Universe, Page 1

Introduction

Aaaahhh universe. This is a very interesting subject. I think it's probably the most famous mystery ever. It's where science and religion combine. I won't claim here to have the answer as to why the universe came into being. I might offer a suggestion of what could have happened, but I'll most like try to raise more questions than provide more answers. For exmaple, this question just occured to me: If like forces repel each other, and there's only one real form of gravity, why do large celestial bodies attract instead of repel? Maybe with a little more thought I'll attempt to answer that question a little later on.

Problems and Solutions

I think one of the main problems with solving the "where did the universe come from?" problem is the fact that many physicists base their theories on other theories that are quite obviously wrong (in some form or another--not completely, but at least parts of it). It's called chaos theory in this case; problems in theories will magnify. A problem in quantum mechanics will amplify in quantum cosmology.

I think many problems could be solved with the proper understanding of time. This is quite difficult considering that we see the world from a human perspective. What we see is a glass falling off a table and shattering into a million pieces. How many of us can say that we've seen a million fragments of matter magically clump together to form a glass, and then witness it jump up onto a table? This is know as temporal time assymetry. Or, if you like, it's what's known as casualty, ie, cause and effect or before and after. If we look at the world in this way, it is quite obvious to make a destinction between the past and the future, and hence assume a "direction" in which time flows. The direction being from past to present to future.

Now this is quite an obvious fact. But let's look at things a little differently. Take acceleration for example. Acceleration is given by the formula "a=(v-u)/t" where a = acceleration, v = the final velocity, u = the initial velocity and t = time. So, acceleration is the final velocity minus the initial velocity all divided by the total time taken. There is also something called decelaration, where a mass slows down from a higher velocity to a lower one (as opposed to acceleration, where a body speeds up). Mathematically, deceleration uses the same formula described above. You know when something is decelerating when your answer after calculation is a negative.

Suppose now that we look at time a little differently. A car is seen to accelerate when we view time as flowing from past to future. However, if we view time as flowing from future to past, the car appears to be decelerating. The mathematics still applies independant of which way time flows. Time flowing from future to past will be deceleration, which is applicable by mathematical law.

So, it can be seen that mathermatical law doesn't destinguish between time direction. In fact, the flow of time is symmetric according to law. It doesn't destinguish between a car accerlerating from past to the future or a car decelerating from future to past. Or, in fact, a car accelerating from future to past or a car decelerating from past to future. It's simply a matter of linguistics.

In other words, according to mathematical law, time is symmetric (the process of Kaon decay is an unusual exception in all cases. With that said, let's assume that when I say that time is symmetric I mean all cases except that one). However, now we have a problem. We have time symmetric mathematics, yet we choose to describe or interpret the world in terms of time assymetric theories. And hence we have conflict.

It is hard to dispute mathematics. All mathematical law is, is an advance of 1+1. 1+1 is a law that, for example, describes a system (a basket for example) where one apple is placed with another apple (this is an interesting case in iteself. Do you notice how if we say "we have one apple and add another apple, we have two apples", we automatically assume that the arrow of time is flowing from past to future. We have one apple in the past and then add another to have 2 apples in the future. However, we can also have one apple in the future, add another apple to have 2 apples in the past. 1+1 still equals 2. The mathematical description of this in the normal time sense would be 2-1=1. So, that is just an example of our temporal time assymetry and how we look at the world). Mathematics is used to describe what we see. How we interpret what we see is something we have to be careful of.

So if we can't dispute mathematics, then the problem lies in our interpretation of the world. One of the biggest and most obvious case in which this appears as a problem is in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (the currently accepted theory of quantum mechanics).

One of the biggest problems I find with quantum theory is it's role of human intelligence. I think a case scenario is in order here. Suppose there is a tree out in the middle of a paddock. You know the tree is there, but you can't see it from the house. A thunder storm passes over one night, and you've calculated (just for this argument anyways) that there is a 50% chance that the the tree will be struck by lightening and will fall to the ground. According to the current version of quantum theory, until you go out to the field and visually observer whether or not the tree was struck by lightening or not, the tree remains in a half dead, half alive state. Human observation determines whether or not it is dead or alive. Or in a sense, the change in our knowledge of the system when a measurement is made (an observation is made), determines a systems final state, from a number of possible ghost states.

It isn't hard to see that this causes problems. If all systems require human observation, or at least intelligent observation for something to exist, then how did the universe exist before humans came along? The more suspicious of you readers out there will also note the very obvious time assymetry involved in the above description (the case scenario was a more simplified version of the famous Shroedinger's Cat gadanken experiment). The description assumes that in the past, a system exists in all the different possible states it could exist in, then after human observation, the system becomes one state out of the countless possible states available to it, in the future.

Thus, if we take the mathematics to be true, then there is something obviously wrong in our interpretation of how things are. And obviously if we use this version of quantum theory and incorporate them into other theories, then the problems will simply magnify, like I suggested back at the start of this essay.

A new theory that takes into account this time symmetry is the Transactional Interpretation by John.G.Cramer. I won't go into the details behind the theory now, but if you want to have a read of it, you can have a look here.

Symmetry is the Key

So in order to formulate a propper theory of the creation of the universe, which is bound to incorporate quantum mechanics and relativity in some way, we have to have the correct theories. And according to the maths, the TI is a much better interpretation of quantum mechanics than the CI (incidently, the observations still exist, the same with the mathematics, however, all the transactional interpretation is, is a different explaination for the observed data).

The key idea we need to keep in mind is the whole notion of time symmetry. And also, symmetry in gerneral. Symmetry seems to appear in a lot of things. Like matter and anti matter for example. The other key idea we must keep in mind is the whole notion of the conservation of energy. I see this effecting the way things are in two ways: either there was energy before the universe was born and energy is conserved, or the total net energy before and after the "big bang" equals zero. I don't find the violation of this law as an option at this stage. Law is law. It just is (by the way, we are looking at the big bang in terms of before and after. This is an obvious asymmetry in terms of casualty, but at the moment this seems to be the topic of debate and the bigger mystery for people).

I think for now I'll put the first option aside. Because for me, all your really doing is moving the problem. You got the problem of where all this energy came from in the first place, and assuming conservation of energy before and after the big bang still leaves us with the problem of "where did the energy come from in the first place". Or in other words, you solve one problem by introducing another problem.

The second option is a lot easier to work with I think, especially considering what I talked about above. What does this option suggest? Well, what I'm implying is that the net energy of everything around us equals zero. Now that statement has a lot of implications, and if you can't grasp some of the ideas and concepts I am about to bring up, then don't feel bad, cause they're pretty far fetched for our feeble brains to comprehend.

I'll ask you again to keep in mind that I don't claim any of this to be factually right. Symmetry exists in nature, thats given by the representation of this fact in mathematics. That's time symmetry at least. Physical symmetry also exists. If you want to see it, simply look in the mirror. The two halves of your body closely resemble each other.

It has been scientifically found that all matter has an opposite called anti-matter. Anti-matter is the exact opposite of matter. What is thought to happen, is that matter and anti-matter are created in pairs. The two particles generally fly away from each other for a short period of time, then fly towards each other and destroy each other. Symmetry is important. That last case of the particles is in example of symmetry where one thing is the exact opposite of the other. I don't know if this only makes sense to me, but what would lead the universe to favour one thing over another? For example, suppose anti-matter didn't really exist (but we somehow new that it should, according to all our theories), what would lead the universe to create matter, instead of anti-matter, or vice versa?

Let me suggest this another way. We talked above about the time symmetry of mathematics. Mathematical law doesn't choose one time direction over the other. It wouldn't make sense for it to do so because it doesn't have the premise to do so. Such is the case with the symmetry of physical matter and energy. What premise does the universe, or what ever law it was that created the universe have over choosing matter over anti-matter? If you think hard enough, there isn't one. Thus it makes more sense to assume that matter and energy comes in pairs of opposites (here also we have to be careful. By the word "opposite", I mean opposite according to the linguistics we are used too. We regard things in terms of casualty, ie, past and future. Thus in a sense, whilst the past to future time direction is symmetric with the future to past time direction, they are also opposite according to our linguistic approach. We associate the combination of words as being opposite. Thus is the case with matter and anti-matter, we associate the word's with opposite's whilst still regarding it as symmetry. Dense huh?)

Now I've just proclaimed that matter and energy comes in pairs (or opposites). Matter and anti-matter. I'll go as far as claiming that everything that we regard as existing in this universe has a symmetric opposite. Let's have a look at this in terms of mathematics (because I think it's easier). If you add all positive integers up to infinity with all negative integers up to negative infinity, the sum of the two will equal zero. For example, 1+ -1 = 0, 2+ -2 = 0, 3+ -3=0...etc, etc.

So my argument here is, that if everything in the universe comes in symmetric "opposites" according to law, then the net energy in the universe equals zero. And what does this imply? It suggests that the universe can be born into existance with a total net energy of zero. No energy is expended.

Now comes the part where I think the majority of you will have trouble. This problem comes from our view on life. We are used to cause and effect, because that's what we've experienced our entire lives. So it's hard to look at the world any differently. If you abandon the normal past to future casualty, then it will help you get past the notion of cause and effect and it will make the following a lot more plausible.

Let's consider the mathematics above. It leads to the idea that zero equals infinity. How is this possible? Well think about it. Infinity plus infinity equals infinity. Infinity plus negative infinity equals zero. Well I guess that's worded wrong, where zero equals infinity. Infinity equals infinity, not zero. But the concept still stands. In effect, suppose you had a large plane of space, where millions of bubbles of universes were born every second. In each of these universes, the net energy equals zero, like I discussed above. So if the net energy of all these universes equals zero, then the total energy in the plane equals zero as well. So we can have an infinite plane of space where the total net energy equals zero. This is the part when you have to forget casualty. The idea is that you have an endless plane of nothing where time is non-existant.