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.



Big Bang Blunders

If you read the Standard Model of Creation Cosmology (the Big Bang event), it reads an awful like the first few verses of Genesis. While I’m sure that is just a coincidence, neither scenario as given is a satisfactory explanation, for vastly different reasons. Here I tackle the physical ones, not the supernatural ones.  

In “Alice through the Looking Glass”, the White Queen believed in six impossible things before breakfast. Exactly what those impossible things were is not stated – so here’s one possibility that reside in the land of cosmological physics.

The Big Bang event 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!

Astronomers observe the universe – obviously. At best observations that support the Big Bang event 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 (galactic red-shifts); 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.

The galactic red-shift 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 event. There are really a couple, well more than just a couple, of anomalies present in the standard Big Bang (standard cosmological model) account.

. 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*. It’s absurd in the extreme to believe that our entire Universe – everything – could be squeezed into a volume of atomic dimensions.

Repeat - the first nanosecond of creation had the contents of what would become our observable Universe crammed into a volume less than a pinhead. Bull! If you could squeeze the contents of the observable Universe down into a pinhead’s volume, you’d end up with the Mother of all Black Holes from which nothing would escape. Therefore there would be no Big Bang and thus our Universe would not have been brought into existence. You have a violation of pure common sense. Common sense 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!

Another anomaly is that the Big Bang event created time itself. Cosmologists say the Big Bang event created time but without any explanation or recipe given as to how this quasi-Biblical miracle was accomplished. The creation of time can’t even be done in theory, far less in actual practice. Pull the left leg!

Related, the Big Bang event allegedly created space itself. The Big Bang event created space but yet again without any explanation or recipe being given by cosmologists for that either. Creating space too is beyond the theoretical limits of modern physics and certainly cannot be duplicated in the laboratory. You cannot create a something like matter and energy within a zero volume of space which would have been the situation at Time = Zero. Therefore the Big Bang event did not create space. It happened in existing space. That space was somehow created; well that’s another quasi-Biblical miracle. Now you can pull the right leg!

Then there are those violations in our dearly beloved conservation laws. First there was nothing; then there was something. That means the Big Bang event created both matter and energy out of less than thin ‘air’. How the Big Bang created matter and energy, again, without any explanation or recipe given, is another quasi-Biblical miracle. Do these constant ‘this is what happened though we’re lacking the nitty-gritty details’ by cosmologists, as in giving actual putting-cards-on-the-table explanations, surprise you? It should if cosmologists were really fair dinkum about the bovine fertilizer they pontificate. Perhaps they literally believe in the Biblical account of Genesis but like to disguise this with scientific mumbo-jumbo. Anyway, they pontificate that there was a violation of the laws that regulate the conservation of matter and energy. That’s also a free lunch, which is one of those impossible concepts the White Queen believes in before breakfast.

IMHO it’s impossible to create from scratch matter and energy. It’s a violation of the basic physics drummed into every high school science student – “matter (and energy) can neither be created nor destroyed but only changed in form”.

Related, we have an absolute violation in causality. Apparently the creation of the Universe (the Big Bang event) happened for absolutely no rhyme or reason at all. That means there was no first cause attributable for the effect that was Big Bang event. Does that strike anyone besides me as odd, as in fact absolutely impossible? Lack of causality is another of those impossible concepts the White Queen believes in before breakfast.

IMHO, causality demands that a cause creates an effect – the Big Bang was an effect, something caused it, and that something could only have preceded it in time. Therefore the Big Bang did not, could not, create time (as noted above). The Big Bang happened while the clock was already ticking.

Lastly, no energy source for the ‘bang’ is given and you’d think that it would take a hell of a lot of energy to give some serious expansion oomph to something as massive as the Universe. 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.

My take on this can of worms is that the Big Bang was a macro event that happened in existing space and time. There was a before-the-Big-Bang, which for the time being, is out of observable reach – but then too the Big Bang itself can be ‘seen’ no farther back than roughly 380,000 years after-the-fact. The universe is indeed expanding, but it is expanding through existing space. Space itself is not expanding. In fact, there is no observational experiment that can be made that can distinguish between the two scenarios. 

So, yes there was a Big Bang event, but there is a lot of associated quasi-Biblical baggage which is totally impossible to support by anything approaching what’s taught in Logic 101.  

* I could easily blow up a balloon, and you could easily film it, and from that calculate the expansion rate of the balloon. You could then run the clock or the film and the associated equation backwards. However, would you be justified in extrapolating that backwards shrinking balloon scenario to the point where the balloon was the size of an atom? I think not. Yet that’s exactly what Big Bang cosmologists do, without any justification.



Those Black Holes Revisited

I’ve noted in earlier essays that someone crossing over the Event Horizon of a cosmic Black Hole does so from a personal perspective of one second per second – normal time. An outside observer would see that same crossover event as one frozen in time for all eternity. That implies a paradox in that something cannot happen at one second per second and yet take an infinite amount of time to happen. The paradox might be resolvable if it were only the image of the happening frozen in time. Alas, that too has issues. 

I’ve read several times some scientific author suggest that to an external observer, someone (or something) that’s on a bullseye path toward an astronomical Black Hole, well someone will not only be travelling at a time rate slower and slower by the external observer’s clock as they (let’s call that person a pilot) approach the Event Horizon, but in fact at contact with the Event Horizon, the pilot’s time, again as recorded by the external observer, will have stopped. In other words, the external observer will never witness the pilot’s crossover from outside the Black Hole’s Event Horizon to inside the Black Hole’s Event Horizon. The pilot will appear to be frozen in time at the Event Horizon, as witnessed by the external observer for all eternity, yet as far as the pilot is concerned, everything is normal in terms of time flowing at one second per second. The pilot, from the pilot’s perspective, crosses the Event Horizon as easily as driving to the local supermarket.

Now that’s a major paradox. The pilot can’t be crossing the Event Horizon at one second per second, while at the same time being frozen in time while crossing, which is the case according to our external observer. Of course the paradox is bullshit. To an external observer, time only comes to a screeching halt from their point of view for someone external to them if they witness that someone travelling at the speed of light. Firstly, that’s a physical impossibility. There’s no reason to believe that our cosmically Black Hole bound pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at light speed. There’s no absolute requirement that our pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light. The pilot in fact might have fired retro-rockets to slow down just prior to crossing the Event Horizon in order to better savour the moment (just like crossing the equator for the first time)! So, in actual reality, our external observer will see the pilot cross the Event Horizon, albeit at a way slower rate than the pilot will because the pilot is travelling, hence doing the Event Horizon cross-over, though at less than the speed of light but still at some subluminal velocity relative to the external observer. Any velocity incurs some slowing of time when viewed by an external observer; the faster the velocity, the greater the slowdown.  IMHO, some ‘experts’ need to go back and redo Physics 101.

Only here’s the expert’s explanation which explains why there is no paradox. 

Space is a thing and mass (hence gravity) can warp space, twist space around its little finger. The most extreme form or amount of gravity is contained within a cosmic Black Hole from which not even light can escape – hence the blackness of the Black Hole. Because space is a thing, the Black Hole or the super ultra intense gravity of a Black Hole can suck in space (as well as matter). Okay, so a Black Hole can gobble up space.

Issues arising #1: IMHO, space is not a thing but a concept. Gravity therefore cannot interact with space. Gravity is a thing; matter is a thing; light is a thing, so interactions between gravity and matter and light (representing energy which is just matter in another form) are not an issue.

Issues arising #2: presumably that means that anything that has gravity (like you) will suck in some amount of space since even the tiniest amount of gravity will warp space to some degree.

Meantime, back to the expert: Space (as a thing), gets sucked towards a cosmic Black Hole at less that the speed of light, but speeds up as space gets closer and closer to the point of no return (the Event Horizon). When space crosses the Event Horizon, it is travelling at the speed of light. Once inside the Event Horizon, space falls down the gravity gurgler at a speed greater than that of light, which is okay since space, albeit a thing doesn’t have any mass. Anything with mass cannot travel at superluminal velocities since anything with mass can’t cross the speed of light boundary from subluminal to become superluminal.

Any physical object crossing the Event Horizon will be giving off and/or reflecting light (or any other form of electromagnetic energy) at the speed of light. But the Event Horizon is that exact boundary between space being sucked in at less than light speed and being sucked in at greater than light speed so light being given off at the Event Horizon is escaping at the same velocity that it is being sucked in. It’s like you running on a treadmill at the exact same velocity but opposite direction to that of the treadmill. To an external observer you are running yet standing still, and would appear so for all eternity.

We have to assume that the material object itself can’t be crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light (that’s not allowed), nor will it travel at or beyond the speed of light once inside the cosmic Black Hole and dropping down it’s gravity gurgler. Though the material object crosses the Event Horizon at less than light speed, the visual image of that object will travel at light speed, but light at the Event Horizon is like the runner on the treadmill. It’s a balancing act in that the image from the object is escaping from the Black Hole’s Event Horizon outward bound at the exact same rate as it is being sucked into and past the Event Horizon by space itself.

Issues arising #3: IMHO, the Event Horizon must be extremely thin, since the Event Horizon by definition is that boundary where a velocity just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more ‘tiny’ here) fraction under the speed of light becomes just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more ‘tiny’ here) fraction above the speed of light. Or, the Event Horizon is that boundary that marks the speed of light exactly (and any tiny, tiny, tiny deviation either side is no longer the speed of light). The Event Horizon must in fact be the shortest allowable thickness that’s allowed by quantum physics, which is the Planck Length (which is so small in length, or thickness, not even the most powerful of microscopes could resolve it).

The implications revolve around the fact that any image, like that of our pilot in their spacecraft, is going to be massively larger than the thickness of the Event Horizon. In actual practice our outside observer will more decidedly not see the image frozen at the Event Horizon for all eternity. Part of the image will have to be above the Event Horizon and thus be able to escape away from the Black Hole. Part of the image will be below the Event Horizon and sucked into the cosmic Black Hole never to be seen again. Any remaining image is one Planck Length thick – invisible to the human eye and the most powerful of microscopes. Even that tiny remnant won’t last long due to ever present quantum fluctuations. The Event Horizon has the tiniest of jitters but it’s enough to disrupt the remaining bit of image from remaining for very long. The upshot is that the frozen image of the pilot and the craft as witnessed by the external observer will be fleeting at best.

Issues arising #4: When it comes to those astronomical Black Holes, we are all external observers. If our expert is correct, and images are frozen for all time at the Event Horizon by objects consisting of matter and energy that cross the Event Horizon, then absolutely anything and everything that has crossed over the Event Horizon since the creation of any specific cosmic Black Hole – since the year dot probably – well their images collectively should still be, well, visible. Each individual image would be piled on top of the next one top of the next on top of the next and so on. Somehow I very much doubt that’s the case. It should be bleeding obvious through our astronomical telescopes. And so, I repeat that IMHO, some ‘experts’ need to go back and redo Physics 101.

A Trip Inside A Black Hole: Part Two

Suicide missions are hardly unknown happenings, so presumably it wouldn’t be too hard to find a volunteer to take a long walk off a short pier and dive into the heart of a Black Hole. Well, let’s trade in the walk and the pier for a spaceship, with our suicidal pilot crewmember willing to boldly go. What might she expect? For that matter what might a chickenhearted outside observer expect to see?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now for the speculation: Let us suppose that our suicidal voyager survives her voyage (curses, foiled again) and gets to play tourist. What will she see or will she see anything at all? Well, yes, she will – see that is. The event horizon is like a one-way mirror. Light can pass through the event horizon into the interior of the Black Hole, but light cannot pass from the interior of the Black Hole through the event horizon to be witnessed by an outside observer. Okay, let there be light, and there was light. Light is energy, so there’s energy inside a Black Hole. It’s also been shown that a Black Hole has entropy, or in other words a temperature. That too is energy. 

There’s matter (mass) inside a Black Hole – obviously, since there’s gravity. Now the big unknown is what kind of matter is that matter? We don’t know. Outside of a Black Hole matter exists in four states – solid, liquid, gas and plasma. The transition from one state of matter to another is called a phase change, as in ice to water to steam. One speculation is that the matter inside a Black Hole undergoes a phase change to something even more solid and denser than, well a dense solid.

We sort of observe this in a Neutron Star, a star extremely massive with extreme gravity, but just short of enough gravity to form an event horizon and turn into a Black Hole. Why is it called a Neutron Star? Well, the gravity is so great that the bits and pieces of the atom, electrons, neutrons and protons are squashed together into one big glob. The positive protons fuse with the negative electrons – these electric charges thus cancelling out – to make neutrons, hence join with the already neutral neutrons, so everything forms into just one huge glob of neutron soup, or a Neutron Star. Rapidly spinning Neutron Stars are also known as Pulsars.

Now if atoms lose all sense of identity, there is no atomic structure, no isotopes, no molecules, no elements, no compounds, no electrons and no protons, then I’d have to define that as a phase transition, but one we don’t witness on Earth. Given the even more extreme gravity inside a Black Hole, would that same phase transition to a neutron soup hold sway, or might there be another beyond that found in Neutron Stars? 

Neutrons are not fundamental particles. A glob of neutron soup is ultimately a glob of quark soup, as quark trios comprise the identity we call a neutron. Neutrons are actually composite particles. However, as quarks are fundamental particles, it’s unlikely they can be crushed or fused together. Electrons too are fundamental, but it is well known – to particle physicists at least – that an isolated neutron will in fairly quick-smart order decay to a proton, an electron and an antineutrino. Reactions are reversible so it is straightforward to create a neutron if the ingredients are brought together with sufficient energy.

Since a Neutron Star is just one coin short of a Black Hole dollar, the inside of a Black Hole could well be akin to a Neutron Star, only slightly more massive. One thing is certain IMHO, the interior will not be matter crushed down to the infinitely small (i.e. – zero volume); the interior will not be infinitely dense.

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. It’s that Neutron Star entity.

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 Neutron Star 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.

The other issue though is this really going to be a one-way trip for our boldly going voyager, dead or alive? 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.

Let’s adopt that point of view that what goes in, ultimately has to come out.

And so, our intrepid voyager might well exit elsewhere, maybe even elsewhen. The exit could be deemed the opposite of a Black Hole, or a White Hole; the passageway from Black Hole entrance to White Hole exit is that staple of sci-fi, albeit based in the realm of theoretical physics, the Wormhole. That the exit could be elsewhen is based on the theoretical ‘fact’ that a wormhole could be manipulated in such a manner as to allow for time travel. If that’s too far out for you, then a Wormhole elsewhere shouldn’t be. The apt analogy is with an apple. Mr. Worm can crawl around the outside of the apple to get from one side to the other, or Mr. Worm could take a shortcut and worm his way through the apple to get to the other side, or elsewhere.

Now the question arises, is there any observational evidence that White Holes and associated exits exist? Astronomers and cosmologists would argue in the negative, but I’m not convinced. What would be the signature of a White Hole? Well, it would be roughly stellar-sized, not planetary or galactic. It would be vomiting out one heck of a lot of stuff including lots of energy. Does the cosmos contain such beasties? Obvious candidates are quasars – quasi-stellar objects. Quasars are roughly stellar in size, but violently emitting the froth and bubble of nearly an entire galaxy worth of stuff and energy. The other high-energy astrophysical anomaly is gamma ray bursts. They occur way out back of beyond, in the outer fringes of the cosmos, which is all to the good for if a gamma ray burst happened in our stellar neck of the woods, the results would be akin to Kentucky Fried Humans! Still, we don’t know enough squat about them to be able to predict exactly where and when one will happen. So, astronomers who are into studying these cosmic critters are akin to sleeping fireman who never knows when they will be rudely awakened to respond to that rare five-alarm event.

So, in short, we have Black Holes that are your ultimate in garbage disposals; Quasars and gamma ray bursts that are your ultimate in, IMHO, recycling that garbage back into useful cosmic stuff – matter and energy. In other words, they are the exit to the Black Hole’s entrance. 

No matter. Either our boldly going voyager has snuffed it going into a Black Hole; is forever trapped in a Black Hole; or has been turned into a Kentucky Fried Human and vomited back out again via a White Hole quasar or gamma ray burst to become as one with the cosmos. We all started out as starstuff – and so shall we (or what’s left of our remains) all ultimately return to become starstuff again a millennia of millennia from now. 

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!

The Big Bang’s Metaphysical Baggage: Part Two

The Big Bang event is the leading scientific cosmological theory when it comes to explaining the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and simply everything. While the Big Bang event is the leading candidate and the standard model, it’s not the only one. That’s fortunate, because while a fair bit of once theoretical now verified observational evidence supports that standard cosmological model, it also comes as well with a fair bit of metaphysical baggage. It’s mainly that metaphysical baggage that concerns me.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

CORRECTIONS TO THE BIG BANG STANDARD MODEL

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

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

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

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

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

BIG BANG EVIDENCE

If the Big Bang is so apparently wrong on so many fundamental counts, then what’s the positive evidence for it? What prompts cosmologists to advocate the standard model?

1) Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR): If you have a massive hot explosion (like the Big Bang), and all that heat energy expands and expands, then you’d expect the temperature of the area occupied by that energy to drop, the temperature ever decreasing as the volume that finite amount of energy occupies increases. As the energy expands it gets diluted and thus cools, but can never reach an absolute zero temperature. And that’s just what we find on the scale of the Universe. There’s a fine microwave energy “hiss” representing a temperature a few degrees above absolute zero that’s everywhere in the cosmos. That’s the diluted heat energy of the very hot Big Bang – well it has been a long time and is now spread throughout a lot of volume. That microwave “hiss”, called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), was predicted way before it was discovered, and one bona fide way of confirming evidence for a theory is to make predictions that are born out by experimental observations.

2) Composition of the Universe:  At the theoretical but expected temperatures and pressures of the Big Bang, you might expect a certain amount of some interesting nuclear chemistry to take place and generate various substances. Particle physicists used to calculating such things predicted the relative amounts and types of stuff the Big Bang event would generate, and the theory matches observations to a high degree of accuracy – nearly all hydrogen and helium will be created by a ratio of roughly three to one. All the rest of stuff (very, very minor amounts relative to hydrogen and helium) that we know and love (like oxygen and iron and gold, etc.) was synthesised via the conversion of hydrogen and helium to those heavier elements by nuclear fusion processes – cosmic alchemy – in stars and often resultant supernovae, not in the Big Bang. 

3) Expansion: If you have a large explosion, a really big bang, a violent vomit event, you’d expect the bits that received the most oomph, the bits with the most energy would be expelled the fastest; other bits with less energy would lose the race (if this were a track meet). And thus the bits of spewed stuff spreads out – fastest in front, like a marathon run. A bacterium on one of these bits would see every other bit moving away from it. Some faster bits are outpacing the bacterium inhabited bit; the bacterium occupied bit is outpacing and leaving behind the slower bits. If the bacterium assumes it is standing still, then both the faster and slower moving bits appear to be receding away from it. The bacterium observes all other bits moving away from it at speeds proportional to their distance from it. The bacterium might assume from all of this that its bit was a special bit – the centre bit – but we can see that’s not so. Any bacterium on any of the bits would conclude the same thing. They too would be wrong. Does that mean there was no centre? Of course there was. Equally incorrect would be the conclusion that there was no centre – there was, the site of the original big spew.  

Substitute our local gravitationally bound cluster of galaxies as the bacterium’s bit; all other external galaxies and clusters of galaxies that have no connection to our local galactic group are the other bits, and there’s your analogy. Do we observe these other galactic bits to be moving away from us at velocities proportional to their distance from us? Yes indeed; you bet we do; spot-on! 

As an alternative, let’s look at a marathon analogy. We have this long distance marathon that starts off with say 1000 runners at a specific point in time and space. The finishing line is at a 150 mile radius out and the runners can run in any direction they choose. They, for the sake of this analogy, run at 15, 12, 9, 6 or 3 miles per hour. Let’s look at the relativities from the point of view of the middle runner, the one running at 9 miles per hour. After one hour he sees the 15 mph runner six miles ahead running at a relative velocity of 6 mph; the 12 mph runner 3 miles ahead with a relative velocity of 3 mph; the 6 mph runner 3 miles behind also at a relative velocity of 3 mph; and the 3 mph runner 6 miles behind with a velocity relative to our 9 mph runner of 6 mph – that’s assuming all took off and headed in one direction.

But if the 9 mph runner looks at those running in the exact opposite direction, the anti 3 mph runner is 12 miles behind with a relative velocity between them of 12 mph; the anti 6 mph runner is 15 miles away with, you guessed it a relative velocity difference of 15 mph; the anti 9 mph runner is 18 miles distant, relative velocity 18 mph; the anti 12 mph runner is 21 miles away at 21 mph relative velocity; the anti 15 mph runner is 24 miles away and moving away at 24 mph. Translated, there is a direct correlation between how far away the various runners are, and how fast they are running, which you can graph for verification. After two hours the distances between any two runners moving at different velocities will have doubled; after three hours trebled; after four hours quadrupled, and so on, though each runner is maintaining their respective velocities. Again, the relationship holds for each runner; each runner might think themselves in the centre as all other runners appear to be moving away from that runner’s point of view, yet it’s not the case that any runner is the centre – yet there was a centre when the starting gun went off.

Now kindly note that there is nothing in that trilogy of evidence for the Big Bang that requires that event to have: 1) created time; 2) created space; and 3) to have been a quantum-sized happening.

WHERE’S THE RECIPE BOOK?

The ultimate recipe book that would support the Big Bang event’s causality with the creation of time and space; the origin of matter and energy, has yet to be written by those advocating that very point of view.

There’s no recipe to the best of my knowledge for how to cook up a batch of time!

Equally there’s no recipe for how to bake a cake of space!

How do you mix up a quark salad or a neutrino soup when there’s nothing in the pantry to start off with? Can anyone please give me the recipe?

From an equally empty supermarket you apparently can produce a kinetic energy pie. I want to see the recipe for that!

The Universe, it has been said, is the ultimate free lunch. But a lunch still needs a recipe book. When physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists can actually write and publish such a cookbook, well then its Nobel Prizes all around. Till then, I think they should veer away from statements about the creation of time, space, matter and energy from nothing. Till then, my mantra remains “there is no such thing as a free lunch”.   

To be continued...

The Big Bang’s Metaphysical Baggage: Part One

The Big Bang event is the leading scientific cosmological theory when it comes to explaining the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and simply everything. While the Big Bang event is the leading candidate and the standard model, it’s not the only one. That’s fortunate, because while a fair bit of once theoretical now verified observational evidence supports that standard cosmological model, it also comes as well with a fair bit of metaphysical baggage. It’s mainly that metaphysical baggage that concerns me.

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

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

THE BIG BANG VIOLATES BASIC PHYSICS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued...

Cosmic Fun: Random Ramblings in Modern Cosmology: Antimatter

The following ideas are primarily mine alone, the good, the bad and the ugly, albeit based on and influenced by reading multi volumes of tomes in modern cosmology. However, I’m also quite sure that numerous others have quite independently thought somewhat similar, if not exact, thoughts as well. Therefore, I’ll take no credit for being right, if I don’t get blamed for being wrong!

THE MISSING ANTIMATTER AND MISSING MATTER: A CONNECTION?

In the beginning there was the Big Bang. Theory suggests that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created. Alas, we don’t see antimatter in our cosmos. Where is it, or where did it go?

Well it might be silly to expect an absolute exact 1 on 1 match. Nature isn’t always 100% symmetrical.

It’s probably valid enough to postulate a close, but not quite exact 1 on 1 match, say for every 1,000,000,000 bits of antimatter created, there were 1,000,000,001 bits of matter.

When matter and antimatter meet, the bits annihilate, but since stuff (matter  and antimatter qualify as stuff) can not be poof-ed out of existence, what results is energy – Recall Einstein’s equating of mass and energy, where a little bit of mass can be converted into a lot of energy (the A-Bomb is an obvious example).  

Anyway, over time, nearly all the matter, but all the antimatter annihilated, but with matter ever so slightly ahead in the creation stakes, what we now see is a matter-dominated cosmos.  And one hell of a lot of energy should be around too – the result of 1,000,000,000 bits of antimatter coming into contact with 1,000,000,000 units of matter.

Another troubling issue is that the cosmos is expanding as a result of the Big Bang. If there is sufficient matter in the cosmos, the collective gravity will be enough to slow down to a halt that expansion; hence reversing the situation into a contraction and an eventual Big Crunch (perhaps to then be followed by another Big Bang, and so on ad infinitum).  If there isn’t enough matter, the cosmos will go on expanding forever and ever, eventually resulting in an eternally dark and cold endless expanse. Alas, that would appear to be the fate of the cosmos. We’re missing enough matter to close the cosmos.

But wait, isn’t energy the same as matter according to Einstein (and proved at Hiroshima and Nagasaki)? If so, what about those 1,000,000,000 units of matter/antimatter annihilation energy. That, combined with the one unit of matter left over, you’d think, would be enough to halt the expansion, resulting in the Big Crunch, a renewed birth, hence a second, third, fourth (up to an infinite number of) chances for the cosmos.

Then there is the theory by the late physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman that antimatter is exactly the same as matter, but traveling backwards in time! If we were to travel backwards in time, we’d become antimatter! The upshot here is that if, at the time of the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created, then matter traveled forward in time (and is still doing so 13.7 billion years later), while the antimatter traveled backwards in time. Of course antimatter didn’t have to travel more than a few micro-seconds, even nanoseconds back before returning to the beginning (and presumably to a beyond Big Bang state – whatever that is – or was). Anyway, that’s why we don’t see or detect any antimatter in the cosmos today!

Further readings about antimatter:

Close, Frank; Antimatter; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2009:

Fraser, Gordon; Antimatter: The Ultimate Mirror; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2000:

Nir,Yossi & Quinn, Helen R.; The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 2008: