A Lifeless Universe: Part Two

You know and I know that at this point in time, our Universe is inhabited. Even if nowhere else in the cosmos, Planet Earth is host to terrestrial life. However, the Universe didn’t start off with any life, especially human life. This puts the kibosh on a certain brand of quantum philosophy, the brand that encompasses the role of the observer and the role played by probability.

Continued from Part One…

In a universe without life, it’s probably pretty meaningless to talk about concepts like free will. Then there’s that whole sackful of concepts related to good-and-evil like morals, ethics, sin, badness, righteousness, etc. and as such there’s no need for the concepts of heaven or hell. As such, scratch salvation, redemption, forgiveness, or damnation.

There are no emotions, suffering, pain, sorrow, pleasure, consciousness, or psychology. There’s obviously no disease.

There’s another bagful of concepts like the afterlife, reincarnation or resurrection that can go by the boards. Speaking of the latter, there’s no such thing in a lifeless universe as miracles. There is no such concept required like survival of the fittest; there are no wars, no death, and certainly no taxes! There were no soft science concepts around like society, culture, education (no homework), politics and government (no politicians), no economics (no bills), no religion (no thou shalt nots), no philosophy (who needs angels and pins), history (all those names, dates and places) and no environmental issues that needed addressing. There was no beauty (and no ugly either). In short, that pre-life era – that was what is known as the really good old days!

There’s one other important contrast between a lifeless universe and the universe that, in this case specifically contains and singles out humans and human concepts, and that is probability.  

Probability or uncertainty (two sides; same coin) dominates our existence. What odds my next child will be a female? What odds the next time I fly the plane will crash? What odds I win the lottery this week? What’s the probability I will be promoted this year? What’s the probability that I am normal, being of average height, weight, age, etc.? Even in science as performed by humans, probability or uncertainty dominates. Every measurement has error bars. Every forecast has some degree of uncertainty. Even the Sun rising tomorrow is not absolutely guaranteed (though I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that unlikely event). Every theory can ultimately be found to be wrong or incomplete. And just where is that damn electron anyway?

The fundamental question is, is probability an intrinsic property of Mother Nature like mass and gravity, or is it a human invention; a human concept? IMHO, there are no error bars in Mother Nature’s reality. Mother Nature knows the temperature is this, not around this but within this range. Mother Nature notes it will rain tomorrow, not just a chance of showers. Mother Nature knows that the Sun will rise tomorrow even though it will go nova the day after that. Mother Nature knew that Einstein’s theory of gravity was more precise than Newton’s theory of gravity millennia before Newton or Einstein was conceived of in anyone philosophy. And Mother Nature knows exactly where that damn electron is because the electron is. 

Any observer, via instrumentation or via the five senses, usually has to interpret what that observation actually represents – it’s not always obvious. If it was, science would have concluded its work decades ago, or just be engaged in refining things from the tenth to the twelfth decimal place. Interpretation – the choice between two or more possibilities – well that’s weighing probabilities.

* We’ve all observed a cat rubbing its head along an object. What’s the probability the cat is putting its scent on the object or the probability does it have an itch to scratch?

* We might have observed a boat passing away from us and disappearing over the horizon. Is this because the Earth is probably round or did the boat probably sink?

* In quantum physics, observations suggest a wave-particle duality. But is it more probably a wave or is it more likely a particle? 

* Is that unusual light in the sky probably an alien spaceship or is it probably a weather balloon?

* Does viewing a sunrise suggest t you that the Sun probably goes around the Earth or that the Earth probably is rotating around its axis?

* You spot that tornado on the horizon – maybe it will miss you or maybe it won’t. What are the odds? It certainly can’t both hit you and miss you at the same time and place.

* Is Pluto probably a real planet or isn’t it (and does it even cosmically matter)?

* My friend has a cold. I have a cold. Did I probably catch his or did he probably catch mine or was there probably something contagious in the meal we shared several nights ago?

* That Sasquatch I saw. Was it probably too much to drink or was it probably real and if it was real was it probably a bear or was it probably an unknown primate?

* Did the apple fall to earth because it’s probably seeking its natural place or was it probably due to an external force called gravity?

* Is Schrodinger’s cat probably dead or probably alive? It can’t be both simultaneously despite what quantum physics suggest.

* Why is the night sky dark? Is it probably because the Sun’s not shining in the sky at night or probably because the Universe is expanding or probably because there’s only a finite number of stars and galaxies giving off light.

* Why did the chicken cross the road this morning? You may not know (though you can probably come up with a half-dozen possibilities) but the chicken probably does.

There’s little doubt in my mind that to all of these probably observations there is but one answer(s). In many cases we’ve sussed out the answer(s). We don’t have the answer(s) in all the cases. I say answer(s) because there can be more than one answer acting jointly, like there really was a Sasquatch and yes, you were also really, really drunk; yes the Earth is round, but yes, the boat sank as well. But its an either/or certainty of an explanation(s), not a bit of both ways by sometimes probably having your cake and sometimes probably eating it too, probability, as in sometimes the apple falls to earth because it is seeking its natural place and sometimes it falls to earth because of gravity; or that Pluto is a planet on odd days or in months containing an “R” and not a planet on even days or non-“R” months; or sometimes the night sky is dark because the Sun isn’t in the sky, but at other times the night sky is dark because the Universe is expanding and at yet even on other occasions its only dark because there’s only a finite number of stars and galaxies.

The bottom line is that the Universe isn’t governed by probability. Given identical sets of circumstances or conditions, the outcomes remain the same. Observers and observations are irrelevant. That’s made crystal clear during all those millennia the Universe was observer-free.   

A Lifeless Universe: Part One

You know and I know that at this point in time, our Universe is inhabited. Even if nowhere else in the cosmos, Planet Earth is host to terrestrial life, from the humble bacteria through to plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. In terms of sheer numbers of species and total biomass, microbes and insects rule the roost, though humans alone pat themselves on the back. However, the Universe didn’t start off with any life, especially human life. This puts the kibosh on a certain brand of quantum metaphysics, the brand that encompasses the role of the observer and the role played by probability.

I think everyone would agree that before they were thought of in anyone’s philosophy, the Universe existed. You’d agree that the Universe existed before humans existed, unless you’re one of those fundamentalists who interpret the Book of Genesis literally, and even then there were a few days for the Universe to enjoy a pre-human existence. If you’re not one of those extreme right wing all-things-literal Christians, then you’d go along with the Universe existing before life, any kind of life, arose on Terra Firma (or anywhere else in the cosmos for that matter). You’d also have to go along with the notion that the Universe existed before the Earth (and therefore the Sun and solar system) existed, since the parent (the Universe) has to exist before the offspring (Earth, Sun and solar system). In fact, to bring this string to its logical conclusion, the Universe existed even before our home parent galaxy, the Milky Way existed.

The origin of our Universe via that Big Bang event was roughly 13.7 billion years ago. Our own galaxy didn’t come into its own until three plus billion years post Big Bang. Planet Earth (plus Sun and solar system) came about some 4.5 billion years ago; the first stirrings of what we’d call life happened on Earth within a half a billion years of Earth’s origin event. If you want to equate life in the Universe with life on Earth (terrestrial biology is the proverbial IT), then the Universe has been lifeless for the first 9.7 billion years of its existence.

Our Universe is bio-friendly otherwise we wouldn’t be here to discuss the issue. That’s often termed the Weak Anthropic Principle. A bio-friendly Universe is a Goldilocks Universe, albeit a dangerous Goldilocks Universe with lots of places that are too hot or too cold or otherwise not quite right and not quite bio-friendly. But, any port in a storm.

But before life was thought of in anyone’s (not that there was anyone) philosophy, we’re certain that:

* Chemistry still happened.

* Stars still shined and photons still did their photon thing.

* Gravity still grabbed; Black Holes still formed.

* Radioactivity decay still proceeded.

* Neutrinos still whizzed their merry way along the cosmic byways and pathways.

* Electrons still quantum hopped from orbit to orbit giving off and absorbing energy.

* Quarks still carried on their threesome relationships inside protons and neutrons.

Okay, there clearly was a time when the cosmos was lifeless and the above were cosmic truisms. There clearly might come such a time again if Planet Earth is the proverbial IT when it comes to the life part of “life, the Universe and everything”. Humans aren’t immortal; Planet Earth isn’t immortal, and as I said earlier, the Universe can be a dangerous place. Perhaps humans don’t even need assistance from the Universe at large to bring about their extinction and the extinction of all life on Earth. If life on Earth goes kaput, then:

* Hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards, floods and droughts will still happen on Terra Firma.

* Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, avalanches, Ice Ages, tsunamis, meteor impacts, erosion, mountain building, and continental drift will still happen on Terra Firma.

* The tides will still ebb and flow; the Moon still waxes and wanes.

Now the $64,000 question is why is a lifeless Universe of any interest whatsoever? The answer is “observers”, or in the case of a lifeless Universe, “no observers”.

Many, especially the religious, think the Universe had a purpose, and that was to be fruitful and produce life, intelligence and consciousness, a way of the Universe being able to contemplate its own navel. That’s often termed the Strong Anthropic Principle. Most scientists give that the thumbs down on the grounds that the Universe just is. The Universe doesn’t have a consciousness, or a deity controlling it, and therefore the cosmos can’t have a purpose to its existence, nor a ways and means that it can consciously direct itself toward such a goal.

However, many quantum physicists suggest that the Universe cannot have achieved a reality until such time as observers (life) appeared to give the Universe reality. That’s often termed the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. The idea is that all possible realities exist in a state of superposition and only one becomes reality when someone actually observes and forces the numerous possibilities down to one certainty. All possible realities are grouped together and termed the probability wave-function or wave of probability. When crunch-comes-crunch and someone peeks, Mother Nature is forced to make a decision, the wave-function collapses and one and only one certainty results.

Until life appeared then, the Universe was in a superposition of all possible realities, a wave-function that was a composite of all possibilities. That first observer hence collapsed the wave-function of near infinite possibilities down to one reality. Or is that just so much bovine fertilizer?

Now between the time of the creation, that Big Bang event some 13.7 billion years ago, and the time of that first observer arising, the cosmos expanded and evolved. Stars formed, solar systems formed, galaxies formed, and so on. Now all that suggests that there was one reality, one chain of events, and a causality that was universal – the Universe was not in a composite of all possible states of reality even while no life existed. It’s silly to think that that ever first proto-cell billions of years ago determined the single structure or reality of the Universe we see around us today. For observers to have come into being, the Universe had to have already been in a state of being. Therefore, the Copenhagen Interpretation of all things quantum is utter nonsense.

So, does the Universe exist even if nobody is looking? Yes! Did the Universe exist even when there was nobody to look? Yes! Are observers relevant? No!

Having settled the observer question, let’s move on to the next phase.

To be continued…

Can Black Holes Evaporate? Part Two

While there is a constant transfer of matter and radiant electromagnetic energy (photons) between bodies throughout the cosmos, there are sinks, ultimate final resting places where matter/energy can retire to and be removed from the rest of the cosmos. These cosmic sinks are Black Holes. But is that retirement permanent, or can stuff re-enter the cosmic workforce? Can Black Holes evaporate? The theoretical short answer is “yes”; the long answer is “no”.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now what about a Black Hole? Clearly a Black Hole isn’t isolated from the rest of the cosmos and objects therein. If you were just outside the event horizon you’d ‘see’ photons (of all wavelengths) because you’d see stars and galaxies, etc. just like you can locally. Neutrinos would still pass right through you on their way to their doom once passing through the event horizon. The Universe is full of interstellar and intergalactic atoms and molecules and dust and of course lots of larger stuff a Black Hole can snack on. Black Holes will sweep up stuff just like Earth does, only more so since it has more gravity with which to grab hold of stuff with, and also because once caught there’s no escape for the cosmic fish. Unlike Earth, everything that crosses that event horizon, that hits the Black Hole, won’t be reflected back (like photons). Neutrinos that can pass through light-years worth of solid lead without even ‘breathing hard’ will be imprisoned when they try that trick in a Black Hole’s inner sanctum. And of course atoms, molecules, interstellar dust, the big chunks will also get imprisoned. 

But we can imagine an idealized cosmos where all Black Holes have swallowed up all existing radiated particles (photons), all the atoms,  molecules, the dust and all the bigger stuff – all those stars and planets; asteroids and comets; even all that mysterious ‘dark matter’. So you have a cosmos of just Black Holes and the vacuum energy (well maybe a few bits and pieces escaped, but so few to be of no consequence).  Of course there is one further logical extension. Black Holes can swallow other Black Holes. Black Holes can merge to form bigger Black Holes. The final product is that the cosmos consists of one Black Hole – the Mother of all Black Holes – plus the vacuum energy!  So you end up with one Black Hole left standing with nothing left to eat.

Okay, so the only scenario now possible is that this Mother of all Black Holes evaporates via Hawking radiation. It might take trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years, but evaporate it does. Since matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, once the Mother of Black Holes has finally gone ‘poof’, the Universe is right back where it started from – full of stuff from photons to fundamental particles which them undergo chemistry to form atoms and molecules and stars and planets and perhaps life – and new Black Holes!

Perhaps this is a new and improved version of a cyclic/oscillating universe! - But then again, maybe not. There’s a fly in that ointment (but I had you going for a while back there!). That “idealized cosmos” was only a ‘what if’ thought experiment.

Firstly, it’s actually very, very unlikely all the Black Holes in the Universe will ever merge together as long as the Universe keeps expanding. Since the galaxies are getting farther and farther away from each other due to that expansion, the collection of Black Holes contained within each galaxy keep getting further and further apart from other clusters of Black Holes contained within other galaxies. It’s like the passengers in one car get more and more remote from the passengers in another car when each car is going at different velocities and heading in different directions.

Now the collection of all Black Holes in any one galaxy could well coalesce into one super Black Hole galaxy. You have a galaxy that instead of containing billions and billions of stars and debris and particles now consists of just one Black Hole – the car only has one occupant. You have a pure Black Hole galaxy, or a galactic sized Black Hole. 

One might end up with a Universe composed of just these pure Black Hole galaxies, all spreading farther and farther apart over time. 

But secondly, there’s another fly in the ointment. All the space that separates these pure Black Hole galaxies from each other isn’t a perfect vacuum, quite apart from the vacuum energy. All the radiating stars and stuff may have been gobbled up within each galaxy, but all of interplanetary space, all of interstellar space, and all of intergalactic space, isn’t pure vacuum. There’s still the ‘it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere’ Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR).

So what’s this CMBR?  If you have a massive hot explosion (like the Big Bang event is alleged to have been), 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 for reasons already noted. And that’s just what we find on a universal scale. There’s a fine microwave energy “hiss” representing a temperature a few degrees above absolute zero that’s absolutely everywhere in the cosmos. That’s the diluted heat energy of the very hot Big Bang – well it has been a long time since the Big Bang event (13.7 billion years worth of time) and that energy is now spread throughout a lot of cosmic volume. That microwave “hiss”, called the CMBR, was predicted way before it was discovered. There’s no doubt that it exists.

Since the CMBR is just photons with very long wavelengths, Black Holes could suck up the CMBR photons as easily as light photons. Removal of CMRB photons, already representing a temperature just slightly about the theoretical minimum – absolute zero – would mean the Universe gets even colder, which it would anyway since the Universe is ever expanding and thus available electromagnetic energy (photons) is ever diluting. Combining the two effects and the Universe is a chilly place indeed and will get even colder.

However, it’s probably not possible for Black Holes collectively to swallow up all of the CMBR since there will come a point of diminishing returns. What happens when the temperature of Black Holes equals the temperature of the Universe at large – the CMBR? The answer is thermal equilibrium like when your hot cup of coffee cools off to room temperature. Input into Black Holes from the CMBR will equal output via Hawking radiation. For every photon emitted via Hawking radiation, a CMBR photon gets sucked in. What does that mean? It means a Black Hole can not evaporate.

What about very tiny (micro) Black Holes that are relatively ‘hot’? Might they go ‘poof’ before thermal equilibrium is achieved? Will the contents of the Black Hole evaporate into the surrounding cosmos before they can equate to the surrounding temperature? The analogy might be like a hot drop of water could evaporate into the cold atmosphere before the liquid water drop can attain the temperature of its surrounding environment.

Even so, I still imagine that in the current matter and radiation dominated Universe, incoming would still exceed outgoing.

Of course if you could take a Black Hole, isolate and shield it from the rest of the cosmos and all that it contains, so all you have is the Black Hole and its internal energy (including the all pervading vacuum energy therein). An isolated Black Hole would be in a setting equivalent to putting it into an absolute zero temperature environment. If that’s the case then outgoing would exceed incoming since there could be no incoming, and therefore that Black Hole would then radiate and slowly evaporate and eventually go ‘poof’. BUT, and there’s always a BUT, I can not envision any scenario where a Black Hole can exist in such a theoretical isolation. So, Professor Hawking is quite correct – in theory. In practice, in the here and now, input exceeds Hawking radiation output, and even in the unimaginably far distant future equilibrium will be established where input equals output. 

Can Black Holes Evaporate? Part One

While there is a constant transfer of matter and radiant electromagnetic energy (photons) between bodies throughout the cosmos, there are sinks, ultimate final resting places where matter/energy can retire to and be removed from the rest of the cosmos. These cosmic sinks are Black Holes. But is that retirement permanent, or can stuff re-enter the cosmic workforce? Can Black Holes evaporate? The theoretical short answer is “yes”; the long answer is “no”.

Black Holes are astrophysical objects that are so massive, that have gravity so high, that their escape velocity (some seven miles per second on Earth) exceeds the ultimate cosmic speed limit – the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, nothing (matter and/or energy) once inside a Black Hole can ever get out again – or so the seemingly ironclad logic went.

However, that’s all according to classical physics. A physicist by the name of Jacob Bekenstein came up with the idea of applying quantum physics to Black Holes (upon a suggestion by his mentor John Wheeler – who incidentally coined the phrase “Black Hole”), and once that was done, well lo and behold, Black Holes apparently exhibited entropy, and therefore had a temperature and therefore must radiate and therefore can vomit out stuff. His ideas were mulled over and over again and finally agreed to and expanded on by the celebrated astrophysicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking. That stuff that a Black Hole can regurgitate now goes under the name of Hawking radiation, or to give credit where credit is due it is technically Bekenstein-Hawking radiation. However, it’s usually just called Hawking radiation so I’ll stick with that convention.

Of course if Black Holes have a temperature, then they must follow the same laws of thermodynamics as any other object with temperature. One key point in thermodynamics is that energy exchanges between objects are at least partly determined by one object’s temperature compared to another object’s temperature. The temperature of a hot cup of coffee will stay hot longer the higher the temperature of the environment that surrounds that hot cup of coffee. A Black Hole’s temperature must be compared to whatever temperature surrounds the Black Hole when considering the fate of the Black Hole. So how does a Black Hole get temperature?

In retrospect, how this happens is obvious (as are all great ideas when applying hindsight).

There is no such thing as the perfect vacuum. That could only be achieved at a temperature of absolute zero where and when everything is 100% frozen stiff. Alas, such a state violates one of the most fundamental principles of quantum physics – the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle – where it is impossible to know both the momentum and position of anything with 100% precision. If something were at absolute zero, frozen stiff and standing still, you’d know both the momentum (which would be zero) and position (at a standstill) of that something with absolute precision.

Since there is always a minimum state of energy anywhere in the Universe (something above absolute zero), and since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein’s famous formula/equation), then that energy state, the false not-quite-absolute-zero vacuum, the vacuum energy*, can generate mass – virtual particles. However, the particles come in matter-antimatter pairs, which usually immediately annihilate and return to their former pure energy state. BUT, and there is always, a BUT – there’s an exception to the rule – that normal state of affairs can be thwarted.

The vacuum energy, that which can generate particle-antiparticle pairs, exists everywhere where existence has any meaning. Part of that existence is an area called the event horizon**, which is a concept related to the concept we call Black Holes. All Black Holes have an event horizon which surrounds them.

The event horizon surrounding a Black Hole is that somewhat fuzzy region that separates the region (below the event horizon) from which gravity rules over the speed of light, and that region (above the event horizon) where gravity’s escape velocity can’t quite dominate that speed of light velocity. I say its “fuzzy” since it’s not razor sharp, albeit nearly so.

The vacuum energy is part and parcel of the space surrounding the event horizon, above, below and spot-on. Now, what if that vacuum energy generates a pair of virtual particles, one each popping into existence above the event horizon; one below the event horizon. Then, the particles will be unable to annihilate and recombine into pure energy. One will stay within the Black Hole. The other, being above the event horizon, can be dealt a ‘get out of jail’ card. And thus, slowly, ever so slowly, but ever so surely, the Black Hole loses mass, thus energy, and evaporates.

Here’s the general picture. Black Holes can only radiate from the event horizon region which, in a very large Black Hole is going to be very cold because it’s not radiating very much, so initially only things like the mass-less photon escapes. Assuming there’s no incoming to replace the loss, the Black Hole shrinks, and as it gets smaller it warms up slightly (that’s what things that shrink tend to do) and can radiate particles with small mass – say neutrinos. When the Black Hole is tiny, it’s very warm, in a relative sense, and it can go out with a ‘bang’, maybe emitting an electron or positron which is way more massive. When there’s no more Black Hole, the vacuum energy still produces at random virtual particle pairs, but there’s no more event horizon from which to separate those virtual particle pairs and thus its all back to normal – the two annihilate and return to their vacuum energy state. That’s where the popular accounts end. End of story. The ultimate fate of Black Holes will be to evaporate via Hawking radiation, even if it does take trillions of years.

Alas, the written texts forget to mention that radiation emission (and other forms of emitted stuff) is a two-way street, not a one-way street. Black Holes can acquire stuff, as well as radiate stuff. If deposits exceed withdrawals, then Black Holes will always have a positive ‘stuff’ balance and thus won’t fully evaporate. Now this is perhaps why Hawking radiation hasn’t been observed. The tiny amount of Hawking radiation (outgoing) will be swamped by the greater, many orders of magnitude greater, amounts of incoming radiation and other stuff impacting the Black Hole.

Forget Black Holes (and their massive gravity) for a moment and concentrate on Planet Earth. Even at night, you see lots of suns – stars. You see them because they are radiating photons – particles of electromagnetic energy of which visible light is a small part. In fact you only detect a tiny fraction of visual photons because your visual detection devices (eyes) aren’t that efficient. Optical telescopes pick up a lot more of them, but they’re still just as real. You are also being hit by photons in the infrared, the ultraviolet, in radio wavelengths, X-ray photons, gamma-ray photons, etc. Though Earth’s atmosphere shields us from some of these photons (ultraviolet photons are far greater in number at the top of our atmosphere than at the bottom), you still get impacted by multi-billions of them; Planet Earth many orders of magnitude more. Some of the photons get reflected back into space; these don’t add to Earth’s energy/mass balance. Overall, there are roughly one billion photons for each and every fundamental particle with mass, like electrons and neutrinos.

Now in addition Earth (and you too) gets hit with cosmic rays, neutrinos, and cosmic dust. Even if you luck out, Planet Earth gets impacted by meteors and other outer space debris, sometimes debris large enough to not only hit the surface but do considerable damage. Planet Earth’s mass increases by many tons a day, all due to Earth’s sweeping up of the interplanetary dust and small rocks that intersect Earth’s orbit. The trillions of neutrinos that hit us are so ghostly that nearly all pass right through you and the entire planet as well despite them having a tiny amount of mass, so as far as our planet is concerned, they are of little significance. 

To be continued…

*If it helps to conceive of the concept of the vacuum energy, here’s an analogy. Think of the invisible but energetic atmosphere as the vacuum energy. Part of that atmosphere consists of invisible water vapour. But, all of a sudden, and for reasons that must have been mysterious to the ancients, part of the atmosphere undergoes a phase change into something you can see; into something solid – like a particle. You get mist/fog (clouds), rain drops, snow, sleet, hail, etc. Then, equally mysterious, those solid bits eventually undergo another phase change (evaporation standing in for annihilation) back to invisible water vapour in the equally invisible atmosphere. And so you have the invisible vacuum energy that generates particle-antiparticle pairs which annihilate back into the vacuum energy.

**The surface area of the event horizon is the same for both incoming and outgoing so there is no need to take that (non) variable under consideration.

Singularities: The Heart of Black Holes and the Big Bang

Singularities are fascinating objects and places, yet entirely ‘inaccessible’ in the sense that you can’t actually go there on vacation and send back a postcard, or travel to one on a government grant as a scientific expedition and report back via a peer-reviewed article in a technical scientific journal about the local environment, geography, inhabitants, etc. In a sense singularities are like Heaven in terms of accessibility. You have to rely on intuition or theory or second-hand observations as to what’s what and who’s who.  

Okay, for those readers I’ve already befuddled, I’d better tell you exactly what a singularity is! You’ve all heard of the phrase ‘Black Hole’ and not the one in Calcutta either! I refer to astronomical or cosmic Black Holes. Black Holes are ‘black’ because they have packed inside them so much stuff, so much mass, and hence so much gravity that not even particles of electromagnetic energy (photons) can escape their gravitational clutches. If photons, and that includes visible light photons, are jailed, can not pass go, can not collect $200, then they might as well as, as far as your perception of them is concerned, not exist. If what you don’t see exists, that existence is of no matter (well lots of matter actually). Translated, Black Holes are black because visible light can’t get from them to your eyeball! The absence of light is well, blackness.

So, is a Black Hole just a big lump of stuff, albeit stuff you can’t see? Well, ‘yes’ and ‘no’.  First off, we can ‘see’ Black Holes indirectly because of their gravitational influence on stellar objects we can see. I mean if you see a star whirling around something you can’t see, then the logical interpretation is that the star you can see is in orbit around something you can’t see – i.e. a Black Hole. Well ‘no’, you can’t ‘see’ a Black Hole because light from the Black Hole can’t get away from the crush of that Black Hole’s gravity.

What’s all this got to do with singularities? Well, the stuff composing a Black Hole, all that stuff that clumps together and is the centre of the massive all-encompassing gravity that prohibits the photons to escape the house (Hole) that Jack built is the Black Hole’s singularity. An analogy: The extent of the Black Hole is the extent of the Earth’s outer atmosphere; the singularity is the solid Earth proper. So think of a nebulous outer edge with a solid core of stuff in the middle. The stuff in the middle generates the intense gravity; the nebulous outer edge marks the boundary between gravity below the threshold of light escaping and light not escaping. That boundary is referred to as the ‘event horizon’; the stuff in the middle is the singularity.

Now the idea of a singularity doesn’t stop with the idea behind an astronomical Black Hole. No, a singularity is any concentration of stuff or mass that has such a massive amount of gravity as to prevent photons from leaving the gravitational well or prison so created. What’s the ultimate Black Hole – the Mother of all Black Holes? Well, if bits of our Universe can clump together to form astronomical Black Holes, then our entire Universe, when clumped together and in a relativity tiny state, would have been the Mother of all Black Holes and hence the Mother of all singularities. When was our Universe in such a state? Well, in the beginning!

Our Universe is expanding. That’s verified by direct cosmological observation. Every cluster of galaxies has such astronomically bad ‘body odour’ that every other cluster of galaxies is moving out of the vicinity quick-smart! Well actually you can’t have ‘body odour’ in space, so that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that in the beginning or once upon a time, there was some sort of explosive oomph event that started the expansion process. We call that the ‘Big Bang’ event. At the time of the Big Bang event, our entire Universe had a close encounter with, well, our entire Universe. Our entire Universe was roughly all in the same space at the same time. Translated, if you run the film of an expanding Universe backwards, you eventually get the entire contents of our Universe on collectively very intimate terms. Such a massive collection of stuff, matter, mass, hence gravity, all of the stuffs, matter or mass that the Universe possesses, well let’s just say you’d have the Mother of all singularities – in the Big Bang beginning; or anyway once upon a Big Bang time at least .  

Well surely one didn’t have this Mother of all singularities just sitting around for eons then for no apparent reason go ‘poof’ and thus have an explosive oomph moment which kick-started things off as far as our Universe is concerned. The intense gravity of the Mother of all singularities probably would have muted any oomph to begin with; the birth of our Universe stalled at the onset.

But, let’s throw some momentum into the mix. What’s the opposite of a Big Bang? It’s a Big Crunch! So let’s propose that we have this other universe which, the bits and pieces thereof, under all those mutual gravitational attractions, is slowly, ever so slowly, but ever so surely, coming together. And as it comes together, the contracting velocity gets faster, and faster, and faster. Eventually, you have this massive collection of stuff rushing together to meet at a single point in space and in time at a fantastic velocity. There is such momentum present that the contracting Big Crunch universe just can’t stop on a dime any more than an automobile going a hundred miles an hour can stop with inside of a foot of having the brakes applied. The Big Crunch at the omega point obviously forms the Mother of all Black Holes and singularities, but the sheer momentum of that contracting universe just tears the fabric of things (space and time) apart, and like a glove turning inside-out, the contraction passes through the omega point, spewing its gets out, becoming an alpha point, which is our Big Bang event and the start of our new expanding Universe.

Okay, so we have two sources that have singularities – singularities at the centre of astronomical Black Holes, and the Mother of all singularities residing inside the Mother of all Black Holes, the one that existed at the Big Bang beginning of the Universe.

We of course can’t see a singularity directly (unless you’re willing to take a one-way trip down a Black Hole, but even if you survived that and landed safely on the singularity, you couldn’t ever broadcast back your findings – that speed of light restriction that by definition a Black Hole imparts regarding sending stuff out). So, we have to rely 100% on what theoretical equations predict a singularity to be. Unfortunately, those equations, when pushed to the sorts of mass and gravitational extremes that a singularity would represent, well you get nonsense answers. Translated, if taken at face value, the equations note that the intense gravity crushes the stuff that itself is responsible for that gravity down to a point of zero dimensions and hence infinite density.

The essential problem behind this nonsense is that gravity is represented by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity which is a classical physics smooth continuum phenomenon. That is, you can have this gravitational value, and that gravitational value, and every possible value in-between. However, tiny objects, which is what a singularity is postulated to be, is in the realm of the quantum, which is a non-continuum phenomena. Think of a staircase. You can be on this step, or the next step, but there is no step in-between the two. That is, you can have this value, or that value, but only certain other values in-between. It’s also like money – you can have a five dollar bill, and a ten dollar bill, but not a six and a third dollar bill, or an eight and three-quarters dollar bill, or even a seven or a nine dollar bill. Money and staircases are non-continuum quantum-like; money and staircases are not a smooth continuum like gravity is.  

So, to adequately come to terms with the really real properties of singularities, you need a theory of quantum gravity. Alas, despite the best efforts of thousands of theoretical physicists over many, many decades, no quantum gravity theory to be had. There’s no quantum gravity dice.

So, let’s abandon that theoretical track and go back to common sense predictions.

Either Black Hole singularities, or the Big Bang singularity, are infinitely dense and have zero volume, or they do not. If they do not (and the alternative defies common sense and is IMHO ridiculous), then singularities have a finite volume and can grow in size as more stuff is added on. You have an original tiny singularity with extremely high, but not infinite density. You keep piling stuff onto it. For a while, the density keeps on increasing, but since it can’t become infinite, there will be a point reached where further increases cease. As more and more stuff continues to be piled on, the only other option is that the size of the singularity must grow. The volume increases, and increases and increases. The upshot is that singularities can reach a size where quantum effects become negligible. Or, in other words, singularities can grow to where they aren’t quantum objects anymore, and while theories of quantum gravity might be still be useful in explaining their properties, it’s probably no longer essential. Singularities have entered the realm of classical physics.

One property of singularities I find interesting is that the stuff that eventually forms the singularity isn’t the same sort of stuff that went down the Black Hole’s throat in the first place. There’s been a phase transition of one kind of stuff to another kind of stuff. You’re quite familiar with phase transitions in your day-to-day life. There’s nothing mysterious about the concept. The most common example is steam or water vapour condensing to liquid water condensing or freezing to ice; ice melting to liquid water hence boiling or evaporating into steam or water vapour.  Apart from your division into solid, liquid and gas, there’s also plasma. Now the sort of matter that composes a singularity is probably something else yet again, a phase transition that only extreme gravity can achieve. That such a new state of matter exists is predicted by the following: If you have an ordinary matter star, and if it should happen to collide with an antimatter star, what you get is one hell of a big Ka-Boom; the annihilation of matter/antimatter into pure energy.  However, say your matter star implodes into a Black Hole with singularity. And say your antimatter star implodes into a Black Hole with singularity. Now have these two Black Holes collide. No Ka-Boom results, just a larger Black Hole! 

Parallel Universes: Part Two

Parallel universes, or alternative universes or mirror universes have had a long run of popularity in science fiction and science fantasy, in both print and visual formats. One need only look at an “Alice in Wonderland” or look no further than the “Star Trek” universe (our Universe in less than obvious disguise) to view the near endless plot variations that such parallel / alternative / mirror universes provide our heroes and heroines. Do they actually exist and do they explain anything?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

How do they, parallel universe photons say, actually get here? Well, at the quantum level, all manner of virtual particles pop into and out of existence from what’s called the vacuum energy. At the extremely microscopic level, what’s often called the ‘quantum foam’, is a level seething with activity, including the popping into and out of existence of micro wormholes, wormholes that can connect one universe with another, even if only for nanoseconds. But, that’s enough to allow the transfer of micro objects, like photons, and electrons, etc. from one universe to another. It’s like seeing the ocean from space. It looks really smooth and tranquil. However, at rowboat level, there’s this twenty foot wave about to come crashing down on top of you.

As the collection of all universes is the Multiverse, and since the wave-particle duality is at the heart and soul of quantum mechanics, then it follows that perhaps quantum physics is just the physics of the Multiverse!

The double slit experiment can be (and has been) repeated with electrons, and neutrons and protons, etc. Same results! So, therefore, there must be virtual or shadow or ghost electrons and neutrons (or quark trios) and protons (or again quark trios). Now things get interesting! But before I get to that, David Deutsch never speculated above the level of shadow or ghost protons (or other elementary particles) as proof of parallel universes. The following extrapolations are my doing!

If there are virtual / shadow / ghost protons and neutrons, then there are (let’s just call them) ghost nuclei. Add your ghost electrons and you have ghost atoms, hence ghost molecules and on up the chain to… well, ghosts!

Now these parallel universe ghosts aren’t dead people, but people quite alive in said parallel universe. They could appear to us as dead acquaintances or even dead loved ones, but parallel universes aren’t of necessity identical copies of ours (recall the heads, tails and coin-on-edge example). Just because Mum is deceased in our Universe doesn’t mean she’s yet snuffed it in a parallel one.

These virtual or shadow or ghostly images don’t even have to be living things of course. There’s a long history of apparently sane and sober people seeing, quite unexpectedly, spectral images of non-living ‘things’, like a building appearing in a otherwise verified field-of-grass only.

There’s equally a long list of documented transient phenomena, unfortunately unpredictable and unverifiable - UFOs anyone?

Speaking of UFOs (as intelligently piloted vehicles from elsewhere and/or elsewhen), sceptics often will claim ‘it can’t be, therefore it isn’t’, where the ‘can’t be’ usually refers to the impossibility of interstellar spaceflight which would require faster-than-light velocities to make things practical and viable, blah, blah, blah…. Quite apart from the fact that that assessment is total nonsense as I’ve already elaborated on elsewhere, subluminal interstellar travel doesn’t, of necessity, violate any laws of physics, period. End of discussion. However, nobody, including me, says it will be easy, but that’s a different horse of another colour.

Anyway, if there can be some sort of now and again natural interaction between parallel universes, then it follows that an advanced technological race of beings (call them aliens if you will), might be able to artificially manipulate such ‘gateways’ and go exploring – not so much in time and space but as in crossing over from X-universe to a parallel Y-universe, which in distance terms might be as close to zero kilometres as makes no odds.

Cryptozoology is another ripe area potentially explainable in part at least by parallel dimensions. Take Loch Ness and its alleged monster, one of the most baffling of cases in all of cryptozoology. On the one hand, you’ve lots of seemingly credible witnesses with no axe to grind going back over many decades. Are they all lying, exaggerating, and being fooled or just hallucinating?  The odds of that are poor for the collective of all sightings. On the other hand, you have a relatively small and confined area offering little hiding room to a relatively large animal. It’s an area that has been combed many times with all the sophisticated technology we can muster – no animal. However, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to breaking point and beyond to suggest that in some parallel universe(s), plesiosaurs (or equivalent) still exist and that for some reason there is, albeit just a rarely now and again, some sort of harmonic resonance between that world and our world, and presto, a sighting of the elusive Loch Ness Monster.

Perhaps a most likely interaction between parallel universes is evident in our dreams.

We often seemingly invent out of thin air quite unfamiliar people, places, and situations when dreaming, as well as finding ourselves in more familiar surroundings, albeit rarely something exactly parallel down to the Nth detail – at least that’s my experience. It’s maybe 90% familiar territory; never 100%.

If there is some sort of parallel universe interactions, your dreams could be, in a nebulous sort of way, a link with the lifestyle of your counterpart(s), and presumably said counterpart(s) now and again dream slightly unfamiliar scenarios that reflect your actual situations; your world and your lifestyle and relations.

It’s a sort of telepathy perhaps only achievable at the subconscious level when you’re asleep and all those day-to-day routines and constant mental activities can’t overwhelm that incredibly faint signal from a parallel universe(s).  

Now that’s not to say all dreams are parallel universe related, but some might be.

Since the double slit experiment with one photon at a time, produces interference patters 100% of the time, yet things like ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, even dreams, aren’t reproducible on demand, I can only conclude that it’s much easier for micro bits like photons and atoms to crossover from X-universe to Y-universe (our Universe) than it is for macro objects. But, that’s not an uncommon experience within our own world. Bacteria are vastly more common than humans – bacteria are everywhere; humans aren’t. Small things or objects can wriggle through small spaces where larger objects can not fit. It takes exceptional circumstances, an exceptional large gateway or hole between universes for a UFO or a Loch Ness Monster to make its ever so brief and unexpected appearance. So, lots of small holes or ‘gateways’ allowing lots of ghost photons (and presumably other particle types – very, very, few large holes or ‘gateways’, so actual sightings of living ghosts, etc. are very, vary rare.

Now more likely as not, it’s only a relatively few parallel universes that have a real resonance with ours. There could be other universes with physics so different that they are totally out of sight, even if not out of mind.     

Summary: The concept of parallel universes is a sound, yet novel way of explaining one of the (many) deep mysteries contained in the double slit experiment that illustrates the wave-particle duality of matter.  From that, the concept can be extrapolated or expanded to explain possible other, but more macro, anomalous phenomena.

*But with one very, very important caveat. The Copenhagen Interpretation of the quantum requires that Nature makes up Her mind when, and only when an observer or an observer’s measurement is made. Until then all is probability and nothing has reality or actual existence. The Moon has no reality unless someone is observing or measuring it! To me, observers are irrelevant – reality is reality, with or without observers. 

**Deutsch, David; The Fabric of Reality; Penguin Books, London; 1998:

Parallel Universes: Part One

Parallel universes, or alternative universes or mirror universes have had a long run of popularity in science fiction and science fantasy, in both print and visual formats. One need only look at an “Alice in Wonderland” or look no further than the “Star Trek” universe (our Universe in less than obvious disguise) to view the near endless plot variations that such parallel / alternative / mirror universes provide our heroes and heroines. Do they actually exist and do they explain anything?

There are apparently two theoretical counterparts in our real world, or in our physics. Firstly, there’s the idea that from the beginning, there’s an infinite number of parallel universes where all things that can happen, do happen. Our Universe is just one of that infinite set. In five of those universes, you 1) flip a coin – in one, it’s a heads you flip; in another, tails; in the third, the coin stands on edge! Or, in a fourth universe you decide not to flip a coin at all, or in universe #5 you decide to flip something else instead.

The other theoretical set of parallel universes is a set that ever increases, staring with just one. Universes split whenever an either/or choice is forced upon it, such that all results that can happen, happen. In this (our) Universe you decide not to flip a coin – but that decision results in a division, the universe splits and in that split, in the new universe, you do flip a coin. In that universe it comes up heads. But, that universe then splits into two and yet another universe where your flip has tails comes up. There’s also another universe where the coin lands on edge! There’s also a universe that originally splits off where you decide to flip something other than a coin. This is known as the ‘Many Worlds Interpretation’ theory, (which resulted out of a need to explain certain quantum phenomena). With every passing second, more and more universes branch off (actually trillions per second).

I’ve never been a fan of the Many Worlds Interpretation of all things quantum. That is, the universe keeps splitting each time it comes to a fork in the road. The question of where all the matter/energy comes from – created out of nothing apparently – I’ve yet to see addressed in the texts. But, many top notch scientists adopt it – perhaps as the least of all the evils certain quantum phenomena dish up. As to where they fit, all those extra universes, that’s not as much of a problem. A motel with an infinite number of rooms never has to put out a ‘no vacancy’ sign – if you get the analogy. Oh, the Many Worlds Interpretation also means that there’s no such thing as free will. You may think you have free will in deciding to wear your red dress instead of your green dress, but in the Many Worlds Interpretation, you do both – so no free will.

However, I myself go for the Copenhagen Interpretation* – when you come to a fork in the road, one and only one choice is made – the other possible choice(s) are never realized and ultimately never have any reality. But, if you start out from scratch with an infinite number of universes, or at least a vast number, then the issue of ‘where’ all the universes are is irrelevant, and the creation of all the stuff that makes them up is equally irrelevant. In the beginning, it was so!

You can have an infinite number of universes in an infinite amount of space. An analogy – there are an infinite number of whole numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. There’s also an infinite number of even numbers such as 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc. Ditto an infinite number of odd numbers. Yet the infinite set of even numbers, plus the infinite number of odd numbers, equals the infinite set of whole numbers. Infinity + infinity = infinity! Or, if you like, think of your house (volume) with just one molecule (universe) in it. You’d agree there’s room for one hell of a lot more molecules (universes). If your house had infinite volume, then…

I had always assumed, and followed the assumptions of others infinitely more brilliant than I, that such theoretical constructions, such parallel / alternative / mirror universes, was forever beyond our actual reach – works of fiction aside of course. We could construct them as an intellectual exercise, but could never verify and understand the actual existence of these mental or thought experiments. That’s because these universes, if they exist, would not be part of our space-time continuum and thusly we could never interact with them.

But what if that assumption is wrong? What if parallel / alternative / mirror universes not only exist, but can and do interact with ours, and thereby give some additional credence to the adventures of our “Alice in Wonderland” and “Star Trek” characters, not to mention the reputations of those physicists who propose infinite universes or Many Worlds Interpretation theories. 

Micro & Macro Mysteries: Well, those assumptions just might now be put to the test. I’d love to be able to say I thought of this idea, even independently, it’s just that brilliant. Alas, I didn’t, and I’m kicking myself because it’s just so simple and elegant.  The credit for this goes to physicist David Deutsch, and for a fuller and better outline of his proposals, see his book cited below**. 

The basics are as follows and deals with the paradoxical and famous ‘double slit’ experiment with light – an experiment with photons.

If you shine a light (millions of photons worth) at a slit, you’ll get a blob of light on the surface behind the slit. No problems – the photon ‘bullets’ go through the slit and impact on the surface behind.

Now you shine the light (millions of photons) at two slits. Contrary to expectation, you don’t get two blobs of light – one opposite each slit – but a classic wave interference pattern of alternating light and dark areas on the surface behind. So photons aren’t ‘bullets’; light must be a wave.

Thus is demonstrated the classic wave-particle duality or paradox of light. Is light a continuous wave, or is it a collection of individual ‘bullet’ particles?

Instead of firing millions of photons at these slits at a go, redo the experiment by firing off photons one at a time – say one per hour. That can actually be done. If you fire the one per hour photons at a single slit, the picture that emerges over time is your blob of light behind the slit. Photons are behaving as ‘bullet’ particles as before.

Now, fire the photons – one per hour – at the two slits. Clearly, you’d expect two blobs of light to ultimately form on the (say photographically sensitive) surface that is behind each slit. Sometimes the single photon would go through one slit; sometimes the other. Alas, you still get a wave-like interference pattern! How can this be? What’s interfering in real time with the actual photons that you’re shooting off?

The only object capable of interfering with photons, to cause wave-like interference, an alternating light-dark pattern, is other photons. But there are no other photons in the vicinity if they are shot out at one per hour and your photon source is the only photon source!

The inescapable conclusion is that there must be other photons around that can’t be detected (seen). Call these photons virtual photons, or shadow photons or ghost photons. Where do they come from? The answer is from our parallel / alternative / mirror universes. There is therefore a form of weak interaction between universes.

To be continued...

Multiroads to the Multiverse: Part Two

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

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

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Multiverse Solves These Puzzles:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Variations on the Many Worlds Interpretation Theme:

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

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

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

Further recommended readings:

Carr, Bernard (Editor); Universe or Multiverse?; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2007:

Gribbin, John; In Search of the Multiverse;

Allen Lane, London

; 2009:

Kaku, Michio; Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos; Penguin Books, London; 2005:

Rees, Martin; Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others; Free Press, London; 2002:

Vilenkin, Alex; Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes; Hill & Wang, New York; 2006:

Wolf, Fred Alan; Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds; Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York; 1988:

Cosmology and the Multiple You: Part Three

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

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

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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