantum forces that rule our roost. If closed strings are the case for neighbouring 3-Braneworlds, then we can’t see them because their electromagnetic (light) particles, photons, are forever confined and trapped to that 3-Braneworld and never reach us. Other 3-Braneworlds are invisible to us. That leaves the fourth force, the non-quantum force, gravity.

Open strings are the force particles of gravity, called gravitons. Open strings can exist with one string end attached to our 3-Braneworld, the other string end to an alien 3-Braneworld. Open strings, in other words, could cross the Bulk from our 3-Braneworld to another 3-Braneworld and be attached to both. In other words, gravity is our best bet means of detecting other nearby 3-Braneworlds. But you can’t see gravity, so our neighboring 3-Braneworld is for all practical purposes is still invisible to us. However, you can ‘see’ the effects that gravity has on objects you can see. You can’t see the gravity that controls the flight of a baseball, but you can see the effect of gravity on the baseball.

Postulating a nearby 3-Braneworld explains a trilogy of puzzlements. One is Dark Energy, one is Dark Matter; the other third is why gravity is so weak relative to the other three fundamental quantum forces (electromagnetism; weak and strong nuclear)

The Mystery of Dark Energy: If two 3-Braneworlds are in close proximity, attached by gravity, then they could have a close encounter of the ka-boom kind. We might term that ka-boom a ‘Big Bang’. If the Big Bang was an actual collision between two 3-Braneworlds (known as the Ekpyrotic Universe scenario), causing a ripple and expansion effect, then Dark Energy is that left over residual oomph, the continuing shock wave of the Big Bang which comes to the fore and dominates the Universe when the initial radiation dominated epoch and the following matter dominated epoch begin to thin out or dilute as the Universe expanded. In this scenario however, we have to have Dark Energy eventually thin out, dissipate and fade away too.

The Mystery of Dark Matter: In order to explain various rotational anomalies of the galaxy, ours and others, additional but unseen matter with associated gravity has got to exist – it’s either that or we have to drastically revise the laws of gravity as we currently understand them and no scientist is wiling to tilt at that windmill. Unfortunately, this postulated additional matter isn't akin to normal matter which you can detect because you can see it. We can’t see this additional matter which is postulated, indeed nearly required, to exist. That’s why it is called ‘Dark Matter’, though a better term might be ‘invisible matter’. However, if a nearby 3-Braneworld universe shared its gravity with us, via those open graviton strings that transverse the Bulk, well that explains the ‘need for extra gravity’ to explain rotational anomalies and thus eliminates the need for the theoretical un-matter-like ‘Dark Matter’.

The Mystery of Weak Gravity: Gravity is the 98-pound weakling force relative to the trio of Charles Atlas quantum forces. Why has always been a total mystery that theoretical physicists have had to deal with. Open (gravity) strings in the Bulk explain why. Closed strings are confined to our own 3-Braneworld. We feel their full strength. However, our open string gravitons aren’t confined to our 3-Braneworld. Our gravity is diluted by spreading out into and throughout the Bulk and also attaching to other 3-Braneworlds. That’s why it’s the 98-pound weakling.

Another mystery is to answer the question, if our 3-Brane universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? Well, it’s expanding into that five space-time dimensional Bulk.

Anomalies aside, another 3-Braneworld could be, well millimetres away from our 3-Braneworld along with their ‘shadow entities’ or ‘higher beings’ or ‘aliens’ and we’d never know it except through their gravitational contribution, what we call ‘Dark Matter’ which, because it doesn't actually exist in our own 3-Baneworld universe, can never have its identity ‘discovered’ in our labs or high-energy particle accelerators like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

It should be pointed out that even though two 3-Braneworlds could be millimeters apart, they are not intersecting, just as your home and your next door neighbor’s home don’t overlap.

So another question obviously arises. If our 3-Braneworld in that five dimensional space-time Bulk is in extremely close proximity to another 3-Braneworld also in that five dimensional space-time Bulk, and there’s gravity twixt them and us, well, what happens when two 3-Braneworlds collide in the higher dimensional Bulk?

If two 3-Braneworlds are attached by sharing gravity via those open strings, then they in fact can collide. It’s our Big Bang event of 13.7 billion years ago explained. The Big Bang was just a massive supply of kinetic energy supplied at one location; one set of coordinates, caused by our 3-Braneworld impacting another 3-Braneworld at that one specific point. The two 3-Braneworlds then rebounded, but of course could collide again at a later (unpredictable) date. It’s an interesting variation on the concept of a Cyclic Universe.

The standard 3-Braneworld model likens them to very flat and thin rubbery membrane sheets parallel to each other, sort of like thin LP albums cheek-by-jowl with only tiny separations between them on a shelf. They can approach (under gravity), collide (not everywhere at once as they are not 100% mirror smooth due to random quantum fluctuations if nothing else) then rebound. I think that’s imposing a rather artificial and rigid set of conditions though I gather if you crunch the numbers two membrane thin and parallel 3-Braneworlds are the most likely and stable geometric configuration you can get (but I still think that’s unsatisfactory). Normally when you think of something like the Universe, and something that’s expanding, you think of round things – not flattish membrane sheets. So how about an elastic balloon-ball analogy?

Say we have two 3-D elastic balloon-balls in 4-D ‘space’ (I think they actually call this hyperspace as well as the Bulk) or a five dimensional space-time realm. There could in reality be a dozen 3-Braneworld balloon-balls all in close proximity, but two’s enough for now to illustrate things. These 3-D elastic balloon-balls in collision can expand and contract and ripple, though they remain tethered together by those spring-like inter-brane forces (those open string gravitons).

Each 3-Braneworld balloon-ball has a mix of radiation, matter and Dark Energy which dominates that balloon-ball in turn as the 3-Braneworld evolves cyclically by experiencing a collision, the Big Bang; an expansion; dilution of each component element in turn – otherwise called entropy; cooling; and contraction back to its original state ready for another collision and Big Bang. That term entropy is nothing more than the concept that order tends towards disorder, or in other words, all that original high ordered radiation, matter and Dark Energy becomes more disordered and all ends up ultimately as a uniform but very dilute ‘soup’ until the next injection of kinetic energy – the next collision and Big Bang in an endless cycle.

So, the story thus far: Two 3-Braneworld balloon-balls in higher dimensional space-time (the Bulk, which isn't a static ‘observer’ but an active participant in these events), slowly, ever so slowly start to gravitate towards each other, slowing but surely picking up speed over time. Okay, so they approach each other under their joint mutual gravitational attraction. They hit (that’s our Big Bang); they ring or reverberate like a bell; they compress and each balloon-ball heats up die to that initial compression and expands; the two balloon-balls rebound but quickly slow, stop and set the evolving conditions in each balloon-ball recycle back for a repeat performance.

Another way of putting that evolution is that the kinetic energy of motion resulting in the Big Bang event at time and point of collision was converted to radiation, matter and Dark Energy which then dilutes over time as the 3-Braneworld expands, finally cools, slows down, contracts back to it’s original balloon-ball configuration.

Those extra-dimensional spring-like dynamics keeps the 3-Braneworlds apart but tethered though both are individually expanding or contracting or rippling and both are on the rebound from the other. When things settle down, and maximum entropy rules the roost, they can come together again still connected to its neighbouring counterpart by those open graviton strings.

Fly-In-The-Ointment #1: Even if other entities are just millimetres away in their 3-Brane Universe, they are as separated from us by the five-dimensional space-time Bulk as we are from them. How can they use gravity to get from their 3-Braneworld to its next door neighbour 3-Braneworld (that’s us) through higher dimensional space-time? One can’t just hike across gravity like it was a bridge. There’s gravity between the Earth and the Moon but you can’t walk-the-walk between the two.

How then does an other-world, a 3-Braneworld ET or the ‘higher beings’ that exist there get to our 3-Braneworld and then appear as those New Age ‘shadow beings’ from those mystic Never-Never Lands they like to go on, and on, and on about? Well, about the only viable scenario I can think of is excessive gravity translates into Black Holes which can, in theory, translate into Wormholes (for lack of a better word or concept) and Wormholes can be used, in theory, as a transit system. On the plus side, entities intelligent enough to manipulate gravity to create a wormhole transit system with entrance and exit portals will have no need of intergalactic or interstellar spaceships and million year journeys.

Fly-In-The-Ointment #2: String Theory, Branes (“p” or otherwise), the Bulk (or hyperspace), etc. well it’s all just pure (and highly technical) mathematical theory. There’s not one shred of experimental evidence; there’s not one single run on the board that Strings and Branes exist. Till some theoretical physicist turns experimental physicist and hits a home-run, well I'm afraid all of the above will have to reside in New Age La-La Land, however fascinating the scenarios are.

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AN INFINITE COSMOS: ISSUES ARISING

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more...

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AN INFINITE COSMOS: ISSUES ARISING

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos.

In the infinite beginning there was something rather than pure nothing – a finite amount of something in an infinite void of nothingness. This scenario eliminates the philosophical quandary of what’s beyond the boundary - that only other alternative. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of how much stuff there is. An infinite amount of stuff doesn't leave you much elbow room.

In the infinite beginning, well there was no beginning; there can ever be an end. No Alpha – no Omega. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of what comes before the ‘beginning’ and what comes after ‘the end’.

Okay, having postulated an infinite cosmos in space and in duration, well, other certain and not so philosophical issues come to the fore. If they can be addressed, well that’s all to the good. If not, well it’s back to the drawing board.

I’ll start with…

Olber’s Paradox

The night sky should be as bright as the daytime sky since in whatever direction you look, sooner or later you should see a star or galaxy that’s in your line of sight. That’s Olber’s Paradox because the night-time sky isn't as bright as the daytime sky. One resolution is that our observable Universe is finite and there are only a finite number of stars and galaxies and thus, there will be lines of sight that do not intersect with an object that’s emitting light.

But what if the cosmos is infinite in size and has existed for an infinite amount of time? Does that resurrect or reinstate the validity or viability of Olber’s Paradox? Not necessarily.

Why is there something rather than nothing? That’s been a prime philosophical question that has raged for aeons. But, on reflection, overall, there is a great deal more of nothing than of something. If everything was something, it would be rather difficult to move. There would be no elbow room. In other words, just because the cosmos is infinite in duration and in volume doesn't mean that there has to be an infinite amount of something within.

Let’s say that pure nothing is a perfect vacuum. Then something within that nothing makes for an imperfect vacuum. One could image a cosmos so dilute that there could literally be gaps of pure nothingness between the bits and pieces of something. Or, one could imagine a universe that contained just one final cosmic Black Hole that had over all the infinite aeons gobbled up everything else that had been a something within the cosmos, and thus 99.99999% of that cosmos would contain absolutely nothing.

That aside…

Stars, like people, are born, and thus their light may not have yet reached us.

Stars, like people, die, and thus their light has ceased to reach us. It has all now passed by.

In an infinite space, stars maybe so far distant that by the time their light reaches us, it’s so diluted or spread out that only one photon per hour hits the eye and that threshold is too low to stimulate the optic nerve and thus register.

Ever present cosmic Black Holes have gobbled up a lot of the radiation that is emitted and reflected. In fact, in a cosmos that’s infinite, why haven’t those astronomical Black Holes sucked up everything that can be sucked up thus terminating any and all evolving universes within that cosmos? Well the answer is Hawking radiation which theoretically predicts, on pretty substantial grounds, that eventually Black Holes will radiate away their mass. Once input is less than Hawking radiation output, the Black Hole will slowly, ever so slowly, radiate away, giving back to the cosmos what it once took away. There will be more on the significance of that shortly.

Entropy and Cosmic Recycling #

Another concept that needs addressing is entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, otherwise known as the ‘arrow of time’ or sometimes as ‘time’s arrow’. If one considers an infinite universe to be a closed box or closed system, then over time, and we have an infinite amount of it, that closed box should reach absolute equilibrium and no further cosmic evolution would be possible. There would be a maximum amount of disorder, and there would be no further energy available to reverse that level of disorder.

It should be noted from the outset that in any closed box or closed system, entropy rules. Things will go from a state of order to a state of disorder without outside interference, that being an external source of energy to reverse the natural trend. The commonly cited example is if you have a closed box (the kitchen), and you turn off the fridge, the kitchen and the fridge will eventually reach absolute equilibrium, the same temperature. The kitchen warms up the fridge; the fridge cools down the kitchen, until both are at the same temperature – maximum disorder. It takes an outside energy source – electricity – to keep the fridge colder than the kitchen and thus in a state is disequilibrium or a state where entropy has not been maximized. Trouble is, once energy is evenly spread out throughout a closed system (like the fridge in the kitchen), no matter how much of it there is, it’s useless in terms of doing useful things – like initiating change.

Another example: Your own body is a closed system. Your body’s energy is in equilibrium. You are at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit from head to toe. Within that state of affairs, your body can not do useful things. Fortunately, there’s a larger closed system that your body is a part of (like the fridge is part of the kitchen) that enables you to disrupt your body’s equilibrium and thus provide the means for your body to initiate change. Your outside energy source is food, which is good since once you invoke that larger closed system that contains you, that larger system absorbs your body heat that gets radiated away into it. So the fridge needs outside energy to replenish its supply of cold; you need energy to replenish your body heat and to provide the ways and means to keep you keeping on. Of course as we all know, that’s just postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later the fridge breaks down with wear; ditto you too. But in the meantime, and for a little while, you can keep your body’s entropy under control.

Now any attempt to tunnel around various laws, principles and relationships of physics might be in vain, but not a total waste of time. The laws, principles and relationships of physics are constantly being refined, even overturned as in Einstein refined Newton’s gravity; the Sun going around the Earth got overturned by Copernicus. However, anyone attempting to tunnel over, around, or through the Second Law of Thermodynamics should abandon all hope. If you try to butt heads with entropy you’ll just end up with a sore head. You’d have better luck patenting a ‘perpetual motion’ machine, itself a violation of the ways and means of the entropy concept. In fact entropy is why you can’t construct a perpetual motion machine and why any patent officer worthy of the name would refuse you a patent for one.

Still, in an infinite cosmos, a cosmos that keeps on keeping on, there probably needs to be a way to go from a state of disorder (high entropy) back to a state of order (low entropy).



As we noted in the example of the fridge and your body, it takes energy to reverse entropy or at least hold it at bay. A reversal of entropy is sort of like that closed box with Maxwell’s Demon (representing energy) that controls a slot that the Demon can either open or close that’s in the middle of that closed box that’s of a uniform temperature. The Demon opens the slot whenever a rapidly moving (hot) molecule heads toward the left side or when a slower moving (cold) molecule heads toward the right side. After a while, the left side of the box will be containing just hot stuff (rapidly moving molecules) and the right side cold stuff (slowly moving molecules). Maxwell’s Demon is like a kid expending energy sorting a bag of 1000 various coloured marbles (maximum disorder) into piles of reds and greens and blues and yellows (maximum order). Of course our infinite cosmos contains no demons, and marble-sorting kids need not apply if there’s ever a job ad for restoring order to an infinite cosmos.

Okay, without demons (or entropy reversing kids), our infinite cosmos heads towards a state of maximum entropy or maximum disorder or maximum uniformity. The cosmic temperature will be the same everywhere; matter will be evenly distributed. But, can an infinite cosmos ever reach such a state? It could or should take an infinite amount of time, but that’s also assumed.

Yet alas, what even an infinite cosmos needs is a Maxwell’s Demon. The cosmos, if it is to retain a state of vitality for an infinite duration, needs something that recycles stuff that’s at maximum entropy (maximum disorder) back to the basics of minimum entropy (or minimum disorder) where useful things can continue to happen.

* The Role of Gravity

Gravity seems to be a Maxwell Demon’s kind of force that keeps on keeping on. As long as you have two bits of matter, even just two electrons, you have gravity. Radiation (electromagnetism) could be dispersed evenly in infinite space over infinite time, but it is hard to imagine that situation with gravity. The only real way gravity could be rendered inert and useless as an energy source would be if it was 100% concentrated in just one place – like a super ultra mother of all cosmic Black Holes. The only other way gravity could be nullified would be in matter were distributed so absolutely evenly such that every bit of matter were being gravitationally pulled on absolutely evenly in each and every direction. But the slightest nudge or deviation from this ideal theoretical state (inevitable given quantum fluctuations) would throw everything out of equilibrium. But because matter is energy and energy is matter, if gravity can disrupt the distribution of matter from a state of near perfect uniformity, then energy will follow the short and curly material bits. Light (photons) reacts to gravity as much as electrons do. Further, the one extra nice property that gravity has is that it can’t be blocked. You can block out light or shield yourself from electromagnetic effects, but nothing will shield you from gravity.

* The Recycling Role of Radioactivity

Fortunately, there are several basic ways of recycling complex cosmic stuff back into the cosmos in the form of simple stuff. The first of these however has issues. Gravity can contract and pull together interstellar gas and dust into a proto-star which will ignite under pressure via thermonuclear fusion to form a radiant star. Stars however fuse lighter elements into heavier elements, and when a star goes nova, or becomes a supernovae, those heavier elements increasingly form the next generation of interstellar gas and dust. Eventually, after many generations of enrichment, interstellar gas and dust is lacking in those lighter elements (mainly hydrogen and helium) which easily undergoes fusion. Heavy elements, like iron, just won’t fuse any more and so the continued formation of radiant stellar stuff grinds to a halt. But, there is an escape clause.

Among the heavy elements; elements that stars manufacture, are radioactive elements with unstable atomic nuclei. Radioactive decay re-releases back into the cosmos those fundamental bits and pieces that can reform into those lighter elements that are the basic building blocks for forming radiant stellar objects. There is cosmic recycling from the simple to the complex and back to the simple again.

* The Recycling Role of Cosmic Black Holes

The second way of cosmic recycling is, believe it or not, via cosmic Black Holes. Astronomical Black Holes, via the vacuum energy (quantum foam or fluctuations) and quantum tunnelling, can release elementary particles back into the cosmos. As mentioned earlier, this is known as Hawking Radiation, after theoretical cosmologist/astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Complex stuff can go into a Black Hole, but just very simple stuff ultimately comes back out again.

* The Recycling Role of Life

Life can be an entropy buster as in the case of Maxwell’s Demon, the kid who sorts the marbles, the mum who does the housework, the bird or beaver who gathers up forest debris to make a nest. But, it takes outside energy to accomplish these things and at the end you haven’t decreased complexity – the marbles are still marbles; twigs are still twigs. But microbes like bacteria, etc. can break down complex stuff (like twigs) and turn it into less complex stuff which can be recycled into hundreds of new and different complex things. So, when our home planet eventually meets its Waterloo, and gets scattered back into the cosmic winds, thanks to bacteria, there will be more simple stuff floating around than would otherwise be the case

So complex stuff gets recycled back into simple stuff, all brought together again by gravity to ultimately form complex stuff again. The cosmos receives recycled stuff back, from which it can keep on keeping on!

* A Fly in the Ointment

In a cosmos that’s both infinite in space and infinite in duration, here’s an interesting ‘angels on the head of a pin’ question. There are two forces which in theory can extend their influence indefinitely, that is, unto infinity. They are electromagnetism (of which light is a prime example) and gravity. So, can the influence of a force cross an infinite space if it has an infinite amount of time to do it in?

Perhaps Maxwell Demon’s ‘closed box’ isn't really an appropriate ‘container’ for an infinite cosmos. If the cosmos is infinite, can it be described as a closed system?

The Multiple You

And so finally, consider and reconsider the quantum mantra: “Anything that isn't forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen will happen”. That’s even more the case when you have infinite time and space to play around with! So, I add to that mantra “and will happen again and again and again, an infinite number of times”. That actually means, or at least very strongly suggests that every possible scenario, every possible history, and every possible variation on each and every scenario or on any theme that you care to think of or think up will happen again and again and again. That, by the way, includes you. You are a scenario, and you, and every possible variation of you and your history will transpire numerous times; actually an infinite number of times. If that isn't spooky, I don’t know what is, but it’s a logical consequence of having an infinite cosmos.

# There are other ways and means of cosmic recycling too.

Stars are of course spewing out photons, as well as a whole stream of other bits and pieces from cosmic rays to neutrinos collectively called the solar wind, augmented by solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Interplanetary and interstellar space is full of this flotsam and jetsam that stars are giving off. In fact, the Universe tends to be a pretty active place: bits coming together via gravity only to be ejected back into space again be it radio waves (photons) from pulsars or gamma-ray bursts from high energy objects deep in the cosmos.

I understand that even seemingly stable subatomic nuclei aren't really stable in the ultra long term. After trillions of years even the elements we think of as everlasting will disintegrate and go poof with their own half lives.

On a smaller scale, an isolated neutron will decay into a proton, and electron and an anti-neutrino. However, since a neutron is already pretty fundamental, further breakdown isn't all that additionally useful.

Some variations on the standard model of particle physics require protons to decay (into a positron and a pion) albeit with an extremely, extreme half life. Experiments have been conducted to verify this proton decay but to date without success. No matter, a proton (like the neutron) is already pretty fundamental.

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OUR UNIVERSE AS A COSMIC FISH TANK

The Big Bang origin-of-our-Universe event was not the be-all-and-end-all of things. The Big Bang event was but a minor event in the larger cosmic scheme of things. If the elementary particles that comprise your mind and body could talk, what a tale of eternity they would tell!

THE SETTINGS

Setting Number One - Time is infinite in scope....

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OUR UNIVERSE AS A COSMIC FISH TANK

The Big Bang origin-of-our-Universe event was not the be-all-and-end-all of things. The Big Bang event was but a minor event in the larger cosmic scheme of things. If the elementary particles that comprise your mind and body could talk, what a tale of eternity they would tell!

THE SETTINGS

Setting Number One - Time is infinite in scope. ‘Once upon a time’; ‘in the beginning’, are two standard openings to the stage setting where ultimately, our Universe, plays its part. Alas, although there was an ‘in the beginning’ to our Universe, ultimately, IMHO there was no such thing as an ultimate ‘in the beginning’ in the broader cosmic context. In the broadest of broadest viewpoints, time stretches infinitely from cosmic horizon to cosmic horizon. Unlike all we know of regarding beginnings or creations, from our Universe, to our Solar System; to Earth; to terrestrial life, down through the ages to us, there is no ultimate beginning; there is no ultimate ending to the broader cosmic setting we find ourselves in. ‘Once upon a time’, should really read, ‘once upon an eternity’.

Setting Number Two – Space is infinite in scope. In the broadest or broadest viewpoints, there’s no such thing as an edge or a border or a boundary. Space stretches infinitely from horizon to horizon. Again, that’s not the case when just considering our Universe, our Solar System, our home planet. But, this infinite space is again part of the overall stage where our Universe acts out a role – along with probably lots of other universe actors.

Let’s call this larger context an infinite cosmic fish tank, and our Universe a fish.

Setting Number Three – There is no shape to the infinite cosmos. Why propose an infinite in space and infinite in time fish tank cosmos or cosmic setting in which to plunk our Universe - where our Universe is one of the fish? Because it does away with those awkward questions of what came before; what comes after; what lies at the farthest reaches? There is no before in the fish tank. There is no after either. There is no farthest away, only something even farther away, ad-nauseam. It also does away with the need to define an overall shape to our fish tank cosmos. An infinite volume has no shape!

That said, it must be repeated and made clear that our Universe (a fish in the infinite tank) did have a beginning, and therefore one can legitimately ask what came before. Our Universe does have a finite size and therefore a shape – probably spherical. What defines the (ever expanding) size and shape of our Universe is how far out light (the speediest thing we know of) has been able to travel since our Universe’s creation, some 13.7 billion years ago. That’s the boundary to our Universe. Again, our Universe is probably a sphere, with a radius of 13.7 billion light years (a light year being the distance light travels in one year – which, at 300,000 km per second, is a long way). Or, a diameter of 27.4 billion light years.

Setting Number Four – The laws, relationships, and principles of physics (and ultimately chemistry, etc.) are universal throughout the fish tank cosmos. All the fish may not be of the same species and even those that are of the same species may have differing ages, sizes, sexes, etc. but they are ultimately all fish, subject to the universals that govern all things fish; the cosmic ‘water’ is uniform throughout.

Setting Number Five – Those fishy laws suggest that fish universes, each and every one (assuming more than just our Universe fish is in the infinite tank) are unstable – which real fish are – unstable that is. The same fish on two separate days is not the same fish, any more than you are the same you from one day to the next. You grow, you age, your cells and their components get replaced, etc. Translating to real universes, universes are unstable in that they must evolve; either expand, or contract. If there is one thing they can not be is static and unchanging. So, our infinite cosmic fish tank is a dynamic one. Fish come and go, but the tank is forever.

BEFORE THE BIG BANG: THE BIG CRUNCH

Once upon a time there was this universe, but not our Universe. This universe existed way before our Universe existed. For some reason(s) this universe had sufficient matter/mass and thus gravity to slow down its expansion rate, halt same, and reverse the flow. Slowly, but ever so surely, this universe contracted, grew ever hotter and denser, until, like thousands of cars converging at an ever higher rate of speed, came together at an intersection. You have, in effect, the Big Crunch!

What happens when all the stuff that comprises a universe comes together? Well, what happens when you concentrate a lot of stuff into a small space? You get a Black Hole. There are probably going to be already in existence a lot of Black Holes in this collapsing universe, if our Universe is any guide. So, existing Black Holes will have a feeding frenzy as matter around them gets confined into a smaller and smaller space; Black Holes themselves can merge creating a bigger Black Hole, until finally, all mass will be inside a super Black Hole, the product of smaller Black Holes gobbling up matter and ultimately combining until a super Black Hole is all that remains of that universe. But wait, there’s more!

Think of the mass of an entire universe, all coming together at a single point in space and in time, at velocities that make Formula One racetrack driving look like a snail ploughing through molasses on a frozen winter’s night! This is going to be the Mother of the Mother of the Mother of all collisions. No Hollywood special effects team could want for more! The upshot is going to be, just prior to the finale, the existence, as noted above, of the Mother of all Black Holes. There’s going to be one hell of a massive distortion of space and time, or, space-time. The sheer momentum of such a collision, a Big Crunch, will turn space, or space-time, inside out. All that momentum can’t just come to a screeching halt in a nanosecond. What’s the result of a super collapsing Black Hole? A super massive explosion – a White Hole – a Big Bang.

BETWEEN THE BIG CRUNCH AND THE BIG BANG

Once upon a time there was this brief, but extremely intense transition between another universe’s Big Crunch and our ‘in the beginning’ Big Bang event. I've already suggested that pure momentum of this runaway freight train will be, as an analogy, a sock turning inside out. That ‘inside out’ event will be a pretty quick-smart happening. What happens in that brief interval of time has to do with several parameters. One is of course time - how quick – well, quick – probably several seconds to minutes. The other is space – how small – well small. But is small classically small or quantum small? Classically small refers to the minimum size of the Big Crunch vs. the original size of that universe. Classically small could still be a ‘point’ many light seconds/minutes/hours in diameter. Quantum small means a ‘point’ that is within the realm of the quantum – say atomic sized, probably way less. Logic: can you squeeze the contents of an entire universe down to the size of an atom, or elementary particle? Or, perhaps it is more logical to suggest that the ultimate squeeze is somewhat larger. Now ‘larger’ may still be tiny relative to the universe’s original size, but still one hell of a lot bigger than what’s implied by the word ‘quantum’. Yet, cosmologists would have one believe that our Universe started out as ‘quantum small’, not ‘classically small’; that quantum small somehow ruled the roost when our Universe went the way of the Big Bang event – the origin of our Universe. To me, that’s too big an ask to ask.

Any standard cosmology text will tell you about the conditions that existed within nanoseconds of the Big Bang event when the Universe was less than the size of your common cold bacterium. It was very, very super hot. It was very, very super dense. That’s what the equations say (no cosmologist was around at the time to actually observe and measure), but equations are abstractions and Mother Nature doesn't deal with abstractions. Now both hot and dense are two logical Big Bang environmental parameters just nanoseconds past that event - but what of volume?

One can of course take any contracting object and extrapolate down to where it shrinks to a point of zero dimensions and thus have an infinite density (which therefore would be a Black Hole). But, does that reflect reality? IMHO: not on your Nellie. There must be (well, should be) some ultimate state of matter that when compressed, can’t be compressed any further. It would take an infinite amount of gravitational force to do it and the Universe, any universe, doesn't possess infinite gravity.

What’s the minimum size our Universe (or any universe in general) could be squeezed down to? If you asked that question to any reasonably educated adult, even a kid, while you’d get a range of answers, gut feeling tells me that – unless they were well versed in cosmology – that that volume wouldn't be within the range that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. Now, it is dangerous to apply common sense when it comes to sussing out nature’s hidden secrets, but I'm now going to throw caution to the wind and applying this common sense dictum – The Universe, any universe, was never, repeat never ever the size that we would describe as microscopic!

Okay, so here we have this universe contracting down, getting hotter and hotter; denser and denser, and smaller and smaller as it slides into the Mother of all Black Holes, and immediately, within nanoseconds (or close to nanoseconds as the actual size allows – maybe seconds, maybe minutes) spew its guts out via a White Hole. Those guts form the contents of our Big Bang Universe. That midpoint – what was the minimum size of that transitional post Black Hole / pre White Hole event? All I'm prepared to say is that it was visible to the naked eye – assuming naked eyes were around 13.7 billion years ago! It was certainly not microscopic!

However, the really real important bit here is that our Big Bang, the product of a previous Big Crunch, happened in pre-existing time and space. The Big Bang did not, repeat, did not, create time and space. The question, ‘what happened before the Big Bang?’ has now a perfectly logical answer. The Big Crunch happened before the Big Bang.

OUR BIG BANG ALPHA

Once upon a time there was this Big Bang origin of our Universe. Any Big Bang worthy of its salt results in an expanding Universe. What’s the evidence for the Big Bang, that our Universe is expanding (exploding?) from a point back in time (and therefore by running the film backwards contracting back to that point in time). Well, there are four lines. The first is theoretical. All universes are unstable (as noted above) and must either expand or contract. The second is observational – the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). An explosion – something hot – expands and cools off. The CMBR is the Big Bang’s heat that has now cooled after 13.7 billion years of expansion. The third is also observational – distant objects in space exhibit a red-shift – they look slightly redder than they actually are because they are moving away from us. The farther away, the faster they are moving, the redder they are. If they were moving towards us, they’d appear slightly bluer. The relationship between distance from us and velocity is what you’d expect from something that went ‘bang’. Lastly, also observational, is the distribution of objects out there. If there were no ‘bang’, then the distribution of objects (galaxies and clusters of galaxies) in space would be more evenly distributed than what’s observed.

Ah, but where are the coordinates – that place in space – we can point our telescopes towards and literally see the remains of that Big Bang explosion? I mean we see the after affects of stellar (supernovae) explosions like the Crab Nebula which occurred in 1054 AD. Well, there’s a vast time difference between 1054 AD and 13.7 billion years ago! By analogy, say you have a fireplace, and on a cold winters night you fire up same, and thus warm up you home to a comfortable level. But after a while, the fire burns out. If you leave the house, but return after a few hours, you will note that your fireplace is still a tad warmer than the rest of the house. That’s like the 1054 AD event. But, now say you go on vacation and don’t return for say a month after-the-fact. When you do, will your fireplace be any warmer than the rest of your home? No! Well, that’s equivalent to the 13.7 billion years. We can’t place those Big Bang coordinates because they have cooled to such an extent as to be the same temperature as the rest of the house, or Universe in this case. The place, those coordinates, of the Big Bang event no longer has any distinguishing features our telescopes can pick up on.

NOW

Once upon a time, a time we collectively call ‘today’ or ‘now’ or ‘the present’ is all we have to measure what came before and what will come after. What we currently believe is not what was believed a century ago; a thousand years ago; ten thousand years ago. Probably, a century from now; a thousand years from now; ten thousand years from now, what we believe about the Alpha and the Omega of our Universe, and its place, if there is a place, in an even larger context, will probably be as different. Knowledge evolves. The cosmology I learned as a teenager is already vastly different than the cosmology I read about today as a retiree. However, today is all we have to work with, but keep in mind it’s a work in progress. So what do we believe now? One – our Universe had a beginning. Two – our Universe won’t go out with a bang (or a crunch), but with a whimper, just slowly fading away getting thinner and thinner as if our Universe is on some sort of eternal diet. Three – our Universe is the be all and end all of all there is. What can we however speculate on now? One – There was a ‘before’ before our Universe began. Two – our Universe may have a different fate in store, and it could end in a bang (or crunch), not a whimper. Three – there may be far more to the cosmos than has yet been dreamt of in anyone philosophy. In fact, if one looks at the history of the size of our cosmic neck of the woods, the trend has always been towards a vaster and vaster cosmos. If our ancestors could only know then, what we know now, their minds would have been so boggled as to probably defy description. So, if we could know now, what our future generations will know, no doubt our heads would hurt too!

Part of our ‘now’ is the presence of something called ‘dark matter’, of immense importance to things cosmological, that cosmologists can’t yet explain or identify. Okay, I’ll make an heroic speculative effort to explain it in the light of what I've postulated above.

Now, it has been speculated that matter that gets sucked into a Black Hole undergoes a phase change into a new form of matter, sort of like ice to water to steam, or steam to water to ice. What exactly the nature of that inside-the-Black-Hole phase change is – well, your guess is as good as mine. However, I have come up with an idea. The matter sucked inside a Black Hole has been transformed into ‘dark matter’! Now ‘dark matter’ has mass and gravity, but doesn't interact with any electromagnetic forces. We know that because ‘dark matter’ exists within our Universe; not of necessity hidden exclusively within Black Holes. So, how does ‘dark matter’ get out of a Black Hole and into our Universe at large? It doesn't, at least not as ‘dark matter’ but maybe a Hawking radiation. Well, that doesn't explain the ‘dark matter’ all around us. So there has to be an exception, and I suggest that exception was the transformation of a previous universe’s Big Crunch – forming the Mother of all Black Holes – so warping space-time that it turned itself inside out and emerged as a While Hole, spilling out its contents and forming our Universe in the process. The Mother of all Black Holes transformed much of that universe’s ordinary matter into ‘dark matter’, but the process of Black to While Hole transformation happened so rapidly that not all matter got so converted before the spewing. So, what was vomited as our Universe was a lot of ‘dark energy’, but not quite 100%, keeping in line with what we observe, or rather detect but don’t directly observe, today.

THE FATE OF OUR UNIVERSE OMEGA: HEAT DEATH & THE BIG RIP

Once upon a way, way, way future time, our Universe will be drastically different than the one we know today. There are three possibilities. Firstly, the total amount of gravity (a pull force) will be enough to cause our Universe to slow down, stop, and reverse direction, to ultimately result in a Big Crunch. That’s unlikely based on current observational evidence. Secondly, the Universe’s gravity could be just enough to slow the expansion rate of the Universe down, such that it reaches zero velocity after an infinite amount of time. That sort of knife-edge balance is unlikely. Way too many factors have to balance each other out. It’s like tossing a ball at a ceiling hundreds of metres high, and having the ball just stop its upward trajectory just as it ever so barely caresses the ceiling. That’s way too unlikely a scenario. Thirdly, the Universe’s gravity won’t be enough to stop, far less reverse the expansion, and thus our Universe will forever, and forever, and forever (amen) grow ever bigger, ever decrease in mass/energy density, until overall, there’s so little energy available per volume of space that even one minute of warmth will be worth thousands of times what the price of gold is today. In fact, it will be priceless. That’s what is known as the Heat Death fate of our Universe.

Current observational evidence suggests the third option as the likely option. Contrary to expectations, our Universe’s expansion rate is not slowing down (under gravity’s pull force), but is instead accelerating under a currently postulated but mysterious ‘Dark Energy’ (push) force. Now this ‘Dark Energy’ push force is a function of space itself. The more space, the more ‘Dark Energy’ there is. Space is of course expanding, so ‘Dark Energy’ is becoming ever more dominant. Eventually, ‘Dark Energy’ could be powerful enough to push clusters of galaxies apart; push the components of individual galaxies apart; then the stars that comprise those galaxies and the solar systems that surround those stellar systems. ‘Dark Energy’, as it grows more powerful, could then push apart stars and planets; hence the molecules than make up those bodies into atoms. In turn, those atoms could be pushed apart into their fundamental particles – quarks and electrons and photons, etc. Whether or not quarks and electrons and photons can be further torn apart – well, that’s pushing the boundaries of current particle physics. Anyway, all this pushing apart is collectively termed ‘The Big Rip’.

The interesting bit is that if there is an outside of our Universe, then in theory, humans – assuming there are humans around trillions of years hence – or other intelligent life forms will be able to escape the Heat Death and/or Big Rip.

One obvious question rears its ugly head. If our Universe originated from another Big Crunch universe, and if our Universe is not fated to end in a Big Crunch, that breaks any sort of expected oscillation or cycle. Our Universe in turn can’t generate another universe further on down the track. Yet it should since we presumably inherited that previous universe’s full compliment of matter and energy and thus should be fated to ultimately Big Crunch as well. Presumably, something happened during the Big Crunch – Big Bang transition to perhaps siphon off some of the matter/energy and send it to an else-where or else-when. The extreme physics that would operate during such a transition aren't well understood and I have to leave open the possible that something more relevant to “The Twilight Zone” can happen. Of course perhaps something further on down the track might revise the current expectations for the fate of our Universe – the pendulum could swing back towards a Big Crunch scenario.

So, how do we get Big Crunches?

There are two possible ways. One is a universe that’s massive enough to collapse, generate a new universe, which then collapses and the cycle repeats. No “Twilight Zone” weird physics happens within the transition, or at least not enough to alter the outcome. The other is to have one ever expanding universe intersect another ever expanding universe. The area of intersection would increase (double) the mass/energy content within that area. That then might be enough to cause that area to start contracting and ultimately Big Crunch. This is similar to, say one supernova spewing out dust and gas; another supernova – ditto. The intersection of part of the two expanding regions of gas/dust is then enough to cause a local contraction of the combined gas/dust, ultimately forming a new, next generation, star, probably an entire stellar system (star + planets).

DOES THE COSMOS CARE?

In our Universe, stars are born; stars die. Their matter and energy get recycled into new stars. In our cosmic fish tank, universes are born; universes die and their matter and energy get recycled into new universes. It doesn't really matter whether a universe dies in a Big Crunch or in a Big Rip/Heat Death. The elementary bits and pieces, electrons and quarks and photons are eternal or immortal. They, unlike us, don’t age. And so, in the broadest of broadest of points of view, our Universe comes to some sort of end, but ‘life’ goes on. The fish tank cosmos doesn't concern itself with the end of our Universe, any more than our galaxy gives a stuff about the end of our solar system, nor does our Sun concern itself with the petty affairs on one of its planets – Earth.

Humans may care – all else is indifferent.

AN ULTIMATE TRUTH

Whether or not there was some sort of ultimate beginning; whether or not there will be some sort of ultimate ending, the bits and pieces that currently make up you, were there and will be there. That, in one sense, makes you as immortal as the cosmos itself.

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MULTI-ROADS TO THE MULTIVERSE

If Mother Nature can create one Universe (ours), Mother Nature can create more than one universe – a Multiverse! The concept of a Multiverse, that there exists more than one universe, that is our Universe – perhaps an infinite number of them existing sequentially in time, or at one go in space, maybe both, is one of the hottest topics in current...

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MULTI-ROADS TO THE MULTIVERSE

If Mother Nature can create one Universe (ours), Mother Nature can create more than one universe – a Multiverse! The concept of a Multiverse, that there exists more than one universe, that is our Universe – perhaps an infinite number of them existing sequentially in time, or at one go in space, maybe both, is one of the hottest topics in current cosmology.

At the outset, there’s no law of physics (or even of God) that says that there can be (or must be) one and only one universe, our Universe.

Three questions arise – the mechanism for the origin and evolution of other universes; what types of Multiverses can be generated; and what can the concept of a Multiverse explain that the existence of our sole Universe cannot explain?

Ways, Means and Mechanisms That Generate a Multiverse:

In the infinite beginning, there existed from square one, more than one universe. No origin event(s) are required. However, those universes will evolve and ultimately morph into other universes.

The Many Worlds Interpretation of all things quantum states that when anything within our Universe is forced to make an either/or decision, between two or more pathways or alternatives, each and every pathway or alternative is taken – because Mother Nature cannot make up Her mind between equal probabilities! Thus, to accommodate each and every possible choice, the Universe splits into as many other universes as is necessary to cater for all possible outcomes. Thus, where there existed initially one universe – our Universe – now there must exist an extra one, or two, or three, or whatever number of universes because our Universe had to make a decision between two, three, or whatever number of choices confronted it. Multiply that by how many crossroads our Universe comes to each and every microsecond, and you have the beginnings of a Multiverse in real quick-smart fashion.

Baby Universes via Black Holes: An advanced extraterrestrial technology might be able to create or manufacture baby universes by creating or manufacturing Black Holes. The recipe itself is simple – take a lump of matter and squeeze it down to such a density that its gravitational escape velocity exceeds that of the speed of light. Such is the text of ‘Universe Manufacturing 101’. Of course one doesn't of necessity need ET. A universe with the sort of physics that permit Black Holes to form will ‘breed’ because those Black Holes will produce baby universes, presumably with the sort of suitable physics that will allow for further Black Holes, etc.

Bubble Universes via Inflation: To adequately explain various observational properties of our Universe, the concept of a rapid period of inflation around the time of the Big Bang event (I've seen inflation invoked both just before and just after the ‘bang’ itself) has been proposed. For the briefest of times, the Universe’s expansion accelerated at a fantastic pace before running out of puff. The fly in the ointment is that if inflation didn't stop at the exact same nanosecond everywhere, then you’d get smaller pockets or bubbles of inflation continuing, and that each separate inflating bubble wouldn't stop at the exact same nanosecond, creating more bubbles, etc. Each separate pocket or bubble would inflate so fast and break off from the parent inflationary event to form another universe. An analogy is to shake up a say, 1/3rd empty bottle of fizzy soft drink and open the top cap. What do you get – rapid inflation, that’s what! Bubbles form and expand and give rise to other bubbles which create new bubbles. Each bubble is its own separate universe.

Quantum Fluctuations: The vacuum energy can give rise to virtual particles, which can turn into actual particles under suitable conditions. It’s possible for the energy to come together intensely enough to perhaps create not just a pair of virtual particles, but an entire universe of particles. That could happen again and again, a multitude of times.

Video Games Analogy: There are a Multiverse of videogames within our Universe (i.e. – Planet Earth) – in two ways. One is the collective set of the thousands to maybe hundreds of thousands of individual video games within the marketplace. Each video-game equals one possible universe. The other is that each individual video-game has hundreds to hundreds of thousands of identical copies. So the video-game Multiverse has both individuality, and sameness. Perhaps our Universe is one copy of one individual ‘video game’ or ‘computer simulation’, within a sea of thousands of identical copies of that game, within a sea of thousands of other individual games/simulations!

Types of Multiverse:

Parallel / Shadow / Alternative / Mirror / Many Worlds / Higher Dimensional (String Theory’s Branes perhaps) universes – collectively, these universes would have the same laws and principles of physics that we know and love (unless you’re a physics student at exam time), although the ultimate nature and evolution of each and every one might differ. In other words, all these universes will be bio-friendly, though that doesn't mean of necessity that all will contain life. Basically, these universes are all variations on a theme of our own Universe.

Simulated / Video Games Universes – Okay, within these universes, anything goes. A computer program does not have to follow or obey or simulate the existing laws and principles of physics. You want faster-than-light-travel? You got it! You want anti-gravity? You can have that too! Do you want your heroine to survive travel through wormholes and Black Holes? Fine! All the terrestrial superheroes and superhero powers – a Superman, a Spiderman, a Green Lantern, the list is near endless – all is possible. You can botch an operation – the patient survives. You can crash a plane – no causalities. You can make the Sun stand still; perform miracles like the resurrection; create new life forms and new civilizations, and boldly go where in our Universe, no one can every go! You can have a Heaven and/or a Hell, or live unprotected upon the surface of Venus (which is the same as Hell only worse).

Bubble / Baby / Quantum Fluctuation Universes / Cyclic or Oscillating Universes (standard Big Bang expansions followed by Big Crunch contractions followed by Big Bang expansions, etc.) – collectively, these universes could be as different as chalk and cheese in that the laws and principles of physics could vary to a greater or lesser extent – but vary, well these universes just might. Think of all the laws, relationships and principles in physics and vary them to your heart’s content. While each universe might be unique, the rules and regulations for each and everyone one is fixed.

The Multiverse Solves These Puzzles:

In reality, the idea of a Multiverse is more a logical outcome of current thinking and evolving understanding of various discoveries and trends in modern quantum/particle physics and cosmology, relative to being a tool used to explain actual data or anomalies or observations. The basic reason is that other universes, if existing, will tend to be so far away from us in time and/or in space as to exert no influence on what we observe; what data we collect. That’s not to say that the concept of a Multiverse, in one guise or another, can’t be used to help account for actual or philosophical anomalies.

For example, if the computer simulation of our and by extension any Multiverse is correct, that accounts for why there are apparently two sets of independent and incompatible software physics (quantum and classical) running the cosmos.

A computer generated Multiverse (lots of different computer generated simulations coupled with possible multiple copies of each) is in one sense a cop-out in that it can be used to explain anything. You can account for all data, all anomalies, all weirdness, everything natural and everything supernatural, everything logical and illogical, everything possible, and for that matter impossible. In a computer generated and simulated universe, you can indeed believe six impossible things before breakfast – ‘Alice in Wonderland’ or rather ‘Through the Looking Glass’ rules – OK? The existence of ‘impossible things’ does not of necessity invalidate the possibility however.

The concept of a Multiverse does provide the ways and means of examining other possible origins for our own Universe, which currently is (the standard Big Bang event) that first there was nothing and the there was something.

The there’s the Anthropic Principle: In order to explain why our Universe is so fine-tuned in terms of the laws and relationships of physics that make our universe life-friendly, it is necessary to either postulate one hell of an incredible luck of the draw, or a supernatural creator being who exists outside of space-time. The Multiverse solves the quandary by postulating that with so many universes in existence, with so many combinations of possible laws and relations of physics, that at least one universe, based on sheer chance alone, would be life-friendly. Since we can only exist in a life-friendly universe, the Multiverse helps explain our very existence, without having to resort to bucking incredible improbability or relying on the supernatural.

Double Slit Experiment: If you fire one photon, say one every minute, at two parallel slits with a photographic plate behind them, you might expect that plate to show, eventually, two blobs of light – one behind each slit, as each individual photon bullet passed through one, or the other, slit. However, what you get is instead a classic interference pattern – alternating light bands with dark bands. Why is this so? Rather, how can this be? Since the one per minute photons aren't apparently acting like individual bullets, and yet since the only thing that can possibly cause classic wave interference is the presence of other, in addition to these one per minute photon bullets, photons, then where did these other photons come from? A logical explanation is that these photons are photons that enter or interact with our Universe from another parallel universe(s).

Time Travel Paradoxes: If time travel to the past is possible, and there is only one universe, our Universe, then paradoxes can arise. You can go back in time and murder your mother before you were conceived, which means you were never born, so you couldn't have gone back in time and murdered your mother, which means you were born… However, if you travel back in time to another universe, part of the Multiverse, and kill what for all appearances looks exactly like your real mother, but is in fact a parallel universe copy or look-alike, then there is no paradox, because your real biological mother, in the universe in which you were born and raised, remains alive.

Variations on the Many Worlds Interpretation Theme:

There’s a variation that could apply to the Multiverse theme via the Many Worlds Interpretation of all things quantum. In the Many Worlds scenario, absolutely all possibilities are realized within any given ‘moment’ within the timeline. Each universe within the Multiverse has the additional complication (or added attraction) of having to jump through the Many Worlds hoops. So, to use a simple example, in one universe (A) within the Multiverse, you flip a coin and its heads. Coming to that fork in the road, a choice of heads or tails, that universe then splits into two, and you have flipped tails in the counterpart (B). Both possibilities have been realized. However, it is just as probable that there are enough universes within the Multiverse such that there was another universe (C) where you performed the identical flipping exercise and the coin came up tails (as in universe B). Postulating a Many Worlds Interpretation where there’s a split and you toss heads (universe D), well that’s already something that’s happened (in universe A) – not in a Many Worlds scenario, but in another actual physical universe. Therefore, what need for any Many Worlds interpretations at all?

I'm not however entirely sure this apparent equivalence will sit well with quantum physicists, because I'm not entirely sure this is what quantum physicists mean by the phrase ‘Many Worlds’ (indeed, lots of quantum physicists deny any such interpretation at all exists – it’s too big an ask for them). However, it seems to deal with the issue of That Cat! In two separate physical universes you have Schrodinger’s Cat (in the box which has been constructed to have a 50/50 chance of killing it within one hour) experiment. Identical cats; identical set-ups; identical observers (and they can be identical because the fundamental bits that make them all up are identical – all electrons (neutrons, protons, etc.) are 100% clones of each other – absolutely identical). In one universe, the observer observes the cat alive after one hour; the other universe, well it’s the demise of the feline. Neither universe has to split into two to cater for both possibilities of a living cat, and a dead cat. All possibilities have been exhausted without resorting to the requirement of a Many Worlds either/or split.

While I have little difficulty coming to terms with an infinite (or as close to infinite as makes no odds) number of universes (the Multiverse) that have collectively existed since the get-go in order to cater for all possibilities, I have some trouble coming to accept the idea that (Many) Worlds are created in an ongoing manner, as spin-offs, in response to evolving events that require this choice or that choice or the next choice. The difficulty, which I've never seen addressed in any books I've read on the subject is, where does all the additional matter/energy for the extra world – actually universe - come from? If a whole new universe is created to allow for the existence of both a cat that’s alive and a dead cat (in that cat-in-the-box thought experiment), that additional universe (to cater for the other option) seems to be a free lunch – something created from nothing. That seems to be a violation of the conservation of matter/energy. That’s much too big an ask for me to swallow! Therefore, I vote solely for the Multiverse, which because of the sheer numbers involved, allows for the incorporation of the Many Worlds Interpretation as a bonus. The only real difference I can see between the Multiverse and the Many Worlds Interpretation is that with Many Worlds, the outcomes (all possibilities realized) is certainty; with the Multiverse it’s only probable or possible.

Further recommended readings:

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:

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SPACE IS NOT A THING: SUMMATION

Premise: Space is NOT a thing. Space has no structure or substance. Space is a mental concept of the human mind that we use to picture the imaginary container real stuff resides in. I find no credibility in the alternative, that space-is-a-thing with structure and substance. Why?

Every experiment has failed to show evidence for space-as-a-thing....

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SPACE IS NOT A THING: SUMMATION

Premise: Space is NOT a thing. Space has no structure or substance. Space is a mental concept of the human mind that we use to picture the imaginary container real stuff resides in. I find no credibility in the alternative, that space-is-a-thing with structure and substance. Why?

Every experiment has failed to show evidence for space-as-a-thing.

But the big no-no is that space-as-a-thing violates the First Law of Thermodynamics. If the standard model of cosmology is correct, then the Big Bang event created space-as-a-thing from scratch; from absolutely nothing. Though postulated as a given, no one has yet to come up with a adequate or even credible how that happened or even could happen. Worse, that process is ongoing. Recall that the late Sir Fred Hoyle was bucketed for advocating the Steady State Universe which required the creation of matter from nothing - something like one atom of hydrogen per cubic mile per year or some such order of magnitude figure akin to that. Hoyle could give no mechanism. Of course his retort was that the alternate Big Bang event created everything from nothing all at once, again without any mechanism given, but that was apparently okay while his creation from nothing wasn't. Well creation from nothing is NOT okay in any cosmology.

I really have to admire the audicity of some cosmologists in their popular writings. In one chapter they will state the First Law of Thermodynamics about how energy (hence matter) cannot be created or destroyed but only changed from one form into another. In other words, there is no such thing as a cosmic free lunch; you can't create something from nothing. Yet in another chapter they will note how the energy density of the cosmos is unchanging or how it is a constant, even though the Universe is expanding. That immediately contradicts the First Law of Thermodynamics. Since space-as-a-thing translates into the creation of dark energy and dark energy translates back into the creation of space-as-a-thing (each creating more of the other out of absolutely nothing) that's a free cosmic lunch. They - cosmologists - contradict themselves. If they don't realise they've done it, they don't deserve to be in academica. If they realise this contradiction without commenting on same, they deserve to be kicked out of academica.

So if you are advocating space-as-a-thing then you are advocating the creation of something from nothing therefore advocating that the First Law of Thermodynamics is being negated even as I write and as you read. Good luck with that premise.

Motion, and variations thereof (acceleration, decelleration, momentum, rotation, etc.) is entirely independent of space-as-a-thing or even of space-as-a-not-thing. Recall that famous early 20th Century "New York Times" editorial that rocket travel was pure bunk on the grounds that in space there was nothing for the rocket's exhaust to push against. That editorial was retracted on the day of the Moon landing! So space travel via rocketship is possible even if space is NOT a thing since all relevant forces operate independently of the existence or non-existence of space. If one persists in trying to link motion and space-as-a-thing, find an equation that involves motion that also has space-as-a-thing as one of the required parametres.

Twenty Questions (give or take): If space-is-a-thing...

Why the phrase "the vacuum of space"? What 'thing' do you have to remove from space in order to achieve a perfect vacuum? What is the 'thing' composed of? What is its chemistry? Since it is right in front of your nose, what does it smell like? Could you stick out your tounge and tase the 'thing' that makes space a thing? What other properties does it have that you (or instrumentation) can detect? What are the associated particles, forces and fields that make space-as-a-thing strut its stuff? What is the density of space? If space has a density then could we in theory fly like a bird to the Moon if we could construct a pair of wings large enough? How does space-as-a-thing alter the standard model of particle physics? Would the Universe be any different today if the thing-ness of space had never existed? If so, how would it be different and if that were the case might you not even be here to worry about it? In other words, is the thing-ness of space required or vital for your own existence? Could we with our advanced technologies change the nature of that 'thing' property of space by some physical process or other? Is the thing-ness of space a resource that we could make use of akin to how we could mine the asteroid belt for resources? The speed-of-light is slower in glass than in water, and slower in water than in air and slower in air than in space, so if space is a thing would the speed-of-light be even faster than it is now if you could remove the thing-ness from space?

Anyone who advocates that space-is-a-thing has to wear the burden of proof on their shoulders and provide at least some solid slab-in-the-lab evidence. Either that or they should cease prattling on about it as if the concept of space-as-a-thing was set in stone and the matter of the nature of space was now settled for all eternity. It's not settled.

John Prytz

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