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.



Dark Energy and Expanding Space

We have been aware that our Universe has been expanding for going on nearly a century now. Of course we are also aware, from a quite considerable earlier time that what goes up must come down. In other words, gravity grabs. The Universe has lots and lots of gravity, so presumably, what goes up (i.e. – the expansion rate) must come down (i.e. – the expansion rate must at least slow down, maybe even stop and reverse). Cosmologists were very interested in finding out exactly what the rate of deceleration was. How fast was the Universe’s expansion rate decreasing? It’s like you car might be going uphill, but at an ever slower and slower rate.

Okay, so, several teams of astronomers did the relevant observations and crunched the numbers and guess what – the Universe’s expansion rate was accelerating, gravity be damned. That’s sort of like driving your car uphill and having it go faster and faster without you putting the pedal to the metal. Well, that surely was an unexpected result. So, they needed an explanation. The astronomers (team leaders anyway) got the Nobel Prize, but that was for the discovery, not for the explanation. You see, there wasn’t any explanation. So, what do we want – an epicycle. When do we want it – now! What was the ad-hoc epicycle to be? It was called “Dark Energy”, a sort of antigravity that was pushing the Universe apart faster and faster and faster. Trouble is, nobody then, or now, has the foggiest idea what Dark Energy is, yet in order to account for what this epicycle does, it must represent some roughly 70% of what makes the Universe up. That’s a lot of epicycle that lacks any plausible explanation. Did someone mention rabbits and hats? 

When considering all things cosmological, it’s become apparent that astronomers only observe about 4% of the matter plus energy that should be present. That is, about 96% of the matter plus energy that should be present and detectable to account for the observed behaviour of our observable universe is missing! Now 1% might be understandable given measurement uncertainty (error bars), but hardly 96%! So, cosmologists have postulated concepts termed ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ to make up the deficit. However, nobody has the foggiest idea what exactly ‘Dark Matter’* and ‘Dark Energy’ actually are. Neither has actually been detected, either out there, or in the laboratory down here – obviously. The anomaly here is that ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ are both ad hoc theoretical concepts to make sense of various astronomical observations, but without benefit of any actual observation of ‘Dark Matter’ and/or ‘Dark Energy ’to back things up. That’s a rather slight-of-hand trick, and until cosmologists put actual observational money on the board where their theoretical mouth is, it’s all an anomalous pie-in-the-cosmic-sky.

Further, there is a quintet of really big problems with Dark Energy.

Problem One: Conservation laws – the bedrock of physics that are rammed down your throat in high school - are violated. Apparently the density of Dark Energy remains constant while the volume of the Universe expands. Expanding space creates additional Dark Energy which further expands space which creates additional Dark Energy; round and round in an endless cycle. That’s something from nothing. That’s a free lunch. Of course the phrase “Dark Energy” was just tacked on to ‘explain’ the accelerating universe, though it explains nothing. We, to repeat my earlier observation, still haven’t a clue what Dark Energy actually is, even though the concept has now entered its mid-teenage years, enough time you’d think for cosmologists to pin this anomaly down.

Problem Two: If Dark Energy is real energy, and it has to be in order to provide universal oomph and accelerate the cosmos, and energy and be converted to matter (Einstein’s famous equation), what kind of matter can Dark Energy turn into – traditional stuff like standard matter and antimatter or something exotic?

Problem Three: Space is a not-thing. You can’t hold it, measure it, or detect it with your senses. Space is not a physical something. Space has no effect on anything else. Energy is a thing. You can measure it and detect it and note the various effects it has on other things. A thing (energy) cannot be a property of a not-thing; a not-thing cannot contain properties that are things.

Problem Four: Ultimately, if space is a thing, a thing that’s a something, then space apparently has the property of elasticity. If space is expanding and carrying matter (i.e. – anything from individual atoms through entire galaxies and clusters of galaxies) along for the ride (as opposed to individual atoms through to entire galaxies and clusters of galaxies expanding throughout existing space) then one would expect to observe our Sun-Earth distance getting greater; the Moon-Earth** distance expanding more rapidly than tidal forces allow for; our entire solar system’s diameter increasing; ditto the diameter of entire galaxies. Alas, there’s no such evidence. Galaxies that we see today that existed billions of years ago (because it took their light that long to reach us) have the same sort of geometrical structure as galaxies that are much closer (hence more recent in age) to us. Galaxies don’t expand so the space within them isn’t expanding either. That just leaves the voids between galaxies, or between clusters of galaxies to do the expanding. But that begs the question of why the discrimination between the space between Earth and the Moon and the space between our galaxy and Andromeda Galaxy or the space between our local cluster of galaxies and our nearest other cluster of galaxies. It’s all nonsense. If space itself is expanding; all of space is expanding, not just select bits or areas.  

Problem Five: Despite promoting expanding space via an intrinsic property of space, the Dark Energy, as the greatest thing since sliced bread, no scientist can give you the equation; the recipe for creating space, especially the creation of space out of absolutely nothing. Wouldn’t we all like to create some extra space in the home out of absolutely nothing? Just spray some Dark Energy out of a can and you’ve instantly added an extra bedroom or poolroom to your abode. It’s easy to say that space is constantly being created, but hardcore equations speak louder than waffle-words. Would you trust a cookbook written by someone who can only theoretically find their way around a kitchen?

Something is really screwy somewhere!

*The requirement for Dark Matter to explain gravitational anomalies goes back to the early 1930’s, so cosmologists/particle physicists have had eighty years to figure this out, but without (to date), any runs on the board.

**The Moon-Earth distance can be monitored to extreme precision, as in down to inches, thanks to the mirrors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts. 



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 Cosmos Unto Infinity: Part Two

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos. 

Continued from Part One

As we noted in the example of the fridge and your body, it takes energy to reverse entropy or at least hold it at bay. A reversal of entropy is sort of like that closed box with Maxwell’s Demon (representing energy) that controls a slot that the Demon can either open or close that’s in the middle of that closed box that’s of a uniform temperature.  The Demon opens the slot whenever a rapidly moving (hot) molecule heads toward the left side or when a slower moving (cold) molecule heads toward the right side. After a while, the left side of the box will be containing just hot stuff (rapidly moving molecules) and the right side cold stuff (slowly moving molecules). Maxwell’s Demon is like a kid expending energy sorting a bag of 1000 various coloured marbles (maximum disorder) into piles of reds and greens and blues and yellows (maximum order).  Of course our infinite cosmos contains no demons, and marble-sorting kids need not apply if there’s ever a job ad for restoring order to an infinite cosmos.

Okay, without demons (or entropy reversing kids), our infinite cosmos heads towards a state of maximum entropy or maximum disorder or maximum uniformity. The cosmic temperature will be the same everywhere; matter will be evenly distributed. But, can an infinite cosmos ever reach such a state? It could or should take an infinite amount of time, but that’s also assumed. 

Yet alas, what even an infinite cosmos needs is a Maxwell’s Demon. The cosmos, if it is to retain a state of vitality for an infinite duration, needs something that recycles stuff that’s at maximum entropy (maximum disorder) back to the basics of minimum entropy (or minimum disorder) where useful things can continue to happen.

* The Role of Gravity

Gravity seems to be a Maxwell Demon’s kind of force that keeps on keeping on. As long as you have two bits of matter, even just two electrons, you have gravity. Radiation (electromagnetism) could be dispersed evenly in infinite space over infinite time, but it is hard to imagine that situation with gravity. The only real way gravity could be rendered inert and useless as an energy source would be if it was 100% concentrated in just one place – like a super ultra mother of all cosmic Black Holes. The only other way gravity could be nullified would be in matter were distributed so absolutely evenly such that every bit of matter were being gravitationally pulled on absolutely evenly in each and every direction. But the slightest nudge or deviation from this ideal theoretical state (inevitable given quantum fluctuations) would throw everything out of equilibrium. But because matter is energy and energy is matter, if gravity can disrupt the distribution of matter from a state of near perfect uniformity, then energy will follow the short and curly material bits. Light (photons) reacts to gravity as much as electrons do. Further, the one extra nice property that gravity has is that it can’t be blocked. You can block out light or shield yourself from electromagnetic effects, but nothing will shield you from gravity.

* The Recycling Role of Radioactivity

Fortunately, there are several basic ways of recycling complex cosmic stuff back into the cosmos in the form of simple stuff. The first of these however has issues. Gravity can contract and pull together interstellar gas and dust into a proto-star which will ignite under pressure via thermonuclear fusion to form a radiant star. Stars however fuse lighter elements into heavier elements, and when a star goes nova, or becomes a supernovae, those heavier elements increasingly form the next generation of interstellar gas and dust. Eventually, after many generations of enrichment, interstellar gas and dust is lacking in those lighter elements (mainly hydrogen and helium) which easily undergoes fusion. Heavy elements, like iron, just won’t fuse any more and so the continued formation of radiant stellar stuff grinds to a halt. But, there is an escape clause.

Among the heavy elements; elements that stars manufacture, are radioactive elements with unstable atomic nuclei. Radioactive decay re-releases back into the cosmos those fundamental bits and pieces that can reform into those lighter elements that are the basic building blocks for forming radiant stellar objects. There is cosmic recycling from the simple to the complex and back to the simple again.

* The Recycling Role of Cosmic Black Holes

The second way of cosmic recycling is, believe it or not, via cosmic Black Holes. Astronomical Black Holes, via the vacuum energy (quantum foam or fluctuations) and quantum tunnelling, can release elementary particles back into the cosmos. As mentioned earlier, this is known as Hawking Radiation, after theoretical cosmologist/astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Complex stuff can go into a Black Hole, but just very simple stuff ultimately comes back out again.

* The Recycling Role of Life

Life can be an entropy buster as in the case of Maxwell’s Demon, the kid who sorts the marbles, the mum who does the housework, the bird or beaver who gathers up forest debris to make a nest. But, it takes outside energy to accomplish these things and at the end you haven’t decreased complexity – the marbles are still marbles; twigs are still twigs. But microbes like bacteria, etc. can break down complex stuff (like twigs) and turn it into less complex stuff which can be recycled into hundreds of new and different complex things. So, when our home planet eventually meets its Waterloo, and gets scattered back into the cosmic winds, thanks to bacteria, there will be more simple stuff floating around than would otherwise be the case

So complex stuff gets recycled back into simple stuff, all brought together again by gravity to ultimately form complex stuff again. The cosmos receives recycled stuff back, from which it can keep on keeping on!    

* A Fly in the Ointment

In a cosmos that’s both infinite in space and infinite in duration, here’s an interesting ‘angels on the head of a pin’ question. There are two forces which in theory can extend their influence indefinitely, that is, unto infinity. They are electromagnetism (of which light is a prime example) and gravity. So, can the influence of a force cross an infinite space if it has an infinite amount of time to do it in?

Perhaps Maxwell Demon’s ‘closed box’ isn’t really an appropriate ‘container’ for an infinite cosmos. If the cosmos is infinite, can it be described as a closed system? 

The Multiple You

And so finally, consider and reconsider the quantum mantra: “Anything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen will happen”. That’s even more the case when you have infinite time and space to play around with! So, I add to that mantra “and will happen again and again and again, an infinite number of times”. That actually means, or at least very strongly suggests that every possible scenario, every possible history, and every possible variation on each and every scenario or on any theme that you care to think of or think up will happen again and again and again. That, by the way, includes you. You are a scenario, and you, and every possible variation of you and your history will transpire numerous times; actually an infinite number of times. If that isn’t spooky, I don’t know what is, but it’s a logical consequence of having an infinite cosmos. 

A Cosmos Unto Infinity: Part One

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos. 

In the infinite beginning there was something rather than pure nothing – a finite amount of something in an infinite void of nothingness. This scenario eliminates the philosophical quandary of what’s beyond the boundary - that only other alternative. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of how much stuff there is. An infinite amount of stuff doesn’t leave you much elbow room.

In the infinite beginning, well there was no beginning; there can ever be an end. No Alpha – no Omega. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of what comes before the ‘beginning’ and what comes after ‘the end’. 

Okay, having postulated an infinite cosmos in space and in duration, well, other certain and not so philosophical issues come to the fore. If they can be addressed, well that’s all to the good. If not, well it’s back to the drawing board.

I’ll start with…

Olber’s Paradox

The night sky should be as bright as the daytime sky since in whatever direction you look, sooner or later you should see a star or galaxy that’s in your line of sight. That’s Olber’s Paradox because the night-time sky isn’t as bright as the daytime sky. One resolution is that our observable Universe is finite and there are only a finite number of stars and galaxies and thus, there will be lines of sight that do not intersect with an object that’s emitting light.

But what if the cosmos is infinite in size and has existed for an infinite amount of time? Does that resurrect or reinstate the validity or viability of Olber’s Paradox? Not necessarily.

Why is there something rather than nothing? That’s been a prime philosophical question that has raged for eons. But, on reflection, overall, there is a great deal more of nothing than of something. If everything was something, it would be rather difficult to move. There would be no elbow room. In other words, just because the cosmos is infinite in duration and in volume doesn’t mean that there has to be an infinite amount of something within.

Let’s say that pure nothing is a perfect vacuum. Then something within that nothing makes for an imperfect vacuum. One could image a cosmos so dilute that there could literally be gaps of pure nothingness between the bits and pieces of something. Or, one could imagine a universe that contained just one final cosmic Black Hole that had over all the infinite eons gobbled up everything else that had been a something within the cosmos, and thus 99.99999% of that cosmos would contain absolutely nothing. 

That aside…

Stars, like people, are born, and thus their light may not have yet reached us.

Stars, like people, die, and thus their light has ceased to reach us. It has all now passed by.

In an infinite space, stars maybe so far distant that by the time their light reaches us, it’s so diluted or spread out that only one photon per hour hits the eye and that threshold is too low to stimulate the optic nerve and thus register.  

Ever present cosmic Black Holes have gobbled up a lot of the radiation that is emitted and reflected. In fact, in a cosmos that’s infinite, why haven’t those astronomical Black Holes sucked up everything that can be sucked up thus terminating any and all evolving universes within that cosmos? Well the answer is Hawking radiation which theoretically predicts, on pretty substantial grounds, that eventually Black Holes will radiate away their mass. Once input is less than Hawking radiation output, the Black Hole will slowly, ever so slowly, radiate away, giving back to the cosmos what it once took away. There will be more on the significance of that shortly.

Entropy and Cosmic Recycling

Another concept that needs addressing is entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, otherwise known as the ‘arrow of time’ or sometimes as ‘time’s arrow’. If one considers an infinite universe to be a closed box or closed system, then over time, and we have an infinite amount of it, that closed box should reach absolute equilibrium and no further cosmic evolution would be possible. There would be a maximum amount of disorder, and there would be no further energy available to reverse that level of disorder.

It should be noted from the outset that in any closed box or closed system, entropy rules. Things will go from a state of order to a state of disorder without outside interference, that being an external source of energy to reverse the natural trend. The commonly cited example is if you have a closed box (the kitchen), and you turn off the fridge, the kitchen and the fridge will eventually reach absolute equilibrium, the same temperature. The kitchen warms up the fridge; the fridge cools down the kitchen, until both are at the same temperature – maximum disorder. It takes an outside energy source – electricity – to keep the fridge colder than the kitchen and thus in a state is disequilibrium or a state where entropy has not been maximalized. Trouble is, once energy is evenly spread out throughout a closed system (like the fridge in the kitchen), no matter how much of it there is, it’s useless in terms of doing useful things – like initiating change.

Another example: Your own body is a closed system. Your body’s energy is in equilibrium. You are at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit from head to toe. Within that state of affairs, your body can not do useful things. Fortunately, there’s a larger closed system that your body is a part of (like the fridge is part of the kitchen) that enables you to disrupt your body’s equilibrium and thus provide the means for your body to initiate change. Your outside energy source is food, which is good since once you invoke that larger closed system that contains you, that larger system absorbs your body heat that gets radiated away into it. So the fridge needs outside energy to replenish its supply of cold; you need energy to replenish your body heat and to provide the ways and means to keep you keeping on. Of course as we all know, that’s just postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later the fridge breaks down with wear; ditto you too. But in the meantime, and for a little while, you can keep your body’s entropy under control.  

Now any attempt to tunnel around various laws, principles and relationships of physics might be in vain, but not a total waste of time. The laws, principles and relationships of physics are constantly being refined, even overturned as in Einstein refined Newton’s gravity; the Sun going around the Earth got overturned by Copernicus. However, anyone attempting to tunnel over, around, or through the Second Law of Thermodynamics should abandon all hope. If you try to butt heads with entropy you’ll just end up with a sore head. You’d have better luck patenting a ‘perpetual motion’ machine, itself a violation of the ways and means of the entropy concept. In fact entropy is why you can’t construct a perpetual motion machine and why any patent officer worthy of the name would refuse you a patent for one.

Still, in an infinite cosmos, a cosmos that keeps on keeping on, there probably needs to be a way to go from a state of disorder (high entropy) back to a state of order (low entropy).

  

To be continued…

Our Expanding Universe: Part One

You will frequently encounter in astronomical and cosmological texts the idea that space or space-time is a thing, a flexible membrane type of thing that can influence the motion of objects, in fact carry the flotsam and jetsam of the Universe around. This flexi-space is increasing over time, expanding, and by carrying the bits and pieces that comprise the Universe, provides the reality behind the common phrase ‘the expanding universe’. Unfortunately, space is not a thing and the consequences arising means the common mechanism for an expanding universe is nonsense.

In just about any introductory textbook on astronomy or primer on cosmology, you’re bound to read that the Universe is expanding (true enough) because space itself is expanding, and like dots painted on a balloon being blown up, the flotsam and jetsam of the Universe is spreading apart, somehow ‘glued’ to that expanding space. How any astronomer or cosmologist can write such claptrap with a straight face is quite beyond me.

My basic premise here is that if space itself is expanding, then space itself is a thing. Common sense tells you that space is not a thing. You cannot see it, hear it, touch it, feel it or taste it. If you think space is a thing, well grab hold of some of it and try to stretch or expand it (but do it in private or others will doubt your sanity). Whether you talk about 3-D space (volume) or the four dimensional space-time (time being the fourth dimension), it is just the empty stage, IMHO, where the drama of real things is played out.

To my way of thinking, not-things (like space, time and dimensions* in general) can be subdivided indefinitely. They are continuous. No matter the length, area or volume, whatever you have can be divided in half and in half again and again and again and you still have a length, area or volume. Things have a built-in limit as to how far that thing in question can be divided down before you hit fundamental bedrock. Sooner or later you hit and enter the realm of the electron, those quarks, neutrinos, photons, gluons, gravitons and other force and matter particles that cannot be divided down any farther. These are things.

EXPANDING SPACE

So if space itself is expanding, well that’s nonsense because…

There’s space between your ears, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting a swelled head!

You move through existing space when going from home to the office, to the supermarket or going to a foreign city on business or vacation. When commuting to the office, the distance between home and office doesn’t increase on a daily basis.

The Moon orbits the Earth through existing space. The Moon is getting farther away of the Earth on a daily basis. Even there’s a lot of space between the Earth and the Moon, and the Moon is getting further away from the Earth, that’s not because space is expanding, but because of tidal forces.

The Earth/Moon pair orbits the Sun through existing space. There’s a lot of interplanetary space between the Earth/Moon system and the Sun, but the Earth/Moon to Sun distance hasn’t changed in thousands of millennia.

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

So far, so good: even astronomers and cosmologists will agree with that assessment. But all of a sudden, with a snap of their fingers, once out in intergalactic space things move apart, or rather galaxies (of which our Milky Way is one of billions and billions) move apart from other galaxies as if being carried piggyback on an expanding intergalactic space (which however is the same space as interplanetary and interstellar space).

Actually there’s an exception of every galaxy moving away from every other galaxy – clusters of galaxies that are cheek-by-jowl are bound together by their mutual gravity, and sometime in such a cluster galaxies can approach each other. A case in point has our own Milky Way Galaxy, and the Andromeda Galaxy on a collision course, but rest easy, the intersection won’t happen for another five billion years – give or take a million.

But wait, isn’t every galaxy in the observable universe bound or attracted by gravity to every other galaxy? I mean the force of gravity doesn’t extend outwards and then at some point fall off a cliff, or get shut down and off.

If space is expanding, then space is a thing with properties. What are the properties of a thing that expands?  

Most common are 2-D structures. You put extra air in your tires, it’s the rubber that expands; while blowing up a balloon, well it’s that membrane-like surface that stretches; you have stretching fabrics (like the elastic in your underwear). The oft used cosmology textbook analogy is painting dots (representing the galaxies) on the surface of an expanding balloon (representing expanding space), and as the balloon expands the ‘galactic’ dots get further apart. But the analogy fails because the balloon’s expanding surface is a something. Besides, all 2-D analogies aren’t worth the paper they’re written on since 1) the actual Universe is 3-D and 2) there are 3-D analogies available.

So there are pretty common 3-D analogies. An entire rock will expand, not just the surface, sitting out in the hot sun; a rising cake or soufflé or baking raisin bread are common examples in the kitchen. The analogy oft given is that of baking raisin bread, where the raisins are the galaxies and the expanding bread is akin to space, and thus the ‘galactic’ raisins get further and further apart as the bread expands. But this analogy fails too because the raisin bread is a something.

Now when something expands, it gets thinner or more dilute. As you keep putting on weight, the elastic in your underwear stretches thinner and thinner. In the case of the raisin loaf, if you start with a 500 gram mass of dough in a container of say 300 cubic centimeters, what you end up with is 500 grams in say a volume of 500 cubic centimeters. The same amount of stuff, in a larger volume, means that the stuff has been diluted.

If space is a something, and space itself is expanding or stretching, then space must be getting thinner and/or more dilute over time. If however, this space-as-a-something remains constant over time, even though it’s expanding, then you’re getting a free lunch – something from nothing. That extra space is being manufactured by forces unknown out of nothing at all. Claptrap!

*Space, a 3-D volume, is composed of a trilogy of dimensions – up/down, back/front, left/right; or latitude, longitude and altitude. Area is two dimensional (2-D); length is 1-D or just one dimension. Now, are dimensions a thing? If not, then volume (space), area and length are not things either.

To be continued…

Cosmic Fun: Random Ramblings in Modern Cosmology: The Expanding You

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 EVER EXPANDING YOU

Nearly all cosmologists now give their firm acceptance to the existence of a Big Bang which created our Universe some 13.7 billion years ago. That same Big Bang started off the expansion of the Universe, as evidenced by the red-shifting of light from distant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, from an initial tiny size through to the massive volume observed today. Now what we are told is expanding is space itself. Galaxies and clusters of galaxies, floating in this sea of expanding space, are moving apart from one another. The common illustration is to paint dots (representing the galaxies) on the surface of a balloon (representing space) and inflate the balloon. The dots move further apart as the balloon grows bigger. [A keen observer will note however that while the dots get further apart, they too are expanding!] Apart from the original expansionary force of the Big Bang, two other expansionary forces have been, and are, at work. Respectively, there was inflation, which lasted for a split second at the time of the Big Bang and contributed more to the expansion than the original ‘bang’ did; the second, the concept of dark energy which exists currently, a sort of little understood anti-gravity, which is ever accelerating the rate of expansion of the Universe. Ok, so far so good. Space is expanding due to all of the above mentioned forces – Big Bang, inflation, and dark energy. But now for the fly in the expanding space ointment…

Space doesn’t stop at the border of a galaxy or cluster of galaxies. Space doesn’t stop at the outer boundary of our solar system. Space is everywhere. It’s inside galaxies as well as between galaxies. Space exists inside our solar system as well as between stars. Space, as far as I can determine, is everywhere. Space exists inside you. You and everything else ‘solid’ is mainly empty space. It’s the strong nuclear force that prevents you sinking right through the ‘solid’ earth down to the core, or prevents your ‘solid’ backside from sliding through the ‘solid’ seat of your chair when you sit down.

If space is expanding inside a galaxy, because there is space inside a galaxy and all space is expanding, then stars in that galaxy should be getting farther apart. In a similar sort of argument, Earth should be expanding away from the sun and other planets, because expanding space is part and parcel of our solar system. But then space pervades the sun, so the sun should be expanding. You know where this is leading – you too should be expanding as you are a part of space. The upshot from all that is that everything is expanding since expanding space is everywhere.

But, if that were so, you’d never be aware of it. If you doubled your size overnight (albeit with no increase in body mass), but everything else did as well, how would you notice? You wouldn’t. But clearly we do notice an expansion of the Universe as measured by the various galactic red-shifts as noted above.  Conclusion, not all things are expanding at the same rate!

There is one attractive force that’s the opposite to the forces of expansion – gravity. Gravity will be strongest where mass is thickest, so that it is reasonable to assume that expansion of space between galaxies will be greater than that within a galaxy (lots of stars, lots of mass, lots of gravity), and that the expansion of space will be greater between stars than right up close to one (within a solar system).

The question is, is gravity alone sufficient to stop our galaxy expanding (we know it’s not sufficient to stop our Universe from expanding)? It must be as I’ve seen no mention of any expanding galaxy (ours included) that’s due to expanding space in any astronomical literature, far less a mention of an expanding solar system. If various regions of the Universe are expanding at different rates, presumably that would be obvious to astronomers, even though the amount of expansion, be it in the void, or within a galaxy, or our solar system, wouldn’t have been all that much since sophisticated astronomical observations with exacting precision instruments have been in place.

And no doubt the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces are strong enough to resist dark energy and collectively hold together individual objects. Thus there’s no expanding sun, expanding Earth or an expanding me.

I suspect the calculations have been done; the numbers crunched – the Universe (space) expands; objects inside the Universe don’t.

Still, I find it curious that outside a galaxy space is ever expanding, but cross that boundary and space immediately ceases to expand (or at least does so at a rate undetectable by astronomers).

An alternative reason, and the one I prefer, is that you’re not expanding because space is not expanding, contrary to the common cosmological model. However, IMHO, space isn’t expanding, only the Universe (matter/energy) is expanding, but expanding in pre-existing space, because space (and time) have always existed. That space is static (or at least as static as the vacuum energy (quantum fluctuations or quantum jitters) allows.