Our Expanding Universe: Part Two

You will read in astronomical texts the idea that space is a thing, a flexible membrane that can influence the motion of objects, in fact carry the flotsam and jetsam of the Universe around. This flexi-space is expanding over time, 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.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

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 lent on the lunar surface by the Apollo moonwalkers 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 commonsense 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 traveled 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.    

Our Expanding Universe: Part One

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 center of the Milky Way Galaxy though existing space. There’s a lot of interstellar space between the Sun and the galactic center but the Sun isn’t getting any more distant from that center.

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 centimeters, what you end up with is 500 grams in say a volume of 500 cubic centimeters. 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, 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.

To be continued…

Some Bits & Pieces That Are Out of This World

Orion’s Belt: It consists of the three bright stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintake The stars are more or less evenly spaced in a straight line, and so can be visualized as a belt. For some mysterious reason, several archaeological sites exhibit or mirror the positions of the trilogy of stars that make up the Belt of Orion. The most famous is the trilogy of those massive ancient Egyptian pyramids on the Giza plateau. The second is seen at Teotihuacán’s central pyramid complex in Mexico. The third is a trilogy of Hopi Mesas in Arizona. Okay, Orion’s Belt, that trilogy of stars, is fairly prominent in the night sky, but then too so is a lot of other star patterns. What makes these special to our ancient ancestors? A big deal of this is made by ‘ancient astronaut’ theorists. Somehow that trilogy of stars must be special, like perhaps home turf to ET. Alas, that doesn’t seem all that plausible. Alnitak (Zeta Orionis), Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis) and Mintake (Delta Orionis) are very bright stars (to the naked eye), but they are also very, very far away. That alone suggests that they are very un-Sun like. Alnitak is 736 light-years away and 100,000 times our Sun’s luminosity; Alnilam is 1340 light-years distant and 375,000 times as luminous as our Sun; and Mintake is 915 light-years away as the crow flies and is a whopping 900,000 times the Sun’s luminosity. Mintaka is also a double star system. Translated, the trio of stars that make up Orion’s Belt don’t seem to be likely candidates for extraterrestrials that would come a-calling as ‘ancient astronauts’. I very much doubt SETI scientists would target these stars as likely candidates to point their radio telescopes at.

oooooOOOOOooooo

There’s nothing too controversial about the idea that other universes in a Multiverse could have differing laws, relationships and principles of physics than our own. It’s one way of explaining why our Universe is a Goldilocks Universe. If you have billions and billions of universes each with a unique or differing set of laws, relationships and principles of physics, well probability suggests that one universe should just right for life – a Goldilocks Universe. Since we can only exist inside a Goldilocks Universe, well that explains that. But what if the laws, relationships and principles of physics in our Universe changed over time, or over space, or both! Then it’s probably time to turn out the lights, shut and lock the lab door and go home. It’s time to find a new career. But amazingly, there is (controversial) evidence that that is just that. Physical constants aren’t. 

oooooOOOOOooooo

If whatever powers-that-be are simulating our universe, then they could be simulating others as well – a simulated Multiverse! And each and every simulated universe of that Multiverse could have simulated parallel universes. That’s a simulated Megaverse!

oooooOOOOOooooo

One of the 64,000 $64,000 questions: Can you pour stuff down a Black Hole indefinitely, or does the Black Hole have a finite capacity and ultimately or eventually will have to spew stuff out the ‘other side’ (i.e. – producing a White Hole) as you keep pouring in more and more and more? I’d wager the conservation relationships and principles of physics and chemistry hold sway here. What goes in ultimately comes out. That doesn’t mean there’s not a temporary holding vessel. Or, in more human terms, you fill what’s empty; you empty what’s full, but in-between those two there’s storage in the stomach and the intestines; the lungs and the bladder.

oooooOOOOOooooo

What lies at the heart of a Black Hole? The traditional answer is a ‘singularity’ – a point of (near) infinite density and (close to) zero volume, matter crushed down to the final, ultimate limit – or maybe not.

Start with a hunk of matter. Keep on keeping on adding more and more and more matter (mass) to it. Your original hunk grows larger, ever denser; its gravity swells in proportion. Finally it’s just a fraction away from achieving Black Hole status – meaning its gravity is so strong not even light can escape from its grasp.

So you are a thimbleful of salt away from crossing the not-quite-yet a Black Hole to an actual Black Hole boundary. You can (barely) still see your now super-sized hunk of stuff. Now toss in that final thimbleful of stuff onto the hunk. No light now reaches you – you’ve crossed the threshold or boundary and have got a Black Hole. But do you doubt that lurking on the other side of the not-quite-yet a Black Hole to an actual Black Hole boundary, though unseen, you still have that super-sized hunk of stuff, not a singularity, but a really real solid 3-D hunk of stuff? Or, in other words, if the escape velocity of your hunk is 185,999 miles per second, no Black Hole and no singularity, but if it climbs to 186,001 miles per second you have a Black Hole and your hunk morphs into a singularity? A two mile a second difference makes that much difference? I don’t think so.

oooooOOOOOooooo

You are all no doubt well aware of the General Theory of Relativity which holds that light (in a pure vacuum) always travels at constant velocity (300,000 km/sec), no matter what frame of reference you are viewing that light in – totally contrary to experience and expectations, but true nevertheless. That translates into length and mass and rate-of-change (time) all being variables, variations depending on what frame of reference you are in. Light of course is one manifestation of the electromagnetic force. That suggests to me that magnetism must also propagate at 300,000 km/sec. Two north magnetic poles or one north and one south magnetic pole, suddenly brought into existence, 300,000 km apart, won’t feel any mutual repulsion or attraction respectfully until one-half of one second after-the-fact, when the two forces meet in the middle and start doing their thing.

But that constant speed of a force, must equally apply to gravity. If the Sun were to suddenly in a split of a split of a split second vanish, it would be eight minutes before Planet Earth would be rudderless, or rather orbitless. No matter what your frame of reference, you’d ‘see’ gravity propagate outwards at 300,000 km/sec. The same must apply to ‘dark energy’, that anti-gravity force. I imagine the same would apply to the propagation of the strong and the week nuclear force as well.

Of course one cannot turn on and turn off gravity (or the strong and weak nuclear forces) like you can a light (or radio, UV, IR, etc.) beam or magnetic field, which is a bit of a bummer in testing the relativistic properties of a gravity beam.

oooooOOOOOooooo

Gravity; it’s what holds you firmly to Terra Firma. If I ask you what holds you firmly to Terra Firma you’d answer “gravity”. But if then asked to explain exactly what it is and how it works you’d be stumped. Giving the Newtonian equations makes predictions but doesn’t give explanations.

However, there are two explanations for gravity if I read the textbooks correctly.

Gravity Is Just Another Force: Firstly, there are in this worldview four fundamental forces: the electromagnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. Forces have accompanying elementary particles witch convey the force. In the case of the electromagnetic force, the particle is the photon. The particle associated with gravity has been dubbed the graviton. Unfortunately, it has never (to date) been detected. Now the central issue here is try as they might, physicists cannot unify the four forces into one whole, called a Theory of Everything or TOE*. Since everything should be related to everything else, gravity should be, if not a brother or sister to the other three force-related siblings, at least a kissing cousin. Alas, it’s an unrelated hermit that wants no ancestry with the other three.

Gravity Is Just the Geometry of Space-Time: The second is that mass ‘tells’ space-time how to warp, and warped space-time ‘tells’ mass how to move – seemingly experimentally verified more than several times over. The movement of mass in warped space-time is what we interpret as the ‘force of gravity’, but gravity is actually the actions of mass moving in space-time geometry. If gravity is just geometry and mass deviates from the straight and narrow path because lots of other mass has warped space-time from the flatland Great Plains to the peaks and valleys of the space-time Rockies, then there’s no apparent need or reason that I can see to unify gravity with the other forces and their particles. There is no graviton. If there is no causality link with the other three (quantum level) forces, there’s no need for a TOE. There’s no need to reconcile the 98 pound of weakling gravity with the Atlas physiques of electromagnetism, etc. 

Gravity is highly anomalous. Apart from the fact that gravity is the 98 pound weakling of all the forces (you can pull a paperclip up into the air with just a tiny magnet even though the entire Planet Earth’s gravity is tugging back); and that the graviton hasn’t been spotted anywhere, anytime, anyhow; and that TOE is a no-go; but lastly there are those cosmic twin anomalies, Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

We can’t see, or even detect directly, 96% of the Universe! We have no idea what 96% of the Universe is composed of. If that’s not anomalous, I don’t know what is. Both however have revealed themselves indirectly via their gravity (in the case of Dark Matter) or their antigravity (in the case of Dark Energy). Some of that ‘missing’ part of the Universe is matter of unknown composition, but like all good matter, has gravity. It’s the gravitational effect on matter we can see that gives the game away. Some more (way more) of that ‘missing’ part of the cosmos is Dark Energy which is that unknown stuff which is accelerating the expansion rate of the Universe and if that’s not anomalous, I don’t know what is since by rights the expansion rate of the Universe should be decelerating under the force of gravity. The fact that it’s accelerating suggests that Dark Energy is a form of antigravity, a repulsive force driving things apart at ever faster and faster rates. Though antigravity is really outside the accepted realm of physics (though not sci-fi), there is a symmetrical parallel with the electromagnetic force, which is both attractive like gravity (north pole to south pole) and repulsive (north pole to north pole, or south pole to south pole).

So, gravitational anomalies abound.

*The exception is that the highly theoretical (read purely mathematical) String Theory, Superstring Theory or M-Theory can produce a TOE. The downside is that it takes a whole potful of highly theoretical (read purely mathematical) extra dimensions of which we have no awareness of and can’t (yet) detect. That’s just a bit too ad hoc for me, though many a theoretical physicist goes to sleep by counting their strings instead of their sheep.

The World of Braneworlds: Part Two

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.  

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Anomalies aside, another 3-Braneworld could be, well millimeters 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 interbrane 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 neighboring counterpart by those open graviton strings.

Fly-In-The-Ointment #1: Even if other entities are just millimeters 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 neighbor 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 otherworld, 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 homerun, well I’m afraid all of the above will have to reside in New Age La-La Land, however fascinating the scenarios are.

The World of Braneworlds: Part One

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 otherworld(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 millimeters 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 neighboring 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.  

To be continued…

The Megaverse Concept

Everyone is aware that they live on a small blue-green planet which goes around an average star which orbits an average galaxy which is one of billions of galaxies that collectively make up our Universe. Is that all there is? Well, you may have heard of the Multiverse concept – a collection of Universes. You are probably familiar with Parallel Universes, even if just from watching or reading sci-fi. I’ll use an analogy here we’re all familiar with to illustrate these concepts – money.

Every country has money – coins and bills. Some currencies are more varied and colourful than others. Australia’s currency is one of those IMHO, but I’m probably biased living Down Under and using Australian currency. Still, the currency concept is pretty well established, so non-Australians should have no trouble following the analogy that I hope illustrates the Multiverse and the Parallel Universe, collectively a conglomerate I term a Megaverse.  

The Australian Multiverse Currency Collective

One Cent Piece: A high density copper Universe that was inhabited by the Feathertail Glider, a civilization unable to prevent the End of their Universe which has collapsed, due to high density, into a singularity and disappeared from sight.

Two Cent Piece: A high density copper Universe that was inhabited by the Frill-Necked Lizard which has also now collapsed for similar reasons into a singularity and disappeared from sight.

Five Cent Piece: A high density silver Universe inhabited by Echidnas, a race of spiny anteaters. It’s currently the smallest high density Universe.

Ten Cent Piece: A high density silver Universe inhabited by Lyrebirds.

Twenty Cent Piece: A high density silver Universe inhabited normally by the dominate race of the Platypus but with a few rarer species as well.

Fifty Cent Piece: A high density silver Universe inhabited mainly by a civilization of a very rare species indeed, the Coat of Arms (i.e. - stylized Kangaroos and Emus) but with a few rarer species as well present – they come and they go. This Universe is unique in having evolved over time from round space-time geometry to twelve-sided space-time geometry (Dodecagon). This Universe is the largest of all the high density Universes.

One Hundred Cent Piece: A high density golden Universe inhabited by a very diverse set of entities, though the dominant life form is a civilization of Kangaroos

Two Hundred Cent Piece: A high density golden Universe inhabited by a humanoid race known as the Aboriginals, an alien species if ever there was one. This Universe is the second smallest of all the known high density Universes.

All of the high density Universes is also by the way inhabited by variations of an alien parasitic species known as the Queen Lizzies.

One Dollar Bill: A low density brownish-orange Universe with a flatland space-time topology, but alas this Universe suffered the cosmological Rig Rip. RIP!

Two Dollar Bill: A low density greenish-yellow Universe with a flatland space-time topology which has now suffered a cosmological final Heat Death. A Two Dollar Bill was never all that crash hot to begin with!

Five Dollar Bill: A low density purple or violet-pinkish Universe with a flatland space-time topology. What’s interesting is that this Universe started out as a pale mauve cosmos before morphing into its current appearance. This Universe also hosts a species of the dreaded alien parasite, the Queen Lizzy. How this species made it from the high density Universes to here is a mystery of currency cosmological physics – perhaps she went through the wormhole.

Ten Dollar Bill: A low density Blue Universe with a flatland space-time topology.

Twenty Dollar Bill: A low density orange Universe with a flatland space-time topology.

Fifty Dollar Bill: A low density Yellow Universe with a flatland space-time topology.

One Hundred Dollar Bill: A low density Green Universe with a flatland space-time topology, the largest in size of all the low density Universes. What’s interesting is that this Universe started out as a light bluish-grey cosmos before morphing into its current appearance.

On some substantial note, all of the low density Universes, all those with a flatland space-time topology, are inhabited by various humanoid entities, so one might conclude that this collection or low density part of the Multiverse is older than the high density Universes. That might make sense if the younger high density Universes are expanding (due to ‘cosmic’ inflation?) and therefore density decreases over the long haul - cosmic evolution in action.

Now none of the above Universes coexist in the exact same space-time. They are all separate and unique Universes, even when in your wallet and jingling in your purse or pocket.

So that’s the collective Australian currency/coinage Multiverse comprised of various Universes, all of different colours and sizes; all with various densities and inhabitants.

But note that you can’t have just any old Universe. There’s no currency physics that allows a Three Dollar Bill Universe or a Seven Cent Coin Universe, though cosmic evolution might allow for that in the far distant future. In the meantime however, there’s allowable currency physics and unallowable currency physics when it comes the allowable and unallowable Universes.

The Australian Parallel Universe Currency Collective

A collection of just Twenty Cent Pieces or just Twenty Dollar Bill Universes would be a collection of Parallel Universes. Each Twenty Cent Piece (or Twenty Dollar Bill) Universe is the same in being a Twenty Cent Piece (or Twenty Dollar Bill) Universe. However, Parallel Universes while the same in terms of each being the same Big Picture, differ in the details – that’s what sets them apart as Parallel or Mirror Universes.

For example, in the case of the Twenty Cent Piece Universe, each Twenty Cent Piece has a case of ‘different strokes for different folks’, the ‘folks’ all being the same Big Picture (i.e. – they are just ‘folks’). Each and every Twenty Cent Piece Universe has a different fate – perhaps a differing date stamped on the coin. Some Universes will be mint and un- circulated; others eroded and/or dented and/or tarnished.

A collection of Twenty Dollar Bill Universes is also a Parallel Universe of Twenty Dollar Bill Universes. Again, each Twenty Dollar Bill Universe has a unique history apart from all other Twenty Dollar Bill Universes. Each has a differing and unique serial number; some maybe counterfeit; some are hot off the printing press, others creased, folded maybe torn. They are all Twenty Dollar Bill Universes, but all are quasi-Mirror images of the generic ideal. All exist in parallel with respect to the others - the same, but different.

Now say you have a stack of One Hundred Dollar Bill Universes. Clearly all are the same Universe, yet no two are absolutely identical – you have a Parallel Universe composed of the One Hundred Dollar Bill Universes. New Parallel One Hundred Dollar Universes are still being created as new bills are manufactured (acts of creation). Some Parallel Universes become defunct too (acts of destruction). Universes are dynamic and evolving entities. 

If you say that you are an inhabitant of the Ten Dollar Bill Universe, you’d probably have no way of contacting or exploring or even knowing about other currency Universes in other space-times. There’s probably no way you could know about and explore another Ten Dollar Bill Universe and meet yourself and discover what alternative history your other self lived; what sort of lifestyle and what sort of worldview did they have. As all Bills and Coins are isolated in their own individual space-time niches, so too are you isolated to that one bit and piece of space-time you find yourself in. The possible exception to this, as demonstrated by the Queen Lizzies, is travelling from one Universe to another via some exotic relativistic currency physics, say via currency wormholes.

In fact, since you cannot escape from your coins or bills currency Universe (currency wormholes apart), you could even think of it has being a currency Black Hole, an object from which nothing can escape! A Black Hole and a Universe might just be one and the same thing. On the other hand, a Black Hole that leaks into a White Hole could have that White Hole exit in another Universe in which case the Black Hole is the wormhole. 

Now, that’s the Megaverse in microcosm; now throw into the mix all the rest of the world’s currencies, past, present and future and you have the Big Picture of the macrocosm Megaverse. Is that all there is? Isn’t that enough?

Megaverse: A Few Notes

The Australian one and two cent coins, and the one and two dollar bill denominations are no longer manufactured and are no longer in active circulation, though technically still legal tender.

The Big Rip: The density of the [antigravity] Dark Energy in our Universe gets bigger and bigger as time goes by and the Universe evolves. Trillions of years from now the force of Dark Energy should be so strong as to rip apart even the constituent parts of molecules and atoms down to the level of their fundamental particles.

The Heat Death: We live in an expanding Universe. Unlike our ever increasing supply of Dark Energy, our heat supply is and always has been finite. Thus, over time, that finite supply is spreading out into an ever increasing volume and so the Universe is cooling, ever cooling, down. Eventually, as all the stars exhaust their fuel, the Universe will acquire an overall temperature as close to absolute zero as makes no odds. So you have, as the ultimate fate of the Universe, the slow death of heat, or the Big Chill!

The Singularity: If you gather enough mass together, the ever increasing amount of gravity will eventually become so great that mass will implode, perhaps, according to some physicists, down to a dimensionless point  of infinite density. That’s nonsense IMHO. The imploded object, the singularity, is just very, very, very tiny and very, very, very dense. It’s so dense that the intense gravity traps light and keeps even it from escaping. So you have this singularity, or in other words the heart and soul of a Black Hole.

The Wormhole: A theoretical shortcut, a gateway or passageway linking one part of the Universe to another part (or perhaps one Universe to another). Wormholes are common objects in sci-fi scenarios where you need to quickly get from Point A to Point B which is a massive distance away.