The Russell Stannard Questions: Cosmology

There are many Big Questions in science, many of which go back to the ancients, even back into prehistory in all probability. One of the best modern set I’ve found recently were sidebars in a book by Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University, Russell Stannard. These are my answers, thoughts and commentary to those Big Questions. Many readers might have ‘fun’ trying to come to terms with these in their own way based on their own worldview.

These are the Russell Stannard Questions* on or about cosmology:

Q. How close to the instant of the Big Bang are we likely to be able to probe?

A. We can currently probe or observe no farther back than 380,000 years post Big Bang because the cosmos was too opaque from the point of the Big Bang to roughly that point in time, 380,000 years into the post Big Bang era. However, gravity waves from the Big Bang event could take us to Ground Zero in theory. The problem is in the detection of gravity waves – in theory yes; in terms of actual observation (to date), no. Of course that hasn’t stopped theorists from going back to even less than nanoseconds post Big Bang by running the expanding universe film backwards to the greatest extreme possible, thus postulating and assuming a quantum sized object was at the heart of the Big Bang. Theorists have extrapolated back way beyond what is reasonable or even logical IMHO given so many unknowns. Theory should cease where currently observations cease – 380,000 post Big Bang. 

Q. Can we be sure that inflation took place?

A. No, because we weren’t there! Seriously, we have no direct observational evidence of inflation, only indirect evidence that a theory or theories of inflation can explain some observations (or lack of observations, like where are the monopoles). This reminds me of those epicycles once postulated to explain observations related to the motions of the planets in the night skies. Those epicycles eventually bit the dust; inflation might too. 

Q. If so, how are we to choose which type of inflation it was?

A. Pick a card, any card! Whatever theory of inflation best matches the observations and best conforms to what is known about the laws, relationships and principles of physics goes to the head of the class. 

Q. Was there a singularity at the instant of the Big Bang?

A. No, there was no singularity associated with the Big Bang event. A singularity in common usage by physicists implies a region of space that has zero volume and infinite density. Sometimes I think these eggheads need to observe the real world where volumes and densities are finite. In any event, the density at the point in existing space where the Big Bang happened had to be less than that of a Black Hole, otherwise there would be no ‘bang’. That in turn implies the Big Bang was a macro event, something that happened way outside the realm of quantum physics.   

Q. Does it make sense to enquire into the cause of the Big Bang?

A. Yes, absolutely! There had to have been a cause, physical or software, and it is quite legit to ask what that cause was and try to answer the question. Of course I never said that would be easy.

Q. Are there universes other than our own?

A. If you reject the supernatural and the software and coincidence, then you are left with the multiverse scenario to explain why we are here. We are in the one successful universe that produced that word-for-word typing of “Hamlet” by those millions of monkeys.

Q. What is the nature of dark matter?

A. Dark matter doesn’t actually exist. It is inferred only because the fallible Supreme Programmer made an ‘oops’ when programming the minimum required for the cosmic background wallpaper in our Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe.

Q. How are we to account for the observed value of the dark energy?

A. There is only ‘dark energy’ if the Universe is really accelerating when it comes to the expansion rate of the Universe. Cosmologists had to invent some sort of explanation for this anomalous observation, so why not call it ‘dark energy’ even if they haven’t the foggiest idea what it actually is. Now you know, and I know, that the Universe cannot be expanding at an ever accelerating rate due to that little factor we all acknowledge called gravity. Gravity exists; so-called ‘dark energy’ is theoretical, ad hoc, an epicycle and iffy at best. An accelerating Universe is like your car going uphill at an ever faster and faster rate without you putting the pedal to the metal. I’m reasonably certain that what has been interpreted as the expansion rate of the Universe accelerating has some other explanation. Perhaps not all type 1A supernovae are really peas-in-a-pod and thus are not the standard candles we think they are. Perhaps the velocity of light isn’t a constant after all and changes over cosmic time. That would throw one heck of a monkey wrench into the scenario. So, ‘dark energy’ doesn’t have a value since the Universe isn’t really accelerating. If, however, the [Simulated] Universe really is accelerating, then that’s obvious evidence for our Supreme Programmer screwing up the cosmic background wallpaper software. It’s just an ‘oops’, an oversight in overlooking the consequences of programming this variable at this value instead of some other variable at some other variable.

Q. Does the density of the dark energy remain constant with time?

A. There is no ‘dark energy’ IMHO so the question has no relevance. However, if the value or density of the alleged ‘dark energy’ is allowed to vary over cosmic time, then one could just about explain any observation relating to any value of the expansion rate of the Universe.

Q. Is there a connection between today’s repulsion of the galaxy clusters and the period of inflation?

A. If there was such an animal as inflation that happened quick-smart and cheek-by-jowl with the Big Bang event, well some force or other had to be responsible for blowing up that cosmic balloon. Fast forward to today and we see galactic clusters moving away from each other as if each had a bad case of B.O. Again, there must be some force acting on these clusters repelling them. I though conventional wisdom put that down to the so-called ‘dark energy’ but if there really is a ‘dark energy’ and if there really was a repulsive force that drove what we allege was cosmic inflation, it might be odd if the two repulsive forces in question didn’t share some sort of physics ancestry assuming they aren’t exact clones.

Q. Is the universe infinite in size, and if so, what exactly does that mean?

A. The universe is infinite in size solely on the philosophical grounds that one can always ask the question ‘what is beyond’ this barrier or at right angles to where I am. There always is a beyond, even if you have to postulate a higher dimension to get there, as it inhabitants of 2-D Flatland can escape by going into the third (higher) dimension that’s so familiar to us. In the Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe scenario, well we’ve probably all seen computer/video games that have a wraparound feature. Something goes off the screen to the right or at the top and reappears at the left or at the bottom. That’s an infinite loop. To the inhabitants, it’s an infinite size where you can go round and round the mulberry bush for all eternity.

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*The following questions were taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford. I consider these typical of the sorts of modern Big Questions that are part and parcel of the philosophy of modern science, especially physical science.



Dark Energy and Expanding Space

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 antigravity 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 - 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 and accelerate the cosmos, and energy and 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 is a not-thing. You can’t hold it, measure it, or detect it with your senses. 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 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 (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 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 between Earth and the Moon and the space between our galaxy and Andromeda Galaxy or the space between our local cluster of galaxies and our nearest other cluster of galaxies. 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 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 poolroom to your abode. It’s easy to say that space is constantly being created, but hardcore equations speak louder than waffle-words. Would you trust a cookbook written by someone who can only theoretically find their way around a kitchen?

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. 



Cosmological Epicycles: Part Two

Sometimes observations are hard to explain. So you just have to tack on the best ad-hoc explanation that fits the facts, even if the explanation itself is lacking the nitty-gritty details. Astronomy went through such an exercise when anyone who was anyone said that the Earth was the centre of all things, and all things revolved around the Earth. That didn’t end very well. I suspect that modern cosmology is in a similar situation that ultimately won’t end well as far as the status quo is concerned either.

Continued from yesterday’s blog...

So how does an extreme, but brief, burst of expansion (i.e. – Inflation) solve the flatness, horizon and monopole issues?

The horizon problem is solved by inflation. While, initial pre-inflation Big Bang conditions would have provided for the required close enough contact to achieve uniformity, regions flying apart would soon acquire their own distinct ‘personalities’ and be far enough apart that equilibrium could never be restored between these regions, even at light speed. However, that additional serious bout of Inflation then rapidly expanded out that evenness, Inflation providing the extra oomph and freezing the uniformity in place to the distances we observe today.  

The flatness problem is explained because an extremely rapid rate of Inflation would smooth out the Universe. If you’re bacteria on the surface of an uninflated balloon, you’ll see peaks and troughs – wrinkles. If that balloon is blown up thousands of times greater in extent, the surface will now appear flat – just like the surface of the Earth appears flat to us.

The monopole problem is solved because the volume of the Universe increased thousands of times over in nanoseconds such that monopoles were now dispersed over an incredibly large volume such that the odds one would be in our cosmic neighbourhood becomes vanishingly tiny.

The odd thing here is that I sometimes read that Inflation preceded the Big Bang, although it’s usually an after-the-fact event. Obviously cosmologists haven’t really a clue which came first – no, not the chicken or egg but the Big Bang or Inflation.

Okay, we’ve explained cosmological observations via the Big Bang and Inflation. Can we go on R&R now? No, not quite. For you see, yet another very nasty observation has surfaced that requires yet another ad hoc tack-on explanation that well, has no explanation.

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, and 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 antigravity 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? 

Now can we go home? Sorry, not yet.

There’s yet another astronomical observation that in fact goes back to the first half of the 20^th Century that has to deal with, at least initially, our own cosmic neck of the woods, the Milky Way Galaxy.  Now you’d be well aware that in our solar system, Mr. Sun is the Big Cheese and keeps all of her planets in orbit via her gravity. However, gravity weakens as you get away from the source (the inverse square relationship) so it’s not surprising that the farther a planet is outward bound from the Sun, giver the ever increasingly longer distance of its orbit around the Sun, the slower it orbits; the longer is its year. Now does that relationship apply to all the bits and pieces (i.e. – stars) that orbit around the centre of our galaxy? Well, in fact no. The outer stars whiz along just as quick-smart as the inner stars, so much so that the outer stars, given the amount of gravity the galaxy apparently has, should in fact escape altogether and head off into intergalactic space. The fact that they don’t does mean the galaxy has a lot more gravity than apparently meets the astronomical eye. Oops, there’s another epicycle coming on. This time the ad-hoc explanation is Dark Matter. It is dark because we can’t see it. It is matter because it has (all that required additional) gravity. Of course, it makes up the majority of matter in our galaxy; of course nobody has a clue what it actually is, although the astronomical powers-that-be have been able to rule out a lot of what’s dark, but common stuff like interstellar gas and dust, Black Holes, etc. So, for the here and now, Dark Matter is another epicycle, and what applies to our galaxy also has been observed for other galaxies. 

The concept of epicycles was originally used in order to explain observations. That remains the case in modern cosmology, only the ad-hoc explanations themselves need explaining.

In conclusion, the state of cosmology and of our understanding of the Universe, its substance and structure, is pretty much at a crossroads where the state of our solar system was all those centuries ago. Once upon a time epicycles were heaped on epicycles in order to explain the solar system until everything fell to pieces. I suspect that history will repeat itself when it comes to the current state of cosmology. Explanations of observations are just too ad-hoc; too many things left unexplained by those ad-hoc epicycles. We’ve had the Copernican Revolution; it’s time for the equivalent revolution in cosmology.

SUMMARY

Observation: Galactic Redshifts        

Observation: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR)

Observation: Ratio/Abundance Hydrogen & Helium

Ad Hoc Epicycle: Big Bang (no energy source given)

Observation: Horizon Problem                                                  

Observation: Flatness Problem

Observation: Magnetic Monopoles

Ad Hoc Epicycle: Inflation (many varieties, just like Heinz)

Observation: Accelerating Universe                                          

Ad Hoc Epicycle: Dark Energy (unexplained)

Observation: Galactic Rotations with Gravity Out of Sync           

Ad Hoc Epicycle: Dark Matter (unexplained)

Cosmological Epicycles: Part One

Sometimes observations are hard to explain. So you just have to tack on the best ad-hoc explanation that fits the facts, even if the explanation itself is lacking the nitty-gritty details. Astronomy went through such an exercise when anyone who was anyone said that the Earth was the centre of all things, and all things revolved around the Earth. That didn’t end very well. I suspect that modern cosmology is in a similar situation that ultimately won’t end well as far as the status quo is concerned either.

Once upon a time humans thought and believed that the Earth was the centre of the cosmos and that all things revolved around the Earth. When it came to the Sun and the Moon, things worked out pretty smoothly. The Moon does go around the Earth and the Sun damn well appears to. The ‘fixed’ stars also appear to go around the Earth and provide no ammunition to suggest otherwise.

But the ‘wandering stars’, the planets, were different horses of other colours. Their motions, assumed to be going round the Earth, were difficult to reconcile with that stationary Earth in the middle. Nobody (at the time) was willing to abandon the Earth-centred cosmos, and so the motions of the planets had to be tweaked in order to get observation and theory to gel. Thus was invented the epicycle.

Planets were assumed to go through various loop-the-loops and other gyrations or acrobatics (collectively called epicycles) in order to conform to observation. But original epicycles had in turn to be provided with second generation epicycles as observations still didn’t fit the ‘facts’, then third generation epicycles tacked on to the second generation tacked on to the original generation, until things go so out of hand and complicated that everything just collapsed in a heap. That resulted in a paradigm shift.

When the positions of the Earth and Sun were reversed, everything fell into place, theory matched observation (once ellipses were substituted for circles – the perfect circle was yet another once upon a time when humans were dictating to nature what nature should do requirement), and all those epicycles fell by the wayside.

We seem to face a similar situation today when it comes to modern cosmology. We have lots of observations that require ever increasing ad hoc epicycles to account for them.

Many an observation has been made in the sciences, and then to explain a group of them, some sort of all encompassing explanation is given. That in turn results in various issues or problems and so to resolve them, another all encompassing explanation is given to explain that lot of them, and that in turn, well etc. etc. A clear case in point revolves around the standard model of cosmology.

Astronomers observe the universe – obviously. Certain observations in need of explanation have given rise to just such an explanation, albeit incomplete and rather unsatisfactory. That trilogy of observations is: 1) galactic redshifts; 2) The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR); and 3) the ratio/abundance of hydrogen & helium.

The galactic redshift observation boils down to the fact that nearly all galaxies are moving away from each other and the distances between them are in relation to their velocities such that galaxies moving at X velocity will be Y distance apart; galaxies that are 2X velocities will be 2Y distances apart and so on. Translated, it’s what you would expect to see with respect to all the bits and pieces flying off on an exploding stick of dynamite. Thus we have an expanding Universe, and, by running the ‘film’ or the clock backwards, the Universe will have come to a ‘point’ roughly 13.7 billion years ago.

The detection of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (a cosmic temperature detectable in part as static or hiss on your TV set when tuned between stations) was in accordance with theoretical predictions if the cosmos started out as an extremely hot explosion and slowly cooled down as the Universe expanded.

Lastly, when one observes and calculates the relative abundance of hydrogen and helium in the Universe, the two simplest of elements, that ratio is what you’d expect given known interactions part and parcel of particle physics under the extremes of temperature and pressure that would be expected in a high temperature explosion.

So, the Big Bang gets a heads up. Things are looking good. But, and there’s always a ‘but’!

There are immediately several issues with respect to this cosmic explosion termed the Big Bang. Firstly, it created time (no explanation or recipe given as to how); secondly it created space (no explanation or recipe given for that either); thirdly it created matter and energy (again, no explanation or recipe, given); fourthly the ‘bang’ wasn’t ‘big’ since cosmologists choose to run the clock back as far as they can and thus cram the entire Universe back into a volume less than that of a pinhead; and lastly, no energy source for the ‘bang’ is given. In fact I’ve often read that apparently no energy source was actually necessary (because the Universe is energy neutral – it has as much positive energy as negative energy), which I find more than slightly odd.

However, postulating the Big Bang to explain the above trilogy of observations caused issues with another trilogy of observations. These observations centred on: 1) the horizon problem; 2) the flatness problem and 3) the monopole problem

The horizon problem – contact between two regions – is a problem in that if you look at exact opposite regions of the Universe; you tend to see pretty much the exact same thing, especially when it comes to temperature. So what? Well, in order for things to achieve equilibrium, your hot cup of coffee cooling off while the kitchen gets ever so slightly warmer until both coffee and room are the same temperature, requires that the two regions (coffee and room) be in relatively close proximity since the exchange can only happen at velocities equal to or less than the speed of light. If two opposite areas of the sky, looking deep into space, are the same temperature, it requires that these two regions were once close together, close enough for equilibrium at or less than the speed of light to have taken place in order to even conditions out. Unfortunately, the distances observed between opposite points in the sky are such that uniformity could not have been possible. They are now out of contact with each other – beyond each other’s ‘horizon’ so any bits of non-uniformity between regions that eventuated way back when should have persisted – and when we look that deep into space we are looking way back when. We need some serious additional oomph to get uniformity between regions from way, way back then (i.e. – immediately post Big Bang) out to currently observed distances.

The flatness problem revolves around the observation that the Universe is fine tuned with respect to the density of matter and energy contained within, a density that has resulted in a just so ‘flat’ universe. Translated, a flat universe is one where Euclidian geometry holds sway (the three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees). Now if the density was greater, the Universe would be closed, like a sphere (i.e. – the Earth), where the angles of a triangle on the surface add up to more than 180 degrees. If the density were less, the Universe would be an open (i.e. – saddle-shaped) hyperbolic Universe where the angles of a triangle add up to less than 180 degrees. If you have a potentially wide range of possible densities, it’s amazing that our Universe has that just-so flatness.

The monopole problem is that under the conditions of the Big Bang, one should have generated monopoles – magnets with either a north pole, or a south pole, but not both. Alas, no monopoles have ever been detected or observed. They appear to be rarer than hen’s teeth.

Well, the way to circumnavigate those problems is to propose not just an original Big Bang explosion, but an additional super-ultra ‘explosion’ that speeded up the expansion of the Universe, ever so briefly, by a very, very, very large factor indeed. This secondary ‘explosion’ was termed Inflation. Inflation made the expansion rate of the Universe caused by the Big Bang to appear almost insignificant.

To be continued.

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…

My Top Astronomical Anomalies: A List

The Universe is filled with mystery. There are a myriad of things that are, but shouldn’t be, or probably shouldn’t be. Adequate explanations are not only lacking, but even the wildest possible theoretical explanations are rather thin on the ground. There often tends to be a massive divide between observation and theory. These anomalies run the range from the Universe as a whole, down to your local neck of the woods, well the solar system anyway. Here are a few my favourite astronomical anomalies.

THE BIG BANG EVENT: This is no doubt a concept that nearly everyone has heard about, and swallowed hook, line and cosmological sinker because scientists present this creation of the Universe scenario as fact. It’s not fact; just the most viable theory of many theories and it has serious flaws. The accepted theoretical account of the creation or event that kick-started our Universe off not only has that event a something that created all of matter and energy, but all of time and space as well, and this creation event, to boot, all took place in a volume less than that of a pinhead (something in the realm of the quantum) and for no apparent reason at all. First there was nothing; then there was something. Wow!

At best observations that support this are indirect being made some 13.7 billion years after-the-fact. Those indirect observations that provide evidence for the Big Bang event are the fact that the Universe is expanding; the Universe has a temperature – the remnants from the hot Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and the amounts and ratio of hydrogen to helium. In reality there are no direct observations as nobody was present at Ground Zero all those billions of years ago.

There are really a couple of anomalies present in the standard Big Bang account. 1) You have a violation of causality – something (space, time, matter and energy) created from nothing which is a violation of several conservation laws or relationships. 2) You have a violation of pure common sense that tells you that you can not stuff the contents of the entire Universe into the realm of the quantum, something actually way less in volume in fact than a pinhead. If that’s not anomalous, I don’t know what is!

ACCELERATING UNIVERSE: The anomaly here is quite straightforward in that there’s considerable observational evidence that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. However, logic dictates that because of the overall gravity that the Universe has, the expansion rate of the Universe should be decelerating. The ‘antigravity’ energy required to accelerate the Universe’s expansion has to come from somewhere, and in ever increasing amounts to keep on keeping on the ever increasing rate of acceleration, yet, the Universe, almost by definition, already contains all there is and ever will be. If extra ‘antigravity’ energy is being created, it’s being created out of nothing. Something from nothing is a clear violation of the basic conservation laws and principles that form the bedrock of modern science.  

DARK ENERGY & DARK MATTER: 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 is. Neither has actually been detected either out there on 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.

MATTER-ANTIMATTER RATIO: In our Universe, there should theoretically be equal amounts of matter and antimatter created at the time of the Big Bang, but there’s not. We observe a Universe made out of matter. Our antimatter has gone walkabout. Why is it so? That question illustrates a big anomaly that doesn’t have a really satisfying answer. Mother Nature shouldn’t favour one form of matter over the other, yet apparently that’s the case. Perhaps that’s just as well. A Universe that’s 50% matter and 50% antimatter will ultimately become a Universe of just 100% radiation or energy, and thus no material you and no material me.

MONOPOLES: We all know about magnetic fields having two sides, whether it’s a bar magnet or the Earth’s magnetic field (or those part and parcel of many other astronomical bodies) – there’s a south pole and a north pole; a positive and a negative. It will probably come as a surprise that there should also be a monopole – a magnet with just one pole, north OR south; positive OR negative. That’s because one of the many Big Bang ‘in the beginning’ predictions of all things theoretical is the existence of 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 theoretical prediction and observation are not in harmony. In other words, an anomaly exists.

QUASARS: Quasars are ‘quasi-stellar objects’. They are ‘stellar’ because they aren’t all that large (like a galaxy). They are ‘quasi’ because they give off energy way, way, way more times greater than any star known in any astronomical catalogue. They seem to be primordial objects – they formed long ago and are now far away.  Quasars, like stars or galaxies, are their own entities and if two or more show a very close and special causality relationships then they should show identical recessional velocities (since the Universe is expanding and they are part of the Universe and that expansion). Recessional velocities are measured by an object’s red-shift. Theory identifies red-shift with velocity. However, you apparently have some observations of causality connected quasar pairs with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities). The anomaly, in an analogy, is that you can not have a runner running at 15 miles per hour holding hands with another runner running at 3 miles per hour!

NEITH: Neith is, or was, the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. now-forever-lost satellite of our twin planet (in size if nothing else), Venus. The anomaly here is that bona-fide professional astronomers, not one but numerous celebrated astronomers, including Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712), sighted, noted and logged the existence of the damn thing and wrote up their findings in their professional journals. Okay, the time period was the mid-1600s to mid-1700s, but the professional eyeballs and the professional equipment was good enough to verify one way or the other the presence or absence of a reasonably sized natural satellite in orbit around Venus.

Of over thirty sightings of Neith, the best known and verified were in 1645, 1672, 1686, 1740, 1759, 1761 and 1764 (multiple sightings on numerous days in March). Observations over that stretch of period would seemingly rule out the ‘satellite’ being a faint star or asteroid or outer planet like Uranus or Neptune that just happened to be way beyond Venus but in the direct line of sight. Sometimes the observed phase of Neith matched the phase of Venus, which again suggests that the object was in close proximity to the planet.

Venus, inward and closer to the Sun than Earth, is a very visible and prominent celestial object when viewed from Earth, commonly called the Morning and Evening ‘Star’. We’ve all seen Venus; in fact if you know exactly where to look it can be seen in the daytime sky. Venus is far enough away from the Sun that the Sun’s glare doesn’t drown out reflected light from Venus, and presumably any objects near or in orbit around Venus. A natural satellite of Venus of any reasonable size should be readily detectable with the astronomical equipment available at the time. And so it really didn’t raise any astronomical eyebrows when Neith was in fact discovered. The anomaly here is that all and sundry were wrong. Neith doesn’t exist. Venus has no natural satellite(s). Now either all and sundry were totally incompetent and wouldn’t know one end of a telescope from the other, or else Neith really existed but somehow exited the local neighbourhood. If that’s the case, then Neith wasn’t natural at all but under intelligent control, and not by any terrestrial intelligence. What Neith was, and where it disappeared to, are major anomalies. 

From the examples above, I conclude that it almost seems as if someone (something) is ultimately responsible for our Universe, but he / she/ it / they didn’t quite think things through sufficiently. Methinks an all knowing, all powerful supernatural God type being wouldn’t have stuffed things up. So either the Universe is naturally stuffed up, or it was created stuffed up!

Dark Energy: The Ultimate Free Lunch

Science is full of surprising discoveries. One that recently won the Nobel Prize in Physics was the discovery that the Universe is not just expanding, but that expansion rate is accelerating. The cause is a mysterious and unexplained ‘dark energy’ which is ever increasing right along with the accelerating Universe. But if the Universe contains all that is and ever will be, where is this extra ‘dark energy’ coming from and is this creation out of nothing a gross violation of the basic laws and principles of physics? If yes, perhaps there’s an even more surprising alternative.

  

If you toss a ball into the air, there are two basic forces at work acting on the ball (ignoring atmospheric friction or drag of course but one can pretend there’s no atmosphere). There’s the oomph (kinetic) energy you give the ball in the upwards direction; there’s the gravitational force that pulls on the ball in the opposite direction. There are two outcomes. 

If you toss a ball up into the air, you expect just one thing to happen – the ball will go up; the ball will slow down; the ball will stop; the ball will fall back to the ground. Why? Earth‘s gravity, that’s why.

If your name is Hercules and you really toss that ball up into the air, maybe, just maybe, the ball won’t fall back down to the ground. You have given the ball enough oomph energy to overcome, though not avoid, Earth’s gravitational pull. But, even if it doesn’t fall back to ground level, even if it keeps on going up, up and away for all time, it will still be forever slowing down. Why? Earth’s gravity, that’s why.

In both scenarios the oomph you give the ball can never be enough to enable the ball to escape Earth’s gravity entirely. The ball must slow down. That’s because the gravitational pull of the Earth on the ball (and also the ball on the Earth) extends to infinity. At no point does gravity cut out. You can’t escape gravity though your energy oomph can be enough to prevent its domination – the ball doesn’t have to fall back to Earth.

Now, the absolutely one scenario you would never expect, is that if you toss the ball into the air, even if the ball didn’t fall back down to ground level if it was given really lots and lots of oomph, that the ball would somehow not only fail to slow down but would in fact speed up. If you witnessed that you’d suspect that your mind or vision was faulty. The only way the ball could accelerate away from you is if it had some sort of additional, internal energy supply (like a rocket). Since it doesn’t, it can’t.

Now apply that logic to the Universe as a whole. In the beginning the Big Bang (the explosive event of the creation) gave a certain finite amount of oomph to all the bits and pieces that make up the Universe. And thus the Universe is expanding – a standard scenario when you have an explosion. When a bomb explodes, the result is an expansion of bomb-stuff. Now all those bits and pieces have a certain finite amount of gravity. The Universe as a whole therefore has a certain finite amount of gravity.

And so we have a similar contest as per the ball’s oomph and Earth’s gravity. Now, either the combined universal gravity of all those bits and pieces will be enough to overcome the finite amount of oomph provided by the Big Bang, and the Universe, like the ball, will slow down, stop and reverse direction (becoming a contracting Universe) or the oomph will prove greater than all those combined bits and pieces gravity and the Universe will expand forever, though that expansion rate will slow down over time. The expansion rate may never reach zero, but the gravity of the bits and pieces must drag forever and ever on the overall initial oomph. The Universal expansion will slow down, albeit never to zero. Okay, like the ball and the Earth, it’s pretty much one or the other. You, as per the ball and the Earth, wouldn’t expect the expansion rate of the overall Universe to increase. That defies logic, everyday experience and basic physics.

For the Universe to accelerate, it would have to be supplied with extra energy from outside, but the Universe is everything and contains everything, there is no outside, so where can additional energy come from? It can’t, not without violating one of the most basic of all basic fundamental physical principles – you can change one form of energy into another form, but you can’t create energy from nothing. Wouldn’t it be nice to just snap your fingers; wave a magic wand, and presto, your empty gas tank is now full or your cold house is now snug and warm! You don’t get something from nothing! The common phrase is that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch!”

So the fundamental question cosmologists (astronomers who study the Universe as a whole) were interested in finding out was whether the Universe’s expansion rate was slowing down enough to cause the Universe to grind to a halt and then reverse; or not. There was never any question that the expansion rate was slowing down. It was just a question to what order of magnitude and was it enough to ultimately cause a Big Crunch.

And so it came to pass that two competing teams of astronomers embarked on a study to crunch the deceleration rate numbers; answer that question of whether the Universe will eventually cease expanding and undergo a contraction (like that ball falling back down to Earth) or not (like the ball that Hercules tossed). Nobody on either team would have bet a nickel, far less the family farm, that the answer would be none of the above. Somehow or other, the bits and pieces that make up the Universe gave the middle finger to gravity. The unthinkable became thinkable, in fact, it became fact. The Universe’s expansion rate was accelerating; therefore energy must be being created out of nothing to provide that extra gravity-defying oomph; there was such a thing as a free lunch after all! The mysterious and unknown energy source behind this unexpected phenomenon was termed ‘dark energy’.

There’s little to dispute in terms of observational evidence for the existence of ‘dark energy’, or rather the fact that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. Evidence has gone from strength to strength.

This discovery was so great, and so totally unexpected, that the team leaders were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (2011) for it. But, it must be pointed out that the recognition was for the discovery, not for the explanation. There is no explanation. You can’t adequately explain a free lunch! You need extra energy oomph to power up the acceleration rate of the Universe just like you need an extra surge of gasoline to accelerate your car. Where does that extra energy come from and keep on keeping on coming on from? Just calling that addition source ‘dark energy’ provides no explanation for the free lunch it is. There is a fundamental problem here.

How so a free lunch? Well if I have my facts right, the way ‘dark energy’ works is this. Dark energy is an intrinsic property of space that exerts a pressure that causes that space to expand, which in turn creates new space which has ‘dark energy’ as an intrinsic property which results in that space expanding thus creating more space and thus more ‘dark energy’ and so on and so on. More space means more ‘dark energy’ which means more space, etc. It’s creation out of nothing, or, it’s a free lunch. Now this notion of an expanding space alone puts me at odds with the establishment of modern cosmology. We part company here since I remain convinced the Universe is expanding through existing space. But that still leaves the acceleration rate to the expanding Universe, even if through existing space, as an anomaly.

From the Oxford Companion to Cosmology (2008) we have this snippet: “The simplest dark energy model is the cosmological constant*, which maintains a fixed density as the Universe expands. … Thus far the cosmological constant has proven capable of explaining all relevant observational data, and thus is the chosen ingredient of the standard cosmological model.”

What’s wrong with this statement? It postulates a free lunch, that’s what.

Let’s drop down a notch in scale and look at something more familiar.

To illustrate, take a pure ice cube which has a density slightly less than the pure fresh water from which it came (which is why ice cubes float in water). Say the ice cube is one inch by one inch by one inch or one cubic inch in volume. Now double the dimensions to two inches by two inches by two inches. The ice cube is now eight cubic inches in volume. The ice cube has expanded in volume -so far so good. The density of the ice cube hasn’t changed, so you have to account for the creation of the extra seven cubic inches of ice. If you can’t account for the additional seven cubic inches then something is amiss. The alternative is that the original ice cube has expanded, but no additional ice has been added, so the density of the ice cube has decreased – same amount of ice but spread over a greater volume. But that’s equally screwy. You can’t change the density of ice and still have ice. Density is a fixed parameter of the substance we call ice.

Now change the ice to water vapour and you can alter the parameters. One cubic inch of water vapour can expand to eight cubic inches of water vapour. If you don’t add extra water vapour then the density of your original cubic inch of water vapour obviously decreases in the expansion. You have less water molecules per unit of volume than you had originally. Now the Universe is like water vapour. The Universe is not one solid lump like our ice cube; rather it’s zillions of bits and pieces (like water molecules) that occupy and spread throughout an ever expanding volume. The same amount of stuff expanded into a greater volume means of necessity less density. Any high school student knows that.

You cannot have the concept of density without also talking about the density of a something (like the cosmological constant). It’s meaningless to talk about the density of nothing. That something could be matter, energy or more likely a mixture of both since it’s hard to conceive of energy-less matter or matter in an energy-less state. In fact it’s physically impossible.

But note the Oxford phrase above: “the cosmological constant, which maintains a fixed density as the Universe expands” - something’s screwy somewhere.

If we can’t accept creation of this mysterious cosmological constant ‘dark energy’ out of nothing, whatever is driving the accelerating expansion of the Universe (call it ‘dark energy’ if you must) must also be getting thinner and thinner on the ground, but that would be like easing your foot off the accelerator pedal of your car. You car would cease to accelerate and ease back to a constant velocity (in Universe terms a steady expansion rate) or a deceleration (which is what our two teams of cosmologists were trying to measure in the first place). So it’s a Catch-22. We can’t have creation out of nothing (a free lunch) – that is just not acceptable - but without it you can’t have an expanding and ever accelerating Universe which has been experimentally observed.

I used to think that ‘dark energy’ must be a variation on the theme of the vacuum energy, but I couldn’t figure out how to get a free lunch out of the vacuum energy. For the perplexed, the vacuum energy just means that even when you seemingly have nothing, a vacuum, you still have some energy present. Translated, you can’t have an absolute state of nothingness which would be a theoretical temperature of absolute zero. At the micro or quantum scale, since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein’s famous equation), energy can be converted to mass  – usually a pair of matter-antimatter particles, which annihilate each other quick-smart returning the energy back to the environment that created them in the first place. Mass can be converted to energy. There’s no free lunch. Conservation laws and principles rule the vacuum energy roost.

Has the Universe always been expanding at an ever accelerating rate? No. There are two competing forces at work. Gravity, a pull force, and this ‘dark energy’, a kind of antigravity or push force. Over time, so the story goes, the amount of ‘dark energy’ increases as space expands. But gravity doesn’t increase. The amount of gravity the Universe has now is the amount the Universe had way back when. At the start gravity was king of the hill because there wasn’t that much space, therefore that much ‘dark energy’. However, with every passing second the amount of ‘dark energy’ increased until it finally overran gravity which was standing still or constant. At that point of intersection the acceleration began in earnest. Apparently that was some five or so billion years ago. Prior to that, the Universe was expanding but at a decelerating rate.

There are two related offshoots to this ‘dark energy’ puzzlement. One is the Big Bang itself. Now the standard cosmological model has it that the Big Bang took place in a small space; a very, very, very small space. In fact the space available was something atomic sized. You couldn’t even see our Universe with the unaided eye a micro-second prior to the Big Bang Ka-Boom it was that tiny, yet anything and everything that exists today, existed then in that tiny volume. Now the problem is that when you try to figure out the state of play with the mass of the Universe (gravity) crushed down to the size of an atom, (the realm of the quantum), the equations break down. You have no idea what the state of play was. In a broader context, the physics of gravity (general relativity) cannot be reconciled with the physics of the quantum. Thousand have tried over many decades. They were just banging their heads against a brick wall. To this day, nobody can fit the hand of gravity into the glove of quantum physics. The way I like to put it is that you apparently have two different and incompatible sets of physics software running the cosmos. That’s nuts! That too needs an explanation.

The other – well there’s an awful lot of Universe for just little old us, and an awful lot more was created (that accelerating Universe) in the time it took you to read that. It’s like having a flea housed in Buckingham Palace that’s adding additional rooms on at a rapid rate of knots. For the flea, it’s a lot of wasted space. There’s an awful lot of just about empty space between the planets; between the stars; between the galaxies; between clusters of galaxies, etc. Why do we, and any other extraterrestrial life forms that may exist, need with so much empty space and pretty much worthless real estate, nearly all of which we can’t even reach? That’s nuts. That needs an explanation, like maybe most of the Universe is just visual holographic wallpaper and has no more reality than the images on your bedroom wallpaper. Is the Universe in fact just a simulation; a virtual reality?   

The way to befuddle an artificially (simulated) intelligent ‘life’ form is to give it an unsolvable problem like dividing a number by zero; calculating the square root of a negative number; coming up with the definitive final value of Pi; or solving an unsolvable paradox like something that both is and is not at the same time; how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; or create a spherical cube. The possibilities are numerous and it’s been used many a time in sci-fi plots to demonstrate the superiority of wetware (brains) over software (silicon chips).

But what if we weren’t wetware (any more than the characters in your dreams are), but in reality software – say a simulated being – an artificial intelligence being given unsolvable puzzles to solve like quantum gravity; why is there so much Universe; why are all electrons identical; why ghosts; and how come crop circles; how can dragons and griffins be real creatures without any fossil remains; and how can a viable breeding herd of lake ‘monsters’ exist in Loch Ness for so long without absolute verification, along with other anomalies that make no apparent sense, like why the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating.

Conclusion: There’s no disputing the observations that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. While that appears to be wildly improbable, a violation of natural law, that is creation from nothing – a free lunch in other words – it’s not difficult to do as a simulation. So, do we live in a simulated Universe as virtual beings?

*The cosmological constant was a concept invented by Einstein. He knew that the Universe should be contracting under its mutual gravity yet he and nearly everyone else knew (or assumed) that the Universe was static. So he needed a constant outward pressure (the cosmological constant) to balance gravity just-so to enable the Universe to be static – unchanging. So, when Einstein learned, along with the rest of the world later on down the track that the Universe wasn’t static but expanding, he called his ad hoc cosmological constant mechanism the greatest blunder of his career in science. However, the concept, though dormant post-Einstein, has never been too far from the minds of those who could resurrect it in a flash if it served their purpose, like explaining the accelerating expansion rate.