FQXi May 30, 2012 Podcast

Just to let you know a new edition of the podcast is now up: www.fqxi.org/community/podcast. It's a bit longer than usual because we've given some time over to discussing the essay contest launch. Those planning to "question the foundations" can pick up some tips on what the judges do and don't want to see. (Mainly the latter.)

In this edition, cosmologist Alex Vilenkin asks whether the universe could have existed forever into the past -- without a beginning. In his extended interview (scroll down and click on the individual item) he also looks into whether, if it did have a beginning, there's some way we could pick up evidence of *where* it happened.

There's a bit of a "quantum theory applied in unexpected places" theme too. If you enjoyed Sophie Hebden's profile of FQXi grant winner "quantum linguist" Bob Coecke, you can listen to her interview with him. Quantum perfumer Luca Turin also talks about his controversial theory of smell.

And finally, string theorist Joe Polchinski and Nobel laureate particle physicist Frank Wilczek take questions on extra dimensions and underwater sound, from listeners.

I'm going to experiment and blog this and post this in the automatically-generated podcast discussion thread -- sorry for the double post!

Let me know what you think!

Questioning the origins of The Universe?

The questioning starts as soon as humans use its ability to think. Human intuition driven by experience of nature is conflicted. We experience all living things have a life span, a beginning and end. In spite of short life span, the nature and society as a whole remains unchanged and unaffected by this cycle.

Forces of nature impact non-living things as well- like rivers, stones etc. The life span concept can therefore be extended to all things of the universe around us. Astronomical observation makes scientists to apply life span concept to astronomical objects as well. The question is can this be extended to universe as a whole.

The answer depends on what we mean by universe. If we mean stars and galaxies, since these objects are observed to have a life span. The universe is likely to have a life span. This has been beautifully extrapolated into a big bang theory.

If there is possibility of conditions to develop for one big bang, there is no reason to expect only one big bang. Big Bang theory, itself can have many epochs (Big Bangs). If there are many big-bangs, they may not occur in sequence. They may be separated in space as well as time.

Another possibility arises, if we revisit Einstein's mass energy equation. It may be interpreted as mass-energy simultaneity equation. Thus mass and energy are simultaneous manifestation of reality. Let us name this reality as Knergy.

We look at conservation concept as two concepts. Konservation (Conservation without |Neutralization) and Neutralization (Life span - existence between two epochs of birth and death Anti-Konservation).

Konservation is defining characteristic of Knergy while Neutralization of space. Now we can remove the conflict in human intuition by statement 'Space Contains Knergy' as describing the universe.

A universe described in statement 'Space Contains Knergy' is everlasting. It has no epochs. Epochs if any, are part of this universe.